Spiritual Lineage Explained

[Apech]

Its not a real pub. It has the lineage of Cozy Nook Tea Shoppe rendering it overly domestic and all reassuring like.

 

Damn I wondered why all the paper doilies ... where's GrmP gone .. outside for a smoke?

[三江源]

Damn I wondered why all the paper doilies ... where's GrmP gone .. outside for a smoke?

 

He cant talk, his mouth is full of custard creme. Or maybe he is struggling under the weight of the jammy dodger.

[Apech]

Looky here:

 

 

... this is Nabta Playa in the Egyptian desert dated to between 8 - 10,000 years BC. Aligned to the sun, sirius and orion ... not great engineering ... except its lasted all this time and they built it for a purpose ... it had meaning ... close by are a series of cow shaped stones placed carefully over hidden natural rock formations which are also cow shaped ... bloody good estate agents really ha ha.

[ShenLung]

I was expecting something different, too ... like maybe something like this:

 

I think of a spiritual lineage as being different from a direct lineage in that a direct lineage is knowledge passed down from one person to another, like father to son, in trades, or master to apprentice. Spiritual lineage is knowledge passed down from teachers on the astral planes ... perhaps because they do not exist in the physical world, and whatever knowledge was once in a direct lineage is still not being passed on, or something.

 

The only astral teacher i've encountered never taught me anything immediately useful, though. Or maybe it only works when in the astral, I dunno. The lessons on how to use a shepherd's staff as a practical weapon were kinda neat.

[GrandmasterP]

So, to keep from steering this in the direction of Christianity, which my question had nothing to do with, what are your thoughts on Nei Gong and other forms of inner alchemy then? Do you feel that there is an energetic component to them that has any effect or influence outside of the physical body?

....

Not sure about the alchemists, it all seems a bit wordy and, like those Tantrists who don't get much at all; I've never met an alchemist yet that can do anything particularly spectacular beyond talk or write about it.

That said, I just don't know for sure as I've not met that many alchemists really, read tons of them online but in real life very few.

QiGong I do know a bit about and reckon that the energetic component sorta develops albeit very slowly, given time and serious, dedicated cultivation.

That's not necessary either as QiGong is a super keep fit regimen, like TaiChi or Yoga the internal stuff is an option few bother with.

These chaps who sell the propriterary systems seem to make the bulk of their money from folk who constantly chop and change from one practice/DVD/school to another.

The BMS is an industry and no harm in that, advertising helps keep forums open.

Edited December 18, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[GrandmasterP]

As far as effects outside the physical body I'd say yep, possible, easily faked though so much that passes is a sham.

We do table tilting workshops, all tables tilt, not all tables tilt inexplicably.

Psychokinesis, maybe but nobody has yet claimed the big money on offer for convincing demonstration of that working.

Physical mediumship in general is all about energy, where it's done well I reckon it's genuine young Scott Milligan for example, he's good and I've seen him work in good red light, pretty impressive. Mainly though physical mediumship as sold in the £40-00 a seat dark shows (no light in the seance room) it's second class stage magic done in the dark passed off.

John Chang the Mo Pai guy may or may not have been genuine I never saw him work but what I have seen online is all standard stage magician and bogus physical mediumship schtick.

The outward and visible manifestations of the energetic earn good money for those who can put on a show and there are more physical mediums doing the rounds than there are alchemists and the like getting a living by it as far as I'm aware.

Most of those guys sell books and DVDs to earn a crust and you can claim or fake anything in those media.

HTH

Edited December 18, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[GrandmasterP]

I was expecting something different, too ... like maybe something like this:

 

I think of a spiritual lineage as being different from a direct lineage in that a direct lineage is knowledge passed down from one person to another, like father to son, in trades, or master to apprentice. Spiritual lineage is knowledge passed down from teachers on the astral planes ... perhaps because they do not exist in the physical world, and whatever knowledge was once in a direct lineage is still not being passed on, or something.

 

The only astral teacher i've encountered never taught me anything immediately useful, though. Or maybe it only works when in the astral, I dunno. The lessons on how to use a shepherd's staff as a practical weapon were kinda neat.

....

I'll agree with that entirely but is that a lineage or a spirit guide simply inspiring a medium directly, sorta 1-2-1?

If so then that seems to be a different thing than the lineage chaps on here are talking about.

[Birch]

As far as effects outside the physical body I'd say yep, possible, easily faked though so much that passes is a sham.

We do table tilting workshops, all tables tilt, not all tables tilt inexplicably.

Psychokinesis, maybe but nobody has yet claimed the big money on offer for convincing demonstration of that working.

Physical mediumship in general is all about energy, where it's done well I reckon it's genuine young Scott Milligan for example, he's good and I've seen him work in good red light, pretty impressive. Mainly though physical mediumship as sold in the £40-00 a seat dark shows (no light in the seance room) it's second class stage magic done in the dark passed off.

John Chang the Mo Pai guy may or may not have been genuine I never saw him work but what I have seen online is all standard stage magician and bogus physical mediumship schtick.

The outward and visible manifestations of the energetic earn good money for those who can put on a show and there are more physical mediums doing the rounds than there are alchemists and the like getting a living by it as far as I'm aware.

Most of those guys sell books and DVDs to earn a crust and you can claim or fake anything in those media.

HTH

 

http://www.amazon.com/Fooling-Houdini-Magicians-Mentalists-Hidden/dp/0061766224/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355844300&sr=1-1&keywords=fooling+houdini. With some interesting things said about magic circles and teachers.

 

Back to 'spiritual lineage'. This is my account of it so it may be wrong. Probably wrong in fact:-)

 

I understand spiritual lineage as at least two things. First the in-person transmission of practices and ideas. Second, the realizations/understandings a person may come to by themselves by any means/experiences whatsoever.

It was when I read Damo Mitchell's qi-gong that I realized that several of things he was talking about had come to me as understandings/ideas all by themselves through my own practice, experience of self and the world as well as study and exchange with both 'spiritual' and ostensibly 'unspiritual' people.

 

At present, it's impossible for me to dissect which of the above would be considered 'lineage'

 

Sorry about that.

 

 

[ShenLung]

....

I'll agree with that entirely but is that a lineage or a spirit guide simply inspiring a medium directly, sorta 1-2-1?

If so then that seems to be a different thing than the lineage chaps on here are talking about.

 

I would assume (and Sometimes a lot) that if the spirit guide or astral presence was once a living teacher, or one who taught the living teachers, that it might still be considered a lineage, of sorts.

 

I can think of a half dozen ways off of the top of my head to catch a newspaper on fire 'mysteriously', at least one readily available at your local (stage) magic shop, and the rest ... come up with a couple good effects, and eventually someone in the local magic circle can pass those on to you The qi healing stuff might well be real; it's kind of like love: I have some experience with it, but can't really explain how it works to my own satisfaction.

[GrandmasterP]

I would assume (and Sometimes a lot) that if the spirit guide or astral presence was once a living teacher, or one who taught the living teachers, that it might still be considered a lineage, of sorts.

 

I can think of a half dozen ways off of the top of my head to catch a newspaper on fire 'mysteriously', at least one readily available at your local (stage) magic shop, and the rest ... come up with a couple good effects, and eventually someone in the local magic circle can pass those on to you The qi healing stuff might well be real; it's kind of like love: I have some experience with it, but can't really explain how it works to my own satisfaction.

I would assume (and Sometimes a lot) that if the spirit guide or astral presence was once a living teacher, or one who taught the living teachers, that it might still be considered a lineage, of sorts.

 

I can think of a half dozen ways off of the top of my head to catch a newspaper on fire 'mysteriously', at least one readily available at your local (stage) magic shop, and the rest ... come up with a couple good effects, and eventually someone in the local magic circle can pass those on to you The qi healing stuff might well be real; it's kind of like love: I have some experience with it, but can't really explain how it works to my own satisfaction.

....

I can see that. My guide Mabel Barltrop is the 8th and presumed last in a line of seers but I'd not say I was in her lineage as such because no such term or concept has ever existed in the Southcottian tradition. With us just one thing happens after another, as in life.

 

We do have LaoTze and ChuangTzu in portrait upstairs at our centre. Psychic artist did them years ago and told folk they were the guardian spirits of the place.

Fair enough and that's a super lineage to have although I'm not sure there was an actual Mr LaoTze. Who could know that and be sure?.

That said I've not especially noticed either of those auspicious gents popping in at seances and the like.

We get any amount of Red Indians, some Chinese gentlemen and grannys bringing flowers from spirit by the cabinet-load but nobody who has fessed up as being either of those two lads thus far.

It's a super painting though I have long coveted a copy of it.

[GrandmasterP]

Anything can be faked. I figure that anyone who has attained genuine skills in psychokinesis is also aware that a public demonstration of this skill would forever change their life, most likely in an undesirable direction. Regardless of how much money someone offers for a demonstration, the practitioner would have to realize that they would be instantly targeted by government and other organizations with interests in weaponizing their skill. Additionally, anyone who has attained such skills through lengthy praxis has probably also subdued their ego to a degree that they could not care less whether anyone else knows about their skill. I am not interested in whether a specific individual is the real deal or not in this context.

 

Many of your posts seem to take an approach to qigong that American yoga studios take with yoga, that it is great exercise. This view is not fundamentally incorrect, but it is missing a significant sub component that is important to many people. I recognize that it is not important to everyone, or yoga would not be what it is in America today. What I wanted, rather than an accounting of how external effects can be pulled off through stage magic, was your opinion of whether external energetic effects were possible through praxis. Your view seems to be more materialist in nature, but I want to be sure I am not misinterpreting what you are saying.

...............

I don't know is the answer having never observed that happening.

The physical mediums I know do not cultivate as we do.

I do cultivate and have manifested physical evidence, I post an invite on events on here when we are doing a physical workshop at the centre, all are welcome to pop along and make up their own minds .

But, physical mediumship is mediumship it has nothing whatsoever to do with internal cultivation, the energies are external to but working through the medium, hence 'medium' = between this world and the next.

I was a working medium long before I began with the QiGong.

Edited December 18, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Taomeow]

I was expecting something different, too ... like maybe something like this:

 

I think of a spiritual lineage as being different from a direct lineage in that a direct lineage is knowledge passed down from one person to another, like father to son, in trades, or master to apprentice. Spiritual lineage is knowledge passed down from teachers on the astral planes ... perhaps because they do not exist in the physical world, and whatever knowledge was once in a direct lineage is still not being passed on, or something.

 

The only astral teacher i've encountered never taught me anything immediately useful, though. Or maybe it only works when in the astral, I dunno. The lessons on how to use a shepherd's staff as a practical weapon were kinda neat.

It's usually both, far as I know. You get spiritual and this-here-life teachers either from the same lineage (a rather common occurrence in shamanism and in taoism alike, by the way) or familiar with each other on the spiritual plane. Lu Dongbin taught his own teacher Chung-Li Chuan four hundred years after joining the realm of the immortals, e.g.. The chronology of a spiritual lineage is not linear... Spiritual planes, some of them, don't relate to sequential time as we do. When I was re-reading Castaneda not long ago, I nodded when he mentioned that it took him 13 years to work out the linear sequence of his experiences happening both in ordinary and "second attention" reality ("second attention" being his teacher's term for "the spiritual plane.") It can get mighty confusing, in my own experience.

 

This is another function of a this-here-life lineage and a teacher thereof, to help live in the linear-time world without getting lost amidst "what's real" to others sharing your this-here "current" timeline and what's "really real" beyond that in your own experience. Which is a rather immediate threat for anyone who accesses other realities, realities that don't care much (or at all) for the sequential events of this one. This can drive one certifiably crazy (and does, more often than not) without a this-here-life teacher who knows what's going on because he or she has been exactly "there" before and made it "back" in one piece and "knows how." Sometimes you can't even tell with certainty which reality a teacher belongs to. Sometimes it's because he or she is beyond being bound to just one. Spiritual planes are immense, complex, and populated with everything you can imagine and more of everything you can't. A lineage is a road in this maze, a map, a territory, everything you are going to walk. But you have to walk it of course. All the way if you can!

 

Which brings me to Viator's question about the significance of direct "energy" transmissions in a lineage. I wouldn't call it energy though, more like a "pattern of arrangement" of space-time-body-mind-spirit configuration... a tune-up, so to speak. Sometimes it's like the significance of putting gas in your car. Yes, it's you who will still have to drive it. If you don't drive it, just having gas in your tank won't get you anywhere. But you do need the gas for to drive it somewhere. And sometimes it's not that, it's just, like I said, a tune-up -- suppose your car's motor is fine and you have plenty of gas but your transmission is busted?.. e.g. by your early developmental history that was traumatic, or by emotional and spiritual deprivations of your formative years, or by being clogged with garbage thrown in by others or picked up by you yourself on the way? A transmission is a transmission -- in a car or in a human.

[Mokona]

Are we speaking of when a group of spirits are introduced to a person and serve to help and assist this person becuase they become part of the "lineage?" I've read about it. Why is it so hard to understand? (at least it seems that way from the responses in the thread)

It's easier if you've experienced it I suppose.

[Taomeow]

Are we speaking of when a group of spirits are introduced to a person and serve to help and assist this person becuase they become part of the "lineage?" I've read about it. Why is it so hard to understand? (at least it seems that way from the responses in the thread)

It's easier if you've experienced it I suppose.

 

There's lineages that seem eternal. In this sense, no one "becomes" part of a lineage, they have always been and will always be. One such lineage I'm aware of is the DNA. The I Ching, which chronologically (by the chronology of this-here world) came billions of years later, is part of this lineage and has always been and will always be. It belongs by default, it is built on the same principles, and the same principles are built into that. If you study from a teacher who studied from a teacher who traces his learning of these practices to King Wen who traces them to Fuxi and emperor Yu who trace them to the dragon-horse and dragon-turtle from the celestial realm transmitting the markings on their backs, you are part of this lineage. "When" doesn't matter. "Always."

[Mokona]

...............

I don't know is the answer having never observed that happening.

The physical mediums I know do not cultivate as we do.

I do cultivate and have manifested physical evidence, I post an invite on events on here when we are doing a physical workshop at the centre, all are welcome to pop along and make up their own minds .

But, physical mediumship is mediumship it has nothing whatsoever to do with internal cultivation, the energies are external to but working through the medium, hence 'medium' = between this world and the next.

I was a working medium long before I began with the QiGong.

 

That's really cool P - One of my fondest memories was of my a spirit friend talking through me, she caught everyone in the group by suprise becuase she answered a question I was musing aloud, well out loud!

[GrandmasterP]

Aye they'll do that sometimes.

I had Joanna Southcott back in the day, she could be very down to earth and sharp tongued. She's 'gone on' now, seldom pops back.

Mabel's far more genteel.

[Mokona]

It's a fun topic, would like to see more discussion in the future.

 

I like to think that my own spirit guide is sick of me, becuase I haven't figured out how to really communicate, and she does all the work. I've been a bit of a brick head in understanding energetic matters and learning how to get a back and forth going.

Edited December 19, 2012 by Mokona

[Cat Pillar]

I've never met a spirit guide before, that I know of. Definitely never communicated consciously with one.

 

Would be an interesting experience.

[Jetsun]

I never used to really have any reason to believe in personal spirit guides, but one time I was doing some basic shamanic journeying and seemed to get stuck and bogged down in a place which felt quite foreign, I didn't know what to do so I called out for help and seemed to be transported to a place with other beings sitting around a fire which just felt so right like I was coming home to somewhere that I belonged, after that I started to become more open to the idea of spirit guides.

[Mokona]

I've never met a spirit guide before, that I know of. Definitely never communicated consciously with one.

 

Would be an interesting experience.

 

Being woken up at 1Oclock in the morning by one is sometimes a lead into a very fun, albeit fatigued morning.

[GrandmasterP]

Mabel keeps shop hours thank goodness.

[GrandmasterP]

Revise that. Shop hours are insane if handy.

Realised this evening at 7pm that I was one Christmas present short.

Checked iPad for shopping mall times and big stores open til 9pm so off I went to mall.

Never been night shopping before and presumed it would be quiet.

Not so.... Totally wall to wall shoppers and I struggled to find a parking space.

There is NO recession chums, people are spending money like there is no tomorrow, which... Come to think of it....

Edited December 20, 2012 by GrandmasterP