Magical Madness

[Nungali]

Neurosis / Enlightenment...

Is one exclusive to the other? A question that is often bought to mind when studying prominent Occultists, Yogis, etc. more commonly from the ‘outside view’ yet, certainly at times, from the ‘inner view’ as well.

This question was recently bought to light again while I was reading Gerald Suster’s book; ‘Crowley’s Apprentice – The Life and Ideas of Israel Regardie.’. p.90 ;
“If neurosis could co-exist with the highest illumination, then Magic alone wasn’t enough. Psychoanalysis was perhaps an essential preliminary, even a necessary accompaniment. And if, on the other hand, neurosis and illumination were mutually exclusive, what on earth was one to make of Aleister Crowley?”

[Aside: Not that I want to start up the debate about Crowley again! – well, not here. I ask that we at least agree that Crowley had some degree of illumination and at least some degree of neurosis. {Eg. On the first hand, I cite Crowley’s writings, system and tarot and on the other hand I quote Regardie (although there are numerous incidences) as his example demonstrates my point; Suster says when people visited Regardie and put Crowley down Regardie would demonstrate Crowley’s genius. On the other hand, if the person seemed unrealistically praising Crowley, Regardie would respond with a comment like, “Yes, yes, a shame though that the old boy couldn’t resist getting his women to shit on him as he lay on the floor.”.]

Let’s go back a bit to the beginnings of when magic and modern psychology first met.

I feel Regardie is the pioneer here – not the pioneer of the idea but a pioneer of applying a holistic practical blend of the two and using the result to help and treat himself and others.

Regardie did extensive preliminary study before he took up the practice of magic. He encountered Crowley’s works and studied them and began putting them into practice. He then went to study directly under Crowley, but, ended up being his secretary. (Regardie was too shy or embarrassed to ask Crowley for magical instruction and appeared to wait for the ‘Master’ to approach him. Crowley assumed Regardie was practicing magic and meditating and would ask him a question if he got into difficulty. It appears there was no direct magicalcoaching.)

 

Eventually there was a falling out, bought about by an outburst of Crowley neurosis (the defamatory and slanderous letter Crowley distributed about Regardie’s low-class and Jewish background). Later Regardie joined The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and studied and practiced there but also encountered the neurotic egos of the magicians involved in his group.

 

http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Know-About-Golden/dp/1561840645

 

He left the G.D. and concentrated on his own practices.

Regardie then began studying psychoanalysis under Dr. E. Clegg and Dr. J.L. Bendit and trained in the Jungian system. Somehow Regardie avoided the trap and realized he himself had a neurosis and knew THAT had to be addressed BEFORE he could seriously and realisticly consider himself advanced in magic and illumination. One reason Suster gives for Regardie doing this is the primary Hermetic maxim; ‘KNOW THYSELF’, and that is also the purpose of psychoanalysis.

[it appears Regardie had introverted problems where Crowley’s seemed somewhat the opposite]. Regardie underwent Freudian analysis and became a lay analyst. Then, when that was accomplished and understood, the 2nd principle could come – BE THYSELF.

Regardie had noticed that in the schools of magic and enlightenment he observed many of the members and leaders had not addressed basic issues within their own selves from a psychological perspective, and in fact it can be observed that magical studies can actually accentuate these problems if the student does not achieve a preliminary balance.

Freud had come up with some (then) radical notions; our conscious mind is only a small part of our selves, our motivations and our make up, what REALLY drives us, of which we are unaware, is our unconscious. Freud argued that we are really driven by instincts, just like animals are, and the strongest of these is sex, this drive Freud called the Libido. Freud also used dream analysis – the expression of the unconscious.

Our uncoordinated instinctual desires Freud called the Id. These desires of the Id are repressed during our upbringing to mould us to whatever society we are in. This, in turn, creates a moralizing faculty Freud termed the Super-ego.

The conscious mentation Freud called the Ego, which is continually trying to find balance and harmony between the Id and Super-ego.

The Oedipus Complex, Freud said, was the result of infantile sexuality projected on to the mother and in later life the guilt from this became a type of castration complex (the Super-ego groping at ways to stop the Id expressing itself). This results later in life in masochistic tendencies in an attempt to relieve guilt and suffering by self punishment. (Or punishment and/or degradation at the hand of another.) Many have suggested that Crowley suffered from a similar neurosis

[Apparently Regardie loved telling this joke;
One Jewish woman says to another,” I have terrible news! My son – he’s just been to the psychiatrist and now he says my son has an Oedipus complex!”
“Ach! Oedipus schmoedipus!” says the other one, “As long as he is a good Jewish boy and loves his mother.”]

Now here we get to a crossroads and , I feel, an essential part in understanding the essence of Thelema (Crowley’smagical philosophy about the self and self expression and the purpose of individual incarnation) and how it can best be interpreted.

Freud came to terms with the issue of Id / Super-ego by advocating sublimation, that is, he believed that the (dangerous?) energies of the Id and its desire to express its urges needed to be consciously directed to benefit society and be productive. Regardie had his doubts about this and, I believe, Crowley had virtually the opposite opinion.

At this stage Regardie was still considering Crowley’s interpretation of how psychoanalysis slotted in with Thelema.

“Professor Sigmund Freud and his school have, in recent years, discovered a part of this body of Truth, which has been taught for many centuries in the Sanctuaries of initiation. But failure to grasp the fullness of Truth, especially that implied in my Sixth Theorem (‘Every man and every woman is a star’) - and its corollaries, has led him and his followers into the error of admitting that the avowedly suicidal ‘Censor’ is the proper arbiter of conduct. Official psychoanalysis is therefore committed to upholding a fraud, although the foundation of the science was the observation of the disastrous effects on the individual of being false to his Unconscious Self, whose ‘writing on the wall’ in dream language is the record of the sum of the essential tendencies of the true nature of the individual. The result has been that psycho-analysts have misinterpreted life, and announced the absurdity that every human being is essentially an anti-social, criminal insane animal. It is evident that the errors of the Unconscious of which psycho-analysists complain are neither more nor less than the ‘original sin’ of the theologians whom they despise so heartily.” (Liber Abba).

In some cases, and at certain times it appeared that Crowley related the expression of the True Will to the expression of the unconscious. (Without getting too deep into it here, examine the ideas behind his Thoth Tarot ‘Devil’ card.) But the True will implies more than following the unconscious and instinctual drives and forces, I believe there is an important link there but the issue is not as simple as one being the other. Crowley’s definitions of the True Will implied a specific incarnatory purpose or career, an expression of a specific individual genius and a learning and molding experience. The essential, to Crowley’s initiation system, at the beginning, is a structuralisation and formation of energies into their specific roles and places. The Expression of the True Will is not just blindly following your impulses or desires … or unconscious desires (desire being a conscious product of unconscious will), it is much more.

This seems to be at the root of many peoples misunderstanding of the Thelemic concept of the True Will. Firstly, Crowley postulates ‘Every man and every woman is a star.’ That is their essential nature. When restrictions are removed the True Will shines forth. That’s one school of thought and relates to similar concepts such as put forward by Rousseau and those that advocated the theory that if you left man by himself his natural good qualities would emerge.

 

The other school of thought was pretty much the opposite, acknowledging the power of the Id (or more correctly, the suppressed Id) they thought if you left man to himself he would revert back to an animal state. Their ideas were somewhat supported by scientific studies of feral children (small children bought up in the wild by wild animals. – But these studies have left out the social element, and man is a social animal, being a primate).

Crowley’s ideas at some stage seemed to have played with the idea that the True Will was expressed by the unconscious desires and by following these one would get to the essence of the True Will, but he must have realized this was not enough, as evidenced by his other writings. Enacting his unconscious desires, not always in private company, seemed, for him, a way of dealing with his troubles … a type of therapy. Eventually one must realize that as well as the unconscious containing the root and drive of the True Will it also contains a whole lot of other stuff, depending on what type of upbringing we have had. And separating one from the other, in the depths of the unconscious is not an easy task (especially when science has shown that even things like memory can not often distinguish between real events, dreams and imaginings, laid down in the memory in the past).

For Regardie, Freud’s lack of occult approach led him to delve into the ideas of Jung.
Suster quotes James Webb;
“Jung can be seen as the culminating point of the late 19th centaury occult revival. He put into a terminology to which those bought up on the new and exciting language of Freud could respond, the insights into the psyche which the occultists and mystics of all ages had once expressed intelligibly – but which had been veiled and to all intents and purposes lost by the development of a vocabulary of modern science that excluded the areas of experience of which they spoke …”

Jung rejected Freud’s idea that the sex drive was THE primary force, he postulated 3 major drives; the will to live, the will to create (the sex drive), and the social or herd instinct. Later he added a fourth, the religious instinct, unique to humans which “… urges one to seek transcendental meaning in the data presented by life.” (Suster)

Also Jung developed the idea of the Collective Unconscious, “…it is as old as humanity and contains our collective needs, fears and desires, it inspires all true art, and it is the realm of dreams and the repository of all the symbols of mankind.” (Suster).

Now we are getting even closer to a magical world, here we have a concept like the Astral Plane, and contacting this plane had been done in Regardie’s system with exercises like ‘Scrying in the Spirit Vision’ to comprehend understand and adjust oneself within the ‘interior worlds’. Some Jungian therapy uses a very similar technique but Suster warns that they omit precautions against self-deception (apparently so did the G.D.?)

Suster then goes on to describe certain parallels between magical and Jungian psychology. The idea of psychoanalysis is individuation, journey into the knowledge of the self and the Unconscious or underworld. The stages are, encountering the shadow or Id – The Dweller on the Threshold of Initiation (see the two figures either side of the Thoth Moon Trump), painful processes of self-realization and acceptance – Portal Grade, death of the illusory self and the ‘resurrection’ of a deeper individuality – The Adeptus Minor G.D. initiation (or any similar initiation).

For Regardie all of this fair enough but what about the question of the Will? Freud saw it as one – the Libido, Jung saw it as four. Regardie saw many situations where these four could be at conflict, there had to be some overall moderating force. Also, in psycho-analysis where is the drive for a man to become MORE than he thought he could, to go beyond his previously foreseen potential. Magic seems good for that, but does it really create an absolutely stable base on its own?

[Nungali]

Regardie began looking at the idea of blending the two to create a holistic system. He agreed with the preliminary theories of Crowley in that magic can be explained in psychological terms, eg. “In ‘The Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial Magic’ he (Crowley) argued that the spirits and demons evoked by the magician are simply parts of the brain. Evocation is therefore a matter of stimulating chosen brain cells.” (Suster). Crowley was formulating his approach to magical psychology around 1908 (The Psychology of Hashish), yet, due to his background in studying the subject matter and the relative new appearance of the western science Crowley chose to use Buddhist terms for the classification of states of consciousness. He was one of the first to encourage scientists and philosophers to research states of consciousness and consciousness expansion (chemically synthesizing psychadelic drugs and …rumor has it …. ‘turning on’ Aldous Huxley and various others.)

Regardie began writing using the western terminology; “Travel in the Astral? – An exploration of the Unconscious. Divination? – Awareness of the rhythms of the Collective Unconscious. Evocation? – The hallucination, through psycho-drama, of a complex, the energy of which is re-integrated into the psyche. Initiation? – Individuation. In other words, Magic is a dynamic form of applied psychology.” (Suster).

According to Suster 5 questions needed answering for Regardie.
1). How to blend magic and psychoanalysis into a system for the use of people to improve humanity and society

2) Could magical and mystical illumination co-exist with neurosis? If it could, then magic alone was not enough. If magic is enough and already addresses these issues in another way why did so many magicians suffer neurosis and how could Regardie explain Crowley, whom he believed to be illuminated? Regardie began to think psychoanalysis was a prerequisite to magic.

3) Were the current techniques effective, was Freud still valid? How does one treat a patient or student, break through, commence therapy, where is the starting point of the process?

4) To know and be yourself fully one has to combine the conscious and the unconscious but how will this process connect people to the divine? (As by now Regardie seemed to be focusing on Jung’s fourth ‘spiritual’ will.) How, at the end of this long journey Regardie had taken, will the techniques help him achieve his original aim – to realize and connect with his own divinity?

5) What IS the primary drive and to what extent is it permissible to regulate the natural urges?

Enter Wilhelm Reich, and his new and radical theories of psychology. When Regardie started incorporating Reichian psychology and body work things really started taking off, by now he had left Crowley’s magicalpsychology far behind and was approaching the answer to his 3rd question above.

One is tempted to see Crowley … being left far behind … that quaint old fellow that, although illumined, was terribly mussed up. An icon of an era when little was understood about psychology. Hmmmm ….

Crazy and (yes, even) criminal yoga teachers, psychotic cult leaders, insane religious leaders and, need I mention, some of our political leaders, after even superficial examination, don’t appear to be ‘screened’ for neurosis at all. It still isn’t something our society does.

In a nutshell: Reich was a Freudian analyst, one day he asked a patient what the problem with his father was. The patient said there was no problem, why do you ask. Reich replied that every time the word father was said the man’s shoulder twitched. The man insisted there was no problem with his father (twitch) and never had a problem with his father (twitch) and what was all this silly father (twitch, twitch) stuff about anyway (twitch)?

Reich asked if he could feel the man’s shoulder and began a gentle massage. The man complained of intense pain. – The science of modern western body work was beginning. (And Reich was kicked out of the Freudian club … a professional psycho-analyst does NOT touch his patients.) Reich branched off on his own and started publishing his new theories and methods. It wasn’t long before Regardie was studying Reichian therapy with gusto.

Somewhere in there Regardie became a chiropractor. Reichian psychology took off in northern Europe, even establishing massage and sex-therapy clinics in factories and government institutions under the Socialist Workers Sexual Revolution Party. (They were supported as where their institutions were set up, workers sick leave went down and production up).

But along came the usual repression, alpha-male-Joe Stalin types appeared and all these people were not going to be so healthy and happy and free any more, they were going to knuckle down and work and all the women will wear peasant dresses and head scarves (just like Joe’s dear old mum did.).

Reich experimented with energy of the body, Ki Chi, Vrill, Prana … what you will, Reich called it Orgone (organism energy, ie. The energy field put out by living organisms) and tried to improve its flow and … er … um, okay …. then he stated battling flying saucers. And shooting at them with his Orgone ray gun (which also made rain when fired at clouds).

The US government said Orgone didn’t exist and Reich’s machine for ‘accumulating’ it around the human body was therefore a fake (basically the Orgone accumulator is an insulated box that you sit in …. If you give off ANY type of energy, including heat, it will be reflected back and accumulate inside the box … so it’s no big techno deal or fraud). But the US government didn’t get scientists to test it; lawyers declared that the science didn’t work in a court room … so that was that then. Reich was carted off to jail and …. I kid you NOT! There was a book burning of Reich’s books by the government and other opposing agencies.

Not 1930 in Nazi Germany, not in some foreign oppressive regime, not in some backwater. All sorts of people, all over the USA, probably including Regardie, watched in horror as fellow citizens of the land of the brave and the free was incarcerated and valuable volumes of research went up in flames.

http://orgonomist.blogspot.com.au/2013_05_01_archive.html

Reich was soon imprisoned and died in jail ( soon , and unusually as he seemed healthy).

A lot of people went underground. Regardie was very quiet about what he was doing after this.

Somewhere else in there Regardie got into Christian Science healing and learnt that, really, no matter what the idea, or divinity invoked (in this case Jesus), if done with correct spiritual fervor, a positive result could occur.

Then psychology took another leap forward with the psychedelic area. Crowley was long gone but now Timothy Leary was on the scene. The things Regardie saw in his life time! Flower children abounded in expressing their Id and releasing themselves from moderation yet their message was love and peace. Exo-psychology was developed by Leary and Dr. John C. Lily (the first scientist to establish dolphin communication and sign language when he worked for the U.S. Navy). Their systems were beginning to be used, with great statistical success, in the U.S. prison system, treating people not only with neurosis but with serious psychological criminal disabilities, allowing them to be cured and re-integrated back into society. But Leary got busted for two joints, illegally kidnapped by the CIA in Morocco and bought back to the US for a 20 year sentence, spending much of it in solitary confinement.

Now, no one was advertising serious enlightenment – no one that knew what was going on, or wasn’t crazy themselves. One or two others tried. Remember Bagman Shreve Rajneesh – the Orange people. A LOT of their stuff was neo-Reichian body work and exercise dressed up with eastern terminology. He got done on an immigration charge, appeared dressed in chains and died in jail very quickly (oh yeah, Reich died from ‘some cause’ (?) just after he got put in jail too.)

Regardie seems to have gotten away with it. I guess he realized he couldn’t save the world … if you try to do that, or help too many people or liberate them from their ignorance and suffering, you’ll get strung up like all the others. He, like a true Rosicrucian, kept his elixir and magical stone secret from the profane, he helped those whose circle entered his and his work was healing.

It appears he worked like this: He would see you as a chiropractor and help you with your body. If things went well and you needed it he might suggest deeper body work and Reichian type techniques, after this he might suggest some psychological council ling and therapies, and AFTER this, I suppose, if you needed it, you seemed suitable, and he thought you could work together (after he checked you out) you would get the magical therapy, usually based around his relaxation therapies and techniques, and his Middle Pillar Ritual. Beyond that was perhaps magical training.

There is still the Israel Regardie foundation that continues on his work, I’m not sure what they do or teach, but I plan to check them out soon. Most probably their approach about going beyond this point above is that there is enough info available now for the enterprising individual to achieve their own illumination without neurosis or psychosis.

That’s fine for us all, as individuals. But what about the poor old human race? The me’s and you’s that lag along a few hundred years behind the adepts with the masses of humanity?

Regardie says in relation to Reich’s ‘Emotional Plague’ concept, “(Emotional Plague refers to) a person, who from birth, is constantly impeded in his natural way of living and so develops artificial forms of locomotion. He limps or moves on crutches, as it were. Similarly, an individual moves through life by means of the emotional plague if, from birth, his natural, self-regulatory instincts have been suppressed. The individual afflicted with the emotional plague limps characterologically speaking. … it manifests itself in Social living. …whose effects are to be seen in the organism as in social living. Periodically, like any other plague, it takes on the dimensions of a pandemic, in the form of a gigantic breakthrough of sadism and criminality, as for example in the Catholic Inquisition of the middle ages or the international rise of Fascism (last) centaury.”

For a time it seemed that the concept of the True Will, in Crowley’s mind, was not clear, certainly not around the time he first started using psychoanalytical terms. At times he seemed to be saying, “If I just follow my unconscious urges I am doing my true will.”
But his later works and writings show he went on much further than this, he just left psychology behind … unfortunately he could never avail himself of Regardie’s latter developments, so although he came to recognize that repression or sublimation of instincts was the rotten apple at the core of post-Victorian society and he did whatever ‘street-therapy’ or spontaneous ‘psycho-drama’ to alleviate the ‘tension’ he never appeared to actually resolve those issues. He did go further of course, like Regardie did and realize that the primary motivating force HAD to be Jung’s ‘fourth will’ and the divine light, spirit and divine self was the motivating, balancing and primary healing force.

But what are we to think? Crowley was magically brilliant, yet I seriously doubt he resolved his complexes to the best end result. The Golden Dawn history, although greatly appraised by many researchers as a brilliant system, shows a long line of personality battles and ego problems. Reich seemed to have the answers then went off after UFO’s.
Regardie spend the rest of his life quiet un-mad. To the end he seemed to live a happy, helpful and satisfied life and neither a material or egotistical excess were evident – yet he underwent psycho-therapy and incorporated psychology into his system.

I hope we can go further than this. I believe that illumination can exist alongside neurosis and psychosis. if those things are balanced in their own weird kind of way. But now I believe that illumination is not enough. Sorry all you Illuminati of the past … I’ve moved the goal posts! Illumination, enlightenment, attainment, adeptship … whatever now comes with an extra. A balanced psyche – and not just a ‘magically balanced’ psyche but a socially and psychologically balanced psyche.

Is it that hard to accept? No one gets a perfect upbringing, nor has a perfect environment.
It isn’t your fault, nor you parents. This should be seen as a given and our education should be designed to give us what we didn’t have in an attempt to heal us of our neurosis and problems. Then maybe our religious leaders, and cult directors and yes … dare I say, even our politicians, might one day be able to make sane decisions in a saner world.

The way I see it is, we incarnated with a plan in mind. To live this life and bring what we do and offer our gift and individual expression and genius to the collective. Also to learn, develop and grow, to moderate, liberate and specialize, to fraternalise and discover our individual nature. The process of birth can interfere with that and make us forget or confuse the issue or details. Some people know without a doubt what their True Will is, others struggle their whole life not finding it.

But to do all this we need a body and a ‘material’ or animal psyche and that is where the urges come from, that is where the Id resides and, in our body / spirit interface – the mind, the Id is encountered. It is up to a healthy society and individual to find appropriate controls and releases of Id energies, under the direction of the higher aspects. Continual sublimation or reckless celebration of these instincts can lead to serious problems, both in the individual and society.

And it just might be possible that if we treat our psyches with respect and not too much denial and repression nor too much debauchery that the will that emerges is not the lower suppressed will of the Id but the Higher will of the religious instinct. It is not every Illuminate or Yogi (or politician) that has a neurosis, it’s the one’s that didn’t have the correct upbringing, and really, I feel, a society should not allow people into these positions without a holistic education.

So, finally, to sum up and offer my opinion on the original question; yes. Illumination and neurosis can exist together. I’m the sort of person that can see value in part of a thing, even if other parts seem crazy. Many of our great explorers, scientists, rulers have been neurotic. We get by … somehow, as craziness seems often to be part of the natural human state … but attainment, illumination, true hermetics (knowing yourself) is something different and is also concerned with evolution and advancement of the individual and society.

Edited July 29, 2014 by Nungali

[BaguaKicksAss]

This should keep me busy for a bit, thanks for sharing .

 

Do you bring up the point that it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference?

[Nungali]

Difficult for some and difficult for all when the magician plays the mad man, but like the king and the pauper ... its more obvious when the madman plays the magician

[BaguaKicksAss]

and one must skirt around and just barely miss madness, at least a couple of times anyways, to get anywhere decent! (imo)

[Jetsun]

Interesting read, thanks.

[FraterUFA]

 

Edited July 10, 2015 by FraterUFA

[BaguaKicksAss]

Interesting .

 

Speaking of orgone, have you ever tried building an orgone accumulator? Pretty amazing things.

 

My theories (inspired by others I have spoken with over the years) are based around grounding, or in the case of folks who practice magic, lack thereof. Most of the energy all sitting around the head area from the practices (over intellectualizing about the practices likely doesn't help much either). Getting magicians to feel from and focus back into their body really does help a LOT. Also good ol exercise, which just isn't as common as it should be amongst magicians for some reason. Hey even the monks at Shaolin temple were taught martial arts...

 

I have had more than one expert mention that the only reason I likely stayed sane throughout my practice (I've delved in more deeply than most) was how much exercise I did. I would hike and or bikeride for at least a couple of hours per day, my entire life. Then I took up martial arts. Though I also feel that having teachers to guide me, and tell me when I had my head firmly planted up my arse, also helped a great deal .

 

Speaking of which, I feel self guided study is quite dangerous. Sure for a time perhaps, and after being taught for awhile, but solely self guided, not so much. I've seen the results of that time and time again, and have come to the conclusion that we are not good at self evaluation when in the middle of a situation, especially when energies are involved.

 

How about qigong? Just as many dangers I think...

[FraterUFA]

 

Edited July 10, 2015 by FraterUFA

[wangchungman]

IMHO A good magical system should have safeguards built in. I really admire what Lon Milo DuQuette has done to bring John Dee's system back to life. My limited experience with it is that preparations, names and calls establish the Magus in a solid meditative state so that ordinary petty weaknesses don't intrude and draw problems. If one has a good grounding by the use of excellent magical words, then there is no danger even in calling forth the eldest demons. I believe it takes a while to gain enough experience to discern which words are best.

[Nungali]

Interesting .

 

Speaking of orgone, have you ever tried building an orgone accumulator? Pretty amazing things.

 

No ... I am a pretty 'flow through' type of guy .

 

My theories (inspired by others I have spoken with over the years) are based around grounding, or in the case of folks who practice magic, lack thereof.

 

Yes, flowing into or out of earth. At times, when someone has really gone off ... It can help as an emergency 'magical first aid measure' to lay them on the ground so as much of their body as possible is in contact with the earth ... I've seen it work wonders!

 

Also, when 'other types' really go off ... it can help to 'lay them out' on the ground as well

 

Edited July 30, 2014 by Nungali

[Nungali]

IMHO A good magical system should have safeguards built in. I really admire what Lon Milo DuQuette has done

 

 

Like set a warning by a bad example?

 

Dudes! If you didnt realise before do not tip large amounts of Abramelin Oil on to the top of your head !

 

Unless your 'lab' has one of these gadgets

 

[BaguaKicksAss]

Like set a warning by a bad example?

 

Dudes! If you didnt realise before do not tip large amounts of Abramelin Oil on to the top of your head !

 

Unless your 'lab' has one of these gadgets

 

 

Actually made properly (without essential oils), the cinnamon, myrrh and galangal (French recipe) steep in olive oil.. so doesn't actually burn at all .

 

Other cautionary measures involving essential oils include: do *not* put the entire bottle of van van in your bath, 1/3rd will do. If you happen to put the entire bottle in, rubbing oil on yourself will stop the burn faster, water will not....

 

Also, don't annoint all the chackras with cinnamon essential oil!

[BaguaKicksAss]

I have never sensed any dangers in occultism, pranayama or qi gong. There are no doubt unpleasant experiences and belief systems which can make one a pretty unhappy camper.

 

But true actual dangers? I guess I'm just not advanced enough.

 

I think one of the main dangers with magic is folks doing practices they are not yet ready for, especially without guidance from a teacher.

 

Or mixing and matching systems too much.

 

With qigong, it seems more about just making stuff up and moving energy in random ways, or forcing it through.

 

And well I wouldn't say not advanced enough, more like perhaps didn't try out the particular practices which could lead to troubles? Or perhaps you have a sufficient foundation for most things.

 

If you are really curious though, I would recommend the Gran Grimoire or the Hollenzwang .

[Nungali]

Actually made properly (without essential oils), the cinnamon, myrrh and galangal (French recipe) steep in olive oil.. so doesn't actually burn at all .

 

Other cautionary measures involving essential oils include: do *not* put the entire bottle of van van in your bath, 1/3rd will do. If you happen to put the entire bottle in, rubbing oil on yourself will stop the burn faster, water will not....

 

Also, don't annoint all the chackras with cinnamon essential oil!

 

And dont play around with your GF after making bulk chilli sauce ....

 

And if you do - dont laugh about it then go to the loo and hold it

 

[RigdzinTrinley]

Dear All,

 

the little essay by nungali in this thread brought me to the forum, I really enjoyed reading it alot! I probably read it again soon - in some ways this is what is fascinating me at the moment and what I research.

 

I'm living in India and practice/study tantric Buddhism - I learned the rather strange tibetan language to communicate with my teachers directly (was their idea and I'm happy I went through the pain of getting fluent in tibetan - opens many doors inside and outside of the vajra world)

 

I also did 3 years of Gestalt therapy before coming to india and staying here to learn and experiment (Build my LAB or mandala..either way) I also do reichian Bodywork since maybe one and a half years... both systems are very transformative and blend perfectly with the indo-tibetan buddhist system

 

I do have a question to you guys, I started reading some western adepts like Crowley and Regardie - I have to admit regardie resonates more with me at the moment, I need to learn Crowleyan language first probably (Do I want that? Do I?)

 

In short - which books or essays would you recommend to go a bit deeper into western alchemy (I'm not interested in tinctures and herb extracts, but psychological and spiritual alchemy)

 

I'm reading Regardies Pholosopher Stone at the moment - and don't understand too much (I have an idea about Kabbalah, in the sense that it exists and there are points with names and lines connecting the points.....not enough ALAS!)

 

any web libraries?

 

I feel that reichian bodywork, Jungs Ideas, Alchemy and eastern Tantra work superbly together and much more research and experiment should be done there - or maybe is done allready, without me knowing it.....

 

when i say eastern Tantra I mean not the prolonged orgasm - blue balls neo tantra version of it...that might have some benefits too but not what I talk about - I mean the traditional aspect found in shivaism and shaktism as well as in the tibetan tradition. Neo Tantra borrowed alot from Reich - escpecially Oshoji like nungali pointed out, but in many ways its not the only thing reich intended or what Reichian Bodyworkers intend with their work.

 

the orgasms and the sex gets better but that A byproduct of spiritual/psychological work and transformation - I feel that some of the Neo Tantra people emphasize Sex a bit too much, there is much more to tantra then that (recognizing the divine nature of all Dharmas/phenomena for example

 

thanks for this forum

m

Edited October 12, 2015 by RigdzinTrinley

[Zhongyongdaoist]

any web libraries?

 

If you mean of alchemy then you want:

 

The Alchemy Web Site

 

There are of course a large number of other sites dealing with different aspects of  the Western Tradition, I don't know most of them because I because I learned all of what they continuously rehash decades ago.

 

I'm reading Regardies Pholosopher Stone at the moment - and don't understand too much (I have an idea about Kabbalah, in the sense that it exists and there are points with names and lines connecting the points.....not enough ALAS!)

 

To get a clearer idea of what Regardie and others regard as Kabbalah, or Qabala or however you want to spell it, this is considered the "classic":

 

The Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune

 

I was very influenced by Gestalt Psychology as a teenager in the late sixties, but ended out preferring Transactional Analysis because of its clear goal orientation.  Its modern a adaptations in Neuro-Linguistic Programing (NLP) with its idea of Congruence is probably the best modern version.  I had worked out similar ideas in the Eighties and when I met some NLP practitioners in 1990 they were surprised by my own work.

 

. . . eastern Tantra work superbly together and much more research and experiment should be done there - or maybe is done allready, without me knowing it.....

 

when i say eastern Tantra I mean not the prolonged orgasm - blue balls neo tantra version of it...that might have some benefits too but not what I talk about - I mean the traditional aspect found in shivaism and shaktism as well as in the tibetan tradition.

 

Yes, the Western concept of Tantra is very limited and most Westerners would be surprised to learn that the earlier pre-Tibetan forms of "Tantra", such as represented by Shingon, have nothing to do with sex at all, but all of that is a complex subject, too complex to get into here.

 

Finally, because of your apparent interest in art, that I start off my own teaching of "magic" by teaching people to draw using using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, the  neurology is a little outdated, but it is very effective both for gaining skill in visualization and for accessing a state of consciousness that is the essence of magic.

 

Welcome to the Dao Bums.

[LAOLONG]

.

Edited October 17, 2015 by cobi

[Nungali]

' collective subconscious'  Cobi ? ? ? 

 

Here is a question for you Cobes .....  regarding your ideas above about green ;

 

Do you think the 'power' of green is intrinsic to itself   or    is to do with the individuals associations and importance they give it ? 

 

and what if one's country does not have a green army ?    

 

 

 

< shields eyes from glare >    Arrggghh ... the bling !  

[Nungali]

Dear All,

 

....

 

I do have a question to you guys, I started reading some western adepts like Crowley and Regardie - I have to admit regardie resonates more with me at the moment, I need to learn Crowleyan language first probably (Do I want that? Do I?) 

 

In short - which books or essays would you recommend to go a bit deeper into western alchemy (I'm not interested in tinctures and herb extracts, but psychological and spiritual alchemy)

 

I'm reading Regardies Pholosopher Stone at the moment - and don't understand too much (I have an idea about Kabbalah, in the sense that it exists and there are points with names and lines connecting the points.....not enough ALAS!)

 

any web libraries?

 

You probably already know of this ... but just in case you dont ;

 

http://www.sacred-texts.com/

 

 

 

Or more Crowley related  ( if you made a decision on that yet ) ;

 

http://hermetic.com/

 

... I feel that some of the Neo Tantra people emphasize Sex a bit too much, there is much more to tantra then that (recognizing the divine nature of all Dharmas/phenomena for example

 

 

 

Ahhh - good  ...  maybe you could have a word with some of the 'chaps' here  ?       

[Michael Sternbach]

You can find interesting discussions regarding all kinds of Alchemy (including the purely psychospiritual variety) in this forum:

 

http://alchemyforums.com/

Edited October 12, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[LAOLONG]

.

Edited October 17, 2015 by cobi

[RigdzinTrinley]

thank you all for your input.

 

Maybe you could also help me find a starting point for my studies of alchemy? a text you recommend a commentary to a text, an essay, book? Again with an emphasis on alchemical psychology or spiritual transmutation ( I got Jungs "Secrets of the golden flower" thats not a western source text but I think still very interessting read)

 

Sorry I dont get the quoting thing - I'll figure it out later...

 

anyway @Zhongdongdaoist I read some of Eric Bernes books, I liked them very much also.

 

and my understanding of pre Buddhist Tantra or the origins of tantra are somewhat different (I think). I met Bettina Bäumler a scholar of Kashmir Shivaism and indian Tantra and its history some years ago, we were waiting in line to meet H.H. Karmapa.

 

she told me her research of Tantra showed that there was Tantra as an own movement for a very long time before it became Hindu or Buddhist.

She also told me how many siddhas seem to appear in both lineages. Two examples: Goraknath the great siddha and origin of the Nath tradition of Shivaism is also one of the 84 buddhist mahasiddhas of India. On the otherhand also Tilopa the origin of the Tibetan Buddhist Kagyu Lineages seems to be part of the Hindu lineage of Tantra

 

Now Shingon I always thought of as the Japanese interpretation of Indian Tantric Buddhism. I also remember reading that Shingon only uses the outer Tantras (mostly connected with outer and inner rites of purification)

 

what means outer tantras?

the Nyigma tradtition (that I am most fimiliar with) talks about 9 Yanas

 

Shravaka-, Prathyekabuddha- and Bodhisattvayana (those three are the Sutrayana or path of the Sutras)

 

the three outer tantras: Kriyatantra, Upatantra, Yogatantra

the three inner tantras: Mahayoga, Anuyoga, Atiyoga (those six make up the Tantryana or path of tantra)

 

now as far as I know shingon only holds the lineages for the outer tantras - hence no sexual yogas (those are part of the Anuyoga system - just a very small part)

Edited October 13, 2015 by RigdzinTrinley

[Michael Sternbach]

thank you all for your input.

Maybe you could also help me find a starting point for my studies of alchemy? a text you recommend a commentary to a text, an essay, book? Again with an emphasis on alchemical psychology or spiritual transmutation ( I got Jungs "Secrets of the golden flower" thats not a western source text but I think still very interessting read)

Servus Matthias,

 

You might want to read:

 

Julius Evola: The Hermetic Tradition: Symbols and Teachings of the Royal Art

 

This is a classic on spiritual Alchemy, praised also by Jung. No easy read, but very profound.

 

There is also a German edition, if you prefer.

Edited October 13, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Nungali]

R T , how would you define 'tantra' generally then , as a term ?   I thought the literal interpretation of the word was 'text' ?  

 

I use the term generally to define a system that utilizes  various complexities and stimulus -  in short , magical technology; color, sound, movement, regalia, implements,  rites and ritual, etc.  as opposed to an 'austere' or 'bare' system that seems to aim at 'pure consciousness'  - 'without the trappings' - One example is in Japan , Shinto seems like the first and some forms of Zen  the second.     I am not sure where I picked up this concept from ?  regardless, I have long held the view that 'tantra' is a system that is much wider in scope than the 'sexuality' that modern fascination seems to have attached to it.