So, you know that smack down I knew was immanent by the way I was all convinced of my god-ness?
Yeah, it took less time than usual to manifest. No couple of weeks for me. Sigh.
At least I was at the beach the last couple of days, and have the bandwidth to endure.
Head for the Red: The ongoing adventures and insights of a magician's attempts to accomplish the Great Work.
SO WHAT HAPPENED? :P
ReplyDeleteOK, I'm at a much less advanced stage in my path than you, but you're touching on something that has been bothering me tremendously lately - the up and down cycles that seem to come with all this spiritual shit. I'm really interested to hear from someone who knows what they're talking about what exactly is going on here. (Sorry if you've addressed this repeatedly in your blog - I just started reading...)
ReplyDeleteEver since I started doing magick, it seems that these up and down cycles follow each other with increasing regularity, to the point where I can tell exactly at which point in the month both my exoteric and esoteric sides are going to experience either effortless, egoless manifestation (your "I am a demi-god" stage), or classic Dark Night ego-filled "smackdowns." Every time I think it's going to be different and it ends up being the same - people drift away, I find myself confronting all the psychological shit I thought I left behind, have some kind of breakthrough through insight meditation, shit gets better, etc. etc. etc. Repeat.
I'm pissed off at the sheer predictability of this. I realize it could be my expecting it that causes it to happen, but, seriously, every single month I expect the cycle to break, or at least change rate. It's like I've learned all of these lessons intellectually, but consciousness keeps throwing the shit in my face. Each go-round there is more awareness, but the emotional swings are still as manic as ever.
So I guess what I'm asking is, what is everyone else's experience with the periodicity of these spiritual cycles? Is the Great Work just a series of pendulum swings up to the top? Fucking duality... :-)
ahhhh the Universal Smackdown. I know thee well. I feel for ya.
ReplyDeleteJason, shut up, man. :P
ReplyDeleteI pulled a classic bonehead maneuver, and got called on it. I was so busy contemplating my godhood I forgot to take care of some pressing matters that I had meant to attend to. Navel gazing doesn't cut it in my world. It's probably my own fault.
At Fr. aSP:
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know what you mean. You'll hit critical mass soon though, and then it all goes away, until it comes back again. If you can hold onto the sense of adventure that comes from moving onward and upward, it makes the cycles seem less annoying-as-fuck.
It really depends on what kind of mood you're in at the time, and that's 99% attitude. Easiest thing to change in the world to have an instant impact on your experienced reality.
But if the cycles are that predictable and, well, boring, then it's time to go higher, reach deeper, go further. There are no limits to what we can experience, even here in the flesh.
Try something new, see where it leads. Observe that blockage that's keeping you stuck in the same old patterns. Shake things up a bit. Try a new grimoire, like the Arbatel, or something. Go on a Wikipedia Trek researching pneuma, that's interesting. Do something you haven't done, like mingling elementals. Pick a chapter from Agrippa and read it and figure out what the fuck he's talking about, and what that means to you right now in your Work. Print up a google street map of your neighborhood and put a sheet of blank paper over that, and then map out your spiritual neighborhood from the astral realm, identifying potential allies among the genii loci communities. If you need to be able to impact remote locations, get stuff from there, or go there astrally to observe and set up a remote camp.
If there's no adventure or anything stimulating that gives you opportunities to apply what you've learned, you're not doing enough with your skills and talents. If you can't think of anything you want or need, then go help others, finish the Work, project the Stone into your Kingdom, granting immortality, health, and riches among those you share the world with.
A few thoughts-
ReplyDeleteFirst- Rufus, thank you for sharing your lows as well as your highs.
Now, as an astrologer, my bread, butter and mead is the cyclical ups and downs in people's lives. My observations of people engaged in serious esoteric work is that the cycles promised in the natal chart are sped up and intensified.
In that the natal promises the particular evolutionary trials a being will engage in, it seems rather a given that if one works to speed up this process, the accompanying ups and downs would be intensified to a like degree.
As a long time practitioner of Taoist methods (chi kung, tai chi, hsing yi, etc), I can say that the approach encoded into and necessitated by the Taoist approaches helps smooth out the ups and downs- reining them into toward the center a bit. A dynamic center we might refer to, in fact, as the Tao.
The emphasis on goals, achievement, ascension, and empowerment that characterizes much of the Western material necessarily sees the soul extending itself, sometimes overextending itself in pursuit of the next phase.
Taoist practices demand one focus on the road as it rises rather than plotting a course for distant objectives. Not to mention that they immerse one in the immediacy off the body.
I am not advocating the supremacy of Taoist practices though, just sharing a set of disciplines which has helped stabilize my trajectory between glory-glory and doom-doom.
The Tao, which cannot be named but can be evoked, is a snake, a dragon, a golden thread which runs through all the highs and lows.
Similar to what Austin is saying, the most useful method is to attain an equanimity of mind, where we focus on what is happening in the here and now and do not become attached EMOTIONALLY to the future or past. We still plan and set goals, but the process of ups and downs never stops. In fact, as you're all saying now, a good indication that a down cycle is about to happen is when you feel like you'veescaped the cyclical process all together. The trick is, at that point, invoke the powers of the left pillar to keep the ego in check, analyze where you are, and consolidate your position so that you're ready for the next growth cycle.
ReplyDeleteStudying market economics can be helpful to familiarize yourself with the process
I tend to notice in my own Work that my cycles tend to keep bringing the same issues up, in different forms, till I overcome the underlying causes. For example, I dealt with a lot of money problems till I worked with the element Earth and Jupiter and got it sorted out. Cycles are how I gauge my progress and what I need to be doing. I have noticed that they tend to lessen as one progresses further through initiatory patterns.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to your links to other blogs man?
ReplyDeleteOne thing I loved about yours was that I could see a list of all the latest posts of a lot of magic blogs, clicking it would bring me to the relevant post -- now it just links to the RSS feed of each blog without any preview.
Is this intentional or something gone wrong?
No idea what you're talking about, I clicked 9 of the links and 9 blogs opened up.
ReplyDelete