Eclipse Effects in the East and West

So a student of my courses sends me these really detailed fascinating questions on a semi-daily basis. We've had some really interesting conversations, and it's neat talking to him.

Today, he read Jason's recent post about the Vajrakilaya Amulets (which I heartily recommend), and asked this gem:

Today's question has to do with reconciling philosophical opposites among what appear to be equally valid traditions. [...] So can the eclipse really effectively work two different ways for 2 different people simply because they hold different belief systems? That's starting to sound dangerously like magical tech is subjective and only works because you believe in it.

The answer is an emphatic Yes! The eclipse can indeed effectively work two different ways for two different people because they hold different belief systems. But that in no way implies magical tech ONLY works because you believe in it.

In both the East and the West, magicians perform rituals and spiritual acts based on their beliefs. These spiritual actions have a tuning effect on the magician's sphere. It's like tuning the harmonic vibration of the magician's sphere. As the magicians' spheres are developed and attuned to the different harmonics of the occult tradition, they are able to process the forces released at the eclipse in different ways.

As a result, the Eastern occultist will be able to sit under an eclipse and have the consequences of both Good and Evil actions amplified 10,000 times. Any spiritual activity to benefit others and themselves performed during the eclipse will be amplified. Anything that would have a negative consequence would also be amplified 10,000 times*.

Jason's taking advantage of this amplification of all spiritual activities to create talismans that remove obstacles. He's able to do that because he's gone to Nepal and received initiations and empowerments, and performed spiritual exercises for many years that have attuned his sphere in a way that lets the forces released during an eclipse amplify everything. So the talismans he creates will be very powerfully tuned to remove obstacles as a result.

A Western magician doesn't have the same beliefs, and their practices have evolved around the belief that the eclipse is a particularly unfortunate time. These practices tune our spheres in a way that results in the eclipse forces coming through negatively.

Here's another way to look at it:

Diesel fuel works great in diesel engines. If you put diesel fuel into a gasoline engine, you're gonna have a bad time. The engine technology is different, so even though the fuel is the same no matter which engine you put it into, you won't get the same results. The guy who built diesel engines believed diesel was a good solution to the problems he had. A guy with a gas engine can believe diesel is a good fuel all he wants to, it won't make it work in his engine the same way it works in a diesel engine.

Now, theoretically, a Western magician could harness the maleficent forces of an eclipse and use it to create a talisman that could, again theoretically, be used to destroy things. This could include things like obstacles.

That's a lot of theory though, and it would take a magician who has been through similar levels of Western initiation and empowerment as those Jason has been through in Eastern traditions. Then when they used it, they would need to be skilled enough to be able to direct the forces only at the obstacles without getting any of it on themselves. And they'd need to keep it somewhere safe when it wasn't in use, being aware of the ongoing effect it would have on their sphere.

So it's dangerous for Westerners to try this kind of thing.

But that leads to the inevitable question, what about the Talismans? Will Jason's talismans cause havoc and evil evil darkness in the spheres of Western Magicians who buy them? Will they be Eastern diesel fuel in our Western gasoline engine spheres?

Fuck No!

Jason's sphere is attuned properly to process the forces of an eclipse to amplify his consecration rites 10,000 times. The rite is amplified by the eclipse, his sphere transforms the forces into his intended result, i.e. a talisman that removes obstacles, and the resulting talismans are 10,000 times stronger than the same talisman created outside of an eclipse.

These talismans are focused by the rite to become projections of this obstacle-destroying power that will radiate into the sphere and life of the magician. Their sphere won't be processing any of the forces of the eclipse, Jason's sphere has already done all that. All we'll be getting is obstacle-destruction power, and plenty of it.

So if you're a primarily Western Magician, you shouldn't worry at all about Jason's talismans having any kind of negative effect on you.

And if you're a Black Brother, it's a good time to make that Blasting Rod. Out of that wood you gathered from that tree that was destroyed in that hurricane.

* Note, I'm not an Eastern magician, so I doubt I've got it 100% accurate, but that's my working understanding.

Flexibrain: The Great Work

So Gordon wrote recently about the need for neuroplasticity, and the effectiveness of faking being happy to create actual happiness. Not long after reading his post, another one of those smart European occultists who make me think about shit commented to me on FaceBook that I was missing a major piece of the overall puzzle with my post on scrying, and after trying to argue a bit, I realized he was right. And thus, I was wrong.

Which I hate.

Long time readers of my blog will know that when I'm wrong about shit, I admit it and own it right away. I change my mind and/or practices so I'm not doing something wrong anymore. This is because I really want to accomplish the Great Work successfully in this lifetime, and I'm willing to be humble enough to publicly admit it when I'm wrong, if that's what it takes to win.

But more than that, I'm a self-righteous prick, and the only way to get away with being a self righteous prick is to be as much of a prick about your own wrongness as you are about everyone else's*.

Neuroplasticity, the ability to adapt your brain's chemistry by adapting your thinking and activities is a key thing in the Great Work. Sometimes I get to thinking I'm hot shit on a silver platter once in a while, and then I get reminded in uncomfortable ways that I'm more of a cold turd on a paper plate than I like to think. There's always so much more to learn, so much that I've forgotten, so much left to do. I've got to be able to be mentally malleable, I can't get stuck in a position of wrongness out of stupid pride, stuck in patterns of behavior because I can't admit I was wrong. That ain't why I'm here.

Gordon was talking about how he was on an extended downer and needed to get out of it. My problem is every bit as bad, but I get stuck on an upper. I get to thinking I've done all this stuff and I'm great, like some kind of Grad Student of Occult University, and then I get reminded I'm still playing on the playground in Elementary School (literally and figuratively). Yeah, I've been through the initiations of each of the planetary and elemental spheres, I've done a lot of the Work, I've ground up the Stone and Projected it into the world.

Kid's Stuff

But that's kid stuff. Necessary, vitally important kid stuff, but kid stuff nonetheless. There's a lot more left to do. And I'd be doing it if I would just be a bit more productive in some areas of my life that I've been unproductive in.

Scrying is an important and necessary tool for accomplishing the Great Work using the Hermetic rituals I use and teach. The Modern Angelic Grimoire is based on scrying. The path to ascension that I'm using is based on that simple conjuration rite. Everything I said in that post is true and applicable in the context of the accomplishment of the Great Work and the conjuration of spirits.

But there's more to magic than scrying spirits in crystals, and even more to it than Hermetic theory and practice.

This thing that we do teaches us very specialized, very focused tools in our Hermetic laboratory. We learn through conjure, initiations, integration of forces, and the exercise of taking authority over your kingdom. We learn by taking responsibility for the things that happen in our lives, to us and through us. We learn important skills and insights about the universe and the process of manifestation, and our roles in that process.

These things we learn though, they apply to more than the system of the Hermetic Great Work. Scrying is the reading of the Mind. Rituals are the gathering together of specifically harmonic things here in the Spiritus Mundi, the material reflection of our Heavenly Homeland, to accomplish specific aspects of creation. This magical act we do, it's the observation and participation with a massive harmonic field that transcends the dimensions our flesh can sense, but nevertheless includes everything we see and feel and hear and see, intimately. It's like the universe is strings, and we are the musicians strumming them, rubbing rosined bows across them, striking them in rythyms with velvet hammers through levers and keys to create the melodies we experience.

When I was scratching at the doors of the Eighth Sphere, I caught a glimpse of how you can do that with a thought, a symbol, a word, and a gesture in an instant. Without tools or conversations with anyone else, just your mind and your body and your breath working in harmony to express the Will of God.

Getting to that point is a matter of shifting awareness from the down-here-looking-up to the right-here-looking-out perspective, where "right-here" is everywhere, including the Unmanifest. It's the actualization of AN EYE, what Eye none knoweth. It's becoming consciously aware of being the Participant-Observer.

Amoghapasa, a Bodhisattva I found googling around. Check out the Dude on his head, above and slightly behind him. I'm no Buddhist, but it looks like the Participant-Observer to me.

Hermetics is a path that takes you to the point of being able to open that eye and be that person, that observer within.

See, I think you need to go through the elemental and celestial initiations to get to know who you are and what you're capable of doing. The spirits of the spheres train us, retrain us that is, to remember what it is we are, fundamentally, creator-gods.

I've been focusing a lot on what happens after you die for a couple years. I've been looking at all this stuff that we do from the perspective of "training for what comes next." I've been looking forward to doing more of the Great Work to prepare to be a Power when I die. Along the way, I've learned about controlling the world, manifesting it according to my will and desire, for the benefit of the world in general, not just for myself. And I was into that because it was training for the "real" job to come, in my next phase as a Power. You know. When I'm dead.

And that's where I think I missed the point. At a very weird level. We aren't training here to learn how to die, we're training here to learn how to live.

So yeah, all that scrying stuff, it's very much important to learning how to live. But it's a skill that is applicable outside of the Magic Circle, outside the boundaries of the ritual room and your astral spiritual laboratory and playground. It's a life skill, to be used as much as your body's vision and hearing. The Mind is written in the clouds, the leaves of the trees, the flight patterns of birds. It is the stuff of awesome.

The rites and rituals, they teach us how to read the Mind of God in the material realm, what to look for, how to listen, how to see. But the things we learn are to be used today, right now, all the time, on purpose. It's living as a human being, mortal and immortal, united for love.

* For example, some subscribers to my blog will have received a post about how Hermeticism doesn't teach that the Universe is ONE earlier today that has since disappeared as if it never existed. I was, uh, stupidly, stupidly wrong. It does teach that, and I had forgotten that it was traditional, and not just some Kybalion crap, and in my urge to make someone else look stupid I made myself look even more stupid. I was in stupid-fucking-moron mode because I was so busy throwing shit at someone else that I didn't realize I was covering myself in shit in the process. It pays to check your hands once in a while, throwing shit makes 'em stink.

The Ultimate Anarchist Plot

Let's go blow up a bridge!

Er... no, fucktard.

Ackshually...

Conform like a motherfucker, make a bajillion dollars, sell your soul to the capitalist scum to get elected, along with your secret cabal, and when you get in office...

FUCK SOME SHIT UP!

Come on, you stupid motherfuckers! You're already sociopaths, for christ's sake! Use your God-Given Talent and take over the fucking world!

Don't blow up bridges. You stupid fucking morons.

Occupy Congress. Make change.

Unexpected Energy Bill...

Well, due to a fairly fucking typical miscommunication between my spouse and I, we have a rather large, and unbudgeted energy bill to pay. Sigh.

So, our poor financial communication skills are to your benefit. For a limited time, I am offering the complete Red Work Series of Courses in Hermetic Magic for $200. Use the PayPal Buy Now button at the bottom of this post to receive the discount, and it's for a very limited time only.

The courses included are:

Course 1: The Black Work

The Black Work lays the basic foundation of this series of courses. The overall structure and cosmology that forms the framework of this system is reviewed and long term and short term goals are established.

The Student learns the basic conjuration formula used throughout the course, and begins integrating initiatory forces into their sphere of influence, and learns to deal with the issues that arise as one pursues the Great Work. Gently.

As part of this course, the Student receives their Genius and Evil Daimon Names, and begins to Work with the Genius and the Elemental Forces of the Terrestrial Sphere.

Course 2: The White Work

This course begins with the attainment of the Supernatural Assistant. It can be an arduous and long process, or it can take a couple of weeks, depending on the Student's level of attainment and experience in conjuring spirits. Those who have completed the course work of the Black Work should be properly prepared to acquire the Supernatural Assistant without too much hardship.

The course provides an overview of the role of the Supernatural Assistant, and explores the relationship between the magician and the Assistant. This relationship has two branches, the strictly practical and the purely Theurgical, and the intricate web of connections between.

The Chain of Manifestation is reviewed, and introductions to the Seven Flames before the Throne are arranged. Relationships with the Elementals are again touched upon, this time with firmer relationships with the Four Princes are established.

Course 3: The Green Work Course

Formerly "Hermetic Merkavah," this course provides the student with the knowledge and techniques necessary to achieve initiation into the Seven Planetary Heavens using conjuration, pathworking, and dream work to attain and integrate the powers and forces of these spheres.

To order at this discounted price, you must use this button:

This offer is no longer available.

Visions in Conjurations

First, a disclaimer:

I write blog posts for fun, and at a very high level most of the time these days. Some of the topics, like scrying, could fill an entire book. There are nuances and dependencies and variables that come into play that would turn the post into instant TL/DR on sight. I go into more detail in the course materials. 

Now, the post:

In yesterday's post on Scrying, I focused primarily on hearing voices and learning to discern the voices of the spirits. Joãoc asked in the comments:

I understand what you're saying about the voices of spirits. What about vision, seeing spirits? Does that follow the same kind of principles? Do you have to learn to distinguish between images in your head and those that come from outside?

It's a subject worth a blog post in and of itself.

First, yes, it follows the same kind of principles, you pay attention to "where" in your head it feels like a vision originates when you picture it in your mind's eye while meditating, and you can sort of "feel" the difference when you receive a vision from a spirit.

But it's kind of tricksy. There are a lot of different kinds of visions you get when you're conjuring spirits.

I use and advocate the Modern Angelic Grimoire method of conjuring that includes a crystal. I see images in the crystal, like a bird shape that I just "know" is an eagle, or a crow. I might see a landscape, a blighted tree, or cloud shapes in the occlusions and imperfections of the crystal sphere I like to use.

These images in the crystal prompt a dialogue with the spirit, and set the scene for another kind of vision that unfolds in my third eye, more on the astral side of things than the physical. A bird shape in the crystal becomes a flying crow in my mind's eye, sometimes Thought or Memory returning to the shoulder of Odin, other times joining a flock of Ravens of Dispersion descending on an aspect of a person's life, or raising up leaving a scattered bloody mess.

These visions are like guided visualizations, prompted by the images in the crystal, and guided into appearance by the spirit. As the visions unfold, I ask the spirits questions about what I'm seeing, and they fill in the details, or respond by changing the vision a bit, giving me more details.

These visions unfold through the imagination. Patrick Dunn, in Postmodern Magic, talks about the role of imagination as a bi-directional communication device. It's an important concept to understand. A lot of people think that anything they imagine is completely under their control, completely sourced in their own minds. It's not, entirely.

But where a spirit's voice will "feel" like it's from outside your head, these visions are still taking place inside your head, using the bio-ware we use to see dreams with our eyes closed, and to see imagined vistas. So there's always a "feeling" inside my brain during these visions, like I'm feeling the dance electrons flowing through neurons from my pineal gland to my occipital lobe to my frontal lobe as the vision passes from the unseen into my consciousness on its way to the memory banks.

In response to Joãoc's comment, Jack Faust said:

I speak only for myself, but there is a clear difference between the vision state and internal fantasies. The vision state is closer to lucid dreaming while awake. And the spirits move differently than people or images move in one's mind.

This touches on how to tell when you're "just" imagining, and when you're receiving an actual vision from the spirits. He's right, there is a clear difference in the quality of the image, and it takes experience to understand what that means. It's exactly like lucid dreaming, but that might not help if you've never experienced a lucid dream. It's sort of like that old joke about trying to explain the taste of bald eagle... it's somewhere between a carrier pigeon and a dodo bird. 

Spirit visions tend to be sharper, crisper, cleaner than imagined images I produce on my own. They also take on a life of their own. You can imagine a person move around in your mind, but when they move around on their own, you can definitely feel the difference! Things you imagine on your own can be quickly and easily turned into other images, while images from spirits won't change as easily, or if they change, it's not necessarily what you meant for it to change into.

Often, it's the level of detail and the quality of light in the vision that lets me know the spirits are guiding the vision. If you study the paintings of Bierstadt and Durand, you'll see that they tried to paint the Inner Light of Deity into their images. Spirit visions tend to take on a quality of illumination that is different from your normal imagination.

So far we've talked about mental visions, and that's the "bread and butter" kind of vision I experience. Images in my mind's eye that I can interact with, interpret, and understand. I get these kinds of visions every time I sit down at the Table of Practice with my crystal and conjure the spirits, without fail.

But there's another kind of vision you get in conjurations... visual visions. They don't just appear in your mind's eye, they look, for all intents and purposes, like they're right there in the room with you, hovering above the crystal. They are shadowy shapes outside the Circle. They are visual distortion fields of intense density that feel like they're sucking you in. They are hovering orbs, flashing lights, and people in the room with you that you see out of the corner of your eye.

Like hearing a spirit voice that sounds audible to you, these visions happen a lot less often. Sometimes they can be seen by others, other times they are visions that you alone will receive. The other day, I had a vision of standing in a circle with the Severn Planetary Governors. It didn't last long, just a quick flash, but I was standing shoulder to shoulder with them, with all of us wearing our vestments of office in the appropriate colors. It was really cool.

But this kind of vision is rare, and ultimately beside the point entirely for practical magicians. If you need to see spirits with your eyes to prove to yourself that your magic is effective and working to spec, by all means strive for that experience. But I think it's a weakness, not a strength, an indication that you rely on the evidence of your physical senses too much to function at full strength in the world of the occult, in the realms of the unseen and unmanifest forces of creation.

Spirit visions are only one part of the overall experience when scrying. I get a lot more out of the conversations with the spirits, the communion, but the visions are part of that communion and conversation. There are also other sensory things going on during the rite, sounds you hear, strains of music, or scents. The smell you get when you meet your Holy Guardian Angel, for example, it's delicious. You get other visual effects too, like seeing auras around objects during the rite, or a sharpening of your vision. I'll go outside after a rite and feel like I could count every leaf on the trees, or every blade of grass because they're so crisply defined. You feel things emotionally, the atmosphere thickens or thins, you feel hot, or cold.

Scrying is important, a very important tool in your magician's kit. But it's not the point of magic. The point of any magical act is the outcome, the end result. If you've done a rite to obtain a vision of the Eighth Sphere, and you saw and heard nothing in the rite, but then dreamed of meeting Iophiel and being ushered into a realm of light populated by entities whose silent hymns are the Glorification of God and the manifestation of the World at the same time, your ritual is a success. Rites to get laid and paid are successful when you get laid and paid, not when you see the spirits or hear their voices.

People say it's not the destination that's important, it's the journey, and that's both trite and true at the same time. But while I enjoy the journey, I don't forget that the reason I left the house in the first place was to get where I wanted to be.