Thursday, April 27, 2017

Astral Projection - Failure and Analyses II


Many magicians seem to have a problem with describing magickal experiences, admitting they are wrong and discussing their failures. Magical experience is incredibly difficult to describe let alone analyse, but without description, analysis, evaluation and comparison its impossible to make headway or gain perspective.  Its the reason why so many so-called magicians come across as all bluster and vagueness; they are not cultivating shadowy mystique they just have no idea what is going on either and often get things wrong.  We learn from mistakes and if no one is discussing them learning is truncated.

I made a pledge for 2017 to attempt astral projection more regularly and make my explorations a little more systematic.  I have done less of this work than I wanted but have been making efforts and mistakes.  Like in my last post about this I want to address some of these failures and see what I can do to improve my experiments moving forward.  Springing off my previous post on failure, these failures all come under the general heading of the effect of astral weather and the celestial bodies themselves on the astral journey experience and on the final destination.



Mercury Retrograde - During one attempt last week, I did not get past the astral larvae, which are normally not a problem.  I was very aware of them, focused on them and rather than trying to push past, or dispel/disrupt I instead confronted them.  I am not sure why I did this but it was my choice.  I asked, quite calmly - What are you? What do you want from me?  Why are you trying to stop me getting on the astral plane?  The writhing mass of (painted) light worms/tentacles collected together into what could have been a face that kind of stopped and looked back at me - dumbfounded at a) having been asked b) because there was no answer or c) these responses are an automatic reflex (of the mind or spirits) to any astral attempts.  As I understand the astral larvae phenomena is a function of your own mind in the very lower astral, that prevents you from escaping the gravity well of your ego - part of a similar set of internal defences that stop you messing around with your breathing, sweating or peristalsis.  I was reminded of the scene in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Ford confronts the Vogon Guard with existential questions about his purpose before they get kicked out of the airlock anyway.  Confronting the larvae in this way I stopped my projection attempt and returned to my body for a few moments, before sleep paralysis kicked in.  At this point my partner saw that I was speaking in tongues/mesmerised/paralysed and woke me up.  About 5 minutes after this (approx 2.30am) somebody started repetitively buzzing my apartment from the street outside and my partner was quite frightened by this because I had already freaked her out.  The area where I live is really cool but kind of mad and answering the door at this time of night is not a good idea.  Whatever it was went away but then came back about 15 mins later and did the same thing.  Its difficult to get an angle to see but basically looking in a reflection across the street I saw that it was a black shadow that was pushing the door bell that then suddenly vanished.  I checked after and it was none of my friends. I talked to my partner about the kind of physical/earthly resistance/distractions/phenomena you can receive when trying to project out of the atmosphere - weather effects, kinetic activity in the room, children/animals suddenly screaming, etc.  The important note here is in terms of astral weather - it was Mercury retro and the disruption involved use of the buzzer/phone.  The previous evening the phone had been broken and making a solid buzzing sound all night that had disturbed my sleep and these two experiences seem connected by Mercury.  My question from this would be - is this standard disruption/resistance from spirit or mind, an independent retro effect, or a combination of the two?  I assume its a combination of the two and therefore could tentatively conclude that the type of disruption one can expect will be affected by astral weather.    This sounds right but it highlights the way an important failure can confirm suspicions and enhance praxis.



Destination - As I have discussed before this year I am trying to be more systematic in terms of my destination and want to focus on planets.  My prior attempt to go to Venus ended in failure as I approached it and got the fear.  In several attempts over the last month or so I have been torn between Jupiter and Sol.  I keep trying to get to Jupiter (again) and I keep getting pulled into Sol.  The light is extremely intense, possibly dangerous and it was not my intended destination so I break off the mission as I approach.  I am not quite sure about how to get around this hurdle.  I don't think its an effect of physical gravity on my astral form persay which would end up necessitating the use of some kind of astral slingshot to get to Jupiterand I also hesitate to say that I am being pulled there for a reason.  I think that it might be to do with a lack of conviction i.e. I don't want to go to Jupiter enough or can't focus my will clearly enough.  Alongside this as I get past the larval stage and the cool, trippy, tessellating stage to a point where I can actually see through ''gates'' I keep getting tempted to go and look at things and people ''on Earth'', i.e. explore Earth instead of space, become an inward facing earthbound satellite as opposed to a planetary probe.  I am pretty sure that this desire is another attempt by my ego to keep me down here.



Some conclusions then? Alongside these experiments I have also been cultivating my relationship and dialogue with Raziel.  The most vivid, life-changing astral experiences I have had have been with the assistance of this entity and I think Raziel has his own schedule of explorations set up and I should just let it guide/drive and relinquish control.  This does not come easily to me as a scientist but it seems that maybe that will have to be the case.  It is not that I don't trust the entity, its just that without some kind of system/location it will make the examination of my results more difficult and more daunting. After all during the last time I ended up in this random point in deep space,  the absolute middle of nowhere although there was something there not a place but ''the ship''.  But why was the ship there???  Was it going somewhere else and Raziel just intercepted it?  More questions!

As you increase the radius of your sphere of knowledge all you do is increase your surface contact area with the ocean of ignorance.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Books, Books, Books - and Book XIII



Books Books Books.  I am in the process of upgrading the library temple suite - Indonesian lanterns; Walnut bookcases; antique desk, barrel and chest.  Going to pick me up a Thoth statue too.  Its going to look gorgeous fam.  Having removed the IKEA bookcases I had, the entire floor is just covered in heaps of books - many of them ex library books.  I pick up the Texts of Taoism and randomly open up a bit of Chuang Tzu to take to the bathroom and what am I offered?


What the world thinks the most valuable exhibition of the Tâo is to be found in books. But books are only a collection of words. Words have what is valuable in them;-- what is valuable in words is the ideas they convey. But those ideas are a sequence of something else;-- and what that something else is cannot be conveyed by words. When the world, because of the value which it attaches to words, commits them to books, that for which it so values them may not deserve to be valued;-- because that which it values is not what is really valuable. Thus it is that what we look at and can see is (only) the outward form and colour, and what we listen to and can hear is (only) names and sounds. Alas! that men of the world should think that form and colour, name and sound, should be sufficient to give them the real nature of the Tâo. The form and colour, the name and sound, are certainly not sufficient to convey its real nature; and so it is that 'the wise do not speak and those who do speak are not wise.' How should the world know that real nature?

Chuang Tzu, Book XIII, Part 10

He's right you know.  I question the value of the books lying scattered around me.  It seems to me the theory here is Tao then Ideas then Words then Books (highly similar to the KBL and cell biology/genetics) but the Tao is beyond our comprehension so we cannot name the ultimate source of ideas. Is Tao consciousness?  I don't know, that seems to be going a bit far although ideas are noetic and the implication is they originate in Tao.  We can't define consciousness either.  Dennett thinks its an illusion but I think Chuang thinks Dennett is an illusion.  Tao is the ultimate indescribable nature of reality.  Thinking of only indirectly contacting this reality through my senses I realise its some kind of science day as well and all my liberal progressive friends are in a science veneration trance on social media.  I am reminded of Parmenides ''On Nature'' where he suggests science is at best informed opinion.  Hmmm.  He continues:

Duke Hwan, seated above in his hall, was (once) reading a book, and the wheelwright Phien was making a wheel below it. Laying aside his hammer and chisel, Phien went up the steps, and said, 'I venture to ask your Grace what words you are reading?' The duke said, 'The words of the sages.' 'Are those sages alive?' Phien continued. 'They are dead,' was the reply. 'Then,' said the other, 'what you, my Ruler, are reading are only the dregs and sediments of those old men.' The duke said, 'How should you, a wheelwright, have anything to say about the book which I am reading? If you can explain yourself, very well; if you cannot, you shall, die!' The wheelwright said, 'Your servant will look at the thing from the point of view of his own art. In making a wheel, if I proceed gently, that is pleasant enough, but the workmanship is not strong; if I proceed violently, that is toilsome and the joinings do not fit. If the movements of my hand are neither (too) gentle nor (too) violent, the idea in my mind is realised. But I cannot tell (how to do this) by word of mouth; there is a knack in it. I cannot teach the knack to my son, nor can my son learn it from me. Thus it is that I am in my seventieth year, and am (still) making wheels in my old age. But these ancients, and what it was not possible for them to convey, are dead and gone:-- so then what you, my Ruler, are reading is but their dregs and sediments!'

Chuang Tzu, Book XIII, Part 11


I like this Wheelwright - books are just bits of corpses and bibliophilia is, in essence, no different to necrophilia.  I look around my blasted temple and see nothing but a catacomb, the leaves of various texts like bits of rotting flesh.  I am decorating my new library temple with their mummified remains. It certainly puts the grim back in grimoires. Thanks Chuang for peeing on my parade.



SMUG AF

So it all comes down to ''the knack'' and the relative speed of the hand motions?  What is this knack, our wheelwright is talking about?  Well as I understand it Taoism is all about letting things take their natural course.  Knowledge at its heart is a natural understanding and must be applied.  Talent, a gift for understanding, which is at the heart of all knowledge is inherent, genetic, natural.  In venerating books and authors we're in danger of missing the wood for the trees, of losing our own knack - unless, paradoxically, that happens to be for writing.  An anti-intellectual corrective, Tao style. Although the book pile right now looks like it could easily be set ablaze, Chuang, I think I'll keep them intact, they look nice - and sediment eventually becomes stone.