Sunday, August 27, 2017

Hermetic Lessons - Light




- Importance of reflex and memory, learning to think with your spine, ''catching the ball'' and the problems with ''lust for result''.  Effectively this is about staying ''in the moment'' but in a reflexive way like when you catch a ball without thinking about it.  Later on this becomes important because all mental processes and knowledge need to be accessed in the moment and reflexively because you can't google stuff about the spirits while you are in astral contact.  I find that students generally have a great problem with memorizing the basic concepts - what the planets do, which one rules which signs, etc.  It is work and it has to be done.



- Hyperspheres, 3-spheres, when discussing spheres of consciousness i.e. physical reach/touch, sense perception and thought we have to be aware that what our 5D ''cell'' really is is ''blobby'' as opposed to spherical, the membrane shifting constantly, and that their sphere is not only in apparent motion constantly through the various rotations of the earth but also our own movements.

- Thought is more like fluid; although in creating the sensation of perception we appear to be surrounded by the atmosphere and other physical objects since all these senses are actually constructed out of ''thought'' the true nature of our surroundings is more like a viscous fluid - this will probably occur on astral at some point

- Lucid Dreaming - when talking about lucid dreaming this is background work that will help facilitate astral travel later.  Various hints and tips about how to lucid dream will be shared, such as tapping the doorframe every time you pass through and asking ''am I dreaming?''

- Sleep Paralysis - although sleep paralysis is a terrifying experience I think it is essential to seek it out in the early phases as it cements important questions about the conscious experience of things and if it happens unexpectedly it can be really frightening.  We will discuss the rollover signal featured in this series of videos and talk about hypnagogic hallunications resulting from sleep paralysis versus hypnopompic hallucinations.

- Use of ''physical'' lights - here we will discuss that all light one sees is seen as mental light created as a result of the stimulus of physical light, one never sees physical light persay.  Therefore the use of candles or the rising sun as a means of stimulating the vision, while highly appropriate and effective, needs to be employed in the knowledge that one is looking at mental light.

- Astral Bodies - when teaching astral projection I will not be teaching students to imagine their astral bodies rising out of their physical bodies, this is flawed for two reasons, firstly it comes from the delusion that we are in 3d bodies with thoughts inside our heads and secondly by throwing ones perspective outside of themself it often confounds attempts to get on the astral.  Since we are already in our ''astral body'' as has been established by the prior lessons in cellular consciousness/magical anatomy we are going to start looking straight at the astral.  In this sense we have to start looking through the perceptual membrane

- Gazing, as I teach actors one can hold ones eyes in various ways states to project different states to the audience i.e. looking, seeing, remembering, reliving all involve a different position of the eyes.  One of the most important steps for effective use of the astral plane is the manner in which you should set your eyes - you have to gaze.  Practical activity: hold the eyes in the ways outlined above go through looking, seeing, remembering, reliving and then gaze.  Once everyone gets gazing then we have to close the eyes but continue to gaze, which will take another moment to adjust to.  When one closes one eyes one blots out the appearance of the physical world and is left looking at ones perceptual field from somewhere else ''inside the head''.  This often appears to be a flickering, pixelated field.  We are going to gaze at this.

- Astral Projection Lesson

 -Problems
*Egoic babble - the first stage of resistance to astral planing is egoic babble - anxiety, etc, the eyes tend to fall down in the socket and must be brought back up.  Focusing on maintaining the gazing is sufficient in itself to cut down noise
*Physical discomfort - rollover signals if trying at night, itches, back pains, etc resisting these takes a few mins of breathing and focusing on the eyes, if you ''break'' for whatever reason you adjust and try again
*Astral larvae - early phantasms as you approach the astral often taking insectoid, or snake like forms, can be filled with incredible menace - they can be ''broken'' into pixels by staring ''into'' them
*Unchecked personal distortions - seeing what you want to see, I find that in genuine astral experience beyond the gravity well of the self the visions will be crystal clear and vivid and contain some sort of discovery.  The quality of visions when you are seeing what you want to see is also much lower. 


-Successes (for the sake of these primer lessons)
*Tesselating, possibly intelligent fields of colour emerging from ''blobs''
*Visions
*Contact with entities

During the 3 month break there will be a number of tasks to complete:

a) Astrological memorization, be highly familiar with the basics of astrology/astrological symbolism
b) Actively succeed in both a restriction and an observance
c) Attempt astral projection and ''succeed'' once
d) Select Lunar deity, learn prayer to Lunar deity in as close to as possible their language
e) Use moon app and always keep eye on the moon phase

The next set of three lessons will begin with calls to the various lunar deities and be focused on memory, time and archetypes (uses thereof)

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Hermetic Lessons - Mind

  •  Magical Anatomy of the Self


  • Hologram of physical self in centre of perceptual cell, internal feelings - digestion, heart, etc
  • ''Clock-body'': head in future predicting, anticipating; torso in centre, heart, lungs, beating, breathing ''in the moment'; abdomen in past, dealing with the decisions of the moment, digesting, cleaning the blood, genitals preserving ''memory of the past''
  • Molecular developmental biology - as embryo divides it takes on characteristics of front/back, top/bottom, etc who (how is it?) decides which cell gets to be the ass? 
  • Each cell in the body contains this pefect copy of the DNA physical self in each nucleus, although cells only express some of this info and are thereby differentiated



  • Physical sensations and [sense of] physical reach is the first sphere of cellular consciousness, the ''nucleus'' which encloses the [sensation of] the physical self
  • When you feel the table, you feel the feeling of the table, this sphere of [the sense of] physical ''feeling'' is limited by the physical reach
  • [the sense of] ''Smell'' is the bridge between touch and the other senses, it is concentrated in the first sphere but can extend beyond it
  • Discuss psychometry



  • All sense objects are mental artefacts arising from [assumed] physical objects in a physical world
  • They are composed of mental light - light bulb exercise i) look into lightbulb ii) observe blob of light on retina iii) observe how it moves iv) observe how all objects are in the mind and composed of mental light v) make a general theory for what must follow
  • There is no size - [the sense of] the sense-objects are derived from one undifferentiated field of thought in the mind
  • Cytoplasm which surrounds the cell is a ''mental-fluid'' and which is occupied by ''organelles'' in the form of the sense-objects
  • Liken the sensed space to the structure of the biological cell - pointing out features of typical rooms- lighting, heat, information sources etc
  • There is no movement a) ''hamster-ball model'' the sensation of physical movement can be reversed, since the cell is fixed in the mental sphere instead of the physical body entering different physical events, in truth mental events enter the sphere of the mind b) ''fishbowl model'' instead of a current of events entering the cell, events arise from the natural currents and fluctuations within the fishbowl - a) and b) are the way in which this ''mental fluid'' of sense-experience is linked to the outer mental fluid of the larger consciousness in ''the bloodstream of time'' and the action of the ''mental fluid'' or cytoplasm within the cell
  • Discuss how this may interact with psychic powers like clairaudience, clairvoyance

  • All sense experience (the mental fluid) is contained with the larger sphere of the outermind and is ''membrane bound'' - discuss membrane of physical sensation, the reach of our senses, not being able to see through walls, the limits of senses when staring into space, extensions of those senses through telescopes, microscopes, etc
  • Our physical, egoic and sense experience of our self is occuring within the subconscious and is in fact held imobile within the subconsicous
  • Discuss implications for dreams, prophecy
Practices of Raja Yoga build up this awareness of magical anatomy starting from the sensation of the physical self and the physical will at the nucleus and build up into the fact that all being is held within the sphere of the mind.  To begin, the will is developed by a series of restrictions and observances.  This will is converted into poise through the asanas.  This poise is ''energized'' and harmonized/regularized by pranayama or right breathing/breath control.  [Apparently] external sense objects are then contemplated as mental artefacts and senses are withdrawn and trained by will.  Since physical objects are mental objects all is one in the sphere of the mind.  Experience bliss.
  • Restriction (stop yourself from doing certain things - i.e. eating meat, lying, playing)
  • Observance (make yourself do things - i.e.  keeping clean/organized, studying)
  • Poise (diet + fitness + yoga practice = poise)
  • Breathe (breath control, nervous cleaning)
  • Sense Objects + Mind (observe world as sense objects not physical objects)
  • Meditation (observe how you own mind infuses all sense objects)
  • All Mind
  • Bliss
n.b. The use of spheres here will be corrected here and in subsequent lessons as spheres represent a misconception.  The correct term is hyperspheres - 4spheres, or 5 spheres/ ''glomes''. Spheres are only a way into hyperspheres.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Hermetic Lessons - Maps



I am teaching a three part course at the moment - three 45min lessons for a small group of relative beginners on a) maps b) mind and c) light.  The practical sides of the course are a) qabalah b) raja yoga and c) astral projection.  My students are all intellectual, have had some spiritual experiences and have a shared complaint about the difficulties of making any headway due to the sheer amount of information on these mixed subjects and the impossibility of making choices.  In describing the lesson I will be as succinct as possible and if you want to use this plan feel free to adapt.

(5mins) Draw map of the earth free hand
 
(5 mins) Draw timemap of human civilization 

(5mins) Discuss results.  Point out eurocentrism of the maps that students have drawn.  Use globe to show that effectively half of the planet is blue so they have only drawn half the planet.  Point out terra centrism. 



(5 mins) Using the results discuss usefulness and limitations of map(s) and shared language.

(20 mins) Dimensions - lecture and Q/A, elicit answers where possible

- Discuss physical and connotative meanings for the 5 dimensions

  • East - Sunrise, hope, rebirth, awaking
  • West - Sunset, end of things, dreams, sleeping
  • North - cold, contract
  • South - warmth, expand

- If we continue north in a straight line and not follow the curvature of the earth we would head into space.  At what point do the spatial directions lose their meaning in infinity?  If the universe is finite what happens to that line?  If the universe is infinite what happens to that line?

- Point out the usefulness of a certain kind of ''geocentrism'' that puts you in the middle of the dimensions.

- What does it mean if someone is ''warm'' or ''cold''?  The connotative meanings are important and will make sense of the Tree of Life as you look at it later for it is not only a map of space/time but it also a map of the psyche.* 

- Magnetite - studies have shown humans have magnetite in their brain in the same way other animals do who use it to navigate.  What would be the effect of calibrating the organism by spending some time in the north-south, east-west position meditating?  What ''powers'' could we have from the magnetite that animals have that our egoes drown out with their incessant noise about shoe shopping, etc?  If such powers are working unconsciously anyway then would our calibration have the effect of helping us to hear them?

- Use the location of the Pacific ocean to make points about the cultures of California and Japan.  If we suggest that the Pacific Ocean is like the unconscious mind of the Earth what does this say about those two places?  Do other parts of the world fill roles like this or not?  What does this say about the dimensions?  How useful is this idea what are the limitations/dangers?

  • Up - out, rise, lift, ascent, superior
  • Down - in, falling, descent, drop, inferior
- There is no such thing as a precise up and down they are more like in and out from our position in space.

- Why is the ''Fall'' bad, why is ''Down'' bad?  Side discussion on why down would be considered bad from the view point of evolutionary ancestors - down would indicate a journey to the jungle/forest floor with all the predators etc that this involves, falling would be bad in case the monkey breaks a limb.  Ask students to think about other evolutionarily built-in responses to dimensions as they continue to reflect.

- Point out that science as a rule tends to ''look down'' on things and break them into smaller parts in order to understand and that art/architecture as a rule tends to ''build up'' from smaller things to make larger creative structures.**

  • Good - nutrition, excellence/virtue
  • Evil  - poison, ineptitude/lack of skill 
  • Past - birth
  • Future - death

- Move students away from purely ethical understanding of the terms good and evil by asking them to think about what good and evil mean in art and what good and evil mean to a bacteria - think about our own instinctive reponses to eating vomit.  What is bad art? In general terms discuss at what point all dimensions either reverse in their meaning i.e. when does too much nutrition become ''bad'', when does too much warmth become ''bad''?



- (5 mins) Introduce students to sphere of the mind.  Ask students to meditate on the dimensions and insist that this should be pushed to the point where it becomes disorientating.


 
H/W - learn traditional order for elements, planets and zodiac signs

Notes for next lesson - discuss dangers of spheres in thinking

*For instance our Sefirah of Love and Compassion would be Warm and our Sefirah of Judgement/Fear/Strength would be Cold.
**This ties into an understanding of Hod and Netzach later on.