TriumphantGeorge Compendium - Part 26

POST: So I've been doing the first exercise in Undoing Yourself and got some unexpected results.

Also recommend the (free) Jack Willis book, Reichian Therapy: For Home Use [https://autonomousterrace.wordpress.com/2014/07/01/jack-willis-reichian-therapy-the-technique-for-home-use/]. Willis worked with Hyatt and his book is basically a more efficient and structured version of the Hyatt approach, without all the nonsense (fun though that is to read). I think there was some disagreement between Hyatt and Willis about ownership of the material at one point, circa New Falcon Press early days. But anyway, the book is worth checking out for 'another take' that is a bit less cavalier. It's also much clearer on the caution and staging one should take.

Q1: TrimphantGeorge that link is fantastic. Would you by any chance know of a counterpart for Feldenkrais- or Hanna-style body work?

Glad it's of use! :-)

On the bodywork front, after being through the various kinds, I'm down to recommending How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live by Missy Vineyard, because I think it (almost accidentally) gets to the heart of what it's actually all about - it's not quite the usual Alexander Technique really. When she discusses waiting and allowing movement to happen, she's basically writing the book I will never write. :-)

There are also a few good articles over at [learningmethods.com] (an offshoot of Alexander Technique), particularly one called Confessions of a Do-er. You might also find this post what I wrote interesting [Overwriting Yourself], if you read it bearing in mind that throughout it I am referring to our "perceptual, experiential space" and I've just adjusted the language for the theme of the subreddit. I really believe that overwriting yourself with open, attentive space (or switching perspective to "become the surrounding space" and "allowing"), then not interfering subsequently, is the way forward for The Big Results for a wide audience. Bodywork is really mind-work; the transformation or dissolution of persistent perceptual patterns in the space you perceive around and within you. In short: The trick is to realise that you are basically only ever experiencing your 'mind-space' and your body responds to that; clearing out that space is the secret to improvement.

EDIT: I also really like Andre Bernard's book, Ideokinesis. It's the one that made me think about body and movement in a different way. There, that's all that off my chest.

...

Journal over your week break, like when ever you can and esp when you don't feel like it.

Did you really just suggest he uses ESP when he doesn't feel like journaling? People here are more advanced than I thought! ;-)

POST: People who have prescient dreams: have you ever been able to change what actually ends up happening?

You might be interested in reading Ian Wilson's Theory of Precognitive Dreams [https://web.archive.org/web/20160213215851/http://www.youaredreaming.org/assets/pdf/Theory_Of_Precognitive_Dreams.pdf]. In it, as well as theorising, he has examples of having had lucid precognitive dreams and making changes in the dream that later came true. It seems to me that he edited the moment before it arose. My theory, then:

  • Your timeline is already set out. You are simply traversing it, unfolding it into sensory experience moment by moment.
  • However, that doesn't mean it can't be changed.
  • Any moment we are experiencing, we can interfere with via action. However, present moment actions don't necessarily affect the future very much unless they are accompanied by the intention to do so. Doing this - an action accompanied by an intention towards a result - you should be able to have some effect.
  • In a precognitive dream though, you are actually directly experiencing that moment as it will arise in the future. Therefore, you can interact with the moment and change it, while in the dream! This direct interaction with the moment will be far more effective than performing actions in days prior to this moment.

Which suggests an powerful approach for derailing the outcome once you've had the dream, because if you don't happen to be lucid during the precognitive dream, you could still access it later. Settling down and relaxingdeeply, disconnect from the surrounding time, and "ask/summon" (not deliberately generate) the moment in question back into awareness...

All time is available here and now; it is dissolved into the background of the experience you are having as you read this.

POST: How does one eat a servitor/egregore/sigil?

A1: With some fava beans and a nice chianti?

I wonder how many other people had that as their first thought when they saw the title? You should have added "First!"

POST: Trying the quarter experiment from Prometheus Rising with no success. Help!

This is highly dependent on people dropping change (and not bothering to pick it up).

From a "magickal" worldview, the people dropping stuff is part of the intention and takes care of itself (the plausible story for why the coin is there doesn't matter). From a "perception and attention" worldview, all you're doing is programming your attention to be on the lookout and spot what is already there. Thing is, you can't tell the difference between the two.

While living in England I had no luck with this experiment either. Never found a single quarter...

Sure you did...

Alt Tag

...it's just that things don't always play out literally with magick on da street.

What is your visualization technique? How are you charging the sigils?

Curious: When you visualise yourself walking down the street, are you seeing you from outside, or are you looking out of your eyes? Do you imagine that you are feeling happy, or do you actually feel the happiness? When you are later walking about, are you deliberately keeping an eye out, checking if it's working, or have you let go and are allowing the world to "come to you"?

Q1: I visualize myself from a third-person point of view. I try to actually feel the happiness to the best of my ability. I also am on the look out. I've been going on walks specifically for this experiment. You know, the whole "buy the ticket, take the ride" thing. I walk through parking lots to get various buildings, but other than that I very rarely walk on paved roads. And for the first part of the experiment RAW instructs to continue to visualize yourself finding quarter as you walk. So, that's what I've been trying to do.

What you did is the natural instinct and you're spot on about generating the feeling. But you will have much better success if you think of it a bit differently: think of it as "programming an experience into the world". Like you were inserting future moments into the timeline of the universe. So, what experience are you wanting? Well, of walking along a path and seeing a coin and feeling excited and picking it up and enjoying the event. This experience will take place in the 1st person, so imagine it in the 1st person as if you were actually having the experience. Another good practice is to summon the feeling of knowing-for-certain that something is going to happen. Doing this, you can let the experience come to you. It's a bit like the Neville Goddard approach of "summoning the feeling of the wish fulfilled" - producing the experience you're going to have internally so that it emerges externally. Focusing on producing the feeling in the 1st person is the important bit.

...

So if a person is raped, it's because they believed it would happen?

He didn't say that, surely you know this? There's a difference between believing something will happen and believing that something is possible (or having beliefs that leave the door open to it happening). OP is supposedly intending to find the quarter. If that intention doesn't work out, then according to the perspective of magick thaat's because didn't truly believe and expect - ie. feel-know - it would happen. Meanwhile, nobody (hopefully) intends to get raped. It is within the range of possible events of course - otherwise it would not happen at all, by definition - but it is not an actively-selected event. In other words, it is not the victim's fault. What the commenter is getting at is that magick is about creating specific facts. So if something you are specifically targeting doesn't work out, it's because you failed to create the fact. It is always the mage's fault (if you go with this). The opposite of the situation in science:

In Science the theories are imperfect, and are constantly being revised. In Magic, however, they are perfect and untouchable.
On the other hand, in Science it is assumed that the operator (ie the Scientist) is perfect whereas in Magic the operator is imperfect and himself in need of improvement.

-- SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic, Ramsay Dukes

Sorry for the mini-rant but the whole "bad things happen because you made them happen" comes up now and again... :-)

His point was more subtle, I think. And if it wasn't, then it should have been - because the underlying idea doesn't say what you are suggesting it does: people are responsible for the bad things that happen to them. I'm sure you wouldn't disagree, though, that people can - within the bounds of their knowledge - take action to minimise the probability of a bad thing happening?

Fine let me rephrase. If you get raped it's because you didn't believe you were rape proof. Believe hard enough and you are completely safe.

Is it your fault if you get shot by a gunman in the street, because you didn't wear a bullet proof vest?

Perhaps there are magickal approaches which can insulate you from particular events. Is it your "fault" if you don't know about them, or if you do don't enact them "just in case"? No. "Fault" implies a direct causality between an action and inaction and a future event. That doesn't apply here. Not wearing a bullet-proof vest does not cause you to get shot; not adopting a particular belief does not cause you to get physically abused.

Btw science does not involve assuming a scientist is perfect, it's cute that you think that.

That's not what the quote is getting at. It's contrasting the two worldviews:

  • Science is about refining a theory to match observations which are assumed to be observer-independent. In other words the operator is not, by his disposition, affecting the observation. If the results aren't as expected, it is the theory that is at fault (and needs to be amended). It's in this sense that the operator, the scientist, is "perfect". His internal commitment is not seen as affecting the outcome.
  • Magick, in contrast, is all about the operator and the extent to which he has adopted, aligned himself with, a particular theory. If the results aren't as expected, it is the operator's alignment that is at fault (and needs to be amended). His internal commitment does affect the outcome.

If the theories of magic were perfect, they would never change or have different methods.

That's like saying that if the theory of Newtonian mechanics was perfect, every sports player would hit his target, 100% of the time. Now potentially, if a sportsman could align his mind perfectly to the structure of his body, then perhaps he could. Magick is like aligning your mind to a structure, a conceptual framework, you have arbitrarily chosen. You get to "choose your body" and then try and align with it. In other words: The basis of magick is that it doesn't really have a particular causal framework underlying it, but if you are working with a specific framework, then you have to commit to it and abide by its (arbitrary) rules.

You are just arrogant if you believe your way of thinking is perfect, and even more arrogant for assigning your attitude to science when science isn't the system claiming to be perfect.

I think I've cleared up the science thing, right?

And thinking, or a conceptual framework, just is what it is. Perfect relative to what? If it gets results, then it is "right" within its context. It's not a personal thing; you can't be arrogant about such a self-evident principle - i.e. that what works, works, and if something doesn't work, you make a change. The difference between magick and science is, they have a different view about where that change needs to be made.

People doing things to change their odds is not the same as saying that believing you are safe makes you safe.

"Changing your odds" is only a particular type of magick, one using a conceptual framework based on the idea of probabilities. This is quite a recent thing, when people tried to make it more "science-y" and minimise the "miraculous". Other forms of magick don't bind themselves to that sort of structure.

It's not required or even recommended that you assume a person is perfect or that you are not affecting the experiment.

You don't seem to have understood what I said: here, "perfect" is meant in the sense of being a "perfect observer", whose attitudes don't interfere with the results. And physics, for instance, does indeed assume that the attitudes and beliefs of the operator has no effect on the outcome of an experiment. They are "perfect" in the same way we assume that a sphere is a "perfect sphere" and so on - "theoretically ideal".

(Of course, we factor in the possibility of cognitive bias and so on, and are careful with our statistical methods, but that's a different issue. That's not direct influence via imagination, say.)

That's what I mean by you running your ignorant fucking mouth like every other leach who bashes science because they think it's evil skepticism.

I'm not bashing science at all (I used to be in the business). It's a great way to build up observations of the most common stable habits of the world and connect them with concepts, to build theories which let us make reliable predictions and develop technologies. I'm just describing its approach and contrasting it with the approach magick takes. The two things aren't in opposition; there's no competition. Physics, say, deals with "observable regularities", magick deals with the other stuff, both are a subset of human perception and thought (however that works).

Keep defending him. You have proven that you run your mouth about shit you don't understand like every other brain dead privileged piece of shit.

That's not a very nice way to talk. Is that how you usually approach getting your point across? You've basically read into the comment what you wanted to read, so that you could go all emotional on some straw-man argument that nobody was making, revealing your ignorance of science, magick, logic and humanity along the way. A reasonable person, in your position, would PM him and apologise for their behaviour, and admit you were just venting. The alternative is that you really are like the person you are coming across as - which would be horrific if true, so I'm sure it isn't the case, right?

"Physics" doesn't assume anything.

Of course it does. It has some fundamental assumptions - the main ones being "the world is made of parts" and "change occurs via direct interaction between parts" - and then layers of the stuff behind every experiment.

Are you just going to make shit up to defend a guy who has a holocaust pun as a username?

I"m not defending the guy really, although I think your language is well out of order. This started because you trotted out the old "this viewpoint means that rape victims are to blame for their abuse" trope, when it really doesn't. There is definitely a good discussion to be had on the underlying idea of "to what extent does belief influence experience, and in what way", but by jumping to an emotive and extreme position, you make that impossible.

Yes this is who I am. Horrible I know. It's your fault for believing I would say those things.

That's a nice line! But it's more accurate to say: My worldview allows for the possibility of aggressive, sweary redditors to wind me up using straw-men arguments and confused reasoning. ;-)

Anyway, I gotta say that I think the word "belief" is misleading and pretty useless when talking about this stuff. The word "belief" in everyday life is used as if it means "when I think about it I kinda think this is true", whereas in magick it's more like "I feel-know this actually is true". It's a total certainty, a definite expectation, not an opinion or a viewpoint.

Q2: That's an assumption possibly made by physicists and even then it's an over simplification. Physics itself makes no assumptions just like my shoe makes n-

Hi, I don't think this is going anywhere useful, although I think it could have (because you brought up a couple of interesting angles along the way, in among the abuse). I wasn't defending the guy really, it was the position I was defending. I see it's all got very messy while I've been away though! Let's just wrap it up now, yeah? Take it easy.

Q2: Saying you didn't defend him doesn't mak-

I guess it's just my tough gig, always seeing the best in everyone! ;-)

Should we blame people when the placebo effect doesn't... have an effect?

No, we shouldn't. That was my point, remember?

My take on our commenter was that he was being flippant and jokey while you went straight into serious reactive mode with a pretty sweeping statement that misrepresents the idea behind this. Which quickly turned into some big exchange. After all, OP was about finding coins...

Anyway - how do you think it works? The relationship between belief and magick?

I didn't believe my first sigils would work yet I got some bizarre effects. Doesn't seem like that should happen if it was purely belief.

Right, that's why maybe "belief" isn't a great word for this. In this usage, it's actually more like "not getting in the way". It's probably become a bit confused because, if you really believe something then you won't obstruct it, and that is necessary for magick. But it isn't the belief that's causing the magick; it's just that believing means you don't interfere with the process by blocking it. But this is where another confusion comes in - because again, "believing" and "knowing" get mixed up as the name for that sensation. A further twist is that people confuse "believing" with their "intending".

If I had to guess why magic works, I think a trance state brings the person to a place where they can project a pure mental concept for the aether to latch onto or fall into the form of.

Yeah. I think of it as accessing the facts-of-the-world, which are always available if you quieten down, and making changes by intention. When you do that fully, you know that it's a fact. Magick is better described, maybe:

  • Intending an outcome = adjusting the "future facts" of the world = "knowing" the event will occur

(This being achieved while being in a state where your attention is deeper and expanded into the background of experience, rather than focussed on the present moment sensory experience.)

I always tried putting myself in the present rather than the past or future...

I've been experimenting thinking about it a particular way, just as a metaphor to work with. (Actually there's two, this and another one based on updating "facts", but they're kinda the same.) See what you think:

Think of your whole timeline, all moments, as already existing. It is always there, sort of dissolved into the background of the experience you're having now. The current experience is just one moment, sort of "unpacked into your senses". If you don't interfere at all, you'll experience one moment after the other, just as it is on the timeline. However, by applying intention you can change the contents of a particular moment. If you make a change to the moment you are experiencing, you call it just "doing stuff". If you make a change to another moment, that's "magick". When you quieten down, you are getting more in touch with the full timeline. All intentions always have an effect on the entire timeline, but the more connected you are to the background timeline in the same way you experience the present, the stronger the effect will be, and the easier change will come. Beliefs which oppose the change, or any attempt to force an update, will get in the way of you intentions re-shaping the timeline contents.

Does that makes sense? The conclusion is then:

  • The world is like a memory, a world timeline containing all moments.
  • An experience is like accessing a particular moment with the attention and the senses.
  • Magick is about updating a particular moment, at which point the whole world timeline falls into line.
  • Importantly: Your personal memory can be different from the world timeline, because the world timeline cannot "remember" what it used to be like before it was updated.

Q2: That's an interesting way to see it. Our perceptions seem just as flawed as our memories so it makes sense to kind of rework the time line to adjust things. Your practice sounds similar to how Dr . Manhattan perceives time. The future is in a sense already happening or happened but there are an infinite number of futures for every possible change made here in the present. Change the course of the puck slightly from the other end of the field rather than having to change it's path massively right before it hits the goal. I've been thinking of the future in a new way. I imagine a constantly changing potential future being massively effected by any choice made in the present. If you want to imagine yourself big and strong in the future, take working out seriously in the present. So many of us do the opposite. We lazily do the bare minimum at a job we hare while imagining a better future instead of working hard to make that future more likely.

Interesting comparison with the Dr Manhattan view! And you're right it's similar (all possibilities are available). Hopefully doing this won't affect my skin colour...

I'm taking the approach these days that any metaphor can be used, because there is no genuine underlying solidity to experience, just patterns (albeit stable patterns that let us exist). So apart from "editing moments of a timeline", I also view it as editing more general facts of the world. There's an old Philip K Dick short story called The Electric Ant where - SPOILERS - a guy discovers he has a 'reality tape' inside him which controls his experience. He edits the tape to see what happens. Which is a way of visualising what we are trying to do when using magick: edit the facts of experience.

I imagine a constantly changing potential future being massively effected by any choice made in the present.

Right, like holding onto the end of a stick and making a slight movement, the other end swing widely; time's passage is a multiplier.

So many of us do the opposite.

Yes, I think we fail to fully commit! You can't just do nothing. At the very least, you have to be focused. The focus can be more important than the actual action. (Even in general life, without intention activity doesn't built up to produce results.)

It's possible to generate amazing results which are just incredibly unlikely and without struggle, but you have to create a "reason" for them to happen. It is usually very hard for people to get strong effects if they haven't provided some route for the result to be "explained away". That's where "coincidences" come in.

... the easiest path may involve tragedy.

Good point - I think you can have almost anything happen, but if you don't specify the route you can't tell the impact. Looping back: it can take any route you would accept as plausible. Which is why people add a "no harm" bit to their workings I guess.

Fire is like a time virus that spreads through the physical world.

That's a really nice bit of imagery! It has time as a "thing" - an element and a pattern in its own right, rather than just a dimension - and so other "elements" can affect it. It's amazing how imagery like that is so much more vivid than most concepts or theories. There's something "alive" about seeing the world in those ways. (Which I think makes it quite a powerful thing in magick.)

Q2: I agree. Saying "time is relative" held no meaning for me until I got a visual representation of time and space. I wonder about tempature. If fire is extreme time, does heat and cold affect time? Silly question I know, a cold clock probably moves like a warm one but cold tends to slow down particles while heat speeds them up and allows change to happen more quickly.

Well, it's not so daft when you put it like that. If time is change, and change is identified by comparing one movement to another, then a hot clock really is faster than a slow one. What matters is which one you choose as your "standard time measure". Just like how the standard kilogram measure is defined as the mass of the international prototype [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram#International_prototype_kilogram]. It's the relative mass as compared with this that matters in measurement, rather than the absolute mass of this object.

[QUOTE]

Kilogram
The kilogram (also spelled kilogramme) is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand grams. It has the unit symbol kg. The word "kilogram" is formed from the combination of the metric prefix kilo- (meaning one thousand) and gram; it is colloquially shortened to "kilo" (plural "kilos").

[END OF QUOTE]

Q2: I didn't know that about the kilogram, that's pretty weird. I guess I never tried sticking a clock in the freezer and leaving another one in the sun or anything but now I am curious. Who knows, I'm sure whoever first thought to try putting an atomic clock in space and keeping one on the ground was a completely nutty idea. If anything mine is less nuts because it doesn't require massive amounts of money and risk of human life. I would need an atomic clock though, or whatever it was.

I think probably an atomic clock wouldn't be changed, because the effect it relies upon is below the level of "particles" - it depends on atoms decaying from one state to another, whereas temperature is (loosely) movement of atoms as a whole. But as a way of illustrating the point, having two mechanical clocks or watches, synchronising them, and putting one in a (dry) freezer and the other somewhere warm - and then the are different times one hour later, is its own type of crazy. If someone from "olden times" saw that, they would think it was magic and that one had lost time or whatever. Like the (probably) urban myth about people rioting when Britain did its calendar switch in the 1700s. I suppose a broader point is that you are your standard measure of things that happen. You experience things by comparing them to yourself (your own sense of time, hot, cold, all that - even moods or emotions). Which is a bit like George Berkeley's idealism where everything appears in your mind and so is relative to it.

Q2: That's an interesting point. The whole idea of personal perception of time is a whole new field of possibility.

Right, we think about time theoretically and discuss it, but we tend to not really ponder it as an experience. I actually think that the 'little theories' we adopt about things, intentionally or not, do directly influence our perception. Which is really a form of magick of course - adopting a new way of thinking about things, and then seeing that it changes your daily life.

Q2: That's like what Jadon Louv said on the Duncan Trussel show. Don't try to change the waterdrops, change the fountainhead. By changing ourselves we change our perceptions, actions, then reality. It starts with a trance, kind of like the word transformation (phonetically) which seems to have the steps to performing the act within the word. Enter a trance, put your thoughts, beliefs, or whatever is "you" into a new formation.

That's a nice observation, on "transformation". Reminds me of this good book with a terrible cover.

Alt Tag Trance-Formations: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Structure of Hypnosis

Q2: I may have to check that out. I love the neuro linguistics stuff.

Right, if you are then that's probably worth your while. The later stuff is pretty compromised, being pseudo-marketing after the originators, Bandler and Grinder, split and Bandler took over the NLP name. The best is the early stuff on Milton Erickson's hypnosis techniques. Check out Patterns Vol I. (They never did make a Patterns II as far as I know.)

Q2: Oh wow, thanks. Love the free ebooks right now since I'm broke.

This one's really good.

Q2: Can't wait. Still need to finish liber null and initiation into hermetics.

Good also. Final recommendation since I've just been rereading it: SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic by Ramsay Dukes. It predates the Chaos Magick stuff, and is basically the foundation that kick-started the late-20th wave of magick.

POST: [deleted by user]

The format of your mind dictates, shapes or is, the format of your experiences. If you just accept "reality" then what you're really doing is accepting the current state of your mind. Is the current state of your mind particularly special, holy, is it the ultimate state to be left as it is? Surely not. It's accidental. You didn't consciously choose it; you bumbled into it most likely. The two ways to reformat your mind are (kinda the same thing):

  • Indirect - Perform actions which result in experiences which leave traces in your mind, leading got more of the same form of experiences (events, actions and thoughts).
  • Direct - Use your imagination to leave traces in your mind, leading to more of the same form of experiences (events, actions and thoughts).

So to a minor extent, you are always using magick anyway, because that's how mind-world works. Your choice isn't whether to use it or not, your choice is whether to do so knowingly. Beliefs, meanwhile, are just ingrained patterns or channels in mind. They are not an "illusion" they are just not independently true of the present format of mind.

POST: OK I'm a Cliche, but how to find "it", that "proof" of the occult whether physical, mental, spiritual!

You know, I'm still actually not sure what you're after here?

...Well, it doesn't work like that. This isn't physics - where you look for observed regularities and construct a theory. It's the mind, observed by the mind, as formed by the mind. Any viewpoint that you commit to will start to shape your experience into that form, passively. It'll just happen. If you don't commit to any one outlook, that won't happen. You'll get glimmers of "alignment" wherever you seek. If you start thinking of the world in a certain way and fully absorb that, you'll start to experience the world in that way. And it will be impossible to say whether that is how the world "really, really works" because: a) you have no access to an external, causal reality, meaning: b) there is effectively no such thing. Your "world" is the regularities of your experience. Your experience is made from mind. The format of your mind therefore in-forms your experiences. Looking for proof is like looking for your eyes. There is no external to your experience.

TL;DR: You will be wandering aimlessly until you commit to a particular worldview - i.e. adopt a particular mind format - kinda by definition.

POST: Help with Visualization

I think...

For most magick, it doesn't necessarily matter that you literally 'see' something; visualisation is more about summoning the 'experience' = the feeling of it. Maybe you're just not that visual; it won't necessarily inhibit your success.

  • Visualisation =/= literally seeing

Conceptualising with feeling will work, so long as it's the conceptualisation of something being present, now. If you do want to see things though, try switching from trying to make the image happen, to asking and receiving. Just as you 'receive' the image of the room around you, 'receive' the pink elephant. It's also worth noting where you are letting your attention sit - where you are 'looking out from'. Being too far back or forward in your head space can mean you tend to think-about or force more than you should. (See here [http://www.reptilianagenda.com/brain/br121804d.shtml].) That'll help you go into 'receiving mode'.

That link is really interesting being that I have poor eyesight for things far away (I think it's called myopia) and I also have double vision (although I can sorta control it). I think I'm pretty much mostly in my head so I'll work on changing that. Thanks for the advice!

Great. It does work - you'll find you kinda feel yourself "expand out" into the world again, like a perspective change. You might resist it a little at first though (sometimes there's a reason you went 'into your head' in the first place) but then it's okay. Good luck!

POST: Stuart Hameroff explains his position on consciousness.

My best-attempt transcript:

But let's talk about Freud's drives, id, dreams, all that stuff. I think all that's embedded in memory and manifests as quantum information.
In fact I think dreams are quantum information - and I've written a paper about that. You know, dreams: time is all screwed up, there's really no flow of time. You have multiple coexisting possibilities; the logic is backwards. There's all kinds of bizarre things in dreams, which match very much quantum information.
So I think the subconscious in the Freudian sense is quantum information that hasn't reached collapse. If it reaches collapse you have a conscious moment. So there's all this stuff going on at the quantum level in the brain that may not reach consciousness but is still actually influencing our actions in ways that we don't appreciate or are very subtle.

It's actually pretty hard to extract a transcript that keeps the sense of meaning and tone while skipping out the "blurs" and mis-vocalisations, but I think that captures it. I think you pretty much nailed the meaning in your little edit?

I appreciate this thread of conversation, but I'm not sure why it's necessary to delve into this one statement so deeply.

Actually, I just transcribed that as an exercise in a bored moment. The point about traces informing the direction of experience is key though, archetypes on olden-speak, and joins dream-like and waking-type experience. Occult partitioners needn't rely on repeatable science, but I think that metaphysics can be fundamentally useful + personal investigation (such as this [https://batgap.com/rupert-spira-2nd-interview/], for a good recent example). Anything that can help built the 3rd-person to 1st-person bridge is a good development, I think.

EDIT: I'll add that it seems obvious to me that the brain/mind (3rd person/1st person view) does not compute. It is entirely memory-based. Experiences arise, traces are left, patterns are activated, deepening those patterns, in-forming the shape of subsequent experiences, and so on. Furthermore, I don't believe consciousness "arises" from anything. Patterns of experience or "self" awareness (awareness-of) may take the form of folds and ripples, say, but awareness itself is fundamental.

POST: Does reading other people's theory matter when working on chaos magick?

No, unless you have absorbed and believed them. Your assumptions will limit the routes by which your results can occur. Use anything you like for inspiration, but they don't "matter" in a more general sense.

Art is theft.

While thieving is an art. Oh, conundrum!

POST: Why should I give a damn?

Q1: Why are you interested in occult topics?

Q2: Simply put I wish to create my own utopia. I want a world unto myself where I can live in omnipitence and freedom. I dont want to be absorbed into a collective Hive mind where I am merely a cog in the machine. Im interested in iccult because it seems to be the best way to achieve my ends.

Sounds more like a job for lucid dreaming universes [http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-control/46571-infinite-universes-lucid-dreaming.html].

But I don't think you are a cog in a machine, part of a hive mind. That's not where this ends up. Where it goes is: You realise you're not really a person, you are just experiencing through a particular perspective. Your thoughts and body sensations aren't yours, you are beyond that. Basically, a confusion gets cleared up. You don't kill the ego, you just realise that it amounts to a bunch of thoughts and nothing much else. You're still "you", but now you know what "you" really is. You don't get absorbed and dissolved; you just "get it". It' like you've been looking at a photograph of someone, mistaking the image for yourself. Suddenly you realise that it's just a picture, and that you're not that person after all! The photograph doesn't dissolve or burn, it's still there whenever you want it.

TL;DR: You don't have a choice. You already are this "higher self" or whatever you want to call it. Just like watching a film about WW2 tank commanders doesn't mean you stop being some bloke in a movie theatre, no matter how absorbed and lost in the story you become.

Q2: Im ok with being A god but not so much being God. If all I am is a part of one beings clockwork then id rather not exist. As for infinite power last I checked I couldnt shoot lightning from my fingers.

OP wants to become a cancer in God's infinite body.

Q2: Nay i wish to be entirely seprate from god. I do not seek to fight it or killit i seek to exist outside of it.

That's gonna be tricky, if it turns out to be you or inside you. God is not a "thing".

Q2: Lets break this down simply. I have a one complete and total purpose in life. To be free and independent. God is an obstacle to that goal. I seek a way to overcome that obstacle. If I cannot then my purpose is meaningless therefore I am meaningless. My only true goal is freedom and lndependence. Having nothing control me except me and I will attempt to do this by any means. If this means becoming a cancer then i will become a cancer. If it means I have to kill god then thats what I will do. I would rather.not exist than be a mere part of something else. I have no interest in my "true self" for I am my ego. The Ego is me. If the Ego dies so do I.

To be free and independent.

Of what? To do what?

Your "Ego" is just a bunch of thoughts which appear from time to time. You are no more "the Ego" than you are the memory of last night's dinner. So no need to worry about that. This whole "God" thing is nothing to worry about either - assuming you don't really believe in a "Sky Fairy" that can wield some sort of influence over you, or some other entity that's sort-of-like-a-person but more powerful than everyone else.

Having nothing control me except me and I will attempt to do this by any means.

Sounds good. So, the "Ego" and "God" aren't a problem. Which means that, provided you're happy operating within the confines of the character traits you've arbitrarily (but transparently) inherited by birth, upbringing, culture, the larger environment and the human experience - you're all set!

Q2: its not a matter of I wish to rule this world. That isnt my wish at all. I want nothing to do with God I find him to be an asshole from what I have read. I want my own place. A place where I have omnipotence not to rule people but to be blissfully independent.

The problem is, you can't get away from "him", because it's not the Biblical God (as an "entity") you have to deal with. What you're stuck with, is realising you can never be independent because you are a fragment of the world: you are from it and made of it. To ask to be independent from it is like saying you want to be independent form oxygen and food and sunlight. It's what you're made from. In fact, it's worse than being a fragment of the world - eventually you realise that the world is sort of "inside you". Wanting to be independent of it is like wanting to scoop out your own lungs so you don't have to put up with that annoying "inhalation" sound anymore. Overall, you might find that it's better to examine your breathing technique instead.

...

Once you've projected swinehood onto someone, your furious attempts to get them to appreciate your oh so pretty pearls of wisdom are both vain and self debasing.

Saved!

POST: Ask r/occult: What are your powers/ gifts/ talents when it comes to the occult. What is your area of expertise?

Q1: I have none, does that make me weak? Doubtless the spiritual lightning bolts you can probably shoot from your hands would overwhelm me.

Q2: No it makes you realistic. You don't have to summon "demons" to be an occultist; you just have to slowly but surely be finding your own code of honor and living by it, hard as that might be.

Okay, but getting stuff done, or direct understanding, is surely the driver?

Q3: I am 5 years into advanced spirituality and one of the most important lessons which has been given to me is not to brag in public about my gifts. I certainly thought this was a universal understanding after the trials and tribulations one faces through the narrow road to freedom and liberation. If you can talk about it with no backlash; cool.

The law of silence. There is an issue with "conceptual momentum", where being in the company of people who actively doubt you seems to have an effect (but perhaps simply by seeding doubt within yourself).

Q4: I think it also has a lot to do with Irony.

Want to expand on that?

Q4: Not really. :)

Oh the irony. ;-)

...

...only to come back with an answer that transcends what I understand about the subject.

That's completely how it seems to work. Pose the question, set the goal, let the mind (and world) get on with it on your behalf - the answer comes back to you when it's ready. The more you try and force a route by which the solution appears - say, by making the answer come to you step by step via logical thinking, or demanding that it has to be a voice in your head rather than a rare TV show repeat you come across while channel-surfing - the longer the timeframe or more limited the return.

POST: Stories of Sexual Conquest via Magick

A1: I've used a glamour before. It works very well, and doesn't require conscious will. How long it lasts seems arbitrary though. I had one last a day, and then I've had the current one on for. . . I don't even remember. Point is, even if the spell doesn't work, it doesn't backfire. Total confidence booster.
Edit: To be clear, I didn't use this to get laid. I just used it to talk to girls when I was younger, because I was impossibly shy, and it was a massive confidence boost. Now, it's just kind a fun to work with this kind of magick.

Q1: Never heard of this can you elaborate/share more info?

A1: Never heard of a glamour? It's a spell to change, or hide your appearance. It's one of the oldest techniques out there, and "Galmour" is one of the oldest words for it. It's where we get the word Glamor, and Glamorous, in modern English. There are a few videos on youtube about them, and I'm sure you can find articles about it. Basically anything calling itself a "beauty spell," is probably a glamour. It makes you appear more attractive to people.

Hmm. Are you summoning the 'feeling of being attractive' and radiating it out, expanding yourself out - or is it something else more specific (as in, actually projecting an image). Does it require maintenance?

Not that I need it of course! ;-)

Actually, I think I've probably unwittingly harnessed something like this my whole life. Being deliberately present and expanding to become the background space/structure of the room in all directions.

A1: Sort of imagine it as. . . You know the feeling you get when you're wearing a really nice set of clothes? You get that feeling, and the confidence that goes with it, but more than that, you sort of generate this aura that makes you appear like someone who would be fun, and awesome to hang out with. You generate the subconscious signals that you might not normally put off.

Nice phrasing. "Summon the feeling", maybe? Something that's used in other approaches for other things.

A2: Cast to have sex with a specific girl. We had sex twice. Then she moved to another state and decided to adopt a male gender identity. Cast for a specific girl to fall in love with me. She did. Hard. I felt bad and cast for her to be free to make up her own mind. The next day she texted me and apologized saying she just met someone she thought she was going to marry and that we were only going to be friends. There are a few others, but those are the most noteworthy.

I love that: AesirAnatman, the love he has is so strong it turns girls into men!

Seduction is a game. Magick is violating free will so I would consider it like cheating, having an unfair advantage.

Is it violating free will? Is there not implied consent?

If someone cast a love spell on you and you hooked up with that person and then later you realized that you hate that person does that make your consent implied?

It was a question rather than an assertion. Basically, can you make me attracted to someone when I'm really not and never would be? If it works is it not by my implicit agreement by "me" or "my subconscious"? Can you really make me do something against my will?

I would say yes to that

I guess the core of my thinking is in that word: "receptive". If it's "receptive" as in being open to the suggestions that are being made (not having a problem with it) then it isn't a violation. It might be against your "will" but not against your "True Will". If it's "receptive" as in being vulnerable, then it's a problem. Practically speaking I suppose it's easy to dodge all this and include an "only if it is appropriate for the target" type clause in your spell. Because it's never going to turn out well otherwise anyway.

Well I worded it the way I did because I do know how to wipe memory and that opens up all kinds of horrible possibilities. I only tried it as proof of concept. The better I got at hypnosis the more it scared me how powerful it is.

Ah, got you. Well, I suppose it reveals how "imaginary" our worlds are. There maybe isn't a solid underlying behind anyone's experience, it's really all hypnosis and self-hypnosis. Autohypnosis was the first "magickal" thing I experimented with. It's only fairly recently that it occurred to me that it (along with dreams) is really fundamental rather than just a curiosity or a means to an end.

I believe magick to be mostly hypnosis.

Agreed. Or "whatever magick is and whatever hypnosis is have the same root", perhaps. My current little model - (indulge me! it's coffee-and-typing time on a Friday afternoon! other views appreciated!) - is that experiences leave traces, and traces inform subsequent experiences. Traces are "archetypes" or "enfolded forms" which structure the "unfolded objects" of our ongoing experience. Hypnosis and magick are the means by which we can change the "enfolded forms" directly. Our subsequent unfolded experience will then be aligned to the change.

You might call it "inserting new facts" into your world. We all have the power to do this, to ourselves and others, but most of us spend our time pissing around, looking at and trying to interact with the transparent mirages of passing unfolded objects, and never actually intend change at the level of traces/habits/beliefs. In fact, it's not a "power". Just making a decision that something is true, while getting out the way and not resisting the update, is enough. A hypnotic trace is simply a state of "not resisting the update". As is gnosis. As is faith. Amazing things can be done. But the further you want to deviate from the 'habits of the world', the more you have to let go of it - which, counterintuitively, means putting less and less effort into getting the result. Also, retaining a memory of what's happened can be a challenge - "narrative coherence" is Rule No. 1.

who or what demans narrative coherence

I think that - the story should be consistent - and persistence of the environment are the two structural foundations of perception. We basically build up habits, and focus on things that correspond to those habits. Anything else makes us feel uncomfortable - or maybe more, the mind strives to slot our experiences into those familiar channels. Probably by dissolving some of the habitual structure, or at least preparing the way for a discontinuity, it could be made easier. Or something like that! :-)

Q2: the story should be consistent
Says who? :)

Says "habits of mind"!

It needn't be, other than that. Although a bit of Reich sounds appealing.

Q2: It's more the bodily-emotional system that is easy to condition. The mind often entertains possibilities, but the somato-affective apparatus has great inertia.

I've quite liked Alexander Lowen's take on his stuff, and the Jack Willis book was interesting, but I've really not done much with it. I've been more "direct overwriting" as an approach.

...

Q3: Thanks but it's too late for me. I'm 23, never had sex (or even a kiss) and I'm extremely paranoid, partly because of people like that.
I know it's not fair, but I don't trust women after the shit I have seen some do and the kind of stuff many of them say even in front of their kids. It sickens me and really put me off of the whole relationship thing. I don't just mean magic, a woman who was still married bragging about how she "caught her man" by getting him drunk and using him to get pregnant. If it was a guy, it would be called rape but because it's a woman he must have wanted it (even passed out) and it's for his own good because men need women. Thinking about it pisses me off. Knowing that people think I'm crazy for feeling that way pisses me off even more.

Man, there are lots of people in the world, and they're all different. There's good folks too. Good folks who will like you and who you will like. A good relationship is a wonderful thing. Other people are what life's about, it turns out [1] - the rest is just a pretty backdrop. Ignore all that crap stuff, it's just news and filler, nothing to do with you.

[1] This is another way of saying, life is about consciousness, really.

...the whole ducking point here that you pricks have been teaching me is that empathy is bad and morals are bad...

Is that really true? I thought a lot of this stuff (although not this particular post maybe) is about empathy and connection and all that stuff. In fact, it the comments in this post say anything, it's that manipulation never works for happiness, there are good people, and we should find our moral compass and stick to it. (Or we'll be made to, eventually, by circumstances - in my opinion.)

Q3: Yes we all like morals, but then defend the lady bragging about making a man who left her a slave for 20 years. Again, nobody will try to touch that fact. Nobody has tried to explain how what I did is worse than that. I'm done. You people made it very clear that morals will just get me in trouble here.

Hmm, I see where you're coming from - but it's a fact that everyone makes mistakes. And it's also a fact that it's really not clear quite what's happening in these cases. No excuses, of course: the intention is what matters I'd say. Remind me what you did again?

There are no "you people"; there's just a lot of individual people (well, "we are all one" of course, but you know what I mean). So don't look at all of /r/occult the same way - more importantly, don't treat the world that way. High horses are pretty nasty things to fall from.

Q3: What I did was get mad at a woman bragging that she made a mental slave. Then she ends bby complaining that after 20 years he is now only blindly obeying half the things she says. Then another freak asked her for advice on doing the same. I know not all users are that, but a lot are. They proved that yesterday when I was hounded for saying what I said.

Ah, got ya. Things started getting lots in the comment-storm. I guess the trick is, to just skip over those ones.

...

It's just so funny when a person has an emotional re[s]ponse.

Someone get a Voight-Kampff test on this guy. Just don't ask him about his mother.

Joking aside - why so fighty? Pretty much everyone here is up for a pretty relaxed discussion, even when our opinions are totally opposite. It's about exploring ideas, rather than winning arguments or persuading others. No problem with someone thinking that something they've done in the past is morally dubious, for instance, but it needn't be so personal. Most people already know that they've "done bad" and have learned from it. Most people are just trying to find their way. Everyone goes through a control-the-world phase. Gets bitten by it. Then tries being-the-world, hopefully. Which is nicer.

Hardy har har

Yeah, sorry, you used that phrase so I couldn't resist! :-)

...

What's amusing is: you wrote your post as a bit of a troll for a laugh - but actually some of the replies are some of the most thoughtful there've been here in a while. Except for your replies. ;-)

POST: Realization about dream and reality.

I was never on fire to begin with. Guess your superpowers must not be working. Try flying yet?

The flying is easy...

In a dream certianly. He claimed it works the same in the physical reality, I just want to see that work.

...then, it's the landing that's going to be "impressive".

Ah just got that. Funny. Reminds me of that line "it ain't the fall that kills ya, it's the sudden stop on the way down

Ah, just remembered where it's from originally, for me anyway: this [http://www.extremelysmart.com/humor/howtofly.php].

POST: Something with the third eye

[POST]

So, last week I was talking to a friend and he started to talk about magick and stuff. After a few minutes of conversation he started to talk about his girlfriend. He told me that in her whole house there's many empty bottles, and that the sister of her girlfriend who's 13, washes her naked dolls everyday, like a ritual. Then, he told me that the child also see dead people, like ghosts and talk to them, help them. According him she can see the destiny and the aurea of people too and the whole family practices magick. My fear is that the girlfriend who's very depressed and a bit maniac causes anything againts him in any point of their relationship. For now her intentions are good but the future's uncertain. Anyway, does anybody knows why there's bottles, or why the child washes her naked dolls or even if all of this make sense.

[END OF POST]

Q1: Witches bottles?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_bottle]
edit
OK, so that doesn't cover why there are so MANY of them in the open and empty. But bottle based spells of a similar kind could be part of the family's practice. I have a friend who imprisoned a nasty spirit in a bottle and threw it into the sea.

[QUOTE]

Witch bottle:
Witch bottles are countermagical devices used as protection against witchcraft and conjure. They are described in historical sources in England and the United States. The first mention of a witch bottle appears in the 17th century. One of the earliest descriptions of a witch bottle in Suffolk, England, appears in 1681 in Joseph Glanvill’s Saducismus Triumphatus, or Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions:

Alt Tag

Alt Tag

[END OF QUOTE]

I'd never heard of that - fascinating.

POST: Something with the third eye

You maybe used to leave your centre of attention too close to your eyes? (How is you vision generally, by the way?) Touching your nose/forehead is encouraging you to change 'where you are looking out of' - not your focus or target of attention, but rather 'where you sit' inside yourself. This came up in another thread, but you might find it interesting: the idea of "seeing from the core" [http://www.reptilianagenda.com/brain/br121804d.shtml]. Basically, you don't see with your eyes; you see with your mind. You actually don't want to be focussed on the sensations of the eye area in general life, and definitely not when meditating or trying "other stuff".

POST: what's the most profound statement or inference you heard from someone who has no occult experience?

A1: The wisest thing that anyone can say is, "I don't know."

S'good. Basically, "if you make every act be magickal act towards your desire, your desire will surely manifest".

...

...it's almost like we form an expectation in our minds of how it's supposed to happen, or what we need to achieve it, and that sometimes this expectation is a hindrance.

The hidden structure of our minds - belief/expectation - restricts the apparent routes things can seem to take to get to us. No sudden materialisations or discontinuities! Breaking yourself down into clear openness is probably the way to get things more directly (vs the traditional route of trying to forget it so your structure doesn't get a chance to influence things).

POST: Is there any ideology/religion that you find "wrong"?

Religious organisations tend to want complete control over their followers (christianity too), but that's a matter of the nature of people, and the power that privileged positions and promoting certain 'interpretations' gives, and capitalising on the fear of the times, which then gets perpetuated. Religions themselves, the original teachings, that's a different thing.

Q: original teachings
Are a hard thing to 'prove' to people :|

Yes. You have to 'prove' it to yourself, by experimentation.

POST: Why do you believe the way you do and how do you know you're right? Seeking truth....

All content is 'illusory', in the sense that all objects are mind-based, shaped from a background enfolded structure, corresponding to habitual forms which feed back on themselves, unfolding as "things". The more you go seeking in the world of objects - patterns in experience - the more detail you will discover, the more levels of granularity you will uncover. For as long as you attach yourself to the objects, you are bound to them I'd say. Identify with the background awareness, then you are free? Step back in to the space in which experiential content arises - and so recognise your experience is like a "mental dream-space".

No content (the structure, objects of experience) can ever by truth. No belief (the enfolded forms which lead to the spatial and temporal structuring of content) can ever be truth either.

POST: Magic Room(From Prometheus raising)+Questions

[...] what is it you don't get?

Q: the way to astral project and create the room and the computer

In this example, you're not meant to actually astral project, necessarily. Doing the thought experiment is enough. Just imagine yourself leaving your body and finding yourself in a room - and do the exercise in your mind.

To play this game you simply “astrally project” into the Magic Room. Do not ask what “astral projection” means, and do not assume it is metaphysical. Just assume this is a gedankenexperiment, a “mind-game.” Project yourself, in imagination, into this Magic Room and visualize vividly the Omniscient Computer, using the details you need to make such a super-information-processor real to your fantasy.

In truth, you don't even need to do any of this. You can just directly do the magick here - getting information, adjusting yourself, adjusting reality - by "wishing" or "deciding". More here [missing]. The rest of the imagery is just to provide you with a technique that is fun and accessible. Sometimes it helps if people feel themselves "doing something". As you can see with the Douglas Harding version above, that's all theatre and window-dressing; the details don't actually matter! :-)

(For actually astrally projecting though, see link I posted later. EDIT: this [https://www.oniros.fr/A1417.pdf].)

Q: AND I HAVE BEEN SUFFERING AND BUILDING AN ASTRAL TEMPLE ALL THIS TIME
GOSH
though I tried asking it question of my fourth grade teacher and it didn't answer

Hey, just trying to be helpful eh.

POST: Even if necromancers could talk to the dead for divination, why would they think that the dead would know the future?

They may not in fact be talking to the dead, but rather their idea of the dead - their anticipation and belief in future-knowing is sufficient to extract the information from the universe.

POST: What are some good techniques to remember one's dreams or dream more vividly?

Before you go to sleep, just really, really make the decision to remember them - "I will remember my dreams / I always remember my dreams" - and know it to be true. Most other techniques are in fact a variation of this: they are 'magickal' acts that you've decided will help, that say you are serious.

POST: Nous the cause of existence?

Nous is not a thing, but can take on the shape of things. Like an infinite blanket, which folds itself and therefore creates contours relative to itself. The contours/folds "exist", these are your objects. Nous itself does not "exist" in this sense. It's tempting got try to imagine Nous as a 'space', but even this is wrong, because Nous has no structure whatsoever. Space is a structured 3-dimensional object with implied boundaries and locations. Nous has no properties whatsoever. Nous is not, and does not, but becomes, and is.

POST: Do you find yourself "siding" with Chronos or Fotamecus? Neither? Both?

On backlash, it's not personally inevitable:

Even though we killed 45 minutes at a rest stop afterwards, when we re-entered the freeway we met right up with the other car even though they had never stopped. We thought the magick had worked very well until we received the backlash later that day.
For time compressed, an equal amount of time was expanded. The balance was kept. Travelling at sixty miles an hour, a fifteen mile stretch of desert highway took nearly an hour to cross. If we had already reached our destination, the expansion would have been fine, but Fotamecus was only able to hold off the backlash from the initial compression for so long.
After several similar events we mulled over various ideas to correct the problem of backlash and hit upon the idea of viral servitors--- the key to a process of mutation that would allow Fotamecus to eventually grow beyond our control. We worked several rituals in which we altered the sigil to make it possible for Fotamecus to make copies of itself. These copies wired themselves into a network that made them incredibly effective at preventing unwanted side effects. If one of them needed to compress time and another to expand it they would pass it off to each other through the viral network, maintaining balance and reducing the possibility of backlash.
-- from Don't Blame Me, Blame My Servitor

If Chronos just needs to be satisfied and balanced overall, then there is plenty of flexibility on offer. Potentially, taking the larger picture on board - targeted offsets - we can save all the time we want, provided we don't mind the planet Neptune's rotational velocity gradually slowing to a complete halt, say. What matter the integrity of the solar system, if it helps me get to work on time? :-) Meanwhile, if you work it right, it can be fine personally too: Compress that workday into an hour, expand that evening into a day. Time is balanced, but we get more of what we want.

Q1: Absolutely. If you don't give Fotamecus some direction, he'll do things as he sees fit. That often means you end up paying, but there's no reason you can't shuffle the bill around a bit instead.

This is generally true of magick, I guess. If you aren't specific, the easiest route is taken, the path that breaks the minimum number of "rules". If you are, then you can push things a bit further.

POST: The Idea that Materialism and Occultism are Mutually Exclusive Is Bullshit.

Results separate True Occultism from mere Philosophy.

Quite so.

Q1: You seem like a snake, because You are still very attached to Duality. I can sense you, but you're being cool at the moment, so I'll give you a 'pass.' Just don't act like a dipshit (like the Others) after the Consciousness Shift, and you too will flourish in the New World.
000, 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777, 888, 999, 00011000.

Thanks for the 'pass'. I shall keep it safe. See you "after", then.

POST: Stupid question: practical magick?

Check out Phil Hine's Oven Ready Chaos and Alan Chapman's Advanced Magick for Beginners. They get straight to it: the magickal act is what you intend it to be, the rest is just so much theatre (potentially). Also, find a daily relaxation/letting-go exercise that works for you. Even just lying on the floor for 10 minutes twice a day and "giving up to gravity" can reset you and help keep you 'grounded'. The most effective power is... you.

POST: Is it dangerous?

Watch for obsession, as another poster suggests. Also, keep in mind a purpose, and make that purpose definite and real-world based. Getting lost in infinite reading and fantasising and ritualising won't help your life. However, finding out about how the world works and using it - for self-improvement and understanding, and enhancement of circumstances - is all to the good. Just make sure to live your everyday life; keep grounded. With OCD/anxiety, it can be tempting to reduce your focus to a distraction (which is really all OCD is) to avoid whatever-it-is-that-you-are-avoiding. Some kind of mediation may help.

POST: Myth buster: who here personally has gone temporarily insane from magick?

I just feel like the dangers are massively overstated. My consciousness, for good or ill, is extremely tenacious.

The danger is one of focus and perspective. You can end up locked into a worldview at the expense of daily practicality. Hence needing to stay grounded. Magick works with normal life, in face normal life works by magick. There's nothing "special" going on, it's just the practising magick brings about more extreme versions of what's already happening - and that can be very disorientating if you let it consume you.

POST: I have a question about a very popular type of "magic".

Q1: I know a very powerful witch that told me once the key to working love spells successfully is to love yourself. He said you should indulge in your beauty and masturbate like crazy. You don't want to WANT love. You want to BE loved.

Yeah, classic approach: Summon the feeling of the situation that you want to have, as the key thing.

POST: Anyone else feel like this when first beginning?

RAW got me started: Quantum Psychology and Prometheus Rising. You can really overthink this though: it, of course, is actually super, super simple. The more you think about it, the more you will obscure it. You "are the dream, are consciousness" right now - you are just obscuring it by looking and thinking. There is no theory to this, it is not made of concepts and cannot be understood in that sense. It can be talked about, but really it is something you experience. Do a daily practice like this:

  • 10 minutes, twice a day.
  • Lie down on the floor, feet flat with knees bent, head supported by books, arms by your side or hands resting on abdomen.
  • Decide to give up completely to gravity: to "play dead".
  • Let go of your body and mind, let them move as will. Allow them to unwind.
  • Don't even "pay attention"; just let it be open and wide. If it focuses on some thought or pain briefly, let that happen, and let it open out again.
  • After 10 minutes, decide to get up, but don't do anything about it. Wait until your body moves by itself. (Thus won't happen first time, but eventually it will happen.)

Basically, you are letting the "stuck thoughts" and "uncompleted movements" you have amassed unwind and dissolve themselves. You do not need to do anything for this to occur. Gradually, your perception will become clearer and clearer. Note: Any effort to focus or do anything will get in the way. There is a method of accelerating this by "overwriting yourself", but it's nicer this way.

...

Q1: I feel like the objective truth is Inifity itself (the All-That-Is, God, etc). But, if this is the case, then it become a giant paradox due to spawning paradoxes all over the place. Infinity would say that nothing is true and that everything is true (or CHAOS and ORDER coexisting at 100% for both of them), but in our limited ability to understand the duality of this, we see that the two currently cannot exist at the same time, but they have to. We just don't know how, but we can make some damn good guesses, yet they will never really be 100%, because they will always be a part of the whole and not the whole itself. Hopefully you understand what I am trying to say :)

Perhaps chaos is enfolded into order, or vice versa?

Q1: How many you's ARE there?
As I understand it, it can be an infinite amount. Depends on how far down the rabbit hole I want to take it.
How can an ego dissolve itself?
Not quite sure, but I feel it comes about from not having a need to protect the Self or a need to identify and separate the Self from the Whole. It dissolves from knowing that it is Infinity, but it is hard if not impossible to do when you are seeing all this from your individual conscious perspective. How can you describe infinity in its wholeness when you can only work from within it, never all of it unless you become all of it, and never from outside of it because there is nothing outside of it.
Some of the most basic thoughts are the 'craziest'...
And also some of the most True.

My thoughts:

The ego is just a mental thought that you (that is, consciousness) are having. You are infinite - you can "feel out" into space forever, right now, you will find - but you do have a perspective. There is no way to conceptualise this or intersubjectivity. You basically have to give up trying to work that out. The best way is to think of yourself as being All That Is, on a "time-share" basis. In moments when it is your turn, you are the whole thing. Or for convenience, just treat this as a dream, where you are the dream. The bunch of body sensations in the middle you have tended to think of as "you", but they are within the larger consciousness (the actual you, the dream and the dreamer and the dreaming, same thing), you just got in the habit of misidentifying with that part of the dream experience. You are an infinite self-aware blanket, which forms itself into the shapes of experiences, thereby experiencing itself. The blanket truth! [https://youtu.be/XfIiRKLMjDY]

Dunno what you've been reading, but I found certain things keep my sense of reality "loose". Read Rupert Spira and Greg Goode on non-duality. Read Advanced Magick for Beginners by Alan Chapman. Check out idealism, and lucid dreaming (Robert Waggoner's book is great). Shake up your direct experience! :-)

Magick is just committed intention, and it always works in some way or other (even if it just results in a dream of your desire). If you can get into the mindset of expanding your a Will and Presence into the whole dream, you will find that helps.

POST: how i think sigals work

A desire, almost by definition, is something you're holding on to. Nobody ever held onto a fulfilled desire. Magick (sigils, whatever) is a method of letting go of desire, releasing it psychologically, so that rather than being within you, it appears in the external world. Which is also you. It's a simple change of location, really.

POST: What is magick?

New fun definition for today: A desire, almost by definition, is something you're holding on to. Nobody ever held onto a fulfilled desire. Magick (sigils, whatever) is a method of letting go of desire, releasing it psychologically, so that rather than being within you, it appears in the external world. Which is also you. It's a simple change of location, really.

Everything works by magick. Intention => result. It's just that some results seem more linked - spatially or temporally - than others. The more distant the link, the more amazed we are (also, the more unlikely we are to intend such a result). The trick is, though, that experience is structured according to the concepts you have accepted. This applies to both the more advanced esoteric efforts, and to the everyday movements of your body and mind. Once you've tried some more exotic "requests" and had them answered, it'll mangle your notion of your sphere of influence, and perhaps what "you" are.

Q: Once you've tried some more exotic "requests" and had them answered, it'll mangle your notion of your sphere of influence, and perhaps what "you" are.
This is interesting. When you mean exotic "requests" you mean something slightly past that threshold of believably right?

Right. Something that pushes the temporal, spatial limits.

POST: Any Artists experienced in Sigil Magik?

Q1: There's an easy way to do it yourself. Just write out what you want the sigil to do, remove all vowels and letters that repeat, rework the remaining letters into a pattern that looks good enough, then charge it. Since you're doing it for a band, I'd suggest finding a musical or vocal way to charge it.

Q2: That is actually a really cool Idea!

Or - write out the purpose of the sigil. Remove all letters that don't correspond to those associated with musical notes. Maybe designate capital letters as 'sharps', lower case as unmodified. Then rearrange into a melody, or use as the basis of a chord progression - to create a sigilised song. Work that represents your work!

Very meta! :-)

POST: help name suggestion for a new music label that will attract goodgood fortune

Hmm. How about something like: 'Just My Luck!' Records.

And here is your logo:

Alt Tag

  • It's a vinyl record because you're a music label.
  • It's slightly amended to be shaped like the outline of a fortune cookie, because you want to attract good fortune.
  • It's purple because that's one of the lucky colors for the Year of the Horse, which is what 2014 is.
  • And, of course, the record player needle is formed into a 'J', the initial of the label name - but also a 'smile'.
  • The label name appears underneath in the style of a fortune cookie slip. (Alternate, cleaner version without the outlining here.)
  • The font used throughout is PT Sans, which falls under the open user licence for commercial and non-commercial use.

Basically a sigil and a logo and name and good fortune, all wrapped into one handy package. ;-)

Yours to do with as you please.

POST: I have an honest question for people who practice occult things.

Most "Spells" are handed down by to person to person and books etc. What is stopping anyone from creating new spells or occultic practices that are unique to that person or that persons circle of friends?

Look up chaos magick or Alan Chapman's Advanced Magick for Beginners. People invent new approaches all the time, if they're into that sort of thing. They might not easily be called "spells" though. That's a bit 'Harry Potter' / cheesy websites [https://www.spellsofmagic.com/spells.html].

Q1: [http://www.spellsofmagic.com/spells/love_spells/commitment_spells/14662/page.html]
I call naivety! Look at this piece of.... Gold I found

Call naivety at me? (As in, you do realise I included that link as a joke, yeah?)

I didn't mean at you (I just woke up!). I mean at the website!!

Aha, just checking! :-)

There are some classics! Thing is, a couple of them almost correspond to genuine spells in older literature. (One of the 'invisibility' ones is the classic 'quiet yourself down' approach to be less conspicuous, so someone is doing a bit of reading sometimes.) Most, however, are - um - not!

Gonna do me some teleporting/time travelling, definitely - - -

...

But... but... it tells me how to time travel! Come on! I want me some 'flying ointment' too.

Actually in comparison to the first-mentioned website, it's not that bad.

POST: I just had a strong experience while meditating gazing into a mirror.

Q1: Any advice on what the hell happened?
This is a common question. People have experiences and they're trying to fit them into a conventional framework of some kind, so they ask peers to help categorize the experiences. If you understand why it's good to have some things stay outside convention, then the need for this will be reduced.

But, y'know, it's fun! ;-)

POST: How do you attain Buddha nature with a roof tile?

Simply sitting in meditation "exclusively" does not change anything, and by doing so you are not "polishing your character" to make it clear, you are simply being-as-you-are, unchangingly without investigation or examination. The tile remains the same old tile after Nangaku's efforts; Baso remains the same old Baso after his unexamined sitting.

POST: How reliable are the spells listed on this website?

That is a "fun" website really. Having said that, you can potentially use anything, with the backing of proper intention, to get what you want, so it could be used for inspiration to spice things up once you know more about what you are doing. Some people use "spells", others less so. Depends on your taste. Pretty much, you should invent your own approach in the end, once you've become accustomed to the ideas. For 'traditional' stuff, read Aleister Crowley. For chaos magick, a more relaxed approach, try Phil Hine's Oven Ready Chaos. For an even more free-form approach (anything goes, any act is magickal with intention) but which covers most areas, I recommend Alan Chapman's Advanced Magick for Beginners. (Follow links or Google in each case, pretty much everything is out there somewhere or is reviewed and discussed by someone.)

Then you might decide you love ritual and potion, or something more direct, or come up with your own crazy mix. There is much fun to be had.

P.S. If you ever manage to create yourself a time travel watch using that website, I want one!

POST: I'm asleep all the time

Where about 'in your body' do you experience yourself to be 'looking out from' - if at all?

Yes, I see things "from my body".

So, you might imagine/feel that "you" look out from a location just behind your eyes, or in your chest even. Where it is can change how the world seems, so maybe play with that: centre your attention in your abdomen, or your forehead, and see if that makes a difference? Being on the centre line can make things clearer, vision and perception wise - see here [http://www.reptilianagenda.com/brain/br121804d.shtml] for instance.

POST: It's been fun but I've failed

Don't give up; I know where you're at.

There are lots of types of "magick", some of which may not fall obviously under that banner. For pain, for instance, try John Sarno's The Divided Mind (just reading the book helps some people) and Les Fehmi's Dissolving Pain (awareness-based techniques, opening out and relaxing).

For depression though, keep busy! Stop thinking. Completely. Life can't be worked out, it's not something that can be "solved", and depression doubly-not. Wash the dishes, clean the bathroom, make tasty meals for yourself, make yourself socialise no matter what. Decide to get on with life no matter how you're feeling (easier said than done, but you can't solve the depression and then live, it works the other way around). Physical pain often comes hand-in-hand with depression; the ongoing "compression" feeling can be the problem itself. Do a daily relaxation exercise (lie on the floor, head supported, and "give up completely" for 10 minutes) to let yourself settle out at least once a day. Main thing is to be good and compassionate to yourself, and forgiving! I was always super-harsh on myself when I wasn't "happening", and that was the worst thing to do.

Good luck! :-)

(Meanwhile, Alan Chapman's Advanced Magick for Beginners helped get me back into it in a post-chaos way, if you are looking to rekindle your interest more generally. Anything done with intention is magick.)

POST: A request for help with Astral Projection

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the trick is to ignore the sensations and continue to focus on what you want to achieve. In the hypnogogia approach (which seems to be what you are trying to do?), let the sensations alone and continue to attend to letting the fragments and images form, and then crossing over (better description here). You'll get all sorts of wobbles and vibrations and perhaps noises; leave them be. You are not trying to enhance that sensation, it's just a byproduct for what you are doing.

POST: Hi Occult. Who Am I and What Can I Do?

Q1: If an Object existed long enough to have all it's parts replaced, is it the same Object?
Didn't this happen to some axe in a museum somewhere? I think it may have been Abraham Lincoln's.
EDIT: Nevermind, apparently this is a hypothetical axe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus#Enlightenment_era]. Nevertheless, good question.

[QUOTE]

Ship of Theseus
The Ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus's Paradox, is a paradox and common thought experiment about whether an object is the same object after having all of its original components replaced over time, usually one after the other.

[END OF QUOTE]

Yes, you are basically "shiny and new" on a surprisingly regular basis, even your brain. Good article here. Your body is a pattern, not a thing.

...

*Q2: Hey like I said on a previous answer, professionals arent serious all the time. They fuck about more than regular folks. Ask any firefighter or military member. If you think doing something at a high level that you must be serious and "on" all the time, and start to think to that so many things are beneath you, that is the surest way to go insane, whatever field you take.
And if you havent caught on to the analogy, I am retired. I would like to enjoy wasting my time as much as possible.
And no it is not cleared up because it wasnt muddy to begin with. I wasnt asking clarification with what you were trying to do, I was calling out your lack of manners. Which I take special offense to because I was very generous with my answers to you.
Maybe I should try out whether Im a liar or not by fucking your shit up from all the way over here. Or you could just apologize for being rude. Up to you, Duke.

Hey, he was having a little joke - about himself really. As in, his idea of an enlightenment person would be some beyond such physical-world trivialities as reddit posting, so now he's (pretend) "disappointed" because it's not true, because you've posted on reddit!

Q2: Lol come on, I understand humor. Im a humorous fucking guy. But...
"better at language"
"more humble"
"reddit shitposting"
thats not humor, those are verbal jabs. especially after Ive tried to answer every question and comment he had respectfully, thats really asking for it.
good on you for trying to peacekeep though.

Aw well, it was worth a go. :-)

Q2: Nigga kept using "fount of consciousness", and he thinks Im bad at communication? Loool I can just smell the crease on his fedora. Fucking loser. IF YOU SEE THIS YOU LITTLE FAGGOT ILL BE WAITING ON THAT APOLOGY FOR 24 HOURS. AFTER THAT THE CONSEQUENCES BELONG TO YOU.
Anyways, you seem like a good dude. Whats your story?

Nowt wrong with a fedora. Unless you're Shia Lebeouf. Me? Enlightened, re-integrated Ruler Of All That Is. Y'know, usual everyday stuff. Dream-weaver, etc.

Q2: :) What do you mean by Ruler of All That Is?

Where do you think you are right now?

Q2: Do you ask that in the physical sense? The philosophical sense? Or the you know youre on reddit so nothing is serious sense?

Excellent response. The answer to all three, of course, is: in my mind. (You're lucky I keep it so nice and tidy and have maintained the air conditioning. Sorry about screwing up the world peace thing though.)

Q2: Ah ok.

More seriously, how does your experience compare with this, as in:

Awakening => Liberation => Enlightenment

As a stages model of development.

Q2: Like comparing going to fat camp vs being a pro athlete.

Nice. I say, jump straight to delete.

POST: Anyone else practice magick rather loosely?

I think the most important thing is that you feel a "fit" with your approach, or you won't commit yourself properly to the intention. At root, the acts don't necessarily matter in themselves. Check out Alan Chapman's Advanced Magick for Beginners for the most open version of this (basically, an act is what you decided it to mean; the rest of it is theatre).

Generally, the more you invest in something, the more results will take that form and the more your experience will adjust to match up with it. Getting yourself to invest can be the real trick - to "get out of your own way" - and that's where a lot of the extra bits and bobs appear. Also, philosophically speaking there are and have been lots of ways to "view the world"; it makes sense that peoples magickal viewpoint emerges from that. But what was 'obvious' even 100 years ago is less so now. This stuff has to be reinterpreted and reinvented regularly, to retain its meaning and utility.

POST: Serious inquiry. The occult has always been a big part of my life, but lately I've been experiencing quite a bit of negative happenings. Could I have done something wrong?

Were you... drinking, at the time of the accidents? Forget the occult, just start focusing on putting things back together. Depression is a spiral: events will arise consistent with that "vibe".

Learn some powering up is good though, as other poster suggested. Try lying down and visualising "golden energy" engulfing and liberating you, etc. Let go to it, abandon yourself to the image completely.

Also, decide to give up analytical thinking: do it today.

POST: Personal Perception of the Human Condition

Interesting. The purpose of life is... living!

Some questions:

  • Is "Me" under my control?
  • Is "Me" something I am, or something I am aware of or 'perceiving through', like a viewport onto the world?
  • What is consciousness vs God? Are you a "fold in God's awareness" or are you a separate thing with it's own consciousness?

Q: Interesting how you're talking about Gnosis. I generally agree with you, except on one point: God is not the whole of humanity. It is tempting to think so, but in reality, we are all separate entities sharing the same world, or realm. There are different aspects of the realm that only a minority of humanity can reach or tap into, and it is up to the individual to discover that. God may exist, but humanity's conception of him is an egregore, used to shape and control the various societies and cultures. It exists in effect, but not in actuality. We are not one, as much as we love to think. In order to come to terms with oneself (which is basically the point of Gnosis), one has to see in fullness what he or she is, and what separates him or her from everyone else. This is critical.

Hmm. "God" exists as an egregore, but God is the name given to the ground of all existence, surely?

POST: Are Psychics real?

Real... what?

POST: Best Beginner Book?

I'd say Alan Chapman's book, which has been mentioned elsewhere, and Phil Hine. Also SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic, by Ramsay Dukes, the precursor to Chaos Magick but much more philosophically structured than most books. (Revised edition circa 2000.)

Q1: I don't think there is a "best book" for an absolute beginner. It depends where each individual is coming from, everyone has a scope of experience/perspective that they are going to fit information about the occult into. Say for example, you happen to study psychology best book to start with would be Jung's Red Book as it delves into the magickal mindset in a way that will speak to your knowledge base. English major? Try Poulet's Phenomenology of Reading for a primer on subject/object unification theory.
Best couple of books to start with might be: Modern Magick, Tao Te Ching, Chicken Qabalah, Upanisads (specifically Chandogya, Brhadaranyaka), Meditations on the Tarot by Anonymous, Garden of Pomegranates, Liber Psychonaut.
The thing is that there is no best book to begin with. You have to read a lot of books before you start to even get an idea of what this whole magick thing is about.
I suggest instead of worrying about a best book to start with you should start thinking about a list of books.

Totally agree with no best book, but it's definitely easier to start by reading something modern and perhaps not too steeped in ritual or wordplay.

Q1: Agreed. It's hard to tell what reading level people are coming from. With these "I'm a noob" posts I wish people would include. 1.) What got you interested in magick/occult and what would you like to get out of it. 2.) What are your preconceived notions about it. 3.) Do you prefer structure or flying by the seat of your pants. That would be helpful.

It's half the problem: They don't even know that stuff yet! It's just, hey I'd like to get into magick, whatever it is, then see what I can do, and see what styles there are. I guess that these days the wealth of material available is actually confusing. When it used to be there was just "whatever book was in the library, or your friend had" then there was no choice and so it was ironically easier to get started. I just say "the Chapman book" these days, because it touches on everything and is written in modern sarcastic language, then they can jump off and see what they like afterwards.

Q1: I'm a bit embarrassed to say I've never read Chapman but I guess I should.
I think you are right about an over-whelming amount of material. It doesn't help that half of it is tripe! It can be daunting to think, okay there is all this material, but everyone disagrees on it, who do I listen to? Everyone should get a good primer on sourcing and rhetoric in my opinion. Teaching people how to find reliable sources is way more important than finding a first book per se. I also think that instead of pointing out "theory" or "how to" manuals it's also important to direct them to biographies and letters. The history of people is important! I think we tend to forget that there are people behind those books, with their own flaws and motivations. I mean it's important to know about all the splits in factions and why. For example, people frequently ask about AA lineage and want to know what the "right" one is but they don't want to do the digging to find out why Achad was disowned, why Kenneth Grant's order was disparaged.
Instead of a best book to start with page I'd like to see suggestions for mindsets to incorporate. Like question sources and find primary documents, laugh at yourself, play games with your mind, break yourself once in a while, as you read keep a running dialogue in your brain about what you disagree/agree with and why, embarrass yourself, do a random act of kindness, do a random act of meanness, have enthusiasm, doubt yourself regularly.

And the disparity between people's theories and their actual lives. Someone once told me that, when in a particular job or whatever, you should look around and "see if you'd want to be any of those people". That applies to much of this.

Mindsets: That's a very good suggestion. And, slightly related, an awareness of the metaphysics behind (a) magick.

POST: How do you think magic works?

Random screed. Magick works...

By intention, limited only by the structure and habits caused by previous intentions. Magick is simply a self-conscious version of what's happening all the time anyway.

Focus on a 1st person perspective here: The experience you are having right now. Left to its own devices, your world will unfold and flow in the same direction, unless interrupted and redirected. (By 'your world', I include your thoughts and your bodily actions and the larger environment; none of these are "you", they are all 'effects' and 'results'.) Intention is the way we do that redirection. The acts you perform don't matter, the intention behind them is what causes change.

Every act always has an intention. For instance, when you grab a cup of coffee the intention associated with that act could be "to grab a cup of coffee". However, it can equally be "to win the lottery". The actual act is irrelevant. If we view magick as "the means by which we summon a desired experience", then intention is the 'seeding' of that desired experience, which then ripples out. Intention is 'setting a target' for your world, and your world then unfolds towards it.

There is no underlying "solid" reality beyond the dream-like experience of the senses, therefore any experience is possible. However, because your world has developed certain 'habits' and a certain 'stability', this generally happens according to "explainable routes". In other words, there is rarely a sudden discontinuity in your experience. (If there is, then your memories would fall into line with it anyway.)

You can work on yourself and your beliefs, to make results appear sooner and more 'miraculously'.

Q1: I believe that reality is constantly self-generating itself at the will of consciousness (I), so if we are able to alter our consciousness, then we are able to alter our reality. I feel that this is supported by the double-slit experiment, and in fact you could say it's the foundation of my personal theory, though I didn't consider the DSE when creating it.
Simple, I know, but it allows "magic" to be extremely accessible and armed with a LOT of potential. It basically labels reality as illusory, and when you see it this way you can do anything you want with it.
EDIT: Other posts have inspired me to go further...so existence is like a pyramid, right? As our consciousness ascends into higher places, we encounter concepts and archetypes that grow more and more distant from physical reality. These archetypes are within us humans, since we are both animal and divine, but our animal minds cannot fathom these archetypes and their scope; attempting to do so would render us mentally blinded. So we make these archetypes more easily accessible by humanizing them and associating them with things in the macrocosm; after all, it is all part of the same source, right?
When we do this, we create a path upon which our intentions and desires can travel to the top of the pyramid, like the path that a seed takes as it grows into a fruit-bearing plant. All we have to do then is pick the fruit when it is ready, or wait for it to drop into our hand. ;)
All of this takes place from within, because we have the whole universe inside us.

I believe that reality is constantly self-generating itself at the will of consciousness (I), so if we are able to alter our consciousness, then we are able to alter our reality.

How does this accommodate the different intentions of multiple magicians?

Q1: Could you elaborate a bit?

So, I agree with what you say. My own picture is that everything resides within consciousness, all possibilities are contained within it. What we do with intention is that we "seed" a new experience, enfolded into consciousness, which then unfolds, ripples out, until it is manifested as an experience we have. (Whether that is the "experience of owning and driving a Ferrari" or "the experience of meeting that nice girl" or "the experience of doing well in my exam.)

However, how do we account for "other people" here? Are they separate from us? And surely different people are intending for different, conflicting things? How is that resolved?

Q1: I think I see what you're saying...and it's actually a good observation to make.
I'm honestly having a really hard time answering this. There's a definite philosophical element to this...sort of like merging the gap between objectivity and subjectivity. We need to take this one step at a time...and I hope I explain my reasoning clearly.
The most difficult part of answering this seems to be the paradox that we are individual souls, even though we come from the same source. At the core, we may have different ideas of satisfaction, different images of the perfect fruit, but it all starts with the same principle: a seed. It is a universal principle.
So it's sort of like planting seeds in a garden. The soil nourishes all seeds just the same, even though in the end, the fruit that each seed bears will be very different from each other. What you're asking is like asking how the soil accommodates the growth of all plants.
When we see it like this, we reach a sort of understanding, a logical dead end, if you will, and we could technically use this analogy as an answer...but it can go further.
The real question here is not answered by asking "how," but by asking "why?" Why are we able to manifest our own intentions, even if they may be different from others'? Why are we able to live out our own subjective experiences when we derive from the same source?
You've opened up a philosophical Pandora's box, my friend...
EDIT: Object agreement

My suggestion is: "Maybe it is all taken into account, all the time."

When we 'seed' an intention, it applies to all time and space. The whole of reality is reformed with that taken into account, and everything else taken into account. So it doesn't matter if you ask for a limited edition Ferrari, and slightly later I do too. The narrative of the universe will accommodate this. If when I did it, there was one Ferrari, when you do it, there will be - and will always have been - two.

There is no timeline of history and events that we move along, fixed or otherwise. Intention is fact insertion at the root, essentially, and the universe/mind always tends towards a coherent narrative. (See the bottom of my post here [Darkroom Vision & Chef Hats & Dreams], for an example in dreams.)

Something additional to contemplate: The reason we don't often experience discontinuities - say, when I 'magick' a taxi to be waiting round the corner, it doesn't seem to just materialise, the driver always has a story about how he came to be there - is because everything is reworked this way. If the taxi did materialise this second, our minds/memories would return a 'story' to explain it when we went looking for such a memory/explanation. (This happens a lot in hypnosis: Tell someone that John will now vanish in mid air, and they'll say he "must have left the room, out the door, when I was distracted".)

Meanwhile, we might imagine ourselves to be experiencing the world from different perspectives on a sort of "timeshare" rather than spatially and at the same time. We each get a mini-turn at being the whole universe. (This isn't exactly true: it can't be either spatial or temporal, but it provides an alternative way to conceptualise it.)

POST: At this point, wtf is the point?

7 principles, 42 laws? Sounds a bit much to me! I mean, surely it's just: relax/delete and intend/decide and get out of the way? Belief, or actually lack of unbelief, being key.

However, until you get materialisation sorted, you're going to go hungry. Do you have that sorted yet?

Q: And some, what really gets me, as i said before, is we aren't just moving away from the stress and just making the zone. That's what i want to discuss, what can we do so that it's based and no one feels like they are carrying anything and at the same time we can make shit happen for the other shit to experience, unless you just want to forget the rest of it and just see a small degree - there's so much more.

Hmm. I always thought the fun of this was using magick in amongst the muggles - to be super-cheesy. Making the maximum out of living in the city or wherever, making things happen. It we were all in a 'Special Delimited Zone' it would be a bit boring.

For instance, lucid dreams are a lot of fun. Everyone tends to begin by harnessing it and taking control. After a while, though, you usually stop doing that, and explore... tweaking things occasionally to make them more to your liking, but not radically redefining the reality.

POST: Do you guys ever get stumped when you are trying to decide just "what" to do your magick for?

Yep, sounds like depression. So - - -

Maybe just don't bother about wanting stuff; that might be the wrong approach. Instead, concern yourself with what needs done, and use magick to help you with that?

The approach: Ask yourself, "what needs doing now?". And then go and do it, no matter how you feel. After that task is complete, ask yourself again. Maybe the task will be "go wash the dishes", doesn't matter. You're being constructive.

As you go along, you might encounter things where magick will help: You need to get some paint of a particular colour, so you "do a magickal act" to make that available, etc. You don't always have to be working towards some "big goal"; being busy is enough. In fact, there are arguments against having goals [https://zenhabits.net/no-goal/].

Christopher Walken said once that he never planned his career, he just did what came up, and that he wished he could live his life by cue cards. Why not do that, using the method above? Who knows what may turn up!

Q: Why don't you do magic FOR Motivation? I often start with that when I just don't seem to get myself to do anything for months

He can't be arsed.

POST: Astral Travel clarification please...

Yes, it's a muddle. I think you can help select the "correct" version by choosing a method that's not too ambiguous. For instance, trying to OBE from a dream or during the night can lead to a dream-like experience, using visualisation you might just enter an image fragment which then expands into a dream.

If you do something more direct, like the "rope technique", then you remain conscious throughout and are actively choosing to "leave your body and stay here" rather than "explore the worlds within", so to speak?

The 'sparkles' technique from this [https://www.oniros.fr/A1417.pdf] is quite reliable, but leaves doubt as to whether you're just seeding a new world to experience. (It's a good read anyway though.)

Rope Technique

Forget visualisation, as in "picturing"; the rope technique is all about generating the feeling of the rope. You lie down, and feel your hands take hold of a rope that's dangling from above, end up at your chest level. Then you feel yourself pulling up on that rope, hand-over-hand, pulling yourself out of your body. You do this from the perspective of it actually happening, right now. It sounds like you might have fallen into the common trap of thinking-about or visualising-about (3rd person perspective or 'elsehwere') rather than trying to generate a direct experience (1st person perspective and 'here, now').

Does that make sense?

Buhlman's pretty enjoyable. You should read Oliver Fox and Robert Monroe too, if you haven't. Fox is good because he was an early pioneer, and his early diary-form is very much from the perspective of a personal experience.

POST: Help a soon-to-be Beginner?

Perhaps you need to realise that Christianity itself is a magickal tradition. Much of the New Thought movement of the early 20th Century was based around an interpretation of the Bible as a reality/magickal manual (e.g. Neville Goddard). This subreddit [https://old.reddit.com/r/ChristianOccultism/] might be of use. You can't push through things with willpower, rather you need to embrace them and include them within yourself, let them become part of your momentum. The reason you are so passionate about this is probably exactly because of this need to embrace and overcome your guilt.

...You just need to push through. It's just conflict/resistance. Don't take it too seriously. Any step forward into a new world or a different way of doing things has this associated with it.

On your other question, the meaning of the word "sin" is to "miss the mark" - it's not "evil", it just means to not be at your best. And those passages do not mean quite what you think. Each essentially says: there are behaviours which get in the way of getting in touch with your true path and nature (that is what "God" is), and because they obscure your deeper intuition (distracting your attention) you will not pick up on the directions and actions you should be following. There is the notion of "True Will" which is essentially Your Nature and what you should really be doing. The warnings against mediums and manipulations is that they can turn you away from looking within, to your deeper knowledge. "God" is your inner self, your true self, and the "Son" is that which arises in the world from this. That is why so much of magick is focused on inner exploration and clearing out perception. There's nothing wrong with doing magick, therefore, but you might find that as time goes on you do more 'inner magick' and find that your life flows better and you don't feel the urge to try to directly influence the world around you. 'Passive magick' where you are open and synchronicities arise to help you along, and what happens to you is what you "really, really want", arising spontaneously from within you.

TL;DR: If you feel drawn to this, then pursue that. This 'inner momentum' is what you should be trusting. The scriptures are not saying what you think they are saying. Go for it.

...Hey, that's great. The thing you did there, you'll find useful for dissolving all sorts of barriers. The world is now yours!

...Yep. So long as you are honest about how you feel before you push through it (faking yourself doesn't work). When you know what to do, sometimes you've just got to get a hold of yourself and the world, and make it move along! :-)

"Yeah, but..."

It depends a bit on belief and intention. If you believe that "what goes around, comes around" then wrapped in the intention associated with your magickal act will be the idea that you should get hit by it. You will be effectively "wishing for that". You get what you think you deserve!

There's that way of looking at it, and also the notion that "all of this is you", so by intending harm on an aspect of the world, you're basically directing harm towards yourself. Magick can be viewed as the skill of generating desired experiences. If that is so, then you should really only work on generating positive experiences for yourself. Blockages, barriers - whether situations or people - should be allowed to fade or dissolve, or be turned into benefits, not be destroyed.

...I wouldn't get too hung up on that. It's the intention behind the ritual that matters most, with filtering by your background beliefs / expectations of how things work. The world happily gives you what you want, good or bad, it doesn't care. You don't need to watch your individual thoughts so much as take care with the "posture" you adopt. That should be expansive and positive. And you should always question why your are trying to summon something. Note, there are other ways to approach stuff besides formal ritual. See Advanced Magick for Beginners by Alan Chapman, SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic by Ramsay Dukes, or Oven-Ready Chaos by Phil Hine for example. Every intentional act is an act of magick: If you drink your cup of coffee while saying "every sip of this coffee means my day will be luckier", then that is magick. Of course, most people drink their cup of coffee while intending... to drink their coffee. Is there something specific you are trying to achieve?

...No don't worry. Recognise those thoughts and just let them pass, returning to what you are actually focusing on. Just keep coming back to your purpose. Stray thoughts, like anything, are only a problem if you divert your energy to them and let them carry you away. This is no different to, say, if you are studying and you let the thought of going to watch TV instead carry you away!

POST: Beginner here. Is there a wikia style guide or an online source of encyclopedic knowledge that would be a good place for some one to start their journey?

Depends what you want. If you want rituals and mystery and so on, then you can immerse yourself in that. If you just want to get practical, then you can simplify things a bit. There are probably two sides: finding out about 'magickal practices' and then exploring 'the nature of reality' (which turns out to be about 'the nature of the self').

There's a free copy of Phil Hine's Condensed Chaos available here [Dead Link]. Alan Chapman's Advanced Magick for Beginners is definitely worth your while. And perhaps a mix such as Magick on the Edge to give you a flavour of different people's approaches.

To explore about reality/yourself, you should consider looking into non-duality (e.g. Presence by Rupert Spira, The Direct Path by Greg Goode, the work of Douglas Harding.) It's a nice thing to be doing in parallel to any more esoteric stuff; keeps your perspective intact perhaps. If you're feeling daring, George Berkeley, or later authors, exploring things more philosophically.

Have fun.

POST: Anyone else feel like this when first beginning?

Q: First off, if anyone finds how I will be writing difficult to follow it is because I am trying to tie together several ideas at once to make a big idea, trying to pull a bit of my history and experiences together to let you know why I am trying to say what I am saying. Another way of looking at it is trying to describe in words (a limited thing) an intuitive knowing, which language is not the best at doing. Bear with me here... (and sorry if I irk any grammar nazis out there).
I feel like my ultimate goal, currently, is transcendence and the accrual of knowledge in order to try and find Truth, absolute Truth (or as close as I can get to It). I know there is so much more than this physical world we live in, and I want to ultimately experience that "outside" of my physical body and really outside of time itself (although I know it is possible to learn a bit of it while in this physical world with this physical body
[as above, so below- looking deep within perhaps as another way], but not on the level that I want to experience it at).
I have several ways of looking at Magick, but I really fall in line and enjoy the R.A.W. outlook of it. He is the author that started it all for me and I agree (currently) with much of what he writes. My main go to for playing with 'reality' is through Chaos Magick and what little I know of it.
This is where it gets a bit confusing, because I can look at all of this from several ways. The two main ideas at the moment are 1)There is a physical world and legit "spiritual world", and magick is a way to bridge the gap and work in one to affect the other utilizing Universal Laws (think 'The Kybalion'), and 2) The Universe is a way for the infinite Source of everything to kind of do its thing and bridge out into infinity (as I understand it because I have to account for time in this Experience) through the experiences of consciousnesses (hard to describe...), and we are a part of it as it is a part of us. Our consciousness/Mind affects the reality we live in and perceive, and by changing the Mind (magick one way of doing this) we can change the reality and thus the Universe, and perhaps visa versa to some extent... Both of these could be true, or false (such as this physical existence is "it" and everything is just a result of chemical reactions within the body to to make and experience through what we call consciousness), or a mix... That is part of the Grand Mystery of it all.
One way of describing my trouble is that there are a lot of maps of the territory, and I can choose one to see a certain part of the terrain I want to see (Meta-programming), but the map is not the territory and I want to be able to SEE and KNOW the territory all at once (much like reading a map except the only real way to know the territory is to experience it, but I can only experience a little bit at a time and I am not sure if what I am experiencing is the REAL/TRUE terrain, or if it perverted because of the "instruments" i use to sense it).
For a bit of personal info, once i get out of my current career obligation (military), I plan on going into psychology and exploring the mind/reality aspects more deeply. I kind of lean more heavily toward this relationship to describe how "this" (this world, these experiences, the processes, etc) works.
I basically will follow a path till it leads me into a circle, which causes a lot of mental frustration, but then it tends to take me to a higher sense of understanding, only to go down a new path and repeat the process. A lot of this shit starts to 'break down' and fold into itself only to re-emerge out of itself, one way of describing it is as if you keep discovering/running into "reality koans" all over the place.
Logic only gets me so far, then it leads me to a state of intuitive knowing... but I want to be able to take this intuitive knowing and be able to but it into logical terms, which is the fucking HARD part, if possible at all. I mean, how can you absolutely describe infinity? It is impossible because you will always be describing it from within (yet you 'can' describe it as if from outside, kind of, but then we get back to the whole circles and koans bit....). Eventually, you can start to gain a deep intuitive knowing of it (enlightenment?), but then how can we put this knowing into words/symbols so others can know of it in in a minimalist way?
I hope this kind of makes a bit of sense to you. I wish I could just Matrix you what I know and feel so you could understand where it is I am coming from, but words only go so far in describing something of this magnitude.

RAW got me started: Quantum Psychology and Prometheus Rising. You can really overthink this though: it, of course, is actually super, super simple. The more you think about it, the more you will obscure it. You "are the dream, are consciousness" right now - you are just obscuring it by looking and thinking. There is no theory to this, it is not made of concepts and cannot be understood in that sense. It can be talked about, but really it is something you experience.

Do a daily practice like this:

  • 10 minutes, twice a day.
  • Lie down on the floor, feet flat with knees bent, head supported by books, arms by your side or hands resting on abdomen.
  • Decide to give up completely to gravity: to "play dead".
  • Let go of your body and mind, let them move as will. Allow them to unwind.
  • Don't even "pay attention"; just let it be open and wide. If it focuses on some thought or pain briefly, let that happen, and let it open out again.
  • After 10 minutes, decide to get up, but don't do anything about it. Wait until your body moves by itself. (Thus won't happen first time, but eventually it will happen.)

Basically, you are letting the "stuck thoughts" and "uncompleted movements" you have amassed unwind and dissolve themselves. You do not need to do anything for this to occur. Gradually, your perception will become clearer and clearer. Note: Any effort to focus or do anything will get in the way. There is a method of accelerating this by "overwriting yourself", but it's nicer this way.

...

Q: I feel like the objective truth is Inifity itself (the All-That-Is, God, etc). But, if this is the case, then it become a giant paradox due to spawning paradoxes all over the place. Infinity would say that nothing is true and that everything is true (or CHAOS and ORDER coexisting at 100% for both of them), but in our limited ability to understand the duality of this, we see that the two currently cannot exist at the same time, but they have to. We just don't know how, but we can make some damn good guesses, yet they will never really be 100%, because they will always be a part of the whole and not the whole itself.
Hopefully you understand what I am trying to say :)

Perhaps chaos is enfolded into order, or vice versa?

Q: How many you's ARE there?
As I understand it, it can be an infinite amount. Depends on how far down the rabbit hole I want to take it.
How can an ego dissolve itself?
Not quite sure, but I feel it comes about from not having a need to protect the Self or a need to identify and separate the Self from the Whole. It dissolves from knowing that it is Infinity, but it is hard if not impossible to do when you are seeing all this from your individual conscious perspective. How can you describe infinity in its wholeness when you can only work from within it, never all of it unless you become all of it, and never from outside of it because there is nothing outside of it.
Some of the most basic thoughts are the 'craziest'...
And also some of the most True.

My thoughts:

The ego is just a mental thought that you (that is, consciousness) are having. You are infinite - you can "feel out" into space forever, right now, you will find - but you do have a perspective. There is no way to conceptualise this or intersubjectivity. You basically have to give up trying to work that out. The best way is to think of yourself as being All That Is, on a "time-share" basis. In moments when it is your turn, you are the whole thing.

Or for convenience, just treat this as a dream, where you are the dream. The bunch of body sensations in the middle you have tended to think of as "you", but they are within the larger consciousness (the actual you, the dream and the dreamer and the dreaming, same thing), you just got in the habit of misidentifying with that part of the dream experience.

You are an infinite self-aware blanket, which forms itself into the shapes of experiences, thereby experiencing itself. The blanket truth! [https://youtu.be/XfIiRKLMjDY]

Dunno what you've been reading, but I found certain things keep my sense of reality "loose". Read Rupert Spira and Greg Goode on non-duality. Read Advanced Magick for Beginners by Alan Chapman. Check out idealism [https://www.bernardokastrup.com/], and lucid dreaming (Robert Waggoner's book is great). Shake up your direct experience! :-)

Magick is just committed intention, and it always works in some way or other (even if it just results in a dream of your desire). If you can get into the mindset of expanding your a Will and Presence into the whole dream, you will find that helps.

POST: Occultism and Depression

Also, how does being an occultist change your approach to depression? Are you more likely to try to solve things yourself? Are you more likely to interpret the symptoms "esoterically"? And can you treat yourself "magickally" from the outset?

I wonder whether the sense of increased personal power can work beneficially and against too.

The seratonin-uptake model of depression is in doubt these days, for instance, and many depression medications have been criticised for being little more than placebo. If that's the case, then coming out of depression really is a work of magick (as in, intention and commitment, interpretation/declaration of an act as causal, rather than the nature of the act itself).

And 'consciousness-widening' acts might well loosen its hold?

I think this question is very relevant. I struggle with depression and often I lose interest in occult topics, stop reading, etc.
I'm not inclined to use psychiatric drugs to treat depression. I can understand OP's perspective that the drugs could be seen as magickal, but I'd be more inclined to use meditation and entheogenic approaches as a magickal treatment.
I think that being an occultist means having (or striving to have) an awareness of your inner state, and working to be able to alter that state in accordance with Will. So from my perspective, although depression can affect anyone, the primary difference with an occultist would be their way of viewing the depression, and perhaps an increased motivation to face and resolve the pain at the root of the depression with tactics of ritual, divination, meditation, etc. rather than with therapy/pharmaceuticals alone.

Hmm, yes. I think the occultist is better placed to do things such as experiment or understand their attention and their state and transform that.

Even simple things, like hypnosis/visualisation to "energise" oneself or change one's "mental posture" can be good. And an occultist is more likely to have developed the ability to "commit" to an act such as this. I think that having some sort of daily practice is more common for development generally, and might help depression too.

Another thought was: The occultist is likely to have long terms aims to succeed at this or that, and Will for particular results or life-changes in the future. This can help "keep life running" whilst depressed, if they can at least stick to that, because things have been set up in advance.

POST: Are you studying too much?

My thought: keep purpose in mind. It's lots of fun to read-about and explore and experiment, but you have to keep the balance between your outer life and your inner life. They are undivided and the same, and both need your attention so that they support one another. If you can tie your occult studies to definite outer aims, that can help. Why not combine your art with your magick? Whether that's summoning inspiration, or actually embedding magick into it. There's an infinite amount to "learn", but also nothing much to learn. Your life is just made up of experiences. At the moment you are choosing to experience "reading a lot" and "thinking about this topic a lot". Sometimes the implicit fantasy-dream element of magick can be a whole lot more attractive than the apparently mundane everyday life stuff, but: The true purpose of practical magick is to summon/improve your experiences, whether that's to clear out some misconceptions so that you have a clearer view of reality (inner), or to generate specific experiences you desire (outer). (Note: "experiences" includes "the experience of owning an object", etc.) So, decide what experiences you want to have, and start using magick to access them. If you don't do this, then you are reading and studying without focus - just for the wank of it basically - and that'll go on forever. All magickal traditions have the same underlying idea, because they are dealing with the same underlying universe. Be sure to read some stuff that tries to strip it back, such as Neville Goddard, Phil Hine or Alan Chapman. This just helps stop you getting too lost in the more fantastical elements (which do exist, but are not necessarily required). Having said all that, coming to your own personal "worldview" is very beneficial, whether that's "the world is a lucid dream, amongst many" or whether "we are but fragments of a turtle's shell". So that's one aim you can have when doing all your reading: synthesising your own approach and working out its implications for your real life.

TL;DR: Uh-huh, but remember to live your life.

POST: I have a little bit of an emergency... Could use some perspective.

You are over-using and over-thinking, I think?

Possibly over thinking. Like, trying to hard to put meaning behind all of it.
Over use, though... Read what I pointed out to mysterymoth. I see no real difference between LBRP, prayer, chakra cleansing, etc., in so much as they both provide release of internal negative energy. I'm pretty sure that as long as it's not interfering with your everyday responsibilities, you can't really overuse LBRP.

Yeah, you're really searching for the meaning. As to LRBP, you just don't need it that much: a morning refresher, a calming in the evening, that's enough? But, hey, it depends a little on what system you're using. To me, it's just a "reset".

You sound like you've become a bit ungrounded. Do you do anything to keep your focus centred?

I do regular meditation which usually starts with some kind of banishing. I fluctuate between Chakra grounding and LBRP depending on what feels right at the time, and actually, up to this point, I was feeling pretty great about everything in general. That's part of why I was a bit startled by the dramatic shift in both external and internal environment for both me and my fiance. Do you do anything to keep you grounded that you wouldn't mind sharing? I'm always open to new ideas.

I don't do much: I do a lie-down-on-the-floor exercise twice a day, where I let go, expand out into the room, and "overwrite myself" with empty space. (I also then make sure my attention stays open and loosely centred either on my centreline - somewhat behind my eyes or lower abdomen - during the day.)

POST: the seemingly opposing view points in occultism

A1: all realities exist. you need to find the one that is relevant to you

Q1: I don't tend to believe this way. I think there is logical issues with it. If I have two view points that are saying total opposite things then one must be right and one must be either wrong or not totally correct. I believe there is an objective reality. So to say that you can have multiple realities is admitting that they are not actual realities. they might be subjective points of view but to be a reality it has to be anchored in objective truth.

A2: if your not willing to step outside of Aristotelian logic and apprehend paradox you wont get very far in occult studies.

Q2: If the many worlds interpretation of QM is correct, then we do live in a multiverse, all possible realities do exist and you navigate a field of infinite potential futures with each choice you make.
All worlds being equally real and populated in each moment with minds as real as your own.
Before you scoff and say it is nonsense, the majority of physicists believe in the many worlds interpretation even Hawking.
[http://www.physics.wustl.edu/alford/many_worlds_FAQ.html]
[http://www.quora.com/Why-do-60-of-theoretical-physicists-believe-in-the-many-worlds-theory]
It is not a fringe view.
David Deutsch of Oxford has shown that the math of the many worlds interpretation checks out, and agrees with our observations.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20071121085925/http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=paUniverse_sun14_parallel_universes&show_article=1&cat=0]
The Oxford team, led by Dr David Deutsch, showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes.

I scoff and say "nonsense"! ;-)

Since we only live in one reality, this is effectively just story-making? If we never experience the branching, and only experience one sequence of choices, how does it help?

Except as a mathematical or diagrammatic 'aid' to describing or visualising probabilistic processes, but that doesn't correspond to there literally being multiple universes...surely?

Q2: correspond to there literally being multiple universes...surely?
The earth was the center of the universe not to long ago, there is only one universe and only one version of you observing it today.

I do take the point. However, the heliocentric alternative is something that could be tested and observed, there is no suggestion for how multiple-branching / many-world can be observed.

I'm all for alternative configurations / theories for the same data - having different 'stories' can provide real insight - but I don't think those two are in the same category, as I see it at the moment.

Q2: Here is Geordie Rose founder of D-Wave, maker of the first proven quantum computer.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyUbWl8jPQU]
Skip to the 4 minute mark.
He comes out and says they believe the many worlds interpretation is correct, and they are sharing processor resources between these many worlds.

Thanks for that, will check it out when I get a moment.

Translation I have the attention span of a goldfish and will never watch it ever.

Right, just had a look: it's the David Deutsch quote.

Copenhagen interpretation, many-worlds view, they are reasonable attempts to account for - to provide a 'visualisation' for - the apparently probabilistic nature of quantum physics. However, there are alternatives: David Bohm's ideas, 'active information', extensions to the de Broglie pilot wave idea. In the end, as Bohr said: look, the maths works and is predictive, maybe you just have to put aside the notion that it's understandable. Many-worlds is just a placeholder for people who don't like the idea of a literal wavefunction collapsing into a single outcome.

Somewhat, much of this is a matter of taste.

Having said that, it's certainly fun to think about all this, and it can provide inspiration for things.

Q2: Since you aren't going to watch it here is a transcript I took the time to type up, not that you will be bothered to read it.
There is a quote on screen from David Deutsch
"Quantum computation ...will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes."
David Deutsch @ TED 2005
3:57-4:27
This quote is from a respectable scientist in fact one of the founders of this field that may look a little strange to you who don't follow theoretical physics, but there is a very clear prediction that our most successful theory of nature makes and that is there are an enormous number, mind-boggling large number of parallel realities as real as this one that have different consistent histories
4:44
Quantum mechanics makes a very specific prediction that all of those (parallel universes with different histories) are as real as the thing that you remember
4:55
But science has reached the point now where we can build machines that exploit those other worlds and quantum computers are perhaps the most exciting of all of these
12:07-14:00 imagine that there really are parallel realities out there and imagine that you have two that are exactly identical in every respect all the way out to the horizon as far as we can see down to last little atomic detail of every single thing with only one difference and that is the value of a little thing called a qubit on this chip (contraction of quantum bit) and that qubit is very much like a bit or a transistor in a conventional computer it has two distinct physical states which we call zero and one per bit in a conventional computer these are mutually exclusive that device is either one or the other and never anything else. In a quantum computer that device can be in the strange situation of where these two parallel universe have a nexus, a point in space where they overlap and when you increase the number of these devices, every time you add one of these qubits you double the number of the parallel universe you have access to until such time you get to a chip like this which is about 500 of these bits you have something like two to the five hundredth power of these guys living in that chip so the way I think about it is the shadows of these parallel worlds overlap with ours and if we are smart enough we can dive into them grab their resources and pull them back into ours to make an effect in our world now this may sound very odd to you and bizarre and in fact I am using language that a normal theoretical physicist probably wouldn't use, but this is what I am telling you is absolutely correct and in line with the way these things actually work.

Thanks for your effort, I appreciate it.

Seeing it earlier triggered a memory of a profile I'd read on Deutch a few years back. Tracked it down to here. You might find it a good read if you've not already seen it. It's pretty balanced; it's the New Yorker and so doesn't gave an agenda!

There's a good quote:

The strangeness of superposition is, as Deutsch explains it, simply “the phenomenon of physical variables having different values in different universes.” And entanglement, which so bothered Einstein and others, especially for its implication that particles could instantly communicate regardless of their distance in space or time, is also resolved. Information that seemed to travel faster than the speed of light and along no detectable pathway—spookily transmitted as if via E.S.P.—can, in Many Worlds theory, be understood to move differently. Information still spreads through direct contact—the “ordinary” way; it’s just that we need to adjust to that contact being via the tangencies of abutting universes. As a further bonus, in Many Worlds theory randomness goes away, too.

And this gets to the heart of it. The Many Worlds theory is a way to get back to determinism for people who don't like the 'randomness' and, most importantly, that a system can hold itself multiple states at once, and multiples of multiple states at once.

It provides a 'picture-able' approach to the problem, rather than being left with the raw maths. It's a cool way to imagine it, but it seems clumsy to think that it is really happening as described. Inelegant. Nothing wrong with that, but to take it literally is not I think useful. I suspect a better view will be invented eventually.

But if it works then that is fine. The history of physics is filled with ideas that worked, led to new insights, but were then discovered to be kinda-wrong of just 'useful fictions', and on we go (see Paul Feyerabend [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method] for fun on that).

The problem with quantum mechanics is that the maths works but there are several different interpretations, all leading to the same result, so it's hard to distinguish between them, except by preference. Seemingly opposing views which, in terms of result, aren't really opposed. They all work.

I don't have a problem with 'multiple states' that collapse on observation, so Many Worlds just seems like a bit of fun. I quite like the idea that it's the whole environment that collapses the state. But there you go.

It's a great topic though.

Final quote:

An example of the agnostic view is given by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, who, while participating in a colloquium at Cambridge, denied that the Copenhagen interpretation asserted "What cannot be observed does not exist." He suggested instead that the Copenhagen interpretation follows the principle "What is observed certainly exists; about what is not observed we are still free to make suitable assumptions. We use that freedom to avoid paradoxes."

Q2: Thanks for your effort, I appreciate it.
You appreciate something you couldn't be bothered to read.
Right...

Um, I did read it, and then I took the time to respond thoughtfully.

Let me say: this isn't news to me. I studied this stuff. Did you read my response? The New Yorker article is pretty accessible to the non-scientist. The Many Worlds view is an interpretation. Amongst others. Most physicists just don't care much. Most don't agree.

There's not much to separate the idea of 'Many States, all of which contribute, only one of which you observe' from 'Many Worlds, all of which contribute, only one of which you live in'.

There are silly reasons to reject Many Worlds (this [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/30/why-the-many-worlds-formulation-of-quantum-mechanics-is-probably-correct/] is a good article covering that), but when you examine it you find that the 'worlds' idea itself doesn't really make much of a difference to people's actually work in detail; really it's just 'states'. (But there's nothing wrong in that as such.)

You might find this interview interesting reading [deleted]. Just came across it. Both a physics and philosophical angle. Anyway, check it out.

Q2: The thing is George, Let's say we prove without a shadow of a doubt that there are parallel universes and they very weakly interact via gravity, and we enable communication between ours and another. No one would ever believe it even with proof. It takes an army and a revolution to change paradigms.

Point well made. Generally I am happy to go with usefulness of concepts while being aware that I am doing this. Of course, we are never at "the end of history" and recognising this is quite freeing.

For this, I think we can operate more directly, conceptually.

...

A1: so you are saying some of it is bullshit, whereas scientific research says all of it is all bullshit
you might have problems making progress with that view

Q3: I mean sure I am saying somethings are not true. Unless you expect me to believe everything I hear which is just silly. Scientific research has nothing to say about it they often are not capable of measuring anything or devising experiments to test claims of an occult or spiritual nature. Now as human beings they may be saying it's bullshit but that isn't really fair and not in the spirit of science. If they cannot measure it or test it they should say nothing until they can approach it experimentally or disprove it mathematically which they have not been able to do.

Q4: Scientific research has nothing to say about it
Yes sir it does.
they often are not capable of measuring anything or devising experiments to test claims of an occult or spiritual nature.
Sure they are. The entire point of me being here is to find people who want something real, and showing them the best scientific evidence to support it.
If they cannot measure it or test it
Of course they can and have.

One key thing: Many good results are "life results", as in they are personally meaningful but are one-offs and can be explained away as coincidences with a describable chain of events. Most useful magick - or I mean, the magick most people are seeking in the end - probably isn't of the psi / spontaneous materialisations / researchable kind. It all falls within the normal laws of physics.

Not many people seem to be deliberately pushing for something more than this.

Q4: One key thing: Many good results are "life results", as in they are personally meaningful but are one-offs and can be explained away as coincidences with a describable chain of events.
You are debating in a vacuum, as you don't now what it is I am referring to.
What I am referring to is something real you can quantify and objectively demonstrate.
Most useful magick - or I mean, the magick most people are seeking in the end - probably isn't
Drawing sigils, chanting incantations, performing rituals, making seals, making potions, visualization, all of that nonsense is make believe.
It is only useful as entertainment.
Not many people seem to be deliberately pushing for something more than this.
There are maybe 5 people on the entire internet that I am aware of pushing for something more.

This brushes most "magick" aside, as generally conceived and practiced, which is fine. It is impossible to test objectively, it is subjective experience by its nature.

What can we quantify and objectively demonstrate at present? Or what can we aim to in future?

If you can't test it objectively it is make believe nonsense or spiritual roleplaying. What I am talking about is something real you can demonstrate.

The problem is, we are reducing the scope of what is real to what is repeatable within very limited constraints. One-hit results, for instance, aren't testable by those methods. We can't say they aren't real, just that they don't fall within the parameters that allow us to examine the phenomena; they can't be proved by those methods. There are some things you can only test for yourself.

Lucid dreaming, for instance. Now there is lab work done with that, but for the longest time that was dismissed, because it is very much a subjective experience, and even now it is argued that it is an imagined state.

Let me be clear: The fact I'm saying that some phenomena might be excluded from this approach doesn't mean, a) That I believe all these things exist or are as described and, b) That I don't think efforts using those methods to explore phenomena that do fall within their scope should not be pursued to the fullest.

Anecdotes aren't evidence, but they are personal data.

Not something I discuss in pubic.

Oh, give me a hint. It'll make all the difference! :-)

Q4: The problem is, we are reducing the scope of what is real
It isn't so complicated. How many millions of people chase magick and occult bullshit daily? How many people are rich as a result of it?
That says plenty right there.
Sure there are plenty of famous authors, and maybe they make money selling bullshit to people who are willing to pay to read bullshit, but other than their fame among a group of sad delusional idiots they have nothing to show for their efforts.
Oh, give me a hint. It'll make all the difference! :-)
No.

Yeah, it's not "movie magick" and anyone expecting that is in for a shock, but who really pushes that idea except a few very populist Chopra-like authors anyway?

Most people who aren't fantasists and have experimented would say that it simply smooths the way via increased fortuitousness, sometimes absolutely ridiculously so. And that it's hard to tell the difference between chance and cause, but that the 'unlikeliness' and personally meaningful aspects of the experience make an impression, and seems repeatable as a phenomenon, but not controllable as a science.

No.

Aw, no fun! ;-)

Q4: imply smooths the way via increased fortuitousness, sometimes absolutely ridiculously so. And that it's hard to tell the difference between chance and cause, but that the 'unlikeliness' and personally meaningful aspects of the experience make an impression, and seems repeatable as a phenomenon, but not controllable as a science.
Translation, it's a game of spiritual roleplay and make believe.

The role-play is optional. It's simply intention and direction. But nobody should take anybody's word for these things - they have to experiment themselves, be brutally honest, and come to their own conclusions. It's a subjective experience, but also can be a shared subjective experience.

If I had to describe it, I'd say that - yes, basically magick as described isn't real - but the world does have a 'clumpiness' to it, and correlation and causation are muddled here. Someone's "ritual" doesn't cause anything, however the ritual and whatever-the-apparent-result both arise from the same place.

That sounded a bit 'woo', really what I'm getting at is that it can be seen as part of a single movement (see Wholeness and the Implicate Order or similar), so it's not surprising that events should arise in patterns - our actions and thoughts also being events - and that we might attribute direct causality where there is none. The unfolded events were enfolded together. This doesn't matter in terms of the apparent results, or their usefulness.

(This of course has implications for free will.)

But, y'know, I'm not really an advocate, I just find it interesting to think and explore, and a spot of experimentation does show some curious effects.

[QUOTE]

Wholeness and the Implicate Order:
Wholeness and the Implicate Order is a book by theoretical physicist David Bohm. It was originally published 1980 by Routledge, Great Britain.
The book is considered a basic reference for Bohm's concepts of undivided wholeness and of implicate and explicate orders, as well as of Bohm's rheomode. The book is cited, for example, by philosopher Steven M. Rosen in his book The Self-evolving Cosmos, by mathematician and theologian Kevin J. Sharpe in his book David Bohm's World, by theologian Joseph P. Farrell in Babylon's Banksters, and by theologian John C. Polkinghorne in his book One World.

[END OF QUOTE]

Drawing sigils on paper, performing rituals, chanting incantations, and all of the other nonsense.

Oh, I agree with you on that. None of those acts do anything. Any results are coincidental (in the literal sense of coinciding) and were not caused by those acts. There is some skew, but most ain't true. But one can obtain effects. Experimenting there and moving along is one way to make progress.

For all the millions of newagers, occultists, or whatever, the few who seem to make progress sure seem to keep their mouths shut about it.

Well, most people are just talk, they're enjoying "the thing of it". They're doing it wrong, or they're not really doing anything at all, and they're looking in the wrong direction anyway. But why does it continue? Because they get a taste of something, just enough.

Q4: You got my meaning, they aren't presenting any good evidence their practices are giving any results other than how they make them feel emotionally.
they're enjoying "the thing of it".
They are roleplaying, it is a game of spiritual make believe, it's purpose is spiritual entertainment.

Yeah, it's about the "zing" for many, and for most it's just a personal thing, Baader-Meinhof or not [https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/]. That is not to dismiss it all, however. Baby and bathwater.

EDIT: I don't know that it's "spiritual entertainment" though, it's the excitement of there being a deeper reality, something 'more than is here', and the possibility of exerting control over what previously seemed uncontrollable.

Q4: EDIT: I don't know that it's "spiritual entertainment" though, it's the excitement of there being a deeper reality, something 'more than is here', and the possibility of exerting control over what previously seemed uncontrollable.
Obviously they aren't in a deeper reality, exerting control over the uncontrollable, etc. Otherwise they would be getting some results. Either that or they keep their mouths shut real well.
Either you get results you can display in a lab or you don't.
Either you have objective evidence to ground your beliefs in or you don't.
It's that simple.

This is the attraction though, for people.

But: The results that one can display in a lab are a particular subset of possible results, and probably not the result people into this are seeking. That's why people won't bite on the whole evidence thing. They're not interesting in affecting instruments and so on, or even localised control of themselves at all. They want that job interview to go successfully, that person to show up, that object they like to appear. Some are interested in pushing a bit further, bending things a little more, in a direct-reality way, but not many. The idea of that being possible has fallen away over time.

Meanwhile, you can do awareness training and direct influence work with much practice, but that's a different sort of effort, and not something most people would find an attractive way to spend their time. Not "wizardly" enough! :-)

Most people aren't really "here" much in the first place, and that's the place to start.

So I have heard no tales of anyone's magick affecting their lives any more than prayer.

Exactly right. There's a whole book on that technique, actually.

"You can do awareness training and direct influence work with much practice." Results there are none. None.

Those results are martial arts skills if so desired, the various benefits of Qigong, and a clarity of awareness without the usual perceptual boundaries. But that's all another thing. The only way to get real results is by direct presence and intention. This need not be local, however.

"There's a whole book on that technique, actually." Listen I could create a fake pantheon and teach it to ignorant children living in isolation...

Um, so that was a joke actually.

It's simple: You develop direct access to your extended underlying experience, you intend directly, you get results. You might need to clear a few things away beforehand if you've been messing around with other conceptual frameworks, but that's it. The mechanism or representation is irrelevant. There's no energy to play with, no servitors, no symbols, etc, other than as experiential crutches or routes. I've played with them all, and they're just additional forms.

Anyone promising a secret path or new knowledge is just adding to the layers of obfuscation.

Q4: Um, so that was a joke actually. It's simple: You develop direct access to your extended underlying experience, you intend directly, you get results. You might need to clear a few things away beforehand if you've been messing around with other conceptual frameworks, but that's it. The mechanism or representation is irrelevant. There's no energy to play with, no servitors, no symbols, etc, other than as experiential crutches or routes. I've played with them all, and they're just additional forms.
You make things way more complicated than necessary.
You listen to those people who get results and you ignore everyone who doesn't.
That simple.
You come back and lecture on why whatever method you think works, works when you have some evidence to back that up.
Anyone promising a secret path or new knowledge is just adding to the layers of obfuscation.
Unless they can offer good hard objective evidence they get some results...

You seem to be having an argument with someone who isn't having an argument with you. Your tone is well out of order and there's no excuse for it in a constructive exchange.

Nobody was lecturing you. I apologise if I came across that way, it was unintended, on re-reading it did sound preachy, but I was just summarising my position.

That is my technique and it works well within its parameters. It also appears to be the basis for other techniques when they work. If there are alternatives, I'm interested; I'm not bound to any one approach and don't identify with any technique. As far as I'm concerned, any discoveries and progress are all good.

To be honest you might be a nice guy, but I am not interested in your opinion unless you have some evidence that is convincing.

That's better. There's no excuse not to be civil. :-)

I'm not really interested in getting into evidence-exhange though, it's just a slog with little reward (in my experience) - just like most conversations about it eh.

There are already studies out there that cover the basic lab stuff, and anything more extended doesn't fit easily into a small study, is expensive to set up, and unpleasant to be involved in - so has to remain in the 'unproven' box as far as a global skeptic audience is concerned. (For now.)

My apologies. I am just burnt out from arguing with people non stop.
I guess you are just trying to have a civil discussion.

No worries. It's not always easy to have conversations on these topics and on these forums: people either don't want to listen, or they don't want to talk! :-)

Take it easy.

POST: Can we get a synchronicity thread going?

/r/sychronicities covers this but can descend into just 'hey, two things happened'. If we could have a thread that ups the quality - i.e. meaningful coincidences that seem like messages - then this could be worth having.

Not "I bought a red bicycle and now I see lots of red bicycles".

Q: At the risk of sounding like a jerk, those are some pretty tame "synchronicities" that I would tend to just call coincidences. To me, a synchronicity is when something happens that is meaningfully related to something relevant to your life (whether a dream, emotional situation, dilemma, etc.), and is so clearly significant that it almost feels like a message, of which the meaning is easily interpreted.
Example: While struggling with disease, a young man dreams that his hair has turned completely white (in Eastern cultures, white is the color of death). The next day he receives a surprise birthday gift: A white rabbit! Years later, the man succumbs to his disease, and just few hours after him, the rabbit dies too.

Yeah, they are meant to be personally meaningful coincidences rather than just coincidences, and sometimes things really ramp up at key moments.

For instance, when I was in a particularly tight spot I went for some coffee in a cafe and at the table opposite me two random guys started talking about the exact situation I was in, about a friend of theirs, and what he should do and what he should watch out for.

I'd made a few mistakes and ignored some synchronicities, and bit by bit the universe started screaming at me it seemed, giving me multiple escape options and advice. This eventually ended with having an absolute gravitational pull that I just had to meet a certain person at a certain place that night, or else.

POST: Solipsism... this thread needs to happen

Doesn't really matter. The sense in which "there is only you" isn't in the same sense that you would say "there is only cosmicprankster420", because "cosmicprankster420" is illusory (just a bunch of bodily sensations and thoughts floating in space) - a 'dream character', basically - as is everyone else (just images and touch sensations).

The real "you" is the awareness that experiences "cosmicprankster420" and it turns out that this awareness can't be divided; everything emerges from it and is of it. Everything you experience is an aspect of you. It's only in that sense that you are all there is.

Practically speaking then, that means you (the apparent individual) should treat everyone else as part of yourself. Which is a pretty good way to treat people anyway: with compassion. In fact, it might be a better worldview to have for behaviour.

(Being selfish is okay when it's the capital-S version of Self.)

POST: Is this legit?

Q1: This is from a documentary named "Verbotene Aufnahmen" and it was aired on the German TV-Channel "ARTE".
It is supposed to be fake and is on purpose filmed like that. A french guy directed the whole thing.
As a kid I really loved watching this documentary, because it was somehow mysterious and scary.
For everyone out there understanding German or French, watch it!
German Wiki:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbotene_Aufnahmen
Original Title:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258528/]
Full Video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPupIkjspN8] - German
[http://youtu.be/5TOFD-pEIhg] - French

Q2: Thanks. For lack of not knowing german, what is it about?

Translation from the German wiki:

Forbidden photographs
Forbidden photographs (franz. Original title: Les of document interdits) short film series of the French director are Jean teddy Filippe.
Those altogether twelve films with a length between 4 and 13 minutes are in the style of amateur photographs and treat together all puzzling, amazing or inexplicable phenomena and things, for example humans supernatural Abilities. The films developed in the year 1989 and fictitiously, are to arouse the impression however that it concerns material, together-collected amateur photographs, which are commentated by a speaker documentarily and dramatisierend. The most different time epochs are processed, for example 1940er years, 1980er years.
The Erstausstrahlung on the German television took place via the transmitter arte. There some the Kurzfilme not as obvious falsification to recognize are, these of few persons as genuine are not regarded, what also the intention of the director was.
See also:
Mockumentary [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockumentary], Pseudo documentation

So, it's a bit of fun really. As an early instance of the "fake found footage" genre, the films supposedly inspired the movies [REC], Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. Good article here:

Filippe make no serious attempt to get us to believe his films are real, but simply launches freely into the pleasure of the hoax, tweaking and suggesting just enough, and taking joy in exploring and exploiting restraint rather than the overt excess that invades so many later “found footage” films. Some, like Siberia are in fact fairly dull, but even in that lies a certain charm, as though we’re watching a classified instructional film that makes to pretense at asking for our interest or offering sordid details; the ordinary looking “cyborg” getting his arm trapped in a window isn’t much of a story and Filippe knows that the trick is not trying to turn it into one.

And here is that particular show described:

Ghosts (8'33) : Guided by his mexican friend y, x goes hiking to be presented to " The Nameless Ones " , entities living in the desert and able to move instantely from one point to another.

POST: The question is not "Which god created the world?", it's "Which god created YOUR world?"

I created my world, including the character of "TriumphantGeorge", which I later confused myself with, forgetting that I was the whole world, and not just that named part of it. You are your God.

I'm having some trouble reconcing the ideas of "pride is bad" and "I am god".

Who says pride is bad? And who said "I am God" is something to be proud of? Are you proud of being a person? Or of being the gender you are? You can't be proud of facts!

You just use facts.

Pride is the greatest of the opposing forces within us. It causes our anger, jealousy, greed etc. but the way you explain it, I think I get how to view it.

Yes. Pride is bad in the sense that we can end up not doing things because it involves actions which are against who we think we are as a person. But we are not really that person, so that is to make decisions based on a "false self".

"I am God" is a way of pointing to your true nature, which cannot be prideful if you understand it properly.

I may just read too much fantasy, but when a prideful person achieves godhood, it never ends well. I'd rather get over myself before I put myself over everything.

Well, what saves you is: A prideful person never achieves the recognition of Godhood, because you have to get over yourself (your 'small self') in order to do this.

Seeing yourself as "everything", or an undivided part of "everything", means you have to let go of that individual sense.

There is a concept in the New Thought movement which sorta goes "Your image of God is what you become." Kinda similar to this. Personally, I can't choose one deity that created my world because it changes often. But today, a chthonic earth goddess of some sort feels appropo. Thanks for asking.

"The world is yourself pushed out", says Neville Goddard for instance.

POST: Are sigils with built-in time constraints doomed to fail?

A1: In my experience, Magic generally works in a way consistent with the thoughts of the caster. If you subconsciously expect time constraints to hinder the work, they will.
This seems to function with a feedback loop, the results tend to reinforce your thoughts about how Magic works/doesn't work.
The initial thoughts about how Magic should work usually originate with literature and film exposure, as well as the opinions of nurturing influences (parents, relatives, friends).
Preprogrammed and reinforced limitations can be overcome by study, analysis, and meditation. You must reprogram the subconscious by answering the question of "What beliefs do I have which cause me to think time constraints cause sigils to fail?" and deeply analyzing "What do I know about magic which indicates time constraints should not be a problem?"
For example, many people program themselves by adopting idioms/memes such as:
"No such thing as a free meal." "Everything happens in its own time." "Nothing in life is easy." "In due time."
And so their experiences will manifest consistent with the idioms they've programmed themselves to accept as true. If you believe everything happens in its own time, then you're swimming up a river when specifying a time because you don't actually believe you're capable of changing when things happen. So you have to ask questions like "Why do I think things happen in their own time? Who told me that and why did I adopt that statement as true? Who/What determines when something's time is?"
A person with a strong belief in scientific materialism will find that beliefs about a strictly causal universe interfere with temporal determination. If one believes the past determines the future, then things can only happen when a prior event leads causally towards a future event.

What a great response. It's also worth experimenting with 'impossible things' that aren't impossible - e.g. seeing with your eyes closed (see here [Darkroom Vision & Chef Hats & Dreams], it can be done because what you're seeing right now is a dream or constantly-updating-memory 'inspired by the senses', at best).

The idea being that visceral experiences that are counterintuitive can loosen the hold of constraints and open you up. Anything that can change your feeling from being "this is a solid, material place" to something a bit more flexible, will be helpful.

Also, check out Alan Chapman's Advanced Magick for Beginners, which pretty much encapsulated the "how this works is how I think this works" view of magick, especially sigils.

...

Q1: My theory is that sigils work the way the caster thinks. Like, if you were a sigil, how would you get your caster what they wanted? That's how it'll work.

Q2: Be careful about assuming that. You never know if you'll come into a lot of money because your dad got hit by a bus.

You can specify against that. That sort of thing only happens if you quietly don't want things to go nicely, think that there is a price to pay, etc.

"The harvest was indeed plentiful that year, because half of the population was killed by the plague. And the sharknado."

POST: Is a Creator necessary?

There is "God" and there is God - ?

  • "God" is an entity who can be called upon, one of many.
  • God is the universe itself, the conscious space in which all experience arises, and is made from. He is not an entity, he is first-cause, the larger Self from which your 'self' appears, and is a fragment. You have no power other than the power of God, for you are he and he is you. You are moved by his Will, which is your True Will, although you can equally intend from the perspective of your self, against this, to a limited extent.

/r/Pantheism much, yessss?

More idealism, I'd say: Consciousness is fundamental; everything, all content, is patterns in and of consciousness.

Rocks, having no complexity, are not self-conscious, but they are made of consciousness. Humans are also made of consciousness but, having complexity, are self-conscious because they can attend to concepts within themselves, including a concept of 'self'.

It seems like you could take your use of "consciousness" and swap it out for "energy." If you've got an explanation for why the universe would have to be conscious, I'd be interested to hear it.

No, they can't be swapped. If at some point you want to move from the start of the universe to a person that can be aware of things, and have 'self' awareness, consciousness has to "emerge" somewhere.

If the material of the universe is inherently conscious, then this isn't a problem. Note, this doesn't mean that everything is thinking! Rather, it means that a certain region is aware of the patterns within its boundary.

For instance, your nervous system is aware of the contents of your nervous system, including "thoughts" (shadow sensations), but cannot be aware of itself (as in, its own boundary). Self-consciousness for humans is: a feeling of being aware (this is inherent), and an awareness of a thought of oneself (which appears within the boundary).

The Metaphor of the Blanket

Imagine a blanket. The blanket is "aware". But laid out flat, there is just "openness", no structure, no content to be aware of. Now, the blanket folds itself, creases itself. The blanket is now aware of the structure within itself, relative to itself: one side of the fold relative to the other. It is in this sense that consciousness (or "awareness", to escape from some of the baggage attached to the c-word) is fundamental, and this is how it becomes "aware of" something, of content, formed from itself.

The brain is a very complex area of blanket (whose pattern border marks the limit of our personal experience), which is part of a larger blanket (the universe).

(An alternative metaphor is whirlpools in a stream: everything is made from water, whirlpools represents patterned regions such as brains which are aware of the structure within themselves.)

It seems to me that "emergent" consciousness as a result of complexity of the nervous system (in the same way that enzymes have emergent functionality as a result of their structure versus other assemblies of matter) is a lot easier to explain than consciousness as an inherent principle to the universe. From a purely material view, I can agree that the capacity for consciousness exists in the universe (in the same way that the capacity for television exists - the matter and energy that compose the universe make it possible), but I don't see it as an underlying force or inherent principle (like strong and weak nuclear, and all that jazz). Unfortunately, that's us drawing different conclusions from the same set of data, so I doubt either one is going to change the other's mind. That being said, that's far and away the best explanation I've seen of the idea and how it works, which I really appreciate (all the previous discussions I've had about it quickly descend into "because I said so" territory). Thanks!

I'm pretty open minded! The problem is, that the personal experience of consciousness is hard to reconcile with the "emergent" view. You end up with questions such as, where in the brain does consciousness begin and end, at what point does something get complex enough to be conscious, and so on. It's not an underlying force, or that sort of thing, but it needs to be a pre-existing property of some sort. Awareness is a better word than consciousness for this basic property though. I've not come up with anything better than this version of 'idealism + nonduality', so far.

Of course, these questions have been around for a long time!

Another way of thinking about it: Imagine that the blanket is made up from eyes. Laid flat, the eyes perceive nothing, the blanket is not aware of anything. The eyes are "aware", but not aware of anything. With the blanket having folds and creases, however, the eyes see the themselves; consciousness-of the pattern of the folds and self-consciousness can arise.

Yeah, I don't see this as being resolved any time soon. :-) Cheers.

...

That's quite nice. Quite a few folk - physicist David Bohm for instance with his quantum potential, implicate order, and active information - go for something akin to a mind-like and matter-like combination of aspects. My take is that you don't need the matter aspect (and who's heard a decent definition of matter lately?) if you re-introduce it as a self-referencing pattern of the mind aspect.

Rocks and the like aren't self-aware or conscious exactly but they have a relationship to their surroundings that's relatively static so they can function effectively as a kind of memory.

That's a nice way to put it. I'd say that rocks are "static memory" or rather - since they do change - very slowly-changing memory. We, on the other hand, are "dynamic" or very fast-unfolding memory.

Constantly unfolding, changing patterns in a background - everything is its own memory.

The fact that we're conscious is definitely a byproduct of the nature of the world around us. You might think this sounds like the materialist perspective.

I agree with that. Materialism and idealism are basically the same thing, with a new level inserted at the base: consciousness or awareness as the basic no-thing "non-stuff" from which things ("actual-stuff") arise as patterns. That's it. Basically, it introduces a mind-aspect by saying that the mind-aspect is the basic reality; a matter-aspect follows as patterns within the mind-aspect, which subsequently at an advanced level leads to patterns which are aware of their own content patterns.

  1. There is a background (like water).
  2. Things we experience are patterns arising and unfolding in that background (like ripples).

As always, the important point is that the background when undisturbed isn't conscious - which people use to mean conscious-of - it is consciousness. It is only conscious-of when there is a pattern within itself. Like a rock. Or a brain.

POST: How can I do this Magick stuff when I can’t visualize? | The Gates of Horn

This is spot on. Visualisation - and seeing - isn't about the location of the picture or the target, it's about where you see from: where you centre and rest your attention, where you 'look out from'.

Ignore the hosting website, but check out this article [http://www.reptilianagenda.com/brain/br121804d.shtml] on 'seeing from the core':

Another student called me the other day and said, “When I remember the quiet place inside my head, it really improves my vision.” It gives one a little sense of distance from the eyes, a sense of space, so that one can sit back, so to speak, and receive the images. This prevents the habit of straining. We are giving the eyes the opportunity to move freely and see, just as Bates said. Sometimes it’s the acuity that sharpens; sometimes it’s the visual field that expands and sometimes it’s the double images that resolve into one.

EDIT: I'd add that visualisation doesn't matter for magick though. It's really about located presence and intention, and the picturing aspect can be incidental to that. The important bit is to realise the difference between thinking-about and being-at.

POST: Dream magic question - how to?

Enter his dream directly?

  • Relax and get ready for sleep.
  • Wait for your body to release and enter a calm state.
  • Wait for "the sparkles", which then turn into image fragments.
  • At this point, decide that you are going to enter the dream of this person that night.
  • Remain conscious as the fragments gradually coalesce into an environment.
  • Mentally step into the dream environment.
  • Go looking for him.

POST: Reading Robert Bruce's "Astral Dynamics" -- Why does he describe the astral plane(s) as nonphysical?

The vibrations thing can be confusing, but it's just a metaphor. Science itself is a bunch of metaphors, however they are specifically tied to particular observations, and have been felt out over time to find the best ones. You could also talk about "tuning into to levels", etc. Read the OBE/LD books (Robert Bruce, Robert Munroe, Oliver Fox, Robert Waggoner - all the Bobs!) for the reported experiences and the techniques. Reserve judgement on the "what it really means or how it really works" until you've had a chance to explore the phenomena yourself.

Metaphors don't mean much without the experience, and then they are obvious. That's why reading "non-dual" literature is so frustrating, for instance.

TL;DR: What are experiences made from? Experiencing. What are explanations made from? Thoughts. What are thoughts made from? They are made from thinking. What is thinking? An experience...

curious about your reading of the rest of chapman [http://www.reddit.com/r/OccultStudyGroup/comments/2mnogq/reading_group_advanced_magick_for_beginners_start/]

I'm in. I have read it and I often recommend it to people - and the shorter, snappier version (The Camel Rides Again) - but actually it's been awhile. I probably have quite a different way of seeing things now than I did at the time.

...

notfancy: You know the New Age penchant for misappropriating and mangling quantum mechanical concepts? Turns out the tradition goes back to the Victorian Spiritualists and Theosophists besotted with Maxwell's theories of radiation. The appropriation of ready-made, mostly opaque (or black-box) physical concepts works as generative metaphors to put into words concepts completely alien to the base or imported concept but having more or less isomorphous relations to one another.
For instance, as you increase geometrical dimensions you quickly find room for more and more strange and complicated mathematical objects, so in Theosophical parlance dimensions are organizing conceptual "planes" (another metaphor) vertically stacked in ascending order of abstraction, purity or rarefaction.
In the same way that electromagnetic waves of higher frequencies represent radio waves, microwaves, infrared, the visible colors from red to violet and so on and so forth, Theosophical "vibration" or "frequency" represent higher "colors" or "tonalities" (here the metaphor is Pythagorean and certainly of ancient coinage) in a harmonious ascending scale of some positive quality: "energy" properly as the abstract capacity to effect change, "evolution" (another appropriation, this time from Darwin), "consciousness", et cetera.
This unfortunately means that, as a newcomer to the field, you have two potentially difficult prerequisites to fulfill: one is learning the specific Theosophical, New Thought and/or New Age vocabulary used by the book, and two is keeping it all in a separate compartment from those concepts with the same name that you know from your Science education.
Edit: before you cry foul consider that usual Physical words like "energy", "current", "potential", "force", "quantum" are all metaphors. Not the denotations themselves, those are precise, but the denoting words were all appropriated from previous base meanings and coopted for specific new ones. Physics in particular and Science in general have no claim of exclusivity to their words.

I know it's been a while, but can you tell me what meaning is intended by metaphorical super-high frequency vibrations? Like, if scientific parlance is the vehicle, what is the actual nature of the tenor?

notfancy: Frequency of vibration is a scale to measure the evolution of the gross into the subtle, and in that respect it is a value judgement: low is bad, high is good, with the resulting metaphors of descent or fall and ascent or redemption and so on.

POST: You can't have anything you need.

[POST]

I've recently learned this myself. If i need something, i can't have it. Anyone know any books on this philosophy?

[END OF POST]

NeedPan: As you can see I need pan and have plenty!
Care to be more specific?
Do you mean what you must for you cannot easily obtain? Do you mean what you're looking for you won't find?
Sounds depressing

Q: Correct me if I am wrong, but I think what OP is saying is that when you say you "need" something, then the universe, kia, subconscious, whatever... it takes that as a statement of truth and manifests it into "reality". I think that you, NeedPan, are hinting at this idea, lust of result... again, correct me if I'm wrong.

NeedPan: yeah of course! that's really psychical of you because the words "lust of result" were spiraling in my head I just didn't bring it up in need of further clarification before citing Crowley but..
TIL that's part of the bedrock of (atleast) practical magick? No, it's also the bedrock of material/emotional/spiritual experience. The way that the human brain thinks it can accomplish something from a position of 'need/want'...
It's like the Inception part about life. It's the fact that we are experiencing what our subconscious expects us to. If we wish to alter the current status of our perceived reality we must begin to assume the state required. You can re-orient your thoughts and musing around the concept of being at-one with the energies you wish to merge with. The only way to do it is to do it.
So I ask OP: What would, or to take it a step father, what DOES it FEEL like to get what you need? That one day you knew you had exactly what you needed, didn't it feel great?
Very specific requests require very specific energies. Study the energy and merge!
Gods, Goddesses and archetypes I believe are part of the stepping stone to helping usher in the energy one might feel they've never before possessed. One good practice would be to find out who/what harbors what it is you need/want and attempt to invoke their vital energies while knowing you have inside you what it is you'll wish to experience materialized in the future.

If you go about deciding to want/need something, your wish is granted: you get to want/need it. If you decide you already have it, then you get that. Feeling is the secret, apparently. (Seriously: developing "feeling-awareness" is key to magick in general.)

People often do a sigil and say "I want to have a nice car". The sigil then gives them the experience of wanting, just as they requested! If they say "I will have a nice car", then that's different. Unfortunately, the default position people have is the feeling of "desire" which they refuse to let go of, or try to manipulate - even though letting go of desire is the only way for it to move location from here (the internal world) to there (the external).

EDIT: Assume the state, as /u/NeedPan says!

POST: They say practice magick every day

[POST]

==I don't know what to do besides performing rituals to manifest my will, aka mostly sigil magick. What other stuff is there for me to do in my garage/temple? ==

[END OF POST]

Explore the nature of your direct experience.

could you elaborate?

Of course.

Instead of thinking-about what's going on, actually direct your attention to your experience right now. For instance, close your eyes and listen to the sounds. Are you "here" where your body sensation are with the sound over "there" - or are you also beside the sound?

Further ones mentioned here [POST: Hell Zen.] and here [POST: You can't have anything you need.].

Basically, you want to spend some time realising directly that you are having a dream-like existence, with sensations floating in space and no central "you" doing the experiencing and doing. Also, do a daily releasing technique (basically, just lie on the floor and let go completely - of your thoughts, body and, most importantly, your "attention" - and let things unfold and unwind as they want). You'll find it really helps your work. Particularly, you'll probably find you stop wrestling with yourself so much, and it'll become a little clearer just is what's happening when you "do magick".

Q: Basically, you want to spend some time realising directly that you are having a dream-like existence, with sensations floating in space and no central "you"
I've done this all my life. I've always thought everything was connected when I was a kid. I thought if people tried hard enough, even without picking up body language, they could read people's thoughts directly. Or predict the outcome of one's actions. When I was in middle school, I thought this girl knew I liked her and I tried everything to get her to like me, but I became a victim of my own beliefs and told myself she didn't like me, when now it's pretty obvious she did. That was just one instance where I realized everything was connected, way before I read any hermetic or taoist texts or the tanakh/bible.
Later I knew that reality wasn't how we experience it when I learned about different waves of electro-magnetic energy, and also began to experiment with psychedelic drugs in highschool like pot, and learned about DMT and stuff, I realized that we're just a product of chemical reactions in our brain and it's up to our psyche to interpret them. It's funny ina way, our brain is an alchemical engine

Cool. I had much of the same thinking. So true about the belief-overly thing that happens. And thinking about interconnectedness...

But, do you experience this directly?

Right now, do you feel like you are a person who has a body in a room typing at a keyboard - or - do you feel that you are a vast space of conscious awareness in which various thoughts, sensations and perceptions arise?

It's not even about the brain, EM waves, whatever - those are just thoughts (although it's a good way to think about interconnectedness). This is about direct knowing. Literally experiencing it as real, right now.

I get what you mean, I should meditate and try to directly experience interconnectedness, any tips on stuff I should do? I like your concept that we are just a conscious awareness in which sensations and perceptions arise.

Well, there's nothing special to it. Try the links I pointed to, or check out Rupert Spira's books, Presence Vol I & II for some good guidance. And checkout the experiments at Douglas Harding's website. There's no action to be taken, it's really a letting go. It's like you been 'holding onto' thoughts or your body with your attention - and so releasing your attention you find you open out and discover the context in which that was arising.

Even just: Lie on the floor, let go, and decide that you are the space in the room. Just give up completely and say, "I am the background space of this room". And see what happens.

Mantras, prayers, affirmations, are just very indirect ways of tweaking background beliefs. If you were feeling determined, you could just constantly assert that this is a dream-like world and you are the dreamer, as you go about your day. Inserting/asserting that fact alone will make a big difference.

(Everyone always wants to "do" something, but in truth any physical or mental act is largely irrelevant. It's the decision + any accumulated habits-beliefs-expectations-memory traces, that is key. Being quiet and asserting without fighting is enough.)

Lucid dreaming is also a great way to experiment (check out Robbert Waggoner's book if you haven't already, and also this [http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-control/46571-infinite-universes-lucid-dreaming.html] interesting thread).

POST: Thoughts on narcissism? Thoughts on vanity?

I'll have a go with this...

Narcissism

A state of constant, extreme "self"-defence. A person's attention is focused on a small area of their experiential field: typically the thoughts that occur towards the rear of the head area. As a result, they are not really "in the world" and the world seems like a threat. Correspondingly, the world of thought and the self-concept (ego) seem very real. There is a grasping on to this concept and a near complete identification with it which means daily life is a constant struggle for survival. Actions are undertaken in defence of this concept; to keep the story alive. Feeling good = thinking good about oneself.

External achievements and relationships are not valued, because they are not "felt". The narcissist is disconnected from the world and his own bodily 'felt sense' and emotions.

The narcissist is an idea.

Furthermore, he is unaware of the existence of the things he is unaware of. The narcissist has no "sense of touch", while being unaware there is even such a thing. He builds theories about "hard and soft" without having the experience. He rationalises and explains - about relationships, about the world - but never knows or that he can know.

Vanity

Similar to narcissism. Identification with an image or thought, a mental construct but perhaps connected with some sensory aspects.

In both cases, the solution is to release one's focus of attention and expand it, direct it out into the world - the background space of awareness. In this way, the narcissist re-contextualises himself, reconnects to the ground of existence. He acquires direct knowledge.

EDIT: Added quotes to emphasise that I mean defence of the conceptual "self", one's self-image or internal story, which has become misidentified as one's real self or true essence, to an extreme level.

Defending yourself is not narcissistic . Speaking out against the Conservative government, or the abolition of the Canadian senate.. etc.. is not narcissistic . The people who warn you about narcissism are the same person who attack you.

I think you misunderstand - or I wasn't clear. I should have said "self"-defence. In other words, defending your concept of yourself, your internal story or self-image. This is different to defending your property or livelihood.

I will make that change.

Q: This is different to defending your property or livelihood.
Is it?

Within the context of OP's post, yes. But I know what you're getting at, Nefandi, and it would be exhausting.

Humility is overrated. Vanity has been given a bad rap. A peacock serves no greater good by hiding his feathers. Maybe we are here to be beautiful, prideful expressions of consciousness. My vanity has not been a hindrance to any of my relationships.

Thing is, a peacock is not enamoured with its own feathers; it is not vain.

But yeah, people should take care of themselves.

POST: Stupid question, but nagging me. If belief affects reality, do schizophrenics and narcissists have an advantage?

I don't think beliefs shape reality; but they do filter the "infinite gloop" of reality. More specifically: they filter the experience, but not the ability.

What does it mean to "do" something? It means: intending it and subsequently experiencing it. There is no actual "doing" involved at any point; there is only the "experience of doing". Given this, the narcissist and the schizophrenic don't have an advantage because they don't have the intention aspect under control.

The narcissist is vulnerable and self-deludes; he fantasises about status but does not intend results. He sees confirmation in existing situations through mild synchronicity but does not actively leverage them in a magickal way (I suggest).

The schizophrenic, meanwhile, is cracked wide open to an expanded experience. Again, he does not have intention under control. He is simply bombarded with extra information and massive alignments. His intensity means he is constantly willing and shifting his world. If he is lucky, he will learn to use some of it to his advantage. More likely, his lack of "formatting" will render him confused.

"Normal" people with magickal ambitions have enough trouble grasping the idea of will; these guys are further disadvantaged in that, just in opposite ways.

Edit

Pub: 14 Oct 2025 13:23 UTC

Views: 10