Self improvement

[EternalReturn]

As I promised in my introduction post, I'll write more about problems I've met in my life so far.

During past few years I have had terrible experiences which have caused complete destruction of habits I used to cling on. It was few months of emotional agony filled up with few bright momets when I could meet with my girfriend. This has made a lot of impact on my character and from the day that all came down I felt I needed a change.

I knew I was doing something negative which has reflected on my life be it my naivety or sheer ignorance of implications of my actions. Well to make long story short I found myself at a bottom and decided I will move up in any way possible, as long as I don't harm nobody.

But I found that I lack certain strenght or, I can call it, self control. Hardest part of this change process was admitting to myself that sometimes I just don't know how to control myself or use my aptitudes to it's full potential. I tend to procastrinate and block myself from outer influences in various specific situations. Then I remembered some talks which I had with few friends who were into magick and occult who were mentioning programming yourself.

I find the idea very amusing because of my interest in astral projection and lucid dreaming. I learned how to achive lucid dreaming to get rid of my nightmares as a pubescent child, and after a few years of reading and such I managed to experience short but unforgettable oobe. As an addition was my personal contemplations in which I found wil and imagination as two very important concepts, and a few months later I foun this forum where I've learned that this is like, foundation of magick.

What I'm trying to find here are ways, methods, techniques which can help me with my growth on emotional, mental and spiritual basis. Wide variety of topics just confuse me and I can't seem to find a good starting point. Any help would be gladly welcome. [grin]

[Frumens]

Initiation into Hermetics by Franz Bardon is all about simultaneously balancing your body, mind, and soul. It does teach mental and astral projection in the later chapters. It's not an easy book, but it's oh so worth it. You could also look into self-hypnosis. I'm not sure which book to recommend on that topic.

[Desecrated]

And of course the standard:

Modern magick - Donald Michael Kraig
Peter. J. Carrol - Liber Null & Psychonaut

Franz Bardon is more accurate, but harder to understand then kraigs book.
Liber null is another really easy book about a pretty hard system, but I still think it is one of the better books about practicing magic.

And ten I'm going to separate a little bit from the general consensus of the forum. For self-improvement I would read anthon laveys books. Both satanic bible and satanic witch.
And then dalai lama - art of happiness.

[EternalReturn]

Initiation into Hermetics by Franz Bardon is all about simultaneously balancing your body, mind, and soul. It does teach mental and astral projection in the later chapters. It's not an easy book, but it's oh so worth it. You could also look into self-hypnosis. I'm not sure which book to recommend on that topic.

Self hypnosis sounds dangerous but of course only if I don't know what I'm doing I hope.

And of course the standard:

Modern magick - Donald Michael Kraig
Peter. J. Carrol - Liber Null & Psychonaut

Franz Bardon is more accurate, but harder to understand then kraigs book.
Liber null is another really easy book about a pretty hard system, but I still think it is one of the better books about practicing magic.

And ten I'm going to separate a little bit from the general consensus of the forum. For self-improvement I would read anthon laveys books. Both satanic bible and satanic witch.
And then dalai lama - art of happiness.

I felt atrracted to the word psychonaut, so I started with this one.

But what I would like to ask, I had a few run-ins with hermeticist and thelemist, and concerning books and authosrs thelemist didn't say anything against any book. But hermeticist tended to disregard some authors mostly Crawley and Lavey saying that, I'm parafrazing, it's of lesser quality and perhaps not good for people. So well, I feel I bit lost here

[Ramscha]

You have to find the starting point for yourself. part of magick is working with yourself, this is part of it as well.
There were already made some general suggestions but before I am groing to throw books at you:

What are YOUR interests? What is your cultural background, any interests to culture, mythology, psychology or even science which you could refer to?
Makes it easier to find something without projecting too much from my own position.

Ramscha

[Desecrated]

Initiation into Hermetics by Franz Bardon is all about simultaneously balancing your body, mind, and soul. It does teach mental and astral projection in the later chapters. It's not an easy book, but it's oh so worth it. You could also look into self-hypnosis. I'm not sure which book to recommend on that topic.

Self hypnosis sounds dangerous but of course only if I don't know what I'm doing I hope.

And of course the standard:

Modern magick - Donald Michael Kraig
Peter. J. Carrol - Liber Null & Psychonaut

Franz Bardon is more accurate, but harder to understand then kraigs book.
Liber null is another really easy book about a pretty hard system, but I still think it is one of the better books about practicing magic.

And ten I'm going to separate a little bit from the general consensus of the forum. For self-improvement I would read anthon laveys books. Both satanic bible and satanic witch.
And then dalai lama - art of happiness.

I felt atrracted to the word psychonaut, so I started with this one.

But what I would like to ask, I had a few run-ins with hermeticist and thelemist, and concerning books and authosrs thelemist didn't say anything against any book. But hermeticist tended to disregard some authors mostly Crawley and Lavey saying that, I'm parafrazing, it's of lesser quality and perhaps not good for people. So well, I feel I bit lost here

All hypnosis are self-hypnosis.

Lavey was interested in low magick and not so much in high magick.
Also people get pissed off by the fact, that a man who wrote a book about being selfish, fake and manipulating people turned out to be selfish, fake and manipulated people.

Crowley was a lunatic.

[EternalReturn]

You have to find the starting point for yourself. part of magick is working with yourself, this is part of it as well.
There were already made some general suggestions but before I am groing to throw books at you:

What are YOUR interests? What is your cultural background, any interests to culture, mythology, psychology or even science which you could refer to?
Makes it easier to find something without projecting too much from my own position.

Ramscha

My interests are wide. I can't place them in one concept, but major ones would be spiritual. I want to grow to understand the world, myself and people. About my cultural interest, I was studying sociology and culture studies are my favorite as well as sociology of education and social psychology. I love psychology also, I've read a lot articles about it but to say that I'm knowledgable about it would be a lie. Mythologies are great. I love greek, egyptian, viking and christian mythology and I've learnd a lot of things about them. I also love hinduism, taoism, confuciansim, buddhism as I've managed to find great thoughts and lessons in their stories.

Other interest would include writing, graphic design, enterpreneur(alism ??), computers and programming but music foremost. I love to learn and read, but mostly create something of my own. I have bit of problems with authority so only way to be above it is to create something of value to myself or others. I would like to help others as much as I can with my skills. But my sincere desire is to teach people how to be better and not to cling to their ego, not to see themselves as victims and to pursue knowledge and truth no matter how impossible it is.

Cultural background - balkans, living on the border of european-muslim culture

I think I wrote down at least the most important interests.

[Ramscha]

Well, then I guess Desecrated already did some gould suggestions from the suggestions I have seen. Some sniffs in the chaotic areas might be interesting for you. I will role with this impuls and give you some additional suggestions:

http://www.philhine.org.uk/writings/index_e-books.html

Jan fries - visual magick and all the other books you can find written by him (just google his name), he may have his main focus on chaos magick and shamanism in mix but you will get quite the broad impressions of very different directions. Very inspiring for a beginner with a push into the cold waters [eg]

Ramscha

[manofsands]

But I found that I lack certain strenght or, I can call it, self control. Hardest part of this change process was admitting to myself that sometimes I just don't know how to control myself or use my aptitudes to it's full potential. I tend to procastrinate and block myself from outer influences in various specific situations. Then I remembered some talks which I had with few friends who were into magick and occult who were mentioning programming yourself.

I'd like to comment that, no matter your course from here, your outlook in the moment is good. Your focus / intention is turned inward. If your goal is self improvement... nothing is more helpful than turning the light on your own shadows. You feel confused? Self doubting? That's how exposure feels. Trust your gut. Gather answers, but make choices.

[Asurendra]

Hello Eternal Return and welcome to the Forum.

My suggestion to you is that you make your end point, the answer to all these questions, your beginning point and work backwards from there as if your peeling away the universe. All of these answers are in you. The way you will find them is by centering your awareness to uncover who and what you really are.

To this end, I will offer you an exercise to practice every day for just a few moments. If you are able to put on headphones and listen to delta wave binaural beats (4.5) on YouTube that will be a bit of a short-cut but it is not necessary.

Sit in a comfortable position in the dark. Imagine that in the center of the universe there is a point or a dot. This is the Consciousness from which all arises continually. This point has total information awareness and has total latitude of activity in the entire universe because this universe in a holographic projection from this dot. When you have built up this image and this realization to feel it as much as you can, take a deep breath and as you breath out tell yourself “I am that.” YOU are that dot. Not the mind that is going to be thinking about why you are doing this when you need to text someone, but the YOU that is aware of those thoughts. Try to realize and more importantly feel this as much as possible till you can feel the energy moving within you at this realization. Keep repeating this phrase with as much feeling as you can for several moments.

All the details of philosophy and texts are just playtime for later.

[EternalReturn]

Okay, now I didn't expect that this feeling that I'm back on track would come so quickly but it has and I have to thank you all for great suggestions, great ideas, thoughts, materials and warm welcome.

I am amazed at quantity of knowledge all of you possess, as I've been reading stuff all across the forum and best of all I'm having fun here [grin]

There is so much stuff that I'm personally interested in here and I can promise you that I will stay on this forum because you're great guys/girls, happy to help with filantropic attitude with diverse approaches to vide variety of themes and I feel I can learn so much from you. And also because you face the same problem as other forums, lack of members or occasional "satelites". Of course, if I know something I will contribute [grin]

Thank you all for that opportunity. [thumbup]

[Sypheara]

Its not a bad place at all, thats for sure!

I don't feel like I need to chime in too much, the above posts are pretty good. I'd edge you into working practical magic as well, getting to know and feel the spirits around you and in your local area. Start with plants, small or large (trees included) are great, and I love to learn more about them when I can. They contribute greatly to the genius loci of an area. Reconnecting with them did wonders for my psychological development, as it will help you embrace that more interconnectedness being talked about in the thread.

If you are interested in anything particular or have found something cool and looked into it, whack it up! Always great to read more stuff and see what people are doing.

[EternalReturn]

No problem

I thought of this topic to be like practice diary of some sort. [smile]

[EternalReturn]

Well I had few breakthroughs this past few days.

First thing happened when I was reading articles on this website as I was lurking on this forum:
http://manannan.net/occult/magick00.html

I did pranayama 4 breaths to prepare myself and then did meditation as described there. I visualise pillar of light coming from the top of my head (I figured it was coming from crown chakra) and same light enveloping me, becoming part of me. I said to myself then, it came like a reflex, that I am a being of light and felt great surge of energy coming and going from my head to my toes and vice versa. As I got rid of "negative energy" I felt a relief and some sort of ecstasy. I laughed

Next thing happened as I was reading Bardon's Liber Null. As soon as I started reading I felt presence in the room but did not panic. I tried to come to terms with my emotions of fear and banish them with laughter. It worked. Whole time and still as I'm reading I'm feeling great energy surge through my body randomly.

First night after reading it, when I went to sleep I found myself in conflict with enforced thoughts and visualisations of women-like shadow figure. Fear was again present but this time I did not shield myself with blanket but instead became angry, considered that presence as a part of myself and entity at the same time. I became really angry and told it to fuck off and never come back. I felt asleep really fast after this and a good laugh. Best part is that I'm finally able to discern between good and bad fear.

Another good thing that happened was dreams. I had little problems with sleep and dreaming. I haven't been able to remember that I was dreaming for past few years but now, it happens every night.

Also I tried a little autosuggestion stuff also found on the link above described as type of magic. I formed a phrase which I write every day ten times and will continue to do until I get it.

Yesterday I did a little death gaze, visualisation and no-thinking exercises. Good thing is that I did some sort of meditation before so I had very little problems with visualisation with closed eyes and no-thinking. But of course no-thinking is goddamn hard. Also I was able to death gaze for approx. 3 minutes then my eyes started to sting as my mind broke out of control and focused on it. A shame, really. I wanted to do it for full 5 minutes. [crazy]

I'm definitely going to buy myself a textbook to serve as a magical diary. Now I see what good does this collection of memories.

[Frumens]

Glad you're having fun. Don't talk about this with everyone you know. As you progress your experiences will become richer and more personal, till you don't even want to tell them to us. It can get unpleasant really quickly when you talk about the occult with those who aren't ready for it.

[EternalReturn]

Oh don't worry. I'm born in the society where gays are spawns of hell and financial crisis is because of many people turning away from god. To speak about occult means you're spawn of satan, and the word travels quickly. So yeah.

And about this forum, I only wrote basis of the experiences, I did avoid personal stuff.


But I want to ask something which is personal about this "entity" I encountered. Can I pm someone?

[RoseRed]

Fear gets a bad rap that it really doesn't deserve. So long as it's not paralyzing - it has it's uses.

I'd actually prefer to discuss things on the boards. I don't really get into pm's with people I'm not all too familiar with. If you want to pm me - go ahead - but it'll be short and quick. I understand you said it was personal but it's most likely something most of us have come across before.

[EternalReturn]

I understand. Well I'll write it here then.

Spoiler:

It's concerning this entity I've written of in the post before. It is female, and it's like a shadow. What I feel are a mixture of emotions, fear being the strongest. I also feel something that could be described as caring and sadness and then it struck me. I'm a war-child. War practicaly started before I was even born, and my father has gone to the battlefield few days before I was born. It really was hard for my mother because she was very young when I was born. Is it possible that it was created by this sudden surge of emotions of fear and caring? And interesting enough I find myself enjoying in melancholy and sorrow.

I have very big problems with fear as it paralyzes me, it's like a headress that strips me off of other perspectives and I have fought really hard against it. It feels like a sudden black hole in my mind, and no other thoughts are created except "what did I do wrong?" but I never find the answer. I freed myself during emotional agony which I endured but I don't think I did it thoroughly.

[RoseRed]

You'll never be free of fear. It's instinct. It's encoded into our DNA. It causes our fight or flight reflex.

The trick is to manage it. To face it. Who gives a shit if you flinch at first so long as you continue to stand?

What's gonna happen is going to happen. Are you going to freeze, cower, run or stand and face it? There are some things in this life that are thrown at us that we cannot control. There's a difference between retreating to fight another day and running in terror.

There's a lot of war babies out there. A very large portion of my older generations in my family either are or were war babies. You are the product of the love between your Mother and Father. Let that thought take precedence in your head.

------------------------------

As far as this shadow woman...

Do you think that this is a remnant of your Mother's thoughts about having you?

[EternalReturn]

I could describe it as remnant thoughts, yes. It really makes sense based on what she told me. Her life was very difficult then, considering all the circumstances.

[RoseRed]

If you have the type of relationship with your Mother where you can ask her about that time in her life - I would not be surprised if you found many similarities to this shadow person that you see and feel.

Once you find out what this is you should be able to return it to it's proper place and size within you and move on from it.

If you have this conversation with your Mom and you believe that it's not a remnant from that time - perhaps we can help you figure out what it actually is.

But I would start there. First you rule out the mundane. Then you look to the woowoo.

[EternalReturn]

Well said. I'll talk to her first. Thank you [smile]

[RoseRed]

You're very welcome. I hope you find the answers you seek.

[meta42]

Hi,

As I was reading through the posts in this thread I thought I might be able to provide some valuable input. You really remind me of myself when I first started out, and your goals are very similar to mine (self improvement, and "growth to understand the world, myself, and people").

Understanding the World
For this goal I recommend the Kybalion. It is a fairly short book and contains hermetic philosophy. If you're short on cash you can find it online as a PDF for free easily. The wording is a bit strange but the content is excellent.

Understanding Yourself
I recommend taking the Myers Briggs Type Indicator Test. MBTI is a 70 question test that analyzes you and assigns you a personality type out of 16 total types. Make sure you take the test according to how you actually are, not how you want to be. You can take that here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

Once you have your type, for example, INFJ, google the letters and you will find a ton of info about your type that you can use for personal growth and understanding. This can also help you with your goal of understanding other people, because you can have your friends take it and see how different types interact.

Another cool thing to do would be to take a chakra test. I take it occasionally to find out what imbalances I have and to help focus on re-balancing those areas. I've steadily become more balanced over the years and I believe taking this test really helped.
http://www.eclecticenergies.com/chakras/chakratest.php

I have a few comments on the other comments in this thread:

First, let's talk about Initiation into Hermetics. Someone else recommended Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics (IIH) for you but I don't think it would suit you at this time. You said you have a rough time with procrastination and you will need a TON of self-discipline if you are going to attempt to work through IIH. If you are ready to commit several years to completely transforming yourself then it might be for you. I do, however, recommend the philosophical section of IIH, just not the exercises. I also think chaos magic might be your style since you struggle with procrastination. I recommend reading up on Spare's work on Sigils and go from there if you like the concepts.

Second, Modern Magick. Desecrated recommended this book and I think it is an excellent idea for you. You don't have to commit to several exercises and lifestyle changes each day like you do for IIH. It is a great beginner's book and it is a great resource full of occult knowledge and exercises. Just so you know, you will need to get a bit crafty if you want to do everything in the book. He has you make runes, a wand, etc. I ended up creating my tools astrally but it isn't quite the same.

Anyway I hope I didn't drown you with too much information. You remind me of myself and I want to give you resources so you don't waste your time. Feel free to PM me as well if you have any questions or need help.

[EternalReturn]

I like this post thank you also I have no problem with lots of information. Nothing is bad as lack of information. [crazy]

I did this MTBI a few years ago and now the result is completely different than then. Interesting enough, it really is INFJ as you wrote [grin] Well this could be a sure sign I did in fact change over the years

And that's a great idea to google the type. I didn't thought of it that way. I'm sure I can find interesting stuff [grin]


And something bothers me about these chakras. First of all I have little knowledge od opening them, yet they are open. All of them. Except throat chakra which is over active probably because I tend to dominate and shape the conversation from time to time as I was trained working in sales, be it cold calling or direct. I figured it could do some damage because this type of communication doesn't feel natural which is the reason I failed a lot of times. Almost as I can feel that other person knows that I'm at discomfort even if I don't reveal it through intonation or rythm. Obviously this led me to certain problems as I get tired even from normal conversation and just have like total inabillity to form thoughts and have conversation. I just drift away. I figured that this means that my throat chakra is under-active, not over-active. Also, people tell me that I'm a good listener so I don't really know.

Also, as the site states:
"It makes no sense to try to make over-active chakras less active, as they are compensating for other chakras. To restore the compensation they'd be over-active again in no time. To stop them from compensating, the chakras they are compensating for must be opened."

If I have other chakras open, there is no compensation only disharmony. What do I do then?