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I have been studying occult stuff mostly in the form of golden dawn based ceremonial magick for several years now on and off. Although I've done lots of studying and have plenty of head knowledge I have very little practical experience. I tend to get bored quickly when it comes to individual books. I start to read them and then come to a section that bores me so then I put that book aside and buy another book and do the same thing. I own about thirty books related to occultism, mysticism and magick and i haven't finished one of them. The reasons behind this is that the more i read the more questions i get and the more confused on certain topics i become, so i then buy more books on those subjects in the hope that it will help. So here I am in the beginners section asking for advice on what the best course of action for actually really learning and practicing this stuff is. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know if this is perfect advice as I'm kind of with you as in still on the road, I haven't developed much yet in the way of my faculties yet. On the other hand I think I've found something in the way of daily practice and a way of keeping myself going.

I'm thinking that if you set aside a certain amount of time per day, such as half an hour, to meditate and do so diligently you'll have a good start. Similarly setting aside a similar 5 minutes per day to do LBRP/LIRP depending on moon phase or however you'd chose to divide invoking/banishing practice.

You need some form of daily 'doing' to match the books as that's where the chipping away of your bindings to one plane most likely comes into play. I've you've already been at that for three years then I'll gladly hold my peace and I'm sure there's members here who can much better direct you to that point. It's just a suggestion if the case were that you don't have a daily practice set up. It would be similarly frustrating to read great cook books all day in that case and not actually spend time being a chef.

Sounds like a good plan and no I don't have a daily ritual practice and I've never really done anything more advanced then the LBRP(mostly just do the qabalistic cross) and certain witchcraft practices and spells so although I've been reading about this stuff for almost 4 years I have almost nothing except head knowledge to show for it. Right now im working through doing the stuff in modern magick and then I plan to do the course in self initiation in the golden dawn. Does that sound like a good plan? Also this may sound stupid but what type of meditation would you recommend? Like clearing your mind and trying to focus on nothing? Or should I have something to focus on like a mantra or specific symbol or visualize something?

I have the Self Intiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition by the Ciceros and it looks like, right off the bat, those in pre-neophyte are to summon three different images of Ma'at and do so in a profound enough way that I simply don't feel like I'm ready for that lesson plan (ie. I don't believe my visual imagination or connection to subconscious are anywhere close to answering that type of demand). Bardon's IIH is similarly sheer. I don't think there's anything wrong in a person trying a steeper path but if you're given very specific time limits to cultivate abilities that you may very well not be able to cultivate in the time allotted it just becomes a big demotivation factor. In other words it has to be right for them as who they are and where they're at.

I don't know that I'd want to try and sell you anything but my membership in BOTA seems like it's giving me some really awesome stuff to work with and it involves both in-depth teachings on the tarot and daily meditation on the cards (which I believe DK mentioned in Modern Magick). Having a time-release of information like that from an incredibly good instructor seems to help a lot, whether in person or by monograph.

I could be wrong but at least for me, feeling like I tend to be geeky about this stuff in ways to where the feminine or subconscious has to fight its way through me, I need something that's going to be more of a slow-but-steady walk where I can get that internal relationship working right rather than a 'get it now or give up' type of accelerated course.

You know, most of the time the answer to the beginning in the books are in the end of the book.

Think of it like a movie. some stuff isn't answered until the end.

I've been curious about joining groups like BOTA but assuming theres a fee to join I don't know that I could afford it at this time. Desecrated its more or less that I always feel like I won't have enough information on any one topic mentioned in any one book so therefore I buy a bunch of new books on the subject and start reading those instead. For example say I start reading "modern magick" and the book briefly talks about aliester Crowley. I would get curious and go buy three books all about Crowley and his system and then start reading those instead of modern magick.

You could try forcing yourself through the difficult sections in the books. Learning and growth involve discipline and diligent dedication. Learning is work! Nothing in the world is free, but ignorance and pain.

that's definitely what I have been doing lately the only problem is when I do that I don't always understand what ive read at first so I have to keep rereading it

You don't have to understand every single line to understand the story.

Read the whole book. Read it again. Then start doing research on the parts you don't understand.

One of the most important parts in magic is focus and concentration.

What is it about Ceremonial Magick that makes you want to pursue it even though you're having a problem doing so?

Rosered Nothing in my life has ever "called" to me more than ceremonial magic. I was raised very Christian but that never felt at all right. It never gave me the personal experience with the divine that I wanted and it never described the universe in a way which I connected to. I tried witchcraft, Wicca as well as more New age systems and although I preferred them way more then my Christian upbringing they still didn't have all I was looking for in a path. Then I found a book called "The temple of high witchcraft" by Penzack which introduced me to ceremonial magick and qabalah in a context that I could understand. That in turn made me realize that that was the path I had been searching for. It had everything I was looking for; direct spiritual experiences, a beautiful explanation of the universe in the form of qabalah and rituals and symbolism which I felt a strong connection with. The fact that it was a spiritual paradigm but not a complete religion also was appealing to me. Overall its not that im having trouble overall, its just that like any other person im having certain areas of problems and bad habits which I need advice for.

AnnaBolton wrote:that's definitely what I have been doing lately the only problem is when I do that I don't always understand what ive read at first so I have to keep rereading it

I don't know how readily other people can do this but I've gotten to where, especially with occult lit, my mind can just 'float' and take in what it can at that point without having a panic with respect to what might pass through the siv.

Good example - I started reading AC's Thoth Tarot and I noticed it's reading far easier than everyone says it does. Part of that might be my already having a fair amount of overview on Qabalah, tarot correlation, and while a few things like 2=0 (ion and anion?) felt like they went over my head a little I felt like I was still able to stay with what he was talking about more often than not. Realize too that many topics in mysticism can kaleidescope out and go a lot deeper and that's something you'll do as you take a particularly deep interest in a topic but the surface skimming or at least reading the surface layer of a thing is how you find your bearings to figure out what you want to drill deeper into to begin with. To milk every bit of meaning out of every chapter you read as you read it would be prohibitive.

Seems like even on the mid-level when an author doesn't mean to be obscure you'll still have plenty of things you'll go back at a later time, read in a different state of mind, and a different sentence will jump out at you in a manner that it never had before. In a way, particularly with the very big and diffuse spiritual books out there (the Bible probably being one of the most immediate examples) the first read through is a bit more like building an index or table of contents in your mind - ie. you're reaping a sense of what raw materials are in the book and if you have certain questions you're learning that you have a book that covers that particular question and that you can go back to that chapter for answers.

The only thing that's stopped me from reading occasionally was either a certain odd feeling like the unseen wanted me to hold off till a later date by playing with my energy levels everytime I meet the task (hasn't happened often) or, if I'm afraid that the tarot or qabalah it would present will clash with the tarot and qabalah that I'm presently learning - which I don't want to crash and bash systems.

AnnaBolton wrote:that's definitely what I have been doing lately the only problem is when I do that I don't always understand what ive read at first so I have to keep rereading it

Me too. I've spent months on individual pages reading them every night. Each time I read, more was revealed. This is the stuff that separates the master from the novice. Have patience and stay your coarse. Hard work in this field is often richly rewarded, but things take time. You need time to develop yourself.