OccultForum.org

Hi All,
Brand new to the forum and the occult arts. Never would have thought I'd find myself here, but the universe is full of surprises I suppose. From what I've gathered from books like Liber Null and Intro to Hermetics, ones early focus should be on developing a meditative mindset as free as possible from the chsttering of the id/forebrain. While I've been working on things like Carroll's stillness exercise at home, it occurred to me today that I could be using my time at work to train my brain as well. I work in a major hardware chain, and am often alone (so far from others that I often sing at full volune to pass the time). The canned muzak makes it hard to develop mental stillness, though maybe it'd provide a good challenge as I progress. Can y'all help me come up with some ways I could be working toward a magical mindset during these 40 hours of my week?

See my signature.

Centering and Grounding, being extensions of the meditations I offer before them, are things that you can do throughout the day to maintain a constant state of calm and inner peace. The Awareness exercises are good for burning time, but be careful with Internal Awareness (Introspection). If you focus on Introspection correctly, it can be very easy to lose awareness of your surroundings while you explore deep inside yourself. External Awareness is a good thing to practice in a store, especially if there are lots of customers around. You can practice keeping track of where everyone and everything is, slowly training your Awareness to expand beyond its normal little sphere. And this exercise comes directly from Martial Arts (Maai in Japanese Arts), so if you know any martial arts or plan on learning, you can easily apply that development to your training there as well.

If you're doing Bardon, and you decide to practice Introspection, make sure you keep your Journal with you so that you can jot down the things that you learn about yourself. I like to go against Bardon a little and say that you shouldn't worry as much about positive and negative aspects (except where it concerns organizing your Soul Mirrors), because what is far more important is simply that you learn who you really are deep down inside. Know Thyself, whether your organize Thyself elementally or not.



~:Shin:~

Shinichi wrote:See my signature.

Centering and Grounding, being extensions of the meditations I offer before them, are things that you can do throughout the day to maintain a constant state of calm and inner peace. The Awareness exercises are good for burning time, but be careful with Internal Awareness (Introspection). If you focus on Introspection correctly, it can be very easy to lose awareness of your surroundings while you explore deep inside yourself. External Awareness is a good thing to practice in a store, especially if there are lots of customers around. You can practice keeping track of where everyone and everything is, slowly training your Awareness to expand beyond its normal little sphere. And this exercise comes directly from Martial Arts (Maai in Japanese Arts), so if you know any martial arts or plan on learning, you can easily apply that development to your training there as well.

If you're doing Bardon, and you decide to practice Introspection, make sure you keep your Journal with you so that you can jot down the things that you learn about yourself. I like to go against Bardon a little and say that you shouldn't worry as much about positive and negative aspects (except where it concerns organizing your Soul Mirrors), because what is far more important is simply that you learn who you really are deep down inside. Know Thyself, whether your organize Thyself elementally or not.



~:Shin:~

Just to add a comment to this that is of no relation to the topic;
The black and white mirrors are very complicated. Almost every single attribute I could find, I could apply to both positive and negative. I only had one or two that were purely negative, and none that were purely positive. Most things, when looked at from a different point of view, can fit into many categories.

Haelos wrote:

Shinichi wrote:See my signature.

Centering and Grounding, being extensions of the meditations I offer before them, are things that you can do throughout the day to maintain a constant state of calm and inner peace. The Awareness exercises are good for burning time, but be careful with Internal Awareness (Introspection). If you focus on Introspection correctly, it can be very easy to lose awareness of your surroundings while you explore deep inside yourself. External Awareness is a good thing to practice in a store, especially if there are lots of customers around. You can practice keeping track of where everyone and everything is, slowly training your Awareness to expand beyond its normal little sphere. And this exercise comes directly from Martial Arts (Maai in Japanese Arts), so if you know any martial arts or plan on learning, you can easily apply that development to your training there as well.

If you're doing Bardon, and you decide to practice Introspection, make sure you keep your Journal with you so that you can jot down the things that you learn about yourself. I like to go against Bardon a little and say that you shouldn't worry as much about positive and negative aspects (except where it concerns organizing your Soul Mirrors), because what is far more important is simply that you learn who you really are deep down inside. Know Thyself, whether your organize Thyself elementally or not.



~:Shin:~

Just to add a comment to this that is of no relation to the topic;
The black and white mirrors are very complicated. Almost every single attribute I could find, I could apply to both positive and negative. I only had one or two that were purely negative, and none that were purely positive. Most things, when looked at from a different point of view, can fit into many categories.

I think that like the elements themselves, it's less about any one trait being positive or negative and more about negativity coming from a lack of balance. Something like courage would be a good example - too little (or directed towards the wrong endeavor) and it becomes cowardice, too much (or again, directed in the wrong manner) and it becomes foolhardiness or thoughtlessness. Most of what we think of as "traits" are actually specific expressions of a larger spectrum.

OP: perhaps some kind of mindfulness training?

For the purposes of practical development in Bardon's system, a vice may be defined as anything that hinders you on your path of magical and spiritual development, and a virtue may be defined as anything that supports you on your path of magical and spiritual development.

This means that if drinking soda or eating candy bars leaves you feeling either legarthic or hyper, and you find it difficult to practice in either case, then eating that type of food is a vice and should be recorded in the black mirror to be conquered as such. If drinking a shot of whiskey every night before bed helps you relax and sleep well, so that you wake up feeling refreshed and ready for morning practice, then drinking that way is a virtue and should be recorded in the white mirror and kept as a habit for as long as it benefits you. If dating three people and having sex every day does not effect your ability to sit down every day, practice correctly, and make progress, then this is neither a vice nor a virtue, it's just an interesting dating life.

Bardon makes a very important spiritual distinction here. Real, practical morality is not something that you can simply learn from old scripture. It is something very personal, a matter of personal honor, of personal fortitude and integrity. If sex is too big a distraction on your path, overcoming that is important, and celibacy may help with that. Conversely, if the lack of sex is an issue, it's fine to just get laid so you can stop worrying about it. The same with drinking, and everything else. Your psyche is unique, and has its own unique set of conditions and needs.

Magical Equipoise (elemental or otherwise) is not a one size fits all everything-is-equal state of attainment. It is extremely personal, and the start of that attainment, with the psychology of the soul mirrors, is the most personal part of the whole process. It is here that you begin to learn who you really are, and what really makes you tick. Conquering weaknesses and achieving balance is only part of a long process that begins with the simple decree, Know Thyself!



~:Shin:~

Maybe this is old news to the veterans here, but Shin's above post doubles as a short description of Nietzsche's concept of the superman. Great, history-shaping figures are "beyond good and evil" because their Will is made of finer stuff than that of the people who made the law, and their actions conform to their Will at all points. Their actions, in shaping history, create new paradigms and thought modes by which new laws are formed, only to be transcended again. Thus, healthy (magical) societies are elitist, in that they create the conditions (practices by which the Will is strengthened) under which elite individuals emerge. And this elitism is also truly progressive, because these elites create the culture that shapes history in ways the rest of us can't conceive, much less enact. I
I'm tangenting on a tangent I know, but I'm just now realizing these connections and am excited to share with and learn from folks who can appreciate it.

Shinichi wrote:For the purposes of practical development in Bardon's system, a vice may be defined as anything that hinders you on your path of magical and spiritual development, and a virtue may be defined as anything that supports you on your path of magical and spiritual development.

This means that if drinking soda or eating candy bars leaves you feeling either legarthic or hyper, and you find it difficult to practice in either case, then eating that type of food is a vice and should be recorded in the black mirror to be conquered as such. If drinking a shot of whiskey every night before bed helps you relax and sleep well, so that you wake up feeling refreshed and ready for morning practice, then drinking that way is a virtue and should be recorded in the white mirror and kept as a habit for as long as it benefits you. If dating three people and having sex every day does not effect your ability to sit down every day, practice correctly, and make progress, then this is neither a vice nor a virtue, it's just an interesting dating life.

Bardon makes a very important spiritual distinction here. Real, practical morality is not something that you can simply learn from old scripture. It is something very personal, a matter of personal honor, of personal fortitude and integrity. If sex is too big a distraction on your path, overcoming that is important, and celibacy may help with that. Conversely, if the lack of sex is an issue, it's fine to just get laid so you can stop worrying about it. The same with drinking, and everything else. Your psyche is unique, and has its own unique set of conditions and needs.

Magical Equipoise (elemental or otherwise) is not a one size fits all everything-is-equal state of attainment. It is extremely personal, and the start of that attainment, with the psychology of the soul mirrors, is the most personal part of the whole process. It is here that you begin to learn who you really are, and what really makes you tick. Conquering weaknesses and achieving balance is only part of a long process that begins with the simple decree, Know Thyself!



~:Shin:~

While I agree that the concept of elemental (or energetic, if you want to go outside of the traditional elemental cosmology) balance is largely an individual matter (in that every student is going to reach their own individual state of internal equilibrium, which will differ from every other student depending on their own innate bio-energetic and psychological makeup) I don't think it's as entirely subjective as you make it out to be. The whiskey example, for one - I don't think there are many (if any) cases in which the daily consumption of alcohol, a highly toxic and addictive drug, for the purpose of self medication, is beneficial to the long term spiritual development of the individual. If someone suffers from insomnia, then there are better ways of treating it externally (medication, therapy and so forth), if doing so is necessary, while the student undertakes the internal work to address the problem from the inside.

The other issue is that such short term justification (If I drink tonight I'll sleep better, and therefore be able to practice better tomorrow*) can lead to long term problems. If the student chooses to drink nightly on the basis that it will help them sleep for the time being until they can get around to the issue of addressing their insomnia, then eventually they will develop a tolerance to the drug - one drink might become two, then three, and so on, and eventually an addiction is likely to develop. A crutch turned into a habit which is potentially life destroying and certainly spiritually counterproductive. This is an extreme example, but you see my point I think, and it can be applied to other behaviors as well.

This isn't to say that the student should be a perfectly abstemious ascetic - Bardon is clear on this. But the goal is to be able to take or leave worldly pleasures, instead of being dependent on them, craving them or indulging in an unhealthy manner. This is where the balance I was talking about comes into play - alcohol consumption itself isn't the vice, in a social or even ritual setting, taken in moderation, it can be beneficial, but when it is used to self medicate and becomes a self destructive habit, then it turns into a vice. It isn't the act itself which is the vice or virtue, but the reason for the act, the role it plays in and the effect it has on the individual's life.


*Putting aside the fact that alcohol has been demonstrated to disrupt sleep patterns and REM sleep, and is generally held to have a disruptive effect on the flow of energy within the body. There are far better ways to address a difficulty with going to sleep than drinking alcohol, even if it's only to substitute it for a less toxic prescription medication.