Messages

The link is always present - realizing and alignment is the 'forming' - not of the link, but the relationship.

Argue semantics as you like, there is still a difference between understanding that "you are that source" and being able to work with this understanding.

The relationship is not something measured for practicality from an observers perspective but from the participators perspective and the value is in that, not how you, a group or a world might decide as to 'what is practical'.

The practical measurement is standing on the fact that the "relationship" (as you call it) builds up certain results that are objectively there.

Let see if I can make you a methapor whereby you can understand the thing.
Consider a light-bulb. Now consider this light-bulb being covered so much in soot (or whatever you want) that the light passes no more. Naturally the light-bulb is still a light-bulb, yet for all practical and functional purposes it is not a light-bulb anymore on the fact that it is like it is broken (so in functional terms the light-bulb doesn't conform to a light-bulb anymore).

If you know that the problem of the light-bulb is just that it is covered on soot and not that it is effectively broken is this understanding making you, by itself, in a better position than a person thinking the light-bulb is broken? Naturally not; the only advantage it gives it is on the fact that this understanding can motivate yourself on removing the soot, if you are able to, but it is just an indirect advantage; this understanding by itself will not make the light-bulb function just because you know it.

The same is for you and your source. You are that source and yet at the same time you aren't, because for a normal individual that source is like covered by soot in the methaphor of the light-bulb; until you don't remove that soot the light-bulb (e.g. the source) will not have its practical function, no matter if it is there and you already are that. As for knowing you are that source vs. not knowing it, this understanding by itself is not enough to be able to remove the soot, it is just an understanding that there's a problem, nothing more. You are in no better position than one not knowing it at all until you cannot remove the soot.

Some say this is proof that they are a construct of yourself but that isn't necessarily so. What use is a guide to someone if it's true form scares the bejezzus out of you every time you see it?

The use of a guide is in what it can teach you, especially of things that have a practical function. As for fear in this case, that's an automatic response of your body to a certain type of external influence (like it happens with your cells fighting extraneous substances). With the passing of time your body get accustomed to it and then the fear subsides.

Anyways, understand that I am only telling you what I believe and it may not be the truth. Anybody that claims they know the truth is in a belief trap. The only thing I can say with certainty is that we get what we believe.

Nobody knows the truth about these things, however we humans are composed in a certain way (our brain is chemically done in a certain way, our bones are composed of certain minerals and so on) so certain experiences are akin to everybody and you can usually find them in every framework inside the external belief system.
In this particular case our human brain react in a very specific manner with an outside thought or something that the body perceives as external to itself (being it true or not).

You appear to be teaching that no matter what you do, you cannot be what you are.  

No, I'm just saying that what you really are doesn't necessarily translate in what you are. Or even better: what you think you are doesn't necessarily mean that you really are that (seldom it does, in fact).

There are many birds that do not fly, but they are birds no less right?

It was just an example to try to make you understand a point, you are taking it far too literally.

Now with birds, a bird does not go around thinking 'I am a bird' - it just is, and does what it does.

Because the mother introduces the bird on being a "bird". If you raise the bird from the egg it will not become a bird in the practical sense if you cannot teach it to do so. It will try to behave as you, an human, behave. Will it then be a bird or not? It will be, as a specie, but for all practical purposes it will not be a bird, because if you don't teach it how to enter in the framework that turns it into a bird practically, it will never be able to function as a member of that specie. Superficially it will be a bird, but practically it will not be.

Humans are different, and when ignorant or indifferent or misinformed as to their source they behave within the framework of such thinking/belief.

Again, knowing about your "source" doesn't mean that you can work with that source, and if you cannot work with it what difference does it really make if you know you are that source or not?
Can you, for example, link with it given that you know you are that source? If you cannot do that what do you think makes you in a better position, practically, than somebody not knowing this at all?

The Source is not human, but it is that which is experiencing being human and knows this intimately.

What you talk about, the feeling of a consciousness, is true for every human alike. You cannot be ignorant of it. What humans are mostly ignorant of is the nature of that consciousness, but that's a thing that must be experienced. Knowing that this nature exist or not knowing it does make no difference at all on you really knowing that nature and linking to it. It does only for what it concerns an intellectual and philosophical understanding, but the only way to have knowledge of that nature is through direct experience, so having an intellectual understanding of it has no impact whatsoever on your knowledge of it.

The aligning comes when the individual begins and continues to align with that understanding..."I am Source having an individual experience as a human being" - where that unfolds in a linear manner within the framework of a life time on this planet for you it will break you free from the former identity and reveal to you your true self

And you really think that just knowing that you are that source will make you able to "break free from the former identity and reveal to you your true self"? Do you really think so? My friend, if it was such everybody reading a book on this (there are thousands) would be able to do so, isn't it? As everybody reading a book on boxe would be a boxer, isn't it?

Loving and Living that love and forgiving the misleading are prerequisite to accessing The Source and aligning through realization.

No. The prerequisite to access that source is forming a link with it (and this usually happens through a working framework and a lot of work, but you can have glimpses of that link through many sources, some of which artificial).
As for love, while a very good thing in itself, it is not the only feeling and emotion in nature. No part is more important than any other and this is the same for emotions. You can access that source through love as you can through hate as you can access it through calm or through violence.
If you begin to differentiate things in the whole then it will be a whole anymore.

Whoever told you otherwise has an agenda to mislead, and whoever tells me otherwise is part of that agenda.

As you like.

Belief that you cannot access and align, is the surest way not to.  Attempting to convince others is like spreading a virus.
   

Belief that you can do a thing just because you know what that thing is it is the surest way to delude yourself you achieved a lot while you did nothing at all.
Look at all the systems that try to achieve the link with that source, and watch how many practical results that indicate that you are coming near there are. Do you think they are there just for show? No. They are there because, especially in these things, your mind can make you believe you are doing a lot of things when in fact you are doing anything. The practical results are there to let you have evidence if that's the case or not.

I have a 100% success rating with this. yes, you read that right, a 100% success rate.

I am not boasting here, I say that because out of every technique I have tried, this is the only one that works every single time.

The good of affirmations is that once they start to work they will literally form a post-hypnotic order (it is like a "place and recall" for the unconscious). For this it is much better to use always the same sentence (and modus operandi to work the sentence out; think of it as sort of like a graphic password on the PC).

The only bad side of it is that affirmations take a while before they begin to fully work (and many people are simply too impatient to stick to them), but, as I said, when they start to do you are set and they have really a 100% success rate (so no, he is not boasting).

[(it always happen, in fact, that after a while the exercise you work with will seem to stop working or working much less; when this happens many people do the great mistake of switching methods for the tedium of it. Never do it; the not-working lapse is the prelude of the exercise beginning to work fully. Endure till it does.)]

Can some one please help me.

Everything  says  "focus on that"  with no real explanation.

For example, my foot.

How do you focus on it?

As an example let's use the forehead, it is simpler.
To begin understanding how to focus on it do this simple thing: touch your forehead with your finger (or you can use an little object, as a coin or little rock). Concentrate on the sensation of the finger/object touching the forehead for a while, then let go and try to recreate the sensation of the touch. When you begin to lose it put the finger/object again and so on. Work slowly and with patience and you will see that the lapses will become longer and longer until at a point you will think you are touching the forehead while you aren't (but DON'T anticipate this or bother about it, just concentrate on the sensation of touching that part). When you will be able to do this for the forehead (or whatever else you decide) you will be able do the same with every part of your body just by bringing the sensation of touch back.

When you talk about "focus" concerning parts of your body it is usually referred as a touch sensation (but then you will see that this touch sensation will transform in just a focus of your mind there). It is called focus because when you will be able to do it fully your consciousness will be literally placed on that point (the part you call "I" will seem to reside there instead of where it is now; usually for most people this is in a point behind the eyes, being sight the primary sense and the sense on which you focus more of your attention). Concentrating/focusing on a single point is one of the most important things you can learn, so either if it will take a while until you will be able to do this, work for it (naturally you don't need this level of proficiency in it for "energy work", you just need the sensation of the touch in that part).

I think about the foot, but nothing really happens.

Don't bother too much on what it "happens". Just concentrate on the sensation of touching that part as if you are doing it physically. Concerning about what it will happen will just break your concentration.

EDIT: Naturally what Robert Bruce explains is another way to do it. Use what it works best for you. I wrote this to give you an alternative just in case you find what Robert says difficult to execute (that depending on the milieu of the person it can happen). There are various ways to do things. Try some of them to find what it gives the best result but then stick to it and don't change after (it always happen, in fact, that after a while the exercise you work with will seem to stop working or working much less; when this happens many people do the great mistake of switching methods for the tedium of it. Never do it; the not-working lapse is the prelude of the exercise beginning to work fully. Endure till it does.)

I strongly suspect that my guide is not the warm, friendly type, but more of a sleek, sly, con-man kind of person who is on my side. I will revisit my attempts to contact him when I get through finals week and have some time to relax.

True guides are usually never the loving and tender ones that you see described around. Actually that's almost a sure way to know that your guide is much probably just a part of your ego. True guides are never condescending with yourself and actually they can be very harsh. The first encounter with a real guide usually brings a sense of inner unease, like you have with something alien/unknown to yourself. Depending on the nature of the guide this sensation can in fact be a sense of internal fear (that, as I explained in another post, it is not an intellectual one, it is a body sensation); usually this happens mostly with guides that pertains to the so-called "underworld".

Also Crowley speaks about this thing:

"Now the proof that one is in contact with an independent entity depends on a sensation which ought to be unmistakeable if one is in good health. One ought not to be liable to mistake one's own sensible impressions for somebody else's! It is only Man's incurable vanity that makes the Astral "Strayed Reveller" or the mystic confuse his own drunken babble with the voice of the Most High.

The essence of the right sensation consists in recognition of the reality of the other Being. There will be as a rule some element of hostility, even when the reaction is sympathetic. One's "soul-mate" (even) is not thought of as oneself, at first contact.

One must therefore insist that any real appearance of the Astral Plane gives the sensation of meeting a stranger. One must accept it as independent, be it Archangel or Elf, and measure one's own reaction to it. One must learn from it, though one despise it; and love it, however one loathe it.

One must realize, on writing up the record, that the meeting has effected a definite change in oneself. One must have known and felt something alien, and not merely tried on a new dress.

There must always be some slight pang of pain in a true Astral Vision; it hurts the Self to have to admit the existence of a not-Self; and it taxes the brain to register a new thought. This is true at the first touch, even when exaltation and stimulation result from the joy of making an agreeable contact."

It seems to me you are doing well. If your guide is really coming from the underworld you should be happy. For practical purposes they are some of the best, but they also require a lot from you.

[NOTES:]

But anyway, I wonder if perhaps the sleep paralysis/entity contact thing a year ago could have been my spirit guide trying to enter my body. I've been reading lately of an anthropologist from the sixties who studied cultures in which some people had friendly spirits/entities that would occasionally possess them as a means to communicate with them, so who knows.

What do you think?

Of course it is possible for a spirit/entity/force (or whatever you want to call it) to influence or even possess your body¹; those who say it's impossible (because they usually don't believe in the existence of these spirits/entities/forces outside of the scope of their own mind, or at most the "collective mind") it is just because they have not thought about the thing, because whatever you can think or believe these spirits/entities/forces are, in every case they can logically interact with your body.

Let me explain:

- If you think that these spirits/entities/forces exist outside of yourself then you logically accept the possibility of your consciousness to separate (or be separated) from your body. In this case it is obvious that an external consciousness (of whatever nature) can influence your body or even enter it.

- If you think that these spirits/entities/forces are only parts of your mind, then it is perfectly logical that your mind can influence your body, as it is logical to accept the fact that a certain part of your mind can, in certain occurrences, "overdrive" the usual consciousness you recognize as "I".

- If you think that these spirits/entities/forces are the result of the collective unconscious (as Jung said), then you obviously accept the fact that every human being is connected at the root, so it is perfectly logical that, as in the point above, these collective thought-forms can influence your body (and do the same exact things as a subjective part of your mind can).

- If you think that these spirits/entities/forces are both a part of yourself and both external then naturally the same points apply.²

Now, concerning what happened to you and what the entity/spirit/force was, that is very difficult to say; the only one who could have a practical³ answer to that question would be you if you had enough experience to understand what it was. Even if you believe in the existence of spirits existing outside your consciousness it is not said that what happened is certainly a case of such, because even your mind in particular occurrences⁴ can bring similar results. As for the "old satan", maybe you would find this amusing but it is perfectly possible that your mother could be right; not naturally on that force being literally Satan the entity, but in the sense of it being a force of what you can define the "underworld" (or the wilder aspects of nature or yourself)⁵.

NOTES:

¹ Naturally it's not easy to be possessed, at all (even if you willingly research the experience, as in Vodoun, for example). Most of the possessed people, as in the exorcisms you see around, are not really possessed at all. There have to be certain parameters all connecting at the same time (so to speak) for it to happen. This difficulty arise even more if you aren't open to it or aren't willing, in that case it's almost impossible (at last for what I know and in my experience). Moreover real possession is usually always a temporary phenomena.

² What it means to think that both apply? In short words those that think such believe that we, as humans, are a schematic representation of the universe (just like it could be a miniature of a city - like in snowballs, for example - vs. the city itself) and as such we can connect to external forces through internal ones because these external forces have a representation in certain parts of our mind. For example: person A) believes that a "demon" is a part of the unconscious, person B) believes that a "demon" is an external force, a person that believes they are both instead believes that through the unconscious you can connect with that external force called a "demon".

³ For example in this case your mother could have acted a sort of hypnosis on yourself (or maybe you did it by yourself with what she said). Depending on your state of mind at the moment, the way your mother did talk etc. this can, indeed happen. Naturally this is just an example, I'm not saying that this is what it happened.

⁴ Note the practical, and not true. What's the "truth" about these things nobody knows and probably it can be that nobody will ever know. The most important thing is that if what you do (and your personal truth or what you consider as such) works for you or not. Better a working self-delusion than hundreds of not working supposed "realities".

⁵ Btw the same Satan of the bible (usually as Beelzebub or more later Lucifer) was taken in traditional witchcraft just as the role of the underworld. Later researchers on witchcraft and western traditions (as Ginzburg, Webster or Cardini) have in fact demonstrated that witchcraft was a form of shamanism and sorcery.

We are that source.  

Ok. But if you are a bird and you cannot fly, are you still a bird in the practical sense?
What you "are" is not defined just by what you are composed of, but also by the fact of if you can put that "composition" in motion or not.
Even if you know a thing philosophically but then you cannot put it to work in your life, it is just like you didn't know it at all to begin with.

Generally it seems to either be ignored or misrepresented.

The misrepresentation comes exactly by what I was talking about. You can be whatever you want or know whatever you want, until you cannot work with what you know or what you are, you don't really know or are. For this many frameworks got perverted etc., because people instead of working with them started intellectualizing about them only. We as human will never know what's what or what's the real "truth". The only thing that matters is if you can work with that "truth" or not, whatever that is.

There is no special vocabulary - it is just an activity of Love...

Just "loving" or simply "living" will not make you access that source, even if you "are" it intrinsically. Returning to the metaphor of the bird and flying; it is not just because you are a bird that you automatically know how to fly, it has to be learned (in our culture nobody teaches you how to work with a framework to access what you call your "source" - at last in our western culture, but sadly nowadays it is rare even in those cultures that first did teach these things - so you have to learn to do it in other ways).

which could be seen as 'special' in the sense that it is often ignored or misrepresented to the point where it is a rare thing for an individual to realize and align with.

Again, "realizing" and "aligning" with it is not enough. Until you cannot practically work with it you are in the same position of a person not "realizing" or "aligning" with it to begin with.
You can think you are in a better position because you are aware of something others are ignorant of, but it is just an intellectual pretense. If you read 100 books on how to paint but you cannot anyway paint are you really in a better position than somebody that never read anything at all about it and cannot paint? Think about this.

[alone]

Intents exist only if you allow them too.

Really? The universe exists because you "allow" it to?

Listen, I understand the intent of these replies and I agree to them. "Demons" in the way depicted by Christianity & co. it is nonsense etc. but to go to the extremes to say that "all you see and experience is just a product of yourself" it is a little egocentric, don't you think? Naturally on the whole (as in the sense of the Hindus) this CAN be correct: e.g. they consider everything as a part of the self, even the kitchen sink. That's perfectly fine, but still, there are practical applications in the kitchen sink that you can use and that go beyond the self, isn't it?

Coming to the point of AP. I find amusing that people that always insist that "all you perceive is a matter of your intent" usually only project in their room inside a city full of people and "protected" by their usual routine (so outside the scope of certain experiences). As a single example, why don't you do a little experiment? Go in a mountain, in a place almost inaccessible usually by man, alone, and camp yourself there for 3 or 4 days. Then "Astral Project" (better at night if you can) in that lapse and then tell me if the experience you will have will be the same you usually have, want we?

Your first stop, if you do manage to project, will be one inside your own mental palace. IMO, This is why border trance states are so good for psychologists. If you can see the gunk built up in the engine, then you will know what you need to do to fix it. Of course, you will always be better then anyone else at cleaning out your mental engine, but that is an act that you must venture into bravely and conquer by your own volition.

Fine. I find amusing however that many of the people that insist that it's all a matter of the "mental space" never try to do something outside of their mental space to begin with.

Matsùwa, an Huichol Shaman used to say: "it is not me that teach you the way of the Gods; those things are to be learn only in the wilderness, alone". Those that swear that spirits, entities, forces etc. (or whatever you want to call them) are idiocies usually would never even remotely do something like that (usually for fear, amusing, isn't it? I had once the experience of a guy that said just that and after 15 minutes in the wilderness alone literally shaken from end to end) and yet they are sure these things are just "constructs of their own mind" (that naturally can be possible, yet for all practical purposes it doesn't matter and they surely are not part of what you can call "yourself").

As for fear itself, maybe you would want to know that it is a matter of the body, not of the mind. It is the body that feels the fear, it is not something that is produced by the mind. Real fear (the one that doesn't come by a thought and that's the real sense of fear, the ones that blocks you, the other kind is not really fear) is not a product of what you think. It is for this that it's impossible to really overcome real fear (fear is actually a great catalyst); the point is to be able to function without panicking inside the fear.

we are that source doing these things, but the confusion is that we are deceived by our own beliefs and creations to the point where we are lost to that realization and follow after  counterfeit, usurper god concepts which separate who we are from who we are through our beliefs.

To "speak" with that source you need a special vocabulary, and that vocabulary is the framework. Nobody can access that directly, it's impossible factually and anyway you always filter that experience within your framework (so if you have a working framework the info you get can be used, elsewhere it is useless or partial). In psychology this is called the "subjective synthesis" which you can read about in Assagioli, Karen Horney, William James, or A.A. Brill and that was first introduced by people as Freud and Jung.

Buddha and Buddhism is usually considered as a way to access that source directly, but that's a total incorrect assumption. Buddha used a framework to access that source (he had a system of beliefs and a complete way or interaction), as everybody of those "sages" did.

[myth]

Most religions uses idols, symbols, thought-forms/images in the context of
stories, particularly astromythology to focus beliefs.

I'ts not the belief the important thing. It is the framework inside it. A belief (of whatever nature) is practical only when the framework inside it works, elsewhere it doesn't, or it doesn't fully.

Those who practise the corresponding rituals and customs perpetuate the meme.
Meme, a unit of an idea within culture.
Also me-me, a repeat unit of idea perceived by me.
Unless the idea is made real by me, by my continuous focused beliefs, then any meme that
falls out of flavour or popularity with me becomes a fad, a myth.
It has lacks the power to inspire and move people.

The beliefs are just representations of the framework, but they are not the most important part. All practical traditions (as shamanism or true sorcery) have working frameworks at the base of the beliefs and the beliefs are the representations of that framework, a way to operate with it. However, as I said, a belief with no working framework inside doesn't work just because it is a belief.

A clear example of this are the books of Castaneda (as a simple example, but there are many others even more recent). While many of the beliefs and structures comes from real shamanism or sorcery, since they are mixed and extrapolated from their working frameworks they serve little in practical terms. You will never find anybody using the practices in the books of Castaneda being able to obtain something concrete out of them, no matter what he believes or the beliefs themselves.

I will make yet another example. If it was just a matter of beliefs and what the belief arise in the mind, then you could easily obtain practical results from the Lovecraftian mythology as you can obtain with something like the goetia or similar; yet experience has demonstrated that this is not possible, it doesn't work (or at last it works only in the same way you can obtain with simple placing of the will, outside of any framework). This is because there is no working framework inside that mythology and those beliefs.

Just for this a belief never really becomes a myth until the framework is present. It becomes such only when that framework is perverted or not present anymore.

The circle (in its external composition) is more a mean to enclose a certain type of "energy" or "vibration" (whatever you want to call it). Its use as protection is more of an intent aspect, it has not so much to do really with the composition of the circle in itself.

This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of ritual magic. In ancient traditions circles (as a mean for protection as it is believed in modern magic) were not used just because the "protection" came from other means. However some other things (as the crossroads, or the cross to represent it, etc.) were indeed used, and the circle is a sort of evolution of that (if you watch the first grimoires the cross is always present inside the circle).

It is just a matter of equivocation that the circle today has been meant to represent protection when instead is a mean of amplification inside its boundaries. Naturally it can work also as a protection but it is an indirect way of working (meaning that it's another thing and not the circle itself that "protects").

In my early explorations, I constantly feared demons and such until little by little, I stopped believing in them. I have since learned why but I do not at all wish to influence your beliefs. You are comfortable and have no fear exploring. My mini rants are only because so many new people won't try these different states of consciousness because they are too scared of something that doesn't have to exist if they don't let them.

That's perfectly fine. Having not fear of what you encounter is a must, but it is also a must to respect what you "see" and not treat it as you are the master and what you see is your slave. Many people do that, and for them it works because what they encounter is something that doesn't go beyond a certain point. If you do that with certain other things you would be in trouble fast. Even in the case the "entities" are just part of your unconscious do you really want to treat it badly just for a false egomaniac feeling? So, IMO it is better to always approach things with respect.

I understand your lack of desire to speak openly about some of your beliefs because other will say you are trapped in a belief system. But we subjectively know our own objective truths. Who can tell us otherwise?

Practical results can. Until what you do has a validity only within your mind, you can fake to be or do whatever you like. There are so many people that delude themselves of having done whatever experience, just because of that.

I will give you an example: in the raise of the so-called Kundalini there are certain "siddhi" to be obtained. These are practical "gifts" that you receive. They are there appositely to let you know if you are just deluding yourself or not (every spiritual results has also a practical development, there's no way out of that). Now, if you talk with 99% of people that insist that they arose the Kundalini till the Samsara nobody of them usually posses either ONE single of those siddhi, yet they are convinced that they did really arouse Kundalini till the top. Their mind delude them so much that they either come to the point of ascribing a positive result on not having obtained those practical results, because they think they are "over the material so much that these things didn't manifest".

This is how much powerful your mind is, especially on deluding yourself you are doing the most powerful feats even when you are doing nothing. All ancients traditions are tied to practical results just for this. If you have some practical achievements then you know if what you do is really working or not; if you leave the deduction of the results only to your mind you will be in a great danger (everyone is, nobody excluded).

The reality is that we all are. We can't escape that.

True, so use a working framework instead of being a slave of one that doesn't work without either comprehending it

I have seen and spoken to many entities that have been given power to them through the beliefs of others. Most have only been manifested through belief. The rest are just as harmless.

They are not real to me because I don't give then enough attention to sustain their existence for any time in my reality. My belief makes this so.

It depends on the types of "entities". Many people when they refer to "entities" in reality have just met so-called thought-forms that they exchange for "real" entities. Those are indeed harmless since they are your creation in every point.

There are other kinds of "entities" that possess more "objective" reality (nobody knows naturally what they are, but they differ in practice from a simple thought-form), and many systems have listed their categories differently depending on their framework. From the hermetic/qabbalah category they are subdivided in angelical/demonic and lastly the spirits of death. In decreasing order they get from the least close to the material world to the closer.

It is not easy to meet a real "entity" (one that seems and act in a way that can be included in that term fully), especially if you do only certain things (as astral projection), so it is difficult to talk about these things because many will just think that you are just creating a belief structure that then it becomes true because you adhere to it. I can understand it, in fact, but I know that's just a matter of ignorance on certain experiences, nothing more.

I used the example of Necromancy because it is probably the most easy way to see (if one is interested) how what you think/don't think and your approach change very little; it's easy because the so-called "spirits of death" (if they are really such or not it's not important) are, as I said, closer to the material world and they have a major impact on it, even of "demons". Just for this, however, they are extremely dangerous to handle and to do so you have to pay a steep price.

Believe that none of it can hurt you and that will be true.

So you really think that if you "believe that nothing can hurt you that will be true"? You can try to fly from your window and see if "believing you will not hurt yourself" will do something at all.

Surely daring and not having fear is a good approach, but in the same way you always have to have respect and humility with what you encounter. Luckily for certain people they never reach a certain threshold, elsewhere with this attitude only you would be in real trouble after a while.

On simple example: if you will ever practice necromancy even once in your life maybe you will change a little idea.

I wish to speak with Vassago.  I've had the Duke on my mind for years, and I just can't shake it.

Would those with a wealth of information be so kind to help me by example?  If you have guidelines on how you do it, I would like to hear it.

This doesn't mean I'll try everything I hear, of course.  I'm not coming here with anything exceeding the healthy amount of skepticism, and I'm by no means naive.  

I could really use your help, Astral Academy magic community, so I'm reaching out to you for your support.

Thank you for taking the time to read this; I hope to hear what any of you have to say on the subject.

One of the best books to reach a so called "Physical Manifestation" is Ceremonial Magick and the Power of Evocation of Lisewski.
While he is too dogmatic on certain points the book is a must to understand what are the dynamics to a successful "materialization" (it is more an etheric - not astral, note well - materialization, than a purely physical one but to all practical purposes it is exactly the same) and why many people cannot have those results. What he speaks about of the subjective synthesis (in psychological terms, that in occult/shamanic term is the "framework") it is one of the most important aspect of practical magic, and why a correct functioning framework is indispensable to have reliable results (that it is what I was speaking about some years ago in this forum too, with not many results I must add  ).

So study that book well, after you have done so you can either change procedures as you want (keeping the structure of them and changing things according to their nature) but until you cannot understand well that point you will not be able to do anything of really constructive (as it happens, sadly, with most new-ages practitioners).

EDIT: To help you a little further to understand the "structure" I was talking about before: every Grimoire has a certain structure, a sort of skeleton that it is at its base. For example the structure of both the Heptameron, Liber Juratus and the Clavicula Solomonis are for evocations to multiple spirits (and in fact the modus operandi in them it is really similar). The structure of the Goetia is based on the Heptameron but made appositely for a single spirit evocation. Still the "skeleton" is the same as the afore-mentioned books and it is based on an hermetic/qabbalah framework.  So, to understand that framework well (and extract it) the best thing to do is to study the Agrippa works (Three Books of Occult Phylosophy) and then you can adapt the framework of the same to your ends (in case you want to change it because it is not your cup of tea; naturally it is much easier to use a different Grimoire than to adapt one, but if you like the structure of a certain Grimoire best, it can be done in this way).
The Grimorium Verum and the Grand Grimoire, instead, have completely different structures and to understand them you should instead study Vodoun or Sorcery systems (the Grimorium Verum in structure is almost the same as a Vodoun working, with either the calling of an intermediary spirit - as  it could be Legba there - to help on the evocation) to extract the modus operandi fully.

I hope these two examples clarify what I meant by "structure".

So you can get Kundalini raising by doing any spiritual things? Such as qi gong or NEW. Or do you have to have purpose intentions to get it, like techniques specifically designed for a raising.

Before Kundalini can raise some "blocks" must be removed. Qi gong or NEW or similar practices removes those blocks by and by*. They also serve as indirect methods to raise the Kundalini.

When the blocks are removed there are also direct practices to raise the Kundalini. Kundalini is associated to sexual energies, so these direct practices are usually meant to stimulate and transmute them.

*These are the safer methods but they require much time, it is a long process . There are much faster but much more dangerous methods to do the same. The former methods are simbolized by the chaste woman, the latter by the whore.

hmm..
So whats a "raising" and im not sure i understand kundalini as much as i do.

The Kundalini is described as a serpent coiled 3 1/2 times on the muladhara chakra (the root chakra), with the head facing downward.

Awakening is when the head raises. Raising is when the body of the serpent raises through the spinal column.

With the term "awakening" many times people associate simple Kundalini phenomena, but Kundalini phenomena are like consciousness phenomena, i.e. everything is Kundalini phenomena.

i thought you gain super efective healing abilites, or just more energy. Would anyone explain what it really is??

It depends

A) on the individual
B) on the chakras touched by the raising. Every chakra has associated a certain "siddhi" (power).

However a raising of Kundalini is usually associated (well... always) with powerful Spiritual experiences, so you usually cannot care less about those "siddhis". One of the Siddhis is, btw, fully conscious AP.

each time i received these data transfers i instantly understood the solution to that particular issue. the answer was Love! if someone would have told me 'Love can fix any problem that we have' an hour earlier, i would have just considered it cliche hippie-talk, but i now knew it as fact and understood exactly why it was fact. i don't recall if i said the word Love out loud or not, but when that word came to me i was hit in my heart/chest by so much love that it physically hurt, while also being the most euphoric sensation i have ever felt. the love came from the beings, it was like i was getting rewarded for getting the answer correct. the best metaphor i can give is a four inch fire hose of pure genuine love blasting me in the heart, and i wasn't sure how much more i could handle. tears poured out of my eyes, i couldn't help it.

I know, these experiences are really strong, especially the first times. We call them the "kiss of the angel". The HGA is associated with the Anatta chakra (the heart chakra), so the ecstaties associated to Him are of the nature of love (and by and by the love experienced have less the nature of emotion in the literal term, but are more "stronger" in other aspects).

Knowledge and Conversation (the full experience of this) brings intimacy with the Angel and as a result you experience what it is called "The Trance of the Beatific Vision". It happens only once (because after you "bypass" it) and it can last also many months.

by this time my mom was holding my hand, i looked over at her and knew she was my guardian angel. i was confused because i always thought guardian angels existed in some sort of spirit form, not as physical people. apparently this is not always the case.

She was not *your* Angel. You saw the Angel of your mom (i.e. you saw your mom as she really is). It frequently happens in these cases; you see the divinity in others.

i now believe that religion, although flawed by its dogmas, has most-likely provided many more of these types of mystical experiences to its followers (due to its large number of followers) than has agnosticism, OBEs, NDEs and drug related states that act as conduits to the larger reality (when used by the right people with a conducive mindset). in my opinion, religion does not have a monopoly over mystical experiences, they just have a lot more members who are willing to open themselves up to the possibility of something beyond this life/reality -something bigger than themselves. i believe this is the key, in conjunction with the desire to improve one's self, that facilitates transcendental events. i used to despise religion until my experience, now i see it as a productive mechanism -although limited- in spiritual evolution.

Religion has little to do with these things, in itself. Sometimes a "glimpse" can happen spontaneously (and there's always a motive why it happens, and you should research why for yourself), but then it is a matter of love for your Angel. You can do whatever discipline mechanically, it will serve very little, if not as a mean to arise that love. Everybody has the key in him/herself to reach the Angel, and it is said that "for every step one takes towards one's Holy Guardian Angel, He takes two towards his client".

Maybe some people that approach religion have this love inside themselves (and for this they approach it, also if they can exchange a thing for another), and for this you can think the two are associated. However, at the same time, many of these same people have a love that is more similar to teenager's love: there's initial passion, but it goes away soon (especially after the first difficulties). The love required is gentle and sustained. On the search for the Angel one's inevitably come to the so-called "Dark Night of the Soul" and that's an hard test on your motivations and aspiration.

At the same time it can also be said that for some of these people approaching religion it has been the dogma of the same religion (or better the dogma of the structure leading the religion) that made that love wane.

So it is impossible to create a rule from this. Every system has advantages and disavantages. What it matters is beyond both.

a few notes:
i have no recollection of what happened during the time i blacked-out

This is usually the case at first. You can also not retain any memory soever of what has occurred, but on "returning" you may be merely aware of a gap on your conscious life, and judge of its contents by observing that your nature has been subtly transfigured.

By and by, on successive occasions you find that the ecstasy develop a quality of peace and intelligibility which adds power, while it informs and fortifies the mental and moral qualities instead of obscuring and upsetting them, till you can unite fully to the Angel, consciously.

P.S.: A thing to beware of is of taking the thing out of proportion (I'm not talking about you personally here, but in general terms). A quote concerning this:
In the same way the Adept almost always begins by torrential lyrics painting out mystical extravagances about "ineffable love", "unimaginable bliss", "inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness". He usually loses his sense of proportion, of humour, of reality, and of sound judgment. His ego is often inflated to the bursting point, till he would be abjectly ridiculous if he were not so pitifully dangerous to himself and others. He also tends to take his new-found "truths of illumination" for the entire body of truth, and insists that they must be as valid an vital for all men as they happen to be for himself.

It can happen and it has happened in the past, and it's (btw) one of the motives some religions have turned to fanaticism.

P.P.S: Holy Guardian Angel it is just a term of many others. This term it is the one adopted in western magick. In Crowley's words:

THE AUGOEIDES. Lytton calls him Adonai in 'Zanoni,' and I often use this name in the note-books. Abramelin calls him Holy Guardian Angel. I adopt this:

1. Because Abramelin's system is so simple and effective.
2. Because since all theories of the universe are absurd it is better to talk in the language of one which is patently absurd, so as to mortify the metaphysical man.
3. Because a child can understand it.

Theosophists call him the Higher Self, Silent Watcher, or Great Master. The Golden Dawn calls him the Genius. Gnostics say the Logos. Zoroaster talks about uniting all these symbols into the form of a Lion (see Chaldean Oracles.) Anna Kingsford calls him Adonai (Clothed with the Sun). Buddhists call him Adi-Buddha... The Bhagavad-Gita calls him Vishnu (chapter xi.). The Yi King calls him "The Great Person."The Qabalah calls him Jechidah.

We also get metaphysical analysis of His nature, deeper and deeper according to the subtlety of the writer; for this vision - it is all one same phenomenon, variously coloured by our varying [minds] - is, I believe, the first and the last of all Spiritual Experience... the End of the "Path of the Wise" is identity with Him.

[CHASTITY.]

CHASTITY.

Those Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Literature which more particularly concern the Seeker after Truth, concur on one point. The most worthless Grimoires of Black Magic, no less than the highest philosophical flights of the Brotherhood which we name no, insist upon the virtue of Chastity as cardinal to the Gate of Wisdom.

Let first be noted this word Virtue, the quality of Manhood, integral with Virility. The Chastity of the Adept of the Rose and Cross, or of the Graal-Knights of Monsalvat, is not other than very opposite to that of which the poet can write:

......Chastity that slavering sates
His lust without the walls, mews, and is gone,
Preening himself that his lewd lips relent.

Or to that emasculate frigor of Alfred Tennyson and the Academic Schools.

The Chastity whose Magical Energy both protects and urges the aspirant to the Sacred Mysteries is quite contrary in its deepest nature to all vulgar ideas of it; for it is, in the first place, a positive passion; in the second, connected only by obscure magical links with the sexual function; and, in the third, the deadliest enemy of every form of bourgeois morality and sentiment.

It may assist us to create in our minds a clear concept of this noblest and rarest -- yet most necessary -- of the Virtues, if we draw the distinction between it and one of its ingredients, Purity.

Purity is a passive or at least static quality; it connotes the absence of all alien admixture from any given idea; as, pure gallium, pure mathematics, pure race. It is a secondary and derive use of the word which we find in such expressions as "pure milk," which imply freedom from contamination.

Chastity, per contra, as the etymology (castus, possibly connected with castrum, a fortified camp(1) suggests, may be supposed to assert the moral attitude of readiness to resist any assault upon an existing state of Purity.

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity
That when a soul is found sincerely so
A thousand liveried angels lackey it,

sang Milton, with the true poet's veil-piercing sword-vision; for service is but waste unless action demands it.

The Sphinx is not to be mastered by holding aloof; and the brutish innocence of Paradise is always at the mercy of the Serpent. it is his Wisdom that should guard our Ways; we need his swiftness, subtlety, and his royal prerogative of dealing death.

The Innocence of the Adept? We are at once reminded of the strong Innocence of Harpocrates, and of His Energy of Silence. A chaste man is thus not merely one who avoids the contagion of impure thoughts and their results, but whose virility is competent to restore Perfection to the world about him. Thus the Parsifal who flees from Kundry and her attendant flower-witches loses his way and must wander long years in the Desert; he is not truly chaste until he is able to redeem her, an act which he performs by the reunion of the Lance and the Sangraal.

Chastity may thus be defined as the strict observance of the Magical Oath; that is, and perfected devotion to the Holy Guardian Angel [ED: i.e. "True Self", "Silent Self", "God", call it what you will] and exclusive pursuit of the Way of the True Will(2).

It is entirely incompatible with the cowardice of moral attitude, the emasculation of soul and stagnation of action, which commonly denote the man called chaste by the vulgar.

"Beware of abstinence from action!" is it not written in Our lection? For the nature of the Universe being Creative Energy, aught else blasphemes the Goddess, and seeks to introduce the elements of a real death within the pulses of Life.

The chaste man, the true Knight-Errant of the Stars, imposes continually his essential virility upon the throbbing Womb of the King's Daughter; with every stroke of his Spear he penetrates the heart of Holiness, and bids spring forth the Fountain of the Sacred Blood, splashing its scarlet dew throughout Space and Time. His Innocence melts with its white-hot Energy the felon fetters of that Restriction which is Sin, and his Integrity with its fury of Righteousness establishes that Justice which alone can satisfy the yearning lust of Womanhood whose name is Opportunity. As the function of the castrum or castellum is not merely to resist a siege, but to compel to Obedience of Law and Order every pagan within range of its riders, so also it is the Way of Chastity to do more than defend its purity against assault. For he is not wholly pure who is imperfect; and perfect is no man in himself without his fulfillment in all possibility. Thus then must he be instant to seek all proper adventure and achieve it, seeing well to it that by no means should such distract him or divert his purpose, polluting his true Nature and hamstringing his true Will.

Woe, woe therefore to him the unchaste who shirks scornful the seeming-trivial, or flees fearful the desperate, adventure. And woe, thrice woe, and four times woe be to him who is allured by the adventure, slacking his Will and demitted from his Way: for as the laggard and the dastard are lost, so is the toy of circumstance dragged down to nethermost Hell.

Sir Knight, be vigilant: watch by your arms and renew your Oath; for that day is of sinister augury and deadly charged with danger which ye fill not to overflowing with gay deeds and bold of masterful, of manful Chastity!


(1) The root cas means house; and an house is Beth, the letter of Mercury, the Magus of the Tarot. He is not still, in a place of repose, but the quintessence of all Motion. He is the Logos; and He is phallic. This doctrine is of the utmost Qabalistic importance.

(2) It may be undertaken for the direct object of continuing the race.

It may be undertaken in obedience to real passion; for passion, as the name implies, is rather inspired by a force of divine strength and beauty without the will of the individual, often even against it.

It is the casual or habitual --- what Christ called "idle" --- use or rather abuse of these forces which constitutes their profanation. It will further be obvious that, if the act in itself is to be the sacrament in a religious ceremony, this act must be accomplished solely for the love of God.

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

The real meaning of chastity is NOT literal chastity, but the use of sex as a sacrament. "There's no part of me that is not of God".

If it is your will to be chaste that's a way to make sex a sacrament. If instead it's not your will then there's nothing good on being chaste. You can decide to do it as a sort of "gift" to God, but there's nothing worser than becoming an obsession.

As for the "teachings" in the astral plane they are not meant to "control" in the sense of learning to become chaste in the literal sense, but in the equilibration of those energies and a way to treat the same. I already explained this in a previous post, you may want to look at it.

Whatever you decide to do just take this in consideration: follow your nature and don't have anyone saying you what you should do instead if your nature is different. Chastity doesn't mean abstaining from sex in that literal way. If someone tells you that then s/he should study a little more religions and their simbolisms. An example: the navel of the church (the ancients' one) is in the form of an oval, in the middle there's an altar with a cross (the point inside the circle, the rose-cross, the egg girted by a serpent). The oval is the Yoni (vulva), the Cross is the Lingam (phallus). Same can be said of any other religion: sex has always been regarded as the most holy act, for various motives.

basically the morals to all religions is:

A reason because these morals have many times failed (and very frequently totally caused the opposite results) in practice by the structures of religion is in part to be found in the same terms and the way to look at them. The fact is that all religions have started in a certain way and by and by the teachings exposed by the prophet/messiah/guru/whatever of that religion transformed itself in a thing completely different.

A cause of this is that language it's not the same thing as personal experience/knowledge and every term/sentence contains in itself a contradiction. Religions always started with a fundation that had pratical roots in themselves, and then transformed by and by in - and supported themselves only by - faith, to end with the paroxism that searching for that practical source becomes discouraged (when not becoming heresy) sometimes by the same structure leading the religion.

You have the prophets looked as rare cases, gifted individuals or sons of God or divinities etc. themselves, so regarded as unarrivable and their practical teachings have become only statements of faith. The same statements, then, acquired a certain interpretation (that's devoid of any practical experience behind, so without the possibility of knowing the meaning apart from speculation) that becomes a statement of faith itself: a statement of faith of a statement of faith.

Add to this then the different point of view on what God really is (coming again from speculation) and the terms, that are interpreted literally, assumes different meanings depending on this "vision of God".

With the terms you elencated you can see very well this behaviour.

1: be humble

This term has taken a flavor ranging from "false modesty", passing through "bow your head to others" till "know that you are a sinner, so behave as a sinner ashamed of being a sinner".

In real humility, however, there's no place for feeling yourself inferior to others (that, btw, it naturally implies that there is someone inferior and someone superior, and if you are the former to some, you are obviously the latter to some other), there's no place for modesty born from external considerations (that's born, in the same way, from the idea of inferior/superior) nor for sin coming from the same imposed morals of an absolute and external nature.

Real humility is born from the internal knowledge that there is - and there never will be - no end to the path, knowledge that "every man and every woman is a star" without difference in the quality and/or course thereof, and knowledge that the vehicle is and will never be, no matter what, perfect.

2: non-violent

I will consider this term only on the more "internal" meaning (that's probably the only one to be taken seriously in consideration), because the more literary meaning it's just evidence of yourself being a slave of your emotions (but also here all these terms shouldn't be considered as absolute dogma; example: if you are being attacked defending oneself can be plausible).

Also this stems from the impression of superiority/inferiority. If you consider the other a star as you are then there's no question of trying to impose your Will on him/her, because the other's Will has the same importance as your own.

However also here the term has become a sort of "never fight one another". There's nothing wrong on fighting like brothers. The universe was created and it is endured by attrition. Without exchange of point of views every form of knowledge will never renew itself.

The term, morover, also contains even more subtle meanings, as in, for example, the Tao. Another subtle meaning is the one of not opposing to change etc.

3: forgiveness

Forgiveness arises from the knowledge that "there's no difference between any one thing and another". Also in this case it has been "abused" as a sort of pretence that fighting one another is a bad thing in absolute.

It's interesting to note that this "not fight" as a very subtle (not in itself, but for its use) literal, interpretation has been used many times as a sort of assurance for the religion itself and the "structure" propagating the same (as the church). Example: the disciples are expected to never contest the dogma imposed by the teachers and the same religion as a whole.

4: love all beings

It has become "love all beings", where it should be "love every thing", and morover it's not the love as it can be understood by the usual meaning of the term. It is a love of a different (and higher) nature. It is somewhat easy to understand that this love is not tied to attachment and/or a need for a "result"; it is more difficult to understand that this love is not love born from emotion (and it is not necessarily tied to the emotion called "love") and it is devoid of purpouse. It is difference between "being love" and "acting with love".

This is the love of the true mystic, where 0 = 2.

If you step back to the level of emotion (as the term now implies) then, for example, hate can be a form of love stronger than the same love. Morover the "love all beings" turns the formula to all another thing, because in its real meaning it is one of the most powerful formulae to dissolve duality, uniting 1 and 1 (2) and dissolve them to none (0).

In the other literal meaning, however, it actually reinforces the same duality (making a difference between loving and any other emotion, for example) and it is an absolute form of conduct where the same should be individual instead. Taken to the literal extremes it can subtly reinforce the above mentioned "inferior/superior" point of view and in some way of using it, it can take a form of "love to obtain something in exchange" (why do you help the poor?", "I do it to reserve myself a place in heaven") and so actually turning love in a form of bargain instead.

And the most importent one
5: be close to your personal god who is in secret.

This is, as you say "the most important", and in fact, it's probably one of the chief motives (along lack of personal experience) of the twisting of all the others.

The way you look at God changes completely both what it is important to approach Him/Her (if there's even a question of trying to approach instead of relying in a general faith), and both the literal meaning of all the terms above. Lacking the personal knowledge of the terms, this is the only thing that remains for many religions and one of the principal motives that all those terms have turned sour and many times completely expressed themselves by their literal opposites in practice, by the structures leading that same religion.

You can also read:

The Gospel according to St. Bernard Shaw
http://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib888.html

After going through all that, I'm not sure just what to say.

You should read "Energized Enthusiasm" as I've said. The point is using sex as a sacrament.

I will provide some quotes, paste them togheter to form a sort of "easy picture" so maybe you can comprehend.

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

The divine consciousness which is reflected and refracted in the works of Genius feeds upon a certain secretion, as I believe. This secretion is analogous to semen, but not identical with it.

The Greeks say that there are three methods of discharging the Lyden Jar of Genius. These three methods they assign to three Gods.

These three Gods are Dionysus, Apollo, Aphrodite. In English: wine, woman and song.

Now it would be a great mistake to imagine that the Greeks were recommending a visit to a brothel. Agree then that it does not follow from the fact that wine, woman and song make the sailor's tavern that these ingredients must necessarily concoct a hell-broth.  The spiritual flower of this process is that at the moment of discharge a physical ecstasy occurs, a spasm analogous to the mental spasm which meditation gives. And further, in the sacramental and ceremonial use of the sexual act, the divine consciousness may be attained.

The sexual act being then a sacrament, it remains to consider in what respect this limits the employment of the organs. All personal considerations must be banished utterly. Just as any priest can perform the miracle of transubstantiation, so can any man, possessing the necessary qualifications, perform this other miracle, whose nature must form the subject of a subsequent discussion. I need hardly emphasize the necessity for the strictest self-control and concentration on their part. As it would be blasphemy to enjoy the gross taste of the wine of the sacrament, so must the celebrant suppress even the minutest manifestation of animal pleasure. Needless also to insist on a similar quality in the assistants; the sexual excitement must be suppressed and transformed into its religious equivalent.

By the use of the three methods in one the whole being of man may thus be stimulated.

The music will create a general harmony of the brain, leading it in its own paths; the wine affords a general stimulus of the animal nature; and the sex-excitement elevates the moral nature of the man by its close analogy with the highest ecstasy. It remains, however, always for him to make the final transmutation. Unless he have the special secretion which I have postulated, the result will be commonplace.

So consonant is this system with the nature of man that it is exactly parodied and profaned not only in the sailor's tavern, but in the society ball. Here, for the lowest natures the result is drunkenness, disease and death; for the middle natures a gradual blunting of the finer feelings; for the higher, an exhilaration amounting at the best to the foundation of a life-long love.

Now the purpose of such a ball, the moral attitude on entering, seems to me to be of supreme importance. If you go with the idea of killing time, you are rather killing yourself. Baudelaire speaks of the first period of love when the boy kisses the trees of the wood, rather than kiss nothing. At the age of thirty-six I found myself at Pompeii, passionately kissing that great grave statue of a woman that stands in the avenue of the tombs. Even now, as I wake in the morning, I sometimes fall to kissing my own arms.

It is with such a feeling that one should go to a ball, and with such a feeling intensified, purified and exalted, that one should leave it. If this be so, how much more if one go with the direct religious purpose burning in one's whole being! Imagine then a ball in which the music is the choir celestial, the wine the wine of the Graal, or that of the Sabbath of the Adepts, and one's partner the Infinite and Eternal One, the True and Living God Most High!

Go even to a common ball --- the Moulin de la Galette will serve even the least of my magicians --- with your whole soul aflame within you, and your whole will concentrated on these ...ansubstantiations, and tell me what miracle takes place! It is the hate of, the distaste for, life that sends one to the ball when one is old; when one is young one is on springs until the hour falls; but the love of God, which is the only true love, diminishes not with age; it grows deeper and intenser with every satisfaction. It seems as if in the noblest men this secretion constantly increases --- which certainly suggests an external reservoir --- so that age loses all its bitterness. We find "Brother Lawrence," Nicholas Herman of Lorraine, at the age of eighty in continuous enjoyment of union with God. Buddha at an equal age would run up and down the Eight High Trances like an acrobat on a ladder; stories not too dissimilar are told of Bishop Berkeley. Many persons have not attained union at all until middle age, and then have rarely lost it.

It is, indeed, of the first importance for the celebrant in any phallic rite to be able to complete the act without even once allowing a sexual or sensual thought to invade his mind. The mind must be as absolutely detached from one's own body as it is from another person's.

Of musical instruments few are suitable. The human voice is the best, and the only one which can be usefully employed in chorus. Anything like an orchestra implies infinite rehearsal, and introduces an atmosphere of artificiality. The organ is a worthy solo instrument, and is an orchestra in itself, while its tone and associations favour the religious idea.

The violin is the most useful of all, for its every mood expresses the hunger for the infinite, and yet it is so mobile that it has a greater emotional range than any of its competitors. Accompaniment must be dispensed with, unless a harpist be available.

The harmonium is a horrible instrument, if only because of its associations; and the piano is like unto it, although, if unseen and played by a Paderewski, it would serve. The trumpet and the bell are excellent, to startle, at the crisis of a ceremony.

Hot, drubbing, passionate, in a different class of ceremony, a class more intense and direct, but on the whole less exalted, the tom-tom stands alone. It combines well with the practice of mantra, and is the best accompaniment for any sacred dance.

Wine being a mocker and strong drink raging, its use is more likely to lead to trouble than mere music.

One essential difficulty is dosage. One needs exactly enough; and, as Blake points out, one can only tell what is enough by taking too much. For each man the dose varies enormously; so does it for the same man at different times.

The sexual excitement, which must complete the harmony of method, offers a more difficult problem.

It is exceptionally desirable that the actual bodily movements involved should be decorous in the highest sense, and many people are so ill-trained that they will be unable to regard such a ceremony with any but critical or lascivious eyes; either would be fatal to all the good already done. It is presumably better to wait until all present are greatly exalted before risking a profanation.

Of sacred dances the most practical for a gathering is the seated dance. One sits cross-legged on the floor, and sways to and fro from the hips in time with the mantra. A solo or duet of dancers as a spectacle rather distracts from this exercise. I would suggest a very small and very brilliant light on the floor in the middle of the room. Such a room is best floored with mosaic marble; an ordinary Freemason's Lodge carpet is not a bad thing.

The eyes, if they see anything at all, see then only the rhythmical or mechanical squares leading in perspective to the simple unwinking light.

The swinging of the body with the mantra (which has a habit of rising and falling as if of its own accord in a very weird way) becomes more accentuated; ultimately a curiously spasmodic stage occurs, and then the consciousness flickers and goes out; perhaps breaks through into the divine consciousness, perhaps is merely recalled to itself by some variable in external impression. The above is a very simple description of a very simple and earnest form of ceremony, based entirely upon rhythm.

It is very easy to prepare, and its results are usually very encouraging for the beginner.

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

Also read, of the same Crowley, in Magick in Theory and Practice, chap. XV, XII and XX (in this order) and lastly Liber XXV (The Star Ruby) and Liber XXXVI (The Star Sapphire), and for an "infernal" (Crowley did like to play this jokes, in reality it has only to do with a special occurence in the month) version of this last, LXVI (Stellae Rubeae). If you can read behind the lines you will have a quite good picture from where to start from and understand a little more about the process.

I think we are thinking different things about what channeling is, what I mean by channeling is people who are trying to contact some being or entity that is not themselves and inviting them to express through the body and mind of the channeler. This is dangerous and foolish

It's not always "dangerous and fooling". It is such only if:

A) you don't invoke a proper force and only that.
B) the force invoked is "lower" than yourself are (for example *invoking* an elemental it's a bad thing, in that case you should *evoke* the same)
C) you don't assure that that force is *really* not a part of yourself (in fact many times channellers are all happy when they have a "force" that "resonate with themselves" and this is what it should not absolutely happen; on the contrary if there's not a feeling of something "alien" and in someway extraneous then you can consider the "contact" only as a way to make some practice and nothing more)
D) you don't test the information properly to see if point A, B and C are met
E) you don't "accept" the force as a way to assimilate a different point of view instead of using the same on the contrary as a way to aggrandize that already estabilished (and limited) point of view

what you are saying by watching your own mind CFTraveller is simply watching your own inner dialogue, those voices could simply be your own subconscious mind, we have internal chatter all the time even when we are awake in the physical so why would it be any different when we try to meditate? It makes sense that all the internal chatter will become more pronounced when trying to meditate as we start to become more aware of the internal state.

For how I did read it CFTraveler is going beyond the chatter of thought in that practice and she is doing exactly what you say next.

I know I should stay out of this but for informational purposes only, I will share that I first heard of the ankhing practice from Drunvalo Melchizedek, who wrote that he got it as channeled information.

As I supposed.

Oh well...

"The slaves shall serve".

EDIT: I've gone to the page of this Drunvalo and I took a look at this practice. It will be a waste of time to point all the fallacies, but I will mention just this that could explain how much he really understands of these things:

"Most people in the world are ignorant about what happens to their sexual energy after they have an orgasm. Usually, the energy moves up the spine and out the top of the head directly into the eighth or thirteenth chakra (same chakra, different system). In a few rare cases, the sexual energy is released down the spine into the hidden center below the feet, the point opposite the one above the head."

If it was that easy...
If orgasm would naturally awake the kundalini and bring it to the Sahasrara then all people having sex would be enlightened. The idiocy of these sort of people is so astounding as to be almost impossible to imagine either if you wanted to. And he has either the pretence of telling what "most people in the world are ignorant about". Matter of fact they are ignorant of it because that doesn't happen automatically (and it's neither a "fire and forget" process) and so they are right (because in fact it doesn't happen this at orgasm, by itself) and he is wrong. He probably really thinks that everytime he has an orgasm (no matter how he does it) the kundalini automatically arise to the crown chakra, omg.

To not to talk about "in a few rare cases, the sexual energy is released down the spine into the hidden center below the feet". Apart that the centre below the feet is not a centre at all, it was created this way by Israel Regardie as focus to "put the energies to earth", he doesn't clearly neither understand of what the hell he is babbling about. There's no "hidden centre below the feet", and "releasing the energy down" it has nothing to do with this and actually it's a thing that ALWAYS happens if semen is discharged (so he says in "rare cases" when it's the thing that always happens in 99% of cases while having sex).

Enough of this, I have better things to do.