The Shadow and the Occultist’s Trained Mind
One characteristic of occult training is a ‘trained mind’. Dion Fortune talks about that quite a lot in her works and it is certainly true that the work we do rewires the brain and results in a mind that is able to perform visualization and concentration on demand. I read last night with great interest in ‘Moon Magic’ how Dion’s character, La Fay Morgan, talks about building an astral temple using visualization and the trained mind. I can do this too these days and actually very easily when I put my mind and my training to it. But, that Shadow, he robs me of my ability to concentrate, to visualize – he utterly disrupts my ‘trained’ mind. How? It’s almost like the old idea of the devil on one shoulder
Read More »Bardon’s Mirrors
Recently, I decided to start working the exercises in Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics. I am starting at the very beginning in which one of the exercises is to essentially spend a lot of time noting all of your weaknesses and faults. These are then matched to one of the four elements and also to a level of seriousness of fault. One then repeats that for positive qualities and these become Magical Mirrors of the Soul. Let me tell you its an interesting exercise. At first, its problematic to come up with qualities actually either negative or positive but after a while and, through indirect inquiry of others, you start to get pretty good at it and my lists are prolific already (and I am not done yet!). I’m afraid I
Read More »The Descent Into Reality
I have been giving a good deal of thought recently to a variety of topics that came up during my 5-year SOL course. Reading through my own meditation notes, some things suddenly make more sense that they did before. It’s prompted me to start out on a certain path with enthusiasm again. One idea that struck me is that the Tree of Life gives you a great insight into reality. First, lets assume that Kether already exists – and let’s discuss the tree in terms of developing an idea and turning it into reality. Kether is the source but as the tree unfolds down into Malkuth, things become more set, more constrained. Yes- the tree evokes an unknowable number of possibilities but how does it actually work? If I have
Read More »Exactly What Reality Are We Creating?
Regular visitors will know that I believe that we create our own reality so today I want to ask you – what reality are we all creating? The Power of Thought Your thoughts are powerful. Your thoughts create. Some would argue that thoughts create in what is often termed as the ‘astral plane’ – which is a sort of substratum on which the physical world around us is based. If this is true then what do you think about? What sort of astral world are you creating? As I have said in previous posts, the world around us helps govern our thoughts. Watch the news, read a newspaper – its all doom and gloom. Stories of war, famine, violence, global warming and terrorism – to name a few things. We
Read More »The Art of Meditation – Part II
Having learned how to relax and found a suitable location where we will not be disturbed, the next phase in meditation is the actual meditation itself. In general, there are two or perhaps three methods of meditating; • Focus on a word, phrase, image and drill down into it; • Keep the mind blank and allow images to arise; • Guided meditation – also know as ‘Pathworking’ Let’s look at each in turn. Focused Meditation In focused meditation we already know what it is we wish to meditate on. It can be a useful technique when you want to examine something and really drill down into it. An example is perhaps the better way to examine focused meditation. We have read a book and enjoyed it but it really made
Read More »The Art of Meditation – Part One
Introduction According to Wikipedia, Meditation can be defined as “a state of concentrated attention on some object of thought or awareness. It usually involves turning the attention inward to a single point of reference.” For me, meditation involves reaching a state known as ‘mind awake, body asleep.’ Several techniques may then be used to actually meditate including constant thought and attention on an object, symbol or a statement or, my favored approach, emptying of the mind to simply let images arise that are noted and then dismissed. I will discuss these two approaches in more detail in a later continuation of this dissertation. To meditate properly, that is, to reach the correct state of ‘body asleep, mind awake’ is in fact quite difficult and some students have immense problems getting
Read More »Inner Journeys ReVisited
When I wrote Inner Journeys some of the first people to read it were my family – parents and brothers. I recall being a bit worried about what they would think and say but to my surprise their comments were to correct inaccuracies as they saw them in my narrative in the book! In the book, I recount my first experience of well… something. I was perhaps 3-years old and was sleeping in my bedroom when I awoke for some reason. I saw a blue elf jump out of the mirror in the wardrobe and look at me. Of course, I screamed as a small child might. Not so said my Father. His recollection is that a blue elf jumped out of the mirror and shot me with a little
Read More »Acting The Fool
I was listening to music this morning on my phone. Somehow that music took over and I sort of went into a meditational state. It was then that it suddenly came to me. To be true to myself I must be the Fool. Now frankly, this insight is nothing new. I even discuss it in my book – Inner Journeys. But, it was a powerful reminder and it came with a real sense of understanding. The type of understanding that makes sense at the time but it difficult to actually pinpoint later. But my thoughts gravitated to the description of the Fool tarot on a website that I use as a resource… http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/ Here it is…. The Fool Without the notion of Zero, our system of mathematics becomes meaningless. Similarly,
Read More »Madonna & Child – Thoughts
Any church or art museum is full of paintings of the Madonna and child. But is there an occult meaning or symbolism behind these religiously inspired images and what is the meaning of the black Madonna? In recent meditations focused on the anima or inner female, the image of the Madonna and child has continually come to mind. Could it be that the Madonna represents the anima, the inner female, the soul? And is the child she bears proudly in her arms the fruit of a union between the outer self of the artist and his inner female. The solar child? Most of these images were painted in a male dominated society – at a time when males were dominant in society. If it were the other way round, would
Read More »Thoughts On Meditation
When I first started out on this path, I was very concerned about whether I was doing it right. What was meditation and visualization? Eventually, I seemed to stumble into it though and despite occasionally questioning my version of meditation and visualization against what I read as other people’s experience, I began to realize that what I do works for me and gained confidence. I now realize that I have in fact spent many innumerable hours meditating without even realizing that I was doing it. As a child growing up in England, I had quite a distance to walk everyday back and forth to school. To kill the boredom of the walk, I would imagine that I was a pop star with my own band and a song in the
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