Sitting Down

I sit. Usually on a cushion with simply legs crossed and back straight – no special lotus positions. It may be silent. On the other hand, there might be a loud student party near my flat. But in the end, even that does not matter. There can never be a complete silence. Even in the peace of the wilderness there are birds, insects and the wind. When sitting silently, even those can prove to be mayor sources of irritation.

When I sit, I pay attention. I am not either trying to doze off or to achieve some kind of disassociated trance state. I rest my point of view in the immediate present as best as I am able to. When thoughts arise, I am conscious of them. I do not try to feed those thoughts. I try not to attach to them. I let go and let be as best as I can. In the Aro gTér lineage of Vajrayana Buddhism, this method of meditation is called shi-né. It is one, and maybe be most important, of preliminary exercises for practicing Dzogchen. It calms down the mind, cuts though the attachments to thoughts, cultivate fundamental openness and helps to experience the Emptiness.

As I sit, my mind can be like a calm lake under the moonlight or it can be buzzing like an angry nest of wasps. Sometimes everything is easy. You feel like you could sit lot more than normal amount of time. More of often it can just feel dull and you would like to leave the cushion and do something “useful”. In addition, the mind can seem like a can of rotten worms and a nest of utterly useless desires.

When you just continue sitting though and do not give up, you may as well begin to notice something. You are less and less compelled to go on with your every thought, and something else seems to appear. There is like a formless canvas over which the all thoughts and sensation arise. Though I can see it just in tiny cracks, it is still there and it appears to span around infinity itself. Possibly someday I understand it better that I do now.

Whatever you see while sitting on a cushion, you can bring it into your everyday life. You can be aware when not doing formal exercises. I have noticed, it does not even need a lot of effort if you can allow the awareness to flow naturally. You do what you do, but you are more aware of your experience. In addition, this mentality cultivated by silent sitting allows you to be more conscious of your decisions and so allow more real freedom to choose what to do.

To illustrate my mood: Init by Carbon Based Lifeforms (guess what is part of the inspiration for my nickname )

The Problem of Power Animals

I had recently a very good conversation with my friend and co-blogger Domesticated Primate Organism. One of the topics we covered was what problems we perceived there to be in the (neo)shamanism scene in our country. One matter seems to be, surprisingly, power animals.

A very popular method is so-called Core Shamanism, which was developed by Michael Harner in the 1970s based on methods he learned from tribal shamans (See Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman, 1990). It is basically a method of doing shamanic journeys, where you place your trust on spirit guide called a power animal. I begun my own magical career with Core Shamanism, so I have much practical experience with that method. I admit that Core Shamanism can often be very beneficial, but there appears to be some problematic side effects. Many of these problems may have root in the basic method of placing almost complete trust on the power animal.

Unenlightened spirits

I am not here claiming that the power animal were evil or something like that. According to my personal experience they can give a lot of help, and be quite fun very often. Let us look at the matter from the viewpoint of my Buddhist side. The problem itself is much more subtle but simple: power animal are not enlightened beings. They are as much trapped in the cycle of samsara as we are. Therefore their judgement is typical dualistic judgement and is not necessarily any better than out own, even if they could understand the spiritual realm better.

What does it really matter are the power animals enlightened or not? Yes definitely, if you place your total trust on them, it does matter how wide perspective they have. The question is, do you want to be driven by their own neurotic patterns? Would you rather place your trust primarily on beings who would have greater wisdom and perspective?

This is especially important because many people who have worked with power animals do adopt parts of their personalities. I have been no exception. These things of course raise some enlightening question about the nature of self, but that is another matter entirely. Maybe I write about it later.

Enlightened beings

One good alternative to power animals is to gain contact to some enlightened being instead. In vajrayana buddhism at least there are meditational deities called yidam – though the tricky thing is that you have to have receive a transmission from a lama. There are many yidams with different personalities. Some can be nice and peaceful, and some can be wrathful.

In the western magical tradition, there is at least the so-called Holy Guardian Angel. I have gained contact to my HGA using the method of Alan Chapman. Good thing with the Alan’s method is that you can try it out on your own.

There is of course the challenge. Having contact to either the yidams or HGA requires more hard work than the power animals. At the very least you have to have a daily routine of mediation. On the other hand, this work can be worthwhile. At least for me, after I gained contact to my HGA, the nature of my magical practice changed. I became less inclined to satisfy my obsessions and begun to use my energy toward more useful matters.

Healthier approach

I would suggest that people who deal with power animals to think about the following approach. I do not suggest that you just cut yourself of from the power animal because that might be too rough. Would you leave your friend just because you want to be more specific what your limits are?

1. Get to know the power animal. Are you sure that you really know who he is? Do you know what he wants?

2. Do the work to make a contact to an enlightened being.

3. Be more clear with the power animal in which matters you trust them and in which you do not.

4. Make a contact with an enlightened being.

5. Figure out what will be your new relationship, if any, with the power animal.

Oops…

My post “Why do you believe you´re special?” was posted accidentally as draft and now I seem to accidentally thrashed it. Not so professional move

The Book Game: Creating an Animist Magician

Gordon at the Rune Soup blog posted a wonderful idea called the Book Game. I just wanted to figure out what my own answer would be.

The Rules are:

1. Fiction is allowed.

2. You have to specify what brand of magician you want to build beforehand. (Hermeticist, chaos, etc.)

3. You can’t tell the subject this.

4. You must include books from at least three disciplines. (This is to stop you just giving the Complete Golden Dawn and then declaring the subject a GD-style magician at the end.)

5. It’s only books. No guru teaching, no magical training. Just books. (It’s a book game.) Presume they will do the exact same amount of exercises out of the books that you did.

6. The subject goes into the house without any belief in magic. They are a smug, modern agnostic.

7. A maximum of ten titles. Trilogies count as three books.

I would not try to make the “abductee” an identical copy of myself. But in any case, I try create a modern animist magician, who could even attain some kind of profound realization some day. I do not especially mean a shaman, because I want the victim of the experiment choose what kind of approach he/she will take towards the matter.

Here is my list of books:

1. Dean Radin, Entagled Minds

People always ask is there any evidence for all the weird shit that is claimed by magicians. This book would be then a good thing to read at first. It tries to summarize the evidence that is based on scientific experiments of telepathy, psychokinesis, precognition and so on. This book can show that there is at least some evidence for that.

2. Richard L. Liboff, Introductory Quantum Mechanics, 4th Edition

Dean Radin tries to explain everything with quantum physics. In my honest opinion that is naive simplification. Quantum mechanics is still a popular explanation in occult circles too for the paranormal.

To avoid falling into into the quantum mechanics trap, person should study some real quantum mechanics. This monster of a book is a 880 page university level textbook on QM. If you can understand what this book is saying, you can have a real picture what QM actually is. Learning aids are allowed. Reader should also do the exercises.

I did not claim this to be easy.

3. John E. Mack, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens

Like it or not, even though people would like ignore all the weirdness in the world, the weirdness is not going to ignore them. Alien abduction phenomenon is a good and somewhat well-known example of this. It can happen to some people, and it can really freak them out and, at worst cases, mess up their life completely.

Unfortunately, people do not have much real knowledge of this phenomenon. This book by now deceased professor of psychiatry of the Harvard Medical School, John E. Mack, gives a good picture of the phenomenon without messed up conspiracy theories and paranoia.

The victim of this book experiment should read this book just to understand that even industrialized westerners are not really smarter or more special that some shamanic people in tribal cultures that were abducted and taken apart by spirits.

4. Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality

There should be a wider perspective that just the world of alien abductions. This book deals with encounter with all kinds of strange entities in addition to UFOs like mothman, black dogs and lake monsters.

The book basically states that the world is haunted by all these kind of phenomena and they should not be ignored, because by ignoring them those things become just more nasty to have some attention. Harpur of course has his own theories about these things, but the victim of this book experiment does not have to believe them. He just needs to understand that people experience may experience these things and that there is nothing really unusual about it.

5. Graham Harvey, Animism

There is at least one very common way of relating to these phenomena and other too. It is animism. This academic book gives a very thorough introduction to animism around the world. This book shows is nothing really special or strange about animism and how it can be very natural way to the world that is “full of persons (people if you prefer), but few of them are human.”

6. Alan Chapman, Advanced Magick for Beginners

I have now painted the reader a demon-haunted world full of spirits. What to do about it then? Carl Sagan would of course suggest you to take refuge in science. I do not. One should be responsible on ones own life and not leave it to the “experts” alone. One needs the means to take the matter of spirits and magic to their own hands. This book is the best beginners guide that I can think of. It is short and tell everything you need to know in a clear and fun way.

In principle, just by mastering all the practices in this book the victim of this book experiment could possibly be liberated from his captivity, with the help of his Holy Guardian Angel, Daemon or whatever. On the other hand, one should not have to trust just one book.

7. Jan Fries, Visual Magick

If I am trying to create an animist magician, the nature connection should not be forgotten completely. This book of practical magic handles that part very well and explains some methods, like sigils in more detail. If we think of the nature connection, Fries’ books Seidways and Helrunar would handle the part even better, but they are too specialized for my purposes.

8. Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha

Now, after we have went through practical magic, I would like to show the victim of this experiment some methods to both enhance his/her magical abilities and open a door toward more fundamental realization of the nature of the reality. By these methods, I mean meditation.

Daniel Ingram has written a good book that is available for free. I deals with the meditation practice and its stages from Theravada Buddhist viewpoint, meaning samatha and vipassana meditation, and how to bring those paths of meditation to the very end. Especially useful is his chapter on the dukkha ñanas (“dark night of the soul”) that often follows mystical experiences.

What is most important, according to him, is that it can be done. If you really do the practices properly, results will follow, that there is more to the meditation practice than just “being calm”, “visualizing chakras” or whatever.

9. Principia Discordia

Do not forget the sense of humor. It is vital at this stage, after all that dark night talk of Daniel Ingram, to cheer up a little and do not take things too seriously. Principia Discordia is one of the famous classics of occult humor. Hail Eris!

10. Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen

The last book will also be about meditation. If you read just Daniel Ingram, you might get the impression that samatha and vipassana are the only approaches in buddhist meditation. This book on the other hand deals with system called four Naljors. Their are intended for the preliminary practices (ngöndro) for Dzogchen practice. These practices are somewhat more formless that the samatha/vipassana system. The four Naljor are called shi-nè, lha-thong, nyi’mèd and lhun-drüp. Their goal is to bring about the experience of non-duality, called rigpa, that is the required base of the Dzogchen practice.

The book is more difficult to understand that the others, but offers practical exercises and different perspective. Of course, I like to mention this too because I happen to practice these exercises.

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I do not know, how messed up the target of this experiment would become of this. Maybe he will live in fear of little green men, or maybe he will attain the ultimate realization.

Or maybe he just does not care and becomes a string theorist.

Magic without middlemen

I have been drawn towards a spiritual path since I was a teenager. Over the years I have met many people from many different spiritually oriented groups. One unfortunate thing I seem to bump into often is a kind of craziness. People start to believe all kinds of wacky things and hold them as almost absolute reality. They become ungrounded and start to base their sense of reality in some weird theory of everything that does not even have a solid basis in their own experience. The situation is especially bad in the New Age circles, in my opinion, although it also troubles many other orientations.

What I said could sound like something a “scientific” skeptic would say. In way it is true. Believe or not I have good and solid university education in physics. I like science. It is logically sound and demands good solid evidence – except in string theories, “theory of everything” and other bullshit that some physicists seem to invest a lot of belief. This hits to the point that, in the mind of the scientist, the practice of science can make simple abstractions more real that their own life – especially if you do something that has anything to do with difficult and abstract mathematics like I have.

I am particularly fond of certain types of shamanism (with no drugs) and chaos magic. They stress the importance of real results over vague visions even when doing visionary work. If what you do does not have a real life effect – it has no particular value. But the craziness exists even then, although is not as bad as in groups who do not have such grounded attitude. Something else is needed too.

Cosmic schmucks

In my view, two of the most worst kinds of craziness are paranoia and megalomania. I do not imply these just as full on mental derangements. These modes of thinking can be present in people that are absolutely not mentally ill. Everybody has their neuroses.

Megalomania is a little bit easier matter. In the point of view of magician, it is the delusion of grandeur that is projected on ones real skills. This practically leads one to do stupid things and act like a total piece of turd toward other people. If you do shamanic work and you beat a terrible monster, it does not make you a powerful shaman. It is just how the visionary experience unfolds to you – it has nothing to do with strength itself. On the other hand, a you may be a really skilled sorcerer but act like a total cosmic shmuck to people who are not as good as you are. Some exercise in compassion would not be a bad thing to take in that situation.

Robert Anton wilson has said: “The Cosmic Schmuck Principle holds that if you don’t wake up, once a month at least, and realize that you have been acting like a Cosmic Schmuck again then you will probably go on acting like a cosmic schmuck forever; but if you do, occasionally, recognize your Cosmic Schmuckiness, then you might begin to become a little less Schmucky that the general human average at this primitive stage of terrestrial evolution.” (http://deoxy.org/wiki/Cosmic_Schmuck_Principle)

Conspiracy theories

Paranoia is more dangerous that megalomania, and I think most dangerous trap to fall into. In additions that it makes you act like an idiot, you suffer from it. I have seen many people to succumb to fringe paranoid conspiracy theories like believing that world is controlled by human abducting gray aliens and shapeshifting reptilian beings that drink the blood of human children for nourishment.

I am not laughing at alien abduction experiencers though. I do not believe in extraterrestrials that fly in tin saucers, but in my opinion the abduction experiences themselves are real. I know some abduction experiencers personally, they have my sympathy. In addition I have encountered reptilian entities and gray aliens personally in my own visionary work. In my opinion, those things are not black and white matter and I see no world controlling conspiracies.  Some might try to suspect that I am just brainwashed by “evil aliens”, but for those people I would like to say: look at yourself. Why do you think like that? How much of you opinions are based on direct experience without interpretation? Do you have to assume conspiracy, because otherwise things would not make sense?

One function of conspiracy theories is to have everything to make sense. The alien conspiracy for example: there has to be a conspiracy because there is still no direct physical proof of “aliens”. With the same conspiracy all other world’s evils can be explained too, of course. People seem not to like to think that such phenomenon may just be something that works in a way that your conceptual mind cannot understand. People like concepts more than real direct experience.

Other function of conspiracy theories is that they try to make your self more important that it really is. You might fear that there are other people that are trying to get you. The are of course people that want to do you harm but usually that is still not a basis for even a small conspiracy theory. You just think in twisted way that you are more important than you really are – and will act uncompassionately towards those people that do not really have any bad intentions towards you.

I said recently during one visionary working: “The Demiurge is an illusion and the Archons are not real. Archons have invented a meaning for themselves, so the that can do what they do. As long as you do not give them meaning, they cannot function – because nothing is fundamentally dual.”

See what is under your nose

I would suggest one antidote to craziness: paying attention to the world as it is. It does not matter what wacky things you otherwise do, just avoid the middlemen between yourself and your immediate experience and try to see things as they are and do not always try to force your interpretations to the world with flaky intellectual constructs. A rock is a rock.

Unfortunately, this is not easier to be said than done. For me, daily meditational practice has helped and I think that it can help many others. If you have not done it, I would suggest you to try. I have met people who think that they do not need to do that, but how do you know if you have not tried it for long enough time? Payoff from meditation is slow, but already in few months of daily practice some results follow. You do not need to transform into a fully enlightened buddha to reap any benefits.

There are many functional meditational techniques, but here are some a bit different ones, that I have found most useful for myself:

Aro gTér internet meditation course

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha

The Baptists Head

If you can understand the true nature of you consciousness and be more free from the addiction to conceptual mind, over time, you certainly can gain better perspective to magic and how to do it without ending as a complete nutjob.

I wish you well on your path.