First, an exoteric explanation for those who care about authenticity (if you're not into such matters then please skip to the questions at the end):
I found this sutta where the Buddha explains how communication with Devas/lesser gods/angels/spirits was an important part of his path to enlightenment. He says he was actuallt purifying his mind through talking to spirits.

https://suttacentral.net/en/an8.64

Suddenly all of the suttas where the Buddha talks about conversation with devas as a spiritual power make sense together with the claim that "I teach only suffering and the end of suffering". Also this could explain the workings of the western mystical concepts of the Holy Guardian Angel and canonically justifies my recent dablings in ceremonial magick

Now, the esoteric questions: 
•How would you use spirit communication to gain insight and purify the mind?
•What importance has the powers in general and spirit communication in particular had on your spiritual path? 

The label 'shaman' is misrepresenting or slandering the Tathagata. The suttas state:
What happens in the sutta is Gotama, while not yet a Buddha, was meditating & developing the 'divine eye' (ñāṇadassanaṃ: knowing & seeing), which is a psychic power. With the divine eye, Gotama perceived naturally (without volition) external forms and then 'deities'. 'Deities' are also beings with physic powers. Yet Gotama was not infatuated with that experience, thus did not converse with the deities. Then, after conversing with those deities, Gotama remained uninfatuated &, with the divine eye, examined the nutriment & karma-vipaka of those deities. 

Therefore, he was not purify his mind through talking to spirits. He was purifying his mind by not being infatuated or overawed with the experiences of the divine eye and particularly was purifying his mind by examining the nutriment & karmic results of the deities and realising the deity realm or evolution was not enlightenment, not nibbana & not liberation.

Thus, his mind was developed, purified & awakened by having no fear, no awe & no infatuation towards deities & the deva/divine eye (mental) realm, by being completely free in his interactions with deities, yet by moving on to a higher & greater path.


 

I don't have answers for your questions at this time but I do notice something interesting. This seems in some ways similar to elements of the Tantric Shamanism of Central Asian Buddhism, with the difference that for Vajrayana practitioners there is an emphasis on connecting with *awakened* deities and entities. When you look at Tibetan iconography for instance, those deities with a third eye are supposed to be awakened whereas those lacking this mark are more like worldly entities which may or may not be sympathetic to the dharma. The Buddha's description sounds different. He seems to be describing an increasing facility for connecting more and more completely with these entities, but it seems like the point may be to perceive the limits of those ways of being (i.e., he is perceiving in greater and greater clarity the scope of those entities, their beginning and end, their karma, their suffering)

EDIT: cross-posted with Nicky's post. His explanation makes a lot of sense to me, probably because it is a more orthodox way of articulating my intuition.

You seem to be adding a lot to the sutta. Shaman, as far as I know means someone who converses woth spirits. The sutta describes how the Buddha progressed towards liberation through (with the divine eye) increasing his insight into the nature of spirits. One step of that progression was talking to the spirits he perceived. 

Yes but it's still a practice of shamanism, right? Then later on in the suttas the Buddha teaches gods. Some probably got enlightened which should enable the vajrayana practices you mentioned. 

Sure Pal, why not? Although in the Vajrayana cosmology, there were buddha deities before Shakyamuni... not tooooo controversial, since isn't the orthodox view that there have been buddhas before Shakyamuni? Anyhow, sure, why not! In fact I know of some shamanic traditions that appear to have awakening-oriented teachings completely outside of buddhism... but yeah, have fun with Magick! 

Thanks! Hope evocation will partly purify my mind like it apperently did for Gotama if we are to believe the sutta

I am not adding anything. A shaman appeals to spirits for help in subserviance. In other words, the spirits are superior to the shaman & the shaman relies on the power of the spirits. This is not the case with the Lord Buddha, who said:

 

Your explanation made complete sense to me also. 

Pal's attitude is similar to Vajrayana practitioners connecting in subserviance with awakened deities & entities. 

Where as Gotama was perceiving the limits (and unsatisfactoriness) of the deities. 

I read your post yesterday & regarded your explanation as complete. 

If that deffinition of shamanism is correct, then you're right, the Buddha, not even according to that sutta, wasn't a shaman. But it's worth considering that practitioners in the western Magickal traditions, which are inspired by and had inspired many modern shamanic (I think?) traditions, such as Vodou and Santeria, start with the perspective you mention; dependency on the spirit realm. Then, through progress within an initiatory spiritual system, the practitioner TRANCENDS the spirits/gods/devas and stand above their power. A very similiar process to the one described in the sutta above! Even more so when you tale in account that the Buddha probably grew up in a society where people in general viewed them selves as dependent on the spirit realm. In that case, Gotama probably started with such a point of view, so his first steps of perceiving and talking to spirits could be viewed as shamanic, but as he got more in touch with the spirit realm through the further developement of his divine eye, he trancended this view, just like a theurgic right hand path magickian does. Thus shamanism can, from a suttaic perspective, be a legit spiritual system, if one goes beyond it when it has served the purpose of developing enough clairvoyance, and doesn't get stuck in it. And the way I read the suttas, clairvpyance is an iddhi that, if developed and pursued, can be used to lead one to awakening right?

Now, what, if any (just curious!), are your experiences with the powers as an insight tool? 

Yeah I've thought about that before, I think the way the Buddha and his immediate disciples spoke to these devas were by way of having "religious experiences". For example, by conversing with these hidden or elementary parts of their consciousness, which manifested in lieu of the culture they lived in at the time (India, which was full of rebirth, karma, and moksha doctrines), they were essentially magicians, as you said.

It's further backed up by the fact that very few people corobborate speaking to the deities (devaputta Mara, Baka Brahma, Sakka, the Alavaka Yakkha, Sanankumara Brahma, Pancasikha) that the Buddha and his immediate disciples spoke to, what they were experiencing was religious discourse or "conversation" (KCHGA anyone?), and so by having these conversations, the Buddha would hash out his wisdom, as is the case with his constant dealings with "Mara", a personification of death, which he overcame (apparently), but seemed to talk to for the rest of his life.

Basically, contemplative consciousness and altered states of consciousness, are just subjective and poetic ways of discussing with oneself, whether or not the deities actually exist doesn't matter, because "the truth is in experience", or, the experience was and is authentic, genuine, sincere, etc.

Kind of funny huh?

The Buddha and his immediate dispensation seemed to be a pocket of historical, powerful, magicians who were conversing with deities and entities in an altered state of consciousness, after which the "Tathagata", passed into parinbbana.[2]

Cheers.

1. It occasionally appears like the content of the experience doesn't matter, but that the truth of the experience matters. But it's difficult to experience truth or consciousness without a surrounding framework or container, which gives us a lens to view it through. I think Ken Wilber talks about how religious people might interpret their experiences in light of their religion (and take those experiences to imply different things), but a. Wilber is always searching for an absolute framework, and b. there doesn't seem to be any form of "religious consciousness" (stolen from Duncan Barford's article on "Open Enlightenment" a long time ago, he references Nishida Kitaro) or "religious experience", without a framework that gives rise to it, or gives meaning to it, a container, so to speak

Even Richard, understands his current condition and experiences in light of his belief that the universe peerless (perfect), eternal (temporally), and infinite (spatially)

2. The truth is in experience, the experience of the "Tathagata", was that what he "knew" and "saw" was genuine (this is my speculation), but that the experience was what he spoke to, I suppose this is why he didn't talk about what would happen after his physical death, perhaps the "deathlessness" he experienced was an immediate, and eternal now, immediate as in striking you full in the face, and a sort of immensity that made it difficult to think of in terms of time, this is where the "subitism" debate comes in, but since awakening seems to be an experience of the "timeless", the "timeless" is experienced

The most lucid of all arahants, Sariputta, did not have clairvoyance or any psychic powers. The suttas state it is wisdom (panna) that leads to awakening.

 

This contradicts the Buddha-Dhamma becaue it implies the Buddha did not end the defilements of this mind.

When I first read that sutta I went "WOW THE BUDDHA DID KCHGA" but then I rethought it. Gotama seems to be discovering the 3C:s of the spirit realm by himself, without guidamce. If he got any guidamce, he abandons it at the point where he already can speak with devas. The HGA (holy guardian angel) guides you through the process of trancending the plametary forces and the demiurge (in buddhist terms: trancending ignorance) but is it built in to the system to see the 3C:s of the HGA/Outward projection of the Higher Self? If not, then isn't the system quite limited and we have to use buddhism to go further once the Abyss is crossed? I don't know, haven't met my HGA yet. And I've never really understood the No-Self vs True self passage in MCTB either, will have to practice more. But I know of people who have done KCHGA and Vipassana simultaneously. 

@Nicky
well, that's not a counter argument
in numerous suttas, such as the one linked to above and the Mahasaccaka sutta, the Buddha says he attained enlightenment through, when developed in Jhana, using his clairvoyance/divine eye to gain insight into the workings of karma and rebirth, after which he could see the 4 noble truths clearly.  But of course, not all of the Buddha's disciples used iddhis to awaken. 

I don't think an Abyss is ever crossed, that makes it seem like there is a definitive event called enlightenment, as if there is a "post-awakening", I don't get that sense, enlightenment seems like a conversation, a knowledge and conversation, like a divine discourse, that occurs for the rest of the one's life, I think that's why much of the Buddha's wisdom is hashed out in conversations or serendipitous events that allow him to make apt statemements, without those there would be no occasion for his wisdom to arise

Where does the HGA lead one then? What is it? 

The insight into karma is unrelated to the 4 noble truths. Your correlation here is erroneous. The 1st and 2nd knowledges were unrelated to psychic power, as stated in the suttas, given those 1st and 3rd knowledges are based on internal insights. The 2nd knowledge requires the divine eye because it is external insight into the minds of other beings: 


In case you do not know what 'past dwellings' (pubbe nivesa) means (erroneously believing it means 'past lives'), some supramundane suttas. 

Wait, are you saying that according to these suttas past dwellings can't be past lives? Where are they saying this? 

Ok, so, by way of metaphor:

I have a friend that often has dreams, wherein he'll meet certain characters in his dream, and these characters will foreshadow events that happen later in the dream, so an example would be (this is the example he gave me):

Phase 1 of dream: He's talking to a girl he knows, the girl says: "There's this really creepy guy that's been stalking me, he seems like a serial killer"

*dream logic occurs and the dream segues*

Phase 2 of dream: He's talking to his mom, she says: "You know Fred, sometimes when you're afraid, it's ok to just run, just run"

*dream logic segue*

Phase 3: Creepy guy is following him, he gets afraid, he starts running, he wakes up

What I'm trying to illustrate here is that the HGA seems to be a mechanism by which WE HIDE THINGS FROM OURSELVES...

In a certain sense we already know everything, and the HGA could be the us that already knows everything (I think some people say it's the enlightened magician in the future), but it appears as if we are hiding information from ourselves, in order to effect a certain outcome

You could think of it as like a large sleeping, hibernating bear, something keeps itching the bear, or part of the bear keeps trying to wake up, but the more energy the bear puts into trying to go back to sleep, the more aroused it gets, and the more awake it becomes

In other words, we are waking up to ourselves, ourselves in the future, are pulling us into the state of finality

So while it appears like we learn things, and discover things, in reality we are discovering things we already know

Time is frozen, but it appears like things happen

'Pubbe nivesa' does not mean 'past lives' nor does 'jati' (primarily) mean 'physical birth'.

The suttas I posted literally state contemplating 'past dwellings' means when the mind thinks back: "I was  this in the past". It is contemplating each past birth of egoism.

If this meant contemplating past lives (which the language does not denote) then it would exclude past ego-births.  

If it excludes egoism then it is unrelated to Buddhism since the whole point of Buddhism is to comprehend & uproot the process of egoism or "I-making" & "my-making". 

The word 'jati' in India, even today, has always meant social or self-identity.

But this could very well include past lives. When we'we already started sutta bashing, take a look at this please

Mata Sutta: Mother
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: "From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. A being who has not been your mother at one time in the past is not easy to find... A being who has not been your father... your brother... your sister... your son... your daughter at one time in the past is not easy to find.

"Why is that? From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released."

Then what the sutta describes is probably not KCHGA I guess.

Wow! Your mind is certainly caught up in the personality view of a puthujjana, which is also the personality view of Mara. Like you, Mara believes that a mind-body organism is a "being", as follows:

For Buddhas or elightened minds, 'beings' are mental states or thoughts born from delusion, created from craving-becoming, as follows:

For Buddhas, belief in meta-physical beings & mothers & fathers for the purposes of developing morality is tainted/defiled right view:

If you cannot read Pali or do not understand the liguistics used by Buddhas, how do you know the above translation of the Mata Sutta and your materialistic egoistic interpretaton of it is authentic & accurate? 

As the Lord Buddha unambiguously explained all things without exception are 'not-self', why would the Lord also literally say all beings were once 'your mother', 'your father', 'your son', etc? Obviously there is a flaw in the transmission & translation of the Mata Sutta and the other suttas contained in that chapter of the SN. Are you sure the personal pronoun 'your' actually exists in the Pali? 

Most importantly, since the Mata Sutta has resulted in your displaying passion/enchantment towards your erroneous idea of "reincarnation" rather than dispassion/disenchantment, your reading of the sutta is certainly incorrect. This is because the sutta ends with the statement that (if the sutta is comprehended) disenchantment with all fabricated things & release will occur. It follows your interpretation is certainly incorrect. 

For example, if all beings were actually formerly your mother, your father, your son, your daughter, you would love them & hug them. You would run around the streets hugging & celebrating with every being you saw & met. However, the sutta states you should feel disenchantment towards all 'beings'. This illogical nature of the sutta shows its transmission & translation is flawed or otherwise fake.

In short, the suttas in general point out your wrong view of "I was in the past" and "I crave to be in the future": 

The sutta states Gotama 1st developed the divine-eye and then saw the deities. Divine-eye opens up from silence & samadhi rather than from 'evocation'. 

The Lord Buddha taught the mind is purifying via abandoning 'self-view'. Where as the idea of 'my mind' is self-view. 

In other words, it is not possible to 'purify my mind' since the 'my' is an impurity. What is purified is 'the mind'. 

Samadhi and silence is an important component in evocation to visible form. But your right, the Buddha probably didn't do traditional evocation. Since we're on the magick forums: Have you tried evocation? 

So now it's about lingustics... Whatever we're talking about will be anatta, the linguistics make no change. Please consider how useful the term "I" is. 

Your search for lack of consistency in the Mata sutta seems far fetched to me. If you can't be dispassionate towards your parents, speak for "your self" ;) actually the idea that everyone is my parent makes letting go of parents easier imo. As does the idea that noone is my parent. The way I view it, most ideas are false, but some may be more useful than others. And as the suttas say, some kind of belief in rebirth sides with merit which is useful for me before I attain a more useful view. Or before such a view arises if I am to put it your way I'm quite convinced though one can't get to such a view through thought and discussion. 

Don't get me wrong, I think reincarantion is completely false. But so are gods, chairs, tables, you and I