MCTB mentions breifly that magick can be a tool to gain insight, there seem to have been some posters here in the past who attained paths through magick and lots of magickal societies claim to be offering a path to awakening. 

Do you have any experience in using magick as a tool for spiritual developement? How was your experience? Where did it take you, in MCTB terms? Which tradition did you follow? What methods/rituals did you use?

I've been trying out some basic hermetic theugy as well as sigil magick along with my regular meditation the past few months. I find the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram and the middle pillar ritual to be a great excercise in visualisation, concentration and pranayama, and the sigils mostly give noticable effects. Don't know where it will lead me, but I have a good feeling about it. 

I've done a ton of law of attraction/mental science/spiritual mind treatment.  But I did years of reading, and talking to experts in person about it.  So you have to have a lot of baseline conceptual understanding to use it effectively.  It basically posits a worldview and ontology which says that any mental occurences MUST have direct, causal outcomes in the material world.  There is one world that we are all participating in, therefore, for a creative and volitional attention (a sentient being) to exist in it, it must effect all circumstances, including external ones (or else there would be two worlds/ a split in reality-- which there is not).  We are always creating our own world and the circumstances of our life.  The reason that we do not directly perceive this is that there are layers of mind that are collective in the subconscious which are holding the structures of reality in place.  However, if you are able to move around the furniture in your subconscious enough, you can even do miracles.  Most people are not able to go that deep.

I don't really believe all that, but it seems to work anyway, so fuck it; I just use it anyway.

It really helps to not be sticky or attached about belief systems.  I think thats a stumbling block for a lot of DhO participants.  A grain of salt and a dash of "fuck it, who cares" can be really helpful.

The LBRP and Middle Pillar ritual are profound, and more so when taken to the level where you can see what you are visualizing: that, for nearly everyone, requires a very high degree of concentration. That degree of concentration, if actually cultivated, opens doors to a great number of amazing things, including real insight.

Where most people go wrong in practicing magick is that they don't get their concentration that strong. Might check out an example of three to four of us here who did a retreat exploring high-concentration and magick: www.firekasina.org

Plenty of the exercises in various magickal traditions, if actually taken to the level they state, will very likely produce insight along the way. Magickal practice combined with the insight maps found around places like this one can help one navigate in that remarkably interesting territory. I am currently helping someone on a home retreat do candle flame practice, and, now with them about a week into it (probably about 70-85 hours) the magickal effects and visualization are starting to getting to the level that most would consider unlikely and very unusual, as well as profoundly enjoyable, and within a week I would suspect that the stranger stuff that definitely falls squarely in the realm of the magickal will be happening, if past experience is any guide. That is not all that long. They do have strong natural and well-cultivated concentration skills, but plenty of less talented and less trained people will still notice powerful effects if they practice that much.

Another example: check out Liber MMM: it stresses high degrees of concentration and visualization. It is rather short and to the point. The work done to get into those realms, if tuned properly and often just accidentally, is prone to producing insight along the way.

It should be noted that things can also get really, really strange. You are highly advised to have at least one sane, reasonable, non-exploitive, non-power-trippy friend who knows this territory well and has practiced in that strange way of viewing reality for years if you are going to do into this with the degree of concentration power that it takes, for, as the warnings hopefully tell you, people can get really wiggy and freak out if they don't know what they are doing, when to back off, and how to keep the experiences that these sorts of high-concentration practices can bring up in reasonable proportion, relation, and perspective.

Reminds me of this passage from Regardie's bio of Crowley describing Crowley's concentration practice

Just a little supporting evidence

I think I have quite a journey to make before reaching that territory. But with only LBRP+MP 1-2 times daily and my regular 45-60 mins of body sweeping/anapana, concentration and visualisation has developed a lot, though I still feel like I'm not even close to any kind of Jhana. 

A few things in Liber MMM that I, or people I look up to currently don't agree with:

•The need for motionlessness. Ajahn Brahm sometimes starts his guided meditation with a period where you're allowed to adjust posture until it's comfortable. Personally I value back health over macho meditation. Also I like Not-Tao's old samatha method where you're allowed to move around however you like as long as you count breaths

•The need for strong concentration to succeed in magick: Maybe I'm underestimating my cobcentration ability, but I've been quite successfull in thaumaturgic ritual with moderate concentration, never really shutting off the thought process.

•"Astrology is not recommended". Astrology is awesome and elective astrology works very well for me in enhancing spell casting. 
In bullshit flowers grow, as they say. 

About having a babysi...guide: Sounds as if you where talking about shroom tripping haha

btw:
Does anybody have an idea how to correctly "vibrate the god-names"? I'm currently experimenting with somewhere between chanting, shouting and overtone singing. But you're supposed to be able to create the vibration w/o even making noise I hear!

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted." 

Pal:



Yeah I would definitely look into overtone singing.  My dad is really good at it and I grew up around it.  He explained to me once how an "aum" starts at the base of the throat/top of the chest, vibrating the "a-". then middle of the throat for the "u-", then mouth for the "m-."  Dunno if that helps, just a thought on technique, and possibly the idea to explore techniques of overtone singing.

I would like to hear more about your regular magickal practices, if you feel so inclined to publicly share, or in private discussion.

What are the energetic effects of overtone singing? 

I've sent you a message

Depending on a few things, I might be doing a candle flame retreat very soon. Not being a ritual magician (and being largely unfamiliar with it besides for what's posted here), I won't be doing a ritual magic practice along with it. The closest I'll get to that might be a few resolves, which will probably just relate to insight and concentration stuff and practice results in general. The only other thing I'll be doing will be two hours of zhineng qigong in the morning and possibly three kung fu classes a week (depending on whether I want this to be a strict retreat or if I want exercise as a pressure release valve to stay sane and grounded). Other than the visualizations that are part of zhineng qigong, I'm not planning on doing any visualization practice. Let's arbitrarily say that trying to cultivate nimittas doesn't count as visualization.

You've mentioned hallucinatory problems that can happen in the magic chapter of MCTB, you mentioned a feeling of toxicity in the thread about your retreat and your fellow retreatants mentioned you knowing when to back off when on the verge of potential problems. Besides for toxicity, too much fire and an extreme increase in visualization ability potentially causing hallucinations, what else is there that can potentially go wrong and how do you recommend avoiding it? To bring this back to the subject of the thread, besides for more intense dukkha ñanas (you've mentioned bypassing them when at this level of concentration anyway) what are the potential pitfalls of insight or concentration when someone's concentration level is as high as you're describing? Are we talking about having health problems or going crazy from bad energetic effects or something else entirely? What are the magical effects or weirdness that can happen and that someone on this sort of retreat should look out for if they don't have a magical practice? Are visualization practices an outlet than can potentially allow for blowing of steam as a sort of safety valve to use up some of what's accumulated in a candle flame retreat or is that the wrong way to see it?

Also, not to threadcrap, but if I'm just interested in furthering my vipassana practice and strengthening concentration, what are the advantages for insight and concentration of spending time doing magical (or non-magical, not that I'm clear on the difference) visualization practices rather than just spending that time staring at the candle or doing closed eye vipassana (or staring at the evolving closed eye imagery) in between bouts of candle staring? I'm genuinely curious about the why of these magical practices from a meditative perspective. It all sounds very interesting, but not being familiar with it in a practical sense (I have gotten real-life weirdness from lots of meditation, but it wasn't that intense) I basically don't get it. The queston isn't just aimed at Daniel.

This is my understanding if the workings of magick: 
The subconcious speaks through symbols, like Freud and Jung for example thought. Through performing rituals loaded with symbolism, we are sending messages to our subconcious, which can trigger psychological processes. This way, magickal rituals can speed up spiritual progress. Now, you can see the "outer universe" (macrocosm, that which you don't identify with) as a reflexion of your psyche (microcosm). Atman=brahman, as above so beloce etc. Because of this, psychological changes will cause changes in the world. We can taylor synchronisities. This is why spellcasting through magickal rituals work. 
I'd recommend reading Alan Chapmans Advanced Magick for Beginners. 

Edit:
It should be added that the rituals of many magickal systems include powerful energy work not unlike some types of Qi Gong. The LBRP and MP rituals for example, cleanse and charge ones energetic system. So if you're into energy work, magick could be worth a try. 

Thanks. I've been reading a lot about this stuff since you posted that and am rather curious about it. I haven't actually done any Western magical practices yet as I have a few reservations about the LBRP and how this path seems to require banishing. Along with cleaning out one's personal energy and the area, it's supposed to stop ongoing effects and godforms.

I've been on a sort of extended vacation from vajrayana practice to do vipassana and samatha for years now and am considering slowly restarting my Nyingma ngondro practice soon. I think it would do wonders for my vipassana and samatha. Way back when I was going to annual Tibetan Buddhist retreats, I received a lot of vajrayana empowerments, in other words diety meditation initiations. Would an LBRP, star ruby or something similar wipe out those empowerments? I understand that Western magical systems also have initiations, though I don't know how that works and how different that is. Would the corresponding invocation like LIRP restore what was wiped if an LBRP wiped it? Vajrayana liturgy mostly doesn't bother with banishing, since it has alternatives for magical hygiene. Those practices can be lengthy if done properly and would consume most of my practice time, whereas the LBRP seems to take just a few minutes, but works very differently.

I was listening to David Shoemaker's Living Thelema podcast, and he mentioned a lot of different banishing options in one of the episodes, some of which didn't involve a formal ritual and which didn't sound like they'd have the issues of the LBRP, but I'm curious to hear what people here think.

I don't really know if regular LBRPing would banish your former initiations but I doubt it. I know experienced magicians who have taken tantric initiations but still banish regularly. You'd have to ask someone who practices both Tibetan Buddhism and the Golden Dawn tradition for a precise answer. If you're worried about banishing what you've initiated and are used to working with lots of energy maybe you could do the LIRP instead - it invokes the archangels of the four directions and has some banishing qualitoes as well they say. Beware that invoking without banishing afterwards can make it quite hard to sleep, if you're not used to energy work.
Some GD folks, like Nick Farrell, think the importance of the LBRP is overstated by modern GD and that one should invoke more often than one banishes. In the context I'm working in though, I've been recommended not to invoke more than once a week if at all at my stage. The only thing close to invoking I do daily is the Middle Pillar. 
What are the tibetan methods for magical hygiene? The massive amount of preparatory work with ngöndrö might be the counterweight of not banishing later on. Just a theory.

Thanks for the reply. That's interesting. I can only think of one friend I can ask who does both.

Among others practices, I think daily practice of Vajrakilaya (which is a specialty of the Nyingma tradition, but which Kagyu and Sakya also have, I don't know the Gelug or Bon equivalent) to subdue obstacles and Vajrasattva for purification. Also, I think the complete set of prayers, rather than individual practices like those two clean out your energy system and request that the dieties, arya sangha and the lineage basically watch out for you, clear out obstacles, etc. The Palyul Namcho prayers take about 1 to 2 hours to do, depending on how much of it you chant and how fast you're doing it. That's without the mantra accumulations. The Dudjom Tersar prayers are much shorter, but while my onetime Nyingma teachers are part of that lineage too, that's not what they were teaching me.

I was re-reading Words of my Perfect Teacher a few days ago and ran into a part where Patrul Rinpoche was saying that he disapproved of banishing spirits (he thought they'd just come at you later) and instead recommended doing chod where you imagine feeding them a feast of your imagined cut up and transformed body parts and then sending them away. Clearly some Tibetan traditions have to have had banishing rituals (at least in the 19th C) in order for Patrul Rinpoche to disapprove of them.

When I meet my lama again (for the first time in 10 years, if I visit the Palyul people this year), I'll ask him.

Another theory from people in qigong circles who do spirit stuff, is that a full dantien might render you immune to certain kinds of possession. My dantien isn't full, as I've only recently returned to serious qi accumulation practice for health reasons (and am extremely ambivalent about prioritizing that over the vipassana aspects of my practice over the long run). This isn't a theory I want to test. A generalized version of that idea is that if you've opened all of your channels by filling them up through qigong practice and have generated a field that you have good control over, maybe outside stuff isn't going to just get into your field.

Interesting!
I'd be interested to hear their answers as well. 
When it comes to spirits coming at you later: you might have to do other banishing rituals as well if you're dealing with more powerful spririts I think.

When I was regularly practicing with the LBRP and middle pillar I was told that the banishing is like getting your workbench clean and organized before starting a job. It's much tougher to work in a messy environment so it clears things up for practical work. Never heard of it making permanent changes in a person any more or less than any other practice.
Much luck.

[quote=
Pål]Interesting!
I'd be interested to hear their answers as well. 
When it comes to spirits coming at you later: you might have to do other banishing rituals as well if you're dealing with more powerful spririts I think.
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http://mishkan-ha-echad.blogspot.se/2008/07/lbrp-analysis-part-1.html?m=1


"Those who regard this ritual as a mere device to invoke or banish spirits
are unworthy to possess it. Properly understood, it is the Medicine of metals
and the Stone of the Wise."

--Aleister Crowley

Very true, technically it's a very focussed trimmed down rite of initiation. It has been applied to many areas in ceremonial magick effectively in addition to 'banishing'.

Also, practicing summoning archangels can't be too bad. It's supposed to help you gain astral vision. Developimg the ability to see and communicate with spirits is recommended in the suttas!
https://suttacentral.net/en/an8.64

Magick is useful not just for a general sort of theurgical sense of "being more enlightened" -- it can also improve explicitly goal-oriented meditation. This is true whether your goal is as distant as "become arhat" or as now-focused as "notice what I'm noticing, and how I'm noticing it, in real-time, for the next 20 minutes." 

Vajrayana and western ceremonial magick aren't the only ways to do that, btw. Other traditions can be helpful too. To use hoodoo as an example, you could certainly anoint your head with a condition product like Clarity Oil, or keep a mojo bag out of wisdom- and clarity-promoting herbs, or wash your head with Florida Water to cleanse yourself of distracting influences/thoughts/feelings. I like those sorts of approaches because they don't require you to already be calm and collected from the beginning. Rather, they're problem-solving approaches that help you get from "everyday monkey mind" to "now I'm ready for deep meditation." 

Another example, though one that can act as its own meditation path: Reiki. Sure, the average "fluffy bunny" new-ager is kept in the dark and fed bullshit about what Reiki really is -- but truth be told, it's a Japanese Vajrayana practice. If you're properly attuned and willing to do hatsurei-ho every day, your mind will grow brighter and clearer over time. This will greatly enhance your meditation.

That said, many on this thread seem interested in using the Western ceremonial tradition. If that's you, then let me start by highly recommending the daily LBRP and Middle PIllar. It most certainly will not undo any initiations, just like using mouthwash will not remove fillings from your teeth. 

For those able and willing to do a full-blown spell-casting Golden Dawn style temple spell for insight, consider this one: LBRP - LIRH - LIRP - GIRH - Middle Pillar - meditation - Qabalistic Cross. (Replace the final QC with an LBRP if you're feeling too unbalanced at the end of the ritual).

When using the GIRH, you can actually use any planet's influence to improve your meditation, so long as you can come up with the right strategy for putting its qualities to use. Try invoking Mercury's quickness and agility for fast noting, or the Sun's alertness and joy to brighten your mind, or even Saturn** for the steadiness and discipline needed to attain hard jhana. Figure out what's hindering your progress, and invoke something that helps counter that hindrance.

All that said -- there's absolutely nothing wrong with a twice-daily LBRP and Middle Pillar. Really. It's great. It will certainly work even if you never once do a hexagram ritual. 

Notice how the Middle Pillar ritual is simultaneously body scanning (which is vipassana) and energy work. Do it mindfully and reap the benefits.

-------------------------------------
** "You mean Saturn isn't just for cursing?" Yep, I do mean that. He's sort of like a 60-year-old ex-Marine grandpa who loves you, but it's very tough love. Sure, he'll kick some ass on your behalf when needed, but he also has mad amounts of wisdom to pass on about how to be gritty and determined and reliable: translation: SUCCESSFUL.

What do you think about the insight-through-symbols aspect of magick? 

Regular banishing does not take awway any initiations. Initiations are a way of introducing you to a current that is/has been regularly used. I do not know of a single magick school that would say banishings are bad for initiations. Even if they were and you had to get "re-initialized" it would be worth it as no magick school teaches that banishings are optional. They are apart of every magickal school.

When you've just been introduced to an egregore (other than maybe GD egregore(-s)), it might be a good idea to take a short pause with banishings until one is well established in it. 

Are you in the IoT or something similiar? Sounds like the old Chapman/Barford method too.

I am not a member of the IOT, but Alan was my teacher. I may have been his first student. We first met through the first version of the Dharma Overground forum, years ago. At the time, he was traveling in South India. We then met in London.

Seems like he has abandoned teaching magic now sadly.. There are other great teachers out there though. 

I haven’t heard from Duncan for a while and don’t know what he is up to.

We all went our way… In my case, I have a demanding job and a family that counts on me to pay the bills. I have tried to insert into more mainstream mystical traditions, but miss the fun and excitement we all had back then.

My dream is to build or join a new network of magicians sharing similar interests, regardless of where they come from as far as magic or mysticism is concerned. This is pretty much the focus of the Dharma Overground, thanks to Daniel Ingram’s open mind and generous heart.

If I may ask, what is your background as far as magic is concerned (tradition, school, orders or preferred books) ? I haven't been on this forum for years and need to catch up.

I really miss their blogs, OEITH especially. 
When it comes to things other than plain theravadin meditation, I started out with the some of their material, please PM me if you want to know about where I ended up. 
What goal or purpose do you have in mind with such a network? Sounds like a good idea.

DB took a normal job in the healing arts that apparently makes an online presence that is weird a problem, so he has been somewhat more incognito recently and cleaned up his online presence, but still around, still doing his thing.

Sounds good. My idea is to create an informal group of practicing magicians to refine and eventually improve on what Alan and Duncan did back then.

I have tried to PM you, but can't find your name in "messages". Can you PM me ?

This is what I thought. Thank you for the update Daniel. 

Sounds a bit like DKMU if I get you right, although their main purpose seems to be messing with the macrocosmic structures :3 


I can't seem to find your name either.. Daniel, could you help us out please? 

I wish Alan and Duncan could do something like condensing their material and initiatory experiences into some kind of egregore key for us to indulge in and build on in place of their missing blogs. That could be a starting point for the community in question too.

There is the spirit TEMPE, who seems to fit your job description. Instructions for use are in the Baptist's head trilogy, towards the end if I recall correctly.

Maybe you will like the Sermons the the Unborn, a blog that seems to draw inspiration from the Baptist's head (though nowhere as big or useful yet).

Thanks, I will look up both! I remember TEMPE eing mentioned at the blogs but I didn't investigate it further.