Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
…which is wordier, but not so different. What I’m wondering is whether what James describes as lying behind that magickian’s cycle might also be somewhere behind the one I know.
- Have some amazing readings and become very enthusiastic about Yi.
- Divine regularly with complete trust.
- Have a crisis.
- Optional additional steps: argue with book out loud, scowl at book, shout at book. Feel entirely sane.
- Sulk.
- Stop divining.
- Rest.
- Repeat.
The ‘crisis’ for diviners seems to take the form of going from having readings ‘work’ for you beautifully, naturally and quite predictably, answering your questions in the way you need, to abruptly having readings make no sense to you whatsoever. It could be that questions that used to ‘work’ for you now lead to impenetrable answers; you could be left feeling that Yi’s led you completely up the garden path. Somehow, the lines of communication broke altogether. What happened?
Although the details of sunspot generation are still a matter of research, it appears that sunspots are the visible counterparts of magnetic flux tubes in the Sun's convective zone that get "wound up" by differential rotation. If the stress on the tubes reaches a certain limit, they curl up like a rubber band and puncture the Sun's surface. Convection is inhibited at the puncture points; the energy flux from the Sun's interior decreases; and with it surface temperature.
The primary affect on the Earth is on our ionosphere. This is the very upper part of the atmosphere. Increased sunspot activity frequently accompanies an increase in the outflow of matter from the Sun in the form of a "solar wind". Charged particles in this wind can interact with atoms in the upper atmosphere and sometimes wreak havoc with our communications systems. It can interfere with the operation of satellites by introducing background static. During periods of heightened solar activity, the Earth's upper atmosphere swells up slightly in response to the extra heating, which in turn increases the rate of decay of satellites in low Earth orbit. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980506a.html
Oh my... ROTFLMAO! I shouldn't laugh but I'm doing so at myself.
Hilary, I apologize. I paid a disservice to your thoughtful post: I didn't read it all and shot from the hip (I wasn't the only one apparently as I don't know where the sunspots fit here. I think it was Mojo in charge of the keyboard... ). I actually, and only, read up to the point that I quoted and replied. Geeze, I didn't even notice you were quoting some of my old posts!!!
Fridays are crazy for me at work. Give me a chance to mull this over and reply something more coherent.
Well, if I wrote a blog post that was even slightly coherent, instead of hopping about like a stoned rabbit, it might help.
Even stoned rabbits make sense sometimes.
The distinction between 'tool' and 'learning venue' is a thoroughly useful one to have around. Only... do you really think that every single 'breakdown in communication' with Yi is down to having obviously the wrong mentality?
Could be, I suppose... but I've a feeling there's more going on. Sometimes people have a kind of honeymoon period with Yi, when every question, however ill-conceived or thoughtlessly phrased, is answered with grace, directness and unmistakable clarity. Then things get more complicated. Is that because they messed up the relationship and muddied the waters, or because they 'graduated' to a level where they're going to be expected to understand something more complex? Is this that 'filter' you mentioned?
Or... Fred asks practical questions about x for years, gets consistently useful answers, acts accordingly, and all goes well. Then one day Fred's usual style of questioning about x ceases to yield useful answers at all (as he finds out either by looking at the readings or by following their advice as usual and losing his shirt). What happened? Is this nothing but a very, very delayed reaction to Fred's 'tool user' mentality?
(Erm. I'm trying for a clear distinction between two ways of describing this, one as clearly the querent's fault for breaking something, and one as just how things unfold. Conceivably this is a false distinction anyway.)
And do you see any connection to what James is talking about?
[/INDENT] And again for ‘magick’ you could read ‘divination’ quite easily. In theory there is a clear distinction between the two: one wants to change how things are, and the other wants only to discover how they are. But maybe the distinction is not quite as clear as we imagine. Certainly if you go back to the roots of ancient Chinese divination, the line between performing magic to invite good weather and divining to discover what weather you’re getting is a very blurry one. We call these things we do with coins or yarrow stalks ‘readings’, but is it really just a pure, hygienic, ‘read-only’ process?
Is the experience James describes as ‘pushing the accelerator on life’ a familiar one to you at all? I find it’s faintly echoed in my own experience when I’m doing weekly readings: it’s not that a bunch more stuff happens, necessarily, but that I find myself about ten times more awake in the midst of everything. Habit and routine become much less of a factor, and the dominant guidance system is living communication rather than auto-pilot.
But this idea that as we engage with Yi, and hence with the whole, we’re inviting more energy to flow through the contours of our own stuff, and hence we might experience a bigger, more charged version of it… that grabs me. And like I said, I wanted to see what you thought. Here’s the link again –
http://www.weirdshitnotbullshit.com/the-magickians-cycle
(I wasn't the only one apparently as I don't know where the sunspots fit here. I think it was Mojo in charge of the keyboard... ).
On the positive side – if parts of our life are strengthened during such intense periods, if relationship stay strong and friends grow closer… that's a pretty good indicator that we are really in harmony with those things, that they are really right for us, are things we should trust in and enjoy.
What does Weird Sh*t not Bullshit mean? It's the philosophy of this site, and sums up a new attitude towards such things as Tarot, spirituality and magic.
It is often during our weakest, darkest and loneliest moments that sudden, true and clear insight comes.
Do you really think my idea is so outlandish, considering something referred to as The Oracle of the Sun?
And since Hilary has kindly deferred to my stoned rabbit experience, more stoned rabbits are likely to chase magicikians and magickian's cycles than to consider the possibly of a natural, albeit not yet thoroughly understood explanation.
No, no, no. Not outlandish at all. I was seriously scratching my head trying to find the contextual match for your post with Hilary's and mine and the only thing I could think of was that perhaps you intended to post that in the Open Space forum discussion about solar flares. Yes? No? If it was indeed intended as shown, the more intriguing to me.
The ‘crisis’ for diviners seems to take the form of going from having readings ‘work’ for you beautifully, naturally and quite predictably, answering your questions in the way you need, to abruptly having readings make no sense to you whatsoever. It could be that questions that used to ‘work’ for you now lead to impenetrable answers; you could be left feeling that Yi’s led you completely up the garden path. Somehow, the lines of communication broke altogether. What happened?
The distinction between 'tool' and 'learning venue' is a thoroughly useful one to have around. Only... do you really think that every single 'breakdown in communication' with Yi is down to having obviously the wrong mentality?
Could be, I suppose... but I've a feeling there's more going on. Sometimes people have a kind of honeymoon period with Yi, when every question, however ill-conceived or thoughtlessly phrased, is answered with grace, directness and unmistakable clarity. Then things get more complicated. Is that because they messed up the relationship and muddied the waters, or because they 'graduated' to a level where they're going to be expected to understand something more complex? Is this that 'filter' you mentioned?/
Or... Fred asks practical questions about x for years, gets consistently useful answers, acts accordingly, and all goes well. Then one day Fred's usual style of questioning about x ceases to yield useful answers at all (as he finds out either by looking at the readings or by following their advice as usual and losing his shirt). What happened? Is this nothing but a very, very delayed reaction to Fred's 'tool user' mentality?
I am right in the middle of a period of no understanding at all. I know more or less where it comes from. Too many nasty things happening at once, and the only way on is to see it all as "out there", like hex.51 advises. To rely on that inner silent spot where no earthquakes or thunderstorms can hit. And no answer, however wise, can get through that wall. Feels nice in here.
I know understanding will come back. When the earthquakes cease and I can open the windows again and a gentle breeze welcomes me instead of the icy storms. I think I simply don't need magick or Yi now. I need that inner silence and being able to hold on to it feels great. Hmm, thinking about it. It is as if I am hearing the whole of Yi, and not answers or lines or advice. That whole big beautiful image which Yi gives. One huge answer, all around me.
Ah, I read it again and understood. My apologies, I'll blame my misunderstanding to an incipient ADHD, I suppose...
On another window I am typing a follow-up to my incomplete posts of before. However, IMHO, cosmic forces like sunspots and solar flares, immediate to us but minuscule in the universal scheme of things, are an easy and empirical culprit for radio signals interference but I believe divination, whatever makes it work, something that for me is metaphorically akin to "quantum entanglement," is a train that runs on another track altogether. Alas, I've no way to prove or disprove either my conceptualization or yours. I believe, yes, that there are "interferences" to the process, but just not the obvious ones. For example, if I were to believe in, A) a soul, B) solar electromagnetic storms, C) that B) interferes in metaphysical inner works, then I must believe my soul is subject to the whims of solar activities and it will be blown away and dispersed once released from my body. I mean, it may happen precisely as described, farfetched as it sounds, but it is not something I am prepared to believe in ("belief" being the operating word here).
O
Even the best knife loses sharpness and volume the more you use it and re-sharpen carelessly. When the tool has ceased to work, what do you do? The most primal response is to throw it away and get another one, right? But what if you've learned to take good care of the tool and keep it as new as ever?
More later...
(Erm. I'm trying for a clear distinction between two ways of describing this, one as clearly the querent's fault for breaking something, and one as just how things unfold. Conceivably this is a false distinction anyway.)
And do you see any connection to what James is talking about?
I have also come out of a period where my yi responses made no sense recently. It wasnt even just feeling i wasn't understanding, it just felt like there was no real communication. it felt stale, and I felt sad as if a friend had decided not to speak to me anymore.
i know this sounds simplistic, but a change happened when I got Hilary's book in the mail. Suddenly my Yi responses via HIlary's commentary were truly speaking to me again, almost literally, IE meaning the responses were directly answering my questions almost as if the commentary was designed specifically for my question . It was an unmistakable conversation.
I hadnt bought a new version of any text for awhile, and I suddenly remembered why I used to buy new ones regularly. They seemed to make the answers fresh and unbiased. I guess using any text can still yield fresh, innocent of baggage, responses, but I think my own mind was bored with the old books, and had attached too much of my own baggage to the lines and texts. Hilary's commentaries were eye-opening to me, added ideas that I had never considered.
IMHO, both magic and divination can get stale if the clear unbiased mind goes AWOL. as in Life itself, we need to always be introducing newness, not just in text, but in outlook, perspective...I need to open a space where I can allow for something new, welcome the unknown, take on the beginners mind again. somehow if any kind of rigid mindset gets into the mix, nothing moves or flows. The Wizard's perception is one of seeing anew. familiarity somehow shuts the door to the ever fresh and new.
A man once said "by now , I know my wife so well that I truly have no idea about who she is at all."
I worked with Taosim some year ago and found it a very helpful way of clarifying the above ideas that I was developing. I 'paradigm shift' quite a bit between thinking about magickal work in terms of flow, in terms of Universal Will, expressions of energy, in terms of my own Will/Power - none of them are right, but all of them have truth in them, in my opinion.What practical differences do you see between Taoism and Ritual Magick? I saw the latter, traditionally, as influencing events and physical phenomena by harnessing power via the effect of Will and the former as allowing the Universal Will to work through you by understanding it. You seem to combine both (?) "Magick" and other such labels can and do take on entirely different meanings according to the individual concerned.
Why did you choose the Magick with a "k" as it does seem to have strong associations with Enochian and Crowleyian Magick which ultimately appears to be quite a different ball-game to what you've outlined in this post, not least the I Ching. Unless you're being coy.
Oddly I resonate far less with Wicca (for me its too religious and their occasional 'historical' claims bug me) or shamanism (fundamentally I suspects its just too... untidy? chaotic? for me). I think perhaps the 'control' idea is more common in what are called 'post modern' magickal currents (like chaos magick - which is almost entirely about technique and result and has, in its purest form, little to do with spirituality). But in Thelema the co-creation thread is throughout - Lon Milo Duquette is probably the most successful Thelemic author at the moment, and you can very much recognise the idea in his work. The 'heart' of Thelema is still the completion of The Great Work, which is a purely spiritual endevour, really concerned with the realisation that there is 'only one Will' and that every event is a direct communication from the Universe. Controlling the flow of the Universe makes no sense if you are trying to become perfectly harmonised with its Will.In fact, the concept of Magick you have shared is different in the sense that proponents of the "Magickal arts" as I have understood them have sought to control (however well-intentioned) rather than co-create. Even the whitest of white magickians, in my view. But you seem to be advocating a different quality of Magick... the origins that I'm a little more comfortable with such as the roots of Wiccan and celtic shamanism. Or so I think.
A 'good' banishing ritual should achieve more than cleanse (the lesser banishing ritual of the Pentagram really contains lots of elements like reinforcing your connection with the nature of the universe, asking for aid, defining your magickal reality, and so on), but I take your point. To be honest, I've tried most things over the years... I would say 95% or more of my magickal work is about gaining insight, personal development work, exploring or experimenting, trying to gain understanding. But it's useful to know that there are ways of dealing with practical issues if need be.You've talked about "banishing" a practice that every New Ager can use to "cleanse" a room of bad vibes but about other "Magickal" techniques such as invocation?
A 'good' banishing ritual should achieve more than cleanse . . .
...the sequence into 19. Does that sound about right?)I took on a much more taxing, risky, kind of magickal act which basically involved dragging up the part of myself that was blocking me and getting in my way, talking to it, and retasking it to help me get where I needed to go.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).