Sound baths and audio magic scrying experiments

image copyright Taylor Ellwood

I have been continuing to experiment with scrying, and I recently decided to switch from candles and mirrors to using modern technology.

My initial experiment was inspired by a Gong ceremony I attended. The Gong ceremony put me into a deep state of altered awareness and I ended up experiencing a sensation of time dilation. It was a deeply fascinating experience and it prompted me to consider how I could attempt to replicate the conditions of a sound bath, while using my black mirror and a candle for scrying.

What I did was set up a cd player with two speakers so that one speaker was to the left of me and the other was to the right. I then picked out music that would be helpful for stimulating the mind via biaurnal beats and soundscapes. I used music from Coil, Rapoon and The Anti Group Collective. I played the music and then lit the candle and proceeded to do my usual scrying, but with the music creating a sound batch effect for the purposes of deeper states of altered consciousness.

What I found is that with the right music I definitely achieved a deeper state of altered awareness which led to more visions and experiences via scrying, both for behavior alteration and spirit work. I then decided to move on to another experiment...

A case study of a long distance working

Kat was away on a trip last week. We do a daily meditation together in the evening, but we weren't able to do it together because of the trip, so instead we opted to do it via phone. I would put her on the speaker phone and then we'd do our meditation chant and afterwards meditate in silence. Each time we'd end our meditation at the same time, without any prompting from the other person.

What we both noticed was that despite the distance we felt like we were next to each other. Kat told me that even though she was in the hotel she could smell our house while we were doing the meditation. It was interesting me to because it showed that the daily work we were doing was creating a connection that carried across the distance. It likely helped that its easy for us to visualize each other and that we've been doing this daily meditation for a little while now, but it also speaks to the value of doing daily work with magical partners. It builds more of a connection between the two or more people doing the work.

I've done long distance workings in the past with other people, and what has always indicated the success of the long distance workings has been feeling the presence of the people I'm working with. If I feel their presence, I know I've connected with them, and we can always verify that by seeing if our reports are consistent with each other. If they are, then we know the magical work is happening across the distance.

Book Review: Darwin's Pharmacy by Richard Doyle

First a caveat. I know the author and actually took classes from him in college.

This is is an intriguing book that explores the rhetoric of entheogens and how people discuss the experiences they've had with entheogens. The author interweaves his own narrative and experiences with the analysis he provides about entheogens. If you are interested in entheogens this book will be a good read that provides you some fascinating insights into the subculture around them. The author also bases a lot of his discussion around the works of Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, the McKenna brothers and other luminaries that have discussed entheogens in their own work. What I found particularly fascinating was the connected he made to Darwin's Theory of evolution and how work with the plants is a symbiotic relationship of evolution for both humans and plants.

Music and magic meditations

At the most recent magical experiments night, we decided to do three meditation exercises with music out of the book Arcana V (affiliate link). I was intrigued by the exercises, partially because of the focus on space, sound, and silence, and partially because it reminded me of my own experiments with music and magic in my early 20's. The first experiment involved a minimalistic approach to sound. The goal was to focus on the silence that occurred between sounds being made. I chose to ring a bell for this exercise. I'd ring the bell and as the sound faded, we focused on paying attention to the silence. What we all agreed on was how little silence there was! Whether it was the bark of a dog, the hum of the refrigerator or the sound of a lawn mower, all we heard was sounds. I personally think that silence is an artificial construct, as opposed to an actual experience. There is always sound around you...you can't get away from it...at least not on this planet.

The second experiment involved listening to music that could be defined as sensory overload music...in other words white noise. I picked Merzbow for this experiment. The goal of the exercise was to meditate and in the process ignore or block out the sounds. Everyone had varying degrees of success. We noted that when vocals were included it was a bit harder to ignore the sounds.

The third experiment involved listening to layered music, or music with multiple sounds themes (but not white noise). The goal was meditative absorption...absorbing the music without dwelling on a particular theme or noise or word. We listened to Tangerine Dream's Atem, which is richly layered music. I found that relaxing into the music allowed me to be with it. This was the easiest exercise, probably because I listen to music all the time, when writing or working, and actually just absorb it as a way of keeping me focused.

All three of these experiments were fun to do and brought to mind the early experiments I did, where I would use selected albums to create sonic soundscapes for ritual purposes. We'd put the music on in the background, while doing our ritual, using the music itself to create the sacred space as well as any defenses we felt we needed, while we were doing magical work. I particularly liked using Coil's music for that purpose, but have also used Rapoon, Scorn, Current 93, and other such bands to produce sacred space and altered states of mind for doing ritual work.

The other experiments this reminded me of were experiments I did with my voice. I created sound sigils, which I would activate through vibratory vocalization of the sigil, or through whistling specific sounds at specific tones to activate the sigil. I also experimented with using vibratory vocalizations for invocation and evocation work. I still do use these techniques now, but using them now is not so much of an experiment for me anymore, though I suppose it could be an experiment for others. It is something I will write more about for an occult journal or two.