Belonging and Occult groups

I've never belonged to an occult group, and only briefly considered joining two, before I determined that I'd rather just pursue my own path. But recently on Facebook someone revived the Zee List and for a time I participated on that list way back when and it was interesting to observe how different people responded to the revival of the list in a different forum. The desire to belong is a current that seems to run strong in general in occultism and the forms it takes, whether it's a virtual community such as the Zee list or the more formal organizations such as the OTO or Golden Dawn. The desire to belong isn't the only reason someone will join an occult group, but I think it's fair to say it's a major reason people join. It's not a bad reason to join either, but it is an interesting one, because so much of the occult memes about being on the fringe. At the same time, it's natural that people will want to group together based on similar interests.

I never joined an occult group or lodge because I've always preferred my independence. Even with the zee list, which was never a formal group, it was more about sharing experiments, than actually being part of the group. My experiences with occult lodges in passing has been mostly negative, but I'm always open to the idea that someday I could change my mind.  But I don't think belonging to an occult group is an absolute essential. It's something many occultists do, but its equally possible to focus on your own studies or getting together with friends to discuss experiments without necessarily making it into a group organization.

Rapturous

Tomorrow is supposedly doomsday for the Christians, where they will be raptured away and leave the rest of us alone. I'm skeptical of it happening, and I think it's silly how much people are focused on trying to get to some after life, instead of focusing on living their lives. Their's nothing rapturous about giving up the gift of life. And no matter what you believe or don't believe, life is a gift, and an experience, and not something to be so casually discarded. Some Christians claim that only God knows when the final day will occur, but the way I figure it is that the need to even have such a day is symptomatic of a disease, a kind of nihilism that focuses on debasing the human experience n favor of trying to discover a state of being that will supposedly take away all the worries and fears people have.

What about living life for the sake of living it? What about learning what this life has to offer? I'm preaching to the choir in a lot of ways, but I think there is value in this life with its follies and its triumphs.

Some observations about on Religion and business

In my other business I go to a lot of networking meetings and it's always interesting to observe the intersection between religion and business. At a recent meeting, a person brought up that he was making Christian movies, which most everyone there seemed fine with, and in other meetings I've heard other people mention the intersection of business and Christianity as a matter of fact kind of reality for them. At the same time, I've also seen the intersection of new age beliefs in business as well, with people talking about mindful awareness and conscious intent or discussing their healing practice and how they use energy work. It seems to me that there is this interesting place where business and spirituality or religion come in side by side. At the same time, I'd have to admit that unless people asked I never volunteer information about my own beliefs or spiritual practices. It's not really anyone else's business and more importantly it's not relevant to my other business. I favor a partitioned existence when it comes to my different businesses. What I do with one business has little to do with what I do for another business, so it isn't important overall. But I also realize that because my beliefs aren't necessarily accepted by the mainstream that I also don't have the same comfort or freedom to express my beliefs that a Christian has. I could couch my phrases in new age terminology, which is a bit more acceptable, or I could use NLP as a descriptor of techniques, but being able to mention my beliefs, or spiritual practices at a business networking event is just asking for problems. Christians, on the other, can discuss their religion with impunity at such meetings. They are the dominant religion, so its perfectly acceptable for them to speak up and while it might make a few people uncomfortable, it won't be something people comment on, unless it gets excessive.

Personally, I don't think religion and business should mix anymore than government and religion should mix. It's best to just keep it separate...so that's what I do. It works overall, and I've never had anyone ask about my beliefs. And if they do ask, I'll be honest, because it's not like they couldn't find out anyway...all they have to do is a google search and there my beliefs are. But I never volunteer, and so it never comes up.

Why I do Magic

I got into a couple of interesting conversations this week and in the process realized once again that why I practice magic isn't to get anyone's approval or acceptance of what I practice or get the general community to accept my practices.

Limitless freedom: are you really free?

I've been thinking about the concept of enlightenment, in terms of attaining a state of non-attachment to everything as well as what the result might look like and I think it might be something like experiencing limitless freedom.You become everything and nothing, but because there are no limitations you can never turn that possibility into something real. In fact, you the person don't even exist. A rather tenuous existence, and while a person might be one with everything and nothing, what in the end does that really mean, and what does it really do for the person. I'll admit I'm attached to my identity.

Pan's Labyrinth and Rules of Magic

I recently saw Pan's Labyrinth and one scene in particular that stood out to me was where the girl was looking for a key and there were specific rules she had to follow and if she didn't follow those rules, she could die. She did, in fact, break the rules, and the monster almost got her, but she had chalk and she was able to use it to open another door and escape. The reason was because even though she broke a rule, she understood all the rules and so she could use another rule to get her out of the situation she'd put herself in. To truly be able to experiment in magic, you need to understand the rules so you know which ones you can break and which ones you can bend, and which ones should just be followed. And make no mistake, magic does have its own rules. In fact, you can find some common rules in studying even seemingly disparate practices. But the beauty of magic is that's it something you can also change, if you know the rules.

In fact, rules themselves get changed as people's understanding of what they are doing becomes more nuanced. It's fair to say that rules are ultimately interpretations of how actions should be done, and as such are always subject to revision. What makes a rule effective is the willingness of a person to subscribe to what the rule says. Watch the video below to learn more:

Disillusionment and magic

Recently a friend of mine has mentioned that she's been going through a period of disillusionment about magic and that everything she tries to do doesn't work. And whether she realizes it or not, she's not alone in feeling this way. I've gone through my own feelings of disillusionment about magic several times. The first time was disillusionment with the occult subculture and the second time was personal disillusionment. Undoubtedly I'll probably experience such disillusionment again. And my conclusion about this is that actually such disillusion is healthy, even if at the time it doesn't feel that way. Each time I experienced disillusionment about magic, I ended up working through some serious doubts about the magic, but importantly about myself as a person. When we feel those doubts it can be hard, because we question everything, all our decisions, and we wonder, am I really doing thing, or am I deluding myself? But asking these questions also forces us to really evaluate the choices in our lives, the value of our beliefs, and even if the people in our lives are the ones we really want in our lives.

A crisis of faith is healthy because it forces us to stop taking our beliefs for granted and really dig into the core of those beliefs. The disillusionment I've felt has made me question why I believe what I believe as well as whether or not its really good for me to have those beliefs. And when I've come through it, I've felt a stronger connection to what I believe, and a better understanding of the place of those beliefs in my life.

What about you? Have you felt disillusioned and how have you dealt with it?

Some thoughts on Giving in magic

Recently I posted the following message to my Facebook and Twitter accounts

What are you willing to give in order to get what you want? There's always some giving involved in magic.

I received some interesting responses to it, ranging from the argument that sacrifice isn't a necessary part of every magical act to the idea of sacrificing unwanted ego complexes to the idea of swapping energy for energy. All of these were good responses and what I appreciated the most was the thoughtfulness that went into the responses.

My own take on what I wrote, with more of an explanation than 140 characters, is that within every act of magic the magician needs to give something in order to make the magic work. And what does that really mean? Magic doesn't happen by itself. The magician at the very least needs to provide a goal and/or vision with an accompanying action. There is always a purpose for doing magic, and the magician supplies that purpose via the goal or vision, as well as with some kind of action taken.

The action also can't be nebulous so the magician needs to provide some kind of structure in which that action takes place. The environment of ritual space for example may need to be constructed, or there may be a need to pick certain ritual tools that will be used, but even more important than all of that is actually determining what you will do, both magically and mundanely. And all of that is also an act of giving, because magic doesn't take place if you don't provide some form or process by which it can actually be worked.

And then there's the final point on giving, which will probably show something of of a less than contemporary attitude on my part to giving. If you choose to work with some external agency, what are you willing to give to it, in return for its aid? I know it's popular to believe any entity is just some kind of psychological construct, but personally I tend to think there's more to an entity than that. So when I work with an entity, I ask myself what I'm willing to provide. I don't see it as a sacrifice either, so much as an exchange of some kind. I want something, and I recognize I could use some help, so I go get that help and I offer something in return.

For some people, taking the psychological approach with entities seems to work, and perhaps in the end it,s all in my head, but I've found that erring toward my own conventions on giving and magic has worked really well. So it's part of my process.

What are your thoughts? Anything I'm missing or that you would add?

Time as a commodity

I've been reading the Secret Pulse of Time by Stefan Klein lately and in it he talks about how the Western concept of time used to be event based until the first clock was put on a Church belltower back in the 14th century. Later on time became even more regulated in the 19th century. And all of this, according to him, has led to an approach toward treating time as a commodity. I would agree, especially when phrases such as "Time is money" are offered as a way of justifying how people approach time. The other point Stefan makes is that people try to pack in as much as possible in as little time as possible, because of this commodity based approach. In fact, the focus tends to be on what someone has gotten done in a given day as opposed to actually slowing down and enjoying the day. This isn't surprising, when we think about how much information is available and how much demand that puts on a given person to process the information, as well as do something with it.

Stefan doesn't really present any clear solutions to this issue, but in my own experience I've found that being selective about the information I focus on helps. This is why I don't have Cable television or satellite, or get newspapers or have social media on my mobile phone. The flow of information is regulated by specific boundaries I have in place to make that information manageable. I've found that regulating the information hasn't significantly hurt my ability to keep up with what's going on, but has lead to lower stress, because I'm not constantly trying to process energy.

The other thing I do is meditate each day, and part of that is to simply re-balance my mental landscape, but also to give myself down time from the information so that I can process and consider it's importance. I find that doing such work not only helps me greatly, but also enhances the level of interaction, because I have more focus than I would if I'm constantly bombarded by information or worried about how much time I don't have. In fact, meditation has taught me to slow down and not be in such a hurry with my life. I realize I'll never get everything in a given day and instead of stressing about it, I do what I can and also spend time enjoying my life. Time then becomes less of a commodity and more of a cycle, going back to an event based approach to it, instead of counting the seconds and trying to do everything at once.

Why I choose to use my name publically

When I was eighteen, I was outed from the broom closet by the parents of a friend. I remember coming home and being told by my mom that I had a half hour to either burn my books or move out. I had no job, half a tank of gas, and was in high school, so I opted to burn the books, though I hid the ones I hadn't read. I remember she even made me burn my books of magic comic series just because it had the word magic in it. I also remember feeling shame for my choice and a week later telling her that if she ever made me make that choice again I would disown her. Half a year later, still eighteen, I remember getting a phone call from one of the parents of that friend. He threatened to kill me and sang hymns, telling me how I was damned to hell for my beliefs. I told him I had a crossbow bolt for him and called the police. He didn't call after the police had called him, but those two experiences helped me realize something fundamental: Hiding my beliefs wasn't the answer. By hiding my beliefs I encouraged the very ignorance those people displayed toward me. I determined that I would never hide my beliefs. I wrote my books using my name, regardless of what professional or personal consequences might occur, because I knew that it was more important to be transparent than to hide what I believe because of the ignorance and fear of others.

Fast forward to the present. I am kinky, poly, and an occultist. I'm also a self-employed business and social media consultant. If you google my name you'll find a mixture of all of these realities in the search results. I was told recently by a business mentor that several people felt the dragon on my business site was occultish. I doubt they'd actually searched my name, but I recall telling her that if they were that freaked out by the logo then they'd be even more freaked out by my beliefs.

Ironically, perhaps, I've encountered people in the business world that have told me that they also practice magic...so perhaps my openness has encouraged them to be more open as well. What I do know is this: By choosing to be open about my beliefs I feel that I'm making a statement of integrity and hopefully educating the ignorant in the process that my beliefs do not destine for hell or make me an unsuitable person in any other way, shape, or form.

I will never hide my choices or who I am, to make it convenient for someone else. If you choose not to do business with me because of my spiritual and lifestyle choices, or choose to judge me because of your own inadequacies, it's not my problem. I cannot and will not lessen myself for any person or business just to coddle their sense of reality. I'd rather people accepted me for who I am, and while in the course of my business day, I don't blatantly advertise my lifestyle choices and beliefs, if the conversation comes up I don't hide it either. Because when we choose to hide, that's when we lose.

In a Saturnian phase of build-up

I had an astrology reading done the other day. Given the recent changes in my life, I thought it might be useful to get an idea of the planetary influences I was dealing with. Appropriately enough, what I learned was that Saturn is playing a fairly role in my life right now. It's appropriate because of the time magic aspect that is rather significant to my life right now. Of particular note as well was that this particular influence of Saturn signifies a building period in my life, a period of creation. This makes sense to me, actually. The last five years I've spent cleaning my life out of my own issues and dysfunctions. Since switching to Time, I've felt that focus shift from purification to building something new. In someways, even the year in emptiness saw that, with the focus on my business, but the last couple of months has seen me actively working on what I would consider to be a new approach to my spirituality, and to my life overall. It was an insightful reading and confirmed a lot of details for me about the circumstances in my life and where I'm going with it. The divorce was really the final purification, and consequently in every way right now I am free to rebuild my life. I must say I am actually happy about that and look forward to seeing what I can do with it. In other news, I've been reading the Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam and have found the consequent insights about how the unconscious influences the conscious mind to be very useful in understanding situations that have occurred in the past, as well as present situations. I see this unconscious influence in how people will indulge in what are ultimately dysfunctional relationships because of cultural and social pressures to fit a certain image. It also confirms some ideas I have about identity and how it is shaped. I've actually started writing my next solo book on identity and magic. I'm only two pages in, but I'm putting in a bit of time each night, to keep motivated and focused.

And my final thought is of love and how toxic love as a cultural concept can be. Love doesn't cure all, and sometimes, many times, it traps us in situations that we'd be better off leaving...or rather the cultural beliefs about love trap us.

You are your own spiritual teacher

I 'm reading a book called Eyes Wide Open by Mariana Caplan, which is a book about cultivating discernment on the spiritual path. A lot of what she focuses on is  cultivating that discernment with spiritual teachers. My own response to that has been the realization that I've mostly been my own spiritual teacher. I was blessed early on with getting a mentor who showed me the fundamental problem with spiritual teaches: They can never live up to the hype they put out about themselves. So I tend to think of myself as my own spiritual teacher, and I know I have a lot of flaws, so I don't put myself on a pedestal, because I'd fall off pretty quickly. Then again, I'm not really interested in enlightenment either. What I'm really interested in is cultivating a genuine relationship with the universe and the people I'm connected to and myself. And I don't know how enlightened that is, or how enlightened it needs to be. What I do know is that while spirituality is, in some ways, becoming even more of a prevalent issue in peoples lives, it's important to recognize how much each of us has to own our spiritual integrity and experience, instead of relying on the vision of someone else.

In fact, it's why I'm skeptical of religion, but also the popularity of any given author who claims to channel some vision of a spirituality reality. I don't doubt the veracity of that vision as it applies to that person, but I do have doubts when other people eat it up without really applying anything in the way of critical thought or awareness. Asking, for instance, What in this spiritual message speaks to me and what doesn't is a good start.

I am my own guru, with all of his mistakes and flaws, spiritual insights and compassion. I don't want to be anyone else's, because when a person tries to give me that kind of mantle s/he is really trying to abdicate responsibility for his/her own spiritual integrity and journey. And while I am honored if you find some value in my words and ideas, I think its even better when you have some of your own. Find your own spiritual identity. Meditate, pray, etc., but most importantly think for yourself and question always the beliefs you have, if only to give yourself a chance to critically explore them.

Elemental Emptiness Month 12: From Zero to One

9-24-09 I haven't been able to update since the esoteric book convention. It highlights how busy my schedule has become and how problematic that can be at times. I'm not sure I like that, so I'm looking at what I can change in my life to give me a bit more time. As this elemental working winds down to a close, what I mostly feel is tired. This has been such an intense year, and the second intense year in a row. I need a break from intense years...and although it has been an intense year for me, I feel like I've drifted away from my spirituality to some degree in the process of doing this elemental work. And I guess that makes sense, because in some ways I've had to let go of everything important to me, to make this year's emptiness working work. The path of the abyss is one where everything is sacrificed as journey through it. At the same time, I feel a kind of anticipation about the end of this one. I know all the work I've put in is going to payoff and that the payoff, for me, is really being able to move past so many conditioned responses and behaviors that used to hold me back. I'm tired, but I'm also at that last part of the journey, where you push through the tiredness and make it to the end, because you know its part of the journey. 9-28-09 There's not really much to write. Unlike all the other months, what I really feel right now is anticipation, or being in the center of the eye of the hurricane. I can look around me and see everything I've been dealing, but also recognize where I am and know I've moved past everything. Now it feels more like making a choice and getting ready to move ahead, free of the rotting putrefaction I went through, because the refinement is here.

10-01-09 I've been playing the Force Unleashed recently. When I first started my emptiness working, I played that game a fair amount. It represented, for me, the feeling of emptiness at the beginning. It doesn't really anymore because I no longer see emptiness as an antagonist. It's something I can see as part of me, instead of against me.

10-02-09 I reflected today that to truly experience emptiness I've had, in one form or another, to really become empty, to really see everything I hold dear fall through in some form or manner, if only to convey to me the full depths of emptiness. Recognizing that everything could be taken away, that's been hard, but useful as well.

10-06-09 On a really deep level I wonder how much this year's working has really helped me. I've been exposed to what drives me toward feeling empty, come to a really good understanding of it, but I don't feel like its really solved. There's still a part of me that just wants to find someone, something that will somehow meet this very intangible need I have. It's a very primal, emotive part, not something rational that can be reasoned with. And it's likely always going to be there. I guess I've learned better strategies for handling it and recognizing it when it comes out...and maybe I feel a bit less driven than I did before, but I also feel like somehow I just haven't really "solved" the core issue for me. I don't know if I ever will. Maybe, all I'll really come away is a better grasp of my emptiness and a better way of handling it, when it comes up in potentially unhealthy situations.

10-08-09 I woke up this morning thinking about D. D was someone I met when I was twenty. We became lovers. She was seventeen years older than I was, a gifted magician, and very experienced when it came to life, and for that matter sex. I never fully, consciously realized until now just how deeply she imprinted me, or how much the relationship not working out would affect me. The majority of women I've been attracted to have always had a connection to Babalon, Lililth, or a similar type of goddess, i.e. the sacred whore archetype and I think it's because of that imprint from D. This person made a really strong impression and I never fully got to satisfy or see where that relationship would go. So I see it as the root of a lot of my longings and seeking when it came to possible partners and sex in general. I've been trying to find someone with this particular current for a long time but I never fully understood why that was the case. And now I do...I really understand some of my choices in a very different light now than I did before.

10-10-09 I've been thinking further about what I wrote above, about the person I contacted, etc. I look back at various activities, various sexual encounters and I see this particular need trace itself through most of my relationships in a manner that never fully addresses it in a satisfactory way. The two partners I ended up with in long term relationships never embraced that particular archetype of the sacred whore. And conversely I've put myself in situations where I could almost have that relationship with someone who embodied that archetype, but then would take it away from myself, too afraid perhaps of getting what I wanted, or perhaps just not ready. I'm tired of that pattern. I'm tired of the hurt it's caused me and others. And while I do love my wife very much and take genuine pleasure and joy from her presence in my life, I also have to acknowledge that this current is in my life and likely always will be. It's something I want to explore with someone, safely and sanely.

10-11-09 One of my problems or flaws is that I put expectations on a lot of experiences, people, etc. In a conversation with a friend this morning, I thought about that...really thought about how much those expectations have actually caused me to miss out on some good experiences. I know I've placed expectations on so much of my life, and I'm even relatively sure of where that pattern came from. I also know those same expectations create a lot of the emptiness I feel as well.

I've been reading the Doctrine of Awakening by Julius Evola. It looks at some of the earliest tenets of Buddhism. I'm finding a lot of it speaking to some of the struggles I've been experiencing for a long time. And I've been reminded that I'm not really drawing on all the tools available to me. But I'm not surprised by that either. I've needed to fall apart this year, to see my flaws up close and personal as well as understanding the cause. It's when you know the cause that you can start at the beginning with awareness and readiness to move forward. So falling apart has been discovering the causes...and starting the healing. I'm just about ready to move forward.

She said: "all you have to do is look around you and really see, not the image of your life but the real life. When you can define yourself alone, all the emptiness goes away" The image of my life is the desires, the expectations, the fixations, everything that haunts me because it isn't realized. The real life is accepting how little any of that matters and how much what does matter is less about expectation and a lot more about the experience.

10-12-09: Further discussion with D, as well as thinking about something written in The Doctrine of Awakening, which stated that when a person "needs" another person they are spiritually weak. Not need as in rely on a person to back you up, but need as in codependent need, trying to find someone to fulfill something within you. As we all know by now, my emptiness working has at its core been dealing with that very issue, and on a very primal level, sex as a shadow activity can be expressed that way. Sex becomes a connection, the intimacy a doorway...the problem is it can also be addictive...it's a drug like any other. You become a junkie, looking for your next fix. And for me, sex, like so much else, has been a way to avoid emptiness, to try and fill it up, and otherwise shut it out, but it's always been a temporary fix. And it's always been more about a constructed reality than an actual acceptance of this reality.

I know that now. That's really what this year has been about, is finally, finally tracing the emptiness to every single root event and coming away with a profoundly different awareness of my emptiness in the process, as well as myself. And always going away with the awareness that I have a choice, have always had a choice, but now have more awareness in making that choice.

10-16-09 I volunteered at a play party tonight, to help out with one of the communities I'm part. After finishing up volunteering, I watched some people play and was struck with a feeling of incredible loneliness, and later a feeling of anger at myself and others for the last few years. I feel really alone. I have for a while. And a lot of it's my own making. Seeing the fun and intimacy others were experiencing tonight just brought it home to me.

10-18-09 I ended up writing a long post about how I was feeling the other night on another site and got some useful feedback. But it also seems that the last couple of days has conspired to put me in touch with some possible interests...and I kind of laugh about that, because it's the end of the emptiness working...and that ending is going to be opening a lot up for me. Last night I had a dream of a silver web and in the middle was a glowing orb and cracks were starting to appear in it.

10-20-09 I went and got the tattoo for Xah. The artist, Alice Kendall did an excellent job . You can see a picture below of the sigil for Xah, as well as the saying "From 0 to 1" Tonight, I went into my ritual room, and painted my body with the sigil of Xah, while vibratingh isn ame over and over again. Eventually, the fox lord came, eyes laughing, tongue lolling out. "You've been through a lot this year. What have you learned?"

"I've known myself at my weakest, all my faults, flaws, and reactions exposed to myself. I've known myself at my strongest, confident, secure in who I am, able to achieve anything. And I've known myself as a mixture, and I am humbled by everything I've experienced. And I'm ready to move from 0 to 1, from a place of reactions to the past and old wounds, to a place of conscious decision and acceptance of the consequences."

Then I, for a while, just meditated on this last year, on what I'd learned about myself, and my choices. This has been the hardest year of my life, in terms of really facing myself, and fully coming to terms with my emptiness. I've had to dig up all my core wounds, come to terms with some different people and their effect on me and also more importantly come to terms with my choices and how those have really effected others. I can't say I'm a better person, so much as I'm a much more aware person after this year, after, the last five years really...and that awareness provides me an opportunity to be much more mindful of my choices. This year has been the culmination of a lot of internal work. I don't even recognize myself sometimes, because so much has changed...but I'm ready to embrace this person I've become, and let go the weight of the past.

At times I wondered if I could make it...I spoke for a while just to myself about this last year, about what I learned, about who I've decided to be. And then I told Xah I was ready to finish this year, and move into the next one. I decided to use a bit of sex magic and brought myself to ecstasy, and in that ecstasy gave myself to Xah again and felt him enter through the sigil I'd placed on my arm and then felt the zero crack open and from it came forth the direction I've chosen...then a shower to wash the paint off...and now it is the 21st my Birthday. And I've made it through this year of emptiness and found myself and found clarity and sanity and peace with myself. For yes, there is emptiness, but now I no longer need to fight it or run from it. Finally, finally, I have accepted it.

I read through my entries on emptiness...it's about a good four pages worth Just re-read everything...from start to now. If you go to the categories dropdown, you can select emptiness and read every entry...go back four pages or so...start at the beginning...You'll read a journey of this last year, of a person's journey to find himself and find resolution and closure with an element that most of us in the West would rather ignore.

Below is a picture of the tattoo I got as a tribute to this last year.

Happy Birthday to me.

Are you a Traditionalist?

A reader asked me yesterday, after I posted my review of Evola's book on Buddhism, if I agreed with Evola's  traditionalist views in other areas, because I liked Evola's work. When I posted the review to Amazon, I'd noticed traditionalism come up as a possible tag, first time I ever came across the word actually. Let me just say that assuming I'm anything based on what I read is at best an erroneous assumption. It's true I like Julius Evola's writing. And if we were to research Julius the person, we would find out he was a fascist and I guess a traditionalist as well (maybe they are even one and the same!). But I'm not interested in Evola's political beliefs and don't find them relevant to my practice. Nor, really, am I concerned with labeling his spiritual practices or my own as traditionalist.

In fact, I'm not really interesting in trying to label my own practices either. The most I've ever done is to label myself as an experimental magician, an even that label is one I rely on less these days. What's really important afterall is not the label, but rather what one is actually doing.

So for me, Evola's writing, which I like because he's a good scholar and offers some intriguing perspectives on what he writes about, whether it's Buddhism or Tantra, or Hermeticism, or an article on time magic, is important because I find it relevant to my spiritual practice. Frex, the book on Buddhism offered some useful insights into early Buddhist texts and practices, and proved helpful in my emptiness working.

But even though I like his works, it shouldn't be assumed that I'm a traditionalist or anything else that Evola was. I am, after all, not Julius Evola (last I checked). Nor because I've read Edward Hall and liked his work, should it be assumed I hold to his political beliefs or his approach to anthropology or anything else. Liking someone's writing doesn't mean you agree with all of it or that you hold the same beliefs as someone.

But really what I'm saying is this: Labels are at best an illusion crafted to provide us and others the security (a false one) of being able to say this person is this or that. But what if I'm not?

I read what I read because I find it important to cultivate an awareness of a wide variety of perspectives and beliefs so that I can see how those perspectives inform my spiritual and indeed, overall life. So am I a traditionalist? Likely not.

But I am me...and I do enjoy learning and applying what I learn toward living a better life. I hope you do as well.

Review of The Silent Language by Edward T. Hall

In this book, Hall explores the intricacies of time and space from a cultural studies perspective. Although this book is a bit dated, the information is still very relevant, and what Hell offers is an examination of how much our perception of time influences our cultural and everyday interactions. For example, learning just how tightly time is wound for Americans as opposed to other cultures is quite insightful to the workaholicism that pervades American culture. Hall touches on some aspects of space as well, though you'll find more of his thoughts on it, in the hidden dimension. What I most enjoyed about this book is an exploration of time from a social science perspective as opposed to a hard science perspective.  I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in understanding concepts of space and time.

5 out of 5 stars

Latest Episode of Magical Experiments Radio is up

The Latest episode is now available to listen to...and we got a caller. This episode focused on exploring why certain personalities are so prevalent in the occult community, while others are not as well as how that fame can impact the evolution of magic. I'll be doing another episode in two weeks at 3pm PST time as a review of the Esoteric Book Convention, which I'll be going to next weekend.

Northwest Fall Equinox Festival

This last weekend I went to the Northwest Fall Equinox festival sponsored by 9 Houses of Gaia. I had an amazing time there, and came away feeling that I'd attended a festival on the East Coast or Midwest, because the sense of community was similar to what I'd found at such festivals. More importantly, I felt that I connected a lot more with my community out here. I saw a lot of people I already knew and met many more, and I spent a lot of quality time with different people. Festival space is its own special space. It's a Temporary Autonomous Zone created for people to come together and share their experiences and fellowship. I participated in the Lakshmi Ritual for this event (and will discuss that in more depth in my emptiness post for month 11), and spent a lot of time at the Tantric temple connecting with different people over conversation about magic and other mutual interests.

I enjoyed the food, which the cooks made. I also enjoyed the drumming and the concert. Mainly though, I enjoyed being at this festival and feeling like I had come home to my spiritual community. I definitely plan on going each year to this festival. It's a good break from everyday life and is a good way to connect with my spiritual community.

The Magical Experiments Radio Show

Today Bill Whitcomb and I recorded our first podcast radio show for Experimental Magic: Is Magic still Relevant. I've attached a player on the side bar of the blog, but you can also click the link and listen to it as well. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Experimental-Magic/va/2009/08/16/is-magic-relevant-to-modern-times

Book Reviews

Review of Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell This was a very interesting book that I'd recommend to anyone because it examines how success is achieved or not achieved based on cultural and historical legacies that people have access to. The premise of the book provides an intriguing look at how success is achieved as well as a ways to look at one's own heritage to capitalize on historical and cultural traits which can help a person find meaningful success. I definitely recommend reading this as an example of how a person's sense of individuality is ultimately based off a collective history and heritage as opposed to the myth of the rugged individual.

5 out 5

Seeking the Spirit of the book of Change by Zhongxian Wu

In this book, the author presents an explanation of the divinatory system of the i-ching and classic Taoist techniques for understanding and utilizing that system. The case studies he provides are very helpful for understanding how the divinatory system works, but be warned, you do need to have more than a basic familiarity with the concepts he discusses to get the most out of this book. While I definitely could understand what he was writing about, I know I'd need to do more research on the i-ching before being comfortable with this divination system. That said, this book does provide an excellent read and opportunity to learn more about the i- ching

5 out of 5

Cultural identity shifts

I talked about family identity and  individual identity patterns in my last post, but in Outliers, Gladwell also discusses cultural patterns and heritage and how it can impact the way people work together, how well they learn particular subjects. Of course this has all been written about elsewhere as well, but the focus in Gladwell's work is particularly relevant to my own identity work, because he discusses how cultural patterns of identity can be shifted by introducing alternate cultural patterns of identity, especially through language. The case study he provides, where Korean pilots were trained to speak English as the first part of a rigorous change in how they flew airplanes is really interesting, because it shows how the introduction of a different language successfully allowed the pilots to, while flying the airplane, get away from cultural memes that actually hindered their communication when flying the planes before. Basically written within any language is the cultural memes that accompany the language. If you want to change those cultural memes, or cultural identity, introducing another language, with its cultural identity can be a useful way to do so. Language is the obvious route for this kind of identity work, but from personal experience, I've also found that studying another culture's practices and integrating those practices (spiritual in my case) into your life can be a useful method of shifting your cultural identity. This is also true with subculture identities as well, and even "class" identities, though social class is just another form of subculture identity. If you can successfully integrate cultural practices from a different subculture identity than your own, you can use those practices to break out of your cultural identities. In fact, I think they could also be useful for helping you break out of family identity patterns. Certainly some of the wealth magic work has involved utilizing different cultural identity patterns from other subcultures outside of the ones I'm familiar with. Those identity patterns have been useful for changing many of my beliefs about finances, networking, small business development etc. Of course by using different cultural identities, I end up assuming those identities...but it's also made it easier to resist family identity patterns that continue to believe in identity structures that are less healthy for my entrepreneurial work.

The cultural identity shift is a larger identity shift, a backdrop against which family and individual identity shifts also occur. They are easier to enact on a personal level than family identity shifts, because they don't have the same type of history on a personal level. But I suspect they can help create momentum to enable family identity shifts as well. Unfortunately to prove some of that would ultimately involve several generations of family after myself and since I don't plan to have kids, it may not be so easily proven. Regardless, I can at least continue to explore how my own integration of entrepreneurial cultural practices as well as Taoist and Buddhist cultural practices contributes to the shifting of identity patterns I desire to change.

Changes in identity

So as some of you may know, my next solo work is focusing on the concept of identity and how it fits into magic. It's rather fitting then that the last year and 3/4ths has been focused on changing my own identity in a variety of different contexts from my relationships with lovers and friends, to my relationship with my self, and how I've chosen to engage in meaningful activities that allow me to fully live, as opposed to just getting by. To me, success in magic is driven far more by a targeted proactive approach toward manifesting the kind of person you want to be, and much less toward obtaining specific results for specific situations. At one time, for most of my magical career it was the latter paradigm that I was focused on. It was a reactive approach I took, and I sometimes didn't understand why I needed to do it so much.

I think that as a person consciously changes his/her identity and figures out what s/he wants, the less there is a need for reactive acts of magic. Magic becomes a process, as opposed to an act. It becomes a way of life as opposed to a tool used to handle a situation. It becomes a conscious agreement with the universe about the pathv a person is taking through the universe, and becomes less of a stumbling around in the dark.

Of course that's my take on magic, in large part generated by very specific and targeted changes in my life, lifestyle choices, and overall focus. The change in my identity has so far been one of the most involved experiments I've done and has pretty much involved challenging every single assumption I've held about not only magic but all the other facets of my life. The uprooting it's caused in my life has been significant and yet that significance is based far more in taking such a proactive approach to identity, by recognizing what no longer worked and actively focusing on changing it, while discovering what definitely works and enhancing it.

When I finally get around to writing my next solo book, it will be interesting to see what I do with it...but I'm in no hurry on this one. I've already got so much going on and it's far more exciting to be living it.