I have had a problem whit starting out a dayly study rythem, faimling in keeping it up, starting over, writing things up in a new note book, failing, and so on and so on. Now I have a bunch of half written note books whit magickal notes and I feel in a way theese testaments to my failiures is holding me back from getting going whit a dayly study rythem. I have been considering burning the old note books as a clensing ritual, but I am hesitent as there is so mutch information aboute rituals and exersises I have done there. Do any of you have any advice aboute what I should do?

Yo :-) Greetings to the forum. just read your intro :-).



Coming to your question, i would like to state that since i have been working with magick, i never kept a sort of written note or magical diary. Initially i had lots of failures too but as time went, i started having success and the success rate was quite good. But eventually as i aint got any diary, i tend to forget my sucesses and what stays in my mind are only the failures.

So ultimately this had several negative influences on my progress which brother Ashnook, Smasher and seraphim, of the Lodge of Enki, would testify.

So i guess even if you are having failures, still keep note of the rituals. and also keep note of stuffs that happen but are not routine stuffs. like if you just did a spell and as soon as you look up, you see a shooting star. Take note of those minor conspicuous details too. like seeing for a blink of an eye a shadow pass by.... And most important keep note of your successes.



You would then be able to consult your diary when times come that you start doubting your magical powers etc....



Trust me. I have gone through rough times focusing on my failures only and not taking account of my successes as i forget them or minimize their importance and this even made me doubt on the spirits and that what i hear is only my mind and imagination etc etc...





Be blessed. Hope this helped. i know it did ;-)



mystick.

Thank you for the wlecome and for the answer. I have also considerd just scannin all my book into the computer and make a database of the information there, then I can get rid of the loads and loads of note books cluttering up my life and still keep the information.

My advice is to buy two good blank books and compile the good stuff into them, and then throw all the other crap away. It's a lot of work, but losing everything usually isn't good. I do know the feeling. I'm just about through a blank book and it's one of very few that I have finished. I can't wait to buy another one, there isn't anything like starting a new magical diary. My advice is not to save too much, and keep what your intuition says is necessary.

Piles of notebooks can get thumbed through, and even if you're practicing Mercy Pillar magic you can get your ass in trouble. If someone read my notebooks, I'd get a reputation, and unfortunately, even someone not on the Pillar of Severity usually does too. That's my recommendation. Take your time transferring them, and get yourself a place to put all the notebooks that are lying around for when people come over. Secrecy is essential to both Pillars of magic.

Thank you for the advice. Yesh here the other day a frind of mine picked up one of my books and I could see he wanted to open it, but he must have seen the look on my face and put the book back down. It is wery private information in my magickal note books and I dont want anyone reading them but me and those I give spesific premission.

Agreed. Magical diaries are very important too. Don't worry about making them perfect. I've had all these ideas about learning calligraphy to do them, but honestly, what's in them is only important to me. I destroy them eventually, because I have no further need for them. Just went through a period of doing that, all my archives and everything are gone. I'm doing another one right now, but it doesn't really matter all that much.

I guess you are right aboute that that they dont need to be perfect, I have a tendency to be a perfectionalist though so I often feel I should have done better than I did.

still its kool to aim being a perfectionalist. its a real powerful statement. Sages have spent a lifetime to simply be come perfectionalist in certain power.. e.g levitation.

But do know that you need not do something to perfection to get 100% success. you can still do something 60% of your capacity or resource and still be 100% successful. So no worry about perfectionalism friend.



Mystick

It is just so hard for me somtimes to acept to not be perfect that I often stop doing a thing when it is only 80 persent or 60 percent, witch is a shame as one can not be perfect all the time. But I am working on inproving.

I used to want it all to be perfectly written up and neat and orderly when I started, but you end up with lots of stuff you don't need, so now I jot things down on the back of an envelope and after I get a small collection of these odd scraps, I write or type them up and cut out the dead wood.

I learned that most of the things you will never need or even read again, but if you just pick out the really good bits, you then end up with a quality journal or personal grimoire.


Having said that, I have been at it for a few years now and I am journalling even less and just picking out the highlights now, thank goodness for the computer and the ability to edit (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

What a computer it might be more easy to serch for the information I am looking for also, the only concern I have aboute putting my notes on a computer is how easy it is for others to acsess through the internett. Now I dont think I would be interesting ehough to anyone for somone to activly try to brake into my computer and read my notes, but as they say your computer is hacked every 20 minutes, there are 14 year olds out there for example whit nothing better to do than brake in and mess whit other pepoles stuff. The solution ofcourse would be to have a computer that was not conected to the net, it is not expensive to for example get a second hand pentium 3, but it do take up space whit such and exstra computer.

i've pared down so much going minimal that i have no books except a couple of really old sci-fi stories and an old book of poetry i found

i keep all my reference stuff on cd-rom and dvd-rom labeled 'inventory backup' stuck in the old book of poetry

thus,

it dosen't get messed with by my roommate/partner

nobody knows what it is but me

you only need it every now and then when you have to look something up and you can't get it here in the esoteric library or somewhere else on the internet

for daily stuff (and i do a lot of daily stuff) - i keep a 'dream diary' on the computer in a password-protecteded database labeled 'copiers'

i only write down the stuff that works so i can remember exactly what i did right, not the stuff (and there's alot of it) that goes wrong

plan it, buid it, do it, write it down if it works

e.

patience isnt a virtue, its a neccessity

This post has been edited by esoterica: Nov 25 2006, 12:03 PM