Need A Boost Options

So, I have another favor to ask of the occult community at large.

I have made leaps and bounds from where I was at years ago, but it just isn't quite where I expected to be. I was hoping that you all could throw in some ideas for maximizing my current potential, such as rituals, mantras, circles, incense, a time and place to maximize my spiritual power, etc.

If you're not getting what I'm getting at, I'm saying I need something, no matter the time consumption, to allow me to see FULLY where I'm at.

Also, I generally test my power by concentrating energy between my hands. So any rituals or circles or mantras which you feel do wonders for spiritual "conductivity" or however you would go about saying it.

Vagrant,

Thank you for posting this, it is most helpful. I keep coming back, however, to look over this, hoping to better judge my progress. On some of your criteria I know I need to work on but others seem adequate. I am only guessing though as I simply have no other point to compare to, save how often a working of some kind produces a result and the quality of that result. I am not sure what the metric is for development in your system, or how to go about aligning the different parts so would you mind commenting on my answers?

One thing to look at energetically is your health. What are your negative habits, what kind of positive changes have you made - have you had the instinct to make positive health changes, and have you followed them?

I am plagued with asthma and sicknesses that lay others up for a day or two but will keep me under for a week. That being said my asthma seldom interferes with my life, or even running, and I only get sick one or twice a year.

How long can you remain motionless? Internally more so than externally, but both.

Physically, I can remain motionless or nearly so for about an hour and if I allow for a change in posture another thirty minutes. Mentally, well that is harder both to do and to tabulate because the time varies with the object of contemplation. With a totally blank mind I can last only 10min. If I am letting my mind settle on a topic, such as a deity vitalization, then 15 min is about my max. Settling on my own body gains me about 45 min. and a energetic meditation might last about an hour if I am lucky.

How long can you maintain a single pointed attention without wandering?

My stranded test for this is a watch, but I can only maintain concentration for a few seconds, I think my record is 30. When doing meditation on a energy center or when doing spells, about 20 and somewhat less than 15 respectfully.

Do you have fluctuating moods? Are you at the behest of emotions, or are you able to engage the ones you choose to?

My moods are very steady, but I cannot conjure them up without the most drawn out effort.

How often does your faith waiver? I don't mean religion - I mean your connection to a spiritual world of some sort. This is a measure of the health of your spirit.

Rarely, a month or two during a very stressful point in the last three years.

To what degree are you able to receive inspiration at will? This is one way to estimate the alignment of the spirit and the mind.

Sometimes in a great fit I will hit on inspiration, and sometimes even find it when I seek it, but both are rare and hard.

How are your reflexes, your ability to copy physical movements that you observe? If you want your body to do something, can you do it? This is a good measure of the mind-body connection.

Quick and nimble, I learn fast as well.

Create a ritual fetische by hand, make it complicated, and require that you work very fine details. Give yourself a specific restricted time frame to finish it to perfection. Phylacterys can be made, there are a million ways to do them, as an energy worker you may like this approach. It must be an object of beauty representative of your spirit - as you see it, or as you discover it in the process - wherein some of your blood is kept.

This is something I have not heard of before, would you mind speaking about it a little more? How does it improve its maker and what is its particular function.

This post has been edited by fatherjhon: Dec 19 2011, 02:50 PM

I don't really like to think of it as a system, quite, but I don't mind commenting. Keeping in mind, that it's a kind of rough outline - ultimately there is no solid litmus test to rely on, everyone is different and ultimately only your own spirit knows if you are at the appropriate stage of fulfilling your potential.

I am plagued with asthma and sicknesses that lay others up for a day or two but will keep me under for a week. That being said my asthma seldom interferes with my life, or even running, and I only get sick one or twice a year.

Though there are a myriad suggested methods to alleviate and even cure asthma, ultimately I think a distinction needs to be made between 'getting sick' and being unhealthy. When you are healthy, your body is vital and homeostasis experiences very little wobble. People who are unhealthy are sick on a constant basis, and are very subject to environmental changes affecting their health. So, these people get sick each season for no apparent reason, get sick when they move from one region to another, get sick if the weather is very different for a prolonged period (it rains for a week when this is not the norm for the region.) They are sensitive to a variety of foods and basically have trouble assimilating these various factors while maintaining homeostasis.

"Getting Sick" is not necessarily a sign of poor health - if something invades your body, part of the immune response is to eject it, burn it out, put you to sleep, etc. The unhealthy person is the one who does not experience these things, because their immune system isn't functioning the way it should. If you eat bad chicken, it is supposed to make you vomit. Your in trouble when it gets past the stomach and into the intestines where it can do damage. The same is true of other pathogens in different ways. When getting sick becomes being unhealthy, is when those pathogens are able to significantly disrupt homeostasis for prolonged periods or more importantly, too often.

I get sick once a year, same time every year, I can basically put it on my calendar plus or minus a week or two. I try to eat properly, but on some occasions I eat poorly and my body lets me know that this is not acceptable. The main thing you can do to be healthy is pay attention to your body's intrinsic intelligence, and don't take it for granted. Learn the difference between addiction and your body's request for specific nutrition. Breathe deeply and evenly as often as possible until it becomes a habit. I know that with asthma this can pose problems, but the more regularly you are able to maintain this, the less the asthma will bother you. I know this isn't news to you in your path, but food and breath are the keys to good health. Meditation will be easier, the mood will be lighter, and you will be more aware of your physical state.

Physically, I can remain motionless or nearly so for about an hour and if I allow for a change in posture another thirty minutes. Mentally, well that is harder both to do and to tabulate because the time varies with the object of contemplation. With a totally blank mind I can last only 10min. If I am letting my mind settle on a topic, such as a deity vitalization, then 15 min is about my max. Settling on my own body gains me about 45 min. and a energetic meditation might last about an hour if I am lucky.

The thing to use as the landmarker is the blank mind. And, a distinction again should be made between 'blank' and 'motionless'. The effort not to think, is motion in terms of mind. If you are able to remain motionless without effort, then 10 minutes is phenomenally advanced for your length of training if I recall correctly it's been about 3 years? Seems like that's about when I noticed you seemed to focus on meditation-type work, but we've both been here a long time. Anyway, determine for yourself if you are motionless with or without effort. It's a supremely difficult simple thing to do, not-doing. It is a measure of your ability to use your mind like a tool - when you are using it, it does what you want, and when you are not, or you choose to rest it, it is like a hammer laying on a table; completely still by no effort of it's own until you put your hand to it for use.

The other meditations are not really motionless, although they do require focus. Focus is a different thing. Though greater focus will not allow you a greater aptitude for motionlessness, approaching a mastery of motionlessness will benefit one's focus. However, a dynamic exercise of the mind is not really meditation, per say. We do use the word meditation somewhat freely, really it is better to think of it as an exercise, because like an exercise it is intended to benefit psychic and energetic 'muscles', whereas meditation benefits the psychic and energetic 'nervous system', if the allegory makes sense.

My stranded test for this is a watch, but I can only maintain concentration for a few seconds, I think my record is 30. When doing meditation on a energy center or when doing spells, about 20 and somewhat less than 15 respectfully.

30 is also good. It is better to practice with something that does not move, but adapting to something static is not a big leap. Internal single pointedness is ultimately more important, and carries over to single pointed gazing more so than the other way around. Perhaps because in either case it is the mind that is doing the gazing whether internally or externally. This is a related expression of psychic control to the motionless mind - to remain single pointed without effort, to fix the mind and have it stay there until you intentionally move it again. But it relates more to attention, which is a very important component to both psychic development and magic in general. So we have awareness and attention. Next part...

My moods are very steady, but I cannot conjure them up without the most drawn out effort.

I don't know how old you are, but you could be ahead of the curve. The younger brain is more difficult to control emotionally, and it just gets naturally more even-keeled over time chemically as the baseline hard wiring adapts around the mid to late twenties and pretty much stays wherever it settles after that. Better to develop emotional control When you're young for sure.

The emotional mind is of course continuous with the thinking mind, but it has a different nature; moods are like the tides of the ocean, and thoughts are like the things that live in the ocean. Choosing which emotion to feel, which mood to be in, is not entirely unlike controlling the tides, so it is pretty advanced internal work. There is a difference between entering into a mood and manufacturing an emotion. If you can conjure up a mood at all, then it will just be a matter of practice to do so as easily as breathing, though as with anything else there are likely to be plateaus and rest stops along the way.

One thing to remember, and this will advance your practice, is to not exclusively focus on positive moods. Remember that emotion is in the brain, a physical expression of a spiritual current. Your brain will be more flexible overall if you experience the full spectrum of emotion intentionally. Be angry, be sad, be fearful, as well as compassionate, serene, happy, etc. The more you explore intentionally, the less these moods will disrupt your thinking when they occur spontaneously. To merge emotion and intellect is, I feel, a great and worthy task - even when we are happy we should be able, should we choose, to think with clarity, just as much as we should be able to do so when we are angry. I don't feel that emotion should be tightly controlled, so much as more easily navigated. None the less, if it is inconvenient to feel a particular way at a particular time, then we should be able to intentionally change our mood to suit without repressing ourselves in the bargain. So, be mindful of the difference. One is a flimsy mask, the other is transmutation. Awareness, attention, and emotion make up the core of the basic psychic skills necessary to carry out any kind of magic under any circumstances. Everyone has a strong point and a weak point, and all are capable of being trained independently although training one improves the others. If desire and intention are the colors, these three are the paintbrushes we use to paint them on the canvas of our reality. Energy plays into this as well, but as these three tools are developed we have access to greater amounts of energy. Really, I suppose one could say, our access to energy is limitless, our ability to access it is what limits us.

Rarely, a month or two during a very stressful point in the last three years.

Some people have faith that waivers constantly, and are never really able to muster enough faith to take chances on it. Most people are this way. Faith is something that for most people is largely passive - they assume there is something "out there" but have very little concern of attention to give "it" whatever they think "it" is. Really, that faith doesn't have to be in a divine principle, faith in anything is faith all the same, and it is a spiritual action. Strong faith equates a strong spirit, whether it's faith in god, the force, a cause, even one's own self or humanity. Faith grants us purpose, and purpose is the domain of the Spirit.

Sometimes in a great fit I will hit on inspiration, and sometimes even find it when I seek it, but both are rare and hard.

So this is another thing to examine. Spiritual awareness is not the same thing as Psychic awareness. Where as the mind collects objects (concepts, sensations, etc.) and puts them together in interesting ways, the Spirit-Mind actually creates new thoughts, or rather, aligns us with 'new' thoughts. The connection between the Spirit-Mind and the Brain-Mind is what allows us to draw those True thoughts down into our psychic awareness as new material to work with. It is this same faculty that allows us to observe new experiences and recognize their unity, which is the principle that allows us to put discrete objects together to create something new - inspiration.

Summoning inspiration at will is a matter of allowing. We can, from our 'level', experience the Spirit Mind, but we can't direct it until we transcend - it is the Spirit Mind that does the directing, and until we are able to raise ourselves up to a union with that aspect of ourselves this is immutable - a puppet will never direct the puppeteer. So, instead one must passively accept and, in a sense, inhale that awareness to stimulate inspiration. The trick is in the flexibility of the thought process. Allow for apparent randomness; observe and possibly record, but don't interrupt or try to grasp it. At first it won't make sense. Direct one's attention towards the spiritual center, and 'listen' quietly until the information begins to coalesce. Different, I should say, wavelengths, of inspiration will come from the chakras, for instance, but we have to look past the 'energy' element and through to the other side. The energy system is a bit like the stitching that keeps the Spirit and Body together - they are less discrete than this sounds, but it's an appropriate allegory to understand 'where' you're looking. With a background in chakra work, it can be easy to get distracted by the energetic element and not take it any further than that because it is decidedly more tangible.

Quick and nimble, I learn fast as well.

If I recall, you're a martial artist as well. So, not unexpected. Such people are drawn to dance, martial arts, etc., and those that involve themselves so usually develop a better mind-body connection.

This is something I have not heard of before, would you mind speaking about it a little more? How does it improve its maker and what is its particular function.

The purpose of a personal fetische or phylactery is to act much the same way that a person might make a poppet, or "voodoo doll". The connection will be far more personal and direct. The act of making one should be a practice of Art and personal investment. After it is made, it can serve as a ritual tool, or as a connection to one's Spirit through which particular requests and communication can be made. At it's extreme, it's considered a repository for the Spirit, such that the individual is anchored to this world upon death, presumably to continue to function. Having not died, yet, I can't speak for that extreme. But if you're familiar with the concept that a personal object retains impressions of the person to whom it belongs, take this to a vastly greater degree of efficacy. The difference between this and, say, a ritual wand or stave or other tool, is that it's purpose is to reflect the very essence and spirit of the practitioner rather than some specific face or a connection to an element. It is also the traditionally most secretive of tools. Not that we're usually in danger of magical attack, but should another magician who wishes you harm get a hold of it, then you're basically screwed.

As to some of it's purposes, there are potentially many. Should you, for instance, craft a phylactery and then place this object in a position of spiritual protection, you are by extent protected. Such objects are kept in special places of power. An object of this nature enshrined secretly at a place of power - ideally, of course, not a heavily travelled or 'picked-over' place! - grants one an intimate connection to the power that is there. One might place the object in a maze of sorts to confound those who seek one out. There was a time, perhaps, when it was known that a shaman or witch might have such an object and another one might go to some length to discover it and take control of it, but people by and large just don't think that way anymore. That said, it is very much a double edged sword. If you've ever destroyed a ritual object of very real and deal significance, and experienced the loss and release of that object's collected psychic weight, the loss or destruction of one's phylactery/fetische is a great deal worse, by several magnitudes. So it isn't a thing to do lightly.

It's inherent value to improve a person? The act of creation itself in this case becomes a matter of deep self reflection and discovery. You cannot make a phylactery casually, even as casually as one might make other objects. You cannot simply buy something pretty and identify with it, and there is no blueprint for what it must be. It could be a little box, it could be a carving, a piece of clothing, or a house. What is important in this case is that the practitioner reflect, discover, and very carefully and patiently construct the object personally. I am not sure it is something one can simply decide to do one day, either - it may be that it requires a degree of self-awareness, faith, and gravity to invest the necessary personal effort and consideration as well as spiritual power into the object.

As an example of it's value, however, a person with a ritually protected Phylactery is essentially psychically and spiritually impervious to uninvited harm. Perhaps especially 'lucky' or physically impervious to, again, uninvited, harm as well.

Hopefully this offers a little more insight into what I mean by these things. And, a lot of this is information available across a wide variety of traditions so although I take credit for understanding it, it isn't quite my own system/invention so much as cobbled together from experiences with different paths. I do think that as a skeleton it lends itself to be a good foundation upon which to hang the muscle, sinew, and organs of most other esoteric systems concerned with psychic/spiritual/magical power.

peace

The thing to use as the landmarker is the blank mind. And, a distinction again should be made between 'blank' and 'motionless'. The effort not to think, is motion in terms of mind. Anyway, determine for yourself if you are motionless with or without effort. It is a measure of your ability to use your mind like a tool - when you are using it, it does what you want, and when you are not, or you choose to rest it, it is like a hammer laying on a table; completely still by no effort of it's own until you put your hand to it for use.

The other meditations are not really motionless, although they do require focus. Focus is a different thing. Though greater focus will not allow you a greater aptitude for motionlessness, approaching a mastery of motionlessness will benefit one's focus.

That is a very fine distinction. However, one I have run across before in its Taoist form. About a year ago I was able to sit “abiding stillness” for several minutes. Most of the time, I need effort to keep a blank mind. Thank you for pointing out this distinction; it seems I was going about it backwards. I had thought focus led to motionlessness.

Summoning inspiration at will is a matter of allowing. We can, from our 'level', experience the Spirit Mind, but we can't direct it until we transcend - it is the Spirit Mind that does the directing, and until we are able to raise ourselves up to a union with that aspect of ourselves this is immutable - a puppet will never direct the puppeteer.

I get that inspiration comes from spirit which communicates to us insight for us to use. I am less clear in the puppet analogy. From what I have learned, the spirit yields to whims from the mind and to avoid issues arising from that unenlightened activity one must actively yield to the spirit.