Mitigating The Effects Of Mercury Retrogrades Options

It's some time after the end of Mercury's Retrograde, and I feel like I just put back together everything that fell apart, when someone says there are two more this year. The first retrograde seems to have shaved off 20 points from my IQ. Mercury rules my birth sign so I get hit rather hard. Mercury Retrogrades seems to be times where the mind misses things. What it misses relates to the sign its in at the time, they also bring things from the past back or just sends whatever you’re trying to do back to where it started.

Assuming others have had some trouble from Mercury in the past, what ways did you uses to counter these effects?

Planetary magick is a little out of my realm so I'm not even sure what kind of magick could counter its effects.


This post has been edited by fatherjhon: Apr 25 2013, 02:16 PM

It's some time after the end of Mercury's Retrograde, and I feel like I just put back together everything that fell apart, when someone says there are two more this year. The first retrograde seems to have shaved off 20 points from my IQ. Mercury rules my birth sign so I get hit rather hard. Mercury Retrogrades seems to be times where the mind misses things. What it misses relates to the sign its in at the time, they also bring things from the past back or just sends whatever you’re trying to do back to where it started.

Assuming others have had some trouble from Mercury in the past, what ways did you uses to counter these effects?

Planetary magick is a little out of my realm so I'm not even sure what kind of magick could counter its effects.

I have a talisman made during mercury's highest point that I keep in a little brass box until the retrograde. I meant to make more of them a little while ago but things took off at work and I ended up without the time to do so - rather, I should say I didn't set aside the time to do so.

But the process isn't difficult. Pick the time when mercury is at its strongest (or the best you can get in the time you want, anyway), and engrave a bit of brass (some say pewter is okay as well and pewter is easier to engrave, or for that matter you can cast pewter on a stove safely) on one side with the names and symbols of mercury, and on the other with the specific symbols of mercury in it's strongest place. Just about every tradition has some astrological associations, so you can do this while sticking with the taoist magical current, I believe, if you do a little research. It's not a tradition I'm intimately familiar with so off the top of my head I coudn't say.

But with talismans, the basic idea is simply that the object reflects both the fundamental nature of the force you wish to invoke with it, and the state you wish that force to be in. The brass box is entirely a matter of personal choice, I keep most of my objects in special places.

Another option that could be a little more feasible if working with metal or some such (you can use parchment as well I imagine, with orange ink, for instance, but I personally find that the work that goes into the object helps to focus my own mind on the nature and outcome of the task), would be a kind of charm bag. Again at a time when mercury is strong you might assemble a small pouch and place in it 8 items associated with the positive qualities of mercury. Make the bag orange or white for the color correspondence - the Taoist tradition may have a different association, though - and place perhaps a bit of brass, anise stars, a small vial of mercury (could be dangerous, so, you know, choices), and so on, and 'feed' the bag with some kind of oil associated with mercury, or a fluid condenser prepared for the purpose. Each element that goes into the bag should be appropriately consecrated and the process should be ritualized in some way. With planetary bags I like to write a little invocation of so many lines - in this case, 8 lines - spoken as the objects go in.

A less ritualized method would be invocations to mercury, burning incense as offerings to the spirits of mercury with the request that they mitigate the retrograde nature of that energy while it is in effect. Meditation on the nature of mercury at it's strong point and drawing that energy in and down the way you would elemental energies is a realistic option - you could imagine collecting that energy and storing it (if you have a fluid conception of energy) or familiarizing yourself with it's signature and vibration, to then bolster yourself later during retrogrades.

You could, during a high point again, create a spirit bottle or shrine, and offer it as a home to a spirit of mercury, with the agreement that this spirit recieves offerings on a regular basis in exchange for its general assistance and especially for it's protection during retrogrades.

So there are options, lots of options. The important thing in any of them, in my own opinion and practice at least, is that the work you do is associated with mercury in a strong position.

Mercury rules the majority of my chart. Retrogrades used to pummel me from head to toe. My altar space is full of mercury magic.

peace

So there are options, lots of options. The important thing in any of them, in my own opinion and practice at least, is that the work you do is associated with mercury in a strong position. But with talismans, the basic idea is simply that the object reflects both the fundamental nature of the force you wish to invoke with it, and the state you wish that force to be in.

Just about every tradition has some astrological associations, so you can do this while sticking with the taoist magical current, I believe, if you do a little research....

There are, indeed, a lot of options. I did think to create a talisman, well I first thought to buy one but your site vanished. My ignorance as to what a retrograde energetically represents stopped me from making one myself. I assumed that a retrograde was when the influence of a planet switched polarity and did the opposite of its normal function. I could not think of a way to change the energy back to normal so to speak. But you put a lot of emphasis on high points, dignity I assume, for mercury; am I to take it that a retrograde is more of an absents of energy than a qualitative change therein?

Taoism has planetary magick, but it is just about the last thing you learn. It is an accumulative system starting from mineral magick and then in incorporating plant, animal, divination, fun shui, Qigong, weather, shen gong, spirits, then planets (both as energy and as gods) and then gods of the 'higher heavens'. Each level is necessary for the next. Only made it to shen gong thus far.

I like the idea of meditation on the nature of mercury at it's strong point and familiarizing yourself with it's signature and vibration, to then bolstering yourself later during retrogrades. It fits into my qigong practice very well. I will have to think about how this is done. Whenever I am exposed to a new energy it is always in the context of very particular qigong and described as texture, colour, etc. I suppose that by closing a circle at the right time I could pick up on the dominant energy provided I can find enough correspondence.

There are, indeed, a lot of options. I did think to create a talisman, well I first thought to buy one but your site vanished. My ignorance as to what a retrograde energetically represents stopped me from making one myself. I assumed that a retrograde was when the influence of a planet switched polarity and did the opposite of its normal function. I could not think of a way to change the energy back to normal so to speak. But you put a lot of emphasis on high points, dignity I assume, for mercury; am I to take it that a retrograde is more of an absents of energy than a qualitative change therein?

Yes, I got swamped with work and wanted to continue the site but couldn't continue to take on new projects after the clinic hit critical mass as well. I may revisit it when I withdraw from the clinic - I'm training good people to take over and it's about time for me to get out of Georgia again and put down roots somewhere I want to be.

Retrograde energies represent a kind of 'undoing' so polarity is a way to think of it. You could imagine coasting comfortably along a highway when suddenly the emergency brake engages or the transmission gets thrown into reverse - reacting poorly might damage the car. Maybe that's a poor analogy though...

The purpose of collecting the impression of mercury at it's most dignified moment, or a more dignified moment depending on the timing available, is so that when mercury retrogrades you can be connected to a higher pattern of mercurial energy. That is, the influences of the planets at our level work according to the physical manifestation of a higher plane of operation into this lower one. However, in that higher plane of operation those energies are always in a state of potentiality. Imagine the sphere passing through a flat plane; we see a dot, then a circle that grows larger and larger and then shrinks back down to a point before disappearing. The whole sphere is still there all the time, but our perception of it is limited to whatever state of contact it is in with our more limited plane. Hopefully that makes some sense.

At each point in the cycle, different combinations of energies express themselves into this plane and we take advantage of that contact to create a connection to a particular current - then when the pattern is no longer physically manifested, we still have access to it because it still exists, it just isn't in contact with this plane in the same way. I really wish I had better skill at animating, because the picture in my mind is something I think i could express visually. Hopefully you can conceptualize based on what I can describe. It's a model, of course, not the model, but it's a good one.

In summary, it's not so much changing the energy back to normal as it is getting a line in to a better state and bringing that down to countermand the lower pattern - higher patterns always trump lower ones. In fact, it is possible to go up into whatever pattern you want to connect to and draw it down at any time, provided you can navigate there. This method is more complicated and requires the ability to go there, but for instance it can be done during astral projection, or some of the governing spirits of that sphere can assist and so on. Ultimately we are able to transcend lower planes and adopt the influence of higher ones under any circumstances, but of course it's a matter of skill and experience and perhaps even spiritual advancement. I haven't done this myself, I only know that it is the purview of adepts.

Taoism has planetary magick, but it is just about the last thing you learn. It is an accumulative system starting from mineral magick and then in incorporating plant, animal, divination, fun shui, Qigong, weather, shen gong, spirits, then planets (both as energy and as gods) and then gods of the 'higher heavens'. Each level is necessary for the next. Only made it to shen gong thus far.

I know you've been asked on this forum before but I would really like to explore taoist magic. So far the resources I've been able to get haven't really expounded upon these various levels, and approach a more general piecemeal 'spread' of the subject. I have a book called 'the taoist spellbook' or some such, that I read some time ago and it didn't seem to really express a genuine doctrine of taoist magic so much as it did someone's idea of what taoist magic would be like, if that makes sense. Written from assumption rather than experience.

I like the idea of meditation on the nature of mercury at it's strong point and familiarizing yourself with it's signature and vibration, to then bolstering yourself later during retrogrades. It fits into my qigong practice very well. I will have to think about how this is done. Whenever I am exposed to a new energy it is always in the context of very particular qigong and described as texture, colour, etc. I suppose that by closing a circle at the right time I could pick up on the dominant energy provided I can find enough correspondence.

Well, you might look at the skies for the next little while and figure where mercury will reach such a beneficial point - especially according to the taoist doctrine. Mercury moves very quickly, but find that moment and plan to begin meditation around and hour before it is officially in that position, follow the energy up to it's peak - having made sufficient contact during it's rise to that apex - familiarize yourself with the energy at the peak and then, if you are so inclined, even utilize that moment to try and express yourself through that 'window' as it were, into the mercurial current. Once you've made contact, you can create any kind of anchor you want. Lately during hypnotherapy sessions i've been taking clients into themselves to find the places where their ideal states exist - states of excellence, confidence, personal power, relaxation, etc. - and guiding them to discover the secret name of that place. It has been wildly successful with every client that has allowed me to experiment in this way.

Here is what I think of the concept in connection to astrological currents.

We react as we do on our lower level because as the currents are expressed in the macrocosm, the heavens, so are the reflected in our microcosm. So when there is, for instance, a retrograde current being expressed in the heavens, a similar current is expressed in our own energy - our own personal cosmos, perhaps the unconscious mind or the mental/emotional body, etc. Should you go inward and experience that current, whether you use it as a bridge into the heavenly current or not, you may be able to ascertain the name of mercury in that moment. Or, the word or mudra or whatever the connection may be for you.

So, when I take a client under for, say, creating a connection to their personal power that they can access at any time, I first take them deep down until they experience significant time dilation (I ask if they know how long they have been under and they tell me something like "an hour," or "I don't know, a long time" or some such, people sometimes say really odd things in state) and then guide them to allow their unconscious to represent to them as a landscape their state of personal power, like will power or personal responsibility, etc. It's vague enough that everyone can identify for themselves what it is and we do it before moving on to particular states like confidence or courage. When they fully inhabit the landscape and find that central locale where they can identify their personal power, we build up the state until they can feel it resonating from the very core of themselves. At that point, I give the suggestion that they will hear a word repeated over and over again from within that resonance, that this is the secret name of the place and that if they can grasp the name they can always access this state at any time.

No one so far has not heard the name, and it's always different - sometimes really simple and sometimes very complex. For only one person was it her own name and I haven't decided what I think that means yet, but have some ideas. Anyway, my point in telling the story is that you can access this current internally as well as externally, anchor it to a particular word, action, or process, and then thereafter recall that state using the anchor. The internal state will reflect the external current, so you can go within and find the expression of the mercury current internally, observe how it changes as mercury moves into it's strong point, and use that experience to countermand the retrograde current by taking control over the internal state when necessary. We can see it as merely psychological in nature, or we can see the psychological process as representative of energetic activity. Either way is perfectly acceptable and works just as well as the other. So in considering how to approach the process through qigong, there's some bit of technique that you might have an appropriate corollary to.

peace

It's not so much changing the energy back to normal as it is getting a line in to a better state and to ... countermand the lower pattern - higher patterns always trump lower ones. The purpose of collecting the impression of mercury at it's most dignified moment... is so that when mercury retrogrades you can be connected to a higher pattern of mercurial energy. At each point in the cycle, different combinations of energies express themselves into this plane and... when the pattern is no longer physically manifested, we still have access to it.

There is a close counterpart in Indian Tantra; everything is in potential manifests, when conditions are ripe, then it becomes manifest when it is no longer useful it passes back in to unmanifest form. Overriding the one pattern with a higher one is a new thought for me though. Can it work for any planet, or energy for that matter? In chigong it is said that subtler energy pervades the grosser ones. I never had much context for that though.

We react as we do on our lower level because as the currents are expressed in the macrocosm, the heavens, so are the reflected in our microcosm. Should you go inward and experience that current, whether you use it as a bridge into the heavenly current or not, you may be able to ascertain the name of mercury in that moment. Mercury moves very quickly, but find that moment [of dignity] and plan to begin meditation around and hour before it is officially in that position, follow the energy up to it's peak - having made sufficient contact during it's rise to that apex - familiarize yourself with the energy at the peak and then, if you are so inclined, even utilize that moment to try and express yourself through that 'window' as it were, into the mercurial current.

That is the way Rishis are said to have discovered mantras. I follow everything up to "express yourself". I get the basic idea, but I was hoping for physical singes that the energy is present, where it originates in the body, where it moves to, the texture, etc. I don't think it will be much of a problem to find the energy emanating from the planet but it might take three or four attempts to get a workable knowledge of it.

Lately during hypnotherapy sessions I've been taking clients to find the places where their ideal states of excellence, confidence, personal power, relaxation, etc. [are]- and guiding them to discover the secret name of that place. I give the suggestion that they will hear a word repeated over and over again from within that resonance, that this is the secret name of the place and that if they can grasp the name they can always access this state at any time. No one so far has not heard the name, and it's always different - sometimes really simple and sometimes very complex.

If I remember correctly the mantra of an object will always be complex when the ideas are complex. You can read intellectual for complex or even shallow. Simple mantras arise when the inner essence is contemplated. The more simple the mantra the more concentrated its shiakti (ability to change) is. I am rather shocked that this is happening with people who are not advanced mediators. The Yoga Sutras state that a type of samadhi where one contemplates, concentrates, meditates, then practices samadhi on many different aspects of the object. It is a very advanced stage of meditation. Even just to get the sound of the thought of the object takes a quite a few months of diligent meditation.

I know you've been asked on this forum before but I would really like to explore taoist magic.

I wrote a short primer on Taoist magick here.

There is a close counterpart in Indian Tantra; everything is in potential manifests, when conditions are ripe, then it becomes manifest when it is no longer useful it passes back in to unmanifest form. Overriding the one pattern with a higher one is a new thought for me though. Can it work for any planet, or energy for that matter? In chigong it is said that subtler energy pervades the grosser ones. I never had much context for that though.

The short answer is yes - everything has a subtle, unpotentiated energy. That higher energy is the subtler energy, while the manifested energy is the grosser. All energies are this way, everything comes from the unmanifest into the manifest.

That is the way Rishis are said to have discovered mantras. I follow everything up to "express yourself". I get the basic idea, but I was hoping for physical singes that the energy is present, where it originates in the body, where it moves to, the texture, etc. I don't think it will be much of a problem to find the energy emanating from the planet but it might take three or four attempts to get a workable knowledge of it.

There are a few different schemes regarding the origins of planetary energies in the body. Mercury is commonly associated with the brain, central nervous system, thyroid gland, five senses, hands, at least in western medical astrology. The taoist sciences may have a different association but it seems to be that there are meridians likely associated with these same areas. I'm not precisely sure if that's what you're asking. Drawing on the energy of mercury for me feels... kind of like a spinning fluid, if that makes sense. If you were to have a sphere of viscous water that was spinning very fast but not flying apart from the force... rather, turning that force inward, that is what mercury feels like to me. I feel it physically in the upper spine as a very fine vibration, right around maybe T3-T4, if you can manage to create a tone at around, I'd guess, 350 to 450 hz - I know it's a wide range, i'm kind of estimating here - it's in that range of sound mentally. It seems to create a rushing feeling in the back of the head from that area on the spine, like a tide very quickly coming in and out, never passing beyond the occipital region.

But, that's my own experience with the energy. So much is subjective and much of that is because if you drop blue fluid into red fluid you will get purple fluid... if you drop it into yellow fluid you will get greet fluid... make sense?

If I remember correctly the mantra of an object will always be complex when the ideas are complex. You can read intellectual for complex or even shallow. Simple mantras arise when the inner essence is contemplated. The more simple the mantra the more concentrated its shiakti (ability to change) is. I am rather shocked that this is happening with people who are not advanced mediators. The Yoga Sutras state that a type of samadhi where one contemplates, concentrates, meditates, then practices samadhi on many different aspects of the object. It is a very advanced stage of meditation. Even just to get the sound of the thought of the object takes a quite a few months of diligent meditation.

I've been pondering this. During hypnosis, the subject must agree, on some level, to give up 'control' to the hypnotist. In doing so I think that they are alleviated from some of their own limitations - after all, it is the limitations that they cling to that prevent the from becoming who they want to be, whether that is confident, self-empowered, grateful, etc. During meditation on their own, a subject would have to rely on their own concentration, diligence, etc. Maybe those things are lacking in them, though. During hypnosis, the mind is in a state of abeyance - the consciousness goes to 'sleep' in a kind of dreamstate, opening the path to the unconscious. From there, working inside the unconscious mind, I can bring the conscious awareness to a very single pointed attention, quiet the thoughts, create a state of pure awareness with no thought at all, etc., because if you give the unconscious mind the instructions, it can control all of these things. It's said that spiritual masters can assist a student in meditation in a similar way... maybe it is all just hypnotism. Well, to say 'just' hypnotism, I mean only that there are many things that human culture has practiced that were hypnotic modalities. We only developed the word hypnosis in very recent history.

In those cultures, a common person probably couldn't hypnotize someone else under the assumption that they are going to reach some deep state of mystical meditation - unconsciously the subject has an understanding that 'only a spiritually advanced person can do that'. So, it will have defenses and may not go to those places even if the person does relax those defenses. However, in our culture that is not a part of the 'base code' for the unconscious mind. They don't know any better, basically, and so lack the state of expectation that someone in, for instance, hindu culture might have.

It's just postulation. However, I think that there is a much more active psycho-dynamic going on in many spiritual experiences than is commonly thought. That is basically the premise of transpersonal psychology. The mind and spirit are part of the same continuum - it may be that the unconscious mind is on the subtler end of the mental spectrum gradiating into the spiritual self. By working there to open up pathways to spiritual states, I do believe it is entirely possible to generate specific spiritual experiences under hypnosis. Luckily, I have several spiritually minded clients who are excited to experiment. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Now if only I could find an excellent experimental hypnotherapist near me. I get along fine on my own, but I'm having to work very hard to condition myself to go under using audio recordings.

Speaking of, however, as I develop these techniques for use in my own clinic, I'm gradually putting together a program that i'll upload here eventually. It's different listening to audio than it is being in the office in person, but with proper conditioning the experience can be just as effective.

peace

Now if only I could find an excellent experimental hypnotherapist near me. I get along fine on my own, but I'm having to work very hard to condition myself to go under using audio recordings.

I've been having this same problem. May I ask how you've been getting around it? At the moment I'm thinking of altering the sound of my voice in the recordings, because that might change my perception of who the hypnotist is. What's been helpful to me is just using brainwave entrainment for a good while before the script begins, as that often puts me under without even using an induction. I think that the big problem is knowing what's in the script, as that leads to anticipation of what's going to be said.

(Sorry this is a bit off topic)

This post has been edited by Green Lantern: May 10 2013, 03:08 AM

I've been having this same problem. May I ask how you've been getting around it? At the moment I'm thinking of altering the sound of my voice in the recordings, because that might change my perception of who the hypnotist is. What's been helpful to me is just using brainwave entrainment for a good while before the script begins, as that often puts me under without even using an induction. I think that the big problem is knowing what's in the script, as that leads to anticipation of what's going to be said.

(Sorry this is a bit off topic)

The key to it is repetition. I made a track that includes a primer, and induction, a post hypnotic suggestion to re-hypnosis, and then about ten minutes of reactional conditioning to reinforce the suggestion. I listen to it every couple of days around the same time. At this point I can put myself deep enough that I experience significant time dilation and about 75% amnesia which is indicative of third stage somnambulism.

Other things that are helpful are to lead yourself into counting yourself down and up. So when you begin the count down, tell yourself, record the instructions that is, to count down out loud with you, including the trigger for rehypnosis, which for me is simply 'deep sleep'. It can be anything hypothetically, but ideally should be associated with going into hypnosis in some way. Then give yourself instructions to count yourself out as well.

This makes you more comfortable listening to your own suggestions because you're conditioning yourself to become suggestible to yourself. After a couple of weeks of solid, regular conditioning, you can create just about any hypnosis track you want, but of course the limitation inherent in it is that you can't ask yourself for feedback and navigate based on what you are experiencing. So, I put very little space in my recordings and always give myself the suggestion during quiet periods where something is intended to be accomplished that I can experience as much time as I need to in the next three minutes, five minutes, etc., to accomplish whatever task. You have to be pretty deep for it to work effectively, but when you tell yourself that you have this much time to take as much time as you need, at the right depth you'll experience all the time you need regardless of what time frame you actually have. Time dilation is a sign of second and third stage somnambulism, so you should have already conditioned yourself to get there.

Counting yourself out also allows you to take some control from within the experience if necessary. If a client goes into an emotional fit during hypnotherapy, I can always count them out if it looks like they are under too much stress so that we can go back in under safer conditions. Working on yourself, there's the possibility of actually encountering those rough patches but not being able to really identify that it is happening and come out of it. It's not that you can get stuck, and you can wake yourself up anytime just by not wanting to be in it anymore, but that will make it difficult to reach that depth again later on. So the best is to give yourself a kind of 'exit door' if you will, and this keeps everything nice and tidy upstairs.

peace