Death/rebirth Ritual Options

If this is in the wrong thread I apologize.
Firstly, I would like to say that I am not a magician but I do believe in magic as something profound, powerful and generally positive. Only when its approached or practiced wrong does is lead to disaster so I would like to get this right.
I have become a person who fails all to often in making the "correct" choices and I have become very short sighted, unable to see beyond the day I'm in. This person I am right now, with all the thoughts and actions cannot go on unless I wish to be a homeless, hopeless mess. I believe its never to late to change but for any real change to take place I'm going to need a lot of energy, something I am lacking.
There is a part of me, within me, that's crying out to fix up, to ditch this wasted persona I have attained and its getting stronger as everyday goes by where I make childish mistakes one after another, which is why I am now writing this in hope of some guidance.
I wish for this person I am to die and for a better me to finally, deservedly have its chance at leading the way. I wish for something profound, powerful and positive to come through.
I know Rome wasn't built in a day and I do not expect to become a new person instantly, it will take time. What I was thinking is, tonight when everyone is sleeping and I am free from disruptions, to embrace all that I am right now, all that has led up to me being who I am at this point, assessing myself and becoming aware of what it is that's hindering my growth and bringing me to my knees. Once I am engrossed in all that I am, to then sink into the void within, taking this person along into dispersion. I understand there could be dangers in doing so, to disperse ones personality, ones livelihood, which is why I'm hoping for some guidance in allowing my True Self through in place of the dispersed persona.
Please be honest, is this worth the risk of losing myself completely? Should I just be trapped in a life I do not wish to live and except my fate or should I confront and destroy this impostor?
P.S. While looking about I came to find that what I am looking for is akin to initiation. Any information on this would be much appreciated.
Kind regards.

This post has been edited by al_zaine: May 9 2010, 02:22 PM

Hey~

For a start, the best way is to taste the suffering from the fruits of your labor. Know exactly how painful is painful, and know what it's like to have to worry about walking around with half an arm and no food at all for three days et cetera.

One problem I've tackled with is that magick will not supplement for the following: social skills, motivation, competence, intelligence, general talent, and actually being able to get things done.

As an alternative, I'd look into psychiatry. It really isn't that ridiculous and horrible; most competant therapists won't label us as psychotics, and/or prescribe us with things like Lithium or Prozac on a spur of the moment. Unless if you've been having impulses such as you know, wanting to violate small animals and kill children, then that's a problem.

Most people aren't happy with their own emotional system and it chafes and brushes against themselves and the world outside. Getting that system straightened out nearly takes the point out of sorcery: you find happiness in front of you (usually, that is)

I suggest you need a period of introspection. Combine beginner mindfulness meditation techniques to loosen the grips of the subconscious mind and write nightly in a journal before bed. Also pay special attention to any dreams you may have.

The goal here is to slowly strip the layers away like an onion and discover the root of your issue. You say you always make the "wrong" choice. These choices do not exist in a vacuum, there is a causal effect from some value or belief you have that you may not even be aware of. The first step is discovery of why. Once that is accomplished then you can focus on changing it if you wish. If you are faithful and honest with yourself this can be accomplished in weeks, not months or years, it just takes a painful and dedicated approach.

A simple formula for making the "right" decisions:

1. Is this objective necessary to your overall goals?
2. Are the elements of your approach to this objective necessary to its accomplishment?
3. If you choose to withdraw from this objective, do you have another of comparable value?

If the answer is "no" for any of these questions, avoid the planned course of action.

If I may suggest it, what you seem to be saying is the very common sentiment that you do not want to be forced into the ordinary sorts of toil: jobs, bills, paperwork, and the complacent life of a bored suburbanite. At the same time, you find the idea of rejecting these things a hopeless path to destitution. Is this correct?

My parents, who were always very supportive of my artistic interests, had frequently said to me "you can't make a living as an artist, so get a stable normal job and make art in your spare time." For many years I thought this was good advice. We were wrong, though: it's terrible advice.

My personal advice to you, from my own experience, is to pick the kind of life you want to live, and set about deciding how to obtain it. You will encounter roadblocks, so develop a strategy to overcome them. If you are actually good at what you enjoy, or if you are worthy of the pleasure you envision for yourself, you will find a way to get it. Otherwise, fall in line with the herd and do things the "normal" way, which is safe and predictable so at the very least you won't be homeless and starving.

I believe it to be more about my attitude towards myself, others and life and my lack of enthusiasm. I've become very lazy and my comfort zone has shrank to the size or roughly 1 mile radius. From time to time I'll get out further but without knowing anyone all I end up doing is wandering. Its seems like all I do is wander through life, aimlessly, without purpose.
When it comes to working, I'll inspire myself to get an interview but if I get one I'll end up not going for no reason at all! That's one example of this negative, destructive person. The one side gets me a job interview and then that night leading up to the interview the other side steps in and messes with my head in ways I can't fathom. All I know is the day of the interview I just won't go. I have done this atleast five times. I have become someone who is undependable and I can't stay true to my word. Its almost like if I say I'll do something or I'll be somewhere, I always go against myself and end up looking kinda pathetic. Its a sad state of affairs but I guess some part of me enjoys it because I've been doing for roughly 4 years, with its up and downs but gradually getting worse.
I believe its self sabotage and I'm worried I won't be able to prevent it. When any opportunity arises I know in the back of my mind the gloom will come soon. You might take that as being self-fulfilling prophecy but it was happening to me before I ever thought about it and after so many times I can't help but think about it.
I just want to cast this person I have become aside and start anew, before it wastes any more of my time in this life.
I just hope I can before I'm completely stuck in my ways.

This post has been edited by al_zaine: May 10 2010, 04:16 PM

I think you're going about this the wrong way. You seem to feel very disempowered about the prospect of change. With your will at such a low ebb, I would expect no results. What is clear is that you have developed a destructive emotional cycle, and you're apparently addicted to it. I recommend focusing on simple things. Eat healthy, get a little exercise, give yourself tasks that enforce structure. Schedules really help, if you actually make yourself stick to them. The more discipline you exert over the allocation of energy to specific tasks, the more likely you will be to train your brain away from nagging thoughts of self-doubt. A mind with nothing in particular to do is fertile ground for negativity.

Behavior reinforces thought patterns. Your attitude is preceded by your lifestyle. Change your lifestyle and your attitude will change with it.

I believe it to be more about my attitude towards myself, others and life and my lack of enthusiasm. I've become very lazy and my comfort zone has shrank to the size or roughly 1 mile radius. From time to time I'll get out further but without knowing anyone all I end up doing is wandering. Its seems like all I do is wander through life, aimlessly, without purpose.
When it comes to working, I'll inspire myself to get an interview but if I get one I'll end up not going for no reason at all! That's one example of this negative, destructive person. The one side gets me a job interview and then that night leading up to the interview the other side steps in and messes with my head in ways I can't fathom. All I know is the day of the interview I just won't go. I have done this atleast five times. I have become someone who is undependable and I can't stay true to my word. Its almost like if I say I'll do something or I'll be somewhere, I always go against myself and end up looking kinda pathetic. Its a sad state of affairs but I guess some part of me enjoys it because I've been doing for roughly 4 years, with its up and downs but gradually getting worse.
I believe its self sabotage and I'm worried I won't be able to prevent it. When any opportunity arises I know in the back of my mind the gloom will come soon. You might take that as being self-fulfilling prophecy but it was happening to me before I ever thought about it and after so many times I can't help but think about it.
I just want to cast this person I have become aside and start anew, before it wastes any more of my time in this life.
I just hope I can before I'm completely stuck in my ways.

Change your lifestyle and your attitude will change with it.

I agree with this whole heartrendingly. This what I'm doing my self. Think of it as a ritual cleansing. Have to get rid of the old self before the new can move in.

aha you've hit one of the differences in magical styles - one school says change yourself and the world changes with you, and the other school says you change the world around you and it changes you in return - mohammed goes to the mountain, or the mountain comes to mohammed

wisdom comes differently in the schools too - one school says it is all already within us or our eternal stuff or whatever (these would call wisdom 'god'), and the other says we don't know it but can get taught it by something (these would call god 'wisdom')

if you are looking from the level of the person, then everything is coming toward you and you feel that the world revolves around you and thus changes when you change - the observer creates the observation - forgetting history dooms you to repeat the past

if you are looking from a different perspective, like disassociation, from the soul view, and your person you just happen to be in is your connection into the world, like a boat upon the sea, then the world is disassociated from the you that is you, and everything is not coming toward you but away from the you that is you and thus changing the you that is you doesn't have any effect on the world - the observer merely observes, and the causal flow flows on.... - what history? there is no time to the you that is really you, so there is only now, and now is forever and ever - what happens on the world isn't bad or good or ugly, it is only experience, and meant to be experienced

either way works fine, just different viewpoints for the same thing - some say its oriental versus western, but who knows where it really started - i am of the second path, the path of disassociation, and indeed i got my teaching on this perspective from out there, holding the long view from the soul's perspective rather than the incarnated person's view

beliefs are more than beliefs, they are anchors, and they hold you still even as you try to change or move for your own good - in a world full of beliefs and houses and sin and chemical this and enhanced that and simulated whatever, it is hard to see that it is all illusion - you can choose to wallow in the illusion, stack that dough, by that house, work for the man your whole life and hope he gives you some bread or at least peace at the end, but i can also tell you that the other way is much worse, and breaking the illusion is hard and permanent and brings no reward except seeing the truth - this is why people don't want to wake up - the truth is a harsh thing, and the sight of it is a curse not a gift

as for what you are feeling now, it is to be expected - i think so, at least - the earth went through a shift or passed a milestone or something around the 11th/12th of may, and everybody is feeling the change - you put it very nicely, it is indeed associated with death and rebirth - revelations 20:12 sums it up nicely in what the carrots call 'judgment day', but is oh so much more

we are changing, whether for good or bad or ugly or beautiful means nothing to me in the end because i am the me that is me sitting up here in my dissociated view looking down on one very messed up world, trying from my incarnated position within it to manipulate minds so that some few will awaken and evolve into ascended beings of light like i am trying to become

but if you are of the first school then you must make it good or bad or ugly or beautiful and you will make the bit around you like that - to change the world over all of it you will need at least 100 people near you all visualizing the same thing the same way

right now all the christians and the muslims are praying more or less together for this world to end in pain so their version of the savior will come (gotta be in need of saving to have a savior) - they believe the same thing, at the same time, and they are changing the world, dragging the non-believers along with them as there are more of them than non-believers - all part of the great illusion, which is slowly coming apart to reveal, what, the real truth?

as for a rebirthing ritual, they are old as time, from blanket party birth canals to scottish rebirthing caves to egyptian rebirthing water rituals to bowls and craters with spirals in and spirals out, there are many designs and as many names, as this process of maat and the destruction of maat has been going on since people began noticing it and began trying to influence it

This post has been edited by esoterica: May 19 2010, 10:29 AM

The reason why I ask for ritual and put it in the ceremony section is because I was and still am looking to make an event it, something that will act as a reinforcer or catalyst. I want to celebrate the death of the old and the introduction of the new. At the moment I'm in the process of breaking down layers and I'm getting these thoughts about my past that I haven't considered in a long time, also different perspectives.
P.S. I was writing up this post before I saw Esoterica's post.
I believe it's likely humanity is coming to a point of change or has recently crossed it but it was us who demanded it. We drive our evolution, it is us who have allowed technology to grow to the level that its at for example. And with that Man wishes to follow. I honestly feel it's as though I'm due and update/upgrade. Whether such a thing is possible is debatable but the concept is out there and so Man will find a way of making it work on the Self. Although I don't believe 2012 to be the end or to originally have any real importance I am now starting to believe that because of Man's attention to it, we won't accept anything less than a spectacle and whatever minor event happens that year will be blown out of proportion or reshaped into what we ultimately want it to be. Usually something beneficial to humanity.

This post has been edited by al_zaine: May 19 2010, 09:45 AM

>>I honestly feel it's as though I'm due and update/upgrade

lots do right now, and its only going to get worse - the push to do it is increasing too, and will continue to increase - these timeline jumps or passed milestones or whatever that occur are maybe where people leave until all there is left is those that are 'left behind"? - is it more than just people that leave? - so who was it that left? - it was like the earth itself shuddered


>>Although I don't believe 2012 to be the end or to originally have any real importance I am now starting to believe that because of Man's attention to it, we won't accept anything less than a spectacle and whatever minor event happens that year will be blown out of proportion or reshaped into what we ultimately want it to be.

indeed - blown up and reshaped by the majority into what they want it to be - and we are stuck in here with them since we incarnated into their timeline - trapped in a hijacked truck on a highway to their hell - shall we deny our condition and try to affect the outcome while we speed on, or try to help others during the trip, or just feed off the chaos? - your choice again, most likely determined by why you incarnated into this of all timelines in the first place


>>Usually something beneficial to humanity.

lololol - since when have humans done anything beneficial to the whole of humanity or to the planet?


anyway, back to the ritual - so, do you want eclectic, ceremonial, pagan, or what? - each is based on each individual belief system, and only you can choose

there are thousands of rituals on the net, each with their own in-built symbology that makes them what nationality or religion or type they are - then "choose and perish, only to be reborn"

only you can choose which one appeals to you

This post has been edited by esoterica: May 19 2010, 11:48 AM