Gnosis Options

I'd like to hear any and all systems in which a person uses to achieve Gnosis. This is very important to me as I am looking for quite a few new methods to test.

I myself have used the "Wank Method", a method involving cutting off air to the brain and right before passing out you allow your mind to flood with air, and I've used certain forms of meditation. I'd love to hear any methods that you guys use.

I'd like to hear any and all systems in which a person uses to achieve Gnosis. This is very important to me as I am looking for quite a few new methods to test.

I myself have used the "Wank Method", a method involving cutting off air to the brain and right before passing out you allow your mind to flood with air, and I've used certain forms of meditation. I'd love to hear any methods that you guys use.

Hello, Azrael welcome to the forums.

There are far too many ways to achieve the state you describe (which is not strictly speaking Gnosis) to simply list them all. Everything and anything that alters the consciousness in an expansive way could - and probably is - used to get one closer to real Gnosis. Dancing to masturbation, to drugs and meditation, even sleep is said to border on Gnosis. You can look into O.A. Spar, for some solid, accessible theory on the subject. More complex systems such as Qabbalah and Tattva will provide plenty of ways you can start working your way to closer to Gnosis in your everyday experience.

Personally I use Pranayamma and Yoga Nidra when I need unbiased awareness of subtle phenomena.


This post has been edited by fatherjhon: Oct 5 2012, 10:03 AM

I'll assume you're referring to a general mystic enlightenment. I'm not criticizing the wording you used in your question but since gnosis can be used in a variety of contexts I think it's important to clarify how I understand the word before talking about it. I looked up "gnosis" on wikipedia to make sure that I'm writing about the most general use of the word instead of something that might be sect specific.

Mystical enlightenment is personal so be aware of your own experiences. If you can grab a chunk of a revelation it might not make sense right away and trying to make sense of it through a magical system might be confusing. When you perform a practice such as meditation or are following a system like fatherjohn mentioned, realize that the process is an ongoing effort and that means that patterns can be important. Be aware of recurring motifs and themes. You can try making sense of those ideas but if you force the revelation to conform to a system it might destroy the integrity of the idea. Let the ideas you find during your practices float around in your mind for a while, like an incubation process.

The primary reason I practice Western magic is because the general emphasis is on bringing the spiritual, mystic, whatever powers down to the magician. That means I search for gnosis-like revelations and expansion by expanding my consciousness through specific methods. Any of these practices, by themselves but especially combined, will further the gnosis process: Dream work, astral work, memory work, meditation, and learning in general. I use these practices to slowly but permanently increase my mystic awareness. If you believe in a different system of magic, no matter how specific or broad that system is, your method of gnosis might change a little or very much.

Be fearless in doing the little wacky things that cause greater awareness too. Laugh if you want I take cold showers and smoke Acid cigars to sharpen my wits on the go. Banal activities such as eating well, exercising and doing crossword puzzles also help.

Mundane activities can lead to gnostic states, especially if you think of those activities as the warm up to your main workout. Discover what works for you, then do it for a long time while being prepared to change your system as you are successful. Emily Dickenson a poem relevant to this discussion titled Success:

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear!

One of the points is relevant here. She writes that people who succeed can't define what their success is the same way as someone who is unsuccessful. So your concept of gnosis will change even as you begin to achieve it. If you are working towards gnosis don't expect to fully understand it even if you're doing the right thing. If you're learning and piecing together fragments of truth then you'll realize that one day you understand things in a way other people don't seem to and that no matter how you word your ideas that people don't get it because mystical/spiritual/gnostic revelations cannot be learned without the experience.

This post has been edited by ☞Tomber☜: Oct 5 2012, 01:00 PM

Thank you both very much for your answers, and while this did serve to help I'm more looking for specific examples of methods used to "set off" a sigil. Like for example, both you mentioned meditation. If you don't mind I'd like a detailed description of how you charge a sigil during meditation. Or possibly, how do you do it through dance or exercise? Thank you both very much.

Thank you both very much for your answers, and while this did serve to help I'm more looking for specific examples of methods used to "set off" a sigil. Like for example, both you mentioned meditation. If you don't mind I'd like a detailed description of how you charge a sigil during meditation. Or possibly, how do you do it through dance or exercise? Thank you both very much.

I'd kind of like to throttle AO Spare for using the word gnosis in that context.

What you're asking is how to charge a sigil, not on how to achieve Gnosis. Gnosis is a direct mystical or spiritual insight, transcendent of intellectual understanding.

As for charging a sigil, there are lots of ways. I think that the key is that whatever you are doing is centered on the sigil itself - it is the recipient of the action. You could say that whatever method you use should be done for the sigil, in a similar mindset to the sacrifice. It should be a process of giving birth, in a way, as you are intentionally imparting life to the sigil. The specifics of how it is done are not vague, they are just nonspecific. Just about anything can be done if it is done with the proper sincerity. Trying to define a specific method and saying "this method is how you do it" technically runs counter to the paradigm from which the practice recently arises.

That said, let's say for instance you want to use dance. You might create a large version of the sigil - draw it in the sand on a beach at night, or paint it on a large canvas or roll of paper. Or get stones and form the sigil on the ground in the woods or your yard (depending on where you live!) You might have a big empty room where you might paint it on the wall in glow paint and set up black lights. Turn on some loud music either appropriate to the purpose or just appropriate to get your glands pumping, and then, however you set it up, dance yourself into an ecstatic frenzy. It isn't just about dancing though, not in an of itself. In this case, you'd need to be focused on the idea that your movement, your energy, the life you are displaying in this act is committed entirely to the awakening of this sigil. You are dancing with the sigil, for it, inside it, waking it up and giving it life.

There are a lot of lukewarm methods. If you are such a person with a great deal of control and focus, able to commit your energy to a symbol entirely for some length of time, then it's enough to simply stare intently, bringing your will to a sharp focus and moving your energy into the symbol this way. Maybe you're such a person - you just have to be honest with yourself about that.

Masturbation is a method that can work, but most people get caught up in trying to get off when they do it. Again, the point isn't to reach orgasm, the point is to commit the act for the benefit of the sigil. So don't wander off in your head and fantasize. Keep your gaze fixed on the sigil, or keep it in your mind's eye. Feel that as the sensation and energy arise in you, they are arising also in the sigil, that when your energy explodes outward, the same is true for the energy in the sigil. It isn't your orgasm, get it?

Meditation is more complicated, charging a sigil through meditation successfully requires a degree of competency at meditation and rest your awareness firmly on the sigil. This doesn't mean that you visualize it, although it starts that way. It means that you first discover your abiding awareness, learn how to center your awareness elsewhere than your head, and then use that skill to center your awareness on the sigil. Here again, the point is not just meditation, but to meditate for the sigil, to impart the spiritual nature of awareness onto the sigil itself.

There are not very detailed descriptions to give. The problem is that it is about sincere intention and commitment, not instructions for making an omelet. Though as with an omelet, even detailed instructions won't cut it - the keys to a good omelet are acute attention, and patience.

The second aspect to the sigil is to get it implanted in your subconscious. It's often believed that doing something like getting yourself off while staring at it somehow plants it in the sub or unconscious mind. This isn't so, it's an oversimplification of the process. It is the nature of the experience of charging the sigil - described in principle above - that does that, so it has to be a somewhat unique and 'memorable' experience. Then, to let that experience which your unconscious mind will earmark as unusual (think about how you remember the truly 'memorable' moments in your life but forget the everyday stuff within a few weeks at the most) be released fully into the deep mind you have to forget it intentionally. There are a variety of methods, mostly you just have to put the sigil away where you will not look at it and not think to look at it - so, not your special sigil box, in my opinion, although some people keep a sigil book. I found this makes it impossible to forget them.

Another method of forgetting is to charge a bunch of sigils all at once. I forget the man's name, but there is a chaos magician out there who refers to this as 'shoaling' - the way a school of fish is more successful by sticking together. Make a dozen or several dozen sigils that all have a slightly similar style to them, all to accomplish the same task but in slightly different ways, or to accomplish complimentary parts of a single task, then mix them up and charge them together. Within days it will be basically impossible to recall which sigil does what, but your deep mind knows and remembers. This is a very effective method, but it takes some ingenuity and planning so that you don't have sigils at cross purposes with one another.

So use whatever method you want. All that matters are these things:
1. You are sincere in the activity, for this purpose and for no other purpose at all. Whatever you are doing, the single purpose for that activity is for the charging of the sigil.
2. You throw yourself entirely into it. Don't pause, don't wander off, don't give up because its not fun, don't wander off mentally either, don't stop to be self-conscious about it or to worry what the neighbors will think.
3. You do it and be done immediately afterwards. Don't sit back and admire the magic you just did. Pack everything up, put everything away, go do something else entirely unrelated and never think of the sigil or the experience ever again.

Don't mike sigils at cross purposes to one another, always include a time limit or an expiration date or event. The point is to do it, forget it, magic happens, then the power of the sigil is used. Don't reuse the same sigil over and over again or it will be impossible to forget about it once you've 'learned it' the way you've learned, say, spelling or math, it migrates to a different part of your mind at that point and can basically never be evicted.

peace