Experiences
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I don't know if I'd agree with that. There have been times that, if I had not shared my experience, I would have missed out on a valuable key to their interpretation...for instance, one vision I had held incredible archetypal significance of which I was not aware. If I had not communicated the experience, it might have been years before I had any understanding of it...especially those experiences that occured before I got on the Path. What of the people who have a vision thrust upon them without invoking it? What of those who are granted a glimpse unexpected? Are they to remain silent? Is it not the place of a guide or teacher to help them along the Path? & how would the guide know they were on the Path unless the experiencer announce her experience? Speaking from my own experiences, I am always left with a sense that I am to 'go tell it on the mountain' - & this isn't for personal recognition but rather a proof to the world(& to myself).
L.Lazuli
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@Lapis said
"I don't know if I'd agree with that. There have been times that, if I had not shared my experience, I would have missed out on a valuable key to their interpretation...for instance, one vision I had held incredible archetypal significance of which I was not aware."
That's different. The question, as I understood it at least, was about practical physical consequences of intended magical consequences.
The question was about physical experiences, not psychical experiences.
Vision work is a different category, and I agree with you on it.
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I think it would be a great service to let people know what actually results when you practice magic and yoga. Stores are full of books that say, these meditations help you get rich, here's how to learn astral travel, do these practices and you can walk on water, here's how to communicate with angels, and so forth. How rarer and much more valuable it is when someone says, I did these things and here's what happened.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The question was about physical experiences, not psychical experiences."
What would be an example of a 'physical' phenomena that results from magical practice, other than the obvious 'healing'? & why is it not to be communicated? Could not 'smug' be in the eye of the beholder? I mean, no serious student is going to pay much attention to someone who is communicating their experience simply for the sake of bragging rights in the first place...right?
L.Lazuli
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@Lapis said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The question was about physical experiences, not psychical experiences."What would be an example of a 'physical' phenomena that results from magical practice, other than the obvious 'healing'? & why is it not to be communicated?"
Oh, to be crude, a money spell. Or causing one physical object to change to another. Or causing some other physical object or desired thing to come into one's hands. Or physical protection spells in a known high-risk situation. Or a love spell. Or a weather spell. Or any of the "I wanna, I gotta have, make it happen" sort of things.
As to the why: Please read my original answer. The main issue I was raising was the psychological impact on the magician. It's a subtle thing - but I think I hit the main points correctly.
"Could not 'smug' be in the eye of the beholder?"
Yes. And if you can report on such a result without it inflating your ego, then you're in good shape. But it's tough (especially when you then have to deal with other people's responses to the report, which in an online context tends to exacerbate the worst sides of personality dynamics).
It doesn't take an Adept to perform these "works of wonder" so much as it usually takes an Adept to survive them. Generous experience of deep intimacy with the HGA is the best cure I know for thinking that you were actually the one to do it!
"I mean, no serious student is going to pay much attention to someone who is communicating their experience simply for the sake of bragging rights in the first place...right?"
But it doesn't have to be that obvious. "Just for bragging rights" includes the possibility that some of it is "for bragging rights." Or this can be stirred after the fact by people's admiration or appreciation. Or this can be stirred more rigidly by people's attacks and ego defenses that arise (even if quietly kept to oneself). Etc.
BTW I'm not saying someone shouldn't talk about these things in public. I was answering the original question.
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gotcha
L.Lazuli
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I asked this question because I wonder just what exactly the powers that be are trying to communicate to me. I see animals, like a troupe of raccoons the other day, or birds in a tree that seem to indicate omens. I can't make anything out of these "omens" but I write them down.
I do my magickal work at my work and I notice physical feelings of almost holiness and physical pleasure in movement when it's busy and there is no time for idle thought, just concentration.
I don't think these things I feel feed my ego as I don't feel the phenomenon are such a big deal. -
93 PainMeridian,
To recognize & read symbols in reality you must first equip yourself with a symbol set. I recommend a thorough examination of the Table of Correspondences in 777 to aquire working symbol set & a reading of chapter XVII from Magick Without Tears to provide you with an example of how to put that knowlegde to use.
www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/liber777.pdf
www.hermetic.com/crowley/mwt/mwt_17.html
93 93/93
616
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thanks for those, I Had previously printed those off at work.
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@Maanantai said
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@PainMeridian said
"I asked this question because I wonder just what exactly the powers that be are trying to communicate to me. I see animals, like a troupe of raccoons the other day, or birds in a tree that seem to indicate omens. I can't make anything out of these "omens" but I write them down. "Omens are usually not very useful. In my opinion they signify a link between yourself and the universe, but to psychologically interpret them is quite a different thing. They are not divination tools. They are, perhaps, some sort of message from the outer to you, but these messages can be tricky and they're certainly not psychological."
I take the exact opposite opinion: they are subjective psychological messages which are extremely important in that they are personally tailored by your own unconsciousness. Jung called 'synchronicity' the connection of meaning/patterns through the unconsciousness, where we recognize 'omens' and 'signs' without consciously understanding them completely.
Your notion of considering something as an omen, as considering it meaningful or significant is entirely psychological. But that doesnt diminish it... if anything it makes it more significant.
IAO131
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@PainMeridian said
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I asked this question because I wonder just what exactly the powers that be are trying to communicate to me. I see animals, like a troupe of raccoons the other day, or birds in a tree that seem to indicate omens. I can't make anything out of these "omens" but I write them down.
"To give you an example of my own personal experiences (as many an animal has come before me to deliver a message , it seems):
Every time I have seen a raccoon, some one had a secret they were withholding from me that was then revealed.
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@Maanantai said
"There's nothing 'subjective' about a bird crashing into the window between you and a girl you are talking with. Just one 'Omen' example that happened to me once. What is subjective, however, is how one interprets such an Omen. Now here's where the warning comes in: as the mind constantly tricks one it will almost surely try trick one into believing something, making a psychological interpretation. These are almost always false, or maybe even always, as they are created by the mind not the Universe."
A bird crashing into a window may mean nothing to you, but what of the individual who, as a child, saw just that occurance & was emotionally scarred by it? what of the person who has a phobia of birds? or the ones who fell from a window & were permenantly inhibited by the accident? or the Qabalists who, in 'window', see Heh & think Heh/Star/Aquarius, etc....and what of the girl? how does one feel about her? what is their history together? who does she look like to the person in question?
To each of these hypothetical people is attributed a different definition for the idea of bird or window...thus the occurance of that symbol in reality is going to translate differently for each individual - & is thus subjective. Even when one adopts universal definitions for their symbol set, as with Tarot & Qabalah, the omens still convey subjective meanings as it is the subject in question who is interpreting the phenomena.
The Buddhists postulate an aspect of consciousness called Sankhara - this refers to the mind's tendancy to perceive a specific way - the way it has learned to perceive through the accumulation of past experience - it is this faculty that makes omens subjective...the words of John Wheeler are pertinant: "Everything is meaningless until it is observed by a meaning-sensative observer." Also - consider the wise words of John C. Lilly: "In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true."
Whatever symbol set we happen to adopt, our mind will experience life through that set - whether or not we are conscious of the process.616
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Last night, as I move from day shifts to night shift I was standing outside my apartment building. smoking. Not thinking of much in particular and then 4 younger girls came down the street from the direction of the bar.
they had parked 2 cars in the guest parking lot of my building.
this was their conversation
Girl 1 "Beats paying 6 bucks for a cab"
Girl 2 "we should do this again sometime"
Girl 3 "Better than 6 dicks" (to the first girl)
Girl 4 "Or 6 mouths on One"
Then they get in their cars and drive away.
Im standing there like "WTF?!?" -
One might understandably be curious about what was the topic of their discussion, eh?
But you got your 6 6 6.
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I think it may be possible that every experience in individual life is nothing but symbols. I work around numbers constantly and before I started reading the material A.A. has I Had never given them more thought than was required. It seems to me that before this my mind was lazy and dull but now...I see omens constantly.
All my winder tensions are 5.6 -
Number symbolism - and especially the expanded symbol set of gematria - cdan definitly serve as a personal interior language for communicating with the HGA before other means are established.
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I don't want to say "I know" about the gematria or kabala or any other magickal language. Ive read and not understood much of kabala.
I can definitely see the point of the meditation of mysticism because the symbols come so fast and frequent it strains the hell out of me. I bought a pizza for my wife and I last night and whilst waiting I had to put my head down because all the words on the displays we're jumping out at me-everything communicates. I had a monster headache. I mean, now it doesn't stop. Not ever. I don't have any magickal weapons except a crude Wand I fashioned and I don't do any rituals except maybe chanting "Unity uttermost shewed..."
Is it possible that the HGA would attack a person psychically? All I feel is isolation and urgent desperation. Incompleteness. -
Not an attack, no. But there can be times of accelerated proximity (more connection than the previous routine threshold) that floods the psyche.
I think this is a signal that you need to set a daily regimen of basic balancing rituals and meditation.