Three Day Rule
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(reason for edit - I went back in my journal from this time to make this post more specific)
Back in the day we used to find that on the third day of structured, driven, practicing of Magick, welll, lets say Theurgy because it was more inclusive than magick; that something always seemed to happen. There was just a moment that was unnoticable, but after that moment had passed, your inner eyes were fully open, the magick was pouring forth from your subconscious as things just fell into place around you.
Anway, I was thinking about that and wanted to share some of the reasons I thought there was a "three day rule," if you wanted to call it that.
First I think it's a subconscious thing, I think as Westerners we used to setting things up for two to three days instead of longer because of the way our work week is laid out, and also Sloth, which I talked about in another post. We're willing to commit to two or three days, but not so much to a long-term process. So that inherent thought pattern, that, "preformed symbolic complex," (See Walker Percy) caused an unconscious trigger to be pulled on those third nights.
The Zen roshis used to have what were called sesshin, usually three or five or seven days long, in which the participants did their meditation in a very concentrated manner. They recognized the need for an intensive opportunity as opposed to "do at your leisure" to provide a maximized amount of work to break through into enlightenment.
Now I was thinking about what I just said, how Westener's are more geared to a two or three day jaunt than a long term commitment, but I realize that's not necessarily accurate, as for instance it's easier to schedule things for your two day weekend from work, and you usually have to request that third day, or call in that third day. But that's just details in a way because Two days just isn't enough. I proved this to myself not only with what my friends and I used to do back in 1999 and the early 2000's, but even more recently in life, about two years ago when I went camping. It wasn't until the third day that the connections and active synchronicities started free flowing. Before three days, they came and went, but the top wasn't blown off so to speak.
At the other end of the spectrum though, so that more than three days can be detrimental as well. For some people practicing magick or yoga intensively, with concentrated meditation efforts will burn out after the fourth or fifth day. I've seen this happen a couple of times, mental breakdowns, or just emotional and physical breakdowns.
Case in point I lived in a house for about three months and where we had created a commune of sorts, dedicated to intensively practicing magick, ritual, yoga, and meditation. We used every thing that we could think of during that time, we re-created a temple space as faithfully as we could with what materials we had; also trying to re-create sensory deprevation tanks, or instances of the deprevation of one or more senses. Isolation, brain-wave ambient music, intense meditation sessions (marathons). The first sign of trouble was that one of the four of us weren't following the pre-determined directions, he wasn't sleeping hardly at all to allow for recouperation, and he was taking additional doses of our sacrament without anyone else's knowledge. On the third day we were achieving phenomenal results with Clairvoyance and Clairaudience, esp, telepathy. but most importantly, out of body experiences, and pathworking.
We weren't shooting for three days at the time, but we were driving the intense and rigorous ritual and yoga until we hit that "sigma" plateau where the subconscious was literally altering things in the energy around us, but it was the third days in each of our "runs" that the proof would manifest. But for the other gentlemen, he started losing touch and ended up having to leave, having suffered a minor psychotic break, and having to live with his parents for a long time to come while he tried to heal. It started with a subtle insinution from his intuition that one of the other people in the house was a demon, and it went downhill from there. (In respect for what he went through, I won't go into details).
Now I don't know the science behind these assertions, I just know what I've observed, and documented, many times, and I was hoping to get a conversation going about it.
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There is certainly a trend - at least a minor one - in human psychology that marks something at three days differently than a lesser period. (It partakes of some of the general psychological implications of three, but is more or a thing in its own mind.)
Let me give an example outside of magick. I'm on my firm's business continuity team. This might be less nicely called "disaster recovery," because but the name focusses on the positive aspect: In the event of a disaster, what do we have to do to get our feet back under us and wheels hitting road in the shortest time. (The whole journey of this project is a wondeful story in its own right... but I won't digress with it now.)
Here's a basic principle learned: If the office has to be closed for a day (it needn't be a big scary deal - let's say it's a snow-in or an area power outage), that's no big deal psychologically. It's just an office closing. If you have to keep it closed a second day, people start to get a little edgy about it but, again, it's mostly no big deal. But if you hit three days, according to the interview results obtained by numerous business continuity consultants, you hit a kind of crisis point. At that point, the practical and emotional feelings are stirred. You get "Something must really be wrong" and "We need to get back to work" and "I can take the time off but I'm starting to worry" ... it just feels different.
That three-day line seems built into us and awakened by a number of psychological contexts.
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A long time ago, I read a book about the history of numbers, and the theory was that our ancient ancestors could count to three, and then after that, it was simply "many" Like they could see one deer, two deer or three deer, but any more than that it was "many deer"...
I dunno how accurate that theory is, or if it applies to this thread at all, but it was interesting to me.
Later, obviously, people started counting on their fingers...
93 93/93
Tamara -
@Frater Pramudita said
"...I thought there was a "three day rule," if you wanted to call it that. First I think it's a subconscious thing..."
You're right! There is a three-day rule and it's linked to the "three times" rule. And it is actually quite potent, magically and psychologically, if one consciously works with it.
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In order to impress the subconscious properly with an "affirmation" or other magical attempt, one should repeat the word/phrase 3 times. (Once is random noise, twice is mere coincidence, thrice sets a pattern).
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One definition of "addiction" is taking a substance 3 days in a row. (Once is medication, twice is reinforcement, thrice is a habit).
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Etcetera.
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I thought more about counting to three, in terms of counting days, instead of deer.
There's yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Then there's the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow. I can remember my parents teaching me these concepts. Beyond that, it gets fuzzy unless you introduce the concept of a week.
So it just seems to me like 3 days are a primal amount of time for the mind to grasp.
Just some thoughts.
- T