In the meantime, in between time
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And by 'the work,' what do you mean? Where do I go after E&O and the Student curriculum, since as I understand it most of the practices and studies are intended to be taught in a specific order by someone who has learned it before?
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Don't wait until 'after' the student curriculum. The curriculum is huge and life is short.
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Journal, journal, journal. Journaling will help you learn lessons and make sure that you don't forget or distort events over time. It's hard to chart your progress over time; if you can read something from several months ago that makes you cringe over your ignorance, you know that you're making rapid progress. Journaling is also how you record your experiments.
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Dream journal. Every day, whether you remember your dreams or not. Your unconscious communicates with you almost every day, but we forget our dreams or dismiss them as trivial. Dream journaling helps you remember your dreams better, and they gradually evolve to become more lucid.
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Tackle things in order. If you're unstable in the material world, or have some difficult interpersonal relationships, don't use magick as escapism. Remember, you will always have the physical world to deal with as long as you have this physical body. Master it. First tackle these lower issues, simply and prudently. Most people can use some level of therapy. Learn how your reactive emotions work, and learn how to control them without repression or suppression. Exercise, eat healthy, do good work at your job, work with your hands (gardening, building, anything). Learn to use discernment with your relationships. Invest in worthy people, set boundaries with others, etc... Stay human.
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Experiment. Remember, it's the method of science, the aim of religion. From what I've seen, many people get it backwards. If you're blindly doing things, hoping for some vague spiritual result, you're doing it wrong. Design a test, make your hypothesis, test, and evaluate. The nature and subject of the experiments will come to you as you read and feel pulled to do something.
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Good Advice Av.
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"2) Dream journal. Every day, whether you remember your dreams or not. Your unconscious communicates with you almost every day, but we forget our dreams or dismiss them as trivial."
I have to confirm this. whenever I was persistent with writing dream journal, I discovered that there is no such a thing as trivial dream. every dream impression has its place and importance - it's a message from the unconscious and treating it that way definitely benefits the integration of the hidden depths of unconscious with the conscous part of our being.
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I started with some basics but it occurred to me that I don't really know what signs or conditions constitute success. I've done Pranayama in a basic Asana (the God) and I've tried some of the basic pentagram and hexagram rituals, but I really don't know what I'm looking for.
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@veritas_in_nox said
"but I really don't know what I'm looking for"
then let the answering to this be the whole endeavour!
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@danica said
"then let the answering to this be the whole endeavour!"
That's not exactly what I meant. I meant to say that I don't truly know how to define a successful experiment. What should I expect from Tattvas? Or Pranayama? Or Liber V vel Reguli?
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@veritas_in_nox said
"That's not exactly what I meant. I meant to say that I don't truly know how to define a successful experiment. What should I expect from Tattvas? Or Pranayama? Or Liber V vel Reguli?"
got that. but I meant to say that the overall, wider perspective of what you are looking for is needed to set the goals of particular practices.
when one has this wider perspective as a framework, everything - eating, breathing, walking etc - can become a spiritual practise, or an experiment in the sense of scientific illuminism; but without this conscious inherent motivation no prescription from the book or words/advice/instruction from another person can realy help a person.I'm not saying you don't have this inherent motivation, just saying that it has to come up to the surface, to be conscious enough (the level and specific quality of this counsciousness varies during time and progress on the individual Path, of course) to lead you; and when it does, it's easy to decide/know/feel what the 'goal' for some particular practise is - or should be for yourself in that period of time.
apropos those concrete experiments/practises you numbered:
Liber E gives enough info about the results in asana and pranayama; besides that, Patanjali's aphorisms are a good source on the subject; and Crowley's "Eight lectures on Yoga".
about Liber V vel Reguli - see in the Book 4 (aka Magic)
the Tattwas - numerous practices can be set using them in one or another way. what exactly did you mean by saying "What should I expect from Tattvas?"
Pentagram and Hexagram Rituals - see Book 4 also, and specifically Liber E,1 and Liber O (the whole of it)
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My advice would be to hold off on the hexagram rituals for the meantime.
Concentrate on the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram.
My suggestion is that after performing the Banishing regularly for a few months, you might want to experiment with the Invoking. Be sure to Banish before and after the Invoking
The key, in my opinion, is balanced development. You want a healthy mix of ritual, meditation and reading.
Things also depend on your current situation...
In example, if you were not physically fit I would suggest some Hatha Yoga ( in general it is a good thing, I think). -
@danica said
"I'm not saying you don't have this inherent motivation, just saying that it has to come up to the surface, to be conscious enough (the level and specific quality of this counsciousness varies during time and progress on the individual Path, of course) to lead you; and when it does, it's easy to decide/know/feel what the 'goal' for some particular practise is - or should be for yourself in that period of time."
That is an entirely different problem. I'd like to think I'm following the idea of 'the method of science, the aim of religion' but my frustration in some cases leads me to realise that I need to get past Lust of Result.
@danica said
"Liber E gives enough info about the results in asana and pranayama; besides that, Patanjali's aphorisms are a good source on the subject; and Crowley's "Eight lectures on Yoga"."
Liber E says that Asana will result in 'various things' and Pranayama in 'various remarkable things.'
@danica said
"the Tattwas - numerous practices can be set using them in one or another way. what exactly did you mean by saying "What should I expect from Tattvas?""
I mean that depending on what I read they seem to be either an aid to meditation or an aid to astral projection, so I'm not sure how to use them (not to mention that my visualisation is poor anyway...
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Thank you, everyone, for your help. -
You don't know what you're looking for, but trust me, you know what you were looking for when you've found it. Just keep on with something usual