The Middle Pillar
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for the nice link, h2h.
@h2h said
"Regardie cautions that one should prepare for the Middle Pillar by first doing several weeks of LBRP to balance and purify one's aura."
I do the Star Ruby instead... perhaps I should switch.
I have read that Regardie in some cases attempted to awaken these chakras in others by kind of embracing them or being close to them from behind and performing the ritual himself?? Anyone familiar with the "shot-gun" MP? In what case would this be handy?
Love is the law, love under will.
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I would say the LBRP is more compatible with Middle Pillar. The Star Ruby arouses sexual energy and moves up the Tree of Life whereas the MP starts from the crown chakra and works downward:
Note Regardie's comments:
Some will note that this exercise corresponds in some ways to the yoga chakra system. There is, assuredly, correspondence. But there are several very important differences and variations. The first, a minor difference, is the number and position of the centers involved. But this does not require discussion. What is fundamental, however, is the entirely different approach. The yoga technique commences its meditations from the lowest chakra and works upwards to the Sahasrara above the head. On the other hand, in the western system, the Middle Pillar starts from the highest and works downwards. In a word, the Western ideal is not to escape from the body but to become involved more and more in life, in order to experience it more adequately, and in order to obtain a mastery over it. The ideal is to bring down godhead so that one's manhood being enriched may thereby be assumed into godhead. Always does this system begin from the real center of working - the higher genius which, by definition, is in contact eternally with whatever infinite deity there may be. That is to say, through the Yechidah we have immediate access to all the dynamic inspiration and spiritual power of the collective unconscious.
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@h2h said
"The Star Ruby arouses sexual energy..."
Not anymore than the LRB does; that is, no it doesn't except in the sense that all such energy is, at root, sexual energy.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Aum418 said
"I honestly wouldn't worry about deranging your psyche by imagining light moving a different way. That is an unfounded speculation in my opinion, especially since it is making an empirical claim. It reminds me of people concerned about 'averse' pentagrams being evil."First of all, if you're doing the ritual correctly you're doing far more than imagining light moving: You're actually moving considerable energy and causing it to transition from one plane to another.
Second: So which do you think it is? Unfounded speculation or an empirical claim? One precludes the other."
93,
It is an unempirical claim based on the fact that we have no evidence that is it deranging at all. From my own practice I would say the opposite. Therefore it is ill-founded speculation in my opinion. Symbolically, the lightning flash is not 'deranging' inherently.
IAO131
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tI agree with your last statement; but the Lightning Flash strikes from Kether to Malkuth, not the other way around.
It's also not the formula of the Middle Pillar ritual.
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I'm interested in energy circulation. I'm comparing the MP and the NEW Energy Ways whole body circuits.
I asked R. Bruce in his forum why he advocates raising energy from the feet instead of descending it from the Crown like in the MP but I didn't get an answer yet. He states that it is a safe/good option. He studies the occult so I asked why the MP doesn't fit to him.
Any thoughts? -
I don't know his techniques so I don't know what's happening there.
If this is external circulation - say, in the aura but not in the body (circumferential movement) - then it's just not the same technique as the MP and I wouldn't necessarily see any particular problem. If it's moving through the core of the body hitting some chakra areas and especially with symbols and techniques to draw energy not only down the body but down the planes/worlds (as in MP), then I'd see a problem.
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Well, his system is kind of popular & totally hands on and is free to read on the net. His tactile visualisation is realy good for me. He advocates to get the secondary chakras running first so one can develop the primary ones more easily.
A circuit: Legs, arms are used to get the energy into the sub-navel.
Full body circuit: The energy goes up the legs, (arms joining) through the spine to the crown and goes down the front of the body through the chakras to the sub-navel. It is done in one "in-out" breath. -
@Modes said
"I asked R. Bruce in his forum why he advocates raising energy from the feet instead of descending it from the Crown like in the MP but I didn't get an answer yet. He states that it is a safe/good option. He studies the occult so I asked why the MP doesn't fit to him.
"It always appeared to me as if in the East they had a more 'bottom up' method, compared to the West with a 'top down' method.
So, in the East - they bring their self up to the divine, where in the West the divine is brought down to the self.
Just now I was realizing the symbolism of the 'East Rising' and the 'West Setting' :X
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I typically follow the MP by a technique very close to what is being mentioned here. The light flows up from back of legs to crown, then down the front, then I add up right side and down left, then spiraling up (clockwise) from feet, wrapping the body up like a blanket until reaching the crown, exploding out in a cascade of shimmering light like a slow-motion fountain, and falling back to my feet to repeat the cycle. This is all just extra and on the outside (aura/ egg?) of my body, not the core. It takes a while to get all this done, but it feels pretty good to move energy around.
Two more questions about the overall MP:
I was taught at the end of the ritual to imagine the light becoming invisible (not dissappearing... it is still there) and doing the sign of silence afterwards to veil the chakras and prevent you from walking around "glowing," in which case presumably people are unconsciously drawn to you in a potentially ego-feeding way. Typical or poppycock?
Second, some folks additionally vibrate the appropriate archangel names, presumably invoking them in some way in order to archetypicallize (??) the energy of that chakra. Helpful or no?
Many thanks,
Love is the law, love under will.
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@jlpugh said
"I was taught at the end of the ritual to imagine the light becoming invisible (not dissappearing... it is still there) and doing the sign of silence afterwards to veil the chakras and prevent you from walking around "glowing," in which case presumably people are unconsciously drawn to you in a potentially ego-feeding way. Typical or poppycock? "
To anyone with "eyes to see," and to any denizens of the astral, you're going to walk around glowing regardless - unless you are actually making the light go away.
If "making it invisible" simply means removing your attention from it, so that it is no longer in your field of awareness, then that's cool. But actuall fading it out can, it seems, only go one of two ways: (1) actually turn off what you've just turned on, or (2) make it invisible only to you, since astral denizens are going to see you lit up like a Christmas tree anyway.
In any case (to answer your specific question), this isn't a typical instruction.
"Second, some folks additionally vibrate the appropriate archangel names, presumably invoking them in some way in order to archetypicallize (??) the energy of that chakra. Helpful or no? "
Different technique. Nothing wrong with it. Just note that it's not the same technique.
The Middle Pillar ritual was created by Israel Regardie based on an older, and less defined, Stella Matutina technique of building up the Tree of Life in the aura. In learning that technique, the Middle Pillar Sephiroth were practiced first, and the outer pillars added only after the first stage was stable. In doing this, entire hierarchies could be employed, according to the level of manifestaton sought - it was very loosely defined. But the MP form has emerged as a distinctive ritual with quite different properties and advantages, and not simply as a preliminary practice of the quite different other technique.**
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@Jim Eshelman said
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If "making it invisible" simply means removing your attention from it, so that it is no longer in your field of awareness, then that's cool. But actuall fading it out can, it seems, only go one of two ways: (1) actually turn off what you've just turned on, or (2) make it invisible only to you, since astral denizens are going to see you lit up like a Christmas tree anyway.
**"
There is a Martinist technique where one uses a cloak (astral and physical) to make the glow invisible to outside entities but the light continues to shine within, under the black cloak.
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93!
So I too read the book by Regardie recently. I noticed a similarity with the Middle Pillar Ritual and one I've practiced a bit called the Merkaba (field around your body in the shape of a 3 dimensional 6 pointed star) Meditation taught in Drunvalo Melchizedek's Flower of Life workshops. It has you do both breathe the light down from your crown chakra, out through your heart (you can fill a room with prana or send out some good vibes to the world), back in then down to your base chakra (since we're dealing with the chakra system it's a sitting meditation opposed to standing, going out your feet- You are suppose to imagine an anchor hanging from the end of your spine going deep into the earth grounding you), then back up recirculating it and so forth. I like it slightly better because of the emphasis of opening the heart center! From my experience you won't get much out of raising kundalini (or worse) without an activated heart chakra so perhaps it is best to use the Middle Pillar ritual before attaining 5=6 (?!- not that I have officially..) Unfortunately it doesn't fully go into it here but you can find it explained in his book without going to an actual workshop, or rent/buy videos of the complete workshop which I think is amazing! www.floweroflife.org/tmerkaba.htm
I've noticed there's different forms/traditions of magick. Some would have you burn something to purify it, others bury it or give it back to the earth. Since as above so below I guess it doesn't really matter since Kether is in Malkuth. I'm currently confused as to whether Malkuth is the planet Earth or Pluto since the heart or Sun is Tiphareth but that's just my trip at the moment....
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@DavidH said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"If "making it invisible" simply means removing your attention from it, so that it is no longer in your field of awareness, then that's cool. But actuall fading it out can, it seems, only go one of two ways: (1) actually turn off what you've just turned on, or (2) make it invisible only to you, since astral denizens are going to see you lit up like a Christmas tree anyway.**"There is a Martinist technique where one uses a cloak (astral and physical) to make the glow invisible to outside entities but the light continues to shine within, under the black cloak."
I would be interested to hear about how one can cloak his/her presence on the astral when doing LBRP, MP or other rituals.
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"I would be interested to hear about how one can cloak his/her presence on the astral when doing LBRP, MP or other rituals."
Take a look at a book called "INVISIBILTY" by Steve Richards. It shows a good technique for forming the astral cloud that enables one to do this.
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93,
Asraiya said:
"I'm currently confused as to whether Malkuth is the planet Earth or Pluto since the heart or Sun is Tiphareth but that's just my trip at the moment...."
Crowley has a chart in the Eight Lectures on Yoga which puts Pluto in Kether. Pluto is (to put in simplistically) about "being utterly different" and Kether is about uniqueness, hence the correspondence.
93 93/93,
EM
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93!
Edward Mason wrote:
"Pluto is (to put in simplistically) about "being utterly different" and Kether is about uniqueness, hence the correspondence."
Well thanks for validating that I'm not way off in left field in my thinking but it seems so backwards still to me. I originally thought for quite some time that Kether was the Sun because it felt like the ultimate attainment (which it likely is actually) and finding it represented by Tiphareth was fine by me making it half the distance and way more possible to reach.. But if Pluto/Kether is about "being utterly different" and unique why is that precisely what we manifest here on this plane? (wait where am i?) I always thought Kether is where we finally become ONE again.
But this thread is about SLEEP so I must be dreaming which brings me to why would you want to cloak your light in the astral or any other place? What have you really got to hide or hide from?!
I say let it shine! Here this sums it up perfectly:
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93,
Asraiya wrote:
"I originally thought for quite some time that Kether was the Sun because it felt like the ultimate attainment (which it likely is actually) and finding it represented by Tiphareth was fine by me making it half the distance and way more possible to reach.. But if Pluto/Kether is about "being utterly different" and unique why is that precisely what we manifest here on this plane? (wait where am i?) I always thought Kether is where we finally become ONE again. "
I seriously doubt whether most of us can grasp just what does lie beyond Tiphereth, and certainly not what's across the Abyss. Yes, we can do so in a speculative or abstract sense, and we can all trot out our Buddhist, Vedantic or Qabalistic vocabulary to prove that. But in terms of just what it would be like to experience consciousness on that level, it's past the point where our reasoning minds can reach, or at least, past what we can express with verbal precision. All we have as a means of communication at that stage is symbols.
My take: We are each unique as we appear in Malkuth. At Kether, we are both unique AND identical with everything else. It is a universalized state in which there also lies a singular perspective, which is then expressed down through the Tree to culminate in a unique personality in Malkuth.
Along that route, there's Tiphereth, which (seen on the way 'down' or 'out' from Kether) would presumably appear to be a transitional state where there is consciousness of both divinity and separate individuality. On the way back 'up' or 'in', Tiphereth would give us the first understanding of what unified consciousness might be like. And since reaching that seems like an attainment from our perspective here in Malkuth (or really, from here in Yesod, the Foundation, since our personalities are creations of mind more than of body), it looks as if it would be a stable, permanent condition.
In Tiphereth, since divinity (the HGA) is included, then we have the semblance of Oneness. It's a Oneness our conscious minds can more or less accept, and (I assume) eventually integrate. What actual Oneness would be like - that is, what the Kether 'experience' would be like ... well, again, words fail.
93 93/93,
EM
I actually had this one confused with the other thread I posted on (Sleep) last night... Please do forgive my insecurity in assuming I must be off on a tangent as usual.. Hey, I was actually right on target for a change! 