Liber O - Part V
-
Hello all.
93,
I wrote these questions privately to Jim Eshelman, hoping for a reply and he told me if I could write them in public so they could benefit more people than just me (ED: btw I searched the forum to see if he did already ask some of these questions before asking them).
In effect they can be beneficial to many others, I see, so, leaving aside background informations that have nothing to do with the issue, I will post the same here, in case he (and if others want to join, naturally) has the time to reply to them and help also others that can have the same trouble understanding these points:
I started doing the practices in Liber O and Liber E from four/five months now and I wanted to start working on part V of Liber O, but I don't either understand for what I should aim (here I imagine you crying: "oh no, not astral travel again!" but bear with me, there's a lot of confusion around and for all the "results" I had I cannot understand no more what's what).
So I prepared some questions in case you (ED: referred to Jim, naturally) had some time to reply to them that could help me set a little straight.
1. It is what Crowley called "Astral Travel" the same as what it is called an "OBE"?
I'm not talking here about where you "end" in term of place but to the type of experience from a technical point. I've experienced so-called Lucid Dreams and OBEs more or less automatically many times in my life and especially in these months and I don't know if that's what I should strive for in the end.
(Btw while amusing experiences I don't consider them as much at all because primarily they are completely unconsciously done - there's a "gap of consciousness" in all cases and they are very difficult (at last for me) to make them happen at will - and secondly because there's no direction in them - I tried giving a direction but it's too troublesome since you cannot understand when it will or will not work and the process is usually very long if not using hypnopompic methods (that anyway remove the issue of direction from the start) -, so what's the end? I can understand others thinking differently but I prefer to have something less "spectacular" but willed. So, since many times I see authors of books about OBEs using them just for the "wow" factor, I would not care less if astral travel is the same or not).
**2. It's necessary the so called "mind awake/body asleep" status that many authors talk about? **
Many authors when talking about Astral Projection (as Robert Bruce, Buhlman, etc.) emphasize the need to have this before a method is used, but Crowley doesn't talk about it anywhere (apart in eroto-comatose lucidity, but I think that there it is used in another way).
Neither Ophiel, Bardon, Butler etc. talk about it (also if Butler says that the body enters a "sleep" state in the projection, but he can refer to the natural sleep pattern an unmoving body gives, as in an Asana, and not a state of mind), but maybe because it happens automatically during the process. However, looking at the Vision and the Voice or reading other accounts it seems like Crowley felt things also physically as if he was still conscious of it too, as if acting in two places at once (however it speaks of that method as "mixed" so it can be that it's still another thing).
Also, reading the account of Achad and the visions of Crowley it seems like they took so little to enter their BoL that I cannot understand how they could reach that phase in so little time (but what do I know?). I've also thought that maybe the "trance" state achieved is completely different in the two cases (and it can be that the mind awake/body asleep is needed to separate the etheric, but not putting the consciousness in a thought form).
So it's important this aspect of the procedure or not? If it's important should I strive to obtain it before trying the method or it comes by itself?
3. There's a "peek" in the method, a moment when the active visualization becomes passive or it is always an effort of actively keeping at it?
I try to explain this better. For example when I was younger I had many experiences in skrying with a crystal ball. I could have vivid impressions (and also full visions as if watching a sort of "movie") but these were actively kept by me some way. When I stopped the effort the vision ceased, or I could restart them again and so on.
In the OBEs I've had, instead, the impressions come by themselves, passively. There is no effort on my part. I can watch my room (or an image more or less similar of it) the same as I watch it normally, without a conscious effort on my part to see/feel and have impressions come to me. It can be naturally that I didn't push "skrying" to the point of this happening (and maybe because I used a medium or I was not yet at that point) but this explanation was to let you understand the point I'm making. In astral travel there is a conscious effort to see (or feel) made or it comes a point where the effort is needed no more (i.e. the actual "transfer"), as in OBEs?
Also here I have mixed feelings about this because if you read Bardon, for example, it may seem that in astral travel (or the way he calls it, "mental travel") there's always a conscious effort on experiencing what you experience, however the same Crowley seems to imply the contrary when he says that "sometimes it is difficult to return to the body" or similar things in the Confessions and elsewhere (making it look more similar to what it can happen the other way around, as in an OBE).
So, also this I ask because I think it's important. In this way I can know when I'm just deluding myself or actually doing what is to be done.
4. How important it is the first part of the excercize, the one of building-up the figure?
I ask this because as of now for me it's almost impossible to keep a stable image of an human figure in front of myself. I've had some success on keeping a simple geometric figure stable, unchanging etc. for about 2-3 minutes (when I'm very good at it), but for the life of mine with an human figure it's all another thing. I can build up the sense of the figure being present and even have a clear idea of it in front of me, but it's impossible (no matter how much I tried for now) to keep it perfectly stable as if I was looking at it with my physical eyes.
So, have I to practice more until I can do it or I'm pretending something that's not necessary?
5. The "transfer of consciousness" is better done by feeling or "seeing/hearing"?
I tried both ways. In the case of feeling it's very difficult to keep a kinesthetic sensation of a body without moving for a long period of time (if I'm lucky I can keep it at most 30-40 seconds, but still not pefectly stable, and it is especially difficult if the physical sense is "lost"). If seeing, however, the sense of being in another place was more consistent but the boundaries of the body expands somewhat, especially the head (it's difficult for me to concentrate on both things at once), similar to what happens in the physical body when you look at things (but in this case it is easier, if you want, to keep both impressions - the one of the physical and the visual stimuli - coming).
So, what's the "best" thing to focus upon in your experience? Or it's better to strive to have both things at once? (difficult, but I can work at it).
And another thing: when you look within the figure you should strive to actively imagine what you should see or it is better to have impressions come to you (as I mentioned in skrying)? They are different ways to do it.
6. The "transfer of consciousness" is immediate or you have to keep at it? (this is related to point 3 in the fact that the "transfer" can mean different things depending on the reply on that point, naturally.)
When I first tried doing the excercize I've lost an immesurable amount of time thinking that the moment the "transfer" would work I would immediately be in that body (as it happened to me in OBEs and seeing from it immediately in that way as it happens there) and so starting anew everytime and not keeping myself in that body because I thought I failed on it. Now I have the feeling after all that you have to keep at it for a while before the "transfer" works (if there's a transfer at all in the sense of point 3) and so I complicated the issue immensely myself. Am I correct or what I expected before was what it should happen?"
Btw I've followed the other threads in these last days and found many informations in them.
93 93/93.
Lavir -
Lavir,
These are great questions!
I can say I have had to deal with all of them; and though I tend not to worry about them as much as you seem to, answering them in some fashion has proved instrumental in my forming my method.
Nevertheless, my comments are very general, as I am sure Jim, or someone else will be able to provide more detailed responses to your individual concerns.
In general, I have found the whole discussion, literature, and expectations created by OBE's unhelpful. I have treated them as totally different things, though I am aware they might not be. OBE's tend to imply a quasi-physical fact, while there is little to distinguish the first steps in Astral exploration from simple efforts at using the imagination.
The work is initially about concentration, and your efforts to control your astral form are part of a process of gaining control and is just something you should strive to get better at through practice.
One of the things you are learning to do is concentrate on the subtle images of the astral as opposed to the physical world—which is your current dominant habit. Make no mistake, this is effort, but not the same kind of effort it takes to move a heavy piece of furniture. It will get easier, but I suspect there will always be some awareness of needing to make the effort, even if it becomes very easy. You have to make an effort to see things in the physical world as well, it's just an effort you are more or less unconscious of.
I have personally found it helpful to both feel and see through my astral senses as much as possible as this improves the powers of the imagination and helps the consciousness align itself to the astral. You can be very inventive on this score. I do a lot of Hatha yoga in my life, mostly for health related reasons, so there was a period when I developing my body of light when I would do sun-salutes in my astral body.In this way I was able to address everything already mentioned: imagination, concentration, and alignment of my awareness.
Love and Will
-
@Lavir said
"1. It is what Crowley called "Astral Travel" the same as what it is called an "OBE"?"
Not the same at all. One is almost inclined to say they're unrelated. In fact, though, they aren't entirely unrelated, but one misleads (oneself and others) less if one acts like they are.
"Astral Travel" is the mind's direct access to, and ability to move will within, the World of Yetzirah (and, eventually, deeper worlds). The method taught for this is technique - and IMHO the best technique - but it does tend to confusion with Assiah-based externalization, which is a different thing.
I gave a decent description, I think, in one of the introductory chapters of Visions & Voices. It wasn't technically comprehensive (wasn't meant to be) - aimed more at giving people an idea of what this whole "vision" thing was about - but I think it made some good points. I don't have the typesetting files here at work, but if I have any form of it here that I can digitally excerpt, I'll add some notes later in this thread.
"**2. It's necessary the so called "mind awake/body asleep" status that many authors talk about? **"
My best overall counsel on "body of light" work is: It flourishes in response to exactly the same physical and psychological states and capacities as deep meditation. As with meditation, it's not that any specific detail will necessarily block you, but that "every little bit helps" in improving the conditions for success.
As with deep meditation, there is benefit from at least having the body in a still, rested state that keeps it from intruding unduly into the practice. As with deep meditation, one's attention is directed primarily at the inner (non-physical) experience, and therefore benefits from having as little distraction from the physical senses as possible. One does tend to "be in two places at once," but the best results are when one's awareness of existing within the physical body (at the receiving end of the impressions on the physical senses) is minimal.
In the course of practice, one eventually (maybe quickly) enters a state where the body is essentially asleep. That is, it is still, with no motivation to move, and essentially anesthesized. This is highly advantageous.
The ease with which people like Crowley slip into these states comes primarily from extensive practice. When you read The Vision & the Voice, you're getting the report of an Adeptus Exemptus 7=4 with more than a decade in the experience of magical vision plus very extensive yoga practice.
"3. There's a "peek" in the method, a moment when the active visualization becomes passive or it is always an effort of actively keeping at it?"
This vision work is inherently a collaboration between self-conscious and subconscious parts of the psyche. This, alone, makes even moderate success in the method a significant step in the fulfillment of the Great Work, and opens the way to many deeper things.
What this means, though, is that there comes a time when one is no longer "practicing" so much as actually "journeying." In this sense, one is travelling a terrain, still make conscious choices (as one would if, say, going through a museum or a park) but mostly witnessing what is there. (I say "mostly." That may be optimistic, because most people don't mostly witness their physical environments. They go through them preoccupied with other things "in their heads." Therefore, one can't assume that they'll witness inner plane scenes with any more "open eye" watching than they would bring to material universe scenes.)
One still uses conscious intent and selection - invocations, specific setting up of parameters on first entry - to help "arrive" at the right location. One can see this in The Vision & the Voice in the many visions where Crowley initially composed a composite image based on the letters of the Aethyr's name as his "gateway" or "channel tuner."
The example of watching a movie in a theater (or other relatively sensory deprived setting) is a good comparison. If one is relaxed back in the seat and sufficiently absorbed in the movie, one can forget that one is watching a movie. I've often joked that, in 100 years, we'll start having people born with past life memories of flying X-wing space craft flying low runs over something called the Deathstar to try to blow it up - because a memory of a movie that totally absorbed you is as much a real memory (not a real event - just a real memory) as is the recollection of any actual event.
"4. How important it is the first part of the excercize, the one of building-up the figure?"
It's a technique. That's all. OTOH I think it's the best technique. Most people learn and practice it rigorously as if it were reality instead of method, but eventually outgrow it. (Regardie advised as much to me, in a conversation on his front porch shortly before he moved to Arizona. He said to learn the method as taught, but eventually - probably after years of practice - you just tune out the physical universe and tune your mind to where you want to go in the inner worlds. I pass this one as a recommendation.)
"as of now for me it's almost impossible to keep a stable image of an human figure in front of myself."
Then you better practice! If nothing else, the ability to hold an image in your mind at will is important to the rest of the experience also. Really, if you can't do this, then I wouldn't trust you to reliably go anyplace on the inner worlds, pick the place you're going, hold your mind tuned to that one "channel" for the duration, and be able to manifest god-forms and other things you may need. (Concentration is one of those things that falls under the category of "the same things you need for deep meditation.")
Hint: Make the figure more vague. Don't obsess with small details. For example, put it in a flowing robe so that body details below the neck can be fluid and imprecise.
"5. The "transfer of consciousness" is better done by feeling or "seeing/hearing"?"
Depends on the person. Some people are primarily visual, some auditory, some kinesthetic. Which are you? (Do you tend more to say, "I see your point" or "I hear what you're saying" or some spatial-tactile phrase like "I can connect to that," "I'm down with that," etc.?)
In any case, you transfer your point of view to within the figure. It may be easier to do with the figure's eyes closed. Whether you feel yourself in that body first, or open the eyes first and look around, depends on you and your native biases.
"And another thing: when you look within the figure you should strive to actively imagine what you should see or it is better to have impressions come to you (as I mentioned in skrying)? They are different ways to do it."
Whatever works. Most people need a "startup" impression - make yourself see it. (You might be amazed how much you do that in physical life also.)
See, initially you won't really have your p.o.v. in the other location, you'll be faking it (however subtly). That's OK. IME the successful shift comes with continuing until one day you realize you've lost yourself in the new experience and "forgot" what was physically going on - much like getting totally absorbed in a great movie.
6. The "transfer of consciousness" is immediate or you have to keep at it? (this is related to point 3 in the fact that the "transfer" can mean different things depending on the reply on that point, naturally.)"
It varies, but it's always happened pretty fast for me, within moments. (Or, in the earliest practices, not necessarily happened at all.) The key thing is to start perceiving through the senses of "the other body." In this sense, visual has the advantage of orienting you to a different location in the room than your physical body.
-
93,
First of all thank you for the great reply on these points (and also to Robert), they have clarified the thing much, and they actually made me understand that I'm already not too bad at it (apart some things that needs a little of work and I will do it).
So if you have a little more patience as to continue the discussion on some points I would be grateful.
@Jim Eshelman said
""Astral Travel" is the mind's direct access to, and ability to move will within, the World of Yetzirah (and, eventually, deeper worlds). The method taught for this is technique - and IMHO the best technique - but it does tend to confusion with Assiah-based externalization, which is a different thing."
Crowley advises on starting from the physical setting (as having impressions from the room you are in etc.), is this important? I'm usually, in my practice of skrying, for example, very good at having visions from things I "call", but less starting from things that I have to "create" myself. To explain this better: if I call an Angel to appear, or skry a Tattwa, the vision comes clearly, however if I do the same with my room, it is not so easy, everything seems more "artificial" (since it's like, in this case, that the internal impression I'm "creating" it makes the merging with the experience more difficult).
I suppose that also the physical reality is important (and in fact Crowley experienced much also on this point, as written in the Confessions) but it is safe for me to begin first with receiving impressions from a "clear status" instead of having a setting on which to develop them? (I hope this description on what I want to say will suffice to make my point).
"In the course of practice, one eventually (maybe quickly) enters a state where the body is essentially asleep. That is, it is still, with no motivation to move, and essentially anesthesized. This is highly advantageous."
I'm already there with my Asana practice. The problem as of now is that the pain it is so strong that it troubles the concentration, so to do this work I have to use another position that requires much more work for the anesthesia to set in. Usually when I'm in my Asana the anesthesia comes in about 4-5 minutes (the moment the pain starts) and I feel my body no more (a so strange feeling, I feel a lot of pain, to the point of being unbearable in waves, yet at the same time there's no sense of a body per se).
Do you think I should wait until I conquer my Asana at this point before starting serious work on the method?
"The ease with which people like Crowley slip into these states comes primarily from extensive practice. When you read The Vision & the Voice, you're getting the report of an Adeptus Exemptus 7=4 with more than a decade in the experience of magical vision plus very extensive yoga practice."
I understand.
"This vision work is inherently a collaboration between self-conscious and subconscious parts of the psyche. This, alone, makes even moderate success in the method a significant step in the fulfillment of the Great Work, and opens the way to many deeper things."
Thank you very much. All the troubles I had and all the intellectual reservations are vanished now. I understand clearly what I must do.
"What this means, though, is that there comes a time when one is no longer "practicing" so much as actually "journeying." In this sense, one is travelling a terrain, still make conscious choices (as one would if, say, going through a museum or a park) but mostly witnessing what is there. (I say "mostly." That may be optimistic, because most people don't mostly witness their physical environments. They go through them preoccupied with other things "in their heads." Therefore, one can't assume that they'll witness inner plane scenes with any more "open eye" watching than they would bring to material universe scenes.)"
Actually I'm not bad at "journeying". I did it all my life since I'm a painter and I worked with receiving "films" in my mind from since I was a child. The only thing I have to learn properly is how to control the thing a little more consciously and how to have a better impression of a body in there. For example if I try to pose questions, or interact a little more with the vision, the act of doing it usually "disconnect" me from the vision for a moment as if my analytical brain tries to take over. It is like I have a sense of having to calibrate my "radio" for a frequency or another and the moment I make the "switch" I lose the connection for a while.
For example: I am in a landscape and an Angel appears; if I try to talk to Him I lose focus, and the same happens if I willingly move/turn around. If instead the movement or the talk is indirect I don't have this problem. There's a way to facilitate this "merging" of the two "radio stations" or it comes by practice?
"The example of watching a movie in a theater (or other relatively sensory deprived setting) is a good comparison. If one is relaxed back in the seat and sufficiently absorbed in the movie, one can forget that one is watching a movie."
Oh, that it happens to me all the time when I'm "envisioning" the painting I'm going to create in my mind. I focus only on it and all the rest dissapears. It has happened to me also in my practices of skrying, in fact. It is only when I have to "create" impressions instead of "receiving" them that I cannot merge properly with them.
I think one of the subconscious block I have in this case is that if a thing it's created by me and not "called" I have the feeling that's not "real". If I instead I receive an impression on something this block doesn't happen and my subconscious interacts accordingly and completely differently (i.e. taking it for granted and for real and so not imposing a sort of "filter" to the experience).
I will have to work on removing this block.
"Then you better practice! If nothing else, the ability to hold an image in your mind at will is important to the rest of the experience also. Really, if you can't do this, then I wouldn't trust you to reliably go anyplace on the inner worlds, pick the place you're going, hold your mind tuned to that one "channel" for the duration, and be able to manifest god-forms and other things you may need. (Concentration is one of those things that falls under the category of "the same things you need for deep meditation.")"
I have no problems at all on "holding an image in my mind at will", especially with something that attracts my fancy as a robed figure
What I thought was necessary was to have an human figure unmoving and invariable and perfectly still/solid as if looking at it with eyes open (same as I practice doing in Dharana now for simple objects). For an human figure I cannot still do this, the visualization is a bit transparent in any case and not perfectly still and there are some points that "come and go". To reach that point I have to joke with the figure a bit, as in moving it a little (or having it "interact" a little etc.)
"Depends on the person. Some people are primarily visual, some auditory, some kinesthetic. Which are you? (Do you tend more to say, "I see your point" or "I hear what you're saying" or some spatial-tactile phrase like "I can connect to that," "I'm down with that," etc.?)"
Definitety visual. In fact, I have no problems at all with images, but I will have to work (and a lot) with kinesthetic (and also a little on auditory).
"In any case, you transfer your point of view to within the figure. It may be easier to do with the figure's eyes closed. Whether you feel yourself in that body first, or open the eyes first and look around, depends on you and your native biases."
It's the complete feeling of the body that's difficult for me at the moment. I can move almost good (as in changing my point of view etc.) and keep my self there but if, for example I try to move my arm I have difficulty on "feeling" it (and if I force it too much I think of my physical body). For example I tried one time doing the LBRP mentally and while I could turn around changing pow without problems I had a lot of trouble on having the clear feeling of my arms/legs etc. doing the gestures. When I tried to force it I just returned in my physical everytime.
As I said the paradox here is that it is more difficult (at last for me) if the physical body is anesthetized. While the feeling of the "presence" in the other body is much clearer in this case, at the same time it's more difficult for me to interact with the body fully then. Probably because in the latter case I "check" my physical and create a sort of "shadow" from its feeling, while in the other case this cannot happen.
"Whatever works. Most people need a "startup" impression - make yourself see it. (You might be amazed how much you do that in physical life also.)
See, initially you won't really have your p.o.v. in the other location, you'll be faking it (however subtly). That's OK. IME the successful shift comes with continuing until one day you realize you've lost yourself in the new experience and "forgot" what was physically going on - much like getting totally absorbed in a great movie."
Ok, thanks. In reality it has already happened to me this. It is only that with my experiences in OBEs I thought that I should strive to have exactly the same thing here (i.e. that it should have been immediately "automatic/passive" and having the same impressions from it). This was my trouble.
Thank you again for all your time.
93, 93/93
Lavir.
-
@Lavir said
"
@Jim Eshelman said
""Astral Travel" is the mind's direct access to, and ability to move will within, the World of Yetzirah (and, eventually, deeper worlds). The method taught for this is technique - and IMHO the best technique - but it does tend to confusion with Assiah-based externalization, which is a different thing."Crowley advises on starting from the physical setting (as having impressions from the room you are in etc.), is this important?"
I think it is, yes, at least in the early training. It's an excellent technique at the very least. It has psychological advantages and some practical ones (that would take a long essay to explain and that don't really matter to the answer).
But also realize that it might not entirely look exactly like the physical surroundings. It should look similar - especially if you're externalized only to the etheric level - but otherwise you're really seeing the astral counterpart of the room. An interesting thing, if you have plants in the room, is to walk over and look closely at them soon after externalization. See what you see.
"Do you think I should wait until I conquer my Asana at this point before starting serious work on the method?"
No need. In fact, in the A.'.A.'. the astral "mastery" is required at 1=10, and testing on asana not until 2=9.
"What I thought was necessary was to have an human figure unmoving and invariable and perfectly still/solid as if looking at it with eyes open (same as I practice doing in Dharana now for simple objects). For an human figure I cannot still do this, the visualization is a bit transparent in any case and not perfectly still and there are some points that "come and go". To reach that point I have to joke with the figure a bit, as in moving it a little (or having it "interact" a little etc.)"
It's a fucking ghost! An astral wraith!
-
Rereading what you wrote yesterday I understand now that I've been a little too hasty on one of my replies and didn't probably understand correctly what you wrote (excuse me for this).
Namely:
"See, initially you won't really have your p.o.v. in the other location, you'll be faking it (however subtly). That's OK. IME the successful shift comes with continuing until one day you realize you've lost yourself in the new experience and "forgot" what was physically going on - much like getting totally absorbed in a great movie."To which I replied:
"Ok, thanks. In reality it has already happened to me this."But then, practicing yesterday for about two hours I understood that I exchanged what you said for another thing. If I understand this correctly until a certain point, also if you "fake" a 1st person p.o.w. it is always a sort of imposed impression, until you don't fully merge with what you experience. Sort of like in the practice of the excercizes of Loyola when you envision the gospels at beginning it's like you are watching a movie (also if you pretend to have the p.o.w of Christ in there) and it will develops in being really Christ with a full "merging" with it.
In the former case you can fake at seeing things in first person etc. but the real impression and full merging with that p.o.w. happens only when you are totally absorbed in the experience, sort of like (as a methaphor for the concentration needed) having a broken mirror reflecting various impressions vs. an intact one giving back a full (one pointed), reliable one.
It was this to what you did refer to?
In this case, no, I never experienced it (I experienced watching a vivid movie, but not a full merging in 1st person in it, and I didn't understand it until I tried to put a full 1st person view in there, yesterday). I guess it will come by and by as I practice and I become better at yoga.
I am buying a plant for my bedroom just to see what happens.