Astral VS Earthly ritual effectiveness according to skill?
-
When i got into western magick practice using"self intitiation into GD tradition"manual, i read a comment concerning it by an initiate. He said, basically, that if someone is able to work that manual astrally, it means he's of a higher level than what those rituals are supposed to initiate into.
He also advised for the beginner to work them as much as possible astrally for maximum benefits. I noticed also astral work seemed to have more impact than physical one back then.
But now it feels it's begining to change. It feels like the physical is more powerful ! In some sense, like if the added resistance/friction and slower time of earth actually helps to "build up" more power, and that it "snaps back" very well into the astral anyway. It seems also to last longer. Like if the earth make the magick "stick" better. It feels like some kind of storage device.
It seems to me this shift corresponds to the two steps:1.volatilize the fix 2.fix the volatile
Is this right? And how does this tend(if there are such tendencies anyway) to work for the adept? Does the preference/effectiveness depends mostly on his true will, as he has no technical limitations/priorities of work?
Anything to add/comment concerning this?
-
Personally, I have found that performing the ceremony on various levels simultaneously produces the best results. However, the only way to be able to do that is to master the planes separately. Back in the day, I would spend a great deal of time working through a ceremony on the mental plane, then the astral plane, and finally on the physical plane. After working this methodology for a while, I found that if I neglected one plane or another, I would find that a "part" of my "self" would go into something like autopilot. This however, would only be true if I performed the ceremony in Assiah.
Over time and through practice I learned that my "selfs" were capable of multi-tasking. I could do a ceremony on multiple planes simultaneously, thus negating the need to spend an abundance of time working on a desired outcome. The astral "senses" began to kick on during ceremony, and then things really got interesting. The power of vibration became soemthing closer to what Crowley described and thoughts themselves seemed to have power over matter.
To answer your question, I would say that it doesn't matter what order you work the different planes in, simply that you work all planes regarding a matter.
-
Most of us spend a lot of time with a disconnect between our astral and physical worlds. We spend our workday looking at screens, absorbed in a mental world of text and numbers.
Doing things that connect the worlds, where our mental focus and our physical actions are united, is a very healthy respite.
Ceremony takes place in that reality where time stops, the outside world becomes remote, and you enter holy space. Physical actions are really useful tools for creating that space.
I suspect that it would be natural (and a little rationalizing) for a self initiation guide to want to emphasize astral over physical practices.
-
@HounganRocky said
"Personally, I have found that performing the ceremony on various levels simultaneously produces the best results. However, the only way to be able to do that is to master the planes separately."
Yes !
As above so below !
The whole is in everything and everything is in the whole.
I do that already on subplanes(elements) of each plane i can access... it makes sense, when the elements and the planes are mastered and purified enough, it is time to combine their powers as a whole.
As in art so in royal art.
Thanks.
-
@Avshalom Binyamin said
"Ceremony takes place in that reality where time stops, the outside world becomes remote, and you enter holy space. Physical actions are really useful tools for creating that space"
Could you describe how "physical actions"do "create that space"? What happens esoterically? In what way action in assiah acts specifically to produce such effect?
I practice a lot of physical art but it still(or should i say it is more and more) a mystery to me.
I have a feeling there is something "special"there but it could be because i'm a Capricorn or something
-
I think about important events in my life that have that quality, like weddings, childbirth, initiations.
Some of these events are (like a childbirth) are so intense and dramatic, that we can't think of anything else. You can be in a distracting room, with machines and people around, and register none of it. (I remember when my daughter was born, one of the doctors discovered that she had been standing on my bare foot for about 10 minutes, and I hadn't noticed it. I hadn't even left the room to pee for 12 hours).
Other events are more planned. A wedding can be an elaborate event that you plan for months, and everything from your clothes to the venue is special, reinforcing the importance of the event. You don't check your watch. Many people talk about their wedding days as being an intense blur, and they often remember very little apart from standing facing each other and saying their vows. Initiations can have a similar effect.
For many artists, this might correspond to trying to create an art exhibit that facilitates the viewers' experience of the exhibit "outside of time". Thinking about the overall effect of the space, the rooms, the flow through the exhibit, etc.
So, part of the equation is learning to focus on something important in spite of distractions, and another part is controlling the environment to remove distractions and to emphasize to ourselves how important the event is. The latter part makes it easier for us to focus. Elements:
-Advance planning
-Putting the effort into special details
-Removing potential distractionsAnd then you have the elaborate details of the ritual itself, which can be carefully picked to reinforce the core of the ceremony:
-Smells
-Sounds
-Tactile sensations
-Tastes
-Colors and shapes
-Movement, direction, and positions of objects
-Numbers and words -
As far as effectiveness, magicians have been performing ritual work physically
for quite sometime and it's effective. I suppose the real question is, when you say
"Astral" what I think you mean to say is "Yetzirah"? A magician would choose to
conduct an operation in Yetzirah (hopefully) because it's the plane corresponding to
the principle he's looking to cause change in. Truly depends upon the intentions of the
work. It's kind of like saying " I need to dive beneath this boat to fix a crack in the hull ".