College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Thanks, Jim

So I've been at Liber III for almost 2 years now, using rubber band or "marking myself with a pen" methods as I work in corporate environments.

I've spent about 10 months each on sections 1.i and 1.ii; haven't gotten to 1.iii yet. My best "score" is 1-2 slips a week. I can consistently hit that. But still, I'll slip.

My question is: How much is enough? (Specifically for 3=8 level mastery.) Crowley recommends practices last for a week or more in Liber III, and then for the grade states "He shall attain complete success in Liber III, Cap. I." Does that mean 0 slips for each section, i-iii, over the course of a week each?

Thank you for any insight anyone can offer!

Thanks. This has been my conclusion so far, especially as pushing pranayama to high levels produced phenomena similar to what's listed in SSS. My thought was "As long as I'm sitting in thunderbolt trying to engage sweat and kundalini phenomena, it seems like adding pranayama would make this a whole lot easier." But wanted to check that.

Thanks. So pranayama is not employed? Is there an agent—outside of visualization—that triggers the experience?

Question about the sweat or "sweat of blood" mentioned in the SSS section of Liber HHH: It seems unlikely to me that sweat is going to be experienced simply from a strong visualization. It does seem likely, however, that sweat would be experienced through pranayama; and also that the kundalini phenomenon mentioned in SSS are broadly analogous to the ones brought about through pranayama. Ergo, are you meant to be doing pranayama while performing SSS?

Gauging success in Liber III.

What constitutes "Complete Success" in Liber III (as in "He shall attain complete success in Liber III, Cap. I")—for each of the stages of Cap. I? Are there specific periods of time in which the practitioner achieves no slips (for each stage of Cap. I) to be successful?

Thanks Jim, that helps.

Plus if anybody asks me about the red string I can say I am into the Kabbalah Center. You know, like Madonna.

I was using a pen. Once I got good I switched to a razor. I interact with a huge number of people every day, usually in stressful situations (corporate work). The razor isn't the issue—when I'm on point I don't make enough cuts for anybody to notice. The issue is when I go under and lose the thread of the practice.

Hello all, long time no talk...

I've been working at Liber III for several months now. And I'm finding it remarkably difficult.

Here's why:

Noticing when I say the target word and applying the razor is easy and good practice, when I'm on point.

However, the problem isn't remembering the target word, the problem is falling unconscious of the fact that I'm even doing the practice at all. This tends to happen later in the week, when I'm worn down by the "grind" of professional and personal commitments and less alert and rested. I lose the reins and slide back into the stream of unconscious living only to realize a day has gone by without monitoring my words at all, because I've been caught up in everything life is throwing at me and gone back into unconscious non-vigilance.

This is, I imagine, a major point of this exercise. But since I'm struggling to even get past the first step for this reason and complete a fully vigilant week, I'm curious if anyone has any tips in regards to the exercise?

93
Cygnus

Thank you

So at that point would it simply be "do the rest of the subsidiary practices"?

OK. Did everything in Liber E, then back to Liber Ru, and pushed it up to the top number (32/64/16), the point where it says "let him still further increase the period."

From Ru, I've done the First, Second, Third, Sixth and Eleventh practices.

Pranyama Results 2:

After practice of a year and a half, I can now do 32/64/16 pranayama easily and comfortably for an hour, daily. Have achieved results: head and nervous system light up and body "disappears" into surging bliss in exactly the same way that a successful asana achieves. Skin contracting, energy surging across body as it disappears in a huge, orgasmic "nervous system event."

Where would I go from here?

Aha, thanks!

That's very cool!

I guess this is my specific question: I'm trying to understand exactly what Crowley means by Automatic Rigidity (which, BTW, is not mentioned in the classic texts). Is it the kundalini flashes that occur before the ecstatic, weightless states I describe, where the body surges and goes calm (but does not "lock up" as with an advanced asana, especially as pranayama involves so much movement)? Or is it something specific I need to keep pushing to get to? (I'm currently grinding on the 32/64/16 level, for ten-fifteen minute periods.)

Is this a taboo topic?

General notes on progress with pranayama:

• Can comfortably do an 11/44/22 cycle, and can extend higher but haven't pushed it out to an hour.

• Can greatly prolong kumbhaka stage using additional yogic techniques.

• Quickly progress through heavy sweat stage at 5-10 min or so, begin to get kundalini flashes (body rushes, energy rushing to head, pleasurable whole-body energy phenomena) when warming up at 15/15/15 (I go through each stage of Liber E briefly as a warm-up before going on to higher pranayamas).

• After progressing past 15/15/15, these effects stop though sweat may persist. After getting up to 10/40/20 and extending past about 30 min. of practice, I begin to pass into stages that I would identify with the following markers:

• Feelings of ego death (internal dialogue and sense of self begin to flatten and I enter into a mentally silenced state, beginning to lose sense of a separate observer. Emotions are flattened as well and feel "airy" as if the individual neuroses have been severed... by a dagger of air? )

• Loss of sense of body, entering into non-local bliss

• Extreme highs, identical (!) in my experience to a very heavy opiate high which severs connection to body and separate neurotic ego

It occurs to me that these phenomena may be what's discussed as the fourth stage of Pranayama, "rising into the air."

What I haven't experienced (unless I'm misinterpreting signs?) is the type of "automatic rigidity" that I did during long asana practice, when the body actually did lock up and then enter a bliss state. It stays fluid, especially as there is so much movement in pranayama, even if I lose sense of it.

I wanted to run this by you and see how it fits with your experience and with the technical requirements of One Star in Sight?

Thanks

Yeah, considered going the knife kit route. Seems like the easiest. However, would like to do it "Liber A style" if possible. Considering just buying a piece of steel and trying to grind it down by hand, rather than, you know, screwing around with a belt sander, forge, etc. I understand this can be very time consuming.

Fark. The Pantacle was so much easier... and that was hard!

Hi,

I've been having a frustrating time making the dagger to Liber A specs. As given by Crowley, the dagger would require one to assemble a shop of a lot of expensive and messy gear, or, as I've been trying to do, get a knife smith to walk you through making one at theirs. Everyone I've talked to about this has flaked on me, and I've been trying for months. There's got to be an easier way to do this, like for instance, just getting a steel file and filing the &!* down.

If anybody here has made the dagger, how did you do it, and is there a more sensible approach to this?

Thank you!

Thank you!

Is it the type of work that could be added to an already engaged Thelemic tree-climbing expedition, and compliment it rather than derail it?