Carlos Castaneda DVD

No, Carlos has not made an after-life appearance on DVD, although one or two pictures of him in what appears to be his mid-30's have actually surfaced after all these years (since Carlos sent a stand-in to the famous Time Magazine shoot, they don't have any stock photos to draw on either).

(I can't vouch for the authenticity of the two pictures that are floating around the internet; I did see Carlos just once, at the 1993 Anaheim Tensegrity program, and he looked quite different from the pictures - older, of course, but also leaner. He apparently lost the pudginess that Don Juan had ribbed him about. He could have easily passed for Don Genaro! At least in my mind's eye.)

Instead we have an independent (independent of Carlos's surving organization Cleargreen, that is) 2004 production entitled "Carlos Castaneda: Enigma of a Sorcerer." This movie/video may have had a brief theatrical release, but it's taken a while for it to make it onto DVD and for me to get it from Netflix.

It's not clear to me who put this video release together; Rich Jennings/Corrie Donovan is one of the important commentators in the piece, and I suspect that this is either his work (as an outgrowth of SustainedAction.org) or he was strongly involved with it. (It's never clear with Charlie's Angels since they tend to adopt different names and personas; part of that "erasing personal history" thing.) Rich looks different from what I remember of a lunch meeting with him in the early '90's - he, too, has lost his pudginess but, more amazingly, he actually looks younger than a decade ago.

(So despite the massive grumbling about how CC tricked everyone, most of the people who got caught up his Theater of the Real in the '90's seem to have come out of it in pretty good shape.)

I got turned off by SustainedAction.org, which appeared on the 'net in the late '90's; in mind-numbing detail the site documents how (gasp) CC and the other members of his crew made up a lot of their stories, including inventing (shock) Don Juan. (Thanks to SustainedAction.org, we can now definitely re-catalog the Don Juan books out of anthropology/shamanism into fiction/mystic literature/tales of power. Yawn. I suppose next I'm going to find out that Madame Blavatsky didn't really get the Mahatma Letters, that there was no Golden Dawn Charter from Frau Sprengel, and that McGregor Mathers brilliantly extrapolated/made up the Golden Dawn materials instead of being in communication with Secret Chiefs.)

But this DVD is different. It debunks, but it does not destroy.

What is far more interesting to me than debunking Castaneda, is to what extent (seemingly a large extent) Carlos was nevertheless a brujo, a modern sorcerer, in his personal life, and what effect he had on his party.

Before the current DVD, I had only five sources of information on the real (?), as opposed to the fictive, Carlos: (i) an offhand comment repeated by Carlos's former "wife" in a Fate Magazine interview that a friend cautioned her that Carlos was a brujo; (ii) the Nagualist Newsletter; (iii) my limited experiences with Tensegrity seminars; (iv) SustainedAction.org and comments from friends; and (v) Amy Wallace's book, Sorcerer's Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda.

Even while I was getting absolute confirmation that Carlos "made up" most of what he wrote, a portrait of a real magician, a real sorcerer, began to emerge.

The new DVD adds poignant personal testimony to the enigma of Castaneda. It is a mixture of personal recollections from members of a weekly workshop held by Castaneda in fairly tight secrecy in the early to mid-90's, plus commentary from a couple of writers who either spun their own works off the Don Juan mythos (while treating it as real) or made early efforts to debunk Carlos.

Neither the witches (Florinda, Taisha, Carol) nor the Chocmools (the three females who led the initial Tensegrity seminars) make an appearance; but the practitioners who do, were closely enough involved to have been deeply affected and to have authentic comments to make.

It is also a mature work: the doubts, anger, and back-biting have been dropped. There is a genuine effort to try to understand what CC was, and what he accomplished, and where his students have been left. Perhaps most importantly, the interviews resonate with character and integrity; with economy of expression and sincerity; to the point where the interviews become tales of power themselves.

I think that some of CC's trickiness has also rubbed off on the producers of this DVD; two of the commentary inclusions are suspect. One is from a researcher who, very early in the game, tried to debunk Castaneda with absolutely no success (except perhaps for academics who didn't believe in Carlos in the first place). He pops up here, vindicated at last, the true believers acknowledging the skeptic was right all along (metaphorically, by his inclusion in the film, not literally). By his very presence, he creates a pregnant pause: yes, but so what, you've proven the wizard of Oz isn't from Oz, but have you proven he isn't a wizard?

The other hilarious inclusion, is a very serious, pompous Victor Sanchez, who totally ignores the fact that Don Juan was a fiction, that there is no Toltec Tradition, who spouts on about Carlos having been consumed by the path.

I'm sorry. Carlos was fucking brilliant. William Blake said he needed to invent his own poetic mythology, or be a slave to another's; Carlos actualy did it. He was not some obese writer of fantasy novels about lost realms. He was lean, taut, charismatic; his books are concise, spare, instructional, visionary, and poetic. In his life, "he had more women that Wilt Chamberlain" (as one interviewee puts it) but nevertheless convinced the daughter of one of America's great writers that she would be his "first woman in 20 years." He had boundless energy, and the people around him had more "siddhis" than the typical itinerant Indian yogi. (I remember one bookstore lecture by Florinda Donner in which she scathed that the men in the audience with their blazing third eyes were completely missing the point - and she was awfully damned psychic on that one.) In the film, the casual comment is made that Carlos had an uncanny ability to read people; to seemingly read minds. I'd say that his ability to read minds, is easier to explain as a psychic phenomenon than to explain rationally a the ability to read body language; it was that spot-on.

Carlos is accused of inventing Tensegrity as a way to reach a larger audience, but he was already teaching similar moves to people in the late '60's. Tensegrity, as many note in the film, produces a strange clarity/serenity/focus of mind that other body movement series do not.

I highly recommend this DVD to those who are not still invested in taking the Don Juan books as holy writ, but who haven't written off Carlos as a charlatan. It is an excellent bridge between the public world of Carlos Castaneda, and his inner Theater of the Real.

Favorite Tarot Decks

Some of my favorite Tarot card decks are:

• Thoth Tarot;
• Tarot of Ceremonial Magick (by Duquette); and
• The Golden Dawn Magical Deck (by Cicero).

Thoth Tarot is the most evocative (and perhaps provocative as well!); Tarot of Ceremonial Magick is like “flash cards” for a lot of useful magickal symbols and works very well with Tree of Life studies and Goetic workings; and the Golden Dawn Magical Deck is a good modern “updating” (not strictly as updating as much as a restatement) of the now-slightly old-fashioned Rider-Waite decks and their variations. All are available on Amazon.

The Golden Dawn deck is the least spooky deck, and hence less likely to raise eyebrows if you travel with it or use it to tell friends their “fortunes,” but has a wealth of Golden Dawn symbolism embedded in it.

All three decks are good for meditation, readings, and skryings (gaze at a card; look away and "see" the card doorway sized; and imaginatively step through the portal thus created).

Pause Control

It's too bad our lives don't come with a pause control. Actions follows actions almost without interruption. It's hard to even take a crap in peace these days. I swear I've called people on their cellphone only to hear water flushing during the conversation. That's more than I want to know.

Ngakpa Chögyam once gave a very concise Dzogchen "pointing out." He said (and I liberally paraphrase) "engage in random acts of meditation." Just put yourself on pause once in a while, during harmless daily activities (like typing this blog), relax, and open into a state of meditation. Pause.

That moment of silence, before the first thought rushes in to fill the sudden void in internal/external activity - thats IT!

Controlled Folly

Carlos Castaneda has been accused of borrowing themes from Buddhism, but I think this shortchanges the brujo. Southern Buddhism advocates a very withdrawn, quietest lifestyle; and while some northern schools of Buddhism seem to accept more extreme behavior (wild tales of Ch'an masters and Tantric yogis), Carlos seems to be taking more of a middle path - live an "ordinary" life, but control it, don't let it control you. The actions of ordinary beings are folly - therefore live the life of a warrior, and control your folly, don't indulge in it or let it control you.

I think of this sometimes as I go to work...or deal with family shit.

Theater of the Real, and the “Magickal Personality”/“Magickal Diary”

Magick is a “stretch.”

It’s hard enough for most of us to bluff our way through ordinary life pretending to be confident, calm, and decisive. Many of us succumb to the slow poison of worry or, worse, to self-destructive behavior.

Perhaps that is why Carlos Castaneda kept revisiting the themes of “impeccability” and “sobriety” in his public lectures and private classes. It’s important to have a “tight,” “well-tuned” life free of excessive worry and free of self-destructive behavior; to be spontaneous, but not impulsive; to be considered in our actions, but not ponderous.

Impeccability and sobriety are the essence of thriftiness with our life’s daily energies; they are the investment in our future that offers the best rate of return. On impeccability and sobriety stand our ability to improve ourselves in all the relevant areas of our life: physical fitness and well-being; health; emotional balance; contentedness; happiness; spirituality.

Only when one’s everyday life is taut, can one turn to magick. Otherwise, things will get crazier, not better; the opposition between the ordinary self and the magickal personality will tear us apart.

That having been said, there’s no way to practice magick with our ordinary persona. It’s not just because magick is closely linked to ceremonial, and ceremonial is so closely linked to theater, to drama; it’s because our ordinary persona, our “street suit,” is just too small a vehicle in which to pour the awe and power that magick should evoke. If we are going to live “larger than life” in the spiritual world, we need to be a little “larger than life” in our magickal personality.

Rather than trying to “upgrade” our ordinary persona to the higher voltage capacity required to properly practice magick, it’s a lot easier to start from scratch and build a magickal personality that is suited to the task from day one. Fortunately, it’s a pretty simple process. You just proceed with the rituals and practices (if you want precise, clear cut direction, just open the “Golden Dawn” book compiled by Regardie and published by Lewellyn and begin reading and doing) and the magickal personality will emerge and thereafter be “on call” during our practices. It’s a lot like acting; if you want to play a character out of Shakespeare, just do it. The trick is, don’t confuse your magickal personality, as it emerges, with your day to day life. Don’t try to explain, or understand, the differences; just know that they exist and are normal. And certainly don't beat yourself up because your magick personality is everything you want your ordinary personality to be, but isn't.

One extension of the magickal personality that is easy to manifest apart from ritual, is the magickal diary – not a mundane record of rituals, but the written expression of the magickal personality – written by a practitioner, with a practitioner’s voice.

I think you can all see why it is important not to “profane” magick by performing for friends, or in public; their doubts and sense of the absurd will assault your magickal confidence, and set you back in the development of your magickal personality.

That's why humility is also an important part of magick - without it, the risks of egomania in every day life are too great

The Importance of Well-Being

It's not much good to be an ardent student of the occult, or of any spiritual practice or endeavor, if your life is a mess. These are some of the things I have learned at the school of hard-knocks:

1. Life is not a party. It's important to keep regular hours most of the time, and to get plenty of sleep. The old adage about burning a candle at both ends is true.
2. Your body is an engine, and it runs on food. What you put into your body has a lot of influence on your well-being. Stay away from junk foods, high cholesterol, etc. Drink lots of water. Keep sugars intake low. Snack on raw nuts, carrots, etc. Don't over-eat.
3. If you don't use it, you lose it - exercise is important. You shouldn't exercise to the point where it's like beating up your body, though. Simple walking is under-appreciated. If nothing else, take the stairs whenever you can, and don't look for the closest parking spot.
4. Too much excitement is not a good thing. The brain/mind needs periods of tranquilty to restore its natural balance. Don't fill up any empty moments with the radio or tv. Meditating 5 minutes a day is better than an hour a week.
5. Relationships are important, probably one of the central keys to well being. Good company will encourage you in good ways. (But don't look for magickal companions, the stress is too great.)

Standing Like A Pillar - A Basic Standing Chinese Meditation

The Chinese definitely have some masters of stillness. I first heard about "standing still" from a book called "The Way of Energy" which talks about "Zhan Zhang." You can Google Zhan Zhang for more information. More recently a discussion of "standing still" appeared in a small paperback book on training for Chinese grappling. I thought it was interesting that this somewhat esoteric practice should appear in a book on a very exoteric and physical art like wrestling.

When I used to practice kung fu (choi li fut), after my warmup exercises I would often practice "standing still" in one of the postures from the Way of Energy for several minutes, and was surprised how deeply affecting the stillness coupled with the postures could be. I never experienced the same depth of stillness or transformed awareness in sitting meditation. If I did several rounds of standing, I pretty much "blew out my mind" for the rest of the afternoon and felt quite different all day; on those days I never got around to practicing the actual choi li fut forms. Sometimes the Zhan Zhang would leave me stupefied, not mentally, but craving sleep, like a deep physical exhaustion although all I'd done was stand still. If I went home and slept, my sleep would be a little strange - on the border of a projection experience.

It is hard to explain, but I highly recommend exploration of Zhan Zhang. No equipment is needed, the postures are all "still" so there are no complicated moves to make (or to try to figure out from confusing diagrams).

Carlos Castaneda and the Theater of the Real

Once you realize what Carlos was up to, all the clues are right there in his writings and talks. For example, very early on Don Juan is somewhat upset that Carlos's "power animal" is an unreliable coyote instead of a stupendous power animal like a snake. Is Carlos not simply telling us to take what he recounts with a grain of salt?

Likewise he introduces the concept of "tales of power" - of stories that may or may not be true, but carry power.

Later, in his public talks, he introduces "theater of the real." Is this theater not his everyday life, the man (and his group) behind the meme?

But does this mean a Carlos as fraud is also a Carlos without substance? I don't think so. Despite spending the past five years coming out of denial that Carlos was quite the big liar, his writings still amaze me, and never cease to instruct. Not to mention that his system of body work, Tensegrity, produces some pretty potent shifts in awareness.

Unlike the Wizard of Oz, where a carnival huckster devoid of all substance is finally revealed behind the curtain, when the curtain is pulled aside on Carlos Castaneda we are left Charlie Coyote. Not Charlie Spider, his birth name, but the inventive, and true, wizard of odd.

Senseless Internal Chatter

I think it would be a very interesting experiment to record all of one's thoughts, for an hour, on tape, or in a notebook, then read them back later and wonder how we ever get anything done.

Something other than our "deep self" must be doing all that senseless internal chatter. Other than an occasional "I need to pick up Pampers for the baby" not a lot seems to be going on at the surface level of consciousness, in my internal dialog.

On the other hand, sometimes I feel that the real "me" is looming silently over the chatterbox me, and that's the parent in charge of the kid.

Determination and Self-Determination

Determination means the will to get the job at hand done.

Self-determination means something different; more akin to independence of choice, but coupled with the "get the job done" factor as well.

To succeed at magick, one must have both determination and be self-determined - determination is required because magick is hard, and self-determination is required because it is essentially a lonely path. Only you can choose to start it, and to persist.

So You Want to Be a Magickian...

The imaginary Don Juan told the self-imagined Carlos Castaneda that anyone who actually wanted to be a "man of knowledge" was like a cracked gourd, which would split open if actually filled with water. Real men of knowledge didn't volunteer for the job, they were shanghaied.

Israel Regardie recommended psychoanalysis as a necessary precursor or adjunct to magickal work. He had seen too many "cracked gourds" in his day.

So if you want to be a magickian, I have two recommendations for you:

1. Consider your motives very carefully. As Carlos Castaneda would say, conduct a ruthless self-inventory, and don't sentimentalize or gloss over your real motives.

2. Take the time to lay a good foundation; read before you practice.

Here are a few preparatory steps I recommend:

• Get a copy of the Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune. It is the finest work on Western Qabalah ever written. If it bores you, tough, reading through this stuff is good medicine for repairing any major or hairline cracks in your "gourd." Simply reading it will help to balance your magickal psyche and prepare you for the "real work." Hint: read the chapter on any Middle Pillar sephiroth by itself; but when you read chapters on sephiroth on the outlying columns, read them in pairs so they balance you out. With respect to the paths, read back to the Middle Pillar sephiroth after reading about any path.
• Get a decent, generalist book on astrology and read it - not so much for how to cast a chart, but the description of the astrological influences and traits. Once again, this has a subtle balancing effect.
• Start taking regular walks. These can strengthen and calm you.
• Do a gym workout, or possibly take a yoga class. These strenghten and calm you.

If you take these steps, and aren't doing drugs, you should be ok.

If you still want to practice magick after 3-6 months of this preparatory work, then proceed. More discussion in the next entry.

Why Grades Are Important in the Golden Dawn

Grades in the Golden Dawn are based on the Qabalistic Tree of Life. They constitute both preparation and permission to work "higher" levels of the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is a way to look at the universe - where universe includes "everything" exterior and interior, and not just what astronomers see and catalog. The universe inside as well as the universe outside.

The Tree of Life doesn't exist as an object in itself, and I personally doubt every aspect of the universe can be crammed somewhere onto the Tree without also popping up somewhere else in slightly different form, or overlapping. Life just doesn't seem to work in such "neat" categories. On the other hand, the Tree of Life is a darn good approach to self-development and a lot - a very large lot - of the everyday universe (exterior and interior) can be associated in a pleasing, harmonious, and/or rational way onto the Tree of Life. Hey, everyday we have to choose what we focus on and what we ignore, and the Tree of Life is a set of rules and principles on how to focus on things in the astral plane.

Other good road maps/models are astrology and the trigrams and hexagrams of the I Ching. Unfortunately there aren't, to my knowledge, any good initiatory systems based on those two models. Certainly there aren't any systems as readily accessible to the Western student as the Tree of Life. Actually, most the planets are attributed to the Tree of Life so a good way of working with them is to study the Tree of Life.

Part of Golden Dawn practice was known as "path working" and involved self-directed meditations up the Tree of Life. As the practioner moved along different portions of the Tree of Life, he/she had to give the Grade Signs to progress beyond the guardians posted at each portal. Sometimes the meditations were so vivid as to constitute "waking dreams" and this is what "astral projection" is really all about.

Personally I believe you can jump right in at any path, any sephiroth (the paths are the tubes between the circles, the circles are the sephiroth) and have a meditation or astral experience. However, it is also clear that the quality of the meditation experience will improve vastly if you start at the bottom and "walk" your walk up the Tree; consider the paths and sephiroth you have to transit as a necessary "warm up" exercise. Similarly, I believe the Grade Signs and initiations are not essential to path working, but add immensely to the quality of the result. The more you immerse yourself in the system, the better the results, much better than jumping in cold.

In short, the Grades and their initiations are similar to school; it helps to go through the process a step at a time. As the teachings and experiences of each Grade sink in, the next Grade becomes more accessible. The initiations bring everything to a focus.

Practicing in Accordance with the Golden Dawn Materials

There are basically three approaches to Golden Dawn work:

1. Do it completely on your own, or in conjunction with like-minded individuals who are also beginners;

2. Find an active Golden Dawn temple and join; or

3. Do some preliminary work and then join a temple.

I used to subscribe strongly to #2, but have come to believe that the published materials and comments are so rich that some very solid work can be done alone, on your own, in actually advancing through the outer grades and not just in picking and choosing preparatory rituals designed for individual practice to study and work on.

Keep in mind that Golden Dawn work is essentially divided into three areas: graded initiations, which are required before receiving certain knowledge lectures; preparatory exercises, such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, Rose Cross Ritual, Analysis of the Key Word (INRI) etc.; and knowledge lectures and other study.

I have no doubt that a pure-hearted, properly motivated individual can practice the preparatory exercises to great benefit, and study the knowledge lectures and larger body of published works they suggest. The question is whether one can "receive the grades," or some semblance of them, by reading the initiatory rituals carefully, imaginatively engaging in them, or actually carrying them out without full temple paraphenalia and full temple officers.

My conclusion is that the best initiation is from a group that has already done solid work itself, but that to a large extent you can also "haul yourself up" by your own bootstraps - which is essentially what the founders of the Golden Dawn and their most infamous student, Aleister Crowley, did. Doing it yourself is harder, but free from the political infighting and social issues attendant to groups. Also, you have more "ownership" of the results yourself.

You should be cautioned that some active temples take a dim view of self-initiation, and will refuse to initiate you into any ritual you have even read beforehand, much less "self-initiated" yourself in via active imagination. On the other hand, one group invites self-initation in the outer orders (up to Adeptus Minor), and has taken the position that the publication of outer Golden Dawn materials has to be recognized at this stage of the game as an accomplished fact and de facto invitation to participate "at large."

In the course of this blog I will hopefully explore self-initation and the available source materials more.

On Western Initiatory Orders and Their Grades

Before I can talk about western initiatory orders like the Golden Dawn, I need to talk a little about the evolution of religion in the west.

Basically, before Catholicism there were many religions, many temples, many groups. There were the public religions/temples that celebrated holy days (now known as "holidays" in the vernacular) and performed ceremonies and healings for the public; and there were the so-called "mystery" groups which were more secretive and focused on personal and group spiritual growth and the acquisition of spiritual/magickal powers. There were also itinerant practitioners ranging from charlatan to village wise-woman to shaman to magickian.

In short, the marketplace was wide open and abundant.

As Catholicism grew in power and stamped out rival religions, imposing an almost Orwellian mind-control on the middle ages, the only remaining diversity came from four sources: fraternal orders which were the province of the nobility (for example, Knights of the Garter); special orders within Catholicism itself (for example, the Dominicans and the Jesuits); and the Jewish communities scattered throughout Europe. Everyone else had to shut up or be persecuted.

It is rumored that some noble families and some fraternal organizations, societies, or clubs maintained certain "pagan" practices on the sly, hidden from the almost all-powerful Church. Outer fraternal and noble orders developed rituals and initiations for their members which were quas-religious in tone. So long as these groups were Christian on their face and didn't snub the Church, they could practice what they wanted. The Church wanted to dominate the nobility, but could never quite do so. Of course, the nobility had to publicly support the Church, which it did, except for the hilarious example of Henry VIII who schismed the Church so he could get one more divorce.

Within the Church, some priests and monks were rumored to practice magick, and the grimoires of fairly old pedigree suggest that something was going on. Although many portions of such grimoires are ludicrous, modern magickians have been able to adapt/decode them so as to produce startling results. No one would suspect that a monk or priest was practicing a grimoire, as opposed to keeping it around to recognize a witch or warlock when one appeared. The most famous acknowledged member of a Catholic order to practice magick was Eliphas Levi of the 19th century, who was taking orders before leaving to avoid a scandal for his occult writings.

Finally, since they were "off the map" from the standpoint of the Church, Jews were able to preserve the Qabalah and its associated mystical and magickal practices, and these two provided an invaluable contribution to western initiatory orders.

As the "Age of Enlightenment" began to replace the Dark Ages via the influence of "science," a humanistic movement emerged in the West. This was quite a revolution, to place man/woman at the center of the field of inquiry, rather than God. Once man/woman was at the center of inquiry, his/her personal spiritual development, as opposed to "being saved by grace," became a legitimate subject to explore.

The greatest example of a humanistic/spiritual emergence at this time was the famous Fama Fraternitas, supposedly a published call by a secret Rosicrucian society to meet to form a new religious order for a new age. The most likely explanation for the Fama Fraternitas is that no such Rosicrucian organization existed at that time, and that the Fama Fraternitas was produced by an inspired writer who wanted to tweak the Church's nose while motivating liberal humanists to perhaps establish such an order themselves - which over the following centuries, they did.

Another emerging influence were the Masonic orders, which were open to merchants and not just nobility. As a middle class emerged in Europe, the Masonic orders were very appealing, both as business and fraternal orders and as holders of secret "keys" to heaven. Masons included ritually awarded degrees or grades. As the Qabalah was studied by some Masons, it made its way into the degree structure of Masonry, but much of the inner lore of Masonry was hidden from its members.

The final impetus to the establishment of initiatory orders was the extensive contact with India and its systems of gurus and initiations. Finally, the connection was made between spiritual potency/knowledge and a staged system of "initiations" or introductions, empowerments. Just as the system of priestly ranks bestowed power within the Church, so the system of mystic grades in the Golden Dawn was intended to bestow power within the mystic structure laid out by the Qabalistic Tree of Life. In short, Masonic orders bestowed prestige with their degrees; Rosicrucian orders (for Rosicrucian underpinnings became an important part of the Golden Dawn) bestowed actual spiritual power and authority. This spiritual power and authority manifested on the "astral plane" where grade signs could be used to cross portals on the paths of the Tree of Life; and on the authorization to practice planetary invoking/banishing ceremonies, to open by watchtower, and to practice the Dee/Kelly system of Enochian magick.

The Golden Dawn is cetainly the most famous initiatory order to emerge out of this hodge-podge of influences. Although its founders, high ranking Masons, claimed to have discovered a cipher manuscript, originating from a Frau Sprengel in Germany, authorizing the establishment of a Golden Dawn temple in England, most students of the occult view this as a howler along the lines of the Mahatma letters Blavatsky used to justify her control of the Theosophical Society. In fact, Masons almost always demand some pedigree or higher authority, and the "charter" from an imagined German secrety society seemed to fit the bill.

That having been said, the founders of the Golden Dawn were brilliant, and made stunning use of Theosophical Society occult teachings; European occult teachings from Eliphas Levi and others; Qabalistic works (one founder translated Qabalistic writings); grimoires (the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon, for example); Masonic principles of grade, rank, and ritual; and whatever Egyptology materials they could crib from the British Museum. They "stole" on a grand scale and put together an occult initiatory process that is unsurpassed to this day. The Golden Dawn materials published by Crowley and Regardie are truly "do it yourself" manuals for the budding occultist.

Which brings me to the topic of the day: how can you benefit from an initiatory order while keeping your political soul sane?

LBRP part 2

Did you know that the trigrams of the I Ching can be oriented around a circle? That the trigrams at the cardinal points (NEWS - North, East, West, South) have a particular meaning?

That the four Western elements (fire, air, water, earth) correspond to the four cardinal points of the compass? That "elemental" theories are widespread in both the East and the West (they use five elements, we use four - but we have a "secret" fifth element, spirit)?

I was surprised to learn that philosophic elements also play an important role in Dzog Chen, the highest meditation teaching in the original Bon religion of Tibet and also in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, two traditions that are richly endowed and active, unlike the Western occult movement which was pretty much driven underground by the emergence and domination of Christianity. These traditional elements are also known as the "elements of the wise" or "philosophic elements" to distinguish them from chemical elements (the periodic table elements we learned in high school) popularized by science. The difference between studying the chemical elements and studying the philosophic elements is the clever youngster can figure out how to make stinky compounds and rudimentary gunpowder with chemistry, while the clever adult can learn how to increase the supply of vitality (prana, chi) and mental well-being through the philosophic elements.

An easy way to begin actual "elemental" work (other than just meditating on the qualities of each elements or working with Tattva symbols) is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, since it involves visualizing a circle with Archangels, representing the four elements, at the cardinal points of the compass. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram equilibrates the four elements at the periphery of the circle with spirit represented by the practitioner at the center of the circle. As part of this simple (to perform) ritual, light is drawn down into the microsmic practitioner from the macrocosmic Source-of-All-Things, then the elements are invoked at the periphery, and center and periphery play off and enhance each other

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, or LBRP, is ordinarily a 3 minute or so ritual used to cleanse a working space of unwanted, or negative, influences before beginning an actual ceremony such as the invocation of an Archangel or Enochian entity or evocation of spirit. As such it is often taken for granted, but if properly used is a real god-send.

The LBRP is broken down, in the published Golden Dawn materials, into the Qabalistic Cross (given this name to distinguish it from "crossing oneself" in the Roman Catholicism) and the actual Banishing. There is also a Golden Dawn practice known as the Middle Pillar which can be incorporated to great advantage into the LBRP at the end of the ritual.

There are no "best places" or "best times" to perform the LBRP, although a clean, uncluttered room helps, and upon waking and at bedtime seem like natural times to perform it. It should go without saying that privacy helps.

You may benefit from washing up a bit, use your own judgment, it's more a matter of how you feel about yourself than how the spirit world might feel about you. Same discretion applies to your clothing; you need to feel comfortable, focused, and clean.

Prior to the actual LBRP, you need to compose yourself, which you can do in any number of ways. Coming off a moderate exercise or stretching routine, after a relaxing walk, are each good alternatives to jumping straight from television or intense music. Even a few deep breaths and a couple of moments of interior quiet can go a long way. Personally, I have found a "calm down" induced by hatha yoga, tai chi, chi gung and similar exercises which have a physical-prana-meditative blend to be the very preparation, to put me in the right frame of mind and lead to really astounding interior states of peace, power, and clarity from the actual LBRP. However, keep in mind you probably have limited time, and the main focus must be on the LBRP itself and not the prelminary preparation.

Moderate lighting, or even a dark room, make it easier to focus on the visualized portions of the LBRP.

1. Face West, towards the dawn, draw deep deep deep a breath and intone "Ateh" as you touch the space above your head and imagine a ball of white light above your head.

2. Bring your hand down to point at your feet, and as your hand comes down imagine pure white light, soothing and at the same time powerful, coursing down through your body to your feet. When it reaches the feet intone "Malkuth" and imagine a ball of white light under your feet.

3. Touch your right shoulder with your left hand, and as you do so, imagine a shaft of white light from the vertical column expanding to your right shoulder and forming a white ball of light there. Intone "Ve Geburah" and feel the psychic vibration of the words in the ball of white light at your right shoulder. Keep your left hand at your shoulder.

4. Touch your left shoulder with your right hand, similar visualization of light to the shoulder, ball of light, intone "Ve Gedulah." Keep your right hand at the left shoulder.

5. Open your arms wide so that they are perpendicular to your body (form a cross) and imagine the shaft of white light extending out each side to the palms of your hands; imagine a white glow on each hand.

6. Bring your hands to your solar plexus, imagining you are bringing the light/energy from each hand to your solar plexus/heart region. Intone "Le Olahm, Amen" and as you do imagine a ball of white light forming at the solar plexus region inside your body along the column of white light you formed at the beginning of this Qabalistic Cross. As noted in the first LBRP posting, "Amen" can be prounounced "aumgn" which is like "om" but with a nasal expiration at the end.

7. This concludes the Qabalistic Cross or QC which is at the start of the LBRP.

In the next post, Part 3, I will discuss the banishings at each quarter, the LBRP itself. I will probably break up the LBRP into the banishings, then the Archangelic invocations. Time permitting I will then discuss the Middle Pillar.

Please note that in the Qabalistic Cross, you should have a sense of drawing down light from the highest source you can imagine, into the first ball of light above your head. I will attempt to discuss this more later.

The Secret of Alchemy

There are those who say Alchemy is the precursor to chemistry; that Alchemy is the wishful attempt to gain immortality through obscure medicines; or that Alchemy is a foolish quest to make gold out of lead.

The secret of Alchemy is that it is a system of personal development; a religion disguised as a profit making center, to avoid persecution during the Inquisition and its predecessor mind-set.

Not all Alchemists knew this secret, some spent their lives looking for medicines and transmutations of base metals and accidentally developed pharmacy and chemistry along the way.

The Philosopher’s Stone is nothing other than the mind, which can transform base metal – the ordinary human consciousness and body – into “gold” or a more (pun intended) refined state of existence. This point of view is actually problematic for most medieval Christians due to the view that the mind is corrupt and grace must come from outside, from God.

The Philosopher’s Stone is the “medicine of the wise” because it leads to mental balance and alertness, which also extend life.

You can spend a lot of brain damaging time trying to puzzle out the secret language of Alchemy, but here are some tips to get you started in actual practice:

1. Find a comfortable upright posture. The spine should be reasonably straight. Hatha yoga seating positions like the Lotus or Half Lotus (with the legs tilted downwards by putting a cushion under only your butt) are good because it is harder to get drowsy. I find that standing postures also work well.

2. Observe your own mind in action. Identify thoughts; the empty space between thoughts, and the observer. Find a state in between excessive ruminating and torpor. Brighten your awareness. Awareness is the Philosopher’s Stone. We are born with it, but we wear it out and let the battery run down. Recharge yourself, recognize it, cherish it, watch if grow brighter over the years, in a decade look back and see how you have changed. There is no mantra, no breath counting, no visualization. Just observing, then relaxing the observer.

3. Build up some inner heat through sex. You know what I mean – the glow you have if you are making out and stop. Sure, there is some frustration, but there is also some heat. Find ways to build up the heat. Observe whether the heat goes out of you if you climax, or whether there is a warm afterglow. Experiment with intercourse for the sake of just feeling good, rather than hitting an orgasm, then stop and meditate, or space out, or go to sleep. Try a week without sex; a week with sex but no orgasm. The thing is, you have to experiment. There is always a little heat associated with sex, just tune into it, listen to your body, and try to enhance it.

4. In your sitting position, imagine there is heat at the base of your spine, and mentally flow the heat up your spine into your head; expand it into your head, then take it back down to the base of your spine. Do this two or three times a few times a week. Don’t get addicted.

If this works for you, then keep exploring and never look back. You have changed your life: that is Alchemy.

"Portable Darkness" - a Crowley reader

When I looked at this book in first edition printing back in 1989, I thought it was a terribly skimpy selection of Crowley's writings. I was also concerned that the heavy editorial content interwoven with the selections would skew a natural, spontaneous reading of Crowley's work. At that time I felt that reading Crowley in situ instead of in anthologies was a much better approach. Now I have come around to see "Portable Darkness" not so much as a selection of Crowley's work, but as an extended critical essay on Crowley with sufficient original source material (Crowley's own words) thrown in to make an informed judgment on whether you like Crowley, and on whether the editor/commentator is making good points. As such it is completely without precedent and invaluable. The author is an extremely intelligent man.

I should also add that the material on so-called western tantra is very complete in itself and includes some works simply not available elsewhere, unless you are a member of an occult group. For this reason alone, it is an invaluable addition to any occultist's library, particularly occultists with a respect for Crowley.

If you want to round out your Crowley library, I highly recommend "Book 4, Magick in Theory and Practice," in the very usefully annotated edition prepared by the OTO head Hymanaeus Beta; "Magick without Tears," less profound that Book 4, but easier to read; "Gems from the Equinox" which purportedly (but does not quite) includes all the magickal writings from Crowley's original opus "The Equinox;" and "Holy Books of Thelema" which includes all the "revealed" or transmitted, Class A writings.

Some of (maybe most of) Crowley's writings are as impenetrable as Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, which is to say, not impossible but certainly poetically grandiose and mind-numbing for anyone but a hardcore English lit major. Book 4 or Magick in Theory and Practice is an exception, the only true grimoire (grammar or rules of magick) produced in the 20th century (Bardon straddling the line between a grimoire and the ultimate self-improvement book for the aspiring occultist).

Finally, the summer beach book par excellence is Magick in Theory and Practice in the inexpensive, non-annotated Dover edition. While you won't be able read the Greek or Latin, unlike Beta's "Book 4" you will be able to carry it in a backpack without getting a hernia.

God Has Joined the Air Force

The New York Times has an article in its June 24, 2005, print and online editions about religious intolerance/insensitivity at the Air Force Academy. It appears that fundamentalist Christians are very active at the Academy, supported by the Chaplains and the administration, and the staff is now mixing religious appeals in with the other student activities. From the scope of the mixture, it sounds like the Air Force Academy is now more of a religious college than a secular university. I thought this stuff was prohibited by the Establishment of Religions clause of the Constitution.

The real howler in the article was that an atheist was not allowed to start a Freethinker student club, on grounds that it was antireligious.

While I am not against a prayer before going into battle, I am against sending my Jewish/Buddhist/Hindu son/daughter off to serve our country and having them indoctrinated into another religion. They are going to college, not joining a cult.

LBRP

LBRP, affectionately known as the "Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram."

Recommended by Bill Heidrick as an absolute prerequisite to any advanced work, lest you want to rattle your marbles. A year is good, daily. Crowley said, and I paraphrase, he who does not appreciate this, does not deserve to have it.

It has Christian elements, to annoy the pagans (there are some versions in the Ciceros' edition of the Middle Pillar which edit out these annoyances); and heathen aspects to annoy the Christians. And a lot of Jewish aspects, to annoy everyone else.

To get a complete edition, Google LBRP or or "Lesser Banishing Ritual." Or buy Regardie's Middle Pillar, in the unembellished original edition, or in the Lewellyn reissue with Regardie's students (they say) the Ciceros' edits and annotations. Or find it in Ophiel's books, he seems to include it in each. In 11 Lessons in Magick. Or in the back of Magick in Theory and Practice, reprint edition or expanded OTO edition; or in Regardie's Golden Dawn.

First is the "cross of light" or kabbalistic cross; similar to crossing onself in Church.

No, first would be imagining oneself very large, outgrowing the earth, solar system, and universe; imagining oneself in idealized form. Radiant, majestic (but not arrogant or brash), with a body of subtle energy and light, not flesh and blood. The four spiritual directions - east in front, west behind, to the right the south, to the left the north. Above you the infinite, below you the cosmos Everything mundane is encompassed by the extremes of these compass points. Having done the LBRP right, you not only cleanse the minutum mundi, your aura, but the larger world in which you move in secular space.

Imagine awesome brilliant, yet soft and full, white light in a ball above your head. Reach up your right hand and draw down the light through your body and you direct it to your feet and below; at your feet you imagine a citrine, olive, russet, and black (in the quadrants) ball of light. As the beam of light passes through your body, it hits the throat, solar plexus, genital, and feet energy centers - corresponding to Daath, the unknown Sephiroth, Tiphareth, the heart, Yesod at the genitals, and Malkuth below the feet. Violet, golden yellow, purple, and citrine/olive/russet/black, respectively. At the same time you feel the centers at Chokmah and Binah, Geburah and Gedulah (left and front brain lobes, right and left shoulders) energize. You are not doing the "Middle Pillar" exercise with concentration and formality, you are simply remembering the vital centers associated with the Kabbalistic Tree of Life in the human aura. Your human aura.

When you first reach up, you touch Kether, white Kether, and vibrate "atoh;" pointing to your feet, "malkuth;" at the right shoulder "ve [vay] geburah;" and at the left shoulder, "ve gedulah;" finally palms together at the heart "le olahm, amen [om or aumgn]."

Thus finishes the Kabbalistic Cross, the first part of the LBRP. More to follow.

A comment on olahm, om, and aumgn. To me these are the same root sounds, but separated by time and cultures. "om" is best known as the primary creative word for Hindus; arguably the sound ends when the lips are closed (no nasal sound to continue with the last expiration). "aumgn" is Crowley's adapatation, as explained in MTP (Magick in Theory and Practice); it continues the last part of the breath as a nasal sound, once the lips have closed. I like Crowley's spin on things better than the traditional explanation that the palms together means "forever." "aumgn" means, to me, the entire cycle of creation (which is always a moving process of beginning, middle, end; start over) plus the "eternity" that lies behind and encompasses the cycle plus the aspect of "nowness" or the eternally present.

That's the fun thing about the LBRP. It is a one page ritual, but you add your own glosses over the years. Much as Blake added his own glosses to Swedenborg's visionary Christianity, until Blake was way out there, in the mystic.

Memorable Fancies, or Luminaries I Have Met

My brother met Ophiel sometime mid-60's, and described him as a "creepy old man." There is a small website devoted to Ophiel, and that site gives a different impression, as do his books. I write my brother's off-hand comment off to youthful misjudgement. I think for my brother, "old" equalled "creepy" at that time.

I never met Ophiel, but later in the early '70s I met Israel Regardie. Oddly enough, my father (who thought I was a little daft based on my intereste in the occult) introduced him to me - my father sold equipment for outfitting chiropractic offices, and that was Regardie's line of work at that time, so my father had run into Regardie in the course of making a sales call. Plus, it turned out Regardie lived less than three miles away from us! Rumor had it that Regardie no longer had any affiliations with practicing magickal orders (Golden Dawn, Rosicrucian, etc.) and that he felt no one should be taught magick without first undergoing analysis (Freudian, Jung). In his chiropractic practice, he reportedly led his patients through Reichian breathing exercises as a form of psychological "adjustment." My conclusion at that time was that his experiences, first with Crowley as his secretary, and then with the Stella Matutina offshoot of the Golden Dawn, had left him rather burnt out.

Nevertheless, he had written the awesome "Tree of Life" when he was barely past 20, and his publication of the Golden Dawn ritual and knowledge papers had both shocked and energized the occult community. He had also published other magick related books since then. He did not publicly accept Crowley's Thelemic creed, and current reports indicate he always considered himself "a Golden Dawn man" although he had pursued Crowley aggressively and been his secretary prior to any affilation with the Golden Dawn.

Although Crowley had already published many Golden Dawn rituals in his "Equinox," it was Regardie who put it in all (almost all) in one place (one today, the first editions were in two volumes with larger typeface), without anything distracting.

I talked my father into taking me over to meet Regardie (I was much shyer then, and less adept at getting to meet people), and we spent about 20 or 30 minutes together. I was quite taken aback by Regardie's appearance - without any disrepect intended, he looked rather like a troll and had a nasal twang to his voice that was very unappealing. If you buy cassettes or CD's of him doing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram you can confirm his voice, at least, for yourself. Although a giant among magickians, he was short in physical stature. All in all, not what you'd expect after Hollywood's depiction of larger than life heros.

I was very interesting in Tibetan Buddhism at that time, so didn't pursue Regardie aggressively, which is a shame since here I am, thirty years later, still diddling around with magick. However, I did meet Regardie two more times, which I took at a "sign" (which never amounted to anything): once at McDonald's - I worked near his house and the McDonalds; and once at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore somewhat later, where I got a job as a sales clerk. He made a strong impression on me, more for his reputation and the "scare" factor in magick.

I have to admit that my ego is bruised; I had an opportunity to meet this remarkable figure, and could have probably wangled my way into studying with him (based on all the people who have surfaced since then who, it turned out, were studying with him - see the revised introduction to the Lewellyn "Golden Dawn" and other works). On the other hand, the time was not ripe. And I was scared.

The other very cool dude I got to at least see, if not personally meet, was the elusive Carlos Castaneda. In 1993 or so, I attended a Tensegrity seminar in Anaheim and he appeared, took the stage. Although he did not match Regardie in voice (his was ok) he did match him in height. Suddenly it all clicked: for all those years, Castaneda had been publicity shy, not because he would be found out, but because he was too short! They would have laughed at the Nagual! But he did exude charisma. In spades.

The Romance of Magick (Not to Be Confused with Prestidigitation)

Call me obsessive-compulsive or a hopeless romantic, but ceremonial magick is appealing to me in a way that other forms of "human potential" development and meditation are not.

There is something appealing about bringing it all together and getting it right.

Of course, there is also all that mystery and "bad boy" reputation associated with ceremonial magick. Anything that causes the religious right to perspire nervously can't all that bad. (Remember, we are talking about western ceremonial magick, which was highly influenced by the ceremonies and spiritual mythologies of the Catholic church and by Masonic ritual, and not "black magic" or devil worship.)

So, how did I get started? With the usual trepidation and misgivings that come from a conservative religious upbringing. Basically, my 13 year old younger brother showed up with Francis Barrett's "The Mage," the "Greater Key of Solomon," and some old hardbound Ophiel books - I believe "The Art and Practice of Astral Projection." I was 17 at the time and was convinced that he was drifting towards a dark and gloomy path. It didn't help that he had painted the walls of his bedroom with scenes from the Lord of the Rings. And this was back in the '60's. Boy was he way ahead of his time.

Years later, with nothing better to do in college, I began reading Ophiel's book, figuring I'd at least give astral projection at try, though my wiser friends warned me that if the "silver thread linking you back to your body" got cut, I'd be a goner. In an insane asylum for sure.

Ophiel had a very "hard luck" voice, he ranted in his book a lot, and he used strange abbreviations (like "tho" for "though"). All this rubbed me the wrong way, but I persisted and over the long years have come to appreciate the many, many useful tips and techniques that Ophiel published. It's important to remember that at the time Ophiel published, there were virtually no do it yourself books out there, nothing to compare with the Idiot's Guides and Dummies books of today. The Art and Practice of Astral Projection also included a simple ritual, which got me started, known as the "Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram" which I will outline in my next posting.

Expansions to My Personal Library

I have gotten interested, again, in western mysticism and the occult. I have noticed some gaps in my library, mostly from losing books during moves (or perhaps recycling some to used bookstores).

In particular, I used to have the "Complete Golden Dawn" which was a reissue by Israel Regardie, through Falcon Press, of his original Golden Dawn book published by Lewellyn, with some updated materials. I don't know if Regardie had a falling out with Lewellyn, or just liked Hyatt and the others behind Falcon Press better, but generally if you like to collect this stuff you need to have both the Lewellyn (cheap) and Falcon Press (expensive) editions.

I am also thinking about getting another copy of "Gems from the Equinox" (where did my original wander off to?) and getting the second edition of Michael Kraig's "Modern Magick: Eleven Lessons in the High Magickal Arts." Michael Kraig started out by offering correspondence courses in practical magick, then turned his course into this book. I used to dislike it because it was not very...hmm...elegant, more like a cookbook (but of course the old grimoires or magical grammars suffer from the same lack of charm) but as I grow older I appreciate all the help I can get.

What is "practical magick" as opposed to the more glamorous "ceremonial magick?" Well, "practical magick" includes shorter ceremonies or simple rituals, like the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, which a solo practitioner can easily perform without a lot of temple furniture, robes, and ceremonial (symbolic) weapons. "Ceremonial magick" usually requires a setting similar to a Masonic temple, several practitioners,weapons, robes, etc.

When I talk about "magick" I mean the western practices and ceremonial derived principally from Westcott/Wynn/Waite/Mathers (the Golden Dawn) and Crowley (the OTO, the A`A`), with a healthy dollop of Mdm. Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine" and other Theosophical Society works. I don't mean the modern pagan or witchcraft movements. I also don't mean the much maligned "black" magick although from the best I can tell, this issue lies more with the individual and less with the system; I have met great Christians, and frauds that hide behind evangelicism; I have met great magicians, and frauds that are looking for excuses to engage in dissipate behavior, drugs, and adultery.

I DO like a more Egyptian/Hermetic flavor to my magick, vs. the pretty heavily Christianized Builders of the Adytum approach. Still, one can't avoid the fact that the Golden Dawn was strongly influenced by the Rosicrucian movement, and Frater Christian Rosenkreutz was, after all, a Christ figure.