The care and use of talismans is a topic that's been chewing on me for a while. Almost everyone in the self-identified esoteric community understands what one is and how to use it. The national scandal sheets found at checkout stands run ads for them every issue. "Buy this trinket, that bottle of water, this sacred cloth!" the ads implore us. And we, the willing public, consume these in mass quantities, put them aside, and repeatedly purchase new ones without using those we already have.
Dana Corby, as usual, identified the problem some years ago. The difficulty isn't that our talismans don't work, it is that we don''t understand how to use them. The etymology of the word is telling here-
Talisman derives via Arabic from the Greek word "telesma", meaning a religious rite. This term derives from "telos", which means result or end.
This is a clue to the use of a talisman. It is the result or (ritual) end that is desired. In other words it is a symbol for the end result of a magical process to which we have made a commitment. As is true of almost everything in life, the focus needs to be on the follow-through steps needed to get to the results.
Here's an example from my own life-
I own eight books and more than a few magazines on strand-pulling, also known as cable/strand/band exercise. The manuals I have date from the early 20th century to the early 21st century. Among these are two handbooks for official contest pulls in England. I own two different sorts of these tools, an official steel competition strand calibrated to my height and arm/torso length, two Lifeline cables and one Theraband cable. These have been on shelves or in boxes in front of me for the past three years, and I didn't touch these to exercise even once. Why was this so? Largely due to joint pain and depression, but the inner reason I found was-
I didn't have the right talisman. If I kept looking, the right book, manual or graphic that would unlock the secrets of using bands/strands/cables would materialize and THEN I could, exercise.
In May of this year I looked at these exercise tools again, and realized that all of the answers I needed were right in front of me. All I had to do was pick up one of my strands, close my eyes, and start working out then and there. Does this mean that I'll stop reading or thinking about band/strand exercises and how to derive more benefits from them? No, it does not, but I have realized that the endless search for the right thing to do is futile without the application of the tools I have right here, right now.
I've noted before that there is an endless circulation of esoteric and magical materials from East to West and back again, our very own "Kula Ring" of trinkets traded back and forth. The only way to break the endless cycle of redaction, repetition and uninformed use of magical techniques is to actually participate in the ecologies of spirits within the "Body Esoteric"and THEN compare your results with those of others. At the point of attainment it is possible to honestly evaluate the efficacy of a talisman and your techniques, but not before making the journey.
Let me take this opportunity to recommend the sandowplus.co.uk website as the motherlode for physical culture books and instruction. This isn't just a trip to the past, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people using these methods and machines quite productively today, right now, and if interested I would encourage you to participate in classical Physical Culture and its philosophies, which share an awful lot in common with magic. The results might surprise you.
Showing posts with label Tools for Druid Comrades. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tools for Druid Comrades. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Divination II:The Horse Who Knew Too Much and a Contest!
As mentioned earlier, I am going to present several differing models for explicating the mechanisms of divination. The last post might have been titled "In Praise of The Gut Instinct". Today's bit covers the Horse Who Knew Too Much, which begins right after I reveal a sex magic technique I learned from the late and sometimes lamented Dr. Emanuel Bronner, the soap maker par excellance.
Twenty years ago I worked for a large New Age magazine and seminar hosting company that is located on Santa Monica Blvd, in Santa Monica, California. If you've ever seen "Baywatch" on television, we were about 200 feet from the beach access that was featured prominently on that show.
The periodical I worked for did a brisk business in advertising goods and services for the New Age Southern California community. For over a year I was in charge of the day to day operation of the firm--i.e., I made sure that the office didn't run off a cliff when one of the bosses left unexpectedly on a 3 week vacation to purify their chakra crystals or charge their purple plates.
I was answering the phone so Gle`, our receptionist could go out and get lunch. There was a ring on the "sponsors and advertisiers only" line. At the other end was Dr. Emanuel Bronner, an Orthodox Jewish soap maker with some ... interesting ideas about the Almighty's definition of kosher. Dr. Bronner wanted to place an ad in the publication, and had called to check on some detail or other before the ad salesman went over to see him. He asked one or two questions about ad placement, image size, and other bits related to getting all (and I do mean "all") of his soap label writings into a full page advertisement. After I'd gotten the advertising book and answered his questions, he said "Young Man, are you married?" I answered in the affirmative, and this is what he said:
"This is a very old Essene sex healing technique for married couples. Buy a bottle of my liquid peppermint soap and get a red towel. Not green, not black, it has to be red and made from cotton. You are legally married, yes?
Clean out your bathroom sink. Once it is clean, fill the sink with water as hot as you can stand. When the sink is almost full, add two capfulls of my peppermint soap. Work up a very good lather, and work the soap into the red towel, squeeze out the towel in the sink. Carefully rub down your wife's entire body, starting with her back and moving down to the feet. I think that you will find this is a very powerful sexual healing technique. Good day and God Bless!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the most basic problems with scientism lies with how little actual observation and experimentation takes place outside a laboratory. Studying children in a classroom setting is the best way to learn about their behaviors IN the classroom. Sadly, this same reasoning is rarely applied to animals other than humans, Jane Goodall and Diane Fossey notwithstanding.
Circa 1904 there was a horse called "Clever Hans". The owner contended that his horse was smart enough to add and communicate the result of his computations to all present with the stomping of his hooves. Furthermore, when tested apart from the owner, the horse still knew the correct answer. It was later learned that the horse didn't get the right answer unless someone else in the stable with the horse knew the answer, demonstrating the horse was "simply" reading their body language and responding to these previously unnoticed cues.
If you cruise over to any of the 'Net pages on Scientism you'll find considerably more detail on this that usually ends with a conclusion describing the abysmal ignorance if not outright stupidity of people who believe in ESP or similar phenomenon.
Clever Hans is a perfect example of a subtle communication system. Two animals of different species are transferring informatioin via subtleties of body language. This system requires at least two participants: The horse, and the person who knows the right answer. There's usually a third or 4th person present as well, and the information is conveyed to them by the horse.
Let's consider the case of the nuthatches. Approximately two years ago Chris Templeton of the University of Washington deciphered some of the information conveyed by chickadee calls. Last month Templeton and his former advisor Erick Green released a report detaling how nuthatches listen to chickadees and respond accordingly to that information. Amazing.
I am not an ornithologist. However, in my walks through parks and wooded areas I have never found an area that had just nuthatches and chickadees. If the nuthatch and chickadee can pass information, it is very likely that other birds can listen in as well, and probably generate sounds that convey information to others. Birds aren't the only animals in the woods, either. Quite a few critters can hear and make noise. It is almost a certainty that they generate intelligent responses to the conditions and threats originated by these birds.
If we take each audible and mobile participant in a region of a biome as a node of a communication system, we have something rather interesting going on:
As soon as the initial signal of interest is generated, the communications system that we are observing becomes "robust" and multiple signal pathways form. Increase the threat level to the first node by introducing, say, a fox into the environment, and more sensors and processing/signalling units "come online". Furthermore, this system never shuts down---there are times when little or no apparant information is passing through it, which corresponds nicely to the notion of "dark fiber" in Internet parlance.
Let's think on this a bit further. So far I've described the system in terms of auditory and visual signal inputs. What about introducing, say, the smell of a cougar wafting into an area that the human observer of the biome occupies? The system does several things:
a. More processors and sensors (animals) join the system.
b. The boundaries of system expand to a degree that is probably proportional to the threat---the system gets larger.
c. The participants ("nodes") begin passing information faster and convey a positive change in threat status.
d. If smart, the human pays attention to the signals and doesn't become a footnote to the daily news broadcast.
Mammals and other animals that might be at risk start dumping pheremones into the atmosphere. Predatory animals and prey will now reacting to this mode of communication. If this is taking place in Africa and there are elephants present, elephants will subsonically signal the threat and probably their response, and begin taking defensive actions.
(The plants are in on this information exchange too, though I cannot think of ways this would affect them in the short term. I'll leave that to one of my readers.)
You may well be wondering how this relates to divination. Here's how:
One of the most common tools used by 19th century spiritualsts and mediums was the "Talking Board". You've all seen the 1890's model of this, developed by William Fuld, known as the ouija board. Basically, there is a triangular shaped three legged little device known as a planchette (French for "little table") on the surface of the board that has generally two persons hands or fingers on the board.
In a classical mediumistic use of the talking board, at eight pm on a Wednesday evening, the members of the Circle have prayed, sung an opening hymn, attained the Silence, passed through Concentration, and are now at the stage of the Meditation with the talking board.
I have heard of many strange bits conveyed by a talking board, but I have never heard of one that worked without live bodies moving the planchette. Letters and numbers on the board are revealed by the operators. Here's where the previous post ties into this:
Generally speaking, neither Operator of the board is consciously trying to direct the production of a letter,number or other indicator. But what about all of those neurons in the organism that don't fancy themselves in charge of consciousness? The talking board is a device that allows multiple intelligences to communicate information not easily accesssable through normal consciousness. The talking board gives the participants permission to relate information, so to speak.
Let us suppose that the Circle has agreed to communicate the results of the talking board by slipping a sheet of paper under a door sill where a reporter on the other side will read this message. From this stand point, we have a black box that originates a signal. From the viewpoint of the reporter, it doesn't matter if there are two, two hundred people in the room, or just one person with a telephone taking instructions from someone else somewhere else. The message cannot be said to originate from a single person or from any other group.
Think of the information passed from the talking board as an expression of the unknowing consciousnesses of the operators. Alone, neither participant could generate information from the talking board. It is a cooperative effort that produces data sets.
In an actual setting there may be only two persons using the talking board, but there could be a large number of observers, all of whom are reading the body language of every person in that room. The operators of the talking board are getting all of this as input, along with pheremones, information from muffled coughs and a multitude of other signals.
In simple terms, this gives us a group--the spiritual Circle. The group manifests information from this assemblage through the talking board. In effect, the talking board speaks for the assemblage. It is a bare hop, skip and a jump from this to an egregore.
"Conjuring Up Phillip"
Some years ago in Canada a group of students invented an anachronistic dead King named Philip. The held seances for months, attempting to contact King Philip, with no results. Finally, they started getting table rapping and similar phenomenon. While of course outright fraud was possible, there were no indications of this. (Here's a summary of the events: http://www.pararesearchers.org/Ghosts/Article_Five/article_five.html )
Philip was a conscious creation of that asssemblage. In terms of esoteric theory, they:
Constructed a non-or quasi-physical organism with an intelligence and a history
And repeatedly tried to contact it, feeding it energy.
And expected results.
And got results.
Putting this fairly abstract description of divination out there without a specific is like, well, staging M******(The Scottish Play) without the cast of M*******(The Scottish Play), so next time I'll be presenting a brand new 21st century Divination Tool derived from my CR materials and approaches. And, apologies for the typos in this post, I was rushed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contest Question: Describe any rediscovery or discovery in the field of optics made in the Arab world c. 1200 C.E.
The Winner (The first respondent with a correct answer) will receive one of the following of their choice as a gift:
A Bach Album of my choice
A Sybil Danning movie of my choice
A photography text related to a correct answer to the question, also of my choice.
N.B.---One correct answer is...
The Arabian physicist and mathematician Ibn al-Haytham, also known as Alhazen, experimented with image formation in the tenth century AD. Crusaders would have returned with some references to his work. His main work was with the pinhole. While oftentimes ignored as crude by camera buffs, the pinhole forms images that have uniquely useful characteristics. It has infinite depth of field, transmits all wavelengths of light, and more than a few are in orbit where they are the imaging device for observing x-rays, hard uv and other wavelengths of light that can't be manipulated with glass lenses, as most glass blocks uv and can't focus x-rays.
Don't worry--there will be a new contest up in several weeks.
Twenty years ago I worked for a large New Age magazine and seminar hosting company that is located on Santa Monica Blvd, in Santa Monica, California. If you've ever seen "Baywatch" on television, we were about 200 feet from the beach access that was featured prominently on that show.
The periodical I worked for did a brisk business in advertising goods and services for the New Age Southern California community. For over a year I was in charge of the day to day operation of the firm--i.e., I made sure that the office didn't run off a cliff when one of the bosses left unexpectedly on a 3 week vacation to purify their chakra crystals or charge their purple plates.
I was answering the phone so Gle`, our receptionist could go out and get lunch. There was a ring on the "sponsors and advertisiers only" line. At the other end was Dr. Emanuel Bronner, an Orthodox Jewish soap maker with some ... interesting ideas about the Almighty's definition of kosher. Dr. Bronner wanted to place an ad in the publication, and had called to check on some detail or other before the ad salesman went over to see him. He asked one or two questions about ad placement, image size, and other bits related to getting all (and I do mean "all") of his soap label writings into a full page advertisement. After I'd gotten the advertising book and answered his questions, he said "Young Man, are you married?" I answered in the affirmative, and this is what he said:
"This is a very old Essene sex healing technique for married couples. Buy a bottle of my liquid peppermint soap and get a red towel. Not green, not black, it has to be red and made from cotton. You are legally married, yes?
Clean out your bathroom sink. Once it is clean, fill the sink with water as hot as you can stand. When the sink is almost full, add two capfulls of my peppermint soap. Work up a very good lather, and work the soap into the red towel, squeeze out the towel in the sink. Carefully rub down your wife's entire body, starting with her back and moving down to the feet. I think that you will find this is a very powerful sexual healing technique. Good day and God Bless!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the most basic problems with scientism lies with how little actual observation and experimentation takes place outside a laboratory. Studying children in a classroom setting is the best way to learn about their behaviors IN the classroom. Sadly, this same reasoning is rarely applied to animals other than humans, Jane Goodall and Diane Fossey notwithstanding.
Circa 1904 there was a horse called "Clever Hans". The owner contended that his horse was smart enough to add and communicate the result of his computations to all present with the stomping of his hooves. Furthermore, when tested apart from the owner, the horse still knew the correct answer. It was later learned that the horse didn't get the right answer unless someone else in the stable with the horse knew the answer, demonstrating the horse was "simply" reading their body language and responding to these previously unnoticed cues.
If you cruise over to any of the 'Net pages on Scientism you'll find considerably more detail on this that usually ends with a conclusion describing the abysmal ignorance if not outright stupidity of people who believe in ESP or similar phenomenon.
Clever Hans is a perfect example of a subtle communication system. Two animals of different species are transferring informatioin via subtleties of body language. This system requires at least two participants: The horse, and the person who knows the right answer. There's usually a third or 4th person present as well, and the information is conveyed to them by the horse.
Let's consider the case of the nuthatches. Approximately two years ago Chris Templeton of the University of Washington deciphered some of the information conveyed by chickadee calls. Last month Templeton and his former advisor Erick Green released a report detaling how nuthatches listen to chickadees and respond accordingly to that information. Amazing.
I am not an ornithologist. However, in my walks through parks and wooded areas I have never found an area that had just nuthatches and chickadees. If the nuthatch and chickadee can pass information, it is very likely that other birds can listen in as well, and probably generate sounds that convey information to others. Birds aren't the only animals in the woods, either. Quite a few critters can hear and make noise. It is almost a certainty that they generate intelligent responses to the conditions and threats originated by these birds.
If we take each audible and mobile participant in a region of a biome as a node of a communication system, we have something rather interesting going on:
As soon as the initial signal of interest is generated, the communications system that we are observing becomes "robust" and multiple signal pathways form. Increase the threat level to the first node by introducing, say, a fox into the environment, and more sensors and processing/signalling units "come online". Furthermore, this system never shuts down---there are times when little or no apparant information is passing through it, which corresponds nicely to the notion of "dark fiber" in Internet parlance.
Let's think on this a bit further. So far I've described the system in terms of auditory and visual signal inputs. What about introducing, say, the smell of a cougar wafting into an area that the human observer of the biome occupies? The system does several things:
a. More processors and sensors (animals) join the system.
b. The boundaries of system expand to a degree that is probably proportional to the threat---the system gets larger.
c. The participants ("nodes") begin passing information faster and convey a positive change in threat status.
d. If smart, the human pays attention to the signals and doesn't become a footnote to the daily news broadcast.
Mammals and other animals that might be at risk start dumping pheremones into the atmosphere. Predatory animals and prey will now reacting to this mode of communication. If this is taking place in Africa and there are elephants present, elephants will subsonically signal the threat and probably their response, and begin taking defensive actions.
(The plants are in on this information exchange too, though I cannot think of ways this would affect them in the short term. I'll leave that to one of my readers.)
You may well be wondering how this relates to divination. Here's how:
One of the most common tools used by 19th century spiritualsts and mediums was the "Talking Board". You've all seen the 1890's model of this, developed by William Fuld, known as the ouija board. Basically, there is a triangular shaped three legged little device known as a planchette (French for "little table") on the surface of the board that has generally two persons hands or fingers on the board.
In a classical mediumistic use of the talking board, at eight pm on a Wednesday evening, the members of the Circle have prayed, sung an opening hymn, attained the Silence, passed through Concentration, and are now at the stage of the Meditation with the talking board.
I have heard of many strange bits conveyed by a talking board, but I have never heard of one that worked without live bodies moving the planchette. Letters and numbers on the board are revealed by the operators. Here's where the previous post ties into this:
Generally speaking, neither Operator of the board is consciously trying to direct the production of a letter,number or other indicator. But what about all of those neurons in the organism that don't fancy themselves in charge of consciousness? The talking board is a device that allows multiple intelligences to communicate information not easily accesssable through normal consciousness. The talking board gives the participants permission to relate information, so to speak.
Let us suppose that the Circle has agreed to communicate the results of the talking board by slipping a sheet of paper under a door sill where a reporter on the other side will read this message. From this stand point, we have a black box that originates a signal. From the viewpoint of the reporter, it doesn't matter if there are two, two hundred people in the room, or just one person with a telephone taking instructions from someone else somewhere else. The message cannot be said to originate from a single person or from any other group.
Think of the information passed from the talking board as an expression of the unknowing consciousnesses of the operators. Alone, neither participant could generate information from the talking board. It is a cooperative effort that produces data sets.
In an actual setting there may be only two persons using the talking board, but there could be a large number of observers, all of whom are reading the body language of every person in that room. The operators of the talking board are getting all of this as input, along with pheremones, information from muffled coughs and a multitude of other signals.
In simple terms, this gives us a group--the spiritual Circle. The group manifests information from this assemblage through the talking board. In effect, the talking board speaks for the assemblage. It is a bare hop, skip and a jump from this to an egregore.
"Conjuring Up Phillip"
Some years ago in Canada a group of students invented an anachronistic dead King named Philip. The held seances for months, attempting to contact King Philip, with no results. Finally, they started getting table rapping and similar phenomenon. While of course outright fraud was possible, there were no indications of this. (Here's a summary of the events: http://www.pararesearchers.org/Ghosts/Article_Five/article_five.html )
Philip was a conscious creation of that asssemblage. In terms of esoteric theory, they:
Constructed a non-or quasi-physical organism with an intelligence and a history
And repeatedly tried to contact it, feeding it energy.
And expected results.
And got results.
Putting this fairly abstract description of divination out there without a specific is like, well, staging M******(The Scottish Play) without the cast of M*******(The Scottish Play), so next time I'll be presenting a brand new 21st century Divination Tool derived from my CR materials and approaches. And, apologies for the typos in this post, I was rushed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contest Question: Describe any rediscovery or discovery in the field of optics made in the Arab world c. 1200 C.E.
The Winner (The first respondent with a correct answer) will receive one of the following of their choice as a gift:
A Bach Album of my choice
A Sybil Danning movie of my choice
A photography text related to a correct answer to the question, also of my choice.
N.B.---One correct answer is...
The Arabian physicist and mathematician Ibn al-Haytham, also known as Alhazen, experimented with image formation in the tenth century AD. Crusaders would have returned with some references to his work. His main work was with the pinhole. While oftentimes ignored as crude by camera buffs, the pinhole forms images that have uniquely useful characteristics. It has infinite depth of field, transmits all wavelengths of light, and more than a few are in orbit where they are the imaging device for observing x-rays, hard uv and other wavelengths of light that can't be manipulated with glass lenses, as most glass blocks uv and can't focus x-rays.
Don't worry--there will be a new contest up in several weeks.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Tools for Druid Comrades II
As most of you noticed in my last post, I left out a critical ingredient for synthesizing mauvine--water.
Water is quite important, and this is a quck "how to" on the topic.
For most esoteric purposes, it is preferable to start with pure, clean local spring water. Failing this, you can filter and boil and let the tap water stand for 24 hours and it is usable--unless your local utility uses chloroform to treat it. In that case, use distilled water for all of your workings. You should still boil ther distilled water and let it cool before use. Whenever possible and safe, use water from your biome.
To start, you will need a way to safely collect, store and probably process water. Brown glass bottles with a shatterproof coating are preferred for storage. They are light-tight, something that will be relevant in a few posts. A glass (not plastic) funnel, new clean caps, a few labels, a large bowl made of an inert substance like glass, and a water proof marker are next on the list. Finally, you will need a small gold object. If you don't own any gold jewelry, go to a hobby and crafts store and purchase one or two sheets of real gold leaf. You might want to pick up a few bits of silver leaf too, remembering to wrap both of them individually in paper and put them away.
The first tool that you are going to make will 'riff off of the first esoteric exercise in the prior lesson--The Solar Adoration. This will show you a few things to do with that bit of work.
The Solar Adoration part II--adding sound
For this, we will add a sonic component to the Adoration. In the last lesson you were instructed to procure a standard telephone, or at least record a file of actual, old fashion telephone dial tone. This will be your standard reference for a while. Dial tone in the States is actually an "A" 440 hz sine wave. With this tool all by itself, you can tune any standard instrument, including your voice.
Repeat the vocal warm up exercises as before. This time, drop your head slightly, relax the jaw and cheek muscles, inhale slowly, and say---
"Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" five or six times. Listen to the way that the sound will change. Do not fight this--allow the voice to wander as it will. Try to match the sound you are making to the dial tone. When in doubt, open your mouth wider and relax.
The simplest way to enhance the experience of chanting is to use the hood of a heavy robe with stiffening wire in the hood. This will create a sound baffle, making the experience of chanting more intimate, and will allow you to more readily feel the chant of a simple sound. Feel the warmth of the sunlight flow through you, merging with the chant.
Now let's put the Solar Adoration together with a bit of standard sympathetic work. Determine the times of greatest solar intensity for your location for the day. There are standard charts you could use, but they may not be accurate if you have lots of cloud cover. Pick the first day of the week--Sunday.
At the time of greatest light, perform the Solar Adoration with the vowel chant nine times. Using boiled/filtered water that you have already prepared, place a shred of the gold leaf or clean gold object into the bowl. Let the water stand in the sunlight as you chant. As you hold the bowl, focus on feeling the light, the ways that it dances off your body and other objects outdoors. Concentrate on this feeling for a few minutes, then pour the water out of the bowl, into the brown glass bottle with the funnel. Bring the bottle inside and set it into a space where it will not be disturbed. Label the bottle with the date, time and contents of the bottle. Please place it aside for future use.
Water is quite important, and this is a quck "how to" on the topic.
For most esoteric purposes, it is preferable to start with pure, clean local spring water. Failing this, you can filter and boil and let the tap water stand for 24 hours and it is usable--unless your local utility uses chloroform to treat it. In that case, use distilled water for all of your workings. You should still boil ther distilled water and let it cool before use. Whenever possible and safe, use water from your biome.
To start, you will need a way to safely collect, store and probably process water. Brown glass bottles with a shatterproof coating are preferred for storage. They are light-tight, something that will be relevant in a few posts. A glass (not plastic) funnel, new clean caps, a few labels, a large bowl made of an inert substance like glass, and a water proof marker are next on the list. Finally, you will need a small gold object. If you don't own any gold jewelry, go to a hobby and crafts store and purchase one or two sheets of real gold leaf. You might want to pick up a few bits of silver leaf too, remembering to wrap both of them individually in paper and put them away.
The first tool that you are going to make will 'riff off of the first esoteric exercise in the prior lesson--The Solar Adoration. This will show you a few things to do with that bit of work.
The Solar Adoration part II--adding sound
For this, we will add a sonic component to the Adoration. In the last lesson you were instructed to procure a standard telephone, or at least record a file of actual, old fashion telephone dial tone. This will be your standard reference for a while. Dial tone in the States is actually an "A" 440 hz sine wave. With this tool all by itself, you can tune any standard instrument, including your voice.
Repeat the vocal warm up exercises as before. This time, drop your head slightly, relax the jaw and cheek muscles, inhale slowly, and say---
"Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" five or six times. Listen to the way that the sound will change. Do not fight this--allow the voice to wander as it will. Try to match the sound you are making to the dial tone. When in doubt, open your mouth wider and relax.
The simplest way to enhance the experience of chanting is to use the hood of a heavy robe with stiffening wire in the hood. This will create a sound baffle, making the experience of chanting more intimate, and will allow you to more readily feel the chant of a simple sound. Feel the warmth of the sunlight flow through you, merging with the chant.
Now let's put the Solar Adoration together with a bit of standard sympathetic work. Determine the times of greatest solar intensity for your location for the day. There are standard charts you could use, but they may not be accurate if you have lots of cloud cover. Pick the first day of the week--Sunday.
At the time of greatest light, perform the Solar Adoration with the vowel chant nine times. Using boiled/filtered water that you have already prepared, place a shred of the gold leaf or clean gold object into the bowl. Let the water stand in the sunlight as you chant. As you hold the bowl, focus on feeling the light, the ways that it dances off your body and other objects outdoors. Concentrate on this feeling for a few minutes, then pour the water out of the bowl, into the brown glass bottle with the funnel. Bring the bottle inside and set it into a space where it will not be disturbed. Label the bottle with the date, time and contents of the bottle. Please place it aside for future use.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Tools For Druid Comrades--voice instructions
Vocal Exercises I
For this exercise you'll need the following items:
A comfortably warm room
Loose clothing
A glass of warm water with lemon juice (half a beer or ONE glass of wine 30 minutes before this exercise is also recommended if you drink)
A print out of this portion of the document
A telephone
A set of new, disposable ear plugs (the kind you'd buy before going to an Anthrax concert, not the sort for swimming)
Half a pound of teardrop, fingertip sized glass beads or marbles. Wash these thoroughly and rinse them in running water for five minutes. Place these in a clean plastic bag and put them to one side. (This is your second piece of altar equipment.)
As discussed in previous installments, vocalization is a skill central to the practice of high occultism. It is through the medium (that word again!) of voice that most of our communication happens. There are manifestations around the voice that define identity and create mystery as well. Ventriloquists in most non-Western countries are mediums, or some other category of spiritual expert. Compounding this is the fact that prior to recording technology, very few people could recognize their own voice. We don't sound the way we think we do. Speech and singing are means of expression that can alter physiology and perceptions, and not merely our own.
Here's the first warm-up exercise:
Swallow an ounce or so of lemon water, slowly. Cough once or twice. Deeply inhale. Close your eyes and listen to the dial tone of a phone. Now hum along with this for a few seconds.
This is the foundation of most vocal music, excepting Mongolian and other non-western vocal performance artists. If you can hum along with the dial tone you can learn to chant powerfully.
This is the first bit that you'll attempt. Read through it s l o w l y. Now, speak it slowly. Listen for the natural breaks in the piece that allow for a quick stop and a breath. Try this two or three times.
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you -- tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."
Hamlet
Now go back to this piece, fix your eyes at head height on the wall that you are facing, and open your mouth wider while speaking this again. Do this three times.
This is where concentration comes in. Think about the acoustics of speech and singing. Humans are analogous to a stereo speaker with one driver (the voice box) and a resonant cavity (the torso) with a variable diaphragm.
For the next part of this exercise you'll need to work on feeling more than speaking. It is time to feel the speech. Listen to the dial tone until you can hear it in your head without listening to the sound. Put the ear plugs back in.
Now, repeat the selection from Hamlet again. Sense how your torso and air spaces in your throat and head respond to this bit. Repeat this several times until you are comfortable with your ability to sense the movement of your torso as you speak and the way that the air spaces vibrate.
Take out the ear plugs for this next section.
"Project damn it, project!" --My 8th grade diction coach
Take a really deep breath or two. You won't be screaming, but your goal is to face the farthest wall from yourself and strike a point on the wall at eye level with your voice. Speak deliberately with crispness. (If you need a model for this, go over to the BBC radio website and listen to the announcers for an hour or so.) Repeat this six or seven times.
Improving the power of the voice
Dipping into one of the traditional bags of tricks from classical academia, here's how to apply the method of Demosthenes, a Greek orator with a stutter. He trained his diction and voice by putting pebbles in his mouth and trying to speak over the sound of a waterfall. Here's the at-home version:
Put four or five of the cleaned glass beads into your mouth. Do not swallow!
Facing the wall as before, speak this speak again, I pray you. Repeat as needed, but not to the point of mental or physical exhaustion.
For this exercise you'll need the following items:
A comfortably warm room
Loose clothing
A glass of warm water with lemon juice (half a beer or ONE glass of wine 30 minutes before this exercise is also recommended if you drink)
A print out of this portion of the document
A telephone
A set of new, disposable ear plugs (the kind you'd buy before going to an Anthrax concert, not the sort for swimming)
Half a pound of teardrop, fingertip sized glass beads or marbles. Wash these thoroughly and rinse them in running water for five minutes. Place these in a clean plastic bag and put them to one side. (This is your second piece of altar equipment.)
As discussed in previous installments, vocalization is a skill central to the practice of high occultism. It is through the medium (that word again!) of voice that most of our communication happens. There are manifestations around the voice that define identity and create mystery as well. Ventriloquists in most non-Western countries are mediums, or some other category of spiritual expert. Compounding this is the fact that prior to recording technology, very few people could recognize their own voice. We don't sound the way we think we do. Speech and singing are means of expression that can alter physiology and perceptions, and not merely our own.
Here's the first warm-up exercise:
Swallow an ounce or so of lemon water, slowly. Cough once or twice. Deeply inhale. Close your eyes and listen to the dial tone of a phone. Now hum along with this for a few seconds.
This is the foundation of most vocal music, excepting Mongolian and other non-western vocal performance artists. If you can hum along with the dial tone you can learn to chant powerfully.
This is the first bit that you'll attempt. Read through it s l o w l y. Now, speak it slowly. Listen for the natural breaks in the piece that allow for a quick stop and a breath. Try this two or three times.
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you -- tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."
Hamlet
Now go back to this piece, fix your eyes at head height on the wall that you are facing, and open your mouth wider while speaking this again. Do this three times.
This is where concentration comes in. Think about the acoustics of speech and singing. Humans are analogous to a stereo speaker with one driver (the voice box) and a resonant cavity (the torso) with a variable diaphragm.
For the next part of this exercise you'll need to work on feeling more than speaking. It is time to feel the speech. Listen to the dial tone until you can hear it in your head without listening to the sound. Put the ear plugs back in.
Now, repeat the selection from Hamlet again. Sense how your torso and air spaces in your throat and head respond to this bit. Repeat this several times until you are comfortable with your ability to sense the movement of your torso as you speak and the way that the air spaces vibrate.
Take out the ear plugs for this next section.
"Project damn it, project!" --My 8th grade diction coach
Take a really deep breath or two. You won't be screaming, but your goal is to face the farthest wall from yourself and strike a point on the wall at eye level with your voice. Speak deliberately with crispness. (If you need a model for this, go over to the BBC radio website and listen to the announcers for an hour or so.) Repeat this six or seven times.
Improving the power of the voice
Dipping into one of the traditional bags of tricks from classical academia, here's how to apply the method of Demosthenes, a Greek orator with a stutter. He trained his diction and voice by putting pebbles in his mouth and trying to speak over the sound of a waterfall. Here's the at-home version:
Put four or five of the cleaned glass beads into your mouth. Do not swallow!
Facing the wall as before, speak this speak again, I pray you. Repeat as needed, but not to the point of mental or physical exhaustion.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
First Tools for Druid Comrades
Tools For Druid Comrades, Part I
It has been said by the Wise (or at least by press agents!) that everything important should be taught in the first lesson. It will take the student more than a little time to unpack, absorb and apply that first lesson, so additional materials need to be presented.
The Spirit Band
1. Take an afternoon or evening, preferably under a tree or amidst the living green earth, and describe on paper (or into a recorder, or whatever other means you find comfortable and suitable) how it was that you came to be present there, at that moment. And yes, I do mean that you start with the Big Bang (you can truncate the first 13.7 billion years into a few words if you wish), and then tell the story of how your parents or grandparents came to be married or meet. Have any of your relatives said "You look an awful lot like your aunt Germaine!" or something similar? That's good information to have. What were the early and possibly under-recognized influences that made you into the person that you are today, and how will you use those forces to shape yourself into the person you will work to become?
2. Acknowledging the ancestors isn's entirely some theoretical foray into fogginess-you are an incarnation of all of those folks who happened to be direct ancestors on your family tree. Your features, biochemistry and a host of other factors were subtly shaped over a very long period of time. Remember what it is to be a part of a community, one that includes the living and the deceased. Those who have passed over still speak to us, so long as memory is held within the world. It is almost certain that there were people who influenced you who have died. Remember the contributions they made to your life, and find words, dance or other methods to explicate this.
3. Find a way to honor nature wherever it is that you live. Donate a few hours to the parks commission, fund the planting of trees, donate money to an environmental cause, but do something in the here and now.
Attaining the Silence
1. The first step in the process is to find the small silent places within yourself. While some can find the Silence in a rave with flashing lights and sirens blaring, most of us need quieter settings to let go of the distractions that we encounter much of the time. It is something of a misstatement to suggest that the Silence can be hold continuously. My experience is that it is an intermittant state that we drift in and out of as our consciousness shifts towards--and away from this as a focus. Find a comfortable position in a safe place with suitable lighting. You don't need any specific seated, kneeling or standing pose. Choose something that is suitable and unique to this procedure.
Solar Adoration
Esoteric activities are generally divided into active and passive exercises. This is certainly one of the more powerful, if passive forms. A solar adoration is basically an opportunity to think like a plant in the eye of light, the sun. You'll need to determine the times for greatest intensity of light--generally 10 am to noon. Find a place where you can stand out in the sun, lifting your arms towards it, keeping your eyes partially closed. If possible, wear loose clothing. Feel the warmth of the light as it plays on your skin--but not for too long, as the strength of the sun is also its sword. Simply breathe, and feel the light fill you. Repeat as needed. Record your experiences in a journal, even if the entry is only a word or so in length.
Mauvine Synthesis Recipe
Note--(5/28)2007) The recipe given here initially turned out to be quite inaccurate after a considerably lengthy search for the synthesis recipe. Making even a small quantity requires the use of several solvents that are quite harsh and best NOT used by folks who don't have access to an organic chemist and a full industrial or University laboratory. I have therefore pulled it from this post.)
If you look at the range of bright synthetic dyes available at any good crafts or fabric store you should be able to find one color among the selection there that you find appealing. Alternatively, following the manufacturer's recommendations you could blend two or more colors to get a shade you like. For these purposes, something between blue, bright red and purple would be most suitable. It should be a dyestuff that can permanently dye silk.
Following the instructions on the dye bottle scrupulously, dye approximately two yards of raw silk with this dye, and pour the undiluted remainder into an amber bottle, label it and stopper it tightly. You will need this later for constructing an almost entirely authentic spirit mirror that was typical of the 19th century.
It has been said by the Wise (or at least by press agents!) that everything important should be taught in the first lesson. It will take the student more than a little time to unpack, absorb and apply that first lesson, so additional materials need to be presented.
The Spirit Band
1. Take an afternoon or evening, preferably under a tree or amidst the living green earth, and describe on paper (or into a recorder, or whatever other means you find comfortable and suitable) how it was that you came to be present there, at that moment. And yes, I do mean that you start with the Big Bang (you can truncate the first 13.7 billion years into a few words if you wish), and then tell the story of how your parents or grandparents came to be married or meet. Have any of your relatives said "You look an awful lot like your aunt Germaine!" or something similar? That's good information to have. What were the early and possibly under-recognized influences that made you into the person that you are today, and how will you use those forces to shape yourself into the person you will work to become?
2. Acknowledging the ancestors isn's entirely some theoretical foray into fogginess-you are an incarnation of all of those folks who happened to be direct ancestors on your family tree. Your features, biochemistry and a host of other factors were subtly shaped over a very long period of time. Remember what it is to be a part of a community, one that includes the living and the deceased. Those who have passed over still speak to us, so long as memory is held within the world. It is almost certain that there were people who influenced you who have died. Remember the contributions they made to your life, and find words, dance or other methods to explicate this.
3. Find a way to honor nature wherever it is that you live. Donate a few hours to the parks commission, fund the planting of trees, donate money to an environmental cause, but do something in the here and now.
Attaining the Silence
1. The first step in the process is to find the small silent places within yourself. While some can find the Silence in a rave with flashing lights and sirens blaring, most of us need quieter settings to let go of the distractions that we encounter much of the time. It is something of a misstatement to suggest that the Silence can be hold continuously. My experience is that it is an intermittant state that we drift in and out of as our consciousness shifts towards--and away from this as a focus. Find a comfortable position in a safe place with suitable lighting. You don't need any specific seated, kneeling or standing pose. Choose something that is suitable and unique to this procedure.
Solar Adoration
Esoteric activities are generally divided into active and passive exercises. This is certainly one of the more powerful, if passive forms. A solar adoration is basically an opportunity to think like a plant in the eye of light, the sun. You'll need to determine the times for greatest intensity of light--generally 10 am to noon. Find a place where you can stand out in the sun, lifting your arms towards it, keeping your eyes partially closed. If possible, wear loose clothing. Feel the warmth of the light as it plays on your skin--but not for too long, as the strength of the sun is also its sword. Simply breathe, and feel the light fill you. Repeat as needed. Record your experiences in a journal, even if the entry is only a word or so in length.
Mauvine Synthesis Recipe
Note--(5/28)2007) The recipe given here initially turned out to be quite inaccurate after a considerably lengthy search for the synthesis recipe. Making even a small quantity requires the use of several solvents that are quite harsh and best NOT used by folks who don't have access to an organic chemist and a full industrial or University laboratory. I have therefore pulled it from this post.)
If you look at the range of bright synthetic dyes available at any good crafts or fabric store you should be able to find one color among the selection there that you find appealing. Alternatively, following the manufacturer's recommendations you could blend two or more colors to get a shade you like. For these purposes, something between blue, bright red and purple would be most suitable. It should be a dyestuff that can permanently dye silk.
Following the instructions on the dye bottle scrupulously, dye approximately two yards of raw silk with this dye, and pour the undiluted remainder into an amber bottle, label it and stopper it tightly. You will need this later for constructing an almost entirely authentic spirit mirror that was typical of the 19th century.
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