Tag: meditation

10/17-10/21

Yeah, I’ve been that lazy. I have not made a journal entry in almost a week. To my credit I have taken on a new task. I find myself constantly returning to the works of Bill Whitcomb. A magician I respect for his open approach, his belief in discipline and acquisition of knowledge, and his advice to make things your own. In his book, The Magician’s Companion, he outlines a course of study for serious practitioners.

Partly because I want to test my Will, and partly to fill gaps in knowledge I know I have, I decided to partake in his long list of recommended reading. For too long I have been distracted from purposes and not finished them. I have a hard time finishing books, and I consider myself a writer.

So I’ve replaced meditation and journal time with reading and have had some success. I have finished the first couple of works on the list. One, a short by William S. Burroughs, and the first of the Carlos Castaneda books.

So during the time I would otherwise meditate, I light the candles and incense in my temple and read. Despite my lack of meditation, or perhaps because I treat my reading as a meditation, my banishing has become more intense. I find myself stuck in my visualizations for longer periods of time with more clarity.

I also attempted this week to add inscriptions to my new magick circle with dismal results. The paint bled out from the stencil and failed to produce anything close to the desired effect. Luckily, I repainted over the mistake and my circle suffered minimal damage. I am going to try using a large sharpie or a paint marker. Something that will not bleed. Unfortunately, the texture of the painted carpet makes it difficult to use anything over it.

10/17/11

Getting back into the swing of things with meditation and banishing now that my circle is complete. The space definitely feels warmer and more secure. The downside being that I am now constricting myself to a 5-foot circle during banishing. Since I am using a 4-foot sword that doesn’t leave much room to manoeuvre. I am sure I will get used to it.

Meditation did not yield anything specific, but once again, it just felt good to do it.

This weekend, I brought my wife with me to my class on ceremonial magick. She mentioned to the owner how I have performed banishing rituals for others to help them ward off negative influences. The store owner now wants me to offer this service to customers. I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I don’t like the idea of performing magick for money. Besides any other considerations I don’t know how effective it would be for the person. On the other hand, I don’t mind helping people. And the end of my unemployment money is looming up on the horizon.

10/04

Yesterday’s meditation and ritual were crap. Right before meditating I had spent a couple of hours putting up my Halloween decorations outside. Sadly, this constitutes strenuous activity for me. So when I sat down to meditate I thought being slightly out of breath would help my brain reach some altered states. As I willfully controlled my breathing, my mind did experience that weird expanding of time. This lasted for about two minutes.

After that, complete chaos. I couldn’t focus on a damn thing, or focus on nothing. My brain became a shitstorm of idiocy, and I stumbled through my banishing ritual.

Only interesting thing on a magickal note would be a conversation I had with my wife later. Now I’m not one to talk about occult conspiracies. I generally look for natural mundane causes for most everything in life. I am certainly not a fan of “The Devil made me do it.” We were watching an episode of Ghost Hunters. They were investigating a prison where Charles Manson had once stayed, and were getting some interesting evidence. I mentioned to my wife that from what I have read and the interviews of Manson I have watched, I believe that he may have been influenced by a powerful outside entity. I believe Trent Reznor caught a wiff of it when he recorded The Downward Spiral in the Tate murder house. And I would not be surprised if a bit of it was left behind in that prison.

After our talk I thought about how it might be interesting as a lark to write Manson in prison and ask him about his experiences. He has to have a lot of time on his hands. It took two minutes for me to realize what bad fucking idea this is. Let’s just say I’m not crazy for a second and I’m right about this entity. The last thing I need to do is attract it’s attention. Or maybe I do? Do I have the cojones to put the thing in it’s place?

When doing a little further research on Manson I learned he spent some time here in Indianapolis. I don’t think I’m ready to follow this trail. I’m about to go do today’s meditation and banishing. Here’s to keeping the fucker out.

10/03/11

I wanted to use a mudra today, a hand position that is supposed to invoke certain feelings if used during meditation. I have mentioned before my magus motto – Quero Regnum – which means “I seek the Kingdom.” Its a surprisingly Christian theme (surprising for me anyway), that expresses my desire to use my actions to create a utopia based on love and peace here on earth. In some ways, I view the magickan’s journey through the Tree of Life in reverse. I believe we need to bring heaven to us here in Malkuth.

To fit my motto I decided on the “Connect to the Earth” mudra. I have never seen myself as much of an environmentalist, or an Earth worshipper. This was more to connect with my motto. Yet, when I used it, I came to the realization that whatever we do as human beings, we really need to clear it with the planet we live on, which I believe to be an entity. After this, I sought a connection with her. I felt a profound sadness, and not anger, but frustration that she has been trying to get our attention, but we have not been listening.