Astral Temple

Magicians are trained to create an astral temple. The exercise is to imagine a place filled with the symbolism that you believe aligns the universe with the purpose/location of your temple. For instance, if the temple is in Yesod, a sephira associated with the moon, one may have nine pillars within an open air amphitheater. It may be on an island surrounded by water. The moon may hang in the sky permanently full. The altar may be covered with a purple cloth. This is a valuable exercise.

You are told that once you form this place, you can go there to perform magic. I suppose you can, if you are particularly good at forming a lasting place on the very fluid astral using nothing but your imagination and will.

The problem with it is two-fold. First, you have to visit that place very frequently. The reason for that is that the new magician's imagination is usually pretty weak. One is basically constructing the place afresh every time out. Secondly, what happens if you haven't been there a while? You have to stop and think. What did I build? What is there? Oh no, what did I put there? Do you have to do that when you go home every day? Likely not. Can you remember the layout of  your first apartment even though you haven't been there in twenty years? Probably. Why does this happen? Those places are real. The temple you built is not. It does not exist anywhere but in your head.  Deep down you know that and your temple is just one more thing you have to overcome in order to succeed. It should be said that particularly talented or sufficiently experienced folks can do this. 

Did you ever wonder where this exercise came from?

I have no way of proving this but I think some magician understood his/her sense of place. Having a sense of place in this world is reflected in others, or vice versa. Having achieved a sense of presence here, I found my place on the astral. My place is in Yetzirah, the formative world. It is exactly where I need to be to do magick. My every talent converges on that place. I am fully at home there.

My place does not contain any false symbolism. In fact, in contains almost none of the symbolism I have been taught or read about. I did not imagine this place. I haven't added to anything that was there. Yet everything is alive with purpose. This is just as real as anyplace on earth. When I am present there, I am unstoppable.

I suppose there is another such place in Briah. From there, I would think the barest thought would create on this plane. Someday, I hope to find out.


Artificially creating an astral temple is a worthy effort. It should be understood that this is a temporary home at best. Find yourself and you will find a pre-existing place on the astral that yours.

How do you find yourself? Strip everything away. Everything. In all my years as a magician, I have never been satisfied when I successfully added something to my life with magick. Presence is achieved when there is nothing false left. Rid yourself of everything.

Thought Forms - No You Didn't Go Far Enough

I have written about thought forms over the years. Creating and using thought forms should be a consistent expression of your magickal output. If nothing else, just reading the list of what you've asked for reveals how you've gown and the depth of your fishing. The interpreting the results of your thought forms should be a staple of your mental input.

As a quick review, I used to ask questions like, "Show me where the conflict with X is happening elsewhere in my life." When I saw the reflection, I often found a core issue within that I was really fighting about." I may have asked, "Show my talent when it comes to..." and again, I'd be given some insight. "Show me another person in my life that behaves like X," allows you to start matching personality types. "Show me a solution to this problem." That one is a little more dangerous. Just because you see a solution does not make it a viable option. This sort of question does help with creative problem solving. Especially if you take the image of your thought form, strike with a hammer so it splits into many other duplicates and you get lots of varied results.  "Show me what to do to get my boss to like me," is a very practical question to ask. The potential list is of things to ask is endless.

Notice, all of these asked for information. You can use them to bring things into your life as well. I missed one type of question that I feel has serious potential and I am going to share that with you before I even try it myself, which I will.

In truth, this idea was likely born from the T. Thorn Coyle/DuQuette class I posted about a couple weeks back. There we raised our own private little demon. It was spooky. This was because the spirit took an unpleasant form. Had I remembered, I would have told the spirit to assume an affable shape. Once I did a week or so later, I was amazed at the wonder of what I saw. There truly is light within our darkness.

I have long stated that our biggest troubles contain our biggest answers. Those troubles are the blinds that keep us from finding ourselves. No more.

"Show me my true self hiding in that muck."

You won't regret it.

Throw Some Emotion Into It

I have never met a magician that didn't go through a period of doubt. Is this stuff in my head? Am I making it all up? If it is real, that doesn't mean I'm doing it right. If you are the magician that has never had these thoughts you are either very fortunate or something else.

What many do not realize is those thoughts hang on for a long time. So do every day thoughts, distractions and random detritus of the mind. All of these things interfere with the magick. These are barriers that you may not be aware are there. One tends to think that if you can just push them away for the moment of magickal release, you've done your job. You likely have but not to your fullest potential.

So how do you clear those thoughts long enough to reach that potential? Have fun. Have fun like you did on that vacation day when you didn't have a care in the world. Nothing from outside that moment disturbed your excitement about being the coast, in Europe or the forest. Remember that fun? Hang on to that fun with the intensity of making love, not fucking, not sex, but making love. Total focus, total desire, total release.

Oh but Robert, you're a magician, you know you're supposed to keep your emotions out of it. Hogwash. Total hogwash you Victorian Vicar! If you want it, your ritual or meditation should include time to SEE the result in vivid detail. Where does it happen? What time of day? Who (if anyone) is there? You need to include time to LISTEN. When it happens what is said, by whom? Are there birds singing, dogs barking, a noisy fish tank? Take time to TOUCH, are you sitting on a couch, outside in a cool breeze, or in a hot steamy kitchen? What is the fabric like on the couch? Does the cool breeze bring a slight chill? How does all that steam feel in the air? Take time to SMELL. What is cooking in that kitchen, what scents are carried by that breeze, is that a cat? Take time to TASTE. This may be hardest because we are not always in a situation where we are eating but other things stimulate the sense of taste. It is also very closely related to smell.  Has the place just by cleaned with Lysol? Is there some heavy household air freshener in the room? Those taste like metal on my tongue. Some perfumes even have a little taste. There is one more, how does success feel to you emotionally in the situation? Savor that feeling. Hold onto it as the ritual or mediation builds to sweet release.

Then enjoy that post coital bliss. You've just released all that built up pressure and anxiety the situation produced in an explosion of magick that will make the changes you desire. Smile.

Some people will say this is putting restrictions on the ritual. You aren't giving the magick room to work by giving it all that grounding detail. Again, hogwash, my pedantic prestidigitator! The astral doesn't work like that.

 One of the reasons astral visions are so easily debunked by the scientific community is that what appears on the lower astral doesn't appear exactly like it does in the mundane but there is a metaphorical link. For instance, you may see something as buried on the astral but in the physical it is in the bottom of a long forgot junk drawer. A car accident can manifest as an argument with a stranger.

So, when you work as I described above, none of what you see may happen but when you suddenly feel like you did in the vision for no reason at all, you may have just learned your magick worked. Or, you find yourself in such a scene in real life and suddenly the metaphors of you situation make sense. That experience is more powerful than the magick most people do.

The trick to the above is that it is one way of being totally present in the situation. It is work do all that but the concentration needed not only banishes distractions but focusses us on our sense of place, which is very important in magick and spirituality.

I am here. Right now. I am a force to be reckoned with.

Denial Will Kill You

Denial is a cold embrace, a false memory nourished by repetition. Its comfort is chilling misery. In the end, this can only end in the public death throws of the ego. 

Self-created memories are needed to fill in the gaps in one's perception of reality bringing a false light of goodness to the dark corners in the story. You did A, B, C, E, F, H but always forget to mention D and G or if you do, what comes forth is a rationalization which is just a dress-up word for self-deception. The problem friends is that when we do this, we have a tendency to build a self-image and/or an ego dependent upon those rationalizations. We can claim for that little phantom self everything from superiority to victimhood.

In the immediate moment in this lifetime, all those efforts at controlling the spin are simply too much work. There is a saying I heard while studying life coaching that goes something like this: It is harder to avoid doing what you are supposed to do than it is to do it. Think of how hard your mind has to work to avoid everything from mowing the lawn to going back to school. Think of the anxiety it creates. Own that saying is a fundamental truth.

When we apply that to denial the problem becomes exponentially greater because the things we deny reveal our shadows. Those parts of ourselves that we deny. This compounds the anxiety which is now the ghost in the machine driving all sorts of other silliness trying to keep the phantom image believable to the world. Sooner or later, the stress will get you or the flaws within the imperfect image simply become too obvious.

The trap lies in the failing to admit your errors. The trap lies in the in the inability to own those aspects of your shadow self and do something about them. You can integrate them and flip them to your service much as you'd do working with the Lesser Key spirits (Goetia) or you can find a shrink to help you avoid or understand them. I'm sure there are other things but you damn well better do something.

The first step is being able to say I did D and G and this is what I was hiding. I have done that. It is embarrassing and it is hard. However, I gained respect instead of losing it. Even in totally damaged relationships people have said at least I owned it.

The second step is doing something active to learn from the experience and grow. This must be more than acknowledging to yourself what you did. Perhaps a simple way to do this is creating a thought-form who is instructed to warn you when that same shadow is at work. Knowledge is power. Power is light. Light is love.

Fail to do this and the stress will kill of some part of you. The shadow will bury your brighter nature. You will have surrendered to your own self-created lie. This is the very definition of spiritual failure.
The upside is that a little work can make that an instant success even after decades of denial. Suddenly, I am hearing a lot of lawn mowers starting up.

Note: First paragraph revised to remove pompous wording.

Active Participation

One of the things making it hard to write here is how simple it all is. Many of us use complicated systems like the Qabala or study ancient writings until our left eye falls out. Many of us become religious and put ourselves through all kinds of dogmatic restrictions. Worse, many of us get initiated into various orders, cults and social clubs. Then it gets really sticky. We start to bash each other with shouts of 'you are doing it wrong'.

Newsflash: YOU CANNOT DO IT WRONG

Yes you can accidentally kill yourself with magick or someone else or cause severe health problems because you have no idea what you're doing. You can appear to set yourself back years, a decade or a lifetime. The unfolding will happen no matter what silliness you engage in.

Why then do we do all these things? We do them for the joy of active participation in our unfolding. We do them because we are compelled to evolve now, no matter what the price. We do them because we are ready. There is no other answer.

Got My Ass Kicked

Last night, I did the Manifestation Meditation. Once again it organically evolved on its own. I experienced a download of power and a visual but I could tell they did not align. Today, I experienced that misalignment. I became Old Robert for about two hours. When that was done, I totally freaked out. How did I go back to that?

The upside is that I learned something important.

There is a part of my manifestation that cannot handle large inputs of spiritual energy. This is why my anger/frustration issues became more and more prominent as I grew more and more serious about my spiritual practice. This is hard to describe but the upper parts of my manifested self can handle the influx of energy. My body can as well but there is some part of me in between that cannot. When that is over-stimulated my emotions and my physical body react poorly.  This time, I could feel that part of me. I cannot name it and I do not have a direct solution yet but I am encouraged. This is the beginning of the final solution.

Obviously, I have come a long way and I am proud of that. Just as obviously, I am not done with this.

Do You Get It?

Screw trying to write well. In this mystic mindset, it is impossible. So here goes some random stuff that you can grok or not.

• Take all the intellectual games magicians play and use them for what they do not what they are. You can argue with others about Plato and Iamblichus all you want. You can say this 8th century dude said that and compare it to the 9th century dude's scribblings and state categorically how Hermes Cthonos was contacted back then.  Yes, it can seriously help. Are you thinking I am going to say it means nothing unless you do the magick? I am not going to say that because you already know that. The real point is you're doing qabala. You are looking for every bit of information you can find until all those bits and pieces cancel each other out. That is when you get it. Before that, it just sounds like you get it. After you get it, you still get to write books and impressive blog posts but now you get it. Getting it is what matters. 
• You know all that shit you've done wrong? The right is in the wrong. Wrong is simply right action misapplied.
• If you are doing magick in the silence of your life to impact other people, then 90% of the time, you don't get it. Every once in a while you have to back someone off aside from that... 
• Everyone is God.
• No one or nothing is less than anything else.
• A jerk is God cleverly disguised as an asshole.
• Stop sweating it, you are already doing it right.
• If you feel better when you make someone else look bad or they are looking bad all by themselves, you don't get it. 
• The difference between a magician and a mystic is that the former imposes his will on creation and the latter receives his will from creation. Receiving is SO MUCH EASIER. 
• You deserve it.
• Never let someone else create your emotions. It is a set-up! 
• For your own work, your own divination system works better than someone else's. The trick is you have to know how your universe is created first. The universe is truly a simply place. Stop over complicating it. 

T. Thorn Coyle and Lon DuQuette

I attended their class this weekend in Oakland, California. I have never attended a T. Thorn Coyle class before and I must say that I was impressed. She is on my recommended reading list for all aspiring magicians. 

Sharing their class information here is inappropriate. They should be paid for their hard work. The did record the class. So, expect an opportunity to hear it in the future. The six hour class cost a $100 and was worth every penny.

Notes:

I know my last post was pretty difficult to follow. I promise it made sense in my head when I posted it. I will try to revisit that one in the future.

For now, I am no where near the same guy I was when I started this blog. I am finding it more than difficult to write in this space. I am in a place of indwelling peace. I am still meditating and doing magick. Things are just very different. 

That Which Is

As you know, my ontological awareness consists of:

• the perfection of the unfolding
• continual creation
• the wholeness of all things

There is a difference between knowledge and awareness. With knowledge one reads about the labels other people assign to phenomenon and adopts them as their own. We then project that information onto the world making bold claims of our wisdom and perceptual abilities. This folly is a necessary step. 

I did this with the Tree of Life, describing events as being of Geburah, Chesed or Yesod. Further, I shared my 'wisdom' that this or that was of fire, water, air or earth. Still too I use this language for it is readily understood by those that share a path in part parallel to my own. These words exist to explain or deal with phenomenon.  In such both the description and resultant action are incomplete.

Awareness is to intuit the noumenon and to Be pure within it. Such states surpass the need to perceive, not only with the senses but with any part of human mind. Here exists spirit.  We can hold that the methods used by others to add meaning to earthly events by stating that an incident bestowed power and glory or defeat and expulsion as irrelevant politics. 

The politics of man is limited by the lower nature, which in turn is wholly confused for exalted spirit. So low are these games of ego that one cannot even say people worship the second father in ignorance of the first. Instead, at such times, we worship the orphan as its own parent.

To become a part of That Which is Itself for the briefest of moments destroys faith, as that too is an illusion of the heart. Faith though is much higher than the demigod bastard born of nothing but the illusion of personal import.  Being part of, destroys too the notion of the continuum of events (non-duality). Being part of, fully part of, if only for an instant, is to experience holiness. This not some pious show of the religious or spiritual peacock but instead a full moment experiencing the divine flow. 

The instant we label that experience with an emotion word, a sense of place or any other meaning, we step away only to long for a return, which is again failure. Success, victory, for lack of better words is one of a Spirit-awareness which exists on its own but is immediately veiled once the mind grasps for meaning. 

To remain in the experience is to be no longer of this world, no longer in this world, but instead to be of and with all worlds. 

So May it Be. 

Knife Fight

Peace is an odd thing. 

This morning, I awoke early and did the MM. I asked to be reminded of the unfolding perfection, perpetual creation and completeness. I was reminded of that all day. I remained calm, in place, perfect. People treated me differently in subtle ways. A meeting that was projected to be a angry disaster and to which I was seriously and explicitly invited as 'protection' and 'cover' occurred. Seating placed me between my friend and the dangerous fellow in attendance. Who said local government is boring? The meeting was calm, orderly, professional and everyone left friends. That is what happens when you bring Jupiter to a knife fight. 

I am now ill, running a fever but utterly content. I have not a single insecurity. My past exists but is irrelevant to this self. I am in love with everybody on the planet, including past enemies. Though, it is hard to remember what that really means. I feel good and happy while I am measurably sick. 

I love this state of Being.

Dream of Awareness

Normally, I do not receive a lot of information from dreams. Last night was different. I dreamed that I was doing a task and someone was watching me perform. It had the feel of a scientific study rather than a work one would do for a living. At some point, I approached a piece of modern wall art. It was a print of mostly white with abstract flashes of color. I colored in sections of it and highlighted other areas using orange, green and purple. These are the candle colors currently on my altar.

I became mad at myself for defacing someone else's art. I was particularly upset at the cost I would have to pay the owner of the art, but even more so, I was beside myself over the orange square I had drawn and colored in.

Upon waking I realized the art was the art of life and the orange came from Hod. I am thinking too much. I am projecting those thoughts too much. I simply need to live and do what I know I am supposed to do and let the rest unfold on its own.

Note to practitioners: This is the advantage of having an ontological viewpoint that isn't constantly changing in eclectic orgies of inclusion. My qabalistic colors are easily perceived by both my conscious and subconscious mind. They help me communicate with myself like this in both dreams and visions.