Mystical Memory

 I use the word communion. Not meditation. When I commune, I am engaging with the universe in a personal way, much like in real life. To my understanding, meditation is a different skill set.

I suppose two or three years have passed since I took Jason Miller’s outstanding course on Hekate. During that course, my communion skills increased to an annoying level. The annoyance was that I would get to a place with great visuals that was obviously communication with otherworldly spirits but the scene would change in an instant. This caused me to forget not only what I was just told but who was doing the telling, the context and location. This was much like waking up knowing you had an important dream but not remembering any part of the experience. Since that time, I have been working on a solution.

About six months ago, I hit on something important. Now, I have a tried and true system for resolving this problem. While this does take some practice, the process is simple to remember.

The first step is paying attention to the location. Notice several objects in the scene. Last night, the objects were furnishings in my what a ceremonial magician would call his astral temple, a table, an object on that table, and the design of the carpet.

The second step is harder. Immediately when one realizes the scene has changed, focus on those objects until one is back in the original space. Do not try to return to the space. Instead, focus only on the objects. When you think of a place you are in that place. Once you have returned to the space, immediately recall everything that led up to the switch.

While I am not going to relate last night’s communion, that may go something like this. I arrived in the temple, the moon was obscured by clouds, a voice emanated from a rock that told me that my attitude regarding my family situation was incorrect. I was told to see only a few facts and then I would see my brother’s perspective. Then I encountered a wispy apparition that floated through the space saying, “See without your eyes, interpret without thoughts.”

I have found it more effective when I focus on repeating everything encountered up to the change in scene at least twice. When I do that, I find myself back in the same place I started and the communion stays on point. When I do not, the rest of the experience is like a dream, disjointed and easily forgotten.

When one is in the same place, the communication doesn’t pick up where it left off. The experience is more akin to leaving a conversation at a cocktail party and then returning. Sometimes, you have to direct things back to when you stepped out in order to catch up.

Last night, during an hour and half communion, I did this around five or six times, maybe more. When I came back to normal consciousness, I recalled four items of interest and immediately wrote them down. As I prepared for bed, I recalled one more that had been on the tip of my memory but I couldn’t quite bring the thought forward. Four of these items were of serious import, one was curious. Recalling four items of import that I could take away from the experience is a huge win.

By focusing on the location and the linear time line of events during the communion time, my memory of events that occur in alternate states of consciousness improves. I would love it if someone reading this that has the same problem would practice this technique and let me know if it worked for them.

 

Your Thoughts Matter

Mystics receive messages in many ways. Sometimes, it is by observing coincidences. Other times, it simply being self-aware enough to know you are missing something bigger and looking for it. We have dreams. Then again, there is the famous ‘download’ of information that psychics talk about that leads them to doing a specific technique. We have leaps of thought in mediation that lead us in various directions. Sometimes, we are plainly instructed by the powers themselves.

All of that falls under the heading of unverified personal gnosis. These leaps of intuition can rarely be linked to some known fact and when they can, no one takes the link seriously. That is likely a good thing. Such information is meant for the practitioner alone. Sometimes, a cool thing happens and several people get the same message. Sometimes, we are simply instructed.

The rarest thing of all are messages for other people. If a mystic just randomly tells you s/he has a message for you that you didn’t ask for, there is a 99% chance their ego is interfering. In this case, I believe I stumbled upon a truth that would be good for the world to hear. That may be my ego. That may be the truth.

I experienced a series of dreams that repeatedly demonstrated the same message. I was shown over and over again how holding onto a memory or perspective about someone else is the equivalent of putting them in a cage with themselves. The person cannot change or has a much more difficult time doing so because someone else deeply believes they are the person they have always been.

Another word for this cage is a shell. The term as taught to me included every ‘bad’ action one performed in life. Over time, I expanded this to include incorrect perceptions that colored my viewpoint. I have never seen anyone write that shells are also created and maintained by others.

Let us suppose you know someone that has stolen from their employer multiple times. Over the years, you have lost touch. If your memory of them includes the idea that they steal from their employer, it is that much harder for them to turn over a new leaf. If that memory contains a belief that those actions define the person, you add a layer of bars to their cage. If you think of someone as a manipulator, womanizer, mean-spirited, psycho, a bad driver, a push over or anything else the same thing happens.

I believe this is really what forgiveness is about. Forgiving isn’t about condoning the act but accepting that the event happened. The next step is releasing the person from one’s perception that the act defines them. This allows the person to redefine themselves. The embezzler may just become the most honest employee ever because s/he does not want to feel like a thief ever again.

The reverse is also true. If your ‘knowledge’ of someone is that they can overcome their weakness or have a special talent or anything else positive, that makes it easier for the person to open that door to great things.

So, it is incumbent upon myself to give up all thoughts of people I have not known for over a year.

How is this done? I plan on using what I recall as a Buddhist meditation where one ‘sees’ his own body decompose in death. My plan is to switch that up and see people I know from the past behaving according to my perceptions and then watching that image decompose until there is nothing left. That will free people from the cage I have built for them. This will give them a chance to walk out of the cage they created for themselves.

These cages do not have to be the same. Perceptions of others and the self are often incomplete and incorrect. Mine included. People build their own cages from guilt, insecurity, how others taught them to see themselves, life experiences etc. From this point forward, I am making an effort to release all the cages I have created for others.

Abandon the Gods!

When I was a baby Pagan circa 2001, most Pagans I knew claimed allegiance to one deity or another. Some said they had relationships with several deities but had one primary. Others, mostly Wiccans or witches, claimed a generic god and goddess. Now, or so I have read and experienced in the shop, a lot of younger Pagans eschew gods altogether. Those I have spoken to cite how horrible they have seen ‘religion’ manifest on other paths. For the most part, that means conservative Christianity. This is flawed and reactionary reasoning.

When I worked for local government, the paid time off structure was so good it was nearly European. In addition to that, if people had PTO to spare, they could donate it to newer employees who suddenly fell ill. A couple of painters abused that privilege by figuring out an angle to take advantage of the process. The reactionary thinking from the powers that be was to stop the donation process, cut the amount of PTO given and other draconian measures. That took no thinking and no effort. It may have been slightly more work to close the loophole that was exploited and deal with the scofflaws that scammed the system.  That work proved too much for those in charge. Depriving others because a small group of people took advantage is both lazy and demonstrates a lack of sympathy towards others. People who followed the rules were punished because of the actions of other parties. This is a flawed way to make decisions and such methods serve no one. The proper term is ‘a failure of leadership.’

Turning away from the gods because a completely different religion manifests in obviously problematic ways embodies that same easy out approach to life. That path leads to mastery of nothing and deprives the practitioner of enriching relationships. It amounts to a failure of personal sovereignty as one gives up something of value because of the failings of another.

The first thing we have to think on is the difference between exoteric religion and esoteric spirituality.  In the former, one is expected to believe in someone else’s esoteric experience having never so much as met the person in question. Once belief is instilled, a power structure is created and becomes socially enforced. In esoteric spiritual practices, the practitioner experiences the divine for herself. There is no power structure between the practitioner and the gods. Thus, the abuses and controlling behavior we see on other paths cannot occur.

Note, I am talking about an individual practitioner, not group work.

So what is a god? My perception of deity is that gods are wholly perfect unto themselves. They exist in a state of perfectly fulfilling their own nature. For example, Hermes is the god of movement. He is the patron of travelers, news, communication, commerce and thieves. He is able to move as well and does so anywhere He likes. Unlike most Greek deities He can travel to Olympus, this world, and Hades.  When he is in the Plutonic realms, you do not see him carrying off riches for his own use, the skulls of the dead etc. When he is in Olympus he does not declare a golden chair his own and cart it off to his dwelling. Those things do not move on their own.

The closest example I know in the human realm is a baseball player named Ichiro Suzuki. When he gets up in the morning he exercises. Then he eats. Then he reads about exercise and nutrition, then he practices baseball. When that is done, he does general fitness work and reads more about baseball, fitness and diet. Everything the man did revolved around being an athlete and specifically a baseball player. He had no other hobbies, interests, etc.

Encountering deity exposes one to similar purity at an intuitional level. This can lead one to the desire further purify oneself and allow one to be more willing to jettison that which does not align with the true nature of the person. Even if the practitioner only does that a couple of times, she is much further ahead of the game than the average person. There is value in approaching the gods.

If a person does not want to approach the gods, that is one thing. If they do not do so because of the fear of recreating the failures of a wildly differing path, then perhaps they may be seeing a reflection of themselves. That fear of being the abuser may be the first thing that must be rooted out. The source of that fear is unlikely what one thinks it may be. Often the core issue is only vaguely related to how it manifests.

I do not believe that the only path to spirituality lies through contact with the gods. Only, that such contact is helpful to many that sincerely walk the path. I do advocate investigating the process without rejecting it out of hand.