My Alchemy Practice-Opinions welcome!

[Darin Hamel]

I learned this from a Chinese Taijiquan teacher but he never practiced it he only knew about it. He taught it to me because I was having OBE's and wanted them to stop. I think I may have made a mistake but after talking to a bunch of people I may be on course but to what, who knows...

Opinions are welcome which is why I am posting this, especially those who have practiced Taoist Alchemy or Taijiquan.

Taoist Alchemy


Prerequisites: For the entire thirteen years you must abstain from meats, grains, sex, plus no losing your sexual essence in any either through self stimulation or dreams, and you must observe the continual practice of the ascending grades of meditation.

10 Months of deep breathing exercises and one pointed Dan Tien focusing meditation to transform sexual essence into Qi (internal energy) within the lower belly.

Confirmatory signs: Begins with feeling the internal energy and controlling it with breath and intent to condense it into the bones and then lead it up the spine using the reverse flowing method into the head and to the pineal gland which produces a vision of blazing white light (achieved April 24th, 1994)

3 Years of eyes closed emptiness meditation transforming internal energy into internal power at the solar plexus.

Confirmatory signs- Begins when a tiny spirit body comes from the belly and exits out of the forehead (achieved June 6th, 1994) that is the birth of the immortal child which then returns to the belly to be nurtured. Fifty days later after the birth of the baby shen a vision of the quintessence/original nature off all things is seen (achieved July 27th, 1994) and this achievement is the first stage of immortality according to Taoists. If all ends here you will be reborn after death to continue your practice with full knowledge of your past life. At the end of the three year period the tiny body once again exits the forehead this time weaker and somewhat wispy. (achieved June 6th, 1997).

9 Years of eyes open mindfulness meditation “being the calm center amidst the chaos of activity” which begins with the alchemical process rising into the center of the brain where it transforms the internal power into Void. At the end of this is 9 times 9 selves where some say you appear in countless transformational bodies. I think it represents the final catharsis of teaching like Buddha making Buddhists or Christ making Christians just on a lower level. At this level I was teaching taijiquan.

SPECULATION: Finally at the end of nine years the void body exits the top of the head and enters a world of pure being and endless light. Upon the return of this small body which has absorbed some of that endless light, it transmits that light to the physical body and it too will radiate light transforming it stage by stage into a body of pure energy.

[Naomi]

Yeah I don't understand why you want the OBE's to stop, it seems to me just a natural ability. Boddhisattva Siddhartha did say you can return from the Nirvana state...I've never understood the desire to want to be sucked into the light forever...seems like a way of "giving up". I've always wanted to die, it's not like this life is easy. It's not morbid crap or anything, just reality. Sometimes it can be...you know, fun...

But then again, I am deluded enough that I actually do have memories of most of my favorite past lives....

I had to give myself 'permission' that this was my history. To deny my own past due to concerns over egotism now seems as silly as me as denying that I never learned to walk on my own as a toddler...In all honesty I think you give yourself far too little credit than you deserve. We have work to do, too, it's not like we can really afford to get caught up in the egotistic behavior of trying hard to eliminate your ego. ^_^ It's even pretty much impossible. You can't get rid of your ego, you can only master it.

Am I rambling?

I really think your stories are very cool, Mr. Hamel. The little baby emerging from your forehead is very...weird. lol I find that it is best in magick to expect the unexpected...we're not clones of each other. Your experience, is in all likelihood, and scientifically speaking (chaos theory), going to be quite different from another seeker's journey. We can record these experiences but no one has the power to predict the results to exact details. Not even well established traditions have that power.

All the best,

Naomi

[Darin Hamel]

I wanted the obe's to stop because they were annoying. They started in the seminary when I was taught to meditate. They were shocking at first and then kinda cool. After cool it just got weird.

Plus, they were always spontaneous so it's not like I could just sit down and leave on command. THAT would have been useful!

[Naomi]

I think I'm immune to weird, Mr. Hamel.

In fact I'm a weirdie.

Strange, you wern't able to come back to your body on command? That does sound a little unnerving. Ever read Robert Bruce's book "Astral Dynamics"?

[Darin Hamel]

I think I'm immune to weird, Mr. Hamel.

In fact I'm a weirdie.

Strange, you wern't able to come back to your body on command? That does sound a little unnerving. Ever read Robert Bruce's book "Astral Dynamics"?
No, I couldnt leave on command. I could return anytime I want. Um... have I gotten so old that I am Mr. Hamel now? Well actually I guess I am that old huh?

[Naomi]

No i'm just being silly. Have you ever considered mental projection? It's different slightly from astral projection in that it doesn't involve one so much. The differences are described in Initiation into Hermetics.

Initiation into Hermetics (pdf) (http://www.geocities.com/lqairah3/initiationintohermeticsFranzBardon.pdf)

[creekist]

well all the stuff you mentioned sounds pretty crazy, could you tell me where you learned it? or where your teacher learned it?

and another thing is what did you get out of this?

thank you

[Darin Hamel]

I learned it from my first Taijiquan teacher who never did it himself. He taught it to me to stop me having the obe's like I said and he just thought I did well enough to do the alchemy. His name is John or Andrew Wong and lived in Connecticut but has for now returned to Taiwan.

[Naomi]

Darin I wanted to mention that earlier in winter I did get the sensation of having some sort of egg hatching in my third eye area, it was not surprising - I had read your account and may have been hallucinating according to memorized reading. It took the form of Ganesh - this had appeared earlier in a vision as a rotting carcass that was fed to Kali in the form of fire in the earth, so I don't know if that is connected or not.

I didn't bid it to occur and it had the full visual and physical manifestations, I'm going to take a wild guess that the physical sensation is actually the pineal gland excreting whatever it excretes, as the adrenals can be felt distinctly when they discharge adrenaline.

I actually became slightly alarmed as it was occurring because it was so traumatic, it felt like someone was opening my forehead , and that's always unsettling...right?

I also experienced the visual dynamic of a plane of eternal endless light, which was sublime.

I didn't abstain from meat or grain or sex, at all, except for a few days where I didn't have any sexual stimulation of any kind or any food except for juice. This helped push me over the top with the exercises involving breathing and ascension but I do not believe in the need for abstaining so extremely.

Granted I do notice when the body is very happy and well tuned, it does perform better...often a vegan diet promotes a healthy body...I eat meat on a regular basis (at least once a week) but it is in very small amounts.

You do know of the connection between the pineal gland and eternal life right?

[Darin Hamel]

You do know of the connection between the pineal gland and eternal life right?

I know some for sure and have read/googled Pineal in many, many combinations, but I suck up anything relating to this stuff so please point me in the direction of anything you know or have found please.

Your 27 and going through this stuff? Thats the perfect age according to everything I have discovered about the process of ascension. I didn't know that was your goal. Is ascension one goal among many or your single driving purpose like mine?

I actually became slightly alarmed as it was occurring because it was so traumatic, it felt like someone was opening my forehead , and that's always unsettling...right?

Ever see that picture of Athena being cut/extracted out of the forehead of Zeus with the help of the axe of Hephaestus?

I'm going to do a search to see if I uploaded my triple Holy Grail Tree of Life here. If I didn't then I will, it has some cool stuff that is outside the paradigm of Taoist Alchemy but it still goes on the binary soul theory.

[Naomi]

I have no time today but I'll get back to you on this later tonight hopefully...

For now, the pineal gland I know is said to produce a kind of antioxidant that aids the mitochondrial cells in maintaining health and longevity, right?

Ok well I also here is a great thread on the pineal gland by Deviadah if you hadn't read it yet check it out:

http://www.occultforums.com/archive/index.php/index.php?t-25003.html

(one of a few good threads on a degrading board)

I began practicing Bhakti yoga something like 3 years ago with little false starts along the way but now I am in the final stages of it according to the books....I have no other goal than to serve Ningishzidda.

gotta go... :)

[deviadah]

Welcome back Naomi... and thanks for the plug! :rofl:

As for the Pineal Gland it is my firm believe that it is the only medicine you need if handled properly... but we can't ignore the importance of the pituitary gland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituitary_gland) either, which is just as powerful!

http://www.rickrichards.com/chakras/pituitary_brain2a.jpg

:cool:

[Darin Hamel]

("Who ever started this site and made it so you can just copy from word and paste without having to re-bold or modify things.....thank you.")

Here is my Hundred Days start with more detail and it was actually 96 or 98 days long I think.

MY 100 DAYS START
24April1994 (Full Moon)
After six hours of intentional sexual arousal without ejaculation I went for a run because I was getting too much to hold back. I had built up so much sexual tension I thought I was going to go mad. After the run I practiced bone breathing with breathing energy up my spine and then in meditation and had a powerful vision of interior light. Every time my perineum would begin to pump furiously the interior light would blaze forth before my inner vision.

08June1994 (New Moon)
I practiced sexual arousal without ejaculation again but this time for only three hours. Then after the bone breathing and while breathing energy up my spine, the perineum began pumping with pressure/pain was felt in the third eye area. My testicles were also in pain. I was using forced will power to move the Kundalini up the spine. I tried to relax but couldn’t. I tried to leave my body several times unsuccessfully. Then I seemed to come out of my forehead. It was like I was like in a little body a couple of inches tall. I could only get out of my forehead up to my waist.

27July1994
It was incredible. My normal vision was replaced with a new vision. Instead of seeing with my fleshly eyes, I became aware I was seeing from my spiritual center, my soul. This spiritual center within me was the same spiritual center within all things. This “Unity” filled me with awe and peace. I also seemed to be eternally caught up in the now. I wasn’t thinking or feeling anymore. I was just being.

Looking at the trees did not reveal leaves and bark. I saw an explosion of light. It began where the seed sprouted originally. The explosions then flowed upwards and downwards. I saw into the earth. It was a golden hued transparency. The trees were like flowing golden fountains of living light that were continually being born anew every moment. It seemed purely accidental that water and dirt were carried along with the exploding fiery-light. It did not diminish the glory of it in any way though. I thought modern science was absurd because it studies the accidental shadow and not the actual substance.

I knew everything from the beginning of time. I saw it all. At the same time I was so peace filled that I did not desire to know anything in particular. With this expanded perspective human understanding of everything, including metaphysics seemed worthless. All the books I had read paled miserably in comparison to this. All the spiritual anguish I had been experiencing for the past few weeks vanished. I felt desireless, completely free and at peace with all. It was as if I woke up and was seeing reality for the first time. I was released from this universe of light after a few minutes.

[Darin Hamel]

More inner lights that happened after the feelings of flight through a tunnel. These inner light experiences really make me think it is the pineal that is being changed somehow. It is especially the last crystaline red flaming swastika one that really got me thinking of the pineal since the pineal gathers "brain sand" around itself and become more and more crystaline over the years.

27March1997
I saw luminous, reverberating quicksilver in my inner vision at the end of the tunnel.

24December1997
At the end of the tunnel I saw a light redish glow that quickly became an internal vision of red sparks like looking at a piece of metal against a grinder really close. There was a loud whoosh sound also like rushing wind. After the shower of red spark I saw an amber glow like a coal at the center with the sparks only active in the periphery of my vision.

12March1999
I had the last tunnel experience. When it began I immediately relaxed and surrendered my will to the divine within and at the end of the tunnel in what seemed to be the center of my brain I saw a kaleidoscope of colors, reds, blues, yellows and greens. It was very beautiful. Like a spinning red flaming crystaline swastika on a blue circle with a green background. Within the embrace of each arm were four swirling yin/yang like patterns. Outside the large swastika and yin/yang’s were smaller swastikas, spinning also. The entire thing had a crystalized look to it.

[Naomi]

Interesting. It's great to hear all of this. You've read Glenn Morris's account of his kundalini arousal? He had a similar experience with the testicular pain. Unfortunately he died two years ago, shortly after my friend spoke to him at Tai Kai about some interesting topics.

I believe the account is in his book Pathnotes of an American Ninja Master, which is on loan (probably permanently) so I can't recount it here...but you shouldn't have trouble finding a used copy.

This passage I wanted to comment on:

"27July1994

It was incredible. My normal vision was replaced with a new vision. Instead of seeing with my fleshly eyes, I became aware I was seeing from my spiritual center, my soul. This spiritual center within me was the same spiritual center within all things. This “Unity” filled me with awe and peace. I also seemed to be eternally caught up in the now. I wasn’t thinking or feeling anymore. I was just being.

Looking at the trees did not reveal leaves and bark. I saw an explosion of light. It began where the seed sprouted originally. The explosions then flowed upwards and downwards. I saw into the earth. It was a golden hued transparency. The trees were like flowing golden fountains of living light that were continually being born anew every moment. It seemed purely accidental that water and dirt were carried along with the exploding fiery-light. It did not diminish the glory of it in any way though. I thought modern science was absurd because it studies the accidental shadow and not the actual substance.

I knew everything from the beginning of time. I saw it all. At the same time I was so peace filled that I did not desire to know anything in particular. With this expanded perspective human understanding of everything, including metaphysics seemed worthless. All the books I had read paled miserably in comparison to this. All the spiritual anguish I had been experiencing for the past few weeks vanished. I felt desireless, completely free and at peace with all. It was as if I woke up and was seeing reality for the first time. I was released from this universe of light after a few minutes."


I had a similar experience, except spread out over the coarse of three days, following submersion in the underworld. I was indoors at the time when I recieved the feeling of infinite light and I needed to stay inside at the time so I didn't actually get a good look at the trees. though for a few months there was a sensation of ecstasy followed by complete surrender to ningishzidda. This lasted for several hours. I do recall strongly the appearance of the bright white light that seemed to permeate everything.


this in turn was followed by the feeling of rising above the ningishzidda's influence completely, returning to the source of all things, and then the slow descent over the course of 3-4 weeks.

I had a tunnel experience again last night out of nowhere (followed by a rainstorm typically)


The first one was important because it contained details on some earth specific instances of human evolution which were observable at the level of "godmind", this is also referenced as level nine in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu "mind and eyes of god".


The total experience, which I consider to be the most authentic in a series of false starts (which are in themselves useful) began and ended in one day - I woke up and knew I was going to have a really powerful experience so I began by throwing my clothes and corporate debris out my second story window. This is a technique used by many native american communities after the death of a loved one, and in India it is used as a means of attaining enlightenment, one of many mental calibrations that provides sustenance for the spiritual mind.


The next thing I did was take a box of salt and dump it out on the floor of my living room and while in divine consciousness I visualized stepping into a galaxy from some other region - not the Milky Way or the Sag dwarf galaxy.


I realized at some point that I had ended up invoking Krsna, which was truly blissful, and then I passed out in the backyard under the sun and stared directly at the glaring orb in the sky, and felt myself being pulled towards it, my vision blacked out and I felt myself travelling really really far away.


I was glazed over and knew I was somewhere else, seeing something else, an alien entity with coloration and anatomy unlike anything I have ever seen. I knew I was in someone else's body on some other planet, and there was this other entity of my same species observing me and helping me do something with some unknown goal. And I was underwater.


Now, I came to in my backyard again and immediately freaked out because I realized I wasn't in water and then I managed to pull it together after I heard Ningishzidda talking to me.


I went upstairs (this took about 15 minutes) and collapsed in the hall and I began seeing light projecting out of my forehead somehow on the wall, like a slideshow.


I was seeing all cultures and civilizations, galaxies first, one after another, until a dozen or so had passed, and then I began seeing civilizations - alien races that resembled the indonesian cultural icons but were instead living entities with the cultural and artistic stylization as fleshly anatomy.

The last parts of the slideshow were pictures of the human race, and they looked completely alien to me, and I was scared as hell of them, and then I realized I was on earth, and I was amongst these creatures...



I couldn't figure out where the light was coming from. Then, there's some things you can't analyze...i think it was a light recording of my journey but I don't know.

I don't think it was the most enlightening of my recent visions but it was the most fun...maybe...

The second tunnel experience I got last night was different, and didn't turn into a visit and I wasn't allowed to go anywhere...

Also, I don't know why I called you Mr. Hamel I give people all sorts of weird nicknames, it's nothing but a random coincidence that you got that one, or maybe how you present yourself...from now on I'll call you "dude"....

[Darin Hamel]

Mr Hamel is fine, thats what most people call me who know me. Dude works too. My favorite little people call me Uncle Darin and thats my favorite name of all.

Can you put dates to your visions? Also have you ever had a vision of dog headed beings or being given a red robe?

[Naomi]

Yes I can put dates to most of my visions from various sources...what do you want to know?

I often recieved visions of canines, my personal upbringing garnered alot of experience in the native american community as well as the East Indian community, both of which have entirely different viewpoints of dogs - one generally considers dogs filthy creatures to be avoided, the other regards them as gods and gifts from the creator.

My Lakota name is Lowachin Sungila (Hungry Fox) so naturally i have connections to all things dog and not the domesticated kind either...

I would, on occassion before this rather heavy trip through wonderland that began last April, recieve periodic updates and upgrades from native american deities in the guise of visions of skateboarding street kids with lots of artifacts collected in a pyramid shaped museum overlooking a reflecting pool the size of a football field.

My fondest visions are ones with Coyote, we call him grandfather in the Lakota community and the same with Raven up in the Pacific Northwest. There a particular relationship between Coyote and Fox as two of a kind, responsible for all kinds of mischief with Fox playing sort of an accomplice role but never actually becoming the target of Coyote's misfortune herself.

There was one vision I had with Anubis, this occurred very early in my occult explorations and I don't remember it. During the first parts of my exploration into bhakti I arranged a shrine to Anubis and this was what triggered the vision, I think.

I keep a coyote medicine wheel on my wall but....now I never talk to him.

I consider these all archetypes and machinations of vast universal intelligence. It's important to use them intelligently, otherwise you just end up talking to a dead god who never really made a direct connection to humanity, and so are not relevant to us at all.

[Naomi]

This is taken from Ishtar's Descent into the Netherworld:

"Swear that she has paid you her ransom, and give her back in exchange for him, for Dumuzi, the lover of her youth.
Wash him with pure water, anoint him with sweet oil, Clothe him in a red robe, let the lapis lazuli pipe play. Let the party-girls raise a loud lament." http://www.piney.com/BabIsht.html

An excellent site on Japanese symbology of the color red especially as a deity attire:

http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/color-red.html

Another dog deity to consider is the Tien'kou, or heavenly dog. In his yang form, Tien'Kou helps the god Erh-lang drive off evil spirits, however, during the night, he is yin, and his energy is destructive and catastrophic. He was the meteor demon, causing comets, eclipsing the sun by eating it, and also caused meteor showers. The first recorded appearance of Tien'kou was in the sixth century BCE in China, he came to earth in comet with a long tail of fire. It poisoned all the crops and water where it fell. It is said there is more than one Tien'kou, but only one appears at a time. The Tien'kou appeared again in the second century, in the shape of a shooting star. He is always accompanied by thunder. Tien'Kou can be driven away with a bow made of mulberry wood, and an amulet of dog hair.

[Darin Hamel]

I discuss the Red Robe here some more.
http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showthread.php?p=30121#post30121

[Darin Hamel]

"Swear that she has paid you her ransom, and give her back in exchange for him, for Dumuzi, the lover of her youth.
Wash him with pure water, anoint him with sweet oil, Clothe him in a red robe, let the lapis lazuli pipe play. Let the party-girls raise a loud lament."

Well I got the Red Robe and now I think I am ready for the party-girls part. :laugh:

[Naomi]

I don't remember mum-ra having any party girls.....or maybe they were in the lost season....