Astral Temples

[fr.novumorganum]

I thought we could have an interesting discussion of the concept of Astral Temples.

By this, I mean an actual 'space' the working mage constructs in the astral, which can be used time and time again, and which has a 'residue' in the astral.

I noticed I was able to construct my astral temple several weeks after I was able to gain a full "3rd person" perspective of the LBRP, BRH and other basic rituals. When I stacked the rituals one on top of the other the symbols and beings summoned remained. My circle was bright and visible, and a design for the circle ( a unicursal hexagram inside it, superimposed over a tree of life) appeared and is now always there when I work in this astral space. This space now has a real feeling of being mine, and I get the sense that nothing is going to randomly wander into this temple. I get the sense that I constructed this space, and it is always there for me now.

I have done evocations there. I tend to do my daily ritual both here in my room and in my astral temple simultaneously. When I perform ritual in the astral temple, I see myself from a 3rd person perspective. I see myself standing in a circle in this temple, with the symbols etc around me.

I see this astral temple as something different than pathworking, as it involves actual construction of this space. I wonder if this is a form of the energy weaving we learn of here on AF?

[deviadah]

I don't know if this is what you mean, but I have a place - not really a temple - in my mind that I know as well as my physical home. I often go there before going to sleep. It is a comfortable, safe and cosy haven...

[fr.novumorganum]

I'd be interested in knowing if you constructed the 'place', and if so, how did you?

[Fio Praeter Humanus]

Interesting. I still have a lot to improve upon my usage of the body of light. I'll move into it and feel and see my astral hands and feet etc but mostly find my point of view constantly switching back and forth between this body and my "real" body. I'll hold my astral hand up and flex the fingers of the hand see and feel it very well and a second later find myself aware of the sensation of having my physical hand laying in my lap. Very annoying.

As for the astral temple I have gone through several. The latest is the most "real" for me as I have improved upon those skills sad as they are. The thing that strikes me is I had pre-fleshed out the major details of the temple before hand but upon entering it find several minor details I never deliberatively designed. Reflection upon the findings are very tellings and surprisingly deep. Not sure if they are being colored in from my own mind, some sort of archetype akasha response or an odd combination of both.

[Radiant Star]

When I first started ritualling a few years ago, I was presented with an empty building, it had an altar and I was shown tools representing the elements and told to furnish (or something like that) the space in any way I wanted to. I wasn't sure why I had seen it or even what it was except it bore some resemblance to a church interior. Some days or weeks later I came across a thread on an occult forum which was talking about astral temples and I guessed that what I had seen was the beginnings of my own temple.

I didn't really know what to do with that one and it stands empty even today. I visit it briefly sometimes when I want to get into ritual mode.

Later, maybe a year or so later, a magickal mentor invited me to build a 'safe place' for myself which I managed very successfully and it is still 'solid' today.

There is another place I have had for twenty years which isn't a temple but an imaginary place I go to when I want to create something or take time out, it has great potential for an extension though ; )

[deviadah]

I'd be interested in knowing if you constructed the 'place', and if so, how did you?
Yes, I constructed it from scratch. It is like a dream house, but only one room (I like it cosy). How I did it? Just pure imagination, but it is very detailed. I could probably draw it from memory better than where I live now (because where I live no carries no importance).

[fr.novumorganum]

Thanks for the input so far everyone...

Nero: Yes, I had that happen as well; I never designed that unicursal/tree image, it just sort of rose up on its own. I've wondered if that 'revealing' was what was always meant by 'discovering and designing a lamen'.

[Oblio]

There's a few places that I constructed (although, parts of them just appear in certain ways spontaneously, and I can accept or change as I want) which I visit regularly.

In fact, there's a place that still sticks around that I developed in high school (about 10 years ago). We had one lesson where we developed our own inner space, spending a few periods to designing and inhabiting it - it was basically our "happy place" :lol: but having been into the occult back then it had more significance to me.

[m1thr0s]

I see this astral temple as something different than pathworking, as it involves actual construction of this space. I wonder if this is a form of the energy weaving we learn of here on AF?yes...I think that is correct, if i am understanding this. The thing is that you have laid in a certain structure...and you have, over time, scrutinized and perfected that structure until by now it it is actually able to recognize itself...and has thus become a "conscious" place as much as a place of consciousness.

m1thr0s

[fr.novumorganum]

yes, that's on the mark...the creation of this space was more than creative visualization....it may have started by that, but I had to lay energy over the blueprint over and over again until the lines eventually remained.

and i do get these sense there is an intuitive level of communication between it and me.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

Up until now my astral constructions have been tied to scenarios and landscapes from the Mabinogion, so the combination of visualisation and ever deepening familiarity with its stories, and particularly the otherworldly atmospherics of the stories -which for the most part take place amongst mysterious unpopulated and often geographically vague forests- has led in a natural manner to the creation of a personal 'astral grove' if you like. A key ingredient in its construction however was living for 2 years in a very real unpopulated forest in the Pyrenean foothills, which due to its size, location, isolation and abandoned villages, possessed a very tangible otherworldly atmosphere of its own, so in effect my astral grove is an equal mix of myth-inspired imagination and real-world memory.

[m1thr0s]

and i do get these sense there is an intuitive level of communication between it and me.I can't remember where I saw the quote "let us go up and create god in our image" but there is a certain truth to this...it is what we do, afterall, whether we admit to it or not.

doc holliday doesn't post here anymore...who knows why...perhaps the environment seemed more hostile than it really was meant to be. in any case he writes occasionally on the original meaning of the term "god" as understood in oldest Hebrew contexts. In one of these posts he was talking about the idea that god - as a being- and god - as a "place" had the same exact wording in ancient Hebrew texts. So God and the House of God, for instance, are identical terms in ancient Hebrew...

I remembered that especially as it pertains to magickal practice...perhaps also because it is mirrored in a line from Liber Al vel Legis
...I am not extended, and Khabs is the name of my House....where we see the tao/teh point itself identified in a similar vein.

the type of imprinting we are discussing here is important also (if not potentially treacherous) since it has to do with training the autonomic nervous system, establishing a certain form with such force that it can then act on its own volition. When this is accomplished in the full light of awareness we have nothing to fear from it but it can also be accomplished as a matter of brute force alone so we have to be careful that all our actions are fully conscious or the *temple* is really just a *prison* we have built with our own dumb insistence.

we might rightly ask how do we know the difference? while I think that the difference has largely to do with being able to stop and reconstruct things skeptically at any point on the process, in another sense perhaps we never really can be 100% certain...it is a gamble you take whenever you build any house and only time itself can validate the final outcome (ergot, *success is thy proof*)...

It's ok though...a little danger keeps us on our toes.

m1thr0s

[fr.novumorganum]

I've been mulling that god as place=god as being for a few days now, and on a deep level it feels true...and as usually happens on this forum, it clicked right with one of the reasons I started this topic.

I brought up 'creating' astral temples in part b/c this is an experience of great interest to me, but also because I was wondering if we could uncover a connection to two important topics here:'creating' the body of light and the field theory meditations.

I wonder, with an emphasis on the many meanings of wonder, if, when we create the star-body we will have created the ultimate astral temple, when there will be no dichotomy between what and where we are.

[fr.novumorganum]

after a few days more meditation, my temple, and the concept of leylines i've encountered here at AF seem to be the same thing.

[m1thr0s]

I wonder, with an emphasis on the many meanings of wonder, if, when we create the star-body we will have created the ultimate astral temple, when there will be no dichotomy between what and where we are.well, not wanting to appear too obvious, but that is precisely what I feel to be the case.

there are a great many supports for this conclusion, yet there are also serious obstacles yet to be dealt with and these are uncommonly potent...not to be confused with conventional magickal attacks and so on...this is another dimension to things I have occasionally hinted at but not known quite how to address...particularly in a public forum.

This whole thing is going to require alliances to nail it clean...that's just how it is...perhaps the single greatest deterrent facing us is the notion that any one of us can do it alone. You would think so, owing to the remarkable accessibility it affords but a light so bright does not shine in isolation...it can be seen and some of that which is aware of it is also opposed to its emergence.

None of this is any reason to hold back on any level...quite the opposite. Nor should it be used as an excuse to shortcut any necessary steps that must be taken...tests to be performed, challenges to be exhausted, proofs to be won on many different levels. We either have a true gold or a fools-gold and we have to make certain which of these it may be.

But in the final analysis we also need to bear in mind that this is something big...probably bigger than anything ever come down the pike exactly. Ultimately a whole lot bigger than any one of us on our own...even though any one of us is ultimately capable of carrying the whole intact...

So that's enough on that for now...

m1thr0s

[Naomi]

What I see here is the theme of creating the temple externally on the astral as some place you visit, when in actuality the best place for the temple is the body itself, since this is where our power resides as mortals. It's not a position of weakness at all, just a price to be paid for the opportunity to cover a lot more ground than you can up in the higher realms.

I think that is why we incarnate at all.

I placed a lot of importance on my astral temple for many years but then I finally realized it was just a corner of my own brainand I needed to get out of there fast and explore the rest of the universe. I was so sick of being bored I just followed it right down to the depths of hell after I realized the cage door was open. :D who let me out?

I don't really keep a temple either, I had one in the garage for a short while when I was doing my Goetia thing but again the body really is the best place for the temple once you get the hang of it...everything else is just a stepping stone to this direct realization.

I think taking my clothes off and lying in the grass naked really helped this mindset too, so great if you can afford the privacy to do that.


"let us go up and create god in our image"


I know the opposite is from Genesis where god says "let us go and create man in our image"...