West and East

[...]

I see spiritual traditions and techniques as nothing more than tools available for the spiritual evolution of man.
The only 'right' traditions are the ones that are more effective in deliverance... or that fit my philosophical beliefs best. ;)

I would call myself a taoist, but I follow no specific technology... preferring to experiment and pick and choose as I will.

What I want to do is learn what exactly the TOOL(S) of western occultism, without all the subcultural hogwash, and experiment with it to do as I please! One thing I have come to appreciate about eastern practice is it is direct and tells you exactly what you can try, and then explains in as direct-as-possible terms what you are doing. Qigong, tai-chi for example. visualization methods working with the elements for example. Pranayama, for example.
so far, western technology seems to me more wrapped around "scholarly", "intellectual" pursuits than it is with direct experience!

There is so much useless flair in the texts I have read... such poor and excessive use of metaphors, it's ridiculous. If you want true, no-nonsense intellectual approach, then taoist Traditional Chinese Medicine seems the way to go... in complete contradiction of the whole "west=intellect, east=intuition" stereotype.

Can someone please explain to me why I am wrong? Expose me to the nitty-gritty, RAW technology of western occultism? please...? (! sincerely.. please..!)

[m1thr0s]

Can someone please explain to me why I am wrong? Expose me to the nitty-gritty, RAW technology of western occultism? please...? (! sincerely.. please..!)I could never find it either, which is one of the main reasons I turned to building around the "purer" mathematics of the I Ching etc. I think that what we really find is that much of what has passed for western occult science is mostly alternative religion with a few more numbers thrown into the mix. I quickly grew annoyed with things presented as logical that were not logical, rational that were not rational, valid that were not valid and so on.

You'll fare a little better with Alchemy but one quickly discovers that there are well defined reasons why the "age of reason" was such an important turning point in the evolution of knowledge. For thousands of years previous to this, there was very little separating fact from fiction. It's amazing that people were able to create anything functional at all.

But this is an important thing to understand [...]. It tells us something we very much need to know with respect to the creation of new magickal systems of any kind...new organizations of knowledge and so on. We live in an exciting time in which our natural grasp of logic puts us at a tremendous advantage over our ancestry. We would in many respects be derelict in our duties not to rebuild those things that clearly need to be rebuilt, rather than play some ridiculous game of worshipping the irrational. In many cases what we find is that people's instincts were pretty good while their grasp of technical matters was flatly bankrupt. So we needn't flush the whole thing down but there exists a screaming necessity to rebuild many things from scratch.

Some will simply not be able to see this. To my way of thinking, they are still confusing belief and knowledge. You should not wait on popular concensus if you do happen to recognize this difference inherently, but rather set straight to work doing whatever needs to be done the best way you can do it. Welcome to the ranks of the accidentally awakened...

m1thr0s

[omniprosopus]

maybe you just need to dig a little deeper ...

western occultism has a lot of "tools" that you can do with pretty much what you want to: astrology, numerology, kabbalah, gematria, sigils, talismans, tarot, tetragrammaton, plant alchemy etc etc. The list goes on and on.

it may not always be 100% clear what to do with all this stuff, but the stuff itself is still there.

-omni

[...]

maybe you just need to dig a little deeper ...

western occultism has a lot of "tools" that you can do with pretty much what you want to: astrology, numerology, kabbalah, gematria, sigils, talismans, tarot, tetragrammaton, plant alchemy etc etc. The list goes on and on.

it may not always be 100% clear what to do with all this stuff, but the stuff itself is still there.

-omni

thanks, man, but I am looking for one thing specifically-- transcendance. I have mild experience in most of those subjects you listed, and I doubt, seriously, that most, (if, possibly, any,) of those practices will earn me what I want. Sure, I might be able to seek advice, or perform some magic, but these are trivial pursuits. The philosophical learnings of such things as sacred geometry are awesome.. but also intellectual in nature, and only supplementary in the pursuit of evolution.

I have mild hopes that the qabalah may prove useful, and I am interested in alchemy... But I just can't seem to find what I want, and I just KNOW I am going to run into a lot of stupid shit along the way.

[...]

by the way, thanks mithros. I have a tremendous amount of respect for your posts, so far.
...That is why I am waiting for the right time to latch onto you like a leech! (if you know what I mean...)

[Austin Osman Spare]

"Sheer folly is the key to initiation"

[Luciftias]

If by "trancendence" you mean radical self-knowledge and the repair of self, I would recommend looking into various forms of psychoanalysis such as jungian, gestalt and NLP based processes. I feel that they have been excellent additions to the Westen knowledge of our own inner workings. Also, I have personally found Hermetic Alchemy to be excellent at providing a lot of information on the universal processes in nature and ourselves and methods of disovering and using this knowledge for yourself. The art of summoning and dealing with spirits comes in very handy when interacting with sub-personalities and other entities. Also, just "reading the book of nature" is enlightening, for as it says in the Emerald Tablet:

"As below, so above; and as above so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles." - translated into French by Fulcanelli and then into English by Sieveking

Inherent in this is also "as without, so within" and vice versa. You can infer things about how both the universe and your own inner self operate through observing the other. For example, just try comparing your dream state ("below") with your waking state (above). Knowledge of one state informs the other. That's why I do both lab and inner work.

Luciftias

[Kuroyagi]

Maybe one also shouldnt forget that in the West the tradition has spilt itself- and the winner of that split was science which IS very intellectual and has large parts of the tradition in it but is also very effective- and especially dominant in todays world.

On the other hand if you take Chinese trad. medicine then it is still a whole different approach but it is also partly purely practical and pragmatic up to this day.

Also: just for reminders: 1) when you talk about the West in this sense then it is often restricted to Europe (+mediterrean) which is comparatively minute as a region compared to the whole East and 2) that also in the East theres much babbling hogwash around (eg look at some intellectual escapades in Buddhism and compare them to the original sayings of Gautama AFA they are available- and this is "only India" a region of the East comparative in size and cultural depth with the classical West (Europe) as a whole)...

Anyway, this question as you say, isnt that important anymore, since today there are many explorations underway that use what works (of course theres also exceding amounts of gibberish, like this internet, but that only means that everyone should school and refine his aesthetic sense/taste even more!)

[...]

You make no sense.

[Kuroyagi]

Only occasionally...

[MythMath]

You make no sense.

Isn't that essZENtially what we're striving for...?:p


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