Tricks of the path

I have now been learning spiritually for twenty years, with no master at all. That is nothing special. It should be only human to spiritually progress, it should be recognized as a natural process. Because, if we are all honest, and this is crucial on the spiritual path, why DO we actually want to learn?

Chance is, we want to gain power. Power over our own life, maybe sinisterly gaining power over others. Chance is, we are afraid, and knowledge helps you to be less afraid. But all in all, if you strip it all down to the most frightening aspect of our life, we are aware that we must die, and death is alien to the living. It is so by nature, and it is a part of nature. I do not want to bore you with a rant about how society bans death from our reception, but instead I want to tell you how I see this.

We are first traumatized by coming into existence. BAM! Lights on, and blazing at that, pain, noise, stress. Once we get accustomed to being alive, we recognize another fact: That everything has to pass, to fade, into non-existence again. We then seek for comfort, we gather souvenirs, we yearn and long for love, we want to make it last, and instinct drives us to propagate, and that is only natural. But love is another riddle of the real world to us, and the description does not even start to come close to the subject. Knowledge coming out of the ever-blatant ego is not helpful in any way... this knowledge can teach you how to calculate, how to construct things and matters, how to lead your outside life. But your inner self is not touched in any way. It cannot teach you how to deeply and sincerely love without being destroyed by the hurt it might inflict on you. There is to be found another conflict of the soul; it hurts to really love, love for love´s sake, but it seems the only way of comfort in a fading world. And, if we hear and listen to the faint call of the soul, and dare not to drown its song, we want to learn.

At least I wanted to learn. I wanted to know more about this funny sprite within, and I did a lot of crazy things on my way. Along the way I recognized that there is no happiness, but barely happy moments - but is that so indeed?

I ask many questions, and question most of the answers given; and, following the guidelines of my ancestors, the advice given by the moon on ancient dolmen sites, during rituals, but more so while simply having a sip of tea sitting on a stump under the stars. I cast runes and interpreted them until the runes appeared to me in tree and lake and the song of creeks, the sunshine in the leaves and the roaring of the stag. I trod the paths of the wildstock silently and swiftly, until the deer did not shun me anymore. I asked the steel and the steel answered with a fiery roar, I asked the earth and it gave me silence. I did many rituals, carefully reading them out at first, repeating them freely,  telling stories and tales and writing at first, until it became second nature. And as I did all of this stuff many, many times, I then forgot how it was made. I forgot how it was properly done, and just did it. You can try this out for yourself. Sit down on a stump and read this part of a vowel permutation as long as you wish:

AOUEI
AOUIE
AOIUE
AIOUE
IAOUE

Remember the vowels stand for the Ogam letters, as well as runes, as well as Hebrew signs and that these  letters all have a kenning and a number value. Breathe in, then release the vowels in one flow of breath.

You might as well forget about all the intellectual stuff about them. For me personally, this is a great exercise that is crucial for most things I do, be it a ritual or achieving inspiration for ex - tempore poetry or satires, for squeezing the extra bit of mental power out of this feeble body when needed... it is a simple method to achieve a flow mindset on demand.

If you remember their semantic and numeric value, you can construct poetry as easily as doing the 1+1, but it´s not about construction. Instead, rather use the flow mindset the exercise can provide you with to meditate, and split your mind in half, one half pondering about how to construct, the other half flowing freely, not stopping anywhere. To me, this is crucial. You could also try to split your mind farther still, one part maintaining an everyday attitude. Try to do some easy calculations, or think about what to cook for dinner or whatever to achieve this.

What I want to illustrate is, that this task is technically very challenging, and do me a favor, do NOT try this out if you have any psychological impairments, take psychopharmaceutic medicaments, suffer from epileptic fits or have just taken funny mushrooms or any such shortcuts. At first, you will try to do it intellectually. Trust me, it´s next to impossible. Just learn the Kenningar over and over and over, until it becomes second nature. Then do the breathing part, over and over and over again, until it becomes second nature. Only then do the meditating part, and only after you have accomplished this, try the concentration challenge.

This is, at least in my book, what in Rúnatálthattrs Odhinns is called:

"Then fruitful I grew,    and greatly to thrive,

In wisdom began to wax.

A single word    to a second word led,

A single poem    a second found."

Anyway, what is crucial to me there again is that a single word leads to a second, one deed finds another, one poem the other attracts. This is a somewhat fractal logic, if this sidestep may be allowed, and it is a characteristic of the path.

Experience leads to new experience, wisdom to new wisdom, and thus I walk my path. But how is experience gained? By careful construction or by fate, by meditation or by action? In my opinion, it is made of all this, but foremostly by stopping and at the same time not stopping with your mind. Contradictory at first, until you visualize that you simply have to move swiftly. 

As for a visual training exercise you could try out standing at some distance away from a singular tree. Take a small stick, a pen, a pencil or any such like, and hold it at arm´s length away from you. Focus intently on the pencil. Then focus on the tree. Repeat at least a hundred times. Reduce the intervals between focussing, but remember to maintain a clear vision of the object.

To relax your eyeballs, close your eyes, and roll your eyeballs against your closed eyelids in both directions fifty times each. Then let your eyelids droop while focussing the tip of your nose. Repeat the first exercise then. Do three cycles of these exercises. By doing so you enhance your physical vision. But there´s also a psychological side to it; we tend to stick to one object at a time, and, it has to be admitted, this focus has a purpose. We actively keep out a lot of visual information by reducing our physical (and psychological) vision. For instance, if you have an open heart to all the worry in the world and try to do something about every little hurt someone somewhere on the planet is suffering, chance is, you will get insane in no time. So we shut out a huge amount of information, to remain sane in the head. The challenge now is to remain sane, but building up just the right amount of ignorance.


...to be continued;-).

 

Doom, again.

Oh please.

People keep talking about the rout of mankind, of the doom of civilization, of the earth. Of the return of the dragon, of aliens coming to conquer this earth, and whatnot.

In 2000, it was the whole Y2K mess. We are still living. It was the prophecy of Nostradamus, too.

And that makes for as fine example. Nostradamus HAD written about fothcoming events, and HAS predicted a lot of events that might be translated as those we have come to see as pivotal for the world we live in. But he never said it like all those funny, colourful books want make us to believe. His premonitions are symbolical and highly metaphorical and thusly intelligible only to a learned sage, and, that´s the culprit, to one that can understand the grammar of his writings, how they were conceived and laid to words. This is crucial to the understanding of any prophecy. To agnize the works of Nostradamus, we must think like Nostradamus.

I am not saying 21st of December will not be pivotal for our history. Any day can be, and especially the darkest night of the year. But I cannot say whether the world will be a fireball afterwards. There certainly will be no zombie apocalypse, but I cannot say nothing will happen.

But I cannot say that anything will happen in spite of the days getting longer again.

Because to read a Maya calendar and a Maya prophecy I would have to think like a Maya.

So, keep your survival kit where it always is, your provisions and victualies well stocked, and have a party afterwards. But do not panic and give in to that media hype hysteria.

All will be good.

What is God?

Is God the god of the earth?

Or is He the creator of the universe?

If so, do we understand his creation?

If so, what is time?

If so, what is space?

What is a black hole?

A Red Dwarf, or even the thing the term "Red Dwarf" stands for, or all the other phenomena, or even a tree or a flower?

And if we understood all that, do we understand the relation in creation, and the functions?

And if we understood all that, do we understand why it came to be?

And if we understood the reasons, could we understand God?

Then what right do we have to fight over names?

What I did on my path until now.

You may have realized there are no photos on this blog up to date. This may change, for I will also introduce Project of crafts and esoteric ones. But it´s not the time yet. I want to submit what led me to this point, and it was in my head alone, and it can be difficult to transport it via picture or even movie media. It was merely thoughts, feelings and meditations that drove me to the point where I am now. That is not to say I am worthy of leading anyone. I am no master, and I follow no master myself. I have a deep suspicion towards anyone claiming to be a spiritual leader, for in my experience there can only be guidance in the deity - or the deities. I personally have a close affinity towards the Druidic belief, but I am no member of one of those many modern orders, for I was always put off by their claims of spiritual superiority and lack of integrity at the same time for the most part. Having met some members of the OBOD, I can suspect they are not that kind, but that´s a suspicion, too;-).

So I could not do any different than ask the God and Goddess of all Gods, who make up God, the Deity for guidance. It is a personal emotion, and a very personal one, that they actually did.

So what did I do? Strange rituals in sacred groves? Butchering cats at midnight? Not at all. It is a bit difficult to transport in words what actually happened. I read a lot. I studied strange things on the university. I realized that I was a weak shadow of a human being and did soemthing against it. For instance, the human organism is made to RUN 20 km per day. Most people - including me at that time- are not able to even walk 10 km. So I started to train my body, for: "orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano";-). I walked, and I found herbs and plants, and trees, and I learned-or better: remembered- what I now know about wood- and bushcraft and traditional crafts. I had the feeling that music belonged to the whole picture, and poetry, and knowledge of ancient tales. So I played my guitar (I spare you the audio files) and tooted into my flute. I learned to set my words in many different rhyme schemes, I read a lot of fairy tales, mythologies and ancient books of lore. All this I did with respect and wonder, and with a dream. I learned to meditate, all by myself, and control my body and live my sexuality. I did this after the "Taijiyinghuazhong", in the translation of Richard Willhelm, and after a scheme I geometrically reduced from crop circles, rosicrucian and free mason diagrams and cave paintings. I visited schamanistic meetings, and even if all those did not make it for a spiritual master or even guide, I learned a lot about my soul and my spirit and the power that drives my life. There were many crisis on that way, but there were also many intense encounters I will always value. I also honoured my ancestors, and I will always respect those individuals honestly following the path of other religions. You will learn why if you follow this blog;-). I did a lot of stump-sitting, just being in the woods and contemplating and dreaming, and I have done this all my life. Even as a child, I have followed this path. And I daresay I would not and could not be otherwise. It´s not that I deliberately chose to walk this way out of desparation or boredom or disorientation, even if those were factors, too, of course. It is hard to be enlightened while you are queuing for your dole, I know that first hand, even if I never queued for my dole. I ate herbs and other edibles, even roadkill instead, for I think the social system primarily acts as a means of psychological controlling these days. I have long critisized the system and it would not be appropriate if I then lived off it. I rode my mountainbike, was politically active in the founding of associations and clubs of sports and crafts and in my job as a clerk for a city marketing, and all this was a part of the path. But all this, summed up, would not make this path a special one, and I think it´s not a special one in the first. There are many individuals out there making similar experiences all the time, and I could rant on endlessly about my being on a very important stride, but I am not.

I want to write for them, for I know from a first - hand - experience that it´s the hardest path one can choose in these times to follow one´s heart and the call within our own soul. It was Moshé Feldenkrais who stated that society has no interest in the individual developing itself towards its full potential, and I found this to be true. I know that it is a task to defend oneself against those forces trying "to keep you down"(even if that, also, is not exactly the right term), but the path goes farther than that. It is true that everyone is responsible for one´s behaviour, and everyone is free to choose the direction he / she is headed to. It is a commonplace in my moral codex that one should care about those weaker than oneself, and treat everybody as if one would like to be treated, to do as one wishes, as long as noone is harmed. But this system tends to develop a habit of preying on the STRONG. One example: A friend of mine is a professional master blacksmith. He is extremely skilled, and owns several official certificates in the bargain. He works seven days a week and is just so able to live and entertain his family on his trade, because he lives on the products of his self-sustaining farmland and his wife has a job also. He is despised in society and treated with contempt. Another example is another acquaintance of mine, a professional alternative practitioner in the Buddhist tradition. He is treated with contempt by the very people he has healed! Those were businessmen who do not believe in "that crap".

I cannot do anything against those morons. But I, for one, can treat their way of life with respect. That´s no big thing, for everyone, from the lowest junkie bum to the pope his self;-) deserves respect.

And that leads me to that part I find hard to talk of. I feel loved. Sometimes, when the path got hard and harder, and the hammer of fate bore down upon me, I forgot it that this love and the amazement about it was the one thing that drove me on. I have never ceased to believe into the deity, the law of the universe, or the AI as I like to call it, or the Ais, as the Iliad likes to call it;-). I feel loved, and in case you forget, I hope this blog might serve you and strengthen you on your path, as this yearning and the amazement has guided me towards this point in the landscape of my soul. This love is subjective, for sure, but there are techniques to learn to feel it. I will not to be made responsible if you try them out, for they work for me and might not do for you. I will not to be taken as a leader. I beg you to take me as one wanting to tell you where he has been. I want to share my stories at the campfire, and sing a song. Who knows if it be true?;-)

I want to stop lying, by the way;-), for sure, and that is one of the hardest things that were an exercise on the path. I try to stop lying. Not only in big issues, but also on my personal behalf. I want to stop lying to myself, and to stop lying to others. It is not easy to do, mind you, and do not believe I can manage that all the time. I have a marketing day job that can be a bit compromising on that behalf, but I found out the truth about the properties of a good project (project city marketing is what I do) is appreciated by customers. I have somehow managed to only do projects I believe in.

I do not ask that from anyone, but I have no television anymore. So, I spend a lot of time on the internet, but I cut down on that, too. I did that as an exercise, too. Most of the stuff you read in the press or watch on TV or on the web isn´t true anyway. There´s a huge pile of rubbish told in the media, and you have to listen carefully to weed out the truth from the remake. I know that first-hand-too, from my job, for I do press-releases, and it´s often copy-paste-here-comes-the-article. I do not despise those media representants, for I know they have a hard and underpaid job at times.

I want to learn. I want to stay inquisitorial. Must I really explain this?;-) I want never to stop wondering, and I also learn the arts of "the enemy". It does not hurt to learn business work, as long as you don´t get lost in it. That way I cannot simply be discarded as one of those "dreadlock-wearing bums not able to work for their own best". It is hard, however, to learn the trade of Mammon and not get lost in the process. By the way, a totally inspiring read on this behalf is the essay "Mammon and the Black goddess" by Robert Graves (Mammon and the Black Goddess. London: Cassell, 1965; New York: Doubleday, 1965.). Keeping in mind I was on a varior´s path, I managed, sometimes not so well, but for now I can say that I did. I learned a lot by listening to trees and springs and flowers. I listened to old people, craftsmen, soldiers, housewives, butchers, hunters, even preachers, psychologists, street bums and whores as well as businessmen, clerks and heads of department, and I learned from children, actually learned a lot more from them than from many adults. My whole life is about learning. The path is constant learning in my book, and keeping up a constant sense of wonder.

I do many so - called "sensible" things. But for every thing I must do, I do a crazy thing I must not do-as long as noone is harmed again;-). I have danced on moonlit hills, crowed my share of cries on mountaintops and a load of stuff I do not even care to mention;-).

I hug trees.;-)

I sit on ancient dolmen sites and sing my poetry.

And, the craziest thing at all, I keep going on this crazy path.

   

Myth and Logic

It was only but shortly after I walked the first steps on my path that I realized there had to be a middle way. I had one experience on a party in 1993, when all were fed up and powered out by dancing, drinking and good food, when the more solemn music came out, and we started to get philosophical. There was a bunch of educated people around, and the tales came out;-), the horror tales as well as the fairy tales. Then Jana went to her drawer and took out a book on corn crop circles. It certainly impressed the lot of us. We were a circle of young people educated by "the master", as we preferred to call him winkingly, our English and Philosophy teacher in school, Mr. Blümke, and had a close affinity to difficult topics before, and that evening made matters worse;-).

Anyway, it started us all on a roller coaster trip into a world of subcultural philosophy. And I realized soon I needed something to get me down again, for I was getting paranoid and tiring of all those world conspiracy theories. Our teacher would not have approved, that much is for sure;-).

But what failsafe to build into it?

I learned, slowly and very painfully, for the asset was my life, that there is a close coherence between myth and logic, and through years of struggle I have personally come  to this conclusion:

There is a coherence between myth and logic. This coherence is due to a grammar common to both models of agnition. Logic in itself uses two different ways, inductive and deductive logic. Mythology is logic in itself, but follows a different grammar. It is explained more simple by stating that myth is a language translating psychological processes that were put in train by intensive observations and / or experiences. A culture observes that the individuals living in it are subject to lightning strike without being able to fend it off. There is a belief in the Gods already, or in one deity, so, if they / it / He are able to use universal powers, the lightning strike must be a weapon of the Gods, the deity, God. Our culture tends to make a very grave methodological mistake by claiming that, because we can explain the phenomenon of lightning strike physically, that there are no gods / no deity / no god. The phenomenon is induced by facts easily physically explained. What we have explained, however, is just that: The phenomenon, and not the psychological side of the event. Mythology served to do that, as does psychology in modern days. Both cannot render the Gods, God or the deity obsolete, for the explanation of the latter is not subject of psychology or physics, but of mythology.

On the other hand, if I want to explain every event in my life by using mythology, I would be mislead also. I therefore must seek out what the event, the phenomenon indicates mythologically. If I postulate there is a mythological grammar, myth can be reproduced according to this grammar. This is no one - way - street, but indicates that myths are decodeable if you have the right code.

Gnosis has the term "Noumenon" for the psycho-mythological side of the phenomenon, the "soul" of the physical event. The noumenon are the footsteps of the deity, if you so will. To decode the matter of those footsteps is the motivation to agnition. Myth and logic walk hand in hand in my book.

Sense of wonder

I wondered. Therefore I learned. No real education can be achieved without deeply wanting to know, no agnition can be made without doing so. Sometimes I am right childish. I do not function properly, for sure.

Without being childish, I cannot live in a sense of wonder. Without accepting a fairy tale, I cannot experience any fairy tale.

Gnosis and magic

We live in a world that strives to rid itself of any enchantment, any magic... and any wonder.

Some of that might be dated back to Christian missionaries in Europe. Please take note that I do not want to offend the Christian belief, for it has contributed a lot to a better world. If you get punished in the afterlife for killing and stealing and have no opportunity to solve yourself out by simply paying "Wergild" for the dead, you tend to think about that a little more. But it was the church that, in a principially righteous move against superstition, weeded out any magic... and thusly the sense of wonder and sensibility neccesary to feel something like Eucharist itself or, in another and deeper sense, "kairos" or "metakairos". This, in turn, is necessary to agnize a divine presence.  It would be a laughing matter, were it not as grave and sad a process responsible for many modern-day grievances.

Then the death blow to wonder and sensibility to actually feel it was dealt by the enlightement movement led by Descartes. Neither the Christian belief nor the enlightement movement was "evil" in any way, but they started a process that in turn started the current state of desensibilization and numbing of post-modern-day minds.

It is not a rant I want to utter, however. We all know how it is. We all search for something to cling to. We know we will die, and live in doubt and fear. Those, by the way, are exploited by the new spiritual leaders of our society, the economists. We buy to compensate for a deep sense of loss. We do not buy a car that actually IS better, but one that is advertised as one that is better. We do not buy things we NEED, but what we are made to believe we need, presumably partly because we try to fill a gap that formerly was filled by a feeling of sense we now think we lost.

Another factor leads to our numbing and desensibilization. Human perception can process about 5.000.000 bit / second. That´s five Megabit. Everything else is stored in the virtual bin in our heads and gets stored in a subconscious area of our minds. And the process works similar to an email programme: Everything not immediately necessary for the survival of the individual and its psyche is stored only a certain period of time and then is discarded ever so much deeper into the subconscious areas of our mind. We are confronted with an informational flow of far, far more than the capacity of our mind, especially in modern society. When an email-programme is close to the limit of its storage capacity, it does not work properly anymore. In analogy to that, our minds close down, and since metaphysics are partly socially banned from everyday life, they belong to a kind of information we do not need for our immediate survival. Even worse, metaphysics are often seen as a hindrance to function properly.

The price-not for the loss of metaphysical questions, but for the loss of sensibility for psychological needs- is grave. All over Western society there is a boom of psychological diseases formerly unknown. Burn-out syndrome and many other sicknesses of the human psyche are spreading far and wide.

Now to our topic, gnosis and magic. We say there is no magic.

But, things being as they are, we lack the sensibility even to agnize our own psychological needs. Magic is commonly defined as a range of paranormal, parapsychological activity. In the cliché, a magician can, for instance, move objects with the power of his mind. I think most people seriously wanting to investigate the case of magical possibilities can agree on this feat being quite difficult to achieve, if at all possible, and requiring an abnormal consciousness, sensibility and psychic strength.

If we now are agreed on the fact that we-commonly speaking- commonly lack the ability to develop our psyche, and it being socially not accepted (daydreaming and the like), we can postulate that we can not even feel "magic", let alone agnize it. Agnition of the principle that is commonly referred to as magical is no longer possible for a post-modern-mindset. Then it can be stated that the ascertainment "magic is not possible" cannot be made. On the other hand, since any proof or diagnosis of the principle of "magic" is either corrupted by the Christian church or the enlightement movement, we cannot state "Magic is possible", either.

This leaves us with a blank sheet, and a question.

Why would I want to prove this? I asked myself the question over and over again.

I can say for myself, and myself alone, that I suspect that agnition, while individuation might never be achieved whole, is a process bringing the student closer to the concept of the divine. It is a dangerous path, however, for there can be no real guidance on the path of individuation. Individual Gnosis can only be achieved by the individual itself.

And why agnize the Deity at all? Is there no Bible? No Koran? No Mahabharata, Rigveda, Ramayana, no mythological compendium? No scrollworks of magic? No books of economy? Did not Marx write his book? What with Descartes and the others?The esoteric authors?

I daresay I have read a lot of them. I have followed many paths of them, but ever so reluctantly.

Look at the news. They fight over a name. It is words they fight over.

I realized, if I really want to find the peace to die a peaceful death and, if possible at all, a peaceful afterlife, I had to walk another path. I had to ask the universe. I am but a licce bugger, and I do not have a clue if I am on the right path at all.

But I have felt it, many times now. You cannot talk intelligently about this feeling. What you can talk about, however, is how it is being generated.