To prepare yourself for this technique, you may want to spend a few minutes doing alternate nostril breathing to balance out your right and left hemispheres. I gave extensive instructions in this practice in The New Hermetics, but here is a very brief description.
Close your right nostril with your thumb, and exhale your breath completely through the left nostril. Then inhale through the same left nostril. Seal the left nostril with your middle finger, and exhale through the right nostril. Then, keeping your left nostril sealed, inhale through the right nostril. Then seal the right, and exhale your breath completely through the left nostril once again. This is one cycle, and can be repeated for as long as you like. Ten minutes of alternate nostril breathing regularly should balance you very well.
1. Find a comfortable place where you won’t be disturbed for at least thirty minutes.
2. Breathe in and out a few times to relax.
3. If you wish, spend a few minutes doing alternate nostril breathing, as described above.
4. Spend a few minutes breathing energy up through all of the chakras, as in Exercise 18. Really feel the energy flowing through you.
5. Then, on an inhale, breathe in deeply contracting your perineum. Draw the energy up through your chakras. Hold your breath as long as you can, continuing to draw energy up through your body.
6. Exhale, holding the perineum contracted, holding on to the energy. Don't let it sink out as you exhale.
7. When all your air is out, hold your breath out, the perineum still contracted. As you are holding your breath out, draw in your abdomen, as if you were trying to get your navel to touch your spine. As you are doing this, draw energy up into your spine as if your spine were a straw.
8. Keep drawing up energy as you contract your perineum and abdomen. You may begin to shake. A tingling sensation will begin to move up through your spine. Hold for as long as possible, then exhale. Continue to draw energy up your spine throughout.
9. As you breathe in again, draw more energy up into your chakras through the perineum, and then follow the above directions again.
10. You will want to repeat this until your whole body is filled with an incredibly powerful force of energy. But this may be too much if you are not fully prepared. Try beginning with five breaths, but you can expand it to more if you are not feeling uncomfortable.
11. Record your experiences in your journal.
You will want to regularly perform these energy exercises until you feel quite adept at moving these inner forces. You may find yourself having spontaneous psychic and magical experiences as a result of just using these exercises including but not exclusively, out of body experiences, premonitions, visions and even ‘poltergeist’ type phenomena such as objects falling off the walls or moving around seemingly of their own accord. I have personally experienced most of these things in this way, and know of several other people with similar experiences. These are not necessarily to be sought out at this point, because they will be out of your control and perhaps not even healthy. It is better to experience them within the controlled confines of the exercises later in this book. They are a sign that you are moving energy, but that it is being channeled out of you through leaks and blockages.
THE AURA
One way in which the energy of the universe manifests in our bodies is through what is often called the aura, the subtle field of energy created by and around the human body. This aura is generally about a foot taller and wider than the physical body, and its shape is approximately that of an egg. The aura is the essence and discharge of the states of consciousness beyond the physical. It is the magical mirror of the universe. It is the body of light. It is your astral body. It is the psychically visible product of your emotions, your consciousness, your thoughts and to a certain degree your superconscious mind.
The aura may in fact be something that is largely imaginary. However, it is something that is possible to experience, and you can discover useful information about people through examining their auras. The aura may just be an imaginary way in which the subconscious can communicate and understand information about people and things. The important issue is that you learn to recognize it. Once you do so, you will be able to learn a great deal about a person, simply by perceiving their aura. You will find energy centers, stresses, desires and fears all have their place in the aura, and learning to perceive them is of utmost importance.
The aura can be perceived in many ways. We will explore three techniques. The first is with a pendulum, the second with the psychic eyes, and the third with the sense of psychic touch, wherein we use the subtler aspects of the physical consciousness to perceive the aura.
Exercise 21 - Feeling the Aura with a Pendulum
Time Required: 5 to 10 minutes
In this exercise you will use a pendulum in your hand to discover the edges of someone's aura. So, first you must find a person who is willing to allow you to experiment on them. This may be the difficult part of the exercise. You could try to do this on yourself, but this won't be the most effective way of doing this.
The convenient thing about this exercise is that your subconscious does all the work for you, and you will have a clear and visual indicator of what is going on in the form of the swinging pendulum.
1. Have the person you will explore sit down and relax.
2. You must now also relax a little too. You can use your anchor to enter the Alpha State if you wish, but this is not totally necessary for this exercise.
3. Let your subconscious know what you are about to do, and make sure that it is willing to play along by asking. Once your subconscious has agreed, you are ready to proceed.
4. Hold your pendulum about a foot and a half above the head of the person you are going to explore, and gently lower it toward their head. Stop when the pendulum starts to swing. This may take more than one try, while you are just getting used to the process. You have found the edge of their aura when the pendulum swings to life.
5. Move the pendulum over the edge of this aura and explore. Find areas that seem tense, and areas that seem active, energy centers. These will cause the pendulum to swing differently, but you must learn for yourself exactly what these changes are. Your subconscious will react to different kinds of energy indifferent ways. After trying this technique a few times you may become very adept at learning a great deal about a person from their aura.
6. Record your experiences in your journal.
Eventually, you may find the pendulum very useful, but at first this might still be a difficult task. You must relax and try to have fun with the process. Good results will come eventually, but fun should always be had in the process.
Exercise 22 - Seeing the Aura
Time Required: 5 to 10 minutes
The second technique for perceiving the aura is the process of learning to “see” the aura visibly. You will not be seeing it with physical eyes, but rather sensing it with the inner eye, the third eye that we all have locked inside. Proficiency with this technique will most likely occur later, but it is possible to get a sense of the rudiments of it now. You must again find a person to observe, but in this case, you could simply go out into the world and look at the auras of the people you see. It is probably easier to start this process in a controlled way with someone who will sit still and play along.
Many instructions on seeing the aura suggest that you have the person you are viewing sit in front of some sort of blank or neutral colored wall. This is in fact totally unnecessary. It can actually help you to make the mistake of believing you are seeing an aura when you are in fact just seeing the after-image that burns into your retinas when you stare at something for a long time. You don't want to mistake this for an aura. It is just an optical illusion. The aura is not something you see with your physical eyes. You see it psychically, with your third eye, with the images projecting somewhat over your eyes.
1. Have the person you will explore sit down and relax.
2. Go into the Alpha State using your anchor.
3. Take a moment to do a little sexual energy breathing, to open up your energy body. You may also use the arousing Kundalini breathing technique if you wish.
4. Let your subconscious know what you are about to do, and make sure that it is willing to play along by asking. Once your subconscious has agreed, you are ready to proceed.
5. Don't look directly at the subject. Instead defocus your eyes and look just past them, over their shoulders or above their heads.
6. Move your attention to your third eye, and relax your attention there. Don't use your physical eyes to hunt for impressions, just attempt to receive images through the third eye. Don't focus hard on anything, just relax and keep your attention on your third eye, having fun.
7. You will soon get aura impressions. At first this may just be a sense of a sort of halo around the head and shoulders, but this will soon result in more impressions.
8. Record your experiences in your journal.
Exercise 23 - Feeling the Aura
Time Required: 5 to 10 minutes
We have not discussed this so far, but there are powerful energy channels in the palm of your hands and your fingertips. In this exercise you will use these channels to psychically sense the aura. To awaken the psychic senses in your palms, you may wish to gently rub your palms with your fingers in a circular manner until you feel a gentle tingle in both your palms and fingers. You will once again need to find a willing subject.
1. Have the person you will explore sit down and relax.
2. Go into the Alpha State using your anchor.
3. Take a moment to do a little sexual energy breathing, to open up your energy body. You may also use the arousing Kundalini breathing technique if you wish.
4. Let your subconscious know what you are about to do, and make sure that it is willing to play along by asking. Once your subconscious has agreed, you are ready to proceed.
5. Hold your hand about a foot and a half above the head of the person you are going to explore, and gently lower your hand toward their head. Stop when you feel any sort of change in your hand. This will be very subtle, and may take more than one try to find. It may be a warmth, or a vibrating sensation, or just a mental sense that this is the place to stop. You have just found the edge of their aura. What does it feel like?
6. Now, run your fingers over the edge of this aura and explore. Try to find areas that seem tense, and areas that seem active, energy centers. After trying this technique a few times you may become very adept at learning a great deal about a person from their aura.
7. Record your experiences in your journal.
Once you have learned this exercise well, you can ask the person you are exploring to concentrate on sending energy out of a particular area of their body. You will find that with practice you will always be able to tell from where they are sending it.
You may find this technique somewhat difficult at first, since it requires a certain level of sensitivity. This sensitivity will come, but you must be patient. There is no time clock for the rate at which your abilities will develop. Each of us have built blockages throughout our lives, and only by constant practice and work can we break through to our inner selves.
THE THREE KEYS TO SUCCESS IN MAGICK
There are three keys or pillars to success in magick and psychic development. These are image, energy, and inspiration. If you look back at the rest of the chapter, you will see that you have been introduced to these concepts already, but I want to draw your attention to these things specifically before we move on. If you make sure that all three of these keys play a part in all of your work, you will be rewarded with success. If you have two of them in your work, some things will work, but others won't. If you are ever having trouble, consider which of these factors is missing. One of them certainly will be. The three combined will guarantee your success. Let's take a brief look at each of these ideas.
Image
By image I mean a useful piece of information that communicates between the various layers of our minds. If we desire something to manifest in our lives, we must communicate that desire meaningfully to our subconscious. This can be through a visual picture, symbol, color, a feeling or a set of words. All of these fit into the category of image as I am using it in this context. In the case of psychic awareness, your conscious mind must receive a useful piece of information from your subconscious. Again, this can be through a visual image, a sound or voice, or a feeling. It is essential to either process. The image is the part of the experience that is either generated or received by the conscious mind.
Energy
Energy is your emotions, and the other subtle forces and energies within that we have just been working with. In order to accomplish anything, it requires energy. Energy is your will, your desire and your enthusiasm. You cannot get something for nothing. In order to do magick, you must arouse and direct your inner energy where you want it to go. In order to receive anything psychically, you must open up your energy channels, releasing blocks and allowing yourself to receive information from the energy all around you. Energy is the particular domain of the subconscious mind.
Inspiration
By inspiration I mean approval and assistance from higher consciousness. This is the exclusive job of the superconscious mind. Just about all psychic information comes from higher consciousness. All magick depends on the influence of higher consciousness in order to work. You must cultivate this connection with your superconscious mind in order to succeed with anything. Continued use of the earlier Alpha and Theta meditations will help with this connection immensely, as will all of the other exercises in this book.
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As you can see each of these three keys corresponds with one of the three parts of your consciousness, and each of them are required for true magick. Image without energy and inspiration is a dead thing, inert and useless. Energy without image is uncontained and dissipates, as enthusiasms that fade quickly, lacking supporting ideas. Inspiration without image is incomprehensible, a pointless reverie. It is when these three combine that amazing things can happen.
CHAPTER THREE
Dreaming True
“The Dream Delightful is then a Pageant of the Fulfilment of the True Will, and the Nightmare a symbolic Battle between it and its Assailants in thyself.”
-Aleister Crowley[1]
Dreams are such an important part of your consciousness work and psychic development that I want to include a brief chapter on this subject right at the beginning of our practices. So many schools of yoga, magick and shamanism teach the importance and power of dreams. I do not have space to devote more than a few pages to this subject. There are several recommended books in the bibliography that can give you a more thorough grounding in this exploration. Dreams unlock gateways in consciousness, pathways to hidden worlds and hidden powers. Dreams can combine the three principles of image, energy and inspiration in such an immediate and powerful way that their force can be unbelievable.
I'm sure that many of us have woken from a dream and felt that what had just happened in the dream was so powerful that even though we recognize it as fantasy, it still haunts our emotions for hours. When we can learn to direct this dream force, we can explore so many things. We can visit people, places and events through astral travel; we can heal lifelong issues within ourselves and play out our secret fantasies and desires. We can learn about our future and our past, and get creative inspiration. We spend almost half our lives dreaming, and learning to understand and work with our dreams can literally open us up to another life. And in our dream lives we are all powerful!
Dreaming has been a very important part of my own spiritual journey, but I have mostly left it out of my previous writings for many reasons, mostly because it was somewhat off track from the subjects I previously covered. I am still often amazed to have a profound insight or magical lesson come to me spontaneously in the night. I have had many dream teachers, who have helped me to learn astral projection, cosmic consciousness and other
wonderful experiences. For the past few weeks, I have been devoting more attention to my efforts at dream work, and I can tell you from experience that it is like riding a bicycle. Once you've got it you can use it whenever you'd like with just a small bit of effort.
From the time I was a small child, I've always had occasional spontaneous lucid dreams and frequent flying dreams, but I never could predict or control their occurrence. When I was a teenager I spent a huge amount of time and energy learning to achieve these experiences at will. In the next few pages, I will give you what I hope to be the practical advice that is the fruit of all that effort. There are many books that explain a number of these techniques, and you can read them if you like, but the core principles can be explained very simply and quickly.
DREAM RECALL
But many people do not even remember the vast majority of their dreams. Some people don't even think they dream much at all. The truth is that researchers have proven that we all dream many dreams each night. We just don't generally access this information and memory when we are awake. As you awaken from a dream you are quickly traveling up through three distinct states of consciousness from the Delta to the Beta state. It is often hard to remember what's happened when moving between two states of consciousness, such as when we've drifted into a reverie on a long car trip, and forget much of the journey. With such a wide gap in the consciousness continuum between the sleep and waking states, it is no wonder that we often forget our dreams. But once we learn to remember our dreams and become familiar with the dream state, it is easy to turn your dreams into powerful transformative tools.
The Book of Magick Power Page 9
