[Newbies] Where to get started? Start here

New Magician Help & Introductions
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The old version of this had a bad character in the topic, which broke whenever someone linked it. Same info is here.

Recently, I was asked by a newer member what to do to further open their clairvoyance/clairaudience.

Since my reply is probably relevant to many newbies, I am copy+pasting it here:

Do some research on 3rd eye meditation or anja meditation, to open up your receptive facilities. You will have to practice quite a bit, but start doing this as soon as you are able.

Also start working on scrying and evocation. I would recommend you try to scry as often as you can, and do evocation fairly often as well. Ideally, you will scry every day, and perform evocation at least once a week. You can also start working on sigil magick as the needs arise, as this will help both your ability to get into the sync as well as opening your perception and opening sigils.

As an additional part of your practice, work on getting into the theta-gamma sync - you should practice this every day also, as the scrying/evocation/sigil magick methods most on this forum use rely on it.

The ebook, and nearly all of EA’s books detail getting into the sync. In Evoking Eternity, the technique is called Invoking Omnipotence. If you can afford it, EA’s divination course should have everything you need to know to start practicing. He also did a seminar at Dixie State on evocation - search the forums and you’ll find a link.

Here are the newbie book thread and the suggested reading threads:

http://becomealivinggod.com/forum/new-magician-help/newbie-help-free-books-and-resources/

http://becomealivinggod.com/forum/new-magician-help/recommended-books/

Lots of gold there.

If you meditate often, you should be able to get into the theta-gamma sync pretty readily. If you still need help, I recommend the Power of Now by Eckhart Toll.

If you don’t know how to do energy work, I would recommend either/both Astral Dynamics (revised) and Energy Work (revised) by Robert Bruce.

You’ll also want to get a copy of one or more of EA’s books that suit your interest. I personally recommend Evoking Eternity or the Complete Works.

The most important thing you can do is practice. Find a few good resources detailing a system - whether the books I mentioned, or some other, and then get to work. The biggest obstacle for modern magicians is staying at that sweet spot between not enough information and too much information. Once you have enough to get working, get to work. Continue to read if you enjoy it, but don’t let it get in the way of your practice.

Good luck!

Of note: it is important to treat any evocation as “successful”.

What this means, is that at first, you:

  1. evoke the entity

and then whether you sense their presence or not, after a reasonable amount of time and effort has been expended, you:

  1. greet them
  2. give them their task
  3. thank them
  4. dismiss them

or, a little more advanced:

  1. have at least 5 questions ready beforehand
  2. evoke the entity
  3. greet them
  4. give them their task
  5. ask your 5 or more questions, and write down any impressions/answers you get
  6. thank them
  7. dismiss them

Sometimes the act of asking questions can help you tune into the subtle communication you are having.

Also, if you get little to no mental/visual/mind’s eye impressions, you probably need to keep working on developing and maintaining your theta-gamma sync. Spend more time practicing it, doing sigil magick, scrying, divination, etc. Don’t give up on evocation, but if your results are lack-luster after a few attempts, give it a break for a few weeks while you hone your other skills. But always go back to evocation - it is the mark you will measure your other skills by, and it is the tool that will assist all of your other abilities and needs.

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[quote=“redcircle, post:3, topic:765”][quote=“Jakob420, post:2, topic:765”]Redcircle,

What about banishing rituals or the pentagram ritual for when/if things get hairy?? Or a few entities that should not be touched by a newcomer or some ones that are good for new magicians?

Great post by the way.[/quote]

Good questions, and thanks for the praise.

I think your questions could be answered by a number of people, with different but useful answers. I will answer them in my own way, but would welcome what others think as well.

As the beginnings of an answer, in my opening post of this thread, I have merely given an outline or a basic plan, with the assumption that the new operator has a ritual system to make use of. As such, the answers to your questions are included in the work - whether one was using the works of Bardon, Regardie, the Golden Dawn, Crowley, Koetting or any number of others. If you’re using one of the mentioned systems, each has a way of addressing your questions re: banishing rituals, pathworking the entities, etc. As I have assumed the newbie has a system, I merely outline a means to get to work, as long as highlighting some other resources I believe to be valuable along the way.

If you were using Koetting’s work as a guide, as many of this forum do, then it depends on what book(s) you are working out of. In addition to the works I mentioned outside of his for refining your related skills, in EA’s Evoking Eternity, there is a banishing ritual/incantation if needed. However, it is the experience of EA and his suggestion that magicians not banish unless necessary, and that as such it is not an integral part of the evocation ritual.

If one needs further exercises for banishing the self or the ritual area, the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram can be readily found with an internet search, as can the Middle Pillar Exercise. Plenty others exist of course, but those are a few suggestions to research.

It seems from my own experience, and what I have read from others on this forum, that things very seldom “get hairy”, but it is also wise to be prepared - after all, if you’re worried about such an occurrence, the spirit just might see fit to test you by bringing it to pass. :wink:

As far as entities to avoid go - the general consensus around here is that those not initiated in the current should not attempt to evoke the Loa/Lwa - but of course some will take exception to this. Also, if you as the operator do not feel confident in bringing forth a particular entity, it would be advisable that you work with other entities until your lack of confidence either resolves or finds itself to be justified. Beyond that, any grimmoire you are working with will likely suggest a progression of skills as a precursor to any evocation attempts, and then suggest a sequence (a pathworking) of entities to evoke and learn from. Many of EA’s grimmoires seem to do this, and many systematic magickal manuals (such as Bardon’s) are also structured in said fashion.

So, with a pathworking, you get a sort of recommendation for entities to begin working with - but this is not the same thing as a universal recommendation: it depends on the operator. Again using Evoking Eternity as an example, one might choose a demonic, angelic, or elemental pathworking such as those EA has mapped out. Taking another path, if one were to use Uncle Chuckie’s Psionic Grimmoire (google it, it’s free), he eschews the idea of “personal growth”, and details using the power of the 7(?) main planetary intelligences for one’s selfish personal gain - power over wisdom.

I hope this satisfactorily answers your questions, at least in showcasing my viewpoint. I’m sure others will have much different answers, but answers that may be just as valid (if not moreso).[/quote]

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And then I hope that Timothy will eventually stick this mandatory thread for every newcomer.

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I’ve been doing a meditation on the 7 chakras as part of my daily practice, but at this point I’m most interested in the Ajna chakra with its power to see spirits. Would it be alright to just focus on the Ajna/3rd eye in my meditations or would that cause an imbalance?

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Some schools of thought start with focus on the Ajna, arguing that with an open Ajna, you can clairvoyantly follow the progress of the other Chakras and any complications that arise. The danger there though is getting distracted and lost in all the phenomena that you will become aware of. This can lead to schizophrenia and an assortment of other fun mental states if you don’t have the right determination and resolve to see the other practices through.

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I saw an interesting clip that suggested that opening anja before anahata is what causes a lot of the paranoia in of occultists

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I think many so-called occultists are unstable to begin with, and should focus on building a strong and healthy body, emotions and mind, and becoming somewhat financially stable before going too deep into magic.

I know this may be a controversial opinion, but if you can’t even run a balanced life on your own, how will you apply magic to a chaotic mess? There are good reasons spirits will tell you to get your mundane shit in order before they can help you at all.

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Some schools of thought start with focus on the Ajna, arguing that with an open Ajna, you can clairvoyantly follow the progress of the other Chakras and any complications that arise. The danger there though is getting distracted and lost in all the phenomena that you will become aware of. This can lead to schizophrenia and an assortment of other fun mental states if you don’t have the right determination and resolve to see the other practices through.[/quote]

I had seen this phenomena when I first got associated with Satanism, seeing things from places like JoS. Considering the vast amount of impressionable teenagers that were there, it was no wonder that when I joined some e-groups, folks were rather too arrogant, too dependent, racist, or any combination of the 3. And the practice was to open the 3rd eye first, by vibrating God names nonetheless.

I guess the whole idea was to find a “safe” route, and the idea was that because the muladhara is closed, then it is dangerous to start there. However, since grounding is important, it can be argued that you need to start there, because the rest of your chakras need to be grounded by the muladhara. If you aren’t grounded, you end up have these mental fits, which is what everyone is trying to avoid.

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Everything I’ve read suggests starting with basic energy raising and awareness first, then gently begin opening your chakras, all of them, and a little at a time. Don’t overstimulate any of them, at least until you know WHY you want to be more than modest.

It’s worked for me. I haven’t gone insane, I haven’t hurt myself, and my development has been gradual but progressive.

You generally wouldn’t begin your training program to become a runner by joining a Spartan Race, you wouldn’t start your heroin addiction trying to keep up with Kurt Cobain. I don’t know why you’d treat energy development differently.

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Yea, and at least from what I can see, people enter the spiritual realm with a ton of desperation on their shoulders. When you hear about someone dying in an evocation, kundalini rising, or anything of the sort, we never know the context, or the mental/physical stability of the person who did it, and these are all extremely important. We just hear, “this person died doing this”, not ever knowing how they did it. There are millions of ways you can stimulate the chakras, including overstimulation, but I’m not even sure what overstimulation is.

I’m dealing with Diabetes right now, and it is always said that such diseases come with blockages. Yet, I tend to do about twice the energy work that is normally recommended, and tend to do it quite aggressively. I’ve also dealt with Diabetes in a way that forced e to be quite sensitive to my biological responses (blood sugar supplies are really expensive, so for a very long while I was learning how to gauge blood sugar off of biofeedback alone), so if things felt off, I would know when to step back.

Doing Microcosmic Orbit, I have felt pretty intense heat, some spasms, but it never made me crazy, nor did it even really hurt. I just really thought it could and should be done, and spent a decent amount of time formulating why I should do things that way. To be honest, I’m not recommending anyone do what I did, but for me at least, the difference is preparation and balance. Like Bitterroot said, it isn’t too advisable, and is probably downright foolish, to neglect strengthening the physical body, or to treat it as a discardable tool. It may be the most impermanent body, but you have it now, it will do wonders if you treat it right, and you can even make it permanent if you know what you are doing.

You also have to know where you stand, what you got the capability to do, and what you want to get done. I have heard folks say, “I’m looking to get spiritual”… what the hell does that even mean? You can get real spiritual by becoming nothing but a spirit, so how can you get mad if something goes awry when you make such a vague goal? I feel this has a lot more to do with the overstimulations and energy raising disasters that we see, because training the spiritual arts doesn’t automatically mean you are good at making a stable method of training. Just what I’ve been able to see and experience

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can anyone tell me how long it will to open all my chakras completely or do you do it over time while your practicing other things like evoking spirits and is it different for everyone? Also is there anyway to read or gauge your own spirit energy when you just start out so you know how much you begin with and how much it raises over time? Any help with this would be great thank.

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Two questions- which start a model of measuring-reinforcing “progress” in development (as in, there are other models- that’s a good one, I mention just as seeing that explicitly you can recognize other aspects about that- that can guide your development actions and Measuring-thereof)

To start (my TooSense $0.02) with your second question- Yes.. the key of how would depend on your model (conceptually- as a start of making sense of abstracts- not as a preexisting "model" thing- thus try different ways, and see Not "which works" ie true or not- rather what do diff methods reveal to you?

Certain will show you different things, some may show more and thus OpenDoors)

ie you can calibrate that in a sense- tap into what you sense that “energy” to be-
(and thus as you sense of what that is changes, once you exper the Chakras and their flow and your Espirit-Essence and Where you are ComingFrom… as that changes/refines and clarifies, that will change the process, per what you are measuring/tap-contact))
-as you tap-contact that, you represent that in some way. Remember that and compare that to other measures (over time, but also different parts- ex zeroin on a Charka A, vs B- compare)…

But that is if as you work with that it makes sense to do so- indirectly and more to the point of that: can you sense your Presence and/or your “Magickal-Flow” (however you cluster your Skill in your Workings)… can you sense that getting better or less active? -then can be measuring without measuring as you mention…
what is your underlying Pattern-Model (paradigm) each part of your practice can reveal more of that pattern (and vice-versa)

===
then the first question- relates to my above… the opening is increasing skill, but in the Chakra trad- they can be seen as “Veils” … rip the veils away, free up limitations, but also like ripping away all your “sense of self” “psychological-defence mechs” “internal-stabilizers” etc… (ie resulting nervous-breakdown. in a very literal sense)… if it happened in a moment…

but faster slower? those are the different “paths” (vama or Left-hand path, vs Right-hand is one distinction- or the intense vs the gradual… many other distinctions) -that is a big focus of the TaoEnergy practices I’ve seen (how disruptive can that be, how smooth, how much time-energy, but also how Deeper in “your-stuff” do you wish to delve; as opposed to ANY Denial)

But does that happen while doing other things?  Maybemaybenot- but as you do you become, and as you become you can then do.

I hope some of that might add to your explorations- (I tried to pack a few layers in there)

luck

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It’s worth noting that physical training can sometimes be an easier habit to create than spiritual training. But the discipline developed through physical training is directly applicable to spiritual training, as is the practice in developing a habit.

There’s a free ebook at brainoverbrawn.com that is very good. It details nutrition, strength training, and more. The Couch to 5k plan can be found online and is also very good.

Similarly, a search on these forums can turn up a lot of good recommendations about yoga - mostly the energy practice of yoga. As you incorporate these practices into your life, you will come across materials for the more physical aspects of yoga. These will help your practice, so add them in.

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I also recommend to anyone, practitioner or not, to develop a personal philosophy to help guide your behavior and interactions with the world around you.

Specifically, I find that some variant of the Stoic ethos is a very good way to go as a magician. At its root, Stoicism is being responsible for yourself and only taking ownership of as much of reality that you can actually control. Primarily, you can truly control yourself and your reactions - and you need to learn to behave as such. It is not a false front, or putting on the stone-face while you boil inside. You are truly reshaping your inner world.

Embracing Stoicism imbues honesty, responsibility, and contentedness. It removes you from the mindset of the victim, and helps cut out the need for external judgement (positive and negative).

My personal ethos was developed from the teachings of Don Juan, put forth in Carlos Castaneda’s books, as well as many other readings I’ve done throughout the years (including the Book of Five Rings by Musashi, various writings of Greek/Roman Stoics, and more). For a very distilled version of all that, I recommend “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. At times it has a self-helpy tone to it, but the underlying ethos and framework are Stoic through and through.

When we are told that we create our own obstacles, and that we ourselves are our biggest obstacles, this personal outlook/framework is probably the biggest part of it.

Know that it will take you a goodly amount of time to change your personal outlook, and it will take persistence. But it is very valuable. Even if you adopt a completely different ethos than I have suggested, I think it is a valuable long-term project and change to undertake.

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Stoicism is being responsible for yourself and only taking ownership of as much of reality that you can actually control. Primarily, you can truly control yourself and your reactions - and you need to learn to behave as such. It is not a false front, or putting on the stone-face while you boil inside. You are truly reshaping your inner world.

This is the real deal here friends.

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I think it is also worth mentioning that Robert Bruce has his own website and forum community located here:

www.astraldynamics.com
[url=http://www.astraldynamics.com.au/forum.php]http://www.astraldynamics.com.au/forum.php[/url]

The site is setup very similarly to this one, because, surprise! Timothy had a hand in that as well (if I’m not mistaken). Could be another very valuable set of resources. Keep in mind if you decide to join their forum community, that they are a very different crowd there and meant to be much more all-ages - so you’ll want to use each forum in their intended way.

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Lol his website reminds me of becoming aliving god.com :slight_smile:

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I have never done an evocation before. I want to start now so i can have certain spirits atleast hear me and do the task i assign them even though my faculties are not developed yet most likely.
My QUESTION is, I have all th tools but I do not want to set off a fire alarm anywhere orany sprinkler or possible carbon monoxide alarm through incense smoke. I live in a small room? are there any suggestions or answers? Also what are some good places or ideas to find a place to do evocations? oustide is not my favorite as i am in New york, California and massachusetts and people would see me as well as the cold weather.

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[quote=“Giliman09, post:18, topic:927”]I have never done an evocation before. I want to start now so i can have certain spirits atleast hear me and do the task i assign them even though my faculties are not developed yet most likely.
My QUESTION is, I have all th tools but I do not want to set off a fire alarm anywhere orany sprinkler or possible carbon monoxide alarm through incense smoke. I live in a small room? are there any suggestions or answers? Also what are some good places or ideas to find a place to do evocations? oustide is not my favorite as i am in New york, California and massachusetts and people would see me as well as the cold weather.[/quote]

Read through this whole thread, and check out the suggested/free reading list links as well.

Do scrying evocation if you can’t do smoke, or try making a simple fog machine, as per necromaster’s suggestion:
[url=http://becomealivinggod.com/forum/general-discussion/tired-of-that-resin-incense-smell/]http://becomealivinggod.com/forum/general-discussion/tired-of-that-resin-incense-smell/[/url]

Here is a discussion of scrying evocation vs. smoke evocation:
[url=http://becomealivinggod.com/forum/mastering-evocation-omnipotence/scrying-mirror-vs-incense-for-evocations/]http://becomealivinggod.com/forum/mastering-evocation-omnipotence/scrying-mirror-vs-incense-for-evocations/[/url]

You can also consider renting a storage unit/cheap office or studio space, using the space of an occult friend, abandoned buildings, isolated outdoor locations, etc.

Make your space work, or make space for your work.

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There is a smoke alarm immediately outside the door to my temple, strangely it is not set off by incense following evocation even though the volume of smoke in the hall should definitly be doing it. We thought it was broken until our rental agent had it serviced.