For magic you have to leave consensus reality, to leave consensus reality is to be considered insane by the consensus, so magic = the art of insanity.
By insane, I mean not needing to have psychotherapy since other people are actually seeing spirits, not just me. lol…but yes genius is insanity.
We knew what you meant, ZACH … but you provided us the perfect opportunity to act up at little … couldn’t resist! 
Well I have to fess up Zoe that I have not been evoking more…in fact till I finish evoking eternity (almost) I wont be doing any more… But I have been working on Astral travel, meditating daily sometimes twice…working on charging sigils, and have tried a few spells here and there with some modest successes(and a few failures!). But given that I havent done practical work for some years thats a big move for me…
As people are saying about their previous experiences…I worked the outer circle of Dion Fortunes Society of Inner Light some years ago…but like most RHP lodges after 7 months I was still reading and meditating and got bored…Damn that attention deficit disorder ha But it did get me to know more about hermetic paths and the tree of life.
I also was involved for a year with the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (my hippy alter ego and love of the green ray coming out now ha). But once again much reading and visualisations and no practical working. Thats the bit does my head in about the RHP its like this stuff is nuclear powered and we cant show you shit till youve spent 5 years proving your a good boy…Now i’m rambling…
Very true. Madness is essential to the methods of magick. And I also agree RHP is too damn slow. lol
Tell me about it! I TRIED to be “good” - I really did! I waded thru all that dogma & followed all those rules for way too many years! And while I accumulated a whole lot of beneficial understanding, it yielded -0- in terms of practical betterment of my circumstances.
I’ve only been immersed in LHP for about a year, and the real, verifiable manifestations have been greater than a decade of RHP diligently practiced.
And perhaps the breadth of my knowledge & understanding from those days accelerated me a bit. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else - not to that intensity & degree! Too much effort for too little yield. Z
Tell me about it! I TRIED to be “good” - I really did! I waded thru all that dogma & followed all those rules for way too many years! And while I accumulated a whole lot of beneficial understanding, it yielded -0- in terms of practical betterment of my circumstances.
I’ve only been immersed in LHP for about a year, and the real, verifiable manifestations have been greater than a decade of RHP diligently practiced.
And perhaps the breadth of my knowledge & understanding from those days accelerated me a bit. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else - not to that intensity & degree! Too much effort for too little yield. Z ;)[/quote]
If madness is essential, then I’m a hell of a magician lol
But seriously though, I know where you’re coming from, Zoe. After Christianity the first thing I got involved in was also the RHP, in my case shamanism. Shamanism as a tool to be good., to be of service to others.
But since I stepped onto the LHP, wow…
Interesting. I didn’t know there was such a difference between the two. I thought they would have taken the same time. So this is the reason why so many of you eventually went to the LHP? You get results faster! Now I’m getting why Necromaster is always going on about the power of the LHP and hates all that holy talk nonsense!!!
I’ll remind you that my experience is only that - mine. It is likely everyone else will have at least some variation in their own.
The thing I came to understand about the RHP is this: It is a path of service to others or sevice to some ‘greater good’ outside yourelf. You have access to all this power to heal, to help & uplift others, to benefit the group you are part of … but it is really frowned upon to use that power to help yourself. If YOU want help, you have to wait for some other individual to help you, or divine dispensation. It is really nothing more or less than spiritual co-dependency. And in my opinion it is wrong.
This type of ‘spirituality’ keeps people in positions of servitude, vidtimhood & self-debasement. And I believe that is precisely the motivation behind most organized religion. You see churches filled with sweet & sincere people who honestly believe they are not “gifted”, nor are they allowed to directly access the power that rightly belongs to everybody. They feel “less-than”; disempowered & unworthy. Because that is how they are taught!
I am all for helping anyone who is genuinely trying to help themselves - but help them in an authentic way that will empower them to take charge themselves! Help them get started discovering & accessing their own path to power. Do not make them subject to and at the mercy of your power because you “have power” and they don’t. This is how the upper eschalons of government & religion have kept people subject to their rule for thousands of years.
And this is the short version of my opinion… 
Z
What you’ve mentioned Zoe is pure Evil in the way that I define Evil.
Evil-oppression of all human beings in a way that keeps them from realizing their own godhood!
I have trouble with anything that suppresses me, or limits me. I do not wish to be “Evil” in the way I defined it above. Nor do I want to be evil in the childish “I listen to death metal and want to sacrifice a cat” way either. Nor do I wish to slaughter children or the innocent to gain power. It’s just as off putting as joining a RHP lodge and submitting myself to someone else’s control.
I’m really struggling with this whole duality thing. I spent so much time and mental effort removing the chains of Christianity and of recent Atheism to submit myself to the shackles of being RHP or LHP now seems counter-productive to my own spiritual growth. In fact I think I’ll just stick with what I’ve been doing and continue on my own path, wherever that takes me.
And Zach, that is precisely what you SHOULD be doing. Continue on your own path - listening to your own emotional nature & your own wisdom.
I haven’t thrown the whole lot of right-hand practices out the window. As I said, there is a wealth of knowledge & understanding there that nicely balances the left hand, and puts it in perspective for me. By weaving the two together - based solely upon what seems good & right to me, I find myself genuinely at peace with both sides of Magick, and with a great appreciation for both.
Getting the opinions of others OUT of your own thinking is the challenge; when YOU are the dominant influence in your own mind … you’re winning! Z
I think you and I may be alike on this. For me, attempting to immerse myself soley in the RHP or the LHP felt like courting a case of cognitive dissonance because I am comprised of light and dark equally. Suppressing either wasn’t healthy for me. (I want to empathize the FOR ME part because I am not putting down anyone who is able to be solely one or the other, it’s just not me.)
I did some rituals designed to remove my christian indoctrination and programming and that really helped. After working on this for quite awhile I kind of got to a place where duality seems like a myth. Don’t get me wrong I believe that evil and good exist, but in the context of magic and the RHP vs. LHP approaches, the dualistic approaches seem very limiting for someone like me. After moving so far past the concept of dualism in regards to magic, it’s almost surreal to look back on the exclusive “one or the other” systems.
I think your approach of following your own path and trusting your intuition is the absolute best way. I would think that though, since that’s what I do also. Heh. I sometimes use LHP methods for benevolent magic, and RHP methods for malevolent purposes. I just do what I do and know what I know and all that’s important to me is – it works. 