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Welcome to the Cyber-Sidh. My online projection of my inner world.
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April 6, 2005
The wheel turns and life continues ever onward... hmm, well, a friend of mine recently challenged me to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra and discuss it with him. I had been carrying it in my backpack for a few weeks now but I got caught up in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I must admit to a degree of curiosity about Nietasche. I've never read any of his writings but from his more popular proverbs, I suspect we have a similar view of life. We shall see. What is interesting is my friend studied Jung in university and likes to apply him to everything so I'll get to hear his Jungian interpretations of Nietzsche and compare it to my more low-brow quasi-mystical street-philosophy... hehe
Meanwhile, I've been playing with sleep medication. I'm getting kind of tired of spending my first hour or so in bed tossing and turning. Going to bed at 11 and getting up at 8 usually means 6 hours sleep for me, not 9. On the plus side, I'm getting a new apartment. I grew out of my bachelor apartment about 2-3 years ago but now that my debts and loans are all paid off, my net income has seen a very healthy increase and it's off to a new home for me.
Mystically, things are slow but persistent. It takes me a month to accomplish what most could do in a couple evenings. If only I could find the control panel in my mind... perhaps a GUI, and change things more directly. However, the path of self-growth is about honest exploration and I see that fantasy is my greatest motivation. I'm a mediocre gamer and I truly wish to be a great magician and yet, I'm more likely to spend my evening in front of a computer screen as opposed to meditation and ritual. It's funny how I can see the mindless repetition of formulaic television but I don't hold the same contempt for computer games, especially MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) which truly are just as repetitious as bad TV shows. Hmm, perhaps I should look into computer games as a form of trance inducement.
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February 25, 2005
What's new in my life? Hmm, well, I did get a credit card... a Capital One secured card, which basically means that I gave Capital One a bunch of cash and they gave it back to me in the form of plastic which somehow makes it more legit. Apparently, the more often I give them cash and they give it back to me, the better a citizen I will be. Hehe, modern society kills me.
I've started down the path of initiation. I've been performing the LBRP twice daily for almost a month and once a day before that. I do indeed feel a slight shift in consciousness after performing the ritual and I will continue nitpicking my performance. As a neophyte-by-proxy, I have one year to learn all of the rituals of the Pentagram and the Hexagram though on Crowley's advice to a student long ago, I will make the LBRP a daily ritual for the full year. On the Yogic side, I'm not so certain and it's a thorn that will stick with me for some time. To me, Taoist Yoga seems more life-affirming. It focuses on strengthening the body, even to superhuman levels (ie. Iron Shirt, Sexual Chi Kung). However, it's just not represented well in North America and the one teacher that I have been following, Mantak Chia, seems to be drifting more and more into the realm of the New Age. Yoga, on the other hand, seems much easier to research and more consistent. If all paths do indeed become one then I can review the benefits of Taoist Yoga at a later date.
I've been reading a great deal. I recently finished The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot which I must admit was quite good and I'm beginning to read The New Hermetics by Jason Augustus Newcomb. I'm excited about this one, especially having read the Introduction. It seems that Jason and his magical peers brought together their experiences from different backgrounds and built a modern interpretation of Hermetics. It's founded on Thelema but includes the Hermetics of Franz Bardon. It also includes modern techniques such as Leary's 8 circuit Model and NLP. What excites me is that I have studied all of these, including from specific experts such as Anthony Robbins and the Silva Mind Control Method. So, Jason and his colleagues have managed to do that which I could not, meshing all of these great paths into a whole.
The one crucial element that's still missing is my health. It's like a set of dominos where as I try to set one domino, the one beside it knocks it back over. Hehe, I have no energy, feel burned out and am not sleeping well. To get more energy, I should improve my diet and work out. To work out, I need to sleep better so I can get to the gym before work and I need a good diet to avoid health problems from working out. Changing my diet has been the focus of my efforts and yet because I'm tired and lethargic, it's feels almost impossible for me to care, particularly developing any excitement about learning how to cook. I am, however, re-entertaining the thought of joining a Tai Chi class. I think I can afford to sacrifice a little gaming time to a good cause.
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December 29, 2004
So, based on my experiences of late, I decided to undergo a period of "purification and examination". Basically, three weeks where I swear off any gaming and 'self-stimulation' and test myself on the basics of mysticism. The gaming prohibition came from the realization that my free time completely revolved around City of Heroes when it could be better spent studying. The no-spank rule came about because I'm going to add chi kung to my repertoire for 2005 and most masters recommend not wasting chi while you learn how to move it.
Having said all that, I failed on both counts... hahah. I got back into Morrowind. New character and enough new mods to produce a different experience. I don't judge this failure too harshly because I stuck to the spirit of the rule. I spent most of my time studying with a total of maybe 10-12 hrs over the three weeks playing Morrowind. As for the second, well, I didn't spank but I did spill my seed. My current bed buddy got 'bored' (that's what she calls it when she's horny... does wonders for my self-esteem) early in the test period. She gets real pushy when she's 'bored' so I gave in. Fortunately, I gave myself a buffer. The rule of thumb is 2 weeks of abstinence not 3 and I'll hit 2 weeks tomorrow night so I'm good to go despite the slip-up. It's the three months of keeping it to a minimum while I struggle with the Microcosmic Orbit that'll do me in, I think.
I must admit, it feels good. I'm taking my life by the reins and actively considering the direction I want to take. It's been a little difficult. With all of the books I've collected, there're so many directions to take. So far, I have worked out that I will walk my own path though I will take Aleister Crowley's format to heart, which is to say mysticism + magick. Having looked back at Peter Carroll's Chaos Magick works, I see that mysticism and magick support one another. Magick is best performed in a state of gnosis while mysticism is basically a storehouse of techniques for achieving various states of gnosis. Unlike Thelema, however, I will combine Taoist yoga with a mixture of Hermetic and Chaos techniques.
To make a long story short, 2005 will be devoted to a mastery of the pentagram rituals, the Microcosmic Orbit and sorcery.
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December 9, 2004
Yesterday was seriously screwed up and I'm still feeling the backlash today and perhaps for some days to come. I began my day as I often do, sitting in my office with a cup of tea and my various email accounts open. I also read the City of Heroes forum every day... it's a MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online role-playing game... there's a mouthful). The forums were in an uproar because the developers made consecutive groups of changes and everyone was arguing the value or travesty of the changes and I was right in there.
Anyway, my boss' birthday was the day before so we took her out to Swiss Chalet for lunch... it's a very popular rotisserie chicken restaurant up here in the Great White North. It was a good lunch and we all hightailed it back to work afterwards... except me. I had car-pooled with two of the techies and one wanted to do some Xmas shopping. Long story short(er), I picked up a newspaper from the local indy film theatre while waiting for my co-workers. I was hoping to find Immortel Ad Vitum listed but instead I saw What the Bleep do we know!?, a film combining theology, psychology and quantum physics to offer some unique ideas on the nature of reality; I was captured. I spent the afternoon reading the site for the film which led to a surf session involving noetic sciences(IONS, Wild Divine). By comparison, the passionate concerns of the people on the CoH forum seemed incredibly silly.
I then get home to discover that books I'd ordered from New Falcon had arrived, including a new edition of Info-Psychology by Timothy Leary and Ceremonial Magic by Joseph Lisiewski. The funk I entered into in the afternoon only deepened as I read Joe's presentation on the history of the occult and his exploration of ancient grimoires. As a physicist (Ph.D.), his attention to detail and insistence on the same from the reader far outstripped that of your average New Age author. Part of his presentation involved the notion of using the knowledge from ancient grimoires to create one's own personal magical system. Now, hehe, although I have rejected it somewhat because I'm a Westerner and I've accepted the Hermetic notion that one should always follow the path of one's ancestors (something to do with nervous structure and so on), I've always been fascinated by Chi Kung.
So, here I am this morning, on Mantak Chia's site reading about one of his new retreats, the Darkroom. Basically, it involves a bunch of people doing nothing but eating, sleeping and meditating in total darkness for weeks at a time. I've been reading a report from one of the regular posters on his experiences.
Times like this, I'm not sure whether to be excited or embarrassed since my own burgeoning career (it's been blossoming since 1985) as a sorceror has been unimpressive at best, highlighted by an epic battle against laziness and confusion. I have a boatload of things to work out in my mind... things that make catching my regular TV shows and my regularly scheduled video game playing seem even more pointless than usual.
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November 15, 2004
Something a little more serious for this entry... a crisis of faith, perhaps. I got into a debate with a friend of mine. We do this often and they're enjoyable. This time, I wound up calling him pro-American which constitutes an insult here in the Great White North. Anyway, while out of town, I read his response and came to realize that I'd gone overboard (he's not pro-American... hehe).
It did make me realize something else though. As I sat on the bus from the train station back home, I considered my words and his and I watched people. I realized that there is no Right. Ethics and moralities are simply matters for debate. In the end, the world isn't a mess because people are simply animals with a capacity for building crap. The world is a mess because that's its nature. Life is about doing whatever is necessary to get ahead, whether that means eating your own children as cats do or destroying other families as humans do.
This is Hell. Matter is King. If I go out and shoot a man in the head, no thunderbolt will strike me down, no karmic force will subtly destroy me... the only retributive force is the one that exists within my own mind. Perhaps the psychopath does see reality more clearly than the rest of us. The common man is at war with himself. His animal instincts encourage acts that collide with his sense of guilt and propriety... senses commonly ingrained by a church, a church whose sole purpose is to control the masses. We're all mules and instead of a carrot and stick, we run from Hell and towards Heaven. We'll never achieve either as long as the priest does his job properly. These days, however, the priest has been replaced by the government representative and the stick has been replaced with a cop. No carrot in this model though. We already know the path... birth, schooling, marriage, mortgage, propagation, retirement and death.
Keep the wheels turning. Life is hungry and we're the kibble.
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September 7, 2004... part 2
Yeah, it was busy weekend. There's a saying about wisdom and the mouths of babes. Perhaps the same can happen from simple juvenile behaviour... or perhaps I'm just weird. So, I decided to sit down and get some art homework done. I opened WinAmp and loaded some Incubus. I found the visualizations mildly amusing but for some, perhaps obvious, reason, I instead opted for setting ACDSee on a slide show of some of my favourite centerfold models. This part's a bit intimate so bear with me...
I'd gotten up to make a snack and I saw a few shots of my favourite redhead. My mind drifted into fantasy. I imagined meeting her and hooking up. So, of course, we go out to a pool hall where a gang of toughs decide they want my girlfriend (Sex and Violence... the Queen and King of the male psyche). Anyway, they proceed to beat the living bejeesus out of me. A slightly disturbing daydream and perhaps a signal from my conscience telling me not so subtly to stop being juvenile. However, a darker part of my mind decided to take over and do some editing. Just as I let go of the daydream, a little voice says "what if.." and I imagine myself jumping on some big guy and tearing out his throat with my teeth. Right... Okay, where was I? Cup of tea and a couple hard-boiled eggs.
My curiosity was snared, however. There's a couple words for that last scene... aside from insane. One is Therianthropy. This is a state of mind where one feels in tune with an animal spirit, like having a totem spirit. Arguably, it's the source of lycanthropy. A person with this to an extreme level may believe they are a werewolf. These days, however, therianthropy is commonly a keyword for pagans with animal fetishes. The other word is Atavism. Now, commonly defined as the appearance of a repressed trait, it took on a new definition after the work of Austin Osman Spare. Spare was an occult artist; he caused and expressed mental shifts through painting. His work on atavism led him to believe that he could dip into the deepest parts of evolution and empower himself. In one example, he calls upon the strength of Tiger and finds he is able to cut and carry a great amount of firewood without tiring himself.
What does this have to do with a juvenile daydream? Well, it makes me wonder about the practical application of occult knowledge. It also causes me to think 'why go back when you can go forwards?' Here's where I get juvenile again. Can you use techniques of therianthropic atavism to call future adaptations? Instead of the strength of tiger, how about the strength of the superman (Superman?)? Bear with me again. As we progress, we move from matter to energy. In violence, we progress from the big stick to the unleashed atom. In knowledge, we go from the coal on cave wall to the electronic pulse. Instead of the thick muscle of the tiger, what about the energized physique of the Kryptonian? Sounds silly? Here's where I connect the dots... the technique already exists: Iron Shirt Chi Kung
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September 7, 2004
Currently, I've been reading Evangeline Walton's The Mabinogion Tetralogy. I've read Lady Charlotte Guest's translation which was a difficult read, to say the least. Anyway, after reading the first branch, The Prince of Annwn a thought started gnawing at the back of my mind. I skimmed through the story again and I think I may have to read several other translations before I'm happy.
If I'm right, The Prince of Annwn could be a lesson in pathworking. Most mythology works in this fashion but Celtic culture was specifically structured for this. Bards were trained to have spectacular memories, able to retain a story after only a single telling. Their duty was to travel from village to village, telling stories, entertaining the people. The second layer were the Ovates who were judges. They would filter the morals out of each story and use the wisdom gained to maintain order and morality in their tribe. The deepest layer was composed of the druids. According to legend, many mythologies contain spiritual truths. For the Celts, it was the druids that both sowed and harvested the truths in Celtic mythology.
Having said all that, when I read The Prince of Annwn, I see a journey from the physical world to one of dream where emotions have influence. On the Tree of Life, this could be likened to a pathworking on the 32nd path, linking Malkuth to Yesod. Later, Pwyll, the hero of the tale meets a woman from the Otherworld and he must travel to her world to claim her as a bride. Walton paints her world as brighter and more ethereal so it may be more Walton's style than the story itself but if it is in the story, Pwyll's journey to Rhiannon's world seems much like a pathworking on the 25th path which links Yesod to Tiphareth. Rhiannon weds Pwyll and returns with him to the physical realm, a reflection of a goddess ruling as a minor Queen. To me, this may signify the sacred marriage of the magician to his higher self (Holy Guardian Angel), or Anima, in Jungian terms.
Now, since I can peel back the layers of the story to find the gems of spiritual technique hidden inside, I obviously must be a druid... and if you believe that, I have a wonderful bridge for sale.
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June 29, 2004
Let's start this on an uncomfortable note. So, it's midnight and I'm spankin' my monkey. My porn surfing netted me a nice set of pics of a voluptous redhead and I was anxious to consummate the imaginary relationship. Everything was going as usual but at a certain moment, I relaxed and I felt a warm wave of liquid energy flow up my spine. Kinda poetic but it's the best way to describe it... it really felt like microwaved honey flowing up my back.
I lost a bit of tumescence as well as some of the urgency but not enough for a deal breaker, so I keep going. It proved increasingly difficult to repeat the experience so I completed the act in the traditional way. No stories of feeling like I was super-charged and going out to run 5km but I did feel different. Typically, after such an act, I sleep like a log and find it very, very difficult to wake up but this morning I got about 6 hrs sleep and woke up with very little grogginess.
So, what does it mean? How the hell should I know? What I do know is that I am a novice in sexual chi kung so that may have been a factor; time took me to a place when laziness had blocked the way. Also, recently, I've been trying to find devotion to charge up my spiritual practices. In addition to using an ankh to focus my devotional feelings, I've been running visualizations of Kundalini rising and taking Her place as my Uraeus. Could be a number of factors but it's an experience definitely worth analyzing.
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March 8, 2004
Another great milestone in the life of Chig. I prepared my taxes last night. Apparently, I owe the Canadian Gov't $800. Since I live paycheque to paycheque, I'm praying that I'm just a tool who can't fill out a tax form properly. Otherwise, I may have to throw myself off a building; this planet is way too expensive for someone of my lax attitude. After ranting to friends and family, I settled down and watched some Trailer Park Boys and American Chopper. I also began reading The Magick of Aleister Crowley which inspired enough contemplation to warrant a new commentary in my Spirit chapter.
Addendum: I am, in fact, not a tool who can't fill out a tax form properly. It turns out that I'm just a git who can't find the correct form to begin with.
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February 11, 2004
I've started an Intranet project at work so I've been reading a great deal about web design and stylesheets... surprising for a webmaster, I know. I hadn't realized just how broad and effective CSS is. I'd always planned on creating a W3C-compliant side to this site. You may have noticed the V4 directory in the path... it stands for Netscape v4, that monstrosity of a browser to which my eventual solution was to remove all style and javascript, leaving nothing fancier than tables and spacer gifs.
Sloth being my vice of choice, I never got around to building the V7 site... perhaps I should call it the W3C directory. I still have a hiccup or two, however. I tried setting up an image rotation script for the 'cover' page and discovered that Rogers doesn't support PHP, or at least not on my account. I'll have to look into it and see if I can get that set up. I'm considering a table-less, two-column site for V7 with a horizontal CSS-driven drop-down menu. If I can pull it off and make it look nice, I may begin to consider myself an intermediate developer... but I'm still astounded by what some of the experts manage on their own sites. CSS, JavaScript and Flash are worlds of wonder for the code explorer.
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December 1, 2003
Jack Higgins, deceased: Nov. 2003
Not sure why I'm announcing it like this. To be honest, I feel like a complete jackass for missing out on the last moments of a man who I barely knew but who left his impressions on my mind just the same. My parents divorced when I was a small child so my memories of my grandfather are very few and even farther between but to this day, the smell of cherry tobacco reminds me of him. Like "they" say, you don't know what you've got until it's gone.
Having realized too late what's gone, it's time to look at what's slipping away. My 36th birthday is approaching with my personal goals so far out of sight they may as well be on another continent. Instead of an over-sexed artist living in a studio apartment in North Wales, I've become a withdrawn bachelor and network admin. Even now, when I listen to my music, I want to sing at the top of my lungs but I keep it down... too many people in my office, walls too thin in my apartment... too much energy, too much fear. Time to put away the games and become the man I need to be instead of the repressed mouse-pushing monkey in a suburban cage that I am. Hehe, rage against the machine.
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April 25, 2003
Wow, left untended so long, it's almost dusty. I added a new page today called A Tale of Two Wombs. It involves a daydream and a theory I've had stewing in my mind for a while. The Freedom Force section I planned to add didn't really get off the ground. I finished the game and loved it but didn't enjoy the modules so much. The enthusiasm I had for it got consumed by Neverwinter Nights. However, I still have plenty to add/update to my Bio, Imagine and Mind sections... focus, resist the procrastination!
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December 7, 2002
I'm a little stumped in regards to my Imagine and Mind sections. I know what I want to say but not how to say it. So, instead, I'll engage in one of the world's best pastimes, Procrastination. While I wait to figure out what to say, I'm going to try hypertexting the site, which is to say that I'll pack the site with links, related to whatever I'm yammering on about.
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November 27, 2002
Bad news this week; one of my favourite sites, Pianoman's Redhead Gallery, has been put to bed. Pianoman's life has caught up with him and the monumentous task of maintaining the site was one of the casualties. Fortunately, he hasn't lost hosting for the site so, though it won't be updated anymore, it's still available for surfing.
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November 5, 2002
Well, after quite a bit of slacking and some research into web design, I feel a little more confident about this site. I'm hoping that this is a turning point for me. As a webmaster, coding has always been relatively straight-forward for me. Design is the new adventure... layout, colour, fonts... I'm still pretty clueless but practice makes perfect.
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October 17, 2002
Welcome to the life of the easily distracted. Numerous ideas, insights, eureka moments have wandered into my mind but, of course, I've yet to take the time to record them in code here. As a matter of fact, I barely recall how I meant to divide the site up. I've had a recent 'insight' into the strength of the Christian religion. I haven't read much into Christianity so it could prove to be old news or slightly blasphemous. I'll place that bit of mental verbiage into the Spirit section.
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September 23, 2002
Welcome to my CyberSidh. I suppose it looks much like most other personal websites, so why the funky name? Well, in Irish myth, a sidh is a hill, or burrow, with a passage into the Underworld. In ancient mythical history, the Tuatha deDanaan, gods or spirits of Ireland, entered the sidh to dwell forever in the Underworld. Thus, they became known as 'the people of the sidhe', or the sidhe, for short. For me, the Internet is like a different dimension, a world that both does and does not exist, granting access to like-minded people that you'd never meet otherwise. The site is my sidh, my access and presence in the Net.
Now, every site needs a theme, a focus as its center, its sun. The theme for this site is magic. I've been studying magic in its many forms for almost 20 years now. Not much of a practitioner, to be honest, more of a scholar... or an armchair mystic if you prefer. Each of the sections of this site deals with magic of a form and my experiences with it. So, wander, read and, hopefully, enjoy and discover what fuels me and my life.
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