I must admit to a certain degree of confusion lately and for a guy with minimal levels of discipline, that's a very bad thing. Of course, everyone is entirely responsible for their own life and choices but I'll blame Dr. Hyatt for this bout of doubt. I recently purchased his Radical Undoing Vol. 2 with a bonus CD containing an interview with Illuminati Coast to Coast or something like that. Aside from the snivelling worm who was interviewing him (honestly, listen to the interview and tell me that most of his responses didn't contain a certain degree of exaggerated sincerity), Hyatt threw me off by his apparent opinion of magick.
Now, granted, I can sympathize with his disgust toward people who volunteer unwanted stories about their angels or whatever magickal prowess. I hear similar stories from gamers and admit to being susceptible to doing it myself though I keep it to friends (people who are actually interested). Hehe, stories abound from White-Wolf afficionados of Gangrel vampires who, despite being mortal enemies with werewolves, have great werewolf friends due to their forest shapeshifter commonalities. Anyway, White Wolf got sick of hearing the stories too.
I guess what got me thinking of it was Israel Regardie. Here I'm trying to learn from two of his friends/students, Christopher Hyatt and Joe Lisiewski and yet, Hyatt seems anti-magick and Lisiewski refers to Golden Dawn as New Age crap. Now, I have been having difficulties with qabalistic attributions. Between Regardie, Agrippa and Gray, I have three different archangels for Malkuth. Add that to my recent insight that most magickal teachers try to squeeze in some rudimentary Raja Yoga and I'm left wondering 'what the hell', 'why am I playing with the middle man when Raja seems to be the true source?'
So, I go out and purchase Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda. Sadly, along with some helpful insights, I get the usual 19th century morality, as in chastity is absolutely necessary for Raja Yoga. Now, I'm no expert but 2000 yrs of the Catholic Church has proven that the only thing chastity causes is sexual perversion. Sex is like water. If you don't go with the flow, you'll at best get thrashed about, at worst, you'll drown. I hate sounding stubborn but no one can convince me that damning up such a powerful energy source will do anything but threaten my sanity.
So, where am I now? Magick or yoga? Hyatt says Yoga. Lisiewski says magick. But maybe Hyatt just downplays magick to hide from the freaks. And maybe Lisiewski merely accentuates magick because it's the one half of the coin that most people don't get. Sigh, I don't know though discipline, I think, would demand that I just suck it up and get back to work. Trials and tribulations of a solitary practitioner...