| Preparations |
| The most important part of all preparation is focus. Without focus your intent is watery and insubstantial. This is because you must become aligned with your own will. If you have not brought your own fleeting thoughts and passing fancies under control then you have little hope of affecting any external change. There are many forms of focus, by method and culture. They all amount to a form of self hypnosis or meditation, to build energy. Chakra meditation or Kundalini Yoga is one effective form as it serves to focus the mind on the spiraling up of energy to create a synergistic effect, by energizing each of the chakras. The visualization of energy rising up through these chakras is good for the focus of the mind, and the physical posturing required with yoga is a focus for the body. Essentially you are attempting to clear your Will of distractions. You are seeking the natural order of your Self that only waits for you to realize it. It is best to practice in 3 fold fashion to build the discipline necessary to step back and view the world as an external thing and not as a part of your self. As Christ said, "Be in the world, but not of the world." Once you have realized within yourself the ability to function independantly of your environment you have freed yourself from it's bonds and you may create effect in your environment. Visualize the following if you will: The parable of Peter walking on the water before Christ, has him walking quite well upon the water as long as he keeps his eyes on Christ. However the moment he takes his eyes and his mind off of Christ and gives attention to the water his faith is weakened and he begins to sink. Christ serves here as a powerful metaphor here, as he represents the inherent connection to the Divine that is within all life forms. This is the Flow within us. It is our nature, and is greater than the world around us. The world around us is only a pale reflection of that Flow. The world however is cold, and it embodies our tendency to stagnate and become trapped inside psychological ruts and physical habits, which beget stagnation. We are in a constant state of paradox between our physical nature which would have us sink (as beneath the waves) and our metaphysical side which would allow us ultimate freedom. By embracing both sides of this paradox using our Will as the balancing factor we can overcome and learn/grow/change. In order to do this it is necessary to build habits of change in our physical lives such as proper exercise, martial arts, yoga, weightlifting etc. These all force the body to tear itself down and rebuild itself. Your body physically resists change of any sort because of it's nature and that resistance must be overcome by conscious effort and habit. Your mind must be filled with knowledge of all 3 forms of the physical, intellectual and spiritual, to ensure that the tools exist within it to facilitate any conceptual structure. The soul must be conditioned as well to know itself and flow without restriction or restraint that it may infuse the actions of both the Mind and the Body. The mantra that floats through many of these pages is: "Mind, Body, and Soul must be as one..." This is the preparation that is required of the apprentice. This method will help you in not only Magick but in all things you seek to accomplish. To focus your Will in a balanced fashion will not only increase your own affectiveness in the material world, but also it will give you a distinct advantage over nearly all you encounter. The ideas here are neither new nor secret, but the percentage of people who actually use them is very low. Why? Because it is hard. That is why. Moments of enlightenment that generally accompany a strong desire to achieve the art of these principles are fleeting and are insufficient to drive you in the day to day existence. Rather it is the building up of discipline that facilitates this balance by building up habits that create a concerted affect. If you workout by inspiration then you will enjoy it, but when the inspiration fades what motivation will be left? If you workout because you choose do do so with your Will then in 3 to 6 months you will have created a habit and you will actually feel strange if you do not. When the task becomes hard on the way to forming that habit, then you will have the constant of your will to rely on, instead of a fleeting fancy. Good luck. On a seperate but related note I wish to address the ideas I have heard regarding diet. It is important to have a balanced diet as it is to have balance in all aspects of your life. Many think that it is good to remove meat from your diet. They are wrong. Our bodies are designed to have meat. Meat contains things like protein, amino acids, creatine etc. These are essential to building and fueling muscle development. The mage who increases his spiritual focus yet has lost a great deal of his physical focus has gained nothing, he has only traded. Again I will quote Christ, "Be in the world, but not of it." Changing perspective in ways that require unbalancing of the self is often required for the apprentice, but not as a way of life. These are useful only in their ability to change perspective and any presumed inherent benefit over long periods of time is illusory and addictive. If you stop looking all around you and focus in only one direction you will see farther in that direction, but the benefit to be derived from this is only made real if you then use that perspective to look just as far in every direction. Back |