Practice is a pure well

 We are accustomed these days to bringing our opinions, politics, and points of view into everything we do. Most of us, at least some of the time conflate our spiritual practice with our morality, our values, and our politics, to the point where people say things like; “you can’t be spiritual and a conservative”, or “all liberals are degenerates”. This is hardly surprising considering the moral facet of most religions, but such oversimplifications give a false sense of comfort and security, after all, we are in the right, aren’t we? It’s obviously those guys over there who have it wrong, and are therefore unspiritual, blinded by their egos and ingrained attitudes, whereas we are the ones who have it figured out, we are on the path, everyone else is lost and the don’t even know it, right?

In my experience these attitudes and tendencies to conflate political and social attitudes and other aspects of the mind with spirituality are the fastest way to ruin a perfectly good practice. Many a temple has been torn apart by infighting between opposing viewpoints, and fraternal bonds sundered over who voted for who or ones views on the hot topic of the day. 

Of course, one must always be honest and sincere in ones beliefs and opinions, and without looking reality directly in the face no progress can be made. Facts are facts, if you drink sulfuric acid because you don't believe what those nasty scientists tell you about it, and what you put in your body is your choice anyway, you will die just the same. We must deal with reality as it is, not as we would like it to be, as our senses report, not how we feel. Understanding what we think and why, and how we feel about things and why, is all part of the practice we are engaged in as initiates, so identifying with our opinions so that we can no longer see where we end and our opinions begin is, for an initiate, a form of blindness, and one that all of us fall for to some extent. 

Despite this, all of us, without exception are seeking in our practice, to make contact with and partake of that pure well of experience, the ‘ground of being’ that springs up in each of us by virtue of the fact that we exist at all. Call it 'union with God', 'the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel', 'Moksha', or whatever. That's where the path tends to, all on the path are heading in that way, battling through their own jungle to do so.

While the A.’.A.’. is not a lodge system, nobody lives in a vacuum, and initiates should be careful about this wellspring of pure being at the heart of our aspiration. Take care not to muddy it or cover it over with the dirt and refuse of our lives, our opinions, and all the other things we mistake for ourselves. It’s an extremely difficult thing to do in practice, but I believe that ones politics and opinions should be left at the temple door and that sacred space be entered with a real sense of fraternity, more than that, reverence, and a recognition and identity with our brothers and sisters, we are all , in our own way, trying to do the same thing. 

This does not mean that ones opinions and ideas need never be challenged; practice is not a safe space but a real challenging of ourselves to be our authentic self, the 'face before you were born', not the veil of personality that we take for our self. In terms of teacher/student relations, a teacher may ask a student why they hold an opinion, asking them to question themselves, but he should not place a moral judgement on it, and a wise teacher will leave well enough alone once something has been pointed out as a point to practice on, and not harp on about it. Likewise a student who expects the teacher to always meet their ideal of some enlightened being will be disappointed if they find out that the teachers opinions differ from their own, or that their teacher is another human with his own failures and quirks, and not the mahatma they expect, they may flee in disgust and never again trust another human being to try to help.

The A.’.A.’., not the order founded by Crowley, but the supernal Order, exists beyond the limitations of personality, way above Tiphareth even, and cannot be defined in the limited terms of the ego. Learning to get beyond these limitations, see the pure well buried beneath aeons of dust and grime, a lifetime of opinions and ideals, fears, hopes, and other detritus of the personality, is the whole of practice. If we want to drink of this pure well of experience that is our birth right, we must begin by clearing out the detritus in ourselves. This is why regular meditation is so important. More than that, we must refuse to allow detritus to be thrown casually into the well by others, the temple, sangha, place of practice and group that we practice with should as much as possible be free of these things. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t have opinions, but that we need to be able to leave them at the temple door. 

If I write to a brother and sign off as ‘Frater’, this means we are operating in sacred space, and I don’t expect to be asked about my opinion on this or that current event. If I don a robe in a group setting, this is an opportunity to touch the source of reality, not the place for idle gossip and chatter, or the judging of others who are there, we hope, for the same reasons we are. Likewise, if a brother or sister expresses an opinion I disagree with, then in temple or sacred context is not the time or place to bring it up, and while we must be swift to correct a misconception or falsity we need to be cautious about how, when, and even if we do so. Sometimes it is wiser to let things be, if it causes no harm, and if a person proves intractable in error, for example where an idea is foundational to a whole worldview, then while the individual concerned will need to break that barrier down themselves (and this is the path of the tower), often outside interference in such fondly held beliefs is met with hostility, silence is preferable in most instances.  

Humans are social animals, and even the brethren, other people on the path, want to talk to each other about current events and will always have differing views on things. There is not necessarily anything wrong with this, but we need to be aware that here we are operating no higher than Hod/Netzach, the Outer College so to speak, and subject to false egos in the place of the real Tiphareth. At this level all is confusion, and interactions here are prone to misunderstandings. There needs to be a clear demarcation between this sort of thing and dealing with matters pertaining to the path. if we cannot rise past these things, up, along the middle pillar, and beyond such trivialities in our interactions with others then we are not yet touching the source, that well spring is as yet covered. If we get continually involved in the mental agitations of our brothers and sisters of lower grades then this is an opportunity to practice rising on the planes and bypassing these spheres of the personality, for both our sakes.

It is said that when sat in meditation we all become Buddha. That is to say, when in meditation we all identify with that wellspring of our lives. Thought drops away and with it opinion and ego, thus we are really all the same person in this state of pure being. in light of this, it is important I feel to move beyond the limitations of the personality and try to see each person as a reflection of ourselves, not as an ego with an opinion that we want to argue with, but as a pure being drawing life from, and expressing in their way that infinite and unknown source. 

This, I think, is the real meaning of fraternity. 

 

Sitting through impatience

 Over the last month or so my periods of sitting in zazen have lengthened from 10-15 to 30+, with daily morning sittings being broken into two 25-30 sessions, so about 50 minutes before anything else in the day. This started out from participating in online zazenkai, one of the few benefits of the pandemic. Living in a very rural location there is no opportunity to get to a zendo, but having people on the other end of a zoom meeting is surprisingly helpful.

When I started this extended sittings I was faced with my own impatience. Previously, sittings tended to be fairly short and even as a zelator I rarely sat more than 20 minutes except for the hour required to pass my exam for that grade which I did by effort of will. Now, having embraced the zen Buddhist method of shikan taza, things have changed, one of which is my sense of time while sitting.

I had unconsciously trained myself to essentially sit still until a bell rang, allowing me to stop. I would mark this time by counting the breath and my frustration would mount until I heard the bell as a signal that it was over. One morning I was sat for the first of a two part sitting, supposed to be 2 sets of 25 minutes with a 5 minute break in the middle. I was sitting, expecting the bell, knowing full well that it had to be any moment. I sit facing a wall so there is no way to check without craning my neck so I sat patiently, slowly realising that it wasn't going to come. What I also noticed was that now that I was certain that no bell was going to ring I had stopped waiting for it and a lot of the tension I had built up had dissipated, I was fine just sitting there, not waiting for anything, not expecting anything.

The lesson here I think, is that setting up zazen as a chore that has to be got through just puts up resistance. On the other hand if I put aside thoughts of how much longer I need to sit there, assuming my posture is good and the body not in pain then I am happy to sit there as long as necessary. The real resistance is in my mind. I think this attitude can be taken into other areas of life, for example work hours; instead of worrying about time to go to lunch, just carry on until it is time without fretting about it. 

Often in morning zazen, my mind will naturally turn towards the days tasks. Planning as usual, running mental lists. This is ok I think, as long as I don't get absorbed into it, but is really another symptom of impatience, a sense of having something pending. A better approach would be to view zazen as time to myself, not as a chore but as a rest, a rest even from my hobbies and other distractions, checking emails, reading, watching YouTube or whatever I might do as a form of escapism.   

I have also dropped any sort of breath counting in zazen. Once I realised that I was using it to mark the time I could see that it was being put into the service of my impatience (how many cycles of 10 do I need to do before I am finished?). What I notice is that after a while the breath gets naturally deep and slow, only being interrupted when I notice this and the mind turns towards it and automatically tries to control it, a symptom of long years doing pranayama. 

Zazen then has become an exercise in just being, not trying to control anything, much less an attempt to muscle through enforced stasis on the cushion. I'm starting to quite look forward to the morning sittings as a period of quiescence before the business of the day. While I am aware that zazen is essentially a goalless practice something obscurely satisfying has arisen out of just taking the time to slowly watch the dawn come in each morning in silence and real attentiveness to the here and now. 

Why I don't meditate

Through my years as an A.'.A.'. aspirant I practiced Raja yoga assiduously according to the requirements laid out in the outer college curriculum. This meant Asana from Probationer, adding Pranayama at Zelator, Dharana at Practicus and Dhyana at Dominus Liminus. My daily practice for several years was asana and pranayama every morning for perhaps 20 minutes, sometimes more or less. This type of meditation practice had some interesting effects but was generally a goal oriented practice; for example the goal of the Zelator is to be able to sit in asana for 1 hour, the goal of Dharana is one-pointed concentration on an object, and so on. These things, while they took time to learn were not that difficult to achieve for short periods of time after a few years of daily practice, and sitting in asana became second nature as the body became conditioned to it.

This form of practice had its desired effect, but it always left me with a sense of something off. I realised after many years that the act of meditation itself, with its goal of samadhi, had somehow missed the real point. Perhaps I was approaching it with the wrong attitude, but Crowley talked a lot about 'getting' samadhi as a state of consciousness that could be achieved by force of will. But to me it became clear that this in a sense was an act of violence against reality not much different from the use of mind-altering drugs, only much less efficient.

As I passed from Adeptus Minor to Adeptus Major my attitude began to change. I gradually broke away from the A.'.A.'. curriculum and explored other areas, and you could say that my perspective broadened as a result. The idea of trying to obtain something, some novel state of mind, be it samadhi or whatever, began to seem like a form of escapism, running away from my life as it is. I've done my fair share of astral travel, had visions, conversed with spirits and gods, and explored strange inner worlds. During my examination of Christianity the idea of heaven and hell and the afterlife was revisited and I came to the conclusion that these too were a sort of escapism a hope of something better than the way things are now and a fear that they could get a lot worse if I don't watch myself. It all started to consist of concern for futures that don't exist, a sort of negative karma approach to the work.

Since an Adeptus Major is supposed to work with these forces of karma, of cause and effect, this wouldn't do. I dropped all of the Christian ideas of the afterlife, realising that most popular Christianity is a cult of 'otherworlders', not really capable of being here and now being too concerned with an afterworld that existed largely in their heads. What I did take from that period is a strong need to stop running, to just stop in one place and see how things were. For this reason I was strongly attracted to Benedictine spirituality which is all about stability and ordinariness, in stark contrast to Christianity as it is generally perceived, it is a sort of Christian Zen.

Around that time I had begun to practice zazen rather than meditation as such. Zazen is superficially like meditation, except that there is no goal, no need to concentrate or focus the attention. The type of zazen I favour, shikan taza, is just sitting. Even breath control isn't really part of the practice which is aimed only at experiencing life as it is, unfiltered, with no goal and nothing to attain.

One of the reasons I chose to convert formally to Buddhism was this practice of shikan taza. No need to believe anything, the 16 bodhisattva precepts are adhered to as a method of balancing thought and action so as not to create further karma, ideal for an Adeptus Major. The goalless 'just sitting' of zazen is the method to practice this. Meditation practice such as Raja Yoga is always practiced with some goal in mind, as if there is something outside the self that makes for enlightenment, conceived either as something we need to bring into ourselves to make us holy, or as something we need to bring out of ourselves, to realise, in order to obtain enlightenment. In contrast to this, Buddhism teaches that enlightenment is this very moment perceived as it is, without expectation. Sitting in zazen is in itself the embodiment of enlightenment. So rather than trying to attain anything, my practice is just to sit, to accept things as they are rather than as I would like them to be. This is actually very difficult for somebody like me who has always striven for something or other. 

All my life I have been trying to attain something only to realise that there is nothing to gain. No goal, no state of illumination that will make it all make sense. Whatever goals I may obtain, be they academic qualifications, a good job, a grade in a magical order or a black belt in a martial art, are passing things and they don't address the real issue. You could say that up until a few years ago my spiritual life was completely goal oriented, only to realise that there is no goal, effectively turning me back on myself and the real questions. This is a real revolution of the self, instead of wandering about seeking something outside the self that will satisfy, just to be with things as they are. Meditation is like taking a trip in your head, good fun with visions to attain and states of consciousness to enjoy, but when the vision or mind state is over you are back with yourself and the problems of life; old age, sickness and death. Further, with zazen and Buddhist practice there is nothing to learn, no secrets to uncover, and no special states to attain to. The idea of grades seems ridiculous in this light. If I am learning anything in this practice it is only how to be silent.

So I suppose you could say that this is my focus now, how to come to terms with the fundamental issues of life, and I have determined to address this not by seeking for some afterlife or evidence of another option, but instead to sit with things as they are and stop trying to escape. Zazen is exactly this. It's uncomfortable at times, I usually want to jump up and move about, or get lost in a daydream or vision, so even not trying to stop these things is a temptation. Just sitting with yourself, staring at the wall, letting the mind do it's own thing, letting the body ache, and just being with it, is a much more difficult and austere practice. Yet somehow, more than anything else, it forces me to turn to reality as it is, and learn to be ok with it. 

If you're not being honest, you're not on the path

 Something that has been central to my practice for a long time is integrity. It wasn't always a central component but over the years I have come to the conclusion that dishonesty, with oneself and with others, is antithetical to spiritual practice. This really came to a head though my Practicus period when a couple of times my integrity, both intellectually and morally were put to the test. Since then I have been more or less compelled to absolute honesty with myself. 

In case I am misunderstood I should be clear; this has little to do with morality and everything to do with expedience. The universe itself is based on truth, it is itself,  this is often not as we would wish it to be or as we imagine it to be. If we wish to uncover its mysteries then we need to base our examination on truth. Truth for us, as explorers of the self and its relation with the universe, must begin with self-honesty. You cannot understand the self if you are in denial about the self, and you cannot understand the universe if you base your understanding on a false premise. This is why I assert unequivocally, that if you are not being honest, you are not on the path.

One of the reasons I essentially washed my hands of most of the occult scene, is the tendency towards believing things that from what I could see, were most likely not true. People saying things and acting in ways that made me think they didn't really believe it themselves. Another aspect was the prevalence of conspiracy theories. So many people practicing the western mystery traditions are also espousing ideas promulgated by David Icke and other fabricators of misinformation, literal enemies of truth, weaving factoids and popular ideas into enticing narratives that offer the cold comfort of being 'in the know'. Such people, while they talk about spiritual things and claim to be aspirants, are using the language of spirituality as a pose, a mask. They are not really interested in the truth of things, only in having their worldview confirmed. This bias is becoming more and more obvious with the advent of social media. People don't want reality, they want to be entertained and validated.

More recently they are also the same people who espouse climate change denial, deny that the coronavirus which has killed millions, even exists, and deny the efficacy of vaccines and seem to willingly distort things to fit their narrative that 'the man', some evil cabal of nefarious people, are trying to kill us all, or some such nonsense. You need only look at the data to see this isn't so. And by data I don't mean memes and YouTube videos.

"Aha", cries the believer, "maybe that's what 'they' want you to think".

Perhaps, but we have to have a standard of judgement, and either we accept that the whole scientific and medical establishment is lying to us, or the talking heads and rando's of YouTube are. 

But then, as a member of the scientific establishment myself, maybe I'm lying, another shill for big climate.....see how the logic goes?

With such people, I can only draw a couple of conclusions. Either they are gullible or dishonest, and reading the literature on such things it seems that people of that mindset will believe anything if it supports their worldview. People who believe one conspiracy theory are more likely to believe others, because that's how their minds work.

It seems that conspiracy theorists often have a persecution based mindset: somebody is doing things to me/us, they are out to get us, or keeping the truth from us. The reasons for this are unclear so I don't like to speculate too much. Narcissism and paranoia seem to play a role, as does lack of social currency, as if holding fringe beliefs offers some sort of consolation.

The same goes for a lot of spiritual theories and faiths. One of the reasons I could not countenance Christianity, aside from the hypocrisy, was the requirement of faith in that which I knew was almost certainly not true. Pretty much all religions have elements of this, and one reason I settled on zen Buddhism was that there is no requirement for faith, only practice. It has a 'come and see' attitude, although Buddhism too has various sects who espouse things I don't believe and see no reason to accept as truth. When I was active in the A.'.A.'. there was this unspoken faith in the HGA, and in the lineal succession of the Order so that we all got hung up on who was the real deal, and who was a faker. I have come to realise that the fakers are those who twist things for personal gain, irrespective of their paperwork or claims. There is also the idea that there is no illumination outside the A.'.A.'., a sort of faith that 'we are the real spiritual people', and all the rest, other religions and philosophies are somehow outside the temple. Exclusionary thinking if ever I saw it. I cannot accept that the A.'.A.'. has exclusive access to anything, it's just an idea that some people identify with, even I did for a long time, blinkered as I was.

Without critical appraisal of both the information you take on board and the faith you accept, and without absolute honesty with oneself, there can be no real spiritual practice. In the words of Nishijima Roshi: We are living in the universe, which is based in truth. Truth and honesty are bound together. If we are not honest we can never know our real situation in the universe.

Adhering to things which you have no basis for adhering to other than they sound nice or pander to your prejudice. Or worse yet, deliberately, misunderstanding, misconstruing, or disseminating false information and deceiving both yourself and others, are antithetical to the path. Anybody doing so and calling themselves initiate is deluding themselves.

All that remains and what came after

 This last year or so had brought many changes. One of my main themes has been simplification and refinement of practice, a casting off of the unnecessary in an effort to distil practice into a form with as little 'extra', as possible. This attitude, along with a tendency to seek out authenticity in all things has led me to drop off 93% of Thelemic and Occult ideas. Magick, Qaballah, Gematria, Visions and Divinations, in favour more and more, of simple sitting meditation.

 I have repeatedly echoed the sentiment of the Tibetan Poet and Siddha Milarepa: "My religion is not deceiving myself".

 Even my meditation naturally underwent simplification. The effort to concentrate on mantras or mental images naturally went, and I saw no reason to continue to think along the lines of chakras, energy lines, Kundalini and the rest. My practice of Aikido has shown me what 'extending ki' means, and nothing extra in terms of theory is required, nor observed either subjectively or objectively. Ki moves because it moves, anything else is extra and liable to be a barrier to progress. When I extent Ki I just do it, I don't use any theory, it's just a feeling. Imagine having to understand the complexities of our nerve fibres in order to walk. 

 My dabbling with Christianity last year taught me two things. The first is that without a robust set of ethics, spiritual practice is solipsistic, something done for the self, a self which cannot exist in isolation from others. The second is that I simply don't believe most of what many religions and spiritual systems require me to believe. I discarded Christianity as being neither ethically viable (too much blood on the churches hands for me to recognise them as a moral authority) nor intellectually honest (who on earth believes in the virgin birth and resurrection?). Thelema likewise, while useful in my 20's and most of my 30's as a philosophy of action, expects too much in terms of complex and unnecessary theory and having too weak an ethical framework. The caveat here is that the concepts of Nuit/Hadit/Ra-Hoor-Khuit, are in my opinion viable in their essence, but too flowery for my taste. 

There is no need to gild the lily, but reality as it is, is an acquired taste and we are accustomed to artificial flavourings.

 It is clear that Crowley collected ideas that he liked from older traditions and cobbled it together into his new religion, I don't for a moment believe in the reception theory. To me Thelema seems contrived, synthetic, and not something I want to identify with. Thelema too often leads to a sort of self absorbed attitude which is essentially selfish and narrow in too many people, and many are more interested in proving others wrong and having things their own way, calling this their 'True Will', while displaying high levels of immaturity and no real desire to move beyond the cosplaying stage, what my supervisor called the 'burning ground'. Professional soldiers who dare not fight, as Liber Al would put it. Spiritual practice is all too often a case of trying on new hats in order to demonstrate one's status to others. As the Buddhists would put it, this is having a head on top of your own head. While fun, it's really 'something extra'.

 So I closed that door behind me too. On attaining the K&C of the HGA, I realised by degrees that there is no Angel, only the formless, emptiness which is at once fullness. In the Christian mystical traditions there is a parallel phenomena, where the mystic gets so close to God that God seems to disappear. Some mistake this for 'losing their faith', while those who persist realise that what has happened is really a sort of Dhyana, the I/Thou relationship of the beginner, the supplicant and the angel, God and the worshipper is now simply one of identity, there is no need to have any image of God, an Angel or anything else. What presented itself to me as the angel was shown to be emptiness, the 'image of an image', to quote Liber 65, a way to come to grips with the idea but a means that must eventually be discarded if real union is to occur. 

A core tenet of the A.'.A.'. no longer has any meaning for me at this point, there is no angel, and form is at it's heart emptiness, ever changing, not constant and having no real eternal substance that I could grasp on to. Hadit proved to be not a constant point, but simply a point of view, ever flowing and changing. 

The tree of life was once described to me as 'useful to hang things on'. At the time (all of 18 years old) this struck me as too dismissive of something that I found profound. Now I am inclined to agree with it, and the A.'.A.'. system too is merely a way of keeping track of a series of stages, but in itself has no real meaning. It is a tool, nothing more, yet is too often used as a banner to wave and a social identifier (look at me, I'm an A.'.A.'. initiate!). "Aha", says the cynic, "but which lineage?", and we are right back in the relative world of I, me, mine. 

 Have I then left the A.'.A.'.? It is more accurate to say that the A.'.A.'. has fallen away as 'something extra'. You don't keep wearing your old uniform after you finish high school. I've not taken on students in years and don't really think of my practice in A.'.A.'. terms, or even tree of life terms, except to facilitate conversation with one or two people who I still talk to in that world. 

 So what's left after this wholesale iconoclasm of ideas and affiliations? Not much, yet everything, just as it always was before I started trying to make more of it. The only thing that approaches this is Zen. This is something that has always been in the background, but which I only now, approaching my 41st year, begin to appreciate.

 More precisely, the Soto Zen school has taken my interest. It's fair to say that I have jumped in with both feet. I have in fact been practicing meditation for many years, and through my martial arts practice Buddhist concepts have become second nature, they just work and I don't need to contort myself to their shape. Over the last few months I have studied a lot of the historical and theoretical background, done a lot more zazen, and made contact with various Zen Buddhist teachers and groups and aim to formally receive the 16 Bodhisattva precepts in the not too distant future. 'Converted' to Buddhism isn't how I would describe it. It's more a case of, when everything else is removed, what's left is essentially that most austere outcrop of Buddhism. One could say that I simply made a conscious decision to follow what was already there, a fair definition of doing one's True Will.

  I moved to a new city in a new country yesterday. I am here for work for two years on a project related to climate change, an issue which I regard as an existential threat. Possibly in some small way I might do some good. Anyway, yesterday I was exploring the town, I found an antique shop and had the idea that I should go in and look for a Buddha statue. Within minutes I had found exactly that, and exactly the right Buddha for zen practice; Shakyamuni Buddha (Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism). Rendered fairly crudely in a lump of ancient ebony wood. While not cheap he was within my budget, and (old habit perhaps, I don't like to haggle for this type of thing) so I bought him outright. I now have a makeshift alter in my temporary accommodation.

 This is an early iteration. Over time it will develop. I need light and incense, but not much else. I like the physical reminders of spiritual practice. The clothing, the paraphernalia and ritual. These provide a supporting framework on which to develop a practice, although care needs to be taken that we don't take up the outer expressions and forget the heart of practice. 

As I get older and past obsessions fall away, the straightforward humanity of a practice based on the facts of existence suits me more than detailed theories and intellectual baubles. Thelema was always trying to get somewhere and magick is always trying to get something. I realised some time back that there is nowhere to 'get' to, no goal, True Will is a process of living authentically, not a task to perform. Besides that, all I really want is to live naturally in the world as part of it, and making peace with the facts of nature, the facts of getting older, and living in a world which is constantly passing away before our eyes, whose one constant feature is its impermanence. I may perhaps be able to help others to do the same since we are all in the same boat.  It is in this spirit of openness to what is, the small things of daily life, as well as the larger questions of life & death, suffering, purpose, that I hope to pursue the path into middle age.

Pertinax

Using a rosary or prayer beads for meditation practice

 Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

There are innumerable methods of meditation out there, my current daily method is probably as simple as it has ever been, I pretty much just sit and watch the breath for a set period of time a couple of times a day. But anyone who has practiced any sort of meditation or yoga for a while will know that the mind is a tricky beast that really needs training. While actual mental silence is impossible without being dead, we can however use various methods to lower the volume, and one method is mantra yoga. Any one of thousands of mantras could be used, each to their own, and this method is discussed in Crowley's writings and is an accepted part of Raja yoga.

However, what is not talked about is the use of a rosary or beads to aid this. To remedy this I would like to talk a little about the use of counting beads in spiritual traditions, and how these might be adapted to a more or less Thelemic practice.

The first picture (on the left) is a Buddhist set of prayer beads, usually called a Mala, or Nenju in Japanese. This particular set belong to the Soto sect of Japanese Zen Buddhism. There are many different types which vary by sect, as well as formal, informal, and made from a range of materials. Also, unlike the Catholic rosary, the method of usage is much more general, and varies not only from sect to sect, but even from temple to temple.

As non-Buddhists and non-Catholics we can still use these tools, although I imagine the Buddhist Mala would be more generally useful and free of unwanted theological connotations, and therefore much more useful as an aid to mantra yoga.

Many will recognise the rosary (on the right) as being Christian in origin; Roman Catholic to be precise. The Catholics have a very precise and detailed approach to saying the rosary, and it is essentially a method of meditation on the mysteries of Christ via five decades of ten prayers. The order is to recite the Nicene creed holding the crucifix, then at single beads the lords prayer, and grouped beads a hail Mary, and a Salve Regina is recited when one gets to the medal. 

Mantras should be simple, repetitive, and easy to memorise. In this way they differ from prayers which generally convey devotion, although these too can be used. I would like to suggest some ideas for mantras within a Thelemic context.

We could easily recite the following: 

A ka dua

Tuf ur biu

bi a’a chefu

Dudu nur af 

an nuteru.

Unity uttermost showed! 

 I adore the might of Thy breath, 

Supreme and terrible God, 

 Who makest the gods and death 

To tremble before Thee - 

 I, I adore thee!

Either in the original or in English, at each bead. The Gayatri mantra would also be a good option given its universal nature: 

Om bhūr bhuvah svah

tat savitur varenyam

bhargo devasya dhīmahi

dhiyo yo nah pracodayāt.

This is traditionally recited 108 times (one for each bead), which is handy if we are using a Buddhist Mala. Being an invocation of the Solar principle this is particularly suitable for a Thelemic context. My personal favourite is from the heart sutra:

Gyate gyate 

paragyate,

parasamgyate

bodhi svaha!

We could use this while in sitting meditation, although personally I like to separate mantra practice from sitting practice, and tend to go out for a walk reciting a mantra. Of course, a set of beads is not essential for this, but it does help to focus the mind. Specifically, when meditation is performed incorrectly we can get the idea that we need to lose awareness of the body. I feel that this is not helpful and more likely to lead to a wafty, unfocussed mindset at odds with what we want to develop. Having a set of beads to count requires the use of the hands and a connection between the mind and the body, bringing increased focus on the here and now. We can see if the mind is wandering because our mind and fingers go out of sink and we lose track of where we were in the mantra. Another useful point is that during meditation we can find ourselves unintentionally clock watching, wondering if our time is up yet, and growing impatient as a result. If instead of clock watching, we find out how many times we need to recite a mantra for a given amount of time, we can use the beads to help with this. Some people just recite their mantra 108 times, once for each bead, so that when they get to the large mother bead they know their session is finished. Again there are no rules, each should find his or her own way.

As with anything, the objective of the practice should be considered, and the beads, like the mantra itself, are really only a means to an end, and that end is greater integration of mind and body, and greater integration of the practitioner with the world around them. If the use of a mantra or a set of beads helps, then it it can't be a bad thing.

Love is the law, love under will.

Do I believe in god(s), angels, spirits, demons and the rest?

 Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

This is a question that I have asked myself a few times over the years, and which I think is probably pertinent given my involvement with mystical and magical systems in general. It is not easy to answer definitively, so I will try to clarify it as much as I can.

Firstly, definitions are important. If a person asks me, yes or no, whether I believe in God, then to avoid complications I would probably reply, yes. However, this needs some qualification. What does 'God' mean, and what do I mean by believe. God to me is not some beard in the sky, a sort of discorporate father figure that I can ask favours of and beg forgiveness of sins. If praying worked, the world would be a very different place, so we can be quite certain that God doesn't answer prayers, at least in the sense that is commonly understood and taught in Sunday school. No. To me, God is the ground of being, the fundamental suchness of the universe, the basic energy of life itself. Liber legis calls it Hadit, and this describes it pretty well, but essentially God is unknowable. God is the silence between notes, the space between words, the eternal and imminent moment between one breath and the next. God doesn't answer prayers because God is prayer, and the person praying. Gods answer to prayers is in the prayer itself.

But a separate being that makes for holiness? I see no reason to even consider that possibility. The God of the ancient Hebrews, Yahweh, I regard as a form of local deity, elevated to master of the universe status by his worshippers, but essentially a Semitic tribal totem no different from Baal, Astaroth, or any of the other dozens of tribal totems running around the middle-east at that time and mentioned in the Old Testament as rival deities.

So, why even call it God? Cultural conditioning I suppose. In the right company using that designation is natural enough and people understand what is meant. But there is room for confusion, and of course those who reject the term might not like it, but that's not my problem. Besides, in the introductory lection we are advised about this in no uncertain terms, so it should, we would hope, be second nature to an initiate: 

"Should therefore the candidate hear the name of any God, let him not rashly assume that it refers to any known God, save only the God known to himself. Or should the ritual speak in terms (however vague) which seem to imply Egyptian, Taoist, Buddhist, Indian, Persian, Greek, Judaic, Christian, or Moslem philosophy, let him reflect that this is a defect of language; the literary limitation and not the spiritual prejudice of the man P."

As for gods, demons, spirits, angels and the rest. I have had my fair share of dealings with gods over the years, but it was always with constructs of the mind, overlays onto reality, images deliberately given to forces, real or imaginary, but with no sense of a separate identity. The same goes for demons, angels and spirits to varying degrees. So no, I don't believe that they have any objective reality. They are however useful ways of interfacing with reality at different levels. For example my work with Liber Astarte was with the goddess Persephone. This was a rather interesting time in which I was able to see things from the perspective of cyclic birth and death, using the early agricultural symbolism and highlighting mans reliance as a species on the annual rhythms of the world, and the sense that we come out of the world, not into it. I have also had experiences that I might describe as demonic, soul sucking things that can attach themselves to a person in the lower astral. Whether these are just negative thought forms, symptoms of a diseased mind, or literal astral scavengers and bottom feeders. They frequently took on the form of walking corpses, thin, hungry things, or occasionally black angry things, aggressive and threatening, thereby matching traditional descriptions of such things. 

The last time I saw one of these was on the night I arrived at my regiment when I was serving in the army. Nobody had told them I was coming, so I arrived at the guard room and was redirected to the barracks where I was given a place to sleep in a spare room. I deployed my roll mat and sleeping bag on the floor and that night settled in to sleep. In the early hours of the morning I awoke to see a black silhouette in the doorway in a threatening posture. It practically buzzed with aggression and I knew it to be non-human right away. I had to meet the regimental sergeant major in the morning and was annoyed at being awoken, I sat up and said, "F off, I'm trying to sleep", and promptly lay back down. I've not seen anything of the sort since. 

What was this? I have no idea. However I've not seen much since that time, nothing uninvited in any case. I have had shells of dead things hanging around, more so when I was in my teens and early twenties, when I was living a lot more fast and loose and really not taking care of myself. More recently, a friend who died about 6 years ago used to visit from time to time, a silent presence in the corner of my mental vision, occasionally coming into my dreams. Oddly he became more and more inhuman as time went by, and more like a hungry thing and less like the friend I knew, until I took him to a nearby temple, he's not been around since. In any case, that was not my friend, just a thought form gradually falling apart over time. While I treated it as if it were a spirit, or a husk of the person I knew, I have no real reason to suppose it was anything other than my memory of my friend, a way of coming to terms with his death, but I will never know for certain.

As for the Angel, and angels in general? That's a subject in itself, which I think I have already covered. I will say that early in my A.'.A.'. career he took the form of a Sumerian God, sometimes the peacock angel of the Yezidi, and an ancient Hebrew spirit of the wilderness, but as I went on these names and forms were gradually cast aside, images of images, not things to be attached to, but useful at certain points in my training. At this moment, I would say that the 'Angel', is another stand in term, much like God, for that about which nothing can be said. These previous images can be called angels in the technical sense, i.e. messengers, ways of making the connection. But the connection made, they are no longer necessary and so I rarely employ them. I will go so far as to say that I was instructed by the Angel itself not to rely on these images and forms. 

So in the final analysis, I suppose I an a positive agnostic in the matter of belief. I have no idea if any of these things are real, and reason says there is little to suggest that they are anything other than projections of the mind. Yet somehow treating them as if they are objectively what they present themselves to be seems to work. Or, as I think it was Robert Anton Wilson who responded, when asked if he thought these things were real: They're real enough.  

Love is the law, love under will.