Dalet Part 2: Mega Memory

The visual cortex of the brain is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful tools that we have been given in this life. It amazes me that I did not have even one class on how to use this potentially enlightening gift in any of my classes in preschool. If you want to make your child smart, you would introduce them to this side of their intelligence as early as possible. Crowley said that children should be instructed in the symbolism of Tarot as early as possible, and for good reason.
Linking visualization with memory is the key to hyper expansion of the memory. Anything that you are trying to memorize (names, directions, study sheets) can be compacted into series of pictures, animations, or symbols. It has been theorized that the Occipital Lobe can receive information directly from the pineal gland, and that we are realizing hidden dimensions of awareness inside the mind when utilizing this phenomenon. Many of us in the in the ever growing circle of mystics, understand the all pervading energy of the symbol. By awakening the mind to the language of symbols, you automatically begin to awaken dormant patterns of observation and integration. Memory becomes expanded and information in the nether regions of the mind comes to light with ease never before imagined.

I remember engaging this forgotten asset of the mind for the first time in middle school. My English teacher was submerging us into the world of poetry. Gently guided into a meditative state, we were told to visualize our minds as a chalk board. The board is full of everything that is buzzing in our lives: jumbled emotions, worries, hopes, etc. We were instructed to wipe the board clean with a few giant sweeps of an imaginary eraser. I remember breaching the familiar feeling of clarity, though I had not experienced it at this intensity. From this primordial stepping stone, we ventured into a shamanic journey of colors, sounds, and textures. We were told to just let images regarding these sensations to fill our minds. She spoke the color BLUE, and I was overwhelmed by the smell of the ocean, the sand at my feet and the cool breeze of the water on my face. Eventually, these images given to me by my own mind would become my first poem.


This powerful lesson was to become a jumping point for my research later in life.
Jumping ahead to my first band….

I have not always been a very versatile musician. Most people who have tried to play heavy metal understand that it can be quite confrontational. Jazz musicians usually don’t have a hard time picking it up, but I barley played guitar and was 17 at the time and had not been playing for more than a few years. I was having trouble remembering a particular rift, when my good friend and past band mate, Alex Bois, gave me a very thoughtful suggestion. He said, “See the riff as an airplane.” What the hell was he talking about?! Eventually, I saw that the shape of the riff on the guitar fret board and it really did take the form of an airplane. From that point on, I was able to visualize all the riffs as different shapes and symbols and never had a problem remembering anything.



Jumping forward again to the present, I came across the work of Kevin Trudeau. I purchased his tapes on Mega Memory for 1 cent off Amazon.com and I’m sure it is still cheaply available. Kevin’s system depends mostly on the development of an exaggerated analogous narrative. He walks the individual through a guided meditation of a ridiculous story that seems to have no relativity unto itself. It becomes undeniably clear after several repetitions of the narrative, that the eccentricity of the story is the mechanism for memory. According to Kevin’s method, the more exaggerated you can visualize your metaphor, the easier it will be to remember. Kevin’s guided visualization was something along the lines of:

[You are climbing the Statue of Liberty. You walk to the top and step the edge of the crown and throw a hundred purple pennies down to the ground. You jump from the statue and land on the back of a red bus. The bus spins around the corner and runs over an old man dressed as a ring master...etc]

Though the narrative was longer and more detailed but you get the point. The visualization was repeated about 3 times and then we were asked to remember specific details of the journey. The details are much easier to remember when you can SEE them, as if they were a past experience.

The mind cannot perceive the difference between what is imagined and what real.

I employed this technique throughout the remainder of my college experience and saved countless hours memorizing mundane facts about whatnot, and who done it. I remember memorizing the 7 step problem solving model by creating a cartoon character in my head that went through a series of exaggerated metaphorical actions. Worked like a charm.

Here is a graphic representation of my visualized narrative for the problem solving method in a simpler form. In reality, the narrative would be much more colorful, detailed, and animated:


Match the visuals to the corresponding number on the problem solving model:

1. Define and Identify the Problem
2. Analyze the Problem
3. Identifying Possible Solutions
4. Selecting the Best Solutions
5. Evaluating Solutions
6. Develop an Action Plan
7. Implement the Solution

The development of the narrative with several walkthroughs of the visualization is all it takes for memorizing mundane facts in accordance to the educational curriculum. There are countless other applications for this technique. So get out there and do some exploring!

VISUALIZE REALITY AS YOU EXPERIENCE IT. And be creative.

Channeling the Beyond

I am an IT professional by day. There is no need to let my coworkers have a glimpse into my world. It is a bit frustrating not being able to share my experiences, findings, and wonders with the people in my general vicinity. I feel like I am learning so much every day and there is really no one to tell, so I’ll keeps it tight with the blog and forum community. ‘Big ups’ to Red Ice Creations and the Synchromysticism Forum for doing their part in contributing to the great awakening and integrating the network of mystics and researchers.



The story begins with the end…of an evening that is. I had just come home from an enlightening Kabala class where I managed to gain some rewarding insights and tie together some angelic symbolism. I got home around ten o’clock and promptly medicated myself. I was feeling the inspiration and decided to hang out in my room and think about the events of the day. My recent musical purchase of Ragas by Ravi Shankar was dancing about my room with unique melodic phrases and rhythm counts of other worldly timing. The CD has instruction and lecture by Ravi on what exactly Ragas are, how to count them, and the phrasing concepts; a great purchase for any student of music. He then demonstrates these techniques in long story telling bouts of Indian musical tradition.

I was walking about the room; maybe even thinking of finding another activity to wind me down, when I heard the most curious suggestion coming from the voice of the sitar. With elegant and beautiful tonality, the sitar was coaxing me to take a seat on the floor and invest my time in some meditational exploration. Now the sitar was not metaphorically or intuitively giving me suggestions; it was literally giving me explicit instructions. The melody had become a voice, or what I was interpreting as voice and speech. Of course, the thought crossed my mind that this could be an illusion, maybe even part of my own psyche breaking through to me or my higher self finding a mode to guide me. Whatever this voice was, I decided to go with the program.

In earlier days, I would have never given a second thought to meditating while under the influence. How can you focus, when your mind is flowing in several directions at once? However, I had just finished reading A Magick Life: A Biography of Aleister Crowley by Martin Booth. Crowley had used drugs religiously in conjunction with meditation and magical ritual, even contacting the ‘secret chiefs’. This is not something that I suggest anyone should practice unsupervised, especially trying to contact any ‘secret chiefs’. Marijuana is a hallucinogen and therefore visualization is heightened under the influence. Visualization is the key to accessing the wisdom of the ‘third eye’ so all hallucinogens play an important part in my personal development; I do, however, stress moderation and balance.

After making these virtual check points in my mind and deciding to engage the voice coming from the other end of the line, I assumed the half lotus position and began to relax. All the while, the voice is instructing me on my posture and breathing speaking in beautiful rhythmic patterns, weaving a tapestry of love and comfort. The voice sang, “Six deep breaths. Now we begin, with three breaths in and three out.” The first gift of the creator was the breath, and so we can connect to the life force through yogic breathing, learning to coordinate the diaphragm with the upper chest. It can be compared to filling a glass of water and then emptying the glass of water in the same fashion. In my practice, yogic or circular breathing is used as a warm up to settle the mind and connect with the inner self. So there was no surprise that the voice was asking me to begin this way.

Even while I was taking the breaths, the voice was encouraging me every step of the way. On completion of the six breath, the voice exclaimed the emotion of joy and the music coincided with a raise in vibration and speed of the tabla player.

The next step given to me was a fascinating technique for the illumination of the third eye. I had worked with the chakras before, but this technique was a little different. I was instructed to imagine a small flame in the center of my head or even the symbol of a flame. Still, my posture was under constant ‘observation’ by this disincarnate entity, and I made several adjustments or alignments during the course of the experience. Each time, the adjustments were to make my spine straighter, shoulders back, navel in, and move the legs around to support the structure. I even stretched my back muscles periodically then returned to the straightest posture I could manifest.

Now that I was fully illuminating the third eye, I received my next instruction. While holding the flame or symbol (whichever is easier, I found the symbol easier while I was focusing on other things) in position, I was told to pulse sheets of white light down my body. Starting at the crown, let the light paint your body from all directions, going all the way down to the root. This process was repeated a multiple of times. Each time, bliss and ecstasy beamed from my heart and mind and brought me closer to the true nature of being.


At this point, I was beginning to catch glimpses of movement in this light world I had created from the depths of my mind. One can always think that they will remain brave in the face of other worldly events, but until you are right there standing at the doorway, you have no idea how you are going to react. I remind you, I was a little high. The anxiety was starting to hit me and I had to back down. I was assured that this was ok, and even expected. While I sat for a moment and contemplated the events that had transpired, the voice was in constant communication with me, sending words of encouragement and joy.

During my little break, I had the idea to try some of my long distance healing work. The thought sparked a reaction of glee from the sitar and the tablas let out a trilling drum roll to initiate the next lesson. I began to visualize a friend of mine, who had been put on a kidney transplant list due to the fact that her body had gone auto-immune and attacked her kidneys, leading them to cease function. My idea was to rub the kidneys between my fingers (of my chi body), infusing them with light. I thought that maybe I could ignite them, like the spark of an engine, to get them to ‘turn over’. As I began feeding light into the kidneys, the suddenly turned to mush, and then a sand like substance, slipping right through my hands.

I was surprised and perplexed. Did this mean that there was nothing I could do for her? The voice grabbed my attention and addressed the situation in my heart, “Love is the center of all healing”. I was then instructed in a mudra for the heart chakra, “Fold the hands over the heart.” Later, my brother told me that this was ‘the mudra’ for the hearth chakra. My lessons in Peruvian shamanism had given me an understanding of the role unconditional love plays in healing. There are multiple healing modalities that do not utilize unconditional love at all, and that’s ok. It is not necessary. For my path, I believe that unconditional love will come into play with a lot of my work and that my guides want me to make a habit of accessing that vibration.

I do not live in unconditional love. I shift moods. I am sometimes cynical, dark, and/or brooding. The lesson is to access unconditional love in the moment. No matter what you think or feel about the person you are working with, you must find a way to unconditionally love them in that period that you are working with them. *(thanks to my teacher Maya Phoenix for making that clear)

At one point, I had an emotional rift with the friend of mine that I was working on, and needed to reset my energy if I was going to address her situation. I found the green center of glowing light deep in my chest and began to expand upon the feeling. Love is a vibration that you can tune in on at any time. Just imagine you are holding a small pet (puppy or kitten) or an infant closely to your chest. Do you feel that? Expand!

From here on, I started to lose my concentration. The length of my day and the intense focus had left me exhausted. I wrote down my experience in my magical journal and tried to go about the rest of my night. My problem was….I had left the phone off the hook. If you ever encounter an unexpected channeling session, be sure to close it out properly. I heard voices for the rest of the night that were quite annoying. I assumed that my ego had taken over. This had happened to me before many years ago on a mushroom trip. I tried to animate a voice in my head, give it a life of its own and it proceeded to fuck with me relentlessly. I would compare the post channeling experience to this. So remember to ‘hang up the phone’ to establish personal boundaries with disincarnate entities.


I am not going to try to actively channel beings. The experience was great, but not something I want to make a habit of. I will take the techniques that I learned and continue to practice them. I was a little freaked out to even listen to the Ravi Shankar CD again. Thankfully, I enjoyed it without any recognition of other worldly voices.

Tarot Deck 2: The Minor Arcana

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rose_Cross_Lamen.svg

In my personal studies of the Tarot, I have found the Minor Arcana to be the hardest to translate into meaningful interpretations. The symbolism is complex and vague all at the same time. The Rider-Waite deck is the hardest for me to translate as most decks give a one word summary of the meaning and the Rider-Waite uses only pictures. What I believe Waite was trying to accomplish (though I have not read his Tarot research), was to use certain scenes from daily life, medieval times, and mythology to describe the broad meanings of the card based on a specific formula. Anyone who owns other esoteric decks such as Crowley’s Thoth Deck or The Golden Dawn Magickal Tarot will notice that the cards of the Minor Arcana contain astrological symbols. These symbols may even confuse the reader as they do not always seem to correspond with the written interpretations of the card. I have written on this subject previously in my blog but I will go through all the symbol systems involved to clarify.

The Minor Arcana is the second deck of the Tarot, the court royal cards being a separate deck all together. There are 40 cards in the deck all together. The number 40 has a long history of symbolism found throughout the Bible and ancient cultures. The great flood was accompanied by 40 days and nights of rain, Jesus walked the desert for 40 days and nights, and the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years. According to Ernest Busenbark in his book, Sex, Symbols and the Stars, the number 40 may had been attributed to turmoil and hardships followed by a renewal as it coincides with the cycle of human gestation being 40 weeks or 10 twenty eight day months (18).

The tetragrammaton is the four lettered name kept sacred to Judaism and paganism across the world and is encrypted into various components of the Tarot. This ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ name has often been described as a representation of the four elements. The four fold nature of being, as articulated by Carl Jung’s quaternary, are intellect, intuition, emotion, and sensation (http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=1722). This can be seen as we think thoughts, feel emotions, use instinctive decision making combining thought and emotion, and sense the world around us. The four suits of the Tarot, the four elements (fire, water, air, earth), and the four fold nature of being are all symbolically equal. The Tarot in conjunction with Kabala, describes each of these natures further by inscribing the Tree of Life in each of the four worlds. The Tarot is graphically and symbolically describing what the written tradition of Kabala has been teaching at least since the 10th century.

The symbolism is completely holographic with the existence of each of the four worlds in each separate world:

This allows for many levels of information to be encoded into the symbolism as we apply Kabala to Tarot, as it was meant to be. There are other symbolic relationships engrained into the tree itself, such as pillars, triangles, paths, etc. Any understanding of these will further advance your study of Tarot and your ability to draw information from the spreads.

SYMBOL KEYS

Each card of the Minor Arcana contains a NUMBER that represents the SPHERE on the Tree and a SUIT which represents the mode of being or ELEMENT. There is one more system of information added to the Minor Arcana that is not easily perceived. It contains the entire Zodiac, though in a different format than the Major Arcana.

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/heritage/egyptians2.html

Each house of the Zodiac contains 3 sub houses called decans or decantes. Decan means ‘division or ruler of ten’ as the whole Zodiac is 360 degrees and each decan is 10 degrees making 36 decans. Extracting the 4 aces from the 40 cards gives us 36 (40-4=36). The ace of each suit is not represented in the wheel because the ace is considered to be the pure emanation of that element. For example: the ace of cups can be seen as the pure emanation of emotion (water) in its highest form; love. It is rather simple. As we move into the 2 or Chockmah, the card takes on the symbols of the decan and house.

Venus in Cancer with Chockmah in Briah is a very balanced energy. It is the love that we can understand as we live in a dualistic reality. Venus represents love, art, the mother, and the divine feminine. We know that Cancer is a water sign, making it compatible with Venus (love, female, water). Cancer is a motherly, protective shell as illustrated by the crab. Chockmah is the first split off of Kether, and it still holds stability of divine energy. Combining all of these concepts, love is weighed as a balanced force, not like the duality of good and evil but the idea of active and passive.

THE FORUMULA

For you math majors:
(Decan + House) + (Element + Modality) = Minor Arcana

A great site to get to initiate an understanding the role Kabala plays in Tarot is:
Raven’s Tarot Site
http://www.corax.com/tarot/

I believe this book is essential to beginning Tarot studies, especially to those people serious about studying Crowley’s Thoth Deck:
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
By Lon Milo Duquette

The Book of Thoth
By Aleister Crowley

Good Reading:
http://www.alphaorion.com/MinorArcana.pdf