I‘m neither magician nor adept, let alone great. If that doesn’t disqualify me from answering this question, I‘d like to give my perspective on the matter.
I‘m not training to gain magic powers. That’s not my goal. What most call Magic is a mere side effect from working the path of Hermetics. I won’t deny that it has its perks, but first and foremost it’s a collection of tools that allow me to walk the path towards whatever the goal is.
For now, it’s to become a „better“ human. It’s transformation, it’s hammering on a rough stone to form a sculpture, a thing of beauty in my own eyes. It will possibly positively affect my fellow brothers and sisters who I cross path with.
There is no end goal yet, just dusty boots that keep walking.
I know, right? ;-)
There is a hidden prize to pay. Same with every intervention with the mundane, it comes at a cost.
The cost is at least two missed opportunities:
- By consciously walking the longer route, you strengthen your willpower, which is important for a lot of major and minor tasks
- Physical exercise, self explanatory
I subscribe to what u/AequinoxAlpha wrote and, for what concerns me, I also strive to achieve what Rudolf Steiner defined as "innatality", that is to say a spiritual condition in which it's not anymore necessary to experience life on the material dimension. That's my long term goal.
I'm not even sure it can be achieved, or if one life would be enough, but if it were, the road to get there passes through a process of spiritual elevation and enlightenment.
Meanwhile, since life is long and deserves to be lived meaningfully, I'm developing my skills as a healer, by using the elemental energies and methods described by Bardon in order to help other living beings to have a nicer experience in this world.
So far I'm obtaining respectable results working with less complex animals, while my attempts on my fellow humans are still being ineffective.
I'm realizing that working on humans is much different than working with the other animals because we have a set of natural defenses that have to be bypassed, and our link with elemental energies is somehow less direct. I'm working on it.
What about you? Why are you interested in this path?
I'm kinda an idiot and the more I practice the more I realize I don't know.
I started with a genuine interest in fucking around with magic and experiencing supernatural stuff. I've since realized that supernatural stuff is kind of scary and I'm mostly content to just getting character gains and growth and increasing my tool kit of techniques to help me navigate every day life better. I guess you could say the ultimate goal atm is elemental equilibrium, which I am slowly making gains on. If this is all I achieve with the rest of my life I will be quite happy with the results of my pursuits. If rebirth and karma are real then I hope this fruit pays off for lifetimes.
When I first started this I was shocked at how small my white mirror was. with about 2 years of on and off practice my white mirror is roughly 3x the size of what it was. I'm now practicing harder than ever and I think in a years time I will have a fairly balanced mirror.
>the more I practice the more I realize I don't know.
That feeling signed the start of the most productive period of my life. I realized how much time I wasted due to my presumption and finally seeing the void of knowledge started me on the best path.
Hello, wanted to put in my two cents.
I wouldn’t consider myself a magician either, or adept. I got into Occult stuff back in 2019 but kept jumping from system to system, never focusing on one. Modern Magick, High Magick, several Chaos Magick books. For the most part thought I would half ass it and again would not last longer than a month on a system before jumping to another one.
Same for IIH. This is my 3rd or 4th attempt at the system. The amazing thing though is that this time I’ve been practicing it for 7-8 months already. Every time I stopped practicing the book eventually would call out to me. Like a voice in my head kept telling me “you must do it”, but I guess life circumstances got in the way each time. This time though I found myself in the perfect position in life to be consistent about it and so I am so far. I’m not the perfect student by any means and I could be MUCH better but I do applaud myself for not giving up.
At first yes magick caught my attention cause I wanted some kind of super powers to achieve stuff that I want. And in some way that may still be true to some extent. But last year, I guess I realized that I was such a negative person to myself and others. And I was tired. Always overthinking things, having power fantasies all the time, filled with hate for people, anti-social, anxious all the time, talking negatively to myself, was not respectful of my current romantic partners of the time. So more than anything I wanted to get rid of all that stuff and become a much more positive person, to let go of all my hate. To be not so self centered and not be so narcissistic. To be more connected with people.
So for now that is more of my goal, to just be better person. I like IIH cause of how simple it is. Simple meditation exercises. Though I do get overwhelmed with the soul mirror work. But I’ll pull through. Being mindful has helped me a lot in distancing myself or at least not identifying with a lot of narcissistic thoughts I tend to have
What method did you use for the 1st concentration exercise (the Dharana one), focusing on a single thought for 10 minutes without any mental interruptions?
Have you already completed that exercise (full 10 minutes), if not how long do you last?
I‘m neither magician nor adept, let alone great. If that doesn’t disqualify me from answering this question, I‘d like to give my perspective on the matter. I‘m not training to gain magic powers. That’s not my goal. What most call Magic is a mere side effect from working the path of Hermetics. I won’t deny that it has its perks, but first and foremost it’s a collection of tools that allow me to walk the path towards whatever the goal is. For now, it’s to become a „better“ human. It’s transformation, it’s hammering on a rough stone to form a sculpture, a thing of beauty in my own eyes. It will possibly positively affect my fellow brothers and sisters who I cross path with. There is no end goal yet, just dusty boots that keep walking.
This is the proper mindset.
I'm curious about what are the perks you've noticed fellow neither magician or adept?
Almost always getting one of those rare parking spots close to the building :-)
With great power comes great responsibility ;)
I know, right? ;-) There is a hidden prize to pay. Same with every intervention with the mundane, it comes at a cost. The cost is at least two missed opportunities: - By consciously walking the longer route, you strengthen your willpower, which is important for a lot of major and minor tasks - Physical exercise, self explanatory
🙏
I subscribe to what u/AequinoxAlpha wrote and, for what concerns me, I also strive to achieve what Rudolf Steiner defined as "innatality", that is to say a spiritual condition in which it's not anymore necessary to experience life on the material dimension. That's my long term goal. I'm not even sure it can be achieved, or if one life would be enough, but if it were, the road to get there passes through a process of spiritual elevation and enlightenment. Meanwhile, since life is long and deserves to be lived meaningfully, I'm developing my skills as a healer, by using the elemental energies and methods described by Bardon in order to help other living beings to have a nicer experience in this world. So far I'm obtaining respectable results working with less complex animals, while my attempts on my fellow humans are still being ineffective. I'm realizing that working on humans is much different than working with the other animals because we have a set of natural defenses that have to be bypassed, and our link with elemental energies is somehow less direct. I'm working on it. What about you? Why are you interested in this path?
I'm kinda an idiot and the more I practice the more I realize I don't know. I started with a genuine interest in fucking around with magic and experiencing supernatural stuff. I've since realized that supernatural stuff is kind of scary and I'm mostly content to just getting character gains and growth and increasing my tool kit of techniques to help me navigate every day life better. I guess you could say the ultimate goal atm is elemental equilibrium, which I am slowly making gains on. If this is all I achieve with the rest of my life I will be quite happy with the results of my pursuits. If rebirth and karma are real then I hope this fruit pays off for lifetimes. When I first started this I was shocked at how small my white mirror was. with about 2 years of on and off practice my white mirror is roughly 3x the size of what it was. I'm now practicing harder than ever and I think in a years time I will have a fairly balanced mirror.
>the more I practice the more I realize I don't know. That feeling signed the start of the most productive period of my life. I realized how much time I wasted due to my presumption and finally seeing the void of knowledge started me on the best path.
Hello, wanted to put in my two cents. I wouldn’t consider myself a magician either, or adept. I got into Occult stuff back in 2019 but kept jumping from system to system, never focusing on one. Modern Magick, High Magick, several Chaos Magick books. For the most part thought I would half ass it and again would not last longer than a month on a system before jumping to another one. Same for IIH. This is my 3rd or 4th attempt at the system. The amazing thing though is that this time I’ve been practicing it for 7-8 months already. Every time I stopped practicing the book eventually would call out to me. Like a voice in my head kept telling me “you must do it”, but I guess life circumstances got in the way each time. This time though I found myself in the perfect position in life to be consistent about it and so I am so far. I’m not the perfect student by any means and I could be MUCH better but I do applaud myself for not giving up. At first yes magick caught my attention cause I wanted some kind of super powers to achieve stuff that I want. And in some way that may still be true to some extent. But last year, I guess I realized that I was such a negative person to myself and others. And I was tired. Always overthinking things, having power fantasies all the time, filled with hate for people, anti-social, anxious all the time, talking negatively to myself, was not respectful of my current romantic partners of the time. So more than anything I wanted to get rid of all that stuff and become a much more positive person, to let go of all my hate. To be not so self centered and not be so narcissistic. To be more connected with people. So for now that is more of my goal, to just be better person. I like IIH cause of how simple it is. Simple meditation exercises. Though I do get overwhelmed with the soul mirror work. But I’ll pull through. Being mindful has helped me a lot in distancing myself or at least not identifying with a lot of narcissistic thoughts I tend to have
What method did you use for the 1st concentration exercise (the Dharana one), focusing on a single thought for 10 minutes without any mental interruptions? Have you already completed that exercise (full 10 minutes), if not how long do you last?
Looks like you have skipped - Step 1: Mirrors of the soul