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Thinking about Gabbard in general, my animal instinct is to flatten my ears against my head, roll my eyes up till the whites show, bare my teeth, and trill like a cicada stuck in a Commodore 64.

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Antero Ali on Chapel Perilous

Started by Telarus, January 07, 2012, 05:15:00 AM

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minuspace

Is the chapel perilous like the oath to the abyss?

Telarus

Consciousness flows, ever-changing, from one moment to the next. However minutely or broadly, each nanosecond of experience differs in some way from the preceding one.

When we talk about a "state of consciousness," we make a generalization about a collection of such moments, that some aspects of consciousness remain constant, or at least similar, for a period of time. Even so, sensory experience continues its kaleidoscopic change. When we meditate, we ease into a session, first getting comfortable in our posture, then getting into the flow of meditation, then easing back out, aware of comfort or discomfort in our bodies, and turning our attention back outward. Rather than a singular state called "meditation," we may find a continually shifting experience, a process rather than a thing. A hypnotic trance induction has a beginning, middle and end. A psychedelic experience rises and falls as blood levels of chemicals peak and diminish. Sleep is characterized by several stages through the night.

Knowledge of how we get into and out of different states of consciousness can be incredibly useful in the practice of magick. Some rituals require that the magician be in a particular state prior to beginning. Some rituals – particularly rituals of invocation – are all about inducing powerful altered states of various kinds. It can be very important for a magician to be able to know when he or she is in a state, when the state is reaching its peak, and when it might be fading. In general, we usually are not aware of the process by which we change and enter states. Think about the last time you were happy – you may remember the content of the experience, the stimuli that pushed you in that direction but, unless you've played with these kinds of calibration techniques before, the actual feeling of the state coming on and building was likely to have occurred on an unconscious level. That is, you might remember the wonderful present that someone gave you and how happy that made you, but perhaps not the actual process of exactly how it changed you. Similarly, in magical practices we may work hard to remember the words and symbols of a ritual while the process of the experience slips past our awareness. It's okay. It's a normal experience. Now, let's find out how much we can bring state changes into conscious awareness.

The nature of a state may best be understood by paying attention to the differences between one state and the next and the differences from one moment to the next. To notice a difference, we first have to calibrate, to notice where and what we are now.
(From Brain Magick: Exercises in Meta-Magick and Invocation (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2011) © copyright 2011 Philip H. Farber)
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Grimalkin

Isn't that grotto the urinal at the Madonna Inn in Kalifornia?  Anyway, I was too lazy to read all the posts here, but Chapel Perilous is just as mysterious as the Siege Perilous in the Grail mythology.  No one here (or there) gets out alive.
What foods these morsels be!