A Hermetic Viewpoint

Source: imgkid.com

Lately I've been reading through The Universal Master Key by Franz Bardon. The book wasn't written by Franz Bardon as such, but is actually a compilation of notes from Bardon's students in Prague. It's one of those precious tidbits of rediscovered knowledge that gets students of Bardon's system excited.

The book talks about different character traits the aspiring magician is supposed to develop, with each character trait representing a particular element. Together, all these positive character traits are supposed to develop an equilibrium of the elements within the magician, as is the objective of the exercise found in Step Two of Initiation Into Hermetics.

As you read more of the book, it becomes obvious that it's more than just another self-help or character development manual. To illustrate, let me refer to two specific character traits and quote a short description of each.

Strong Individuality (under the Fire element)

"When an accident or misfortune strikes us, when we get ill and have failures, we will always keep our composure and never despair, but instead we overcome with great eagerness all these fateful obstacles, which will only strengthen us, even if it seems to other people that we are persecuted by destiny and are unlucky in everything we do."

Self-Reliance, Certainty (Security) and Self-Confidence (also under the Fire element)

"We should also never be content to rely, not even occasionally, on various changes and circumstances that basically in one form or another will remove for us a particular difficult obstacle. Relying on that would be a major mistake, where we would be the loser in the end."

Considering that most people spend a lot of time, energy and resources to make sure nothing bad happens to them or that they achieve their goals with as few obstacles as possible, the above quotes would seem quite odd, perhaps even counter intuitive.  It's like standing your ground against a wild bear rushing towards you instead of trying to run or hide, as most people would do.

All of this starts to make sense only if we see life as a hermetic would. To the hermetic, this life is simply one of many incarnations. Worldly status or achievements, while they have their place, are still only temporary. When we shed our body, we also leave behind our material possessions, awards and recognitions. We only bring with us the traits that we developed in the course of achieving our earthly goals, and that is the crux of the matter.

To put it crudely, life is simply like going to the gym. Your muscles will only develop if you put a lot of stress on them which means temporary discomfort and suffering while exercising. But just as you leave the gym equipment behind once your session is done and use your newly developed muscles to perform better in the outside world, when the hermetic leaves this life he/she only brings those qualities that were developed through the course of one's time on the material plane.

Getting fired from a job, defaulting on a loan, a serious illness or getting in a spat with a loved one are enough to cause anxiety, anger, worry, fear and/or depression in most people. It's not that the hermetic is out looking for misery and misfortune, but if these things do happen then the hermetic approaches these circumstances with the same enthusiasm and vigor as he/she would when something good happens (ideally, at least). It's a  fundamental difference in state of mind, because to the hermetic, whatever happens in life is simply an opportunity for one's personal development, with no distinction on whether it's a good or bad situation.

This attitude is more than just indifference or an emotionless and fatalistic acceptance of events. The more accurate description would be the attitude of detachment as taught by the Buddha. That's it in a nutshell.

But why is there such a focus on developing character traits?

Here's something to think about. In one of his videos, Sadhguru discusses the question of what happens after death. He says that not everyone has the ability to shed the body consciously (it takes a certain level of inner development to do so). So for majority of people, once the body goes then the discriminating mind also goes and one starts to act according to one's tendencies.

That's why he said it's important to make the dying person's surroundings pleasant, so that the after life experience also becomes pleasant. So theoretically, if one has cultivated certain character traits that also result in an equilibrium of the elements, even in the aftermath of death the spirit can work effectively in the after life and better set the conditions for the next incarnation.

While these statements are difficult to validate, do note that when we go to sleep, most people can't even control what they do in their dreams. At most, people are just observers acting out in reaction to whatever situation is happening in the dream. And sometimes, the theme of dream situations are influenced by the thoughts that were running around in one's mind before falling asleep. Anyway, it's an interesting correlation that merits further investigation.

In the end, I don't think the book is saying that the hermetic shouldn't have any material ambitions or a wish for a better life. But at the same time, the hermetic is called to recognize that life by its very nature is filled with challenges, and these challenges serve a very specific purpose in one's inner development. It's in no way easy. If it was, then a lot more people would have become enlightened by now. But it's serious work, one that the spirit will eventually have to take up in earnest throughout the course of its earthly incarnations.

But going back to the present, I think a practical approach would be to simply do everything you think you need to do to survive (while maintaining a clear conscience), but don't get hung up on the results. When things don't happen the way you want them to or when you want them to, it's easy to get bogged down with the negativity. Don't obsess about the bad but rather learn from them and work to overcome them, step by step without complicating the process with angst. Easier said than done, I know. But it helps when you have a general idea of how you should be going about it.

The book is titled the way it is because its method of inner alchemy is supposed to unlock the door to higher realms of consciousness, an existential experience of multiple dimensions that are so far from the physical that our everyday concerns and worries would seem quite trivial indeed.

Tracing the Roots of Bardon's System of Hermetics

Source: www.verlag-dr.de

Among the circle of students practicing Bardon's system of hermetics, there has always been speculation on who his teachers may have been or what prior teachings had formed the basis of his system. Although the accounts in Frabato the Magician allude to Franz Bardon as a fully developed adept from the start, the more skeptical tend to think that while perhaps gifted, he still must have gone through the normal process of magical development under the tutelage of adepts belonging to an already established magical order.

The candidates commonly brought up as Bardon's sources or teachers were the Czech mystic Karel Weinfurter, the occultist Wilhelm Quintscher and Paschal Beverly Randolph, particularly his magnum opus Magia Sexualis. Karel Weinfurter was a Christian Mystic, same as Franz Bardon's father, so it's easy to see how Bardon could possibly have come under his tutelage. Furthermore, Weinfurter's development seemed to follow the occult path to mysticism, which is similar to how Bardon approaches the concept of magical development.

About Wilhelm Quintscher, in Frabato the Magician it mentions a time when Bardon and a fellow occultist were being tortured by the Nazis. Unable to bear the pain, the occultist uttered a kabbalistic formula that temporarily paralyzed his tormentor but resulted in him being shot to death by a nearby guard. Supposedly, this occultist was Quintscher himself, although this account has been disputed.

Dieter Ruggeberg, who oversees the dissemination of Bardon's works in English, once wrote to Wilhelm Quintscher's son Ernst in order to clarify the matter but unfortunately did not receive any reply. Ernst Quintscher has since passed away, so it seems the issue will never be fully resolved. However, Mr. Ruggeberg still believes that, while both Bardon and Quintscher were good friends, they arrived at their magical attainments separately and that neither copied from the other.

Paschal Beverly Randolph was an American occultist and Rosicrucian who lived and died well before Bardon's time. However, it seems Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics (IIH) contains some materials that bear striking similarity to some of the topics discussed in Randolph's book Magia Sexualis (aka Sexual Magic). Among the subjects discussed in Magia Sexualis that are also found in IIH are the concepts of fluid condensers, volts, magic mirrors and living pictures. Supposedly, no other source material discussed the above subjects before IIH was published, so it strongly suggests a link between the two works. Bardon also mentioned sexual magic briefly in IIH but refrained from giving any details owing to how easily such knowledge could be abused.

With all that being said, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that there are sources that would have influenced Franz Bardon. He certainly wasn't opposed to the idea of reading the occult publications of other hermetics. In fact, Bardon's direct students recalled that he had a respectable collection of occult manuscripts. To cite one instance, Bardon was so impressed with Georg Lomer's Seven Hermetic Letters that he had it translated from the original German into Czech so that his Czech students could easily read them (later on, the Seven Hermetic Letters would be mistaken as one of Bardon's works although that mistake has since been rectified).

Given the above details, the question would be, is Bardon's system of hermetics unique or did he just put together a hodgepodge of systems and call it his own? I'm not here to prove or disprove the speculated sources (or teachers) of Bardon because I think the answer is not so simple.

To illustrate, even Master Choa Kok Sui had a lot of references when he was formulating the workings of modern pranic healing and arhatic yoga. Some of those references influenced his work, while others were used to corroborate the results of his research. The rest was received through direct inner transmission and validated through experiments. He also had incarnated spiritual guides who helped him in his research.

And I think the process Master Choa went through was similar to what happened when Franz Bardon was tasked to publish the first three tarot cards (i.e. Initiation Into Hermetics, The Practice of Magical Evocation and Key to the True Quabbalah). If there were elements from other works that made their way into Bardon's books (as what seems to be the case from Paschal Beverly Randolph's book), it could simply be for the reason that the information was good enough to be deemed a natural part of hermetic practice and would otherwise have been largely overlooked or lost to obscurity if left out.

But in order to provide another point of view, I'd like to present another system that has striking parallels to Bardon's own teachings, and that system is Taoism. While it may be surprising that an Oriental philosophy could have anything in common with hermetics, it really isn't that far-fetched and I'll explain this later.

I base my observations on a book I'm currently reading, Opening The Dragon Gate: The Making of a Modern Taoist Wizard by Chen Kaiguo and Zheng Shunchao (translated from the original Chinese by Thomas Cleary). It's the biography of a living Taoist master named Wang Liping, 18th generation Transmitter of the Dragon Gate branch of the Complete Reality School of Taoism (a form of Taoism that integrated Buddhism and Confucianism into its philosophy; it spread in China during the Middle Ages and continues to thrive).

Wang Liping was born in 1949 and started his Taoist training at the same time the Great Cultural Revolution, one of the most tumultuous times in modern China, was underway. Three Taoist masters oversaw his training over the course of 15 years.

I will now quote select passages from the book and then point out the similarities between the Taoist training Wang Liping underwent and the hermetic exercises of Franz Bardon. The following passage describes exercises that are similar to the first three Steps of magic mental exercises in IIH.

The first exercise the old masters taught Wang Liping, therefore, was a practice called "repentance." What this means in the context of Taoism is cleaning the mind, clearing away mundane influences already infecting the consciousness, getting rid of the rubbish. The way this is done is by temporary isolation and self-examination. 

Now Liping sat quietly in the dark room practicing structured thought according to the directions of his mentor. First he reflected on the fact that even though his body was restrained in a small dark room, his thought could not be locked up and prevented from going out and about.... With this in mind, Liping deliberately focused his thought on his father....Now Liping began to go through books inside his brain. Here is a textbook, he began, and he started to look through it mentally from the first lesson. There is a picture of the Great Wall, very grand and impressive....He began describing it to himself. The wall is several meters in height, made of boulders and blocks, built along the spines of the mountains.

The following passages look like a combination of "mental wandering" and the magic physical exercises.

After sitting quietly for a while, Wang Liping felt his whole body become nothing. Inside his brain was a complete blank. Then, all of a sudden, images began to appear. These images were not the same as those that had appeared before when he was practicing deliberate thinking in the dark room. Those earlier images had been deliberately mentally formulated; these images appeared spontaneously. They were very real, distinct, and clear.

The Wayfarer of Pure Emptiness laughed and said, "You have again progressed further in quiet sitting. Now you have already entered into the second step of the method of developing mental capacities, which is called 'clear distinction of the real and the unreal.' When you gaze inwardly at your own body after entering stillness, even though your eyes are closed and you are in utter darkness, you can see the internal conditions of your own body with perfect clarity. When this happens, you should never be startled or frightened, and you should not engage in any activity. You must observe and make distinctions with accurate precision. See exactly how many bones there are in your head, what shape they are, and how they are joined together. What are the shapes of your internal organs? What colors are they? Are there any spots? When you can see these things plainly and register them clearly, then this becomes useful. This exercise is basic when it comes to diagnosing and curing disease. People may look well from the outside, but when you can see the internal condition of their bodies you know whether or not they are sick, and where the ailment is if they are. So this exercise method is called 'clear distinction of the real and the unreal.' Now that you have entered this domain, you should continue to practice, observing the structure of your body, remembering every detail."

Here is a short discussion of the microcosm and the macrocosm, which Bardon also emphasized in his work:

The "mechanism of heaven and earth" refers to the laws by which the universe operates. Humanity is born between heaven and earth. A human being is a microcosm that is influenced and regulated by the macrocosm. Unless you know natural laws, proper timing, and appropriate method, there is no succeeding in learning the Way. Polish away the temperamental nature of acquired habit, and fundamental essential nature appears of itself. Casting aside the ordinary mind, keep the true mind. Where does the true mind resort? To Nature.

The following reminds me of the "depth point exercise" in Step V of IIH:

A Taoist scripture says that there are 84,000 miles between the heights of heaven and the depths of earth, so the center of heaven and earth is 42,000 miles up. If the human body is a miniature heaven and earth, and the heart and navel are 8.4 inches apart, then the center is 4.2 inches from each. This opening is right in the center, where all channels connect, an empty opening with a tiny pearl hanging in space. This is the true center of the universe in the body, the aperture where the original generative energy is stored. Therefore the master teacher Chunyang said, "The mystic female, the mystic female, the true mystic female; it is not in the heart and not in the kidneys. Find out the beginning of life where energy is received; do not think it strange the celestial mechanism has been divulged." From this the importance of that aperture can be seen.

About the importance of balancing the elements in the human body

Liping's mentor had him walk along a certain prescribed route, based on the interrelations of the five elements to tune the internal five elements within the human body, using the external five elements to exert a pull on the internal five elements, so as to arrive at equilibrium of the internal five elements, in order to get rid of diseases and prolong life. 

Hygienists consider heaven and earth to be the greatest things, and humankind to be the most intelligent of beings. The human body is a microcosm, a miniature universe, having within it a sun and moon, yin and yang, and the operation of the five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—fostering each other and overcoming each other, taking advantage of each other and dominating each other, thus achieving balance.

This looks like something out of the Practice of Magical Evocation:

That night, there was a fierce rainstorm, with lightning and thunder. The wizards hurriedly shut the windows; aware of the emergence of an abnormal condition,they changed into Taoist garb, took up ritual swords, burned incense, and performed a rite....Immediately they sat in a battlefront formation, held their precious swords upright, and performed an esoteric rite. The grand master first caused the wind and rain to stop in the area, and saw to it that the spirits did not interfere; he also forbade pure yin entities from approaching. The two younger masters both exercised their extraordinary arts to create a protective seal around Wang Liping's body. 

And finally, a passage about hand rituals and kabbalistic formulae:

Having spoken, the Wayfarer of Pure Serenity made a hand gesture; suddenly his whole body shook, and a peculiar stream of sounds poured from his mouth. At the same time, there was a lightning flash, followed by a distant rumble of thunder. The Wayfarer pointed both hands in the direction of the lightning, making a gentle stroking motion. The clouds in the sky began to part, opening up a strip of pale light.

I think I've already quoted enough passages so that students already familiar with Bardon's books can see enough of the parallels in both systems. What then is the significance of these similarities?

Aside from the above mentioned training, Taoists also study and practice alchemy (both internal and external), physiognomy, fortune-telling and divination, and Chinese medicine (which includes herbology and acupuncture). Franz Bardon is supposed to have said that there are 22 initiations in hermetics, each initiation represented by a tarot card. Rumor also has it that Bardon was actually tasked to release the first FIVE tarot cards, but unfortunately only three came out before fate intervened. While we don't know for sure what the other two tarot cards were going to be about, some say that at least one of them was going to be about alchemy (see again the similarity with the Taoist system?).

What I'm getting at is this, perhaps in Taoist training we see an example of what a "full deck" of Tarot cards would have looked like. Bardon was certainly fully initiated, and he did heal people using herbal and alchemical mixtures, same as the Taoists did. In fact, Franz Bardon would have fit the description of a Taoist master.

This is not to say that Taoism is "superior" to hermetics. It's just that the Taoists were more successful in preserving their lineage while hermetic science has, for the most part, become quite fragmented. I think Bardon was trying to piece together those hermetic fragments into a coherent whole while removing all the fluff that had accumulated. Of course, the whole is far from being formed but at least Bardon planted the seeds for its eventual fruition.

What does this all mean for us? Towards the end of Frabato the Magician, among the supposed previous incarnations of Franz Bardon were Lao Tzu and Hermes Trismegistus. Whether these were his actual previous incarnations or not is beside the point. What is significant though is that Lao Tzu is widely believed to have written the Tao Te Ching and is credited with the start of Taoism, while Hermes Trismegistus is the author of the Emerald Tablet and is credited with the start of the hermetic tradition. In essence, both systems come from One Source! I'm not only referring to the personalities that started these inner sciences, but rather Divine Providence that opened a way for all this occult knowledge to make its way into our physical realm.

In the end, it doesn't really matter as much what system one is following, as long as one is sincere and pure of heart. As the Taoists say, the level of one's attainment is not important, as long as you are able to help and do a lot of good deeds. And in that way can we be confident that we are representing the will of Divine Providence.

You Don't Have to Be Perfect (All The Time)

Source: mashedpotatobulletin.com

A Hindu story about the god Indra goes:

The Hindus tell a tale of one of the great gods — Indra — who, following a caprice, incarcerated himself in the body of a pig. He took unto himself a pig mate, and raised a brood of little pigs. He lost all sense of his own identity, and was thoroughly hypnotized with the idea that he was a pig. The fellow-gods, grieved at his illusion and his pitiful state, called upon him to come out of the pig-state, telling him that he was a great god and not a swinish creature wallowing in the mud. He grunted out a denial, saying: “I am a pig, not a god—let me alone!” They persisted, and he continued to repel them. They killed his pig-mate, and his little pigs, but he squealed out his sorrow and rage, and tried to destroy the gods in his wrath.

Finally they killed his pig-body, as a last resort, and lo! Indra, the god, stepped forth in all his glorious power, and laughed in astonishment when he realized the extent and degree of his late illusion.” By this parable, the Hindu teachers impress upon their chelas the fact of their Real Self. (excerpt from The Arcane Formulas by William Walker Atkinson)

And I suppose that one of the chains that prevents us from realizing our Real Self is the fear of being wrong. I sometimes think that it's the fear of being wrong that fuels a lot of the conflicts in our lives.

Why do I say it's a driver for conflict? Because being wrong is usually punished. In school, it can get you an "F." At work, it can get you fired or demoted. Contrast this with the fact that those with the fewest mistakes get the A's and the honors, and at work, minimal mistakes get you the fast track to promotion (especially if you can successfully let someone else take the fall for your mistakes) and it's easy to jump to the conclusion that "being right" is the only way to get ahead or be rewarded.

It's just my opinion, but I think most people subconsciously think and act that way. Maybe that's why it's harder for people to back down when they get into a public confrontation, because backing down means being wrong, and being wrong doesn't work out so well in school or at work.

It's okay to make a mistake, just try not to repeat it. It's just a marker for learning, but it never takes away anything from You, the Spirit. Your personality might react, but just remember the story of Indra above.

I'm not saying we should avoid striving for excellence. We should. After all, there are activities that, if botched, could harm a lot of people if not get them killed. But we should also have a reasonable acceptance that everyone is fallible. Trying to avoid getting something wrong can be as stressful, if not more so, than actually getting it wrong in the first place when done from the point of view of trying to avoid judgement from others.

Let me ask you this. How many people do you know are emotionally mature enough to realize that being wrong does not diminish their worth as a person?

Life is more than about being right or wrong. The great hermetic Franz Bardon once said, "We must enjoy the good, and learn from the bad." And while bad things may happen from making mistakes, it doesn't change the fact the we are eternal Spirits, still part of the Divine, and still loved by God. And I think if we can remember that realization in our everyday encounters, differences among people can become an opportunity for dialogue and learning, rather than as an arena for conflict and character assassination.

The Mid Life Crisis and Its Significance In Astrology

Source: blog.brazencareerist.com

Recently I got to talk with an astrologer and one of the topics we talked about was the mid life crisis. Apparently, in astrology the mid life crisis is quite real and important. Here's how it was explained to me.

We understand the mid life crisis as a period of reflection and sometimes confusion about one's place in life. It can also be one of those times when someone earning a six or seven-figure salary suddenly drops everything and gives it all up to start a band, or something else that's not as financially lucrative. Crazy, right?

This period of reckoning happens most intensely from age 42 until 49. However, it's possible for a person to start questioning himself/herself even as early as the mid-thirties, just as it's also possible for the period to last up to the age of 51.

In order to understand why this period happens, we need to know a little of what astrology does. In astrological terms, every person has a "destiny" (we do have free will). The positions of the planets and stars at the time of a person's birth determines, in very large part, a person's interests, talents and life events that the person is expected to go through in this lifetime.

More often than not, we are molded by what society expects from us, and thus we start to live according to the standards that have been set down for us. It's not like Divergent where you need to be part of a faction to be accepted in society, but sometimes we make our choices more out of pragmatism or social pressure than true desire.

Sounds preposterous? Well, did you know that before World War I, women really didn't mind having armpit and leg hair? But shortly after World War I, a massive advertising campaign dubbed "The Great Underarm Campaign" slowly changed market attitudes so that it would now be anathema for women to show off hairy underarms (or legs) in public. Read 5 Basic Facts of Life (Were Made Up by Marketing Campaigns) to find out what else we've been manipulated into accepting as part of daily life.

In astrology, the farther you get from expressing your true or inner inclinations, the more you start to feel that "something is missing." While this line of thought may only tease one's mind while young, it takes on more significance as one's 40s draws closer. The intensity of this period differs from person to person, but generally speaking the farther one is from the point of "this is how it's supposed to be" or "I am doing what I am supposed to," the more intense the self-questioning is.

In biblical terms, a mid life crisis can feel like the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel (Genesis 32:22-32). The outcome will mark you and leave you changed forever.

The question is, why does the mid life crisis happen at the period that it does? What's so special about the 40s aside from it being the midpoint of average life expectancy?

The number 40 appears many times in Biblical scripture. The 40 years the tribes of Israel wandered the desert, Jesus fasting for 40 days and nights, the 40 days and nights it rained during the Great Flood, etc. They all refer to periods of testing and judgement.

But the number 40 can also mean the start of a journey. After all, isn't there a saying that life begins at forty? And it's more than just a joke to play down one's age. Traditionally, a man is only initiated into the study of the Kaballah once he reaches the age of 40.

From the astrological point of view, the planet Saturn exerts its influence more strongly in a person's life during one's 40s. As it turns out, in Franz Bardon's hermetic system, Saturn is the sphere where the Lords of Karma reside. So esoterically speaking, it means that this period puts more focus on one's life karma than at other points in one's life.

Resolution doesn't necessarily involve giving up or changing one's career. If you've always wanted to be a doctor and have a successful practice, any period of self reflection may simply involve adding another specialty or moving from clinical to administrative duties.

According to the astrologer I talked to, there are three outcomes that can be expected from a mid-life crisis:

1. The person recognizes what he/she really wants to do in life and does it regardless of the social cost,

2. The person comes to terms with not being able to follow his/her true inclinations (usually because of financial responsibilities like sending his/her kids to school). It's also possible the person may try to incorporate some aspects of his/her passion into his/her regular life without making too many waves.

3. The person is unable to come to terms with his/her life and a breakdown happens (not necessarily leading to a room with a padded wall, but the person can develop vices, be more hot tempered or just have a general air of disgruntlement; he/she can also start to develop serious illnesses at this point, i.e. a breakdown of health).

But whether one goes through an actual mid life crisis or not, I think the most important take away is that it's not so much about following your dreams as it is about being at peace with where you decide to take your life. In that sense, you are taking responsibility for your choices and when the self-questioning begins, you will find out whether you can really stand by your choices or not.

Coherence

cygnus-books.co.uk

Did you know that atoms are 99.9% empty space? According to an article in the Elephant Journal, if you took away all the empty space between atoms and pressed them together, the whole human race would fit inside a sugar cube. This ties in with what I watched in an episode of The Universe in History Channel, where one scientist said that if all the atoms of the Empire State Building were stripped of their empty space, the building would only be the size of a grain of sand or something close to it (it would still weigh 370,000 tons though, so that grain of sand would still crush your hand instantly).

One would then ask that if everything was mostly empty space, why don't we pass through stuff? This is because of the electrostatic field caused by the electrons of different atoms pushing against each other.

On a deeper level, what makes all these atoms what they are? Why do certain atoms bind themselves the way they do? What makes them keep the form they were shaped into? Something keeps them together, otherwise a tea cup would just dissolve into its constituent elements instead of retaining the form that it was shaped into. Even beyond electrostatic forces, something gives coherence to these atoms.

In Franz Bardon's system of hermetics (composed of ten steps), there is a mental exercise on the fifth step where one is supposed to imagine one's consciousness to be as small as an atom and place that consciousness into the "depth point" of any chosen object. The smaller one's consciousness becomes, the larger and larger the constituent parts of the object also become. Molecules start to become as big as houses, and space expands further and further until one can imagine oneself surrounded by pure atoms, each atom like a small solar system with revolving electrons and protons with a nucleus for the star, and in between, endless empty space. One can imagine that one is in the center of a vast universe.

However, despite the seemingly infinite size of this imaginary universe, one remains aware of the overall form that these giant (to one's miniscule point of view) atoms conform themselves to. So one begins to wonder, what is the force that keeps them together in that form, and not in another?

So one tries to go even deeper, until one imagines that one has penetrated into the quantum realm of quarks and other things that are smaller than atoms. According to quantum theory, consciousness has an effect on the behavior of quantum particles. Ah. Then a little nudge here and a little nudge there and theoretically, one can influence how certain atoms behave toward each other.

At the very depths of this infinite space, the power of thought seems to provide the underlying mold or design that keeps these atoms to a certain form in relation to each other (e.g. the form of a tea cup). And so, ancient maxims start to make more sense, because it is said that everything starts from a thought. Even the grandest building starts as an idea in the mind of the architect and everything that follows afterward until the building is constructed is held together by the force of this singular idea.

However, not all thought is created equal. Otherwise, we could all create things out of thin air, by sheer thought power alone. So it seems to me that there is an even greater force of thought, call it a Divine Thought, that keeps things the way they are. The formation of atoms that make up granite is held together by the thought design of granite. Same thing with the formation of atoms that make up gold, and so on. Sorts of boggles the mind, doesn't it? It seems to be such a complicated template tree, if you bother to think about it.

But again, it's really amazing how everything remains so coherent throughout it all. Everything is held in place, for all intents and purposes by a powerful Thought, so it seems to support the statements that the universe is one big mind. Hindu sacred texts do say that when Brahma goes to sleep, the whole universe dissolves into Nothingness, presumably because the conscious thought that holds everything together is withdrawn.

The Bardon exercise is a really interesting (if taxing) meditation that really helps give insight on a couple of Hermetic maxims. Other points for meditation would be, if one can imagine any object as a big universe when seen from the point of view of the atom while still being aware of the overall coherent form, what form does our own universe conform to, if any? Going by scale, our Sun would be like a nucleus and the planets as the protons and electrons. If we shrink our consciousness further, would we find small beings living in these "planetary" electrons of each atom, just as we live on this Earth?

I may as well end this here before I give people migraines with all the infinite possibilities such thoughts can bring us to. But it does show that we are truly specks in this big, big place and all the knowledge in the world does not even begin to encompass the enormity of what is out there (or "in here").

The Search For Truth - Part 1 of 2 (Knowledge and The Scientific Method)

historywithherrera.blogspot.com

One's ability to grasp a certain truth is dependent upon one's consciousness, and the state of one's consciousness is largely dependent on the state of one's mental development. Mental development is not limited to educational attainment or even I.Q. alone. Just contrast the example of the successful "street smart" college dropout businessman with that of an impractical yet brilliant bookworm living in his ivory tower. Both are mentally developed in their own particular way.

In Franz Bardon's system of hermetics, the intellect is a fundamental attribute of the spirit and is at the same time an aspect of the air element on the mental plane. Knowledge is considered an active attribute of the air element, hence knowledge is also an attribute of intellect. In this first part, I'll discuss the role of knowledge on the path towards truth. The second part will deal with the role of wisdom.

Knowledge is the sum of two main factors: study and experience. Deciding which particular information to accept is determined by one's discernment.

The quality of discernment is always important when searching for the truth. This applies not only to spiritual subjects but to ordinary events as well. For example, discernment could mean the difference between getting a good deal or getting gypped out of your hard-earned money, or the difference between the fulfillment of being part of a spiritual support group or the terror of being trapped in a self-destructive cult.

In fact, Master Choa Kok Sui frequently reminded students to practice discernment and not believe in a spiritual teaching until they had a chance to verify it for themselves. If there is no way to verify something, one should then look at the track record of the teacher who is espousing a certain teaching. If the track record is good, then the teaching may be accepted as conditional truth until the student has the chance or the means to verify or refute the teaching.

In this day and age when people are getting tired of being called to blind obedience to religious dogma, the scientific method has been touted as the only rational way to get to the truth. Briefly, the scientific method consists of the following steps:

1. Ask a Question
2. Do Background Research
3. Construct a Hypothesis
4. Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
5. Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
6. Communicate Your Results

The scientific method is not a modern invention, since the earliest evidence of empiricism can be found in Ancient Egypt. There is perhaps a little irony in this since many occult and mystical teachings (pooh-poohed by hardcore scientists and rationalists) also trace their origins in Ancient Egypt.

Let's now discuss each step of the scientific method in more detail and also try to correlate its applications in the esoteric field.

1. Ask a Question

By asking questions, one makes the first step towards transforming faith into conviction. By asking the question in the proper manner, one is telling the universe that one is ready for the answer. "Ask and you shall receive" and by the Law of Attraction, you set these forces in motion.

2. Do Background Research

There is a saying that wise men learn by the experience of others. By the conscientious use of study, one need not reinvent the wheel every time a new idea comes up.

This is the step whereby one determines if there is any basis to a particular theory. Do other sources mention it? Are there points of divergence? Is it reasonable or logical when compared to other teachings?

One must be careful to keep an open mind, so that one does not inadvertently exclude certain data because of a bias about what constitutes "valid data."

3. Construct a Hypothesis

Aristotle once said that the mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it. And this is important when making a hypothesis. It's not yet your conclusion, it's simply a concept that you are waiting to test out.

If one lacks the capability to validate a hypothesis, but has supporting data from background research, then one may consider a hypothesis a conditional truth until such time that one is able to validate or refute a theory for oneself. This is particularly important in the case of certain spiritual theories because most of the time one can only validate them through one's own inner experiences.

4. Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment

This is where a lot of materialists scoff at spiritual studies, because no scientific instrument to date can measure or replicate the subtle energies or experiences that are the bedrock of all spiritual studies. To those who are clairvoyant or who can at least do astral travel, the existence of subtle energy and the subtle realms are beyond question.

Unfortunately, the inability to measure or detect these subtle energies using modern equipment has led some non-clairvoyant people to conclude that no such subtle energies or realms exist. This is really unfortunate, because our inability to detect something is not necessarily evidence that it doesn't exist. For instance, the existence of the atom was only proven in the 19th century, yet atoms existed long before humanity discovered them.

On the other hand, other non-clairvoyants take the spiritual teachings on faith, although there is some danger if that faith is a blind one.

5. Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion

This one is pretty straightforward. It involves bringing all the information together, both from one's studies and one's experiments, and deciding if one's hypothesis is correct or not.

If the hypothesis is correct, then hurray! But if not, then humility is needed in order to accept the negative results.

In this step, one also reviews the procedures and sees if there was any flaw or something missing in the experiment. This is often the point that leads scientists to conduct new experiments with modified hypotheses.

6. Communicate Your Results

The idea behind this step is to allow others to replicate one's results. In the scientific community, this would be called a peer review. In terms of spiritual teachings, different sages, prophets and wise men have communicated the teachings since time immemorial. Unfortunately, just like what I mentioned in step 4, the lack of (spiritual) equipment in a lot of people makes replication of results difficult.

People again mostly fall back on faith, but this is also how false prophets and tricksters have managed to dupe people into giving up their gold and in some cases their lives for the sake of a false teaching.

As we have seen, the scientific method is a very good tool and its use need not be limited to the scientific community. But sadly, even among scientists and engineers the scientific method is frequently thrown under the bus of corporate interests. In a recent article, Dr. Joseph Mercola stated that in one British poll, "more than one in 10 scientists and doctors claimed to have witnessed colleagues deliberately fabricating data in order to get their research published."

In another example, a group of farmers in India were able to smash crop yield records without the use of GMO seeds. The Indian farmers used a technique called System of Rice [or root] Intensification (SRI) that was developed in the 1980s by a French Jesuit in Madagascar.

This achievement contradicts the Monsanto claim that going GMO is the only way to boost crop yields, yet scientists are downplaying the achievement of the Indian farmers, saying more testing and peer-review needs to be done. However, as the author of the article states: Given the paucity — or total absence — of independent testing done on GMOs and pesticides developed by companies like Monsanto and Syngenta, it’s galling to read of scientists complaining “there is not enough peer-reviewed evidence around SRI” and that “it is impossible to get such returns.”

In the face of the above examples, and many more that one can research, one may ask what happened to the original intent of the scientific method? So it's important not to believe something just because of the position or profession of the person or organization saying it. As one saying goes, there's a reason we have a brain.

But the above examples show that perhaps we take more things on faith than we would like to admit. That's not necessarily a bad thing. We take it on faith that the engineers did their job in designing and constructing the passenger plane we're flying on and that we won't go down in a flaming ball of debris. We take it on faith that the steak we ordered in a restaurant is actually a steak and not horse meat posing as a steak. Of course, this system of faith leaves openings for trickery and deception, sometimes with disastrous results. But we still live on faith regardless, because we can't do everything ourselves.

The accumulation of knowledge and the scientific method are important parts of one's development, but in the spiritual path there comes a point when intellectual inquiry fails to answer certain questions. Since many things in life are taken on faith, one more quality is needed to guide us when empirical information is lacking. The quality I'm referring to is wisdom, the topic of the next part of this article.

Go to Part 2

Sharanagathi

Arhatic Yoga practitioners would be quite familiar with this term. Sharanagathi is often translated as "surrender" but according to Master Choa Kok Sui in his book Inner Teachings of Hinduism Revealed, it would be more accurate to say that it means "inner conductivity." It means reducing one's inner resistance to the spiritual blessings given by the Teacher, so that like a copper wire that is extremely conductive to electricity, massive amounts of spiritual energy can flow unimpeded through the aspirant. Master Choa even goes so far to say that if one has a high degree of sharanagathi, one does not need to do as much sadhana (spiritual exercises and practices) because with the amount of spiritual energy that one would be receiving it would be as if one had already done sadhana.

Since there are always many facets and levels that can be extracted from esoteric concepts, I would like to explore a complementary way of looking at sharanagathi, and to do this we need to first refer to Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics. In the Step VII exercises of Initiation Into Hermetics, Bardon describes the methods by which elementaries may be created.

Before we go further, a clarification of terminologies may be in order. In Bardon's system, he talks about elementals, larvae, phantoms, phantasms and elementaries. At the risk of oversimplifying, elementals are thought forms deliberately created by the magician for specific tasks. Larvae are the unintentional thought forms produced by people; for example, if one suddenly saw a cute puppy on the street, a larvae of affection can be produced, leading to a feeling of happiness. Phantoms are usually fears, phobias or intense desires of people that have been given so much energy by repeated thoughts that they take a life of their own. According to Bardon, the legend of succubi and incubi who feed on the sexual desires of their victims (and entice their victims to produce more sexual thoughts) are examples of these phantoms. Phantasms are the etheric forms of deceased people that have been animated by various invisible beings.

Elementaries are also deliberate creations of magicians, but they differ from elementals in that elementaries are loaded with specific elements (fire, air, water and earth) and their creation follows a strict set of procedures. Elementals only work on the mental plane. On the other hand, because elementaries are loaded with the elements, they have an astral body and can therefore also work in the astral and material planes.

One method of creating an elementary involves forming a wax figure (the form that the elementary will inhabit during its lifetime), loading this form with the elements of earth, water, air and fire thus creating the astral body, then weaving its mental body, and finally giving life to the elementary by the act of accumulating the universal light and breathing it upon the wax form. There are other details, such as giving the elementary a name by which one is able to command it, and setting a definite death time (down to the date, the hour and the minute) upon creation of the elementary.

Dissolution of the elementary also has a set procedure: stabbing the "heart" of the wax figure using akasha, resulting in the death of the elementary, followed by dissolving the mental body, then dissolving the astral body (by scattering the elements back to the universe) and then finally burning or burying the wax figure. The dissolution process is so detailed because the elementary was given life through one's own energy, thus it is essentially a part of one's Self. The sudden rebound of energies caused by sudden destruction could cause severe injuries to the magician.

Do the above procedures sound familiar? They should, because they are similar to the process by which the Higher Self pours out a portion of itself to produce the incarnated soul, and the incarnated soul uses the mental, astral and physical bodies to interact with the material plane. The act of dissolution is also similar to how the Higher Self withdraws the life energy from the physical body at the time of death. I highly recommend Master Choa Kok Sui's book Achieving Oneness with the Higher Soul because the process of incarnation and death is explained in that book in more detail and in an easy-to-understand manner.

What does all of this have to do with sharanagathi? One thing about elementaries is that they have a mind of their own (literally, because they have a mental body). Because of this, they are imbued with a certain amount of willpower and the longer they exist, the stronger their instinct for survival becomes. This is why it is very important for the magician to set a definite death date and to follow through on it even if the elementary has been quite faithful and effective in its tasks.

Some elementaries, according to Bardon, may even plead for their lives but the magician must remain resolute, otherwise the magician risks the elementary becoming so strong-willed that it can escape the magician's control and refuse to follow orders. Any mischief caused by such wayward elementaries will result in negative karmic consequences for the magician. There are procedures that can deal with these out of control elementaries, but it only emphasizes the need for the magician to maintain full control at all times.

Relating the case of the elementaries with our own lives, how many people can be considered "lost souls" because they refuse to follow the urgings of their Higher Souls? Are we ourselves any more sensitive and receptive to what our Higher Souls want us to do? Do we even bother to ask for guidance from our Higher Soul?

For me, this is where sharanagathi comes in. It is truly humbling when we realize our true nature, that we are really an outpouring of our Higher Self, incarnated in order to accomplish something on this physical plane. Against such a truth all our pretensions and puffed up feelings about ourselves and our importance pale in comparison. In the end, we are destined to go back and re-unite with Source at the close of our physical life, a date that has been set even at the moment of our incarnation.

The question is, can we "surrender" to the will of our Higher Soul? Is there a joyful reunion with our Higher Soul during meditation (or during death)? Or are we like a wayward elementary, requiring more desperate procedures from our "Divine Magician" to get us back on track to our purpose in life? It's a question that we will need to answer sooner or later.

In the end one always stands alone in the face of one's Self. How we develop this relationship is entirely up to us, but for sure our presence in this life is not the product of whim or chance, considering the effort and risk that the Higher Soul takes in extending a portion of itself. Considering all this, to have sharanagathi is to be grateful. To have sharanagathi is to be humble. To have sharanagathi is to surrender to the will of the Higher Soul. To have sharanagathi is to be internally conductive to the Higher Soul's directions. Sharanagathi is all this and more. Anything less risks going down the path of the "wayward elementary."

During meditation, I always call to mind this process of elementary creation in order to get myself in the proper frame of mind when communing with my Higher Self. It reminds me of my part within the whole, and this is what the essence of sharanagathi means for me.

Not my will, but Thy will be done.

Evocation

Wikipedia defines evocation as "the act of calling or summoning a spirit, demon, god or other supernatural agent, in the Western mystery tradition." These supernatural entities are usually summoned so that the magician may learn something about a particular subject that the summoned spirit is knowledgeable about or to order the spirit to perform a task for the magician.

Spirits have different specialties. If the magician wanted to know more about the making of herbal ointments and potions, for example, a spirit from that sphere of knowledge could be consulted. If a magician wanted to improve the sales performance of his/her shop, the appropriate spirit could be summoned to attract more prosperity and customers for the business.

The concept of evocation or summoning tends to sound diabolical because of all the horror stories we've been bombarded with about runaway demons and evil wizards (it's practically standard fare for Dungeons & Dragons adventures), but in its barest essence evocation is like consulting or hiring a specialist in the real world except that you're using magical means. But one aspect of evocation that many people would question is, why is there a need to summon demons or so-called negative spirits?

According to Franz Bardon, one of the foremost hermeticists of the 20th century, good and evil are concepts created through Man's limited understanding of the universe. From the perspective of the esoteric scholar, good and evil are expressions of the Law of Polarity or Duality, one of the natural laws that makes the universe possible.

One way to see how "negative" and "positive" are both necessary is to look at ants and mosquitoes. Ants can be negative in the sense that they can ruin our food, while mosquitoes bite us and can bring disease. But we know that both species are necessary for the health of the environment and wiping them out can imbalance the ecosystem to the point that it could threaten our survival. The concept of negative connotes destruction, while the concept of positive connotes construction. So another example of how both concepts work together is to look at digestion. If there was no negative (in the sense defined earlier), there would be no way for us to digest our food, because digestion involves breaking down the food (a "negative" process) to allow the body access to the nutrients to repair and sustain itself (a "positive" process).

Going by the examples above, we can expand our understanding of positive and negative to angels and demons. They are entities that have their specific roles in making the universe work as it should. Not everyone can understand what roles these entities may play, the same way not everyone understands how a mosquito is an important part of the ecosystem, but for the magician who has an understanding of these matters he/she can harness these forces in order to further his/her development and act as an agent of Divine Purpose.

That being said, there is a reason for all those horror stories about magical summonings gone awry. Just as no one works with high voltage electricity without proper training and preparation, one needs the same amount of care when evoking spirits. This shouldn't be surprising since one is directly accessing the hidden forces that run the universe.

Just consult any grimoire and you will see the same basic paraphernalia: the magic circle; the wand, sword and knife; the triangle; the magician's robe; the sigils, and so on. The aim of all these is to ensure that the magician doesn't lose control over the magical operation. If you want a more detailed explanation about evocation and the different processes, I suggest you read Franz Bardon's The Practice of Magical Evocation. Even if you don't have any plans of actually evoking spirits, Bardon's book is still good theoretical material and his explanations are clear and easy to understand, without the histrionics that commonly color the prose of classical grimoires.

In case you're still feeling apprehensive about this whole summoning business, it's interesting to note that we actually practice some sort of evocation everyday, most often unconsciously. How? Through the way we think.

The power of thought is a force. This is why we say that energy follows your thoughts. What is this energy? In pranic healing, this pervasive energy is called prana. If energy (prana) follows your thoughts and prana is life energy, the thoughts we put forth are enlivened by pranic energy. In a sense, thought forms are also lower forms of entities. A thought form can gain power when it's very clear and focused or through constant repetition, or both.

There is another esoteric law that states that like attracts like. So if you continuously send out angry thoughts, for example, you attract anger entities and elementals that will send signals to you to produce even more of the energy (in this case, anger) that they are so enjoying. This is true for every negative or positive thought that there is. Therefore, you "summon" the type of entity that is equal to the quality of your thought.

Repeated thoughts by a sufficient number of people can form an egregore, or a gigantic thought form not attached to any particular individual. These egregores have a power of their own and can be accessed through gestures, words of power or rituals. A negative example of this would be the Nazi egregore that engulfed the people of Germany prior to and during World War 2. The Nazi salute was the gesture that filled the person with the energy of the Nazi egregore and at the same time empowered the egregore as long as the person remained a devotee of that belief system.

It's interesting that the process that ensures a safe and successful evocation parallels the same process that helps one attain a happy, healthy and balanced life. During an evocation, the magic circle is not only a protective device. It symbolizes one's divinity or oneness with God. The summoned being is in essence "talking to God" and therefore has to obey the magician. In everyday life, we need to maintain this "magic circle" of our being so that we don't lose control over the thoughts and entities that we are bombarded with everyday. This "magic circle" also serves to remind us to consciously control our thoughts and direct the forces that impact our lives and those of others.

Consider for example the act of earning a living. When we are doing work, we attract entities of productivity so that we are even more energized and motivated to work. However, if we lose control over this impulse to work, these productivity entities can "possess" us and drive us to become workaholics. Same goes for eating. This basic survival instinct can all too easily lead to gluttony if we don't control our appetites. This is how bad habits and addictions are formed. That's why we sometimes end up asking ourselves, "What possessed me to do that?" Anything positive can quickly turn into a negative if we lose control over it.

The ancient Kabbalists say that there is no attribute that can be assigned to the Infinite Being because this Being is beyond all concept. However, if there was one concept that would come closest to describing the Infinite Being, it would be that of will. Will provides the volition or impetus that gives birth to creation. It is through the will that we gain control over the forces that would otherwise overwhelm us if left unchecked.

All of this is easier said than done, of course. But that's why life is a school that gives us all these opportunities to learn and practice. All the descriptions about magic and mysticism make it look like we are gaining the power to control and influence outside events, but in many deeper ways we are actually working to master ourselves.

The Hermetic concept of "As above, so below" is quite well known. So if we subscribe to the assertion that our body is a little universe, a microcosm of the macrocosm, then the concept of self-mastery as a path to God makes a little more sense. We effect change in the outside by first changing the inside. This is the essence that we can extract from all the rituals and practices of magic that exist in the world.

At the end of the day, we ask ourselves: Do we stand at the center of our own magic circle, fully in control of the forces within us so that we may better participate in the Divine Plan? Or do we become enslaved to the entities that we unwittingly call forth in the unguarded recesses of our own mind? That choice is always before us.

Who's Behind The Steering Wheel?

I remember a conversation I was having with a couple of friends earlier this year. One of our friends was explaining the different astrological predictions for the upcoming months. However, another of our friends countered that she would rather not put stock on these forecasts because they have a tendency to take over our lives.

She does have a point. There is indeed a danger of becoming so obsessed with an astrological forecast or prediction that one's life would revolve around the forecast, or be unable to do anything unless a forecast is made. Astrological forecasts have their uses, but are supposed to be guides, not mandates. The same way a stock broker keeps abreast of the latest trends and market news, it is us who makes the final decisions on how to act on the information at hand.

I suppose one point of discomfort regarding astrological forecasts is the pre-determined aspect that is implied. We do cherish our free will, but the question is, are we really that much in control of our destiny? Another way to put it is, have we been using our free will in the correct manner?

In the occult novel Frabato The Magician, one of Franz Bardon's conversation partners (let's call him Mr. A for convenience) believed that he was in control of his own destiny. So Franz Bardon told him that if he could avoid being at a certain plaza at a certain time the next day, then Mr. A indeed had control of his destiny.

Mr. A then resolved to simply stay at home the whole day in order to avoid ending up at the aforementioned plaza. But come evening, a couple of Mr. A's friends invited him out to watch a play. Since the theatre was at the other end of town from where the plaza was, Mr. A figured that it would be no problem. Then after the play, Mr. A and his friends went out for dinner along with some drinks.

As is sometimes the case among inebriated friends, Mr. A's group started going around town, from bar to bar, getting drinks and generally having a good time. Mr. A totally forgot about his conversation with Franz Bardon.

Unfortunately, in one bar, Mr. A got into an argument with another patron and knives were pulled, resulting in Mr. A having to run for his life, with his opponents in hot pursuit. As Mr. A was in the middle of his run, he realized that he had ended up approaching the plaza that Franz Bardon told him about. Realizing how foolish his previous statements to Franz Bardon were, Mr. A was just about to give up in desperation when Franz Bardon stepped out from one corner and told Mr. A not to worry. Bardon had anticipated that Mr. A would end up there so Bardon was just waiting for him to show up.

Bardon then approached Mr. A's pursuers and uttered a kabbalistic formula that resulted in the attack being stopped. Mr. A eventually became one of Franz Bardon's students.

Reading the above, we see another case of apparent esoteric contradictions at work.  I've mentioned before that in Master Choa Kok Sui's teachings, service and tithing (basically planting good karmic seeds) are some of the best ways to create your future now. On the other hand, there are still stories about people who do a lot of service and tithing who still encounter misfortunes or see little improvement in their lives. What gives?

The workings of karma as well as the interplay of cosmic energies that constitute one's astrological forecast are very complicated subjects, and I believe only a true Adept (such as Franz Bardon) can trace the influence one thread of energy may have on the other. However, we do not need to get into that deep a level of knowledge in order to esoterically manage ourselves.

If we take a closer look at the purpose of karma and its relationship to astrology, we will see that it's about learning certain lessons. Before incarnation, a soul is briefed about the different situations that will come up in the soul's physical life in order to bring about the environment the soul needs in order to learn a particular lesson. For instance, if the soul needs to learn patience and self control, perhaps obnoxious officemates would be part of the situation that the person will find oneself in. We would tend to term those negative situations as "negative karma" while positive situations, like getting a raise, as "good karma." The situations have to become part of one's life because of one's past actions (perhaps in a previous life, the soul had hurt a lot of people because of impatience, so patience needs to be learned in the future life).

The different cosmic bodies give off certain energies (Venus pertains to love, Jupiter to luck, etc.). Certain combinations of these energies will lead to the different situations mentioned earlier. It is this play of energetic influences that the science of astrology tries to ascertain. Once the correct mix of energies are "dialed in" then the soul incarnates and then is born on the date and time that allows this play of energies to come into effect. This then becomes your birth chart and a really skillful astrologer can give you an idea of the different situations you may encounter, even your date of death.

Alternatively, as per Master Choa's book Achieving Oneness with the Higher Soul, a really skilled and powerful clairvoyant can look at one's physical permanent seed (located in the heart) and get a movie view of one's life and destiny. According to Master Choa, it will play out like a movie but certain scenes may be different from what actually happened because of free will.

By learning one's lessons (the proper use of free will), one can prevent some negative situations from coming up. In the example earlier, if one learns the virtue of true patience (meaning, not merely holding one's anger in only to explode much later), then the situation of having obnoxious officemates could disappear.

Of course, there is another way to learn. A Latin saying goes: a fool learns by his own mistakes; a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. This type of learning can also prevent future negative situations from coming up, or if they do, they are much mitigated and easier to deal with. This is because the Law of Mercy supersedes the Law of Karma.

Where do service and tithing come in? In Master Choa's words, they mitigate one's negative karma. Meaning negative situation(s) are easier to bear, but that does not excuse one from the need to learn one's lessons. Service and tithing are supposed to develop one's capacity for love and compassion, especially among those less fortunate. As one is filled with love, one starts to learn all the other lessons anyway, such as patience, tolerance, forgiveness, etc.

So you can see that service and tithing are not free passes. This is why you cannot do something negative and then use service and tithing to "pay off" what you did.

Another way to look at all of this is that if a negative situation happens, you simply did not learn enough of the lesson inherent in that situation, so it had to happen again. But it takes a lot of self honesty and introspection in order to trace out one's negative behavior. It's really hard, because it's so easy to make excuses for oneself ("It wasn't that bad" or "He/she deserved it" or "I don't deserve this") and we don't want to think of ourselves as being that bad. I also fall into that trap of self-delusion, so I've experienced how hard it is.

The thing is, certain situations will keep repeating themselves, in increasing severity, until one "gets the hint." This is why simply removing oneself from a certain situation is not the answer. Sometimes it's needed, but again, without learning the lesson associated with a negative situation, it'll just come back in a different form. This is why you will hear stories of people who resigned from their jobs because their officemates gossiped about them (or were bullied by other officemates) only to end up in a new job in a different company but faced again with being gossiped about or being bullied.

There is a very nice quotation from Kabbalist Yehuda Berg that relates to what I've been writing about and I would like to share it here:

Reality is a fruit grown from the seed of our consciousness. When we want to work on changing our physical reality, we have to work on our inner reality, instead of just focusing on gaining money and physical possessions.

We can take control of the growth of our physical life by having the right consciousness.

I believe right consciousness can be summed up in the simple statement: Know thyself. So simple, and yet so difficult at the same time.

There are so many unknowns. This is why it's always important to invoke for Divine Blessings for every aspect of one's life. By doing this, one thus acknowledges that at the end of everything, it's God who is ultimately behind the wheel.

The Magic of Water

After air, water is the other critical component of physical survival. One could survive weeks without food, but barely a few days without water. Generally speaking, our physical bodies are made up of 75% water. Losing just 1-2% of our water composition can already result in mild dehydration, which leads to fatigue, muscle weakness, poor concentration, headaches, dizziness and other detrimental conditions. Of course, the pendulum swings both ways. It's possible to drink too much water, and this leads to a condition known as water intoxication resulting from hyponatremia, or too much dilution of sodium in the body. This only happens though if you drink too much water within a short period of time instead of spreading it throughout the day. Dehydration will still be the most common condition that one has to be concerned about.

Water is really a wonderful substance. About 70% of the Earth's surface is comprised of water in liquid, solid or gaseous form, making water the most abundant compound on our planet's surface. Water is also known as the universal solvent, because most solids dissolve in water. This is why even with the advent of hand disinfectants, nothing beats washing one's hands in order to feel clean.

While water is the fuel of life, it's potable water that humans and most animals need. We take potable water for granted in the cities, but in disaster-stricken areas and other places that are experiencing a humanitarian crisis, potable water is one other item that people would kill for. Knowing how to filter water or having the tools to produce potable water can mean all the difference in a survival scenario.

Aside from the various physical uses of water, there is an esoteric component as well. Water has that special quality of absorbing and storing energy, much like what crystals can do. Notice that areas of supernatural activity (ghostly apparitions, white ladies, etc.) seem to center around water concentrations in the house such as the bathroom, water tank and kitchen. This is why in pranic healing, a healer would "throw" dirty energy into a basin filled with water and salt. The water absorbs the diseased energy to keep it in place, while salt has disintegrating properties in order to break down the diseased energy to a certain degree. This is also why taking a dip in the ocean can be so healing and refreshing, although in most beaches today the ocean itself can be quite polluted. The simple act of taking a bath, though, can already be refreshing enough. Don't you feel perked up after taking a shower or after a long, luxurious soak in the tub?

Here's a tip for those who want to get the most out of taking a bath. If you use a bathtub, mix in a handful of salt and a few drops of lavender essential oil. For those who use pails, just mix in the salt and lavender oil in the pail. If you usually take the shower, before your final rinse, rub soft salt on your whole body (rock salt may irritate the skin) then dilute the lavender oil in a pitcher of water and rub the water on your body. Afterwards, rinse it all off. It's refreshing and energetically it removes more dirty energy than normal bathing would. Ideally, you would want to use sea salt, although the salt sold in supermarkets would be cheaper and can be good enough for most people.

This energy absorbent quality of water is probably one other reason why it is considered bad feng shui to have a stagnant body of water in the house, or for a house to be situated near a dead creek. Aside from unsanitary conditions and dengue concerns, stagnant water keeps absorbing negative energies without carrying these energies away, so the negative energies accumulate and eventually spill over into the area. Like attracts like, so one can expect the whole area to have a negative vibe.

Flowing water, on the other hand, not only carries negative energy away but also brings fresh energy into an area, especially the closer to the mountain or other water sources one is. Of course, if one lives in a heavily urbanized area, even flowing water can be so polluted that areas near the creek or river can already be considered as etherically contaminated. For most people, they have only Mother Nature's bounty of rain in order to refresh the land. A lot of humans are sorely taxing Mother Earth's ability to keep the oceans alive. We should seriously do something about this or this will come back to haunt us sooner or later.

Because of the esoteric properties of water, blessed or holy water is part and parcel of almost any religion. Water forms an important part of every initiation and ceremony, but you don't need to be so formal in taking advantage of water in your personal life. You can actually program water to carry energies of good health, prosperity and other blessings. Every time you drink programmed or magnetized water, you can keep on absorbing these blessings to achieve a specific goal or objective. Remember, our physical bodies are made up of 75% water. In Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics, there is actually an exercise whereby one blesses water (and food) in order to achieve certain goals.

Take note that as you can bless water, the opposite also holds true. This is why it's important to have a cook who is not so negative. Even food can absorb energy, and since we use water in cooking, even more energy, whether good or bad, can be absorbed. Haven't you noticed that sometimes the food tastes somewhat off, especially when there is fighting or tension in the house or kitchen? On the other hand, we've heard a lot of people say that there's nothing like the food that Mommy cooks. A mother, generally, only feels love and caring for her family and that tends to carry over into the food.

Masaru Emoto's research on the effect positive and negative thoughts and emotions have on water, particularly through his book Messages from Water, should already give us an idea of how much what we think and feel influences water. Since we are surrounded by it, and our bodies are literally swimming in it, our thoughts and feelings do matter. As we become more aware of this abundant, yet precious, substance let's keep using it wisely not only for ourselves but in order to promote the greatest good.

The Case of the Walk In Soul

Among the vast range of esoteric subjects, the topic of the walk in soul is among the most interesting and intriguing. A walk in refers to a case wherein a currently incarnated soul elects to leave his/her body behind (for whatever reason) so that a new soul may take over the body. Depending on what one's mental mindset (and religion) is, that alone should be enough to boggle the mind.

Supposedly, advanced beings use this walk in method in order to "hit the ground running" so to speak so that they may immediately start on their mission here on Earth. Such missions should benefit a large number of people, if not all humanity, because of the apparently complicated nature of doing a walk in.

The mission of the walk in could include introducing a new teaching that would help raise humanity's consciousness, or to organize a group or series of groups to do ceremonies that directly benefit Mother Earth, and so on. If the mission is really urgent and needs to be completed within a certain time frame, it would most likely necessitate a walk in so that the soul does not need to wait 10, 20 or 30 years of maturing before being able to start on the mission.

The concept of a walk in can be quite discomfiting because of the implications on the nature of close relationships such as with friends and most especially with spouses and children. Interestingly, I came across the Past Forward website that specifically discusses walk ins. I discovered this website through the Lightworkers in the Philippines Facebook community page.

Aside from a short explanation of what a walk in is, the website also lists 10 indicators that suggest a soul exchange has taken place. According to the website, if one has at least 7 of these 10 indicators, one is a walk in soul. These indicators are:

1> Extended Period of Unconsciousness While Ill
2> Some "Memory Loss" or Episodes of "Lost Time"
3> Dramatic Change in "Belief Systems" and/or Religion
4> Dramatic Shift in Interests and Spending Time
5> Inexplicable Acquisition of Talents and Abilities
6> New Approaches to Solving Unsolvable Problems
7> Overwhelming Evidence You Are "Not Yourself"
8> "Significant Others" Saying You Are "Different"
9> Sudden Leaving of Long Term Marriages or Jobs
10> Rapid Series of Challenging "Life" Problems

The owner of the website apparently does healing for complications that may arise from being a walk in. Also according to the website, there are more and more advanced souls doing walk ins in order to further assist in the ascension of Mother Earth. This makes sense, although the statement is hard to verify. One other thing the website mentions is that walk in souls will forget, either temporarily or permanently, that the soul exchange took place. If the soul's memory gets jazzed during the soul exchange, this sounds like it works against the concept of "hitting the ground running," and there have been accounts of those that didn't forget, but again there are many levels of truth so I'm willing to keep an open mind on this one. Most likely, whether or not the soul forgets is dependent on how advanced and "technically proficient" the soul is in occult matters.

Nevertheless, I'd like to compare three notable accounts of walk ins using the criteria listed in the website:

T. Lobsang Rampa (also see my T. Lobsang Rampa article)

Noted author who wrote 19 books on occult matters. The first 3 books described his life story as a Tibetan lama and described the circumstances that led to his transferring into the body of a British man, Cyril Henry Hoskin.

Lobsang Rampa apparently exhibited all the indicators except for #2 and #9. Based on the books he wrote, he didn't suffer any memory loss although it did take him at least a day to adjust to the new body. He also didn't leave his wife, although I understand they did not live like a normal husband and wife couple after the soul exchange.

Franz Bardon (also see my Franz Bardon article)

According to anecdotal accounts, as a boy of 14 (some say 16), Franz Bardon became very sick and was on the verge of death for a week. But he suddenly recovered and was different after that. His handwriting was different and his performance in school improved dramatically.

Based on this, it seems that Bardon had all the indicators except for #2 and #9. Of course, we are not really sure if there was memory loss since he never mentioned much about his personal life and early years, but the fact that he started to gain repute as a magician even at an early age indicates that either there was no memory loss or that the loss was of a very short duration. Bardon also met his wife after the soul exchange so #9 does not apply in this case.

Bardon's experiences at the hands of the Nazis and, later on, the communist government of Czechoslovakia is consistent with #10 and confirms the passage in Frabato the Magician that says the walk in soul must bear the karma of the "walk out" soul.

Drunvalo Melchizedek

Noted for his books on sacred geometry and the Flower of Life as well as for the Merkaba meditation, Drunvalo mentioned in his book Serpent of Light - Beyond 2012 that he is a walk in soul. He specifically mentioned that he experienced memory loss after the exchange but that his angels, who are also his Higher Self, tutored him until he started to remember.

As per his own account, it seems Drunvalo had all the indicators except for #1 and #10. He didn't mention coming from a serious illness or accident prior to the soul exchange, and there has been no mention of any intense life trials, at least not the same way Lobsang Rampa and Franz Bardon experienced theirs.

Based on the three examples above, it does seem to validate that one needs to have at least 7 of the 10 indicators of a soul exchange in order to start seriously considering the possibility that one is a walk in soul. It's good that the indicator threshold is quite high (7 out of 10 indicators) so that people do not mistake genuine character development and acquisition of skills and intuition as signs that a soul exchange has taken place.

If this topic is jarring your mind, like I said it's a very interesting topic and can take some getting used to. But whether we believe in soul exchange or not, it is still a serious esoteric operation and one that is not undertaken lightly. The fact that soul exchanges still seem to be taking place despite the difficulties for the incoming soul should give us encouragement that we are not alone in trying to make the Earth a better place and that such an undertaking is worth the very best effort we can to put into it.

The Legacy of Franz Bardon

"Franz who?" you may say. Admittedly, the name Franz Bardon may draw blank stares from most people compared to the name recall of personalities such as Albert Einstein or Mahatma Gandhi. Franz Bardon's reknown is mostly confined to a specific audience. Ask any occult student about Franz Bardon and chances are he/she would at least have heard about him.

In the occult community, Franz Bardon is best known for three books on Hermetic magic that have become occult classics: Initiation into Hermetics (IIH), The Practice of Magical Evocation (PME) and The Key to the True Quabbalah (KTQ). These three books represent the revelation of the first three cards of the Tarot, and are practical manuals on different aspects of magical development and universal esoteric laws. IIH lays the foundation by presenting a practical course of magical development divided into ten steps. PME builds upon the skills learned in the first book and instructs the student how to evoke different spirit beings. KTQ deals with the science of the divine word.

Another book, Frabato the Magician, is widely regarded as the spiritual autobiography of Franz Bardon (Frabato was the stage name of Bardon when he was doing magical shows in Germany). It is set in Dresden, Germany in the 1930s and details Bardon's encounters with a black lodge as well as the events that would serve as the foundation for writing the three books he is most known for. Franz Bardon gave the general outline of events and his long-time student and secretary Otti Votavova fleshed it out in the form of a novel after Bardon's death. This has led some to question the veracity of some of the events portrayed in the novel. It's often suggested to read Frabato the Magician first, but in my case I happened to read it last and it didn't detract from my appreciation of the whole series.

Other complimentary titles include Questions and Answers, a collection of Franz Bardon's answers to the most common questions asked by his direct students, and Memories of Franz Bardon, which contains the reminisces of Lumir Bardon (Franz Bardon's son) and Dr. M.K. (one of Bardon's direct students) about Franz Bardon's everyday life and spiritual work. I hope to acquire a copy of Memories of Franz Bardon soon.

So, just who was Franz Bardon? Based on the different accounts that I've read, it seems his story lies somewhere between history and legend. Franz Bardon was born on December 1, 1909 in the town of Opava, Austrian Silesia in what is now part of the Czech Republic. Later in life, Franz Bardon was arrested after running afoul of the Communist government supposedly because of his healing practice and the three books on Hermetics he had published. He died on July 10, 1958 while under police custody.

Franz Bardon's father Victor was said to be a Christian mystic who was able to progress to the point of developing clairvoyance. Victor prayed fervently that a guru (teacher) be sent to him to further his progress. Thereafter, it is said that the spirit of a very advanced Hermetic adept agreed to enter the body of then 14 year old (some accounts say 16 year old) Franz Bardon. Victor Bardon, being clairvoyant, was aware of the change that happened and recognized that his prayers had been answered.

If this sounds too fanciful, take note that the concept of a "walk in" is not as rare as one might think. T. Lobsang Rampa is supposed to be a walk in, taking over the body of Cyril Hoskin when his original Tibetan body became too worn out to continue his mission. Jesus Christ is also said to be a walk in, the Great Christ Spirit entering the body just before the start of his public ministry.

Why a walk in? Why not just incarnate normally? It is said that when incarnating in the usual way, memory is wiped and a lot of time and effort would be taken up just for the soul to regain all that knowledge before being able to start his/her mission. Supposedly, among the Great Hierarchy, a walk in is only done when there is a great mission that needs to be accomplished in a short amount of time. Of course, the soul of the original body has to be willing to vacate it and the writings say that the incoming spirit must bear the karma of the original soul (this would certainly serve as a motivator for the soul being asked to vacate).

Whatever side of this story you choose to believe, after the supposed change, Franz Bardon became a very exceptional student and displayed more knowledge than he was supposed to have. Many cannot explain how Franz Bardon was able to acquire such an authoritative and practical knowledge of magic, since no one can recall nor are there records of Franz Bardon studying under a teacher or being part of an occult society. This hasn't stopped a lot of speculation, though.

The 1930s in Germany saw the start of a crackdown on everything to do with the occult as the Nazi Party took over. Many say that the true motivation for this crackdown was so that the highest echelons of the Nazi Party could consolidate all occult power and knowledge among themselves. It's a historical fact that Hitler and other high ranking members of the Nazi Party were part of the Vril Society and the Thule Society, both recognized occult societies.

As World War II broke out, this crackdown on the occult extended to the occupied parts of Europe. Franz Bardon instructed all his students to burn all correspondence with him that had to do with magic and to lie low. One student didn't follow instructions, leading to their discovery and resulting in the arrest of both the student and Franz Bardon. They were asked to reveal their magical secrets and to help the Nazis win the war through occult means. Franz Bardon refused, leading both to be tortured horribly. At this point, the student supposedly uttered a kabbalistic formula that paralyzed the torturers, but once the effects wore off the student was shot and killed.

The Nazi torturers visited all sorts of horrors upon Franz Bardon, such as operating on him without anesthesia. Towards the end of the war, Bardon was sentenced to die but accounts say that on the morning of his execution Allied bombs hit the concentration camp he was in. In the confusion, he was able to escape along with other Soviet prisoners who helped him. Other accounts say that Soviet soldiers liberated the camp.

After the war, Franz Bardon became reknown as both a healer and Hermetic practitioner and teacher. It was also during this time period that he wrote those three legendary books. Initiation into Hermetics and The Practice of Magical Evocation both came out in 1956, one after the other. His last book, The Key to the True Quabbalah came out in 1957. Rumor has it that there were unpublished manuscripts revealing the fourth and fifth Tarot cards, but these were lost along with the rest of Bardon's magical possessions when the Communist government confiscated them upon his arrest.

What makes Franz Bardon's books different from other occult literature? If you've read enough esoteric works (historical or contemporary), they are often couched in obscure symbolism, contain incomplete information, or both. Franz Bardon's books, on the other hand, are literally complete practical manuals for magical development, without the flowery words or symbolisms. They are divided into theory and practice sections, so that the student will gain an understanding of what is expected and what is to be accomplished. Furthermore, they are structured so that even someone who has a job and family can practice them.

Although it is always ideal to study under a guru, Bardon's books do make it possible for someone to start the practice alone. Which doesn't mean that one shouldn't read between the lines, because there are as many lessons there as the ones that are printed out, but the veiling of these hidden treasures does not make the practical course incomplete. This is just my opinion, but for me no other series of books before or since can claim to have the same thoroughness and authority as Bardon's works when it comes to presenting a safe course of magical instruction and development.

If Bardon's books are so complete, why aren't all occult students practicing his system? Probably for the same reason why not everyone is a dentist. Some people prefer Wicca while others prefer shamanism and so on. It makes the world a richer place and that shouldn't be an issue. But more than just preference, one thing about Bardon's system is that it requires a large amount of patience, discipline and perseverance.

Practitioners of Bardon's system have stated that to get from IIH Step 1 to Step 10 can take anywhere from 10 years to 30 years. There is no Harry Potteresque spell you can just pick up and cast straight out of the book. You're not just learning a system, you're adopting a way of life. That alone would screen out a lot of potential practitioners, and just as well because it also serves as a safety device for such a publicly available magical system (you can buy the books at National Bookstore or Power Books for Php500 each, and if you're lucky they'll have the whole set; otherwise you'll need to visit several branches to complete the series but that's still quite doable). But even if one had no intention of getting into the practice of Bardon's system, it would still be of benefit to read Bardon's books even as magical treatises alone, because they do offer a lot of insights about magic and spiritual development.

Just how much benefit is there in simply reading Bardon's books? To give you an idea, all of Bardon's books being sold in the Philippines (except Memories of Franz Bardon, which is a recent release) are printed with permission by IIS Publishing, Inc. This is the publishing arm of the Institute of Inner Studies (IIS), the organization founded by Master Choa Kok Sui for research into the inner sciences. In Arhatic Yoga, there is an official list of recommended reading. Although Bardon's books are not in that list, the fact that they are published by the IIS automatically makes them recommended reading, because Master Choa did not have titles published lightly. That alone tells me a lot about the importance of Bardon's works.

In fact, one's knowledge of pranic healing, especially if one reads all of Master Choa's books, will help one make sense of a lot of Bardon's concepts and vice versa. Those who have taken the GMCKS Kriyashakti course will recognize one technique that can be found in Bardon's system.

Bardon's works have impacted the occult world in more ways than even most esoteric students realize. For instance, worldwide there are many groups that are making towerbusters, cloudbusters and similar derivatives. The key technology powering these devices is orgonite, which is supposed to absorb negative energy and transmute it into positive energy. Orgonite is made by combining resin and metal shavings, often with the addition of a crystal inside. In the IIH, Bardon describes a solid fluid condenser made from a mix of resin and metal. He says he learned this from the alchemists of old, but the fact that it is mentioned in one of his books and then orgonite now forms the basis of the orgonite movement is quite significant.

Before we move on, when Bardon says "fluid" he does not attach the same meaning to it as we would to "liquid." To prevent confusion, simply substitute "fluid" to "energy" so that "fluid condensers" are actually "energy condensers."

One other contemporary technology right now is radionics. Although radionics is typically traced to Albert Abrams (1863-1924), in Frabato the Magician there is an account of a black lodge using a device called the tepaphone, once to kill off one of its members and the other time in an attempt to kill Franz Bardon. As described in the novel, the mechanics of how the tepaphone operates is similar in principle to how modern radionics machines operate. In fact, the story of the tepaphone had inspired modern radionics pioneers such as Charles Cosimano (more popularly known in radionics circles as "Uncle Chuckie").

I attribute the flowering of my interest in esotericism to my introduction to pranic healing in 2008. It was in that time period that I collected Franz Bardon's books. But it turns out that 2008 wasn't the first time I had encountered Franz Bardon's work.

Back in the summer of 1994 (which in the Philippines is from March to May), I was in a summer practicum class where members of our class were farmed out to different local corporations so that we could have on the job training and experience and then meet in class once a week to discuss our experiences. It was a required class for the college course I was taking.

I was assigned to a company that had its offices in Makati City. The first day was just orientation, so we were sent home early. I was supposed to meet my dad after "work" in a nearby mall but since it was still early he wasn't there yet (and this was the time before texting and mobile internet). So I decided to pass the time in National Bookstore and happened upon the book Initiation Into Hermetics, which I bought.

Those were hectic times for me, so I didn't get to read much of the book and didn't even take too much note of the author. I was only able to read the first few pages and I remember getting into the section describing the soul mirror before my mom chanced upon me reading it. Since this was the first half of the 1990s, it wasn't that long ago since the "Dungeons & Dragons is Satanic" brouhaha and my mom was pretty much in that mindset then. Anyway, I put the book down, planning to read it again when I had the time but a few days later when I was looking for it, the book was nowhere to be found. Presumably, my mom picked up the book while I wasn't home and threw it away. I didn't know what I had lost so it was really no big deal for me.

Fast forward to 2009 when I lost my copies of Franz Bardon's books (as well as a host of others) to Typhoon Ondoy. However, one of my friends who happened to be working for IIS Publishing then, graciously gave me replacement copies of IIH, PME and KTQ. These were old stocks with the old book cover designs, which is why there were just gathering dust in the warehouse and why my friend was able to give them to me.

It was only a little later when I started reading them again that I recognized the old book cover of IIH as the same one on the copy I had bought back in 1994. You may ask why I didn't recognize IIH sooner when I bought the series again in 2008, and the reason is that the latest editions have totally different book covers, and as I said back in 1994 I was only able to barely read it before I lost the book so I hadn't absorbed the material enough to recognize it if I saw it again.

I guess in 1994 it still wasn't the right time for me to have that information. But it's interesting how the circle has turned. I am continually amazed as I go back to the books and focus on a section I only glazed over in a previous reading, only to discover something new about it.

I have heard accounts that say the books written by Franz Bardon were released a few hundred years too early. Be that as it may, his teachings have exerted a great influence in the occult world whether we realize it or not. This influence has helped different groups in uplifting the conditions of humanity and the world in their own little way. If only for this, Franz Bardon has already managed to fulfill his mission.

More than that, taken as a whole Franz Bardon's books on Hermetics provide the sincere seeker with the opportunity to develop the tools by which one may become a better Divine Servant. So whether one is a casual scholar or a serious student, and however one may view the accounts of his life, these books can easily be recognized as truly priceless legacies of that great adept called Franz Bardon.