INVOCATION. The book launched right into something weird, although strangely familiar

The book launched right into something weird, although strangely familiar. As I read, some part of my mind was following along, moving me into the pages, imagining myself involved in actions described. This kind of imagination had an unusual effect, and there is now no denying that the book was the catalyst that began the remarkable transformations that brought me to this place and time.

Like many people, I usually read for enjoyment, to relax. Throw in a healthy dose of curiosity and you'll understand how I began. But something changed and I became so engrossed that I started, as much as was physically and mentally possible, to screen out everything else. As I began to realize where it was all leading, the room around me faded away.

In a roundabout way, it was a description of a place and a time where there were people whose lives began, progressed and ended as if each, on some occult level, was the inhabitant of a free-flowing mythology. Each sat or stood, feeling the air on their skin, seeing the things about them and the things that they imagined, hearing the sounds of life. One person in particular held my attention, for there was something in hir that reflected something in myself. S/he had found a place where s/he was alone, comfortable being alone, and where s/he could pay attention to the facts of hir own existence. The rush and bustle of action and thought that normally defines what we are, s/he allowed to drift away from hir. Free from these impulses, s/he could become aware of the things that had formed hir and the things that s/he could form and the way that s/he and the world about hir changed together. This was a process that s/he was learning, but now it seemed to come easily.

S/he drew a circle about hir and paced the perimeter, vigilant, guarding hir newly-formed temple from anything that might interfere with hir will. S/he drew in deep breaths and uttered strange words that vibrated through the circle, through the air, through hir body. Before hir, behind hir, to hir right and left, entities were called forth, protecting hir space.

Symbols of hir continued unconscious vigilance, they were as real as anything else in this place.

Somewhere deep in hir mind s/he located the resources of a being that was greater than any single man or woman, but was nothing more than hirself. The majesty of this being filled hir consciousness, informing hir with a will that was one with the blossoming of trees, with the snake shedding its skin, with water vapor crystallizing into cirrus clouds. With this molecular knowledge s/he filled hir circle, charging everything with congruent purpose.

Hir dance began slowly, a sort of writhing motion. It found form, moving to the sound of the planet turning, the rhythm of stars making galactic orbits. S/he danced the way a seedling rises from the earth, the way a comet's tail trails off in the solar wind, the way that a rock erodes in the course of a stream. And then, flowing quite naturally from all this, came hir song.

S/he sang of how the singularity of consciousness yearned to evolve, reaching toward the infinite void. A list that seemed endless, but was done in a moment, s/he sang the name of each element of the world, and was one with it. Part of what had been hirself rose and floated and played with the other parts of the cosmos, and each of these s/he examined, understood, and then released back to its drifting orbit.

And this expanded self gave hir the power, the will and the knowledge to further grow and expand. Hir song passed from the medium of sound into rainbow whirling notes of synesthesia that pulsed and flowed with the universal sparkle dance of energy. It filled hir and furthered hir will, its will, True Will.

And as I read this, I tasted hir exaltation, and felt the nameless yearning for what I had never known, had always known. From someplace I had forgotten that I could reach, came a flood of information so fast and full that I had no way to consciously deal with it. A few specific things began to rise to the surface, and these I could apprehend, holding each before my inner sense of contemplation. These were clear, dazzling, useful and alive. And as I continued to read the book, although it changed, took some sharp turns, and ran freely through a variety of subjects, these ideas resonated with the rest of it, in different ways and on different levels.

INTENT

Many humans are in an odd predicament. Our minds swarm and swirl with all sorts of wants and desires, but many of us really don't have any clear idea of Will, of a clear direction and purpose in life. If we examine one of the more common definitions of magick, " the art and science of causing change in conformity with Will, " (Aleister Crowley) it becomes apparent that the first task of the aspiring magickian may be to learn the answer to the question, " What is my Will? "

The first distinction that can be made is that between Will and desire. What you want is not necessarily your True Will. For most people (present company excepted?) desire, wants, whims and wishes may derive from immediate and transient causes, compounded by unexamined layers of cultural conditioning. For instance, can you imagine that you are walking along the street on a sunny day? The air is just the right temperature, flowers are blossoming, you've got some pleasant music in your head and you just plain feel good. Then you see, coming toward you, an attractive member of the opposite sex. This person smiles at you, you smile back. Now you feel really good. This person fits all the criteria that you have for a companion or a lover. Your heart beats with a surge of phenethylamine and you are just about to speak, to say hello and introduce yourself, when you trip in a pothole and fall to the ground, landing in a malodorous heap left behind by a Saint Bernard. There is a brief moment of physical pain; this passes and is replaced immediately by a strong feeling of foolishness and, most likely, humiliation. The person whom you desired to meet is now laughing at you. What had really been shaping up as a nice day has, you may think, turned to shit. The attractive person stalks off, chuckling. The humiliation turns to anger. Why couldn't s/he help you? You get up and try to brush yourself off, but the shit sticks tenaciously. You head back to your home, to change your clothes. You arrive at your place, fuming in several ways, to find a large envelope in your mailbox. The return address looks vaguely familiar, but you can't quite place it. It arouses your curiosity and you tear it open. Inside, to your astonishment, is a check for a large sum of money and suddenly the shit seems unimportant, your close encounter with your dream mate fades from your mind entirely, and you begin to smile.

You can keep smiling if you want, as we now consider the reasons for your present state of mind (either hypothetically in the above story, or for real, in the here and now). The reasons why the sunny weather, mentioned at the beginning of our little emotional saga, may make you feel good can stem from both practical and conditioned reasons. The practical is fairly obvious: " good" weather allows you freedom of movement and a degree of comfort which " bad" weather does not. Conditioned? Yes. Perhaps the nice weather reminds you of some time or times when something really good happened to you, when you had an exceptional time, good luck. Also, we have it drummed into us that sunny weather is good, rain is bad, etc. Like all things that we tend to categorize as " good" or " bad", it is really neither, but relative to our situation. If you have skin cancer, for instance, the sun is probably no good. If you are a farmer, you might welcome some rain if your crops need it. Now, how about this attractive member of the opposite sex? First of all, the attraction implies that you are heterosexual, or at least bisexual. This is a cultural norm in a lot of places, but not everywhere. Next come the reasons that you found hir attractive. Throughout the ages the conception of a beautiful human has changed as the needs of society have changed. At one time it was quite chic to be really, really fat. It was a sign of affluence. Have you ever seen a picture of the " Venus of Willendorf"? The obese female figure, carved in stone, is believed to have represented a fertility goddess. Compare this with the more svelte Venus de Milo. At the time of this writing, the trend is toward lean, " physically fit" bodies (usually, again, a sign of affluence implying leisure time to work out and, very probably, the money necessary to join a fitness club). We tend to form our ideal based on the images that we are shown, all our lives, of attractive people on television, in movies, rock stars, fashion models, etc. Other criteria for choosing a mate may be based on what we learned from our parents, how they appeared to us and related to us.

Well, all that was great, it felt good, remember? And then you fell in shit. Such a simple little thing, tripping and landing in the doggie-doo, but how it changed things! 1 don't think 1 need to list the reasons why this was unpleasant. Or do 1? 1 will just add that excretion is a method that mammals use to mark out their territories. We're mammals, remember? Smells are pretty subjective. What is pleasant to one is nasty to another. Some people hate the smell of fish; to others it conjures up thoughts of a sumptuous feast. But just about all of us hate shit. Draw your own conclusions.

And then there was the cheek for a large sum of money. That turned it all around again, didn't it? How can a few ink marks on a little rectangular form cause such joy and make us forget what, only a moment before, we considered to be a problem? Well, there's all the things that we associate with those specific ink marks: leisure time, food, material possessions, ascendence in the hierarchy of status, food. Food. Shelter. Clothing. How else are we to get these things if not with money? There was a time when people lived close to the land, if history serves us correctly, and they didn't have money. But they survived somehow, otherwise we wouldn't be here now. And 1 bet that some of them were even quite happy. The comfort associated with survival skills has been, in effect, transferred to the dollar bill. The salivation of Pavlov's dog is to the bell as the desire of modern man is to green paper. So score another for cultural conditioning.

Throughout the entire story, your emotional responses were not chosen with any conscious intent. You reacted as if preprogrammed.

Now, all these actions/reactions are, ultimately, neither good nor bad. Some of them have enormous survival value. Others are just... there. The point is that we often just accept these fluctuations of mood, emotion, cause and effect, without ever examining them.

Yes, that's right, you guessed correctly! It's now time to examine our cultural conditioning! We're going to take a journey through the cobwebs, cog wheels, hardware, software and accumulated debris of our consciousness. Despite the obvious differences of particulars between each of us, there are similarities in our formation of belief systems, complexes, imprints, ideologies, phobias and what not. (See Robert Anton Wilson's fabulous Prometheus Rising, Timothy Leary's Neuropolitique, and Antero Alli's Angel Tech for some detailed consideration, based on Leary's " Eight Circuit Model", of how we go about accumulating this stuff.) Cultural norms and beliefs are often quite randomly collected from schools, parents, religion, books, television, movies, newspapers, etc. I believe that we can consciously relearn these patterns and become something of our own creation, a work of art, if you will. Instead of allowing the state of our consciousness, who we are at any given moment, to be the result of factors beyond our control, I think we can play some part in deciding who and what we are. But first we must identify the existing patterns.

EXERCISE #1

First, it can be useful to enter a state in which we are conscious but removed from our normal patterns of thought. A basic meditation technique of almost any kind will serve this purpose, but, if you can, make it as nondogmatic and as contentless as possible (that is, if you use a mantra which has some kind of meaning, replace it with nonsense syllables or with numbers). The following pranayama (breath-control) meditation is a good example:

1. Yogic breathing: There are three areas of the lungs considered in yogic breathing. The top section of the lungs is controlled by up or down movements of the shoulder blades. (Okay, now, you can take a few breaths with just the top part of your lungs. Great.) The middle area of the lungs is controlled by expansion and contraction of the rib cage. (Yes, yes, you can take a few breaths with just the middle part.) The lower part of the lungs is controlled with movements of the diaphragm - the abdomen will rise and fall. (You got it - you can take a few breaths from the old breadbasket.) Different states of mind, emotional responses, and perceptual differences may be related to these different areas of the lungs. Make your own notes about what happens when you conduct these experiments. Now you can breathe with all three areas together. It doesn't matter which part you start with, just so that all three are completely filled when you inhale and all three are fully emptied when you exhale.

2. Using yogic breathing, inhale for a count of 5, hold breath for a count of 5, exhale for a count of 5, hold out for a count of 5. Repeat the cycle. Keep your counting as regular and consistent as possible. If it helps, time them by the second with a clock or stopwatch. It may also help to visualize the numbers in your head as you count. You can do this for at least ten minutes. Twenty minutes is even better. An hour at a time is the best. Start with a time that you can handle easily and increase it a little bit each day (Some people report that this is easiest on an empty stomach. Waiting at least 90 minutes after you eat is recommended.). Daily practice can produce the best results.

3. Write it down! All sorts of interesting and surprising things can happen while you're doing this. They will be of no use whatsoever unless you record them accurately. So record them! (For instance: what was it like while you were doing the exercise? Was it easy, difficult, or something else? What thoughts interfered with your concentration? How did you feel later that same day? ETC!) This holds true for every exercise in this book: Write it down!

The result of this kind of exercise, with practice, can be to still the internal dialogue, the flow of words, images and feelings which usually occupies our conscious minds. The state of mental and physical calm produced by meditation of this sort can provide a great starting point for the evaluation of your sell

Or such is my opinion.

Note: Please treat all such statements, suggestions and exercises in this book as experiments: If your results concur with mine, then we can begin to develop a workable theory and some basis for practice. And please remember that everyone is different and that some of this may have value for you, and some not. To quote the controversial occultist and trickster-sage, Aleister Crowley: " The method of science, the aim of religion." Conduct your work scientifically. Suspend judgement until you have performed the experiment and the results are in.

That said, we can now continue with:

EXERCISE #2

1. Meditate (as in Exercise #1) for a little while. When you are relaxed and comfortable, you can read the following section that is printed in bold type. As you read, allow your mind to make whatever associations it makes. As thoughts, images, feelings or words arise in your consciousness, you can pause from reading to examine it/them. If a strong chain of associations follows this examination, let it flow. Examine each thought that arises in your mind carefully, then you can allow yourself to return to your reading. Take whatever time is necessary to complete this.

2. Can you think how you came to be here, where you are now? You are looking at a book reading this exercise. Possibly you are seated in a comfortable chair or an uncomfortable one, at home or elsewhere. The place and time are yours, unique. The laws of physics declare that nothing else can be in the exact place that you are, at the same time. But how does it happen that you are here, now? Can you trace back, in your mind, the series of events that brought you here? The factors that have influenced the situation include your decision to read this book, which, in turn, was influenced by your taste and interests in literature, philosophy and recreational activities, which was, in turn, influenced by your education, the preferences of your parents, their education, their teachers, their teachers' teachers, back to events which occurred before your birth, and further back into the remote past. A similar train of thought can be followed to show the cause of your present location in space: the price of rents, cost of real estate in the area, your income, your occupation, the national economy, your education, your place of birth, your parents' place of birth, etc. We can, if we desire, follow such a chain of events back to the formation of the planet, the solar system, and whatever were the causes which shaped the universe as it is now.

With enough patience, your unique situation can be explained as the result of an infinite (or a practically infinite), interdependent series of cause-effect relationships. The outcome, the place and activity in which you rind yourself now, is not accidental. You can think of it as the logical outcome, for you, of the sum total of all existence.

3. Write down your responses to this.

A good deal of information about the kinds of cultural conditioning which we may exhibit is implicit in our language. Any given sentence contains many presuppositions which would give a linguistic detective who had never met you enough clues to learn much about your culture.

Let the above sentence provide an example: " Any given sentence" implies that this is not the only sentence, that additional communication is indeed available. This is very good news for the linguistic detective, who, we must assume by virtue of hir job description, has knowledge of language and would be out of a job without things like these sentences. " Many presuppositions" which are " enough clues" implies that there is someone to do the presupposing, that minds, at least of linguistic detectives, can function in the analysis of language. The sentence presumes that your culture actually contains enough different things to make this exercise worthwhile. The idea of a presupposition assumes that we take things for granted. The concept of a detective implies that people do not always reveal everything that might be learned. That s/he is referred to as a " linguistic" detective strongly suggests that there very well might be other kinds of detective, also that the writer of the sentence believes that the surface structure of language does not always reveal everything that might be learned. Therefore I may deduce that whoever wrote that sentence believes that s/he lives in a culture where language and behavior do not always reveal everything without study. The expository style suggests that the writer believes that possibly there is someone out in hir reading audience who does not know this.

For our purposes we can consider two general types of deductions that our detective can make: Sensory Based, and Dangerous Hallucinations. The sensory based deduction is the most useful to the detective in maintaining an objective study of hir subject. Dangerous Hallucinations reflect more about the culture and conditioning of the detective. The above analysis of " Any given sentence..." itself will undoubtedly provide a few clues about the detective who did the analyzing.

Dangerous Hallucinations are as common as they are dangerous. For instance, that person smiling at you just now may not be happy (a common idea assumed from a smile), s/he might be a used car salesman trying to con you. A politician may be adept at producing a gentle, fatherly or motherly kind of hallucination (or " media image") in hir listening or viewing audience, when in fact s/he is a double-dealing megalomaniac (a quick review of history, ancient and recent, should provide a few examples of this).

Sensory based deductions have their foundations only in what is immediately available to the senses, without making inferences or projecting from past experience. That is, our sensory based description of the smiling person, above, is that " hir mouth is turning up at the comers." Even the word we have been using, " smiling", is a bit far fetched for our objective detective. Who knows, really? The person may have a muscle or nerve disorder which makes hir mouth like that.

Let's find presuppositions in some simple sentences:

I like the cat. 1. there is something called a cat. 2. this cat can be either liked or not. 3. there is someone, " I", capable of liking a cat. 4. the cat is being liked in the present (like as opposed to liked.) Beware of hallucinatory inferences: we cannot say that it was a pet cat, for instance; we don't even really know if we are talking about a domestic animal here - it may be a lion, a drawing of a cat, or the writer may have been referring to the fact that s/he enjoyed having the cat for dinner. It is too much of a generalization to say that, for instance, the person " I" is an animal lover; this may be the very first cat s/he has ever liked. We are also left hanging on the " where? " question - we can't even say, " in a place where there is a cat, " because the speaker may be discussing a distant feline.

The dog ate the cat. 1. there is something called a cat. 2. there is something called a dog. 3. the dog is capable of eating. 4. the cat is capable of being eaten. 5. the writer of the sentence believes that s/he has enough sensory evidence to make the statement. 6. it took place in the past. Dangerous Hallucinations: that the dog was bigger than the cat. That the dog gained nutrition from the cat. That the speaker, for instance, was not using American slang to describe an interspecies sex act.

Of course, while striving to avoid Dangerous Hallucinations in your own analysis, you may note quite a few in the material which you are analyzing. Dangerous Hallucinations found in language often result from distortions, generalizations and deletions. They will raise unanswered questions: what? where? how? when? who? They may include fallacies of scope: " Everybody hates me." Question: Everybody? Absolutely?

Here's another sentence of a kind which seem almost designed to produce Dangerous Hallucinations:

We must all unite in our hate of the drug menace. 1. We? Who? 2. Must we? What makes that necessary? Who says? 3. We all hate the drug menace? All of us? 4. Who is being menaced? 5. What drug? I understand that there are many of them.

EXERCISE #3

1. Examine your written response to Exercise #2. Take it sentence by sentence and look for presuppositions, both sensory based and any dangerous hallucinations which you may have made in your writing.

2. Write down these presuppositions.

3. Look for patterns in the presuppositions which can help you make deductions about your culture and/or cultural conditioning. Imagine that you are an extraterrestrial being viewing evidence of a human for the first time. Imagine that the alien (you!) comes from a culture radically different from yours. Write your deductions from this viewpoint, if you can.

4. Examine your deductions, but, for now, you can suspend judgement or action on them. Keep them in mind, however, in case you find some corroborating evidence.

5. Go back to your analysis at a later time and see if you can find any Dangerous Hallucinations in it.

6. Keep in mind that this kind of analysis takes practice to perfect. You can practice it, however, at any time since we are almost always confronted with examples of language. Practice on your own language.

Practice on your friends (but keep your conclusions to yourself, unless they ask for it). All this requires, at any given moment, is some conscious attention.

The kind of self-analysis involved in the last two exercises, may, for some people, dig up those twin pillars of medieval thought, determinism and free will. Either we have arrived at this particular point in space/time as a result of processes beyond our control, these folks might say, or we have arrived here/now through our own efforts. I would like to propose, again, a relative view. Both determinism and free will may exist, but neither of them apply to everyone at the same time. Some people bounce off the bumpers of life, like a pinball with no volition of its own; others are able to assess the factors that are affecting them, learn how to control these factors and thereby take control of their lives. It is an unfortunate fact of life on Earth today that the overwhelming majority of people are like that pinball - they are born into the world, randomly roll through the chutes of education, bounce off an occupation or two, watch video for a while and then roll down into that final hole. This is our lot unless we can learn to develop some kind of individual autonomy or sense of Will.

And so we return to the question, " What is my Will? " As we move on to consider various techniques for developing our own rituals and meta-programs, everything that we do will be informed by our progress in answering that question. Our initial efforts at designing ritual can be aimed at just such a. goal: determining True Will.

All right then, you say, tugging impatiently at my sleeve, how do I find my True Will?