King’s Coronation Vow of Allegiance

A short comment about the coming coronation of King Charles III.

Some of us in the United Kingdom may be feeling conflicted about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation that we all take a vow pledging “true allegiance” to His Majesty. I feel conflicted.

Here is a perspective that may help.

Seen through a metaphysical lens the coronation is a grand event of ceremonial magic. The monarch’s aura will be blessed, suffused and linked to great angels, spirits and archetypal virtues. The archbishop and colleagues are the high priests. The crown, sword, sceptre and spurs are all symbolic artefacts which resonate to help anchor these blessings.

For me, though, I find the politics challenging. I am uncomfortable cooperating with an out-of-date hierarchical system of dominance, which has so many resonances of abuse. It is therefore difficult for me to pledge that allegiance. But I understand the opposing view held by loyal patriots.

I can however whole-heartedly support an invocation for love, peace, inclusion, justice and healthy governance. My heart too wishes Charles great good fortune and that his reign be a blessing for all.

So when I tune into the coronation ceremony, I will be praying for those high values:
Love – Peace – Inclusion – Justice – Healthy Governance

It could be a creative and positive magic moment.

Experiential Metaphysics Booklist V2

First, big gratitude to all of you who sent in suggestions for the metaphysics booklist. I have a draft now of what may be my final version. Of course you will not agree with all of them, but here is my rationale. Each book should stand on its own and not be duplicated in the list. The list is for experiential metaphysics – ie energy work, esoterics and psychic/intuitive practices. So I am not including books that are seminal for mysticism and general spirituality.
Here’s my twelve with one bonus.

1 Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
There are many translations of this literary and spiritual jewel. It is short, extraordinarily insightful and integrates a thorough awareness of the psychology of consciousness expansion with psychic skills (siddhis.)

2 Alice Bailey: Glamour: A World Problem
For many folk Alice Bailey, working as the secretary for the Tibetan abbot Djwhal Khul, is the most important esoteric writer of the last century. This book in particular introduces learners to the collective karma and psychic pollution created by humanity and methods for transforming and healing it.

3 William Bloom: Working with Angels
I didn’t want to put in one of my own, but this is the only book I know that makes explicit the nature of the deva world and a universal method for cooperating with it in all realms – home, healing, gardening, work, arts, industry, education. . .

 4 Jane Roberts: Seth: The Nature of Personal Reality
The Seth books pioneered the whole field of ‘multidimensional reality’, parallel realities and how consciousness unconsciously creates our perceptions and experiences of ‘reality.

5 Arthur Zajonc:  Meditation as Contemplative Enquiry 
There are so many books on meditation. This one is in our booklist because of its compassionate tone, insights into reflective practice and awareness of the metaphysical dimensions.

6 Barbara A. Brennan: Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing through the Human Energy
This is a very accessible yet deep introduction to energy healing and esoteric anatomy. With great illustrations.

 7 W.Y. Evans-Wentz: Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines
This is a mind-boggling description of some of the esoteric practices in Tibetan (Bon) Buddhism. Contemporary shamanism sometimes forgets the depth of practice in the Himalayas.

 8 A Course in Miracles – Book 3  Manual for Teachers
If there were only one book that spiritual teachers, coaches, psychics and healers, should read before working with others – this is the one. It merges inspirational compassion and psychological wisdom into a person-centred and immediately practical approach.

9 Thomas Sugrue: There is a River – The Story of Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce was probably the best and most accurate clairvoyant and psychic of the last century. His biography is an eyeopener for anyone wanting to follow in his footsteps.

 10 Stephen Skinner: The Compete Magician’s Tables 
This is an extraordinary work of scholarship that builds on Alister Crowley’s ‘777.’ It is an encyclopaedia of correspondences – showing the harmonic relationship between gods, goddesses, aromas, angels, numerology, colours, etc, from the world’s magical traditions. Essential for sparking and expanding the imagination.

 11 John & Caitlin Matthews: Walkers Between the Worlds: The Western Mysteries from Shaman to Magus
Anyone studying magic and esoterics needs to understand the entwining western traditions – the Middle Eastern temple tradition and the more northern shamanic/Wicca approach. This book, originally in two volumes, is a wonderful history with practical examples.

12 Starhawk: The Spiral Dance
If there was one woman and one book that broke through with the wave of feminism and Wicca, this is it. Inspiring, socially aware, wise.

 Highly Recommended
You should buy this book for the pure pleasure of its ambition. It is dippable and has lovely pictures.
Manly P. Hall: The Secret Teachings of all Ages
This is the ultimate coffee table book for esoterics. Beautifully illustrated (if you can, get the full colour version.) It is a treasure of encyclopaedic information about the occult and the mysteries.

 

Booklist for Experiential Metaphysics

Your help is gratefully needed.

I am putting together a reading list for a coming course ‘Experiential Metaphysics.’ It is the reading list for what we were calling a modern Mystery School.

Below you will see a provisional list. I hope to bring it down to twelve titles that students must read. The books need to cover the essentials: cocepts and practices.

Please put your suggestions and edits in the comments box at the bottom of the page.

Many thanks 🙏

 

A Course in Miracles: Book 2 Work Book and Manual for teachers

Alice Bailey: Glamour – A World Problem

Barbara A. Brennan: Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing through the Human Energy

W. Y. Evans-Wentz: Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines: Books of Wisdom of the Great Path

Dion Fortune: The Mystical Qabalah

George Frazer: The Golden Bough

Michael Harner: The Way of the Shaman

Marvin Harris: Cannibals and Kings

William James: Varieties of Religious Experience

John & Caitlin Matthews: Walkers Between the Worlds — The Western Mysteries from Shaman to Magus

Jane Roberts: Seth Speaks – The Eternal Validity of the Soul

Edouard Schuré: The Great Initiates – A Study of the Secret History of Religions

Stephen Skinner: The Complete Magician’s Tables

Starhawk: The Spiral Dance – A Rebirth of the Religion of the Ancient Goddess

Malidoma Patrice Somé: Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman

Rudolph Steiner: Knowledge of the Higher Worlds

Tenzin Wangyyal Rinpoche: Wonders of the Natural Mind – The essence of Dzogchen in the Native Bon Tradition of Tibet

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Trans Alistair Shearer)

72 Virgins and Ecstatic Spiritual States

Martyrs who die fighting for Islam are promised seventy-two virgins in paradise.

Scholars argue over whether this was actually ever promised in sacred texts. They debate too whether there was a correct interpretation of the concept. One scholar, Christoph Luxenberg*, suggests that a more accurate articulation would be something like ‘white raisins of crystal clarity’ rather than delightful virgins.

Of course, the whole idea is a metaphor for the pleasure that awaits the faithful in the after-life.

My own musings on this, deconstructing the patriarchal sexism, have pondered whether the promise of middle-aged, male virgins would be quite so alluring.

Fight the good fight and your reward will be a posse of clumsy, embarrassed and apologetic blokes nervously awaiting your advances.

Like geeks the world over, they might suggest that all your problems could be fixed if you would just switch off the machine, wait a few seconds and then switch it on again. A bit like death and reincarnation.

All of this is a preamble to a spiritual rant against certainty and religious indoctrination. Religious leaders, all leaders, should have higher ethical standards. They should know better than to manipulate insecure people with false promises. Seventy-two virgins!

*

There are essential tools that everyone should have in their tool bag of spiritual skills and practices. One of these is to be wisely sceptical of snake-oil salesmen, false prophets and spiritual teachers who offer certainty. To put it another way, people on the path of spiritual development need to be comfortable with unknowing.

The path of love, compassion and expanded consciousness, is full of mystery and unknowing.

*

I was in an enjoyable dialogue recently with a group of Jungian therapists. For me, that is a good mix: Explore archetypes and unseen connections, and care for people.

One very nice guy pondered that the path of spiritual growth seemed to him to be a complete waste of time. You end up, he mused, in this eternal, ecstatic, white light state. That was it. A brick wall. Nothing more. Boring. A waste of time.

I loved the provocation.

No, I responded, it is not like that at all. In my experience, and echoing many other mystics, what happens is this:

On our spiritual journey, we do indeed enter an ecstatic state. But it does not end there.

Using spiritual practices, we repeat being in that ecstatic state.

We develop those practices (usually in meditation) so consistently that the ecstatic state becomes a plateau, a normal experience. It is no longer a peak experience. We have expanded and that altered state of consciousness is now our norm.

Then, from that plateau, we continue to develop and grow. Our consciousness, our awareness of all that is, expands. And so we then, on a higher turn of the spiral, reach a new peak, a new plateau of experience

But that process of consciousness expansion and spiritual growth is always at an edge of mystery.  It is a mystery because we are not capable of comprehending what comes next.

That is the essence of consciousness expansion. To repeat, we are not able to comprehend the next state – because it is beyond our current level of consciousness.

We don’t know what we will meet when our consciousness expands. We can only guess at, intuit or imagine, what the next state of consciousness will be like.

It is an unfolding mystery.

So . . . Far from ‘enlightenment’, ‘samadhi’ or ‘nirvana’ being a boring waste of time, a brick wall, the end,  there is further exploration of the new — into something even more divine, extra-ordinary and metaphysical. It is an unfolding mystery.

It is essential then that we have that tool in our spiritual tool-bag, that we can be comfortable with unknowing.

It also calls for courage and purpose, wisdom, increased love, compassion and benevolence — as we melt and rebirth in the ocean of cosmic fire.

What could be more exciting?

*

Ah, asks the martyr, what about the seventy-two virgins?

The middle-aged geeks? I respond affectionately. I don’t think so.

The real reward is far more extraordinary, incomprehensible and enjoyable.

_______

* ‘Die Syro-Aramaische Lesart des Koran’ quoted in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview5

 

My Way of Making Important Decisions

A friend was recently faced with a life-changing choice. She was temporarily stuck as she weighed up all the pros and cons.
Looking for some support, she reached out to me and asked for advice.
The best I could do was share how I do it.

What follows therefore is the strategy that I use after I have done all my research and weighed all the pros and cons.

Recently, for example, I needed to decide whether I should take on a hefty load of new work. I was uncertain which way to go. From one perspective, it was a good idea. From another perspective, it was problematic.

*

 So here is how I make these decisions It is a process that I have used for a long time and it has proved reliable for me. (And God laughs when we make plans . . .)

 At the end of this blog, I am hoping that you might want to add your own strategies.

 Calm –> Question –> Answer

 Calm
If you know me, you’ll know that I have a mind that can just whizz away. It whizzes very effectively and usefully, but sometimes I just cannot find clarity.
So I have learnt that I need be quiet and have a calm brain when I am faced with difficult decisions.
If I am speeding, aroused or anxious, then I know that my adrenalised nervous system will skew my thinking.
Especially when it is a challenging or emotionally charged decision, I can find it difficult to get calm. I have learnt therefore to locate these decisions inside my meditation practice.
Sometimes, however, I serendipitously surf a calm state, for example, when out in nature, or watching television . . . I close my eyes . . .

 Question
Inside this calm I focus softly on the issue.
I check that my breath and body stay at ease.
I then pose the issue as a very simple and straightforward question.
“Should I do this – or not?”

 Answer
I then allow my body to either lean forward or lean backward.
If my body leans forward — it is a Yes.
If my body leans backward — it is a No.

*

It is as simple as that. I use my whole body as a dowsing rod, trusting that its intuitive wisdom will give me the right direction. (Like muscle testing.)

I 100% trust this process.

Afterwards I take no notice of any recurring anxious thoughts and feelings, except to comfort them.

Sometimes, when I am a few months into the new situation, I may have reasonable and rational doubts. I then repeat the process.
Also, of course, after a period of committed time, I may wonder whether it is time to exit. I repeat the process again.

 Always, of course, this is within an ethical and reflective framework. Do no harm. Be compassionate. Do not abandon. And so on.

 I hope that is helpful for some readers. And I am sure that many of you already use a similar method.

 If you have your own decision-making strategies that may help others please feel free to add them.

 

 

 

Draft Mystery School Curriculum

Following my previous blog on what a modern mystery school might be like, I received a wonderful engaged response. Thank you!

I now want to take a further step. I want to spend some time fleshing out the school’s curriculum. In the previous blog I made a brief attempt at this. In this blog I want to begin to expand the list. It is very rough. It is work in progress.

What I welcome from readers are suggestions as to what is glaringly missing.

GATEWAY
The applicant meets these criteria:
– My heart has opened and I prioritise compassion.
– I have a sense of connection with a benevolent cosmic mystery (known by many names.)
– I have a sense of subtle energies, patterns and archetypes.
– I am humble in the face of this wondrous cosmos.
– I am responsible for myself.

METHOD
There would be taught introduction-overviews to each topic.
Students would then do their own research and action-learning supported by tutor groups and masterclass seminars.
We would create a Wiki of resources from the world’s diverse traditions, ensuring students explore and find their own insights.

YOUR CENTRE
Map where you live – geology, landscape, historical maps, peoples.
Map where you were born – geology, landscape, historical maps, peoples.
What of significance is N, S, W, E of where you live?
Attune to the land. Give a gift or ceremony.

EMBODIMENT
Techniques of earthing.
How it feels. Purpose.
Inner smile – cauldron, bowl, tree of life, etc
Map what you know of your ancestry. Acknowledge/bless them.

EARTH, SUN, COSMIC MOTHER
Locate, map, acknowledge your place in space. Which planets? Stars?
Creation myths. Astrology

CONNECTION
Develop daily practice of connecting, yielding, emptying, surrendering, soaking.
Open-Close. Psychic protection.

PSYCHIC MECHANISM
Your mode of cognition and interpretation.
Reflective practice.
Oracles etc
Projection, imagination, perception, assessment, discernment

PLANES, DIMENSIONS, BEINGS
Metaphysical maps
Metaphysical beings, spirits, angels, souls, avatars, etc

ESOTERIC ANATOMY
Chakras, meridians, dantiens
Modes of healing

METAPHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION (OCCULT MEDITATION)
Daily practice of quiet scanning and interpretation

ENERGY WORK
Sacred space, magic circle, altar, grove
Ethics
Laws of magnetic resonance; correspondences; manifestation; talismans.
Channelling. Radiation, Invocation. Healing.
Cooperation

SOUL’S JOURNEY
Whence, why, whither?
Birth, life, death . . .
Contracts, karma, constellations

PSYCHOLOGICAL DYNAMICS
Ups, downs.
Dark nights, emergencies.
First aid.

OUTCOME
Deep daily practice of
–       Mystic connection
–       Metaphysical contemplation
–       Energy work (magic) that compassionately serves
+ Ongoing peer support and community