[Help] Sanity and occult work

[Razzmatazz]

Hey, new to this forum, sorry if there's already a thread dedicated to this but I'm doing a quick poat before work to ask: what techniques are there to maintain sanity and stability in ceremonial magick? I've been doing this only a few months, but I feel I've made a lot of progress. Unfortunately it's had an impact on my sense of stability. I only feel leveled out when I stop doing magick. Everything I do magickally lends itself to this wobbly, untethered state. This state lends itself towards the practice of magick, but it makes daily life difficult. People ask me how I'm doing and I just stare wide-eyed into the ether and try to collect myself enough to give a normal answer. Is there an initiated secret I'm missing that could help with this, or do I just need to invoke more earth or another grounding power?

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Unfortunately, success in magic can lead to a lot of questions about 'normal' life. Since a lot of magic is basically 'hacking your own brain', it's possible to screw yourself up pretty badly if you aren't careful. As Grant Morrison put it: "you still have to be able to talk to people without scaring them"

 

[Razzmatazz]

Unfortunately, success in magic can lead to a lot of questions about 'normal' life. Since a lot of magic is basically 'hacking your own brain', it's possible to screw yourself up pretty badly if you aren't careful. As Grant Morrison put it: "you still have to be able to talk to people without scaring them"

I'll be frank, I learned magick on a months-long pot snd lotus binge that basically showed me how "normal" human consciousness is an illusion. I'm not necessarily afraid of being incompatible with society, and have considered monastic life, but I recognize that, if I'm to complete the work, this vessel kind of has to last long enough, and I've already done crazy stuff from this "nothing is real, everything is permitted" state of mind. I suppose then the question, as with every question, is a personal one: do I pump the breaks and meter this out over a few extra years to keep my job and social life a little longer, or do I pull a full Hanged Man and let 'er friggin rip? I guess I'm looking for tips and tricks to keep it steady long enough to actually rely on magick to propel my whole life, because last time I tried that ended in jail cause I was totally whacked out of my gourd.

 

[taschr]

I've spent a lot of time at a monastery, people came to visit every day having had some kind of destabilizing realization that they were unable to integrate in a healthy way. The common advice is grounding practices that widen and soften awareness. As I was at a Buddhist monastery, the go to approach was metta practice, radiating out warmth and kind feelings for oneself and everything around oneself.

You already said that easing off magic helps, try taking a year off and just focus on internal practice. Shadow work, metta, breath meditation, whatever brings peace and loosens the tugging feeling of discursive thought. You may even find Franz Bardon's work helpful, the first two steps of Initiation Into Hermetics deal directly in establishing mental solidity and he cautions that the magician who has not mastered this should not advance further in their training for exactly the reasons that you've discovered. I've also found his elemental magic practices in the following steps to be extraordinarily stabilizing and peaceful.

 

[Razzmatazz]

I've spent a lot of time at a monastery, people came to visit every day having had some kind of destabilizing realization that they were unable to integrate in a healthy way. The common advice is grounding practices that widen and soften awareness. As I was at a Buddhist monastery, the go to approach was metta practice, radiating out warmth and kind feelings for oneself and everything around oneself.

You already said that easing off magic helps, try taking a year off and just focus on internal practice. Shadow work, metta, breath meditation, whatever brings peace and loosens the tugging feeling of discursive thought. You may even find Franz Bardon's work helpful, the first two steps of Initiation Into Hermetics deal directly in establishing mental solidity and he cautions that the magician who has not mastered this should not advance further in their training for exactly the reasons that you've discovered. I've also found his elemental magic practices in the following steps to be extraordinarily stabilizing and peaceful.

I feel like a stubborn mule, but I absolutely do not want to ease off the magick. Even a day or two without the LBRP leaves me a wreck in other ways with my current life situation. It's kind of my lifeline for dealing with that stuff. Balancing myself internally and manifesting better conditions. I'm off the lunch shift now and I am feeling better, I can get kind of dramatic after intense ritual work. I appreciate the advice, and I'll for sure look into Metta and Franz Bardon.

 

[Nerone]

"Ars gratia artis" - art for arts sake.

It's something that can happen to the best of us, where we do magic simply for the sake of doing magic, loosing track of the "why" behind. I think it's valuable to have a systematic, compartmentalized approach and at the very least have a rough differentiation between practical go-get-shit-done sorcery on the one hand, and theurgic elevation of the soul to divinity on the other. The mantic arts, the meditative traditions and the psychological mind-hacks could be their own branches as well. There are many more arms to grow I'm sure. The point being, you should be aware of what exactly you're doing and why. Like a Hindu deva - each arms holds an item for a specific purpose.

And to be very frank, I do see a tendency to use magic as a form of escapism, especially in this rather decadent age - it's very grand and romantic to be a "Mr. Microcosmos" in a world of subservient spirits and trip out on tales of your innate divinity and kinship with the stars, engaging in metaphysical speculations and at times peering behind the flimsy veil of reality, only to be out of shape, broke and socially maladapted in real life. Rather than facing your internal crossing-of-the-wires and your external battle of establishing yourself in the world - utilizing the arsenal of magic to solve these - it becomes a mere power fantasy and avoiding real responsibility.

"Fantasyland is a nice place to visit, but a terrible place to live".

I do get what you're saying about that ecstatic state of mind though; it's incredibly pleasant to be in, fantastic for performing magic and doesn't lend itself well to practical affairs at all. Like drunkenness, really. But adaptability is the name of the game. You have to learn to shut it on and off, or at the very least finding that sweet spot in the middle, and you have to be honest with yourself about these things and not shielding your ego against any unpleasant realizations. You can breathe in Qi from the Earth through your soles all you want and hug all the trees in your neighbourhood, but there is an element of escapist power fantasy that can only be broken by being real and self scrutinizing.

"Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water".

 

[SerpentBakery]

Hey, new to this forum, sorry if there's already a thread dedicated to this but I'm doing a quick poat before work to ask: what techniques are there to maintain sanity and stability in ceremonial magick? I've been doing this only a few months, but I feel I've made a lot of progress. Unfortunately it's had an impact on my sense of stability. I only feel leveled out when I stop doing magick. Everything I do magickally lends itself to this wobbly, untethered state. This state lends itself towards the practice of magick, but it makes daily life difficult. People ask me how I'm doing and I just stare wide-eyed into the ether and try to collect myself enough to give a normal answer. Is there an initiated secret I'm missing that could help with this, or do I just need to invoke more earth or another grounding power?

In my personal experience, doing any kind of advanced practice is best grounded by understanding that the mundane and the magickal are two sides of the same coin, and by having a very good grasp of metaphysics (acquired both from books and from applying theory to life by, for example, tracing the geometric structure of mundane parts of reality). The best advice I can honestly give is this, OP:
Magic is all causality. You're not "hacking" anything - not the world, not your brain, not even other minds. You are simply pushing the bushes aside and discovering a dirt path that was always in the forest. You're not forging anything new, you are walking the same path that many feet before you have walked in various ages - simply, it is less common to deviate from the clearest, biggest, asphalt path (as is the case of most people).

Magical practice is not supernatural. It is entirely natural and that which created our world to begin with. Insisting it's supernatural is a projection of ego, not an objective observation of Truth/reality. This view tends to break your perception and detaches you from reality.

Essentially, if you can not relate the mundane to the sacred/magickal, you are breaking your own connection to reality and are actually making yourself and your practice less effective. You are actively feeling the effects of this. Your balance in perception/perspective and practice is clearly off, but it can be resolved. Some people are simply more sensitive to imbalance. This can actually serve you well later down the line if you manage to fix it.

If you want a good recommendation for a metaphysical text that helped me a lot, Thomas Taylor's translation of "The Elements of Theology" by Proclus is very good (in my humble opinion), though I do have synesthesia of a certain sort so it's easier for me to read. I know a lot of people find it difficult, but give it a try anyways and see if it helps. Whether you read it or not, I stress again:
You need structure and a ground to stand on.

 

[Faria]

what techniques are there to maintain sanity and stability in ceremonial magick?

1. Material Components. If you want to access XYZ spirit, power, whatever, do so through a physical object, spoken word, or something else that is NOT in your thoughts. Speak out loud. Do physical actions. Use material objects, tools, etc. This allows you to access magical activity when you want, and the way you want, rather than whenever it wants to come to you. No random thoughts, sensations, feelings, intuitions, any of that. See it, hear it, touch it, or forget it and regard it as bullshit. If it's real it will smack you in the face, if it does not, treat it as not real.

2. Demand Results. Don't just live in a magical world. Do magic for stuff, for anything you think it might do. If it doesn't give you the result you want, maybe don't take it seriously. If it doesn't do anything, treat it as BS.

3. Learn More. Most of the people who get overwhelmed by occult stuff are just ignorant of it. Learn it all so well that you know what parts are OK to laugh at and which parts should be taken seriously. Don't be led around by things you think are cool or interesting, but learn the boring stuff too. Learn most importantly where you are wrong, misinformed, or ignorant. For almost everyone I've ever known who really knew their stuff, when the deep problems occur, they recognize themselves as the major part of the problem, whereas less informed people tend to blame the spirits, vibes, or other esoteric things.

 

[FireBorn]

Couple things came to mind reading your post. First, its completely normal to want to go balls deep after you experience something that you feel in your bones. Hell yes you want more of it! Hell yes its addicting! Nothing cooler than the rush of magick, or the indescribable feeling of a demon in your presence (or whatever you are experiencing). That said, ask yourself what is it you are chasing, and is it something that can be rushed?

This is the cool part, you are asking the right question. The fact you are even asking is a huge green flag! When you stop asking that question, yeah that's a problem. The rational part of you is asking 'am I still sane? Is this even fucking normal? How can I talk to anyone about this without sounding like a fucking lunatic?!" That part is healthy and the barometer of your sanity.

No its not normal to do what we are doing. No, its not normal to feel spirit presence. What is normal is not slipping so far into it that you forget the mundane world exists, or cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.

The statement 'Before enlightenment, chop wood and water water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water' is perfect here. After any major working, or experience, do the mundane stuff. Clean the kitchen, cook food, drive to the gas station and talk to the cashier, etc. Do mundane things. There are some major benefits to this:

• Your nervous system needs to recalibrate itself, and doing normal mundane shit is perfect for that.
• Second, you need to ground yourself and doing mundane, normal boring shit helps move your energy around your body and dissipate the extra charge.
• Third, your brain needs a fucking break. Doing boring shit gets your creative, wild, magician aspect of your brain out of the way (opposite of magick) so you can focus on mundane activities, this way your subconscious can process what the fuck just happened. Without that, yeah, you can start to buy into the myth, the fantasy, and lose footing in the real world.

In other words, you must give yourself time to integrate what you learn and what you experience, lest it just be an experience and nothing more than that. You get to choose here, do you want to learn and grow as a result of this magickal path you are on? Or do you just wanna collect badges and experiences like a tourist?

Integration is a thing, and sometimes a few days without magick is exactly what we need. Everyone is different, but we ALL need time to process and integrate what we experience. All that psychology stuff isn't wasted here, its essential.

These are real world, practical things I use in my practice. Staying grounded is super important. I have seen a few go over the edge. They lost the thread back to reality. They weren't bad people, they just lost sight of where that line was and kept going. Its real, and it can be scary.

Hope this helps. Good luck.