The usefulness and practicality of journals/diaries

[Camecera]

Greetings. First, a quick self introduction I'm still a beginner, although I started in the occult back in 2015. Since then I had my highs and lows, and never had consolidated a consistent and diligent practice. I found WF in around 2015 or 2016, and one of my memories of it, something that grasped my attention, was a thread of a user, which iirc his username was "Angelo", where he would tell about his journey working with Goetia. That was great and very inspiring.

I understand that just by me saying that I'm still a neophyte would be enough as a answer for the following questions. Meaning that I just didn't put the time and work enough to see the effects and results of it, just for sheer lack of experience and practice, I see that I just can't comprehend the depth which something as basic and fundamental like keeping record of your progress could mean rn at this stage of one's magickal development.

wfa, I'm interested in knowing what other experiences and learnings people here might have with the practice of consistent journaling. It could be either a Ritual Diary, or a Dream Journal, maybe even an Astral Projection Record, and also Divination sessions. Anything goes.

• So, for you, what have you learned after recording keeping the data of your magickal and spiritual activities throughout your occult path?
• What was your expectations about it, if you had any, and how that changed over time?
• Is there something, some detail or insight, that you found that you overlooked as a beginner and you understood it after only years of practice?
• What difficulties or obstacles you had (or might still have) while maintaining a journal?

Now, my personal input.

I'm currently getting back right where I were last time I stopped working with magick. That was maybe about 3 to 5 years ago. I was mainly focusing on the program laid down by Kraig in Modern Magick, while complementing it with IIH on the daily practices . At the same time, I was doing Astral Projection development, mainly through a brazilian named Saulo Calderon (which is maybe one of the most popular person in this topic) with his course in his site named Grupo Viagem Astral (Astral Travel Group, roughly), which has its base on the teachings of Waldo Vieira.

This time I changed my approach and I'm focusing only on getting Modern Magick right. Taking my time and going slowly, with focus and consistency. One of the things I'm aiming to get right, it's the journaling part.

Back when I was first beginning I had this issue while recording dreams. I always had a very vivid memory of my dreams, and I couldn't get all of it in paper, because some dreams would take me about 2 hours just to write it down. I was describing the ambient and scenery, details and characteristics of people I met and talked, dialogues, my feeling and thoughts while I was at it, etc. Personally, that was very impractical for me. And this led me thinking I must not be doing something right, at least.

Rn, I'm only keeping a Ritual Diary with a Tarot Reading record aside. I'm thinking of getting back the habit of a dream journal, but I'm unsure how I would make it work this time.

Thanks. Sorry for the long text.

 

[KjEno186]

I had a false start with Modern Magick by Kraig some fifteen years ago. I was lazy. I still have a notebook with some dreams I recorded at the time, but I failed to keep any other notes on daily practice. It didn't last long.

My current practice, such as it is, has now gone on for about a year and a half. I use a diary program for dreams (I'd rather not have some dreams easily accessible to casual nosiness as unlikely as that may be), but a physical notebook for daily work. The thing with dreams is to record the highlight and details which seem important. I have written hundreds of words at times. I don't think it's necessary to do that unless it was a really vivid and easily recalled dream sequence. If I can only write a few lines for the night, well so be it.

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

I have a three year diary for a dream journal, and a leatherbound diary for rituals that have produced results.
I keep an online journal.since I'm online most of the time anyway, and despite the law of silence, hopefully what I post that others follow.my diary are given a peek into both my sides of life, the ordeals encountered, and how I rise above them.
I hope that it can help students avoid what I carelessly do, and what I do do that works. Vandheer and others have other opinions of me, but I recommend my diary, my journal be studied by new magicians. Pearls of wisdom lie inside.

 

[Yazata]

I too started journaling when working through Modern Magick. But after about a year of carefully noting the weather, the temperature, what I ate, how I felt, which planetary hour the ritual was done (etc..) I stopped that because I discovered I spent too much time going back, comparing, theorizing about what the determining influence was and sitting on my ass.
With the dreamjournal at that time I immediately wrote down everything as fast as I could (I have always woken up a couple of times each night) and the result was an unreadable and unusable mess.

Currently I only write down when I did a ritual, which spirit and goal and the date.
If something peculiar happens during the day I also write it down to see if at a later date I discover something about the date.
Example: earlier this month I woke up and my pendant had spontaneously detached from my chain in my sleep. I thought it might be time to start wearing another one (because I make pendants as a hobby and then stash them away). In the afternoon we had a thunderstorm. The pendant is a sapphire and I used the moment to reconsecrate it instead of replacing it.
Now, I'm writing something that deals with certain dates that are dependant on / found through your birthdate. And, yes, this date was one of my special days.

 

[Camecera]

Thanks all for sharing.

I had a false start with Modern Magick by Kraig some fifteen years ago. I was lazy. I still have a notebook with some dreams I recorded at the time, but I failed to keep any other notes on daily practice. It didn't last long.

My current practice, such as it is, has now gone on for about a year and a half. I use a diary program for dreams (I'd rather not have some dreams easily accessible to casual nosiness as unlikely as that may be), but a physical notebook for daily work. The thing with dreams is to record the highlight and details which seem important. I have written hundreds of words at times. I don't think it's necessary to do that unless it was a really vivid and easily recalled dream sequence. If I can only write a few lines for the night, well so be it.

About the problem of living with someone which might be too nosy, while recording stuff, I try to be specific as possible so I can remember it better, but when I need to be exact and precise, like using names, I always try to use some code, like changing their initials by an offset or even using other alphabets like cyrillic or katakana ( I know that technically this isn't an alphabet), or another language entirely, but that's rare. Also, I can use defined expressions that has a harmless mundane meaning on the surface, but I arbitrarily give it another. For example, let's say I had a sex dream with a person whose initials are X.Y.Z. I would write on the journal "I had a visit from my friend, A.B.C.". If I dream of killing someone, i could write " I bought/gave a gift for this person, D.F.G.". This stuff is entirely subjective to come up, the key is to maintain consistency on its hidden meaning.

The mores sensitive a topic for me, the more I try to hide it. I have a unfinished conlang that sometimes I use for this purpose. So, in the case of somebody trying to find what I'm writing about in my notebooks, even if someone would try to search for the translations of what I wrote in another natural language, they can't find the meaning of words I invented, and even if somehow they figure the word meaning, there still the grammar. But honestly, this sits heavily on the paranoic side.

I have a three year diary for a dream journal, and a leatherbound diary for rituals that have produced results.
I keep an online journal.since I'm online most of the time anyway, and despite the law of silence, hopefully what I post that others follow.my diary are given a peek into both my sides of life, the ordeals encountered, and how I rise above them.
I hope that it can help students avoid what I carelessly do, and what I do do that works. Vandheer and others have other opinions of me, but I recommend my diary, my journal be studied by new magicians. Pearls of wisdom lie inside.

That's amazing. I understand what you're saying. Even though some of this stuff should be personal and secret (although I think this is valid topic to be discussed about occult theory and philosophy), they can actually help others. Like I said earlier, there was this user "Angelo" that had shared his progress through Goetia, and that was one of my inspirations as a complete beginner. How it helped me was that I would say to myself "Ok. I suck now, I'm new to all of this and I don't need to be good and know everything right now. I'll just do what is needed at this stage of my development". This sort of thing.

If you don't mind, where can I find this online journal you mentioned?


And what do you think about your journaling experience since then?

I too started journaling when working through Modern Magick. But after about a year of carefully noting the weather, the temperature, what I ate, how I felt, which planetary hour the ritual was done (etc..) I stopped that because I discovered I spent too much time going back, comparing, theorizing about what the determining influence was and sitting on my ass.
With the dreamjournal at that time I immediately wrote down everything as fast as I could (I have always woken up a couple of times each night) and the result was an unreadable and unusable mess.

Currently I only write down when I did a ritual, which spirit and goal and the date.
If something peculiar happens during the day I also write it down to see if at a later date I discover something about the date.
Example: earlier this month I woke up and my pendant had spontaneously detached from my chain in my sleep. I thought it might be time to start wearing another one (because I make pendants as a hobby and then stash them away). In the afternoon we had a thunderstorm. The pendant is a sapphire and I used the moment to reconsecrate it instead of replacing it.
Now, I'm writing something that deals with certain dates that are dependant on / found through your birthdate. And, yes, this date was one of my special days.

How did you manage to solve this issue of overanalysing stuff?

To solve the readability problem, I had to focus on my caligraphy. Just writing cursive and improving my form. But sometimes the handwriting isn't fast enough to keep up with our thinking speed, so what you could do is: a)use a laptop/desktop (but you might don't like do keep a digital journal), b) use a typewriter. (For me it was great. It has the analog feeling of handwriting in paper, and also it gave me the speed to write like I'm on a computer keyboard. For archiving you could use a half A4 sheets --- also known as A5 lol , but I meant you can cut them in half, since the A4 size is more common to find --- and bind them later. Typewriters are awesome); and c) you could record audios of you telling your dreams to someone or to yourself. ( The problem is to manage the files, storage, etc, but you could later transcribe yourself somehow, or even use an program to transcribe audio to text)

 

[Yazata]

How did you manage to solve this issue of overanalysing stuff?

I didn't , but I did reduce the amount of info I write down in a journal. Last night I did a ritual with Lucifer (described in the thread "suggestion for August 1st") and I only put in my journal that I did the ritual, what the goal is, and that I made the offering and burned the paper afterwards.

 

[heavysm]

• So, for you, what have you learned after recording keeping the data of your magickal and spiritual activities throughout your occult path?
• What was your expectations about it, if you had any, and how that changed over time?
• Is there something, some detail or insight, that you found that you overlooked as a beginner and you understood it after only years of practice?
• What difficulties or obstacles you had (or might still have) while maintaining a journal?

I had to keep a ritual diary or journal since the very beginning of my magick study. I had to constantly evolve and grow my ritual method approach so that my rituals always kept the same focus and effectiveness, over time.

The only expectation was generally, that the magick had to work out, or else, I had to change what I was thinking and doing in general. This is quite difficult to manage over time considering how odd and crazy magick can be, especially for a starting, or novice practitioner.

Practice has now shown me that I cannot have that same sorcery ritual, power level as a beginning ritual practitioner, and that it basically only comes with practice, and over time. I was thinking that I could create highly effective and powerful rituals upfront, and in a way, I technically succeeded, but over time I came to see and realize that higher power and deeper internal focus for rituals might just come from doing a lot of rituals, and doing a lot of ritual summoning and evocation practice, over time.

The only challenge or difficulty I came across, was needing my magick to be more effective and stronger, and finding that my rituals just...felt less good or powerful in some cases, and that was merely from comparing my magick from earlier, to later rituals - but that was merely a consequence of ritual magick, and my growth over time.

Recording and charting, and experimenting with my rituals, and keeping a continuous active journal (ritual diary) has always been massively helpful, even to this very day.

 

[Konsciencia]

Greetings. First, a quick self introduction I'm still a beginner, although I started in the occult back in 2015. Since then I had my highs and lows, and never had consolidated a consistent and diligent practice. I found WF in around 2015 or 2016, and one of my memories of it, something that grasped my attention, was a thread of a user, which iirc his username was "Angelo", where he would tell about his journey working with Goetia. That was great and very inspiring.

I understand that just by me saying that I'm still a neophyte would be enough as a answer for the following questions. Meaning that I just didn't put the time and work enough to see the effects and results of it, just for sheer lack of experience and practice, I see that I just can't comprehend the depth which something as basic and fundamental like keeping record of your progress could mean rn at this stage of one's magickal development.

wfa, I'm interested in knowing what other experiences and learnings people here might have with the practice of consistent journaling. It could be either a Ritual Diary, or a Dream Journal, maybe even an Astral Projection Record, and also Divination sessions. Anything goes.

• So, for you, what have you learned after recording keeping the data of your magickal and spiritual activities throughout your occult path?
• What was your expectations about it, if you had any, and how that changed over time?
• Is there something, some detail or insight, that you found that you overlooked as a beginner and you understood it after only years of practice?
• What difficulties or obstacles you had (or might still have) while maintaining a journal?

Now, my personal input.

I'm currently getting back right where I were last time I stopped working with magick. That was maybe about 3 to 5 years ago. I was mainly focusing on the program laid down by Kraig in Modern Magick, while complementing it with IIH on the daily practices . At the same time, I was doing Astral Projection development, mainly through a brazilian named Saulo Calderon (which is maybe one of the most popular person in this topic) with his course in his site named Grupo Viagem Astral (Astral Travel Group, roughly), which has its base on the teachings of Waldo Vieira.

This time I changed my approach and I'm focusing only on getting Modern Magick right. Taking my time and going slowly, with focus and consistency. One of the things I'm aiming to get right, it's the journaling part.

Back when I was first beginning I had this issue while recording dreams. I always had a very vivid memory of my dreams, and I couldn't get all of it in paper, because some dreams would take me about 2 hours just to write it down. I was describing the ambient and scenery, details and characteristics of people I met and talked, dialogues, my feeling and thoughts while I was at it, etc. Personally, that was very impractical for me. And this led me thinking I must not be doing something right, at least.

Rn, I'm only keeping a Ritual Diary with a Tarot Reading record aside. I'm thinking of getting back the habit of a dream journal, but I'm unsure how I would make it work this time.

Thanks. Sorry for the long text.

Did you succeed with Astral Projection? You can do a lot on the Astral Plane. However, I'm still a beginner really. And, I can only do it when The Universe or God, allows me to do it. The night before. But good topic.

As far as, doing Journals, I can't keep up.

 

[beardedeldridge]

What I’ve found to be the most useful about journaling:

1) If you do magic throughout your life you will forget important items as the years move on. When it happens you’ll think that this life-changing/perception-shattering moment will always be fresh in your mind and that the memory could never dim. But the truth of the matter is that a huge part of you is still just flesh and bones and you will age and you will forget things. Journaling will also help you move those recent experiences into more long term memory.

2) Sometimes the important things won’t seem so important at the time and you won’t fully understand it until much later. Journaling allows you to return to that moment and make that connection when it’s time.

3) Journaling keeps you honest. Humans have biases. And you will either remember things in a way that makes it seem like the magic worked better or worse than it actually did.

4) It allows you to recreate specific rituals exactly as you did the first time or to methodically tweak the rituals when experimenting with them. Huge when doing spirit work.

5) Sometimes you will find that you just need to unplug and I find that by journaling everything that it helps me to simply let go and not to worry about what I saw/heard/learned/etc during a ritual since I know I’ve recorded all of it and can look at it later.

6) Helps me keep up with agreements I’ve made.

(couple of quick thoughts while I’m getting the family in bed)

-Eld

 

[RoccoR]

RE: The usefulness and practicality of journals/diaries
SUBTOPIC: The applicability of journals and diaries.
※→ et al,

In terms of references in the studies of Metaphysics, the Paranormal, Alchemy, Rituals, Mysticism, and Incantations both the Journal and the Diaries have uses.

(COMMENT)

The uses become especially recognized when assembling personalized Books of Shadows and Grimoires.

Depending upon the construction, Journals are equivalent to a scientific Lab Book. The Journal is convenient for scribing procedures and preparations. These types of Journals had graph paper on one side and ruled lines for notes and commentaries.

Diaries lend themselves more like a ship's logbook that a ship's captain might maintain. More suited to jotting down observations of a less scientific nature.

Just My Thought,

Most Respectfully,
R

 

[8Lou1]

i once wrote a journal in mirror and left it at work . the security department had a great laugh. i did the same with an other journal and left it for safe keeping at a friend. and now they call that going greek. i dont think they laughed.

what was actually the purpose for me? some situations in life needed help and that was all i could do: leave hints and tips in a form that creates privacy for the readers. cause of course they took a sneak peek and felt guilty for doing so. or not....

journaling and diaries online i think are the most silly form of make believe that you are writing in privacy. it makes people feel safe and open up while being online where everyone can read it. a written form where one uses paper, is to me more silly. why would i write and then noone gets to see it? is that even possible? whispers in the wind are still whispers in the wind.

what ive learned over the years is that its not up to us who gets it, but we do have managed to get women in the higher echelons of the roman catholic church and things have had really a big impact. there are def. spiritual and religious ways that have changed for the better. and forgotten pains truly are forgotten.

 

[Roma]

When first involved in more technical meditation I kept a diary of significant events in the meditation: scenes and messages.

The idea was to look back after a year and see which turned out to be real in the outer world.

Some did.

 

[DiLoco_DelEted]

If you don't mind, where can I find this online journal you mentioned?

I just updated it tonight, I've been MIA lately.

Post automatically merged: Aug 4, 2023

And what do you think about your journaling experience since then?

Well, on FB I get positive feedback on my progress.
In Zelator, three of your zodiac houses get broken, or you at least wake up to the damage, and have to repair them while doing all side reading, writing and side work.
Therefore, one kernel I give - never give up.
I've sat in that cold darkness looking forward to any reason to hang on.
I've had my financial and personal apocalypse.
But .. it gets better.

 

[Camecera]

I had to keep a ritual diary or journal since the very beginning of my magick study. I had to constantly evolve and grow my ritual method approach so that my rituals always kept the same focus and effectiveness, over time.

The only expectation was generally, that the magick had to work out, or else, I had to change what I was thinking and doing in general. This is quite difficult to manage over time considering how odd and crazy magick can be, especially for a starting, or novice practitioner.

Practice has now shown me that I cannot have that same sorcery ritual, power level as a beginning ritual practitioner, and that it basically only comes with practice, and over time. I was thinking that I could create highly effective and powerful rituals upfront, and in a way, I technically succeeded, but over time I came to see and realize that higher power and deeper internal focus for rituals might just come from doing a lot of rituals, and doing a lot of ritual summoning and evocation practice, over time.

The only challenge or difficulty I came across, was needing my magick to be more effective and stronger, and finding that my rituals just...felt less good or powerful in some cases, and that was merely from comparing my magick from earlier, to later rituals - but that was merely a consequence of ritual magick, and my growth over time.

Recording and charting, and experimenting with my rituals, and keeping a continuous active journal (ritual diary) has always been massively helpful, even to this very day.

It seems you might be putting too much pressure on yourself. I say that because of what you said about your expectations about your results. But at least it shows that your journaling practice made you be aware of that.

Did you succeed with Astral Projection? You can do a lot on the Astral Plane. However, I'm still a beginner really. And, I can only do it when The Universe or God, allows me to do it. The night before. But good topic.

As far as, doing Journals, I can't keep up.

Lato sensu, yes I had successs with AP. Strictu sensu, no. I'll explain.

It was a success in the sense that I learned a lot through my studies and practice, not only about the astral planes, the "Umbral" (shadow world/plane), our physical plane, but also about myself, my astral and my energy body, etc. This happened when I started to feel and sense the energies flowing through and around me, and also the exercises to manipulate the energy inside me to get into a "VE" (Vibrational State, what is called when you get all pulsating/jiggly/literally vibrating af, which is the state just before you get to do a projection. ).

At that time, I had a lot o astral projections that were meaningful to me and my learning. Not eveything I could fully remember, though. So it was like you said it, when God or the Universe permitted me to experience those. In this way, I had success.

Meanwhile, I don't consider I had success relating to my goal, which was to be fully able to astral project consciously, remembering the experience after, whenever I wanted or needed. In other words, I wanted to have control and master this skill, but I didn't.

What I’ve found to be the most useful about journaling:

1) If you do magic throughout your life you will forget important items as the years move on. When it happens you’ll think that this life-changing/perception-shattering moment will always be fresh in your mind and that the memory could never dim. But the truth of the matter is that a huge part of you is still just flesh and bones and you will age and you will forget things. Journaling will also help you move those recent experiences into more long term memory.

2) Sometimes the important things won’t seem so important at the time and you won’t fully understand it until much later. Journaling allows you to return to that moment and make that connection when it’s time.

3) Journaling keeps you honest. Humans have biases. And you will either remember things in a way that makes it seem like the magic worked better or worse than it actually did.

4) It allows you to recreate specific rituals exactly as you did the first time or to methodically tweak the rituals when experimenting with them. Huge when doing spirit work.

5) Sometimes you will find that you just need to unplug and I find that by journaling everything that it helps me to simply let go and not to worry about what I saw/heard/learned/etc during a ritual since I know I’ve recorded all of it and can look at it later.

6) Helps me keep up with agreements I’ve made.

(couple of quick thoughts while I’m getting the family in bed)

-Eld

Those are great insights. Thanks for sharing. I think I agree with all of them, especially with working with spirits and agreements.

RE: The usefulness and practicality of journals/diaries
SUBTOPIC: The applicability of journals and diaries.
※→ et al,

In terms of references in the studies of Metaphysics, the Paranormal, Alchemy, Rituals, Mysticism, and Incantations both the Journal and the Diaries have uses.

(COMMENT)

The uses become especially recognized when assembling personalized Books of Shadows and Grimoires.

Depending upon the construction, Journals are equivalent to a scientific Lab Book. The Journal is convenient for scribing procedures and preparations. These types of Journals had graph paper on one side and ruled lines for notes and commentaries.

Diaries lend themselves more like a ship's logbook that a ship's captain might maintain. More suited to jotting down observations of a less scientific nature.

Just My Thought,

Most Respectfully,
R

Have you ever done one with those characteristics of a Lab Book? Sounds cool. Do you tend to be too methodical and precise to record and analyse your experiences while using that type of journal?

i once wrote a journal in mirror and left it at work . the security department had a great laugh. i did the same with an other journal and left it for safe keeping at a friend. and now they call that going greek. i dont think they laughed.

what was actually the purpose for me? some situations in life needed help and that was all i could do: leave hints and tips in a form that creates privacy for the readers. cause of course they took a sneak peek and felt guilty for doing so. or not....

journaling and diaries online i think are the most silly form of make believe that you are writing in privacy. it makes people feel safe and open up while being online where everyone can read it. a written form where one uses paper, is to me more silly. why would i write and then noone gets to see it? is that even possible? whispers in the wind are still whispers in the wind.

what ive learned over the years is that its not up to us who gets it, but we do have managed to get women in the higher echelons of the roman catholic church and things have had really a big impact. there are def. spiritual and religious ways that have changed for the better. and forgotten pains truly are forgotten.

I understand what you're saying. We have to distinguish between the functions journaling have. It records your progress. It is a tool to externalize your thoughts and feelings. It also can be a way to communicate with others.

So, a online diary would not have all the functions that a personal/secret diary have.

Thanks for your input.

When first involved in more technical meditation I kept a diary of significant events in the meditation: scenes and messages.

The idea was to look back after a year and see which turned out to be real in the outer world.

Some did.

Are you still keeping that diary? And did you ever tried to switch the way/techniques/format to write your diaries?

I just updated it tonight, I've been MIA lately.

Post automatically merged: Aug 4, 2023

Well, on FB I get positive feedback on my progress.
In Zelator, three of your zodiac houses get broken, or you at least wake up to the damage, and have to repair them while doing all side reading, writing and side work.
Therefore, one kernel I give - never give up.
I've sat in that cold darkness looking forward to any reason to hang on.
I've had my financial and personal apocalypse.
But .. it gets better.

The hardests parts is being constant, to persevere, and also being totally honest with ourselves.

Thanks.

 

[heavysm]

It seems you might be putting too much pressure on yourself. I say that because of what you said about your expectations about your results. But at least it shows that your journaling practice made you be aware of that.

It might just appear that way because I am an occult and sorcery author now. I have always had to keep tabs on my magick and it might seem like I am very focused and serious about my sorcery results in general. That may be why it feels like stress or pressure on myself, but I assure you now...that the journey was both intense, but quite fun.

 

[Konsciencia]

It might just appear that way because I am an occult and sorcery author now. I have always had to keep tabs on my magick and it might seem like I am very focused and serious about my sorcery results in general. That may be why it feels like stress or pressure on myself, but I assure you now...that the journey was both intense, but quite fun.

I see!! Yeah it's hard.

 

[Roma]

Are you still keeping that diary? And did you ever tried to switch the way/techniques/format to write your diaries?

As I became more competent at inner plane activities I had other ways to validate my observations/actions so stopped keeping a diary.

The diary was just an exercise book in which I recorded more important events. I stopped after a year.