QUESTING METHODS

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  • #1677

    Ok, this is going to be a vast topic. What works for one person doesnt neccessarily work for another… because we all have individual minds; but there has to be common ground.

    Sometimes, in the past, when questing, you have to wear many different costumes. That is if you are investigating Christian stuff, then act and think like a christian; but if you are investigating 18th century Hell Fire clubs, well then, break open the Brandy and take your trousers off! :lol:

    Seriously though… When in Rome.

    For instance, you might want to do a Kabbalistic Cross visiualistaion before do a meditation but that would be very ‘out of tune’ if you were investigating Pre-Roman Britain; or norse shamanism

    So my first rule would be to wear the right clothing to the right party

    As for meditation techniques; well there are hundreds arent there really; in many ways you have to just make it up on the spot; but at home, when you are not questing, it is good discipline to be finding 5 minutes a day to just be silent and still your mind.

    Gentle, un-concentrated, peace.

    Dont go off to nirvana, or float away with the fairies. Just be grounded, feet on the ground, quiet, aware, you. Breathing in and out, steadily and peacefully.

    Whether you look for Yoga training or Tai Chi training or something else similar doesnt really matter; but practice having a silent , receptive mind.

    Then when you are questing, (if you have made it a daily habit) then you can ‘fall’ into the right frame of mind very quickly and with ease.

    I practice Tai Chi and there are many breathing techniiques that help you to have calm and peaceful concentration; but there are many methods, you just have to shop around for the right one for you.

    What I have learnt is that if you go somewhere with the wrong attitude, an impatient mind, or a mind TOO FULL OF QUESTIONS, then you wont get any where, you must practice gentle, stressless, mindfulness.

    (If you can find 5 minutes every day to clean your teeth, then surely you can find 5 minutes a day to silence your mind and give it the ‘space’ it needs to function well; uncontaminated by all the mundane worries of life)

    This is what I strive for;

    The final tip is that wherever you go; try not to be there as an ‘outsider’ try and FEEL the place, location and practice feeling empathy for your surroundings… You have to be able to listen and you cant listen if you have a preconcieved attitude already.

    #1801

    Hi

    This will sound totally off the wall but what I find helps me clear my mind depends on my mood. I especially find drum and base works well. I can also meditate to claming music (usually Enya something like that)

    Regards

    Stuart

    #1802

    What both styles of music have in common is a cyclic rhythmn which the mind finds stabalising and reliable; as opposed to loud noisey distractions where there is no repeated pattern… this is chaotic… So even loud drum and base, is going to work; ultimately what really matters is that you feel calm inside, the external environment around you isnt important.

    Welcome to the forum

    #1807

    Having just read about the use of various plants to gain access to the otherworld, I am wondering if anyone here has used or knows of someone else who has deliberately used mild-altering substances (trying to use a neutral term) for questing purposes?

    Also, do people think alcohol has a positive or negative effect (or neutral effect) when engaged in questing; I would guess that if you can’t stand up that is probably negative, but I’m interested if anyone has an opinion on the use of modest amounts of drink.

    #1809

    Hiya

    Personally I have not used such ‘items’ with regarding questing. As most youth’s do I did dabble some time ago (20ish years) but usually ended up throwing up everywhere. Not a very nice feeling.

    Regarding alcohol in reference to questing I suppose that the majority of people its probably a No but its personal tastes/circumstances I know peeps who have had two or three pints and still are able to do what they have to do. Personally if I know I am going to do this then I will not touch alcohol at all until after doing what I have to do. Sometimes its a must after to help clm the adrenaline running round the system.

    Regards

    Stuart

    #1811

    I think that alcohol can be a useful tool. What it does very well is bind together the people and foster that sense of camaraderie. This can be very useful if the people on the quest don’t know each other very well and you need to break the ice quickly. The real problem with alcohol is where it’s used to blot out emotional issues.

    As I’m not particularly psychic myself I can’t say if it degrades the sensitivities or not. In my own personal cirumstance my everyday conscious is pretty strong so a little dulling of with alcohol it is helpful to allow my more intuitive side to emerge.

    As regards other drugs I have to admit that I’m a bit of a coward. Although I have inhaled much cannabis (oops – there goes my career in politics) I had a very scary experience a long while ago in Canada where I had been conducting past life regressions amongst a gang of stoned friends when one of them was temporarily possessed and when the guy (having smashed through glass coffeee tables and basically been writhing around despite several strong guys trying to hold him down) finally calmed down, I felt the evil spirits come after me and begin drawing me out of my body. I ended up in a sweat, lying face down in the grounds of a church with my fingers embedded in the ground on the basis that they couldn’t “get me” there.

    In retrospect the hash resin appeared to have been dipped in some black substance but it was enough to scare me off more or less permanently.

    Having said all that I have had good reports of Questing and magic mushrooms…

    #1814

    Simon, your story is the kind of thing many of my co-religionists would sieze on to show that the “occult” (whatever that is) is satanic. As it involves drugs as well that’s a double-whammy! So, did clawing your way into consecrated ground work? Or are you still possessed? :twisted:

    I suppose the moral is to use protection. I am curious as to the different methods of protection people employ and views on their effectiveness. I am familiar with the “cone of power”, the kabbalistic cross and the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, as well as a variety of Christian protections such as the sign of the cross, caim prayers, variations on St Patrick’s breastplate and plain ol’ prayers (I won’t bore anyone with the details of these unless asked – they aren’t particularly special). Of course, it could be argued that the kabbalistic cross and pentagram ritual are Judeo-Christian as they invoke Hebrew god-names and angelic forces. Hmmm, a potentially interesting discussion on the distinction between religion and magic in there somewhere.

    Yuri, re your comment on using contextual methods, do you have any nice examples? What you say reminds me of the Thelemic redactions of the pentagram rituals, where the Hebrew divine names are replaced with Thelemic names. I suppose you could do the same with any other mythos, though I guess you would need to think about it beforehand to get your correspondences right (and you always need to know which way is north!). The cone of power seems fairly mythos-neutral as it doesn’t invoke anything except light, which is perhaps why Andrew Collins seems to use it in his books a lot.

    I’m not trying to over-compicate things, I’m just nosey about what people are doing.

    Otherwise I agree with Simon on the benefits of alcohol, both as social lubricant and mind-relaxant. I have never used any other drug however, unless people want to discuss the uses of paracetamol.

    #1815

    Hi Supernaturalist,

    I hear what you say about the “occult” but in fact it all started off quite innocently with a bit of a laugh and me inducing some folk into a past-life regression trance. There wasn’t even a ouija board in sight. :) But as I induced this one guy a really bad atmosphere built up and then as he started crashing around the apartment things got out of control. We called the ambulance and that brought the situation back to a temporary stability but the bad atmosphere continued and that was when I had the “spirits” come back for me!

    Thankfully, I won the tug-of-war battle and my aetheric self finally stayed in my body (although there were some very scary moments as I felt myself being dragged away and was “looking down” at my physical body). 8O There was a great line recently on Mark Kermode’s film review radio show where they asked his mother if, because he is so into horror films, she had ever worried that he was possessed. Her reply was “No…but he had his moments.”

    Although it scared the crap out me that episode taught me several lessons (which I should have known anyway – but sometimes you just need to experience something before you really pay attention) like “Never buy drugs from an unknown source in a strange city – especially if they don’t look like you expect them too.” Seriously, though, I would say that any intense psychological/parapsychological investigation should be done with people you know very well or who are “vouched for” by people you trust. Everyone has their own issues but if someone is going through a particularly unbalanced phase you need to at least be aware of this and ideally keep them out of any major action.

    Also be wary of mixing different things that all alter your consciousness. In my case it was hypnosis (I’m putting past life regressions in this category) and hash. Sometimes this will be exactly what you are trying to achieve but it helps if you don’t blunder into it like I did and have the necessary preparation in place.

    The church ground thing was interesting. It exposed my own hypocrisy in that at a conscious level I would scoff at the idea of mass and church but when the chips were down that’s where I turned for protection (and yes it did help). Since then I have tried to go with the flow and with what works for me – regardless of how aesthetically unpalatable it seems to my conscious mind.

    A case in point is one of my techniques for protection. I have two crystals – a rose quartz and a lapis lazuli – and when I want to cast a cone of protection around myself (or a group) I keep these somewhere about my person then visualise them starting to orbit my body, gradually circling it faster and faster and leaving a trail of light behind them, then they begin to move up and down (still circling) until the body is cocooned by the light-path made by these whirling crystals.

    Now this is something I cobbled together from a number of sources (including Andrew Collins and any number of sci-fi movies) by chance and intuition. To my conscious, sceptical mind crystals are one of the worst, most embarassing of New Age whimsies but, for some irritating reason, they work for me and so I have to live with that.

    (Personal aside: I find a similar thing with prayer. As a typical Irish Catholic I have rebelled against it all my life but the inescapable fact is, if I want to get into a meditative state quickly, then I have a sequence of corny old (mostly children’s) prayers that do it for me every time. A cynical interpretation is that maybe my brain has just learnt to “tune out” as soon as it starts hearing Catholic prayers – a skill carefully honed after years of reluctant attendance at mass. But it’s still a useful trick regardless of how it arose and why should I fight it or spend another 20 years developing a similar faculty in another paradigm just to achieve what I can already.)

    As I think I mentioned in another post, the shamanic drumming thing does also seem to work quite well for me but (having now learnt my lesson) I would want some guidance from a more experienced person before I did too much delving into the otherworld – particularly if hallucinogenics were involved.

    #1817
    Quote:
    Simon, your story is the kind of thing many of my co-religionists would sieze on to show that the “occult” (whatever that is) is satanic

    Just a little note aside, ‘Satanism’ is an aspect of Christianity, Satan being part of that mythos. If a group of people are doing something percieved of as ‘dark’ it can only be called Satanic if they are invoking ‘old Nick’… Otherwise, its an erroneous descriptive of self destructive behaviour.

    Regarding Alchohol; I think that its different for different people. A couple of drinks to relax is ok but I have found that as certain drugs ‘Open’ up door in ones head, that alchahol usually ‘Closes’ those same doors… That said, I know of one well nown psychic whose material most people here would be familiar with, was acquired through extreme bouts of drunken binging… I’ll say no names…. the results, although interesting I do not consider worth the price to ones health… the person mentioned has nearly killed themselves.

    Psychic Protection? Most methods originate from either Christian methods of keeping evil away, or come from a High Magic Golden Dawn or Crowley-esque origin… Again, really whatever works for you. Hitler believed that he was protected by destiny and so a a messenger carrier, would run accross the open battlefield with no bullets hitting him… I guess what I am saying here is that its just down to belief. I tend to be quite arrogant in the sense that I feel that (until my alotted time comes) no bad nasties can touch me. So I dont really bother with protection. If I saw a freind struggling then I would try and concentrate ‘light’ around them, but thats about it . Mostly I work alone. I think things like Cones of Power are useful, less for protection, but rather for holding a group of minds into one collective whole.

    #1818

    Just a quicky, as I feel like my ‘satanic’ comment might have been misunderstood. I don’t think there is anything evil about the occult/psychic work, whatever you want to call it. I wouldn’t be on this forum if I did! And I agree with Yuri about satanism being more of a Christian heresy than anything else.

    Re psychic protection, Yuri – I like your style! It may well be that the strength of your own “faith” (for want of a better word) does the trick just fine. I have been toying with the idea that the various methods of protection reinforce ones own self-belief – an aid to faith if you like, as well as aid in creating a mental frame of mind conducive to psychic/spiritual work. But then again, Simon’s story might be saying that we do need a boost from time to time.

    #1819

    imported_rw
    Member

    Hi all, just to follow on from Yuri’s answer on protection methods. I find it works well to use protection that relates to the general ‘theme’ of the quest.
    For example, if i am involved in a quest involving Christian Saints, and something happens to warrant a psychic protection, i will call on a saint, probably one that is pertinent to the quest, or has the particular attributes to protect in a specific way against a specific threat. If the quest involves Ancient Egyptian archetypes, then i would perhaps call on Horus (particularly if the percieved threat involved Set). This way there is no breaking of the subject thread of the quest which could otherwise be disrupted.
    At the end of the day, as Yuri rightly says, the protection you psychically give yourself is only as good as your personal belief in it. Therefore, a Christian calling for protection will probably use God or a saint, as that is where his strongest belief is, just as a thelamite will get more from the spirit of Crowley or Bennett.
    Have also been interested to see the contraversial topic of drugs and questing. I firmly believe that they merely increase perception of the psychic realm, and the key is the state of mind of the individual at the time. The psychic realm is accessable from the mind alone, but some people find they need to give it a ‘kick start’. That said, there are dangers with certain drugs, and they can be more of a hinderence.However, as we know shamans have been using them to access the spirit world for thousands of years with presumably, little bad effects. It helps i’m sure that it has always been a part of there culture, and are usually taken as part of a long ceremony, designed to create the right state of mind in the individual for psychic contact.

    #1820

    I agree with what Richard says above about cultural shamanism and drug induced psychic matters… However it must be said that usually the Shaman will undertake this kind of thing only at specific rituals… So I’d be very cautious of enthusiastic ‘occult travellers’ going on a ‘trip’ every weekend… A Shaman would only do this sort of thing at specific times when it was neccesary… not as a daily lifestyle.

    If you are reaching for the stars just try keep your feet on the ground.

    #1822

    Just had a quick peep at the forum after a huge writing session on Spirit Chaser. I thought that I must add my feelings on the use of drugs and questing, or indeed any occult practice. Basically from experience certain drugs can definately open doors to different perceptions and will aid magical operations, BUT I find myself agreeing with Yuri in saying that caution should be the key word here! Perhaps leaving recreational drugs for leisure use is best. Alcohol is in my opinion a very negative drug for questing, as are most other drugs! Hallucinogens could be used effectively, but as I say caution is advised. And for the sake of the health and well being of your body, well this should speak for itself! Getting a magical high from magic alone is the best drug.

    Alex Langstone

    #1824

    One musnt be lead to seeing substances as the only way or a short cut either. As much as there is a long tradition of Shamanic travelling there is also a long tradition of Buddhist and Taoist monks achieving all sorts of metaphysical achievements, on little else but humble food, water and fresh mountain air.

    Hallucengens will work, but they are not the only way, and you have to have a strong character to not let the horse run away with you.

    In the final count, do what you feel is right.

    #2608

    admin
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