Interesting article about entities of which I was fascinated with, and a little bit scared of, as a teenager. Now, I am careful where I place my attention, as energy flows to it. So for me, no scary movies (in fact not movies or TV), or alcohol etc.
As a Kundalini yoga teacher, I would disagree with your comments about not taking up Kundalini yoga.
In my teachings, we have 10 bodies, one of them being the etheric body, which is closest to the physical body. It corresponds to the arc line and aura and can be seen with Kirlian photography. There are many meditations, pranayama and kriyas (sets of postures) that help to strengthen different 'bodies' including the aura (etheric body).
Although, I do agree that maybe Kundalini yoga is not for everyone. I have had many one-time students who were so toxic physically and emotionally, and after one session felt so ill, as their bodies tried to expel all the poisons. They never returned; they blamed the yoga not their toxic lifestyle.
Thanks for your perspective as a practitioner. It's a pretty powerful system, and I have heard frightening tales of endocrine-disruption with disastrous consequences, so I'm personally very cautious, but others have good things to say about; for instance, my ex-girlfriend's mother is a kundalini yoga teacher, and it seems to work for her.
I would add, just in case, that there's nothing inherently spiritual about vegetarianism or veganism, and that red meat - which I consume - can be a powerful positive. Comment from John Michael Greer when I asked him about carnivory and 'spirituality': "I haven't published much about that subject, other than to point out hat whether or not you eat meat doesn't actually affect your spiritual life much; anyone who thinks that a vegetarian diet is required to have spiritual experiences needs to pick up a good book on Native American spirituality -- _Black Elk Speaks_ by John Niehardt comes to mind -- and prepare to have their minds changed.
Different people have different dietary needs. Some people thrive on a vegetarian diet, some people starve on one -- and the same is true of every other diet in existence. Western occultism holds that physical health is important if you're going to maintain an active occult life, and so students are encouraged to experiment, find the diet that keeps them healthy and happy, and stick with that -- whether or not it includes meat.
Two cautions need to be added, however. The first is that diet affects the mind as well as the body, and a diet that makes someone angry, aggressive, dogmatic, and intolerant is by definition an unhealthy diet. Too many vegans fall into this category and clearly need to change their diets to something that encourages a less dysfunctional emotional life.
Second, some occult practices -- especially ceremonial magic -- are risky to do if you have trouble staying connected to the material plane between workings. Meat is the best food for maintaining that state of healthy groundedness and connection with matter -- it centers us in our material bodies, which are after all made of meat -- and so most systems of occultism that include ceremonial magic specifically recommend a diet with at least some red meat in it for this purpose."
Thanks for the shoutouts! I just found this today... it was in my "to read" backlog. It is my opinion that everyone already talks to spirits -- if you talk to yourself, aloud or otherwise, you've probably talked to all sorts of things that were not you. The difficult part is mostly in discernment. Entities like to "play pretend". When 13 year old Anna thinks she is talking to her dead grandmother via the Ouija board, it's highly likely she is NOT talking to grandma but an impersonator. Discursive meditation, practiced daily for anywhere from 5-15 minutes a day, is the number one way I would suggest in order to discern to whom we are speaking in the incorporeal world. Here is a link to my old article on discursive meditation: https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/4166.html
Thanks for this, Kimberley. I'm glad you mention discursive meditation - I think the secularized, post-Buddhist/Vedanta meditation taught to Westerners today probably does more harm than good overall. Continuously emptying your mind, without the discipline and formality of a traditional religious culture, can be a great way to become a vessel for whatever psychic pathogens happent to be around.
Interesting article about entities of which I was fascinated with, and a little bit scared of, as a teenager. Now, I am careful where I place my attention, as energy flows to it. So for me, no scary movies (in fact not movies or TV), or alcohol etc.
As a Kundalini yoga teacher, I would disagree with your comments about not taking up Kundalini yoga.
In my teachings, we have 10 bodies, one of them being the etheric body, which is closest to the physical body. It corresponds to the arc line and aura and can be seen with Kirlian photography. There are many meditations, pranayama and kriyas (sets of postures) that help to strengthen different 'bodies' including the aura (etheric body).
Although, I do agree that maybe Kundalini yoga is not for everyone. I have had many one-time students who were so toxic physically and emotionally, and after one session felt so ill, as their bodies tried to expel all the poisons. They never returned; they blamed the yoga not their toxic lifestyle.
Thanks for your perspective as a practitioner. It's a pretty powerful system, and I have heard frightening tales of endocrine-disruption with disastrous consequences, so I'm personally very cautious, but others have good things to say about; for instance, my ex-girlfriend's mother is a kundalini yoga teacher, and it seems to work for her.
I would add, just in case, that there's nothing inherently spiritual about vegetarianism or veganism, and that red meat - which I consume - can be a powerful positive. Comment from John Michael Greer when I asked him about carnivory and 'spirituality': "I haven't published much about that subject, other than to point out hat whether or not you eat meat doesn't actually affect your spiritual life much; anyone who thinks that a vegetarian diet is required to have spiritual experiences needs to pick up a good book on Native American spirituality -- _Black Elk Speaks_ by John Niehardt comes to mind -- and prepare to have their minds changed.
Different people have different dietary needs. Some people thrive on a vegetarian diet, some people starve on one -- and the same is true of every other diet in existence. Western occultism holds that physical health is important if you're going to maintain an active occult life, and so students are encouraged to experiment, find the diet that keeps them healthy and happy, and stick with that -- whether or not it includes meat.
Two cautions need to be added, however. The first is that diet affects the mind as well as the body, and a diet that makes someone angry, aggressive, dogmatic, and intolerant is by definition an unhealthy diet. Too many vegans fall into this category and clearly need to change their diets to something that encourages a less dysfunctional emotional life.
Second, some occult practices -- especially ceremonial magic -- are risky to do if you have trouble staying connected to the material plane between workings. Meat is the best food for maintaining that state of healthy groundedness and connection with matter -- it centers us in our material bodies, which are after all made of meat -- and so most systems of occultism that include ceremonial magic specifically recommend a diet with at least some red meat in it for this purpose."
Thanks for the shoutouts! I just found this today... it was in my "to read" backlog. It is my opinion that everyone already talks to spirits -- if you talk to yourself, aloud or otherwise, you've probably talked to all sorts of things that were not you. The difficult part is mostly in discernment. Entities like to "play pretend". When 13 year old Anna thinks she is talking to her dead grandmother via the Ouija board, it's highly likely she is NOT talking to grandma but an impersonator. Discursive meditation, practiced daily for anywhere from 5-15 minutes a day, is the number one way I would suggest in order to discern to whom we are speaking in the incorporeal world. Here is a link to my old article on discursive meditation: https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/4166.html
Thanks for this, Kimberley. I'm glad you mention discursive meditation - I think the secularized, post-Buddhist/Vedanta meditation taught to Westerners today probably does more harm than good overall. Continuously emptying your mind, without the discipline and formality of a traditional religious culture, can be a great way to become a vessel for whatever psychic pathogens happent to be around.
Thanks for this.