Blog post -- The Lab, or roll your own

Here is a new blog post. I relate the Banishing Ritual to the creation of a Lab in Chistopher Hyatt's terminology, and I also talk about using rituals similar to the LBRP as a way of getting the personality in shape. A handful of tips for people just starting out are also given.

Within your circle (your Lab), you have asserted that your internal universe is projected outward. You are now the sovereign of this space. If the implications are properly understood, you have nothing to fear from anyone or anything while in this mindset.

Once that is grasped, you can tell it to your entire body and mind. You can be like an old-time town crier, knocking at all your internal doors and saying, "Hey! Buddy! You heard the news? There are no enemies anywhere. Yeah, it's totally safe now! You can come out and put down that knife!"

Hyatt has such a huge corpus of work... books, videos, audio lectures, etc... maybe I'll see if I can't turn up a few for submissions.

As for porting Hyatt with the LBRP, I bet you could do similarly with the Middle Pillar.

ankh_f_n_khonsu wrote:Hyatt has such a huge corpus of work... books, videos, audio lectures, etc... maybe I'll see if I can't turn up a few for submissions.

As for porting Hyatt with the LBRP, I bet you could do similarly with the Middle Pillar.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "porting" here, but in this particular case, Hyatt later mentions the LBRP in the same book... Wasn't much of a stretch. But I liked Hyatt's terminology and presentation in a lot of Undoing Yourself. Actually, it's kinda funny he doesn't come up more in here. He seems to have recently been a big figure in his own way.

I used to have more appreciation for Hyatt than I do these days. Having gotten further into his life's work, he began to seem... parasitic. He's published dozens of books, and I've read less than 10, so my prejudice deserves some caveats - but when I watched his first "Undoing Yourself" DVD vids, I was turned-off for life. He just seemed like an egotistical twat who knew a few helpful tricks... Well, maybe that's a little simplistic: he seemed like a sorcerer, and not necessarily someone who had much of a direct relationship with 'LVX'.

I agree, it'd be nice if more of Hyatt's material were submitted. It makes it easier to do comparative analyses.

Khephra wrote:I used to have more appreciation for Hyatt than I do these days. Having gotten further into his life's work, he began to seem... parasitic. He's published dozens of books, and I've read less than 10, so my prejudice deserves some caveats - but when I watched his first "Undoing Yourself" DVD vids, I was turned-off for life. He just seemed like an egotistical twat who knew a few helpful tricks... Well, maybe that's a little simplistic: he seemed like a sorcerer, and not necessarily someone who had much of a direct relationship with 'LVX'.

I agree, it'd be nice if more of Hyatt's material were submitted. It makes it easier to do comparative analyses.

Well, I've only read one of his books and a few things he's written in other books (related to the GD, etc.). Those Undoing Yourself vids do make him look like a jackass, though, don't they? I decided to find it funny. If his methods work and he's presented them clearly, I don't much care if he was an "egotistical twat". That said, I have not yet actually tested a lot of his techniques, so what would I know?

neutralrobotboy wrote:That said, I have not yet actually tested a lot of his techniques, so what would I know?

This reminds me of the foreword to Undoing Yourself, written by Robert Anton Wilson. He talks about the people who claim that Prometheus Rising changed their lives, but they never actually did any of the exercises. He insinuates that the same dynamic could be said of Undoing Yourself.

MysteryStudent wrote:

neutralrobotboy wrote:That said, I have not yet actually tested a lot of his techniques, so what would I know?

This reminds me of the foreword to Undoing Yourself, written by Robert Anton Wilson. He talks about the people who claim that Prometheus Rising changed their lives, but they never actually did any of the exercises. He insinuates that the same dynamic could be said of Undoing Yourself.

Which is funny because I've recommended that forward, I think it's excellently written and drives the point home. The problem is that if you read enough of this kind of stuff, "doing the exercises" from every book all at once probably means you never get anywhere with any of them.

All too true, sir. As Lyam Thomas Christopher says, "...it is better to dig one deep hole instead of lots of shallow ones." Dion Fortune, Donald Michael Kraig, and many others have also stressed the importance of learning one system wholly and completely, giving it your full effort and undivided energy.

Therein lies the rub, doesn't it? There are so many books out there for occult students, particularly beginning occult students...where do you start? It's something that has been plaguing me incessantly quite recently. There's so much interesting material out there, extolling the virtues and benefits of so many systems, that it's easy to get swept away by it all. I've been working with Modern Magick, but I'm reading Undoing Yourself and some other Israel Regardie material. I'm in dire peril of digging lots of shallow holes and never digging that deep one that will take me where I want to go.

Regardless, if someone chooses a book and sticks with it, reading and memorizing the exercises will never provide any of the benefits of doing them.

Great post! And I'm enjoying your blog as well.