Experiments on the study of kabbalah and grimories

Hi ,

I am interested in the evocation of entities beyond our normal powers ..Been something i wanted to do . Better to have intellegent entities to ralka bout who dont have human complex .

Here is what i wam sorting out for and need a team of memebers that would work with each other on the same level .. like asd if each one of us was exactly the same of each other.. so no boss ideas ..

I was thinking it would be nice to study the so called kabbalah books on our owns like bahir , sepher yetzirah and the zohar ..also study the many grimories and learn to understand kabbalh from a newer perspectice ..for the soul aim of evocation and ceremonial magic and understand the grimories to a depper level ..

I know most of you are thinking ..but without a guru we cant do anything ??
thats wrong .. All you have to be is clever and creative .. you can do it to .. In Tibet the monks teach the newer monks new ideas and things like that..they mermorise it and then go out to practice it .. if in douth they meditate till the douth is gone..since within us lies the power of all things ..

So let me know if you are interested..This Heremtic kabbalah and all that crap ..is more like a religious thing.. Hod is Mercury ..why is it so ? because we said so ? yea thats what todays occultist are .. Christians trying to be magicians ..

Lets not forget that the Sepher yetzirah in its self is a magical book .. Let me know whats up and if anyone of you have an idea of what the older grimorie kabbalah is about and what the sepher yetzirah is talking about and hopw to use the other books on kabbalah like zohar ..without having to choose peoples rules ..for example ..to choose something like..you can only learn kabbalah by an initiated kabbalist etc etc...

Where information is abundent all we need is practice ..


Love
Kaz

kazdax wrote:Hi ,
I know most of you are thinking ..but without a guru we cant do anything ??
thats wrong .. All you have to be is clever and creative .. you can do it to .. In Tibet the monks teach the newer monks new ideas and things like that..they mermorise it and then go out to practice it .. if in douth they meditate till the douth is gone..since within us lies the power of all things ..

You say you don't need a teacher, then you give the example of Tibetan monks... being taught by a teacher.

kazdax wrote:
I know most of you are thinking ..but without a guru we cant do anything ??
thats wrong .. All you have to be is clever and creative .. you can do it to ..
Kaz

Don't forget at gurus is astral level also and they can teach us as well as "living" gurus in here material level.

kazdax wrote:..This Heremtic kabbalah and all that crap ..is more like a religious thing.. Hod is Mercury ..why is it so ? because we said so ? yea thats what todays occultist are .. Christians trying to be magicians ..

The Hermetic Qabalah is the basis for Qliphothic Qabala as studied by left hand path orders, such as the Temple of the Black Light, the Typhonian Order and the Dragon Rouge. This is from Wikipedia to Hermetic Qabalah and this stuff is truly LHP orders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Qabalah

what was meant by my poor english and grammar skills ..Is that the monks only tell them to memorise what they are saying..then the student memorises it and goes out to practice it ..all his tool is his rememberence of the tecnquires and key rules and all he has to do is apply it his practice ..

Love
Kaz

kazdax wrote:what was meant by my poor english and grammar skills ..Is that the monks only tell them to memorise what they are saying..then the student memorises it and goes out to practice it ..all his tool is his rememberence of the tecnquires and key rules and all he has to do is apply it his practice ..

Tibetan monks discuss the material and debate it until they know and understand it inside-out. If you think otherwise, then I'd be interested in which Tibetan school you're referring to.

The Tibetan traditions involve the most rigorous training imaginable.

kazdax wrote:
I was thinking it would be nice to study the so called kabbalah books on our owns like bahir , sepher yetzirah and the zohar ..also study the many grimories and learn to understand kabbalh from a newer perspectice ..for the soul aim of evocation and ceremonial magic and understand the grimories to a depper level ..

I mean, I like your enthusiasm. But these things tend to be self-secret. Know what I mean? It requires either a clear book or teacher, or extensive knowledge of some other mystical or occult tradition. Otherwise you're stumbling in the dark.

A good example would be to wise up on generation stage (buddhist) tantra and then combine that with kabbalistic letter permutation. That's basically how a golem is formed. And you can explain the method in maybe five sentences, but it takes a lot of mental training to get results.

If you can study one system in depth (pick an extensive system) then all other traditions of magic will make sense to you.

This will be fairly long as far as forum posts go but:
I want to answer you post quite seriously and thoroughly as I think it brings up a lot of issues that people face when starting out on a mystical path.

1) How can I experience the 'reality' of other realms and higher consciousness?
2) What system should I use? (if any)
3) How should I go about learning that system?
4) Why are things in that system the way they are?
5) Do I need a teacher or should I join a group?
6) Is it really a lot of work or is there an easy way?

To address your main questions about Goetia, the Kabbalah and the whys and hows thereof, let me use some very illuminating material from Nevill Drury's book Echoes from the Void:

"All shamans whether in Siberia, Indonesia, or Middle America have an operative model of the universe. It may be a cosmic vault upheld by a tree on whose out-reaching branches gods and spirits dwell... or a hierarchy of supernatural entities each of whom exerts a particular influence on the world. Similarly, the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the symbolism of the major Tarot trumps constitute the operative universe of the Western magician. This framework delineates the symbolic layering of energy within the magical unconscious the framework asserts: the gods of mythology are inside the mind... they are themselves a program. To reenact the program is to encounter the gods of the Western tradition, in a certain sequence which is indicative of their sacred power."

That is, there has to be a structure built up over time by the explorers that have gone before us. Each tradition has its own and they may overlap and mix. But, it is a 'grammar of the imagination'... like a map with waypoints and a language that we communicate with. It is possible but much more difficult to create your own language and build up enough 'vocabulary' and meaning to address the things that you would encounter. At the very least, you would have needed to learn a prior system to work out these ideas before you attempted to transcend it.
The entities and spirits that you would encounter in your inner world speak a language as well and in their past encounters with humans have taught how they prefer to communicate. Oftentimes, it is a visual language of symbols that must be decoded. Not like words or letters but archetypal images like a snake with a lion's head. It does depend however on the operation and may be words are heard or text received through 'automatic writing'.
The point is that there are frameworks that have evolved over a very long time and starting from scratch is prone to difficulty and error. Drury compares it to a 'program' and this is rather accurate. For instance to create a web page that every one could read you would not write you own programming language, you would waste way too much time trying to get 'support' for it. Instead, you would accept and align with already existing standards, although flawed (but evolving), and work to express yourself using those tools.

Drury speaking on the need of training:
"The magician is also introducing a crucial component of the shamanistic act: the concept of altering consciousness under will. The magical act is not arbitrary -- it is made in this spirit of command. The Western magician knows the scope of his hierarchy of gods and goddesses, his spirit allies and archangels, and when he invokes them he does so with in a symbolic confine which defines the space of their activity. He may seek their uplifting energy by invoking them into his own body, but he is very conscious of what he is doing, and imposes these symbolic limits on the effects he is unleashing. The path in a word is carefully constructed. Randomness is indicative of a lack of resolve and, in the medieval sense, an invitation to possession -- not in terms of an attack by willful spirits or the devil, so much as dominance by powerful images which impress the explorer by their reality. The magician treads warily through his inner heavens and hells. His weapons are sacred mantras or God names which in his own program are of profound significance. The name of a god is superior to that of an elemental by virtue of their very positions in the magical hierarchy. The magician's weapons also include the skillful use of the imagination. Shamans in the West have long known that the imagination is itself a form of direction -- it can lead one into wonderful and awesome spaces that are both illuminating and terrifying."

Drury now speaks about the 'mechanics'. That is, dealing with powerful spirit energies requires the magician to be under control and within a protected space, focused on a task, armed with tools the spirits will respond to, and aware of the territory and 'office' with which he is engaging. Think about it. For instance, it would be foolish to walk into a random neighborhood in a foreign country where you did not speak the language without a guide, map or translator and try to do business with haphazard people on the street. You may get lucky and find a patient, benevolent host whose nature is helpful and dealings are honest...or you may get jacked.
Proper preparations and training, a well-planned itinerary with the addition of a good map and guidelines from experienced travelers makes all the difference. You also must communicate so know a bit of the language.

Now concerning the system you choose, Drury says: (he had been speaking of Tarot as a method of journeying)
"Once again, the shaman in the West employs an imagination subject to will. He imposes upon the vast range of visual and auditory possibilities that occur in a hallucinatory model of the lower unconscious, a particular set of images. He follows this set of Tarot symbols not because of their literal value, but because they are internally consistent. They are a visually expressed program for expanding consciousness through archetypal levels. This provides the magician a sense of certainty. He knows the milestones of his inner territory. It follows that we should not become too entwined in debates concerning the relative validity of Buddha's Eight-fold Path compared with the 10 Kabbalistic sephiroth, or argue about the colors ascribed to the chakras in yoga and in western magic. There is no escaping the fact that there are minor differences. What is more pertinent is that once we opt, for reasons of temperament or cultural preference, for one particular system we should abide by the language of its symbolism. In mystical systems we are dealing with elaborate metaphysical metaphors which have implied but not literal validity. Each person has the right to follow his own program."

He makes clear that it not so important the system that is used but more so that you pick one and use it consistently. Although, describing in many ways the same territory, each system will differ. Voodoo has a pantheon and methods, Tantra also, as well as Hermetic magick.
He mentions that this choice can be narrowed by 'reasons of temperament or cultural preference' and this is true. If you are trying to learn Haitian vodoun you may make the most progress in Haiti or at least with a lot of familiarity with the culture.

Do you need a teacher? Yes. But the way things are now (and the focus of this site) there are countless great resources in books about every tradition imaginable all out in the open and many free. Personally, I would hesitate to join a fraternity as there is so little need and many are polluted with the ego trappings of spoon feeding information and inner circles and agendas and instability.
You could benefit from true initiation from a genuine adept but don't count on it...titles and so-called lineages mean next to nothing.
You will need to study and memorize and practice. That is certain and the stumbling block for most people. All skills require this whether you want to be a golfer or learn to drive a car.
The easy way is to take hallucinogenic drugs and blow your mind a little bit...sorry that is a fact. Then you get a small taste of the 'other' and also probably realize that you aren't quite prepared to deal with it fully.

For beginners from a Western perspective I recommend learning the Tarot. It is fun, creatively and intellectually engaging. It breathes life into symbols that would otherwise seem too academic. Consider the Builders of the Temple Adytum material. It is well constructed and grounded in a serious system. Whether you would join or not is up to you...I have stated my opinion on that. Follow it progressively, slowly and step by step though. Make a donation to them as pledge or personal oath.

Good beginners books are: Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig, the New Hermetics by Jason Augustus Newcomb, books by Paul Foster Case (BOTA founder), Portable Magic and The Magical Workbook by Donald Tyson and Practical Sigil Magic by Frater U.D. These are mostly from a Western Hermetic perspective.

Lucid Dreaming practice or Dream Yoga is also recommended as it opens the mind up to communication with the imaginal realms. The important thing here is to form a strong intention to remember and write down your dreams and seek to penetrate the illusion of dreaming and take control of them to become an active participant. Methodically, keep a detailed dream journal and explore the symbols. This is your own internal language. It also has a universal character that can develop and guide you in your choice of symbol system.

This post is really long but if you have gotten to the bottom I hope it has been helpful.

I love how you phrased that. I would also like to add that it can be very dangerous to an individual as you study and try harder in both invocation and evocation. I study from the Enochian methods for communication but also believe the pronunciations vary from one individual to the next, and it is easy to sidetrack.

Some of my experiments have taught me that you might not necessarily "Reach out" and make contact with other beings, but can also just as easily create other beings through your own force of will. I did this trying to see and feel what could only be classified as a hellhound, and trying to feel it's mind to make contact. That leads to the danger side. If you create a being, you are adding the rules of it's existence, the duration and it's purpose. You could easily create something born of your own fear and it's sole purpose would be to frighten you or another or in some rare cases even to do harm. Studying ancient texts to attempt to perform some evocations or invocations can seem successful but in my opinion is a form of creation magic. An example being, if you have read the Greater Key of Salomon, the  Clavicus, clavical, or whichever version and believe you are performing a dark art, you have taken on and created a darkness you have to deal with. Preparation of your own mind body, and practices has to be done with care, especially when you are attempting something new to you without assistance, even if you do have a good guide, book, or grimoire. I don't believe the religious aspect is necessary, but for your own protection if using and altering a text such as the Dark Lodge Version Grimoire, you should get to understand the mindset of the original sage and understand what they were doing. In reference to programming languages it is like learning the language Delphi and trying to create C++

You have to have an understanding of why and how. In old grimoires like those, the sage, mage, mystic or whatever you want to call the practitioner of that age appeared to fear repercussions and did their best to make the reader understand you have to truly believe what you are doing is ok, right, right for you, allowed, and you are protected from harm before any success can be achieved. In working in a group those same ideals must be shared and believed. Looking to more modern methods the same success is still achieved by things like the lesser banishing ritual, protection runes and symbols and shielding. Those methods don't appear through antiquity because the men before us believed they had the divine right just as strongly as men of this age (and women. don't want to offend) believe their magical methods will succeed and keep them protected.

Plan and think carefully if you ever do assemble a group and ask if only to yourself why you want what you do, what do you want, and do you truely want it, are you safe, and do you believe you will be successful. If you can honestly answer all of those questions you will always be successful.

If you want to create entities for your own desires, read "David Cunningham - Creating Magickal Entities." If you want assistance on empowering your entity let me know its story, what to feed it, if you can, create its sigil and post it, let me know its pros and cons  and its use and ill let you know if i'll assist you.

I'll have to check it out.