Had some thoughts to share and they got pretty lengthy. So, I broke them into a series of parts, and I’m posting them here.
Musings for your enjoyMent
Part I. Meta-Technique
I guess this post/thread/topic is about Meta-Technique of visualization/imagination. Well, I’ll figure out what it’s about when I’m done typing it.
Just to briefly recap (or to ‘cap’ if you’ve never read my journal), I’m doing alternate days of meditation with Stark Q Terminus and Mind’s Eye Q Terminus2. Sundays I don’t listen to either of them. So, to date I’ve done 6 Mind’s Eye meditations over a roughly 2 week period. But it’s so smoothly integrated itself into my routine that it feels like I’ve been using it for a much longer time than just 2 weeks, actually.
Anyway, I’ve noticed a ‘meta-technique’ that feels relevant. I noticed it in other areas first, but I realized that it also applies here.
My meditation doesn’t involve much imagining or visualizing in any traditional sense, but I also practice magick, and sometimes I integrate magickal practices with meditation. Even if I didn’t, magick in and of itself already constitutes a variety of meditative practice.
So, that’s a context for working with Mind’s Eye. It’s a routine and regular part of life.
4 Likes
Part II. Feed Your Oxen
If the subliminals are like oxen, plowing the earth of our minds; then the ‘grain’ that feeds those oxen is Action. If we keep the subliminals well-fed with a steady diet of action, then they can thrive and produce great results.
With regard to my particular lifestyle, the relative regularity and routineness of the various workings that I do means that Mind’s Eye has a decent enough flow of ‘food’ to fuel its work. It’s probably the best fed out of any of my subliminal programs. As such, it’s giving me opportunities to reflect on imagination and magick.
2 Likes
Part III. the fucking meta-technique
Very nice, @Malkuth. So what’s the fucking meta-technique?
It’s very simple, and also a little challenging sometimes. You know, like so many other things: Simple to conceive, challenging to execute.
Here it is: the most crucial point to magick/visualization/imagination/subconscious work is not some specific technique; rather it is simply holding a calm confidence that there’s anything there to work with at all.
That’s it. That’s the meta-technique. Everything else is just details.
I don’t mean belief or faith (although those can be powerful strategies as well). Personally, I don’t really believe in very much of anything. What I’m talking about here is just a simple sense that ‘there’s the possibility of doing something here’ or ‘there’s something here’.
The same exact point applies to the subconscious. Underneath all of the various ‘techniques’ and ‘methods’ for working with the subconscious is the straight-forward, non-copyrighted recognition that, ‘oh, right. There actually is a subconscious’. Seems so simple, but it has a very powerful consequence. As a result of having that sense, you’re able to get out of the way and let it do its job.
In short: it’s much easier to develop a relationship with something when you know that thing exists. Deep, I know.
4 Likes
Part IV. Check the Mail
Think of it this way. Imagine that you lived in a standard house with a mailbox in front. If you thought you were the only living person left in the world, why would you ever bother checking the mailbox? On the other hand, if you know that the world has many people, some of whom feel affection or care for you, others of whom want something from you (and have your mailing address) and an additional significant number of whom are actual full-time employed postal workers; if you know all of those things, then checking your mailbox will be a very natural thing to do.
That’s not so much faith or belief, and has more to do with basic understanding and openness. Frankly, as attitudes go, it’s more passive. It’s an acknowledgement rather than a forceful insistence.
The subconscious doesn’t need your attention or your insistence to make it work. It has already been working very expertly the entire time. It’s more like a successful DJ who’s generous enough to accept a few requests if you’re cool. If, over time, you demonstrate that you’re very cool, that DJ will even let you suggest entire set lists.
But the point is that the DJ or the subconscious mind or magick is already there. Already very active, highly proficient.
1 Like
Part V. Seeing the Wind
Radio waves have always been around. Stars emit them. But humans only started to note them after we invented devices that could pick them up and translate them into a perceivable form. UV rays were also being emitted by stars the whole time; even before people knew about them. To cut to the chase, we don’t physically perceive 99% (a generous estimate) of what is going on in the Cosmos. And included in that 99% is a range of mental processes that can be labeled as ‘Subconscious’. These processes are here, they’re natural, but like radio waves or ultraviolet radiation and a million other things, they’re not immediately noticeable or obvious to our conventional ways of sensing.
Like wind blowing on grass, we can see the signs of their passing once we know what to look for. But we simply can’t see the wind directly because it’s not a visible phenomenon.
Once we know, however that there’s something called ‘wind’ and once we start to observe it, we can eventually learn to work with it, navigate it, and harness it for flight, for propulsion of marine vessels, for electricity, and beyond.
The wind doesn’t operate because you ‘have faith in it’. It was going to work with or without your faith, belief, or even awareness. But once you accept that the wind is there, you can open up the opportunity to interact with it, and to benefit from that interaction.
It’s the same with the subconscious mind.
The powerful meta-technique is the simple recognition that the subconscious (or magick) is already there; complex and active.
In the absence of this so-called Meta-technique, any other techniques or instructions you get are going to seem mysterious, confusing, and maybe even frustratingly inaccessible (any aphantasics out there may know what I mean).
In contrast, with the presence of this Meta-technique, you can actually get quite a bit done even before you learn any detailed techniques or instructions. And when you do learn them, they’ll just be icing on the cake.
1 Like
Part VI. Graduate to Idiocy
So, the meta-technique is to build a felt awareness with the basic existence, the basic phenomenon, of your subconscious itself, or of magick itself.
What does that involve?
Nothing much really. Mainly going out and being an idiot. A fool.
Why a fool? Well, that’s generally the term we use for people who walk around attempting to interact with things that aren’t there and that they themselves can’t really explain or describe.
As you observe and try to allow for the presence of your Subconscious or the magick, you’ll be a bit like people who leave cookies out at night for Santa Claus or ‘the elves’ to eat. (A: ‘Have you ever seen an elf?’ B: ‘No.’)
So, yes. You’ll be a fool. Well, at first you’ll be a fool. Until you gradually start to get a feel for how it works. But if you’re wise, you’ll keep at least a part of yourself as a perpetual fool. Remaining open to those as-yet unencountered and unexplored phenomena.
That’s the Meta-Technique.
2 Likes