Attention and Energy
There is quite a difference between the way the ordinary person looks at the world, and the way that an occultist or magical practitioner looks at the world. And this is nowhere more manifest than in the way that one approaches a problem. For the ordinary person, a problem is something to be ignored until it gets so bad that an expert has to be consulted! Well, at least for a lot of people! However for someone on a path of magical and personal development, a problem is an opportunity to grow in all sorts of different ways.
Firstly, it is a chance to develop personal qualities such as courage, integrity and perseverance. Secondly, it is a chance to develop magical skills. Problems almost always have a direct cause. We manifest them ourselves, with the energies and thoughts that we habitually construct around us and within us. Of course many people reject this assertion, believing it to victimize the unfortunate as being the cause of their misfortune. However the adept doesn’t apply this maxim to others in judgement – only to him or her self.
So a problem in your life is a chance to use magical skills of perception to discern the underlying cause, in your own mind and emotional body, that has been the seed for the problematic circumstance to manifest around you. This concept appears in the Arthurian corpus as the relationship between the wounded king and the wasteland of his kingdom.
One key to this kind of discernment is the use of focussed attention. Many schools of body work hold that emotional wounds are held in the body as tension, pains and knots, where energy is tied up and unable to flow freely. A technique that can be of great value is to go into a meditative state or light trance, and place your attention on an area of your body where there is pain or tightness. Breathe slowly and deeply, and visualize the breathe entering and leaving your body through the pain or area of tension. Allow whatever happens to happen. You may find that certain images come to mind. Allow them to, but don’t seek to grasp them, or hold on to them. Just acknowledge them and allow them to pass. The same may occur with feelings and emotions. Indeed, you may be shocked at the intensity of feelings that can arise. However acknowledge them and let them pass without becoming absorbed in them.
Another tool that can be used is the direction of energy. Where attention is placed, anergy will follow. There are two currents of energy which I mainly work with at this time – the Earth current, and the Source Current, associated with the red and white dragons. The red current is hot and comes from deep in the Earth, and is wonderful for healing the physical body. The white current is cool, and comes from deep within the Spiritual realms, which I conceptualize as being at the centre of the universe. It is wonderful for healing the spirit and mind. Once you have breathed into a location of pain or tightness for a while, and unlocked the locus so that images or feelings are released, allow the flow of feelings and images to naturally come to an end. Then open up one of the energy currents by dividing your attention in two. Place one half of your attention on the source, the centre of the earth for the red current, or the centre of the universe for the white current, and the keep the other half of your attention on the place of pain in your body. The energy will begin to flow. This flow of energy can dissolve the templates that have been formed in our body-mind-spirit system, which manifest as pain and tightness in the body, as negative thoughts and poor self image in the mind, and gradually manifest around us problems in relationships, job, etc etc that sooner or later come to a head.
These templates are somewhat like beliefs that we hold about ourselves, or the world, little scripts that give us direction, that we play out in every facet of our lives. To the magical practitioner, any problems we might have can only be temporarily solved, unless these templates are removed or re-written. The flow of energy can be used to dissolve these templates, simply by intending to do so.
Thus we come to the second part of the magical approach to problems. The creation of new templates that better serve our ends. In contrast to some eastern paths, which seem to seek to transcend or remove such templates, the western path as I understand it is about taking charge of these templates, and energizing them in a constructive manner.
Once the flow of energy comes to a stop, and the templates have been dissolved, which may take one a number of occasions over months or even years, one can begin creating new templates. One way to do this is through affirmations. An affirmation can be enhanced by expressing it in symbolic language, and visualizing it as it is repeated. A practice to try after you have worked with an area of pain or tightness in the body, and become aware of the release of energy and thought patterns and old images therein contained, is to use those images and energies as the basis for a positive template reconstruction, an antidote, as it were, that corrects the negative pattern and transforms it into a positive pattern.
Express this positive template as a short sharp sentence – an affirmation – such as “I deserve prosperity, health and love”. Allow the correct affirmation for you to present itself in your light trance state. Ask the help of your guides or Deities. Then express the affirmation as a symbol. Use runes, astrological or alchemical symbols, or whatever symbols system you are familiar with. Another method is to take the consonants from your affirmation, only once for each, even if some letters are used more than once, and arrange them into a connected design which you can visualize. With your mind’s eye, place the symbol representing the affirmation at the location of the pain or tightness you are working with, and once again open the flow of energy. This time allow the energy current to flow through the symbol into your being.
This is just a beginning of course. As you work with these ideas, you will find your own wisdom, your own guidance, and your own way of best working with energy and attention to solve problems. Magic is seen by most who first come to the path as about effecting change within the world through application of focussed will. However after a while, one realizes that this natural process is going on all the time, twenty four hours a day. The wise person takes charge of what she is manifesting in this way. You may well find that there is little else that needs to be done in the way of magic!
Blessed Be,
Robyn :)