In this post I’m answering questions about beginning spiritual practice that have been asked on the Studio Arcanis forums. I’m posting it here on the blog since I feel this could be helpful to a lot of people.
I feel as though if I don’t pick the most suitable way to practice and study, it’ll be a waste of effort – which is ironic, since I’m not even delving into anything much anyway.
I guess I just want effective A > B > C > 1 > 2 > 3 instruction and not feel like I’m being mislead, doing things wrong and not optimally.
I believe that, on the spiritual path, we are living in a time where the corresponding part of our way on that path is about finding out what’s right and true for us, and then living that. And in the process of doing that, we have successes and failures, developing skill in manifesting certain results on the astra-mental (and ultimately, physical) plane. We learn to use devices like will, motivation/emotion and introspection. Introspection is very important for us to achieve clarity as actor (e.g. to see what we want and calibrate our thoughts and emotions properly for the intended result) and recipient (e.g. receiving messages from beings, human or otherwise).
And I feel I need to get the ball rolling at this point, I’m just not sure in what direction and fearing the ball will veer off track and I find myself wasting my time. Like I already am…
You are already on the magical path, otherwise you wouldn’t even concern yourself with such questions.
It sounds like you’re afraid of failure, and the incurred time cost. But there is no failure on the path, only steps. And we need to tell ourselves that we are doing a great job at all times to achieve happiness.
And it’s not helping that my discipline is abysmal at this time in my life.
Don’t focus on it too much. Just start.
Here’s some concrete advice that will not make you waste your time. I promise it.
1. Use affirmations that make you feel good and that contain your goals, like this: http://d2ys4cbyl8jaq7.cloudfront.net/mm-downloads/daily-affirmations.pdf
2. Just observe yourself in daily life. Sensations in your body, sense perceptions, thoughts. Try not to judge, just observe. Self-observation is a critical skill on all our paths, and it will lead you to heights of clarity about yourself and about life that you could never have imagined. In your case, especially observe all of those feelings of guilt, feeling demotivated and fear of failure that you described. Don’t judge, just watch them lovingly.
3. Aside from daily life, when you’re trying to do a specific meditation regularly and you feel you’re not very motivated, just tell yourself you’ll do it for a minimum of 5 minutes (rests included), or do it 1-3 times, and that you can clap yourself on the back after that. Most often you’ll stay with it for longer. Since you don’t feel as forced as you would otherwise this becomes easy, and the demotivation goes away.
4. Breathe consciously. Just a couple of breaths once a day is very effective already. This will help you practice observation without judgement and bring you into the moment.
5. Cultivate positive emotions. (1) and (2) will result in this cultivation.
Does that sound like something that could work for you at this point? For many people in the beginning it can be fun instead to just identify their desires roughly and then do simple rituals to achieve those (“find love”, “increase wealth” etc., just with candles or incense or scents and the imagination). For these kinds of spells there are excellent books to start with. Often but not always they have a Wiccan or Golden Dawn slant. For example Scott Cunningham’s “Incense, Oils and Brews” is one that helped me a lot in working with plant spirits and learning basic spellwork. Scott Cunningham is of the Wiccan tradition (as evidenced by some of his other books) but the aforementioned book does not have a strong Wiccan feel and would be equally useful for someone focusing in the G.D. tradition. Books like the popular ones by Gallery of Magick (e.g. “72 Angels”) work mainly with G.D. symbols and spirits (e.g. no emphasis on a god/goddess couple, sigils with Hebrew inscriptions, sacred geometry, incantations).
You can walk both of those paths at once, though I would suggest starting out with just one and staying with it until you have a sense of the results. The affirmations might be something simple and effective enough to be mixed into the spellwork path by a beginner without feeling overwhelmed.
Whatever you choose to start with, try this for a couple of weeks or months before deciding on what traditions to follow or before trying something else. Know that this decision need not be final and can be changed at any time if it’s clear to you that something else is waiting. Make it part of any of those decisions that you feel good with a tradition’s symbolism and belief system. Most people feel clearly drawn to one or more certain traditions. I have the impression that in the western parts of the world a lot of women enjoy Wicca and Witchcraft, and a lot of men the “Magician” path, with the latter often involving a stronger emphasis on written teachings, like the Vedas or the Golden Dawn texts or Bardon’s system. I’m a man with a strong feminine side and an appetite for variety, and I think it shows up in my magical preferences as well. A lot of my work lies in introspection and meditation, but I also like to do spell rituals with props when I try to achieve mundane goals. I love written and oral teachings of all traditions, and work with gods and spirits from Egypt, India, our planets and other places.
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