Training the Will: 7

[ecosophia]

Let's talk one more time about training the will. 

We've already covered the essential principles of will training:  start with things that don't have any emotional loading, develop conscious action and conscious attention equally, build the habit of success before you start trying things where you might fail. The remaining ingredients are time and effort. If you work at will training over the months and years to come, following these principles, you'll develop the habit of conscious willing and you will be able to do things that seem unimaginable to you right now. 

Whether you do this or not is entirely up to you.  I can't do it for you, and neither can anyone else. Nor can you blame anyone or anything else if you don't do them; one way or another, this is on you.  The first exercise you need to do, if you want to develop a strong, supple, powerful will, is to choose to do will training exercises, and then do them. 

What exercises should you do?  Longtime reader Violet Cabra has helpfully posted 100 will exercises, any and all of which can be put to work in this process. Reading those and the exercises we've discussed here already, you should have no trouble coming up with many more. 

You can also take up some basic set of spiritual, religious, or occult exercises, make them a regular part of your daily routine, and keep doing them for the rest of your life. That's perhaps the most traditional of all will training methods, and it reliably produces people who can accomplish what other people think is impossible. Still, that's only one option; there are many others. Anything that requires regular practice, from playing the piano to lifting weights, can be approached in the same spirit. 

One thing to watch for, as you approach the continuing work of will training, is the failure melodrama. That's a habit, quite common these days, of deliberately setting yourself up to fail and then moaning about your failure in public. This has several emotional payoffs; it allows you to claim that you want to do something praiseworthy without ever having to do it; it allows you to feel sorry for yourself, which is apparently quite an addictive practice; and it allows you to parade your suffering in front of everyone you know, which seems to be even more addictive. There are various forms of the failure melodrama, but they all share the common feature that they're performance pieces -- it's all about displaying to others. 

Thus I'm going to suggest one more rule for training the will:  don't talk about what you're doing. Don't boast about your successes and don't moan about your defeats. Simply keep on going, learning from each success and each failure, watching the antics of your ego as it reacts to the whole process, and letting the process teach you. 

Got it?  Good. Now go for it. 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I was wondering whether you might not consider consolidating these pieces into a PDF on training the will. The reason I suggest this is that Israel Regardie's The Tree of Life has a section on training the will, and even the editors don't condone part of the training method. I think the book is wonderful, but having something to point to as a replacement for that chapter, or to complement Rudolf Steiner's will training exercise (just one that I know of), might be useful to have in one place.

[ecosophia]

I plan on consolidating them, and quite a bit more, into a book. Stay tuned -- I have other aspects of self-training in mind!

[(Anonymous)]

1. Good to know that a book on training the will is in the works. Will the book include a section on discursive meditation? Or is that in another book or book-to-be?

2. Is 'Training the Will: 7' the last essay of this series?

3. Before seeing your series of essays, I had no idea that the Will could be trained. Certainly the broader concept was 'out there', but not in such an explicit, clear manner. Your work in this is greatly appreciated. I look forward to buying the book.

4. "Failure melodrama" - yep. I've been guilty of that - good know it for what it is. Thank you. Over the years, I've been less and less vocal to others with this (having gradually realized other people get tired of hearing it). Now it's more of an internal endless tape, still there.

5. The cell salt experiment - at the very least - has been useful to me for training the will, even if in a minor way - baby steps.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for this series! I was able to learn how difficult it is to change a habit which I have emotions invested in, because I tried to break such a habit and failed miserably. I then took your advice and successfully broke a habit that I didn't have such an emotional investment in, and the difference between the two attempts was striking. Thanks again!

Failure melodrama

[(Anonymous)]

Gosh darn this is interesting.

I recall an experience when I was 14 of conscious deployment of the failure melodrama. We had a book reading assignment for english class, so I consciously chose the thickest book I could find in the house, feeling certain that I would (and reasonably so!) fail to read it during the allotted time for the assignment.

I failed with the melodrama - succeeded easily in completing the book. It was Frank Herbert's Dune.

No doubt the experience had lifelong impacts in ways I'm only dimly aware of.

Cheers,
Graeme

Essay links?

[(Anonymous)]

Is there any way you could post the links to these essays in one spot, in due order, until such time as your book is available? It would save a lot of searching and scrolling.

Kevin

[ecosophia]

1) I'm not quite sure yet about the frame of the book. My current thought is that it will be my equivalent of the Sâr Péladan's How to Become a Mage -- in my case, it'll be partly the matter of ethopoeia (ethos-making) that Péladan discussed, and partly exercises for basic occult training. If that's what it turns out to be, yes, it'll include a discussion of discursive meditation. Still, we'll see.

2) Yes, for now.

3) Thank you! I'm glad to hear that.

4) It's a very, very common habit; I did it myself when I was younger and more clueless.

5) Baby steps are the most important steps of all -- they're the ones that get you started. After that it gets easier.

[ecosophia]

Delighted to hear it. Now you can work on the middle ground, changing habits in which you have just a little emotional investment, then a little more, until finally your will is free enough that emotional investments aren't a problem. Remember that regular journaling is a good way to help get in touch with old emotional issues; unpacking them is a good way to step down the intensity of the investment.

Re: Failure melodrama

[ecosophia]

Graeme, thank you! That's a great story.

Re: Essay links?

[ecosophia]

If you click on the tag "will" at the bottom of the post it will take you to every post in this series, in reverse order -- scroll to the bottom and there you are. I tend to be careful to make sure at least one tag in a series relates to that series and only that series.

A question

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

I noticed that in the list of Violet's will exercises that you linked to, some of them are workings of one sort or another (#33 is the hoodoo bath, for example). Is this OK for someone who may not necessarily know what that that's what they're doing? I mean, if the list got wider exposure on the internet among people who wouldn't recognize conjure and such. Should there be a note that those particular exercises have an extra dimension to them than simply will training?

Publishing

[(Anonymous)]

Have you given consideration to self publishing little things like this *outside* of traditional e-book market places (amazon, Apple, etc) for $5 or $10 each?

Converting a simple set of essays into both a PDF and epub is very straightforward if you keep things simple with no DRM and no fancy typesetting - I would expect your IT guy could help here, eg setting up pandoc to do that behind eg wordpress is quite doable.

And there are platforms like gumroad that do all the payments side for you (there is a longer list of options here from some quick googling: https://blog.appsumo.com/patreon-alternatives/)

You could end up with a nice little library of content to point people at.

Keeping quiet

[(Anonymous)]

That part about not telling everyone what we're up to is so key. Learning to apply our will by choice is challenging enough given the jealousies, doubts, and antics of our own egos. Adding to that the jealousies, doubts, and blind homicidal rage of other people's egos can make that challenge utterly impossible.

As a survivor of child abuse in a family that trained me for the role of eternally bearing all of my family's sins and dysfunctions, it took me several failed attempts at individuation to finally realize that every single thing I told them was being used against me to keep me entrapped. But I did learn... Silence can truly be golden!

Once we begin changing in any meaningful way, we will change the dynamics of all the systems we are part of, some of which will be overwhelmingly resistant to allowing us to accomplish any changes that disrupt their own equilibrium or status quo (as the deplorables well know by now.) If your boss, spouse, parents, drinking buddies, etc. know that you are trying to shed your skin and become your own person, some of them will try to "help" you by preventing you from ever succeeding. It's very hard to know in advance who will be threatened by which changes, and who will unexpectedly thrill to see you finally take flight.

I've found that sometimes the most profound silence can be achieved by laughing liberally at the preposterous inanities of life in general and of my own projects in particular. Few potential obstructionists ever imagine my "crazy talk" about will-building, divination, or casting spells might actually be in earnest when I'm just laughing my head off while talking about them. Laughter can be golden, too!

-Christophe

[tunesmyth]

Thank you for this series, I’ve been enjoying both reading it and participating immensely.

At one point I believe you said something along the lines that there would be an exercise where we list and rank the importance of actions and goals in our life, or something to that effect. Is that going to be part of a different series? Or perhaps I misunderstood what you wrote in the first place?

[(Anonymous)]

My experience with crash nʻ burn drama is quite extensive and difficult to talk about, so reading this today caused a bit of discomfort. Fortunately this morning I had a vision in meditation that set me up to be able to handle it, and maybe someone else can benefit.

I am walking on the razor edge rim of an active volcano in the arctic cirlce. To my right is a sheer cliff leading to certain death by fire and rage, on the left is an icy plunge into endless depression and self pity. In the middle of the path it is the perfect temperature where the swirling forces meet. It takes intense concentration and discernment to navigate each step in order to stay on the path, but up there I can learn and experience things that can be found nowhere else.

[(Anonymous)]

😬

Zipped!

—Lady CK

Re: Publishing

[ecosophia]

No, I hadn't considered that yet. Hmm. I'm not sure I want to put in the extra work, but it's worth considering at some point.

Re: Keeping quiet

[ecosophia]

These are all excellent points. Silence is an extraordinarily effective tool, and in some situations, an equally effective weapon. It's earned its place as one of the four magical virtues!

[ecosophia]

That's part of a different series. The personal inventory is a standard part of introductory occult training; Manly Hall gives one good version of it in Self-Unfoldment through Disciplines of Realization, his manual of training, and Franz Bardon gives another in Initiation into Hermetics; I've lost track of how many other examples I've gotten in correspondence courses, and all of them have been useful. We'll get to that in due time.

[ecosophia]

Just remember that you choose to be there and to walk that very fine line. There are other paths that run between less extreme alternatives, and there's also much to be learned on those.

[ecosophia]

"To know, to dare, to will, and to zip it" would be a good variant; thank you!

Re: A question

[ecosophia]

None of the workings that Violet has included will do any harm to anyone, so I'm not too worried.

[syfen]

So, I took your advice from the second post on training of the Will and did some systematic journaling about the origin of my anxiety when I become aware of my will. Dear gods did that lead down a very deep rabbit hole. Now the work to fix it begins.

[(Anonymous)]

That is a very good point well worth considering. I just figured it takes extra effort because everything is really tense at the moment but in the DF book on initiates she talks about how they are unaffected by circumstance and always seem to land right side up, which is a very desirable goal. I will try to make that my objective that going forward.

Re: Keeping quiet

[ritaer]

The key phrase of the "will" saboteur is "just this once won't hurt"--Start an exercise program--"You worked hard yesterday, skipping your workout just this once won't hurt."
Diet--"It's Susie's birthday, just a sliver of cake wont' hurt." Setting a responsible bedtime or rising time: "Ah come on, watch the Late Show with me." or "Hey, it's Sunday, it's practically a crime not to sleep in on Sunday." In most circumstances humor is the best way to deal with this type of statement. "Hey, you know me, like the commercial says, I can't eat just one." or "Nah, if I lose momentum it's all over, I'll be a couch potato forever."

Especially coming from close friends or family members attempts to thwart your efforts may reflect fears that you will hold them to the standards you are setting for yourself. Put it out in the open if necessary--"I'm not asking you to give up donuts--you do you." However if you brag about your progress and issue broad hints that your friend or family member should do the same "Wouldn't hurt you to knock off a few pounds"--"Are you going to sleep your life away?"--"You'll feel so much better if you . . . ."--then you deserve any sabotage that is forthcoming. Of course if someone observes that you are looking better, getting more done or displaying some other improvement and they ask how you are doing it, it doesn't hurt to direct them to this blog or the forthcoming book or other resources. But I would recommend _not_ following up. No "Hey, have you read the ecosophia blog yet?" There is a reason people hate ex-smokers, new religious converts and certain vegans.

Rita