I've been practicing discursive meditation since 2013, when I started working through the Celtic Golden Dawn. I thought I was reasonably good at it. Lately, though, I've realized that in all this time I've been mostly just skimming the surface of this practice and where it can take you.
I'm currently unable to practice magic, due to a pregnant wife. I spent a month or two trying out various spiritual practices to fill the void. Recently I've come back to using discursive meditation exclusively, first thing in the morning, with the Celtic Golden Dawn material providing themes.
The experience has been as profound as my first experiences with magic were. I find that the themes I've been selecting have been opening themselves to me, and to my understanding-- using the word in the old sense, not just my thinking mind-- as never before. I realized that, for years, I made magic THE THING, the main focus of my ritual work. I poured all my energy into the pentagram, the central ray, and later the OIW rite... and saved very little for the meditation practice. It wasn't that I didn't meditate-- I did, and some of my meditations were very fruitful. But I didn't always go very deep with it, and if it ever happened that I was short on time, it was the thing I was most likely to cut. It wasn't fun, after all-- it's no light show, like the rituals are-- and if you wrote in the CGD book that it was the most important element of the whole practice, well... Well, I'm not really sure what response I had to that. I suppose I ignored it. Or maybe I thought I knew better. After all, the first course in magic that I practiced (Donald Kraig's book) didn't teach discursive meditation, and hadn't I completed it, and changed my life in the process?
So I guess the point of this post is-- You were right all along. Discursive meditation is the key, and the well is much deeper than I had any idea.
I haven't tried the step by step method you're outlining here, going from five minutes of stillness to (I guess) adding in themes later. I think I will give it a try after the current sequence of themes I'm working through. Today, though, I did add in one new thing. You've always written that the legs should be parallel during meditation, the way that the lion lady's legs in the picture are. I can sit with my legs relatively parallel, but it's uncomfortable, so I've always just let my knees hang open a bit, so that my legs go outward from my body. Today for a few minutes at the end of the meditation I tried bringing my legs closer together. And... it was uncomfortable, requiring a light activation of the adductor muscles. But also, it took a certain pressure off of my lower back that I hadn't known I was carrying. I guess when you say "Follow the instructions as given," you have a reason....
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branchandroot
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Date: 2019-09-08 12:07 am (UTC)I'm currently unable to practice magic, due to a pregnant wife. I spent a month or two trying out various spiritual practices to fill the void. Recently I've come back to using discursive meditation exclusively, first thing in the morning, with the Celtic Golden Dawn material providing themes.
The experience has been as profound as my first experiences with magic were. I find that the themes I've been selecting have been opening themselves to me, and to my understanding-- using the word in the old sense, not just my thinking mind-- as never before. I realized that, for years, I made magic THE THING, the main focus of my ritual work. I poured all my energy into the pentagram, the central ray, and later the OIW rite... and saved very little for the meditation practice. It wasn't that I didn't meditate-- I did, and some of my meditations were very fruitful. But I didn't always go very deep with it, and if it ever happened that I was short on time, it was the thing I was most likely to cut. It wasn't fun, after all-- it's no light show, like the rituals are-- and if you wrote in the CGD book that it was the most important element of the whole practice, well... Well, I'm not really sure what response I had to that. I suppose I ignored it. Or maybe I thought I knew better. After all, the first course in magic that I practiced (Donald Kraig's book) didn't teach discursive meditation, and hadn't I completed it, and changed my life in the process?
So I guess the point of this post is-- You were right all along. Discursive meditation is the key, and the well is much deeper than I had any idea.
I haven't tried the step by step method you're outlining here, going from five minutes of stillness to (I guess) adding in themes later. I think I will give it a try after the current sequence of themes I'm working through. Today, though, I did add in one new thing. You've always written that the legs should be parallel during meditation, the way that the lion lady's legs in the picture are. I can sit with my legs relatively parallel, but it's uncomfortable, so I've always just let my knees hang open a bit, so that my legs go outward from my body. Today for a few minutes at the end of the meditation I tried bringing my legs closer together. And... it was uncomfortable, requiring a light activation of the adductor muscles. But also, it took a certain pressure off of my lower back that I hadn't known I was carrying. I guess when you say "Follow the instructions as given," you have a reason....