Magic Monday
Dec. 22nd, 2019 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
It's a little shy of midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is of Louis-Claude de St.-Martin, one of the most influential figures in the late 18th century revival of occultism in the West. Originally a student of Martinez de Pasqually and a member of his magical lodge, the Elus-Coens, St.-Martin later turned to the Christian occultism of Jakob Boehme and became the central figure in the evolution of what became the Martinist tradition, which is still very active today in most Western countries. Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.
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***This Magic Monday is now closed -- and yes, this means you. See you next week!***
Re: Visualisation and Discursive Meditation
Date: 2019-12-23 02:50 pm (UTC)2) That actually covers all the points I would make.
3) The answer's the same as for your earlier question. It's going to give you half the benefits of discursive meditation on symbols. If you're okay with that, by all means.
4) If you've only tried it once or twice briefly, you haven't given it a real try. (Imagine someone who'd tried shiho-nage "once or twice and that briefly"!) Again, the way you do it is hold the symbol or passage of text in your mind for a while, not thinking about it, but just regarding it. Then see what questions come up. Let's say you're doing discursive meditation with the first verse of the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." What beginning? What is the Word? How can it be both with God, and God? Why does John begin a bio of Jesus this way? How does this relate to other things you know about God? And so on. Choose one of those questions -- just one per session -- and think about it, probing it in different directions and from different points of view, until you either reach some conclusion or find yourself stymied. Don't give up easily.
The first few dozen times you do this will be like the first few dozen times you did shiho-nage: it will feel clumsy, forced, awkward. Then you'll start getting into the flow of it, and the secrets of the technique will start revealing themselves to you.
Re: Visualisation and Discursive Meditation
Date: 2019-12-23 04:15 pm (UTC)SamChevre
Re: Visualisation and Discursive Meditation
Date: 2019-12-23 11:28 pm (UTC)