Sphere of Protection and Eastern Exercises

[ecosophia]

A project that I'm currently working on for publication is a manual of occult theory and practice for the beginning and intermediate student. This isn't a book about magic -- it's occultism in the sense found in Manly P. Hall and The Kybalion, the quest for wisdom and revelation through study of occult lore and practice of meditation and certain other related disciplines. The one ritual that plays a central role in it is the Sphere of Protection -- and thereby hangs a tale. 

One of the things that was just beginning to happen back in the waning years of classical American occultism's golden age was that certain  Asian exercises were beginning to find a home in the occult repertory. That's a process that deserves to be restarted, because (for complex historical reasons) Europe and the European diaspora lost their subtle-body exercises a long time ago, while Asia kept the traditions going. Since occult training (as distinct from magical training) doesn't involve circulating energy through subtle centers in the body -- the thing that can produce messy results when you mix it with Asian ways of doing the same thing -- it should be possible to combine occult training with practice of some of the more widely available Eastern exercise systems. 

"Should be possible" is a shaky reed to lean on, though. Thus I'd like to ask for some help from my readers. 

I know a fair number of readers of mine have taken up the Sphere of Protection as a regular practice, using either The Druid Magic Handbook or my posts here on Dreamwidth as a guide. I know that some of you also practice eastern exercises or physical disciplines such as yoga. What I want to know is whether you've noticed any interaction at all between regular practice of the SoP and regular practice of Eastern movement arts, including but not limited to: 

• Aikido
• Hatha yoga
• Karate
• Shintaido
• Tai Chi Chih
• Taijiquan

I've been able to experiment with Shintaido and Tai Chi Chih myself. (For those who aren't familiar with these, Shintaido is a movement art derived from martial arts, which was devised by Hiroyuki Aoki in the 1960s -- link here -- and Tai Chi Chih is a set of energy exercises created by taijiquan teacher Justin Stone in the US in the 1970s -- link here. I ended up exploring both of these after my magical practices and my practice of one of the old, very qigong-heavy taijiquan styles interacted badly and messed up my health; Tai Chi Chih is my current daily movement exercise.)  Your experience may be different from mine, though, so if you've worked with either of these and the SoP, I'd be grateful for your comments -- and if you've done something else along with the SoP, please consider telling me all about it!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Before I continue, I'm reminded of the old joke: how many tai chi students does it take to change a light bulb? Ten... One to change the bulb and the other nine to say, "that's not how my instructor taught me to do it".

I'm not sure, John. I've learned tai chi - I've won medals and trophies performing it - and I feel that maybe there was something wrong with the way you were taught (cue joke above). I consider myself a Taoist martial tai chi practitioner, which means I'm learning with a specific goal in mind. I have no ken with the more flowy, "wushu" type tai chi that one sees in most tournaments and YouTube videos :D. The (adapted) Yang style I practise is very specific and its principles mirror very much what Justin Stone seems to say, except for that finger fluttering, which is very disturbing to me. I don't want to bore your readers, but the hand movement isn't just a hand movement, there's still the potential for, and understanding of, movement even when the hand is still. For me, the fluttering implies a "LACK of flow" of chi, a blockage if you will, which is easily solved with the right mindset driving the right physical movements. I'm sorry, but that's the best I can do...it's difficult to explain in words.

Having said all that, I learnt that what I was doing was very much "Tai Chi Chuan + Qi Gong" (almost 30 years' practice) and not this Tai Chi Chih variant. I haven't felt any contradiction with the SoP (14 months' practice, still early days). My pantheon is Greek but with Taoist deities for Spirit Below/Above/Within and I have felt some response from them, so don't believe I'm meandering down a dead alley here.

Of course the Tai Chi I practise isn't "pure", if one can define what that actually means after all this time. But it harks back to the original purpose of Tai Chi, which is a very effective martial art. I was fortunate in having an incredibly gifted sifu, who combined high intellect and "breath" with the kind of streetwise smarts one can only wish for. I doubt I'll see his ilk again. (This one's for you, Keemo.)

[ecosophia]

If it works for you, great -- but I'm by no means the only person I know of who had bad results from combining them. The taijiquan I learned, for what it's worth, was the old Yang form taught by Tchoung Ta-Tchen -- here's a video of part of his form I learned it from his student Andrew Dale and Andy's student Gene Burnett. The training involved quite a bit of qigong, especially zhang zhuan, Emei MOuntain qigong and Tian Shan qigong.

The "fluttering hands" business seems to be a recent addition to the practice of TCC, btw -- the teacher I learned it from didn't teach it, and neither did Justin Stone's books. It's not something I do.

[(Anonymous)]

Nice video, thanks for that. :)