Death is an Adviser

…He told me to turn around casually and look at a boulder to my left. He said that my death was there staring at me and if I turned when he signaled me I might be capable of seeing it. He signaled me with his eyes. I turned and I thought I saw a nickering movement over the boulder. A chill ran through my body, the muscles of my abdomen contracted involuntarily and I experienced a jolt, a spasm. After a moment I regained my composure and I explained away the sensation of seeing the flickering shadow as an optical illusion caused by turning my head so abruptly. "Death is our eternal companion," don Juan said with a most serious air. "It is always to our left, at an arm's length.”
……………..
"The thing to do when you're impatient," he proceeded, "is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you."
……………..
"Death is the only wise adviser that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, "I haven't touched you yet"."
© Carlos Castaneda – “The Jorney to Ixtlan”

Well, it’s not exactly “to our left”, it’s on left but behind the back. Memento mori – was great idea for explaining this phenomenon, it always works on sensitive natures. Don Juan stopped right here. Did he know more? I think he did.
Another interesting character can be found on the left is devil.

Yes, shoulder devil. :) Usually (not necessarily) it’s drawn there. And it advises and it tempts. These are not coincidental cases – it’s just the same phenomenon. Let’s call it Death – it’s a very good name.
In terms of Tarot Death is a set of operations with zero. If it’s multiplication it’s the end of existence. But it can be division and then it’s infinity, eternity and the rest of the things of this kind. Furthermore: zero point is a place where everything (not anything but everything) is possible – it’s a place of choice, it’s temptation.

But I don’t think don Juan mentioned this. What he talked about looks like different system. What’s “always to our left” and can be seen or felt someway is a part of our energy. Very interesting part. It knows everything about our ways in this world. So don Juan was right, "The thing to do when you're impatient is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death.” But it’s not that simple – there’s no don Juan around to give a sign in the right moment.
Fortunately, there’s another way to accomplish this. The way is sympathetic magic. Death can be accessed through its representation. Here it is.

And if you need an advice its where you can get it.
Memento mori :)

Psychoanalyzing flower :)

Got in trouble? Fill anxiety, fear, pressure? Want to visit psychologist? Well, try to save some money, here’s another way to solve your problem.
I did it mostly for fun. It won’t solve the Main Problem of your life, but it works.
Just concentrate on your problem, touch the flower in the header of this page and ask for help. Since psychological and physical problems are related it can treat some light diseases as well.
Well, if it didn’t work, call the doctor

Unicorn

Finally I made it and this is real magic :)
It’s used to think today that unicorn looks like horse with a corn. But once it was different.


Domenichino (1581-1641) The Maiden and the Unicorn


Francesco Di Giorgio Martini (1439-1502) Chasity With The Unicorn


Raphael (1483-1520) Lady with a Unicorn

Well there’s no canonical figure of unicorn but if you try to rebuild it from the archetype it’ll look more like goat with one corn. But that’s not too interesting. Beliefs related to unicorns are different matter. There’re many of them but I’ll talk about one.

It’s believed that unicorn brings good or bad luck. Unicorn is just an animal so it doesn’t do something purposely. It just lives (well, myths say it does J ). So how can it affect people?

What is luck? It’s a chain of events correlated by our attitude or estimate. Simpler it’s opportunity to get some benefit or advantage (or vice versa for bad luck).

Our life consists of events and they’re related to each other some way. This relation has rules. So what unicorn does – it changes the rules. This is not simple – these are rules of this world, at least for humans. Than unicorn must be ruled by more effective rules still acceptable by the world. I suppose it may be ability and resembling. Now back to humans.

Once I found this in the Internet.

A chain of events is analysed "according to the Patience of Medici".
On a deck of cards, each card has meaning, according to this theory:
- Hearts : are sensual experiences (sympathy, antipathy, passion etc.) - Diamonds: financial matters - Clubs: social activity, work - Spades: aggression, obstacles

In that, it is similar to Tarot cartomancy.

Further symbols: - Ace: circumstances beyond our control - King: the law - Queen: people/animals with which we interact - Jack: our personal motives, desire, motive, the intentions, which force us to act. - 10: the result of our actions - 9: information. our outputs, utterances. - 8: contact - 7: absorption (consumption of food and information, the survey of football, cinema, reading newspaper so forth. - 6: displacement

Then, you play Medici's Patience (yes, a type of solitaire). Please note that only 6-A cards play: - The deck of cards should be with the jackets upwards. - You take out three cards and lay them. - The middle (second) card is the most important one. If it is located between the cards with identical color (for example, between two hearts) or between the cards with identical values (for example, between two "ten"s), then this second card is shifted to the first. - If the second card is not added to the first, you lay out the fourth card and you begin the analysis of the third card - i.e., you look, if is located between identical colours or identical values. If it is, it is shifted on the second card, and then you again return to its analysis of the second card (since the third became the second). - If not, you open again - a fifth card and you begin to analyze the fourth card. Again, if the fourth is proven to be between similar values or colours, you put it on the third - it becomes the third - and the two are shifted on the second card - all become the second.

Interpretation: is done through looking at the chain of events, as manifested in the second card(s). Each new card is analyzed as a proposed action, that would continue "broken chains" in our lives.

This former Mary Stuart Solitaire played with 36 cards deck simulates our life. And it’s built upon 2 rules close enough to “unicorn” rules: capability and resembling. Capability is more restrictive than ability but it can be changed by external influence and that’s the trick of unicorn.

Magic stones

This is amazonite. If you open Google and search for info on it you find something like that, Amazonite creates a feeling of power. It inspires truth, sincerity, honor, self love, communication, eloquence, integrity, trust, clairvoyance, clarity, prophecy and openness. If you believe it really works as written you should believe in Peter Pan and Harry Potter as well. The stone is just a stone, it does nothing by itself. It’s passive. There are exceptions from this rule: shungite, moldavite and several others but they are rare. Any other stone must be activated to produce some non placebo effect on human body upon external exposition. Sometimes activation happens when you start using the stone, sometimes it’s done intentionally, sometimes the stone resonates with you, but usually it doesn’t happen at all.



This is another one. It’s activated – notice the difference. Now it works but I wouldn’t say it inspires truth or sincerity. Looks more like doubt and confusion. It’s not because of the “bad energies I forgot to cleanse”, it’s because of quality of the stone. No one promised it’s clean enough to do exactly what’s expected and it doesn’t. This can be overcome by taking the right qualities from the egregore of stones and activating nothing but them.



This is it and it’s much better. Will it work? Well… “They might or they might not, you never can tell with bees.” © Winnie-the-Pooh  What is sincerity for example? Wikipedia sais, “Sincerity is the virtue of one who speaks and acts truly about his or her own feelings, thoughts, and desires.” So sincerity depends on perception of the person and what is the truth itself for one may look false for other. And if you start acting sincerely but not thoughtfully it may look bad for others. Sincerity is not the best example, think what it could be with love where one means sex and the other friendship. That’s not all yet. Different people affected differently by this stone. In this case affection depends on element. If water is your element it works, but if it’s fire… I’m sorry. So, what it was about. Stones can be used for making amulets but the stone itself shouldn’t be the amulet. It should be the base for amulet depending on its qualities when the amulet must be created for the specific person or must have no limitations.

Snow Queen

We all read the “Snow Queen” by Andersen but the origin of the Snow Queen is not clear. Andersen wrote in his memoris,
"He is dead," said my mother, addressing it; "thou needest not call him. The ice maiden has fetched him." I understood what she meant. I recollected that, in the winter before, when our window panes were frozen, my father pointed to them and showed us a figure as that of a maiden with outstretched arms. "She is come to fetch me," said he, in jest. And now, when he lay dead on the bed, my mother remembered this, and it occupied my thoughts also.

(I took it from here http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/andersen/storyofmylife/chapter1.html)

It explains Andersen’s fears but nothing more. Well, Andersen’s parents told him about Ice Maiden. But who is she? She is definitely goddess and there must be some mythology beyond all this story but I never heard about it.

More than century later Tove Jansson writes about another goddess - Lady of the Cold, “Very beautiful. But if you look her in the face you’ll be frozen to ice.”

This is better – here’s some description. Goddess who freezes by sight can be found in Japanese folklore. She is ghost there but ghosts are common for Japanese folk. Her name is Yuki-Onna.

Myths, and of cause fairytales, are concocted by people. And people use to fear of gods and make them sadistic, insane, and very unpleasant.

But there must be something except the fear in all this stuff. Let’s get back to Andersen. “When you can find out this, you shall be your own master, and I will give you the whole world and a new pair of skates.”

OK, skates are forgivable for old good Christian Andersen. The rest is more interesting. Assuming that he really adopted some myths this phrase can be the key. I’d rephrase it like this, “If you solve this puzzle you become the one who rules his own world.” This is “Hermit” – Arcanum IX. And solving the puzzle is the second initiation when the kiss of the Snow Queen is the first.

And now the fairytale.

A long time ago, there lived boy and girl. Their names were Kay and Gerda. They were about 15 years old and it means what it means. One sunny day Kay decided to tell Gerda how much loves her and to make proposition (it was a long time ago – people used to get irreversibly married when they were young then). But the girl was stupid and she said that it’s only lust and adolescent crisis. And she waits for the man who can really appreciate her beauty. Kay was upset but didn’t give up. He decided to learn to appreciate the beauty.
So one day he just went to learn. He didn’t tell anyone where is he going and when he is planning to be back. And sometime later he was declared to be drowned in the local river. Gerda cried for her failed marriage but calmed down soon. And Key came to the Snow Queen and told her about his problem. And the Snow Queen decided to help him. She gave him puzzle. It was magic puzzle. It couldn’t be solved without understanding the harmony of all of its parts. It took Kay a long time to solve it but he did. And then he’s got the next one, it was harder. And then the next… The last puzzle was himself and it was 4 years later.
He came back and he married Gerda – no one wanted to marry floaters bride, so she stayed unmarried. But 2 years later he left again. Nobody saw him ever since.

Healing image

Back to efficiency of amulets. Shape is not the only way to increase it. There’re many others. One of them is using some external source of energy. It can be energy of egregore as it usually happens in religions it can be something else. I’ll take the positive place of power. Fuji mountain is definitely good one.

(Photo from http://www.nationalgeographic.com)
Next step is creating amulet. I’ll take human silhouette, link it to the “mold of man” described by Castaneda, and run the Fuji energy through this stuff so the energy is shaped into “human” form.

This can be used for healing. The best way to use it is to put a left hand on the picture, but looking is good to. Furthermore this can be reproduced in any other form. But don’t forget Castaneda, “He said that I had to go beyond the mold, that the mold was merely a stage, a stopover that brought temporary peace and serenity to those who journey into the unknown, but that it was sterile, static.”
P.S. This image works good only where I place it, so downloading it is a bad idea.

Emotions

Forgiveness is well known as being the central teaching of Christianity and not only Christianity. Same is right about mercy, humility, loyalty, acceptance and many more. There is a lot of stories approving all this stuff in any religion. But it must have some meaning beyond the “taught” one. And it has. All these human qualities are built upon emotions. C. G. Jung wrote in his “Aion”, “Emotion, incidentally, not an activity of the individual but something that happens to him.” This phrase is a key. Once you fall a victim to your emotions you don’t control yourself anymore but you’re controlled by stereotypes given by religion or mass media. And same is right for the guilt, fear, shame, envy, and many others. Emotions are our reactions to our thoughts. In contrast, there is another type of reactions. Reactions to changes in our real world – instincts. Difference between these types seems to be obvious, but it’s not. Reality of our world depends on our understanding of it. Freud wrote in “Beyond The Pleasure Principle”, “consciousness arises in the place of the memory-trace”. Our memories are different and understanding may change from life to life. But one day it stops changing and forms instinct on the place of emotion – it’s a part of the personal development process. Before it happens the whole process of instinct development looks much like conflict. It happens in anahata. And it’s what hurts when you try to open it. Back to emotions. There’re many ways to work with all this stuff. I’ll show one. This is US dollar, picture from its back.

This pyramid with a “Big Brother” eye is a very interesting symbol, but it’s unusable in this form. It would make much more sense in this form

Identify yourself with this symbol and try to look at something making you emotional. If you did it right you should understand at this point why it touched you. That’s it.

Magic is an illusion

I practice magic for a long time by now. And all this time I try to find some working magical system. When I say working, I mean result oriented and based upon something more valuable than visualization and imagination. The best of what I saw up to now are different kinds of personal achievements which I can’t call system or NLP-like systems which are definitely not magic. I assume that different altered states of consciousness used in voodoo or shamanism can produce some valuable results but again it’s not a system. Here’s quote from Hyatt’s and Black’s “Urban Voodoo” … Wiccans, ceremonial magicians, or followers of Aleister Crowley. These are all groups who claim to practice “magic” including the evocation of invisible intelligences. After decades of experience with these groups we can state that, for the most part, they do absolutely nothing of the sort. … For anyone raised in a culture that suppresses psychic phenomena, and reduces serious discussion of non-human intelligences to “bible stories” (as Christian, Jewish, and Islamic cultures do), coming face to face with actual phenomena can be a catastrophic shock. The way such things are dealt with in most esoteric groups is no different, for the most part, than in a church. For such people, a single encounter with a “ghost”, or with a UFO, can be the most devastating experience of a lifetime, because it changes everything. So what is the “everything” that can but shouldn’t be changed? Why do people love action or horror movies? Because it gives them what they can’t get any other way: intense emotions and distraction from everyday concerns. This is well known fact. “Contemporary magic” does the same but instead of emotions it gives feeling of power or freedom and usually both. This illusion is what “magicians” try to keep. And it’s what can be ruined by facing the truth whatever this truth is.

Ring of Andvari

Another interesting ring can be found in Eddas. “…Odin sent Loki into the Land of the Black Elves, and he came to the dwarf who is called Andvari, who was as a fish in the water. Loki caught him in his hands and required of him in ransom of his life all the gold that he had in his rock; and when they came within the rock, the dwarf brought forth all the gold he had, and it was very much wealth. Then the dwarf quickly swept under his hand one little gold ring, but Loki saw it and commanded him to give over the ring. The dwarf prayed him not to take the ring from him, saying that from this ring he could multiply wealth for himself if he might keep it. Loki answered that be should not have one penny left, and took the ring from him and went out; but the dwarf declared that that ring should be the ruin of every one who should come into possession of it.” Before it was cursed the ring could multiply the wealth of its bearer. I assume that wealth can be the major characteristic of the dwarf. Than what this ring does is characteristic multiplication. If this assumption is wrong, it doesn’t really matter – replication of the dwarfs characteristic is just an example. There’re many ways to reproduce this multiplication, the simplest is through the rings shape. Any ring multiplies its functions through its shape, just because it runs energy for many cycles. But this can be improved. Simplest improvement is making ring of several loops. But much more effective is to create loops in different directions. This is what “Celtic design” does. The only condition for such a “Celtic ring” is everyone of its loops must go all the way around the finger.

Another example of multiloop design is a “Greek key pattern”

This too shall pass

“This too shall pass” (Persian: این نیز بگذرد‎, Arabic: كله ماشي‎, Hebrew: גם זה יעבור‎, Turkish: Bu da geçer) is a proverb indicating that all material conditions, positive or negative, are temporary. The phrase seems to have originated in the writings of the medieval Persian Sufi poets, and is often attached to a fable of a great king who is humbled by the simple words. Some versions of the fable, beginning with that of Attar of Nishapur, add the detail that the phrase is inscribed on a ring, which therefore has the ability to make the happy man sad and the sad man happy. Jewish folklore often describes Solomon as giving or receiving the phrase. The proverb and associated fable were popular in the first half of the 19th century, appearing in a collection of tales by the English poet Edward Fitzgerald and being employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became president. I took this from Wikipedia. The interesting thing here is a ring. Inscribing the phrase “This too shall pass” is almost meaningless for the author of “Ecclesiastes”. The phrase was different. The well known fact about King Solomon is that he was magician. Another fact is that he had a ring giving him some superpower signed with the “Seal of Solomon”. Let’s try to connect these rings. The “Seal of Solomon” looks like that

This is definitely a symbol of the Arcanum XI – The Law. The phrase should be the same. It can be found in the “Ecclesiastes”. The phrase is, “What has been will be again”. But in Hebrew it looks slightly different, there is no “again” in Hebrew version. “מה שהיה הוא שיהיה”. It can be translated as “What has been is what shall be” and this is the right one. Now the ring, it should work like this: 1. It must legitimate the action 2. It must define the action First is done by the “מה שהיה” and it should be inscribed on the outer side of the ring. Second is done by the “הוא שיהיה” on the inner side. This way the ring will determine the action as the outcome of the past. Just like the “Seal of Solomon” or one of the ways