I have finished reading, "Black Magic" after digesting "The Church of Satan". It's interesting how CoS became ToS at least that is what I am gathering
from BM. You certainly have a vast interest in philosophy drumming up references to Aristotle, Plato and Descartes. They are both excellently
written and very educational with a lot of academic references.
There were quite a few qualities in BM that I found interesting. The historical information related to Set. The skepticism of the validity of Satan,
God et al. Introductions into different epistemology regarding reality and truth, the OU and SU concepts. The use of LBM and GBM as well as the
ritual chamber. The ideas of neutrality in the ToS principles.
Many of these ideas, I certainly have thought about. Reality for what I can grasp of it, in the limited time that I can perceive it; a very profound
and genuine phenomena. Now up front and honest, I have no religious beliefs, follow no set-rules of someone else. I'm kind of a one-man wolf pack
just going at it all trying to figure it out with a sense of humor and interest in the deeper meaning of existence. But that island that I am on is
undoubtedly different as most of us are unique and I've learned to respect individuality as a rich gift and reward of being human.
I do admit I have nearly zero interest in any type of entity worship nor interest in calling on any other unknown or known powers in the cosmos.
Gods, devils, angels, aliens, ghosts, the stay-puff marshmallow man... meh. Unless it's real, in my face and something that can engage in a
reasonably interesting conversation, there is not much need to echo out to outside forces in my life, but then I don't see a need so hence no effort
placed.
What I did find interesting however, was the idea of the ritual chamber for the purpose of sensory deprivation and the use of flat black to create a
sense of floating in space. This reminded me experiences that I have had with being conscious during sleep; when the sensory noise is shut-off and
the pitch-black ebb of the void has enveloped me. It is from this void; which many who willingly enter sleep while awake will find surfaces over and
over again.
The void is my GBM chamber in all purity as no one else can enter, and I can conjure anything that I desire or imagine. It is magical place, a real
place. A construct like in the Matrix but black, not white as demonstrated when Morpheus spoke with Neo.
It is also from here where I have pushed the envelope of dreams and reality to such an extent that I've changed UO in many different ways through this
chamber. Although I don't consider it magic; rather an effect of changing data before it renders in real-time it certainly produced magical
results.
I'll share one example as I have documented it with pictures and this took place back in 1998. What happened to this person and why he has in the
middle of his forehead a triangle shape is because I put it there weeks before, in a dream that I changed willfully and knowingly.
Now, don't get me wrong I didn't really want to put a psychic tatoo on this person. He is a friend of mine and just happened to be in the right dream
at the right time when I was experimenting with precognitive dreaming and the potential to change them.
In the dream, it was simply a window of opportunity, I recognized my work environment was lucid and aware that I was dreaming and was already leaving
geometrical footprints on the surfaces of dreams as to isolate and identify the precognitive layer. Well, in that journey he and I met, I put the
triangle there and weeks later the dream came true.
In the waking world, well... he had no idea what I was doing and simply saw the after effect. It was quite an event for him. One of many for me.
Thought I would share as it's different than what you write about but it's own type of magic I suppose.
Here's a more detailed thread with more images on ATS:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
For moral and ethical reasons after I affected him this way I never again targeted any living system in dreams during this experimentation and when
satisfied with the results I no longer needed to bend the fabric of space/time just to see this covert relationship between dreams and reality. I
opened that window up fully and had a good look when the opportunity presented itself.
Thanks again for sharing all of your works. I enjoyed reading your books and will certainly look at some more of your writings.
edit on 16-10-2013 by YouAreDreaming because: (no reason given)