I have been writing about improving the
world through a range of means on my blogs: this blog has been focused on
spiritual and psychic means, including strengthening BPM units and clearing
nonBPM units, and meditation to generate BPM energy (and units, if you know
enough).
This has been done before - particularly
during times of crisis.
The climate crisis has been our
World War III for some time (with the denialists being, at the very
least, the WW3 equivalents of Quisling, Vichy France, etc), and we now have
the COVID-19
pandemic,
caused by the zoonotic SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus (there are other novel
coronaviruses), on top of that.
World War II was probably the biggest global
crisis before our current dual crises, and during those terrible events, there
were a number of people undertaking magickal work, including the work by Dion Fortune (there
were others) outlined in the Gareth Knight edited
book "The Magical Battle of Britain" (my copy pub. Skylight Press, 2012, ISBN
978-1-908011-45-9), which I reviewed here. Ms Fortune directed her team through a series of 136
weekly and (I think) 19 monthly meditations (I originally intended to
publish a list at some stage, but it’s so long and comprehensive that I’m
concerned about breaching copyright, so I may either see if I can find an
online list, or publish something listing the broad themes only). At the
end of this, she was exhausted, and that work is considered to have contributed
to her death, but a change for the better had been accomplished.
We already have a lot of people
doing a lot of work on making the world a better place (including before
the current crises), but I would like to extend my contribution to also
include a series of weekly - or near weekly - meditations along the line of
those directed by Ms Fortune.
I am proposing this be added to the Sunday
meditations which are part of my regular psychic work. For convenience, an
outline of the meditation is provided at the end of this post.
The notes on each week’s meditation will probably
be brief to the point of being terse.
This Week: No. 9
- Learning (particularly from backsliding and mistakes)
Everyone - not just “bad”
people - backslides, makes mistakes, and generally progresses as outlined in Week
No. 8.
This, unintentional backsliding
and mistakes, is actually a long term gift - no matter how much it feels like
it isn’t in the immediate or short term.
Consider the development of, say, high jumping.
If someone wishes to take that up, they quickly discover they need to develop
their general fitness first, then they’re flexibility, and then practise the
actual skill. They may find, as they develop their general fitness that X hours
of strength training each week is OK, but X+1 starts to interfere with their
flexibility. In terms of their flexibility, they may find - from not jumping as
well as they had in previous weeks - Pilates is good by Yoga isn’t for them,
whereas for others it isn’t necessarily the same. Given the pressure to
continue improving, they may do their personal equivalent of invent the Fosbury
Flop (that Wikipedia description
is quite different to what I was taught at high school in the 70s [when the
whole idea of going backwards was weird to us - not that a short runt like me
gained enough from it to be any good], but I was fascinated to discover that a
Canadian woman had simultaneously, or slightly earlier, developed something
similar called the “Brill
Bend” [athletics: always
alliteration . . . - well, sports - in fact in a wealth of
writing, actually).
If we consider, say, emotions, the gifts of
emotions are discussed in Karla McLaren’s “The Language
of Emotions” (Pub. Sounds True, Boulder, 2010, ISBN 978-1-59179-897-2, Sounds
True, Amazon,
Readings.
You can get a quick idea of what this is about here,
but that needs to be used after you’ve read the book).
If we consider meditation, they may find
mindfulness is of no use, but loving-kindness is. (That is actually my
experience.)
In terms of the aims of this series of
meditations, which is an active, intelligently directed, spiritual quest to
make the world a better place, there may be errors in tactics and strategies
which are learnings.
One of the important lessons, I’ve found,
is not to hang onto a focus on the details, and what works in one situation:
focus on being able to adapt to different situations.
That adaptability of general principles
was, apparently, one of the advantages of the Allies against the Axis powers in
World War Two.
Military strategy is actually an area with
both good and bad examples of analysis. Even today, people quote the German
soldier von Clausewitz, who wrote about the Napoleonic Wars. Those quotes tend
to be about the higher level thinking, not so much about “the three principal
arms: Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery”, how many roads to use for marching, or
foraging.
On the higher level thinking, there are
lessons from military thinking that can be adapted for seeking to change the
world.
Now, for much of my life, I’ve had more
than just a reluctance to think about such military matters, I considered it
antithetical to what I was seeking to do.
However, as I wrote here:
Paul K Chappell writes (e.g., "The Art of Waging Peace” (pub. Prospecta Press, reprint 2015, ISBN 978-1632260314 [Amazon], see also here) about learning from the military so one can "wage peace" more effectively. I've also found, recently, that Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" actually does have some useful information that can aid my psychic work - I've avoided it for decades out of my pacifist principles, and that was a mistake. (It took reading some of Mr Chappell's books to realise my error.) This sort of learning should also be applied to using magick to change the world, and this is very well outlined in David Salisbury's excellent book "Witchcraft Activism" (Weiser Books, Newburyport, 2019, ISBN 978-1-57683-657-0; Amazon). Please get it, and read it, if you wish to use magick to make the world a better place.
I’m going to include a few more quotes, and
then continue:
Paul K. Chappell writes, in “The Art of Waging Peace”:“If we compare how much the average twenty-five-year-old army officer knows and waging war and how much the average twenty-five-year-old activist knows about waging peace, there is a big difference. Although I admire their deep commitment to waging peace, many activists have not had enough training in the nonviolent methods that lead to positive change. Many activists have not thoroughly studied the brilliant techniques of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and others who have so much to teach us. . . . Civil rights leader James Lawson, whom Martin Luther King Jr. called “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world,” said, “The difficulty with nonviolent people and efforts is that they don’t recognize the necessity of fierce discipline, and training, and strategizing [sic], and planning, and recruiting.”
and
From Paul K Chappell's book “The Art of Waging Peace” (pub. Prospecta Press, reprint 2015, ISBN 978-1632260314 [Amazon]):“Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that peaceful ends require peaceful means, and if we want to be effective at creating peace in the world, we must first strive to create peace within ourselves.”
Next, we need to be very aware of the methods we are using to counter fascism. US President Truman once made a comment, in response to McCarthyism, along the lines of not establishing a right wing dictatorship in response to a left wing dictatorship. The last chapter of Ms Albright’s book begins with a quote from Nietzsche: “Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that in the process he does not himself become a monster”.Engaging respectfully is important – Paul K Chappell writes about it, a workshop I attended a few months ago on how to counter backlash emphasised this, and interviews with former right wing extremists also raise the benefit of not getting people offside through aggression.Of course, that is easier said (or written) than done – especially the massive damage caused by those people who are hateful, fearful, or misinformed.There’s an aspect of this that the great Dr Martin Luther King raised, which I quoted a few times of late, that applies here as well:“It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.”
For anyone who wants to prevent - or even minimise - that violence, I suggest engage in persuasion as best you can, and study the techniques of Cure Violence, and writers such as Paul K Chappell. The potential harm can be addressed.
So . . . had a chance to digest
all that?
Good :)
I'm going to interrupt this to point out that those organising the protests in the USA clearly DO know much of the strategy, and have the discipline, that Mr Chappell was referring to.
I'm going to interrupt this to point out that those organising the protests in the USA clearly DO know much of the strategy, and have the discipline, that Mr Chappell was referring to.
Now, I’ve written a great deal about
tactical and strategic ideas on this blog, and I’m trying to create examples of
some application with the Rangers stories (see here, here, and here [and here]; this applies, to some extent, the Tara
Dale Chronicles [see here and here] ). If I ever get the time and energy (maybe after I’ve
retired for a couple of years), I might even write a book on psychic
tactics/strategy (that depends on being able to retire and still have reasonable health and energy, which in turn depends on whether I can survive the next few years
of engineering, and how my family’s financial situation goes ☺ ).
Now, a final point: to learn effectively
from backsliding and mistakes takes more than an ability and a willingness to
learn, it requires objectivity, equanimity, and freedom from judgmentalism -
Weeks 2
and 4
may help with that, but so will weeks 6,
7,
and 8.
Positive thinking won’t, as
it sets up barriers to objectively perception.
I am familiar with the high levels of
analysis and review that exist in academia (as well as the many faults),
and thus I have chosen the word “scholar” for this weeks sigilcraft.
Previous meditations in this sequence are:
1.
Introduction, definition of the problem(s), and Realisation;
3.
Together;
4.
Caution,
respect and integrity (aka cunning);
5.
Momentum;
6.
Insight;
7.
Preciseness;
8.
Progress.
- appropriate and responsible protection (see here, here, here), prayer and ritual (e.g., here) to establish and check protection (re-do the protection, or re-schedule the meditation, if you don’t feel safe and secure);- establish a personal connection to your Higher BPM influences;- flush one's aura with emerald green, royal blue and royal purple;- fill one’s Heart Chakra (and maybe one’s Earth Star, Solar Plexus, Third Eye and Crown Chakras) with emerald green, royal blue and royal purple; send a weave of three streams of this colour from the Chakra(s) to a visualisation of a gigantic, multi-faceted emerald (which has been created to facilitate networking of BPM workers) through your facet until you see your energy enlivening other areas of the emerald and can feel similar energies flowing back to you;- visualise the rune / bindrune (if given - or, on Sunday, the group of symbols provided);- strengthen those feelings (energies);- radiate those energies to the world for nine to eighteen minutes;- then, on Sunday, also perform the additional meditation work for around 15 minutes or so: contemplate the topic, and the spiritual (i.e., nonphysical) implications of it, and seek insights and understanding. Do not be distracted by thoughts of physical actions - those are necessary also, but this exercise is about the nonphysical, in the broadest possible sense, and the focus should be on nonphysical actions, energy flows, symbols, and the like, all with the intention of bringing about a change for the better. As a second stage, if you wish, you can meditate on any physical actions which may be necessary, but get the spiritually focused work done first;- when finished, close your chakras, centre and ground yourself and close your aura, use the banishing version of the LBRP to open circle, ground and release all excess energy; and make sure you are grounded and closed down – eat, if you need to, or seek help from someone capable and trusted.
