Magical Homework

There are too many books I want to read at once.

The other day I ordered some books by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki.  She is Director of Studies of the mystery school "Servants of the Light".  I am interested in her work since she is a descendant (not genetic, but the teacher-student kind of descendant) of Dion Fortune.  I ordered a book about the use of thought-forms, and another book of pathworkings.

I have experienced the power of pathworking, I cannot recommend the practice enough to spiritual seekers.  I learned the practice from the book More Simplified Magic: Pathworking and the Tree of Life by Ted Andrews and would recommend this book too.  It has bad points but it sets down step-by-step directions on how to do a pathworking associated with each of the paths on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, or each of the major arcana of the tarot.  I still do not quite understand how it works, or how to use it in relation to practical magic, but from the first time I did a pathworking, I got results that blew me away.  I do not know what happens to most people, but after a pathworking, I start receiving so many new unexpected insights, I feel energized, more sensitive to the subtle forces, I have cathartic dreams, epiphanies, or I might start seeing some aspect of myself in a new way such that I am able to mature and grow beyond some particular mental block or neurosis.  I never really know what to expect after a particular pathworking, but usually something noticable happens inside of myself.

So I've done all of the pathworkings for each path on the Tree of Life, most of them 3 or 4 times, so I am pretty of bored with those.  So I am going to try the ones in this new book and write notes about it here. 


Then there is the book about thought-forms... I don't have much experience with thought-forms.  I suppose I will just try the exercises in the book and write about what I experience.

I ordered those two books and another fictional one, I knew I was getting the right books when the total came out to exactly $44.44.  Ah, those number synchronicities have been following me since I was a small child!

But then today I came across another book I must get: The Magick of Crystals: A Guide to Mastering Astral Projection by Lillian Bradley.  This book purports to give a relatively easy method of astral projection.  Something about programming a quartz crystal.  I've experienced astral projection a few short times.  I will never forget Robert Bruce's Astral Dynamics, it was my introduction to the world of the weird.  I never learned to project at-will, but I did a few times spontaneously, and I experienced enough to see that physical reality is not as it appears to be on the surface.  I must try this method!  I will use this amethyst pendulum I've had sitting around my jewelry-box.


So I am going to assign myself some homework:

• Prepare for doing the first pathworking from The Initiate's Book of Pathworkings.  Describe what you will do exactly to perform it.  Discuss which parts of the process you are unsure about and how you will handle each problem.
• Read some of Magical Use of Thought Forms.  Discuss three new insights or ideas received from reading it.

But I have something to say about the thought-forms book already.  On amazon dot com in the preview of the book one may read the first exercise from Appendix G, "Astral Entrances Exercises".  It describes walking on what feels like a waterbed and then sinking into it with each step.  Soon after reading this, I watched the movie The Lovely Bones where the main character dies and experiences parts of the process of transitioning into the afterlife.  Early in the movie she experiences something just like that exercise;  She is running through a field but soon the field starts undulating and she starts sinking in.  I do not think this is just a coincidence.  (That movie kind of annoyed me, like how they described how where she was as the "in-between", such an infantile name when perfectly good terminology already exists.)


That's not the first time I've noticed such occult knowledge in a movie.  I was struck by how in the movie American Beauty the main character was inspired by the dream about his daughter's friend.  A beautiful naked woman... roses... what does this remind the a student of Qabalah of?  The sephira Netzach of course.

That's all for now.

Books mentioned: 

1. More Simplified Magic: Pathworking and the Tree of Life by Ted Andrews  
2. The Magick of Crystals: A Guide to Mastering Astral Projection by Lillian Bradley 
3. Magical Use of Thought Forms: A Proven System of Mental & Spiritual Empowerment by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, J. H. Brennan
4. The Initiate's Book of Pathworkings: A Bridge of Dreams by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki
5. Astral Dynamics by Robert Bruce