Wow, what a day.

[Andy_S]

Peacedog:

My sense was that the Golden Dawn material was largely philosophical straying into the mystical, rather than physical realm, so that was interesting to read.

My opinion is that a lot of the offshoots of this kind of movement were dodgy - notably of course, Crowley's shady and downright ridiculous "teachings."*
To wit:
Crowley: Adept! You are now ready to achieve true mastery of "magick!" Prepare for the final inner teaching!
Adept: Oh gee! At last! What must I do, master?
Crowley (swiftly de-trousering and spreading cheeks): Adept! I command thee! Shag me up the arse!
Adept: Er...doh!

If there is real content to this stuff, do you recommend any books on the material you reference above?

*Though as Docherty among others has pointed out, sexual congress with virgins of both sexes is also included in the instruction of some of the more dubious Taoist sects.

[dspyrido]

Peacedog - Ta for the elaboration.

A relationship exists between the sense gate exercises (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch) and a gradual stabilization of emotional/behavioral issues as well.

I prefer to operate in the realm of what others can quantify & measure. Second is more in the realm of what may be able to impart onto others physically. Emotionally things are interesting but unfortunately this gets subjective. Last area is the realm of the personal work which is open to belief systems and personal experiences. Granted it can be very useful for many but not something I seek at this point in life.

So ... perchance can you highlight how much of this is in the realm of the measurable/physical vs. the emotional/spiritual aspect so I may continue on my journey?

[Simon]

A month with Mark Rasmus is all that is needed to quantify it. He will show anyone step by step the process and how to do it. He has an online training option on his site.

[Peacedog]

Andy,

The best book written on Golden Dawn practice by far is "Circles of Power" by John Michael Greer. Other than getting involved in evocation, which I strongly advise against, their more physical work involves talismanic construction and the use of spagyrics. It is at this point in time a yogic system of esoteric development.

And yes Crowley was an ass. He also intentionally put several "gotchas" into his written works that make their use dangerous for people without in-person instruction. In short, he was a bad guy who did bad things. Not worthy of following. Granted the fact that he was a lifelong heroine addict who wasted his family's fortune would key most people into that.

The only person I know teaching the physical side of Bardon's work is Mark Rasmus or his students. Keep in mind though that most Bardon practitioners are German speakers in central Europe. If you spoke really good German and made a trip over there who knows what you would find. I imagine a few of the medieval fight club reinactors from that region probably have a foot into this.

Dspyrido,

Then you would be interested in the fah jing training as a physical conduit for Bardon's work. If you spend a month with Mark working through his system in Thailand you would definitively get it.

Essentially you start out using some basic chi gung and fasciae work to generate the fah jing ability. As you begin to layer on the sense exercises and elemental work you can start working with more refined energies to generate the same effect. After six months to a year of regular practice with stuff the other aspects of meditative practice open up.

I found the elemental and sense gate exercises very interesting for their effect upon the practitioner.

Without naming people, I'm sure everyone on this board knows exceptional practitioners of the martial arts who are seriously unbalanced people. Crazed would be the right word in a certain context.

I've come to the conclusion over the last several years that this occurs due to their engaging in unbalanced yogic/meditative practice. Even when they have a meditative routine they are often really out of it.

The elemental and sense gate exercises fix this. And quickly. The results are not subtle and quite noticeable to other people.

Cheers,

Peacedog

[Deadmonki]

As far as I am aware, Golden Dawn and Franz Bardon are not related systems/approaches, they are distinct. They of course overlap in subject area in places. It would at best be like saying Feng's Chen style is the same as CXW's Chen style. Though it is probably closer to saying CXW's Taiji is like Yang Chengfu's. They are both "Taiji" but we know how the rest goes.

I'd certainly be interested to know more about how much of the physical side actually comes from Bardon's work, or how much of it was Mark and/or his teacher applying and developing things to bridge the martial arts and the esoteric work. Which I don't mean disparagingly at all. I don't think it makes what Mark does better for it to have come from Bardon.

"In 1988 he was introduced to William Cook Edwards, a metaphysics teacher who taught Franz Bardons system. Within a short number of years studying with William, Mark was working as a psychic and healer. Before long the Hermetic and Martial sciences began to meld together." Emphasis added.

Bardon's system, heavily borrowing from yogic practices is well regarded. I have to admit although I'd seen some of Mark's videos, I hadn't relaised the source of the esoteric aspect was Bardon's Hermetics and not qigong/yoga.

Best,

[jaime_g]

There are some martial exercises in western books that are like qigong practiques, such as fitzsimmons's breathing exercises, marshall stillman's boxing foundations , or farmer burns's internal massage.

[dspyrido]

Then you would be interested in the fah jing training as a physical conduit for Bardon's work. If you spend a month with Mark working through his system in Thailand you would definitively get it.

Essentially you start out using some basic chi gung and fasciae work to generate the fah jing ability. As you begin to layer on the sense exercises and elemental work you can start working with more refined energies to generate the same effect. After six months to a year of regular practice with stuff the other aspects of meditative practice open up.

Hmmm a month in Thailand just training? Sounds like a 3rd (or is it 4th?) mid life crisis.

I like Mark's writings and enjoy his hypnotic monotone explanations. You can really see he is trying to impart his frame of reference. The thing that leaves me confused with his videos is that they are all performed on much smaller & compliant fellas making Mark look like he is a 8 feet tall. The end result is that little guys go flying relatively easily.

So before I book the next flight out - do you know of any videos where he is working with much larger, more solid guys, non-compliant guys?

Without naming people, I'm sure everyone on this board knows exceptional practitioners of the martial arts who are seriously unbalanced people. Crazed would be the right word in a certain context.

I've come to the conclusion over the last several years that this occurs due to their engaging in unbalanced yogic/meditative practice. Even when they have a meditative routine they are often really out of it.

The elemental and sense gate exercises fix this. And quickly. The results are not subtle and quite noticeable to other people.

I am on this board and have not yet developed the ability to read minds so am curious who these exceptional insane practitioners are. If you can't say then I guess a PM?

As for the problems you highlight - yes it is true and they seem very real. Surprisingly I have found that a lot of full time martial artists are actually peculiar people and an above normal percentage are sociopathic.

[XiaoXiong]

Just wanted to say that the Mark Rasmus material has been helpful already. Really enjoying the practice Peacedog, thanks.
Jess

[flints]

I went to Mark Rasmus's last two day seminar in NOVA. He is a very large man, so it often looks like he is pushing around smaller people. There were some large folks at this seminar and he had no difficulty handling them. He definitely has significant internal power. He moves you with no apparent effort, yet the push feels irresistible. He has mapped the use and cultivation of this energy to various aspects of Hermetic principles as handed down through what is apparently a Bardon lineage. At the end of the day, I am not sure where he ends up is any different than where you would learning from a good internal CMA instructor. That said, his developmental path is well worked out and very clearly explained. The language he uses, magnetic/electric, is more intuitive to western minds than say, yin/yang, but probably no less esoteric. But to my mind he is objectively the real deal: he can do what he says repeatedly, you can't explain what he does any other way than how he explains it, it works on everyone he pushes with, he doesn't pick only people where he has some significant size advantage, you can do what he says and it works for you as well, though of course like anything more training = more skill.

[chud]

Welcome to the forum flints, thanks for the info.

[Peacedog]

Dspyrido,

Sorry for taking so long to respond. I was dealing with some family issues and attending my 20th academy reunion.

Most of the people Mark works with are folks with many years of practice who are quite advanced at whatever it is they do. Due to the wealth of experience he has at the yogic arts he is often able to "unstick" people for whom their practice has become stagnant. This primarily comes from a couple of items that are uncommon in his experience.

First, his explanations and the theory behind what he does are extremely clear. This makes it easy for a native English speaker to understand what he is talking about. The problem with training with a lot of the better teachers from Asia is the language/cultural barrier. Many of the concepts and ideas we deal with in the yogic/meditative arena are simply difficult to explain if both of the people involved do not fluently speak the same language and culturally have an equally fluent mutual understanding. For example, terms like chi and jing in Chinese have multiple possible definitions that only become clear in the context in which the term is used. If any linguistic/cultural differences exist between two individuals, discussion of these terms while defining exactly what is being talked about becomes difficult quickly. Additionally, many Asian languages are fairly inexact languages (lacking words for yes/no, etc.) while Western languages are hyper exact, English in particular has over 1 million words. The disadvantage with English is that the words used to explain a lot of esoteric phenomena are not in common usage (ether, egregore, etc.) and that culturally esoteric phenomena are not something commonly discussed at all.

Second, by providing a construct and theoretical model in which to place these phenomena allows for people with a lot of practice to better organize what they are doing. In my case, I had experienced a lot of the things we worked on previously, but did not understand where they fit into my personal model of what I was doing. I frequently generated certain phenomena, but could not reliably reproduce the effect as I did not understand the theory and exact techniques behind what I was doing. Not being able to reproduce the phenomena on demand made it very difficult to further refine what I was doing. Not understanding explicitly what I was doing put me in the position of constantly questioning what I was doing with thoughts like, "is this safe, is this good for me, what does further work with this lead to?" The right theoretical model greatly simplifies this. For example, for most long term IMA practitioners who cannot reliably generate the fah jing phenomena he can break down your sticking points and explain clearly why it isn't working for you. Then getting it to work reliably doesn't take too long.

Third, and this is really important, Mark represents a handful of Western practitioners I've met over the years who had what is in effect a traditional training experience. Lineage holders, and monastics, in Asia train from a fairly early age in most cases to get what they have. Mark started training seriously in his teens and never stopped. He is now 48 years old. So he is at the point where he has generated the skill and is still young enough, and has enough energy, to impart this to others. Many older practitioners have tremendous skill, but lack the energy and physicality to impart what they have. And it took 30 years to get there.

In the West, a handful of these people exist. Dr. Ken Fish, Serge Augier, Alex Kozma, Mark Rasumus, Gary Clyman, Linhai of sacredjourneys.org, Santiago Dobles, Tao Semko and similar people spent several hours a day for decades to get where they are now. Just like people who went through classical training in the temples and fight club families/villages of Asia. Whether people like these practitioners or not can be an issue, but they all have real kung fu as they are gifted, hard working and put the time in.

The good news is that given a very clear explanation of what is/is not happening many of these phenomena and skills do not take terribly long to generate a baseline ability at. Particularly if you have already done a lot of the baseline work. Granted, refined skill takes both time and effort.

Cheers,

Peacedog

[Simon]

Great post Peacedog.

Sums up my own experience with Mark. I first met Mark wanting to see if he could do it to me...and he could.

Every minute spent with him was useful and clarifying what is actually happening and how its happening. It gives you the freedom to then go and make it your own. Of course working the Franz Bardon system will also help alot imo but thats very much a deeper purpose than martial arts.

[XiaoXiong]

It's interesting. I've had this huge occult philosophy book in my collection for a few years. "Three books of western occult philosophy" by Henricus Cornelius Agrippa of Netesheim. After meeting Peacedog I decided to pick it up. Very similar to Chinese and Thai Buddhist philosophy from what I see so far. Lots if references to Hermes Tresmegistus, as well as Plato and other Greek heavy hitters. It's a very interesting read so far. Seems this Hermetic path is a substantial vehicle.
Jess

[dspyrido]

Most of the people Mark works with are folks with many years of practice who are quite advanced at whatever it is they do. Due to the wealth of experience he has at the yogic arts he is often able to "unstick" people for whom their practice has become stagnant. This primarily comes from a couple of items that are uncommon in his experience.

Mark works nicely at explaining things & I can see he can be a nice bridge for someone starting out or stuck. The issue I mentioned earlier is that although Mark may work with heavier and stronger guys I have not seen any in any of his videos. Frankly most of the guys are standing like newbies, off-balanced & weighing in 20%+ lighter than Mark. I know it is very easy to manipulate and toy with guys who are acting this way and although a good coordinated structure, lower center, adapting movement and balance is required there is not much need to draw on too many more esoteric concepts at all to explain this.

So no need for ancient philosophy, medieval magicians, egyptian/tibetan book of the living or dead or any other mysticism. Even chinese theory of chi and terms like jin are almost irrelevant. The key to this is knowing that these concepts are very physical and real and can be express via grounded power that uses the legs (the real body cannons) and are enhanced with pelvic and torso power (the next great cannon) to piston the body through the arms (in the end just 5 bows). This is optimized with a body structure that ironically works at avoiding overtensing of large muscle groups all in the meantime being able to adapt based on how the target is grounded to offset their balance. All this is not easy to get and does take years to just get the coordinations under wrap so that they can be effectively used in combat.

But back to the teaching methodology. Yes I can agree on your thoughts on a clearer teaching methodology that has been presented and also can understand the inherent frustration you might find in some/many of the aloof sometimes nutty ima instructors. To me it sounds like it was the right thing for you. But still want to caution on the use of the training metaphors and reaching for unrelated concepts like magnetism & electricity. It may work for you and others but new students might start strapping magnets to their bodies in the hopes of generating greater fajin.

In the West, a handful of these people exist. Dr. Ken Fish, Serge Augier, Alex Kozma, Mark Rasumus, Gary Clyman, Linhai of sacredjourneys.org, Santiago Dobles, Tao Semko and similar people spent several hours a day for decades to get where they are now. Just like people who went through classical training in the temples and fight club families/villages of Asia. Whether people like these practitioners or not can be an issue, but they all have real kung fu as they are gifted, hard working and put the time in.

Fajin is simply a product of well coordinated structure of the bows, driven by countless amount of time spent working on kung fu (the real kung fu concept) which is fundamentally motivated by serious focus and intent. This is where the best tend to be a little loopy but then you probably need to be to spend hours a day doing something that to many is a waste of time.

Now Mark explaining the lines of force and working through action reaction forces, grounding lines etc. may make many feel that they are progressing intellectually but in the end as you have highlighted - in order to attain any ability you really just need to go down the path of the classic training methods which did not need philosophy or even awareness of the opponent - they all required good body coordination that was honed over countless hours of old school conditioning. To attain this level of focus which I simply call the 1000 (or the repetition of a singular total body coordinated movement done in an arbitrary number of say 1000+ moves in one session with power and focus to hone and refine it) in a lot of ways requires the removal conscious & logical thinking process and almost falling away of the noise in life. Very meditative and also very difficult but really the essence of kung fu.

But just to wrap it up - if this not the area you are highlighting then just let me know. At times my frame of thinking might not be related to the things you are learning. You might be studying something that does not have any reference to the concepts I am highlighting here.

[flints]

@dspyrido: I don't think Mark would agree with your explanation nor would others I know. Although Mark does work at the level you describe -- grounded power, uses the legs, etc. -- there are those that think that use of intent to lead chi is a usable method, though Mark might call it the intent to move the magnetic or electric forces. Not trying to start and argument over who is correct, just trying to point out that what you say does not encompass what he teaches. And I believe that Mark is correct in this in part from having felt it from him and having felt it from others.

That said, peacedog has more experience with Mark and may have a different view which I would consider more authoritative.