MY advice for young occultists
So there has been a big kurfluffel about Nick Farrells advice for young occultsists and various people critiquing it, and now lots of people issuing their own lists. Its altready overdone and my mind is on other things, but someone specifically asked me to do it because there has not been a really good blog-go-round in a while.
So here than are my few pieces of advice for young occultists.
1. If you CAN do something else, do that. I am serious about this. Most of the world doesn’t even believe that this stuff is real. It is not the best way to get money, sex, power, or anything else. So unless you absolutely, feel a call to this that overshadows just about anything else, spend your time doing something else.
2. If you do feel that call to do it, DO THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF IT. There is noting better then doing what you love, so if you are gonna be about it, then be about it.
3. MEDITATE. I know, I know. It’s the most un-magical thing you can do. You want to get up and shout invocations to the quarters and meditation has you sitting down and shutting up. You want to see strange things and have visions, and meditation tells you to not pay attention to those. You want to talk to the gods and spirits and meditation tells you that if one interrupts your meditation that you should ignore it. Do it anyway. There is nothing you know outside your own mind, so having a clear one is REALLY important.
4. Keep your fantasy like separate from your occultism. It might SEEM like a cool idea to start making talismans in the language from Skyrim, but because magic is itself a subtle thing, and even the best of us can confuse a spirits messages and signs with our own projections, it is almost never a good idea. This is not to say that there is no overlap, or never a place for it, but become an occultist first. Then think about how fantasy and the occult impact each other.
5.Realize that you know a LOT. Because of ease of information you can actually get detailed and more accurate information faster then when I or Nick were your age. Sometimes you won’t have the proper context to process this information, but simply having the access gives you a leg up on where we were. That said information is not wisdom, which will come in time. You can benefit a LOT from having older people take you through the ropes and point out the mistakes that we made, but don’t let that cut you off from the tools and information that we did not have.
6. Make Money a part of your path. I am not talking about becoming a writer or professional occultist. I am talking about making money part of your life’s strategy. Unless you are a Monk or wandering Yogi you are NOT serious about being non-materialistic in your spiritual path, so make it a part of your path. Money is too big a monster to let run amok: if you are not going to banish it, then you have to master it, or it will master you.
7. KEEP TALKING. Your theories are not fully formed yet, but unless you talk about them, they never will be. Your brain is more flexible than ours is, and if you can manage to take advantage of the experience of your teachers AND the flexibility and vigor of your youth you can break new ground. Everything that I teach today is rooted in stuff that I tossed around with peers and elders when i was in my Teens and 20’s.
8. KEEP QUESTIONING: By all means ask real questions, but there is a method of asking genuine questions that ALSO display how smart and serious you are. If there is one technique that I have used to get people who are older to open up and spill details about higher teachings, it is asking questions that show I know what I am talking about,
That and alcohol….
PS: The pic above is of me and some other occultists with Lama Vajranatha. We took him to the woods, got him beer, then learned some magic. Do stuff like that.
