Tantric masturbation – how to do it and why. Plus advocacy for group tantric masturbation. Not at all safe for work.
(via Chaoflux)
Tagyoga
This is a couple weeks old:
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said. He was thought to be 91 years old.
“He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.,” said Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation movement that Maharishi founded. He said his death appeared to be due to “natural causes, his age.”
(via Robot Wisdom)
I recently read on Boing Boing about a book that expounds on The Secret, un-commercially called The Secret Source: The Law of Attraction is One of Seven Hermetic Laws: Here Are the Other Six (link). Using the usual occult description (whereas I just throw in clich? occult imagery for effect… though it did come up in an image search for “Kybalion”):
The Secret Source goes above and beyond the media phenomenon known as The Secret to reveal the powerful occult doctrines that gave birth to ‘The Law of Attraction.’
The Secret Source traces the seven Hermetic Laws back to ancient Greece and Egypt and shows how they filtered down through various religions and into the mainstream consciousness of the modern world. This book provides the actual texts and fascinating stories behind the ‘Emerald Tablet,’ the Kabbalistic treatise known as ‘The Kybalion,’ and the prosperity consciousness beliefs of the New Thought movement that have given sustenance to health and wealth-oriented seekers of every generation since the late 19th century.
If you recognized the power behind ‘The Law of Attraction’ but felt ambivalent about The Secret’s materially-driven, infomercial style approach, you will appreciate this deeper understanding and examination of the Law’s true nature.
Or you can just read The Kybalion here for free on Google Books. (Wikipedia entry.) Enjoy.
The Seven Principles of Kybalion Awesomeness:-
- Principle of Mentalism
The Principle of Mentalism embodies the truth that “All is Mind.” - Principle of Correspondence
The Principle of Correspondence embodies the idea that there is always a correspondence between the laws of phenomena of the various “planes” of being and life. As above, so below; as below, so above. - Principle of Vibration
The Principle of Vibration embodies the idea that motion is manifest in everything in the Universe, that nothing rests, and everything moves, vibrates, and circles. - Principle of Polarity
The Principle of Polarity embodies the idea that everything is dual, everything has two poles, and everything has its opposite. - Principle of Rhythm
The Principle of Rhythm embodies the idea that in everything there is manifested a measured motion, a to and fro, a flow and inflow, a swing backward and forward, a pendulum-like movement. - Principle of Cause and Effect
The Principle of Cause and Effect explains that there is a cause for every effect, and an effect for every cause. It also states that there is no such thing as chance, that chance is merely a term indicating extant causes not recognized or perceived. - Principle of Gender
The Principle of Gender embodies the idea that there gender is manifested in everything. The authors state this does not relate to “sex,” but to “… beget; to procreate, to generate, to create, or to produce” in general. Gender is manifested as the Masculine and Feminine principles, and manifests itself on all planes. [More on this here.]
The group also embraced serious neo-tantic sex ritual, which they called “Dionysm.” Besides treating sex as an expression of sacred sensuality, YaHoWha and his sons all committed to the rigorous practice of withholding their seed except for procreation or esoteric monthly rites. Restraining the typical male climax can ultimately produce intense full-body orgasms, charging the circuit between partners, but activating the kundalini is no “easy lay” in practice. Interestingly, the nineteenth-century Oneida Community, led by the bearded visionary John Humphrey Noyes, also practiced “plural marriage” and what they called “Male Continence.” The words may change, but the song remains the same.
Buy The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13, and The Source Family.
The Laboratorian:
A great deal of blather about the practices of Raja Yoga exist, and a great way to fuck someone up at worst, or impede their progress at best, is to provide them a gate into a dangerous territory then give them a sloppy map. Much of it, sadly, can be traced back to Crowley’s histrionic rubies-in-the-shit approach to writing. Look at Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising, and the confusion leaps out at anyone with experience. Wilson claims that counting the breath, a technique to aid concentration in novices, is a watered-down form of pranayama, which according to him is the real means to achieve these lofty states. He asserts that mantra, a form of concentration, is a device used for achieving pratyahara. While I respect some of Wilson’s acid-drenched project, and realize that he often claimed to have both provided disinformation and hidden messages in his texts to spurn further research (like any Joyce scholar would), I also believe that at times he simply hid his sloppiness (New Falcon was his publisher, for christ’s sake) behind these conceits. I also disagree intensely with publishing a mass-market book with disinformation-it is one thing to send a student on fool’s errands, it is another to knowingly deceive thousands with whom one has no relationship. To provide my personal example, after reading Prometheus Rising I began practicing pranayama with a mantra for ninety minutes a day, getting up at four thirty in the morning to get in the time, then hoping in the shower and going to work. I had no clue that focusing on a mantra would induce all manner of altered states, because I always assumed it was, per Wilson, the pranayama that did that. Likewise, reading a sloppy account of the actual territory of the altered states like the one Crowley offers in Book 4 helps little. The fact that a real madman, Austin Osman Spare, provides clearer instruction in doing this type of thing with his coded passages on the Death Posture-which is really just advice in what Daniel Ingram outlines as ‘Buddhist Magick 101’-should say something about just how clear the advice that the Post-Theosophist crew offer is.
Everyone, even coked-out party monsters and meth freaks, must sleep. Even liver-bruising doses of Provigil will only let most people function thirty hours consecutively, and then it’s time to pay dear Morpheus. For those of us who have better things to do then sleep, this is a problem. The past several months, one of my personal projects has been to cultivate lucidity while sleeping in order to make some use of this time. As one Tibetan monk put it, if a man lives one hundred years but remains waking while asleep, ‘it is as though he lives two hundred years’. And the Tibetan monks would be the ones to listen to on this topic, as they have spent about the past two millenia hanging out in the bleakest environment on earth mastering their minds through magick and meditation. One of the technologies to which they have devoted much attention is Dream Yoga.
When Fell posted a Bullshit! segment a while back, I provided some thoughts about the two episodes I had seen.
I just watched the yoga segment of their “new age” episode last night, and thought it was even worse. This is a really old episode and it might not make any sense to respond to it after all this time, but here it goes anyway.
First things first, they say that yoga is “just stretching.” They’re either being deliberately misleading here, or they didn’t bother to stay for more than the first 5 minutes of the yoga class they filmed (or they found a yoga class that was not representative of yoga classes in general).
(Pics swiped from Yoga Bhoga in Portland).
OK, so the pics above are relatively advanced (I believe they’re Ashtanga, aka power yoga, positions), but I think you can get the point – yoga is also about exercise using your own weight. Saying “yoga is just a fancy name for stretching” doesn’t hold water. Asking “does yoga hold up against other forms of strength training” is a valid question to ask. All I can say is that yoga (including “hatha yoga,” the most common, basic yoga) classes challenge my strength every time.
Neither does their claim that yoga is bogus because stretching a muscle longer than 30 seconds is not useful. I rarely, if ever, have been instructed to hold a stretch for more than 30 seconds. When a position is held longer it’s held for the purposes of strength, discipline, and/or relaxation. The exception is when you’re actually pushing a stretch further and further, which doesn’t found for “holding” because you’re actually advancing.
The other claim Penn and Teller make is that yoga is more expensive than other exercise classes. In my experience, it is not. Most of the gyms/health clubs in Portland offer yoga classes along with other exercise classes as part of your standard fees. I know that $15 seems to be the going rate for drop-ins at yoga classes in the Portland area, but I don’t know what the rate for other strength training classes are. (Yoga classes are cheaper when prepaid in advance or as part of a package deal, and there’s actually a free class at Liberty Hall).
It would have been more interesting to see P&T evaluate some of the other claims about yoga, such as improved immune systems, stress relief, etc. as compared to other forms of exercise, or even how yoga stacks up as strength training. But to dismiss it as overpriced stretching is bullshit.
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