blogpost: casting the circle

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+---
+title = "Casting the Circle"
+date = 2024-05-22T10:45:00-05:00
+---
+We tried to read <cite>The Psychonaut's Field Manual</cite> today, and while I'm not sure that we actually
+got what the author intended out of it, I believe we ended up with a more lasting lesson. I don't know
+exactly how we ended up coming across this little PDF that purports to be an atheistic starter's guide to
+chaos magick, but already on page 5 we felt compelled to stress the importance of finding techniques that
+actually work for you.
+---
+
+The direction to simply "try not thinking" is probably the least useful way you could instruct a beginner on
+how to meditate, especially when it's couched in language that's subtly denigrating to those who can't do it.
+Abandoning a session doesn't make you a "pussy", it simply means you aren't in the state of mind for it -
+either you need more practice or you have more pressing concerns to address first. Getting negative just
+makes you less likely to try again later.
+
+<cite>Dune</cite> contains more complete instructions for how to handle undesired thoughts and reach a
+meditative state. Specifically, the latter half of the Litany Against Fear:
+
+<blockquote>I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
+And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
+Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.</blockquote>
+
+The candle trick and focusing on your breath <em>are</em> helpful (and we have certainly accidentally used
+a campfire to good effect before), but we find a couple of techniques that we picked up to deal with
+dissociation and hypomania are more concretely useful. The immediate goal is to let your thoughts pass you
+by, and directing your attention to your senses is a good way to do that.
+
+First, the 5-4-3-2-1 method of using your senses to observe the world around you without reacting to them:
+- 5 things you can hear
+- 4 you can see
+- 3 you can touch
+- 2 you can smell
+- 1 you can taste
+
+And second, simple box breathing:
+- in for a count of 4 (not necessarily 4 entire seconds, depending on your ability)
+- hold for 4
+- out for 4
+- hold for 4
+- repeat until calm
+
+---
+
+I don't know that the rest of this book is particularly useful to us - it seems quite interested in creating
+a cosmology for something that purports not to be a theology, and to be franky we already have most of these
+tools available to us through the lens of plurality. Making tulpas out of your sleep paralysis demons is
+<em>interesting</em>, but not the kind of practice we're looking for.
+
+It certainly is fascinating to see that we spent our 20s developing a practice that others consider to be
+basically magical already, something that we'd been unconsciously doing for maybe a decade prior to that.
+Maybe the real lesson we were meant to learn is just to see the magic in what we're already doing.
+
+On that note, let us end this by affirming a very commonly known charm: flipping a coin to make a decision
+very often crystallizes your desires and intent to act on them. In every way that counts, that's magic.