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The Imitation of Death

The yogic posture known as Shavasana (corpse pose) is a foundational element within the field of connatural magick. The versatility of the posture is reflected in its capacity to integrate comfortably into nearly any repertoire of occult practices. 

It may serve as the postural basis for developmental practices such as meditative breath control, passive breath awareness, and Samyama applied to the physical body. The posture additionally allows for ease of entry into the hypnagogic state, the liminal corridor between waking and dreaming from which parapsychic operations such as mental scrying and assumptive manifestation can be effectively performed. Lucid dream induction methods such as WILD (Wake Induced Lucid Dreams) also rely on the psychophysiological processes that the posture initiates.

Furthermore, Shavasana is frequently assumed as the first step toward consciously separating the subtle body from its physical host, resulting in an ecsomatic experience or out-of-body travel. Lastly, it was notably employed by English occultist Austin Osman Spare as part of a complex psycho-magical technique that he referred to as “The Death Posture”, a practice he exclaimed would lead to the practitioner’s eventual “ascension from duality”[1].

Through this imitation of death, the psychist learns to employ the body as a gateway into those anomalous states that form the very media of magical expression.

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Note:

Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy, 1st ed. (London: Jerusalem Press Ltd., 2011), 18.

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3 short songs written in the car with basically the same chord pattern

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The map is not the territory.

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“Reject then the obscenities of contrived uniformity, order, and purpose. Turn and face the tidal wave of Chaos from which philosophers have been fleeing in terror for millennia. Leap in and come out surfing its crest, sporting amidst the limitless weirdness and mystery in all things, for those who reject false certainties.” - Peter J. Carroll, Liber Kaos (Samuel Weiser pg. 79) - Etching by Hans Meyer, based on painting by Friedrich Preller the Elder, Leukothea to Odysseus in a Storm

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In Chaos Magic, beliefs are not seen as ends in themselves, but as tools for creating desired effects. To fully realize this is to face a terrible freedom in which nothing is true and everything is permitted, which is to say that everything is possible, there are no certainties, and the consequences can be ghastly. Laughter seems to be the only defense against the realization that one does not even have a real self.

Peter J. Carroll, Liber Kaos (Samuel Weiser pg. 75)

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Cadmus and Harmonia become Snakes

“…the gods changed them into serpents, not as punishment, for they had done no wrong. Their fate indeed was proof that suffering was not a punishment for wrongdoing; the innocent suffered as often as the guilty.”

- Edith Hamilton, Mythology (Warner Books Edition pg. 268)

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“Iconoclasm: Breaking Images

Immense gulfs exist in human affairs between theory and practice, means and ends. Contrast pornography and romance, cordon bleu gluttony and skeletal famine, dignity and masturbation. Consider violence as entertainment. Mass slaughter for idealism’s sake. Look at what goes on in the name of religion and the consumer society. Relish the cacophony of neurosis, fantasy, and psychosis which guides material sensationalist culture to an uncertain end. Picking through society’s dirty underwear, we discover its real habits. You can extend this list indefinitely and indeed you should. For human folly is without limit though society does much to disguise its darker side. Cynicism, sadness or laughter is the magician’s privilege.”

-Peter J. Carroll, Liber Null & Psychonaut (Red Wheel/Weiser pg. 47)

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The certainty of consciousness is always the uncertainty of the perceived or experienced in whatever state it may be, the constant doubt spelling fear, pain, decay, and the like- the cause of evolution, the eternal incompletion.

Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy

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What is a god but man wielding the force of Chaos?

Peter J. Carroll, Liber Null & Psychonaut (Red Wheel/Weiser pg. 59)

- deified Palaemon riding on the back of a dolphin, Lucius Lucretius Trio 76 BC, AR Denarius, Rome

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In freedom the behests of love are fulfilled.

Alice B. Stockham, M.D - Karezza Ethics of Marriage (Second Edition), p.74

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It is important to know that there are other uses for the procreative element than the generation of physical offspring, far better uses than its waste in momentary pleasure. It may, indeed, be better wasted than employed in imposing unwelcome burdens on toilworn and outraged women. But there should be no waste. This element when retained in the system may be coined into new thoughts, perhaps new inventions, grand conceptions of the true, the beautiful, the useful; or into fresh emotions of joy, and impulses of kindness and blessing to all around. This is, in fact, but another department of procreation. It is the procreation of thoughts, ideas, feelings of good-will, intuitions of truth - that is, it is procreation on the mental and spiritual planes, instead of physical. It is just as really a part of the generative function as is the begetting of physical offspring. It is by far the greater part; for physical procreation can ordinarily be participated in but seldom; while mental and spiritual procreation may and should go on through all our earthly lives - yea, through all our immortal existence.

Isaac Newton, Source: Karezza Ethics of Marriage (Second Edition), Alice B. Stockham, M.D.. pg 99-100 

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Lie and give pleasure. Lie and soothe consciences. Lie and supply the food for the ego that truth can seldom provide. Lie and become a hero, for whatever lies are popular will always win votes. Lie, but be not yourself deluded by your lies, lest you lose control, for he who loses control over his own motivations can never progress to a proficiency in sorcery.

Anton Szandor LaVey, The Compleat Witch or What to do When Virtue Fails (Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, pg199)

“The suitors discover Penelope’s ruse for avoiding their persecutions.”

Illustration: John Flaxman’s “Pénélope et les prétendants” for Homer’s Odyssey - L'Odyssee d'Homere gravee par Reveil d'apres les compositions de John Flaxman (Paris, 1835)

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Consider laughter: it is the highest emotion, for it can contain any of the others from ecstasy to grief. It has no opposite. Crying is merely an underdeveloped form of it which cleanses the eyes and summons assistance to infants. Laughter is the only tenable attitude in a universe which is a joke played upon itself.       The trick is to see that joke played out even in the neutral and ghastly events which surround one. It is not for us to question the universe's apparent lack of taste. Seek the emotion of laughter at what delights and amuses, seek it in whatever is neutral or meaningless, seek it even in what is horrific and revolting. Though it may be forced at first, one can learn to smile inwardly at all things.

Peter J. Carroll, Liber Null & Psychonaut (Red Wheel/Weiser pg17)

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the passions take the place in the soul which the will does not occupy, and there may yet be discovered a process by which passion may be transmuted into intellectual fibre. This is, indeed, the last and highest possibility of human culture.

Édouard René de Laboulaye, 

painting: Cupid and Psyche, Jacques-Louis David