Living Franz Bardon

  One book I think many spiritual people could benefit from these days is Thich Nhat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ . Thich Nhat Hanh is obviously not a Catholic, but I quote this book several times in a book I am writing on the subject of the Rosary and magical training, since he has some interesting ideas on the Holy Spirit.  I remember the first time I read Living Buddha, Living Christ , several passages made a deep impression on me. One of those was the following passage. The Buddha is also described as a door, a teacher who shows us the way in this life. In Buddhism such a special door is deeply appreciated because that door allows us to enter the realm of mindfulness, loving-kindness, peace, and joy. But it is said that there are 84,000 Dharma doors, doors of teaching. If you are lucky enough to find a door, it would not be very Buddhist to say that yours is the only door. In fact, we have to open even more doors for future generations. We should not be afraid of mo...

  Today while returning to my apartment unit, I got onto an elevator and pressed the button for the sixth floor, which is the floor I live on. A woman then entered, pressed the button for the twenty-sixth floor, pulled out her phone, and began staring at it. When the elevator reached the sixth floor, she mindlessly stepped off the elevator and began heading down the hallway, all without looking up from her phone. Since she had pressed the button for the twenty-sixth floor, I assumed that was where she lived, so I called out to her that she had probably gotten off on the wrong floor. I turned out to be right, and she returned to the elevator while I went to my unit.  This was an interesting incident for me. The fact that I noticed she wasn't getting off on the floor she'd pushed the button for, and the fact that I was able to deduce she'd probably meant to get off on the twenty-sixth floor, suggests that the air element is at decent strength within me. The air element, after...

  A while ago I tried to type up a really condensed summary of my magical training philosophy for someone who contacted me about IIH. The summary is imperfect, but she apparently found it really helpful, so I'm sharing it here in case others find it helpful as well. (#1) Your goal is adepthood. Only step off the path to adepthood for the purpose of taking adepthood into your hands. If something is not adepthood, do not step off the path to take it, even if it is a good Netflix show or an enormous pile of chocolate. Do not settle for any reward less than adepthood.  (#2) If you fall down while walking the path, get up as soon as possible. If you stray from the path, return to the path as soon as possible. Do not wait for the next day. (#3) The path to adepthood consists of the following.  Practicing the exercises of IIH Let mindfulness, the second mental exercise of Step 1, be one strand of the golden thread running through your life. Use breat...

  In his essay "Finding Saturn in Yourself," which can be read here , William describes a four-step process for finding Saturn within oneself. What is remarkable about this description is that it is, at least for me, indistinguishable from a description of the process of working through IIH. Are the process of finding Saturn within oneself and the process of working through IIH the same process? Perhaps it would be rash for me to answer definitively in the affirmative or negative, but one thing we can be sure of is that if the process of finding Saturn within oneself isn't the same as the process of working through IIH, then the process of finding Saturn within oneself is at least a major support for the process of working through IIH. Therefore, a chaplet designed to help people find Saturn within themselves would also greatly help them work through IIH. Anglican prayer beads are divided into four sections of small beads (called "weeks"), and therefore this par...

  These days, you often see the phrase "Franz Bardon tradition" thrown around a lot. I remember the first few times I heard this phrase, I was very uncomfortable with it. This is because the word "tradition" gave me the impression of something fixed and rigid. However, these days I am a bit more comfortable with that word, since I realize that traditions can and should evolve. On this note, I think the incorporation of prayer beads (or prayer ropes, same idea) into our tradition can really help it evolve and reach the next level of its development. The Saint Benedict Medal only appears in Christianity, the mezuzah only appears in Judaism, and the Gohonzon only appears in Japanese Buddhism, but some version of prayer beads appears in most spiritual traditions. Christians have their chaplets, Muslims have their misbahas, Hindus and Buddhists have their malas, etc. The fact that prayer beads appear in most spiritual traditions tells us two things.  1. Prayer beads are ...

I received a question today from a Bardonist who isn't Catholic but was attracted by the beauty of the Rosary and wanted to know if there was a way he could incorporate it into his magical training even though he wasn't following any sort of Christian approach to IIH. As it turns out, there are actually plenty of ways to do this. The Rosary truly is a beautiful thing. Protestants are often taught (incorrectly) that saying the Hail Mary is idolatry, yet despite this, a large number of Protestants throughout history couldn't help but notice the immense beauty of the Rosary and want to incorporate it into their spirituality. This led them to develop their own forms of the Rosary, like the Anglican Rosary and the Longworth Lutheran Rosary. Non-Christian Bardonists can also develop their own version of the Rosary. In this post, I will explain how to pray what I call the Bardonian Rosary. I think in general, any Bardonist should feel comfortable with this version of the Rosary re...