Re: [BardonPraxis] Eight Temples question

[Aleksander Dumala <alex@...>]

Dear David,

While Rawn is having his short holiday I'll try to present my two cents
:)

> However, I am confused about 
> instructions involving, for instance, visualizing the casting of a 
> ritual circle, or (in Tiphareth) the brief exploration of the twelve 
> zodiacal signs. There is a description of the ritual circle in the 
> Geburah section, but the description seems specific to that sphere. 

You don't *have to* do that but you can if you want :)

As to the ritual circle, in Malkuth it is being cast in exactly the same
way as in Geburah and the start/end point is East, so it's Air Altar.
Therefore you need to visualise Rawn pointing his sword towards the Air
Altar, filling it with violet Light of Ether/Akasha and its power. Then
he creates a clockwise circle (Fire, Eart, Water and back to Air) around
all participants with this violet etheric Light flowing from the tip of
the sword. 

> And as for the zodiac signs, what if I don't have any prior knowledge 
> of astrology -- does this mean that some research needs to be done 
> before the meditation?

You should only remember there are 12 signs :)

Of course knowing their seals, names and order would help but it's not
*neccessary* at the beginning. It would be even quite interesting to get
to know those 12 emanations and *then* find the info about Zodiac and
learn about the sings comparing your own discoveries with your
experiences :)

> Broadly, I find that my ability to visualize steadily isn't very good
> -- my mind jumps around, gets distracted, does quirky things like
> viewing a scene from different angles a la movie cameras; I can't
> remember all the Hebrew at once, etc. My meditations don't go for an
> hour as Rawn hints at in the book, they're more like half an hour. Is
> there more value to waiting to do these meditations until my mind is
> better trained (i.e. past Step One), or are the details and the timing
> of the meditations less important than the intent?

Of course the ability to concentrate on the meditation itself is
required for this to work, but I guess you should not discourage
yourself when the "camera angle" jumps a bit. With me it was quite the
same case :) And after some practice I managed to be in more control of
how I see those things. 

I also had problems with Sephirotic Crystal, with Hebrew names and also
had some serious problems with visualization. As to the first two -
reading the "Explanation of the Sephirotic Crystal" article and learning
Hebrew letters helped much. As to the visualization itself I guess it
doesn't really matter if you can *visualize* all those things as long as
you can *perceive* them. Of course with the proper training your skills
will evolve and it will all become much easier and more obvious. But as
long as you are able to enter the Temple, the rest does not matter that
much :)

Also don't judge such meditations by physical time. Your experiences
last as long as they need to last :) My first Malkuth meditation also
lasted about 30 minutes of physical time, but it seemed much longer
there ;-)

Blessed be,
Aleksander