"style as an arsenal of paintbrushes for real world applications, not a buffer against them... depends on how creative you want to be..."

I also thoroughly agree with you here. one expresses their essence through style (expressing formlessness with colourful paintbrushes, perhaps). it is when folks get caught up on recycling stereotyped styles that they give themselves over to cultural forms and styles out of succumbing to glamour, becoming parodies of themselves. this is more what i meant.

i like angel tech for the reason that its politics are of a non-commercially-driven variety - its non-identification with 'magick' and any of that bollocks makes it far more effective. this is why it is amusing to watch folks, who I observe to be much more interested in esotericism for its gothic subcultural style (i was never into any of that shit), shrug off angel tech or gurdjieff because it doesn't give them an excuse to wear pentagrams, black clothes and eye shadow, talk about magic and behave more or less like misanthropic delinquents.

"the main techniques are: relations with hollowness, access to energy awareness and inner visions... the ability to be changed by things bigger than "me!"

ok, fuck it ill just read more about it and answer this question myself if i really am that curious..

>All three are, in my mind, valid in their own right. Different strokes for different...

Switch hands and gain a stroke

Thanks for this. Hadn't read that Magick and Mysticism essay yet - got a lot out of it just now.

At this point it would be good to relate, more or less word for word, what my Laboratory Alchemy teacher here in Australia told a small group of us last Easter at The Paracelsus College of Parachemistry (paracelsuscollege.com.au/ - the last remaining school of real laboratory alchemy in the world in the tradition of Frater Albertus. Look to the back of Hyatt's Undoing Yourself for a paper by Joseph Lisiewski about his time with Frater Albertus in the 70s (and his new book on the subject at Original Falcon originalfalcon.com/b-israel...die.php))

One of the students in the class was the very same Magician fellow whom I mentioned in this thread. He had a very Will to Power-like attitude and it was interesting to see it clash with the more receptivity (mysticism in the context of this essay)-inclined orientation of myself and of the teachers. Frater Albertus was said to have distrusted Magick most out of any spiritual path, which was strange considering his long friendship with Israel Regardie which is the subject of Lisiewski's book - but more or less saw no sense of seperateness to his system and that of Gurdjieff's, even though it is part of the laboratory work to study Qabalah (QBL) and Astrology (Astro-Cyclic Pulsations, in his terms)

Rik - who had spent about many years in the Gurdjieff work alongside his work with Lab alchemy, had this to say about the difference between Alchemy and Magick - more or less the same idea as this essay:

"Alchemy and Magick differ in that Magick is about gaining power, and the imposing of the Will upon the forces of nature to achieve a desired outcome. Alchemy, on the other hand, is more concerned with being receptive - Alchemy is the slow art of growing and cultivating receptivity to Nature; so that one may become increasingly harmonised to it's flow. Magick uses Visualisations - the creation and projection of artificial worlds - as a means of creating structure to direct energy. These artificial worlds, like any systems one may study, are ultimately like a form of scaffolding, buffering one against real engagement. In order to really cross the Abyss, one must completely let go of all systems; all the inner scaffolding; in order that the volatile mind may become fixed to the body, and one may become open enough to finally and truly become One with that which is within everything, and everywhere"

I think we can all appreciate Antero's words in that essay regarding his relationship with that Magus fellow, whom I think is obvious to identify. Egads, what inspiring writing.