Turning Water into Fire (Video shows Kan & Li Inner Principle)

-The real intent of what I said was to point out for those who don’t like the ‘working with spirits’ angle that another way exists in Hermetics which is to do with isolating and contacting the energy as an energy rather than as a being per se.-
Isn’t there a parallel here with Descartes initiating the world view in which only humans (even this later to be eradicated) are beings? According to this you can regard animals as machines and make full use (abuse) of them?
In contrast to this, if you regard/interact with all beings on the energy level,including any personality structure, are you not making a deep connection on the soul level?
I guess the point I am trying to make is, what is the point of imposing personality structures on energy beings at all if there is no basis for them having such potential structures in the first place? We anthropomorphise our dogs, because they do indeed have personalities. We even do this to our spouses and family and friends, try to fit them into stereotypical forms, but this doesn’t change the fact they have their own egos and wills withou our needing to invent them.
I have no direct experience with spirits myself,(and admire you for being able to do so) but do feel a certain resonance indirectly for example when I carry out the five animals, contacting the spirit of each species which has a definite feeling/vibratory signature of its own.

Dylan

>>I guess the point I am trying to make is, what is the point of imposing personality structures on energy beings at all if there is no basis for them having such potential structures in the first place?<<

Well the thing is that there is such a basis…

(Please remember that although I've worked with spirits it's not the great spheric spirits of the Bardon system yet, but even so I can see a little of what he means….)

From the outside, when 'speaking to' a spirit you can catch the aura and all the energies in the spirit, it does amount to a personality. The life force is intelligent conscious energy and these are I guess parts of it that equally are intelligent, have purpose and energy and life and consciousness and feeling, ways of looking and understanding, etc., in short everything that makes a personality they do have, even history – just not quite the linear time-based history we make use of. You feel a connection with a spiritual entity as you would with a more incarnated one.

(It's not really the same as the kind of 'masks' we put on others because one is expected to be clear enough to feel the real notes of the spirit's signature and personality, rather than imposing things from within oneself. In other words one feels the 'beingness' of a spirit and their life force, they do have abundant life and something to teach, this soul connection is however not the same as the ability to assume their power which comes MUCH much later.)

I think Bill Mistele's website is good for more info on this, I linked to it below.

Later one will have the ability to experience the spirit 'from the inside' owing to having mastered the basic energies which make up the spirits and indeed all other things, but this is more advanced. I've read the book and I know the theory but there my understanding of this kind of ends! But for sure the personality of the magician/alchemist is very developed before one could even contemplate mastering this kind of thing, the idea that one could abuse the power would probably not occur. One would not even have the ability to do it without already having achieved a very high moral level in oneself.

So I don't think your Descartes parallel is relevant exactly. One would have known and befriended many many powerful spirits, some indeed that might be classed as 'angels', and have contacted the 'full tao' many times, before one would understand how to 'be' a spirit and its power and love from the inside, and would have the greatest of respect for the spirit whose power was assumed, and indeed for all life. In talking about the minimum amount of development humanity has to have reached before new power sources become easy for us to discover and use, we are talking about 1% of the moral achievement required to assume the powers of an angel or whatever. The level of development is very big!

I also would like to say that to understand or to engage with a dog's personality is really not the same thing as to anthropomorphize it in my opinion. The dog's character is real, just not human. As human beings I think we do have the power to 'connect on the soul level' as you say, with animals, in fact it's something we love to do and which seems to be important to our race. Naturally people who haven't trained to get more neutral may put human traits into their experience of that canine personality, but this isn't to say that underneath these ego-trappings the soul connection isn't very real – I think it's extremely real. At my grandma's death her dog really lost the will to live himself, even though he was as a being previously the most alive thing I ever knew! One of *those* dogs. Everyone can tell a story of that kind I'm sure.

The thing is that by the time you meet these spirits in any proper initiation system I would think you are expected to have balanced and cleared your personality enough to be able to see the underlying truth, free of extra personal interpretation. In fact Bardon has exercises to make that skill available as I recall.

Best J

Bill Mistele’s Home Page, including encounters w/ Bardon spirits