Descriptions:
Video Description
This video revises the breath-work assigned to each grade of the Golden Dawn curriculum found in the Kabbalah Magic teachings. Drawing on lessons learned through the discipline of freediving, the practices move from the simple fourfold box breath of the Neophyte grade, through the belly-centered dead breath for releasing anxiety, the Wim Hof method standing in for the grade of Fire, and a numerological “witchy breath” tied to the Portal grade’s lunar, feminine symbolism.
The underlying teaching is that habitual over-breathing depletes carbon dioxide and quietly drives the body’s stress response, while deliberate, moderated breath held through the nose and the belly restores calm, sharpens the mind, and settles the nervous system over time.
Full Video Transcript
All right, time for another video.
So a lot of, well, not a lot of people.
Some people have asked me whether I would make any changes to the curriculum.
That’s in the book, in the Kabbalah Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation book.
They asked me, you know, it’s been, was 2006 was the release date.
Have you made changes?
I’ve made all kinds of changes, actually, for students that I’ve worked with personally.
because working with a teacher, then you have sort of the luxury of being able to
change the curriculum under the guidance of that teacher. Okay. Working without a teacher though,
you don’t change anything. Okay. So the book itself, I wouldn’t change anything in regards
to the curriculum with one exception, and that is the breath work. Okay. So because I’ve learned a
lot about the breath since I’ve taken up the discipline of freediving. There’s new and
improved breath work involved, okay? And so what I’m going to go over now is the breath work that
is assigned to each of the grades, okay? So I’ve changed the breath work that is assigned to each
one of the grades, okay? If you’ve been doing the original breath work that was assigned, that’s
fine. Uh, just know that the, the, this new breath work is better. Okay. And if you want to switch
over to it, that’s fine. Okay. Um, anybody can do any of these breathing techniques at any time.
Okay. Uh, some of them have profound effects on the body. Some of them have, you know, minor
effects on the body. Uh, if you get some profound effects, it’s, it’s, it’s your responsibility to
stay on an even keel. Don’t go overboard and start tweaking the settings of your body because you’ve
discover this new science of breathing. Okay. So moderation is helpful. Uh, and I always recommend
that you should take complete responsibility for the results you get from your work. Okay. Uh, so
if you’re going to do any of these breathing techniques, the responsibility is yours. Okay.
For the results that you’re getting. Okay. All right. So, uh, in the, uh, in, in the online
publication called Forbidden Realms. There’s an article called Breathing to Restore Primal
Health. So most of the breathing techniques I’m going to talk about in this presentation
are in that article, okay? And of course, in the description below, you can find a link to
Forbidden Realms, and you can then find that article. And the article has this cute picture
of this girl sitting on the lotus flower, okay? That’s an easy way to find it. All right, so
um uh the grades in the outer order of the golden dawn that are in the kabbalah magic book okay they
are neophyte zolotter theoricus practicus philosophus and portal okay and uh four of
those grades correspond to the four elements okay and so you know the various exercises you do in
each of the grades are tuning you into that particular element so neophyte corresponds
to spirit zolotter corresponds to earth theoricus corresponds to air practicus corresponds to water
philosophers corresponds to fire and the portal grade once again corresponds to spirit in a very
special way and so each of these grades has a particular breath work pattern uh that you learn
when you’re in the grade okay and once again anybody who’s in any grade can do any of these
practices whenever they want okay uh it’s up to you to practice moderation okay um okay so
the first one is assigned to the neophyte grade and that is the fourfold breath that’s the most
basic breathing pattern it doesn’t have any startling effects on the body it’s more of
an evening out leveling out effect on the mind helps you relax helps you let go today it helps
you concentrate if you want to concentrate on something and that’s also called box breathing
okay uh because each of the aspects of it is the same length so it’s kind of like
feels like you’re going you’re drawing a little box like a square okay uh so uh the way it works
is uh when you as a default when you’re doing these breath work exercises when you breathe
in it’s always through the nose and sometimes when you’re breathing out you can breathe out
through the mouth okay uh but when it comes to healthy breathing though breathing through the
nose is a must. Throughout our day, we should be walking around with our mouths closed and
breathe through the nose. I am aware that some people are unable to breathe through
their noses. That’s very serious. That’s a very serious health condition. And if that
is the case for you, you’re going to have to do something, I suggest, urgently to restore
the breathing to your nose again. What happens is if you’re a mouth breather, your nose can
actually start to close up and then you develop all kinds of sinus issues. So hopefully you have
a relatively healthy open sinus cavity and you can breathe through the nose freely. Naturally,
if you have a cold, that can be a problem. If the nose is obstructed, you can still use the
mouth and get some benefit from these exercises. Okay. But if you are unable to breathe through
the nose, once again, that’s a serious health condition and there are major repercussions that
result from that. Okay. Breathing through the nose is so important to your health. And if anybody
wants more information on that, I can recommend a book. Just contact me. Okay. All right. So for
the neophyte grade, that is the fourfold breath. You breathe into the count of four, hold the
breath for the count of four, breathe out for the count of four, and then you hold the breath out
for the count of four, and then you repeat that cycle. Very simple, okay? And you can do that
entirely through the nose, or if you want, you can breathe out through the mouth, okay? Okay,
so in the Zalada grade, then we have the advanced four-fold breath. Same pattern again. Oh, I didn’t
go through my little things. Let’s see. Right. Fourfold breath. That’s simply four, four, four,
four. That’s why they call it box breathing because each side of the breath, it’s like
you’re going through a little square and make drawing a little square has four counts. Then
we have, okay, the advanced fourfold breath. It’s the same pattern again, except the out breath can
now be held out longer. Okay. So you would breathe into the count of four, hold for the count of four,
breathe out for the count of four and then hold the breath out for four eight twelve or sixteen
seconds or even more and and you want to proceed by counts of four okay so beyond 16 and you have
20 okay that might be the limit for for some people like what happens is when you first sit
down to breathe you’re probably just going to do four four four four and eventually it’ll be four
four four eight and then four four four twelve and you’re keeping expanding that length of the
breath hold out to you know uh eight twelve sixteen and twenty seconds or more okay uh and
you want to hold the breath out until you get the slight urge to breathe not until you’re gasping
for air okay but you’re holding the breath out until you get that slight urge to breathe okay
uh and yeah the goal sort of is to keep ex extending the length of that out breath hold
so that your body becomes increasingly tolerant to carbon dioxide accumulating carbon dioxide in your
cells is important uh carbon dioxide is a nutrient and if you want to learn more about that you can
read the article called is holding your breath good for you that’s article number one in forbidden
realms okay uh numerous people have contacted me after reading that reading that article and they
have said this thing has changed my life thank you so much um they were breathing too much they were
expelling too much co2 and it was causing all kinds of problems for them most people breathe
way too much okay and that article can explain what’s going on with the breath in that regard
okay so um uh breathing is so important for health breathing well actually less breathing is so
important to your health you have no idea if you haven’t seen these things before all right so in
the the orcas grade there’s another practice called minding the gate okay and once again you
can find that in the article called breathing to restore primal health i’m not going to go into
details about there but uh for the breath work in that the orcas grade you would use minding the
gate okay minding the gate can be done all throughout the day okay it’s kind of challenging
to do that but it is a very very helpful exercise uh to adopt okay uh it will change if you’re not
into reducing your breathing minding the gate will change your life it will change uh one of the
things it did for me i would walk around and my hands would always be cold i live in florida too
the weirdest thing right suddenly i i don’t i never have cold i don’t have cold hands anymore
my hands would warm up and apparently this was something to do with the co2 dysregulation in
my body i was breathing too much i was a nervous airhead type person you know so i uh so and
learning how to breathe less would would settle down my metabolism and then my metabolism my
metabolism would work better and my body heat would generate more evenly throughout the body
really cool stuff. All right. In the practicum grade, there is the dead breath. This one we’re
going to go into in depth. Okay. The dead breath can be performed anywhere. Okay. Even while you’re
driving. Okay. Some of these breathing techniques you wouldn’t want to do while you’re driving.
Okay. So yes, you could do the dead breath while you’re driving. You could also do minding the
gate while you’re driving. All right. So the dead breath is simply, there we go. I have to move
on to the next slide. Okay. The dead breath is a great practice to adopt simply to increase
relaxation and to decrease the stress response. So it’s a breathing technique that I use for
freediving, actually. It will work if you’re wearing a mask and a snorkel. So if you’re only
breathing through the mouth, you know, as happens then, um, it will work for that. Okay. But once
again, when you, uh, if you’re not wearing a mask for free diving, um, you would breathe in through
the nose and then out through the mouth. Okay. And the way it works is quite simple. Uh, you,
um, well, okay. The most important thing though, and this is really, really important. So when you
are, when you’re doing the dead breath, you want to practice what they call vase breathing or belly
breathing. And in order to do that, you can just put your hands on your rib cage, the lower part
of your rib cage. And so you want to take a breath in. And as you do that, you want to restrain your
rib cage breathing. Your ribs should not expand. Only the belly expands. Okay. And you start to
notice how that feels. Okay. So it’s a very simple feeling where the belly is expanding and nothing
else is expanding. It can actually be quite a good feeling, okay? If you do this while you’re
driving, that’s probably the best. Many people have such an aversion to expanding the belly
because, oh, it makes me fat. Now I look fat. Whatever. If you’re driving, nobody can see you,
right? So let that belly go really big, big pregnant baby there, okay? And so that’s important.
And once you get that feeling, you don’t have to keep your hands on your ribs anymore because it’s
a pretty distinctive feeling, you know, what it feels like when you’re belly breathing as opposed
to chest breathing. Okay. Chest breathing stimulates the stress response. Okay. A little
bit. That’s why we want to restrain the chest breathing and the belly breathing stimulates
the relaxation response. That’s why we do it. Okay. Another thing about the breath is that the
in-breath tends to slightly stimulate the stress response. Okay. And the out-breath actually
stimulates the relaxation response. It’s easy to note if you are listening to your heartbeat
through a stethoscope, when you breathe in, the heart rate increases. When you breathe out, the
heart rate decreases. That’s normal. That should be happening. And that’s simply because when you
breathe in, the stress response revs up a little bit. And when you breathe out, the relaxation
response kicks in a little bit. For the dead breath, the intention then is to use simple math,
simple mathematics to increase the stress response you spend more time breathing out
than you spend breathing in okay in addition to that you’re only doing using the belly to breathe
okay so in other words since you’re spending more time breathing out you’re delivering more
stimulation to the parasympathetic nervous system okay and of course the um the belly breathing
does that as well okay and you’re not allowing the chest breathing to stimulate the stress response
and so it’s very simple then once you get these principles down you breathe in to the count of
four once again and once again only in the belly right and then you hold the breath for the count
of four and then you breathe out for the count of eight and as you do that it’s a you make an s
sound it’s like a deflating tire okay if you’re in a public space let’s say you’re on the bus
and you don’t want people to hear you hissing uh you can also breathe out through pursed lips
okay uh there needs to be some resistance there it helps with the stimulation of the uh relaxation
response okay uh and if you’re in a meditation hall uh sometimes i meditate at the local dharma
center and there’s a person in front of you try not to blow on them you know uh so use your
discretion there you have to uh be mindful of the people around you all right so um yeah so that
is the dead oh there’s one more component to the dead breath once the once the air has deflated out
of you you let the lungs hang empty okay and you simply let them hang empty for as long as it takes
to feel a slight urge to breathe okay that requires that you pay attention okay so you’re
it’s in other words breathe in for the count of four hold for the count of four and then breathe
out with a sound for eight seconds and then the lungs just hang there and you’re waiting for that
slight urge to breathe to come back and then you’re going to start the cycle over again breathe
in for the count of four hold for the count of four and then breathe out for eight seconds and
then the lungs hang empty for however long it takes for the next urge to breathe to kick in
that’s it okay it’s a little complicated i guess to describe it but once you get the sensation of
what belly breathing feels like. And of course you get that pattern down. It becomes super easy.
Okay. And it is a great way to de-stress. De-stressing is very important by the way.
It’s more than just feeling calm. When you de-stress your higher brain functions open up
and you can actually think like a genius. Most people run around with a stress response rubbed
up constantly and it makes them stupid, stupid all day long. Yeah. So the more stressed out you
get, the dumber you get. And the more relaxed you get, the more intelligent you get. All right.
And for philosophers, which is the grade of fire. All right. So that’s the Wim Hof method. Okay.
Some of you have heard of that. Okay. So in that grade, instead of using the breath of fire,
as was originally assigned, use the Wim Hof method. Okay. It seems to be way better and
pretty cool practice. The Wim Hof method is not, you can’t find it in breathing to restore
primal health you can find it in another article called where it is darkest toning up the stress
response okay and it has this cool little icon of the glowing eyes so you find that article and
then you can find the wim hof method described there or you can just you know go to youtube
look up wim hof method and see if you can get a video of wim hof himself describing the wim hof
method. Okay. Very interesting character, by the way. All right. So the Wim Hof method is for the
grade of fire, which is Flotsamist. Okay. And then the last one is the witchy breath. That’s what
I’ve started calling it that. Okay. So in the portal grade, or just as an all-purpose
breathing technique that you can use for meditation time, you can use 3, 7, 9, 13 breath.
okay uh these are the reason i call it the witchy breath is because these are all witchy numbers
all right uh so uh the number three corresponds to bina which is um the sphere of death all right
it’s a sphere of the um sacred feminine uh and uh yeah so it’s uh it this corresponds to the
portal grade okay which is the it’s a very female grade because it um it’s all about the womb and
darkness and gestation and it’s the womb through which the christ comes out into the world sort of
thing right so um uh yeah there’s a lot of mythology uh to to learn as you go through the
grade systems okay but anyway these are all like feminine numbers uh and so that’s they work really
well for the portal grade. So the number three is the number for Venus. Number seven is the number
of astrological planets, at least in the old classical system, the Aristotelian system of
astrology. And the nine is the number of the goddess and the number for the moon. And 13 is
the number of lunar months in a year, which is also sacred, sort of witchy numbers. These are
all witchcraft numbers right um and this is quite simple really the the witchy breath is you would
breathe into the nose and out through the mouth or use the nose only fine whichever um but whenever
you’re breathing in it in it should always be the nose if you’re able to uh so in to the count of
three out to the count of no sorry into the count of three hold for the count of seven out for the
count of nine and then hold the breath out for 13, okay? If you just sit down to start this breath,
you might not be able to hold the breath comfortably out for 13 seconds, and that’s fine,
okay? In fact, you might want to skip the 13 phase at first until your body settles down and you get
more oxygenated, and then start to incorporate the 13-second out-breath hold, okay? That long
suspension of breath for the out-breath is very helpful for accumulating CO2, okay?
Just doing lots of deep breaths are actually not good for you. If you spend a lot of time
breathing because you think breathing more is good for you, no, it is not, actually. In fact,
if you do lots of deep breaths to try to relax, it will, you will eventually become more stressed
out than you were before. Okay. The first few breaths will make you feel good, but eventually
you’ll start to increase your stress response because your CO2 is going to start to drop.
The higher your CO2 in your body, in your cells, the more relaxed and more spiritual you become
to some degree. Okay. Yeah. And once again, these principles of CO2, you can find them
in the article called is holding your breath good for you uh there’s that sketch that’s that article
tends to be really enlightening to a lot of people it tends tends to change a lot of lives okay all
right so those are the different breathing techniques okay and the dead breath i recommend
for anybody who suffers from anxiety um anybody who masters all these breathing techniques
anxiety will go away you won’t have it anymore okay um you also need to have a healthy lifestyle
too and get enough magnesium many people are deficient in magnesium there are other factors
too that contribute to what we call anxiety nowadays a lot of people suffering from anxiety
i think it has to do with malnutrition largely lack of magnesium and so yeah if you have questions
about that i can probably answer them supplementing with magnesium is not the easiest thing to do
because it’ll give you the runs right so you have to there are different things you can do for that
anyway uh so i think that is it for this particular video i hope this is
going to be helpful for you guys if anything check out that first article in forbidden
realms which is called is holding your breath good for you i think you’ll find it a bit astonishing
if maybe not maybe maybe it’ll be hard for you to believe until you put the principles
into practice and then you’ll notice that wow there is really something to this pretty amazing
All right, until next time.
Source: Lyam Christopher