Descriptions:
Video Description
Do crystals carry magic, or do we carry it to them? Lyam Christopher opens this gentle question by admitting both sides of the old argument. Some books speak of hidden virtues in stones, while the ever-practical mind asks for batteries and measurements. The deeper answer, he suggests, has less to do with reading a needle than with meeting the object through the imagination.
He invites us toward a third way. A crystal is not just a lump of minerals and not just a symbol; it can become a doorway when approached with attention. The old writings called such powers virtues, and he says the way to discover them is to look, touch, and let the stone speak at its own quiet volume. It sounds like poetry, and that is exactly the point, because the faculty quietly missing from the measuring mind is precisely the imagination.
The practical invitation is kind and unhurried. Go to a stone shop, he says, ask to hold the pieces, and let yourself be surprised. Amber, salt, and the unpolished stones may feel different in the hand than in the head. You do not have to believe anything in advance; you only have to pay attention well enough to notice what is actually there. In that patient noticing, plain matter begins to feel a little more alive.
Full Video Transcript
Okay, this week, we are talking about the magic of crystals, or I should say, the magic of crystals. So these things have magical power. Okay, well, if you look at various books, like Agrippa’s books of occult philosophy, apparently, there is some kind of magical virtue attached to these things. Right? So we’re going to delve into that using these things in ritual. So there’s the glamorous
aspect and there’s the sort of bro science aspect where you’re supposed to have some kind of
measurable tangible impact from these things and if you don’t have anything measurable and tangible
then it’s then forget it right it’s almost like um these have to operate in terms of the material
world whatever that means um in order to work so um i guess i’m sorry to say it’s really more like
this. But the glamorous aspect is where the power’s at. So I think Barbie wins in this case.
All right. So we’re going to talk about how that actually works. And to do that, we’ll go to
this excerpt from a Golden Dawn magical ritual. As you can tell, the Golden Dawn was quite
verbose in its ritual. So let’s just go ahead and read this. We know that the Mystic Temple,
which was erected of old by wisdom, doth abide in the supernal triad. We know that the Shekinah,
the cohabiting glory, dwelt in the inner sanctuary. But the first creation was made void,
the holy place was made waste, and the sons of the house of wisdom were taken away into the
captivity of the senses. We have worshipped since then in a house made with hands, receiving a
sacramental ministration by a derived light in place of the cohabiting glory. Is that cohabiting
or cohabitating and yet amidst signs and symbols the tokens of the higher presence have never been
wanting in our hearts by the waters of babylon we have sat down and wept and we have ever remembered
zion and that memorial is a witness testifying that we shall yet return with exultation into
the house of our father as a witness in the temple of the heart so in the outer house of our
initiation we have ever present certain watchers from within deputed by the second order to guard
and lead the mist the lesser mysteries of the golden dawn and those who advance therein and
they may be fitted in due course to participate in the light which is beyond it it is in virtue
of this connecting link this bond of consanguinity that i have assumed the things which are without
in the temple of the golden dawn into the things which are within the company
of the second order at this meeting held at the equinox so this comes from the
ceremony of the equinox which was conducted surprise surprise at every
equinox there are two of those every year one is in the autumn beginning of
autumn and one is the beginning of spring and the equinox is a time of year
when the day and night are more or less of equal length and there’s a period of
or a period of about three days of balance or a day and night are about the same length okay
that’s a very important time in which to have this sort of link between the inner and the outer and
so this may seem like very dense impenetrable prose to some but as you can see there’s a sort
of yearning to get back to where we were like let’s say back into the garden of eden or something
like that right um and the key here in terms of crystal magic uh is that where it says and yet
amidst signs and symbols the tokens of the higher presence have never been wanting in our hearts
okay so it is this idea of the token uh that uh gives the crystal its power okay it’s not very
impressive looking on camera, is it? This is very sparkly,
actually. All right. So what is a token? Right? Well, a token is
like a keepsake, like if you go on vacation somewhere, there’s
very often a gift shop, if it’s a, you know, tourist trap, and
you can buy various souvenirs and bring them back. And then
you can put them on your office desk, and you can look at them
and then and just having them there conjures up the memory of
that experience of being away on vacation at that very special
location okay and in terms of where we used to be as spirits or souls or something like that
this is assuming that we have fallen into the material realm from somewhere okay and so we’ve
fallen we’ve fallen into this realm and we really don’t have anything that we have taken from
wherever it is we came from this higher plane whatever it was right and yet there are things
around us that are like tokens tokens okay so we kind of have just the memories of that place in
our hearts okay and there are things in this you know fallen state supposedly this material world
that remind us of where we came from okay that higher spiritual state okay as though we fell
into this world from some higher state of mind or being okay well one of the keys to the mysteries
is that we didn’t really fall into this world or come into it from some other place we we came out
of this world okay but there’s a deeper state of being that is not really of this external world
of vibration and you know hard surfaces and hard knocks and um things like that right and uh from
that inner state which is more like a dream state we really can’t bring anything out of those dreams
with us as keepsakes but there are things in this world that remind us of that world okay and they
act sort of like souvenirs okay so in that sense uh if a a crystal this is a moonstone looks much
more impressive in person than on camera um uh it kind of resembles the moon and uh so the these
crystals have sort of aesthetic triggers to them where they they remind you of some deeper
experience and as such they supposedly then carry forth the experiences of the higher planes into
this world okay sort of like tokens like keepsakes like souvenirs okay um so in that sense they are
merely symbolic so i’d like to say i’ve fallen into this outer state of being let’s say and
that I find something in the world that reminds me of some kind of inner landscape of experience
and it’s merely symbolic of that experience so I keep it to remind myself of that okay and in that
sense it is really doesn’t have any connection to where I came from it simply reminds me of that
place okay now that’s the way we see it from an exoteric perspective okay from the uninitiated
perspective okay the way the adept sees these things is that they actually are gateways back
to that experience and i know that’s a really strange idea okay but the key to that comes in
what’s actually happening when you look at these things okay and when the way you work with them
you have to be work with them like the initiate does and i’m going to give you the key to that
it’s not that hard really to understand how these things can be seen as literal
conduits to spiritual power and you can see that when we work in ritual all kinds of things
can work as keepsakes or tokens that remind us of a higher spiritual dimension
so the various instruments of ritual that we use like the wands the cups the daggers the swords
including the smells like the sense of that we have for oils and incenses fire has a certain
quality to it that reminds us of some inner landscape and of course the pillars and the
various furniture we use in the temple the altars and things like that okay and supposedly certain
kinds of sacred alphabets can conjure forth memories of some kind of primordial existence
that was from some deeper plane of existence all right uh and of course substances like
blood or wine um they can symbolically represent the um the sacrificial nature of the universe how
the essence of the universe has been spilled out into the open is now revealing itself is
sort of like the spilling of blood okay we’ve talked about that in the last video um which was
called the blood of the gods okay and uh also talked about it in a video before that where
the use of blood and magic or or the celebration of the eucharist uh where christians drink the
blood of their god and eat his flesh uh even the breath of course is also a keepsake from some
deeper realm of experience these are all tokens things that we can use to remind us of deeper
levels of consciousness okay this is tantra by the way tantra insists that everything that exists
outside in the physical world can be utilized as a vehicle toward enlightenment or towards
you know some higher state of being or some deeper state of being some reconnected state of being
sounds and colors and vibration all these things can serve as tokens or souvenirs or symbolic
remembrances of some deeper state and of course crystals are really good at that okay sometimes
and it depends on your own you know psychological makeup some things will work better for you than
others and it’s one of the reasons that the golden dawn had such um brilliant brilliantly colored
ritual implements like their wands and their swords and their their admission badges and
their banners, very bright primary colors and vivid purples and bright gold and things like
that. There’s a reason for all that. So memory and imagination, if you look closely at these
two concepts, they really are very much the same. In order to remember something, you simply
re-imagine it, okay? And one of the harder things to realize about imagination is that
it is always operating. People tend to think of imagination as something that you reach for when
you plan your wardrobe or you’re redecorating your house. You close your eyes and you imagine
what it might look like, okay? No, no, no, no, no. When you look at your house with your eyes
wide open uh the imagination is presenting it that house to you right now through the senses
it’s taking whatever all that sensory input and then dressing it up and presenting it to you so
the imagination is always on and so when people tell me that they can’t visualize that if you had
any idea how absurd that sounds if you it’s kind of like saying you’re blind and you can’t see
anything so when you say you can’t visualize it’s like of course you can and usually what i say is
close your eyes and walk into the kitchen without touching anything. You’ve walked into the kitchen
so many times, you can probably easily do that with maybe stubbing your toe once. But in other
words, in order to do that, you would be visualizing where things are. Interesting thing
is that blind people actively visualize all the time. They’re really good at it. But even if you
have your eyes open you’re still visualizing your way into the kitchen but you’re you are now
dressing up the sensory input in some kind of visualization which means that the imagination
is always on you’re always imagining the world okay so now if you close your eyes and remember
some place you once visited then of course you are now visualizing that without any sensory input or
you’re doing that from the memory of a sensory input okay but this happens even while you’re
looking at the world through your eyes right now a lot of the things you’re seeing are all those
images are being colored by your past memories and perceptions okay so why am i going into all this
okay well soul and imagination are kind of the same thing so we’re going to talk about experiencing
the world in terms of the soul because that is the key to seeing these crystals as literal conduits
of power okay and it’s not just crystals it’s anything at all okay so even even a mug which i
often i’m drinking from here during these videos um has a certain soul quality to it and as you
look at this even on the video screen you are your mind is throwing significance at this okay oh it’s
rather rustic looking but has a slight modern look to it no something like that like um these uh
these soulful qualities are sort of erupting from this thing in your imagination let’s say
or being projected upon it okay we should be careful with the idea that saying oh you’re
just projecting things onto this all right because uh that would is that would presuppose that your
soul is inside your body and now projecting things out into the world that’s not necessarily true
All right. So to remember is to imagine. And so when we use various substances or appearances in ritual, these are things that trigger, let’s say, deep memories or deep imaginative experiences that sort of recall a state of being that we used to have, or even a state of being that’s possible for us right now that exists right now, which is kind of being, you know, kept at bay or
or shuffled away somewhere and which can be conjured forth to to be here now okay and so
i think you’re starting to see maybe what i’m saying um uh these various symbolic substances
or symbols themselves when looked at in a certain way they themselves right there can act as conduits
to deeper experiences okay and that experience can arise as energy now another way to look at
this is uh you remember so you you recognize and you remember or you re-member so somehow
in the creation of the universe these various um experiences out in the world have been dismembered
from their inner state of being and now they’re out sort of exploded out into this sort of material
realm right and then but then you have there’s a certain way of looking at these things that
remembers them they’ve been dismembered they’ve been sort of cut off from god or whatever right
but there’s a way of looking at them that recognizes where they used to be maybe i i know
what this was like i i know that this sort of color and and suggestion of texture it reminds
me of something like a deep memory or something deep within myself that i have now been cut off
from and in that recognition that inner experience can now come forth okay does it come forth in the
stone itself okay some people would say no no no you’re just calling to memory it’s and it’s
happening inside you but remember um whatever you’re looking at is inside the imagination the
imagination is not inside your head you and you are inside the imagination okay when you can exist
in the world that way without assuming that your mind is trapped inside your body then remembering
the deeper aspect of something like this uh you can begin to call forth its inner aspect right
here in the hand because this outward experience really isn’t outward and so to the adept that
begins to become a reality. How is this possible? Well, there are things in the world that are
better at conveying a sense of soul than other things, okay? And in our modernistic lifestyles,
we have pretty much dismissed the soul as unreal. Why is that? Well, kind of because the soul isn’t
real okay and uh we should talk about what we mean when we say real okay we need to rescue you know
the soul from its uh imagined unreality okay and so yeah when we look at a crystal we can
sometimes get intimations of outer space because many crystals are transparent and they have this
nebula-like appearance to them so there’s a spaciousness to them and that freedom that
we supposedly had when we were in some kind of higher spiritual state might sort of appear there
in the crystal to us for an instant maybe we recognize it now there are various settings that
we can go into that some settings have more soul than others okay this is a pretty cool example
if all these elements combined producing a particular effect with there’s an industrial
quality there’s a rustic quality okay there’s a bit of an archaic quality there with with the
persian rug you know things like that and that sort of conjures forth a um a room full of some
kind of quality or presence sort of post-modern sort of spirit there and it’s interesting too
because if you um if you’ve spent time in settings uh that have been crafted to convey soul you begin
develop a you begin to develop a sense for it there’s a certain thickness in the atmosphere
that you can begin to feel when you were working around in or in settings that have been crafted to
convey soul this is an actual photograph it’s not a painting this is a juniper springs in florida
i’ve been there several times i know it’s real uh yes there are places on earth that actually
look like this and uh you could see there’s certain settings convey something to us like
there’s something magical like this is like i could almost go into that vivid turquoise
greenish color it’s like almost like a gateway to some inner experience some deeper experience
now there might be some kind of evolutionary explanation for our attraction to this color
of the water the turquoise water because these turquoise colored water tends to be very healthy
and clean water so there’s a tendency for us to be attracted to it because it’s good for us
whereas water that doesn’t have this color tends could be polluted dirty or you know full of
microorganisms and silt and things like that uh this is basically because water that becomes
structured because of its um water actually becomes a liquid crystal okay there are two
phases of liquid water not just one uh h2o is what we normally consider water but there’s also
h302 when water structures itself it assumes a liquid crystal form which has a negative charge
it’s electrically charged water and when it has that quality it actually feels wonderful if not
a bit cold to uh to jump into um and we just don’t know why we can’t quite explain why it’s so
supercharging but it’s actually the electricity in the water okay it has a negative electric charge
so we absorb ions from it this water is good for you and this is why certain springs have you know
reputations for healing properties most likely that’s why that’s why there are other qualities
of soul that various springs carry though that are that go beyond the mere explanation of the
electric charge in the water and then suddenly lo and behold we have this color turquoise
which we are so attracted to i wonder why that is so sometimes there’s an evolutionary explanation
you know like we’re attracted to these colors because that color of water uh um we developed
a natural affinity for it because uh those who are attracted to this color and water
would have a better chance of surviving drinking that water okay and so turquoise oh i hope i
didn’t just take the mystery out of turquoise turquoise being a crystal that supposedly has
a lot of spiritual significance or power especially in terms of venus supposedly it
corresponds with the venus usually perhaps jupiter a bit and works of art also conveys soul okay and
this is very important impressionism and particularly in particular does this this is a
painting by Monet and what you might notice is that the the air and or the sky seems to have
more texture than even the water does the water seems to have be like um an opening into space
right there like we could just pass right through that uh green stuff growing on the surface and
just pass right through into the water so that’s just space there whereas the air looks like we
could just reach out and touch it or we can just reach out and reach out and touch that sky and
And this kind of painting conveys that thickness of soul.
What this means is that when something conveys a lot of soul,
you begin to sense the imagination itself.
So if you’re in a room that has a lot of soul in it,
you begin to notice the imagination itself conveying forth something,
like that deeper memory or something like that.
um so if you look at the sky uh if you look at it in just the ordinary exoteric way it’s like well
it’s out there and it’s just nothing there it’s really nothing there at all if i reach up i can’t
touch it blah blah blah right well looking at that like an adeptus i know it that’s right here
my the soul and the imagination is all here all around me right up against me and it is packaging
forth and presenting to me the imagery of the sky so that experience of the sky is right here up
against me and it and it begins to feel thick okay the soul has an almost viscous quality
sometimes to it okay and um you know those of you who have done um hallucinogens and things
like that will sometimes maybe experience sort of um thick soulful quality that can arise from
certain atmospheres or from certain settings or from certain substances um and i really like this
word effulgence which simply means like you know radiant or uh full of light effulgence
there’s a word that conveys that sort of fullness of the light that it is this this manifesting
medium okay i would like to think that light that exists at the level of baria if you have studied
your kabbalah has this effulgent quality to it it’s very full of itself it’s very full of deep
memory and soulful experiences of the beyond and i’ve talked about this a little bit before
why is it that when we look at the world we can’t experience this soulful quality it’s almost like
it’s just emptiness and there’s nothing really there like there’s not real okay and if i look
at a crystal it’s like well i’m just imagining some special quality in that you know um and
imagination isn’t real so that means the crystal has no magic power okay you have to remember that
imagination is real it is the only thing that you ever experience actually okay remember that the
imagination takes the sensory input input and packages it forth to whatever it is this
awareness right uh and so the imagination is always on as a sort of conveyor or as a medium
between you and what you are supposedly seeing. Imagination is always there. But in the exoteric
view, everything is split in two, right? There’s just matter and spirit, and that’s all there is
to it. And this, of course, spirit and matter like this represents the fallen state. I have fallen
into this world, and all I have are things that remind me of where I came from. Yeah, and these
things aren’t really they don’t have any special magical power right because um they only remind
me of that they’re merely symbolic okay what a shame that we should end up in a state like that
because that is not what is happening here so scrap this model okay so when we return back to
the idea of metaxi which is the way the ancient greeks supposedly saw the world it wasn’t just
spirit and matter it was spirit soul and matter there was a sort of medium of conveyance between
the highest world and the lowest world and that sort of effulgence or fullness that you feel when
you experience soul or when you’re in a soulful environment okay um you might notice if you’ve
ever been to a broadway musical the the incredible richness of the stage props and the fullness of
that experience with the music and everything all all that combined it has a very uh it’s a
very tangible thick quality to it and that’s what makes it so magical right we pay a lot of money
for that when in fact that that experience of soul is available to us all the time and we can
orchestrate our own environments to make them full of soul and we can use crystals and other
things to do it doesn’t have to be natural substances if you can use you know synthetic
paint and things things like that um and uh create sigils with ink and whatnot and these can all
these can also convey soul to you because as you look at them you are reminded of that inner
experience and of course that inner experience is right there it says i’m right here i’m right here
do you want to call upon me okay let’s come i’ll come out right now and then it’s because remember
there really isn’t a split between spirit and matter okay the world has manifested this way
as though they are separate but they are not they’re not separate okay this is the key to magic
seeing everything in terms of soul which which basically gives crystals their amazing magical
power this is obsidian do do they have magical power in in and of themselves in a scientific way
no no no no in the act of looking at these things or staring into them uh it is the soul itself that
you are now realizing is there and it’s that effulgence that now comes through okay so it’s
not really in the crystal uh it’s in your experience and of course certain things can
help to conjure forth that soulful experience certain things can do that better than other
things okay interesting thing is if you have an environment that doesn’t have a lot of soul in it
you can’t really escape from that okay but there is a type of soul that imagines itself not to be
real that sort of like uh destroys itself right and so that quality of soul is usually what we
are existing in within the exoteric or unenlightened world okay so if you’re in a
let’s say if you’re in an auto garage that tends to be very like fixing cars and stuff like that
it tends to be a not very soulful environment you would think right but of course that environment
also has its own type of extreme practicality the hardness of all the tools um the harshness
of the environment and the loud noises these are all soulful qualities too yeah that’s the they um
part of that can even be sort of hellish type of experience the harshness of it right
or not can be maybe like um conjure up memories of this the forge of the gods or something like
that right and of course now soul doesn’t really exist between spirit and matter it basically fills
up everything as a means of uniting them together okay so supposedly when the divine created the
universe uh it sort of opened up a space within itself in which it appeared not to exist so that
it could pour things into that space and then have things manifest within it okay but that space
where it it’s that space where the divine doesn’t exist it’s that’s an illusion okay it’s pretending
not to exist there so that things can arise okay and when you look at the world in terms of soul
and look at your various crystals then um some things can help you remember that better than
other things this is malachite beautiful green doesn’t really show up so well in the camera here
um and uh that certain experiences certain sigils certain uh magical implements their shapes and
their symbolic forms can or certain smells fire the different elements water things like that
can conjure forth the deeper experiences um not from within themselves but from within
the depths of the universe itself or from in the depths of imagination imagination which is
everywhere it’s not trapped inside you okay you exist inside imagination imagination does not
exist inside you you are an imagined being do you really exist no not in the way you think you do
you imagine your you imagine yourself to exist in certain ways okay all right anyway and of course
spirit and matter interact in this medium of the soul through vibration and patterns of
interaction and this realm of the interaction of spirit and matter is the realm of the soul
okay so does the soul exist not exactly no it is the vibration pattern between spirit and matter
and to experience this realm of soul is to experience that effulgence the vibration or
that fullness right that um i don’t know it’s hard to describe and then of course uh certain
crystals are have a reputation for really conveying that soulful experience the certain types of
character of the soul right uh yeah amethyst is one that really does that’s pretty powerful
and so you would think that um when people talk about the magic for crystals there’s this
scientistic attitude that takes over this is the exoteric uninitiated attitude that says well the
magic is inside the crystal and it’s radiating out from the crystal something like that right
no the magic is in the recollection or the remembering so in the act of looking at the
crystal and experiencing it holding it touching it the whole experience there uh is conjuring
forth that energy okay to reach reach out and touch it and not look at it uh that’s not quite
right and people would say well i should be able to sense the vibration coming from that stone
right well yes but you have to really look at it the way that people tend to normally experience
that you have to involve all the senses that normally are responsible for that soulful
experience okay and then within that medium of imagination that’s working there there’s your
connection to the inner realms not through the stone itself let’s say you can see why this becomes
so difficult to talk about because if you were to tell an adept that the energy doesn’t exist within
the stone he would he would say yes it does but not in the way you’re thinking and so you think
that if you sat inside a gigantic geode like this this is amethyst that would be like oh i’m sitting
inside a sparkling galaxy or a nebula, right? Not necessarily. You would have to engage with
this experience in a soulful way, okay? And it is interesting that certain substances
have an effect that you can’t quite figure out. For instance, if I were to scry using a plastic
bowl of water, I might get one particular effect. And if I scry using an iron cauldron
with water in it, I get another kind of effect. That character of the iron has a powerful influence
there, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how that’s coming forth. Some would say that if the
plastic bowl looked like iron and I didn’t know that it was plastic, then I would get that same
iron experience. I’m not so sure of that. These things are a bit more mysterious than that.
and there you go this is why crystals have a special reputation for being magical right
there’s sort of that holographic image in a star sapphire that uh it’s funny because
nowadays oh where’d it go oh it seems to be gone now i don’t know how this multimedia stuff works
there it is okay that’s almost a cheesy effect now it’s almost a little bit vulgar it’s kind
of like looking at one of those little hologram images now and start but star sapphires are still
very considered very valuable now disappeared again this is citrine that golden color is the
type of quartz and i find quartz to be particularly powerful as a um as a ritual implement uh funny
thing is i’ve got these various stones in front of me and they don’t feel right without um a clear
quartz crystal sitting in there among them that’s probably my kabbalistic conditioning you know
this would represent kether uh as the essence of all the other stones something like that right
if you know your kabbalah you know what you know what i’m talking about when i say kether
and um this is obsidian which is a great scrying stone supposedly absolutely black it’s not a
crystal actually it’s it’s volcanic glass it’s uh glass is a crystal um it’s i think it’s a form of
quartz um but if glass cools very quickly it doesn’t assume a crystalline form and if it’s
volcanic and has lots of ash or something in it or carbon in it it’ll become a black or smoky quartz
like these which are supposedly really good for scrying okay funny thing is glass is actually a
liquid it’s not a crystal if uh yeah unless it’s unless it’s quartz crystal glass yeah that kind
of crystals like a crystal goblet but um yeah glass is actually a liquid and scientifically
speaking um windows that are very old are actually thicker at the bottom of the pane than they are at
the top because over time the glass very slowly flows and there’s malachite this captures it a
little better i have some malachite here it just doesn’t quite it’s this is quite beautiful but it
doesn’t really show up on camera so well so yeah malachite um naturally conveys um a remembrance
of venus because of that green color i could say green for the jealousy of the goddess venus right
or green for netsach and of course for venus we also have um this is rose quartz has a slightly
slightly pink color to it and pink being reminiscent of the color of maybe affection
or the color of of sensual lips or the vagina so representing um sort of feminine or quality of
tenderness or affection that venus is so um well known for so you have to remember that if you’re
in an auto mechanic an auto mechanics garage that’s a hyper real sort of environment where
we’re dealing with you know the the hard facts of fixing car engines okay um but remember that
all these various settings it’s just these are still fantasy worlds that we live in and so when
in the modern world when we say oh we’ve dispensed with all the fantasy and all the magic now we know
it’s not real right and so now we live in the real world okay so you can’t escape from imagination
basically what’s happened there is that the imagination is now imagining itself as unreal
and it’s proceeding as though it is unreal and then all we have is literally what’s
sensorily conveyed to us we pretend that the only thing that’s real is the hard sensory data
supposedly that’s there when we don’t even realize that as that sensory data is thinking in it’s
being dressed up by the imagination anyway okay so to look at crystals and say they can’t possibly
be magical because yeah well that’s to exist in this world in which the imagination is pretending
it’s not out there doing things or it’s not an intermediate realm between myself and what I’m
seeing. If you live in the world of realism, you’re living in a world of fantasy because you
are living in a world in which the imagination is imagining itself as unreal. And once we stop
doing that, once we stop imagining that the imagination isn’t real, the imagination then
comes forth again in its full splendor it’s right here up against us and we get this intense vivid
experience of everything as conveying immense depth and remembrances everything conveys
astonishing depth or power or meaning or it’s hard to say exactly what that is okay
and all of these things of like oh i remember what it was like to be uh you know before i was
alive i know what that was like it’s like well that’s not really from before that’s now too
you can conjure forth that experience now it’s everywhere and crystals are a great way to do
that in fact the ultimate state or the ultimate ground of being is uh the same thing as the
philosopher’s stone and the philosopher’s stone we use the metaphor of the stone because the
ultimate truth or the ultimate ground of being is absolutely indestructible absolutely hard
absolutely firm absolutely right up against us so if you pretend to be realistic you are pretending
okay that doesn’t mean you can’t operate in a sort of literalistic mindset that’s perfectly fine
but of course that’s still something that’s being imagined which brings us to uh emotions so
so when we work with crystals i said well it’s conjuring forth various emotions right or with
various thoughts, things like that. No, no, no, no. So, um, if I’m, let’s say I’m doing meditation,
uh, one of the practices in meditation is to label the emotions that you’re experiencing as
they come up, which can be very helpful. Okay. Or to label the thoughts, the types of thoughts
you’re having. Oh, that’s a self-defeating thought. Okay. Oh, or label the emotions. Oh,
that’s, that’s jealousy. Okay. You wouldn’t even say that’s jealousy. You would just say,
jealousy jealousy is arising okay or um uh oh i’m remembering what it was like to be a child
okay childhood memory okay you’re labeling thoughts right well thoughts and emotions are
abstractions okay and if you look at what an emotion actually is it’s always attached to
some kind of imagery the entire world is imagistic and all of your thoughts are also at the very root
imagistic there they are really images or scenarios that are presenting themselves to you
i don’t really understand why people say that um why people think of their thoughts in terms
of sentences like the thoughts that arise in my head have to be they always come in the form of
sentences they don’t oh they arise as scenarios mostly dualistic scenarios in which something
is happening to something okay um and so when we just label the kind of our experiences we kind of
tend to dismiss them okay and so when we work with crystals and things like that or with fire and
water and breath and air and the various senses we are immersing ourselves in the imagistic realm
again where thoughts are not really what’s going on there are just scenarios and conjured images
and remembrances and things that just come forth from these experiences of just look gazing upon
these things and interacting with them and holding them feeling the weight of them these are
imagistic experiences this is a paraphrase from thomas moore not the thomas moore from
renaissance times but thomas moore more recent so we have the soul combines body and mind
so if you’re meditating there’s a tendency to focus on the mind and say the mind is doing this
the mind is doing that well we it might be better to focus on the the images that arise and of
course what is imagery exactly so just labeling your thoughts and feelings is not enough it’s
important to experience the images and the scenarios themselves without attaching words
or labeling all over them okay and you have to you have to remember that images if if you are
educated in terms of literature imagery that arises in a poem or a story is not only visual
imagery it is also sensory the weight of something the texture of it all right the smell of it
the sound of it so imagery is the the immersive experience of imagination okay and that’s why
working with things like this that words cannot really capture is really important in magic okay
and once we have those experiences or we’re calling them forth through these kinds of objects
or symbols or whatever it is we’re using we yes we can attach words to those experiences and use
the words themselves to conjure forth that experience again that can work too but it’s
important to have an imagistic basis from which to do that a memory of some kind or an experience
of some kind okay so as the golden dawn rituals neophyte ritual says by names and images are all
powers awakened and reawakened this is what that means and this is something i invite you guys to
do one of my favorite crystals to work with is salt i dare say it’s one of the more powerful
crystals to work with that’s this is mainly you know my experience of it um try getting some
large chunks of uh what is this called um himalayan salt the pink salt and uh maybe like
24 chunks of it or 30 chunks of it and then for your ritual space uh lay them out in a perfect
circle uh that you stand within to do the lesser banishing ritual the pentagram and the various
the middle pillar and things like that and then notice the effect that that has okay and you might
notice yourself saying oh i don’t feel any any energy coming from these thought crystals but
then you’ll catch yourself in the act as like wow this whole setting is much better now because of
this enchanting quality and the color of these rock crystals and then then your mind’s going to
try to get all scientific all over and say am i deriving energy from the crystals it’s like no
you’re driving energy from that whole aesthetic atmospheric experience okay and yes the salt
crystals are part of that okay and they’re not separate from that but there’s it’s easy to
misunderstand like oh if i hold the crystal and i’m driving energy from it it’s like no no you
are deriving the energy from the holding of the crystal not from the crystal itself
from the experiencing of it all right all right so i probably just confused that whole issue
drastically uh so so i hope that clarifies um uh what the magic of crystals actually it comes from
where okay so do you need to use crystals in your ritual no of course not but i certainly recommend
it especially if some of them speak to you all right um try salt uh go to the crystal store
like a um a rock store a rock and gem store okay or a new age store and actually look at some of
of these stones okay and then go and go request to touch them if they’re behind glass request to
look at them and hold them and you can be surprised like if you ever hold amber in your hand it’s like
wow this is such a strange experience to actually hold a chunk of amber okay anyway all right until
next time
Source: Lyam Christopher