How what we know effects what spirits teach.

Over on a yahoogroup that I belong to we are discussing the relative benefits of being taught magic by humans vs spirits. If you have been reading this blog you will know that I value the combination of both very highly. It got me thinking about how the spirits almost always use the language, perspectives, and technical knowledge that we already possess to instruct us. For instance John Dee was a master Cryptographer, the spirits delivered knowledge to him mostly through codes to be unraveled and names to be extracted from charts etc.

I was reading Frater U.D.'s "Where Do Demons Live?" today in the bathroom and I happened upon his discussion of cyber magic. While this was written a while ago, and he probably has more about his development of it in German, his description in the book did not deviate much from his description in his "Models of Magic" article from 1991:


"The application of the as yet evolving information model has led to the discipline I have termed Cybermagic (from “cybernetics” or the “science of control systems”). Contrary to the other models described above, Cybermagic does not rely on magical trance to achieve its effects. Rather, the Cybermagician activates either his own main memory banks, namely brain and spine (the Golf-club chakra, so-called because of its shape reminiscent of a golf-club) or those of the target person. The desired information is then called up and transmitted quite similarly to a copy command on an MS-DOS computer. The copy command analogy holds good insofar as the information (not having mass) is not actually “lost” in the process (as energy would be) but rather is duplicated. This is an important point as it allows for the magician to perform his magic even in a state of very low physical power, possibly even when almost completely intoxicated, as long as his basic “life support systems” are still functional and the command syntax is employed correctly"
 - Frater U.D. 

I had read this shortly after it was written and it didn't really strike a chord with me. A lot has changed since then. I have been using a similar copy and paste magic for years. I have also been "programming" astral matter for a long time, and thinking about it in those terms. Much of Tibetan Buddhist Magic is based on what he would call the "Information Model" and I never really thought about it before but in some ways digital thinking has helped me understand Tantric Kye Rim Mandala practice and how Mandalas essentially function as magical engines or CPU's. I remember back in 1999, Penor Rinpoche and other lamas were telling everyone to go see the Matrix because it is very Buddhist and will explain a lot of how Vajrayana works - that is pretty hip for a guy that was born in 1932 and raised in a country without a any modern technical infrastructure.
I have met several people who have practiced various types of magic that is even more directly influenced by thinking about things in the light of computers. I mentioned a cabal of Japanese Mages who work magic in ways inspired by how they design video games (they keep their tech very secret and since I am not a game designer, I do not qualify to get in on it). Another friend of mine introduced me to an astral space that works as a "Render Farm" for complex spells. Thinking about things in that way led me recently to some new ways to apply the properties of various Dakini Realms.

Anyway the point is, that the more we know here between us Humans, the more spirits will build upon that knowledge. There are certain things that just cannot be taught directly until we are ready to receieve them. Sometimes being ready means being able to access the mental planes, reverse the flow of Chi in the Dan Tien, or hold non-dual awareness. Sometimes it just means being tech savvy or understanding string theory.