Polyrhythmic Contact

Sit facing your partner. Place a drum or drum-like object between you.
Set timer for five minutes and a metronome for 75 bpm.
Take a moment to establish contact.
One person will begin to count to three aloud.
They will tap the drum on "one".
The second person will count to four aloud taping the drum on 1.
If you become confused and loose the rhythm, or miss your beat, stop and start together again.

Experiment: Once upon a time I died

This may be done solo or with another person. Set up a small altar table with a white candle and a photograph of yourself. You may also place fresh flowers, a bell, or any other objects that you would use in a ceremony for the recently deceased.
If you are flying solo you will need a tape recorder and a tape. You will record yourself reading your last rites. This text may come from which ever tradition you practice.
If you have nothing else that would be the obvious choice, you may find one of the primary readings from the American Book of The Dead online at http://www.slimeworld.org/lrs/clear.html
Lay down near your altar and cover yourself with a white sheet. Cross your arms across your chest. At this point your partner will read you the text you have selected, or you will play the recording.
The idea here is to make the whole ceremony as realistic as you can. Really play the part and be open to the experience.
When the rite has been completed take a moment or two to bask in the sensation before rising. Record all of your observations in detail.

Experiment: Strictly Limited

Here is an experiment for two or more people. Obtain a piece of canvass or poster board, some acrylic paints, pieces of sponge, crumpled sheets of paper, an orange rind, and two lengths of yarn or string.
Each of you will be permitted to make one stroke with any part of your body, three strokes with the sponges, three with the crumpled pieces of paper, one stroke with the orange rind, and two strokes or marks with the lengths of string.
Take turns so that after one person makes one stroke the other person makes a stroke.
Do not make any extra marks on the canvass. Use only the objects described here and make only the number of strokes prescribed.
You may use as many colors as you like.
Make the effort to stay in contact with one another throughout the experiment and progress at a snappy pace.

There Is No Easy Way Out

There is no easy way out.
We either fulfill our obligations or we do not, and we live with the consequence.
Choosing to be responsible for something delicate and questionable is both noble and foolish. You are kidding yourself if you believe there will be some reward in it for your human nature.
The course runs like this: At first you will not want responsibility for it. After all, it could be dangerous and what’s in it for you?
But then you realize that if you don’t help this vulnerable thing, it may come to harm.
There is no way of knowing whether it will get help from anyone else. You can only be sure it’s being helped if you’re doing the helping.
Your human nature will seek an advantage, a means for capitalizing on the situation. This tendency will ride alongside the urge to be of assistance and will struggle to turn the situation to its advantage.
In the end a choice must be made.
Sacrifice the delicate to improve the human’s situation or sacrifice the human to improve the situation of a delicate, scarcely tangible something.
Whatever road you choose you pay the price.

Keep Moving

Keep moving, don’t stop, especially not when you feel lost.
The best method for finding the way when you feel you have lost it, is to keep going. Ignore the question of whether you’re going in the right direction. If you stop when you feel lost, you will remain in the land of the lost.
Through constant motion we become "electrified". This makes us active rather than dormant.
Motion indicates that we are presently "alive", not merely a force with the capacity for action.
The difference between the potential and the actual is critical.
We in the guild of those who make butter from air prefer skill over talent, and persistence above all.
Persist but move creatively.
Like a one of the fremen from Arrakis, you must learn to move without creating a traceable pattern.
When you walk outside the walls the whole world is your enemy. You become the noble born with a thousand enemies. When your enemies catch you they kill you. When you are trapped you are "dead".
Do not let them catch you.
Dance around obstacles, and never give in to despair- however tempting, it is a death trap.
The greatest con ever devised is the trick of making the noble born believe they are already ensnared so that they lay down and die before meeting an actual obstruction.

Experiment: Object to Object Contact

For this experiment you will need a timer, a slip of paper, your journal, poker cards, and a small mirror.
Select a card from the deck.
Set the mirror and the playing card so that they stand up facing each other.
They should be in your personal space, in a location where they may remain undisturbed and you can observe them easily.
Write "I saw each object then in its relation to a timeless being" on a slip of paper. Fold the paper three times and keep it with you.
Set the timer for three minutes.
During the three minutes do nothing but look at the mirror and the card.
When the timer sounds set the timer for another three minutes and write whatever comes to mind in your journal. Stop writing when the time is up.
Leave the mirror and the card in place for three days.

Experiment: Dream Life Story Pt 2

Print your story and cut it into little blocks of text.
Collect photos of yourself in various life stages. Look through magazines and surf the Internet for additional pictures that compliment your life story. You may also sketch or paint drawings as accompaniment.
Use the photos, pictures and artwork to create a collage on the inside or outside of an old cardboard box. Strategically incorporate the chunks of text in the collage.
When this is complete, you are ready for the third phase.
Find an old handheld cassette recorder/player, or one of any size. In addition gather three objects with which you can create noise/music.
Record yourself creating either music, or noise that is being created as passionately as if it were music, or a combination of both. Get creative. This is the soundtrack for your story. You will need to be able to play the recording near your story box.
Arrange a space for your story box to be displayed.
This can be in your own living room, or a public space if you can arrange it.

Experiment: Dream Life Story Pt 1

Write your life story as if it were an insane dream.
It needn’t fit in with what you believe is an accurate portrayal of yourself. It needn’t conform with so called "reality", although you may use elements of that seemingly true story.
Blend supposed fact with uncut fiction. Don’t just write yourself as some thing you want to be.
Write yourself as something you want to be, something you are afraid of being, and something that you are.
Write it as if it doesn’t matter, as if anything can be said because everything must be said eventually. When you have completed the story you are ready for the second phase of the experiment.

Bridge Builder

You are not real, but something real may come alive within you.
Its purpose is not in alignment with your hopes and desires for this lifetime.
If it does come alive within you, it is really just hitching a ride on your lifetime.
It does require your cooperation to stay onboard.
A Shaman is a transdimensional taxi, a ferryman who chooses to carry this delicate passenger across this treacherous gap in the multiverse.
The shaman is a bridge builder and the bridge.
This means that the work the shaman does is on the self, to undo what biological nature set in motion and reassemble it to serve a purpose outside of that nature.
There is no reward in the lifetime for such a one.
They do it to be of service, to help the helpless Dios.

Give it Away

Transformation is death.
The natural inclination will be to do what we can to stop ourselves before we make a transition into an unknown state. That which we are will cease to be. That which we are will fear its end.
THERE IS NO WAY OUT OF IT.
YOU WILL DIE.
Whether it is a forced transition or one willingly met. That which we are may make a special effort to give life to something through its willing sacrifice.
When that which we are meets its end with an open heart, transformation is Life.

Experiment: Bardo Puppets

Find a photograph of yourself and a bell. Cut yourself out and glue the photo to a Popsicle stick to make a little puppet. Use photographs of family and friends to create other characters for you to interact with. Set a little stage, and improvise a puppet show. If you have a video camera record the show, otherwise use a regular camera to take photos of the puppets.
Make the performance realistic and ordinary. Don’t hold back. Build the energy up by pouring intense emotion into the act. When the story feels believable for you, begin to create outrageous circumstances and bizarre situations.
At last, set all other puppets down and focus on your own. Ring the bell once. Address your puppet slowly and clearly. Begin by saying it’s/ your name. Then read the following aloud to your puppet three times:
"O nobly-born... the body which you have now is called the thought-body of propensities. Since you do not have a material body of flesh and blood, whatever may come--sounds, lights, or rays--are, all three, unable to harm you; you are incapable of dying. It is quite sufficient for you to know that these apparitions are your own thought-forms. Recognize this to be the Bardo. "
Read as slowly as possible taking time to completely understand each word. When you have finished reading the text thrice, ring the bell three times.
This completes the experiment.

Pass Go, Do Not Look Back

Don’t look back.
Never grasp for something lost, you will loose more.
Your attention is all you have. If you place it on a misstep you will miss more steps. Acknowledge and accept losses, but keep your attention on your objective. If you loose a little something, your house, your family, a leg, or your life, and you spin around to attempt to recover it, you will lose your way. Loosing the way is a greater loss, it is much harder to recover.
The cosmos is full of entities hungry for our attention, they will do anything to obtain it. We are conditioned to give it away reflexively. We must recondition ourselves to retain it and place it only where our Will places it.
In the end you are destined to loose everything: your house, your family, your leg, and your life, whether or not you loose one or another of these things a little early on in the game is unimportant.
Once you pass Go, all you will have left is your attention, your presence.
If you gave it away early in the game you will be unable to continue. Move forward without fear for what is being burned away as you progress.
That which may remain from game to game is all that you really possess.

The Result

A true Invocation is an interaction with something "otherwise", something that is not you, and that doesn't really emerge from you.
When planning an invocation, plan the process very clearly but leave space for the result of the invocation to occur, for that which is "otherwise" to manifest in whatever form it will choose.
Don't plan so extensively and carefully, that there is no space for the actual Invocation to happen.
In the same way, all the experiments that we propose should be approached as such. There will be effects, in you and around you.
Don't assume that you know what these effects will be! They may very well surprise you. (If they don't, they're probably not the actual effects.)
If, for example, you do an experiment one morning, and suddenly in the afternoon you feel an impulse to do something that you don't usually do, it is imperative that you follow through.
Once you are serious about exploring the work with your machine, with the forces that move through it and with intelligences outside of it, it is crucial that you act on these new impulses of wakefulness. Don't just sit back and bask in the vague glow of energy.
Act on the tiny suggestions that will pop up from somewhere.
As you do, the bridge between the "otherwise" and "you" will become more and more solid.
Don't start on the road thinking you know what is at the other end.
If you did know, it wouldn't be "otherwise".

Just Do It

Words do not communicate the way. Only doing can put you on the way.
The teacher can only communicate the way to you by working with you. If your teacher is a musician, you will make music with them.
Making music is not the way, but the teacher can show you the way through the music.
Your teacher might teach you how to make music if you don’t already know how, but the point is not to turn you into a great musician.
The point is to do something together and through the doing you find the way.
If you are already a musician and your teacher asks you to do something differently you might feel offended. You might forget that the teacher’s concern is not whether or not you are a good musician.
In fact, the teacher may not even be a good musician, you could be better, and the instruction given might interfere with the creation of "good" music…
This doesn’t matter. What matters is that the teacher understands the way and can pass it to you by making music with you. The teacher might make music with you because you are a musician, but paint with another because they are an artist.
In either case the teacher is only using an outward form, a common activity, to transmit something subtle- something that can only be transmitted through doing.

Experiment: Pay Attention

Find yourself three toys. These may be borrowed or purchased from a thrift store.
Sit down with your toys. Arrange them so that there is ample space between each one and they are all within your field of vision.
Take three deep breaths. Make the effort to be wholly present. Place your attention on one of the toys. Look at this toy and pour yourself into it. After a few moments, move your eyes to the second toy, but keep part of your attention on the first toy. Divide your attention between the two toys while looking at only the second toy.
Slowly move your gaze to the third toy. Keep part of your attention on both the second and the first toy while placing attention on the third as well. Maintain this balance for a few moments. Then move your gazes. Then move your gaze back to the second toy. Withdraw your attention from the third toy while maintaining the connection with the second and the first. Hold this for a few minutes.
Now withdraw your attention from the second toy and place your gaze and full attention back on the first toy.
Hold it for a few minutes, then draw the attention back into yourself.
Feel yourself as fully present and take three deep breaths.

Experiment: Make a Scene

Obtain two toys. You can either borrow them or pick them up at a thrift store.
They should be action figures, dolls, animal figures, something that you can identify with and project your own personality onto.
One toy will represent you, the other toy will represent someone you have a problem with, so pick some toys that reflect these roles.
Choose someone you are afraid of, angry at, envious of, or in some conflict with. Draw a nice warm bubble bath and get in with your toys.
Play out a scene between the toy representing you and the toy representing the other party. Try to remember what it’s like to play. Do it with a relaxed and involved attitude. There’s nobody else watching, it’s just you, so get into it.
Let the toy say the things that are on your mind but try using a "toy voice". Listen to what your toy says. When you’re done, switch toys.
The toy that formerly represented your adversary now represents you and vice versa.
Play out another scene. Listen to what this toy says as you and also to what the other toy says.
As you play, become aware of yourself as both characters.
When the scene is over let go of the toys and relax.

The Mortality Experiment

Nothing new, nothing original, I am no one in particular.
Utterly replaceable, unless some thing takes hold.
Then that thing will use me for a while, until I break or until I expel it.

Depending on the position of the sun, this fact either cast a shadow on my day, or makes things seem extra sunny.
It’s either great to be useful, especially to something that has a hard time finding good help, or it’s a drag to be used.

Really, it’s a matter of facing or rejecting mortality.
Being mortal is just setting the timer and saying, okay, I am going to do something within this intersection. When the timer, your biological life, expires and nothing has happened, well, that was just a waste.

The moment to act is during the mortality experiment.
When it is over, it’s back to eternity as usual.

The First Steps

The first steps must be taken here, in the material.
The material world could be likened to the first level of Mrs. Pac Man. In order to get anything done in subsequent levels, you build skill in the first slowest level.
If you could be magically dropped into the twenty third level without having mastered the first, it would do you no good. You would be killed and thrust out of the game instantly.
It is not making it into a higher state quickly that matters.
What matters is the development of skills that will be useful in any level of game play.
By developing these skills on the slowest playing field you give yourself the chance to develop them fully. Rushing means you will only adapt superficially, you may make it through a couple of levels, but ultimately, as the game moves faster, you will need to be carried by a stronger habit.
The first steps are the most crucial. We will only do as well up high as we do down low.
The way we begin the game is the way we end it.

Strip Tease

Take three deep breaths.
Now begin to remove your clothing. Do this as if you are in slow motion. Take as much time as possible. Don’t hurry your movements or perform them mechanically.
Pay close attention to what you are doing.
Undress yourself as if you are a turtle that has been transformed into a human being and is unaccustomed to being in a human body. This would be the first time you have ever attempted to undress the human figure.
When you have removed your clothing take three deep breaths and begin to dress yourself again.
Continue to move as slowly as you can. Make an effort to keep all of your attention on the task you are performing.
When you are dressed again take three deep breaths and go back to life as usual.

Trickster

A mad dog magician is a trickster, a juggler, a jumper.
The Real will flow through any streambed. A mad magician will play with the real, follow it, and ride it down streams both dark and light.
White Magick, Black Magick, the Mad magician knows they are both for fools, and will play the fool when necessary. But he knows that Magick to improve or deprive mortal life is superficial.
Therefore, a Mad magician may appear to be either a benevolent or malevolent creature, or something in between.
There are of course Black and White magicians who are not Mad at all.
These are useless for the subtle Work that must be done by some one.
To do that Work, one must be quite Mad.

A Story Together Pt 1

This experiment is most interesting as collaboration, but if a partner is unavailable it can be performed alone. You will need a camera and a pen and notebook.
Find a park or other interesting setting. To begin, select a starting point.
Sit there facing your partner. Gaze gently into their eyes to establish being to being contact. Do this for at least 5 minutes and for no more than 10 minutes. Afterwards, get up slowly and take out the camera.
Each person will take six photographs, no more or less. The pictures should be taken within a one hundred-foot radius from your starting point.
While you are taking the pictures begin to tell a story together. When you have taken all twelve photographs, sit down and write the story in the notebook. The story should be approximately one page in length.
This is the first draft, and when you have completed it you have finished the first phase of this experiment.

Once The Search Has Begun... Pt. 2

Having taken the first step to meet the adventure we will find ourselves propelled down the road. Before the quest, time passed us by, but now we will pass by time.
There can be no turning back. The road may be lonesome. Few will recognize us for what we are, and some who do will endeavor to trap us and impede our quest.
If we wait for help we will never have it. It is only by moving forward into the adventure that our companions may be summoned to us. They are the few who will recognize us and who share our quest.

Lose Your Head

Every day write out an experiment, or a little paragraph conveying a message that might be of use to someone else conducting such experiments. On days when you are identifying with the so called "sleeping machine" to the extent of wondering how calling it "sleeping machine" is very helpful, go ahead and write something down. Even if you feel that you are in no position to be sharing your perspective with anyone else because at the moment you can’t remember what your perspective is, write something semi instructional in the spirit of offering up tid bits which may or may not be of interest to others tending a similar path, (even if you’re presently not clear about what path you might be tending, or what that would mean.) Write something that even in an awakened state you would prefer not to write because in that state you agree with Depeche Mode that "words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm…"
Write habitually and try to come alive with it. Make the effort to pour yourself lovingly into it, even if you’d rather crawl under a rug and stop breathing, because doing it right then matters more than ever, even if you don’t remember why. Accept that it’s okay, probably even good, to behave as if you are brain damaged and repeat the same action daily with enthusiasm despite being unable to rationalize it. Accept that rationalizing may be a form of brain damage. Trust that you’re too big to fit inside of your own damned head and the only way to get in touch with yourself may be to, as they say, "lose your head."
Lose your head and write about it to encourage others to do the same and even offer up suggestions for how to lose it.
(Because I’d like this tid bit to be especially full of love I will suggest setting your head on a park bench and running away from it really fast. I prefer this method over music, lovemaking, or the use of psychedelics because it’s more difficult and I have a self destruct habit that trickles into effect when I’m not looking and suggests that I do things in a way that might be too hard for me so I can feel bad about fucking up later. Another very good method could be playing a game of polo with the Queen of hearts.)
Post them on a blog, or publish them, or print a few of them and leave them at public transportation stops.

Opportunities

What will happen once we have opened the heart to our immortal self is unknowable.
When the magic begins to eat us from the inside out we can hold nothing back from it. Both our desirable and undesirable attributes will be digested.
The habits we have formed up to this point will determine the final outcome, not our philosophies.
It is the way that our energy, thoughts, and feelings move through us that becomes crystallized.
Every moment is precious, every opportunity to form a desirable habit is monumental.
When the radiations of the eternal begin to cause mutations within the mortal form, the flow of energy through the open heart moves quickly and with terrible force.
There is no way to "think things through", this energy will be directed reflexively.
For this reason, we must use every opportunity to form appropriate reflexes.
What we have practiced with smaller quantities of energy at our disposal is what will come into action when our fairy tale characters begin to melt.