CHAPTER 1

Travel Planning

A journey of a thousand miles must begin witha single step.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

We are about to begin a journey. Some parts of it will be easy, filled with thedelight of discovery. You will speed along and wonder why you never found thisroad before. At other times, you may hit roadblocks or detours and wonder if youwill ever get where you want to go. Do not lose heart. As Robert Louis Stevensononce put it: "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the truesuccess is to labor" (1881). With time and patience, you will find that the roaditself is as interesting as its end, and the things that you learn along the wayare as rewarding as those you hoped to gain when you began.

The road may lead ever on and on, but, unlike Bilbo, a sensible traveler doesnot dash out the door with no more than a pocket handkerchief. Before you canrange freely through all the worlds, you must have at least a basicunderstanding of the geography. As you set out to explore, you must have arealistic understanding of your resources and abilities.

To make progress, you will need to work through all the chapters and exercisesof this book in order. Even, or especially, if you already have a given skill,you must practice it regularly—several times a week—for about a month, or untilyou feel ready to go on. Those with more experience may actually find some ofthe early lessons harder, as they may have old habits to unlearn. However, youwill find that these skills, once mastered, are useful in themselves and mayprovide a foundation that can support the practice of more esoteric skills likeoracular and possessory work.

As you work your way through the exercises, you will be offered options. Mostoccult and spiritual traditions require those they train to master their ownmethods for meditation and trance work. The approach to trance work presentedhere requires a systematic mastery of skills, but leaves the means by which youaccomplish this up to you. No single approach works for everybody. The motto ofMills College, where I spent four very happy years, is Una destinatio, viaediversae— "One destination, many roads." This has always seemed to me to be goodadvice for the spiritual, as well as the physical, traveler.

As anyone who has taken music lessons knows, there are sequences of fingeringthat seem difficult at first, but are necessary if you want to get past the easypieces. Continual practice helps you develop a sequence of responses thatautomatically come into play when needed. Learning this sequence is likelearning to shift gears on a car. At first, you need to look at the diagram; butwith practice, you automatically move the knob in the correct pattern while yourconscious mind focuses on avoiding the accident that has just occurred up theroad.

Consciousness

Dion Fortune described magic as "the art of causing changes in consciousness atwill" (Butler, 1952). On his Web site, Isaac Bonewits expands on this by callingmagic "a general term for arts, sciences, philosophies and technologiesconcerned with (a) understanding and using various altered states ofconsciousness within which it is possible to have access to and control overone's psychic talents, and (b) the uses and abuses of those psychic talents tochange interior and/or exterior realities...."

What do we mean by "consciousness"? The word ordinarily refers to a particularlevel of brain activity at which we can intentionally respond to stimuli,communicate, and understand what is going on around us. "He's regainingconsciousness ..." in a medical setting indicates the moment when a patient openshis eyes and rejoins the world.

But neurologists chart many different kinds of brain activity. Clearly, the mindis doing something even when it is not communicating. Some of this activityinvolves thought; some may not. In sleep, for instance, we dream in the REMstate. For most people, dreams come and go at their own will, and if we arelucky (or in some cases unlucky), we remember them. However, some people havedeveloped skill in "lucid dreaming"—moving into a dream state while retainingsome awareness that they are doing so, and exercising some control over theexperience. I realized the connection between that ability and those we can usewhile awake when, some years after I became a professional writer, I foundmyself editing my own dreams. Some people simply train themselves to remembertheir dreams by articulating a firm intention to do so before falling asleep,and keeping a notebook or recording device handy to capture their memories whenthey wake.

The kinds of consciousness experienced at various stages of sleep are well knownand considered normal. Also within the "normal" range are a variety of states inwhich we focus on one activity to the exclusion of other awareness. This kind ofhyper-focus is particularly familiar to people with a talent for working withcomputers—"programmer's trance" has enabled many a programmer to transcendnormal needs for sleep and food in order to meet a deadline. For a novelist, themoment may come when the work stops feeling like pulling teeth and becomes anexhilarating and rewarding ride in which the story carries you along. In itsmore extreme forms, the compulsion to hyper-focus can become a master ratherthan a servant, and may be a result of Asperger's syndrome. People with thistendency may have an easier time with some aspects of trance work, but may havedifficulty developing flexibility and control.

Anyone who has driven from one point to another without any memory of thejourney has been in an altered state. In these instances, your conscious mind isconcerned with its own affairs while some other part directs your body. When youare absorbed in a movie or a good book, time passes without your awareness. Youexist in the world of your imagination, and the demands of your body aresuppressed. Only when you finish the book, or when some stimulus jerks you backto "reality," do you realize that your neck hurts or that a visit to thebathroom is long overdue. Runners strive for their own kind of altered state, inwhich there is no reality but the smooth flex of muscle that carries them overthe ground. Training for other sports induces its own kind of trance state,...