My whole trip in doing the Occult Skeptic blog, and the Occult Skeptic lifestyle is to practice what Jodoworsky calls psychomagic. Psychmagic is essentially, performance as therapy. It is also highly suggestive about what the appeal and utility of ritual holds for so many.
Rituals change minds. Minds change worlds.
Thats the bottom line. Jodoworski also draws a continuity between this kind of thinking and art. Once again a pattern is emerging in my approach.
I would challenge any of my occultist critics, who I think have merely read and misunderstood the name of the blog, that I am following an established mystical path.
I practice mindfulness meditation. I use rituals to influence my thoughts, used by both Tibetan buddhists and Satanists as a plain jain down to earth way to exert some control. I also agree with occultist, wizard, and author Alan Moore in his argument of the continuity between art and magic.
Yes I am an atheist, and a skeptic. I don’t believe anything I do in these experiments with esoterics will result in me levitating in the lotus posture, or allow me to walk through walls, or any of that crap except as metaphor. Though I am so fond of the metaphor that I believe I can learn from those who do believe this way.
I believe that art changes minds. And minds change worlds.
Anyways. Here is an awesome video of Jodoworsky, who is also from my homeland of Chile. I embrace Jodoworsky as my favorite Chilean celebrity wholeheartedly.
OCCULT SKEPTIC 
The Tibetan Buddhist/Shamans seriously know what’s up. Ever read anything about Deity Yoga. Pretty serious stuff. Even Jung warned of the dangers of it.
I don’t know much about it actually. I would love to hear from you more about it, Hassan I-Sabbah. Would you indulge me?
I’ve only read a little about it. Essentially, you use various visualization techniques directed towards a deity until there is a non-duality between you and the deity (or Buddha, you could say). The Buddha’s habits, thoughts, feelings, compassion, and love replace those of your own. In other words you become the Buddha.
Here is what Jeffery Hopkins, an author of a book on Tibetan Tantra, relayed about Jung’s thoughts on the practice :” The misuse of deity yoga can lead to exaggerating the sense of inherent existence of oneself and thereby one’s self-importance such that, far from becoming more helpful to others, one becomes insufferable.”
I just feel that the “magic” of Mahayana and Theravada was lost centuries ago but was found again when the Tibetans mixed Buddhist metaphysics with the indigenous Shamanic practices of their culture.
I think this sounds like a wonderful practice. Something I am likely to try. I can understand Jung’s warning, but truthfully with any kind of occult work delusions of grandeur are a risk, you have to just be wary of it and be prepared of it. I definitely went through a lot of this kind of thing when I was a teenager and engaging in practice without adult guidance. But it also happened in my Christian days and I had guidance then.
Listening to my favorite podcast, Speech in the Silence (a Thelemite podcats) David Schumaker says that part of the justification for the existence of the O.T.O. is that one can go crazy doing occult stuff. To have a community of peers to help reign you in. I laughed and thought, my atheist friends will do this for me.
I am sure if I tried to go to my atheist meetings declaring myself a boddhisatva and asking my friends to prostrate themselves before me, I would quickly get reigned in. lol.
As far as going crazy doing magick, the one thing that scares me is the idea of coming under magickal attack. I have heard this described as the most extreme level of paranoia that one can undergo. It may be necessary to have a psychiatrist available as I do. We have been talking about the agnosticization of occult methods lately.
Have you ever read Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson? In a nutshell, all this freaky occult stuff was happening to him like seeing aliens, seeing gods, getting messages from Sirius. In the end he still considered himself an agnostic because he thought all these phenomena were just brain chatter. That’s my current goal with the Occult right now: to use ritual technology as a means of getting rid of faulty programs in the mind.
You and I have this central point in common. I will have to read Cosmic Trigger. That sounds like a good book.
I have read very little occult stuff in the last 10 years. I am re-reading that book life forces and I am currently reading a book about the Tarot.
I have a friend who is a pretty hard core Shaman. I consider him to be both a magic(k)al mentor and partner. I have been reading extensively about meditation, which was probably my “gateway drug” back into occultism.
One of my challenges is that I struggle to find time to read, though I am always reading several books, albeit slowly.
I love podcasts and have been getting one hell of a primer from these two Thelemite Podcasts called Speech in the Silence, and Thelema Now!
I also listen to Druidcast from the OBOD. And I have just recently gotten into another podcast called Alchemically Brain Damaged, which is a wonderful show and shares the same perspective as you and I have on occult practice.
I will post a link. It is also a blog, but I have only listened to the podcasts.
Alchemically Brain Damaged: http://uroboros.wordpress.com/