Re: William Mistele and Evocation

["peter_reist" <peter_reist@...>]

Dear Craig,

>>>Why do you think Bardon, who undoubtedly knew what he was doing,
included so large a section of PME if it is 'essentially useless'? Was
he mistaken? What were his motivations?<<<

The answer is quite simiple, and has been adressed upon numberous 
other occasions: to get published. It is commonly assumed that Bardon 
put forth the section upon the hierachy of the spirits due to the 
fact that his work would not get published if he did not put this 
material forth. This assertation is given further creidence by the 
theory section of PME that essentially says the same thing.

>>>It seems to me you view the entities discussed as having little
objective reality - to the extent that one person's encounter might be
radically different to another (ie: subjective), or that a genuine
encounter might be *veiled* through expectation, or that, 
indeed, "this sort of problem will manifest in almost any 
attempt to contact a spirit that another person has come in contact 
with and evoked".<<<

Hardly. A spirit is as real as you or I, and, as such, has both a 
subjective and an objective reality to it. If both you and I where to 
try to remember a specific scene from our mutual past, and then 
individually put that down onto paper. Then both accounts may be very 
similar to one another, or very different. These differences might 
have to do with the state of mind either of us whas in when this 
specific memory was encoded: where we happy, sad, joyful, inebriated, 
etc. These are the filters through which the objective reality of 
such a scene passes through in order to become subjective.

Similarly, when two different people, with two different mindsets, 
goals, beliefs and so forth, come in contact with another person, 
their experiences and opinions of that person may be quite similar or 
different from one another. Not only depending upon their own views 
and expectations, but also upon the views and expectations of the 
other person as well. 

When talking and conversing with one person I may act in a certian 
way because I have known them for a very long time. Yet in the 
company of another person that I barely know, I might act in an 
entierly different manner.

>>>If the entities exist only as a manifestation of individual
expectations and filters, perhaps they exist only within the 
individual? If an entity has certain observable 'truths' separate 
from the observer, then surely one person's account is useful - in 
the broad sense if not in the details?<<

To the scholar that has not reached the work of step 8 or 9, then 
yes, most entities will exist only as a manifestation of their own 
psyche and any work done at this level will be little more than 
psychotherapy. I say most of the time due to the fact that there will 
always be the odd case in which the untrained scholar will somehow 
manage to wind up in contact with a spirit that has an independent 
life of its own. One such case happened when I was going through the 
work of step one and translating an online copy of PME from German to 
English when one of the sigils of the Venus sphere called out to me. 
I meditated upon the seal that Bardon puts forth and came in contact 
with some sort of spirit that, once the contact was stable enough to 
converse with the spirit, she essentially said, "Bugger off. You're 
not ready to come in contact with the likes of me. Go back to your 
studies and start at the beginning." Then, finially, almost like an 
afterthought, she added, "And meditate upon Love." A meditation that 
I consider to be very important for one's development in Hermetics 
and Kabbalah. Also, at the of this initial contact, I worked on the 
assumption that I would be contacting a portion of my own psyche. 
Even though, at this point in time I have gone back and made contact 
again, and found that this spirit is inded something seperate from 
me. Yet, regardless; if the scholar learns something valuable from a 
hidden portion of their own psyche, or from another spirit, both can 
potentially bear good fruit.

>>>It seems to me that when one is genuinely working at this level, 
the ego is largely to one side, and any filters or personal 
perceptions are necessarily absent and therefore irrelevant. In 
short, one does not perceive these things through the ego-self.<<<

That sounds about right. The scholar that has worked up through to 
step 8 is working with the direct perception of essential meaning, as 
Rawn calls it, when in contact with a spirit. Which is one of the 
reasons why Bardon puts the work of evocation and Kabbalah at such a 
late stage in the scholars progression along the path of Hermetics.

Love and Live well,
Peter Reist