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Chraňte si svůj oceán

Monica Star

     V současné době snad nežije nebo lépe řečeno nepřežívá ve volné přírodě zvíře, které by nebylo na seznamu ohrožených druhů. Pokud na seznamu není, je jen otázkou krátkého času, kdy se na něm ocitne. V tomto směru jsou čím dál tím více populární ohrožené velryby, občas přímo propagované společností Greenpeace. Pokud moře nějakým nedopatřením vyvrhne velrybu na pláž, přičemž nikdo neví, jestli ztratila díky naší radiokomunikační civilizaci orientaci nebo chtěla spáchat sebevraždu, už se k ní hrnou členové ekologické organizace Greenpeace a strkají ji zpátky do moře. Někdy dojde i ke smutnému omylu, například když se nedávno snažili členové Greenpeace odvalit do moře českou moderátorku Holinu Obrovskou, která tam ale byla na dovolené. Vraťme se ale zpátky k ohroženým velrybám - jak pro redakci argoni.com zjistil náš spolupracovník, živě píšící přispěvatel, pan Tomáš, z původních, přibližně 300 tisíc kusů velryb v současné době přežívá asi 300. Rozdíl je to drastický, alarmující a do očí slzy vhánějící, ano, je to velmi smutná skutečnost. Člověk by tloukl hlavou do zdi – ale naskýtá se otázka, může dělat ještě něco jiného? Státy, mezi něž patří především Japonsko, Norsko a Island stále pokračují ve zničujícím rybolovu. Pan Novák ze Žižkova jim v tom s nejvyšší pravděpodobností nezabrání. Stejně tak intervence japonské, norské nebo islandské vlády nebudou mít žádný pozitivní vliv na výši důchodu pana Nováka… jako kdyby nám osud naznačoval, aby se každý staral o své… i když, kdoví?

Neustálá poptávka po velrybím mase inspiruje dokonale vybavené velrybáře k likvidaci zbylých jedinců téměř již vyhynulého druhu. Lovu velryb se věnují i obyvatelé (tedy alespoň někteří, ne všichni) Grónska, Aljašky a Sibiře, ale snaží se lovit jen určité druhy a počet mají limitován. Navíc loví pouze pro vlastní potřebu. Nikoliv z obchodní bujnosti. Samozřejmě, první, co inteligentního člověka napadne je, jak by tato situace vypadala, kdyby po produktech, vyráběných z velrybích tělíček nebyla žádná poptávka.

     Je nám ale záhadou, jak si s tím mohou poradit ekologické organizace. Jediná reálná možnost, podle našeho názoru, jak zabránit dalšímu nesmyslnému zabíjení velryb a samozřejmě i žraloků (to je další příspěvek do drastického panoptika lidské zrůdnosti) je uřezat lačným velrybářům ruce, což je ovšem z ryze praktického hlediska neproveditelné. Alespoň se o to ještě nikdo nepokusil. Je-li tedy záchrana velryb neproveditelná, dá se i poměrně snadno odpovědět na otázku, co pro ně můžeme udělat my, suchozemci z vnitrozemí? Proč si to rovnou nepřiznat, že jsme v situaci, kdy budeme muset přihlížet (jestli nečinně nebo přitom budeme živě protestovat, je celkem jedno) vyhlazení dalšího živočišného druhu z povrchu planety? Člověk, který správně vidí realitu je na tom všeobecně lépe, než člověk, který realitu nevidí. Toť základní pravidlo esoterní psychologie.

Nicméně, zajímavou skutečností zůstává, že jednou z činností Greenpeace je neúnavné pořádání různých sbírek a kampaní. Z vlastní zkušenosti mohu říct, že jsem se jednou připletla do cesty pár lidem z výše uvedené organizace, kteří mluvili o záchraně velryb. Byla jsem ještě dítě, poprvé v Praze vystupující z metra. Jejich zasvěcené povídání o zvířátkách mě dojalo. Čelist mi ale ještě více spadla, když mě požádali o číslo mého konta, že si z něj budou každý měsíc brát dvě stě korun. Co znamenají dvě stovky pro třináctiletou holku, nemusím žádné třináctileté holce vysvětlovat. Černovlasý pracovník Greenpeace se mi docela líbil, tak jsem jen vykoktala, že ještě žádné konto nemám a když mě začal přesvědčovat, ať si ho založím, že dvě stovky nikoho nevytrhnou, vzala jsem si formulář, že si ho prostuduji doma a tiše jsem zmizela ve víru velkoměsta.

     Ale jak si, proboha, mohou myslet, že jim někdo zpřístupní své konto? Pokud jde o jednorázový příspěvek na dobrou věc, tak prosím, ale svěřit někomu přístup k veškerým úsporám?! Uspořádají snad sbírku na mě, když mi nedopatřením zmizí místo pár stovek pár tisíc? No řekněte sami, jestli to neudělala lépe moje kamarádka, kterou také párkrát zastavili v rámci kampaně „Bráníme naše oceány“ i když o žádných oceánech, které by patřily České republice nikdo neví... Oslovili ji: „Slečno, máte ráda přírodu?“ Každý by od mladé slečny čekal odpověď: „Ano, přírodu mám ráda a také si přeji světový mír!“ Ale kamarádka odpověděla: „Jestli něco nesnáším, tak je to příroda!“ Člen Greenpeace byl trochu opařený, ale vzdát se nechtěl: „Ani zvířátka?“ „Ne, ty úplně nesnáším, jen člověka otravují.“ „Ani velryby?“ „Na velryby jsem úplně vysazená, ze všech zvířat mě nejvíc štvou velryby.“ Když mi tu historku dovyprávěla, zasmála se a dodala: „Příště jim řeknu, že mám velryby nejradši na másle.“ Vtipálek. I když je to v podstatě dost smutné… velryby bojují o svůj život, my o své skromné úspory… a vzájemná pomoc je v nedohlednu…

Zdravim,
ted jsem docetla clanek na argoni.com o velrybach a hned me napadlo jedno
music video, ktere reziroval Heath Ledger - jak by vypadal svet, kdyby se
to obratilo a velryby by lovily lidi… Odkaz:
# http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid10172910001?bctid=32418116001

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Dobrý den,
ráda bych se vás zeptala, jaký máte názor na přivtělené duše, můžou opravdu tak škodit a být příčinou všeho možného? Spolupracovala jsem se dvěma ženami, které se zabývají magií, ale poslední dobou mi připadá, že je to pro ně jen velký byznys. Vím, že všechno co jsem s nima podstoupila, byla moje svobodná vůle a nikdo mě k tomu nenutil, ale prostě nemám z toho už dobrý pocit, protože výsledky nejsou odpovídající tomu, co jsem do toho vložila.
Zároveň ale magii hodně věřím a zajímám se o ní.
Myslíte že by mi pomohly nějaké rituálky na Vašem CD, mohla bych si alespoň dočasně nějak pomoct v situaci s přítelem ?
Jedna z těch žen mi řekla, že přítel má přivtěleného ducha a ten ho prý ke mně nepustí a všechna kouzla mi bude postupně užírat.
Díky za váš názor a odpověď
Kristýna

Dobrý den,

přivtělené duše - to je pouze jiný název pro vliv ostatních lidí a obsese, kterými dotyčný trpí, pro okolí, pro zvyky, kterým každý z nás určitým způsobem podléhá a pro počínající nebo již probíhající duševní poruchy a různé specifické psychické zvláštnosti. Rozhodně to není žádná konkrétní cizí osobnost, která by se postiženému nastěhovala do hlavy a řídila by ho stejně jako kdysi legendární strojvůdce Casey Jones svou lokomotivu.

Z hlediska ezoterické psychologie žádné takové duše, které by měly svůj vlastní rozum a vůli, neexistují, ale existuje celá řada zábran a informací, které ovlivňují naše myšlení. Je docela dobře možné, že zrovna ta žena, která se vás snažila přesvědčit o existenci škodlivých přivtělených duchů, se chtěla stát jedním z nich. Mezi současnými „čarodějnicemi“ a různými „mágy“ se najde plno psychopatů, nicméně k jejich identifikaci by měl stačit normální, zdravý rozum. Musí se ale (ten rozum) společně s logikou nasadit hned při první návštěvě u pana Mága nebo paní Čarodějnice.

Každý s magií a ezoterikou pracuje trochu jinak, většina nezkušených se v tom doslova plácá pouze živelně… Podle naší cesty je nejlepší začít si postupně uvědomovat skutečnost, realitu, k čemuž je dobré pořád dokola rozebírat, kdo má z čeho jaký prospěch, proč něco dělá, jak to dělá, co zrovna dělá, jak se chová, když si myslí, že si to může dovolit a tak dále, prostě se snažíte problému co nejvíce porozumět v celé jeho šíři... když se to povede, začíná se problém obyčejně řešit jakoby sám od sebe. To je základ magie. Každý má svůj vlastní postup, někdo je profesionál, jiný diletant a to je asi tak všechno... Hlavní problém, který se pokoušíte řešit, není ani tak ve vašem příteli, kterého zřejmě chcete pomocí kouzel začít ovládat. Spíš byste měla začít rozebírat celou situaci, do níž jste se dostala. Proč jste se do ní dostala? Co se odehrávalo předtím, než jste se dostali do krize? Pokud od vás odešel, proč od vás odešel? Co můžete svému příteli nabídnout? Čím se pro něho můžete stát neodolatelnou? Odešel od vás, protože se mu vztah s vámi nelíbil nebo ho zlákala jiná žena? Čím se můžete této ženě vyrovnat? Pokud nemůžete, nebylo by lepší si to přiznat a začít na sobě pracovat?

Monica.Star@seznam.cz

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Podle českých a moravských biskupů nabízené didaktické náměty na sexuální výchovu dětí doporučují takové metody, které ohrožují mravní výchovu mládeže.

„Některé věty z příručky nelze ani citovat,“ řekla mluvčí konference Irena Sargánková.

Biskupové míní, že při aplikaci postupů způsobem uvedeným v příručce lze očekávat, že bude zraňována důstojnost dětí i samotných pedagogů.

můj komentář

Pane Bože, kam to spějeme? Celkem souhlasím s tím, že nové příručky sexuální výchovy jsou diletantské, je vidět, že je psali lidé, kteří sami za sebe, osobně, se sexem a partnerstvím žádné zvláštní, či překypující zkušenosti nemají. Na mě se zatím nikdo se žádostí o radu při psaní podobných příruček neobrátil, přestože na esoterní psychologii asi těžko najdete někoho lepšího.

Takže, přestože nerad pracuji zadarmo, jednu radu bych do prázdného prostoru hodil.

Pokud se naši majitelé rozhodnou, že změní sexuální výchovu, nemohou své rozhodnutí zaměřit pouze na děti. Je to podobné, jako když kdosi kdysi navrhl, že by nebylo tak zcela od věci, kdyby se i v Anglii začalo jezdit vpravo, jako ve zbytku civilizované Evropy, takže na zkoušku by mohlo na pár dní deset taxíků jezdit vpravo, pak se uvidí, jestli je to užitečné. Ano, zřejmě již začínáte tušit, kde je problém. Je to podobné, jako když skončila druhá světová válka a do Německa zvesela vpadla spojenecká vojska. Začaly soudy s hrstkou válečných zločinců (zbytek si Spojené Státy odvezly, aby jim v přepychových podmínkách umožnily pokračovat ve „výzkumech“) a překvapení vítězové na každém kroku zjišťovali, že „normální“ obyvatelé, vůbec nemají ponětí o sexuální výchově… eh, co to plácám… že „normální“ obyvatelé vůbec nemají ponětí o tom, co se dělo za ostnatými dráty koncentračních táborů. Takže přišli na nápad pořádat víceméně násilné exkurze domorodého obyvatelstva do koncentráků a na filmové projekce se záběry z vyhlazovacích táborů, aby mámy od ploten, dědové od půllitrů a děti z mateřských školek (ty dospělejší většinou padly v bitvě u Stalingradu) na vlastní oči viděli, jak se zacházelo s lidmi, o kterých bylo civilní obyvatelstvo propagandou přesvědčované, že se jedná o delikventy nebo válečné zajatce. Mimochodem, dnes také nikdo nedemonstruje proti poměrům v současných koncentračních táborech nebo vězeních. Nikdo neví, jestli jsou v nich skuteční, světu nebezpeční teroristé nebo lidé, kteří se pouze chtěli postavit proti globalizacím… Když tam někdo nebyl, chybí mu vlastní zkušenost. Samozřejmě, když už jsme u té svaté církve – dlouho po válce byla kritizovaná, že žehnala nacistickým kanónům, některé dochované dokumentární filmové záběry jsou v tomto směru až dojemné, mohly by je používat v televizních reklamách jako příklad asertivní komunikace (plus dvacet smsek měsíčně zdarma). Stejně tak je dnes církev kritizovaná kvůli homosexuálně pedofilním sexuálním skandálům a zneužívání dětí, což je většinou spojené s misionářskou činností (tuto část sexuální příručky by mohl, pravda, napsat někdo od svaté církve, už proto, že určitě bude mít v tomto směru více zkušeností, než konzervativní sexuolog, který je většinou bez potřebné fantazie). Stejně tak by bylo zajímavé pedagogicky ventilovat zápisy z inkvizičních mučíren. Pro sadisticky orientované podvědomí není šťavnatějšího sousta. A děti, ruku na srdce, mívají k sadistickým představám větší afinitu než mnohý dospělý. Chudák dospělý si už svou dávku sadomasochismu odžívá jako ekonomický otrok v práci, na úřadech, v nemocnicích…

Takže, zpátky k bohulibému sexu – sexuální výchova, pokud má mít dopad jako výchova, nikoliv jako jablko sváru, hozené mezi tři dominantní megery, musí být orientovaná ani ne tak na děti, jako na jejich vychovatele, čili na dospělé jedince, učitele, rodiče, asexuální maminky a poťouchlé tatíky, to všechno jsou lidé, kteří automaticky předávají své názory na vychovávaný dorost, který je automaticky přijímá - a to je úkol, na který současná společnost ještě nestačí, nezlobte se na mě, mnoho věcí lze v osudu změnit, ale individuální inteligence, ani inteligence národa mezi ně nepatří. Ta buď v potřebné míře je nebo není, pokud není, tak sorry…

-raw-

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Jen tak mi napadlo, že bych docela přál českým ekonomům, aby jim šla práce od ruky, stejně virtuózně jako to jde Albertovi Leeovi a Vinci Gillovi při interpretaci známé skladby Tiger Rag:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btj_Lr0huGM

G O B A R O

Monica Star

Magie. Těžké téma… Mnoho lidí fascinuje, ale mnoho lidí ho zesměšňuje… třeba otázkou proč tomu věnovat námahu, když je to hloupost, není to NIC. Nebo spíš je to NIC. Pravdou spíš je, že dnes téměř nikdo neví co to vlastně je. Magie patří do pohádek… nebo si to alespoň myslíme, protože jsme k tomu byli vychovaní.

V dávných dobách se často i velmi složité věci, související s poznáním, poznáváním a věděním nezaznamenávaly pomocí slovních definic jako dnes, ale pomocí obraznosti, symbolů, ale i pomocí dramaturgie, bájí, balad, pověstí, mýtů a… vlastně i pohádek. K většině symbolů se v propadlišti dějin už dávno ztratily ty správné klíče, jinými slovy není nic neobvyklého, když i k poměrně známým symbolům neznáme jejich logicky pochopitelný ekvivalent, neznáme jejich správný překlad, vyluštění, poslání, tajemství.

Lidský mozek ale z neznámých příčin neustále „vyrábí“, či „produkuje“ abstraktní svět, potom si ale můžeme říct, že i když existuje pouze v mozku, v představách, tak existuje. Kdyby neexistoval, nemohli bychom o něm uvažovat a psát, neměli bychom o něm ani tušení – jako nemáme tušení o ničem, co neexistuje. Jakmile se něco objeví, byť i jako pouhopouhá idea, nápad, inspirace, jako systém změn elektrických potenciálů během neuronových interakcí v mozkové hmotě, tak tomu ani sebevíce materialisticky založený racionalista nemůže upřít existenci. Nejde o žádnou víru ve vyšší moc nebo ve vyšší síly, přestože se o imaginaci a hru s fantazií a představivostí opírají všechna náboženství. Bez výjimky. A samozřejmě z ní vychází i magie, která je s náboženskou představivostí úzce spojená.

Když byl Jirka Kadeřábek, šéf jedné z našich nejlepších skupin historického šermu, ve svých začátcích na návštěvě u slovutného mistra šermu, zaujala ho spousta magických rekvizit, ležících na mistrově stole. Mistr vyráběl tyto předměty pro film.

Jsou ty věci navrženy „fundovaně?“ zněla Jirkova naivní otázka.

Odpověď zněla: Mě zajímá jak tenkrát lidé žili a mysleli.

A to byl Jirkův začátek mnohaleté cesty nebo spíš „procházky“ mezi historickými tématy. Byla to cesta, doprovázená zvláštními zážitky, o nichž se veřejně moc nemluví, vlastně se o nich ani mluvit nedá – jak Jirka říká, člověk riskuje pobyt v blázinci nebo přinejmenším posměch okolí.

Mnoho záhadných věcí existuje a funguje, ale těžko se dá definovat jejich princip. Stejně tak těžko se tyto věci dají jednoznačně třídit, řídit, či ovlivňovat. Jedno je ale jisté – i když nemusíme spoustě věcí rozumět, můžeme je vnímat. Odtud zřejmě pramení i víra v zaříkávání, v amulety, talismany a kouzla, leckdy spojené s příšernými úkony, které měly zajistit výsledný efekt. Což samozřejmě stimuluje přinejmenším vůli a víru ve výsledek – a to samo o sobě je dost.

Jirka říká: „Nevím, jestli existuje pánbůh ale vím jistě, že existuje duše. Nevím jak vypadá, vzduch taky nevidíme, ale víme, že je a jeho masy mají slušnou váhu. Když se dá do pohybu, vzniká vítr, uragány a tornáda. S duší je to podobné. Tržní hodnota duše je ale nulová, takže se o ní raději nikde moc nemluví, navíc by mohla komplikovat racionální plány na osobní prosperitu… je to prostě přítěž… veteš - a moderní člověk raději dělá, že žádná duše není. Dnes je nejsilnějším náboženstvím ekonomika. Také se tomuto kultu stavějí velkolepé chrámy - banky a obchodní centra.

A jak je to s časem? Mohli jsme existovat už před svým narozením? Existují minulé životy? Nevím. Ale když při natáčení historického filmu vkročím v kostýmu mezi dokonalé filmařské kulisy, postavené na nějakém hradě, vidím husy, slepice, prasata, koně, ohně, kotle a ostatní lidi v kostýmech, slámu na zemi a mnohé další atributy, nemám pocit, že je to atrakce. Mám pocit, že to znám, to důkladně znám, tady už jsem byl, to všechno bylo a jsem vlastně rád, že už to není. Je to díl nostalgie a díl úlevy, že to už není. Mnohohlavý dav naplňuje prostor při právě natáčené scéně, všichni jsou v kostýmech, režisér dává pokyn -  vy pojďte sem dopředu, vy umíte nosit kostým… Ostatní bohužel stále působí jako civilisté v kostýmech. Ten kostým je nějak moje součást, znám ho, už jsem ho měl na sobě mnohokrát. V současnosti… Nebo i tenkrát??? Je to všechno normální???“

Dnes si říkám, kdybys, Jirko pracovat tři roky v české televizi, tak by ti asi připadalo normální úplně všechno, ale o tom zase až jindy…

Proč si člověk (nebo alespoň některý člověk) zamane, že se naučí šermovat a propadne tomu? A potom to jde daleko za rámec zábavy a odreagování… Proč vznikne nutnost naučit se jezdit na koni? Pokud připustíme možnost minulých životů, je možné, že současní šermíři a bojovníci byli tenkrát rytíři? Nebo naopak sedláci a teď se to snaží nějak vykompenzovat? Kde vzniká nutkání (ano, někdy je to doslova obsese) zabývat se zrovna tímto druhem činnosti?

Jirkův kolega Honza Kostka říká: „Magie a šerm? Jen držet kord je magie.“

Ve sportovním šermu byl v mládí třetí v republice v kordu. Jako historický šermíř je mezinárodní vítěz a mistr světa. Z jeho pohledu je šerm součást magie. Když pomineme letitý trénink a dril, vzniká otázka, proč to vlastně několik desetiletí podstupuje a odkud pramení veškerá jeho energie a talent?

 Všechno, co se můžeme dozvědět o dobách dávno minulých, získáváme prostřednictvím odborných publikací, historických dokumentů, románů a filmů. Doby to byly nesporně velmi drsné. V boji o přežití proti sobě vždy stály dva protipóly – dobro a zlo. Víra v dobro pomáhala přežít a vytvářela morální pravidla a i když se je nepodařilo plně realizovat, velmi důležitá byla snaha je naplňovat. Vznikl ideál rytířství a galantnost šlechty a to je to, co nás i v naší moderní době přitahuje. Přestože mnozí z nás mohou mít syntetický dojem, že se principy dobra a zla začínají podezřele slévat v jedno… ale i tak například příběh Dumasových Tří mušketýrů ovlivnil již mnoho generací. Zřejmě právě proto, že zdůrazňuje čest, přátelství a povznesení se nad přízemní materiální hodnoty. Což je vlastně to, čeho je v současné realitě stále palčivý nedostatek.

Pro zajímavost - příslušnost k historickým dobám potvrzují členové skupiny GOBARO také zařízením a výzdobou interiéru svých příbytků. Nic ze současnosti jim není 100% dobré, i když se samozřejmě nekoupají v kádích, netopí pouze v krbu a nevaří na ohništi. Zřejmě i naše současná doba má své klady... Ale jinak svým způsobem života a hlavně výsledky své činnosti neustále dokazují, že takzvané magické vnímání světa zdaleka nebylo nahrazeno výhradně strohými vědeckými poznatky.

V tomto smyslu si skupina GOBARO zcela jistě zaslouží naši pozornost. GOBARO vzniklo ze skupiny Romantik, jedné z prvních skupin historického šermu v Čechách. Jsou to šermíři, kaskadéři a jezdci na koních, kteří se šermování a veřejnému vystupování, ať už na nádvořích hradů, v divadlech nebo ve filmu věnují téměř 30 let. A jak vždycky říkám, zájem a snaha jsou hezké věci, ale výsledky potěší a přesvědčí o to víc - loni v září se našim bojovníkům podařilo na mistrovství světa – World Championship při mezinárodním klání v historickém šermu v San Marinu získat 3 medaile, bronzovou, stříbrnou a zlatou. Možná si při pohledu na svou vlastní mezinárodní zlatou medaili řeknete, že to zase není nic tak zvláštního, ale pro všechny ostatní ráda o skupině GOBARO (Jiří Kadeřábek, Jan Kostka, Miloš Svoboda, Jiří Hrubý, Luděk Horálek a Stanislav Veselý) napíši ještě něco víc.

Ležatá  osmička

Monica.Star@seznam.cz

Nedávno mě začala pobolívat levá strana úst. „Jak je možné, že selhaly mé osvědčené regenerační techniky? Za to asi může ten věčný stres,“ pomyslela jsem si. Můj skvělý zubař mě však uklidnil, že mám zoubky zdravé, jen mi roste zoubek nový, který ještě není vidět, osmička, chcete-li zub moudrosti. Osmička je odnepaměti považovaná za nejdokonalejší číslo, neboť nikde nekončí ani nezačíná. Můžeme si ji na papíru obkreslovat libovolně dlouho, bez jediného přerušení… Proč je však osmička lepší než například nula, která také nikdy nekončí? Nejdůležitějším symbolem pro všechny starověké kultury byl kruh - zjednodušený nákres hada (v Číně draka), který se kouše do ocasu. Říká se mu Uroboros a je to symbol nekonečné obnovy, dokonalé regenerace. Čínská filozofie rozdělila vnitřek kruhu na dvě poloviny - na část ženskou a mužskou (jin a jang). Pro zajímavost, mužská část je bílá. Mužská náboženství byla vždy spojená se Sluncem a se světlem. Žena je vládkyní noci, je to bohyně Měsíce, symbol života, který vzniká v temnotě. Spojení těchto dvou vzájemně se doplňujících protikladů znázorňuje právě osmička. Ležatá osmička je alchymistický symbol nekonečna. Pochází z tantry. Když jsou muž a žena spojeni a setrvávají takto i několik hodin, proudí jejich těly sexuální síla, kundalini, vše oživující dračí síla a nejsilnější síla vesmíru. Tato léčivá energie proudí jejich těly ve tvaru ležaté osmičky. Dva opačné principy - muž a žena - se přitom stávají jednou bytostí. Dokonalou bytostí. Když muž a žena dosáhnou harmonie fyzické i psychické, mohou se vzájemně léčit a postupně dosáhnout nesmrtelnosti. Tajemný symbol ležaté osmičky najdeme na druhé nejvyšší tarotové kartě – kartě Mága, která úzce souvisí s kartou Blázna, kartou Extáze, které můžeme dosáhnout, pokud jsme harmonickou bytostí se správně fungující sexualitou. Druhou tarotovou kartou, která obsahuje symbol ležaté osmičky, je XI. Velké Arkány - karta Síly. Představuje životní sílu, kterou můžeme nazvat též sexuální nebo dračí (hadí) silou, čili kundalini.

No a světe, div se, když  můj osmý, dosud skrytý zub zrentgenovali, byl naležato. Mám v puse ležatou osmičku. Takže i když jako zub je a bude nefunkční, tak jako znamení probuzené sexuální energie a čarovné moci je neocenitelný. Když v Kladivu na čarodějnice nebo správněji Kladivu čarodějnic, hledali ďábelští inkvizitoři čarodějnická znamení, prohlíželi těla zajatých žen a hledali různé bradavice nebo pihy. Ale hledat takové znamení by je určitě nenapadlo.

S Y M B O L Y

Monica Star

Obrazy a sochy starých mistrů jsou plné tajemných symbolů, o nichž dnes už mnozí lidé ani nevědí, co vlastně znamenají. Pro studium jakéhokoliv uměleckého díla, které obsahuje někdy zjevnou, někdy utajenou symboliku, je dobré znát dobu, kdy dílo vznikalo. Běžně se totiž stávalo a stále se to stává, že se význam určitého symbolu v průběhu času mění, až se mnohokrát zdánlivě paradoxně otočí o 180 stupňů. Jedna ze základních pouček čínského filosofického systému I-Ting to však konstatuje bez sebemenšího zaváhání: všechno se v průběhu času mění a všechno se dříve nebo později změní ve svůj opak. V bibli je symbolem stoosmdesátistupňových změn svatý Pavel, původně farizej, pronásledující křesťany, později zapřísáhlý křesťan, který je snad ještě horlivější než samotný Ježíš.

Typický symbol, jehož význam se prudce změnil, je svastika, hákový kříž, původně znamení štěstí a radosti (Buddha mívá svastiky na rukou a nohou, jihoameričtí Indiáni zdobí svastikami své kánoe, je to něco jako amulet a talisman). Dát si dnes, kdekoliv v Evropě, svastiku na čepici nebo si ji pověsit na krk, by znamenalo koledovat si o udání a zadržení.

Druhým, leč mírnějším symbolem, jehož význam se v průběhu času změnil, je sova. Pokud uvidíte helénskou sochu bohyně moudrosti Athény, nepřekvapí vás, že bude mít u nohou sovu. Tehdy, tak jako dnes, byla sova považována za symbol moudrosti. V křesťanství se ale její význam změnil. Sova je noční pták, byl to tedy symbol temnoty, stejně jako netopýr nebo žába. Kdybyste byli zobrazeni na barokním obraze, určitě by vás nepotěšilo, kdyby vám na klobouku seděla sova. Temnota, kterou křesťanská sova symbolizovala, znamenala zatmění mozku, tedy hloupost, nevědomost. Aby byl symbol hlouposti doveden k dokonalosti, mohl mít postižený ještě tvář prasete. Temnota v křesťanství byla něco špatného, byl to opak světla, tedy i sova znamenala nemravnost, chlípnost, či vilné návrhy, padající v temném zákoutí.

Symbolem řecké bohyně krásy Afrodíté byla růže. Znamenala vášeň, touhu, tělesnou lásku. V křesťanství se růže stala symbolem neposkvrněné Panny Marie. V gotice seděla často Madona s dítětem v růžovém keři. Pokud měla růže trny, bylo to předznamenání bolesti Panny Marie nad utrpením svého syna. Pokud byly růže bez trnů, znamenaly čistotu Panny Marie.

Křesťanská díla jsou protkána všemožnými symbolickými výjevy. Každý světec má svůj symbol, svůj atribut, se kterým byl zobrazován. Atribut často upozorňoval na způsob mučednické smrti světce. Například u sv. Kateřiny je to kolo a meč. Svatá Kateřina měla být vpletena do kola a tak usmrcena, do kola však udeřil blesk a kolo shořelo. Zvolili tedy popravu mečem. Všeobecným symbolem křesťanských mučedníků je palmová ratolest. Často bývá zobrazen anděl, letící z nebe a podávající palmovou ratolest ještě trpícímu světci. Atributy mohly, kromě mučednictví, odkazovat na práci světce. Známými jsou klíče sv. Petra, strážce nebeské brány.

Píseň písní, milostné dílo, připisované hebrejskému králi Šalamounovi, se pro svou lehce erotickou tématiku málem nedostalo do Bible. Na koncilu, kde se rokovalo, je-li vhodné zařadit Píseň písní jako součást Bible, se nakonec usnesli, že dílo lze vyložit jako vztah věřícího ke Kristu.

Nejčastějším motivem čistoty je bílá lilie. Na většině Zvěstování Panně Marii, kde archanděl Gabriel přináší dívce Marii zvěst o jejím vyvolením Bohem, jí podává bílou lilii, která předznamenává její neposkvrněné početí. Další zpodobnění Zvěstování byl hon archanděla Gabriela s loveckým rohem v ústech, který se třemi psy pronásleduje jednorožce, který se ukryl Panně Marii v klíně. Tři psi jsou tři základní lidské ctnosti a jednorožec symbolizuje čistotu, protože podle pověsti je nebo byl jednorožec velmi plaché zvíře. Jediný, kdo ho mohl zkrotit byla čistá panna. V 16. století byl symbol jednorožce v klíně Panny Marie zakázán, jelikož roh přece jenom připomínal falus. Dále už tedy ve Zvěstování jednorožce nenajdeme. Dnes by mohl být jednorožec s vibrátorem symbolem sex-shopů.

Díky Písni Písní, kde se mluví o černé pleti dívky, vznikl kult černých svící, i když se dlouhou dobu myslelo, že černé svíce jsou odvozené od kostelních svící nebo kadidel. Černé Madony symbolizovaly plodnost. Koneckonců s největší pravděpodobností jsme všichni vznikli z jedné ženy, pramáti, která zřejmě pocházela z Afriky.

V baroku byly oblíbeným tématem alegorie. Některé alegorie je těžké rozluštit, co vlastně znázorňují. Nejčastěji zobrazovanou alegorií byla alegorie pěti smyslů – šlo o sluch, čich, chuť, zrak, hmat. Sluch se poznal nejlépe, jelikož osoba, která měla zobrazovat sluch, držela v ruce nějaký hudební nástroj, například loutnu nebo triangl. Zrak se často zobrazoval tak, že se postava dívala do zrcadla nebo měla na nose brýle a něco si skrz ně prohlížela. Chuť zpodobnil jedlík, pojídající nějaké dobroty nebo piják vína. Pan Čich si čichal ke květině, nebo to mohl být kuřák dýmky. Možná už bez čichu… Oříškem býval Hmat. Na jednom obraze klove ženu do prstu papoušek, žena je zde zpodobněním hmatu.

Časté byly pastýřské náměty, symbolizující návrat k přírodě a ctnostný život v chudobě a odhození přepychu. Oproti tomu stála zátiší a krajinomalba podle akademických malířů nejníže co do hodnoty. Přesto se zátiší, nazývaná také klidožití, symboly jen hemžila. Nejzobrazovanější byly takzvané symboly vanitas ukazující na krátkost a pomíjivost života. Typickým symbolem vanitas byla mýdlová bublina. Z toho vznikl pojem homobula – člověk jako mýdlová bublina. Ovoce, nad kterým krouží motýli a lezou z něj červi a broučci bylo rovněž typickým symbolem vanitas. Brzy zralé, brzy shnilé. Stejně jako květiny, které ve váze voní jen chvíli než uschnou. Tulipán většinou znamenal přepych, luxus, nebo také bláznovství. Pocházel z Turecka, odkud byl dovážen do Evropy. Každý chtěl mít doma tulipán, byly málo k dostání a lidé byli za cibule tulipánů ochotni dát cokoliv. Evropu zachvátila mánie po tulipánech. Nehorázně předražená pouhopouhá květina často stála lidi celé jejich jmění. Motýl byl v zátiších symbolem lidské duše. Ořech znamenal svatého Augustina. Ten viděl v ořechu Krista. Dřevo ořechu symbolizovalo kříž a plod ořechu byl Kristus sám. Kde se vyskytla myš, tam byl ďábel, podobný význam měl brouk roháč. Jeho rohy symbolizovaly Rohatého. Papoušek znamenal neposkvrněné početí Panny Marie, protože se věřilo, že i po namočení zůstávají papouščí křídla suchá, voda po nich steče. Proto ho vídáme nad miskou s ovocem, jak hlídá plody ráje - prvotní hřích. Na jiných obrazech, kde kavalír flirtuje s dámou, je papoušek symbolem erotickým, zvláště když je v blízkosti vilného pána. V barokní krajinomalbě lidé viděli v listu na stromě symbol lidského života a řeka jim připomínala plynutí času. Rozbouřené moře vyjadřovalo drama lásky. Staré rozpadlé chatrče, nad kterými se zamýšlíte, proč je vlastně někdo maloval, byly symbolem lidské zahálky, která bude potrestána. V baroku se často zobrazovali řečtí bohové, kteří rovněž měli svou symboliku. Kdekterá šlechtična se chtěla zobrazit jako Venuše, nejkrásnější z bohyní. Bůh Saturn (Kronos – Chronos) byl bohem času.

Oblíbená byla takzvaná žánrová malba, kde se zobrazovaly výjevy z každodenního života. Oblíbený byl nerovný pár, kde je starý muž a mladá žena nebo ošklivý muž a krásná žena. Naopak to už bylo zobrazováno méně, asi to nebylo tolik symbolicky dráždivé. Postava šaška upozorňovala na pobláznění ošklivého muže a měšec na cíl krásné ženy - chtěla okrást zblázněného muže. Mělo z toho plynout morální ponaučení. To může koneckonců i dnes – asi donekonečna…

Mezi symboly vanitas, marnosti lidského života patřila také lebka nebo zhasnutá svíce, ze které ještě stoupá dým nebo jeden a ten samý člověk na jednom obraze – jednou je mladý, podruhé starý. V krajinomalbě to jsou dva stromy, jeden velký a listnatý, druhý je mrtvý strom bez listí. Lebka ovšem také znamená lidského ducha, rozum, vědomí.

V baroku se místo dnešního „házet perly sviním“ říkalo "házet růže sviním" a na obrazech z té doby můžeme najít prasátko jak papá růžičku.

U symbolů rozbouřeného moře bývaly „čtenářky dopisů“. Čtenářky dopisů byly často malovány systémem „obraz v obraze“ - nad čtenářkami visel na zdi obraz rozbouřeného moře, podle čehož máme poznat, že čtenářky čtou milostnou korespondenci, protože rozbouřené moře znamenalo rozbouřené city.

Mezi symboly vanitas byly rovněž symboly světské moci (žezlo a koruna) a církevní moci (berle a papežská mitra), protože jde o úřady, které nejsou nikomu svěřeny navěky, život je pomíjivý, moc je pomíjivá.

Již jsem naznačila, že bychom při čtení symbolů měli znát kromě doby, kdy dílo vzniklo, také dobovou módu a celkovou společenskou situaci. Například na některých obrazech přichází k nemocné dívce doktor, ale ve skutečnosti to není doktor, ale pseudodoktor a to poznáme podle toho, že měl zastaralé, nemoderní oblečení, které se v té době už nenosilo. Nebyl to opravdový doktor, ale postava Doktora ze hry comedia del arte. Zkoumal dívčinu moč (prostě tak trochu úchyl, který si hraje na doktora), což byla jediná možnost jak zjistit těhotenství. Mohli bychom si myslet, že je dívka těhotná, proto je tak nešťastná, že to musí říct rodičům a tak dále, ale potom se našlo jiné vysvětlení - na univerzitě, kde byly obrazy falešných doktorů malovány, byla v té době nemoc „nešťastné lásky“, která dívky sužovala, považovaná za skutečnou regulérní nemoc. V dnešní době bychom ji nejspíše diagnostikovali jako obsesi. A byl tam i symbol ohřívadla, které si dívky dávaly pod šaty. Na obraze s falešným doktorem to znamená, že nemoc bude díky milostným praktikám, či hrátkám ještě horší. Takže, ne abyste si zase hráli na doktora!

Antické báje a pověsti

Monica Star

Díváme se na ně jako na vtipné pohádky starých Řeků… původně to však bylo posvátné náboženství. Antická mytologie je jako naše bible, lidé v ní nacházeli ponaučení pro správný život, zákazy a etické příkazy. Něco jako desatero, které ale není vytesáno hospodinem do kamenné desky, kterou svalnatý Mojžíš přinesl z hory Sinaj, ale najdeme ho v jednotlivých příbězích bohů a lidí, kteří se s bohy střetli. A většinou to jejich životy obrátilo o 180 stupňů. Stejně jako křesťanské Svaté Písmo vysvětlovaly antické báje prastarým Řekům nevysvětlitelné – jak vznikl svět, země, moře, rostliny, roční období. I když dnes nám to připadá jako naivní, pohádkové vysvětlení. Nejstarší náboženství byla vždy polyteistická, pro každý přírodní živel, pro každou vlastnost a činnost měla jiného konkrétného boha. Člověk se potom podle potřeby modlí k jednotlivým bohům. Judaismus, křesťanství a islám, apokalyptická monoteistická náboženství mají jen jednoho Boha. Zástupci nižších bohů ze starých náboženstvích jsou v křesťanství svatí, kteří také pomáhají lidem. Například antický bůh Hermes, ochránce poutníků a posel bohů byl nahrazen svatým Kryštofem, patronem poutníků a cestovatelů. Že se lidé a společnost za tisíciletí zas tak nezměnili? V něčem zásadně. Lidé dřív vysvětlovali stvoření světa a všeho v něm pomocí páření, plození a spojování všech možných a myslitelných samečků a samiček. Spojením prapůvodního Chaosu a Světla vznikla Gaia (Země), která zplodila Úrana (Nebe), aby s ním mohla zahájit svou úlohu pramatky.

„Uranos zaplašil chmury a temnoty světlem životodárného Sunce a tvář noci zjasnil třpytem hvězd a Měsíce. Svou nedozírnou náručí objal matku Zemi a z jejich vzájemné lásky, která je spojovala, se jim narodilo dvanáct dětí.“ (Staré řecké báje a pověsti, Rudolf Mertlík)

Tak vzniklo dvanáct obrů z nichž nejmladší, Kronos (Čas) připravil svého otce o trůn. V křesťanství je jenom jeden všemocný mužský Bůh, který je trojjediný. To znamená, že v sobě spojuje tři svaté osoby, všechno se děje ve jménu Otce, i Syna, i Ducha Svatého, Amen (In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.) Tento jediný mocný Bůh stvořil za sedm dní celou zemi, uspořádat říční toky a pohoří, na jeho popud vyrostly rostliny a ožila zvířata, jako poslední stvořil muže. Ale protože muž byl velmi smutný, pro jeho obveselení stvořil z mužského žebra ženu, Evu. Zástupkyni nejvyšší ženské bohyně převzala v křesťanství Panna Maria, jejíž veliká oblíbenost a mnoho vroucích modliteb k ní svědčí o potřebě ženského elementu v náboženství. Panna Marie je však jiná než starověké bohyně. Je „neposkvrněná“ověké bohyně. Je nevinnáy. starověké bohyně. Je nevinná, narozdíl řpytem hvězd a Měsíce. itbách boha, ke ktérému se mod, na rozdíl třeba od erotické bohyně lásky Afrodity. Sexualitu s velkou pravděpodobností představovala Maří Magdalena, která byla popisována jako velmi hříšná, protože lásku prodávala za peníze a byla oslavovaná až po svém očištění. Panně Marii se asi nejvíce podobá egyptská bohyně Eset (Ísis). Je matkou velkého syna (Hóra) a trpitelkou (její muž Usirev je zavražděn vlastním bratrem). Ona je však tak bojovnice, miluje svého muže a tak sesbírá kusy jeho mrtvoly po celém Egyptě, spojí je dohromady (Eset je také léčitelkou) a teprve teď, předtím než musí odejít se svým manželem do Říše mrtvých, jako její královna, počne s ním svého syna Hora. Eset je dominantní hybatelkou děje. Panna Marie byla spíš trpitelka, neměla křídla jako bohyně Eset ani jiné božské schopnosti. Musela se podvolit Božskému záměru a s bolavým mateřským srdcem pak jen přihlížet utrpení svého syna.

Se vznikem jednotlivých věcí, živých i neživých, je to v antické mytologii poměrně složité. Každý vznik má svůj osobitý příběh, pár příběhů zde uveřejním. Možná by se lidé nedohadovali, jestli mají květiny duši, když by si uvědomili, že to kdysi mohl být jejich prapředek, který se nějakým nedopatřením, ať už za své hříchy nebo proto, že naštval nějakého boha, změnil v krásnou květinu.

Bohové starého Řecka

Monica Star

Možná bych se měla jako první věnovat antickým nebešťanům, neboť pro Řeky byli personifikací přírodních živlů a lidských vlastností. Příběhy o bozích byly alegorie, ze kterých plynula morální ponaučení. Bohyně Gaia představovala pramatku Zemi, plnou života, která ve spojení s bohem Úranem, jenž zosobňoval nebeskou klenbu, zplodila mnoho dětí. Nejvýznamnějším byl Kronos, ztělesňující Čas, který připravil otce o trůn. Od těch dob začal Čas vládnout na Zemi, všechno živé i neživé bylo zrozeno, či vzniklo v plynutí Času a v plynutí Času opět zmizelo. Symbolicky je to vyjádřeno ve strachu boha Krona z otcovy věštby, že i jeho postihne stejný osud a o vládu ho připraví jeho vlastní syn. Kronos tedy pojídal své děti, aby se věštba nemohla naplnit. Dnes si řekneme, taková krutost, ale to je už základní vlastnost Času. Kdyby měl Čas lidskou podobu, jevil by se nám jako neskutečně krutý – všechny své děti by usmrcoval. Čas je vlastně největším vrahem všech dob. A věštby se v řeckých bájích téměř vždy naplní, ať už člověk či bůh proti nim dělá jakkoli drsná opatření. I v tomto případě jeden Kronův syn přežil, jako dospělý se vrátil zpět a donutil otce vyvrhnout zpět své sourozence. Tímto synem nebyl nikdo jiný než hromovládný Zeus, nejmocnější z Bohů. Potom se strhla velká bitva Dia a jeho sourozenců proti Kronovi a jeho pomocníkům. Symbolicky Zeus bojoval s Časem a nakonec zvítězil. Přemohl Čas, stal se nesmrtelným a nejmocnějším a od těch dob žil na Olympu se svými sourozenci a odtud vládl všemu živému. Můžeme si tento pradávný příběh vykládat i tak, že pokud člověk zvítězí nad časem, stane se nesmrtelným, čili bohem.

Zeus byl sice nemocnějším z bohů, ale jak jsme už řekli, antické náboženství bylo polyteistické. Zeus by měl opravdu moc práce, kdyby vládl celému vesmíru, proto se o vládu podělil se svými bratry a sám vládl jen nebesům a zemi. Pokud lidé hřešili, vrhal z nebe na zem blesky, aby si lidé uvědomili jeho moc.

Mladší bratr Poseidón se stal pánem všeho vodstva. Sám vládl všem mořím a když byl naštvaný, udeřil obrovským trojzubcem (symbolem jeho moci) o skálu a způsobil obrovskou bouři nebo tsunami, která mohla potopit lodě i zaplavit pevninu. Vládu nad říčními toky ponechal menším, pomocným bohům. Nejmocnější z nich byl Ókeanos, jemuž za svůj původ děkují moře, všechny toky a prameny. Obtéká celou zemi, do něj zapadá slunce, měsíc a hvězdy a ráno z něho zase vycházejí. Máělzován s trojzubcem, jako jehojí slunce, měsíc a hvězdy a ráno z hněho ocas. me ho jménem řeky. m. e svými sourozenci na věky několik tisíc dcer a synů, řek a potoků, které se rozeběhly po celé zemi a se svým otcem Okeánem jsou spojené podzemními prameny. Řeka se vždy jmenuje po svém bohu nebo bohyni, pokud tedy žádáme boha, či bohyni řeky o pomoc, oslovujeme je jménem řeky. „Mocná Vltavo, dej mi sílu překonávat životní překážky jako ty překonáváš jezy a hráze a nauč mě protékat životem s takovou lehkostí i životní sílou jako ty proudíš svým korytem.“

Nepleťte si Poseidóna s Trítónem. Trítón je Poseidonův syn a je také zobrazován s trojzubcem, jako otec. Jeho hlavním znakem je lastura, na kterou zvučně troubí a místo nohou má rybí ocas.

Posledním ze tří bratrů, kteří si rozdělili vládu nad světem byl zasmušilý a chladný Hádes, stejný jako jeho temná podsvětní říše stínů. Všichni se ho báli, nikdo před ním nebyl v bezpečí, do jeho říše mohl vstoupit každý, ale zpátky se nedostal nikdo. Pět podsvětních řek protéká jeho říši, Acherón, řeka vzdechů, Styx, ledový proud lidských slz, Kókýtos, řeka nářků, Pyriflegethón, ohnivá řeka a uprostřed říše je řeka Léthé, zapomnění. Z té se musely duše napít, aby úplně propadly podzemní říši. Přes řeku Acherón převáží mátožné stíny nerudný stařec Cháron, který vždy vyžaduje peněžitou odměnu za převoz. Proto Řekové vkládali svým mrtvým do úst mince. Pokud mrtvý neměl minci nebo snad dokonce nebyl pohřben, musel čekat na břehu této řeky tak dlouho, dokud někdo zbytky jeho těla řádně nepohřbil a nevykonal za něj oběť. Podsvětní soudci určili duši místo jejího věčného pobytu, musela jim pravdivě povyprávět o všech svých činech, které prováděla zaživa. Za tokem Acherónu se plouží stíny těch, co nebyli v životě dobří ani zlí, dobří lidé přicházeli na Elysejská pole, kde žili ve věčné blaženosti. Nejděsivější a nejhlubší místo říše byl Tartaros, kde za své skutky pykali zlí lidé.

Takže, jak z řečeného jasně vyplývá, je nejlepší, dokud je ještě čas, vydat se cestou nesmrtelnosti a užívat si života jak jen to jde.

Erós

V minulém článku jsem povídala o třech největších božských vládcích a jejich velikých říších. Pomocí nich staří Řekové vysvětlovali přírodní principy a životní cykly. Dále je mnoho nižších, ale také velmi mocných bohů, o jejichž přízeň lidé velmi usilovali a střežili se popudit je proti sobě. Velmi důležitým principem byla láska (mluvíme samozřejmě o dobách dávno minulých). V Platónově Symposionu je uváděn Erós, bůh lásky, jako prastaré božstvo, bez kterého by nemohl vzniknout svět. Erós je bůh, který povstal z prapůvodního Chaosu, aby mohl pomáhat při budování tohoto světa. Protože si Řekové vykládali vznik světa na základě sexuálního spojení a lásky, musel tady být Erós, aby se díky němu mohl spojit Chaos se Světlem a dát světu řád. Potom se spojila Gaia s Úranem a dali světu podobu jakou známe dnes. Podle této teorie jsou láska a sexuální pud nejsilnější prapůvodní síly. Nejčastěji je však Erós považován za rozpustilého syna bohyně Afrodíty. Je věčným hravým dítětem, jako láska sama. Nikdo před jeho šípy není v bezpečí, ani lidé ani bohové. Dokonce i jeho matka Afrodíta, kterou jen nerad poslouchá, si na něj musí dávat pozor. K zamyšlení je, že jeho otcem je bůh války Arés. Že by ze spojení lásky, vášně a sexu (Afrodíta) s válkou a násilím (Arés) mohla vzniknout nejmocnější dokonalá láska, co plete hlavu lidem i bohům?

Erós miluje Psýché (zosobnění lidské duše). Ale i když ji miluje (nebo možná právě proto), často ji trápí, drží ji nad ohněm nebo jí trhá křídélka. Stejně tak i my často tomu, koho milujeme nejvíc ubližujeme, nejčastěji svou dusivou láskou a potřebou ho vlastnit, pácháme na něm násilí, když ho nutíme, aby jednal tak, jak my chceme. I příběh strastiplného putování Psýché za Erótem a plnění úkolů, aby se s Erótem mohla setkat, je alegorie útrap lásky, kolik člověk toho musí vytrpět a kolik zkoušek musí přestát než najde pravou lásku a partnera na celý život. I Psýché musela podstoupit mnoho zkoušek než se stala nesmrtelnou bohyní a manželkou Erótovou. Stejně tak stojí za zamyšlení, nakolik Erós ovládá a mučí naši vlastní Psýché, náš rozum, který je obvykle, když se setká s principy zamilování, lásky a pohlavního pudu naprosto v koncích.astěji je však Ero. ka sexuální pud nejsipnější ybnouvětu řád, Gaia s ch říších.

Monica Star

Dobrý den, nedávno jsem si přečetla recenzi na knihu Svět bez hranic, o tajné havajské léčitelské metodě. Nejdříve lehce zacituji, potom se zamyslíme.

Citace (z knihy) - autor:

Před dvěmi roky jsem se doslechl o havajském terapeutovi, který vyléčil celé oddělení mentálně postižených vězňů – aniž by kteréhokoliv z nich viděl. Tento psycholog prostudoval jejich záznamy a pak se podíval do sebe, aby zjistil, jak vytvořit nemoc dotyčné osoby. A když se potom zlepšoval, zlepšoval se i stav pacienta. Myslel jsem, že jde o legendu. Jak někdo dokáže vyléčit kohokoliv tím, že léčí sám sebe? Jak může třeba i mistr vyléčit šílené kriminálníky? Nedávalo to smysl…

O rok později jsem se dozvěděl, že terapeut, Dr. Len používá havajskou léčitelskou metodu ho´oponopono. Dr. Len své pacienty skutečně nikdy neviděl, pouze svolil, že bude mít v ústavu kancelář a bude pročítat záznamy pacientů. Když je procházel, pracoval na sobě. A když na sobě pracoval, pacienti se uzdravovali. Po několika měsících dostali dosud spoutaní pacienti svolení, že se mohli volně pohybovat, některým byly sníženy dávky léků a ti, kteří byli původně označení za nevyléčitelné, byli propuštěni.

Byl jsem z toho u vytržení. Když jsem s doktorem Lenem později mluvil, zeptal jsem se ho, jak dosáhl toho, že se ti lidé změnili?

„Jednoduše jsem léčil tu část sebe, kterou jsem s nimi sdílel,“ odpověděl. Vysvětlil mi, že je důležité přijmout zodpovědnost za svůj život. Plnou zodpovědnost za všechno, co k tomuto životu patří. Můžete vyléčit všechno, co se vám nelíbí, terorismus, politiku i hospodářství své země. Pokud si ovšem uvědomíte, že problém není v nich, ale ve vás. Není to jednoduché pochopit, vinit druhé nebo své okolí je mnohem snazší, než přijmout naprostou, absolutní zodpovědnost. Léčení v duchu ho´oponopono znamená milovat sám sebe. Chcete-li zlepšit svůj život, musíte jej vyléčit. Chcete-li někoho uzdravit a může jít i o mentálně chorého vězně, musíte nejprve vyléčit sebe.

Zeptal jsem se Dr. Lena, jak to dělal, když léčil sám sebe. Co přesně prováděl, když se díval na záznamy pacientů.

„Jenom jsem si neustále opakoval, omlouvám se a miluji vás,“ vysvětlil.

„To je vše?“

„Ano, to je vše.“

Zdá se, že milovat sebe samého je nejlepší způsob, jak se zlepšit a jakmile se zlepšíte, zlepšíte i svůj svět. Dovolte mi malý příklad, jak to funguje. Jednou mi kdosi poslal email, který mě naštval. Dříve bych se s tím vyrovnal tak, že bych se snažil argumentovat s člověkem, který mi poslal ten vzkaz, ale tentokrát jsem vyzkoušel metodu Dr. Lena. V duchu jsem opakoval, omlouvám se a miluji tě. Neříkal jsem to nikomu konkrétnímu, jednoduše jsem vyvolával ducha lásky, který měl uvnitř mě vyléčit to, co způsobilo vnější disharmonii. Během hodiny jsem dostal od stejného člověka email, v němž se mi omlouval za předchozí vzkaz. Nezapomeňte, že jsem neudělal nic pro to, aby se mi omluvil, ani jsem mu neodpověděl. Přesto se mi podařilo pouze tím, že jsem v duchu opakoval, omlouvám se a miluji tě, v sobě vyléčit to, co způsobilo jeho chování.

Později jsem se zúčastnil ho´oponopono semináře doktora Lena. Nyní je mu sedmdesát roků a je považován za staršího šamana a je poněkud uzavřený. Chválil moji knihu The Attractor Factor. Řekl mi, že když se zlepším, vibrace mé knihy stoupnou a všichni to budou cítit, až ji budou číst. Jakmile se sám zlepším, zlepší se i mí čtenáři.

„A co knihy, které už jsou venku, které se už prodaly?“ zeptal jsem se.

„Žádné venku nejsou, všechny jsou v tobě,“ odpověděl. Jinými slovy, žádné „vně“ neexistuje. – konec citace.

V sedmdesátých letech vydal spisovatel a filozof Erich Fromm knížku The Art of loving, Umění milovat. Byl asi jeden z prvních evropských autorů, kteří upozornili na jednu zajímavou drobnost – přestože se o lásce pěje od začátku evropských dějin, většina lidí viděla a vidí problém v tom „jak být milován“, nikoliv, „jak milovat“. Každý má pevnou představu o tom, co chce, co od druhého vyžaduje, ale už si moc neláme hlavu nad tím, co on sám tomu druhému chce a může dát a co všechno je ochoten pro něho udělat, samozřejmě s pocitem radosti, nikoliv s pocitem vrcholného sebeobětování, popřípadě s výčitkami, které se mohou táhnout do nedohledna…

Muži si myslí, že aby byli hodni lásky, musí být bohatí, mocní, populární, úspěšní. Ženy chtějí být krásné, mladé, přitažlivé, atraktivní, popřípadě mocné, úspěšné, bohaté. Obě pohlaví chtějí mít přátele a vliv na ostatní. Všichni chtějí být natolik skvělí, aby byli žádaní a zbožňovaní. Můžeme z toho usoudit, že muž, jenž není schopen lásky, si při výběru všímá především fyzického vzhledu své partnerky a citově zastydlá žena se zase při výběru partnera podvědomě řídí jeho společenským postavením a bohatstvím? Zřejmě ano… i zde najdeme myšlenku, že člověk by se měl naučit především milovat sám sebe, potom by se měl naučit mít rád ostatní, v čemž je samozřejmě zahrnuto i to, že by si každý měl zvyknout brát na svá bedra zodpovědnost za všechny skutky celé společnosti, tedy i za ty, které napáchali ostatní. Stačí si uvědomit, že za to, že si můžeme užívat „darů civilizace“ vděčíme nekonečným zástupům zvířat, která za nás neustále pokládají své životy, strávené většinou čekáním na smrt ve svých vězeních a zvířecích koncentračních táborech – a že za svůj blahobyt vděčíme všem kolonizovaným zemím a národům, které během minulých let díky tomu, že je „naše civilizovaná společnost“ okradla úplně o všechno, ztratily svou identitu, ztratily své kořeny a tradice a zůstaly trčet v duchovním vakuu, vydané napospas vzniklé bídě. Když si uvědomíme (přestože my sami nikoho nezabíjíme, ani nekolonizujeme, ani nezbídačujeme), že patříme do společnosti zlodějů, vyděračů a vrahů, souhlasíme s nimi, nebojujeme proti nim, máme se díky nim dobře a dokonce se díky nejhnusnějším činům, příčícím se jakékoliv etice cítíme nadřazení nad těmi, kteří byli ve jménu našeho ekonomického růstu okradeni a často s ironií nám vlastní pro ně organizujeme humanitární pomoc – tak omlouvat se od rána do večera je zcela jistě tou nejlepší terapií, do níž se můžeme v rámci zachování svého vlastního zdravého rozumu a duševního zdraví pustit.

Antičtí bohové

Monica Star

Erótova matka Afrodíté, která byla proti lásce svého syna a původně smrtelné Psýché, byla pyšná na svou krásu a Psýché nesnášela kvůli tomu, že se jí podle některých svou krásou vyrovnala. Nebylo to poprvé, kdy projevila velikou snahu být nejkrásnější ze všech smrtelných i nesmrtelných žen. Snad každý zná Paridův soud, kdy pasáček (a možná i tak trochu prasáček) Paris, ještě předtím než se dozvěděl o svém královském původu, musel rozsoudit, která ze tří krásných bohyň Olympu je ta úplně nejkrásnější. Rozhodl se pro Afroditu, která mu přislíbila za ženu nejkrásnější smrtelnici Helenu Trojskou (i když správně mu snad měla nabídnou sebe…?). Jak je vidět, řečtí bohové měli lidské vlastnosti, jako v případě Afrodity i marnivost a ješitnost. Kromě toho, že byla bohyní lásky a krásy byla také bohyní mateřství, plodnosti a životní síly. Zřejmě tedy jednoduchá poučka, sex = životní síla, má něco do sebe.

Afrodíté, bohyně lásky byla podle některých bájí dcerou Diovou a Dióninou. Jiné báje však vyprávějí, že se nahá vynořila z mořské pěny, které se Zeus dotkl bleskem – proto byla nazývaná Anadyomené, „Vynořující se“. V lastuře odplula k ostrovu Kythéra, kde byl postaven její první chrám. Kythéra však byl chudičký ostrov a proto si zvolila za své sídlo ostrov Kypr. Podle něho dostala příjmení Kypris. Jiná příjmení dostala zejména podle měst Pafu, Knidu a Amatúntu, v nichž jí byly zasvěceny početné chrámy. Afrodíté měla kouzelný pás, pomocí kterého si každého podmanila (kouzelný pás nebo pas dnes bohužel mnoha ženám i dívkám chybí, takže si nikoho moc nepodmaňují). Zeus ji určil za choť kulhavému bohu Héfaistovi, pravým otcem jejich tří dětí však byl bůh války Arés. Afrodíté porodila Foba a Deina, kteří byli větrnými průvodci svého biologického otce a dceru Harmonii. Klamaný manžel dlouho nevěděl o nevěře své ženy, ale bůh slunce Hélios mu prozradil pravdu (tady se Hélios projevil tak trochu jako slepičí prdelka). Žárlivý Héfaistos předstíral služební cestu na ostrov Lémnos, ale potom zničehonic překvapil milence ve svém manželském loži. Hodil na ně bronzovou síť, jemnou jako pavučina a spoutal je. Potom přivolal ostatní bohy, aby se taky pobavili. Bohové se mu ale vysmáli, vůbec je to nezajímalo a ani Zeus mu nepomohl, protože zrovna podváděl Héru. Ale když to tak rozebereme, Héfaistos projevil lepší taktiku a smysl pro válečnou lest než Áres, ale to už je jen taková úvaha navíc…

Pozorohodný Hermés rovněž vyznal Afrodítě lásku a tak nějak mezi řečí spolu zplodili syna Hermafrodíta. Ani vládce moří Poseidón nevyšel naprázdno, zaručoval se Héfaistovi, že Áres musí svou vinu odpykat a když si Héfaistos musel na chvilku odskočit (občas to potká i bohy), zplodil s Afrodíté Rhoda a Hérofila. Jak je vidět, v lásce a zamilovanosti se nedá věřit ani bohům. Bohyně rozdávala svou lásku dál a s Areem měla syna Eróta. Zeus ji chtěl ztrestat (samozřejmě nejlépe osobně a o samotě), ale nakonec v ní jen tak pro legraci vzbudil lásku ke smrtelnému Anchísovi, kterému porodila Aineia. Sama Afrodíté však tvrdě postihla každého, kdo ji urazil nebo pohrdal láskou. Jejím přičiněním zahynula krásná Myrrha, zneužita vlastním otcem, králem Kinyrem. Plod této hříšné lásky, Adónis, pak byl milencem Afrodíty, ale i vládkyně podsvětí Persefony. Záletná bohyně chtěla vzbudit Adónidovu žárlivost a podvedla ho s Bútem, účastníkem výpravy Argonautů, kterému dala syna Eryka, krále Sicílie. Pro pohrdání láskou zahubila také Sísyfova syna Glauka (podle některých nepotvrzených pramenů ho nejdříve postihla zeleným zákalem a když to nepomohlo, tak ho usmrtila). Afrodíté byla symbolem vrcholné krásy, nesčetněkrát zobrazena největšími umělci. Nejkrásnější byla Praxitelova socha bohyně v knidské svatyni. Afrodíté byla symbolem lásky čisté i smyslné. Stala se i matkou Priapovou, kterého měla s bohem vína Dionýsem. Zvířata, zasvěcená této bohyni jsou – delfín, holubice, vrabec, vlaštovka, odtud možná plyne i poučka o tom, že je lepší vrabec v hrsti… no a zasvěcené rostliny jsou mák, jablko, myrta a růže.

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Magic of Life – The Royal Path

Raven Argoni

Only the one, who understands the meaning of their path, understands the meaning of life.

When you decide to learn to meditate, sooner or later, you will come across a nice and fitting esoteric principle - the path is usually more important than the goal. If we think of our existence as a path, and of death as a goal, it is completely understandable, that out of different paths, leading to the same goal, we choose the longest and the most interesting one.

I am sixty and I should soon be getting ready for a quiet life of a respectable pensioner. I must say I do not feel my age a bit. No backaches or jointaches either, digestion works fine, my heart is as sound as a bell ,and generally speaking, I feel the same physically as when I was twenty-five or thirty. I could say I feel even better, because I am rarely ill. Quite often we hear derisory remarks about the unfortunate combination of higher age and sexual performance. Do not be mistaken. As far as I know, flaccidity does not in any way correlate with getting older. Also in that respect, I function as eagerly as when I was twenty. You could say that I am a perfectly normal person. I have a lot more muscles and much less fat than it is usual for a person of my age, I feel really young, I have a quarter of a century younger wife. However, the most important thing is, I do not notice any signs of near twilight of life. My biological clock has slowed down. I am not saying that I am not getting any older, that would be against nature. I do not want to play an eternal youth or try to hide my age either, but I claim that how you age, i.e. how aging affects your life (the loss of condition, typical diseases), you choose yourself. We have become accustomed to aging according to a certain stereotype and I have decided to break this generally accepted habit.

During the long time when I was tirelessly collecting experiences of esoterics, martial arts, meditations and various diets, I was also putting together my own training system, a path that I have already been following for many years now.

To separate the wheat from the chaff in the spiritual sense is never easy. Daily we see a fair amount of ‘guaranteed’ recipes how to reach ‘perfection’ or ‘enlightenment’, how to draw energy from the space, how to wake up a ‘sleeping’ brain (of which we use only one tenth), how to learn something in a trice and how to get a perfect rest in five minutes after that. It is probably true about the one tenth of our brains being used, because how would you explain otherwise that so many people believe such nonsense? There are also people who think that they can achieve a master’s degree (e.g. in healing, in magic) during a two-day course. It is true that during a short course you can get to know what, how and where to learn all that is needed, but you cannot leave with a certificate of proficiency in your pocket. It is still happening, though. If you could only manage university studies and getting a degree like that! It would not be bad, but unfortunately it is not possible. Whatever you are learning, it needs its time, and you can bypass that only in special cases.

An important point in my life came when I understood that every disease symbolizes an error on psychic level. It can be a passed on error, a wrong opinion or a bad habit, but until we remove it, the disease, either latent or manifested, will govern our bodies. Looking for errors in opinions, in thinking and in action, is the best healing procedure that I have got to know so far.

On my spiritual path I have been influenced the most by eastern philosophy: tantra, tao-yoga and martial arts. I have always liked the idea of perfect connection between body and mind. I am still convinced that one cannot exist without the other – spirit without body is the same nonsense as body without spirit. I was interested a lot in the basic idea of The Book of Changes – everything in the world is constantly changing into its opposite. It beautifully expresses the mutual interconnection of the seemingly conflicting qualities Jin and Jang.

People noticed a long time ago that everything is subject to time, but they also realized that we can understand time either linearly (as an arrow flying into the unpredictable future), or cyclically (as an eternal cycle of similar events).

People who experience time linearly try to live life unfortunately according to the motto ‘after us the flood.’ Cyclic understanding of time is much more considerate of the life on this planet. I do not agree with the statement that ‘we, people, have ruined this planet.’ I believe that with most people you can talk sensibly, but amongst us there are not only serial killers, thieves and troublemakers, but also ecological criminals. It would be useless to say that these include all people living on this planet.

It is five or six people who decide the buiding of a nuclear power plant, starting up a waste dump or cutting down of a rainforest, but unfortunately they have the economic and political power. If they really wanted, they would make you mince each other into meat cans. This is how it is.

Our bodies are woven out of atoms which are as old as the universe, that is 14 billion years. A body gets born, grows up, gets olds and dies according to statistics (in the Czech Republic) in seventy (men) or seventy-seven years (women). At the same time, it is highly probable that atoms and molecules are subject to time and ‘get old’ in their own way. However, with them it happens much more slowly.

I have pondered over this fact for many years, and have even discovered how this could be connected to the alchemical elixir of eternal youth, and that it would be possible to make ‘water of life’ and ‘water of death.’ Even though I know that alchemy is mostly about psyche, spirit and constructive meditations, I think that it is technically possible to change normal water into ‘live’ and ‘dead.’ It is also quite probable that during the preparation of ‘live’ and ‘dead’ water in ancient Egyptian alchemy, the mysterious pyramids played their part. This is definitely a topic that I would like to write about in more detail later. You will see that you will be inspired!

The wisemen of eastern peoples have always tried to train body and mind at the same time. If you, for instance, see only simple gymnastics in yoga, you will not get anywhere. The idea of a yogi as a supple old man does not correspond to the reality. There is an incredible complex of special thinking states and feelings that belong to yoga. Also, the place where we exercise regularly has a major impact. To sit down and meditate on a mat in a room with the tv on is certainly not the right thing. If you emphasise only the physical side of yoga, you will soon look like Madonna, in whose face there is greyness and tiredness, but no joy. What is the benefit if she can put her leg behind her head, when it is obvious that she is not healthy?

The West made us slaves of form and divided the essence of exercise sets into spiritual and physical. We are obsessed with tips how to improve health and lose a couple of kilos, but we still do not understand that the most important part of any physical act is the state of mind. Mind is the basis.

For that reason, I first learned to work with thoughts. I learned how to meditate and concentrate without being easily distracted. I managed to get into a state at some points, when a person does not polarise and stops to perceive that there is some good and evil. It is difficult to explain to people who had to experience something really bad, but fate really does not work to the intent that it would bring good or bad events. We are the ones putting the labels of good and evil on various situations.

The meaning of what we mark as tragedy or evil is a message. We should learn and understand why something unpleasant happened, but at the same time, we have to learn to set the balance inside ourselves. Even if the evil concerned us directly.

When I was a little over twenty, I worked as a director of animated films. It was a privileged position then, but I did not feel free and so I emigrated. The job taught me to notice details and work with symbols. I was already at that time, fascinated with how you can tell the whole story by means of a couple of graphic symbols. And everybody will understand it, all around the world, whatever language they may speak. In Germany I had a great opportunity to go through all available esoteric, magical and alchemical literature, which was quite rare at that time. I had a chance to familiarise myself with tao-yoga, transcendental meditation, magic and tarot.

I was interested in zen-buddhism, taoism and tantra. I also got into the Maharishi institute of transcendental meditation, which was a large buiding of a one-time Franciscan monastery. It was so massive that you could hardly walk around it during one hour. For the first time, I realized what this transcendental meditation is really good for. During that time Maharishi had quite a lot of similar palaces in 140 countries all over the world. Although not in Germany, because there they were immune to his pseudoscientific babble about levitation possibilities. I am talking about an institute in Holland. The courses were expensive and ended with some kind of ‘funny-initiation’, but it did not seem to be leading anywhere. There would certainly be much better use for the beautiful building.

I then met Ariana who initiated me into so much more than Maharishi jumping on a mat. I got to know the principle of youth and the irrational, the principle of constant changes, and obsession with expressing feelings and emotions. Right in the beginning of our life together, we left for New Mexico where we were so lucky to meet many interesting people. Everything just came spontaneously without us planning it or waiting for it. It probably had to be like that. We met shamans and asked them to initiate us into their art. Ariana was initiated by a shaman called River, an old lady who helped Ariana a great deal. I was initiated by Grey Wolf. We underwent a ritual connected with the use of halucinogens, when a person is thrown back on their own powers. The past leaves the body, which means vomiting and diarrhoea, and after proper cleansing comes a vision in which you see your totem guardians. Indians believe that every person has their own guardian in a form of an animal which accompanies them throughout their whole lives. I chose my name after my guardian.

Ariana was experiencing complicated states which were probably caused by her experience - she was raped still in her childhood - but after incredible attacks, cramps, physical and psychical pains, came the peace and she experienced her own vision. Her guardian was a spotted mustang. Now she also has a spotted guardian named Jack who is similarly wild.

The roots that started off my path I found mostly in tantra and Chinese taoism. Both schools are based on the idea of absolute balance between masculine and feminine world. It was not only the sexual basis in tantra that got me interested, but mainly the belief that woman is the essence, the source that everything comes from, and man is the one who draws energy from her, thanks to which he can live. I have basically become a feminist.

Another philosophical basis for me was the work of Prentice Mulford (quite unknown in our country), the American author of the ingenious book called Gift of the Spirit. We draw upon his work with Ariana even nowadays.

I am a man and that is why I was of course interested in the philosophy of martial arts, mainly karate, kung-fu, thai box, aikido and jiu-jitsu. Quite many Asian fighters incline towards buddhism. They are probably close to the first noble truth of Buddha which says that everything is suffering and if we understand that, we will feel relief. We realize that whatever we do is so limited by our senses and ego and our undeveleped real self, that when we want to get higher, we just have to suffer.

I learned to meditate for many years. Meditation exercises are difficult and not everybody can go straight into them, because the meditating person learns to experience the present. Although it sound simple, it is in fact the most difficult thing in our lives. A common, ‘not knowing man’ resists experiencing the present tooth and nail. It is the disease of our time. Everybody lives in their thoughts of the future or of the past. The present is something like a gift we despise. It is similar to meeting God (who would not have anything better to do than talk to you) and who would ask you: ‘Do you want anything from what you see around you?’ and you would asnwer: ‘No thank you, not yet. I will cut the costs and wait…,but I will be looking forward to it.’

Meditation as well as the tantric sex ties us to the present, it teaches us to experience feelings which are happening now, in the present. It is the same with martial arts. If you have to face your enemy, it is happening ‘here and now’, we cannot postpone the defence or counter-attack until the next week, tomorrow or some other time.

Meditations linked with physical exercises are closely connected to the philosophy of fear. Fear is what ruins most people’s lives. Overwhelming fear which they cannot handle. Fear of death, of the present, of not succeeding, of ridicule, of missing the train, or of not being able to do something. Fear of sanctions if they do not meet the requirements of those more powerful. Thousands of various fears accompanying untrained persons from dawn to dusk. The easiest but the worst solution to problems is running away from them. Where to and how? In thoughts into the future. Do I have nowhere to live? Do I have no job? I will at least imagine how beautiful it will be when I have my own flat and a good job. Do I have no money? Maybe I will be rich one day. What would I buy, if I had suddenly for instance fifty million euros? I would show them all how good I am!

Be careful, idle fantacising is something else than targeted visualization, during which we see the future with the eyes of the present. We can set off to the future when we deal with the present. Let us try answer some questions. Who am I really? What can I do really well? What can I offer? Can I take care of myself or am I dependent on somebody?

The result of my long-time effort in the field of esoterics is a system of exercises which I have named The Royal Path. There are 22 basic exercises and each one of them is related to a specific tarot card from the major arcana. Tarot cards represent basic tasks, archetypes, which we all have to encounter and go through. If we do not experience them, the outcome is some kind of inability, phobia, fear or feeling of loss that appears in our life.

There are three basic aspects hidden in the tarot cards of the major arcana, therefore they have three meanings.

The first of them is mantic – you can use the cards for interpreting the future.

The second is philosophical – you can meditate on each card and try to experience a specific principle of life on a spiritual level.

The third meaning is magical – if you want to affect your life and your fate, use a card that symbolically corresponds to your problem in a magical ritual.

The Royal Path, either in alchemy or in tarot, contains the secret of immortality. It is a path towards the essence of life. Each card represents a step towards enlightenment. It does not matter in which order we decide to study and exercise individual cards. In practice it is done so that we shuffle the 22 cards of the major arcana and randomly choose one of them.

The chance which is in this case the best trainer, decides the exercise, visualization and meditation that is to be practised the next day.

The whole system is adjusted to a busy life style, that is why there are two main time points given for the meditations – the point right before going to sleep and the point right after waking up. We devote ourselves to the thought concentration and visualization for a couple of seconds, a couple of minutes at maximum. The same applies to the physical exercise. The exercises are perfectly simple, anybody who can move themselves into the kitchen or toilet can manage. The breathing exercises are again so simple that we devote a while for them for example when we are waiting for something or going somewhere (unless we are in a panic hurry of course). The physical exercise related to the randomly chosen card is practised several times a day, depending on how it suits our schedule. It can be again right after waking up or right before going to bed. You do not have to go anywhere to perform these or attend courses. You will start noticing changes incredibly fast. After two months of regular simple exercises, you will start to feel that your biological clock is slowly going backwards. Your physical condition will increase and so will your immunity to diseases. Your mood will get better and you will be able to control your mind and fear better.

C. G. Jung called the classic alchemical Royal path individuation, which is a special state of mind that comes when a person understands the meaning of all the obstacles that he has encountered throughout his lifetime. His ego disappears and he sees the reality as it is. It is the principle of self-improvement. The path to perfection is often marked as ‘the only right path, that a man can walk to find the meaning of his life.’ I have to mention again that the kind of aging we know is not a natural process, it is a kind of epidemic, to which we might be even forced, because from the economic and political viewpoint the fast renewal of the ‘human material’ is favourable. Political power is easy to build on young, physically fit people who have almost none of their own experience. The older and the old who have reached the knowledge, that most importantly you should have your own opinion and not let anybody interfere in your privacy, they are so weak that they mean practically nothing. A totally different situation would be, if the aging people were not losing their physical condition, because strength, intelligence and life experience represent the most dangerous combination.

If we look at aging as a disease and we realise that everything from hemorrhoids to cancer is related to the errors in thinking, we become aware of how important it is to link the body to the mind. The body is a gift, it is the best we could get from the nature. If the body ends, the whole person ends. Our body is a incredible life factory where every second billions of processes take place. And in the meantime we run around the world, we laugh or have depressions, and we do not even notice what we carry with us the whole time and what we should respect the most. Our own body should be first on list of our priorities. The spirit is a feature of the matter, but it is so connected to it that it is pointless to think of the spiritual and physical side of life in isolation.

The Spiritual and the Material Paths

Sooner or later everybody starts to think about what is the most important thing for them, whether the path of the spirit or of matter. Then they start to find differences between the spiritual and the material path. They will of course find a lot of contradictions which are not easily explained. I will start studying philosophy, art and magic, in order to attract success, money and beautiful women with the knowledge that I have acquired. If I succeed, will I go the spiritual or the matterial way? Is the spiritual way compatible with the desire for material possession? If not, how do I get to the enlightened thoughts of other people as a poor person? It would be nice to go to a concert, where the ticket costs over 40 euros and at the entrance say: ‘Excuse me, I am a yogi, I walk the path of the righteousness and I do not have any money for the ticket…’ ,and they would reply, ‘That is all right, go to the end of the corridor, then turn to the right, there is a yogi lounge.’ Unfortunately, this is not how it works. I have even heard some comical opinions that a person who goes the spiritual way does not need to consume the art work of others. Only a basket case can say something so stupid. Mostly, there is an effort to start and keep their own sect behind this. Then the thoughts and ideas of others are dangerous, especially if they are good. Or is it so that a normal perceptive person can voluntarily give up the chance to listen to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or ignore the works of ingenious impressionists, for example our favourite van Gogh, or the classics like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci? If we start to think about the meaning of life, we realize that the life itself has no meaning, but we have a chance to give it some meaning. How? First of all, we can get to know the greatest works of art, so that we become aware what is possible to achieve thanks to talent, exercise and the art of concentration. The world’s greatest artists show us what mastery really is about. It is true that when a trained yogi can hold his breath for five minutes, it is also a considerable performance, although it is not so uplifting as Bach’s music.

Nevetheless, let us get back to the exploration of the conflict between mind and matter. Let us start with the basic Paracelsus’ idea that everything around us, really anything, can harm us or even kill us. Everything can prove to be poisonlike – it only depends on the dose. Even water that is seemingly harmless has its own lethal dose. We would suffer a serious damage to our health, if we swallowed the contents of the saltcellar on the dinner table. We can get injured by too much oxygen or too much food. Even too much rest can result in decomposition of bone tissue, or continuously listening to an ingenious piece of music can lead to permanent psychic damage. The magical charm of success lies in its correct dosage. Then we do not have to think about whether to avoid the dessert, because it contains the harmful sugar. We should rather avoid the main course, if we are tempted to try the legendary puffer fish that can, thanks to the unpredictable chance, contain also the tetraodotoxin which is a substance 275 times more poisonous than cyanide. It all depends on our free will and the right decision.

According to our philosophy it is not so important to ask whether to go the spiritual or the material way, the most important is to ask, whether we decide to do something for ourselves. If you decide to really work on yourself, you will end up with the combination meditation/physical exercise anyway. You cannot exercise just the body and leave the mind to laze away, but the other way is also not possible. In other words, physical exercise belongs to esoterics just as mantras or incense sticks. If somebody says that they engage in esoterics but no exercise, as well as avoid regular muscle work, they will get to the level of laic theorist at most, but that is all. The difference between such theorist and the real esotericist is the same as between a top sportsman and a tv viewer who just watches all from an armchair with crisps on the knees.

Maybe you ask now what is the difference between meditation connected with movement and normal exercise where a sportsman has to concentrate as much as if he were meditating? Can you consider the first football league or bodybuilding to be branches of esoterics? It is a well known fact that modern gladiators often use amulets, some pray before a match, some concentrate their thoughts or try to get rid of thoughts (sometimes that does not take so much work). Arnold Schwarzenegger writes in his memoirs (it is interesting that we are the same age, but I have not got myself to write memoirs, I am waiting for Alzheimer to have it easier) that always when he exercised, he imagined that the exercised muscle e.g.biceps grows and grows until it is so big that it fills the whole space until it does no longer fit the fitness centre – it is a classic example of a magical visualisation. It is quite difficult to see Mr Schwarznegger as a spiritual man, because the criterion for measuring his success is mainly rational. He became a famous action movie hero, he was elected the governor of Califfornia and he is the owner of three or four huge residencies in Los Angeles. He has his own publishing company and companies dealing with healthy nutrition. It is quite hard to match his success, event hough besides those visualisations in the gym ‘godly Arnie’ did not show much spiritual side. He was the master of concentration, he managed to perfectly concentrate on one thing that he followed with persistence of a pitbull. Easier said than done, but try hard for ten years to get big biceps and round calves. In half a year you will give it up, because your mind will be fragmentised into thousands of other interests and you will just wonder how come the light of your torch has not the stridence of a laser.

Let me finally get to the heart of the matter – what is the difference between motional meditation and top sport or bodybuilding? During an esoteric exercise I do not compete with anybody, I do not try to fit into any success scale. My own experience is decisive, also the feeling I gain when I keep my physical condition to a degree which is pleasant for me. Which means I do not compare myself with anybody in a sense that I would try to be better or, in case of bodybuiding, larger. Sport nowadays (and the same applies to professional bodybuilding), is a fanatical hunt for better perfomance than the others show. From the esoteric point of view, this is nonsense. What benefit do I get if I can lift one more kilo than somebody else? Yes, I can win some money in a competition, that is true, but it will cost me my health. I will spend the money in a couple of days, but I will not have my health back. By the way, I have already won two of ‘The strongest man’ competitions, but I did not give me anything. Now I am working on myself to keep fit and mainly to keep myself in the state of ‘not aging.’ I have seen for myself that it is possible, that it is realistic, so why should I change my ‘training plan?’ My advice to others – do not think about the difference between the material and spiritual way, think your own way and mainly about what you can do for yourself thanks to correct exercising and meditation. You will not get anything better from life.

The Fight Against Time

(a unique method to slow down your ageing process by using Tarot)

Since man started to think he started to fight against time. But surely this fight is foolish. Solomon said: „Futility above futility“

However, wellknown Czech magicians, photographers and authors of many books on Magic, Ariana &Raven Argoni talk about their „fight against time“ as the highest form of magic.

Raven Argoni says it is possible to slow down your ageing process. He has been working on this program for many years and time itself has proved it works.

Here is what he and his wife Ariana say about their own experience of making magic and Tarot work against time, and share some of the philosophy behind it.

You have become well-known in The Czech Republic as magicians, authors and photographers and above all as masters of Tarot, Tantra and Sexual magic. What actually is magic?

Raven:

Magic is the most complex and the deepest psychology as you can imagine. It is an understanding of the power by which reality and thoughts can influence each other.

Some people think of us as dark Magicians doing Black magic. They imagine me in a black robe and of course Ariana dancing naked around the fire at midnight, or beheading a black cockerel. Or, they imagine us doing wild sexual rituals which is closer.

The „naked“ truth is that everyone can do sexual magic. Magic is only about working with yourself. And it should have an effect on you that you can see.

In our opinion, Magicians can slow the ageing process, enjoy life and have a great love partner. A real witch should be beautiful from the inside out, even when she is old. She should be elegant with powerful energy around her. A real witch is humble yet have strong charisma. A power schould emanate from her every gesture. A witch can move her hands in such a way that it gives you a shiver.

The classic example of black magic is a gossip and a slanderer. To insult someone just from envy is the worst thing one can do to another. We experienced this form of black magic from people who even didn’t know us, who judged us and then, when they needed advice and help, they came to us and realized they hadn’t known anything about who we were. Once we were photographed doing a ritual for one big newspaper. They did an interview with Ariana but they didn’t write our names. It was like we didn’t exist. This shows editors‘ fear of public judgement. They would rather stick to news about ageing pop stars and their holidays. If you ask me to express this in a picture I would make a photomontage of a man stumbling on his brain.

Which philosophers have influenced you?

Ariana:

There were lots of them. We always see philosophers as people who give advice about how to live well. In our opinion, a philosopher is a shaman, psychologist, psychotherapist. We always judge people according to what they achieved in their lives and how they lived. The first thing that becomes noticeable is that history of philosophy is „a man thing“. There is hardly any evidence of women philosophers. And it is interesting that men were never worried about women’s absence. It obviously didn’t occur to them that it never worked for good in nature when there were too many males together. When men invent it’s most often destructive. They have one purpose – to destroy a rival.

Our favourite philosophers are Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Seneca, Nietzsche (he said: „what doesn’t kill you make you stronger“ - he went mad, which didn’t kill him but didn’t make him stronger either) but most of all Prentice Mulford the founder of positive thinking. Mulford explains what thought is and how it can influence our world. We can find some great thinking in many classic philosophers but we can hardly identify ourselves with all of their work. Seneca wrote a remarkable piece about anger and nervousness. He says, it is normal if we can not work something out or it is not what we want it to be. We should accept it as it is and not get too upset. Anger is the most dangerous feeling. If we get something right it means it is good luck and we should accept it as it is. We can not assume that the next thing will be successful as well. People usually expect to succeed again just because they succeeded at something before. If they study Seneca they would save themselves many disappointments. Seneca was a teacher of Emperor Nero. Nero had a palace built. It was built from gold. There were great statues, a lake with exotic fishes, a dining room was built like a spinning wheel with a view of a lake and the stars. There were showers with perfume installed in the ceilings. Walls were covered with the finest marble and gemstones. When Nero entered his palace, he looked around and said in very satisfied voice : „At last, I can live as a human being“.

So, is it worth to read classic philosophy? It certainly is. We learn to think and as you learn to think you learn how to live. Certainly, philosophy, magic and the way of living are all connected.

You have written books whose titles include „Magic of Life“, „Magic of Sex“, „Astral Magic“, „Everlasting Story“, „The Book of Time“. What essentially are your books about?

A&R:

They tell you how to slow the ageing process and about the feminine principle, which has much to do with this. Everyone knows that everything consists of Yin and Yang. We can ask such a question as: „could we divide the Yang into another Yang and Yin?“ but there are probably some things which are definite and things which are relative. Lets have a look at relative ones. Yang carries male energy, which is dynamic, active, moving, creative and rational. The Yin aspect is feminine, passive, receptive, submisive, flexible, irrational, emotional. Imagine a vagina. It’s a hole. Nothing in something. And here we encounter a paradox. The hole itself can not be seen. It is made by what surrounds it. It can’t exist on its own. If we také the surroundings away, the hole would disappear. It is irrational, mysterious and feminine. In general it is said that men embody the rational, logical principle. Women embody the irrational, feminine, intuitive and emotional principle. But if we look around we notice that women often behave more rationally than men.For example: Men are willing to build miniature traintracks during nights which women normally don’t do. Men like meetings and conferences, inventing rules and laws which usually don’t work; they analyse, test and support other men who play football or hockey for them. It’s very irrational. None of these activities are about protecting life. Let’s accept one thing. It’s mostly men who are willing to enlist into the army and to go to a war. This makes me think that men are not rational. Men’s thinking is piercing, irrational and not logical. Women’s thinking is rational but intuitive. It is focused on protecting life. A woman is the one who gives life and this huge responsibility makes them perceive the world differently. The priority of female principle is set by nature. Try to imagine the Universe. What does it look like? More like a penis or a vagina?

And now tell me about your systém „Magic of Life“. How does it work and how it can slow ageing process?

Raven:

I found out about this when I had to emigrate to Germany. I lost everything and had to start from the very begining twice in my life. I spent 8 years in exile in a country I don’t like. I studied esoterics, tantra, tao-joga and sexual magic and Tarot. While I was in Nordrhein-Westfalen I had plenty of time for meditation and exercise. I promised myself not to get old so that I would have enough strength to start again when I got back to my own country. I finally returned when I was 42. I read everything about tao-yoga, which is about immortality, and then I put together my own programme, which works well. There are 22 excercises which I have chosen from the martial arts. Some of them I invented. They are easy and its power dwells in repeating them. I connected each exercise to each of the 22 cards of the Major Arcana. Every day I draw 1 card randomly and I do the exercise as often as I can during the day. I have been doing this for 20 years and I get results. My ageing process slowed. I don’t have any problems with my back or joints. I don’t have any troubles with my digestive systém or with weight gain. I don’t diet, don’t use any medicines or supplements or vitamins and can eat anything I want. I don’t need to avoid alcohol or cigarettes. I sleep well even though I often work until 3 or 4 in the morning. I don’t get ill and I must say before that I used to be ill very often. I am happy and full of energy. I can lift the same weights (100kg) in a gym as I used to when I was 25 (I am almost to 58 now). I married Ariana who is more than 20 years younger than me. We have been together for 15 years and it never happened that I couldn’t keep up with her in anything. I named my method „Magic of Life“ and put it together with my course of Astral Magic and Sexual Magic. I have written a lot about my method in many Czech esoteric magazines and I offer my method to people by course.

For more information contact Raven on raven@argoni.com

Interview

Sexual magic - Ariana + Raven Argoni

How long have you been engaged in magic and what brought you to the esoteric path?

Ariana: Since my birth. Thoughts are the instrument of magic. Every image, desire, everything influences our fate. I have noticed that if I wish for something really hard, it will come true. Therefore I became confident that it must be some kind of law and that I can affect reality. I do not like using the words ‘to control reality’, because magic, especially the medieval one, called ritual magic, is associated with a figure of magus who cracks the whip angrily against a pantacle (the name of a certain entity) during a ritual, and he commands and controls. This is the wrong form of magic, and a typically masculine approach. Eventually I understood not only that I can change my fate, but that also it is my duty. We were born to fulfill the laws and tasks of fate, and if we fail (sometimes this is called not understanding of one’s mission, the reason, why we are here), we get born again and the teaching continues. The irony is that a person does not make the same mistakes all the time, but the same mistake. One basic mistake, a concrete mistake that during the course of life takes on various disguises and the person keeps encountering it. This goes on until he understands it and overcomes the mistake.

For example – extreme submissiveness, distrust in one’s self or continuous raking over the ashes. A person cannot experience the present, but we create our future with the present. It is a vicious circle.

Or egoism, exaggerated competitiveness, overestimating one’s abilities. Depressions were my mistake. Only after a long time I understood what the core of depression was – suppressed life energy, hyperactivity which cannot be let out or vented. However, when I started carrying out my suppressed desires, the depression disappeared. I began to photograph, write, engage in magic, go through all we write about with my husband…, so I was brought to the esoteric path by realising that the only mission of man is to work on themselves or the motto – if I change myself, I will change the whole world. I have been connected to nature and animals and immersed in the world of fantasy, vision and dreams since youth. At the point when I was able to go through all in reality fully, I was healed.

Raven: I like the name sexual magi, it is somehow exciting, but we like to call ourselves the naked philosophers, because we have been doing nude photographs for 14 years for the reason, that there is truth in nudity. Seeing that there is only the two of us, a man and a woman, we fulfill the essence of harmony or philosophy. I am rather a rationalist who studied at the university of chemistry and technology. The irony is that thanks to the chemical studies, when a person gets to know the essence of matter and does experiments with chemicals, I began to get closer to esoterics. Already then I felt more like an alchemist than a chemist. It is the same as nowadays in physics and mathematics, the more the scientists try to get to the essence of matter and our existence, and functionality of basic laws, the more they find themselves on the philosophical level. If you take for instance the fractals in mathematics, or quantum theory and the theory of superstrings in physics, these are actually philosophy and irrationality itself. There was also the love of photography that brought me to magic - mainly the process of developing. The chemist inside of me cannot be denied when I see how the light is born out of the darkness in the darkroom, the light captured on the negative, and out of the developer gradually appears the picture that was created by the sun. I feel like a successful spiritist, in front of whom a called ghost materialises. I had a lot of interesting friends who organized spiritistic seances and did various rituals. That was when I was around 18 (Ariana would say it was at the beginning of the universe - her universe certainly), and I witnessed things that I could not comprehend rationally.

There were three things that had the biggest influence on me. When I was eleven, during my stay with parents at the Červený Dvůr palace (I come from the French aristocratic family de Toure – which is funny, because it means something like a journey or a traveller and later we took on the surname Argoni from the legendary Argonauts, but I did not connect it at that time). In one of those long palace hallways I met something one evening, an entity, a ghost, simply a semi-transparent figure floating in the air that perfectly scared me, surprised me and awoke me forever.

The second experience has to do with student disturbances. My friend and I were put into prison for one night (I was the editor of a student magazine called Elixir which was not desired in the previous regime), and my friend – a spiritist, did an incredible thing with a magical formula. He opened, as he said, with the help of a serving spirit, the heavy door of the cell. I still see the astonished face of the guard when out of the blue the locked cell door opened. It even had a bar on the other side!

The third thing that confirmed I was going the right way was meeting with a girl with green eyes who could talk to animals, read everything by Socrates-Plato, Nietsche, Sartre, Kant, Hegel, Dante, Shakespeare, and could discuss quantum physics with me passionately as well as that god is not male but female, and the time when a woman is sacred will come again. She was a fresh grammar school graduate and a beginning model. When I saw her, I knew that she was the girl of my dreams, imaginations and poems which I had been writing even before she was born. My femme fatale – Ariana. I never met anyone with whom I could make love passionately, and then discuss buddhism, kabbala, occultism, philosophy and photography. So we have stayed together and it has been 14 years now. Ariana is a hard-core feminist, and a witch and that is why she never wanted to get married. I had to come up with a trick and make a mayor of a village to marry us in such manner that Ariana did not notice at first. She did not know where we were going or what was going on. It was only after she said the fatal yes that she understood what had transpired – she was now my wife and I, her husband.

Ariana: And I never regretted it.

What about the age difference? How did you manage to even out the difference of a quarter of a centure that is between you?

Ariana: We are 13,5 billion years old, as the universe. We are made of atoms, particles, superstrings which originated then. Every man, every animal and every tree is the same age. That is why time and age difference does not play any role. We do not follow the linear time with Raven, which is the time created by humans, but we follow the cyclic time, the time that the nature conforms to, the real time. The time defined by man is unfortunately just an illusion that the mankind accepted and became its slave, and this is why there is so little time for the spiritual and the spiritual growth of every one of us. Everybody is in a crazy hurry, but actually they are like hamsters in their running circles where they feel running but are stuck at one point. Besides that I said to myself that I would never conform myself to Raven’s opinions and that I will always be in opposition, and instead of me getting getting older, Raven got younger.

Usually it is the other way round. A girl marries a much older partner and then quickly gets old, maybe because she sees in him a paternal authority and subconsciously wants to adjust. But I am stubborn and I always go my own way without adjusting to the masculine world. I like being a woman, I do not want to behave and look like a man. It is a difficult job, because we live in a world ruled by men. I am fascinated by girls and women who have high posts, who are indepenent of men, have their own firm or they are managers, but at they same time they behave and look like women. Such are rare exceptions in this world. A woman either completely adapts to the male world or loses her femininity totally. The worst thing is that she does not even realize it. She feels like it is her duty, her female destiny, but there is no such thing. Then there are women who fight with the masculine world in such a way that they too start to adopt masculine opinions. After a while, they begin to behave like men and start to look like men. There is for example a woman politician in our country who started as a woman – behaved and looked like one and now she is like a typical man. She has smaller breasts, she had her hair cut and the feminity is over.

These are the women labelled as feminists, but I am mad, because the word feminist is derived from the word woman, and not all women who fight for female rights are proud of being women. They burn bras, they have ‘sporty’ haircuts and have a mustache. As Raven says, there is a sleeping goddess in every woman, but in some it is really sound asleep.

How did you get to do such photographs with their mystic charge?

Ariana: Before he met me, Raven had photographed nudes which he collaged, meaning he put together illogical things, for instance, a naked girl sitting on a Trabant car ended up pierced through with swords . This gave him unbelievable safisfaction. In the beginning I was also an accessory in his photographs, a piece of meat, but as I have mentioned earlier, thanks to my stubborness, I started to have a say about his work which became then our work. I told myself that I will practise what I preach instead of making a fool of myself as an extra in his photographs. Hence I told him why it was important to establish coequality, and that I do not see a reason why I could not be a photographer and a model at the same time, and also why he could not be a photographer and a model just like me. He was forty-five then. I made him undress and stand in front of the lens. And to learn to pose, because to look naturally in a photograph and be naked and to express something, some noble thought, just with the body, is really difficult. I remember his modelling beginnings how he was struggling with his arms and legs and he felt really weird, how unnaturally and distortedly he had to stand, so that it would look natural. He also quite enjoyed it, especially when I instructed him like: ‘I want your profile, but at the same time you should turn your upper body towards the lens, tilt your head back, put it in semi-profile, bend your arm and stretch the arm at the back…’ For a long time he could not understand which arm is ‘at the back’ but in the end he managed perfectly and nowadays he poses for dear life. The first step towards balance between a man and a woman was thus made. The second one, where our photographs were supposed to get a mystical, even magical charge, was achieved so that we started using a black and white film and then colorise it. Thanks to the fact that Raven was a close friend of Jan Saudek, we could use his atelier and he also taught me to colorise.

That is how our photos started to become pictures which we were satisfied with. We still cooperate with Jan, you could say we are sort of his pupils who first borrowed his wall and then made their own. Our wall symbolises the universe, ocean, timelessness and Jan’s wall is 1920s and 1930s, but that is nothing magical. Magic is unbounded, it exists outside time. That is why our photos do not come from a certain time, they just are.

By the way, once I was addressed by a booker in a concert of The Cure and that is how I met Raven. He really was the cure for me.

How did you get to fortune-telling? And how does writing, photographing and reading cards fit together?

Raven: We discovered tarot by Aleister Crowley which is by the way the best tarot ever, because it has absolutely pure symbolics. Coincidentally we started studying C. G. Jung with Ariana at that time, and he had studied the cards with the thoroughness of a scientist. He found out that the 22 cards of the major arcana represent the path to the enlightenment or how he named it, individuation. He called the symbols in those pictures archetypes and he claimed that every man, regardless of their race or religion, has these archetypes coded in what we could call the memory of mankind, the collective subconsciousness. Then he suggested that the alchemical transmutation and the mystical royal path are the same thing – that they talk about experiencing and irrational understanding of all archetypes in our mind and in our life. When a person familiarises themselves with these, accepts them and copes with them, they reach absolution or fulfil their fate. Alchemists called it transmutation and it was not about chemical elements and their transformation into gold. That would be a really shallow understanding of alchemy. The chemical elements or ‘metals’ were not chemical, but thoughts, processes in mind and consequently in body that the alchemist worked so hard on and this connected him with higher dimensions. His mind and body became perfect instruments to such an extent that you could say that people who went through the royal path have almost supernatural powers.

Ariana: Since we are interested in everything that has to do with the path which connects mind and body like buddhism, taoism, tantra, as well as bushido – the way of the samurai, we started to perceive tarot not only as a divination tool, but as a mirror where we can see all our mistakes, and a path to managing them. Therefore the tarot interpretation is to show mainly the path that you can walk. We can of course show our clients, point out the mistakes they make, but they have to walk the path of fate alone.

So, you do not think of body and mind separately?

Ariana: Not at all. Thanks to the body the mind can perfect itself. It is the same with gravity, everybody cursed it at some point, especially when they had problems with balance or had to carry something heavy up to the fifth floor without a lift. But if there was no gravity, we could not develop at all. The same goes for the relationship between body and soul. That is why we can safely say that the body is the visible part of the soul. For example astronauts when they land after a long time in space, they do not get off, they have to be carried off. They cannot walk on their own. This is what the absence of gravity causes. There is nothing to overcome and the body declines.

Raven: Many esotericists consider the body to be the prison of the soul, but that is a big mistake. Try to answer the question what is the most important for a man. If you say it is his body, there will hardly be a better answer. Money? Education? Love? Native country? Health? It all loses its meaning, if the common body we take for granted, and most people do not care about was missing. People who especially deal with the spiritual, try to supress their bodies and become extremely outraged if we appear with our open approach towards sex in a magazine that specialises in spiritual path. Sex is a part of reality, and most pseudoesotericists try to run away from it, because they are failures in normal life.

Many religions proclaim that this world is nothing but hell, and that only after death can a person get into the paradise, which he has to deserve already now if he obeys the laws of a certain religion or sect.

Ariana: This holds true for Christianity or Hinduism; basically for all religions which are androcratic, meaning they have males as the main authority. At the same time, a man is just an altered woman. Every fetus is female right from the beginning, only with the effect of testosterone can it become male. The remainders of the female essence are for instance the nipples. And if we are to talk about paradise – everybody knows nowadays that our Earth is just a tiny island surrounded by inhospitable universe, from which we are separated by a thin layer of fragile atmosphere. What else do you need to be able to imagine a perfect paradise? Unfortunately, it is the Earth, our paradise, out of which we are expulsing ourselves.

Therefore we practise natural religion. Nature is our temple, god and goddess, and we honestly respect the gift of life. Unlike the people who think that they are here as a punishment, and that life is just a curse, and that only after death they will be surrounded by bosomy houris which they will bonk with their unlimited manly power and the next day they will be virgins again. This is for example, the core of Islam, the Islamic fighters believe in it when they are coming down on a building in a plane or when they are exploding themselves.

What have you conjured up yet?

Ariana: Once I put a stone with a wish on the grave of rabbi Löw in a Jewish graveyard. I wanted to meet the man of my dreams, to be a model, a writer and a witch, and it all came true. On top of that we now have an oracle near the grave of rabbi Löw which I named At the Golden Snake. It is in Břehová street, which is really near to Oldnew Synagogue (and to Pařížská street where I buy handbags and shoes). At the Golden Snake there is special energy that curls like a snake or like a giant spiral and it is at the exact spot where we have our divinatory table. Some people feel they get rid of headaches and backaches there. It is probably the same thing that the Celts called Wujwer and the Chinese called it White Dragon. A strong stream of energy, a strong fault of the earth. It is a very good place for meditation. By the way, meditation is nothing but worship of the present which is so important for the mind and the body.

We like to surround ourselves with peculiar things – taken from the viewpoint of an ordinary citizen - which connect us with life even though they are linked to death. For instance we collect skulls, real skulls. Two skulls are our big pride, they are 3,500 years old from the Early Bronze Age. They were two ritually sacrificed girls, in all probability decapitated. Since I got them from a friend,an archaelogist, I have been satisfied with them. And I feel great peace as if they reconciled me with the death principle.

Another special piece we own is a Chinese ritual blood vessel. We also collect samurai swords – katanas. Two of them were tempered in human blood.

We often go to take pictures in graveyards. There is a fantastic graveyard under Bertramka in Smíchov (Prague) where there is a very special atmosphere and it looks great in photographs. It is interesting how beautiful the combination of a naked body, and an ancient gravestone leaved with ivy can be. As if it awoke the lust for life in a person.

Raven: Moreover skull is a symbol of mind. The Celts worshipped it and many other peoples like Aztecs, but also alchemists. It is easily understood, because skull and brain in it produce mind, and mind is what makes us human. If anybody thinks that these are morbid and perverted symbols, it is their problem. Without a skull, even their head would look rather strange.

What reactions do you get from people?

Raven: People are mostly scared of us and keep their distance. In the Czech Republic whoever is connected to magic is automatically linked to something dark, almost satanic. Therefore it is no surprise the communist regime lasted so long here. We have few friends but the more genuine.

Ariana: Maybe we are strange. What can you expect from people who do magic, take pictures of themselves naked and do sexual magic? It was Socrates who said already a long time ago that the worst thing is to follow the herd.

You wrote a book called Magic of Sex, also scripts for the tv programme Peříčko [erotic talk show] and you often appear in programmes where sex is discussed.

Raven: We have written many books. We do not talk about sex but about tantra, in which we have been engaged now for fourteen years. Thanks to tantra, we understood that sex is not, as Woody Allen says - just a mutual masturbation, but flowing of one loving being into another, communion of bodies and souls. In tantra two loving people energetically strengthen one another. During ‘normal’ sex one partner takes the energy from the other.

Sometimes people ask us what to do in order to conceive a child, because it has not worked for a long time, and whether there is some special position for it. According to sexual magic, the problem is that such people do not listen to their bodies which say that they do not fit together, they do not belong together. You cannot trick the body easily. People can lead a happy life, but there is no spark between them, that is the problem. Of course, you can explain it in medical terms as problems with the ovaries, womb, sperm or potency. We usually tell them to go and have sex in a graveyard, because there the woman usually gets pregnant. Excitement plays a big part in it. Graveyard is not really a pleasant place for many people, it is a pious place, often guarded, but altogether it makes a powerful provocative, which is called the fear of the forbidden.

Ariana: To simply say that sex is healthy is really stupid. Pornstars would be then bouncing immortals, but the contrary is true.

Raven: If I were to say something from my own experience, I would say that tantric sex is healthy. Naturally, there is a question in the beginning how you can tell lack of health and what illness actually is. People do not want to realise that first the mind is ill, only then it manifests in the body. It is basically a departure from the right path, illness is always connected with an error in thinking. Of course if I say that cancer is the manifestation of a totally suppressed personality; that diabetes is the inability to process emotions; that kidney problems point to problems in partnership and that liver disease means seeing the reality wrongly; most people would disagree.

Ariana: But this is probably all they can do.

What was your greatest magical experience?

Ariana: Every year we spend the St John’s Day and Summer Solstice by Vlčí jezero [Wolf’s Lake] in the middle of the forests in Šumava [South Bohemia]. We fully enjoy these magical days. At night we bathe in the lake’s healing water and watch the heavens above, studded with millions of stars. Sometimes some of them fall and we always wish for something. We then sit by fire, later we jump over it and in the end we go to the woods. There are hundreds of fireflies around us, irradiating our way till we reach a clearing, where there is almost a thousand year old lime tree, weathered by lightnings and windstorms. We climb it and sit in its crown till morning. If the moom shines, we see how does come to the meadow and we wait for the sunrise. Then once again, in this indescribable beauty, we become aware that the most powerful magic is to be at one with nature.

Magic of Life and Tarot

I have been interested in the meaning of tarot cards for about 25 years. Every day I devote to tarot four or twelve hours; I am no novice in this field. On the other hand, it is true though, that you can always discover something new in tarot, so one cannot say they know everything.

Interpretation of tarot cards became my profession and you could say that my whole life is subordinate to meditations on tarot cards. The question remains whether this is good or not. I would appear in any tv discussion programme on this topic without hesitation, and I would be glad to have opponents there, be it from the doubting Thomases or the sober-minded rational sceptics. I would like to hear the opinions of a scientist, the common man, the opponent, and then we could compare the results of our life paths. Everybody would speak for themselves and everybody would show what they have achieved thanks to their life convictions. I have managed, thanks to tarot , a fantastic thing – to stop aging. Maybe it is not that way; maybe I am fooling myself; maybe it is really just a subjective feeling. However, I cannot fool myself that in a fitcentre, I give the same performance as when I was 25 (now that I am nearing 58). I can thus boldly compare my physical condition with any average twenty-five year old man.

I have not been in a fitness centre for 4 years now because there was no time, and during the last six months I have gone there several times with my young friends to show them the best methods of ‘initiation’, which plays a very important role in my training system The royal path. Apropos, tarot can be also translated as royal path, which is a path towards the perfect regeneration. It is not my goal to achieve some special power performance, but I think it would not be so supernatural for me to lift 120 kg in benchpress. Maybe even 130 kg…

I have no problems with my sexual functioning either. Sometimes I think to myself that it is a pity there is no internationally subsidized competition in this field; I would certainly have a realistic chance to make it to the Olympics. The same goes for digestion and mental functions – I would say that basically I have never felt as good as now. Neither my joints nor back hurt, and I practically never get sick. I am not on a diet and I do not cut out anything in food or drink. On top of that, I have not slept too much in last two years, maybe 4,5 hours a day, which is probably not so good. The only thing I do for my health, and for keeping fit, is my tarot card exercising. I have not skipped a single day in the last twenty years probably. Fortunately these exercises are so simple, much more simple than for example tai-chi or chi-kung, not to mention rei-ki. Moreover I think my results are much better. The last time I talked to masters of tai-chi, rei-ki and chi-kung, I felt a bit sorry for them. But let us get back to my system.

In the last talk I said that I use 22 cards of major arcana for my exercises. Every card represents one exercise and I pull out one card at random every day which decides the kind of exercise I will practise the next day. There is no set time for the exercises. Anytime when there is a free while and opportunity. I think that within the last five years, my wife Ariana has not even noticed whether I exercise or not at all. This is important because you do it for yourself, not for others. I of course observe the rule of planned alternation of induction, stretching, isometry and billing, or ISIB just like I wrote about it earlier. Thanks to the Plan (ISIB) and Chance (choosing of the exercise with tarot) I reach the best results of keeping fit that you can ever imagine. That is why I can make fun of people who are on complicated diets, running for their health, exercising tai-chi or suffering on stationary bicycles, but also those who do bodybuilding. I realised that this is not the way to stop aging at all. Success lies in the connection of Jing and Jang, Intuition and Reason, Chance and Plan. Exactly how it is in my tarot Royal path.

The Role of the Minor Arcana

Everybody feels weak sometimes, weakened or sick. To find the real cause of the weakness and sickness is quite difficult, and because there have been so many papers written on this topic and also quite interesting speculations, you can start having doubs about any theory after some time successfully. Do your joints and back ache? Is it the wrong diet causing it? Or virosis? Or is it malfunction of kidneys and those toxins which stay in the bloodstream and then start to settle in the joints accompanied by pain? Or could it be the psychosomatic imbalance caused by the disharmony in partnership behind the malfunction of kidneys? Is it your fault or your partner’s? Is illness caused by wrong thinking and can it be psychotherapeutically? Or is it just that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time (a syndrome of a falling flowerpot)? On this topic you can say one thing for sure – ten wise heads – eleven different opinions.

Nonetheless, I have made a very interesting and positive experience with diagnosis with the help of minor arcana. As it is generally known, minor arcana has four signs, Wands, Swords, Discs and Cups. Each of these belong to a certain body part. Imagine a standing person who is horizontally cut into 56 parts. Legs correspond to Discs, the part from the bottom of the pelvis to bellybutton corresponds to Cups, from the bellybutton to the throat it is Swords and the head is Wands. From bottom to the top these parts are evenly divided into sections which start with Aces, for example Ace of Discs is the closest to the heel, or Ace of Cups which corresponds to the first, or genital chakra. It is followed by Two, Three and so on till you get to the top with Queen. The crown of the head acords to the Queen of Wands, so the whole person fits between Ace of Discs and Queen of Wands.

We shuffle the tarot cards, choose a random card, Queen of Swords for instance, and we already know the locality – it is in the throat, it can be something with vocal cords or it can be thyroid gland. We do not care about what it is exactly, it is enough to know where and there we concentrate our mind during the exercise.

As a matter of fact, we predict the illness with the tarot cards, and start treating it even before it breaks out. There are again simple exercises assigned to each card of the minor arcana (56 of them), which you repeat as long as possible. That is all. We do not need anything else.

I dare compare this method to acupuncture or acupressure. While in acupuncture and acupressure, you excite analogically corresponding place either with a needle or with pressure, in my method you excite a certain place by means of repeated contractions, meaning exercising certain group of muscles. Naturally, the place is chosen by chance – by a random choice of a tarot card from the minor arcana, but do not forget that synchronicity plays its role here (concurrency of casual phenomena), and analogy (‘attraction’ of similar phenomena, things and actions).

I had quite an interesting experience that by exercising one muscle or muscle group which was chosen by ¨chance¨, an illness accelerated which had been in the latent state already. For example, within a while symptoms of virosis, cold or flu appeared and the illness broke out in its full power. Only it did not last 14 days as usual – the whole process took 2 days and the illness was over.

Everything Wears Out

‘Everything wears out’, this is the last truth of Buddha which he is said to have delivered right before he died. What should we imagine under a ‘wornout body’ in connection with old age? Every day we see crowds of people in the streets who could wear a t-shirt with ‘everything wears out.’ It would be quite funny actually. If we imagine the ‘wear’ on the body only mechanically, as abrasion, wear and tear, fatigue of material, cracked paint, bent beams, then we are totally off. Yes, a machine can wear out, a building can collapse, a car can become a wreckage in time. Thanks to friction and corrosion, the surface and structure of a material changes, bearings wobble free, welds and connectors crack, but does the same apply to joints and bones? Or to arteries and nerves? I have recently counted that during last thirty years, I have done more than a million (ritual) push-ups. It is basically an anaerobic isometric exercise, about which you can read in literature, that it is not suitable for cardiovascular system. In spite of that, I dare say that if I compared my cardiovascular system, shoulder joints and elbow joints to most of the people’s of my age (almost beginning pensioners), I will be much better off.

I have often meditated on the question how much the spirit is pervaded by matter, or spirit with the body. I do not think that the spirit and the soul, or what we call intelligence, is concentrated only in the brain or possibly the nerve tissue. I think that every cell in the body plays its part in connecting the spirit with the body. Then it is questionable whether the intelligence can get old or whether what we try to define as intelligence grows with time (thanks to experience) or whether it gets weaker.

All indicates that intelligence gets weaker with time, but it does not exhaust; no intelligence telomers do probable get shorter with age. Intelligence weakens and disappears only when we do not use it. The muscle system alike. Unless we accept the idea that intelligence is not dependent on time in the sense of common aging, and that every cell is repleted with intelligence (it does not matter how you picture it), each cell has a seed of immortallity hidden within.

Let us ask ourselves a simple question – does the elixir of life and youth exist?

How would you image such an elixir? And where would you look for it? Would it be inebriantly smelling liquid which you would drink, steam would come out of your ears and suddenly you woud see in the mirror how creases are disappering from your face, the grey lock of hair is getting darker, the overhanging fat is resorbing and the droopy bottom is rising?

Or do you think of the elixir of youth as some mysterious mixture of mystic oriental herbs that would wake up even a dead person? Or maybe you imagine that the mythical elixir could lie in the optimistic attitude to life and positive thinking? It is often said that ‘a sound mind in a sound body’…

And do you think that elixir of life could be discovered by some crazy alchemist? Or rather a specialist in biochemistry and healthy diet? The wise men of ancient times, who in the beginnings of philosophy of taoism studied these problems, found an interesting thing – there is such a thing as the elixir of life. But it is neither a product of herbs nor it be found in devil’s catalogue – it is produced in muscles. Yes, the thing we could boldly call the elixir of life and eternal youth, is a substance which is produced in the muscles during a certain specifically defined effort. I call the system of exercises, which are connected to visualisation, and during which needed life enhancers are produced, motion meditations. But beware – it is not that simple. We can say to ourselves, ‘well sport is healthy, so I will start running regularly and I will live ten years longer.’ Or you say, ‘aha, I have to start exercising, so every day I will do a hundred or two hundred sit-ups and I will stop looking like an advertisement for Pirelli.’ Before you start exercising enthusiastically, try to become aware of the difference between exercising and ‘exercising.’

How to Perform a Simple Movement Correctly

Try to do five squats as a test (if you can still do it). And now try to think of how many ways you can use to do the five squats. You can do them slowly and perfectly, take every squat nicely to the end, you can breathe in while moving down and breathe out when going up or the other way round. You can also do it fast in a row and hold your breath (this method is sometimes recommended in asthma treatment).

The next question is, what should we think about while exercising? Should we count in our minds one, two, three…(which is quite usual, almost everybody does it) or should we concentrate on reciting a mantra?

I personally recommend that everyone tries for themselves, to see in how many ways they can do any simple movement. Then we talk about what you can achieve with several simple movements.

Linerar and Cyclic Understanding of Time

If we speak of the possibilities for human body regeneration, it is completely logical that we also think whether it could be possible to get near the mythical immortality. It is the subject of all our books. The delicacy of the idea of immortality lies in the fact that nobody has yet attained it and nobody can, because he would have to outlive the existence of the universe, which is nonsense. Let us rather talk about extreme longevity. Sometimes we read somewhere that we have the potential to live until 150, but that we do not use this potential. Practical experiments in this field tend to end up pathetically. Scientists who devotedly experiment on themselves whether it is possible to stop aging thanks to aerobic exercises and specially measured doses of vegetarian food, look mostly worse than their peers who go to work normally and eat pub food.

I have been dealing with this problem since I was twenty-five and I have tried everything possible and impossible. Many times I have seen for myself how many misconceptions have been handed down. Luckily, I have never had any sponsor with whom I would have to settle accounts with, so I could leave all the false and blind ways without a blink, and now after the long years of experimenting and searching, I am sure I finally solved the alchemical mystery of mythical longevity.

The first problem which concerns all of us, is that from early childhood we learn to understand time linearly. Our teachers at school draw the ‘time line’ on the board and we repeat the rule about how we are cursed in the passing present, in front of us there is the future and behind us the past. Something is pushing us ahead all the time along a straight highway, at the end of which is a graveyard. It is not a too cheerful picture, but that is the traditional knowledge now. In reality, we are the prisoners of constantly repeating natural cycles. We experience spring, summer, autumn, winter, we see with our own eyes how nature infinitely revitalizes itself. I see how all that ‘dies’ in the winter, ‘gets born again’ in the spring, and ‘grows mature’ in the summer. The basic goal of alchemy is to enclose ‘the big cycle’ into a ‘small’ one, or to divide the ‘big energy cycle’ into a set of ‘small energy cycles.’ According to the theory of reincarnation, a man is born, gets old and dies; and then again he gets born, gets old and dies and the cycle continues. The trouble is that when I die, somebody else gets born instead of me. I can fool myself that it is still me, which it basically is, but they have different experiences and different memories, so it is a different personality and that makes every alchemist,whose goal it is to cultivate individual personalities, feel bad honestly. According to alchemy it is possible to enclose the cycle of birth, aging and death and dying into one body. Instead of real death, an aspirant experiences so called mystical death, which is a kind of meditation, something like a dying game.

Who Will Be the First?

In many meditations I learned to cut down my inborn competitiveness. The idea that participation is not quite as important as winning, is quite dangerous for longevity. We have already proven to ourselves we are the best when we managed to fight off the millions of other sperms and were born. But now we are living under different conditions, in a world where it is important to cooperate to survive. Teamwork and collaboration, not competitiveness. But we still want to be the first and the best in everything, so let us not be surprised that subconsciously we even try to get to the graveyard first. This paradox repeats itself all over again even in rich and successful people; meaning those who should according to our opinion enjoy all that they have achieved. Let us be honest, do you really expect that the richest man on the planet will live up to an exceptionally high age? I would be really surprised.

How I Enclosed Aging into Cycles

As an aid for creating small cycles in which it is possible to enclose the whole process of aging, I divided the human life into the following parts.

Activation, Stretching, Isometry, Billing and Latency.

Activation is awakening to life, the state of being born when a small man struggles with gravity, muscles and bones get used to unusual effort, but when they are not strong enough to keep the person together other than while lying.

Stretching is the time of growth when everything becomes longer and gets volume. This period ends shortly after puberty.

Isometry is the period of youth. The body has enough (sometimes excess) energy. A young body differs from an old one mainly in that there is tension, which manifests mostly in the body parts where later the fat starts to pile up uncontrollably.

Billing is a period when the body still can have some advantage of the tension which is now disappearing, but still holding us together even while standing (from the front usually better than from the profile). This can last maybe until 45.

Latency is a period when we are sort of running on empty already. Fat is happily piling up, mainly where it should not; muscles decline, they absorb themselves, the tension from them disappears to god knows where, and the younker figure jellifies. Even in the gloom, just by checking the plodding silhouette, we can see that it is in the latent stage.

Aging is a sad process about which we can read a lot of information in any book on gerontology. Thinking that this does not concern us or that it will not happen to us, is pathologically obssessive. Maybe everybody thinks like that at some point, but mercilessly we will soon be convinced of our false belief.

What can we do with it? Or more likely, how to adjust to this strange process the best? I realized that the absolute best is to divide the‘linear time’ into an ‘infinite’ line of severalday cycles, during which we experience the avove mentioned periods time and again as if we were being born, getting old and dying all the time.

Activation: These are the one or two days when we try, thanks to special exercises, to activate the weakening muscle and bone systems with a special emphasis on exercising triceps (unfortunately, being as complex as it is, there is not space for detailed analysis).

Stretching: Again these are one or two days when we do not do anything - from the point of view of motion meditations - than with the help of other, time unconsuming exercises, we stretch the activated muscles and joints.

Isometry: A very important part of the exercises, I would say even the most important, because these are exercises which return the natural tension to the weakened muscles. These are for example such that without moving we tense the muscles and for a while we hold them in such tension that it starts to get close to cramps.

Billing: This is basically a relaxing day which is sometimes exchanged for isometric tensing of chest muscles and the wing-like muscle of the upper back [latissimus dorsi] .

Latency: The day of putrefaction, or ‘decomposition’. It is a day when you do nothing, connected with meditation on mystical death. You practise relaxation. The next day will be again the day of activation, and that is how it goes all over again.

Note: Before we get to the system and before we are able to practice it at full capacity, it is necessary to do the classic set of exercises from Magic of Life – the Royal Path, which we wrote about in the January issue. For a person who is not used to a certain load, the phase of activation could mean a heart attack voucher.

Illness as an Obstacle

In order not to make our path to extreme longevity and extreme physical condition too complicated, we have to avoid illnesses in the first place. A long time ago, I got used to solving almost anything with the help of tarot cards. It is my trade after all, because I interpret tarot cards professionally. The state of health, possible dangers to it and possible treatment I solve by interpreting the minor arcana. A traditional doctor would be terrified probably, but it has been proven to me many times, that random diagnosis by using 56 cards of the minor arcana, and the following strengthening of the immune system with the help of tarot magic, is very successful. There is no doubt that a prolapsed hernia cannot be put back by using a magical spell, but a viral disease and problems with immunity or joint pain can be influenced very much by meditations and suitable movement. Each card of the minor arcana represents a certain body part and a simple exercise belongs to it which has a similar effect as acupressure has on the nervous system. I managed to literally work quite many diseases out of my system this way.

The most important part of my training system is Magic of Life I and Magic of Life II, but I recommend reading Astral Magic first, and then throw oneself at the Magic of Life, and finally at the important Magic of Sex.

Magic of Life – The Royal Path

Only those who work on themselves, can find and understand the meaning of life.

In two years I will turn sixty and I could start getting ready for a quiet life of a respectaple pensioner. Only I do not feel my age at all. No backaches, no jointaches, my body works the same as when I was thirty. Often, the combination of higher age and sexual performance is ridiculed, but according to my experience they do not correlate with each other. I have no reason for apologetic smiles…

I feel like a normal, average person, but I have much more muscles and much less fat than usual for my age. I feel young, my wife is a quarter of a century younger than me and I do not notice any signs of near twilight of life. I have simply managed to slow down my biological clock. I am not saying that I am not getting any older, that would be against nature, but I am convinced that the way you age, how the age shows, is in our hands. We have become accustomed to aging according to certain stereotypes and I have broken these generally accepted habits.

For many years I was collecting experiences in esoterics, martial arts, meditations, various diets and compiling my own excercising system which became a path I have been following for a long time. Of course, you can come across guaranteed recipes for reaching perfect regeneration, drawing energy from the space, awakening ‘the sleeping brain’, meditating and exercising correctly every day. Mostly the authors of such do not even know the terminology they use properly, they cannot precisely define meditation, ritual, the chi energy or chakras. Most importantly, you cannot see any impressive results of what they have to offer.

On my spiritual path I have been influenced the most by eastern philosophy, tantra, tao-yoga and martial arts. I have always liked the idea of perfect connection between body and mind. I am convinced that one cannot exist without the other – spirit without body is as useless for life as body would be without spirit. Everything around us is subject to time, but we do not have to understand time linearly as an arrow flying into the unpredictable future – being born, growing up, getting old, dying. We can learn to live with the idea of cyclic time that connects growing up with getting old, dying and being reborn. People who exprerience time linearly age unstoppably and their health worsens fast. Cyclic understanding of time is a part of the alchemical path towards ‘immortality.’

Wise men of eastern peoples have always tried to exercise body and mind at the same time. If you, for instance, see yoga as a form of simple gymnastics, you will never get anywhere. The idea of a yogi as a supple old man does not correspond to the reality. There is an incredible complex of special thinking states and feelings that belong to yoga. Also, the place where you exercise regularly has a major impact. To sit down and meditate on a mat in a room with the tv on is certainly not the right thing.

Our culture has made us slaves of form and divided exercises into spiritual and physical. We are obsessed with recipes how to improve health fast and lose some kilos, but we still do not understand that the most important part of any physical act is the state of mind. Mind is the basis.

That is the reason why I firtst learned to work with thoughts. I learned to meditate and concentrate without being distracted by anything. I managed to get into a state, when a person does not polarise and stops to perceive that there is some good and evil. It is difficult to explain to people who have had to go through something really bad, but fate really does not bring good or bad events. We are the ones giving labels of good and evil to various situations.

The meaning of what we call evil (or tragedy) is a message. We have to learn and understand why something unpleasant happened, and at the same time, learn to get back into the original balance. Even if the evil concerned us directly.

When I was a little over twenty, I worked as a director of animated films. It was a privileged position then, but I did not feel free and so I emigrated. The job taught me to notice details and work with symbols. Already at that time, I was fascinated with how the whole story can be told with the help of several simple symbols which will be understood by everybody all over the world, despite the language differences.

In Germany I had a great opportunity to go through all esoteric, magical and alchemical literature available at that time. I got to know tao-yoga, tantra, transcendental meditation, magic and tarot. Esoteric courses were expensive and almost always ended up with some ‘funny-innitiation’, but it did not seem to be leading anywhere.

Then I met Ariana, my wife, and she initiated me more than all Maharishas and Krishnas together. I understood the youth and irrationality principle, the principle of constant change and obsession with expressing feelings and emotions. Right in the beginning, we went to New Mexico where we were so lucky to meet many interesting people and to find further study material. Everything came on its own, spontaneously, without us planning it or waiting for it. It was probably meant to happen. We got to know shamans and asked them for initiation into their art. We underwent rituals connected with the use of hallucinogens, when the past leaves the body directly – you could say in a tangible form. Then you have a vision in which you see your totem animal, your guardian. Indians believe that every person has their own guardian spirit in a form of an animal which accompanies them throughout their lives. I chose my name after my guardian.

My opinion on today’s world has also been shaped by tantra and Chinese taoism. Both schools are based on the idea of absolute balance between masculine and feminine worlds. Tantra inspired me with the sexual basis and the belief that woman is the essence, the source out of which everything comes, and man is the one who can draw vital energy from her. And that is how I have become a feminist.

Another important philosophical basis for me was the work of Prentice Mulford, the American author of the ingenious piece called Gift of the Spirit. We still draw upon it with Ariana even nowadays.

Since I am a man, I was of course interested in the philosophy of martial arts, mainly karate, kung-fu, thai box, aikido and jiu-jitsu.

Many Asian fighters incline towards buddhism. They are probably close to the first noble truth of Buddha that everything is suffering and if we understand that, we will be greatly relieved. We will realise that whatever we do is so limited by our senses and our undeveloped real self that if we want to get higher, we just have to suffer.

I learned to meditate for many years. Meditation exercises are difficult and not everybody can do them right away, because to meditate means to experience the present. Although it sounds simple, it is the most difficult thing in our lives. A common, not knowing person does all it takes to prevent experiencing the present. Everybody lives in their thoughts of the future or of the past. The present is something like a gift we despise. It is something like meeting God (who would happen to have nothing better to do than talking to you) and who would ask you: ‘Do you want anything from what you see around you?’ Then you would answer: ‘No thank you, I prefer to wait… maybe it will get better…’

Meditation, as well as tantric sex ties us to the present, it teaches us to experience feelings which are happening now, in the present. It is the same with martial arts. If you have to face an enemy, it is happening here and now, you cannot postpone the defence or the counter-attack until the next week, tomorrow or some other time. Meditations linked with physical exercise are closely connected to the philosophy of fear. Fear is what mostly ruins peoples lives. Overwhelming fear which they cannot handle. Fear of death, of the present, of failure, of not being able to manage to do something. Fear of sanctions if they act against somebody more powerful. Thousands of fears accompanying untrained people from dawn to dusk. The easiest yet worst solution to problems is running away from them. Where to and how? To the thoughts of the future. No place to stay? No job? No money? One day I will be rich for sure. What would I buy if I had some fifty million dollars? I would show them all!

Be careful, idle fantacising is something totally different from a careful visualisation during which we see the future with the eyes of the present. Let us try to answer a couple of questions. Who am I really? What can I do really well? What do I have to offer? Can I take care of myself or am I dependent on someone else?

The result of my long-time effort in the field of esoterics is a system of exercises which I have named The Royal Path. There are 22 basic exercises and each of them is related to one tarot card of the major arcana. Tarot cards represent basic tasks, archetypes which we all have to encounter and go through. If we do not, the result in real life can be a certain inability, phobia, fear or feeling of failure.

There are three basic aspects hidden in the tarot cards of the major arcana, therefore they have three meanings.

The first of them is mantic – the cards can be used for interpreting the future.

The second meaning is philosophical – you can meditate on each card and try to experience a certain life principle on a spiritual level.

The third aspect is magical – you want to affect your life and fate, use a card that symbolically corresponds to your problem in a magical ritual.

The royal path, in alchemy as well as in tarot, contains the secret of immortality. It is a path towards the essence of life. Each card represents a step towards enlightenment. It does not matter in which order you decide to study and exercise individual cards. In pracice it is done so that we shuffle the 22 cards of the major arcana and draw one of them at random.

The chance which is in this case the best trainer, decides the exercise, visualisation and meditation that is to be practised the next day. In a busy life style, there are two time points suitable for meditations – the moment before falling asleep and the moment right after waking up. You devote yourself to thought concentration and visualisation for a couple of seconds, a couple of minutes at maximum. The same applies to the physical exercises. They are absolutely simple. Anybody who is able to get to the kitchen or to the toilet on their own can manage. The breathing exercises are again so easy that you can do them whilst waiting for something or going somewhere (unless you are in a hurry of course). You perform the physical exercise related to the randomly chosen card a couple of times a day, depending on how it suits your schedule. It can be again right after waking up and right before going to bed. The results will show remarkably fast. After two months of regular and easy exercising you will start feeling like your biological clock is slowly going backwards. Your physical condition and immunity to diseases will improve. Your mood and ability to control your mind and fear will get better.

C. G. Jung called the classic alchemical Royal path individuation, which is a special state of mind that comes when a person understands the meaning of obstacles they keep encountering. Their ego disappears and they see the reality as it is. It is the principle of self-improvement and the path towards reaching perfection is often called ‘the only right path one can walk to find the meaning of their life.’

I have to mention again that the kind of aging we know it at present is not a natural process, it is a kind of epidemic to which we might be even forced, because from the economic and political viewpoint fast renewal of ‘human material’ is favourable. Political power is easy to build on young, physically fit people who have almost none of their own experience. Older and old people, out of whom many have reached to understanding the meaning of life (that the most important thing is to have your own opinion and not to let anybody interfere in your plans and privacy), are so weak that they mean practically nothing. A totally different situation would be, if the aging people were not losing their physical condition, because strength, intelligence and life experience represent the most dangerous combination.

If we look at aging as a disease and we realise that everything from tooth decay, overweight to cancer and AIDS is related to the errors in thinking, we become aware of how important it is to link the body to the mind. The body is a gift, it is the best we could get from nature. If the body ends, the whole person ends. Our body is an incredible life factory where every second, billions of processes take place. And in the meantime we run around the world, we laugh or have depressions and we do not even notice what we carry with us the whole time and what we should respect the most. Our own body should be first on our list of priorities. The spirit is a feature of matter, but it is so connected to it that it is pointless to think of the spiritual and physical side of life in isolation.

The truth about aging

Only from nature we can learn the truth, not from people.

Chinese proverb

Fighting aging is fighting for life. You survive only if you win. There is no other way. You could also say that this fight has its strict rules. It is no free style where everybody can show what they can do. Many people try to mask the symptoms of decay with the help of plastic surgery. The need to improve something is basically worth praising, is it not? If suddenly all that is artificial or artificially improved - starting with hair, teeth and ending with various prosthetic devices and substitutes, the streets would probably look like a scene from The Beggar’s Opera. There is one hidden danger in the work of professionals on our looks and health – the loss of responsibility for how we look. You look in the mirror from the profile, you are taken aback, but you do not say: ‘Oh my God, starting today I will do a hundred sit-ups every day and every Saturday I will go to a fitness centre for an hour instead of lunch.’ No, at that moment you desperately try to pull the fat fold back to the stomach area and sigh: ‘I will have to have the liposuction. But where is it the cheapest?’ If a person went for liposuction and at the same time exercised properly every day, why not? They try to look good actively and that is worth praising. Cosmetic, healing and surgical procedures should not lead to loss of one’s own initiative and that especially applies to exercising. I cannot stuff myself with sugar without brushing my teeth and exercising, thinking that I have a good dentist and a great cosmetic surgeon.

Youth is a specific state that cannot be artificially implanted into organism. You cannot come to your doctor and want him to put some 200 grams of youth under your skin. Youth is a mixture of energy, activity, tension and movement. A young person is not normally aware of the gift of youth - they take energy for granted. With aging, the youthful energy starts to dissolve somewhere into invisible depths of time and space and a person settles down. I call it lazing and fading. Since they are not ready for this, they become an easy prey for demons of depression. That is how the second, not so happy and often a much longer ‘half’ of our lives starts which is called adulthood and old age.

When people come to me wanting to consult their opportunities after realising for the first time they are probably getting old, I try to refresh their memory. They need to recall one very important word which we all learned at some point, but never really used actively – will. That is the only medicine for aging that works. It is the good old will, it does not necessarily have to be good, as long as it is strong. The stronger the better. Will is something that can make wanting an action, it connects thoughts with deeds. Will can turn a passive viewer into an action hero and it is also the basic building block of all magic – by magic I mean psychology in the widest sense of the word. We can make ourselves do a couple of simple movements every day by willing it and we can make ourselves breathe correctly and concentrate on useful images. There are leftovers or ruins of strong will in every one of us and it is up to our decision whether we start building a new castle upon these ruins.

The mysterious chi energy

The basic move E2-E4 in chess performed by a master looks like a swift start for a good game full of unexpected surprises but if a beginner does the same, it seems more like indecisiveness, or a lack of originality. Notice that when you observe something, what is happening is practically of the same importance to you as the person or persons which you link it to. There is a saying that when two people do the same thing, it is not the same. We want to see a film, but often we are more interested in who is in it than what the film is about. Famous faces always guarantee bigger success than originality and ideas of a project. In movies, advertising, public relations, practically wherever something is offered and sold, the most important thing is magical power of charisma of a famous personality. What kind of power or energy is it that makes an ordinary person become a celebrity?

The world around us is full of unpredictable energies, but their existence has never really been of any interest to classic physics. I think that even physics nowadays or natural scientists are not really interested in examining the mysterious esoteric powers. Sometimes there is an excited and technically able person who tries to measure something special near menhirs or in the middle of circles in a field. But if it is not a lighting time or a meteorite falling, he will not experience anything that would be enough for some big headlines in tabloids. No geomagnetic anomalies, no spatiotemporal gaps, no expected streams of healing energy, not to mention forces disrupting gravity, none of it happens. Sometimes one needs to ask a question whether it is the same world we live in when we talk about power and energy from the viewpoints of magic and physics. Or is it the same nonsense as if we tried to find out - with the help of some sensor attached to a monitor - whether Mona Lisa has better artistic radiation than paintings of nursery children.

What we know about chi

Eastern philosophy vividly describes vital energy – what makes us alive (compared to let us say stones) as chi energy. India and China spread weird terms like snake power and prana around the world. Symbolically, this power is connected to the classic figures of moon goddesses, starting with Egyptian Isis and ending with Christian Mary. The Chinese taoism talks about the snake power as of ‘cosmic vibration’, the basis of all. Everybody who studied the chakras, automatically learned about the snake power which, in ‘unawakened people’, sleeps quietly, lightly curled as a little snake in the tail bone or in the first chakra. It is of course symbolical. There has not been a case of a neurosurgeon being bitten by or killed by a suddenly awakened snake power of their patient whilst operating on their spine. It would sound quite good, especially to people who like sensations and mysteries that do not require too much thinking.

According to ancient eastern teachings, the vital chi energy is tightly connected to sexual power - ching. Awakening of ching happens thanks to sexual arousal. The more intensive and longer the bigger the amount of ching energy. With the help of meditations and deep inner concentration, ching (normally experienced as sexual instinct) can be transformed into useful chi energy which vitalises the body and heals sick organs. It can be roughly understood, it can be experienced and then maybe be understood, but most importantly – it can be learned in practice. Comparing chi to classic energy as we know it from physics is much more difficult. The school physics says that energy is the ability to do work. Shall we then imagine somebody who has been able to gather a big amount of chi as a charged accumulator with a bigger capacity than others? In taoistic texts you can read about chi that can have the strength of a lightning. The chi energy used to be drawn straight from space by masters of martial arts. The undisputable thing is that many were able to crush the skull of an enemy with a bare hand. There were legends circling about so called attacks without touching. A master was able to send concentrated chi by a fast move of his arm which brought the enemy to the ground as if they were hit by a hammer. This technique is still shown in some schools of martial arts. Everything works until there is a doubting Thomas standing opposite the master. Master concentrates and with a sharp move of his whole body sends an invisible ball stuffed with concentrated chi. And nothing happens.

The doubting Thomas shrugs his shoulders and asks: ‘Ok, what’s happening? I am waiting.’ But nothing else happens. Chi does not work on people who subconsciously do not cooperate and the master must come up with an excuse like that if he presses his tongue against his palate and crosses his index and middle fingers, the effect of chi disappers. He must come up with something so that his pupils would not start studying physics instead of martial arts. The essence of the problems is that chi is not a kind of physical energy. We will get closer to the truth if we say that chi is a way of using body energy. But we will get back to this later. In the modern sense we have to remind ourselves of terms like charisma, sex appeal, antipathy, likeability. In connection to sex appeal or good mood we often talk about ‘radiation’, but nobody is able to bend a nail thanks to this. They will not be even able to move it. Nonetheless the unmeasurable magic of personality can be used for making a better deal than the competition, which is a phenomenon easily measurable in its results. Chi is basically the amount of intelligence in using body energy. That is why chi is so closely related to sexual energy, which was noticed by ancient taoists. The art of collecting chi is the art of using the available energy most effectively. The taoist master exercised their inner chi with the help of meditation and repeated simple movements – exercises.

Repetition is the mother of wisdom

Let us summarise it. The power of personality is not measurable in kilos the person is able to lift, but a strong personality is easily recognised from the rest – the not so interesting or average personalities.

Similarly, the life energy chi cannot be measured by the volume of biceps or the amount of squats performed during ten minutes, but is is easily estimated by the age we reach in health. And now let us ask a question – what are repeated exercises good for? Every exercise has a very interesting effect – it connects the spiritual (astral) and material (real) worlds. The impuls for the muscle contraction travel along nerve fibres which are of course material, but the thought which is the cause of the movement is not material itself. We can imagine it simply so that thought as well as information can thanks to will (motivation, wanting) get to the material world and be noticed through electromagnetic impulses. Thought is in the beginning and the muscle motion is at the end. If this is repeated according to a certain scheme, we call it a conditioned reflex. Thoughts, from the magical and esoteric point of view, represent an immaterial world of images, or astral. In the old mythology it was the immortal world of gods that affected the material world of people, animals and plants. The messenger of gods was Mercury, or Hermes. Analogically, we can imagine chi as the energy of the information transfer from the thoughts to the muscles. Chi is then the same as Mercury, or Hermes or we can name chi with todays terminology as the power of the conditioned reflex. That is why chi is strengthened by constant repetition of simple exercises. In other words, through exercising chi, the raw physical power does not grow, only the BODY INTELLIGENCE in the sense of CONNECTION BETWEEN SPIRIT AND MATTER. The extent of chi is shown as the art of using the physical strength available the best. Cultivating chi is like bread making. We get great results, if for further development (making the dough and baking), we use chi already available (yeast or a bit of dough from before).

As it is by now obvious from the definition of chi, exercises for getting chi do not have to be difficult or exhausting, but they have to be repeated regularly and a person must concentrate on the process completelly. Chi, simply put, is the energy of success. Imagine a person who works hard every day, they run at work instead of walking, they want to manage everything, they devote a good deal of their time to any small thing. At the end of the day they still try to catch up with all the urgent issues and then late at night they, physically broken, twist and turn in bed, often bothered by depressive dreams. Another person is calm, almost lazy. They do not hurry uselessly, as drivers they do not make others nervous, because for them it is not difficult to follow even a stupidly low driving speed, but at work they do not waste their time, they hit the bull’s eye. They are not so tired and they are much more successful than a person number one.

Chi also manifests in the practical art of not being an obstacle to other people. Even though it may seem easy, it is not that easy to be able to stand and exist in such way that other people would not stumble over you.

People use money in a similar way as energy. When answering a survey about what they would do after winning ten million dollars, they name stuff that can be bought or speak of some charity, but none of that has a chance to change their boring fate. I have thought about this question a lot and I have come to a conclusion that the only possible solution how to change your fate with money towards the better is to buy success. It is not an original idea at all, many people have come to the same conclusion, but it is sometimes hard to notice it and hard being able to master the art of using your success. It is all about mastering the mysterious chi energy.

Tantra is about sex

Tantra and sexual magic do not awaken the chi through movement and exercise, but through the direct excitation of nerves with the help of thoughts, images and percepts. It is a bit different energy from chi. Sexual energy is called ching, a person produces it in great amount during sexual arousal and they can transform it into chi through meditation and concentration. Or they can discharge it without purpose and gain nothing out of it.

Neither tantra nor sexual magic are sufficient for the chi question, because physical movement and muscle work are much more important for chi than the most sexual of magics. In various modern magazines you can read about the usefulness of sex, in a way that sex is healthy, that is why you should use it as medicine for almost anything. If this theory worked in practice so easily as it is served by the shiny magazines, pornstars and prostitutes would have to be overflowing with health and living much longer. But that is not the case at all.

If you think of exercising tantra, tao-yoga or sexual magic, you should bear in mind that it is a supplement to other exercises for chi energy and that it can be used in a relationship only. All meditations and rituals which use sexual energy are basically about sex. And sex, which according to our culture belongs to the most intimate thing between two loving people, cannot be ‘exercised’ in a group or under professional guidance. All topics related to sex are very sensitive. The minute you start talking about group sex, erotic films, pornography, promiscuity, changing partners or special techniques of genital excitation, not everybody will be friendly. In groups which are supposed to practise tantra, they have to deal with a problem how to make the sexual teaching the most asexual. Then you see people in comfortable tracksuits spending a long time back to back or ear to ear, or massaging elbows or gently tapping on the knee caps which is according to my opinion pure frustration.

If a decent person with their sexual excitation should, according to social rules, hide in their private place, then we should get used to it and not try pretending something higher, exceptional. Tantra is about sex and about sexual connection and also about sexual impact of images, spoken word or erotic dance with the purpose of reaching the most powerful sexual excitement. I am sure that even today there is nice, tasteful and maybe even funny tantric art, for instance in photography or in verbal form, but according to generally accepted principles it is pornography which will be thrown into the same pigeon-hole with other consumer pornography and not even the biggest tantric can change that. So we can only use the surplus chi energy for dealing with it and accepting it.

The end