For some forty years the School of Wicca has taught a (correspondence) course in meditation and astral travel; we have written a book outlining the way to improve your success rate and to enter deep states of both activities (Frost and Frost: Astral Travel). We have also published a DVD on the same subject.
The requirement that the School's enrolled students submit feedback from their work has equipped us to refine and improve both the instructions and the students' success rate. It has shown quite clearly that various methods of releasing endorphines dramatically improve these success rates. The endorphines are endogenous morphine; that is, morphine produced by the body itself in the pituitary gland and in the hypothalamus. Such endorphines are produced by:
1. sustained exercise - This is sometimes called the runner's high since it is experienced by runners who push beyond their normal limits--through the burn, if you will;
2. excitement - Any form of unusual experience that produces an excited state will produce endorphines. This can be as simple as going for the first time to a naturist camp or viewing a particularly exciting sequence in a movie;
3. pain - In former times when the lash was used and when boys were caned in school, there were reports that some individuals deliberately misbehaved so that they could re-experience the high occurring after the pain finished. Soldiers wounded in battle get a reduced pain level because the body reflexively produces endorphines to produce an analgesic effect;
4. consumption of spicy food or dark chocolate and red wine - For some reason that we don't yet understand, highly spiced food produces endorphines, as does dark bitter chocolate eaten with red wine, especially dark red Chilean wine.
5. falling in love and (later in the relationship) orgasms produce a large endorphine rush;
6. moving to a beat - Ballroom dancing is a perfect example of this: Yvonne clearly enters an altered state the minute she hits that dance floor with a partner who has almost any level of skill.
Looking at these various ways to produce endorphines, we can understand the basis for certain elements in the initiation ceremonies that are traditional in some Wiccan paths: dancing till they drop; having orgasm(s); and being whipped; eating chocolate and drinking red wine. All these experiences produce effects that help change the participants' state of consciousness.
Combining two or three of the best-known methods of getting into a relaxed, exhilarated state, allows rapid access to other levels of awareness.
Since most work on endorphines is quite recent, it is encouraging to us that initiation ceremonies were designed to produce specific results that help in achieving their ends. It therefore behooves us not to disregard or hastily spurn any step in a traditional ceremony or rite of passage. Instead of brushing aside such a heritage, let us feel a sense of gratitude for the knowledge won so hard after centuries of trial-and-error by our spiritual forebears. They worked from a cold start to gain the knowledge that careless people today may not appropriately honor through simple ignorance.
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Greetings Gavin and Yvonne(and you too Jo lol) That reminds me of the show "Good Times" when the mayor came to visit the Evans family and thier friend Wilona was there. He would say "Hello to my favorite family the Evans's and you too Wilona" Ok I can relate to your post on endorphines, I get it through exercise and for instance after walking through the snow up here in Beckley where actually Im staying in a teepee while writing my movie. Extremes from one temperature to the next can cause a rush. When I first visualize a scene from my movie that "moves me" if I get goose bumps I take note of the scene I was visualizing and know it will work for the movie. Speaking of dancing it would be fantastic to see you and Yvonne do Flamenco which I imagine you are predispositioned to perform being Archflamen and flamenca of the church. I have your book Astral Travel with me and some of my most fun I have had has been flying dreams when I know Im doing it and can control the flight. A scene I am formulating for "The Early Years" the first woman presidents college experience,is to have weightless lovemaking by two of my characters in a spaceflight simulator or perhaps even a spacecraft, my research says this hasnt been done in a major motion picture. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel I have been using "Screenwriting For Idiots" formulas to make sure my movie has proper format and marketability,even though Im confident on Russian investors. While on the subject on sticking with the program I will be mailing in my answers to the introductory questions for your course and understand the logic of progressing at a reasonable pace. Many times in the past I open a psychic window just a crack and fling it wide hurling myself through willy nilly without regard to what may lay on the other side. It reminds of a verse from a Rush song "Mystic Rhythms"
We sometimes catch a window,a glimpse of whats beyond, was it just imagination stringing us along,more things than I dreamed about unseen and unexplained,we suspend our disbelief,we are entertained. Mystic Rhythms capture my thoughts carry them away, nature seems to spin a supernatural way, mystic rhythms under Northern lights or the African sun, primitive things stir the hearts of everyone.
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