Research on the Effects of Media Violence
Whether or not exposure to media violence causes increased levels of aggression and violence in young people is the perennial question of media effects research. Some experts, like University of Michigan professor L. Rowell Huesmann, argue that fifty years of evidence show "that exposure to media violence causes children to behave more aggressively and affects them as adults years later." Others, like Jonathan Freedman of the University of Toronto, maintain that "the scientific evidence simply does not show that watching violence either produces violence in people, or desensitizes them to it."
Many Studies, Many Conclusions
Andrea Martinez at the University of Ottawa conducted a comprehensive review of the scientific literature for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1994. She concluded that the lack of consensus about media effects reflects three "grey areas" or constraints contained in the research itself.
First, media violence is notoriously hard to define and measure. Some experts who track violence in television programming, such as George Gerbner of Temple University, define violence as the act (or threat) of injuring or killing someone, independent of the method used or the surrounding context. Accordingly, Gerber includes cartoon violence in his data-set. But others, such as University of Laval professors Guy Paquette and Jacques de Guise, specifically exclude cartoon violence from their research because of its comical and unrealistic presentation.
Second, researchers disagree over the type of relationship the data supports. Some argue that exposure to media violence causes aggression. Others say that the two are associated, but that there is no causal connection. (That both, for instance, may be caused by some third factor.) And others say the data supports the conclusion that there is no relationship between the two at all.
Third, even those who agree that there is a connection between media violence and aggression disagree about how the one effects the other. Some say that the mechanism is a psychological one, rooted in the ways we learn. For example, Huesmann argues that children develop "cognitive scripts" that guide their own behaviour by imitating the actions of media heroes. As they watch violent shows, children learn to internalize scripts that use violence as an appropriate method of problem-solving.
Other researchers argue that it is the physiological effects of media violence that cause aggressive behaviour. Exposure to violent imagery is linked to increased heart rate, faster respiration and higher blood pressure. Some think that this simulated "fight-or-flight" response predisposes people to act aggressively in the real world.
Still others focus on the ways in which media violence primes or cues pre-existing aggressive thoughts and feelings. They argue that an individual’s desire to strike out is justified by media images in which both the hero and the villain use violence to seek revenge, often without consequences.
In her final report to the CRTC, Martinez concluded that most studies support "a positive, though weak, relation between exposure to television violence and aggressive behaviour." Although that relationship cannot be "confirmed systematically," she agrees with Dutch researcher Tom Van der Voot who argues that it would be illogical to conclude that "a phenomenon does not exist simply because it is found at times not to occur, or only to occur under certain circumstances."
What the Researchers Are Saying
The lack of consensus about the relationship between media violence and real-world aggression has not impeded ongoing research. Here’s a sampling of conclusions drawn to date, from the various research strands:
Research strand: Children who consume high levels of media violence are more likely to be aggressive in the real world
In 1956, researchers took to the laboratory to compare the behaviour of 24 children watching TV. Half watched a violent episode of the cartoon Woody Woodpecker, and the other 12 watched the non-violent cartoon The Little Red Hen. During play afterwards, the researchers observed that the children who watched the violent cartoon were much more likely to hit other children and break toys.
Six years later, in 1963, professors A. Badura, D. Ross and S.A. Ross studied the effect of exposure to real-world violence, television violence, and cartoon violence. They divided 100 preschool children into four groups. The first group watched a real person shout insults at an inflatable doll while hitting it with a mallet. The second group watched the incident on television. The third watched a cartoon version of the same scene, and the fourth watched nothing.
When all the children were later exposed to a frustrating situation, the first three groups responded with more aggression than the control group. The children who watched the incident on television were just as aggressive as those who had watched the real person use the mallet; and both were more aggressive than those who had only watched the cartoon.
Over the years, laboratory experiments such as these have consistently shown that exposure to violence is associated with increased heartbeat, blood pressure and respiration rate, and a greater willingness to administer electric shocks to inflict pain or punishment on others. However, this line of enquiry has been criticized because of its focus on short term results and the artificial nature of the viewing environment.
Other scientists have sought to establish a connection between media violence and aggression outside the laboratory. For example, a number of surveys indicate that children and young people who report a preference for violent entertainment also score higher on aggression indexes than those who watch less violent shows. L. Rowell Huesmann reviewed studies conducted in Australia, Finland, Poland, Israel, Netherlands and the United States. He reports, "the child most likely to be aggressive would be the one who (a) watches violent television programs most of the time, (b) believes that these shows portray life just as it is, [and] (c) identifies strongly with the aggressive characters in the shows."
A study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2003 found that nearly half (47 per cent) of parents with children between the ages of 4 and 6 report that their children have imitated aggressive behaviours from TV. However, it is interesting to note that children are more likely to mimic positive behaviours — 87 per cent of kids do so.
Recent research is exploring the effect of new media on children’s behaviour. Craig Anderson and Brad Bushman of Iowa State University reviewed dozens of studies of video gamers. In 2001, they reported that children and young people who play violent video games, even for short periods, are more likely to behave aggressively in the real world; and that both aggressive and non-aggressive children are negatively affected by playing.
In 2003, Craig Anderson and Iowa State University colleague Nicholas Carnagey and Janie Eubanks of the Texas Department of Human Services reported that violent music lyrics increased aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings among 500 college students. They concluded, "There are now good theoretical and empirical reasons to expect effects of music lyrics on aggressive behavior to be similar to the well-studied effects of exposure to TV and movie violence and the more recent research efforts on violent video games."
Research Strand: Children who watch high levels of media violence are at increased risk of aggressive behaviour as adults
In 1960, University of Michigan Professor Leonard Eron studied 856 grade three students living in a semi-rural community in Columbia County, New York, and found that the children who watched violent television at home behaved more aggressively in school. Eron wanted to track the effect of this exposure over the years, so he revisited Columbia County in 1971, when the children who participated in the 1960 study were 19 years of age. He found that boys who watched violent TV when they were eight were more likely to get in trouble with the law as teenagers.
When Eron and Huesmann returned to Columbia County in 1982, the subjects were 30 years old. They reported that those participants who had watched more violent TV as eight-year-olds were more likely, as adults, to be convicted of serious crimes, to use violence to discipline their children, and to treat their spouses aggressively.
Professor Monroe Lefkowitz published similar findings in 1971. Lefkowitz interviewed a group of eight-year-olds and found that the boys who watched more violent TV were more likely to act aggressively in the real world. When he interviewed the same boys ten years later, he found that the more violence a boy watched at eight, the more aggressively he would act at age eighteen.
Columbia University professor Jeffrey Johnson has found that the effect is not limited to violent shows. Johnson tracked 707 families in upstate New York for 17 years, starting in 1975. In 2002, Johnson reported that children who watched one to three hours of television each day when they were 14 to 16 years old were 60 per cent more likely to be involved in assaults and fights as adults than those who watched less TV.
Kansas State University professor John Murray concludes, "The most plausible interpretation of this pattern of correlations is that early preference for violent television programming and other media is one factor in the production of aggressive and antisocial behavior when the young boy becomes a young man."
However, this line of research has attracted a great deal of controversy. Pullitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes has attacked Eron’s work, arguing that his conclusions are based on an insignificant amount of data. Rhodes claims that Eron had information about the amount of TV viewed in 1960 for only 3 of the 24 men who committed violent crimes as adults years later. Rhodes concludes that Eron’s work is "poorly conceived, scientifically inadequate, biased and sloppy if not actually fraudulent research."
Guy Cumberbatch, head of the Communications Research Group, a U.K. social policy think tank, has equally harsh words for Johnson’s study. Cumberbatch claims Johnson’s group of 88 under-one-hour TV watchers is "so small, it's aberrant." And, as journalist Ben Shouse points out, other critics say that Johnson’s study "can’t rule out the possibility that television is just a marker for some unmeasured environmental or psychological influence on both aggression and TV habits."
Research Strand: The introduction of television into a community leads to an increase in violent behaviour
Researchers have also pursued the link between media violence and real life aggression by examining communities before and after the introduction of television. In the mid 1970s, University of British Columbia professor Tannis McBeth Williams studied a remote village in British Columbia both before and after television was introduced. She found that two years after TV arrived, violent incidents had increased by 160 per cent.
Researchers Gary Granzberg and Jack Steinbring studied three Cree communities in northern Manitoba during the 1970s and early 1980s. They found that four years after television was introduced into one of the communities, the incidence of fist fights and black eyes among the children had increased significantly. Interestingly, several days after an episode of Happy Days aired, in which one character joined a gang called the Red Demons, children in the community created rival gangs, called the Red Demons and the Green Demons, and the conflict between the two seriously disrupted the local school.
University of Washington Professor Brandon Centerwall noted that the sharp increase in the murder rate in North America in 1955 occurred eight years after television sets began to enter North American homes. To test his hypothesis that the two were related, he examined the murder rate in South Africa where, prior to 1975, television was banned by the government. He found that twelve years after the ban was lifted, murder rates skyrocketed.
University of Toronto Professor Jonathan Freedman has criticized this line of research. He points out that Japanese television has some of the most violent imagery in the world, and yet Japan has a much lower murder rate than other countries, including Canada and the United States, which have comparatively less violence on TV.
Research Strand: Media violence stimulates fear in some children
A number of studies have reported that watching media violence frightens young children, and that the effects of this may be long lasting.
In 1998, Professors Singer, Slovak, Frierson and York surveyed 2,000 Ohio students in grades three through eight. They report that the incidences of psychological trauma (including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress) increased in proportion to the number of hours of television watched each day.
A 1999 survey of 500 Rhode Island parents led by Brown University professor Judith Owens revealed that the presence of a television in a child’s bedroom makes it more likely that the child will suffer from sleep disturbances. Nine per cent of all the parents surveyed reported that their children have nightmares because of a television show at least once a week.
Tom Van der Voort studied 314 children aged nine through twelve in 1986. He found that although children can easily distinguish cartoons, westerns and spy thrillers from reality, they often confuse realistic programmes with the real world. When they are unable to integrate the violence in these shows because they can’t follow the plot, they are much more likely to become anxious. This is particularly problematic because the children reported that they prefer realistic programmes, which they equate with fun and excitement. And, as Jacques de Guise reported in 2002, the younger the child, the less likely he or she will be able to identify violent content as violence.
In 1999, Professors Joanne Cantor and K. Harrison studied 138 university students, and found that memories of frightening media images continued to disturb a significant number of participants years later. Over 90 per cent reported they continued to experience fright effects from images they viewed as children, ranging from sleep disturbances to steadfast avoidance of certain situations.
Research Strand: Media violence desensitizes people to real violence
A number of studies in the 1970’s showed that people who are repeatedly exposed to media violence tend to be less disturbed when they witness real world violence, and have less sympathy for its victims. For example, Professors V.B. Cline, R.G. Croft, and S. Courrier studied young boys over a two-year period. In 1973, they reported that boys who watch more than 25 hours of television per week are significantly less likely to be aroused by real world violence than those boys who watch 4 hours or less per week.
When researchers Fred Molitor and Ken Hirsch revisited this line of investigation in 1994, their work confirmed that children are more likely to tolerate aggressive behaviour in the real world if they first watch TV shows or films that contain violent content.
Research Strand: People who watch a lot of media violence tend to believe that the world is more dangerous than it is in reality
George Gerbner has conducted the longest running study of television violence. His seminal research suggests that heavy TV viewers tend to perceive the world in ways that are consistent with the images on TV. As viewers’ perceptions of the world come to conform with the depictions they see on TV, they become more passive, more anxious, and more fearful. Gerbner calls this the "Mean World Syndrome."
Gerbner’s research found that those who watch greater amounts of television are more likely to:
overestimate their risk of being victimized by crime
believe their neighbourhoods are unsafe
believe "fear of crime is a very serious personal problem"
assume the crime rate is increasing, even when it is not
André Gosselin, Jacques de Guise and Guy Paquette decided to test Gerbner’s theory in the Canadian context in 1997. They surveyed 360 university students, and found that heavy television viewers are more likely to believe the world is a more dangerous place. However, they also found heavy viewers are not more likely to actually feel more fearful.
Research Strand: Family attitudes to violent content are more important than the images themselves
A number of studies suggest that media is only one of a number of variables that put children at risk of aggressive behaviour.
For example, a Norwegian study that included 20 at-risk teenaged boys found that the lack of parental rules regulating what the boys watched was a more significant predictor of aggressive behaviour than the amount of media violence they watched. It also indicated that exposure to real world violence, together with exposure to media violence, created an "overload" of violent events. Boys who experienced this overload were more likely to use violent media images to create and consolidate their identities as members of an anti-social and marginalized group.
On the other hand, researchers report that parental attitudes towards media violence can mitigate the impact it has on children. Huesmann and Bacharach conclude, "Family attitudes and social class are stronger determinants of attitudes toward aggression than is the amount of exposure to TV, which is nevertheless a significant but weaker predictor."
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
want 2 learn "Meditation"
Meditation
To be an effective intellectual, it's very useful to make a concentrated effort to learn at least one technique of meditation. For our purposes, this is defined as a system of self-control by which one can stimulate alpha-wave activity in the brain, which is the hallmark of a effective meditation system. We will discuss one technique here that naturally lends itself to being used for magical purposes such as scrying and out-of-body experiences. It is simple and effective, but one may choose another if so desired.
Find a quiet, comfortable place in which to practice, and arrange to be undisturbed for at least an hour or so. Wear loose fitting clothing or better still, no clothing at all.
This style uses what the Yogis call the "dead pose" -- in other words, flat on your back. The surface should be comfortable, but not so much so that it tends to induce sleepiness. A Japanese futon bed is ideal, but a foam pad (like the kind sold in camping supply stores) or a rolled-out sleeping bag are quite acceptable.
Spend several minutes getting "adjusted" so all of the little discomforts are minimized and you can lie undisturbed. You should end up with your arms slightly away from your body and legs slightly spread apart, so no part of your body is in contact with any other part. Then you must lie totally mointionless for the duration of the exercise.
The first step is to begin taking deep, regular breaths; either only through the nose, or breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Try to take an equal length of time breathing in as breathing out. Spend several minutes concentrating only on regular breathing before moving on.
The next step is to focus on individual parts of the body and "relax" each on in turn. Begin with the feet; say to yourself (silently) "my toes are relaxed and light as a cloud". Repeat this phrase until you begin to feel in your toes a sensation of "warmth", "lightness", "tingling" -- the subjective descriptions vary but you'll know it when you get it.
Once you've achieved this, change the phrase to "my feet are relaxed and light as a cloud", and feel the sensation begin to move upward. Proceed in this manner relaxing each body part in turn. Once you have relaxed you legs, proceed to your fingers and up your arms, then the hips, abdomen and chest, converge the sensation at the shoulders and work up to the neck, face back of the head and finally the scalp. Make sure you are thourogh - don't forget such parts as the genitals, buttocks, small of the back, shoulder blades, etc.
When the entire body is relaxed, begin to imagine yourself as if you really are as light as a cloud and you are gently floating up into the air above the cusion. By this point you should feel profoundly relaxed and slightly euphoric. This is a light gnosis-state or "magical trance" that will be exploited later for magical purposes, but for the moment just concentrate on the feeling itself and the way you attained it.
Bring yourself "back" by imagining yourself getting heavier and hevier, in a reversal of the previous procedure. Eventually, slowly begin slight movements of your muscles; flex the toes and fingers, shrug the shoulders, roll the head gently from side to side. Take a few moments to gently "stretch out" before rising from your cushion.
It may take an hour or more to get results at first, or you may only succeed in geting your feet and fingertips to relax and feel "tingly". Regular practice is the key, as it will get easier the more you do it.
This technique of progressive relaxation can also be performed in a comfortable sitting position -- both feet on the floor, arms on armrests, head supported by a pad or pillow. Some people may find this position easier when advancing to the next step of visualization. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to rise and move about while still reamining in the trance state.
If you've never had any meditational training before this, I would strongly urge you to persevere in the practice for at least 4 weeks, spending at least one hour a day. You should strive to be able to enter the "light trance" state at will within a few minutes time. At that point, you're ready for the next step.
Visualization
Visualization is the process of using the imagination to induce specific visual illusions in oneself at will, what Karl Jung called the active imagination. It is the ability to make yourself "see things" that are not physically present by strongly imagining them and behaving as though they were. In other words, self-induced hallucinations.
Magicians hold that sufficiently powerful visualization by one person can have an influence on the psyches of others in their presence as well as themselves. The most mundane example of this phenomenon is the situation where one person stands in a street and looks up at the empty sky intently, as if there were something up there. Within moments a crowd has gathered, all looking up at the same non-existent thing. Some will even swear that they see "something"!
Another example is the effect of watching a performance by an expert pantomime. If s/he describes the "solid" objects of the performance will sufficient skill, the audience will come to "see" the invisible barriers, doors, windstorms, etc. - so much so that people who attend performances by masters such as Marcel Marceau think for brief moments that they actually do see Marceau's invisible "props".
Visualization is one of the "slight-of-mind" tricks that are a part of every magical system ever devised. Remember that magic functions by tapping into the psychological state we call "belief". Powerful visualization is indispensable for putting the magician into a belief state conducive to deriving magical effects.
What follows are some basic exercises in magical visualization. One should first spend some time getting into the first stage of magical trance, then practice these exercises once a day. Many studies have shown that meditation greatly improves one's learning ability, especially immediately after a session, so we may as well take advantage of it, right? The techniques in the following section on Magical Protection can be practiced concurrently with these; the technique of protection described is itself a visualization exercise.
Visualization Practice
A good way to practice visualization and get a handle on what the experience is like is to use the visual phenomenon of "after images" as a learning tool.
For this exercise, you need some brightly colored construction paper (fluorescent colors work particularly well if you can find them), some large white card stock paper (11 x 17 is perfect), scissors, tape or paper glue, and a blank white wall (an extra large piece of white posterboard hung on a wall will do nicely.)
Take some scissors and cut some approximately 1 foot long strips of colored paper about one-quarter inch in width. Now use these to paste or tape together a five-pointed star figure as pictured below:
Mount this on the white card stock. You should end up with what looks like a large flash card with a star in the middle.
Make four of these cards using different colors. The best colors to use in the construction of the star are orange, purple, green and red. The reason will be clear in a moment.
Arrange yourself facing the blank white wall with your "flash cards" in easy reach. The wall should be brightly lit. Choose one of the cards and hold it up in front of your eyes. Stare fixedly at it without moving your eyes for at least one full minute. You may want to pin it to the wall in front of you to avoid having it move. After a minute or two, quickly remove it and stare directly at the blank white wall. You should see an after image of the star figure on the blank wall, in a hue that is the opposite of the card's on the color wheel. (In other words, the orange star will yield a blue image, the purple a yellow image, the green a red image and the red a green image. These are the traditional "Elemental" colors of water, air, fire and earth respectively, and are as good a place to start as any.)
Once you have an after image showing on the blank white wall, try holding your gaze very still and "trace" the apparent outline of the star with your fingertip. This is a typical action used in "setting wards" or traditional banishing rites.
Next you can try doing the same thing, but look out into the room instead of at the blank wall. The after image should seem to float in mid air in front of your eyes. Try tracing it's outline with a fingertip again.
Then try the exercise with all of the different colors. You may have to wait a few moments between each one for the previous image to fade away.
Eventually you can create more and different flash cards to practice with, if you feel inclined.
All this is only to give you an idea of the "look and feel" of magical visualization. The final goal is to be able to "see" the figures, or any other image you choose, by sheer imagination alone. But I've found that these exercises are an excellent way to speed up the learning curve. It gives your memory something on which to hang the visualized perception, making it easier to obtain.
The next step is to practice summoning the images without the use of the cards at all. One way to progress toward this goal is to start by first obtaining the after-image, but trying to keep the image "going" even after the visual effect begins to fade. Progressively use the cards less and less until you can do without them.
Do the above exercises at least once a day for another few weeks at least, while continuing with your meditation sessions. When you find you are able to get yourself into a light trance state in less than 10 minutes, and can visualize simple geometric forms to a reasonable degree of "visibility", you'll have the basic mental disciplines needed to do effective magical work.
The Juggler's Meditation
Here we're going to deviate from the traditional approach. Almost all of the old magical traditions use some form or another of the mental skills described above. However, the general direction of their discipline in almost all cases is to encourage complete stilling of the mind as the goal. Such quieting of the thought processes is a valuable tool, as it can quickly connect one to the Void and the attainment of the gnostic mind-state. However, stopping one's mental processes completely by sheer concentration alone is a damnably hard trick, where even a few seconds of "no-thought" can only be attained by extreme effort. Expect to spend months or even years mastering such a technique.
As an alternative, here's a technique that seems to me to be able to launch one into a gnosis state functionally equal to the scant seconds of mental quiescence obtained by the inhibitory methods mentioned above. It takes an exactly opposite approach to the goal -- call it "meditative overload". It also makes use of the skills of meditation and visualization that you've been practicing (you have been practicing, haven't you?)
Everyone is aware that the mind can be active with several unrelated thought processes at once. If you're walking down a familiar street, one can easily avoid the obstacles of other pedestrians, curbs, traffic, etc. without having to devote conscious awareness to the process. While walking, one can also have a song running through one's head, while at the same time be thinking about a meeting one has later, and what one is going to say at the meeting, AND be buttoning one's jacket or rolling up sleeves all at the same time. This is not unusual at all. So we're going to expand on this mental trick that we all already know how to do.
Start by visualizing a simple form with your eyes closed -- say a bright blue square. Now, instead of trying to quiet your mind, start a song going in your head. Don't stop visualizing the square! Next, pay attention to whatever it is you're standing/sitting/laying on. Feel the texture and the weight of your body on it. Don't stop visualizing the square! Keep the song going! Then, try to recall the smell and taste of a delicious food. Of course, keep the blue square, song and texture active mentally! If you can, keep adding things to concentrate on using a variety of sensory types.
What you'll soon notice is your mind "time-sharing" between the various mental activities -- almost like a juggler catching and tossing the progression of different objects in the air. But this is NOT a contest. The whole idea of this technique is to FAIL. Eventually, you will add one too many mental activities, whatever your own particular capacity might be. Your mind will seem to move faster and faster switching from one conscious awareness to another until ...CLICK! You will drop all of the balls, so to speak. Suddenly, your overloaded mind will shut down, if only for the briefest of seconds. Congratulations - you have hit the gnostic state. This really works -- try it and see.
Sensory Deprivation
Another useful practice is known as sensory deprivation. The effects of extended periods of solitude have been known throughout history; the monk's cell and hermit's cave have a well documented reputation for their effects on the mind. But in the past it was believed that "the power of God" accounted for the experiences described by the meditating monk.
The first scientific experiments in sensory deprivation were conducted by American and Soviet space researchers, to determine the effects of long spaceflights on the mental states of astronauts. To their dismay, it became clear that mild disorientation and loss of time sense resulted after only several hours, with extreme effects such as hallucinations and delusional thinking occuring in less than a couple of days.
But what was horrible to a strict technologist was seen as something useful and desirable to others. One early researcher, Dr. John Lilly, developed the "isolation tank", a coffin-sized enclosure that allowed the subject to be floated in body-temperature salt water in total blackness and silence. His books detail the effects experienced by Lilly and his fellow psychonauts, and they are highly recommended to the student of magic.
The benfit of such a practice is to increase the awareness of one's own internal universe. The subjects of such experiments generally reported that the hallucinations and impressions they experienced were "meaningful" to them in some way. A student of magic is in a particularly privilged position to make use of these effects.
In the past decade or so sensory deprivation has become quite well known, inspiring Hollywood treatments such as the film "Altered States". But the elaborate flotation tanks and other expensive equipment depicted in the film is not neccesary to experience the effects of sensory deprivation. In fact, it has been shown that complete darkness and silence are not required to induce these effects. It can be also accomplished by merely keeping all sensory input uniformly constant.
This is one exercise where it is very useful to have an assistant who can "look after things" while it's going on. Some people, when deprived of sight and hearing, become easily obsessed with the idea that the phone will ring, someone will knock on the door, or the house will catch on fire -- this makes it very hard to relax and immerse oneself in the experience. Another person can also help you set things up, as you will see in the following description.
Deprivation Meditation
There are several commercially marketed "brain-wave" machines available that are used to accomplish the same thing as this exercise, but they tend to be on the expensive side, starting at $100 or so and going up quickly. Using the technique described below you can spend less than 10 bucks (assuming you already own an inexpensive radio/cassette player) and find out if you might want to justify the expense of the fancier machines.
For this exercise you will need the following equipment:
- two white ping pong balls
- two large (4" square) gauze pads
- a razor knife (to slice the pads and ping pong balls)
- medical paper adhesive tape
- a portable "boom box" radio/cassette player
- lightweight stereo headphones
- a desk lamp with a 25 - 60 watt red light bulb
Setting up:
Using the razor knife, slice the ping pong balls in half, and discard the halves with the manufacturer's marks on them. Then cut a hole in each gauze pad slightly smaller than the size of the ping pong ball halves. If you like things neat, cut the corners off of the pads to make them roughly circular. You're going to make a crude pair of "glasses" out of the ping pong balls, using the gauze to pad the edges and the tape to hold them in place over your eyes, as follows:
Place the pads over the eye sockets so that the eyes are looking through the holes. Place the ball halves over the eyes with the edges resting on the gauze. They should clear the eye sockets enough so that blinking does not disturb them. Then the whole thing is gently taped in place.
The radio is tuned to a space between stations where there is no sound but a steady background hiss, known to audio engineers as "white noise". The bass/treble or equalizer controls can be used to soften the sound -- try decreasing the high and the low frequency controls (the bass and treble) until you get a soft, gentle sound like a distant waterfall. The headphones are placed on the ears and the volume adjusted so that the noise drowns out any external sounds.
Finally, turn out all the lights in the room except for the red light bulb -- if possible try to aim it directly at the eyes.
You can now see how useful it is to have an assistant to help!
This can be done either in a comfortable sitting position, or lying down. Once you're all set, plan to spend several minutes just getting comfortable, much as described in the previous section on basic meditation. (In fact, the procedure described there can be used in combination with the sensory deprivation exercise with great effect.) Then try to clear the mind and give free rein to whatever thoughts or images might arise. If you feel like speaking aloud, do so. It's also possible to have the assitant take notes or have a second tape recorder running to make a record.
From this point, the procedure is to basically do nothing, and allow the sensation deprived mind to range where it will. The longer one persists in this exercise the more effective it will be -- expect to spend at least a few hours to get the desired effects. With practice, one can learn to direct the visons one obtains, but this is beyond the scope of this book. I recommend the works of John Lilly to those with an interest in exploring these realms.
Vocal Vibration
There is a power in the voice, and not a single religious or mystical practice fails to take advantage of this fact, magic included.
In various magical texts, one will encounter the term 'vibrate' being used to describe some kinds of vocalization ("Vibrate the following words of power...") In mundane terms, what is being described is the entire human body's ability to resonate sympathetically with the voice, and the sensory effects that can be experienced by doing so. The "secret" of Magic Words is this: it doesn't matter what you say as much as it matters how you say it!
Oprea singers are specifically trained to position their bodies and flex their head muscles in a way that provides maximum resonance for their vocal chord's vibrations. The magician can use the same effect to magical advantage. The chapter on "Basics" provides an example of "vocalizing in the vibratory mode", as I've seen it called in some particularly pompous occult texts, as part of the Gnostic Thunderbolt Ritual. The trick is to learn to feel the resonating effects of different pitches and vowel sounds in specific parts of the body, like the lower belly or the throat. If you have someplace where you are not worried about singing out loud, try singing simple long vowel sounds ("aaaaaaahhhhh...") and shift the position of your head / neck / chest until you can feel the sound of your voice vibrating through your body.
The Death Posture
Mention should be made of what Austin Osman Spare called the "Death Posture". There are several variations on this idea, but they all involve putting the body into an extremely unnatural, uncomfortable position until the point of exhaustion is reached and the conscious mind rebels and collapses, thereby obtaining a gnostic state. This is not unlike various yoga techniques -- the lotus position is not intended to be comfortable! It's intended to cause the mind to overload with discomfort until the body is no longer "felt".
By definition, a "death posture" brings about a sort of short duration "death". So it can be as simple as covering up the eyes, ears and nose with the fingers and "holding your breath until you turn blue" -- in other words, until your conscious mind gets overridden by your autonomic brain function and forces you to draw a breath.
One of Spare's descriptions called for locking your fingers behind your back, pushing them backwards and up as far as you can (until it hurts!) while standing on your toes, holding your breath and tensing all of your muscles until they quiver. Now hold this until you collapse...
The most common use for death postures is the charging of magical sigils, which will be covered in a later chapter.
(*CAUTION* Death postures are physically demanding and should not be used by those with heart or lung conditions, high blood pressure or other ailments that that restrict strenuous physical activity. If in doubt, don't -- there are many other means to accomplish the same thing.)
Applications
Although these techniques can be practiced "for their own sake", I find it far more motivating to have specific goals in mind, even if they are far down the line. This is also in keeping with the general concept of Chaos Magic as being an operative Art, not a form of philosophy. So the next chapter will be dedicated to basics applications of the previous skills in a magical context.
To be an effective intellectual, it's very useful to make a concentrated effort to learn at least one technique of meditation. For our purposes, this is defined as a system of self-control by which one can stimulate alpha-wave activity in the brain, which is the hallmark of a effective meditation system. We will discuss one technique here that naturally lends itself to being used for magical purposes such as scrying and out-of-body experiences. It is simple and effective, but one may choose another if so desired.
Find a quiet, comfortable place in which to practice, and arrange to be undisturbed for at least an hour or so. Wear loose fitting clothing or better still, no clothing at all.
This style uses what the Yogis call the "dead pose" -- in other words, flat on your back. The surface should be comfortable, but not so much so that it tends to induce sleepiness. A Japanese futon bed is ideal, but a foam pad (like the kind sold in camping supply stores) or a rolled-out sleeping bag are quite acceptable.
Spend several minutes getting "adjusted" so all of the little discomforts are minimized and you can lie undisturbed. You should end up with your arms slightly away from your body and legs slightly spread apart, so no part of your body is in contact with any other part. Then you must lie totally mointionless for the duration of the exercise.
The first step is to begin taking deep, regular breaths; either only through the nose, or breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Try to take an equal length of time breathing in as breathing out. Spend several minutes concentrating only on regular breathing before moving on.
The next step is to focus on individual parts of the body and "relax" each on in turn. Begin with the feet; say to yourself (silently) "my toes are relaxed and light as a cloud". Repeat this phrase until you begin to feel in your toes a sensation of "warmth", "lightness", "tingling" -- the subjective descriptions vary but you'll know it when you get it.
Once you've achieved this, change the phrase to "my feet are relaxed and light as a cloud", and feel the sensation begin to move upward. Proceed in this manner relaxing each body part in turn. Once you have relaxed you legs, proceed to your fingers and up your arms, then the hips, abdomen and chest, converge the sensation at the shoulders and work up to the neck, face back of the head and finally the scalp. Make sure you are thourogh - don't forget such parts as the genitals, buttocks, small of the back, shoulder blades, etc.
When the entire body is relaxed, begin to imagine yourself as if you really are as light as a cloud and you are gently floating up into the air above the cusion. By this point you should feel profoundly relaxed and slightly euphoric. This is a light gnosis-state or "magical trance" that will be exploited later for magical purposes, but for the moment just concentrate on the feeling itself and the way you attained it.
Bring yourself "back" by imagining yourself getting heavier and hevier, in a reversal of the previous procedure. Eventually, slowly begin slight movements of your muscles; flex the toes and fingers, shrug the shoulders, roll the head gently from side to side. Take a few moments to gently "stretch out" before rising from your cushion.
It may take an hour or more to get results at first, or you may only succeed in geting your feet and fingertips to relax and feel "tingly". Regular practice is the key, as it will get easier the more you do it.
This technique of progressive relaxation can also be performed in a comfortable sitting position -- both feet on the floor, arms on armrests, head supported by a pad or pillow. Some people may find this position easier when advancing to the next step of visualization. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to rise and move about while still reamining in the trance state.
If you've never had any meditational training before this, I would strongly urge you to persevere in the practice for at least 4 weeks, spending at least one hour a day. You should strive to be able to enter the "light trance" state at will within a few minutes time. At that point, you're ready for the next step.
Visualization
Visualization is the process of using the imagination to induce specific visual illusions in oneself at will, what Karl Jung called the active imagination. It is the ability to make yourself "see things" that are not physically present by strongly imagining them and behaving as though they were. In other words, self-induced hallucinations.
Magicians hold that sufficiently powerful visualization by one person can have an influence on the psyches of others in their presence as well as themselves. The most mundane example of this phenomenon is the situation where one person stands in a street and looks up at the empty sky intently, as if there were something up there. Within moments a crowd has gathered, all looking up at the same non-existent thing. Some will even swear that they see "something"!
Another example is the effect of watching a performance by an expert pantomime. If s/he describes the "solid" objects of the performance will sufficient skill, the audience will come to "see" the invisible barriers, doors, windstorms, etc. - so much so that people who attend performances by masters such as Marcel Marceau think for brief moments that they actually do see Marceau's invisible "props".
Visualization is one of the "slight-of-mind" tricks that are a part of every magical system ever devised. Remember that magic functions by tapping into the psychological state we call "belief". Powerful visualization is indispensable for putting the magician into a belief state conducive to deriving magical effects.
What follows are some basic exercises in magical visualization. One should first spend some time getting into the first stage of magical trance, then practice these exercises once a day. Many studies have shown that meditation greatly improves one's learning ability, especially immediately after a session, so we may as well take advantage of it, right? The techniques in the following section on Magical Protection can be practiced concurrently with these; the technique of protection described is itself a visualization exercise.
Visualization Practice
A good way to practice visualization and get a handle on what the experience is like is to use the visual phenomenon of "after images" as a learning tool.
For this exercise, you need some brightly colored construction paper (fluorescent colors work particularly well if you can find them), some large white card stock paper (11 x 17 is perfect), scissors, tape or paper glue, and a blank white wall (an extra large piece of white posterboard hung on a wall will do nicely.)
Take some scissors and cut some approximately 1 foot long strips of colored paper about one-quarter inch in width. Now use these to paste or tape together a five-pointed star figure as pictured below:
Mount this on the white card stock. You should end up with what looks like a large flash card with a star in the middle.
Make four of these cards using different colors. The best colors to use in the construction of the star are orange, purple, green and red. The reason will be clear in a moment.
Arrange yourself facing the blank white wall with your "flash cards" in easy reach. The wall should be brightly lit. Choose one of the cards and hold it up in front of your eyes. Stare fixedly at it without moving your eyes for at least one full minute. You may want to pin it to the wall in front of you to avoid having it move. After a minute or two, quickly remove it and stare directly at the blank white wall. You should see an after image of the star figure on the blank wall, in a hue that is the opposite of the card's on the color wheel. (In other words, the orange star will yield a blue image, the purple a yellow image, the green a red image and the red a green image. These are the traditional "Elemental" colors of water, air, fire and earth respectively, and are as good a place to start as any.)
Once you have an after image showing on the blank white wall, try holding your gaze very still and "trace" the apparent outline of the star with your fingertip. This is a typical action used in "setting wards" or traditional banishing rites.
Next you can try doing the same thing, but look out into the room instead of at the blank wall. The after image should seem to float in mid air in front of your eyes. Try tracing it's outline with a fingertip again.
Then try the exercise with all of the different colors. You may have to wait a few moments between each one for the previous image to fade away.
Eventually you can create more and different flash cards to practice with, if you feel inclined.
All this is only to give you an idea of the "look and feel" of magical visualization. The final goal is to be able to "see" the figures, or any other image you choose, by sheer imagination alone. But I've found that these exercises are an excellent way to speed up the learning curve. It gives your memory something on which to hang the visualized perception, making it easier to obtain.
The next step is to practice summoning the images without the use of the cards at all. One way to progress toward this goal is to start by first obtaining the after-image, but trying to keep the image "going" even after the visual effect begins to fade. Progressively use the cards less and less until you can do without them.
Do the above exercises at least once a day for another few weeks at least, while continuing with your meditation sessions. When you find you are able to get yourself into a light trance state in less than 10 minutes, and can visualize simple geometric forms to a reasonable degree of "visibility", you'll have the basic mental disciplines needed to do effective magical work.
The Juggler's Meditation
Here we're going to deviate from the traditional approach. Almost all of the old magical traditions use some form or another of the mental skills described above. However, the general direction of their discipline in almost all cases is to encourage complete stilling of the mind as the goal. Such quieting of the thought processes is a valuable tool, as it can quickly connect one to the Void and the attainment of the gnostic mind-state. However, stopping one's mental processes completely by sheer concentration alone is a damnably hard trick, where even a few seconds of "no-thought" can only be attained by extreme effort. Expect to spend months or even years mastering such a technique.
As an alternative, here's a technique that seems to me to be able to launch one into a gnosis state functionally equal to the scant seconds of mental quiescence obtained by the inhibitory methods mentioned above. It takes an exactly opposite approach to the goal -- call it "meditative overload". It also makes use of the skills of meditation and visualization that you've been practicing (you have been practicing, haven't you?)
Everyone is aware that the mind can be active with several unrelated thought processes at once. If you're walking down a familiar street, one can easily avoid the obstacles of other pedestrians, curbs, traffic, etc. without having to devote conscious awareness to the process. While walking, one can also have a song running through one's head, while at the same time be thinking about a meeting one has later, and what one is going to say at the meeting, AND be buttoning one's jacket or rolling up sleeves all at the same time. This is not unusual at all. So we're going to expand on this mental trick that we all already know how to do.
Start by visualizing a simple form with your eyes closed -- say a bright blue square. Now, instead of trying to quiet your mind, start a song going in your head. Don't stop visualizing the square! Next, pay attention to whatever it is you're standing/sitting/laying on. Feel the texture and the weight of your body on it. Don't stop visualizing the square! Keep the song going! Then, try to recall the smell and taste of a delicious food. Of course, keep the blue square, song and texture active mentally! If you can, keep adding things to concentrate on using a variety of sensory types.
What you'll soon notice is your mind "time-sharing" between the various mental activities -- almost like a juggler catching and tossing the progression of different objects in the air. But this is NOT a contest. The whole idea of this technique is to FAIL. Eventually, you will add one too many mental activities, whatever your own particular capacity might be. Your mind will seem to move faster and faster switching from one conscious awareness to another until ...CLICK! You will drop all of the balls, so to speak. Suddenly, your overloaded mind will shut down, if only for the briefest of seconds. Congratulations - you have hit the gnostic state. This really works -- try it and see.
Sensory Deprivation
Another useful practice is known as sensory deprivation. The effects of extended periods of solitude have been known throughout history; the monk's cell and hermit's cave have a well documented reputation for their effects on the mind. But in the past it was believed that "the power of God" accounted for the experiences described by the meditating monk.
The first scientific experiments in sensory deprivation were conducted by American and Soviet space researchers, to determine the effects of long spaceflights on the mental states of astronauts. To their dismay, it became clear that mild disorientation and loss of time sense resulted after only several hours, with extreme effects such as hallucinations and delusional thinking occuring in less than a couple of days.
But what was horrible to a strict technologist was seen as something useful and desirable to others. One early researcher, Dr. John Lilly, developed the "isolation tank", a coffin-sized enclosure that allowed the subject to be floated in body-temperature salt water in total blackness and silence. His books detail the effects experienced by Lilly and his fellow psychonauts, and they are highly recommended to the student of magic.
The benfit of such a practice is to increase the awareness of one's own internal universe. The subjects of such experiments generally reported that the hallucinations and impressions they experienced were "meaningful" to them in some way. A student of magic is in a particularly privilged position to make use of these effects.
In the past decade or so sensory deprivation has become quite well known, inspiring Hollywood treatments such as the film "Altered States". But the elaborate flotation tanks and other expensive equipment depicted in the film is not neccesary to experience the effects of sensory deprivation. In fact, it has been shown that complete darkness and silence are not required to induce these effects. It can be also accomplished by merely keeping all sensory input uniformly constant.
This is one exercise where it is very useful to have an assistant who can "look after things" while it's going on. Some people, when deprived of sight and hearing, become easily obsessed with the idea that the phone will ring, someone will knock on the door, or the house will catch on fire -- this makes it very hard to relax and immerse oneself in the experience. Another person can also help you set things up, as you will see in the following description.
Deprivation Meditation
There are several commercially marketed "brain-wave" machines available that are used to accomplish the same thing as this exercise, but they tend to be on the expensive side, starting at $100 or so and going up quickly. Using the technique described below you can spend less than 10 bucks (assuming you already own an inexpensive radio/cassette player) and find out if you might want to justify the expense of the fancier machines.
For this exercise you will need the following equipment:
- two white ping pong balls
- two large (4" square) gauze pads
- a razor knife (to slice the pads and ping pong balls)
- medical paper adhesive tape
- a portable "boom box" radio/cassette player
- lightweight stereo headphones
- a desk lamp with a 25 - 60 watt red light bulb
Setting up:
Using the razor knife, slice the ping pong balls in half, and discard the halves with the manufacturer's marks on them. Then cut a hole in each gauze pad slightly smaller than the size of the ping pong ball halves. If you like things neat, cut the corners off of the pads to make them roughly circular. You're going to make a crude pair of "glasses" out of the ping pong balls, using the gauze to pad the edges and the tape to hold them in place over your eyes, as follows:
Place the pads over the eye sockets so that the eyes are looking through the holes. Place the ball halves over the eyes with the edges resting on the gauze. They should clear the eye sockets enough so that blinking does not disturb them. Then the whole thing is gently taped in place.
The radio is tuned to a space between stations where there is no sound but a steady background hiss, known to audio engineers as "white noise". The bass/treble or equalizer controls can be used to soften the sound -- try decreasing the high and the low frequency controls (the bass and treble) until you get a soft, gentle sound like a distant waterfall. The headphones are placed on the ears and the volume adjusted so that the noise drowns out any external sounds.
Finally, turn out all the lights in the room except for the red light bulb -- if possible try to aim it directly at the eyes.
You can now see how useful it is to have an assistant to help!
This can be done either in a comfortable sitting position, or lying down. Once you're all set, plan to spend several minutes just getting comfortable, much as described in the previous section on basic meditation. (In fact, the procedure described there can be used in combination with the sensory deprivation exercise with great effect.) Then try to clear the mind and give free rein to whatever thoughts or images might arise. If you feel like speaking aloud, do so. It's also possible to have the assitant take notes or have a second tape recorder running to make a record.
From this point, the procedure is to basically do nothing, and allow the sensation deprived mind to range where it will. The longer one persists in this exercise the more effective it will be -- expect to spend at least a few hours to get the desired effects. With practice, one can learn to direct the visons one obtains, but this is beyond the scope of this book. I recommend the works of John Lilly to those with an interest in exploring these realms.
Vocal Vibration
There is a power in the voice, and not a single religious or mystical practice fails to take advantage of this fact, magic included.
In various magical texts, one will encounter the term 'vibrate' being used to describe some kinds of vocalization ("Vibrate the following words of power...") In mundane terms, what is being described is the entire human body's ability to resonate sympathetically with the voice, and the sensory effects that can be experienced by doing so. The "secret" of Magic Words is this: it doesn't matter what you say as much as it matters how you say it!
Oprea singers are specifically trained to position their bodies and flex their head muscles in a way that provides maximum resonance for their vocal chord's vibrations. The magician can use the same effect to magical advantage. The chapter on "Basics" provides an example of "vocalizing in the vibratory mode", as I've seen it called in some particularly pompous occult texts, as part of the Gnostic Thunderbolt Ritual. The trick is to learn to feel the resonating effects of different pitches and vowel sounds in specific parts of the body, like the lower belly or the throat. If you have someplace where you are not worried about singing out loud, try singing simple long vowel sounds ("aaaaaaahhhhh...") and shift the position of your head / neck / chest until you can feel the sound of your voice vibrating through your body.
The Death Posture
Mention should be made of what Austin Osman Spare called the "Death Posture". There are several variations on this idea, but they all involve putting the body into an extremely unnatural, uncomfortable position until the point of exhaustion is reached and the conscious mind rebels and collapses, thereby obtaining a gnostic state. This is not unlike various yoga techniques -- the lotus position is not intended to be comfortable! It's intended to cause the mind to overload with discomfort until the body is no longer "felt".
By definition, a "death posture" brings about a sort of short duration "death". So it can be as simple as covering up the eyes, ears and nose with the fingers and "holding your breath until you turn blue" -- in other words, until your conscious mind gets overridden by your autonomic brain function and forces you to draw a breath.
One of Spare's descriptions called for locking your fingers behind your back, pushing them backwards and up as far as you can (until it hurts!) while standing on your toes, holding your breath and tensing all of your muscles until they quiver. Now hold this until you collapse...
The most common use for death postures is the charging of magical sigils, which will be covered in a later chapter.
(*CAUTION* Death postures are physically demanding and should not be used by those with heart or lung conditions, high blood pressure or other ailments that that restrict strenuous physical activity. If in doubt, don't -- there are many other means to accomplish the same thing.)
Applications
Although these techniques can be practiced "for their own sake", I find it far more motivating to have specific goals in mind, even if they are far down the line. This is also in keeping with the general concept of Chaos Magic as being an operative Art, not a form of philosophy. So the next chapter will be dedicated to basics applications of the previous skills in a magical context.
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