Being new to the practice as practice, I had no clear conception of what that really meant. At that time, my best idea of what a high-level Master was was George Gurdjieff.

I’m not sure how I would have articulated it then, but if I were to try to do that now – looking back at myself as I was then, through the lens of all that’s come to pass since then – I’d say… what appealed to me about him was his immense strength.

Not his power; that’s an important distinction.

I was not so impressed by his ability to impress his will upon the world and the people in it – though he could do that, and did do that from time to time, as the context called for it.

I think of something from Nietzsche, which I first read in a short book called Why I Am So Wise – I got that at age 24, when I was working at Borders Books:

The Hammer Speaks

‘Why so hard?’ the charcoal once said to the diamond; ‘for are we not close

relations?’

Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: for are you not – my brothers?

Why so soft, unresisting and yielding? Why is there so much denial and

abnegation in your hearts? So little fate in your glances?

And if you will not be fates, if you will not be inexorable: how can you –

conquer with me?

And if your hardness will not flash and cut and cut to pieces: how can you

one day – create with me?

For all creators are hard. And it must seem bliss to you to press your hand

upon millennia as upon wax,

bliss to write upon the will of millennia as upon metal – harder than metal,

nobler than metal. Only the noblest is perfectly hard.

This new law-table do I put over you, O my brothers: Become hard!

I remember being really impressed by that, as I was by some other of Nietzsche’s writing – it has a taste of high poetry, nobility, wisdom, a certain dispassionate coldness – the flavor of living on mountain-peaks.

But it also expresses what I’m trying to point out: that it’s easy to muddle the distinction between strength and power, and not only does Nietzsche do it there, he does it generally.

Anaxios, anathema.

*spit*

But he reaches for the hem of the gown of what I saw in Gurdjieff that I loved so well: he was hard.

Not the hard of a gang-banger.

Not the born again hard of a soulless D.I.D. goon from Full Metal Jacket.

No; he had the inner spiritual hardness that is born of voluntary suffering… conscious labor… and always considering externally, never considering internally.

In a word, he’d yoked his will to something high and holy, and inured himself to the pain of pulling its plow.

I liked that.

And yes, he was intelligent… subtle... broadly, deeply knowledgeable… charismatic… funny, wise, and multi-faceted like an artfully cut gem.

But it was that inner strength that I loved most.

I tried a lot to understand him, but never really got far – not till I started doing my Spring Forest Qigong practice in earnest, which brings me back to my point.

So, I called on Gurdjieff as my Master, not really knowing what that meant, not really knowing how to do that or what might happen.

And do you know what happened?

I remember two very clear, ultra life-like dreams I had of him around that time. I’ve since come to learn – these are real visitations.

With a practice like Spring Forest Qigong, you are making a very real connection with living intelligences, receiving very real information and energy from them.

Like it said in the Level One manual – with your love, devotion, high respect, and consistent application in calling on your Master’s energy, you’re turning the dial of your radio to his “station” and becoming a channel to receive the vibrations (and all the information and energy carried on them) transmitted at his unique frequency.

This is not conceptual; this is real, and is experienced through praxis.

In one dream, I was surprised to find myself in a room, a broad, open space, in the center of which was a man playing piano. It was the most beautiful music, like nothing I had ever heard – so sweetly sorrowful, so moving. I was transfixed, listening and watching this man whose back was to me.

He stopped playing, turned slowly around in the silence, and looked at me. In his eyes, I saw a deep, tremendous sorrow and compassion – it makes me cry even to write this now, eight and more years later.

I’m getting ahead of myself, but I would say that now, that’s my criterion for what I value in a Master.

Without that deep compassion, that deep world-sorrow, and soft eyes filled with immeasurable love – a Master is nothing, though he has all the power in the world.

But after having gazed at me with those deep and sorrowful eyes, Master Gurdjieff gave me an assessment: “Until you make a genuine effort, consistently applying yourself every day to your spiritual practice, you will get nowhere.”

I was deeply offended, of course, and protested, and justified myself – and Gurdjieff just looked at me, silent. I knew he was right. He knew I knew he was right. What else was there to be said?

I kept doing my Spring Forest Qigong practice, as you can read about elsewhere here.

Some time later, I had a second dream with Gurdjieff, just as vivid as the first, though entirely different in tone.

This time, I was in a classroom with maybe ten or so other students of different types – a lot like my high school English teacher’s classroom, in fact. I was even sitting at the kind of desk I’d had in that teacher’s class.

Gurdjieff was walking from desk to desk, giving brief assessments of each student – “This one is asleep,” “This one has no hope,” “This one needs more work,” and so on.

He came to me – standing, while I sat, – and turned a warm, benevolent, fatherly gaze down at me, saying something like, “You have awakened the witness. That is already enough, already a big achievement.”

What does that mean?

I think of Christian saints, and even of some of the Qigong Masters I got to see up close and personal over the years.

Does Mastery or sainthood mean perfection? Sinlessness?

No.

I would say it means, at least in large part, an awakening to conscience.

Gurdjieff talked about this – that everyone has a conscience, everyone is born with one, and everywhere in the world, in every human, it is the same.

Morals are one thing here, another thing there – subjective, – but conscience always is the same – objective.

But, by some strange design, or marring of a design, sooner or later it goes to sleep in all of us.

And, though this may be getting ahead of myself again, in some cases, some of us kill our conscience. Such a person, a willful killer of his conscience, Gurdjieff calls a “Hasnamuss.”

But… leaving aside, for now, those killers of conscience, Cains of their own inner world, the point is that one of our first steps on a genuine spiritual path is waking up the sleeping conscience.

Gurdjieff had many ways to help his students experience that – that may be beside the point today.

But what I’m saying is, once that inner witness, the conscience, is awake, now we’re in a good, if a strange, position.

Good, from the spiritual perspective, strange, from the worldly perspective.

Meaning, though this isn’t to say that waking the sleeping conscience is a “one and done” sort of deal – we certainly can choose to neglect it, ignore it, or even worse – cut its throat and bury it again in a shallow grave – once it’s awake, it’s not as hard as you think to keep it awake.

Or, maybe I’m saying that with the casual glibness of someone who’s been practicing this for a very, very long time, living by conscience seeming to be a quality that goes back to my early days:

I missed my calling as a monk, though I’ve done my best to live that life while in the world.

What I’m saying is, all you’ve got to do is keep at least one eye – or ear, or nostril, or other sensory neuron-complex – turned inward at all times, attuned to what Little Miss Conscience has to say.

I say Miss Conscience because, in a way, it can be helpful to see it as a beautiful little girl of 5 or 6, wearing cute little black buckle-up shoes, and a clean, bright little frilly dress.

Artist's rendition of Little Miss Conscience.

She’s tender. Sweet. Kind. Pure. Gentle. Delicate. Weak.

She can’t force anything. Her voice isn’t that loud. She can’t argue with you on any sort of intellectual level.

In fact, if you yourself aren’t kind, gentle, quiet, still, attentive, protective, and solicitous of her needs, you might not notice when she’s trying to say something.

Anyway.

All that is to say… wake conscience up, keep an ear turned inward at all times, and you’ve already done… mmm... 80% of the work.

I think Gurdjieff was right to give me a warm, paternal smile for that.

And, coming back to the point, sainthood isn’t about moral perfection or sinlessness, though those things may come by the way as an inevitable result, somewhere down the line.

I think of St. Mary of Egypt, who walked the long road from profligate whore-for-leisure to master-desert-ascetic, till at last she walked on water.

How did she get there?

Always listening to her awakened conscience.

As I said – a good thing from the spiritual perspective, a strange thing from the worldly perspective. I’ll come back to that.

I said that 80% of the work was just waking up the conscience.

The other 20% is… mercilessly following the direction of the conscience, at all costs to yourself, every moment for the rest of your life.

And the funny thing is, that little girl, Miss Conscience, is both the sweetest, tenderest little thing you could ever imagine, and the most iron-hard task-master you could ever meet.

What I mean is, as I said before: she won’t force anything. She won’t dazzle you with any high rhetoric or intricate intellectual arguments. She’ll simply say, Are you sure you should do that? Is that right?

But with those soft, quiet questions, she’ll cut you to the quick, convict you, and put two clear choices in front of you that – well, will put you in the position of either cutting her throat or sowing more thorns in your outer world.

And this is what I mean by good from the spiritual perspective, strange from the worldly perspective.

When you take the path of sowing thorns in your outer world, in the eyes of the world of sleeping consciences, you’re difficult, or inscrutable, or unpredictable, or cold, or aloof, or unreliable, or a failure.

With those labels and their stink on you, good luck making yourself an easy way through life, in any respect. I’m telling you from experience.

But thorns in the outer world yield roses in the inner world, in law-able compensation, as Gurdjieff said, and as I wrote about elsewhere here.

When you take the path of cutting the throat of Little Miss Conscience, you walk the path of public plaudit, sure, but that’s just another name for the path of Cain, Red-Handed Ur-Father of All Hasnamusses.

Is this self-indulgent?

I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night. A Master visited me, and while I can’t say that’s the whole reason for this rambling, it’s part of it.

But I said… I have… some questions.

All that having been said…

I’ve had quite a lot on my mind. I don’t think it’s wise, or right, or circumspect, to “air it all out” here – not explicitly, anyway.

But… I don’t want to say nothing.

So let me say it this way.

It is quite true: when you practice Spring Forest Qigong, when you call on your Master’s energy, you really are putting up your antenna and turning your dial to his station, so that real energy and information begins to come to you – especially, specifically, if you’re “calling” on him in a full, whole sense – not just verbally, but through a total transformation of your inner and outer behaviors in imitation of him.

As Master Lin says, too… first, you make sure the Master you choose has a pure heart and strong healing energy, and second, you only pick one Master – so that you can establish a strong, deep connection through ongoing relationship with him.

Through that relationship-connection, you can receive everything you need, including help or instruction from other Masters, as needed.

Call it a spiritual referral-service, if you like.

I’ve had this experience, and so have the Qigong Masters that I met.

And it is quite true, what Master Lin says: that simply by practicing the most basic-level Qigong he teaches, even just the physical movements from Level One or Five Elements, you can reach the highest levels, or as high a level as any student attending advanced retreats reaches.

I’m not saying that I’m at the highest level; but I will say that, definitely, just by doing what I shared above, I’ve come to experience and understand things that are shared as formal teachings in the higher-level classes and retreats.

Meaning, I had these experiences, noted them, did my best to process and contextualize them, and finally when I was exposed to higher-level teachings, realized many times that I had already learned and experienced them through my simple, low-level practice.

There are too many examples. I couldn’t remember them all if I tried.

But a couple examples, to come to the point I’m getting at…

All the time, I’ll have dreams, or someone or something will come to mind, and sooner or later, they “come true” or “come to pass.” It took me a while to begin to notice that consistently, take note, and start mapping and verifying correlations and correspondences. But what can I say? Experience has borne the truth of it out.

Or, many times, I’ll have an experience like this one I had a few years ago.

In the laundry room of the apartment-complex I lived in for a while, one day a woman I didn’t know walked in. She struck up a conversation and began pouring out her emotions – I mean, on and on.

At some point, she got to the point – she had been doing care-taking work for some elderly woman who had died. I didn’t know this person or the woman who had died, but as she said that, immediately the Qi blockages this woman had had came to mind: liver, kidneys, heart, lower back. Something close to that.

Then, the woman talking to me told me what the old woman had died of – heart and kidney issues.

Maybe 15 or 20 years ago this would have amazed me, and in a sense it still does every time it happens; but in reality, in the Qigong healing world, this is low-level stuff.

But my question is – where is this information coming from? 

Yes, I do think human Qi Fields interact and sometimes information is instantaneously transmitted between them as a consequence of their interaction – in part based on a subconscious need from the transmitter (“I need healing”) and a subconscious signal being put out by the recipient (“I will help you heal”).

This is something on a more human level.

But what I’m getting at is… we can certainly put our antennas up, turn the dial to a certain frequency, and receive a clear and specific signal.

But, what’s implied by that is that there are endless “radio stations” out there putting out all kinds of signals (with all kinds of information and energy), and our antennas can pick them up, too.

What I’m asking is – how can we discern and distinguish what is what? And – just because we turn the dial to one station, does that mean other signals can’t come through, anyway?

Again, and especially as a “novice” newly-entered into this unseen world of subtle, airy influences – how are we able to tell what’s what? Is it all good? Is there evil? And is evil always apparently evil? Can it sound good? Can it feel good? Can it do good, too?

Again, I may be getting ahead of myself, but I come back to Little Miss Conscience.

I was listening to a series of podcasts recently – helpful from certain perspectives, insufferable from other perspectives. I try to come back to saints – sainthood isn’t sinlessness – and so try not to judge too unkindly.

To the point, in a recent episode I listened to, one of the participant-speakers asked the “spiritual heavyweight” of the group a question that I felt was emblematic or representative of his “vibe” as a whole.

I don’t want to be too vague and allusive, but I’m also being respectful. They’re all Orthodox Christians, and one is a priest. The question-asker is a novice, baptized and living a life of prayer to the best of his ability.

But he asked, What’s the difference between feelings and emotions? What’s the difference between intuition and emotions? How can I tell what’s what?

I could go on and on, as I’ve been doing, but to cut to the point: he’s still living in his head, struggling to live in his heart, and lacks proficiency and fluency in the language of feeling that intuition speaks with.

I heard his line of questioning and his attempt to “talk through it,” and was like, “Oh wow. I’m years ahead of this.”

Being by nature introverted and introspective; having spent a long childhood and young adulthood in solitude and loneliness; then, having really dived into my Spring Forest Qigong practice in earnest… sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, I’ve cultivated and developed the fluency and proficiency in that inner language of feeling by which we discern the natures of various influences and tease out the fine golden thread of Little Miss Conscience’s voice from the tangled, knotted web of frequencies that, sometimes, enmesh it.

Not to say I’m a Master, because I’m not.

What I’m saying is… the answer is Conscience.

What was the question again?

When we enter the world of subtle, unseen, airy influences, especially as a novice, how do we tell one voice and influence from another? Is it all good, or is there evil in the mix, too? What forms can evil take, and how do we tease them out?

The answer is that you have to always be listening to Conscience – and listening in both senses of the word: both attending to its voice and carrying out its directives.

Clearly, even under the guidance of a wise and attentive spiritual father, imbued with the grace of God by baptism and chrismation, it’s still a process and a struggle to learn to listen to the voice of conscience.

So, one and all, we have to learn to discern.

And so, speaking of tangled webs of frequencies, or voices, I come to the question – is every thought we have ours?

Or better, is ANY thought we have ours?

Master Nance said this a few years ago, and it’s begun to have new meaning and resonance for me lately: “We don’t have thoughts; thoughts come through us.”

Again to cut to the point… according to Orthodox Christianity, such as I understand it, as borne out by the long experience of the monastic tradition of nepsis (inner watchfulness), hesychia (practiced stillness), and the concomitant weeding of the inner garden of the mind-heart-body in line with the teachings of objective morality… it really is as Master Nance said: We don’t have thoughts; thoughts come through us.

And, beyond that, some of them come from angels (that is, messengers).

In Qigong terms, you might say that these are frequencies associated with certain specific intelligences – each conscious, with its own nature and aims, and living in a timeless realm higher than our own, but interpenetrating and interfacing with it.

Some of these messengers do what you would call God’s work: helping us in our inner garden-weeding toward the aim of self-purification, self-refinement, and what you could call theosis (or raising of the vibration of the Qi Field to be more closely harmonized with God’s, in Qigong terms).

Some of these messengers… do the opposite.

Your antenna is always up, of course; but if you’re actively working on becoming more attentive to the signals it’s picking up, you’ll find that some messages come through that are not helpful in the self-refinement process that leads to a higher degree of harmonization of your being-state with God’s.

They might be vile words, feelings, or images. They might be subtle invitations or promptings to do something you know you shouldn’t do. Look at that naked body. Take that substance. Judge that person. Flip your shit and curse like a maniac.

Usually the message is subtle and quick, but once you’re hooked (having swallowed the invitation-bait), they can yank hard and reel you in fast, till – when you finally snap back to yourself and wake up again, you go, “Wow, how did I get here? And here I am, covered in this filth again.”

If you don’t believe me, you haven’t been paying attention to yourself.

That’s one of the first steps in Gurdjieff’s method – just trying to get you to get a good, long look at yourself, day in and day out, for a certain period of time.

If you can just do that, you’ll inevitably come to see, objectively, what filth you sit in and exactly whose fault that is.

That is: your own.

What I’m saying is… till recently, I never really gave clear, focused thought to this question or seriously considered that there are specific, unique intelligences actively putting out signals with the purpose and intention of causing humans to defile themselves.

But… I do think there are.

Do you know what they’re called in the Orthodox Christian Church?

Demons.

Believe it or not, all of this has been a preamble, circumlocution, and circumambulation around the germ-point – the seed of a thought that fell into my mind a few days ago, which some events, both recent and less recent, have served as a fertile seed-bed for.

All these considerations, taken together, have given shape to something that, if not full-formed yet, seems to have a clearly discernible outline.

Clear enough, anyway, to make some statements, and maybe even some conclusions or predictions.

On another podcast I listened to recently, an Orthodox Christian talked about Hermeticism.

I don’t particularly like either him or the host, for a number of reasons, all of which are beside the point; that’s just for the record.

The guest presenting the information claimed to have gone down the path of Hermeticism a while before returning to Orthodox Christianity, in which he’d been reared.

He shared something very interesting, from the vantage of the strange and rambling discussion we’re having here today – a long quotation from Manly P. Hall’s Secret Teachings of All Ages.

I’m going to share that below.

I don’t endorse Hall, Masonry, or any of these teachings, though I’ve dipped my toes in some of that “perennialist” knowledge here and there over the years – I’d say mainly in my late 20’s when this was all new to me and I was trying to find an authentic path to genuine spiritual growth.

I’ve since come to see through much of that, and many of the figures and figureheads associated with that movement as it’s been presented over the last couple hundred years, and especially since the 1960s, thank God.

Here’s the (long) quotation, with some (long) omissions indicated with ellipses (….) :

Hermes, while wandering in a rocky and desolate place, gave himself over to meditation and prayer. Following the secret instructions of the Temple, he gradually freed his higher consciousness from the bondage of his bodily senses; and, thus released, his divine nature revealed to him the mysteries of the transcendental spheres. He beheld a figure, terrible and awe-inspiring. It was the Great Dragon, with wings stretching across the sky and light streaming in all directions from its body ….

The Great Dragon called Hermes by name, and asked him why he thus meditated upon the World Mystery. Terrified by the spectacle, Hermes prostrated himself before the Dragon, beseeching it to reveal its identity. The great creature answered that it was Poimandres, the Mind of the Universe, the Creative Intelligence, and the Absolute Emperor of all ….

Hermes then besought Poimandres to disclose the nature of the universe and the constitution of the gods. The Dragon acquiesced, bidding Trismegistus hold its image in his mind.

Immediately the form of Poimandres changed. Where it had stood there was a glorious and pulsating Radiance. This Light was the spiritual nature of the Great Dragon itself. Hermes was "raised" into the midst of this Divine Effulgence and the universe of material things faded from his consciousness ….

Then again was heard the voice of Poimandres, but His form was not revealed: "I Thy God am the Light and the Mind which were before substance was divided from spirit and darkness from Light ….”

The Dragon again revealed its form to Hermes, and for a long time the two looked steadfastly one upon the other, eye to eye, so that Hermes trembled before the gaze of Poimandres. At the Word of the Dragon the heavens opened and the innumerable Light Powers were revealed, soaring through Cosmos on pinions of streaming fire. Hermes beheld the spirits of the stars, the celestials controlling the universe, and all those Powers which shine with the radiance of the One Fire--the glory of the Sovereign Mind. Hermes realized that the sight which he beheld was revealed to him only because Poimandres had spoken a Word. The Word was Reason, and by the Reason of the Word invisible things were made manifest. Divine Mind--the Dragon--continued its discourse ….

"Blessed art thou, O Son of Light, to whom of all men, I, Poimandres, the Light of the World, have revealed myself. I order you to go forth, to become as a guide to those who wander in darkness, that all men within whom dwells the spirit of My Mind (The Universal Mind) may be saved by My Mind in you, which shall call forth My Mind in them. Establish My Mysteries and they shall not fail from the earth, for I am the Mind of the Mysteries and until Mind fails (which is never) my Mysteries cannot fail." With these parting words, Poimandres, radiant with celestial light, vanished, mingling with the powers of the heavens. Raising his eyes unto the heavens, Hermes blessed the Father of All Things and consecrated his life to the service of the Great Light.

Thus preached Hermes: "O people of the earth, men born and made of the elements, but with the spirit of the Divine Man within you, rise from your sleep of ignorance! Be sober and thoughtful. Realize that your home is not in the earth but in the Light. Why have you delivered yourselves over unto death, having power to partake of immortality? Repent, and change your minds. Depart from the dark light and forsake corruption forever. Prepare yourselves to climb through the Seven Rings and to blend your souls with the eternal Light."

Some who heard mocked and scoffed and went their way, delivering themselves to the Second Death from which there is no salvation. But others, casting themselves before the feet of Hermes, besought him to teach them the Way of Life. He lifted them gently, receiving no approbation for himself, and staff in hand, went forth teaching and guiding mankind, and showing them how they might be saved. In the worlds of men, Hermes sowed the seeds of wisdom and nourished the seeds with the Immortal Waters. And at last came the evening of his life, and as the brightness of the light of earth was beginning to go down, Hermes commanded his disciples to preserve his doctrines inviolate throughout all ages. The Vision of Poimandres he committed to writing that all men desiring immortality might therein find the way.”

Listen.

It was a lot more than that. And I’m not going to pretend I spent a long time poring over it, reflecting on it, digesting it. You know why?

Hall was a Mason, and he said the key to Masonry was “the proper application of the dynamo of living power,” which is the true “mystery of [the] Craft,” at which point – the spiritual aspirant having understood, accessed, and applied this power – the “seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands.”

In a word, Masonry is Satanism, so I’m not on board with that.

Anaxios, anathema.

*spit*

Once you cut to the heart of it and see it for what it is, the rest can fall away as dead weight. The rest of the meat of the corpus is marbled with that rot – why spend time trying to cut little pieces of untainted flesh from it?

You really gonna try to eat that shit?

That’s an aspect and function of intuition, and I live by that: you see right to the heart of things, and immediately can discount a lot of surface noise right afterwards.

And an aspect and function of that is… you don’t have to spend endless time analyzing, thinking, weighing, comparing, and judging – “Well, is this guy good? Does he mean well? Is there something there?”

No.

You tasted the flavor of the rot, and the whole body is marbled with it, through and through.

This is proper judgment: right assessment of essence.

But here’s what’s interesting to me.

One, Hall seems to reduce the “seething energies of Lucifer” to an impartial energy – “neither good nor bad.” Something a lot like Qi in the Qigong perspective, actually.

Two, that whole long tract, even in the reduced and redacted form above? In terms of its teaching, it’s essentially perennialism.

Meaning, “there’s only ever been one teaching and one spiritual path, everything is a form of that (in more or less finely detailed and articulated form), and all the teachings in this One Great System ultimately serve as guides on and symbols for the path of enlightenment.”

Three, and more to the main point… I think it’s interesting, this story of how Hermes got his knowledge and his super-powers. If I can step back, abstract, and summarize it, I’d put it like this.

He retreats into the wilderness, detaches from his senses, enters a state of deep meditation, and makes contact with an intelligence that teaches him. It takes the form of a giant, dreadful Dragon filled with blazing light (which is its true form), who essentially tells him: I am God, I created everything, worship me, and I will give you knowledge of everything and the power to transform the energy of the universe for any purpose.

Hermes agrees, the Dragon gives him the perennialist teachings (which overlap a lot with things like the Taoist-Qigong worldview and which present themselves as the true Gospel, clothing themselves in the same sort of language and imagery found in the real thing), and then Hermes, becoming the anointed of the Dragon and new savior of mankind, formalizes, codifies, systematizes, and transmits his teachings.

Close enough?

Now, I’ve got to be circumspect with what I say, and how.

I don’t think Qigong, or Spring Forest Qigong, is inherently “problematic.”

Qi is something like… living spiritual intelligence and information, conscious and imbued with energy.

And there are different kinds of Qi, aren’t there?

Different spirits.

We touched on that above, didn’t we?

One can embody and incarnate a spirit of lust, avarice, cruelty, and so on…

Or one can embody and incarnate a spirit of humility, kindness, service, and love.

One does this, in simple terms, by “calling on its energy” as I described above – calling on a Master’s energy in word, and more importantly through total self-transformation, inwardly and outwardly.

Orthodoxy calls this theosis.

But, again to step back and abstract the process, in one sense, it’s neutral – meaning, we can choose to incarnate any kind of spirit in that way. I’m not saying this is morally neutral, by the way: what you choose has to be accounted for, sooner or later.

In a commentary on Gurdjieff’s work, Maurice Nicoll speaks of prayer – how, beyond the normal kind verbal, supplicatory prayer most of us are well-acquainted with (asking for things and results), there is the wordless prayer of being (which in fact is also a kind of asking for things and results).

He says, people make verbal supplicatory prayers all the time with little effect, entirely unaware that the silent supplications of their noxious emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are also sending out requests for responses, not only often at odds with the verbal prayers, but of a qualitatively stronger and more efficacious nature.

What I’m saying is, from a certain perspective, this is a negative kind of “calling on a Master’s energy,” a negative kind of theosis. Anti-theosis.

All that having been said... what I wanted to say is that, since 2007, in various forms, I’ve heard Master Lin’s “cave meditation” story many times: second-hand, from students, and first-hand, from him, whether in live talks or in his writings.

In summary, he had his first major healing experience with Qigong. Then he began to study with Masters and go deeper. Then, he began arranging to have longer periods of unbroken time off to dedicate to more intensive Qigong practice. This progression of practice culminated in the cave-meditation experience, after which the new stage in his life (as a world-teacher and international Qigong healer) began.

What I mean is that he retreated to a cave in a famous Chinese mountain and entered deep into its darkness for a month, fasting and doing long, intensive meditation while there.

During that long meditation-training, he met a Master and received his mission: a healer in every home and a world without pain and suffering.

Last October, I attended an in-person Intensive Healing Retreat led by Master Lin. I was there as a background staff member, while Master Lin led the retreat.

I wish I had been paying closer attention to this, but it didn’t seem remarkable at the time, so that even with my exceptional memory, I don’t recall details now as I’d like to.

But Master Lin told his cave-meditation story again; only this time, he added some details I’d never heard before.

He was meditating, meditating – in complete darkness, complete silence.

Then, suddenly, at one point the entire cave filled with bright light, so that he could see everything in perfect detail. I believe he said that he could even see through everything, like through the mountain itself. Even with eyes closed, he could still see with the uncanny sight of that uncanny light.

And… then a giant dragon appeared to him. I forget if he said it was yellow or green. Brilliant light.

And the dragon taught him. I don’t know everything it said; Master Lin didn’t share all that, and I don’t remember what he did share.

Then, the light and the dragon disappeared, and some time later Master Lin came out with his mission: a healer in every home and a world without pain and suffering.

I’m not saying anything.

What I’m considering, and asking you to consider, is what that experience means in light of everything else I’ve shared above.

Now.

I alluded to it here: recently, I left Spring Forest Qigong.

Here, I can’t do more than allude to why.

So, let me say, and not say, in light of all I’ve said, and haven’t said: Little Miss Conscience is an iron-hard task-mistress, and though I was led along a rose-strewn path to his blood-gummed altar, I couldn’t play Cain with her and cut her throat.

The fruit of that?

Thorns, thorns. You know how the world is.

I live by signs, by intuition.

If you’ve read everything on this website, you have a sense of my fluency and expressive competency when it comes to language.

Well, I’m just as good with the inner language of feeling; the outer fluency is an efflorescence of the inner fluency that it’s rooted in, which preceded it.

On my very first day of working at Spring Forest Qigong, I got a good shock, so that two phrases came immediately to mind: “Running around like chickens with their heads cut off” and “If you like to eat meat, don’t work at a slaughterhouse.”

I never could shake those impressions and those phrases, really. That says something.

And I left twice over that. That says something, too.

I live by signs, by intuition; and – as Gurdjieff would say, – slowly, slowly, I filled with one impression after another after another till, at last, something quite clear crystallized within me – taking concrete, definite form out of the swirling, cloudy haze.

The last few granular impressions stirred into the impression-solution before the transformation of perceptual crystallization took place?

I saw shades of inverted, artificial, techno-necromantic Confession and Resurrection, a strange sort of blasphemy.

I saw sales-pitches for the dream of Babel reborn.

I saw thousands invited to pray to the God of Money at the start of the New Year to bless themselves with prosperity.

I saw faces that reminded me of the demon-party in Devil’s Advocate, or a similar party I attended in real life, on a “lower octave,” when I was a waiter at Red Robin almost 20 years ago.

Know what I mean?

Ha-ha-ha, bon-mot, quip, quip!

Smile, laugh, contorted demon visage, smile, laugh.

Ha-ha-ha!

*bloody glare*

I saw Saruman unveil his Robe of Many Colors, and remarked inwardly, Gandalf-like, that I liked White better.

I felt someone who should know better try to overwhelm me with his Qi-Field, so that I was reminded of my high-school days with my role-playing friends: a Vampire from Vampire: The Masquerade using the disciplines of Domination and Presence to dazzle and cow me.

No good; by then, something had already crystallized, and it washed over me like a quick rush of hot air let out of a closed car in a Texas summer.

I heard of a cave-vision and its message of healing 60 million people…

Of “happy money” won by following Saruman’s counsel of “biding our time,” “keeping our thoughts in our hearts,” and “deploring maybe evils done by the way”…

Of “picking low-hanging fruit,” ever the province of snakes…

Of sitting on gold-mines, ever the province of Dragons…

And many other things that sounded strange in my ears, and which soured my stomach, already long-afflicted by visions of headless chickens and the blood-gummed floors of the slaughterhouse.

But my question is, what does it mean when Jesus says:

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

I think it’s too soon to speak about what fruit will be brought forth, which trees will be cast into the fire; though I mentioned here that it’s possible to know what kind of mushroom season we’ll have while it’s still winter.

What I’m wondering, though, is – is Jesus saying it’s possible to prophesy, to work wonders, and to heal, and yet to do so in a way that is not consonant with his teaching – and that is strange to his eyes?

What I’m wondering is, who is this Dragon that gives gifts? What does he ask in return? What are the thorns that come with his roses? What does he want us to sacrifice?

I don’t have all the answers.

But I do have an answer, and in true intuitive form – it cuts right to the heart of things, letting the rot-marbled heap of the hulking corpse fall, dead, to the abattoir-floor, exposed before being disposed of:

Anaxios, anathema.

*spit*

8 April 2025