Carcosa Bound

Staring into a flame, then at the darkness behind your eyelids, can be a transformative and truly magical practice.

I needed to add meditation into my daily activities, and a good friend turned me onto this particular practice, rediscovered, developed and taken to truly ludicrous levels by Daniel Ingram and his conspirators – more details here.

The practice, as I understand and do it, is quite simple.

1. Stare into a candle flame, paying very good attention to every aspect of it. Note.
2. After a period of time, close your eyes, and see the afterimage in the darkness. Watch where this goes, and follow it. Note.
3. When this afterimage is no longer clear enough, repeat step 1.

Simple, not necessarily easy.

I find it works nicely in 30 minute-minimum daily sits, before dawn, after myinitial rituals, but before my daily planetary adorations. I prefer it on meditation stool in the middle of my ritual space.

It is the most blatantly magical of the meditative practices I’ve experimented with (including those stupid Ibis and Thunderbolt Asana, prescribed by Crowley in Liber E Vel Exitoriorum; I’ve done a lot of stupid shit, but these were among the worst.)

Some of the benefits Fire Kasina practice has provided (for me, so far, YMMV):

• A definite focus. If your capacity for single-pointed attention has been blunted or fragmented (like mine, and most of us who use technology, I’d wager), this is strong medicine. If you forget your own point you’re making when talking with someone, or you just can’t stay doing one thing at a time, this can help break bad habits and build an attention that is more sleek, tight and muscular. It’s hot, and it feels good.

• It’s active. You’re doing something. Noting sense perception or breath is fine, sure – though I find this much more engaging. It’s clear at every moment what the task is: watch the flame, or watch the afterimage. Being able to alternate also give a sense of progression (but not too much so).

• It integrates. The candle I stare into is carved with sigils and fixed with oils, on an altar, as a component of a magical campaign. It has strong consonance with the Orison of Salamanders, from the Qabala of the Green Butterfly, that magnificent and very practical operation appended to the Grimorium Verum. It really “ties the room together”. If your magic involves fire, focus, or visions, chances are, this can speak to that too.

• It builds. Almost every magical book talks about meditation, or some sort, as a foundational daily practice, as do many people seeking to make a carry out a project of value in this world. Fire Kasina has carry-over for other activities, also; with repetition, it builds significant ability to hold and project an image mentally, useful for rituals like the Star Ruby.

Full-resolution Flamegazing

It’s like the kettlebell swing of esoteric conditioning exercises. It just makes things better, in all sorts of ways.

It;'s an ancient practice, and has definite analogues in other traditions; I haven’t quite reached the levels of concentration and conversation described by Michael Bertiaux in the Voudon Gnostic Workbook, where movements of the flame can be directed.

However, I don’t doubt that, with further practice – and some of those monster retreats Ingram's crew espouse – things will develop in quite significant ways. As with anything, festina lente. There is tomorrow. The flame will be there, and with it, the door that I’ve yet to fully work out how to open.

This is a beautiful practice, and one that gives so much. If you want to add meditation into your life, and want something a bit more exciting and muscular than the usual soft and gentle, cloyingly anodyne dreck that gets served up through most mindfulness trainers, check it out.

Flame on.