Downfall of the psychology paradigm

What is the psychology paradigm
It is a concept in Magick that basically says everything in the occult is done via your own unconsciousness, but I have also met with other things like "telepathic fields" etc.

The psychology paradigm is generally dependent on the collective unconsciousness which is some mass form of unconsciousness independent of any individual mind. Users of this concept then believe that you can tap into the collective unconsciousness and via this action cause a change in the external reality. The thing is that such a modification is limited, you either unconsciously change your own behavior or a behavior of another person.

In this paradigm it is also possible to tap into the common behavioral patterns called archetypes (and forget anything you know about Jung's archetypes because this is simply a crazy way to say egregore).

Advantages of the psychology paradigm
This paradigm is great in explaining some simple concepts like how to limit your bad habits, what is a self-fulfilling prophecy or what are desires. Thanks to that the psychology paradigm is an amazing way how to explain what you do to a person not versed in the occult. You will be perceived as a weirdo, but not a complete nutjob...

Disadvantages
There are also disadvantages that become obvious once you try to explain things like telepathy for example. So, there is this independent collective unconsciousness we can tap into and therefore we can relay a message from one individual unconsciousness to another. That's sounds logical, reasonable and scientific, right? Except the thing that it doesn't actually explain anything.

Let me explain on the telepathy example. For us to be able to pass some information from point A to point B, we need a "route", in case of the psychology paradigm it should be the collective unconsciousness which would require us to have another route, route from us to the collective unconsciousness. Of course you could argue that our individual unconsciousnesses are already parts of the collective one, but I will explain why that is an unneeded overcomplication in a minute.

Back to the tradition
As we said, we need another routes between us and the collective unconsciousness (CU from now on) to work. What are these routes you ask? Well, let's take a look at the more traditional approach, Astral plane. Astral is our route from person A to person B, but how does the route work? Simply both person A and person B exist on both the physical (empirical) and astral (transempirical) planes. This gives us the ability to communicate on the astral plane while being physically distant to each other. Of course you could define CU in a similar manner which would then mean the same thing. But why to use a different version of definition of CU, therefore making a doubled meaning of the definition and troubles in communication when we can use a time-proven terminology we all know and understand?

CU also has another problem, unliving objects. In the case of Astral everything has its Astral representation and we can manipulate with it, but CU doesn't have such a thing as it requires a living organisms to communicate, therefore CU doesn't really explain the talismanic magick or weather control to give some examples.

Nothing is true
There is a million of different opinions about how Magick actually works, some better, some worse, but if you nitpick for a long enough, you will find some loophole. I think my long time readers already know that I am a big fan of the meta paradigm. The thing is that you can follow anything you want as long as you get results. What works for you, works for you. If you are okay with the psychology paradigm and sending "spells" to the CU, be my guest. What I see as a problem is when someone becomes a fanatic and starts pushing his way of thinking as the only possible truth. "Dude, psychology model is the real one, it makes so much sense". Well, if it makes sense to you and it works for you, I am happy for that, just keep in mind we are individuals and what works for one won't necessary work for another. That being said, keep it mind it is always better to inform other of various ways and let them choose what's best suited for them instead of trying to push your own ideal on them.

When it comes to the individual practice this includes the psychology model same as the meta model and just like any other thing you can imagine, including hermetic laws, including spirit work, including ancestor veneration. If it works for you, be happy, just don't get angry if someone questions you, it is only a natural outcome of being a bit too pushy. Just like you don't like when someone steps on your foot, others hate when you stomp on theirs.

2nd Grade, Week 3: Categorizing people by elements

Elements contained within body and their portions are not some abstract thing. Astral and physical are heavily interconnected, we could even say merged together, therefore our internal elemental balance affects our external appearance and behaviour, as well.

Basic correspondences and implications
Fire: willpower
Air: mental plane, anything related to intellect, thoughts, memories, etc
Water: Emotions
Earth: Material stuff, whether we are talking about wealth or bold body structure, this all is contained within the Earth element. Before we also said that the Earth element is heavy, Air element is light, which means we can reverse the rule here, people with more Air in their bodies and lacking Earth element (imbalance) will have light and weak bodies.

What is this good for?
Elemental balance affects both physical and mental states, knowledge of the balance state can help us understanding our subject or even influencing him.
But for our characterization to be accurate, we have to be able to notice details. Let's say you meet a lazy person. Laziness will have some deal of lacking willpower (lacking Fire element), but together with this we can also have a lacking Water element (decreased emotional activity, no motivation). Laziness can also comes with a greater deal of the Air element in the body. In such cases our subject is a great thinker, but spend most of his time "innovating", day dreaming, and hardly does find some time to actual make his ideas come true (through work, which would require the Fire element, willpower).
Person with increased amounts of Fire and Earth elements will be physically strong, doing physical work with ease and as a sort of relaxations, unfortunately decreased Air element will cause this person won't think much during the process, the work will be just a routine, now innovation process will happen. Lacking water element in such cases will cause a lack of empathy, this person will have a love for his job, but will hardly have a real love for another person.

Best subjects for suggestions are greatly lacking the Fire element, usually with increased amount of the water element (extravercy, showmanship, going with the crows), with Air and Earth elements being about average.

2nd Grade, 3rd Week: Basics of character recognition

We like to know our environment, the mysteries scare us. It's the old fear, same fear that caused we avoided a dark. Fear that we cannot control what we don't know.
On the other side, there was a rumour in the ancient Egypt that if you knew the real name of some deity, you could control it, you can even command it to make you immortal. This is an abstract way of saying: "Knowledge is power".

Most basic schema
Introverted person is someone "locked" in his own world, usually shy, having problems with making a contact with unknown people, day-dreaming most of the time.
Extraverted person is someone always willing to chat, sometimes maybe a bit of an exhibitionist.

Did it say anything to you? Well..
Introverted person is more locked, which means it is more resistent to the suggestion, extraverted person is more open and suggestible types are more available amongs the extraverted types. This is also the founding stone of hypnotic show, you need an extraverted person who is also a bit exhibitionist that would go on stage (more of this later). Introverted person would never go on the stage and wouldn't usually even try the hypnotic test (more of this later).

It is easier to get to the extraverted person and get to know it. On the other side introverts are more stable and when you finally get to know them, you know them for good, they will hardly ever change in such a drastic way as an extravert can.

You should also know that extraverts tend to be more emotionally stable, introverts are more inclined to various depressions and usually have a weaker metabolism, as well.

Schema to study
- choleric
- sanguinic
- flegmatic
- melancholic
(Yes, a homework...)

What are schemas good for
Schemas help us to categorize people into closer groups. Basically such a categorization is stupid because we all are individuals. Knowing that someone is a choleric extravert or flegmatic introvert won't make as know the person as a whole, but it will help us in understanding the person a bit more, having even a small idea of what you can expect from someone is always better than nothing.

But remember that people are not too easy to categorize, eg extraverted/introverted is not an on/off switch, it's a scale starting with extreme introvert and ends with extreme extravert, but people are usually somewhere in between, either closer to one or the other end.

Creating a custom schema
Take a piece of paper and in a 10 minutes write as many character traits as you know, then use these words as a dictionary of your own schema. You will see that when you have a defined set, categorizing will become easier to you, especially if you study this grade carefully.

2nd Grade, Week 3: Basics of psychotherapy

What to expect in this course
This is going to be a super-short version of psycho-therapy course so I will skip the usual boring stuff about different methodologies, whether we are talking about CBT, psychoanalysis, psychodynamic, etc, such stuff is truly boring.
All you have to know is that we are going to study the integrative methodology, which became quite favorite recently. The reason is that these different methodologies are better for some stuff and worse for other stuff. Integrative methodology combines the best of the aforementioned based on different situations. Eg you want to apply cognitive behavioural therapy methods on neurotic problems, experiential psychotherapy on depressions and self-searching, etc.
The reason why you should be interested in therapy at all is hidden within the arcanum of Magick. Magick is not a hobby, Magick is the lifestyle. If you mean it seriously with Magick, it's not okay being Magicians on Friday night during conducting some static ritual or while trying to impress your friends. You must live and breathe Magick, you must eat it for the breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well. Your every sleeping and waking hour must be filled with Magick. Psychology (and psychotherapy) teaches us important lessons about mankind and about ourselves. With these lessons we can easily help people resolve their problems or scare the living sh*t out of them without silly wand waving and all that pompous stuff, sometimes a word is more powerful than a sword.

What we learned before
During the first grade we have already learned and tried some techniques from experiential psychotherapy. These techiques were supposed to help us gain some stable mental health, fight our vices, support our virtues and help us fighting a stress, depressions and panic attacks. These techniques were:
-simple relaxation exercise
-cleansing exercixe
-two chair exercise
-calming breathing

If you are not sure which is which I recommend to recapitulate these because these won't be mentioned again. Sorry, guys, I am not Bardon, I am not going to repeat myself.

Basic rules in therapy
1. You are not a problem solver, you are supposed to listen to people and in certain cases lead them in certain directions
2. Nodding your head lightly helps to build an impression of a listener, which helps for your client to open to you
3. Listen what your client says and remember it well, if long-term memory is failing you, take notes, but rather after the session, staring at the paper and writing something during session looks like you are not listening to the client.
4. Repeat client's words if you are unsure if you listened carefully or when you think that a client needs understanding. In the latter case formulate the sentence to be supportive.
Eg when client says: "I think no one understands me", formulate the answer as something like: "I get it, you feel as if you were not being understood by other people".
Such reaction usually has a bonding effect, except for few cases that we will talk about a bit later.
5. Feel free to talk about your personal experience or life if being asked by the client, just don't overdo it, remember that sessions are namely about the client. Also don't avoid answering because that could severe the bond.
6. Psychotherapy without bonds do not work, your client must trust you for the therapy to work (sounds familiar?)
7. If you make a mistake during remembering or interpretation and the client informs you either verbally or non-verbally, don't be affraid to admit your mistake, the bond is even stronger when client recognizes you as a human being. From such an apology the client can also learn that it is ok to be wrong and such situations can be resolved in a kind and elegant manner.
8. Some people talk fast, some quickly jump from one topic to another, some speak super slow, leave minute long pauses between sentences and some have just an annoyingly high-pitched voice. Adapt to people's speeds and personal settings and don't lose your cool. Certainly don't go "For God's sake, speak faster!!!" Or "This is so fucking boring!!!", that's generally considered a very bad form.

What to do if your client is defensive
In the beginning it's normal that some people are not willing to open, slow down and be patient. If the defensiveness appears later in session it means we omitted something. Either we forgot some information from previous sessions, we misinterpreted what the client told us or we touched some too sensitive topic. It can also be we didn't ask a correct question but in such cases the client usually asks similar question he wanted to be asked. Eg he defensively asks about your life and the reason is that he thinks you are not interested in his life because you didn't ask that question. You will usually notice this in non-verbal communication.
Non-verbal communication is a very complex topics and there are countless books on the topic. To make this section short we won't talk about it in depth, let's just say that non-verbal communication consists of:
-tone and melody of the voice
-facial expressions
-eye movement and positions
-hand gestures
-body postures
-body distance

Always consider these aspects and in long-term process you will know your client well enough to notice when something is happening and what is happening.
As we said before, therapists are not omniscient beings, they are humans. Don't be scared to admit your mistake and fix it.

Pygmalion effect
Pygmalion effect shows how expectations in someone's abilities can influence someone's future actions and also results. There was an experiment where a group of random students were selected. Teachers of people in this group were notified that these people are highly talented, with a status of geniality. These students then had a remarkable improvement in their grade. Their teachers considered them special and treated them this way as well, which in return gave them better motivation in their study.
On the other side, if you were considered idiot, you would either had to work harder to get rid of this label or you could give up and your grades would degrade.