An Attempt At Mercury...and stuff!

Continuing the initiations into the Planetary Spheres, I recently conjured Raphael as governor of the sphere of Mercury.  He declined to grant me the initiation and integration of Mercury at the time (as of writing this it was a week ago).  I honestly had trouble perceiving him, so I didn't entirely catch his reasons why.  There was something about me not being ready.  I'm not irritated about it like I was last time I requested initiation from Raphael (in his role as Governer of the sphere of Air).  If nothing else, Saturn has taught me to be patient.

I'll keep trying, though!  I doubt he's willing to deny me forever.  ;)

With that said, I've been rather busy lately.  Life has been full of my new job, and friends!  I've been trying to get back in touch with friends who had fallen by the wayside for the past couple years, and so the past couple weeks have been full of hanging out.

But about that mention of a new job.  I got one recently, and it pays more than any regular, long-term job I've ever had.  During recent employer-induced financial struggle, I went all out with magic.  During the process I made several condition oils that ended up being effective.  In fact, with all the field reports from other blogs on the Sorcerous Blog-O-Sphere, I've been tempted to do a write-up of my efforts and what I did to affect my situation for the better.

Today, during my regular practice, I decided to try something different at the end of my meditation session. In the lessons for Strategic Sorcery, at one point Jason covers the levels (not just the 3 in The Sorceror's Secrets), and talks about how you can access each one, even through meditation and astral travel.  The method he gives for shifting to higher levels is something he calls Sandpiling.

I decided to try it today and see how it goes, and I didn't really expect much.  I started from my basic meditative level left over from my normal session.  Then, I started sandpiling.  I drew my sense of awareness inward, towards me.  After a few minutes of this, there was a shift and I was experiencing things from a higher level.  In this case it was the Aetheric.  Then I repeated it, going upward towards the astral, then the soul level.  When I sandpiled into the mental level, things got interesting.

It was true to the mention of others in that there was no form, no distance...just information.  I found myself having to thing and act in commands.  I even manipulated the information level of a few things, including myself and someone else, while on this level.

Then I moved onto the causal level.  I can't remember if Jason said it could be accessed via sandpiling or not, but I decided to try anyway.  It's hard to describe what I experienced there.  The thing I remember most from it was my will being present.  Writing that now, it sounds strange to me...but that's the way it was.

I'm going to work with the sandpiling technique some more and see what I find.