Part 2 in Training
I will just make a post of resources you should look to in developing your skills in meditation, concentration and magick.
First I recommend cover to cover at least twice Daniel Ingram book and if you have not watched a ton of Shinzen Young videos by now do so. Especially anything about Flow, expansion and contraction and his noting techniques.
http://integrateddaniel.info/book/
Once you have those concepts and ideas well established go next to Reichian Therapy for Home Use, here:
http://lust-for-life.org/Lust-For-Life/ReichTherapyForHomeUse/ReichTherapyForHomeUse.pdf
If that is not your “style” then I recommend going the Wim Hoff Method, spend the cash and get the videos if you can’t get them online for free. It is very close to the Reichian stuff anyway. It is more geared towards entering altered states though. If both don’t sound like your style go for David Lee’s Life Force book, link is further below.
After glowing from the high of working that begin The Mind Illuminated which will show you how to dig deeper into the experience that body work provided
https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
That will keep you busy for quite some time and it will teach you everything you really need to become enlightened, become one with god, find the Yogic True self, raise kundalini, whatever. This work really covers everything Bardon was trying to accomplish in Initiation into Hermetics. What is step 10 but Jhana on the idea of the 4 fundamental divine attributes? The elements in the body is a bit of insight training. You are learning the same things but in a different modality that may be a lot easier in m opinion.
If your goals are less spiritually inclined and more focused on magick I recommend the following after you have put in some hardcore work on the above stuff for at least a couple years.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0089XD7C8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34628687-life-force
Life Force is great for Spiritual or magickal work and is another option besides Wim Hoff and Reichian work.
This is good for insight and magickal training
http://www.innerworlddesigns.com/circle/book12/pdf/Robert%20Bruce%20-%20New%20Energy%20Ways.pdf
You should also read, think on and experiment with the ideas presented here:
http://integrateddaniel.info/magick-and-the-brahma-viharas/
On to things like kabbalah, alphabet of desire, mantras and spells which is the work I would consider once all the above is well understood and you have an experiential understanding of and not before.
I recommend creating an alphabet of Desire, but built on natural language structures. If you read three steps to heaven (which is a good simple overview of everything in this post or what it tries to give in greater detail) you should have those skills down. Everything you need to know about sigil magick is easily available on the web in many sources, just pick one. I do recommend trying to understand Austin Spare essential method which was basically a jhana practice. If you doubt that get familiar with his essential method of firing them off and then read about jhana’s and magick in Ingram’s book and tell me they were not hitting on the same essential process. Spare got stuck in a dark night episode and never got out.
Ars vercanus is a good book to mine for magick tech in a practical way.
As for how to make the alphabet I recommend you just base them on the primal ideas found within the sounds themselves which you will see here, under the section: mystical letter meanings:
http://www.trismegistos.com/
or begin work on Bardon’s key to the True Kabbalah and mine it for tech which is now usable to you.
Once you have that built and have consistently gotten results with your concentration skills and a letter shape and sound that holds meaning and intent and now you have also had insight training to feel those energetic sensations constantly, you can now insert those letters into the energetic flow and have them manifest.
Once confidence in all of this is had I recommend branching out into other fields, take the skills you have acquired into those practices. I think Enochian is a great system as DuQuette puts it forth, here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0070YFOKK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
That will give you insight into the higher realms which should link up nicely with the skills you have attained so far. If that seems too daunting I recommend going to The 7 Olympian planetary spirits of the Arbatel, or the corresponding archangels if you are more comfortable with that. You can of course by now focus on the energetic thought sensation that belongs to the sphere and the sigil and connect your experience to that sphere and spirit using your concentration and insight practice through jhana meditation.
I only recommend some sphere work or plane rising to show that it is the exact same thing insight meditation and jhana provide just from a different world view, using ritual. Once you see that both are really the same practices that grant the same boons, bliss or ecstasy and have the same potential follies. You will have a greater understanding of systems and so can help others across systems. If you don’t want to put in the extra work of magick ritual that is fine, I just want it out there that they both lead to the same place. Which if you have not worked both ways you would not see it. I was dumb, I worked it both ways. It is the same. We are all plugging into the same outlet. Find the outlet and plug into it. Insight meditation and concentration meditation as described in Ingram’s book are all you really NEED to do to get there. Once you are highly skilled and have achieved a few fruitions I recommend Do-Nothing meditation as your daily “hygine” found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ6cdIaUZCA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4yipKfO8nA
http://www.personalpowermeditation.com/nondirective-meditation-the-only-show-in-town/
with any magickal needs that come up taken care of like this:
http://www.personalpowermeditation.com/the-basics-of-magick/
http://integrateddaniel.info/magick-and-the-brahma-viharas/
If you were under my personal care as a student these are the things I would point you to as how I got where I am. It was a much longer winding route but this is the best stuff I could point you to. If after all that you came to me asking about Goetia or grimoire work then I would just send you to the texts and to work as described but taking all of your concentration and insight skills into that work. I know many other people who start with that stuff and get great results and get what they desire, or find failure. I am just an old fuddy-duddy who if you were in my care would not touch that stuff until you have your HGA or True-Self and have crossed the abyss or have achieved fruition. Just how I do it, so if you were looking for my personal advice that is it, YMMV and I respect and honor that.
Beyond all of this I recommend two books by Dr. Kripal which are The Super Natural and Secret Body. Both should be read and digested.
Good luck and good magick!