Critique of Quareia: Genuine Inner contact mangled by a spiritualist?
Honestly I thought it would be a low-ball from me to make the first image the Inner Librarian the cover photo...haha
So this is a compilation of my of Critique Quareia, not in a disparaging way and I don't really want to bring it down in it's practical/good things in it, except that some parts and pieces in it you want to step back and not take it as a whole. I hope that this is blog isn't taken as an outright attack but a consideration instead of *jumping* into it headfirst without thinking about it. In the provocative sense of Josephine I give a title that might not be so accurate :P
In Apprentice Module we are presented with a specific imagery of Saturn and Pluto which are the grindstone and the Unraveller and there's no problem with these concepts but it seize up or freeze their imagery into one "form" instead of allowing more varied form of manifestation to come through. I agree that there's a certain emphasis here on some forces, but I don't know if it validate the placement of these forces in pentagram-esque ritual like the LBRP-copycat. I personally don't think it is suitable to be invoking these forces or banging them out in this manner, but there' might be some gem to working with these forces as excessively as they are presented. It might be my own misunderstanding of how it is taught but I don't genuinely understand why Saturn and Pluto are worked with extensively if not for a hidden ulterior motive or to rewire you to a different tandem/rhythm. Apprentice Module 2, Lesson 3:
Look up your planets again in relation to you standing in the centre of the chart/pentagram. Focus on the positions of Saturn and Pluto: make sure you know where they are in your natal chart, and where that puts them in relation to you standing in the room
2. Warning of Oath taking then implicit oath are presented.
Apprentice Module 10, Lesson 8 we find the following passage
“Limiter, servant of the angel of Merciful Wisdom, tool of the
Grindstone, I hold you in my right hand of justice and judgement. May my labours be merciful in true wisdom, and by holding you in my right hand, I submit my work and actions to my own scales and judgement from this day on.” [...] Remember, from now on, for the rest of your life, you have agreed to be judged in this life and to walk the path of the Mysteries. It is not a vow or a promise, it is acceptance and agreement. If you choose to walk away from that agreement, there is no punishment: you always have a choice. But remember, the path of the Mysteries will always be there in your life from now on, even if you choose not to be. Regardless of what you choose to do in your life, those dynamics will stay with you. If you step away from magic, those dynamics will still flow through your life in one way or another, and rather than make you a magician, they will move you towards being a better person. Think wisely before you act, and treat everything that happens in your life, for good and bad, as a stepping stone to wisdom and knowledge.
Now maybe this is an agreement but the framework or the context of stuff happening is very close to an oath. I personally felt the way that visionary magic was described was VERY close or akin to taking an oath.
3. Hate of Result Magic, Arbatel having some destructive magic forces in it, PGM is parasite ridden magic text.
and she have weird stuff to say about getting practical results:
If you try to dodge that growth process through results magic, you will not only end up magically weak and ineffective, but you will also start to slide down the long slope of degeneracy as a magician. For example, I have been in magic for nearly forty years, and I have connections with magicians all over the world. I have yet to meet a long-term results magician who is not broke, lonely, sick, depressed and screwed up. They all do well for a small number of years… and then the backlash comes home to roost.
I don't really know if this is a good approach or many of these opinions could be seen as controversial and challengingly blunt. I just think that there's more to it and sometime it feel like she's intentionally writing in this provocative manner to bring attention. No hate in anyway I just genuinely think it's not the best way you would be banging texts after texts in the same tone.
4.Closure
I have to be honest and say that everyone is human and these notes I have don't really remove or destroy all potential benefits from the systems, as point number 2 is dealt with here in term of ancestral veneration variation/change. I would just step back and think about the system as a whole because of culturally disassociating from her own "dressing" of tradition, if the system is Rosicrucian/cabbalist in nature and the signboards/markers are made ambiguous; there's something disingenuous going on. Maybe she's reestablishing the inner contact through a different "portal" or a different "gate".
That's my main problem or crux that's bothering me, why is she trying to distance herself from her tradition? is there something wrong with the point of contacts she established before that she need to establish them a new for other people? is there a different intention? Is there some cultural rewiring or cultural apprehension of the systems she worked with that she previously? In a sense that's my closing statement. Tread carefully but don't miss out on some good insights and gems in her writings.
I've heard some pretty mixed things about Quareia!
For the negatives, the author can come off as pretty haughty and authoritative, both in and out of her writings. The books are pretty heavily slanted towards ceremonial or high magic, and actually disparage results-based workings (which obviously doesn't mesh with my "use what works" approach). Generally, the books are pretty opinionated and a little full of themselves! Though, I think that's preferable to the opposite; a text that waffles and does not present its information with any confidence.
For the positives, it does appear to be a (mostly) pretty well researched and organized introduction to a wide variety of concepts and practices in modern magic! The books are dense, and cover a wide variety of topics in a structured, work-your-way-up way. Many people who don't like the author or agree with all she has to say, still concede that, as long as you read it with a couple grains of salt, its a pretty fantastic, digestible, and information-rich place to start for beginners.
Hi all :)
November and its great tide of new energies for 2024 is almost here, so I am offering free divinations for those who are interested.
I will start by using a mystical book of Persian poetry that I particularly cherish : “The Song of the Birds”. (I can't find the equivalent in English, but below is a description.)
"The Song of Birds, a poem written in Persian at the end of the century, sings of the journey of thousands of birds in search of Sîmorgh, visible manifestation of the Divine. The hoopoe, messenger of Solomon, guides and encourages them by telling them stories of wisdom."
Then as time goes by I will probably work on the Quareia deck to flesh out certain answers. I reserve the right to answer, to elaborate or not, obviously - I have a life, so it may take time to respond.
Please try to FORMULATE a question, even if it's only in your head, remember that the more general the question, the more general the answer will be.
it came across my radar recently so i've decided to give it a go. i'm taking everything with a huuuuuge grain of salt, but i liked the idea of having a structured way to learn about + build magick skills. it also seems like a great way to learn about concepts that i'd never come across otherwise + to round out my research + studies.
i also really liked that the lady who runs the whole thing has provided all of the lessons + resources for free (!!!) + she seems really invested in providing a good environment for those interested in the occult/magick without locking everything behind a paywall.
i'm working on the 1st module of the apprentice level rn so if there's anyone who's further along, i'd definitely like to hear your thoughts about how the experience has been for you. :)
“There is a huge amount of misunderstanding of what astral projection actually is, and what people think it is. And there's also massive misunderstanding about visionary magic.
When you're talking about astral projection, journeying, entering the soul garden, things like that, what you're talking about is where, for the most part, the majority of people think that their spirit is locked into their body, that their energy is locked into their body, and that their skin is a barrier and that they go no further, or they have a little bit of an aura around them, and that's it. That's actually not correct. The body is a vessel; the spirit has the ability to spread out. It has no shape, it has no boundary other than the physical body, but it can stretch beyond that, and it can spread right out. It can experience bump up against other spirits, other energies. Your vital force can bump up against somebody else's vital force, or the vital force of a tree or a rock. The mind is the bridge of communication, and within the mind, is the imagination, which provides the vocabulary.
What a lot of people think of as astral projection, like I said earlier is this: suddenly you've shot out of your body and you're still looking at your body. You're not out of your body as in you haven't left it. You have stretched because there's no boundary for the spirit, and it's done it in this uncontrolled projected way, which is actually really unhealthy for you. It causes a panic in the body, so it sucks it straight back in again. So it's often very difficult to control and act in what people think of as astral projection. As in, suddenly I'm floating on the ceiling and looking down that sort of thing. Yes, that happens, that is a part of visionary stuff. But it's unhealthy in that it's not as safe, it leaves you wide open for all sorts of problems. It also puts a horrendous strain on the body, so the older you get, the more dangerous it becomes. Whereas working in a more controlled way and understanding this stretching and that being in two places at once is perfectly normal. You don't have to have the spirit just over there and it's left the body. When you do that, if your spirit completely leaves your body, your body dies. It just doesn't work like that. So it is stretched, and maybe that's not the right word. The actual reality is that you're in two or even three different places at once.”
— Josephine McCarthy on astral projection and visionary work, Glitch Bottle #128 (32:40)
This last week I barely managed to do 3/7 days due to my own irresponsibility. Honestly, I put my work & tarot readings above a lot of the things that I should be doing for myself, so I really should just seize the chance to sit for 10-20 minutes unbothered to start my day.
My Quareia weeks start/end on Saturdays, so hopefully I get a post like this up each Sunday rather than what I did last week which was... not.
I decided to read ahead in the Quareia stuff - I’m absolutely not doing the practical work out of order, just reading, and I’m sure I’ll reread it all multiple times when I get there “for real,” there’s just so much there - and I keep finding things that seem like they are shedding more light on various spiritual bullshit I’ve had handed to me these last several years. Like finally I get a reasonable sense of the bigger picture all the brief cryptic messages and shit were pointing at. When I eventually get to the point of doing the work, I’m sure it’ll make even more sense, but just seeing these things written out, it’s a relief. Not just “oh, other people got handed this kind of experience, I’m not alone!” but also, finally, I got my hands on the “missing manual.”
