Body training is almost entirely left out of Bardon’s first book Initiation into Hermetics aside from some introductory information on “asana.”
The electric, and magnetic, lines of force are also poorly understood by most practitioners as well. These are meant to be performed as a series of body locks not unlike what is found in the more physical forms of yoga.
The actual exercises are fairly simply to demonstrate and translate to video even if they do not work well in a written format. The gist of which is that a practitioner holds onto a weight while generating either the electric, or magnetic, line of force and pore breathes.
While whole books can be written on the topic, and frequently are in the context of the traditional martial arts, most meditators will be looking for something a little more streamlined.
An example of more traditional training can be found in Dale Dugas’ excellent book on Iron Palm training. It can be found here.
Why should someone do this? The lines of force act as conduits for the movement of subtle energy in the body. Strengthening these conduits by making the ligaments, and tendons, stronger and more integrated improves the movement of subtle energy. This works both in terms of bringing energy into the physical and in refining the more tangible energies into the more subtle.
And on a practical basis, all of the serious practitioners I’ve known were essentially forces of nature physically speaking. It didn’t matter if they were 45kg or 145kg either.
Body training makes all of your practices better.
To help combat this lack of understanding, I’ve come up with a new course entitled “Resistance Training for Magicians.” It can be found on Perseus Arcane Academy here.
Further coursework will be forthcoming in the next few months, but this is more than enough to get most people started. Any questions regarding the process can be directed to the SixtySkills Facebook group, which can be found here:
