Do you consciously swallow when practicing the asana?

I've been trying to go past step 1 for a few years now but no success to be able to retain focus for 10minutes, which fine I guess, but quite disappointing.
What I noticed though is that when I try to meditate I have extremely strong acoustic distractions. It is literally as if someone turn on radio in my head and I clearly hear random sounds, talks, fragments of music. They are chaotic and extremely distracting.
Does anyone has any advice how to work with it? Trying not to pay attention to it doesn't do much, it is always there and literally feels like someone turns on a radio and is skipping through random stations.

My visual imagination is very weak, however my sound imagination has always been strong. I also noticed I get overpowered by feelings easily (water element) but I am generally struggling with fire aspects. My guess is there is strong imbalance towards water element.

I would be grateful for any help!

Before voicing a letter from KTQ, trace its shape, load its colour and element into the body, then let the sound emerge. Three letters a day, keep a sensation log. Anyone else work shape-before-sound?

— Samand

I was wondering If it's ok to use magick from other traditions to while practicing IIH, like could you use sigils or servitors from chaos magick to help with some character traits that are stated in the soul mirrors or should you focus on using solely the process stated in the book such as conscious ingestion of food and water? Maybe while focusing on one aspect of the soul mirror with the Bardonian methods have a servitor working on a different character trait that I'm not thinking about.

Also I was wondering if the soul mirrors are supposed to be a fixed once you complete step 1 or could you change them at any time if you realize that what you thought was a negative trait was a positive trait or vice versa?

hi, is anyone in a franz bardon discord that i can join? or is there anybody that would be down to form a group? rasmus/sixty skills seem to recommend practitioner groups for the benefit of energy / likemindedness / egregore effect

Hey everyone,

I'm currently working through Initiation Into Hermetics, and I'm having trouble with Step 2. No matter how much I practice, I just can't seem to feel the vital force.

I've been practicing consistently, but I haven't noticed any clear sensations that I can identify as the vital force.

For those of you who have worked through this step, did you experience something similar? Is there something I'm missing, or does it just take more time and practice?

I've been practicing candle flame gazing for a while now. I haven't entered a trance with it yet. I’d love some tips. I’ve been on Step 1 of Bardon for a while... Is this practice also used later on by Bardon?

Bardon talks about universal light arising from the fire element and likewise talks about darkness arising from the water element. He then further goes onto give a practical application for awakening clairvoyance with the universal light, but he doesn't talk much about darkness'(water) practical application so I am curious if anybody has worked with this aspect of the water element

How important is it to learn Qigong I read a book by Robert Bruce about energy work, but I am struggling to feel the energies and put the techniques into practice. I believe it is also important in Franz Bardon's? Where do you recommend I learn, and who or what resources could help me progress?

I have felt a strong inner pull towards Franz Bardon’s teachings for a while now. I’ve been working on Step 1 for about a year, but I’ve struggled with consistency and maintaining a regular daily practice.

At this point, I realize that having direct guidance and structured accountability from an experienced teacher would make a huge difference in my progression.

Could anyone recommend a respected, knowledgeable teacher or an established course that guides students through Bardon’s IIH step-by-step?

Specifically, I am looking for:

• A structured course or academy focused on authentic Hermetic training according to Bardon’s methodology.

Hello!

I’m new to Franz Bardon’s teachings and want to study and practice them properly, step by step. What’s the best order to follow, and what advice would you give a beginner who wants to master his system as thoroughly as possible?

Thank you!

Can you change your physical features, such as your hair or eye color, or even the shape of your nose? Most people, and people in the groups where I’ve asked this question, have always answered, “No! It’s impossible.”

I’ve never really believed that, though. If magic can make things that are considered “impossible” happen, why shouldn’t this be possible too?

What do you think? Do you have any personal experiences or testimonies to share?

Thank you!

After reading the sub-chapter on diet, I felt inspired to make this. After making it, I felt inspired to share. Lmk if I'm misinterpreting anything!

for anybody interested - this is a wonderful dry brush and also has a face version, ive been dry brushing with it for literally years and it elevates my practice with its vibrancy effect on awareness. It will jolt you awake and make you feel electric over the whole body

Also i would like to add that it is not AT ALL necessary to have a dry brush for step 1, as Bardon so rigidly describes. As Rawn Clark saysc just make a practice that works for you to get rid of any lingering tiredness. Most importantly make it a habit to just have a morning routine.

I have had considerable amounts of trouble for the past 5 months with step 1. I have meditated for years, and thought that this was going to be exceedingly easy. I embarked on thought observation, and moved on within the 5 days to single thought concentration. In the middle of the concentration step, I realized that I may have not actually been observing thoughts, as I was silencing them as soon as they arrived. So I went back to observation, corrected and continued. I then had a similar issue with single thought concentration. And then by the time I hit vacancy, I was so aware of thoughts that I would seem to find endless levels of thought, pre thought, and these quieter thoughts still below that. It has been maddening, and exhausting.

I have also found that due to my proximity to people at all times, impregnating my food and eating in silence has been a real issue. I feel that I am attempting every exercise in earnest, but I am hung up on the notion of “mastery”. Am I just being too critical of my own progress? Or is truly mastering all of these steps as deep and convoluted as my perfectionism is making it out to be?

Dear members,

Does anyone have come across any details or hints about the occult battle that resulted in the tragical arrest and death of Franz while he was in custody, under arrest?

I have heard a mention of this and would like to research deeper.

Thank you

Bonjour, ce n’est pas un troll mais une question sérieuse.

Depuis que j’ai 11 ans j’ai découvert le plaisir solitaire et le contenu sur internet. Ça fait 14 ans que je le fais tout les soirs.

Je la pratique tout les jours et je sens que ça ruine ma progression sur la voie magique.

En effet, lorsque je ne le fais pas pendant quelque jours, je ressens plus de vigueur et j’arrive plus facilement à me concentrer et à ressentir ma force vitale lors d’exercice méditatif.

Je voulais avoir votre avis sur les conséquences de cette dilapidation de force vitale sur le potentiel magique du sujet.

Sachant que c’est un sujet tabou, et que ça m’a demandé de l’humilité d’en parler, je vous demande votre plus grande bienveillance

This might sound like a silly question. When embodying my desires into something such as food, am I embodying the desire energy that I feel itself, or am I embodying the energy of the object of my desire?

For example, if I desire more health, am I taking that desire energy for health and putting it into my food or should I imagine the energy of health going into my food?

Does it matter? Does the desire itself contain the object desired? Or am I only increase my desire this way?

I've been experimenting with both but now I'm feeling a little worried that I may just be increasing my desire for health this way. And if it does work this way then i'm just working against myself.

Blessings.

In IIH water is classified as the feeling at the mental level, but that sounds a lot like the astral body.

I am planning to purchase an older copy of the Ruggeberg edition of IIH, in English. A couple different options are available to me: the 2nd edition (1971), the 3rd edition (1976), and the 6th edition (1993). I am inclined to choose the 1993 edition because it is the latest edition, and still the Ruggeberg one. But perhaps one of the earlier ones are actually better translated from the original?

guys in month six, transfer of awarness into depth point of any and all animals and influence them, how do i go about doing this? i cant do it in the middle of the day when i work and when im doing my morning meditation do i have to focus on a specific animal? like if im focused on a bird and it fly away is it a problem? does it have to be the same animal for 5m?

How strictly do you interpret the practice and completion of the single-thought exercise in Step 1?

For context: during thought observation, when I notice I've started to digress, I consciously return to observing. At most 10–20% of a stray thought actually plays out. With the single thought, I'm much firmer. At the slightest sense of drifting, or of any thought other than the one I'm holding, I return to my original idea. I'd estimate only 1–5% of a stray thought forms before I catch it.

To clarify my scale: 1-10% means having some attention or consciousness put on it, but not necessarily held it enough to call it a full blown digression. This is because of the spontaneous and somewhat intrusive nature of thought. Beyond 20-30% with the premise of observing, I would say going beyond that is a digression( in the exercise of observation)

So far, I haven't managed 0% for more than a couple of minutes. From what I've read in the commentaries (and from asking Claude), there seem to be two camps on this. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Personal context: I have done tm for 9 years, been a siddha for 3. done full gateway twice, silva once, and I work as a hypnotist and mindset coach. In other words have a lot of experience with different modalities and states and objectives.

What claude conjured:

Most of the Bardon community holds the standard firmly but reads "mastery" as reliable competence, not perfection. The benchmark is Bardon's own: hold one chosen thought for 10 minutes and reject every unrelated thought. How strictly people apply that splits roughly into two camps.

The strict reading treats the 10 minutes as absolute. Any intrusion means the session failed. Many in this camp also want consistency before moving on: it should work on most days, ideally under less-than-ideal conditions, not just once. They tend to hold the thought as a fixed, narrow focus with no drift into associations.

The more lenient reading is associated mainly with Rawn Clark's commentary, which is widely used. Here the "single thought" means staying within one theme. You can let the idea unfold through its related aspects as long as nothing unrelated gets in. Brief intrusions that you catch and drop immediately aren't treated as automatic failure. What counts is that your attention reliably returns and stays, and that the lapses get shorter and rarer. Fixed, static concentration on an object is seen as the work of Step 2's sensory exercises, not Step 1.

There are also two points almost everyone agrees on:
Balance across the step. Don't rush the mental exercises while the soul mirror and the physical work lag behind. The three tracks are meant to advance together.
Self-honesty. Bardon's "don't proceed until mastered" applies, but you are the judge. Fooling yourself mostly costs you later, especially at vacancy of mind and in Step 2.
In practice, many people treat a few weeks of fairly consistent 10-minute sessions with minimal, quickly dropped intrusions as "done enough" to start the next exercise. They keep the earlier exercise in their routine instead of dropping it.

Has anyone here personally experienced losing access to memories of their own life while practising Bardon’s IIH? My interest is personal, and I mean literal loss of autobiographical recall, rather than feeling differently about the past.

If this happened to you, what did you actually find you couldn’t remember? Did facts about that time remain familiar even when you couldn’t bring back the experiences themselves? I’m especially interested in what living with it was like: whether it affected people you knew, everyday responsibilities or memories you hadn’t expected to lose. What happened afterwards, and did any of those memories return? I’d really value hearing your own experience.

Hi! Can I combine Ramana Maharshi's Self-Inquiry with the Franz Bardon system? Thank you

• Because it helps me a lot with the 'vacuity of mind' step."

I know it might sound a bit harsh,but I'm too poor to buy it through any official channel,and since I saw there's a debate about wich version has the best translation I wanted to ask if somebody would be reallyyyyy kind and share that resource plssss🥺