Travis Hedge Coke
There Is Nothing Left to Say On The Invisibles
2.12
Practical Techniques Vol 1
by Travis Hedge Coke
In an X-Men comic, I seemed to find a character suggest that magick where you do not have to hold hands and have a “magic circle” is superior to practices where holding hands is integral. At three different universities, I have had poetry students hold hands with a campus statue, because I think, in general, we do not hold hands enough. We are, in general, not good at it.
And, if you have a practice where you hold hands or shake hands, you ought to be comfortable and practiced at doing so without the hard man squeeze or dropping it as soon as you can.
Some of us have a hard time asking for things when we are asking in front of others, or especially, when we are asking and maybe nobody else is there. Asking yourself a favor. Asking somebody or something you are not wholly sure is there or can listen or exists.
It is important to understand that sympathy and empathy are two different things, but that apathy and antipathy are not the same, either, and all four are important. All four are unavoidable and can use refinement.
Sympathy is the connection we feel because we have a similar experience or circumstance.
Empathy, the connections we feel despite not having comparative experiences.
Antipathy is what we mean, often, when we use, “apathy.” Antipathy is a rejection, in ourself, against something. An inability to embrace or accept.
Apathy is not antipathy, and it is not empathy or sympathy. With apathy, you are simply null to the thing.
Exercise 1
Asking
(2) Partners
(1) Table
(2) Chairs
(1) Timer
Make sure all three people have read these directions before you begin.
Stand on the tabletop, and extend a hand to each partner where they stand on chairs either side of the table.
Do not let go of either partner.
Ask one of your partners to escort you down from the tabletop. You can offer anything. You can ask however you like. Order if you think it will work.
Whoever agrees, has to take your place standing on the table, alone, for a predetermined number of minutes. The other partner must escort you by hand down from the table and somewhere away from the remaining partner.
Exercise 2
Talking Up a Toy
(1) Toy figure/Stuffed animal/Action figure
(1) Mirror which can be at head level
(1) Timer
Be as alone as you can.
Set timer for seven minutes.
Take your toy and approach the mirror.
Explain to the mirror how amazing, how wonderful, how great your toy is, as if it is a living person with personality, history, and abilities. You have to keep talking. Have no silence. If you have nothing to say, say something. You have to stay positive. Stay as earnest as you can.
Exercise 3
Disposable Art
(1) Sheet of paper
(1) Pencil
(2) Timer
Take a sheet of paper. Fold the left edge in to the middle of the page. Fold the right side in over that.
Fold the top down towards the middle. Fold the bottom up towards the new middle.
Tear along the folds. If you fuck it up, keep doing it anyway.
Now that you have nine irregular semi-rectangles of paper, you are going to draw nine pieces in nine minutes. Do not erase anything. Do not think too long. Draw as you think.
Set your timer for nine minutes and begin the timing.
Each of the nine pieces will illustrate a specific moment in your life which give you strong feelings, using only circles or ovals.
If you forget and erase, destroy the pieces you drew, and start over with a fresh sheet of paper, from the beginning. If you go over time, destroy or throw out your work and you have to start over from the very beginning.
When you finish your nine, to your satisfaction, within your nine minute allotment, throw them out. Or, keep them. Stick them in a box somewhere and forget about them. Whatever you like.
Exercise 4
Gematria
(1) Sheet of paper
(1) Pencil/Pen
(1) Calculator
(1) Device which access the internet
Make a list ten things about yourself. Your common name. Your full name. Place you were born. Your job. Your favorite television program. Name of your first or third pet. You choose.
Number your list in order you think they are most you.
Calculate their gematrial values. Use the Crowley English Gematria, whether you believe in it or not. That means, each successive letter in the English alphabet as a value increase by six, beginning with A = 6, following as B = 12, C = 18, D = 24, through to Y = 150 and Z = 156.
Write the numeric value under each letter of the words in your list, then add up each word or phrase of your list.
Go online and look for a concordance of English Gematrial values. These will be easy to find. Seek out each of yours and write words or phrases with the same numerical value down around yours on your list.
Consider how they relate or may relate to your word or phrase and if that reflects on you or your understanding of yourself.
Exercise 5
Constrained Conversations
(1) Partner
(2) Slips of Paper
(1) Pencil/Pen
(1) Timer
Pick up the thing nearest you which has words on or in it, and the first phrase you come across onto, write it on the slip of paper. Do not let your partner see what you have selected or written.
Have your partner do the same. Do not look at what they have written.
When you receive your partner’s slip, what they have written will motivate what you need to talk about. You need to be as earnest about the subject as you can be.
When they receive your slip, they can only repeat the words you have written, in that order or any other. Only those words.
No matter what, until the timer completes five minutes, you have to keep talking, Every statement or question has to have an immediate response.
Set timer to five minutes.
Exchange slips and begin conversation.
***
So, these are not exercises that will make you the god of empathy or the expert hand-holder. Thank you for trying them, if you did. If you have not, go back to the beginning of this and try these exercises!
Either way, even if you do not, I hope they give you something even as unattempted exercises.
The exercises in life we do not try give us something, too.
Everything we are too busy, too afraid, or too disinterested to try gives us something. Standing in front of a mirror, talking up a toy unit the timer runs out is informative, but so is knowing you are embarrassed to do it, or you think you already have whatever the exercise can give you.
Some day, you may need to take someone by the hand and speak to them in a way that will affect them the way you want. I want you to be capable of doing that well. I would not talk to you here, chapter after chapter, if I did not want that.
I am talking to you, of course. You and me, we are in this together.
*******
NEXT: The Fanfic of the Book of the Movie
And previously…
- Prologue/Series Bible
- Chapter One: I Was a Librarian’s Assistant (Pt. 1)
- Chapter Two: I Was a Librarian’s Assistant (Pt. 2)
- Chapter Three: Robin Roundabout
- Chapter Four: How Did Helga Get in Here?
- Chapter Five: Boy Our Embarrassment
- Chapter Six: Once I Was a Little Light
- Chapter Seven: Sacrificial Greed
- Chapter Eight: Dreams Like This
- Chapter Nine: Whose to Tell
- Chapter Ten: The Dead Weight
- Chapter Eleven: Non-Causal Time
Nothing in There is Nothing Left to Say (On The Invisibles) is guaranteed factually correct, in part or in toto, nor aroused or recommended as ethically or metaphysically sound, and the same is true of the following recommendations we hope will nonetheless be illuminating to you, our most discriminating audience.
Burn Your Fire for No Witness. Angel Olsen. 2014. Jagjaguwar.
The Sun Ra Arkestra Meets Salah Ragab In Egypt. Sun Ra Arkestra & Salah Ragab. 1983. Praxis.
Do Angels Ever Cut Themselves Shaving. Aleister Crowley. Collected in Magick Without Tears. 1954. Thelema Publications.