Caffeine and the Occult

[meta42]

A year ago I managed to get completely addicted to coffee, and before that I had never been a coffee drinker. If I didn't drink coffee I would get headaches and I would feel like a zombie.

About 3 months ago I managed to get un-addicted to caffeine and completely stopped drinking coffee, but then I had some coffee today and yesterday. I've been doing some energy work with some friends for a few weeks now and I was able to successfully get them to feel the energy I was sending out. Yesterday I had coffee and tried to do the same exercise, but I couldn't focus at all and my friend barely felt anything compared to when I was caffeine-free.

Today I realized that the year that I was addicted to coffee was the least in-tune with the occult I had ever been. During my caffeine-free months I noticed that I was more intuitive and had better control of my energy. I don't know if this is a personal thing and my body just dislikes caffeine, or if this is an actual thing that other people have experienced?

What role does caffeine play in your relationship with the occult?

[Eremita]

Haha, funny that you should post this thread (and that I should read it) today!

This is a different story, and not entirely related to the question, but I want to share anyway:

I'm normally a zombie when I get to work - I pour up a strong coffee before even thinking about getting started, and often need another one to make it to lunch time. I had a bad bout of mononucleosis last year and have been suffering chronic fatigue ever since. Coffee has been a massive crutch in enabling me to perform my job at all.

Normally I do no ritual work of a morning - I'm usually up and rushing to get to work on time, and on days when I don't work, I sleep in hard and leave any rituals until later in the day.

This morning, though, I decided to get up a full hour earlier than necessary, to give myself plenty of time to perform a Lesser Invoking Pentagram and Middle Pillar ritual before going to work. I then threw in about 10 minutes of standing meditation.

Well. I didn't feel that I either needed or wanted coffee all day. I actually ran partway to the bus stop, despite being super early as it was. I haven't been so charged and happy of a morning in so long I can't remember.

I don't like to rely on coffee, as I feel it makes me tense and jitterish. This is probably not the best state of mind/body for energy work, so it makes sense to me that you would find it harder while upped on caffeine.

The point of my story is:

When people suggest that you should try an invoking ritual in the morning, and banishing at night, give it a go. :p

[Ramscha]

I am an occasional coffee drinker at the moment. There where times where I really hit it and drank much, but I reduced due to save some money. Funny, if I rethink it, I wasn't really active in the occult during this time either. Today I like to drink it before going out or at occasions where there is a come-together with cake and such.

I experience coffee as making me awake and aware, but when it comes to occult work it makes problems. It is like you see everything with your eyes but nothing clearly and unable to focuse in, so to say. For doing some operation I also tend to need a certain calmness which I have not after drinking coffee where I am more on the "let's do things"-side.

I have experiemented with the middle-pillar in the morning and have found it quite helpful to get active and can recommend it.
Same goes for Rune Stödr which I found very helfpul as well.

Ramscha

[RoseRed]

Coffee keeps me upright.

I'm so tired deep down inside (life's been insanely hectic and stressful since last fall). I know I'm drinking way too much right now but - I got shit to do. Anyways, the only thing I've noticed with me is that when I get too tired is when I don't successfully practice. Too much coffee and I'm playing with fire burning off the excess.

Which, I don't know if you've thought of this or not, meta, you can work on practicing your skills when you have excess energy to burn off. It's a balancing technique with practical application.

[meta42]

Wow these are some very interesting replies. Thank you all for sharing. I'm very happy to hear that the middle pillar ritual in the morning has helped generate energy for the day. I am chronically fatigued so I'm excited to see what the middle pillar can do for me. Time to crack open my Modern Magick book once again!

[manofsands]

This is only slightly off-topic, but...

Are there any known deities tied to coffee,... especially who require a 'offering' of spilt coffee?

I can't have a cup of coffee without spilling a little bit. It just seemed the most logical excuse that a God from one of my past lives had just enough hold over me that I still spill a splat 99.93% of time I have a cup... Just makes sense.

[EternalReturn]

Science to the rescue! [crazy]

So how does one avoid a spill?...Starting your walk slower—that is, accelerating less—will help. So will leaving a decent gap between the top of the coffee and the mug's rim; this should be at least one-eighth of the mug's diameter-for a normal mug, about a centimeter should do it. But the researchers' "take home" advice is to look at what you're doing—so long as your mug isn't filled too high, a watched mug almost guarantees a clean run.

http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/05/phys ... led-coffee

[meta42]

[lol] Nice article EternalReturn!!

Sorry manofsands, I've never heard of a god of coffee. I've only really worked with Hindu gods and in Hinduism coffee is sometimes seen as unhealthy if I'm not mistaken.

[manofsands]

Good article. The rim idea is good, I usually top off pretty full. Hafta try that.
But I swear, some coffee spills seem predestined.

[shmatka]

And what about cigarettes? How hard can it interfere with your awareness and practice, taking into account it takes off on the respiratory system roadway?

[Procel]

I can't say I have a good basis for comparison because I am simply never caffeine free. I drink all together way too much coffee. My rationale that I give myself is that since I don't use alcohol or tobacco, have given up all recreational drugs (even the weed I loved so well and so long even after turning away from all other, actually dangerous psychedelic and psychoactive things) and I don't have sex outside my marriage that leaves only coffee. As vices go, coffee isn't so bad. As a stand up comic once said, "I never left a coffee shop at 2:am with a wildebeest on my arm...." When anybody expresses any sort of 'concern' that maybe I drink too much coffee, I generally tell them to get bent because I could be doing worse. The fact that I could be doing something worse is admittedly a poor reason to do anything. They can still take a flying f--- at a rolling doughnut.

All that said, there may be something to your observation that hadn't occurred to me. Aleister Crowley was a man who knew a thing or two about the occult and about drugs. (Seems that back in the 1920s heroine was a common prescribed remedy for asthma. Lovely.) Crowley was indeed a mad man who's writing ranged from lucid and insightful to incomprehensible, but I've never heard anyone question his devotion to and knowledge of magic or his first hand knowledge of the joys of carrying a goddamn monkey around on one's back for years upon years. For years he experimented with all sorts of drug induced altered states as an aid to reaching magickal trance. In his old age he rejected the idea as crap and said that all drugs are a hindrance to he act of getting in touch with the self or with any Truth. I don't know what, if anything, he ever said about my beloved coffee in specific, but caffeine is the world's most popular and most widely accepted drug of choice. If drugs are an obstacle between the individual and the infinite, it follows that even the 'good, light drug' is going to be some sort of an obstacle. If even just a little one.

One last thing I'd like to share. Not directly relevant but a damn fascinating piece of information that blew my mind. We as a species drink so much caffeine that it is traceable in ocean water. When scientists test ocean waters to track where and how far human waste is spread in the vast, deep green majority of the planet's surface; one of the chemicals they test for is caffeine. Humans are the only species that consumes it in any quantity (birds eating coffee beans off the bush don't account for much) and it passes through us and is in our bodily waste. Sewage eventually makes it's way to the oceans, and caffeine makes for an easy to establish, clear cut distinction between agricultural animal waste run off and human sewage. The fact that there are chemically detectable amounts of caffeine in the vast ocean shows just how much of it we drink. That amazes me to no end.

[Tiaden]

If anything, caffeine helps me. I work on a number of levels at once, at all times, and I'm a lifelong insomniac. Caffeine helps calm and focus me, I can go weeks without it or I can have six cups of strong coffee in a day. I use what I need to, when I need to, and it always helps. The same applies to alcohol, when I drink it, it helps me. It allows the stress which has usually built up by that point to melt away so that I can feel and move freely again. Neither of them are a crutch, I went three years without touching a drop of alcohol and it took no effort

They're just like anything else I use or do, they have a purpose, and they help me achieve what I'm trying to achieve in that moment.

[EternalReturn]

Well I've tried a different approach with green and black tea. It's good because it kinda calms you. Buut....coffe is coffe. I love it cold, I love it warm, with milk, cream, icecream, cinnamon etc. It gives me energy surge and I'm a little adhd when I drink it. But I don't see it as a bad thing but a inherent abillity to do more shit when I drink coffe. And it's great. I can focus better and using pranayama and mild meditations I manage to have great focus and memory. But my mind won't shut up [rofl] it's processing thing in background making observations and analysis constantly. At least it serves me concering material world

Speaking of drugs...coffe is definitely a drug. But you have to see what king of drug. You have stimulants, entheogens, psychoactive drugs etc. All kinds of effects. Used in moderation, you probably won't have strong side effects. Marihuana for example. It damages your short term memory and immune system if overused. I felt it's effects as I got sick and I was fucking stupid for a period of time. So I stopped. But after talking with one chemist, as he refered to it as stimulant I wanted to explore effects further. I made some mental preparations and tried to study something, and tried programming during it's effect. If you get into good mindset, you can actually remember things better. Working is also similar. I don't remember when I had so much fun programming. So one could argue it's all in moderation. And by moderation I mean 2 joints in 2 weeks; enough to get what you want but not damage yourself. If you do, drink a lot of water or wait 2 weeks for it to get out of your system. Or try to sweat a lot

So my conclusion would be this: drugs won't give you superpowers unless you use it to maximize your potential, and use it in moderation. In other words, if you're schizophrenic and use LSD don't blame drug for shit you've done.

Similar behaviour is seen in smokers, when they get lung cancer or something else and then THEY SUE THE TOBBACO COMPANY as if it is their fault. No, it's your fault for not being able to control yourself. Deal with it

[manonthepath]

I haven't noticed it influencing my practice in any way. Perhaps indirectly because I enjoy the habit quite a bit, but I really can't say one way or another. Everyone is different and I would advise you to do what is best for you. If coffee or whatever is influencing your life badly, drop it. the strength to defeat an "addiction" is found within the will. good luck.

[420]

Marijuana does not damage the immune system. In fact, it's antimicrobial, and anti cancer. Caffeine, on the other hand, is carcinogenic, mutagenic, and causes 1000 to 10,000 deaths in the US a year.

[EternalReturn]

Well not quite, based on the data I have which is easily accessible throught Google. But let's not turn this Coffe topic into pro con medical marijuana debate.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

I could see this being the case. My personal hypothesis on how this works however gets skewed away from a foreign-substance hypothesis and toward a brainwave one. For instance, although I really try not to drink much anymore, I'll still drink socially and on a few occasions I've drank to having a hangover the next day. When I am in bed with a hangover that sort of forced-tranquility that goes with it also feeds me a lot of stuff that's in that hypnogogia-border zone and with that my hangovers have been loaded with random visions as well as entity dialoging. I couldn't imagine myself ever getting there deliberately but it seems to, my best guess, put me in sort of an alpha/theta range where the caffeine would drive me higher into the beta cycles.

I can't have a cup of coffee without spilling a little bit. It just seemed the most logical excuse that a God from one of my past lives had just enough hold over me that I still spill a splat 99.93% of time I have a cup... Just makes sense.

Any possibility that you could have been Filipino or Indonesian in a past life? I always hear from my FMA instructor that they consider it good luck over there if someone spills coffee.

[420]

Well not quite, based on the data I have which is easily accessible throught Google. But let's not turn this Coffe topic into pro con medical marijuana debate.

There's a ten thousand dollar reward for anyone who can show caffeine doesn't kill 1000 to 10,000 a year on the back cover of the book "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" that's stood for years without challenge. Go ahead and try if you think you're right.

[EternalReturn]

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that every drug must be used with utmost care and moderation which I strive to do, and that was the point of the post before. Sorry if I presented it wrong in some way [smile]

[Sypheara]

I find that in moderation, both alcohol and coffee can be used in ritual to some effect, the same with tobacco.

Caffeine is a stimulant, and is best used when you are doing a very active working ie in ecstatic states, singing, flailing, dancing what have you.

I find that both nicotine and alcohol have similar effects, if used in moderation, and i used all three alot in my work with chthonic spirits. They love all three ingredients as offerings.

I try to cut down on it when doing sleep work however, as all three can interrupt dreams and states. A small amount of alcohol before bed though can actually increase dreaming states for me, but don't know if that works for others.

[Procel]

Pre Colombian Native Americans used tobacco and caffeine and (I recently learned) they made a hard cider all of which they used ritually. The joys of mouth cancer and alcoholism didn't pop up until people started using forms of the substances that concentrated the active ingredients. Kind of like coca leaf chewers don't get effected the same way crack heads do. A small amount of weak hard cider a couple times a year isn't like sucking down Jim Beam and a pipe of wild tobacco at the solstice and equinox isn't like a pack of Marlboros every day.

Philip Morris is the biggest slave owner in the world and I decline to be their property.

[Ramscha]

Pre Colombian Native Americans used tobacco and caffeine and (I recently learned) they made a hard cider all of which they used ritually. The joys of mouth cancer and alcoholism didn't pop up until people started using forms of the substances that concentrated the active ingredients. Kind of like coca leaf chewers don't get effected the same way crack heads do. A small amount of weak hard cider a couple times a year isn't like sucking down Jim Beam and a pipe of wild tobacco at the solstice and equinox isn't like a pack of Marlboros every day.

Philip Morris is the biggest slave owner in the world and I decline to be their property.

The dose makes the poison - paracelsus

So true, so true....

[Sypheara]

Pre Colombian Native Americans used tobacco and caffeine and (I recently learned) they made a hard cider all of which they used ritually. The joys of mouth cancer and alcoholism didn't pop up until people started using forms of the substances that concentrated the active ingredients. Kind of like coca leaf chewers don't get effected the same way crack heads do. A small amount of weak hard cider a couple times a year isn't like sucking down Jim Beam and a pipe of wild tobacco at the solstice and equinox isn't like a pack of Marlboros every day.

Philip Morris is the biggest slave owner in the world and I decline to be their property.

The dose makes the poison - paracelsus

So true, so true....

It really does. Many of these substances were intentionally restricted to social / ritual use.. due to the damage that abusing them everyday can do.

I love to smoke and drink like anybody else.. but I have respect for my own body and those chemicals so i do it in rather severe moderation.

Seriously though, you should try using tobacco, alcohol and caffeinated drinks in different rituals. You might find something that works for you, even if its just giving them as offerings in spirit work. I've found that at the crossroads spiced rum goes down a treat.. drink some yourself as well whilst you're at it!