(The following is a journal response to the First Gear portion of the Mechanical Problems section of Angel Tech by Antero Alli as part of Portland Occulture’s Angel Tech study group).

“Perhaps the most severe form of the Confusion Alert comes as the idea that the body is an “inferior or lower” self suspected of the most heinous intentions. These kind of body-images perpetrate the belief in a “split” “between the body and the spirit. This singular illusion, may, indeed, be responsible for provoking and sustaining the state of spiritual amnesia so prevalent today […] The body is seen as anything from “evil” to an impediment on the path of enlightenment, something one must overcome and come to grips with. It is this very “grip” that we have on ourselves that is begging to be released. There has been such a tremendous era of self-negation, that our need for self-affirmation has grown so great as to require elaborate systems of thought and belief to justify its existence.”

- Angel Tech pg. 72

The emphasis on “first gear” (physical body/malkuth/first circuit) was well timed as I was already starting to ease out of more mental and intellectual work (scrying the ethers and working through the VGW) and focusing on yoga and kendo. I was pusing the mental work a little too hard, and after hitting the 10th ether, I figured it was time to slow down a bit.

Yoga, martial arts, and similar practices differ from other forms of intense exercise in the way they bring awareness to the body. I’ve been doing Kundalini and kendo regularly for about a month now, and the change in my awareness of and comfort with my body is amazing. For around a month now I’ve also had to walk about 1.5 - 2 miles everyday because of a change to my bus route. I’ve also recently added Vinyasa yoga to my routine. I may now be starting to move too much in the body work direction. We’ll see how long I can keep all this up. But even before I started in on the Angel Tech group I’ve wanted to start placing more emphasis on body work and have hoped to integrate it more fully with mental work. Finding the balance is an ongoing work itself.