The New Extreme Individual Institute

Comment at: http://blacksungazette.com/?p=399

I had originally planned to do a presentation at Esozone which was largely the product of my several years work in the physical yoga of the Hyatt Method. I have recently decided that this is a flawed way of introducing the material. There is nothing here that cannot be learned well between now and October. The participants in my Esozone workshop will get much more out of a presentation of any kind if they have engaged in the detensing movements in advance. Further, neophytes will have a place to refer to after being introduced to key concepts. Without any further explanation, I would like to walk practitioners through the basic detensing exercises of the Hyatt method.

Preparation

A good preparation for doing work of this kind is to take a COLD shower in silence. This is shocking to the physical body, and “wakes up” the skin before performance of subsequent movements. Washing each body part in turn, be sure to meditate on what you are doing. When you have cleaned your body (preferrably with a special soap set aside for this purpose- it doesn’t matter if it’s Lever 2000 or something from the local juju shop as long as it is different from your regular soap and only used for this purpose) stand for a few minutes calmly breathing deeply, sensing your body, and meditating on cosmic silence.

Do not perform the Work until two hours after a meal, and make sure that the bowels and bladder are empty.

Detensing

Preliminary Notes and Considerations

Detensing is perhaps the most important part of the Hyatt Method, particularly in the early stages. It is important to do the detensing exercises as frequently as time permits, but no less than three times a week. Daily practice can be made mercifully brief to fit even the most hectic schedule of the contemporary urbanite. I personally spend at least fifteen minutes each day doing these exercises. Do not fall into the trap of the modern day occult shyster who would have you believe that merely affirming your divinity makes it so. The physical world is indeed, very, very real. Without some degree of mastery over the body- the most immediate means by which reality is experienced, and in many ways the most important- any work done on self is merely the workings of a robot programming itself with more bullshit.

The presence of music, television, or any other passive form of entertainment (noise) cannot be adapted to the purpose intended, and severely minimizes the benefit of any movements performed.

Unless otherwise specified each region of the body should be worked on for 3-4 minutes or repeated 3-4 times. Once you have been doing it a while you will get a much better feeling of when you are “done.” At first you are going to have to expend lots of energy ridding your body of the accumulated muscle trauma of your entire life previously til now. This is a very daunting and demanding task that few ever seriously undertake.

The Hyatt Method is not glorified stretching, but is a means of overloading each muscle group with tension in turn, then releasing it, thus going through the entire energetic cycle on each part of the body. Don’t strain or hurt yourself, but if you don’t feel tendons and capillaries popping you probably aren’t doing it right. It should hurt when you do it, feel good when you release, and finally achieve a state of “alive” feeling equilibrium approximately when the practitioner ends all detensing. If you’re being honest with yourself, you’ll know roughly whether or not you’re doing it right, though subtleties are difficult to describe in written words.

I am happy to make a YouTube demonstration video of the various exercises provided that there is genuine interest in the subject.

Face

In short, make faces. Like when you were a little kid. Do this for less than fifteen seconds, then flick your tongue out a few times. Now scrunch the face into a tight ball with your eyes closed as tightly as they will go.

Follow the tight “scrunching” with opening the mouth (both lips and jaw) and eyes, as well as sticking out the tongue as hard as you possibly can. Hold this for another two to four minutes. Then babble. The easiest and simplest way to do this is to simply make silly noises. Make sure that you are moving you mouth, lips, and tongue a lot and really giving them a bit of a workout.

Neck And Shoulders

First, turn the head from side to side, slowly and evenly, making as much of an effort as is physically possible to turn your head all the way around. Next, raise the shoulders up to the ears as much as possible, keeping upward pressure while you hold. Repeat, holding as long as possible, pushing the shoulders as low as possible during release. Finally, look straight up at the ceiling by tilting the head back as far as possible, then the reverse (i.e. looking down at the floor). It is recommended that the practitioner turn his eyes as far as possible in the direction they are turning their head to. The eyes are a vast network of muscles with their own tensions and traumas and blockages.

The Torso and Arms

The arms and torso are properly thought of as one section of the body, as the arms are merely an extension of the torso. Clench the arms tightly at the side as hard as possible (including the hands, balled as tightly as the practitioner can manage into fists). This will necessarily involve the upper torso being tensed. Next, open the palms as hard as possible, stretching the fingers out far as if trying to grasp something just beyond your reach, while also tensing the lower torso or abdomen. Tensing / detensing different muscle groups at the same time is generally discouraged (i.e. the neck and shoulders in one movement), though the special relationship of the torso and arms makes combination particularly useful for this region of the body.

Pelvis

The pelvis is perhaps the most simple part of the body to detense. Slowly (this cannot be stressed enough for any detensing technique which involves movement rather than just tensing the body) rotate the torso in a circle, “snake”-style.

The Legs and Feet

Legs and feet are interesting, as most people (in particular contemporary Westerners) keep very little of their consciousness in their legs. This is reflected in, for example, the legions of superheroes whose chicken legs cannot support their massive torsos, as well as their lantern-shaped heads. Sitting on a chair stretch the legs out for 2-4 minutes each in two different positions. First, stretch the legs out as far as you can pushing out with the heel. Then do the same, stretching out, pointing the toes straight forward.

The Breath of Fire, Pillow Screaming, and Other Methods of Deep Tension Release

After you have done all the major external parts of the body, it is important to also detense the inside. Begin with humming, loudly, and from the depths of your diaphragm and core muscles for 1-2 minutes. Then do fast (not too fast), deep, measured open-mouth breaths. “Panting” is not exactly the name for what you’ll be doing. It’s similar, but slightly slower and more deliberate. Breathe like this for 20 counts (that is 20 cycles of in and out) then immediately stop, switching to slow, methodical breaths through the nose. The basic technique for this kind of breathing is to breathe in as slowly, evenly, and silently as possible, then hold the breath for as long as is reasonably comfortable (the Hyatt Method is not a competition) and exhaling in the same silent, slow, even manner. It is best to do as many cycles of this kind of breathing as you did with the panting-like breath. Finally, when you are done, find a pillow (lest your neighbors call the police) and scream as loudly as you can into it. Pretend you’re a six year old throwing a tantrum and really scream loudly.

Finishing Up

Finish this by laying quietly for 5-10 minutes doing nothing but concentrating on your breathing and the sensations of the body. Vocalize all sensations for the first two weeks, then merely make a mental note. Try things like thinking of pleasant events and unpleasant events and seeing what it feels like, but mostly concentrate on listening to your body and what it has to tell you.

Zazen For Madmen

Preliminary Notes and Considerations

After you have detensed the body, it is important to use this time of qualitatively different mental and physical awareness to prolong it. The most effective exercise that I have found for this purpose is zazen, or sitting zen. The point, eventually, is to, as much as is possible, sit in mental silence. This is a skill which can be learned, as well as lost through inattention to practice. The best way that I have seen to get the ball rolling on zazen is Hyatt Method detensing, followed by the so-called “Thinking Meditation” likely invented thousands of years ago, but popularized to the contemporary brain change community through Antero Alli in Angel Tech.

Balancing and Centering

I would recommend first doing some manner of balancing and centering exercise. I provide a brief one here, large cribbed from Mantak Chia’s work with Taoist Alchemy. First, sit in a comfortable position. Then, visualizing the following five organs, take five deep breaths for each, visualizing them filled with the light of the corresponding color, softly making the associated sound:

Lungs = White = SSSSS

Kidneys = Black = CHUWAY

Liver =Green = SHHHH

Heart = Red = HAWWW

Spleen = Yellow = WHOOO

Now use what Chinese Alchemists call the “Triple Warmer,” a three fold breath which centers a person in the Lower Than Thien (the Chinese version of the navel cakra). Imagine a rolling pin pushing down your entire body in three parts (1/3 for each exhale), while making the sound “HEEEEE.” Finally, imagine a beam of light moving very slowly across you, first from left to right, then back again, and then bottom to top and back again. You are now ready to practice zazen.

(Not) Thinking Meditation

Before one can perform the simple act of zazen (merely sitting) it is important to first become accustomed to the process of cognition, conscious and otherwise. Sitting in a comfortable position, either close your eyes lightly or sit very close to a wall, staring right at it. I recommend the latter, it being the preferred method of the Bodhidharma, and confirmed through personal praxis as one of the most effective ways of doing zazen. The first meditation is very simple. Spend thirty minutes saying “thinking!” in a firm, but polite (remember the rule about being kind to the robot!) voice.

Experiments

Diaries

Your only experiment for the above exercises is to keep three daily journals. One should sit right next to your bed and document, but not analyze your dreams. The second should record the events of your life, mundane and otherwise. The third requires a bit of explanation, but it is the Hyatt Method’s version of a so-called “magickal diary” or “book of shadows.”

After performing the days work note all conditions- time of day, mental state, weather, any astrological correspondences you find interesting, what precisely you did, how you felt about it, and any strange coincidences or synchronicities arising from the previous day’s work. Tell no one what you keep in here for at least six months.

Conclusions

These movements, though they seem devoid of “occult” content to the philistine practitioner more interested in collecting crystals and Tarot card sets than actual brain change, are highly valuable to the serious student of Tantra. Brain change is hard work and highly traumatic- work and trauma being the two things that most occultnik charlatans can’t stand. Tantra is, as shall be explored in later installments in this series leading up to Esozone, nothing less than the science of personal awareness and control. I have a special set of exercises unpublished anywhere else which will be available to anyone willing to provide me with a consistent month of documented work. For everyone else, there will be more to come soon enough. But I would like to stress in my parting that the Hyatt Method is neither a competition or a race. Do the work, and never cheat yourself. The rewards you reap shall be great.

Syllabus

Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation and Other Techniqes by Christopher Hyatt (Original Falcon)

Angel Tech by Antero Alli (Original Falcon)

Taoist Yoga and Sexual Energy by Eric Yudelov (Amazon)

Acknowledgments

In the making of this article, I must ascribe a great debt of gratitude to Dr. Christopher Hyatt (RIP) and Antero Alli. Further, I would like to thank Taylor Ellwood and Bill Whitcomb for being legitimate practitioners of the science of the wise, not the chicanery of the wiseguy, a highly important distinction to make in a world overpopulated with would-be cult leaders and other kinds of chicanery. Finally, none of this work would have been possible for me without Nick Tharcher at Original Falcon, Joe Matheny of Grey Lodge, and everyone at the New Extreme Individual Institute.

As always, no thanks to disgusting manipulators and right-wing power mongers looking to fuck their father’s corpse- and Tim Leary’s and Bob Wilson’s for that matter- before it is even cold. Your day of reckoning will come sooner than you think.