The Dan Tian of Qigong and the Three Souls of Feri

[00goddess]

In the coaching program I am studying, we use some energetic body concepts from Qigong: the three dan tian and the central channel.

As soon as I encountered these in a meditation it was like BOOM. This makes sense to me. While the dan tian don't correspond exactly to the Feri 3 souls, I feel a strong connection there. I searched the web to see if any Feris saw that connection also and was surprised to find only one mention of the lower dan tian in relation to the three treasures inTaoism. Since then I've found one more thing, from a witch connecting Talker to the middle dantian. So I am not the only one to make this connection and I would love to see how other witches experience it.

Comments

[queenofhalves]

i don't know if this is the way you were understanding it, but: the three souls have centers that may correspond to the dan tian. however, they aren't *located* in those parts of the body. the etheric and astral bodies (vehicles of the fetch and talker) permeate and surround the dense body and intersect with the body of the personal god.

some recent "feri" stuff i've seen makes it sound like the souls are like chakras and you can only align them through these elaborate esoteric energy exercises that are like building bridges across chasms (which can be transmitted to you via skype for the low rate of $120!). but the bodies are naturally aligned; they're all interpenetrating. getting them into communication should be a simple thing, as natural as breathing, and requiring no unusual means. i have never found it super-important to work with their centers, although i'm most likely to work with the one below the navel, the etheric center.

i have a loose plan to write an article about this as soon as i can figure out how to frame it in terms other than "somebody was wrong on the internet"! ;> but i do think some of the etheric anatomy stuff that's cropping up on the internet with the label "feri" is pretty unhelpful as far as advancing feri practice. it might do something else useful, but it won't do the job of laying down the particular energetic habits that are needed to get anywhere with feri because of the way it frames alignment as something that has to be striven for and made to happen, rather than something that is a natural resting state.

[00goddess]

The way you explain it is how i understand them- the way Cora describes them in "50 years."

"getting them into communication should be a simple thing, as natural as breathing, and requiring no unusual means."

What constitutes unusual means?

For me I think my souls were in great alignment in 2004-05. The means I used were magick and witchcraft, maybe what you would call "energetic habits" but I am not sure. They were natural to me, but they still did require effort on my part. A lot of it was self-healing. Trauma is what shook that for me and made me feel less aligned, more separate. In qigong they call that "contraction," and I think it's an apt term on many levels.

[queenofhalves]

> What constitutes unusual means?

complex knowledge or practices accessible only to an elite few. some people present alignment as if it were an occult secret, and people who are aligned as special adepts of some kind. but alignment is ordinary. we're born aligned.

that being said, trauma and negative conditioning can create habitual dis-alignment, in the same way a bad childhood fall can create a skeletal problem that causes more and more physical problems as one gets older. but just like in the physical body, returning to spiritual health is usually a gentle, gradual process of restoring movement and easing restrictions. sometimes a shock of life force is needed to budge entrenched complexes, but not until after a healthy practice that encourages alignment is well-established.

i tell my students not to get too hung up on unusual means (no matter how shiny) and seeking extraordinary experiences (which will come by themselves as they do the work), because those of us with trauma backgrounds have a tendency to use occult techniques to dissociate further if we don't do a lot of boring, basic, gentle work to center in the body first. one of my working partners wrote this article; i find the chart particularly helpful: https://hedgeconfessions.com/2018/04/17/trauma-and-witchcraft/

we've also had students come through who were really hung up on Becoming Powerful, and that attitude warped everything they did in feri. they tended to make things that should be simple and a matter of flow into complicated things that required tons of striving and gave them a sense of ego-based achievement. we do like power in feri, and we don't take the negative attitude toward self and identity that a lot of buddhist-influenced new age writers do, but when students try to achieve alignment like it's some kind of triumph of the will, the results are never good!

xo

[00goddess]

This mirrors my experience, that alignment is our natural state. Because when I am acting in alignment it feels so easy. It feels like freedom.