Matrix of Possibilities

There are many ways to perform the operation of theurgy and the evocation of spirits. Most of those who practice this kind of magical operation work through one or more of the many available grimoires. However, there are other ways to perform this operation that have little to do with the old grimoires; yet these other methods require the invention of a completely alternative magical technology. A practitioner is generally stuck between using existing information and available materials or creating something entirely new. The path that I took was to create a new methodology for invocation and evocation; but the clues on how to proceed were already well documented, even though they were subtle and obscure.

Ever since I first examined the Goetia of the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon, I have been fascinated by those entities called Goetic Demons, but found the methodologies for invoking them to be too abbreviated and incomplete to be entirely useful. Others have made use of this grimoire, but I found it beyond my ability to produce an effective methodology for evocation. I also found the 72 angels of the Shemhemphorasch (ha-Shem) in this same category, even though they were not specifically listed in any grimoire that I had at the time. To me there seemed to be a lot of pieces of occult lore without the ability to pull them all together. So I tended to work with the spirits and powers that I was able to access through my developed ritual systems, and ignore all of the other spirits that didn’t fit into those structures.

However, when I first read Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth and also studied Israel Regardie’s The Golden Dawn (specifically, Book T) there seemed to be a new structure implied that might associate the tarot, astrology, Qabalah and the hierarchy of spirits into one unified system. That structure was found in the 36 Naib cards of the minor arcana of the tarot and the 36 astrological decans.

Aleister Crowley discusses that there is an associated spiritual hierarchy with each of the Naib cards, stating it as such: “It is governed from the angelic world by two Beings, one during the hours of Light, the other during the hours of Darkness. Therefore, in order to use the properties of this card, one way is to get into communication with the Intelligence concerned, and to induce him to execute his function.”¹

Crowley goes on to write that these two spirits are the angels of the Shehemphorash and that there are a total of 72 of them, corresponding to the five degree astrological segment of the “quinaries,” or what I refer to as the quinarians.² Crowley omits relating the astrological decans to these 36 Naib cards, but he does use the old style planetary rulers that are associated with them in assigning the planets to these tarot cards. One can see this illustrated in a table on page 283 of the Book of Thoth.

Book T goes further than Crowley by not only showing that the astrological decans correspond to the 36 Naib cards of the tarot, but also that there is a larger matrix consisting of the 16 court cards and the four aces.³

So it would seem that there is a very tight tabular system consisting of all of the 56 cards of the lesser arcana. This tabular system can also be used to represent a spiritual hierarchy of the four elements, the ten sephiroth of the tree of life and the twelve signs of the zodiac. The one association that is missing is where the decans are shown to be hierarchically related to the quinarians, since the former would represent a ten degree segment of the zodiacal wheel and the latter, a five degree segment.

A decan would therefore be the higher order structure of two corresponding quinarians. What this means is that the decan and its associated spirit correspondences rules over the associated quinarian and its spirit correspondences. If the angels of the ha-Shem and the demons of the Goetia are associated with the quinarians, then the angelic ruler of the decanate would be their hierarchical lord, and the decan would be the key to the quinarian.

Clues to the nature of the astrological structure of these spirits are found in the lore from the Golden Dawn and Alesiter Crowley. In the book 777 (cols. CXXIX CXXXII, CXLV CLXVI), the angels of the Ha-Shem,⁴ angelic rulers of the decans and demons of the Goetia are organized by the zodiac, using the ascendant, cadent and succeedent parts of the wheel of the zodiac, by day and night.

It would seem that the number 72 would lend itself to occult interpretations, being a multiple of six times twelve, both very sacred numbers in Judaism. Also, there already was an astrological structure for the quinarians as lesser aspects of the decans, so I think that it would fit into a neat hierarchy.

I don’t know where this idea originally came from, but I was using existing schemes for all of this, as well as hints from Aleister Crowley in the appendices of the Book of Thoth, so I didn’t invent it.⁵ As a system it fits really well together, and it’s better than using the Shemhemphorash as a unique and separate set of spirits without any correspondences. As I have stated above, determining a context for spiritual entities so that they may be defined and highly qualified is important if the magician seeks to invoke them.

When I carefully researched the clues, I found where the angels of the Shemhemphorash were given their astrological correspondences. It was in Agrippa’s Book III of Occult Philosophy, Chapter XXV, paragraph 6. Agrippa writes: “And these are those [angels of ha-Shem] that are set over the seventy two celestial quinaries.” So if the angels of ha-Shem are set over the seventy two celestial quinarians, then their hierarchy would naturally be associated with the 36 decans and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and also with their associated archangels and angelic rulers. This relation between decan and quinarian is not spoken of either by Agrippa or anyone else, but is alluded to in Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth,⁶ and also Book T of The Golden Dawn. If you put what he says together with the tables in 777, you come up with the system that I am using. To my knowledge, no else quite makes all of the combinations that I have made; but it seems to be functionally elegant.

Needless to say, I was quite thrilled at how neat and tidy all of these various elements were pulled together through the cards of the Lesser Arcana of the Tarot. I speculated that if one could identify the various correspondences associated with each of these cards, that one could put together a system to invoke and evoke all of the associated spirits. So, after basking in this wondrous revelation, I set to work to build a system of magick that would do just that.

To recap, the angelic ruler of the decan and tarot Naib card has the following hierarchy:

• Element godhead
• Qabalistic sephirah
• Zodiacal base element
• Zodiacal triple spiritual intelligences (archangel, angel, house ruler) — these qualify the specific zodiacal sign
• Planetary ruler of the decan
• Angelic ruler of the decanate
• ha-Shem angel of day and night
• Goetic demon of day and night (from Lemegeton — Goetia)
• Angel of the zodiacal degree (From Lemegeton — Ars Paulina — Part 2)

Obviously, if one were to perform an invocation of the angelic ruler of the decanate, one of the angels of the ha-Shem, or one of the Goetic demons, then one would establish or invoke the associated spiritual hierarchy, beginning with the element godhead. Tools used to assist in the establishment of these qualities would be the pentagram (element), lesser hexagram (astrological triplicities), greater hexagram or septagram (planetary ruler) and the enneagram (sephirah).

My methodology uses a technique that defines a spirit through a matrix of correspondences and generates the elemental body and planetary intelligences of the spirit from them. I will defer that explanation to a future article, but I believe that the above information is enough to get occultists thinking of an alternative method to performing invocation and evocation.

Importance of the Astrological Decans

So, what is the importance and significance of the astrological decans? Even if they seem to fit into a nice tidy structure that defines a whole hierarchy of spirits, why is it such a compelling structure by itself? These are good questions, but in order to answer them, we will need to share some historical information about the decans. Once that is done, I am sure it will be obvious why they are significant.

The decans have a long history in the annals of magical religion — the Egyptians had minor deities associated with each of them and these play an important part in the Book of Gates.⁷ The decans are used in horary (predictive) astrology to determine the dignity of planets in the divinatory chart and they have been represented in both the Egyptian and Mesopotamian theological systems as sidereal gods of time and destiny. Thus the magician contacts the angelic ruler in order to realize and control his destiny, and to affect the general causality of the world. The decans were also used by the Egyptians to indicate the hour of the night.

What gave me a startling clue to the importance of the decans is when I came across a passage in the book Magic, Mystery, and Science — The Occult in Western Civilization by Dan Barton and David Grandy. That passage said that the Egyptians used the decans (and their associated godheads and marking stars) to determine and qualify the hours of the night sky. During the night, the decan that appeared at the ascendant (eastern horizon) would tell the Egyptians what time it was. A decan period would last approximately 40 minutes, so for each night approximately 18 of the 36 decans could be revealed. During the changing of the seasons, the evening would potentially begin with a different decan over time, passing through the whole zodiacal wheel during an annual period.

So the decans were possibly used as magical hours during the night, but these hours would have lasted 40 minutes instead of 60, and each decan would have been accorded a different minor godhead and quality, not to mention the 12 gates of the diurnal solar boat transit through the underworld.

It would also seem that the Egyptians used a system of reckoning when attempting to determine the hours at night, using the decans passing over the horizon as a kind of clock. Since twilight would have made this reckoning impossible, there would have been 12 hours of night associated with the decans, since making this measurement would have required complete darkness. Dawning light would have also potentially interfered, so there would have been an hour and a half both before full night and before dawn when such reckoning would have been impossible.

A device called a merkhet (plumb line) was discovered in an Egyptian tomb. This tool, whose invention was late, probably around 600 BCE, was used to determine the north-south axis. Two of these devices were set up in a specific measured line from each other, and the subject would observe the rising of the decan star between the line of these two devices. It’s likely that this late tool was based on more primitive technology, which would have been used to perform the same kind of sighting.

Another interesting thing about the decans is that every ten days a new decan would appear at the horizon at the first observable hour of the night. It’s from this array of 36 decans, each lasting ten days, that the Egyptians determined their solar based calendar, where the last decan coincided with the period just before the annual inundation of the Nile river. They had a yearly calendar of 36 decans with five days added to the end to make 365 days in all. The five additional days would probably represent a 73rd quinarian in the Egyptian astrological system, but that is another interesting item to discuss in another article.

As you can see, the decans were used to measure time during the night. They also represented the hours of the domain of the underworld, where the solar boat and its occupants fought the threatening chthonic foes in order to gain passage to the gateway of the dawn in the east. This underworld passage occurred every evening, but to the Egyptians it represented the mythic passage from death and mortality to the immortality of the gods — an initiation cycle of profound consequences.

If we now observe that the decans and the Naib cards of the lesser arcana of the tarot are analogous, then not only do we have an elegant system of occult correspondences, but we also have a map for an aspect of the Inner planes, governed by various spirits and representing the underworld passage of occult initiation.

©2010 by Frater Barrabbas.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

Bibliography

• Barton, Dan and Grandy, David Magic, Mystery, and Science — The Occult in Western Civilization (Indiana University Press 2004)
• Crowley, Aleister 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley (Samuel Weiser, 1994)
• Crowley, Aleister The Book of Thoth (Samuel Weiser, 1972)
• Regardie, Israel The Golden Dawn (Llewellyn — 6th edition, 1995)

Footnotes

1. See The Book of Thoth p. 43
2. David Griffin, in his book Ritual Magic calls them “quinants.”
3. This association was first documented in the Golden Dawn material, particularly Book T — Tarot. See The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie, 6th edition, p. 87 & p. 551.
4. Actually, the angels of the ha-Shem correspond to nine of the ten sephiroth of the tree of life for the four suits of the tarot, paired by day and night. Pulling the various pieces together requires a correspondence between the decans and the Naib cards of the lesser arcana of the tarot.
5. The Goetia of Dr. Rudd has paired the angels of the ha-Shem with the Goetic demons. The relationship of the 72 spirits to the quinarians is quite old, and may be a part of the ancient system of astrological magick, such as that proposed in the Picatrix (11th century). However, there is no precedence for grouping the decans and the quinarians together, and organizing the associated spirits into a hierarchy.
6. See The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley, “Part I — Theory,” p. 40 — 44, and “Appendix B,” p. 283
7. The Book of Gates, or Am-Tuat, was a hieroglyphic book depicted in Egyptian tombs of the New Kingdom, but may have been conceived from earlier sources. The Tomb of Seti I is a prime example.

   Frater Barrabbas is a writer and practitioner of witchcraft and ritual magick. He has published two books — Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick, and the two volumes of a trilogy, entitled Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Foundation and Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Grimoire. The third volume in this series, Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Greater Key will be published soon. You can contact him at this email address and visit his website.

The diversity of esoteric exercises and rituals fill volumes, the variety systems of magickal practice is known and accepted, and yet that there is more than one way to look at what magick “is” and how it “works” seems overlooked, and the effects are not insignificant.

My magical philosophy was early informed by chaos magick, and when I first read about Frater U∴D∴’s four (or five) models of magick it made a great deal of sense to me, aiding greatly in my understanding of how people who experience the same phenomena can interpret it in such a variety of ways.

Frater U∴D∴ understood these models as a progression in human thinking (see “The Paradigms of Magic” in High Magic, especially p. 373-383), but these models co-exist in magical theory today. The four (plus one) models are as follows:

The Spirit Model

This could also be called “The Theists’ Model.” In this model of magick, gods, angels, demons, spirits and discarnate entities of all types exist and can physically and/or psychically possess, inspire, and communicate with human beings.

The Energy Model

In this model various forms of energy are posited as the source or medium through which magick works. Expressed forms may include Reiki, chi, astrological vibrations, healing energy, magnetism, crystal energy, amongst others.

The Psychological Model

This model can also be misconstrued as a “Skeptic’s Model,” as it adheres to a strictly psychological interpretation of magical effect. That said, this model should not be dismissed as “mere” psychology; psychology is a powerful tool.

In the psychological model, “spirits” might be interpreted as a neurosis of some sort, and any physical manifestations are determined to be psychosomatic in origin, and can be reasoned with therapy.

The Information or Cybernetic Model

The magician here works with pure information. For instance, in the information model a particular “spirit” may be seen a negative meme, or unit of information, which has “infected” its host, and requires replacement with a more effective and useful meme. This is a newer approach, and so has not gathered much of a recorded history of yet, but it is one which is continually gaining in popularity.

The Meta-Model

A magician working from a meta-model may work with a combination of these models, or simply use that which is determined to be most effective for the rite at hand, regardless of what the magician hirself believes.

The Models in Action

Most people work from a variety of models, without realizing the effect the tone of their belief has.

For example, a ceremonial magician may work with Enochian or Goetic systems (spirit), practice pranayama (energy), and seek deeper connection with their current (spirit/energy). An atheistic magician may perform the exact same rites and practices, but acknowledge the root of its effectiveness to be rooted in changing mindsets (psychological) or memetically-derived (information).

The experienced Pagan may believe in a god and goddess pair or an entire pantheon (spirit), while working with meridians and chakras (energy), have an interest in memetics (information), yet believe the monster hir daughter fears under the bed has been fabricated by fears of the unknown (psychological).

The sophisticated chaote, on the other hand, may slip between models as need dictates. For instance, suppose a friend is having a rough time which they interpret as a string of bad luck (energy) and this is affecting their mood, relations with family and work (psychological). A chaote may propose demonizing this bad luck, projecting its effects onto a demon (spiritual), which can then be ritually exorcised with much fanfare.

As Jordan Peterson writes:

We all produce models of what is and what should be, and how we transform one into the other. We change our behaviour, when the consequences of the behaviour are not what we would like. But sometimes mere alteration in behavior is insufficient. We must change not only what we do, but what we think is important. This means reconsideration of the nature of the motivational significance of the present, and reconsideration of the ideal nature of the future. This is a radical, even revolutionary transformation, and it is a very complex process in its realization – but mythic thinking has represented the nature of such change in great and remarkable detail. (Peterson, 1999, p. 14)

The effect of reshaping the belief in “bad luck” to “demonic activity” and banishing the personalized form is an exceedingly effective approach to ridding oneself of this influence. Its success may or may not be due to banishing a demon (spirit), releasing tension (psychological) or ridding oneself of “bad luck” (energy) — however it happens, it works.

The “Truth”

So which one is correct? Well, all of them, kind of.

In his essay “Models of Magic” Frater U∴D∴ describes the following theoretical exchange:

“Are there spirits?”
“In the spirit model, yes.”
“And in the energy model?”
“In the energy model there are subtle energy forms.”
“And what about the psychological model?”
“Well, in the psychological model we are dealing with projections of the subconscious.”
“What happens in the information model, then?”
“In the information model there are information clusters.”
“Yes, but are there spirits now or not?”
“In the spirit model, yes.”

The matter of which is always “true” or “right” is never addressed because, ultimately, it’s not relevant. Use of a single model can be limiting, and even the most hardcore atheists can appeal to the spirit model to help a friend in need.

©2010 by Psyche.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

Psyche is the curator for the occult resource SpiralNature.com, blogs esoteric at Plutonica.net, and runs a tarot consultation business at PsycheTarot.com. She has been published in The Cauldron, Konton, newWitch, Blessed Be, Tarot World Magazine and her essay “Strategic Magick” appeared in Manifesting Prosperity: A Wealth Magic Anthology, published by Megalithica Books in February 2008.

Bibliography

• Frater U∴D∴ “Models of Magic,” on SpiralNature.com, 1991. Last updated 14 December 2002.
• Frater U∴D∴ High Magic. St. Paul: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2005.
• Peterson, Jordan B. Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. New York: Routledge, 1999.

We have covered the greater wheel of fortune and how it’s associated with the solar return and the point 180 degrees from the solar return, or halfway in the annual cycle. This greater wheel of fortune is very important to know if one is going to work magick to change one’s material situation.

There is also a lesser wheel of fortune that involves the moon and this lesser cycle is more characterized by the emotions than by material gain. It’s an important truism that if the emotions are not aligned with one’s greater material purpose, then one’s endeavors will ultimately fail.

This lesser wheel of fortune has the same basic components as the greater wheel. The natal chart lunar position is extracted and the halfway point in this cycle is determined by plotting a position that is exactly six zodiacal signs ahead of the natal moon position. For instance, my natal moon is in Gemini when the moon was gibbous (just before full), so the halfway point would be the moon in Sagittarius when it is balsamic. So I can use either the lunation types of gibbous and balsamic to represent the natal return and halfway point or I can use the signs of the moon in Gemini and Sagittarius. Either set of points have their validity.

Now for me the emotional wheel of fortune works like this: When the moon is gibbous or in the sign of Gemini, I am typically feeling very emotionally centered, grounded and fulfilled. When the halfway point is achieved, then my emotional state is decidedly muted and turned inward. It’s a time when I am not as certain of myself and feel compelled to question my motives and the things that I usually take for granted. The natal lunar point is an emotional high point and the halfway point is one of instability, where the unconscious mind is more able to affect me and my emotional sense of self.

The key to this emotional wheel of fortune is that it’s better to perform magical workings so that they achieve their climax up to but not beyond the full moon. The waning moon represents particularly difficult times for me and it’s much better to use that time for reflection, divination and contemplation, allowing the unconscious mind to unload some of its internal pressures and negative or dark self-perceptions in a controlled environment. It’s also a good idea to synchronize the greater and lesser wheels of fortune so that magical workings and mundane actions involving material advancement occur during the better half for both cycles. For me, that would be the second half of my solar year when the moon is gibbous. I would also be advised by these cycles to avoid taking risks during that same time when the moon is waning and nearing the new moon phase.

We can also analyze the transit aspects of the natal moon with the transiting moon and get a very clear idea of the kind of forces that are active. Like the sun, we can examine the aspect where the transit moon is in conjunction with the natal moon and the aspect where the transit moon is in opposition to the natal moon.

Transit Moon Conjunct Natal Moon

This is called the lunar return and it occurs once every month. It represents the beginning of an emotional cycle. It’s a time of emotional sensitivity and emotional intensity. It has a magnetic effect and tends to attract external events and people to its emanating field. Another way of examining the Lunar return is to determine the precise lunation type found in the natal chart. This represents the lunation type that one was born under, so it becomes a powerful emotional base for the individual.

Transit Moon Opposition Natal Moon

This aspect represents deepening moods and powerful emotions. One becomes self-absorbed and loses objectivity, which tends to create emotional oppositions with others. It’s definitely not a time to be dealing with relationship issues, business partnerships or emotional issues involving family or friends. It is a good time to go deep into the self and retrieve insights and directives from the deeper self.

So you can see, there is a Greater Wheel of Fortune involving the solar return and a Lesser Wheel of Fortune that involves the lunar return. Both cycles need to be carefully examined, and dates where both cycles are at their optimum can be chosen for the working of material based magick.

Bibliography

• Hand, Robert (1976) Planets in Transit: Life Cycles for Living Para Research Inc., Gloucester, MA

©2010 by Frater Barrabbas.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

Frater Barrabbas is a writer and practitioner of Witchcraft and Ritual Magick. He has published two books — Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick, and the two volumes of a trilogy, entitled Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Volume 1: Foundation — Volume 2: Grimoire. The third volume in this series, Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Greater Key will be published soon. You can contact him at this email address and visit his website.

Ever since the advent of Masonry, individual occultists have sought to unify and organize themselves into a collective to facilitate group ceremony, study and collaboration, often using the Masonic lodge as a model. A Masonic lodge has temporary leadership roles, and Masonic brothers are considered to be equal no matter what their social status, degree or role. Perhaps this is why many founding fathers of western democracies were members of Masonic groups. Masonic lore seems to perpetuate the ideal that all men are created equal, despite the fact that initiates and cowans (outsiders) are treated differently. Yet a spirit of egalitarianism pervades Masonic organizations even to this day. This is especially true in the more basic Blue Lodge, which promotes only three initiatory degrees and a rotating hierarchy.

Grand lodges and larger aggregated organizations forewent this spirit of equality and produced a hierarchy of individuals vested with various degrees of authority and power. The Societas Rosecruciana In Anglia and the Golden Dawn were based on this later kind of organization, and other groups, such as the O.T.O., invested certain individuals with authority to ensure that the local bodies as well as the grand lodge had trusted individuals to maintain continuity and stability. Many of today’s occult groups modeled their organizational structure loosely on the model of the Masonic blue lodge or grand lodge. Others have deviated quite remarkably from the Masonic belief in the equality of all members. However, Masonic lodges have shown themselves to be capable of extreme longevity, withstanding change and still operating long after the deaths of the original founders. Fraternity and equality arguably play an important part in the endurance of these groups.

In the various religious groups of Wicca and Neopaganism, there is a trend in which a grove or coven is headed by an autocratic leader or small group of elites ruling a larger group of novices, often with no checks on their authority and little accountability. I have personally experienced the abuses that can occur within Wiccan covens, but the fault is to be found wherever groups invest their leaders with near dictatorial powers. This is true whether or not these individuals have the qualities and experience to be good leaders. If leaders are gifted and skilled at leading, then a benign aristocracy is formed; otherwise, the worst kind of cult of personality and autocracy can develop. The fact that ritual magick and godhead assumptions can be practiced in such groups makes the effects of bad leadership even more damaging.

This is probably why many ritual magicians prefer to work alone and retain their autonomy despite the benefits of belonging to a group. Many magicians started out belonging to a group or organization, but seldom do they stay for more than a few years. Being alone and completely isolated is not a good idea, either. Regardless of the religious or spiritual background of magicians, they tend to branch out, discovering that performing magick for its own sake is more rewarding than belonging to a cult or creed.

The choice to work magick within a group is often made because all magicians need peer review, objective viewpoints, and solidarity, which are critically important to one’s spiritual growth. There is nothing more stultifying and potentially dangerous than the practice of complex and intense ritual magick in complete isolation. While working magick alone is at times necessary, a magical practitioner should have recourse to a peer group of other magicians to balance the intensely subjective nature of ritual work. Having a group of experienced and knowledgeable friends to judge one’s work is very important. In fact, it’s probably the only way that a ritual magician can maintain balance and objectivity. A peer group keeps individuals honest with themselves and helps them to understand their spiritual and magical processes in an objective manner.

Since ritual magicians are not common, such a peer group will be small and intimate. It may not even be centrally located in one’s own community. Because of Facebook, MySpace, blogs, email and Yahoo! groups and chat rooms, the social network of a ritual magician may be entirely virtual. Yet it’s important for a practicing ritual magician to have friends and fellow magicians his or her physical neighborhood so that he or she may periodically meet them and have intimate conversations about personal, spiritual and magical topics. I maintain that a virtual community, although helpful, can never replace real social contact between individuals. Much more is communicated through phone conversations and face to face to meetings than could be written in blogs, chat rooms or email. These same close friends will share common ideas, swap books, look over rituals together, examine excerpts of each others’ magical journals, and perhaps even perform rituals and ceremonies together. When a loose confederation of ritual magicians starts working magick together, then group organization will naturally develop.

Rituals magicians, like many occultists, aren’t known for their social skills, diplomacy or empathetic abilities. They are usually absorbed in their own practices and perspectives, and they generally despise authority figures within their own discipline. They don’t like being ordered around or told what to do. They are independently minded and probably even a bit anarchistic, eschewing any kind of formal group dynamic. This is my question and the central theme of this article: How do you get a group of ritual magicians to function as a creative, sharing, objective and harmonious organization? The answer to this question is to use what is known as a “Star Group” model.

What is a Star Group, one might ponder, and how does it differ from other kinds of groups? First, a Star Group is an autonomous, egalitarian collective where each member is an equal and respected partner, functioning as an integral facet of the whole group. A Star Group is particularly sensitive to the phenomenon of the egregore, also known as the group mind. The leadership roles in a Star Group are temporary and carry little or no real power or authority. The true authority is vested in the group itself and all decisions are determined by a process of consensus.

I define consensus as a mutual agreement in which, for any given decision, a majority of the members of the group are for it and no one is against it. Abstention does not count as a negative vote unless there is not a majority who are for it. An objection from any one of the members of the group will force that decision to be either shelved or altogether abandoned. This kind of rule-by-consensus ensures that a majority will not override the objections of even the humblest member. All individuals are heard and decisions have the backing of nearly everyone. The person who presents the idea or direction to the group has the responsibility to sell it to everyone so that no one finds fault or objects to it. Getting a small group of ritual magicians to agree nearly unanimously to a given plan of action is no small matter, but it can be done. In fact, it must be done so that everyone feels that they have been intimately involved in the decision making process. When the group makes such a decision by consensus, the outcome is guaranteed to be satisfactory to all of the members. Leaders are essentially facilitators with all of the responsibility and none of the authority. Thus no one person can abrogate the power of the group and the equality of everyone is fully protected.

I can almost sense the eye-rolling from my readers after proposing this kind of group. The first objection is that such an organization will not be able to accomplish anything substantive if there isn’t someone who makes the final decision and acts as an overseer. Hierarchical groups seem to be more efficient, goal directed and practical. Anything done by committee is guaranteed to be mediocre at best, and terribly disjointed and chaotic at the worst. It often ends up representing the untutored whims and creative hubris of the least capable in the group. I have seen rituals constructed by committees and I would agree that they are usually ineffective. Yet a Star Group is deliberately small. The execution of consensus agreements incorporates the best abilities of the most able members.

What does that mean? It means that a Star Group is not driven by ego gratification, since everyone is a respected and valued member. Each has a role and a part to play. In such a situation, the group will vest an individual with certain tasks that they are best equipped to accomplish, incorporating other members to aid and assist them as required. People work together and cooperate jointly to produce the best product that they can. A Star Group is an egalitarian team with objectives and goals, and they work together with the powerful commitment of having unanimously agreed to do a given task.

Suppose a Star Group decides to perform elaborate theatrical rituals that require props and even sets. One person who is a gifted artist may produce the sets; another who is a writer would write the script; another who is a musician would assemble the music; an electrician would provide the lighting; yet another might be a costume maker and would design and sew the costumes. One individual might be chosen to act as the director, to direct the others to take on various parts in the ceremonial play. None of these individuals would act alone, since all of their contributions would be screened and examined by the whole group. Everyone would contribute materials, time, labor and money. The net result would be the combined efforts of gifted individuals working together as a group. The quality of such an effort would be far greater than what one of the members could do alone.

Would there be disagreements and sometimes heated discussions? Certainly, since disagreements and occasional arguments would be part of the dynamic. However, the overall objectives and goals of the group would have been set up early in its formation, and the members would be motivated to work out their differences in a peaceful and cooperative manner to get the work done. It might take longer to complete a project, but the level of group satisfaction and the quality of the work would be pleasing to everyone.

Contrast this same effort as applied to a hierarchical group. If the leader is smart and knows how to motivate people, sensing their needs, strengths and weaknesses, then the assignment of roles may show a high degree of wisdom. It may also show a high degree of favoritism and cronyism, since those who are favored by the leader would get the best roles. It would be guaranteed to be done in less time, but it probably would not be satisfying to the whole group unless the leader used good judgment to correctly and accurately call the shots.

If the leader is an autocrat, then the outcome of any project may be just as disorganized, poorly contrived and executed as it would have been done by a committee. In such a situation, the hard labor would be delegated to the least favorable members and the best jobs reserved for the favorite members. A skilled seamstress may be completely overlooked because the leader’s girlfriend wants the job. Similarly, a gifted writer may be forced to do carpentry work because the leader either doesn’t know about her skill or purposefully ignores it to favor someone else. Often the leaders reserve the best parts for themselves. When the overall project fails to be fully satisfying, he blames the least favored members for failing to do their jobs. Other members who know what is really going on will resent the leader’s biased authority and either leave the group or eventually force a confrontation. A hierarchical group may have to contend with a leader’s ego inflation, unethical conduct, exploitation of other members, favoritism, despotism, incompetence and outrageous behavior.

Of course, not all hierarchical groups are dysfunctional and certainly large groups can’t function without a hierarchy. Large groups use bylaws and formal procedures to ensure that leaders are accountable, so despots or incompetents can be removed from their positions of authority. However, we are talking about small groups with less than twelve members. In such a group the temptation to acquire and hold power over others is just too great. Magicians don’t have much stomach or tolerance for such blatant examples of hubris and ego inflation, but with a Star Group, there is an alternative capable of accomplishing goals and tasks with everyone fully engaged. This is much more satisfying than what might occur with permanent authority figures.

The qualities of a Star Group can be summarized by the following points:

• Egalitarianism — each member is treated equally, valued and respected.
• Consensus — each decision is made through the process of consensus.
• Leadership roles are temporary and frequently rotated.
• Groups are fully autonomous (they answer only to themselves).
• Sensitive to the formation of egregores.
• Authority and power is vested in the group, not any individual.

An example of the bylaws used to organize and run Star Groups in the magical Order of the Gnostic Star can be found at this web address. (PDF; right-click and “Save target as”)

©2010 by Frater Barrabbas.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

Frater Barrabbas is a writer and practitioner of Witchcraft and Ritual Magick. He has published two books — Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick, and the two volumes of a trilogy, entitled Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Volume 1: Foundation — Volume 2: Grimoire. The third volume in this series, Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Greater Key will be published soon. You can contact him at this email address and visit his website.

Yule — the wheel of the year turns; yet everything appears to stand still in the frozen, icy world. Thoughts during this season turn to the past as we examine and reflect on everything that has happened — from joys to disappointments.

We make promises to ourselves, New Years’ resolutions aimed to fix the flaws and invigorate the positive within ourselves.

Timing is everything. That is probably the greatest lesson to be learned from the year’s successes and failures.

In the realm of magick there are many considerations to make, such as when to work magick, when to pause and when to plan. We can examine our natal charts to determine trends, consult calendars that tell us the cycle of the moon and what sign the sun is in. We can divide the day and night into planetary hours, seeking some kind of insight as to when a given event is auspicious. Timing is everything, but in the practice of magick there is little said about when we should or shouldn’t work magick. Are there auspicious times? Does it even make a difference?

With all of these factors to ponder, we ignore one important consideration and that is the personal cycle or wheel of fortune of the magician performing the magick. Even the most optimal and auspicious signs and portends will avail magicians nothing if they ignore important factors about their own waxing and waning material fortunes. Magick done during a weak trough in the personal fortune of the magician may produce nothing or it might even cause losses and misfortune. Perhaps the most important knowledge that magicians can possess is that which will enable them to work magick on their own material circumstances, and knowing their own timing is critical to that kind of working.

In the many years that I have worked magick, I have discovered purely by accident that certain times of the year are better for materially based magick than others, and that there is a pattern to this cyclic process.

What I discovered is that there is a personal wheel of fortune that systematically turns so that half of the year has the potential for material gain and the other half is better used to plan and position oneself for more optimal times, when action can be met with success. The year is cut in half, and one half fosters increase and the other, decrease. It may not be that the poorer half of the year actually experiences losses or setbacks, although this certainly can occur, rather the richer half of the year seems to effortlessly assist one in the pursuit of material gain and personal advancement.

It’s analogous to breathing — inhalation represents internalization and re-grouping, and exhaling represents external activity and successful outcomes. Both are required for the cycle of breathing to be complete. This is also true of the wheel of fortune.

The simplest way to determine this wheel of fortune is take one’s birthday and add exactly six months to it. So if you were born on January 5 as I was, then your halfway date is July 5. So the two most important dates are the natal return and six months later, which would be a point where the sun would be 180 degrees from its natal position. I am a Capricorn according to my natal sun sign, so my annual halfway point is under the sign of Cancer.

I have found that my time of increase begins after the halfway point in the year. From there it proceeds to climax at my birthday and then declines until the halfway point is again achieved. For me, the best time to plan and reorganize is during the winter, after the holidays and before the summer. After the summer vacation period, I am ready to start putting into action everything that I have learned and determined in the previous six months. This is how my wheel of fortune works.

A few years ago I experienced a terrible economic downturn and the resultant massive debt almost forced me into bankruptcy. However, with an open mind and a willingness to do whatever it took to legally regain my fortune, I performed a large series of Elemental magical workings, starting in June and proceeding for three months. At the climax of these workings, I also invoked and charged several items with the talismanic elemental, Jupiter of Earth, during the lunar mansion called the Star of Fortune¹. In addition, I put together a list of specific material objectives that I wanted to accomplish and crafted them into magical sigils, which I charged. In the intervening months, I was able to accomplish all of my objectives.

All of these events helped me to completely transform my financial situation. In fact, the magical workings still continue to aid me, often from unexpected sources. Because I worked this magick at the most important pivotal point in my wheel of fortune, it had a profound and incredible effect on my material situation. Once I discovered this pattern and realized it, I decided that it was the most important piece of self-knowledge that one could possess.

How do you determine the greater wheel of fortune for yourself and learn about your own important personal timing? The first thing that you do is to find that halfway point in your yearly cycle and note it down.

Then look at the past several years and see if you can see a pattern as to when important material advancements occurred for you. It won’t be perfect, but I think that you will find that one of those half year cycles is more auspicious than the other, which is better for planning and regrouping.

The period from the halfway point to my birthday is the most important time for material advancement. However, for others it may just the opposite, from their birthday to the halfway point might be auspicious. I don’t believe that one pattern should fit everyone, but you should at least examine all of the things that have happened to you in the past and make some kind of judgment as to what part of the year is better for advancement, and that will reveal the time that you can work magick to aid that advancement.

An astrological examination of the transits of the Sun to the natal chart Sun show that a conjunction aspect for the birthday and an opposition aspect for the halfway point are clearly delineated as auspicious points in one’s astrology. The Natal Sun is compared against transiting positions of the Sun in the paragraphs below.

Transit Sun conjunct Natal Sun

This is the Solar Return, when the Sun returns to the position that it had when one was born. This aspect represents new beginnings, the ability to perceive the whole year ahead as if one were standing upon some metaphorical ascent and looking across time at the events for the coming year. It is a time of receiving new impulses and perspectives as the old year gives way to the new².

In some ways a birthday is a lot like a personal New Year’s day, symbolizing the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year.

Transit Sun opposition Natal Sun

This aspect represents energies in life reaching a culmination, events causing realizations, revealing a critical point of success or failure. Situations judged to fail now appear to fail. The way to success opens up and is revealed. It is necessary for one to change course or redirect oneself³.

The halfway point is a place of judgment and evaluation, where one thoroughly examines all of life’s activities, especially those that bear upon one’s fortune. Those efforts that are failing should be either drastically adjusted or ended. Those that appear to be gathering momentum for success should be steadfastly continued. New opportunities may also arise that will need to be judged as to their worth and a change in course may be called for to take advantage of them.

If one reads these two aspects correctly, then my cycle of the wheel of fortune would seem to fit them. However, it would also fit if one experienced the greater fortune on the first half of the year instead of the second half. It really depends on the individual to determine his or her own personal cycle, and once realized, it should be used to one’s greatest advantage. What is clearly indicated is that these two points in the calendar are very important to working material based magick.

Footnotes

1. Al Sad Al Su’ud (#24 The Star of Fortune) Capricorn 25E 51N — see Celestial Magic by Nigel Jackson, pp. 82 – 96
2. See Planets in Transit: Life Cycles for Living by Robert Hand, p. 55
3. See Planets in Transit: Life Cycles for Living by Robert Hand, p. 58

Bibliography

• Hand, Robert (1976) Planets in Transit: Life Cycles for Living Para Research Inc., Gloucester, MA
• Jackson, Nigel (2003) Celestial Magic: Principles And Practices of the Talismanic Art Capall Bahn Publishing Sommerset, UK

©2009 by Frater Barrabbas.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

Frater Barrabbas is a writer and practitioner of Witchcraft and Ritual Magick. He has published two books — Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick, and the two volumes of a trilogy, entitled Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Volume 1: Foundation — Volume 2: Grimoire. The third volume in this series, Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick — Greater Key will be published soon. You can contact him at this email address and visit his website.

As human beings, we necessarily craft metaphysical paradigms which explain our perceptions and direct our actions. Whether we believe in Providence or in Lady Fortune determines whether we acknowledge some propitious turn of events as divine blessing or else merely good luck. Whether we believe in the inherent dignity of human life crucially affects how we approach questions of personal and societal ethics, as does the manner in which we interpret ambiguous terms like “dignity” and “human life.” Inextricably embedded within every bare perception lies the question of interpretation, and our interpretations have for their bedrock our philosophical and magical paradigms.

Oftentimes, human beings simultaneously harbor two or more paradigms which — considered reflectively — prove mutually repugnant. This confused state of affairs can preserve human life and society, as the extreme conclusions of any one paradigm are tempered by rival belief systems, yet such ideological inconsistency can also inflict significant levels of cognitive dissonance and psychological stress upon those who straddle opposing viewpoints over prolonged durations. The Chaos Magicians within our midst might well regard the ability to dance across multiple paradigms as virtue rather than liability, at least when the pragmatic incorporation of any and all viewpoints occurs consciously and reflectively.

Speaking for myself, I am not so sanguine about the postmodern approach which Chaos Magic takes towards reality — I believe against all odds there is an intelligible cosmos which admits human apprehension! — although I think there are lessons to be learned from an introspective consideration of the paradigm or paradigms to which one holds. In this essay, I wish to examine some common interpretations of that most ubiquitous of paranormal phenomena, the ghostly haunting, and specifically what these explanations suggest about the underlying magical paradigms. My aim here does not encompass the proving or disproving of any particular phenomena. I will not explain what ghosts are, or how such ephemeral beings might interact with the realms of the quick, at least in any definitive or authoritative sense. Rather, I wish to think about how we think about ghosts, and then examine what these thought processes say about us. (To any Zen Buddhists out there, you may fairly assume I am traveling in the opposite direction; in fairness, I am doing so reflectively, and since space-time is essentially curved we might safely assume given enough time we shall meet upon the other side.)

The original impetus for this essay began with idle musings around Samhain, when the Mists which apparently divide the material and the astral grow especially thin. While reflecting upon the nature of ghosts, I found myself face to face with a logical conundrum. There are basically two schools of thought concerning the origin of an active, apparently self-aware haunting. The simplest interpretation, by and by, says the haunting wherein the ghost interacts both with environmental changes and with living people represents the human soul of the deceased, still present in some meaningful sense within our pre-afterlife world. When people die, goes this theory, some people get “stuck” — most frequently due to exceptional life circumstances — and cannot move beyond their earthly existence. (Strictly speaking, this explanation does not require belief in some specific afterlife, or even belief in any afterlife, although one seldom holds the belief in ghosts without some concurrent belief in the afterlife.)

There exists a competing explanation for the existence and nature of ghosts, one fairly well documented in the contemporary occult community. By this reasoning, a ghost isn’t the same being as the deceased individual; rather, the deceased leaves behind a mental and emotional imprint which a sympathetic nonhuman spirit then animates. I presume we’re all familiar with this phenomenon on smaller scales; if you’ve ever walked into a room and felt some inexplicable “vibe” — whether good or bad — then you’re at least familiar with the sort of psychic residue I’m describing. Spirits tend to manifest where this psychic imprint aligns with their own natures and aims. When the deceased leaves behind some especially potent psychic imprint, or when such an imprint is fueled by the emotional charge of those who mourn the loss, then the Mists grow very thin indeed for those spirits in tune with the mental and emotional state of the deceased. The result? A “ghost” which manifests through the psychic imprint surrounding certain deaths.

This latter theory accords better with my personal sense of things, and especially my belief in reincarnation. (I should also add my definition of sympathetic spirits does not generally include what certain strands of Judeo-Christian thought would regard as demons. While I remain skeptical the ghostly presence watching over little Sally really is Grandpa, I’m reasonably certain the manifestation in question isn’t some machination of Satan. That’s not to say there aren’t dangerous ghosts out there. There are dangerous people across the world, and dangerous people leave behind dangerous imprints, which dangerous spirits then inhabit. Nevertheless, I stand by my conviction most spirits are like most people — basically good at heart, sometimes selfish, essentially looking for love.)

This belief in the “ghost” as spirit-animated imprint points towards the thorny problem of personal identity. If the nonhuman spirit animating the psychic imprint does so self-consciously, then there is little issue here; at this point, the “ghost” becomes the Trickster — epitomized by The Magician within the Tarot — although mayhap one who operates with benevolent ends in mind. Some variations of this theory take one additional step, suggesting the animating spirit may inhabit the psychic imprint so completely the spirit forgets its own identity as an independent being.

Now the issue of personal identity begins to take shape. I inquire of myself, as student of the occult: Who am I? Everyday I wear masks, glamers which I adopt and discard as my circumstances require. Here I am child, and there I am lover. Here I am teacher, and there I am student. These masks develop and evolve as I develop and evolve, although we might push too far, were we to identify me as the mere sum of such mutable projections. I am process, perhaps — a ripple of interconnected events and perceptions fanning out across space-time. And yet what are these events? My intellectual processes? My emotional responses? These are certainly the ephemeral things which leave my mark upon the psychic fabric of the universe, and were some spirit to inhabit my energy signature, the workings of my mind and my heart would be the medium through which such manifestations might happen. The warmth I bring to this room, wherein I gathered many times with family and friends — this emotional energy proves the gateway for spirits of warmth and benevolence. The wrath I displayed in another place — such anguish and terror becomes the gateway for much more malevolent spirits. The kindnesses and cruelties we bring into the physical world inevitably set the stage for the spirits who might follow afterward.

If the nonhuman spirits animating such energetic signatures merely echoed the ambient emotions, then we might have little cause to worry about personal identity; we constantly return the smiles and the scowls of those around us, all without losing any meaningful sense of who we ourselves are. Meaningful empathy towards, and interaction with, those around us normally doesn’t compromise our sense of personal identity, and we have no reason to believe spirits should materially differ from us in this regard. And yet ghosts do more than merely resonate with the ambient psychic energy; they actively mimic certain mannerisms and idiosyncrasies of the living. The question then arises: How deep does the psychic imprint run, and how much could the animating spirit really lose itself within the impression?

If some living human being lost all memory of her own identity, and moreover fully believed herself to be some other individual, we would consider her at the very least deeply delusional. If I develop amnesia, and then believe myself to be Bill Clinton, I would be regarded as lunatic, and mayhap rightfully so. The mere belief — even when passionately held — that I am someone else does not make this belief true in any meaningful sense. And yet what if the psychic imprint which the spirit accesses runs deeper? If I had all the memories, together with the intellectual and emotional responses of Bill Clinton down into the most minute of details, then might I in some meaningful sense be the former United States president? Returning to my own (non-presidential) identity, if my own memories and psychic processes could be uploaded into some simulacrum, would this simulacrum then be me? These are the questions of science fiction, of course, although actual hauntings challenge us philosophically precisely because they represent the possibility of such transference. If the imprint runs deep enough, and if we are equal to our mental and emotional activity, then how can we genuinely separate the nonhuman spirit from the deceased individual? The very hypothesis may fall to its own definitional vagaries.

There is one possible solution, although this approach suffers from its own difficulties. We might choose to define ourselves as something apart from the things which leave our mark upon the psychic backdrop. Mayhap we are something other than our mental and emotional activity. Together with the mind and the heart, we are flesh and we are soul. These latter two constitute our own animating force, the means and the will by which we translate the desires of mind and heart into action. For ghosts, the normal definition of flesh in inapplicable, although such beings generally possess the ability to impose at least limited alterations upon their environments, whether through fluctuations in temperature and electromagnetic fields, or through full-blown telekinetic or ectoplasmic phenomena.

Very few people who believe in ghosts would suggest personal identity remains strictly tied with the physical corpus, since ghosts by their very existence challenge this notion, and yet methinks we hold very solid philosophical grounds to challenge an enduring connection between personal identity and the physical manifestation, since this physical manifestation is liable to constant flux, constantly absorbing and expelling elements without any actual destruction of the underlying identity. We might say the same thing of the mind and the heart, and yet there exists this at least intuitive difference: While the complete transference of the mind and heart into another vessel might stretch our sense of personal identity, we would intuitively recognize the simulacrum receiving the psychic imprint as the original individual, whereas changes to the mind and heart strike into the very core of who we are.

There remains under consideration the personal spark of will, sometimes termed the soul. I remain uncertain whether we can meaningfully separate the will from the remaining aspects of human identity, yet making the endeavor in the abstract, we discover something very much like the physical corpus — an animating force which translates mental and emotional desires into meaningful action across our shared world. We constantly “breathe” the ambient psychic energy; much like the flesh, we observe elements enter into the will, and we observe other elements depart. I am reluctant to give some primacy to our mental and emotional aspects, and yet these seem to define us in ways more enduring than the constant flux of energies which mark the flesh and soul. And again, if the psychic imprint runs deep enough — if this imprint contains something enduring about ourselves, then does our identity change with the animating force? And if we answer this question in the negative, then does our hypothesis merely confirm the ghost is — in some meaningful sense — one and the same with the deceased?

Within this especial moment, I cannot answer these questions. I most certainly cannot unlock such conundrums for you, my dearest readers who have patiently endured unto the end. You may harbor a magical paradigm in which such questions are meaningless. Or the nature of ghosts may raise different questions within your own unique paradigm. I hope my personal reflections here encourage you to reflect upon your beliefs and your paradigms, in order to tease out what naturally follows from the assumptions you might make about your world. As always, I welcome your thoughts upon this most mysterious of subjects.

Blessed Be!

©2009 by Grey Glamer.
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

 

In the world of the occult, that of western magicians, shamans, Wiccans, eastern mystics, etc., there is a disturbing tendency toward chronal¹ elitism.

In most schools of mysticism and magic, there is a pervading mentality that in the distant past, humans were more spiritually alive. It seems taken for granted that the greatest of spiritual wisdom and occult science were well known to the peoples of antiquity and that it was, at some point, lost. As time went on, the general public became hostile toward the enlightened soul as the structures of power worked to rob people of spiritual connection through fear and coercion. The result of this shift is the spiritual morass of the modern era; and now, in the post-modern world, we occultists have reclaimed our spiritual birthright and can lead the world back to an era of magic and enlightenment.

Urbanization and technological development — the hallmarks of the modern world — are believed by many occultists to be banes to our spiritual development. They are unnatural, and therefore serve to distance our souls from nature and the spiritual forces we need for our enlightenment. We must avoid cities, and the reliance on modern conveniences if we wish to develop our souls.

All of these beliefs stem from a sense of chronal elitism. This is the general belief that one era should be considered better than another. Amongst secular scientists and scholars, this often manifests in the belief that the present is greater than the past. It has led scholars to disregard the opinions and actions of the ancients, for they were oh so primitive and savage in those times. Today, of course, we are much more civilized and developed. We are better than they were.

It is this very disregard for the beliefs of the ancients that leads spiritual people in our time to react with hostility to modernism. Not only is this anachronistic reaction common amongst occultists, but of orthodox religious followers of every faith. Take, for example, the Southern Baptist who denies the science of natural evolution, or the Shiite Muslim who eschews modern forms of democratic government in favor of theocracy. It stems from the same feelings that lead Wiccans and shamans to retreat from cities. On the other hand, chaos magicians find themselves in line with the secular scholars by declaring the rituals of old to be irrelevant, preferring to experiment with their own, post-modern, and highly individualized methods of magic.

Chronal elitism of any kind is, in reality, equally damaging and narrow minded. And between the polarities of those who worship the past and those who worship the present or future is a middle path in which one can consider all eras objectively, noting the strengths and weaknesses of each. This is the rarest of standpoints, as it is always easier to adhere to an extreme view rather than to examine the world in a balanced and unbiased manner.

Anyone who has spent considerable time studying the rites and magical systems of antiquity cannot deny the efficacy and spiritual development of the ancients. While at the same time, those of us with a firm grip on the developments over the ages can also see where our ancestors have been grossly mistaken due to an ignorance of facts which have arisen in the proceeding ages.

---

The naturalist magician or shaman reading this might inquire as to how one can deny that humans have departed from nature. Most humans now live in cities or sprawling suburbs. The vast population no longer hunts and gathers for their food, nor spends time on a farm cultivating and harvesting the bounty of the land. Nay, the average human in modern society spends his or her days working in a service or labor job, and exchanges the money earned in his task for his sustenance. Rather than green fields and dark forests, he is surrounded by concrete and glass buildings. Instead of drinking from the cool stream, he turns on the faucet and fills his glass with water filtered through his Brita tap. Is this not a departure from our natural state?

The question which this author proposes is this: How are we to define “natural,” or “nature”? If we are to define natural as the state of the world where humans have made no impact, then anywhere we go is bound to be “unnatural.” No creature can live somewhere without changing the world around them to some extent. And what of nature? Must we define this as the manifestation of all things in the universe, except for man and anything he touches? If this is the case, then man has no natural place in the universe, and therefore it is entirely useless for the human race to try and be a part of nature, as by definition it cannot.

Another definition of nature is simply all which manifests in the universe. By this definition, mankind is incapable of doing anything that is unnatural, for everything in the universe is natural.

A final, and more specific idea regarding nature is to define man’s part in it as a specific type of behavior or niche, and to say that all behaviors which deviate from this lifestyle are unnatural. This, of course, implies that there is some standard of man’s natural behavior, or his place in nature, which exists outside of man, himself. Furthermore, it implies that the species of humanity is capable of breaking out of its niche and living unnaturally. This argument is essentially sound; however, it offers no objective method of defining what our natural niche is supposed to be. There are many pagans and shamans who are all too eager to tell us how we’re supposed to live, but if one asks why we should live in such-and-such a way, the answer is always self-referential. We should live that way because it’s natural. This still skirts the issue of an objective definition for nature.

When termites and beavers tear down trees and build structures in which to live, it is considered natural. When humans exhibit the same behavior, it is not. This author would submit that the city is our natural habitat, just as the mound and the lodge belong to the termite and beaver, respectively.

Serious study into the astral plane might (and I have found that it has) yield evidence for spiritual landscapes unique to the cities themselves. It could be found that the rituals and cycles of the urban habitat might be symbolic of spiritual truths altogether their own. If we listen, we might find that even the concrete and glass may speak to us and sing the song of the city, just as the shamans of old listened to the voice of the forest or field.

None of this is to decry, in their entirety, the arguments of the naturalist pagans and shamans. One of the reasons their outspoken opinion against human development has been so widely accepted is because it contains truth. The human expansion is troublesome. Not because it is unnatural, as this term is meaningless, but rather because it is disharmonious. As a species, we do not live in harmony with our surroundings, and to follow our current path will eventually lead to our own demise. We are suffocating in noxious fumes and destroying wholesale the resources we need to live. It is extremely evident that we must all seek to do our part in finding solutions for the problems of sustainability in our world.

While it is certain that returning to the Paleolithic might keep our species from destroying ourselves, we would also be sacrificing many other developments of use to us as physical and as spiritual beings.

---

It is often overlooked that the modern era actually affords us many a boon in our quest for spiritual enlightenment. First and foremost is the boon of access.

Due to the development of information technology, the modern magician has access to the writings of magi from all eras and places across the world. From the magical papyri of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, to the transcribed versions of folk tales from the Oglala Lakota, or the sagas and eddas of the ancient Scandinavians, magi today can become privy to information of such breadth and span as would make even the most enlightened of ancient prophets a little jealous. Additionally, many of the texts which have been brought to light through the centuries were, in their time, only accessible to a small and cloistered group of individuals, who kept their secrets well hidden from the general public.

Our sedentary lifestyle today is shunned by many of the more anachronistic in the occult community, but, in truth, magi of all eras lived sedentary lives. In fact, a life somewhat sedentary is required for one to put any serious effort into the Great Work.

In the ancient shamanic cultures, and in their surviving Neolithic counterparts today, the tribal community would have but one Shaman, and perhaps a few apprentices. These communities were primarily hunter-gatherer or sometimes agricultural. This means that the average citizen works at least ten hours out of the day, doing backbreaking labor. The reason only one person in a community can take on the role of Shaman is because the community, at large, can only support one Shaman. The Shaman doesn’t work. He may tend a garden, and do house chores, but he doesn’t spend ten hours a day working himself to the bone. If he did, he wouldn’t have the energy to devote to his spiritual task. And so, food, housing, and all other necessities are provided to the Shaman by his community.

In the empires of old, magical study was relegated to a very small priest class. The peasantry had little to no access to the papyri of ancient Egypt and Greece, and even if they did, their laborious lifestyles left little time for literacy. And, much like the Shamans, these priests and magi lived a life supported by the labors of the common folk.

While it is true that the observance and recognition of magical power has diminished in our modern era, most people overestimate the occult understanding of the ancient peasantry. While they relied on the mystics and magi, and celebrated the festivals of the seasons and the cycles of nature; the real mystical knowledge of these common folk was more superstition than genuine spiritual enlightenment.

The bottom line is this: If the world today resembled that of the past, the majority of today’s occultists would be peasants. They would not be taught to read, much less to understand the subtle energies of the universe. And even the natural adept, born into such a scenario, would not have the luxury of time to pursue serious personal study and evocations. The labor of the day, for a peasant in a technologically undeveloped culture, takes up all time and energy available. Conversely, even the poor sap scraping by on minimum wage (this author is one such sap) in our modern world will have enough time and the resources to tap spiritual power that rivals any ancient mage or shaman.

---

To conclude, I leave you with this: It is very difficult for people to look at time objectively. As our limited perceptions can only tell us of the present, we see the now with greater clarity than we do the past. For some, this means that we see all of the beauty of the present, in every minuscule detail, and the past, which we can only perceive vicariously through literary work or the visible remainders, seems dim and ill-lighted by comparison. There are others who use their keen eyesight to spot all the flaws of our current age. Because they can see the corruption of every man around them, and receive only brief outlines of lives long past, they color in the details with an ideal that surpasses the world they know. Both these paths are fallacious, and they are forms of self-deceit.

The hardest and truest path is narrow, and runs down the middle. We must all seek to understand our own era for all its beauty and its flaws. At the same time, it is important that we look at the past with the same clarity, that we open our third eye and allow our spirits to perceive the ancients with pathos and scrutiny at the same time. Let us not be concerned with “returning” to some erstwhile era. This is impossible; time never moves backward. And let us not, either, throw out the wisdom of our ancestors. Let us instead try to lead the world into a new era that uses the best of the past and present, and corrects the problems which have recurred in all ages.

Footnotes

1. This term comes from the Greek kronos, pertaining to time, much like chronicle, chronic, chronology, chronograph. I suppose the word “temporal” would work, too, but it has other implications like transitory or passing. I like the sound of chronal better.
 

©2009 Quentin Marshall
Edited by Sheta Kaey

At this witching time of year, in the chill of lonesome October when the leaves turn brown and pile in drifts, and the frosted pumpkins begin to rot in the fields, we turn our minds to elongated shadows and gloomy pits, deep willow woods and gaping cavern mouths, secret places that elude the sun, chill haunts where spring the roots of black magic. It has always been a part of the Western esoteric tradition, but it is something that is seldom talked about in polite circles. It carries a taint of decay, a discoloration of disease, and most practitioners of the arts are leery of contracting its infection by casual contact.

Central to the black arts is the fabled Black Book that was referred to in hushed and horrified tones by the Christian demonologists of the Renaissance period such as Boden and Remy. It went under various names according to various learned authorities, but its qualities were always the same. It was a book of damnation that taught occult practices for the spreading of evil abroad across the land. Inspired by the Devil himself, it had but one purpose, to corrupt and destroy all those who fell under its influence or used its methods. Even to open the Black Book, or to hold it in the hands, or touch its binding of human skin, was to become a lost soul forever barred from entry into heaven, forever damned to hell.

The reason the book had many names is because it never actually existed in a material form. Various real grimoires, having titles well known but which few men had actually read, were chosen by the Christian demonologists to represent it. Works of dire reputation such as the Grand Grimoire, the Goetia, the Picatrix, the Key of Solomon, were vilified in harsh terms as corrupting tomes to be strenuously avoided, lest those whose idle curiosity led them to read within should be forever lost in the coils of the Evil One, he who is called the prince of shadows and deceiver of the flesh.

The Victorian occultist Arthur Edward Waite studied these books and many others of a similar foul reputation during his researches in the British Museum Library, and he observed rather dryly that when the grimoires were actually read, it turned out that their contents were not nearly so damnable as the references of the demonologists would lead one to suppose. Indeed, the common effect of reading them was more apt to be tedium than damnation. Waite was not the first to condemn and dismiss the supposed black grimoires — the student of Cornelius Agrippa, Johannes Wier, had done much the same two centuries earlier in the course of defending the reputation of his former master.

But these men had actually read the grimoires — it seemed that those most apt to condemn such infamous occult books as soul-searing one-way tickets to hell were those least likely to have actually studied them — the learned divines and inquisitors of the Catholic Church. The fabled black book of the Devil had the uncanny property of becoming smaller and less significant the closer one examined it. The reality was just not up to the task of sustaining the mythology.

Even so, the myth of the Black Book persisted down to modern times. The celebrated writer of horror stories, H. P. Lovecraft, created it anew in the early part of the 20^th century in the form of his Necronomicon — which is perhaps the most well-known of its incarnations. In part, Lovecraft’s imaginary black book of evil was based on the equally imaginary book The King In Yellow, invented by the writer Robert W. Chambers and used in several of his supernatural stories. We may have left the era of the quill pen and the ox cart behind us, but the fable of Satan’s Black Book has followed us. Yet always it remains an illusion that vanishes like a mirage when it is approached and investigated.

Even those modern writers who have attempted to actually create the Black Book must be judged to have failed in their purpose. The self-proclaimed Satanist of San Francisco, Anton Szandor LaVey, made such an attempt in his The Satanic Bible, published in 1969, but it was weak plant that bore scant fruit. Several intrepid writers, myself among them, have written versions of Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, but no actual book can begin to approach the mystery or power of the original that existed in the imagination of Lovecraft alone — and perhaps, also in the akashic records of the great library of the astral world.

The Black Book does not yet exist in a cohesive, tangible form despite these attempts, and has never existed intact and entire in our material world. It is an enduring myth that from time to time has been associated with an actual but poorly known text, or a lost text, or even an imaginary text, and that is all. But in this gloaming of the year, when we hang suspended between summer and winter, when the dead are said to leave their graves and walk among us, unseen but not unfelt, we will imagine what the Black Book would contain in its pages, if there actually were such a book.

It is supposed to have been inspired or actually written by the Devil, who is reputed in Christian theology to be the father of all lies. Therefore it must be designed to deceive and mislead those who read it. The grand promises it makes of wealth and power and beauty and eternal life should all be presumed to be untrue. Yet they will be phrased in such a seductive manner that the susceptible reader will find himself unable to resist their siren allure. They will be designed to play upon the weaknesses and impulses of certain human beings who are open to deception and to spiritual corruption, by triggering character flaws in their natures such as greed, lust, envy and hatred.

If these sound familiar, they should — in past centuries they were known as deadly sins — deadly to the soul, not the body — an archaic term we distance ourselves from today. Who talks about sins anymore? Almost nobody, not even the priests and ministers. Yet these weaknesses of human nature still exist and are just as apt to cause the downfall of human hopes as they were when clouds of dark smoke arose from the blackened, crackling flesh of burning women in public squares.

In exchange for the offer of power, wealth and other things desired by the impressionable reader of the Black Book, the crafty author will demand a pledge of obedience and loyalty. In the lore of European witchcraft, as assembled from the confessions under torture of women accused of the black arts, this pledge took place at the sabbat gathering of witches, when the Devil presented his Black Book and demanded the neophyte of witchcraft to impress the print of his thumb in blood beneath the oath. This is all very fanciful, of course, but if the Black Book actually existed, the confirmation of the pledge would take a different form — it would be the requirement that the reader commit some initial act of unspeakable evil and perversity, as a confirmation of his sincerity in his oath, and to forever bind him to evil and prevent him from turning back to the light.

We see something similar among modern street gangs, where the new member of the gang is required to commit a crime, such as a random murder, in order to confirm his sincerity. This may be largely an urban legend, but it illustrates the necessary initiatory act that would be near the beginning of the black book.

The instructions of the text would teach practical methods of black magic, but woven among its rituals and techniques would be a path leading the reader progressively further along in his descent into hell, which in not a locality of space but a state of mind. The reader would be induced by the text to deliberately break all bonds of love and friendship with other human beings by betraying and injuring those he loved. In order to weaken his conscience, he would be encouraged to take “strong drugs” that would open his mind to illegal and immoral acts.

Drugs were used in this manner by Charles Manson to shape the members of his Family, prior to the murders he induced them to commit. Drugs were used in a similar way by Aleister Crowley to weaken the resistance of his followers to sexual acts considered sinful or perverse by society as a whole. Crowley used drugs to aid in destroying his own sense of conventional morality — although he needed little enough help in this effort.

Sexual perversion would play a crucial role in the working of the Black Book. Sex has a powerful hold over most human beings. By inducing its reader to break his sexual taboos, even the strongest taboos among them, the book would addict the reader to such sexual acts, since normal sex seems tame by comparison. When the sexual taboos are broken, it is easier to break other taboos, such as the one against murder.

One of the texts that exists in the real world, and which comes nearest to being a genuine Black Book, is the 18^th century work 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade. This book is a catalogue of all the sexual perversions of mankind, arranged in an intensifying level of severity. De Sade was guided in his ordering of the perversions by his own sexual desire over the course of his life. When a perversion ceased to arouse him, he moved on to a stronger perversion, and in this way the catalogue of human depravity was graded from mild to unspeakably vile.

De Sade was a very clever man. He arranged his detailed descriptions of his sexual perversions so that in between each set was a moral diatribe designed to weaken some scruple or moral principle in his reader. Thus, he first sexually aroused his reader, then taught a lesson mocking virtue and faith. In this way he established a conditioned reflex similar to that of Ivan Pavlov’s famous salivating dog, which salivated at the ringing of a bell, because it had been trained to associate the sound of the bell with food. De Sade trained his readers to associate sexual pleasure with mockery and indifference to accepted moral standards. His intentional purpose was to deprave the sexual appetites of his readers and to use that depravity to turn them away from religion.

The final perversions in The 120 Days of Sodom are all descriptions of sexual pleasure derived from torturing, mutilating and slowly murdering innocent victims. This is the final state De Sade hoped and intended his reader to achieve — the state of morals, or lack of morals, that he himself had attained after a long life of debauchery and crime.

The central ritual of the Black Book would also be one of violation, mutilation, and murder. This would be its Great Rite, so to speak, the final and absolute confirmation in evil that is the underlying purpose of the Black Book, its very reason to exist, in comparison with which all its promises of power and wealth, all its teachings of practical magic, are insignificant. The true Black Book is first and last a book of damnation — the damnation of the self, and the spreading of damnation among others by lies and evil acts.

We see an allusion to this Great Rite of damnation in the mythology of the child sacrifice at the witches’ sabbat, where gathered witches were supposed by their Catholic inquisitors, and by the demonologists who wrote about witchcraft, to have sacrificed a baby in order to drink its blood and to harvest its fat for their flying ointments. The French novelist of the 19th century, Joris-Karl Huysmans, described a somewhat similar scene in the climax of his novel Là-Bas (usually translated into English as Down There), which details the descent of a curious man into the depraved practices of Satanists.

As the Devil is the spirit of lies, the promises of the book are all lies, but by the time the reader discovers this to be so, he is already damned in a very real sense — cut off from normal human feelings and normal social interaction by his perversions and crimes. His perverse desires act as an addiction holding him down and preventing the arousal of spiritual feelings or impulses. By his graded initiation into evil, the voice of his good angel is rendered mute to his ears.

As you can see, were the true Black Book to exist, it would be a very wicked text indeed. It is perhaps just as well that it exists only in fable, or at most, only in various detached fragments scattered far and wide, each of them possessing a limited power to do evil. Let us hope it always remains so, and that no individual possessed of sufficient creative ability, and having open communications with the spirit world, ever decided to bring this myth of the true Black Book of the Devil into our world.

©2009 by Donald Tyson
Edited by Sheta Kaey

I’m pleased to offer myself as a regular columnist on these august though entirely electronic pages. As those who have read my books or know me personally know, I’m an academic through and through, and so my conversations have a tendency to turn to lectures, and my dinner parties often become seminars. This column therefore will play to my strengths. My goal, ultimately, is to trace the connections between occult practice and schools of academic thought. I’m hoping to make this less boring than it sounds on its face, and at the same time offer something practical that the working occultist can take away.

It’s fitting that this first column begin at the beginning, the foundation of most Western occultism. Many people will tell you that Western occultism began in Egypt, and even the ancients thought so. But really, most of western occultism began in a cave, and not even a real cave but an allegorical one.

Socrates was perhaps the first professor. He liked to walk around and profess his own innocence and ignorance, and ask probing questions that quickly revealed that everyone around him was just as ignorant. He was eventually asked to kill himself, possibly because he was tedious at curriculum committee meetings. One of his students, Aristocles, a jock who no doubt offered a letter from his wrestling coach every other Friday excusing him from class, ended up rising to the top and writing quite a few books of his own. We know him by his wrestling nickname: “Fatty,” or, in Greek, “Plato.”

Now, Fatty had a problem, aside from an embarrassing nickname. He couldn’t figure out perception. It was common knowledge, of course, that we perceived the world by engaging it with our senses, but Plato had learned from his old professor to question common knowledge. And in doing so, he dug up a few problems that have plagued philosophy ever since. For one thing, he realized, we can’t really see the whole of anything we look at, touch, taste, or smell. We get only a momentary perception. Sure, we could turn a pot over and over in our hands really fast, but how do we know that the side away from us doesn’t turn another color, or even disappear entirely? Common sense, of course, but how do we come by that common sense, and how is it that everyone has it?

Plato said, or rather reported that his teacher said, Imagine a cave. In it, you are chained next to a group of like people, all facing a wall. You grew up in this cave, chained up thus, and no, Xenophon, it doesn’t matter how that happened, just shut up and listen. Now, behind you is a big fire, and people walk between you and the fire holding objects. But you are chained such that you cannot see behind you, so all you see are shadows. Now, being raised in this cave, all you know of the shape called “elephant” or “horseshoe” or “vase” are the shadow shapes on the wall, and if you could be freed and look suddenly at the real thing, you would be amazed that it looked as it did, not to mention how they fit an elephant into the cave.

This allegory describes perception. We seem to see things, but really we see their shadow, and another, more perfect world than this contains those real items. So we know that the pot continues around to the other side not because we can perceive that it does, but because we remember the ideal pot, the Form of pots, of which all other pots are mere shadows. And that’s how we can also recognize the pot-ness of a squat pot, a tall pot, a wide pot, a purple pot, and a blue pot. We know that they are all pots because, just like the shadows on the wall, much depends upon how we look upon that ideal.

Plato had a student of his own, Aristotle, who threw the whole thing into the soup by saying that there was no such perfect, ideal world. Aristotle argued that we know the Form of pots only because we have seen a heck of a lot of pots and called them all “pot.”

Thus began the epistemological (meaning, the study of knowledge) split between magic and what would eventually become empiricism. But I’ve written about that before, and so will let it go for now.

Aristotle opened a school and wrote some deeply influential books of his own, and eventually we hit two interesting fellows who founded much of what we now imagine to be magic. Conveniently, these two figures stand as symbols for two paths of magic, two ways of knowing the unseen, ideal world. We call them “Neoplatonists,” because they began with Plato’s idea that there was such an ideal world, a world of Forms, and pushed it to its natural edge: if such a world existed, and we could perceive it, could we also perhaps interact with it? Could we, in fact, use it to change this world? Could we reach behind us, as it were, and grab that elephant and yank it around, so that we could make its shadow in this world dance?

Plotinus answered, essentially, in the negative. That ideal world was perfect, and perfection by its very nature cannot change. But what we could do, according to Plotinus, is change ourselves to rise up to that world, and thus gain a clearer image of ultimate reality. If we understood what was going behind us, we could manipulate things in this world of shadows more sagaciously.

For Plotinus, and his student Porphyry, the way to do this consisted of contemplation. Sadly, we lack descriptions of what to contemplate specifically, but we can reconstruct some of it by understanding what he taught. He taught that all reality, this world of shadows, was an emanation from a perfect reality. The highest perfect reality was the One. This One was beyond all characteristics, because all characteristics imply their opposite. If the One is big, then it’s not small and therefore not perfect — by which he meant something closer to “complete.” It has to be beyond bigness or smallness. From the One comes the Nous, or Mind. This is the first thing that can be given characteristics, and the characteristic it has is “goodness.” From Mind comes the rest of the world of shadows in a successive series or ladder of emanations.

This contemplative approach survives in a lot of practices we might regard as Eastern. One contemplation, in the spirit of Plotinus and Porphyry, would be to take one’s perception of oneself and begin deleting things. For example, try to remove your sense of physical position by sitting very still. Then try to remove your emotional feelings. Then abandon mental activity and remain as pure awareness. In other words, we climb the ladder of emanations back upward to the One.

We also see Plotinus’ influence in the contemporary understanding of the Qabala, and there’s some convincing evidence that the Qabala was Neoplatonic before it was strictly Jewish. Whether you believe that or not, it cannot be denied that a ladder of emanations really does describe most understandings of the sephiroth. And the practices of traditional Qabala — recitation of names, permutation of letters, and so on — smack of the contemplative practices of Plotinus.

On the other end of the teeter totter we have Iamblichus, one of Porphyry’s students, who suggested that contemplation was fine and good, but also difficult and impractical. Most people, he said, are so engrossed in the shadows that they simply can’t get anywhere with contemplation; it’s like trying to grow eyes in the back of your head. Better, he suggested, to turn around, and the way we do that is through ritual action. That ritual action, of course, was accompanied by contemplation, but contemplation alone could never apprehend what was not rational. If you tried the previous contemplation, you may have found it incredibly difficult; Iamblichus would say, “exactly.” Ritual provided an easier way.

Ritual action for Iamblichus consisted of recognizing the symbolic relationship between ideas. After all, if we can recognize a picture of a pot as a pot, it must be partaking of some bit of pot-ness from the world of ideas. If we manipulate this symbolic image, we can begin to train our minds to perceive and perhaps manipulate the ideal Form as well. How this worked exactly we don’t really know, but certain objects were thought to embody the ideal more intensely than other objects, just as a profile of an elephant is easier to recognize in a shadow. These objects or symbols included such things as the tools of ritual sacrifice, as well as — probably — various objects held sacred to deities. By ritually manipulating these objects, one could gain a clearer view of the ideal world.

A ritual in the style of Iamblichus might involve a series of ritual sacrifices of bread or wheat, each of which represents a return of some faculty to the One. So we might symbolically enact a sacrifice of our passions so that we can more easily contemplate the One as an Ideal without passions. Of course, we don’t know exactly what Iamblichus’s rituals looked like, but we can imagine that they looked quite a lot like the ordinary religious rituals of the time, but accompanied with appropriate contemplations.

Now, of course, most occultists mix these two approaches, the contemplative and the ritual. But the old argument between the two schools still exists. Some contemplatives talk scornfully of rituals as “crutches,” for example, an idea that might well have come out of Porphyry. And even those occultists who do not profess an ideal world of forms still engage in ritual actions in which a concrete object (the athame, say) represents a mental idea (will, or defense). Finally, most occultists will decry mindless ritual for ritual’s sake. We are to remember, as Iamblichus would argue, that every ritual action is an action in the world of Ideas as well.

No matter which approach you take to magic, whether you regard it as a contemplative practice or a ritual one, you are — if you’re involved in the western magical tradition — a Neoplatonist. Of course, chaos magicians might argue that there is no actual world of ideals, and a postmodern magician might argue that ideals are just clumps of self-referential symbols, and not meanings in themselves. Yet every school of western magic must situate itself in regards to Neoplatonism; they must begin by affirming or denying the central insights of that chubby wrestler.

The root of the whole endeavor of magic is in Plato, as is the root of all Western philosophy. Magic, then, rather than being a fringe effort of a few strange men and women, is a branch of philosophy itself, with its own epistemological and ontological claims. We diverged from philosophy in the same way that chemistry and alchemy diverged, or where mathematics and engineering diverged. Where philosophy began to dedicate itself to the analysis of ideas, we began to learn the practical arts of manipulating them. In future columns, I hope to explore some of those issues of knowledge and being, with an eye toward the practical implications of the philosophical positions we take.

©2009 by Patrick Dunn
Edited by Sheta Kaey

The teacher heaved himself from his stone seat. “Enough sitting. My knees are aching. Let’s walk and talk together,” he said to his few disciples. Other teachers had more — some as many as thirty students — but Aristotle took his pleasure in selecting the six or seven students who could best understand his teachings.

Used to their teacher’s habit of wandering while he lectured, the students gathered together styli and wax tablets and a few closely spaced sheets of lecture notes painstakingly copied from their teacher’s own notes. They gathered in a close circle around their teacher as he walked, trying as best they could to prick out a few salient notes on their tablets. Walking, talking, and juggling the material of learning forced them to listen carefully to their teacher.

“An object falls through the air,” the teacher says. “Imagine two objects — a section of that column here,” he tapped it with his staff, “and a blade of grass dropped from a height. They fall toward the earth. Why?”

“Both contain Earth in their nature, and so are drawn to the greatest concentration of that element,” said Eudemus.

“And why does the column fall faster?” Aristotle asked.

“It is heavier,” blurted out Phanias.

“Which just means that it contains more Earth than the grass,” Eudemus put in.

“And Earth is another name of mass, so we can say that objects of greater weight fall faster than objects of lesser weight. Yes?”

The students tossed their heads back in agreement.

“But why do they fall at any speed at all? Why not simply contact the ground instantly as they leave the hand? What holds them back from their affinity with Earth?”

The students thought for a while, and finally Phanias ventured an answer, hoping to redeem himself from his earlier stupidity. “The element of Air pushes against them, and Air is inimical to Earth. Every falling object is a war between Air and Earth.”

“Exactly so. Now, reason this out. If there were no Air to push against falling objects, how fast would they fall?”

“Infinitely fast,” put in Eudemus. “Which is an absurdity.”

“Therefore?” Aristotle’s “therefore” was always devastating. It meant you hadn’t finished your chain of reasoning.

“Therefore there can be no place without air. There can be no void.”

“Because if there were?”

“It would lead to a logical absurdity, and the universe is rational.”

Aristotle smiled, pleased. “Exactly so. So now let us explore this idea of the rational . . . ” And the students walked with their wise teacher into two thousand years of fame.

* * *

Galileo huffed his way up the stairs of the tower, his secretary in tow lugging not only the necessary writing equipment but a heavy bag that made a low clunking noise with every step.

Galileo had done the arithmetic and it had all worked out, but for it to work out required something nearly unthinkable. Aristotle had to have been wrong. And not just Aristotle, but everyone else stretching back between that time and this — and that of course included the holy church.

Finally, at the top, he fished two cannon balls out of his bag. Aristotle was right about the air, at least partially — air resistance would slow down an object as it fell, which is why a feather did, indeed, fall slower than a cannon ball. But two cannon balls, one of a large caliber, another of a smaller caliber, should cut through the air at more or less the same speed, being spherical. He sent his secretary to the bottom to watch as he dropped the two objects, and call out whether they hit the earth at the same moment, or different moments.

He conducted the experiment over and over, with both him and his secretary watching on the ground, and in every instance, the two balls struck the ground at the same instant.

Rather than being elated, he found himself a bit disappointed. He felt cut adrift, like a boat whose rope has finally frayed beyond control. But no, that was the wrong analogy. He was more like a horse who has realized that the line that seemed to be securely tied was, in reality, merely draped over a twig. From here, he could go anywhere.

* * *

I’ve fictionalized these two incidents because they illustrate an important shift in the way that humans thought, and this story is one central to the history of science and — I wish to argue — magic. Because I wish to argue that contrary to magic being a science, magic and science are both two ways of knowing, compatible, but independent.

But the stories I’ve told are not stories of compatible ways of knowing, but two warring systems of knowledge.

Aristotle began with the commonly held assumption that our senses can be deceived. In fact, we know this to be not simply common sense, but quite true. A simple optical illusion can reveal that our eyes don’t always see what we think they do. Our ears can hear things that aren’t there, or mistake things that are; even our taste and touch can be confused. We can drink a soda and believe we’re tasting cherry, when really we’re drinking sugar and apple juice colored red and flavored with chemicals. Our senses are inadequate.

So Aristotle joined the tradition that, since senses are faulty, we must rely on reason. This idea led to mathematics, where senses are not only faulty but useless. One cannot see “two” — the best one can do is see symbols about twoness, or two of something. But arithmetic, not to mention the higher branches of mathematics, is abstract well beyond the range of sense. So we must rely on pure reason. We know that 2 + 2 = 4, to employ the hackneyed example, because if it doesn’t everything else we know about mathematics falls apart. In mathematics, we can have certain knowledge. Of course, that certain knowledge is of an abstract system, and as later mathematicians discovered, if you start with slightly different assumptions it’s easy to end up with a different system, in which 2 + 2 does not equal four but, perhaps, eight. Yet Aristotle would argue that the real world, while not the perfection of mathematics, clearly partook of it. After all, maybe the idea of right triangles is all just an abstraction, but just try to erect a house without it. The very concrete and sensory house is built of abstract numbers.

If pure reason led to truth in mathematics, Aristotle reasoned, and mathematics led to truth in matter, then surely we could come to truth about the physical world without relying on our senses at all. We could simply reason it out from first principles. Select the right set of first principles, apply rigorous reason, and knowledge would result like a nice buttery baklava. And if we avoid the engagement of the senses, we avoid the faults that senses are heir to.

Galileo began with a different set of assumptions. While accepting that senses could be deceived, he worked from the premise that this deception could be evened out by having multiple people observe at different times. In the fictionalized (and probably apocryphal) account above, both he and his secretary make observations, and they do not stop with just one but do it again and again. In addition to building up excellent calf muscles by lugging cannon balls up the leaning tower of Pisa, this method has the benefit of certainty. We know it works because we can see it working.

I’m not a philosopher, so what I’m attempting here is a bit arrogant of me, but we can summarize Aristotle’s underlying assumptions about knowledge and compare them to Galileo’s. For Aristotle, observation is secondary to reasoning. For Galileo, reasoning is secondary to observation. For Aristotle, we make a prediction based on reasoning from first principles. For Galileo, we define principles by reasoning from observation.

The scientific revolution was a war between these two ways of knowing the world. In the end, the latter system of reasoning conquered the former, usurping it to its own purposes. Pure reasoning still has a place in the sciences — mathematics, after all, is core to all sciences and still employs reasoning that Aristotle could understand, although he might not follow all the advanced concepts of modern mathematics. Now, scientists observe the physical world and create models of reasoning to explain and predict the behavior of that world. These models are called theories. It’s easy, therefore, to laugh at Aristotle’s naiveté. He simply had the incorrect method for gaining knowledge about the world, and now we have the correct method, and so we’re done. Give us enough time and observations, and we’ll figure it all out. And, in fact, we’ve come quite far in just a few hundred years after the scientific revolution. We know — with some certainty — more about the structure of reality than Aristotle could have imagined, and we even understand how to manipulate it to some degree. Aristotle’s explanation of a magnet from first principles was clumsy and inadequate. Scientific explanations of electromagnetism allow me to use this computer to write this essay, which some of you may be reading on an electric screen that would baffle Aristotle.

The problem is, the above isn’t entirely true. Aristotle didn’t have the wrong method, because Aristotle is still quite relevant. Virtue ethics as Aristotle described them, for example, are still relevant, and literary criticism classes still often begin with his works on the structure of tragedy. Obviously, those fields have advanced in volume of books if nothing else, but we still read Aristotle there not to ridicule him but to appreciate his insights. Yet physics classes rarely — if ever — begin with Aristotle’s Phusis. It seems he got some things right — in ethics, literary criticism, and other areas — and other things wrong. We cannot simplify then and say, “this system of knowledge is the right one, and his was the wrong one.”

The war between Aristotle and Galileo was misguided on all sides. On the side of Aristotle stood the church, which had long since reconciled that pagan philosopher with their understanding of the world. On the side of Galileo stood — at first — Galileo. Then the Royal Society of London and other groups of scientists who struggled mightily and won (the Church recently surrendered by apologizing to Galileo). The Church was wrong in that indeed Galileo had the right idea about gravity and the right notion about planetary motion (with some fuzzy details). But the church wasn’t arguing that — they were arguing about his method. If human observation could discover truth, what purpose remained for God? Their error was assuming that the truth of planetary motion is the same truth as the nature of the divine. Similarly, newly minted scientists made the same error, assuming that religion existed only to explain what science has not yet gotten around to on their grand to-do list.

The reality is more complicated.

The current state of this war is between two fronts: science and religion. Science, represented (or perhaps more accurately co-opted) by militant atheists like Richard Dawkins, argues that religion is inherently absurd and even deluded. Religion, on the other hand, argues that science cannot answer the questions that religion approaches. In this war of words, it is hard to tell who is winning, but the atheists are making some headway with the same sort of spurious and fallacious reasoning that they decry. It’s not my goal to enter this war in these pages; instead, I want to suggest another approach, as an inhabitant in that neutral country of magic. After all, we lost this war long ago — and yet a few of us still remain, quietly doing what the dominant culture no doubt regards as eccentric at best.

What magic offers is the model, not of war, but of a toolbox. Perhaps instead of imagining that one way of knowing the world is right and all the others are wrong, we could imagine that one way of knowing the world is very good at accomplishing a certain task, and other ways are good at accomplishing certain other tasks. The skeptic picks up magic and says “look at how empirical examination of astrology proves that it’s bunk. How can you still believe it?” This skeptic is like the do-it-yourselfer who picks up a wrench to pound in a nail. If you approach a system of knowledge, you must do so first by understanding its use.

Each system of knowledge begins with certain assumptions, axioms if you will, and has certain strengths. To understand and employ that system of knowledge you must understand its assumptions and strengths. Moreover, our toolbox must contain more than two means of knowledge about the world. In fact, magic teaches us a myriad of ways to understand the world. Most magicians pay their bills, do their taxes, and go to work like normal people living in an empirical world. But at the same time, they recognize that associational thinking — linking diverse symbols to create new ideas — can affect reality in a fundamental and concrete way.

If we imagine that associational thinking is the only tool in our box, we become superstitious and become paranoid at a world too fraught with meaning. On the other hand, if all we have is empiricism, we never examine our underlying assumptions about knowledge, our philosophical foundations, and so we can never move beyond a naive empirical view of the world into meaning. Meaning, if empiricism is the only tool in our toolbox, is reduced to data collection.

It’s clear, then, that different mental tools suit different life-tasks better. What is needed, in both science and magic, is cognitive flexibility and willingness to experiment meaningfully. I think that science can teach us something about magic, maybe even investigate some of its claims, just as magic can help us create meaning out of the discoveries of science. Yet science is not just magic that we’ve learned to understand, and magic is not just unexplained science. If that were the case, we would be the poorer for it. Our minds understand the world physically and metaphysically, and we need to honor both in order to make full use of our toolbox, and we must avoid the errors of both Aristotle and Galileo, while simultaneously respecting their unsurpassed contributions to human thought.

©2009 Patrick Dunn
Edited by Sheta Kaey

My friends and I complain a lot about the occult section at the bookstore, mostly because hanging out at a bookstore and complaining is cheaper than a movie, even with the latte. Our favorite complaint is that there are no advanced books on magic.

Our second favorite complaint is the music they play, but that’s irrelevant.

I’ve kicked this idea around over and over, asking why there are no advanced books on magic. The question itself is faulty. There are advanced books on magic (I even wrote one). But the question fails in another way: It betrays a misunderstanding of the field.

Most books on magic are textbooks, because textbooks sell. People want to learn how-to, and if you ever find yourself in the enviable position of writing a book on magic, you might as well put the exercises in from the beginning because if you don’t, the publisher will suggest you do.

Publishers and readers have expectations for what a book on magic contains. A book on magic has exercises (which nearly everyone who reads the book ignores), and offers the same exact rigmarole — here’s how to move “energy” (rarely a critical discussion of why we’re using that clumsy and out-dated model); here’s how to relax; here’s how to see auras (two-thirds of the time, the books actually teach you to see retina burn, a not very mystical, and entirely useless, skill). Wiccan books will tell you how to ground, center, cast a circle, call the quarters, and eat cookies, in that order. Ceremonial magical books will have a chapter or a section on each of the sephiroth, planets, and elements. And all of this repetition and sameness is absolutely okay.

In fact, it’s necessary. Everyone learns differently, and every writer offers a new perspective on the old topics — at least, if the writer is doing his or her job. Some readers will want a step-by-step, logical approach without many frills. Others will want reassurance or an open-ended, experiential approach. The techniques of magic can be reduced to a small number — perhaps a couple dozen — but the application and presentation of those techniques is as manifold as those who practice magic.

The other reason that there aren’t many advanced books on magic is that there aren’t many advanced textbooks in anything. When one gets to the point of advanced study in any academic field, textbooks become less and less useful. In about seven years of graduate school (gods!), I bought an average of ten books a class every semester, so sixty books every year, and of those, maybe five were textbooks. The rest were primary sources, or anthologies of primary sources.

Similarly, economic factors influence the books that get published and, more importantly, distributed. A large chain bookstore is unlikely to carry advanced books in magic, just as it is unlikely to carry advanced books in physics. The markets for such books are small. Writers do produce works of magical critical theory, philosophy, or experimental results. But those sell slowly, if it all, so bookstores rarely carry them. You need to hunt.

This lack of advanced study materials leads to an interesting situation for those who study magic. Learning the basics is easy. Moving on is hard. It’s doubly hard because most people who study magic do so themselves; they’re autodidacts. An autodidact can learn a topic perfectly well; in fact, I’m mostly an autodidact in magic. But an autodidact faces specific problems of assessment, organization, and even emotional reactions that a teacher can support a student through (or, conversely, make worse).

What we need, then, is not necessarily better books on magic (there are lots of good ones), but a guideline for how to study this art in order to get over that chasm between beginner and expert. Such a guideline, in academia at least, is called a syllabus.

Most syllabuses are written by professors for their classes, but some universities have program-wide syllabuses adopted by the whole course. Most universities mix the approaches, with some parts of the syllabus coming from department or program-wide initiatives and some from the professor’s own mind. Writing a syllabus for self-study might seem a bit odd to those used to the university syllabus. After all, the university syllabus is written by an authority in the topic and offered to students as a guideline and, in a legal sense, a promise. But a syllabus is really just a plan for how to learn, and anyone can construct a plan, even without necessarily knowing much about the topic beforehand.

Writing a syllabus for magical study is much like writing one for any other topic, but there are specific features of magical study that complicate the basics. Nevertheless, every syllabus, regardless of its origin or subject, has three sections: objectives, a set of goals for the course of study; learning activities, a set of assignments or actions to be taken to achieve those goals; and assessment, a description of how the success of the student will be measured, as well as the success of the learning activities in promoting the desired outcomes. All three components, whether in mathematics, literature, or magic, are interdependent. A syllabus missing one of these elements is not a complete or effective syllabus.

A syllabus needn’t be a rigorous and complex document, however, especially for self-study. For example, I am currently learning the piano, and while I do have a teacher I have a syllabus of my own. Here it is in its totality:

• Objectives: I will learn to play the piano well enough to read, memorize, and improvise music. To enjoy the piano.
• Assessment: I’ll know I can read to my satisfaction when I can play a song through slowly with few errors after only practicing it for a short time (one or two weeks); I’ll know I can memorize music when I can play at least three classical pieces and five or six short folk pieces from memory; I’ll know I can improvise when I can play music from a fake-book at sight.
• Activities: I will take weekly lessons, practice at least a few minutes daily, and play for pleasure at least twice a week.

Obviously, I will not meet the objectives of this syllabus easily or even necessarily quickly. But notice that each objective can also be broken down. After all, I can memorize pieces one piece at a time. Notice also how flexible I am with the activities. If I really wanted to be good at piano I’d set myself a set goal, say, an hour a day. Of course, my second objective is the most important: to enjoy the piano, and I know how I would best enjoy piano, and that is at my own pace.

When writing a syllabus for your own self-study of magic, it can be as complex or as simple as you need, and this complexity comes ultimately from the objectives you choose. Therefore, a wise autodidact starts with objectives, which can be things you wish to know, things you wish to be able to do, or even attitudes you wish to develop. And keep in mind as well that you can think of it as a single course, rather than the whole totality of magic. A syllabus with objectives like:

• Learn to evoke spirits
• Learn to invoke gods
• Learn to heal
• Learn to make talismans
• Learn the Cabala
• Learn the runes

is a more overarching syllabus than one with objectives like:

• Learn the sephiroth of the cabala
• Learn the Hebrew alphabet
• Perform an invocation of each of the ten sephiroth

And the second set of objectives is more likely to lead to a manageable set of activities. By all means, begin with your overarching goals — what you really want out of magic — but narrow them down into specific courses of study to make the next steps more manageable. Any time you find yourself struggling with the next steps, go back and narrow your objectives, keeping in mind that you can always come back to the other objectives later.

Your objectives are always and only yours to define. But if you are new to the study of magic you may be unaware of what sorts of skills a magician needs, and so you might become stuck. At this point, those introductory books can be useful. You can head to a bookstore or library and browse through some of them, getting a sense for what they cover and defining a set of objectives from that.

Once you have your objectives, you need to skip ahead to assessment. How will you know you have achieved these goals? You should be able to come up with some indicators that are measurable and more or less objective. I don’t recommend giving yourself grades (most professors would avoid them if they could). Assessment and grading aren’t the same thing: assessment is determining two things: (a) am I learning what I set out to learn? and (b) is this method working to teach it to me? With regard to the first, remember that you cannot always easily judge your own improvement, especially by memory. Keeping a journal of your activities and reflections on your skills can be useful, therefore, so that you can go back and see “ah, yes, I really didn’t get that but now I do.” I find that a sense of embarrassment for how dumb I used to be is a fairly good sign: it means I’m just a little smarter.

You also want to assess your activities, but doing that requires having some. Activities include materials and exercises. Materials are those very books I’ve talked about earlier. At the beginning, you may wish to start with a fundamental text (some are listed in the bibliography). Later, in more advanced classes, you will find yourself looking at primary sources more and more, and less and less at the introductory textbooks. If you find these sources boring, or simply incomprehensible, keep in mind that no one says you must study advanced magic. It is not as if you’ll get a Ph.D. in it. Go that far only if you find yourself passionate.

You need to evaluate material before using it to learn from, especially because so many books on magic are, in fact, pretty awful. A lot of them are good, but some are — not. Ideally you’ll want to create your own set of criteria for judging an introductory book. (Once you have some practice down, it’s fairly easy to discern good advanced texts from bad — most people prefer the Arbatel to the Black Pullet, because it’s easy to tell which is real and which is nonsense.) To help you create your own criteria, here are mine. Remember that I am a grumpy man with a stick up my nose for critical thinking and good writing, and take that into account.

Criteria for Evaluation of Learning Materials

• Can I understand it? Is it written and organized well enough to comprehend, or is it filled with jargon I do not know and convoluted sentence structure? Is it often, like some theosophical materials, complex but reducible to simple statements that are often obvious or clearly untrue?
• Do its claims match with what I already know or suspect about the world with greater or lesser certainty? Obviously, I can be wrong and I need to occasionally read stuff that disagrees with me, but a text that tells me that science has discovered that Atlantis used crystals to power their machinery is wrong.
• Will it address one or more of my objectives?
• If I read a chapter, can I put the book down and summarize what things the chapter argued, or am I left with just a vague feeling? Vague feelings have their place — I actually think one of the chief purposes of occult writing isn’t instruction, but encouragement. And I might want one or more such materials. But if I’m trying to learn something concrete from a book, I need to be sure I can take something concrete from it.
• Does it have solid arguments and citations of its information, or does it just plop authoritative-sounding stuff in the midst of the text with no indication where it came from? My favorite of these is a book that lays out the totality of Druidic magical practices — without ever citing a single source, and making multiple factual errors (the druids did not have pumpkins).

Once you identify a set of materials that you wish to use, go request them from the library or buy them from a bookstore. Most introductory texts contain a set of exercises, but if you are an intermediate learner you need to make your own. An intermediate learner of magic has the task not just of building the skills of magic, but synthesizing them. So let’s imagine you have learned elemental pore breathing (a technique of drawing in elemental “energies” through the breath, promoted by Franz Bardon and stolen by nearly everyone else), the twenty-two path/letters of the Cabala, and the chakras. This rather hodgepodge approach now opens up doors for the intermediate magician to experiment with breathing the elements into particular chakras, or breathing the letters instead of the elements, or permuting the letters into chakras. The overwhelming proliferation of magical techniques that this mere synthesis can create is staggering.

Once you have your materials and your exercises determined, it’s wise to plan how you will assess your development. The single most productive way to do this is with a magical journal. Most people, however, do not understand the purpose of this journal. It is not merely a diary of your practices, although it can be. It’s also a critical reflection on your development and learning. Exams, papers, and so on work well enough if there is a teacher, especially in a university setting where a numerical grade must be assigned. But for an autodidact, the only measure of success is success. If, for example, you wish to learn practical talismanic magic, you may regard yourself successful when you have a 80% success rate, or when you have three successful talismans under your belt, or any other largely arbitrary measure. But if you are trying to learn something less concrete — if you’re trying to learn advanced techniques of theurgy, how do you measure your successful invocation? Obviously, if you find yourself levitating around the room, probably you did something right (or very, very, very wrong), but more likely you’ll end up after an invocation thinking, “was that just a fantasy, or real communication?” If you can record your experiences and your doubts in one place, you can reevaluate them later and see how they fit together with later experiences.

When it comes to devising a practice schedule, I suppose it’s customary for me to become stern and demand that you spend forty-five minutes a day doing magical exercises. What a hypocrite that would make me. You are better off setting modest goals, perhaps even tiny ones. Otherwise, you will simply skip lessons and feel guilty. Guilt is not educational, contrary to Puritan beliefs. Instead, if you decide that you will spend just ten minutes a day meditating, you’re more likely to do so without guilt — and before you know, you’re meditating for an hour as a habit.

When you finish a syllabus, it is time to look again at your overarching goals and define a new one. Skills build on each other. Once you get the hang of talismanic magic, what can you use it for? How can you combine it with other magical techniques that you’ve learned? The usual method of learning magic — studying with this person here, that dubious person there, this book, that book — can work for some people. Other people will prefer a more organized approach, even if they scribble their syllabuses on napkins and keep their magical notebooks on the backs of receipts.

People pay professors a lot (well, not that much) to offer them a hand over the intermediate chasm of their fields of expertise. We have, unfortunately, no professors of magic, and when we come to the chasm we need to find our own way across. The good news is, we can build our own bridges, especially if we’re willing to do a little planning.

A Tiny Bibliography

Introductory Books I Like

• Christopher, Lyam Thomas. Kabbalah, Magic, and the Great Work of Self-transformation. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2006.
  Covers some of the same ground as Kraig, but from a somewhat different angle.
• Dunn, Patrick. Postmodern Magic: The Art of Magic in the Information Age. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2005.
  This wasn’t meant to be strictly a beginner’s book, but I wanted to rethink the common conceptions of how magic works from the ground up, which necessarily involves a lot of beginner stuff.
• Kraig, Donald Michael. Modern Magick: Eleven Lessons in the High Magical Arts. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 1988.
  This book is a very good introduction to a particular kind of magic — Golden Dawn style ceremonial magic. It comes with the advantage of having a syllabus built in, although most people who have read the book have, unfortunately, ignored it. Not ignoring it is a very, very good idea.

Intermediate Books I Like

• Agrippa, Henricus Cornelius. Tyson, Donald, ed. Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 1992.
  I know magicians who live by Agrippa, and there are worse ways to go. This text is a core source text for most of western magical tradition.
• Dukes, Ramsey. SSOTBME: Revised. The Mouse That Spins, 2002.
  Perhaps the single best book on advanced magic I have ever read. Explores the nature of knowledge, the structure of magical theory, and the role of magic in culture.
• Dunn, Patrick. Magic Power Language Symbol: A Magician’s Exploration of Linguistics. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2008.
  Magic’s about language. Or maybe language is about magic.

©2009 Patrick Dunn
Edited by Sheta Kaey

 
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall.
I really don’t know clouds at all!
—”Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell
 

Warm and cool, dry and moist, light and shadow — As human beings, our conceptual frameworks freely draw upon dualistic oppositions. Because we who practice magic are human, our magical paradigms partake of these conceptual divides, though as Magicians we have an intellectual responsibility to question whether our basic assumptions about the world are beneficial, or even warranted, for our magical development. When we find ideas which are useful for our occult endeavors, then cultivating our understanding of these ideas should facilitate their adaptation and application. On the other hand, when our paradigms constrain our capacity to engage our world constructively, we should make the intellectual effort to modify — or even to jettison — the offending assumptions.

From the above examples, we can readily see the influence of dualism and binary reasoning both upon ancient proto-science and within contemporary occult theory. The pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles, when sketching out the fourfold division of the elements so integral to our contemporary magical thought, assigned to each element a primal quality based upon temperature and another based upon moisture, so that Fire was hot and dry, while Water was cold and wet. These pairs of essential qualities proposed by Empedocles — warm and cool, dry and moist — subsist upon binary thinking; without the assumption of either-or, they largely fail to “click” upon an intuitive level. An object may partake of some quality “Alpha” only insofar as the object does not partake of the opposing quality “Beta.” The composite substances which populate our visible world inevitably fall somewhere between these various extremes, yet by this thinking, the composition of any particular substance can always be defined with reference to absolutes, absolutes which can only exist in opposition one to another. Contribute heat, and thereby we move the object further from the primal absolute of cold. Take away water, and so much less does the object partake of the primal absolute of moist.

Taking the four primary composites of these qualities — what we would call the four elements — we have Fire (warm and dry) opposed to Water (cold and wet), and Earth (cold and dry) opposed to Air (warm and moist). Even in non-occult circles, there is the sense that each element acts as foil for its opposite. So when the practicing Magician first encounters the Watchtowers — and whatever their true origins and natures, they certainly seem to function as intelligences which personify the four elements — there arises the very natural tendency to perceive these four godforms as opposed, one to another, or to employ the paradigm and parlance of game theory, as engaged in a zero-sum game.

In the social sciences, the field of game theory has emerged to explain various social and economic interactions among several actors. Game theory proposes an individual faced with choices can be regarded as an essentially rational player of some game with defined rules, an actor who makes decisions and selects strategies in order to maximize their own self-interest. There exist many different kinds of games, with various actors and rules. One particularly crucial distinction is that between zero-sum and non-zero-sum games. In zero-sum games, one player can only advance when another loses ground by the same amount. If there are only so many bricks in existence, and all available bricks exist as part of two houses, then my house can only expand when yours contracts. (I would very much enjoy a new game room. You weren’t using that foyer, were you?) In non-zero-sum games, by contrast, one player’s advancement does not have to come from another player’s loss, and often there exist cooperative strategies by which all players may advance together. (Let’s work together to build shelter which we can share!)

By the default paradigm, one element meets and potentially neutralizes its opposite upon the zero-sum field of battle. Fire does battle with Water, and vice versa. Earth does battle with Air, and vice versa. According to this paradigm, an individual Watchtower seeks power and influence over the unfolding cosmos, and this power can only come when the influence exercised by the opposing Watchtower wanes. The question arises: Does this conflict-oriented paradigm constitute a legitimate way of viewing the world, and particularly the realms of magical phenomena? Does one elemental force, viewed as rational player attempting to maximize its power and expression, acquire and exert this power only at the expense of another elemental force?

I believe not. To realize the elements are not engaged in zero-sum competition, we need only to consider the visible world. The universe we experience is scarcely possible if we assume all the force of the four elements ultimately sums to zero. In any composite substance, one element would cancel out the opposing element, until only one was left. And yet in our diverse world we almost constantly find objects with the occult properties of opposing elements. Blood bears all the fluidity of water — and, in fact, blood is mostly water — yet blood carries the heat and sustenance so closely associated with Fire that we can hardly consider one without the other. Mountains extend their roots deep into the element of Earth, yet climbing these very mountains enables us to reach skywards and into elemental Air.

Returning to the field of magical correspondences, and especially those found in folk magic, we observe composite elements which defy any attempt to characterize the world as zero-sum. Citrine is one species of quartz, an expression of Earth, and yet citrine bears all the magical resonances of elemental Air. Quite recently I lit incense scented with pink carnation, an object brought to life by Fire, yet with energetic vibrations much more akin to Water. Indeed, “opposing” elements don’t so much neutralize one another, as they engage in complex interactions — often graceful dances, occasionally violent clashes.

As above, so below — So speaks the ancient and timeless wisdom penned by Hermes Trismegistus. Just as there are four elements which, together with ineffable quintessence, compose the macrocosm of our visible world, there are four elements which compose the microcosm of the human experience, and each macrocosmic element finds its echo within the microcosm. Thus we correlate the Mind with elemental Air, the Soul with elemental Fire, the Heart with elemental Water, and the Flesh with elemental Earth. Within these pairings, we discover further evidence that straightforward oppositions — and the resulting conflicts they suggest — rest upon an ultimately untenable paradigm, for the apparent oppositions implicit within the microcosm flow along different lines. Within the human spirit, the intellectual Mind is opposed not to the Flesh, as the macrocosmic Air-Earth relationship might suggest, but to the emotional Heart, which properly corresponds with the macrocosmic element of Water. Likewise, the physical Flesh finds its opposite not in the Mind, but in the spiritual aspect of Soul, an aspect which metaphorically burns with the passionate energy of elemental Fire.

Does the microcosm of the human experience really rest upon lines of battle different from those of the macrocosm? Does elemental Water quench elemental Fire outside the human soul, only to find its counterpart of human emotion at odds with the microcosmic equivalent of Air? Do the four elements we know so well, both outside and in, obey one set of interactions above, and quite another below? Such a disharmonious arrangement seems at odds with the Hermetic saw, and I daresay with our experience of the world as Magicians. My solution, which I hope will be no great innovation for most of my readers, is simple: To assume a world of straightforward, binary oppositions, subsisting within the context of a zero-sum game, misses the beautiful and terrible complexity of our world.

The apparent oppositions between Fire and Water, Earth and Air, are nothing more than assumptions which we as humans make about the most primal components of our world, assumptions which ultimately fail to capture adequately the complex interactions of these elemental forces. Likewise, our own microcosmic experience of the apparent conflict between Flesh and Soul, Mind and Heart, are persistent and pernicious illusions which keep us from conceiving the human experience as this experience really is. To be sure, we conceptualize such oppositions quite naturally within the context of our shared culture, and not without reason. The mistake is in assuming that these elemental forces exist in perpetual conflict with one another, a zero-sum game wherein one element only gains at the expense of another. Rather, we must consider the alternative model of the non-zero-sum game, wherein all players can advance (or decline) together. If we consider the Watchtowers as elemental intelligences which participate as players in the universal game of reality, we can observe more clearly the ways by which our shared reality reflects this essential premise of non-zero-sum games.

Considering life in all its myriad complexities, we observe life forms composed of all four elements, whether we regard the macrocosm of classical elements or the microcosm of human experience. These forms of life, upon the material plane and elsewhere, assume ever more sophisticated ways of interacting with their world and with one another, and while I’m hesitant to assign moral value to complexity in itself, certainly the development of sentience and the capacity for magical interactions with the world points towards life-affirming tendencies which evolve across time. This evolution occurs not within the context of a zero-sum game with clear winners and losers, but through non-zero-sum interactions wherein — through the complex dance composed of cooperation and dynamic tension — the Watchtowers intertwine to create the sophisticated and magnificent world we perceive everyday. Within this world, Air can imbue with power objects made from Earth, and the vibrations of Water can be placed in motion by the power of Fire.

Perhaps even more critically for the practicing Magician, across the human experience we all conceptualize certain oppositions which dissolve upon genuine introspection. The philosophical paradigm into which our civilization defaults recognizes a vast conceptual divide between human reason and human emotion. Through the Enlightenment, emotion was often shunned as something passive, something by which the outside world impinged upon the soul, all too often to the individual’s detriment. Today, alternative fields of study which brush up against the New Age movement often suffer from the opposite extreme, denigrating reason in favor of commitment to one’s emotions. The conflict between these two aspects of the psyche arises at least in part based upon our English language, which places Mind and Heart in opposition to one another. (By contrast, the German language contains the one expression, “geist” — etymologically related with the English “ghost” — which encompasses both Mind and Heart as one singular entity.) Understanding these apparent oppositions cannot lock the elements into zero-sum conflict, we can instead focus our attention upon those ways via which Mind and Heart can work in concert, in order to effect our True Will.

Mayhaps the most cogent argument for the conception of elemental interactions as an essentially non-zero-sum game may be found within the Magician’s Circle. Within this astral construct, we call all four elements, both macrocosmically and microcosmically. (And indeed, both macrocosm and microcosm meet within the context of the Circle!) As we call each of the Watchtowers, the power flowing into our Circle grows ever stronger, precisely the opposite of what we would expect if the apparent oppositions neutralized one another and summed to zero. Rather, we acknowledge all four elements both without and within, and through this acknowledgment we become part of the cosmic dance, the dance of ever increasing complexity which arises from non-zero-sum encounters among the primal forces of creation!

Over the coming months, I challenge you to consider the ways in which the elements combine and interlace to compose the beautiful and terrible cosmos which we inhabit. I’ve offered my intellectual arguments against that view of the universe which reduces to conflict, and ultimately to annihilation into a zero-sum state. I simply don’t believe we inhabit so bleak a cosmos. My faith in the cooperative nature of the elements, however, stems from something more experiential, moments of precious insight acquired through magical practice and developed with heartfelt introspection. I challenge you to practice, to reflect both with Mind and with Heart, and to arrive at those cosmic truths which best speak towards your experience of the world.

Blessed Be!

©2009 Grey Glamer
Edited by Sheta Kaey

Folks frequently wonder what the real utility of convoluted rituals and ceremonies in esoteric workings. Most people find such methods overly elaborate and even stifling to their spontaneity.

For myself, I simply don’t have the natural sensitivity of many practitioners. As a result, I need the ritual to act as a check list. By following the ritual script, I ensure that I actually call upon precisely those entities which I wish and that I properly send them to their part of the plan. Ritual also provides checkpoints which ensure that energies have been raised and that some of the many opportunities for the work to go awry are covered.

Over the years, however, I have learned much more of course, and now I see that ritual, even the most minimal aspirations, have very distinct functions for anybody involved in esoteric experience. While I also cringe from slavishly following somebody else’s script, reworking the elements of other systems enhances those practices which I created for myself. In the process, I’ve uncovered a plethora of reasons for engaging in regular ritual activity. Rituals properly practiced provide effective exercises that develop the scope and the quality of the practitioner’s skills while also enhancing the spiritual development which so many desire.

Right now, however, be warned that this essay represents a distinctly minority report among modern esotericists. While these ideas are not unique to myself alone, they are not the viewpoints usually taken in the literature and correspondence which I have perused. Hopefully, the distinctions between the theoretical analysis presented here and what might be called the current majority opinion will be clearly indicated as the essay proceeds.

Exercise, Discipline, Transformation

No skill can be fully developed without practice. The frequency of that practice must be adjusted to each person’s needs, but the most effective practice occurs when the person uses some outside source, such as a coach or a guide book, to critique the work and its results. Even the simplest of rituals, once a person understands the principles of the working, provide such an outside guide. Certain things are supposed to happen at certain points. The ritual enables the practitioner to test whether or not they have occurred. Furthermore, most ritual traditions provide suggestions as to what may cause the rite to be less or more effective at these points.

The degree and intensity of such practice depends upon the commitment of the practitioner. Consider athletes. Folks whose primary athletic activity consist of ball games at company picnics and family reunions obviously will not invest the same time or intensity of a person who is preparing for the Olympics. On the other hand, every person needs to create some sort of regular physical activity in order to sustain his or her normal health.

The same is true in esoteric life. It seems that folks who are not truly called to adepthood, yet who drive themselves in these practices due to other psychological needs, find very different results from their working. Unfortunately, this often derives from the person’s need for empowerment, and he winds up seemingly looking for fights. Personally, I label these folks “power trippers.” Even when their intentions are extremely good, they tend to create messes. On the other hand, there are folks of high sensitivity and talent who suppress this side of their life. Frankly, the result here is all too often emotional instability and neurotic behaviors. Another problem in esoteric practice derives from folks who either do not study their craft or who do not practice what they study. Such neglect inevitably carries its own burden of problems.

Psychological, Unconscious, Paranormal Development

These problems created by the neglect or misuse of ritual in practice clearly derive from the psychology of the practitioner. These problems are linked directly to the primary effects and functions of almost all magical practice. No matter what theory of magic is applied, ultimately, the actual working patterns of every event derive directly from the mental and emotional structures of the particular person involved. In fact, it seems that the fundamental energies driving many paranormal and magical processes are directly linked to the emotional state of the people involved. Whatever else a magical ritual does, it evokes from our unconscious patterns and associations over which we have little conscious control.

Ritual provides the psyche with tools which can be used to deal directly with these unconscious experiences. While these may be “monsters of the id” or “higher selves,” they must be integrated into our personality to be productive. In fact, this alone is one of the major goals of many initiates. Integrating these forces into the psyche not only causes the psyche to become stronger, it also enhances its capacity to be sensitive and to be effective on other levels as well.

This increased capacity usually results in the practitioner discovering and developing several kinds of paranormal abilities. From the clairvoyant and clairaudient perceptions to psychokinetic phenomena and astral projection, these skills always expand the experience and effectiveness of the practitioner.

In fact, without the discipline of regular practice and evaluation, the truly talented individual will project his energies inchoately. This creates problems. Not only will the practitioner find himself suffering from vague illnesses and infestations of paranormal irritants, people around him will suffer irritation. This can lead to results as extreme as destabilizing relationships and actual psychosomatic illnesses similar to those suffered by the practitioner.

At the other extreme, folks who immerse themselves too much in the mystical mists tend to lose control of their lives. Not only do they begin to ascribe almost every event to some magical cause, they tend to neglect the natural mundane considerations vital to their well being.

In the balance between these extremes, a practitioner finds that they become increasingly aware of their own psychology and become more effective at engendering solid results from the steps they take to accomplish any task. The ancient principle of proper dosage applies: Too little, and the work is ineffective; too much, and the work is even toxic.

Man as Pattern Maker

One of the major functions of a ritual is to tap into the power humans have to provide patterns for things. The very shape of a body is largely determined by the psychosomatic effects of a person’s self image, for instance. Indeed, humans are such compulsive pattern makers that a debate rages over whether many patterns that we perceive are real or are imposed by our perceptions and creativity.

By using a ritual structure, the practitioner creates a pattern for the reality to be accessed and to be created in the working. In this way, the ritual acts both as a blueprint and a special tool to get the shape of the working and its effect more precisely crafted.

The difference can be compared to a cabinet maker who uses jigs and plans and measures carefully and someone who just cuts wood to a loose measure and slaps it together to make a bookshelf. A talented craftsman can create a lovely set of shelves from experience and eyeball. A klutz like myself desperately needs those jigs to create anything of durable beauty!

At the same time, even I can look at the pattern I’m given and decide to make changes in it to fit my own needs before I set up the jigs.

The symbols employed in a ritual have usually been developed over centuries to access the numinous energies in quite particular ways. This is a concept to which I will return, but here it means that by using proper symbolic materials and actions, the practitioner can access appropriate energies in a much more precise manner and deliver them within a more refined impact.

Evocation and Balancing and Integration of the Unconscious

Even if the effects of magic were purely psychological (and I’m going to argue that they are much more than that), calling on powers of any kind causes the inchoate turbulence of the unconscious to present many different things to our conscious awareness. All too often, a practitioner can be startled or even adversely affected by encountering these phenomena at an unprepared moment. The consequences of that can be psychologically disruptive, to say the least.

In the ritual, a practitioner not only can bring to bear spiritual power against these disruptive energies, but also s/he could symbolically direct these influences into a transformed pattern which would make them more productive. Very often, destructive patterns arise from a poor response to a real trauma or to a deep but unarticulated need.

Going further by deliberately seeking out those energies in a ritual, the practitioner gets the chance to deal with these problems with a calmer, more confident mindset. The psychological props of the ritual enable both the conscious and the unconscious to approach the problem and to find resolutions in the symbolic atmosphere. Many times, such symbolic understanding and reinforcement enable the practitioner to constructively alter his behavior and expectations. This can have a powerful an effect on his personality and environment.

Auric Fields, Orgone, and Other Energies — The Circuits of the Body

As a mage adjusts his/her mental and spiritual stance in a ritual, s/he materially affects the behavior and composition of those subtle energy fields which in aggregate comprise the aura. Among many other things, these fields are bio-electric, geo-magnetic, and heat. Infrared photography reveals much about the function of the auric envelope. Kirlian photography demonstrates its persistence. Even the simple tendency of stuff to stick together causes the area around the body to be flooded with chemicals and materials shed by the body.

These auric fields interact with the environment, much like a paddle in water. Most rituals advise you to make certain specific movements and to charge these movements with particular associations. As a consequence, these movements stir the environmental forces into particular patterns.

There is a simple set of exercises which can demonstrate this phenomenon. While doing relaxation and breathing exercises, these energies are concentrated to the point where many people can feel them. This accumulated energy field has many names, such as Chi, prana, and kundalini, and they may indeed be many different energies. In any case, while you’re conducting these exercises, if you have a partner, each should take turns feeling the energy field of the other. One simple way to do this is for one person to close his/her eyes while the other simply pushes a palm down over the bare skin of the arm. After some practice, many folks can tell when the other person’s hand is close, and if you rotate it, they can tell in which direction you’re circling.

Once these vortexes are established, they can be used as engines to empower the patterns crafted by the ritual into tangible as well as spiritual reality.

The Vital Importance of Tools

It is this very manipulation of such energetic fields that causes me to differ from the majority on the need for consecrated magical tools. Many modern writers discount the need or real efficacy of tools. They consider them entirely as psychological props with which an advanced practitioner can safely dispense. Even if they were just tools for accessing the unconscious patterns, as discussed above, their symbolic associations alone will cause real energies to be manipulated.

These energies, however, flow through the mage’s body and most especially through his nerves! If one believes him/herself to be “advanced” and tries a particularly intense working, then that energy blasts along some very delicate circuitry.

A tool which has been designed to wield those energies, such as an Orgone device, for instance, enables much greater energies to be manipulated while buffering the mage from the full measure of the current.

It is possible for a person to transmit lots of energy by grabbing up a live high tension power line — but unfortunately this seems to cause significant damage and the circuit soon fails. The same person, using the proper tools, can handle energies sufficient to power vast cities safely.

Ritual Reality

A further function of ritual involves even more subtle energies. Since sensing them seems to depend upon physical symptoms of events which actually occur in material reality, the practitioner needs ways to instruct the unconscious to act on non-material planes as well.

Debating the reality of astral, mental, spiritual, and other “non-material” planes of existence is beyond the scope of this essay. Every magical discipline, however, affirms the reality of these other modalities of existence. The simplest way I’ve found to explain them is that on those planes, things happen in ways different from the ways they happen in material reality. Time, space, and even cause and effect actually mean different things or work in very different ways.

Ritual, then, provides a sort of bio-feedback mechanism in which the practitioner trains his/her subtle selves to act on those planes. Further, such ritual often has the effect of enabling a person to enter altered states of consciousness in which she/he can become much more sensitive to and aware of these other planes.

Furthermore, in ritual, you will create a zone in space and time in which your magical constructs are real and dominant. This aspect is vital to the success of many magical workings. The process is quite similar to the psychological technique of “fake it till you make it.” By creating a reality in which the magic is real, that reality can grow to affect other “realities” as well.

This is, in fact, a basic principle underlying many magical processes. Erecting magical and psychic defenses involves creating shells of altered reality around you. Consecrating and charging talismans and amulets involves placing those material items into a very non-material matrix where entities and energies of the other planes can access them and use them as foci for manifestation.
It is this aspect that leads many traditions to create very specific and often elaborate rituals for people to pass through the perimeters of the sacred space created in a ritual. I’ve seen Wiccans “cutting and closing” doors in their circles and ceremonial magicians having conniptions if a bug disrupts the lines they’ve drawn on their magical floors.

Internal Illusions and External Beings

Another major contribution of ritual is that it provides a inherent system of verification. This alone is a vital contribution, as it seems no other legal hobby can produce such profound delusions in practitioners.

The sources of these illusions are manifold. Not only is the practitioner routinely entering altered states, in which normal mental processes and the senses can be distorted, but also s/he is rousing his/her unconscious associations, experiences and reactions into excited activity. Further, as magic involves concentration of will and desire, his/her emotional state can be very intense and thus inherently unstable.

One consequence of these considerations is that far too many practitioners seem to think that all magic is just these psychological processes given direction and focus so that the energies involved can create material transformations and manifestations. While this is clearly an aspect of magic, I strongly feel that limiting magic to such events is foolhardy. This is similar to saying that since the home court advantage derives from the emotional energy of the fans, that the team the fans cheer is not really necessary to the game! Saying that your magic only really affects your own psyche is similar to saying that the obnoxious car whose sound system blasts into the buildings a block away is only affecting itself.

When you do magic, you make noise and send out signals that other beings are going to notice and to which they will react. How can you tell if the sparkling or frightening being you suddenly sense is rising from your own unconscious or actually another being coming into your sphere?

This question is very complex, but ritual systems can provide the mage with a series of tests and touchstone considerations with which to evaluate these manifestations. Furthermore, a ritual system derived from an established tradition will even have established techniques which enhance the manifestation of those entities you want and impede the influence of entities and energies which would not be in harmony with your purpose.

This is especially important, as magic is will, imagination, and desire given sufficient force to affect the probabilities of what folks call “reality.” Obviously, such a process can be created by any strong emotion, disciplined mind, or shared experiences and feelings. These processes can be deliberately started by a mage or generated by the simple fact of human activity. Whatever their origin, these processes often assume a self-perpetuating reality such that they become essentially new creatures in their own right. Sorting through these beings is one of the functions of ritual.

Thought Forms and Larvae

The most common forms of these magical psychological constructs are called thought forms and larvae.

Thought forms vary from the very simple kind of association that advertisers like, such as “Pepsi Generation” or “I’d walk a mile for a Camel,” to the extremely complex patterns which give identity to a sports team or a company.

All of these patterns, however, require some emotional linkage to people to be effective and to survive. This creates the problem of “larvae.” Larvae are such patterns which are no longer being actively directed. If they survive, they exist by exciting emotional patterns in people. Since they no longer have their original source of energy, they will attach themselves to people who have an emotional need or vulnerability similar to the larvae’s pattern. Then they excite this emotional link to sustain themselves. The consequence is very unintegrated behavior and even self-destructive attitudes.

As a teacher, I’ve noticed these destructive attitudes all too often seem linked to negative self images. Math anxiety, fear of rejection, inferiority and bullying are actually fairly straightforward infections. Patterns which lead to substance abuse, co-dependency, and other problems are more complex and much more difficult to root out.In every case where a person has become victimized by such things, it is not enough to treat the superficial problems. Healing requires identifying that emotional point which acts as a receptor for such an infection and healing it.

Magical rituals help here on two levels. First of all, they enable a practitioner to identify and to disrupt the alien thought forms or even to shield himself from them. Secondarily, they provide a powerfully evocative symbolic structure to enable the unconscious to understand the basic problem and to find ways in which to heal it.

Egregore

Very complex and more powerful thought forms clearly become their own persons over time. These are called by various names in different magical traditions. Elementals, elementaries, and similar terms are often not talking about the classic sylph, gnome, etc. but refer more towards these complex forms. Astral servitors are created by advanced mages to accomplish some relative routine task just as industrial robots enable craftsmen to be more productive.

An egregore, however, is a much more complex and even powerful entity. Egregores can even be created into physical manifestation (as in the Tibetan tulpa) by deliberate magical activity. Much more frequent, however, is the creation of “group spirit.” School spirit, corporate culture, and so forth are such beings. One class which gives people much more trouble than they realize are the egregores of spiritual congregations. Magical orders are very careful about this; since they know they are creating them, they strive to be sure that their egregores have the qualities they want.

Unfortunately, the average church congregation creates these in abundance and hardly ever are at all aware of what they are doing. I firmly believe that many of the disruptive behaviors of religious congregations, from the tragedies of the Inquisition to the self-immolation of Jones or Koresh arose when the egregore of the congregation usurped the position of the true tutelary of the group.

Spooks

The persistence of these psychic, magical beings is most often experienced by people in the “haunt” phenomenon. Here an experience, usually traumatic, has created an echo or copy of a personality undergoing that experience that persists for ages in a sensible form.

I tend to doubt that these beings are usually truly souls of departed people, though such a thing can happen. This doubt is based on the fact that these phenomena rarely evince any depth to their personalities. In fact, most would fail the most rudimentary tests devised by computer programmers for artificial intelligence!

Yet, under the stimuli of sensitives who have procedures for working with these entities, they can be seen often to evolve and to grow to more complex beings. Even so, in many cases, these haunts turn out to be, like poltergeists, generated by the psychological storms of the very people they haunt!

Cross-Plane Manifestations

These generated pseudo-spooks, if you will, are a classic example of another reason to use rituals. No matter what level catches your attention when you act, all acts and all choices affect your reality on all levels. As a result, a subconscious effort can create these kind of phenomena to attract the conscious and spiritual awareness. Western esotericism is permeated with the principle “As above, so below.” In other words, what we do physically has a spiritual effect and our spiritual and imaginary constructions will have tangible effects.

Consider the principle elucidated by the Master, “As one speaks, so believing in his/her heart, so it shall be done unto him/her.” What you speak so often tends to become real. Folks who say of children, “They’re little devils,” are setting their expectations and thereby their reality to really regret their words. This is the principle behind the idea of positive thinking and positive affirmations, and is also a major principle empowering magic.

There’s a story of a salesman who suddenly leaped from the bottom performer to the top performer by changing one word. Every time somebody would rhapsodize on their child’s genius, the achievements of their favorite politician, the expectations of their favorite sports team, he began to say, “Fantastic!” He used to say, “Balderdash!”

Again and again, reinforce the principle of the old song, “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don’t mess around with Mr. In-Between.”

To return to the focus of our magical activities, be careful to say what you want to happen, because magic will cause material things to manifest in response to our mental statements. Further, magic will cause spiritual reality to manifest as a consequence of our physical actions. A mage has the responsibility of consciously directing this power to emphasize the materialization of the things he designs and to decrease the manifestation of the things which destroy.

Furthermore, ritual measures to bring about magical manifestation also provide patterns and energies for the nature of that manifestation. This is one reason why sympathetic magical rites always include some ritual or material which mimics the physical reality the mage desires. Perhaps this is one reason why ancient entities were so enamored of having biological sacrifices. The life forces and the material substance of the poor creatures sacrificed provided them materials with which to establish a manifestation on our plane without so great a strain on their native resources.

Landing Lights

In ritual, we set careful boundaries to what we will direct to happen, and hopefully also boundaries and limits to what we don’t want to happen. This is one reason for the triangle and circle elements of ritual. The circle defines the magical cosmos of the working and the triangle defines the limits and pattern of the manifestation. Believe it or not, this combination also aids the manifestation of forces friendly to the mage. Crossing from one plane to another is difficult — like flying at night without moonlight, they need those landing lights to find the designated field.

Boundaries

Ophiel wrote that if we don’t limit the desired effect of our spell, we may cause a disruptive influence to occur. An image for this might be a person who opens a faucet to get a glass of water, only to find that the spigot was meant for a high pressure fire hose!

Furthermore, every action creates a reaction. Now Newton was fond of “equal and opposite,” but magic doesn’t seem to work that way. Perhaps, “opposed on the same continuum” would define the operation better. So just as we need to be careful to set boundaries on what we want to happen, we need to set boundaries on how it may happen. Even more, we have to set boundaries to close off the enormous forces of opposition.

All too often, a person will work some ritual to gain wealth, for instance, to have a beloved relative die and leave them a bequest in their will. Another cycle involves the ritual obviously having good effect at first, and then the person suddenly finds everything flows back to a condition worse than when they started. Therefore, boundaries are needed. The Wiccan line, “an’ it harm none,” is a useful model. The more elaborate phrasing and details you can generate, the safer and the more effective your ritual will be towards achieving your goals.

This is even true in purely spiritual work. Consider the “Lord’s Prayer.” It glorifies God and places all under Her will at the very front of the incantation. Then it asks for “our daily bread” — the original language clearly carries the connotation of our proper quota. Then the hardest prayer of all — forgive us as we forgive others. This alone removes one of the major psychological and spiritual hurdles to benign manifestations. Then it moves on to the protective boundaries, “Do not put us to test, but deliver us from evil.” These boundaries are followed with a reaffirmation of the controlling principles and invocation of the operative powers.

Letting Go

One boundary which the apprentice mage often forgets is the boundary to the working itself. Each ritual, even the tiniest charm verse, needs a definite close and a dismissal to the work.

The first reason for this is that any working attracts and disturbs the energies and beings on several levels. Unless they are helped to clear away, they continue to influence the mage’s mind through images, feelings, and thought patterns. Contrary to the opinions of many, these include many beings and thought forms which are definitely not truly part of the mage’s own personality. Furthermore, the more developed of these entities will have their own agendas which may or may not truly advance the mage’s own spirit.

Not dismissing these energies, then, not only runs the risk of leaving your unconscious immersed in turbulent and disordered vibrations at a potentially unhealthy intensity, but also it causes many thoughts, images, and feelings to arise in you which are actually alien to you. Either condition can result in quite specific spiritual and psychological problems. The first may lead to manic behaviors and the second even to dissociative personality disorder.

The second reason is even more important to the practice of effective magic. If you do not release the energies, they cannot effectively do the task you have assigned to them. A jockey who constantly reins in his horse will not win the race. A lion on a leash is a guardian all too easy to evade. A vehicle can be driven with the brakes still set, but this definitely damages both the brakes and vehicle as well as making the journey last much longer.

In the dismissal, you send these powers out to do the job. If you do not trust either the powers you’ve raised or the directions and controls you have provided for them, you can not freely permit them to work. If you do not expect them to accomplish the task, then your own will and imagination admit and create the failure. Indeed, this is one reason for thanking them for accomplishing the task even before you send them to do it!

The dismissal can be anything from a simple gesture such as putting the charm in a bottle and capping the bottle or an elaborate rite such as closing by the Watchtowers. Either way, the dismissal restores the privacy of your own psyche and sets the magic into full operation.

Good and bad vibes

Of the many consistent themes in my writing, the term “verify” occurs frequently. You need to be sure that you are doing what you want to do and having the effect that you want to have. So I suggest that you consider ways to test your working before hand. What sort of things would indicate that it was starting to work?

Secondarily, since magic, by definition, works with realities that humans find difficult to observe directly, we need to verify that the forces and entities we think are participating are the true ones. As above, so below also works in reverse. Just as we have to be on guard against parasites and predators who pretend to be our friends in the material plane, we have to verify the nature of the beings we encounter on the astral and spiritual planes too. St. John wrote that we should test the spirits.

How?

St. Paul points out that the Spirit of the Lord will edify and create order — by which he meant that the loving harmony will increase and we will find ourselves better people. On the other side, spirits that tend to disrupt the process in which we grow to be more like our Master and more in union with the Deity are probably not good for us!

In addition to the elaborate rituals every religious tradition may provide for this purpose, we are provided with an innate capacity to discern these spirits. How do they feel to you? Do they help you feel better about others and yourself? Do they help you be a better person? Do they help you accomplish your tasks and goals in both the spiritual and the mundane social setting? Do they comfort you?

If not, then I’d be much more cautious in dealing with them. This system is not fully reliable by itself, of course. If it were, then con artists would find it hard to make a living! On the other hand, it can be a definite alert signal to conduct other tests.

Communication

This sensation of feeling the “vibes” off another being, even a human, is based on an unconscious gestalt of several features. We may perceive their aura, we may pick up on the electro-magnetic fields their body generates. We may be sensing the particles, hormones, enzymes, and excretions that every body drags around with it (a very good reason for frequent showers, by the way). We also may be actually sensing subsonic vibrations being generated by the other person. It turns out that our hair follicles can work very much like the sensing hairs in our inner ear to pick up on these signals. Moreover, our skin does have light sensitive components and a few adepts are able to see with their skin.

This is one reason why the insecure, shy, and socially unskilled person who is desperate to be accepted feels “creepy” while the real predators and creeps can seem so trustworthy, caring, and good. The person expecting rejection will be unconsciously providing your unconscious with a flood of signals to avoid them.

Yet this flood of signals and their attendant response are a communication. If we are going to evoke powers and beings in our magic, we need to be able to communicate with them. We need not only to be able to tell them what we want done and how, but also to hear from them the things they have to tell us. It does no good to be able to tell the car to accelerate forward, if we ignore the stopped truck in the lane in front of us!

For this reason, every ritual tradition will provide a number of disciplines to provide us with tools for such two way communication. At their base, all imply awareness of signs and a basic ability to meditate and to listen to the unconscious. In ritual, the mage drills and practices these techniques so that they become more effective and reliable.

Transformation

Establishing such good communication with our spiritual and our unconscious realities is vital for the full accomplishment of the “Great Work.” The imagery to describe this great work varies. Every tradition has it own language. The Buddhist seeks Nirvana. The Jewish Kabbalist seeks to free the Divine Sparks and to repair the Face of God. The Christian Mystic seeks union with the Divine. They speak of building up the City of God or finding the Kingdom of Heaven.

All of these terms speak of achieving fundamental changes in the mage. Initiations all have the purpose of bringing about a new kind of reality for the initiate. Christians say that their Baptism, for instance, radically changes the kind of creature you are. No longer descended from Adam but from Christ. While this obviously would give the Christian much better tools or cosmic posture, this by itself will do little to complete the transformation. For that, St. Paul says we must all strive and run and hope. A lion is much stronger than a cat, but it may be still ineffective as a hunter!

Anyway, this transformation means that you must move from one state of being into another. Magical ritual enacts this transformation every time you conduct it consciously. Such transformations can cause schizophrenia! You are consciously and unconsciously aware of yourself as one kind of being, and this awareness is reinforced by your society whether or not it is true. Now you are introducing changes which are sometimes impossible to be obviously observed but which are sensed and effective on the unconscious and spiritual planes. This destroys your identity with who you are and whom your society thinks you are.
This change is not only unsettling to you unconsciously, it can be lethal socially. Scientists once performed an experiment in which they removed a monkey from its family, died it pink, and put it back in the family cage. None survived two hours. Their own families tore them apart.

Not only do mages experience this “pink monkey” syndrome, the more effective their magic; they also experience “culture shock.” The easiest way to explain this is the feeling of dislocation that you feel when you return home on vacation after you’ve first been gone from home for quite a while. You know you don’t fit in anymore. You’re different. So you think that you must stand out in some way. You think everybody is talking about you, making fun of you, etc. In short, you go paranoid, and that’s just the start of the problem.

All these symptoms combine within another feature of the magical life: threshold sickness. The most common feature of threshold sickness is nausea. This can be very like motion sickness, and is probably a psychosomatic manifestation of the spiritual reality. Unfortunately, the stronger the occult threshold you are crossing, the stronger and weirder the symptoms. Poltergeist activity can manifest. Even more dangerous, you can project your symptoms onto others.

All of these problems can be healed effectively by having established strong and reliable mechanisms of communication beforehand. Sometimes people have to relearn their people skills, but being aware of the problems and reaching for these solutions will usually get folks through the crises.

The most important communications, however, are those which must be conducted between our conscious minds and our unconscious and our spiritual minds. If we have developed tools, such as art or poetry, we can observe and direct our process of change. Furthermore, if we maintain some sort of journal, we can see where we started and where we may go.

Obviously, as we change, the nature of our communication with the spirits will also change. The same sort of rules apply. Ritual again should provide the tools to enable this continuing communication and a means of testing and developing our transformation.

Transcendence

Ultimately, all magic tends to develop a sense in the mage that reality is not so solidly established as most folks assume. One extreme denies objective reality, claiming all that exists is what we generate ourselves by our beliefs. The philosophy which expresses this is solipsism. Another school claims that all that is real is the realm of absolutes, ideas, and archetypes. The philosophy which expresses this is Classical Idealism. Another philosophy expresses that all that is real is energy or vibrations, and that the classic realm of the Ideal, etc., is an illusion. This is the principle underlying modern phenomenology and also is actually hidden within many of the bromides of the “New Age.”

To all of these, I’d say that reality is not what we think it is, nor even what we directly experience; but the fact that we do experience and communicate means something is out there besides ourselves and is “real.” One of the effects of the Great Work should be a growing ability to sense and to deal with this ultimate reality.

Perhaps, at one point, we mages may even become transformed to the place where we ourselves live in that realm with full awareness and become truly part of the very forces with which we desire such intensely loving harmony.

When we follow through on all levels with the implications of our ritual traditions, I suspect that flashes of such experience happen. These are the moment of ecstatic union or enlightenment of which the greater mystics teach. In such moments, we transcend “reality” to another level of the Divine Dance. In such we experience something which transcends any conceivable capacity of language or art to fully communicate.

Such transcended is “trans-rational.” It goes beyond logic or reason or coherent language, and can only be dimly described by very weak analogies and metaphors. Hence the language of all art is “evocative” as it tries to magically evoke some tiny piece of that transcendence for the person sensing the art to experience.

Just as great art transcends genius to Divine Inspiration, may you find rituals to transcend the limits and trials of this plane to the vivid joys and visions and accomplishments which transcend all planes.

Ambrose Hawk is the author of Exploring Scrying (Exploring Series).

©2009 Ambrose Hawk
Edited by Sheta Kaey

In my most recent article for Reality Sandwich, “Magic: It’s More Than Just Finding Parking Spaces,” I discussed the stigmas or problem issues that surround the use of the word “magic” and the subculture of the occult, and I pointed out that until these stigmas are dealt with decisively, magic will never be rehabilitated. One commenter pointed out that it might be easier to say, “willful intentionality,” instead of saying, “magic,” because of all the baggage associated with the word. This leads me to ask, “Is magic another four letter word?”

Within the occult subculture, it could be argued that magic isn’t a four letter word, but I’m reminded of a recent incident where I overheard a description of a social networking meetup for local occultists. “We get together and hang out. We’ll talk about our jobs, or something fun we want to do, or plan when we’re going to go out and dance. We don’t about magic or any of the magical work we’re doing.” The passion that this was exclaimed with and the emphasis placed on not discussing magic at the meet up demonstrated an odd kind of attitude about magic, even from people who practiced it. It was as if people who came to such an event shouldn’t discuss magic, because it has no place in everyday life. Magic had become a four letter word.

While there is a lot of baggage associated with magic, another question I asked in the aforementioned article was about what the benefits of magic are, and in light of that question, I am going to use this article to address what those benefits are and why we shouldn’t treat “magic” as a four letter word.

One of the benefits of magic is that it provides access to alternate ways of knowing, ways of experiencing reality that fall outside the conventional approaches, such as religion, materialism, or science. Alternate ways of knowing incorporate techniques such as chemognosis, meditation, sex magic, ritual magic, energy work, but can also draw on disciplines outside of magic. The recent focus on semiotics and memetics is an example of practices from non-occult disciplines that have influenced magical practice.

Another benefit of magic is that it provides access to a variety of resources that fall outside the traditional spectrum of reality which we’re conditioned to believe in. These resources can include gods, angels, and demons, but also include cultivating our natural gifts, which may fall into disuse if not cultivated. A non-linear awareness of space/time, or the conscious manipulation of the physiology of the body is an example of accessing resources that fall outside the traditional spectrum of reality, but another example can be the intentional use of writing or collages to shape reality in a particular manner. By conventional standards, it would be argued that writing can’t directly shape reality. However, there are plenty of cases where writing has shaped a person’s life or events. William S. Burroughs and Ernest Hemingway are two examples; one knowingly did it and the other didn’t, with tragic consequences for him.

Magic also provides a person the opportunity to find answers to the spiritual questions s/he asks. Praying to a god is one way to find the answer, but the magician can also create the answer by his or her own efforts as well. And magic isn’t applied only to spiritual questions, but also to the practical concerns that can arise in living life. Utilizing magic to help you through a financial rough time or for healing a disease would be an example of a practical concern.

One could argue that everything I’ve mentioned above could be filed under “willful intentionality,” but would most people even understand that or know what “willful intentionality” meant? Certainly magic has its baggage and is sometimes a four letter word, but there are many associations with it that are positive. Many people have benefited from practicing magic and incorporating it into their lives. And many people, including yours truly, are proud to talk about magic with others, as well as practice it daily, instead of attempting to treat it as something you only deal with during special events or holidays.

Willful intentionality doesn’t have the negative associations, but it doesn’t have the positive associations, either. Another comment made to the aforementioned article was that if we were going to rehabilitate magic, it’s not a question of rehabilitating the term; it’s about rehabilitating how that term is used. I think this is an accurate point to make, and yet also a semantic one, because really what it points to is the need to rehabilitate the varied definitions of magic. Certainly, examining the definitions is important. It provides us an idea of how people understand the term as well as their own agenda for defining it in a particular way. But the application and processes also need to be considered carefully. When we do that, we aren’t just looking at magic from an abstract perspective, but also considering it from an experiential understanding of it.

Magic isn’t a four letter word. But how it’s been used and how it is understood has not always portrayed it in the best light. There is a lot of cultural and religious baggage associated with the word and even though it is marginally more acceptable now than it used to be, magic may not ever be free of that baggage. This may not matter to the occult subculture at all, but it does matter if we ever choose to take the concepts and practices of magic and present them to a more mainstream audience. At that point, “willful intentionality” may be the best choice of words to explain how those concepts work (or not, as I don’t think magic is just about an application of will and intent), but in the process we will have to lay out many of the underlying assumptions and beliefs inherent within the word “magic.” It makes for a semantic challenge, but also necessarily may force us to consider anew just what the benefits of magic are, as we share them with a broader audience than just the occult subculture.

Taylor Ellwood is the author of Space/Time Magic, Inner Alchemy: Energy Work and the Magic of the Body, and Pop Culture Magick, among other works. You can visit his blog at http://magicalexperiments.wordpress.com/ and his website at http://www.thegreenwolf.com/.

©2008 by Taylor Ellwood
Edited by Sheta Kaey

The Otherkin community is a fascinating collection of individuals, all of whom feel as if they are differently souled. Although in human form, Otherkin believe that the essence of who and what they are originated elsewhere and can most often be associated with mythical beings, such as elves or faeries, dragons or gryphons. I was first introduced to the Otherkin community on the cusp of the new millennium, and, although I was skeptical at first, I came to accept that there is something to Otherkin claims. As someone who, because of my regularly need for the life-energy of others, has adopted the word “vampire” in reference to myself, I could hardly throw stones at Otherkin elves who explained that they did not believe that they were pointy-eared rangers straight out of Tolkien or D&D, but that the mythic archetype we have come to recognize as an elf best described what they felt their soul originate as. If we accept that the soul exists and, furthermore, accept that it is immortal, then we have to acknowledge that it has probably gone through a multiplicity of genders, races, and forms just on the basis that nothing — not even species or planets — lasts forever, at least not in the physical realm.

I had my widest exposure to the Otherkin community at a small Canadian convention called Kinvention North. From 2001 onward, I often appeared as a speaker there, and my presentations were popular with many of the attendees. When I was asked to do the closing ritual at Kinvention North 2004, I put a great deal of thought into the undertaking. As most people know, I have my own Kheprian system, and while I have ties to the ‘kin, I am foremost involved with the vampire subculture. Kheprian rituals have their own unique energy, and most vampire rituals are don’t really fit when working with the Otherkin. What I needed to do was design a ritual that was completely Otherkin in energy — and this would mean running ritual in a fashion that isn’t exactly normal for me. I’ve run both Wiccan and Pagan rituals very successfully, and so I knew this wasn’t beyond me as a ritualist. In general, writing a ritual in any tradition just requires the ritualist to tap into the unique energy that is the heart of that tradition. Each system has its own symbols, its own language, and its own archetypes. So to successfully design and run the KinNorth ritual, I had to essentially travel to the source of these in the mythic imagination and allow what I found there to flow through me.

To tap into this essence, I started with the symbol of the Otherkin: the Seven-Pointed Star, also known as the Elven Star or the Faery Star. As I understand it, this symbol is recognized by the majority of the Otherkin community, and it serves as an expression of Otherkin diversity. Because Otherkin by nature draw from a wide variety of races, traditions, and points of origin, the Star is one of the few common elements shared by all the Otherkin. As the archetypal common ground, the Star provided a point of entry into the vibration or “flow” of the ‘kin.

Prior to designing the ritual, I did some meditation with the Seven-Pointed Star. These were basically pathworkings where I approached the symbol of the Star as an archetype, and allowed it to speak to me. It soon became clear that there were several voices within the Star — one for each of its points. These were essentially Avatars of elements and races unique to the ‘kin.

To design this ritual, I let the Star Avatars speak to me. All Seven appeared in succession, revealing their forms and sigils for invoking. They each told me their Names and the symbols of office they wished to be represented by. They told me what elements, colors, and concepts they are associated with (although several were associated with common elements, they were never as simple as one element and one concept — the avatars are multifaceted beings, each as diverse as the ‘kin they embody).

Some came forward and spoke right away. These had bold voices that were hard to mistake. A few were less direct with me, even hesitant in their contact. The last one to come forward was the hardest to understand, for s/he was most unlike my own nature and anything I had a context for. But it was contact with this one (called Illana) that convinced me beyond a doubt that I was dealing with essences both unique and outside of me, as s/he was totally alien to anything I previously had known.

The Avatars each have many shapes and many Names, and during our conversations, they frequently shifted from one face to another while still retaining their overall “feel.” I’ve come to associate such flux with the ‘kin, so it really didn’t come as a surprise when it was a fundamental part of the avatars. The complexity and diversity of the Avatars was also in keeping with what I understand such avatars to be — which is essentially an embodiment of a higher emanation, a fragment of divinity that is more complete and closer to the Source than you or me.

As I had originally planned to only invoke the Avatars like Watchtowers at the Quarters, I asked the directions they were associated with — and in a few cases, the answer came as a surprise. The traditional Pagan directions are abandoned in favor of what the Avatars themselves declared. The least traditional of any of them, of course, was Illana, who seems to embody the most “other” element of all of them.

The Avatars had their own idea of how the ritual should proceed, and they didn’t hesitate in telling me so. As I had already agreed to serve as a channel in this and not impose my own expectations or traditions upon it, I let them speak freely. The resulting rite gives a great deal of time to the Avatars of the Star, and I have been assured that they will fill in the blanks when the time comes. During our interactions, they had made a number of other statements which, while mysterious at first, later proved to be true — so I’ve definitely learned to trust them.

The whole experience has been fascinating for me, as I don’t usually go talking to so-called “higher powers.” For my own rituals, I draw everything from my Self, and Kheprian rituals also draw only upon the Selves of those involved. But this is not a Kheprian rite I am running, and the ‘kin do not function by Kheprian rules. My role in this is purely as an intermediary and mouthpiece. I’m fairly certain that the things I tapped into were already there, and I’ve done my best to be a clear channel for them, allowing the information to come through with as little distortion as possible.

What I see before me is a very powerful rite — one that I think will be inspiring for those who participate in it. As we are dealing with Avatars and giving each of them a chance to speak, the real outcome and message of the ritual is an unknown and can only be experienced. I’ve built the framework, but the Avatars themselves will tell us what needs to be known. They’ve been very interesting to work with, and I look forward to future interactions with their energy.

Finally, because I know there will be a widespread interest in it, I am making this ritual available to the general community. Others who wish to experiment with contacting these Avatars are encouraged to do so. I am very curious about how they might manifest to other people and how harnessing their energy might serve to help and empower the community of Otherkin.

What I would especially like to see are rituals that integrate the Avatars in smaller group work. While a ritual that involves 70+ people is impressive just by dint of the numbers, there is often little chance for group participation all around. It’s very difficult to make time for everyone present in such a large ritual to directly participate in the action. Smaller rituals with ten to fifteen people have always seemed more personal and more ideal to me because everyone can play some role in the preparation and ritual action. I would be very interested to see the difference between this invocation run in a large group and how things play out in a smaller, more directly involved group.

Open Letter to the Avatar Hosts

2004-03-27

This is the letter that went out prior to the ritual to the first and second choices for the Avatar hosts:

“I’ll need you to meet with me about an hour before the ritual is actually scheduled to start. Come prepared to this and already wearing most of what you’re going to wear as the Avatar. We can touch up the costumes at this time, make any last minute changes, etc.

“Each Avatar has a sigil. I’ll apply this to your forehead with body paint prior to the ritual. This will be a minor invoking — kind of priming you to the energy but not fully calling the Avatar down. I’ll have veils to drape over each of you and, once you’re ready, you’ll be arranged around where the circle will be formed. Stand still, like a statue, and wait until you hear your Avatar called at this point. I want to build the mystery a bit, and I’ll have the rest of the people come in and form a circle around you, building energy in the center of the room.

“I’ll talk a little bit, doing the intro to the ritual, then I’ll call the “quarters.” When I call the Avatar you represent, pull off the veil, leave it where it falls, and step forward to the center of the circle. There will be a small table set up there with the Avatars’ symbols of office on it. Pick up the one that’s appropriate to you, and then stand in the center facing out toward the larger circle. All seven of you will stand in a tight knot at the center of the ritual space, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, looking out at everyone else.

“I’ll talk a little more, and then I’ll do the full invoking. This will involve me Calling the Avatar with a larger description and scribing the sigil in energy before you. The energy of the Avatar will wash over you completely at this point, and it will be like draping a robe of office over who you already are. You will hear/feel what the Avatar wants to say, but you will also have influence of how this is ultimately expressed. You will not lose your sense of Self totally unless you allow it; if you wish to surrender completely to the presence of the Avatar, that will be a matter of personal choice.

“The core of the ritual is that each Avatar is asked for his/her advice on a matter of importance to the ‘kin community. I’ll go right round through all of them, then dismiss them. When the Avatars are dismissed, step back out of the inner circle and move to a point close to the outer circle again, as the energy of the Avatar slips off of you. If you feel compelled to do or say anything before the Avatar fully departs, go with it — I have a feeling they have a couple of surprises for us.

“Attached is the full ritual in MSWord format.

“If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me. I’ll be traveling a bit with the band the next few days but will make every effort to check my email in case there are any inquiries.”

Details of the Invocation

2004-03-27

This is a letter which explained my vision for the Avatar Invocation. It covers what I was aiming to accomplish with the Avatars, how I approached the KinNorth ritual, and what I expected from those individuals who would be hosting the Avatars.

“I am going to be a little more elaborate and organized with ritual this year than previously. The time we are in I believe calls for this. To this end, I would like to request your help with the ritual.

“The core of this ritual will be an invoking. I shall call upon avatars tied to each aspect of the Seven-Pointed Star. Individuals from the gathering will be chosen to embody these. As the rite progresses, I will invoke the Avatar fully into these people — much like Drawing Down the Moon, only the beings we are Calling are avatars of ‘kin archetypes rather than traditional goddesses and gods.

“The people involved in the invocation have to be comfortable with the idea of channeling something greater than themselves. This will not be like possession, where a deity or spirit takes complete control of your body and you have no consciousness during the events. This will be much more gentle.

“The energy of the Avatar will wash over you, and it will be like draping a robe of office over who you already are. You will hear/feel what the Avatar wants to say, but you will also have influence of how this is ultimately expressed. This is not intended to be possession. You will not loose your sense of Self totally unless you allow it; if you wish to surrender completely to the presence of the Avatar, that will be a matter of personal choice.

“In all cases, I’ve tagged people for the roles because the individuals already embody the archetype that Avatar represents to one extent or another, and in a way I would merely be invoking a greater aspect of their Selves. The resonant energy already present in these individuals will help facilitate the invocation.

“Each Avatar has a sigil, which will be scribed upon each person’s forehead, and each Avatar also has a symbol of office, which the person embodying that Avatar will take up once the Avatar is Called.

“Key things for this ritual to succeed: I need the people who will embody the Avatars to really get into their roles. For the ritual, I would want them to dress the part, adopting attire more elaborate than usual to help really build the ritual atmosphere. This rite is a little more theatrical than what I ordinarily run, and there is a conscious heightening of the mystique of the work that should help create an atmosphere appropriate for drawing the Avatars down. I want the ritual to really speak to people, and I want to allow the Avatars the freedom to speak in whatever manner they deem most appropriate for the time, the people, and the place of the rite.

“If there is time, we might experiment with an invocation of the Avatars for the “Come as you really are” party to see how it feels/works.”

Sigils and Descriptions of the Avatars

2004-03-27

The following is a list of the seven Avatars that manifested to me during pathworking on the Elven Star. Fenecai was the first to make contact, and true to his nature, he came on like a ton of bricks and was amazingly hard to ignore. Once I was certain I’d contacted something that was truly outside of me, I did further pathworkings to determine what directions the Avatars were connected with, their respective colors, metals, and other associations, and the qualities that defined them. All these are listed here, along with the sigils for each Avatar.

Fenecai (FEHN-nuh-kye)

• Title: Lord of Fire
• Gender: Dark/destructive masculine
• Element: Fire
• Direction: West
• Color(s): Red, orange, black
• Symbol: Rod of Kingship or pole-arm
• Metal: Brass
• Planet: Mars
• Races: The fierce dragons of the heights, phoenixes, stonewings, and sons of the forge.
• Essence: Destruction and renewal; cataclysmic change.
• Appearance: Big, broad-shouldered Draconian warrior with outspread wings. Wears armor and carries a halberd-type weapon. Shifts occasionally to a phoenix of flame. Sometimes in his draconian form, his wings and talons trail fire. Moves ponderously but then lashes out in sudden, powerful strikes. An alternate form is the Forge Lord, a fierce dwarven warrior with flame-red hair and beard.

Elerian (ay-LAY-ree-ahn)

• Title: Lord of the Shining Host
• Gender: Feminine androgyne
• Element: Light
• Direction: Above
• Color(s): White, yellow, silver
• Symbol: Musical instrument (lyre or flute)
• Metal: Platinum or gold
• Planet: Sun
• Races: Elves and all fey
• Essence: (Positive) magick, beauty, creativity and song
• Description: Lithe and fine-boned elf with pale skin and long, reddish-blond hair. Wears a long, flowing robe that is an almost luminous white shot through with gold and silver thread. Wears a collar or torque of gold. Carries a lyre, lute, or flute. Dreamy, flowing movements — exceptionally graceful.

Hss’tah Feliss (huss-TAH feh-LEESS)

• Title: Huntress-Priestess
• Gender: Dark/destructive feminine
• Element: Darkness
• Direction: Belo_
• Color(s): Gray, black, indigo
• Symbol: Small curved blade
• Metal: Silver
• Planet: Moon
• Races: Felines, and all who are children of darkness and shadow
• Essence: (Dark) magick, night, shadows, mystery — that which is hidden or obscured from view.
• Description: A petite, wiry felinoid whose short, soft fur is the color of deep shadow rippled with true black. Wears bracers of soft leather inscribed with designs. Minimal clothing, also of leather &ndash deep brown or black. Carries at least one small, curve-bladed knife. Sometimes appears covered head to foot in a soft black cloak. Moves gracefully, but in an almost threatening way — like she is constantly stalking something and just about ready to pounce. Has a dark sexual allure and this is visible in the way she moves as well.

Gwidorian (gweh-DOHR-ree-ahn)

• Title: Lord of the Wilding
• Gender: Positive/generative masculine
• Element: Earth
• Direction: South
• Color(s): Brown, green, earth tones
• Symbol: Living Staff (wooden staff entwined with ivy)
• Metal: Iron
• Planet: Earth
• Races: Therians, animal-kin, hybrids: centaurs, satyrs, etc.; all children of the woodlands, wilds, and earth.
• Essence: Vitality, sex, nature, all primal things
• Description: Variously a centaur, a stag-man, and a man-wolf. Ithyphallic (i.e., he’s hung and he’s happy). Has a distinct Dionysian aspect, and I keep seeing him with a wreath of grapevines (complete with dangling bunches of grapes) in his hair. If he’s wearing clothing, he wears a long, flowing cloak the reddish-brown color of both dried blood and rich earth. Beneath that, he wears a tunic of deep green (usually with his privates exposed).

Sephiriel (she-FEER-ree-el)

• Title: Storm-Singer
• Gender: Masculine androgyne
• Element: Wind (air)
• Direction: North
• Color(s): Light blue, gray, silver
• Symbol: Writing quill or sword
• Metal: Quicksilver
• Planet: Jupiter (he says Mercury is not a planet)
• Races: Celestials, angels, nephilim, children of air and winged ones.
• Essence: Thought, Will, judgment, the Word.
• Description: Tall, thin, and sharp-faced with shoulder-length pale (gray?) hair. Wears either a loose-fitting tunic of grayish-white material or the tunic with a breastplate of some non-lustrous gray metal that is neither silver nor steel. Also wears bracers, greaves, and a thin circlet of the same strange metal. A little haughty and detached. Economical but swift movements.

Neride Eyooli (neh-REED ee-YOOL-ee)

• Title: Lady of Waters
• Gender: Positive/generative feminine
• Element: Water
• Direction: East
• Color(s): Blue, green, purple
• Symbol: Scrying bowl or sphere
• Metal: Copper
• Planet: Venus
• Races: The wise dragons of the depths, nagas, undines, naiads, asrai, and all children of the tides.
• Essence: Healing, emotion, vision, flow
• Description: Long flowing hair with beads and shells tied to the strands. Kohled eyes. Wears nets or veils of many colors. Lots of jewelry. Moves fluidly, sensuously. She is also a dancer.

Illana (ehl-LAHN-nah)

• Title: We of the Dreaming
• Gender: Plural
• Element: Dream/magick/glamour
• Direction: Within
• Color(s): All and none
• Symbol: Sphere of crystal or a mirror
• Metal: Glass/crystal
• Planet: The multiplicity of worlds
• Races: All, the many-souled
• Essence: Glamoury, magick, Awakening
• Description: Veiled in iridescent, translucent colorless material that looks like it’s been spun from rainbows and spider webs. Almost completely covered head to toe. All you can clearly see are her hands. Everything else keeps shifting — and even this form is a compromise, for otherwise they keep cycling through a multiplicity of forms and faces almost too rapidly to see. The most uncanny and “other” of all the Avatars.

Invocation of the Seven-Pointed Star

2004-03-27

Here is the actual ritual as it was run at Kinvention North on March 14, 2004. The actual words of the Avatars were not recorded and were experienced directly by those present for the ritual.

Preparation:

An altar is set up in the middle of the ritual space. The symbols of office for each Avatar are arranged upon this: a halberd or war-axe for Fenecai; a flute for Elerian; a staff for Gwidorian; a quill and parchment for Sephiriel (or alternately a sword); a scrying sphere for Neride; a curved dagger for Hss’tah; a mirror or clear sphere for Illana.

The ritual space is cleansed, and those who will work directly with the Avatars prepare themselves to be receptive to the energy, meditating on their particular Avatar. Once the people who will embody the Avatars are ready, the sigils are scribed on their foreheads. As the sigils are scribed, the throat and solar plexus chakras are opened on each host to facilitate connection with the Avatars. The hosts range themselves around the inside of the circle and are covered with veils. Once they are ready, the rest of the participants enter and form a circle around the inner circle of the Avatars.

The Gathering:

First, I want you all to join hands and gather energy. Each of you draw from the essence of what you are, where you come from, all of the elements and forces that feed your soul.

Now, as a group, cycle, refine, and combine these. Weave these varying energies into something that is greater than the sum of its parts. As you refine it, focus it here, in the center of our circle.

What we are building now is a Between-space, a place of crossing over. You can envision it as a temple, or simply a glowing, sacred sphere. It is in this Space that I will invoke the Seven-Pointed Star.

As we work with the Star of the Otherkin, I shall serve as mediator.

I am Seth, Setem-Ansi, Sem-Asa. These are my Names. I am a Walker-Between, and in this rite, I shall be both Priest and Shaman, serving as the intermediary between you and the Avatars that we Call.

In this space we will have communion with beings greater than ourselves. I will not call them gods, for I do not recognize gods as most people understand them. We are all emanations of Divinity, and therefore all beings are gods in their own right.

And yet there is a hierarchy of emanation, and some beings are closer to the Source than others. Avatars such as these I shall call among us today. Now:

The Calls:

To the West, I Call thee, Fenecai, Lord of Fire: dragon and phoenix, who burns and renews.

To the East, I Call thee, Neride Eyooli, Lady of Waters: healer and seer who flows with the tides.

To the North, I Call thee: Sephiriel Storm-Singer: quick-witted angel whose sword is the Word.

To the South, I Call thee: Gwidorian of the Wilding: Earthshaker, therian and animal lord.

Above, I Call thee: Elerian, of the Shining Host: guardian of magick, beauty, and song.

Below, I Call thee: Hss’tah Feliss: soft-footed huntress and priestess of night.

And Within, I Call thee: Illana of the Dreaming: shaper of worlds and Awakener of souls.

West and East,
North and South,
Above, Below, Within.
I Call you here before me:
Stand with us now
as our Guardians and our Guides.

The Time of Changes:

Now my friends: The world is changing and we stand at the crux of it. We have longed for an Awakening, and now it rises around us like a tide. But as the veils slip away, our true nature is revealed. There is a crossroads here, and we must soon make a choice.

We can stay in the shadows and hope to hide, or we can raise our voices and show the world our souls.

By revealing ourselves, we take a great risk, but understanding and acceptance also lie along that route.

We can choose the path of caution and remain hidden among humanity. But even in hiding, our safety is not guaranteed.

This is our quandary: caution or risk? And if we risk revelation, do we have the strength and wisdom to succeed?

Guardians of the Races; Watchtowers, Avatars all!
We call on your power and wisdom to guide us in this time of change.

Invocations:

As each Avatar is invoked, the leader of the ritual scribes the sigil upon the air, sending this resonant energy into the Avatar’s host.

Fenecai:
Lord of the Sweeping Flame; Mighty-Winged One:
Ye who stand on the right hand of Destruction,
Tearing apart worlds so creation begins.
We seek your guidance: What can you give us that will help us succeed?

(Fenecai imparts his message)

Neride Eyooli:
She of the Flowing Veils; Mutable One:
Lady whose deep wells and healing waters
Reveal Future, Truth, and Consequence.

We seek your guidance: What can you give us that will help us succeed?

(Neride imparts her message)

Sephiriel Storm-Singer:
Angel of Action; He of the Swift Wings:
Keen-witted Judge and Guardian,
Who sunders illusion, captivity, and deceit.
We seek your guidance: What can you give us that will help us succeed?

(Sephiriel imparts hes message)

Gwidorian:
Lord of the Wild Places; Primal One:
Ye who call us back to our beginnings,
Hearkening to instinct and the lusty flow of life.
We seek your guidance: What can you give us that will help us succeed?

(Gwidorian imparts his message)

Elerian:
The Beautiful; Fair Scion of Light:
Ye whose music delights and inspires,
Gifting the worlds with magick and joy.
We seek your guidance: What can you give us that will help us succeed?

(Elerian imparts hir message)

Hss’tah Feliss:
Walker of Shadows; Lady of the Silent Strike:
Keeper of all things hidden,
Whose mysteries may empower or destroy.
We seek your guidance: What can you give us that will help us succeed?

(Hss’tah imparts her message)

And Illana:
The Many-Souled; They Who Exist Within and Between:
Whose glamour is both madness and revelation,
Throwing wide the gates of consciousness and worlds.
We seek your guidance: What can you give us that will help us succeed?

(Illana imparts their message)

(A moment of silence, to pause and reflect)

The Avatars have spoken. Let us take their counsel and their gifts. Let us each carry these things within, so we may draw upon them when next in need of wisdom, strength, and guidance. Armed with these things, let us walk boldly forward toward the future we have conceived.

Dismissal:

Avatars! Watchtowers! Guardians of the Star!
We thank you for your guidance,
And for joining us in this space.
Depart now freely and in peace.

Fenecai and Neride:
Peace, and depart.

Sephiriel and Gwidorian:
Peace, and depart.

Elerian, Hss’tah Feliss
Peace, and depart.

All you who are Illana:
Peace, and depart.

(as the Avatars leave, they break the circle from various points. Those hosting the Avatars take some time alone to release the Avatars’ energy and recover themselves)

This ritual now is ended.
Peace, and depart.

FIN

(All depart)


Michelle Belanger is the author of The Psychic Energy Codex, The Psychic Vampire Codex, and Psychic Dreamwalking, among others. You can read her blog here and visit her website here.

©2008 Michelle Belanger
Edited by Sheta Kaey

This leg of the Witches’ Pyramid is probably the simplest on the surface, since it involves doing the process that you’ve already decided upon. The decision to do the spell has been made; the caster’s Will is honed and ready to force the change; but now you get your tools out and start the chants to cast the spell. Sounds simple, right?

But there is much more than that to this aspect of magic. Daring to do a spell means you have a self-confidence that says you have the divine right to impose your Will on the universe, that you have the right to actually make things happen simply because you want them to happen.

To my mind, that takes a special kind of arrogance. To say to the Universe and to whatever form of Deity you honor, “I know better than you do, and I am going to make this action happen.” That sounds pretty severe and arrogant in my opinion.

It is saying that your life is not good enough. It is saying that you know how your life should be, in opposition to how it actually is, and it is saying that no matter what, you will use any methods, fair or foul, to force the outcome you wish to see.

It is daring the Universe to do its worst to you.

It is acceptance of not only the outcome, but also all the additional problems and unintended consequences of this spell.

Daring to do something can be a problem if you are going against the powers-that-be. If a deity has decided that the person you are trying to help is supposed to be sick at the same time you are trying to make them well, and you heal them anyhow, despite all the warnings and problems of that healing, there may be divine retribution. To Dare means you are willing and able to accept that and deal with it.

No matter what anyone says, there are powers in the universe that could be upset that you are doing this spell. Perhaps, it is because there will be unknown “butterfly effect” problems in another segment of creation. Maybe it is because there will be a power drain from something else that is needed and it may simply be that the desired outcome is supposed to be one that is out of reach. It is possible the binding you are doing is in opposition to the protection this God has promised to His follower.

Daring to do this spell then sets you up to be in direct conflict with that power. It means that there is the possibility that They will be upset with you and make your life “interesting” for a while as retribution and punishment.

Now, assuming that your Will and your Knowledge is up to snuff in this whole process, the Dare stage is when you actually start doing the spell. At this point, the recriminations and self-examination should be done, the decision made and now you actually get out your tools and start the spell. Just that act should throw you into an altered state of consciousness. This is the physical stage.

If we relate these legs of the pyramid to different sections of our being, then To Know is the mental preparation part; To Will is the spiritual part; and To Dare is the physical part of this entire process.

Remember what I was saying before about humanity being wish generators? Well, wishing for something is only part of the whole process. Wishing will only get you so far magickally; it’s the actual process of doing the spell that will achieve results.

But then there is still one part that needs to be addressed, and thankfully it is showing up in more and more teaching texts. Part of the To Dare process has to be actually doing the mundane things that will help the spell along.

In other words, if doing a spell for a job, Knowing what job you want is good; Willing that job into your life is another good part; Daring to actually do the spell is good; but having the courage to go out and face rejection over and over is the most important part.

Daring must also encompass the mundane. It does take effort and courage to follow through on the mundane side of things, if only because we might fail.

In a post he made in his LiveJournal, Taylor Ellwood made the very interesting point that most people are conditioned to avoid failure at all costs. As part of that, we are also not trained to accept success, and current societal standards are doing no favor by encouraging a similar mindset of “it’s okay to fail” in the next generation.

In any spell, simply beginning the process of the spell will open the door for failure. Failure will become an option. So one of the goals in any spellcasting process must be accepting that the spell might fail, and striving to prevent that failure. Don’t go into the spell with the thought that it will fail, but accept that the ‘nature of the beast’ is going to include the failure of the spell, and then strive to overcome it.

Of course, the standard excuse is to blame other factors for that failure. “The Stars weren’t right,” or “Goddess must have other plans for me,” or “It will happen eventually,” are all excuses that come very rapidly on the lips of those who try spells and fail.

But as one Doctor Who episode¹ pointed out, what if we dream the impossible? What if, despite all things to the contrary, we actually make it and make our dreams come true?

No one is trained to consider that, but we are trained to fail. So Daring to be courageous, to actually do what we say we want – that is real magick. To think that it is possible to achieve what we want, to have what we dream about – that’s wonder.

This attitude is prevalent in most of modern Western Society. The very first word that most children learn to understand is “no.” From then on it is “don’t,” “can’t,” “Ain’t gonna happen,” and more negative assertions. Very few opportunities in our life teach us how to succeed and what to do when one achieves a goal.

This is one reason that there are so many books and seminars that try to show people how to succeed. But I have rarely seen anything that shows you what to do when you do succeed.

Our culture is built on the supposition of failure, and thus to actually attempt something that is highly unlikely to work is an incredible step of confidence. Actually taking the step to face that possible rejection for the bare slim chance that we could have a better life is truly Daring.

This is the core of To Dare. It’s taking that leap of faith, that step that may pay off and may not, even after been told all your life that you probably aren’t going to make anything of yourself. You must be ready to take that step despite the array of problems in your way, from the mundane to the deities themselves. You must take that step, knowing that it may not pan out, but trusting yourself, your knowledge and your training to see it through anyhow.

Then you must have the confidence to follow through with the mundane work as well, to see the process through.

Then, to add another layer, Daring to continue, even if the original spell didn’t work – doing it again, despite disappointment in the past. Making sure that you do not, do not, do not quit, even when logic says “give up,” even when reason says “enough already,” and even when the universe orders you to cease, stubbornly going on is the essence of, the heart and soul of, To Dare.

Footnotes

1. Transcript of the relevant episode is found at here. The exact quote is this, when speaking of the End of the Human Race: “You lot. You spend all your time thinking about dying. Like you’re going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible. Maybe you survive. This is the year 5.5/apple/26. Five billion years in your future.” —The Ninth Doctor, “The End of the World”

©2007 Daven
Edited by Sheta Kaey

Aleister Crowley said that the True Will is one of the crucial things a magician should know, since the True Will is the basis of the being.

He goes on to talk at length about how True Will is the culmination of the basic core of the person. It is the most selfish part and is most concerned with the success and survival of the person — the part that is most likely to reflect what the person truly wants and needs.

It’s important to realize that just Knowing how to accomplish a goal or that Knowing yourself is not enough. You must also actively make the decision to do what you want, or all the training, all the experience is useless.

This is the essence of “To Will.” This is the actual decision point in the spell-casting process; it is when the magical process, the spell, actually begins. The training and study are the lead-in, the preparation to do the spell. Will is the stage where the decision that the spell is needed is made. It is when all the options are considered and the spell becomes one part of the overall process to cause the desired change to occur.

Many experienced magicians say that this point is when the spell is actually starting to be cast. This decision begins the consciousness shift to the altered states that are key to manipulating magic and successful ritual.

This act of deciding to cast the spell takes the process to the level of a goal instead of allowing it to remain as a simple desire like wanting to get a cola for lunch. It becomes a true desire, such as finding a job that will allow the caster to support their family better, one that motivates the caster to attain their goals no matter the cost or the obstacles placed in the way.

“To Will” also implies that the first leg of this pyramid has been attained. Knowing implies that you know what you really want, to the bottom of your soul. That is where your “True Will,” as Crowley put it, resides. Understanding your own Will, your own mind and desires, is paramount. How can you do a spell to bring success if you believe in the bottom of your soul that success of the spell means you will become something you despise? The ends are counter productive to your True Will.

Therefore, knowing your True Will is another critical part of this whole process.

The True Will is one part of every magician that should always be examined. Willing something into existence, as the Magician of the Tarot deck does, is a hard skill to master; you better be sure that this is what you want. There are no take-backs, no do-overs when you create something out of nothing.

Remember the advice, “be careful what you wish for, you might just get it”? That’s a heck of a double-edged sword.

Human beings are essentially wish generators with no off switch. Think of how many times you say, “I wish” in a typical day, without even meaning to. Once you start paying attention to that statement, you find that you say it a high number of times. You think it more than you actually say that phrase. And each of those thoughts and statements go out into the aether and have an effect there, even if we don’t see it.

Exactly like dropping a pebble into a pool of water, those ripples spread and start affecting other things and people. Eventually it does get reflected back, warped and diminished, but those reflections are still the original wish that was Willed into being.

So while a trained metaphysician and magician can create a situation that didn’t exist by will alone, they should always be cognizant of what can happen if they don’t watch what they think.

This discipline of the mind, of basic thought processes, should be one of the first goals for any training program of those who are psychically aware. Unfortunately, many of those who begin studying those who wish to begin immediately using power, to start casting spells without first understanding the discipline that is part and parcel of this path.

This series of articles is starting to show that there is a method to the Pyramid’s quick mnemonic, a level of depth that many don’t see. We can already see how “To Know” and “To Will” are fitting together and interlacing. It is becoming rapidly apparent that one cannot have just “To Know” without also having “To Will” and the other two legs of the Pyramid.

All this discussion on the Will may make you ask, “where do I train my Will into a razor-honed weapon?” I can’t help you with that because most of training the Will is about practice.

First you have to decide on a goal, preferably a goal that is difficult and which others say can’t be done. Then start on the journey to attain that goal. Along the way you must not despair and you must keep trying, believing even when it’s hard. Perseverance here is the key, although outsiders may see you and call you stubborn.

Keep doing that, over and over, keep out-stubborning the nay-sayers and keep attaining your goals, even if the effort may not be worth it in the end. That is a good primer for a strong Will. When problems appear, decide immediately that you will overcome them instead of denying the problem or capitulating to the problem. Your first reaction to a problem should be, “Okay, how do I overcome this?” instead of, “No, this can’t be happening.”

Choose goals that are attainable and reasonable. Don’t pick ones that are easily attainable, for that defeats the purpose of training. Pick ones that are difficult to gain, and then keep going at it until you gain that goal.

For example, one of the proudest moments I have had in my life was in martial arts when I severely hurt my hip in the dojo. I kept going anyhow with the night’s exercises for kicks, especially side kicks, which work the hips strenuously. I kept going even though I was in a lot of pain; I would not quit. I saw a lot of admiration in the eyes of my teachers that night.

There are all kinds of opportunities that present themselves. Just watch out for them, and understand that when you are training your mind you can’t give in even once, for that tells the subconscious that it’s okay to give in occasionally. It is the subconscious that really needs to know that you have a strong Will. If you choose to give up occasionally, this action destroys all the headway you have made during your training.

When you decide to out-Will a situation that could defeat you, you must carry through to the end, no matter where that decision leads.

Humanity is the only species I know of that can create simply with their thoughts. It is a huge gift and an awesome responsibility. This ability must be tempered with experience and wisdom. Knowing when to use Will is as important as knowing how or why.

The Will then becomes the paintbrush of Creation, and like all tools, it should be kept in good working order and put away safely, so it is not used inadvertently or carelessly.

©2007 Eric “Daven” Landrum
Edited by Sheta Kaey

Eric “Daven” Landrum is a Seax Wiccan and the author of Daven’s Journal.

Ever heard of the stereotypical “poor Pagan”? The one who barely lives paycheck to paycheck, drives a hunk o’ junk around because s/he has no credit, and never seems to get ahead? This stereotype, when it comes to money, is justified by the idea that being poor is virtuous. The rationalization is that it’s okay if you’re in debt, and/or don’t have much money — you’re keeping it real by not being too materialistic or capitalistic. But this virtue of being poor isn’t really a virtue at all. For many (but not all), it’s a rationalization for why a person is poor, so that s/he can feel better about his/her decision to stay poor. Pagans aren’t alone in this, but it seems that we are pretty good at providing reasons for accepting poverty over wealth. For those Pagans who are disabled or chronically ill, poverty may not be a choice, but instead an unfortunate reality that can’t be avoided. Even so I have a suggestion at the end of this article as to how we as a community can help the members of our community who aren’t as well-off because of situations radically out of their control.

While you don’t have final say on how much you’re paid at a job, or the social situations you’re in that can negatively or positively impact your life, you can decide what you choose to do with your money. Even the debts you pay were debts that you took on, whether it was to purchase luxury items on a credit card or to deal with an unfortunate situation such as a car accident. You may never have complete control over your life or the situations you’re in. But you do have control over your reactions and how you choose to deal with a situation.

You also have complete control of your attitude when it comes to money — but you might not learn you have that control until after you’re knee deep in debt and sinking further. The problem that many people face (not just Pagans) is that they aren’t educated in financial literacy, i.e. how money works. High schools generally don’t teach many classes on finances and other real-world issues and unless you decide to take courses in college about accounting or other related majors you likely won’t get the education there. At home, unless your parents talk to you about money and how they handle it you likely will only learn how they handle it from observation. (And, of course, if your parents don’t handle money well, chances are you won’t either if you use them as examples!) Most of us learn what not to do with money, and that through hard experience, which is the absolute worst way to learn about finances.

This is because you usually have to make costly mistakes to learn. Run up some credit card bills and you’re stuck with high interest rates and struggling to pay the debt off. Don’t put money away into savings or investments and you may find yourself working a fast food job in your eighties. Spend too much on books, video games, and other luxuries and you may not have enough money for the bills, therefore accumulating even more debt. Live paycheck to paycheck and when something big comes along, such as the transmission going out on your car, or an uninsured medical emergency, you’re not going to have any way to pay for it. None of those experiences strikes me as particularly virtuous or desired.

Pagans don’t have to be poor. I suggest, in fact, that we adopt the attitude that having money is a good thing. Money is good to have because it can insure relative self-sufficiency, and it can pay for unexpected situations, such as an accident or sickness. Money can pay for education and provide security for old age, and it can allow you to travel to other countries and experience other cultures at their source. Of course, those are just a few reasons why having money is good; I’m sure you can think of plenty of others.

We first need to look at our current attitude toward money. Take a moment and look at a bill or a checkbook or something else that’s financially relevant. Take a pen in your hand and on a blank piece of paper write down your initial impressions when you look at the financial artifact and think of your monetary situation. If you find yourself writing and/or thinking of money in negative terms then you need to adjust your attitude. The reason you need to adjust it is because your attitude about finances is sabotaging the conscious choices you make when you have money.

Because most people haven’t been taught financial literacy we usually have negative experiences with money. This negativity imprints and we soon regard money as an affliction or a problem as opposed to a means of offering potential security and/or freedom from bad circumstances. Certainly this was the case for me, up until recently. I always had some form of debt that needed to be paid off and yet no matter how I tried I just couldn’t seem to get ahead or feel confident that my money would last beyond the current paycheck. But one day, having complained about money for the umpteenth time, I happened to pick up a book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert Kiyosaki. The core concept I got from this book was that I alone was responsible for how I spent my money and that my education about money and how I thought and felt about it greatly shaped my spending of it¹. This seems like such an obvious point, but to someone who felt that money was an amorphous force that controlled his life, I found it to be liberating. No longer did money control me. Instead I could take control of it.

I suspect that many other Pagans, were they to examine their attitude about money, would come to a similar realization. Although this awareness is liberating, we still need to undo the negative attitudes we have. There are a couple of ways to start doing this and I’ve found both of them have really helped me get a handle on my financial situation.

Meditation, Magick, & Consciously Loving Money

My first solution involved meditation. I prefer using Taoist meditation practices that involve dissolving internal energetic blockages. These energetic blockages usually also have emotions, beliefs, and attitudes attached to them. By dissolving the blockages I can allow myself to feel those emotions, beliefs, and attitudes, and then consciously change them so that they no longer sabotage me². However, any technique will do provided it allows you to enter into a state of mind where you are receptive to examining and changing your beliefs on a particular subject. The reason this is important is because our everyday mundane consciousness tends to operate on autopilot, which means we don’t always examine why we are doing what we are doing. By being contemplative and reflective about the problem we can see it from a perspective outside the everyday tunnel vision. This in turn can lead to conscious change.

Once you’ve examined the attitude and decided you want to change it, you need to determine what you will change it into. For example, I changed my attitude of money from dislike into love of money. I decided that I would love money and in return invite it to love me. Using meditation, I changed my memories of bad experiences with money into positive experiences where I learned to love money. I visualized myself in the various moments where I’d gotten negative imprints about money. I then visualized myself changing the actual occurrences into ones that were more positive in terms of how I handled money and felt about it afterwards. Through these meditations I was able to undo the negative imprints and create more positive ones that helped me feel more comfortable with handling money.

To reinforce this positive attitude further I decided to create an entity that would encourage my wife and me to love money and become more knowledgeable about it. My wife made a pouch out of blue leather (we associate the color with money). In the pouch we placed a couple of coins and other personal effects that represented our desire to change our attitude and approach to money. I then came up with a phrase: “I love money.” I took out the repeating letters, condensing the phrase into “Ilvmny”, which was now the name of the entity. To bring the entity to life we decided that the energy that would feed it would be both the spending and receiving of money. Every transaction would give the entity energy to perform its task, which was to help us cultivate better financial habits. Our first transaction was to go out and buy books on money management. After each purchase and every time we make a sale, deposit a check, or invest in stocks we hold the pouch and say, “Thank you, Ilvmny.”

Although my first solution was to use magic to help me change my attitude, I also knew I needed to learn more about money. It wasn’t enough to have a positive attitude about it. Something I’ve noticed in myself and many other people, Pagan and otherwise, is a decided lack of knowledge of how money works. Living from paycheck to paycheck illustrates this because it involves using money strictly for day to day survival with little preparation for the future. My second solution was to acquire financial literacy.

Financial Literacy: Making Money Work for You

When you live paycheck to paycheck, you’re working for money. This is what seems to happen to a lot of people. We go to work, we make money and we spend it, putting little, if any, aside for a rainy day or retirement. When a situation does come up we wish we had more money to solve it, even though it’s not really more money that will solve the problem — it’s making money work for you.

First, you first need to learn how money works. If no one talked with you about money and how to use it responsibly then what you need to do is educate yourself. This doesn’t have to involve evening classes at a college (and in fact that would probably be the most expensive and least successful way to learn about money in the immediate real world). Instead, I’d suggest going to your local bookstore or library and looking in the business and finance section. You’ll probably want to get several books on how to handle personal finances because you never want to get just one person’s opinion on any situation, let alone how to handle money. I’ll list a few recommendations at the end of this article, but you might also want to see what members of your family or friends have read about personal finances. Speaking of family, if you have kids, start talking to them about money as you learn. You can never educate your children about money too early. In fact, you may help them avoid mistakes you made and come out ahead when it comes to retirement and other financial matters.

Many people don’t pick up books on money because they think such books will be loaded with technical financial jargon and hard to read. But a good book will explain the different terms and principles in a clear and concise manner. They also may think that money management is boring. While it may not be as riveting as, say, a mystery novel, once have a basic understanding you may find that it’s actually an interesting subject to learn about. Even if you still don’t find the subject fascinating, it’s important to educate yourself about it. You don’t need to know the intricacies of the daily life of a stock broker, but knowing the basics of how money works and how you can make it work for you will make your life a lot less stressful.

Making money work for you means learning how to invest in stocks and IRAs, maximize your 401k plan, and getting the most out of your bank accounts. When you know how to make money work for you, it becomes its own magic, with the result being more numbers than you had before, provided you take advantage of the systems in place. For instance, with stock investment, you don’t have to invest stocks through a broker. You can invest in a company directly. This allows you to make your money work for you and know where that money is going. At the same time the wealth that is generated isn’t wealth you had to earn. Instead you let other people (i.e. the employees in the company) earn it for you. To use another example of making money work for you, there’s a lot more to a bank than free checking or savings. Do you know the interest rates of your account? Do you know the other options available to you at a bank? Do you know the differences between a bank and a credit union? Knowing the answers to those questions can impact how much your money works for you as opposed to you working for it³.

Ideally, when money works for you, you have money to pay your bills, some set aside in savings to take care of emergency situations and some applied toward investments for your eventual retirement. You want your money to grow in such a way that a lot of the money you make isn’t even money you had to work for. Your goal isn’t necessarily to end up rich (though that doesn’t hurt) but it is to end up financially secure, without having to worry how you’ll pay off your debt or take a day off work without pay or even retire. If you do want end up rich you may have to take some risks, and that involves a different level of financial literacy, which focuses on how to take those risks and hopefully come out ahead⁴.

Are We Getting Too Materialistic?

I suggested earlier that the poor Pagan stereotype is not virtuous, for the simple fact that being in debt and/or having to worry whether you’ll make your ends meet each week or month is never an ideal place for anyone to be in. But is having money evil? I think, in and of itself, money isn’t good, evil, or any other moral value we may place on it. It is however a force, one that must be acknowledged and respected because it’s one we interact with everyday. Even learning how money works won’t necessarily make you more or less materialistic, though it will help you become better informed about your spending habits.

Where the virtue (or lack thereof) comes in is with you and your choices. Once you know what your spending habits are you can choose to change them. If you find yourself spending most of your money on luxury items for yourself, perhaps it’s time to stop purchasing them. Find other uses for your money such as your child’s college fund or funding for that trip to Europe you’ve always wanted to take, but never had enough time or money for.

Another stereotype that Pagans are accused of is of not offering enough public services or charities that help the community at large. As Pagans become more successful with money this perception can be changed. When you have more money to spare you can put some of it toward the charity or public service of your choice. Better yet, you can help those members in your community who are poor and have no choice in it. Adopt a Pagan family or person who’s less well off. Donate money or food or other goods to help them out. Support your community and in doing so create a closer connection so that everyone can benefit. Remember though that money alone won’t solve the world’s problems or even that of a local community. Devoting some time to public service or giving some food to food banks or doing some other form of community work is equally valuable and worth doing.

Loving money doesn’t mean you’re a materialist and out to steal from the poor. Loving money merely means that you enjoy being prosperous and prefer it over other circumstances. You won’t turn into a yuppie or a snob by choosing to love money, unless you want to. For me, loving money isn’t about putting money before everything else; it’s really loving the idea that I don’t have to worry if I’ll be able to pay this or that bill or feel guilty because I wanted to buy the latest Jim Butcher novel. There’s enough to worry about in life. Security about money or bills or buying a book without clean out your checking account is something all of us can have provided we accept that having money doesn’t equal being materialist. Remember, it’s your choices that define how you think of yourself and who you are.

Money is a medium. Without it, we can’t easily survive. With it we can enjoy what life offers while establishing financial security for the rough times and old age. Remember that it’s not how much you make that insures a good relationship with money. It’s how you use the money you do make that determines if you have a good relationship with it. Even someone who doesn’t make a lot of money can still come out ahead by using the resources s/he has wisely. And you can always help other members in the community who aren’t in as good a situation as you are. None of us have to be “poor Pagans.”

Footnotes

1. Kiyosaki, Robert T. (2000) Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! New York: Warner Business Books
2. Frantzis, B. K. (2002) Relaxing into Your Being: Breathing, Chi, and Dissolving the Ego Berkeley: North Atlantic Books
3. If you don’t know the answers I’ll leave it to you to do some research. It’s worth your time, trust me.
4. More on this in a later article, as I’m still learning and researching!

Recommended Reading

• The Motley Fool: You Have More Than You Think : The Foolish Guide To Personal Finance by David and Tom Gardner
• The Richest Man in Babylon: The Success Secrets of the Ancients by George S. Clason
• Smart Couples Finish Rich: 9 Steps to Creating a Rich Future for You and Your Partner by David Bach

© 2007 Taylor Ellwood
Edited by Sheta Kaey

Taylor Ellwood is the author of Space/Time Magic, Inner Alchemy: Energy Work and the Magic of the Body, and Pop Culture Magick, among other works. You can visit his blog at http://magicalexperiments.com/ and his website at http://www.thegreenwolf.com/.

“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.” — Albert Einstein

The source of ethics is the subject of much controversy and debate, and I hope that it will always remain that way. The religionists say that ethics are divinely inspired, while the atheists insist that ethics come from being human, the ability to empathize, and a mindful recognition of the connection between himself and his fellow man. In other words, they claim being ethical is a human trait. While considering this, one might see this as a paradox: ethics as a uniquely human trait illustrate the divine nature of man on the one hand, and on the other we must question how human a quality can be when so very few humans seem to possess it. Perhaps this is what is meant by “let my servants be few and secret¹.” The Western Mystery Tradition has always been preoccupied with being more than human. If we look around, we can see why this is necessary.

The atheist blames religion for the world’s woes because he generally feels that people should do the right thing out of humanity or principle, rather than fear, and yet this is a terribly unfair assessment. Not all religion is fear-based, nor are all religious people acting out of fear when they do the right thing. One must learn to take the bad with the good. Despite the many instances when evil men have used religion to justify killing and torture, a lot of good has been done and continues to be done in its name. The notable movie personality Martin Sheen once said, “We shouldn’t be critical of Christianity, because it hasn’t been tried².” If Christianity hasn’t been tried, then how much less can we say of Thelema? Even more disturbing is the idea that 2,000 years can come and go with so very few people ever adhering to their chosen paradigm.

Adherents of Christianity have, for the most part, only given lip service to the teachings of Jesus. It is true that people are healed, fed, and taken care of in dire times, but at the cost of their soul — the motivation for this aid has always been to convert. This made me think of the hypocrisy inherent in so many religious zealots who insist on representing their sect because doing so gives them a feeling of superiority. They appear to be better than others, but their actions do their chosen paradigm a great disservice. In other words, it isn’t the religious paradigm that has failed, but the adherents (if, after all this, we can still call them that) for not being sufficiently sincere to subject themselves to the inconveniences imposed by their chosen beliefs. They are only adherents when it serves them to reach their desired goals.

The religionists blame atheism for the world’s problems, insinuating that a belief in God is necessary for ethical behavior. Again, this is misplaced blame. They believe that people are incapable of acting rightly or honorable unless they are motivated by fear. Atheists can have conviction. Neither Buddhism nor Taoism requires belief in a “god,” and yet right action is a great preoccupation for adherents of both of these religious paradigms.

The ethical atheist may be more genuine than his religionist counterpart since the atheist is generally motivated by compassion, love, and/or enlightened self-interest, while the other (at least if he subscribes to the concepts of hell and eternal damnation) is largely motivated by fear and selfish self-interest. Perhaps the best way to explain the problem with religion-based ethics is to reference the 2004 US elections, where many people voted for the person that supposedly exemplified “Christian values” such as homophobia and a hatred for anything they saw as “liberal.”³ Crowley was clearly right about the shortcomings of so-called democracy⁴.

While it is true that religion can advocate high ethical standards, we would err greatly if we were to identify ethics exclusively with religious conviction. If ethics were confined to religion, then we would only see them in the actions of religious people. If this were true, then how do we explain the ethics of the atheist? Ethics are not synonymous with religion.

So what are ethics? I define ethics as a standard of right and wrong that dictates what humans should do in terms of rights, duty, and commitment to society, justice, or specific virtues, such as the Eleven Virtues of Thelemic Knighthood⁵.

Most importantly, however, are ethics as the development of one’s personal standards. That is what an ethical person does. Feelings, laws, and social norms often stray from what is ethical, so we must constantly test our own standards to make sure that they are rational and well-founded. The study of ethics is the noble endeavor of scrutinizing our own beliefs and conduct, and the work of ensuring that the institutions we shape achieve the standards worthy of those chosen beliefs. This is an application of ethics that doesn’t seem to be getting much attention today. To say it a different way, the study of ethics is important because it will guide us away from decision making based on peer pressure and the desire for external validation, and help guide our lives in accordance with our own personal internal compass. It doesn’t get any more Thelemic than that.

Nietzsche and many of his contemporaries went to great lengths to show that there was no such thing as because all that we do, no matter how well intentioned, benefits us in one way or another. In other words, there are no selfless acts. But we already know that. Perhaps the English journalist Gilbert Chesterton said it best when he wrote:

“The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues[…] virtues gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians care only for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful⁶.”

Nietzsche explains that any altruistic act creates weakness because compassion and charity are insults to the individual to whom they are directed,⁷ and that those actions, as well intentioned as they may be, cause a sort of dependence rather than empowering the individual to rise up or fail on their own strength. Many Thelemites sincerely believe that this is what will cleanse the human race of all weakness of body and mind and create the ideal man, and that this sort of disregard to the suffering of one’s fellows is to be credited for the greatness that humanity has already attained.

Crowley seemed to subscribe to this idea as well, and if one reads through his comments on Liber Al
, this is how he has chosen to interpret some difficult passages of The Book of the Law
. It is somewhat ironic that very few people seem to follow Nietzsche’s or Crowley’s advice of questioning all things.

• Crowley was rather jaded toward the end of his life. His later comments reflect an attitude contradictory to what he wrote of the text when he was young and idealistic.
• His views were, unfortunately, very biased against every idea associated with Christianity. Given his parents’ strict, conservative household one can hardly blame him for this, but the reader should keep in mind that he obviously had trouble with this and it may have colored his interpretation of the message he was receiving.
• Neither Crowley nor Nietzsche have considered that compassion might be a human trait⁸ or that there may be a very good reason why people feel good when they do things for others. Nor have they considered how compassion, reverence, and empathy have contributed to human evolution. Humans help one another. As painful as it is for some to acknowledge, no man is an island, nor would we have developed communities, societies, or anything of lasting value without cooperating with others. Strength also comes in numbers.
• It is illogical to demonize compassion, reverence, and empathy simply because of the selfish nature of altruism, since compassion, reverence and empathy can come from other places. And as far as the “weak” are concerned — without people like Einstein, who had trouble spelling his name until he was eight⁹, or without Stephen Hawking we may not have dared to venture beyond already known ideas about the nature of time and the universe. John Merrick¹⁰ exemplified courage and inner strength. It is difficult to imagine never having heard a melody made by Chopin, or the teachings of Crowley himself, had they been allowed to die simply because of their debilitating illnesses. Strength comes in many forms, and often it only becomes apparent later in life. “Every man and every woman is a star¹¹.” This is not to say that everyone has something worthwhile to contribute to human evolution, but in an ideal world, everyone would have the opportunity.
• Christianity seems to dictate that altruism implies that a person’s primary ethical responsibility is to others first, while egoism holds that one’s primary obligation is to oneself, and toward advancing one’s own self-interest. Nietzsche, Crowley and others have categorized altruism as a “slave morality” without any redeeming qualities. I also concur. Both Nietzsche and Crowley have noted that what appears to be an altruistic act on the surface actually furthers one’s self-interest, and they say it like it is a bad thing. A person’s self-interest must come first, and there are many ways to further one’s self-interest. For example, the Order of Thelemic Knights does not engage in charitable campaigns because its members are trying to learn to be altruistic; we do so because it furthers our own personal growth. That others benefit from our work began as a wonderful coincidence we’d like to keep.

Different Ethical Paradigms, or Why Kant We Just Get Along?

The five examples listed below represent the most popular forms of ethics used today in everyday life. It will become apparent that each has its strength and weakness. There are numerous more which could not be included here due to the limited scope of this dissertation. There are approaches within approaches. To make matters more confusing, every method described below could be used to justify unethical behavior.

In the Utilitarian approach, for example, there is the Ethical Egoist, who concerns himself exclusively with his own benefit, while a Consequentialist Utilitarian works toward the good of all who are affected by an action or deliberation¹². Both look for a positive outcome or opportunity, but they differ on who should benefit.

Frequently, Utilitarianism will require that one do what is best for the greatest number of people, rather than what is good for oneself — but that isn’t to say that it cannot be used to justify something considered unethical by every other standard. For example, a Utilitarian could make the case that prisoners with life sentences should be used for medical experiments, arguing that discoveries could be made which would benefit millions of people of much higher character. This treatment of prisoners would not hurt the majority, and one could justify it by making the claim that the prisoners deserve to pay for their crimes in a way that would benefit society. If a prisoner should die in the experiments, then the scientists and doctors could endorse their experiments with the statement that, had they lived, they would be a burden to society since taxpayers have to pay to house, feed, and clothe them for life.

The bottom line is that whether we understand ethics or not, we still have the choice of doing the wrong thing or the right thing. Ultimately, we have to rely on our own self-knowledge, sense of self-worth, pride, integrity, and sincere effort to get us through tough decisions. You should also keep in mind, as you read this, that no one uses one method exclusively, but that they borrow what seems most comfortable to make their own ethical decisions.

The Utilitarian Approach

Utilitarianism was conceived by the English philosopher and political radical Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Jeremy Bentham spent most of his life critiquing law and strongly advocating legal reform, and came up with the system to assist lawmakers in deciding which laws were the most ethical. In a nutshell, the Utilitarian approach dictates that the most ethical decisions are the ones that result in the least evil¹³.

United States politicians and lawmakers tend to be Utilitarian or Consequentialist¹⁴ in their problem solving. The most important consideration is what effect the policy will have on the average citizen.

When using Utilitarianism to look for an ethical course of action, we might approach the issue by first asking ourselves a few questions. It might go something like this:

What are the options available to us?

Who will be affected by our decisions?

What benefit or harm will each course of action lead us to?

After those questions have been answered, we chose an option that will cause the least amount of harm and benefit the greatest number of people. In Utilitarianism, the most appropriate action provides the most benefit to the greatest number.

One of the clear shortcomings of the Utilitarian approach is that there is a tendency to ignore justice. Apartheid in South Africa comes as a good example in recent history, when South African whites decided that all South Africans, black and white, would be better served under white leadership. Those arguing in favor of this view claimed that social conditions declined in African nations that exchanged exclusively white governments for black or mixed governance. The proponents of apartheid predicted civil war, financial decline, food shortages, and social instability following the establishment of a black majority government. These predictions did not occur when apartheid ended. If it had, then the white government of South Africa would have been ethically justified by utilitarianism, in spite of its discrimination.

The Rights Approach

The Rights Approach¹⁵ is rooted in the philosophical works of Kant, whose focus was on the right to choose for oneself. This philosophy supposes that humans have a moral right to choose freely, and that this freedom of choice is what gives humans their dignity and separates us from objects that can or should be manipulated. In other words, every human should be respected and given the choice to live their life in accordance with that choice. To say it another way, it is unethical to demand that a person act in a fashion that they have not personally chosen.

“Every action is right which in itself, or in the maxim on which it proceeds, is such that it can coexist along with the freedom of the will of each and all in action, according to a universal law¹⁶.”

Some of the rights listed below might remind you of Liber OZ. In fact, Liber OZ is so close to the human rights this ethical approach dictates that it is entirely possible it might have come to Crowley as a result of Kant’s writings. See for yourself:

The right to truthful information. The right to be told the truth about matters that may affect our lives.

The right of privacy. The right to do, believe, and say whatever we choose, provided that we do not violate the rights of others.

The right not to be injured. The right not to be harmed unless we knowingly do something that warrants retribution, or we choose to risk such injury of our own free will.

The right to what is agreed. We are entitled to hold a reasonable expectation of what is promised to us by people with whom we have freely entered into a pact or covenant.

When using the Rights Approach to explore an ethical course of action, we only need ask ourselves one question: does our decision/action respect the rights of everyone?

We only need to look at the deceptively titled “Patriot Act“¹⁷ to see how our rights are violated in the USA. With the implementation of this act, Americans lost the following freedoms and rights:

Freedom of association. Government may now spy on religious and political institutions even if they are not suspected of criminal activity, discouraging individuals from pursuing their right to freedom of association. Specific groups have been branded “terrorist organizations,” making membership in them illegal.

Freedom of information. Government has closed immigration hearings and has held hundreds of people without charging them with criminal offense, and has applied pressure to public and civil servants to withhold once freely available information from the public.¹⁸

Freedom of speech. Government may subpoena information from public librarians (such as individual patron records, listing books that were checked out), and may punish them if they alert individuals.¹⁹

The right to legal representation. Government officials may monitor once protected attorney-client conversations in prisons, as well as denying legal assistance to Americans accused of crimes.

Freedom from unreasonable searches. Government may search and seize property and papers without probable cause.

The right to a speedy and public trial. Americans may be declared “enemy combatants” and imprisoned indefinitely without a trial.

Right to confront accusers. Not only can Americans be jailed without being charged of a crime, but also they do not have the right to confront their accusers.

In short, under the Rights Approach, it is clear that the provisions in the Patriot Act, which circumscribe citizens rights as described by Kant and enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, are unethical. Furthermore, the Patriot Act opens the door to future legislation further limiting or completely eliminating these and other rights. Government agencies are protected against accountability by way of increased secrecy and lack of judicial oversight, checks and balances.

The Fairness or Justice Approach

This method is very similar to the Rights Approach, but has its origins in the teachings of Aristotle, who states that favoritism and discrimination are unethical and unjust, because giving benefit to someone without a justifiable reason is unfair to those denied those benefits. He teaches that discrimination is unreasonable because it burdens people who are no different than those spared from the same burdens. The fundamental moral questions for using this method are:

How fair is an act?
Does it deal with everyone in a similar fashion?
Does it demonstrate preferential treatment or bias?

Consider ballot measure 36 in Oregon’s Spring 2005 elections. This measure amended Oregon’s constitution to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. It is a reaction to Oregon’s gay community in general (which rightly feels discriminated against), and specifically against Multnomah County’s ruling that denying marriage licenses to homosexual couples was a discriminatory practice that denied homosexual couples the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.²⁰ These people pay taxes, and should receive the same treatment and benefits as other socially responsible taxpayers, regardless of sexual orientation. If a true separation existed between Church and State, this wouldn’t be an issue at all.

This political issue is a good example of a violation of The Fairness or Justice Approach and the Rights Approach described above as well as the rights declared in Liber OZ²¹.

Rules, such as the Equal Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act and the like will always exist, no matter how well we evolve, so long as someone is denied the same opportunities as others. I realize that these laws are rather arbitrary, and oftentimes when misused they can be a source of reverse discrimination.²² As a result, many shortsighted individuals have rallied to put an end to these protections, but if they succeed, we will never see the true geniuses rise up above the rest because they will not have an equal field on which to begin to prove themselves.

Consider this for a moment. On the one hand, we have the head of a corporation who had the best education money could buy, who never had to struggle with paying rent or putting food on the table, who inherited his father’s fortune and who took over as the figurehead of the organization. On the other hand, we have a foreigner (or single mother) who comes to this country with little more than a dream, who lives in one of the many shanty towns, ghettos or ‘projects,’ who attends the overcrowded and underfunded public school systems and grows up to have his or her own tailor shop. Who is the superior being? Is the accumulation of wealth the sole genetic trait for strength, or are there others?

The Common Good Approach

This approach to ethical problems began some 2,000 years ago with the writings of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. It suggests that a person’s own good is inextricably connected to the good of the community. In other words, members of a community are duty-bound to the pursuit of common values and goals. In recent times, John Rawls has defined “common good” as “certain general conditions that are…equally to everyone’s advantage²³.”

This methodology approaches social problems by making certain that the policies, systems, institutions, and environments we so often take for granted are beneficial to all. Affordable health care, public safety, world peace, justice, and environmental issues are all subject to consideration.

Furthering the common good compels us to view ourselves as members of the same community and questions regarding of the kind of society, order, fraternity or neighborhood we want to develop and how we are to achieve it are the dominant considerations. This does not mean that the Common Good Approach disregards the rights of individuals, but rather, it provides us with the opportunity to look for the things we have in common instead of the things that make us different.

For example, if you feel that the children and loved ones of politicians who start wars should not be exempt from fighting those wars, or that politicians should send their kids to public schools, or that politicians should live in the neighborhoods where they work while earning the same salaries of the average citizen living in the area, then you might be using the Common Good Approach.

The Virtue Approach

The presumption made by the Virtue Approach is that some ideals that will accelerate our own personal and universal evolution, because when one of us rises up above the norm, the whole of humanity benefits from the evolutionary leap. They make us better people by helping us to develop. We begin to develop a sense of the required virtues by reflecting on our own potential.

Virtues empower us to behave and act in a manner that leads us to our highest personal potential. Virtues, once embraced, become a characteristic trait. Additionally, an individual who has accepted virtues will be predisposed to act in a manner consistent with his or her ethical principles because virtue relates to ethics. A virtuous person is an ethical person, and those few that truly and sincerely embrace The Eleven Virtues of Thelemic Knighthood can inspire amazing changes in character.

Most of the questions one might consider while using the Virtue Approach deal with the compromises one is making to their character. For example:

What sort of person will this action make me?
Will I be compromising my character or betraying my beliefs or myself?
Will this action reflect badly on my chosen philosophical/religious paradigm?
Will this choice of action promote, or interfere with, my development?
Is this behavior befitting of the sort of person I am trying to become?
Is this behavior and its consequences in line with my True Will?

The Virtue Approach concerns itself with self-worth. It holds that one’s integrity and honor are reflections of the individual’s true nature; therefore, there is an emphasis on action and works. This approach to ethics is a very popular substitute for rule-based (deontological) and results-based (consequentialist) ethics. In fact, the Virtue Approach to ethics was created out of frustration with ethical concepts of duty and obligation. It was a reactionary response to the use of convenient, but unbending and ineffective, moral rules and principles that are often used as standards to all moral situations²⁴.

How the Virtue Approach varies, from, say, the Utilitarian and Consequentialist Approach, becomes apparent when using the following classical ethical dilemma: A man’s wife becomes very sick, and he spends an astonishing amount of money to attempt to save her life. In fact, with the amount of money he spent trying to save one woman, he could have saved ten women he didn’t know. The utilitarian would say that the man should have used his money to save the greater number of people. A virtue ethicist would argue that placing the welfare of loved ones above the welfare of strangers is essentially good because it isn’t natural for humans to make life-and-death decisions based on some mathematical moral calculation. They would also argue that few people would want to live in a world where we forsake our own spouses to save strangers.

Applied Ethics, or Ethical Problem Solving

Unfortunately, no templates or guaranteed methods provide nice, squeaky-clean solutions to ethical dilemmas. Wouldn’t that be nice? Ultimately, we are all going to have to get our hands dirty, but maybe we can arm ourselves by looking at the facts, understanding ethics and choosing to be ethical so that we can minimize damage. First and foremost, cause no harm.

At the very least, ask yourself the following questions:

Do I have all the facts?
What are my options?
What option will lead to the most balanced end?
What benefits will my decision provide, and who will benefit?
Will my course of action violate anyone else’s rights?
Will my action show unwarranted favoritism or discrimination?
Which decision increases the common good most?
Is my chosen course of action harmonious with my own ethics?

Footnotes:

1. Liber Al Vel Legis — The Book of the Law I:10
2. It is a little absolutist to claim, “it hasn’t been tried,” without simultaneously discounting the work of some remarkable individuals, such as Mother Teresa, for example. But it is easy to agree since very few adherents of Christianity are actually doing the work of Christ.
3. Such as affordable healthcare, education, and scientifically-based research.
4. “The principle of popular election is a fatal folly; its results are visible in every so-called democracy. The elected man is always the mediocrity; he is the safe man, the sound man, the man who displeases the majority less than any other; and therefore never the genius, the man of progress and illumination.” —Liber 194 — An Intimation with Reference to the Constitution of the Order
5. Valor, Nobility, Discernment, Pride, Compassion, Fidelity, Passion, Strength, Discipline, Self-Reliance, and Hospitality.
6. Gilbert Chesterton, Orthodoxy, (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1959), page 30.
7. The Anti-Christ. Section 7. He uses the word “pity.” Many wrongly (and conveniently) lump pity with compassion.
8. Either as a natural occurring phenomena, something evolutionarily useful, or both. Current research may be on the verge of providing scientific data to support this view.
9. According to his mother, didn’t speak until he was three. Little Albert was terribly dyslexic.
10. The “Elephant Man.”
11. Liber Al Vel Legis — The Book of the Law — I:III
12. Always look for a way to benefit everyone… including oneself.
13. “Evil” is an emotionally loaded term, and this is why I have chosen to use it.
14. Consequentialism is a branch of Utilitarianism that dictates that we should do whatever increases the chances for good consequences. What one does to achieve these good consequences is irrelevant. What matters is that the good results are maximized. It’s a counterpart of deontological ethics.
15. I have refrained from criticizing The Rights Approach by referencing Liber OZ to make this point because I felt it would be redundant. Most anyone that reads this will already have first-hand experience of the tremendous potential for abuse in that document.
16. The Science of Right by Immanuel Kant, 1790.
17. The Patriot Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. The name was carefully chosen in order to alienate those that disapprove of the gross restrictions and violations of constitutional rights proposed by the act.
18. The Freedom of Information Act.
19. Librarians have rebelled against this act by changing the way they keep records.
20. These benefits include, but are not limited to, medical benefits for their lovers, better opportunities for low interest home loans, the right to visit an ill partner in the hospital, the right to make end of life care decisions for partners, the right to inherit in cases of intestacy, the ability to adopt children, joint filing on income tax returns and other social benefits afforded to heterosexual couples.
21. But the most important philosophical issue in this debate is whether or not the State can determine who can and cannot marry in a country where the separation of Church and State is guaranteed. If that separation truly existed, then the argument would be between the heads of the churches, and not a matter for government.
22. Reverse discrimination takes place any time that well-qualified native applicants are overlooked for employment in favor of people of color or a certain sex just to meet some arbitrary criteria.
23. A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. Belknap Press; Revised edition (September 1, 1999)
24. Marriage, as it is today, would be considered unethical in this approach.

©2007 Gerald del Campo
Edited by Sheta Kaey.

Gerald del Campo is the author of A Heretic’s Guide to Thelema, New Aeon Magick: Thelema Without Tears, and New Aeon English Qabalah Revealed, among other works. You can visit his blog at http://solis93.livejournal.com and his website at http://thelemicknights.org. Gerald serves as Senior Managing Editor of Rending the Veil. He also writes music and plays in bands.

This corner of the Witches’ Pyramid¹ is not only what it appears to be on the surface. It is not solely “book learning.” It is also knowing that you possess the skills to put what you have learned into a practical application, using the knowledge you have garnered to put your magic into practice, knowing the means to cast spells, and doing inner alchemy.

For example, there is the classic Greek admonition “gnothi seauton,” or know thyself. Carved at the entrance to the temple in Delphi, the Greeks inculcated this belief in their society, believing that each individual must know himself before he could dream of approaching the oracle. Otherwise, what he might learn on the journey of oracular discovery could well be catastrophic to the psyche.

This admonition is not a new one in the context of magical study. Many authors and classic magicians have said this through the ages, most notably in recent times Aleister Crowley. Heck, alchemy was all about self-discovery, and there have been many transcendental movements through the ages focused on discovering the self.

This journey of self-discovery remains at the core of similar movements to this day. The most natural thing in the world is to look for answers to questions like “who am I?” When one group, such as religion, doesn’t satisfactorily answer those questions, it is normal to look for groups who do. If that quest takes people into esoteric fields of study, then so be it.

Magic and religion are only two of many different ways to start this journey of self-discovery. Unfortunately, most of the other methods that society accepts are expensive or time-consuming, like psychologists or self-help books. I can think of only one other freely available method of self-exploration: the BDSM community. But that pathway demands its own price. It is also very far outside the norms of society, making it anathema to many.

This is how it should be. For any esoteric discipline, such as divination, a magician must start with knowledge of self. With that foundation, a magician can separate himself from the process he is calling into being. He then has the ability to see where his prejudices and his insecurities have influenced the process he hopes to create. Put simply, because of having this anchor point, he can be more efficient in his magical pursuits.

A starting place is important in this or any journey. Just like trying to navigate in space, you can find a destination easily enough, but you must have a beginning point.

In many classical references, we find that that this discovery is mandated. In Aeschylus I: Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides (The Complete Greek Tragedies) (Vol 1), Zeus lays down the law: mankind must suffer to be wise.² This theme repeats itself in the Gardnerian Wicca initiation and in many other groups’ initiations. Any practicing magician must understand that those who are unwilling to sacrifice will not have the knowledge they seek available to them.

There is a direct correlation between how much the student will learn and how much of his own pleasures he is willing to sacrifice to attain that knowledge. Those unwilling to pay the price demanded will not achieve the knowledge they seek. This means that the student must be totally aware of how much he is willing to give up and what he is willing to do without to attain his goal.

Then we come to another often-overlooked aspect of “To Know” — the consequences. Let us assume that the magician actually knows who he is, where he fits and so on. He also knows what kinds of prices he will be paying and has made the decision that those prices are reasonable to attain what he wants. He also knows the techniques involved in actually casting the spells and the theory behind that process. This same magician also has to be aware of what kinds of outcomes are most likely, as well as the potential unintended consequences.

Many think of magicians as amoral creatures, but this is simply not true. A magician has to be more aware and willing to take care of the unintended consequences of his actions, if only because of the “butterfly effect.” A corporation comes in and clear-cuts a forest. This tragedy will have global repercussions. It will have future consequences as well. But I know of no corporation that can affect the past by their actions. Magicians can affect the past and do, at times.

It is up to the magician in question to be self-policing and to deal with the messes he creates. It is only enlightened self-interest. If the magician wishes privacy to do his work, then he must be invisible. If he casts too wide a spell and it affects those other than the intended target(s), he must be willing and able to deal with the consequences. Time and experience will teach him to understand how to limit those effects. Personally, I don’t think he should be casting spells unless or until he can mitigate those effects.

The Military says, “Information is king.” In the battlefield, in magic, in growing up, knowledge is the whole battle. If you know something, you can deal with it, you can cope with it, you can assimilate and correct problems caused by it. But you cannot do that without knowing what “it” is.

All these factors combine to make this leg of the Witches’ Pyramid a very important one. To recap slightly, a magician must know himself, know the skills necessary to cast a spell and understand how to deal with unexpected outcomes of the use of those skills. It is helpful to be able to plan ahead and anticipate problems before they occur, as well.

Once the magician understands himself, he can take the step to understand others around them, since it is most likely that others want the same things he wants. Conversely, by seeing qualities in others he can also find those same qualities in himself and work to bring them out.

Robert Heinlein had a wonderful concept for this called “grok,” a verb that means, “to drink.” He defined this concept very well in Stranger in a Strange Land. Grokking something is to know it so deeply that the boundaries between you and it are lost. He then knows the other part of himself so deeply and so intimately that it is impossible to separate out those elements that are “other” and “self.”

Is it reasonable or possible for a magician to grok and simultaneously separate enough of himself so that he can see where the magical process is messing up due to some aspect he is projecting into it? I think it is.

We aren’t dealing with minor truths here, ones that are immutable and verifiable like 2 + 2 = 4. We are dealing with Great Truths that are mutable and subject to other factors, with the result that all answers are just as true. It is possible to be so intermingled with a spell as to have it profoundly impact and affect ourselves, indeed, why would you do a spell otherwise? At the same time it is possible to be objective enough to see where those factors of self that we don’t care for, but which are intermingled with the spell, are affecting the spell.

Once again, this mandates that we know ourselves, if simply so we don’t fall into Oedipus’ trap of dancing to a tune we neither hear nor understand. When he went to the Oracle at Delphi (the same oracle where “Know Thyself” was carved on the lintel), he was told that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Since he didn’t want to kill the people he knew as his parents, he left, argued with a man on the road, killed him and married that gentleman’s widow. This fulfilled the prophecy, as it turned out.

Had he known himself and his life, he would have discovered that the man he killed was his father. Thus, all of this could have been avoided had Oedipus known himself and the truth.

The skills necessary for this corner are obvious, but the knowledge of when to apply them is just as important. It does no good to spend years learning how to cast a spell if those skills are never used. It also makes no sense to go through all this training and sacrifice if the knowledge gained will only be used for the most mundane of purposes. Knowledge of where and when to apply those skills is paramount to a successful outcome.

When you know yourself, you are aware of the energy you are raising, what it feels like when it is static, when it is moving. You will understand how to give that energy shape and purpose. It’s very important to be able to recognize and separate your body’s reactions from those of the magic you are invoking. You also have to know when you have a situation where the bodily reaction you experience is caused by the energy you are using.

One of the basic exercises in my “Energy Work and Magic” class consists of taking in a massive amount of energy that the students have been gathering over the course of two months, and holding it in their bodies for 24 hours. This shows them very clearly what that energy feels like, what their bodies feel like and how they reacts. This exercise is critical so the students know how to operate despite having the energy overload, because that energy interferes with their perceptions and balance.

There are those of us who have medical problems, such as diabetes. I am on medication for my diabetes, but if I couldn’t separate myself from the magic I’m working with, I would never know if my spell was working or not. The energy of the magic is very similar to how I feel when I’m going into sugar overload.

This is a set of skills that the current crop of instant spellbooks seems to gloss over or skip altogether. The student is the one who suffers from this lack.

Knowledge is the key. Information is the key. To know. And knowing is half the battle.

Footnotes

1. It has been pointed out to me that this is known by another name, the Magician’s Pyramid. Since I have never heard of this before now, I did not include this fact in the article. I didn’t want to comment and speak on a subject of which I have no knowledge. But it does not surprise me that this meme or philosophy has been used in other groups, as it is another Great Truth.
2. Referenced from here.

©2006 Eric “Daven” Landrum
Edited by Sheta Kaey

Eric “Daven” Landrum is a Seax Wiccan and the author of Daven’s Journal.