Sometimes people argue about the
superiority of modern magic versus traditional magic with the end
that one must be exclusive of the other. I've often found in life
that if someone wants to tell me that I can only be connected with
them to the exclusion of others I want to be connected to, unless
they have a good reason, it doesn't play out best to go with the one
demanding exclusion. Unfortunately in the case of magic it's often
both sides that want to shit on the other side.
In my experience though the best
magicians have tool kits with multiple deep pockets. They don't
dabble and they don't appropriate. They dive deeply into multiple
streams and as a result can utilize the appropriate tool with an
understanding of it's context and proper use. With that in mind,
there is room for modern and traditional methods of magic.
A lot of the methods of modern magic
provide simple quick solutions to small things, and they're enriched
by the knowledge and experience traditional magical work provides. I
do find that over the years I have grown to rely more and more on
traditional systems of magic to provide a more complete system and
worldview. Modern magic, however, provides the skills needed for
traditional magic, and helps create the spiritual development needed
for traditional magic. In fact, many of the magical orders
responsible for developing the modern methods of magic structured
themselves exactly for that purpose.
The problem, however, is that sometimes
modern magic leads people to ideas that cause them to stall out and
go nowhere. Some of this is because of shitty books and poor
education, some of it is due to misunderstanding, and some of it is
just due to bad material being passed off as good. I don't want to
get into the specifics of sources. I want to address some silly
ideas, and I'm not going to get into ideology, but just some
practices. I'm going to try to keep it to a limited number, probably
two, that came up today.
1. Openings
So two different people brought up
issues with this today. One of them was talking about doing the
Lesser Key and claimed to have been doing it since they were young.
The follow up to this statement was to ask people's preference for
starting with the LIRP and ending with the LBRP versus starting and
ending with the LBRP, because of course, she's always started and
finished with these because, research shows that's why they exist.
Another friend was asking about how to
do the Merkavah stuff I posted yesterday. He asked about what to open
with and similar questions, which at first left me with a sense of
“huh, what are you even talking about?” Then it DAWNED (bad pun)
on me what his background was. So it was reasonable that he was
asking since that's how he learned to do magic. His go to was
immediately the LBRP, LHR, etc. but those clearly had nothing to do
with this system.
The problem here is that the Golden
Dawn system assumes that these rituals, and the rest of the system,
are a framework into which everything fits. That's just not remotely
the case. When people really examine these rituals, the way they fit
into the Golden Dawn system, and their effects, along with notes from
the original practitioners of the system their purpose becomes pretty
clear. Unfortunately they're often left to the level of examination
which stops with “Well, the Knowledge lecture said to do this” or
“Donald Michael Kraig said that.”
These rituals are awesome in that
they're part of the road to making you awesome. They form the basis
of a star lit path leading to the inner sanctum. They just aren't the
inner sanctum itself. These rituals deal with the relationship
between your subtle body and the LVX. Certain ones deal with the
light in the form of the point, or the concentration of the soul of
the magician, in other cases they deal with the light in extension,
or radiance, the divine interaction between the soul and the harmony
of the universe. This is why they are part of the daily practice of
the developing magician at various phases in his development, because
they are built to catalyze that development. They are not however
particularly effective as banishings or openings, despite the fact
that they provide formulas which hint at how a proper magical ritual,
including banishings and openings, should be structured. In fact,
that's the extent of their real applicable worth in conjunction with
the Solomonic tradition, they provide a skeleton on the conceptual
structure used in some forms of Solomonic magic.
So, what does a ritual begin with?
First, ablution, or cleansing, primarily of the magician. This can
involve prayers, rituals, fasting, but most basically it needs to
involve washing, and usually, changing your clothes.
After this, you'll have some opening or
establishment of the space, and possibly some cleansing of the space.
Different traditions and different preferences may order these in
different ways. You might have a general cleansing and then the
consecration of the space, then maybe a more specific cleansing then
an opening (this is the way I like to do things if doing a big ritual
process). The opening, cleansing, and consecration might be all one
ritual (the way I like to do things if doing a small ritual). You
might dispense with the initial cleansing and just consecrate cleanse
and open, you might cleanse consecrate and open, or your cleansing
and consecration might be the same.
So what does each do and how? Again,
different systems will have different expectations, and some systems
won't need all this, but if you need it, you should probably at least
match it to the system you're doing.
So the sparks notes version...
Cleansing (personal):
The idea - Wash away those things which
are impurities. Unburden your soul. Assert your purity. Center
yourself on yourself as a magician, competent and prepared for the
work at hand. Remove those things which are not part of you being
that.
Stuff to do – literally take a bath.
Or maybe just wash your hands and feet, I like to at least wipe down
the torso, pits, and junk. Spring water, holy water, or water with
hyssop oil are good options. Change your clothes. Pray to be
cleansed. Meditation, confession, anointing with oil or ash, and
eucharistic practices can work well here too, as can rituals
specifically intended as cleansing or purification rituals.
Pre-Cleansing Space:
The idea – if your space is not
dedicated for magic it has a lot of other influences you might want
to remove or reduce those before you even begin dedicating or opening
the space for ritual
Stuff to do – sprinkle holy water.
Clean up stuff that is in the way, distracting, or not part of your
ritual kit. Burn some incense.
Consecrating the Space:
The idea – your ritual space is a
connection between you as a divine operator within the universe (You
as the local Demiurgos) and the universe as the substance of the
divine harmony. The space is the fitting together of the divine
puzzle pieces that are your soul and the cosmos. It is also the
reification of the possibility that you can interact with the
substance of creation and make changes to it's essence. The space is
therefore both a demarked separation from the world around you an an
encapsulation of the totality of your universe.
Stuff to do – Hold on a second and
think about the awesomeness of the palpable encapsulation of your
divine being united in harmony with the cosmos to create a
singularity for the purpose of manifesting reality.
Stuff to do on a practical level –
Physically mark out the space. Set up the appropriate elements
representing this connection or this moment within the system being
worked. Recite the appropriate prayers, petitions, charges, or calls
for creating this spiritual presence within the space.
Opening/Cleansing:
The idea – this will have a lot more
variance based upon the system being worked. These might be separated
or combined. The cleansing removes spiritual forces that could be
damaging for the magician or for his work. When combined the
cleansing and opening may also have a component of activating divine
or spiritual energy. The opening can be a statement of purpose, a
defining of the work being done, or an initial prayer to begin the
active part of the ritual. It may also be combined with the prayers
to invoke the forces representing the world or part of the world
being impacted, as well as the prayers for the presence of divine
grace and authority within the magician. But again, this is all going
to vary based on the system.
Stuff to do – prayers and
incantations, gesticulations with ritual implements involving fire,
water or incense, donning of ritual regalia. Again, variance based on
the system at work.
The meat of it...
So then at that point, you'll get to
whatever it is you're actually doing. Now again, this is one possible
framework and you'll note that elements of it do match up to the
framework asserted by the LBRP and similar rituals but the way in
which they're performed will typically be dramatically different, and
the LBRP has within it the meat, or the execution of its purpose.
2. Visualizing Spirits
This has always been a bit of a weird
one to me, probably because when I was a kid when you dealt with
spirits you dealt with spirits. A very common idea in modern magic
coming out of the Golden Dawn however is that you visualize the
spirits based on their correspondences and the strength of the
visualization is part of how you strengthen the manifestation of the
spirit being invoked. Each spirit has a series of attributes to be
visualized based on their Kabbalistic correspondences and possibly
the correspondences of the letters of their names.
All in all, it comes off a little
contrived and doesn't fit most typical theories espoused in studying
mysticism and magic, which reflect the idea that the visionary
naturally sees the symbols which have been ingrained as part of his
culture. He doesn't need to actively generate them in order to lead
his vision somewhere. The vision should naturally occur as a result
of the stimulus if the stimulus is actually present.
When I was involved with an order in
which the leadership had all come from modern Golden Dawn orders they
taught this as their standard method of invocation. Invocations were
performed by viualizing the appropriate form, and then invoking
Kabbalistic god-names to fill the form with power, and then “putting
it on like a suit.” The idea was an attempt at “assuming a
god-form” but it missed that in both Crowley and Regardie's
descriptions of that Golden Dawn practice the magician engages in a
very mystical attempt at invoking the actual force, not creating an
astral construct. These same individuals also insisted that the
Golden Dawn current was broken because it used Egyptian god-forms
which were all used up and burnt out. They didn't consider that maybe
this isn't how one invokes a spirit...
When you call a spirit you need to be
aware and receptive to signs and perceptions which tell you the
spirit is there. Maybe you'll see it, maybe you won't, maybe you'll
feel it, maybe some characteristic of your environment will change,
maybe it won't. Worry about doing the best damn job you can at
calling the spirit, and worry about it getting done what it's been
called for. Don't distract yourself with mental masturbation by
trying to really get a forced visualization of some systematized
details down. That's a mental exercise in memory and focused
visualization, and those can be useful to magic, but don't let them
distract you from the awesome experience that is actual magical
contact with the fundamental forces of existence.
3. Get to know the system you're doing
and it's spirits
So, your magic might not involve
spirits...but either way, get to know the system. Really good
magicians know the ins and outs of the systems they practice, the
worldview, the traditions, the ideology and mythology, and variant
ritual practices. It might not be the only system they use, but when
they use it they do it with authenticity, or at the very least, with
a firm grounding in the parts of it they're being influenced by.
Taking an unrelated framework and
assuming that the universe really does fit into a series of folders
in a magical filing cabinet and you can just substitute the
appropriate cog to make your one size fits all machine work will not
get you nearly as far as using the right tool in the right way. Yes,
there are times when a framework and a piece will work well. If there
are times though when you need to replace your piece with another
equivalent piece from the same folder because the new piece will work
better, then the pieces aren't equivalent, and so maybe they won't
fit as well into the same gear works.
No one brought up this as a problem
today, but it is just a glaring element of the modern one size fits
all approach. It also makes it way easier to have rambling discordant
series of symbols in a ritual that goes no where, since you're
grabbing random cool pieces, and sometimes more cool pieces will be
attractive than are actually needed or suited.
4. Trust your angel
Modern magic puts so much focus on
Knowledge and Conversation, which is HUGELY important, and it's great
that it gets a lot of attention in modern magic, but modern magic
also often ignores that you should always be bros with your angel.
Your angel is a huge part of your power and authority to do magic.
Your angel isn't the only means of agency you have, but it's one of
the primary and most important. Your angel is also your guidance. A
lot of the basic rituals of modern ceremonial magic are intended to
connect you to the forces that lead to a connection with your angel.
Often magicians feel like their angel
is inapproachable, or has given up on them, or is too distant or
uninterested because they aren't at that point in their work. The
thing is, you're always at that point in your work. Your angel is
there to be with you and lead you to the full manifestation of your
Being. It wants to drive you and push you and help you succeed. So
don't turn your back on it by assuming it's turned its back on you.
Dive into as much of a relationship with it as you can have.
Anyway, those are some thoughts for
avoiding some of the traps that are out there. Again, a lot of what
modern magic has to offer is great, and really useful, and is suited
to developing the practitioner of traditional magic. That doesn't
mean it doesn't have points that can lead to confusion and stifling.
Traditional magic is the same way. There are plenty of things out
there that can easily be misunderstood, or which may not be complete
and might therefore suggest something they don't mean.
All in all though these are some common
mishaps I see that are easily avoided. And yeah, 2 became 4. But I
expected something like that when I said two. You should also.
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