There have been several topics pop up of late that I would like to address. I am going to start with the one that bugs me the most: The First (and Worst) Lie of Magick.
I cannot count the times I have read or heard people spread this horrible lie. It comes veiled in many forms but the root is always the same. It goes something like this:
“If you don’t it wrong it, it just won’t work.”
“If your intentions are not focused, or not truly what you want, it just won’t manifest.”
“You can’t call up anything you aren’t ready to deal with.”
Anyone who has told this lie needs to quit doing magick right now. Turn in your wand, don’t pass “Go,” and don’t collect your $200 – just quit. What you are really saying when you tell this lie is that you do not believe in magick or the manifestations of magick and you therefore would do better for yourself and everyone else involved if you just stopped pretending to know what you are talking about.
Let’s look at the facts.
- Magickal work calls up energy.
- First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
- Therefore, if you call up energy it has to go somewhere. It can be stored, but that is still somewhere. It never just stops being.
To translate the above statements in the context of these facts:
Lie –
“You can’t call up anything you aren’t ready to deal with.”
Translation –
“You won’t be able to fit your fork into any socket with a current of greater than 100 mA (=lethal). Go ahead and try all the outlets in your house. Don’t forget the toaster. You’ll be fine.”
Lie –
“If your intentions are not focused, or not truly what you want, it just won’t manifest.”
Translation –
“If you shoot your ex-boyfriend in the head but it was only because you were angry right then (you actually still love him and want him back) he will understand this, scrape his brains off the wall, and return to you as soon as he is finished patching the hole in his head.”
Lie –
“If you don’t it wrong it, it just won’t work.”
Translation –
“If you are leaving a message for your wife but accidentally call her by your mistress’s name on her voicemail that message will self-destruct before she listens to it.”
I know this is rather melodramatic but the translations are really no more ridiculous than the original statements. The bottom line is that magick works. If you do it fucked up, it will work fucked up. There are too many newcomers, and some old-timers who should know better, out there trying to coat magick in new-age rubber baby bumpers. They don’t really want anything to work because things that work can inevitably be dangerous. They want to call up an “energy vortex” just to feel the buzz and then ground it out. What the hell was the point in that? Buy you a violet wand already. If anything ever produces real results it scares them so badly they run for the hills – only occasionally after calling someone like me in to banish whatever nonsense they have gotten themselves into.
Magick isn’t for everyone. Not everyone is ready for magick. That isn’t elitist or judgmental, just a fact. People who are serious about magick do it because it works and if it didn’t work they wouldn’t be wasting their time. If you need spirituality in nice, clean, pre-packaged, bite sized nugget you are in the wrong place. If you think that magick is about the light and love and that those dark corners will go away if you chant hard enough, join a support group. There is a difference between Magick and Magical Thinking (a psychiatric term that encompasses a range of things from the irrational belief in superstition to delusional behavior). That is a topic for a later post though.
Love,
ZZ
- wearing my curmudgeon hat today
Posts
Thank you SO much for posting this. I've been trying to tell people for years that intent isn't all that important when you step in front of an oncoming bus: why would it be important when you cast a spell?
ReplyDeleteIn Vodou the spirits care about getting fed and will work for you if you feed them. They're not going to ask a lot of specific questions about "do you REALLY want this?" And if they're called they just might show up whether or not you're ready for them.
Treating magic the way you should treat working with high voltage will go a long way to making your work a lot more effective - and a lot safer! Kudos to you for pointing out what should be obvious but all too often isn't.
Wow, thank you for your support! I was actually a bit timid about posting that. It isn't something people like hearing.
ReplyDeleteHi Zandria,
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you're talking about me, but I've posted comments that are at least somewhat similar to this in the past on my blog.
If your conclusion from those statements is that I don't believe in magical manifestation you couldn't be more wrong. I do it all the time - I've even done full experiments and measured the probability shifts from magical rituals. I even considered doing the "Randi challenge" at one point before he decided that only "media psychics" (that is, likely fakes) need apply.
What I believe is that if you try to do a spell that's out of harmony with your True Will it won't work. Seeing as most people don't necessarily live their lives according to their True Will the potential does exist for seemingly catastrophic change, but as you live your life more in harmony with your True Will that capacity is vastly diminished.
I would add that magick is not "energy" in the same way that photons or electricity are, so it isn't necessarily true that the laws of thermodynamics apply. I will grant that they seem to work enough of the time that the "energy" metaphor is generally useful, but if a magician were to conjure up a probability shift of some sort without directing it anywhere it would tend to even itself out pretty quickly.
Working with spirits that exist in the macrocosmic universe can complicate this a bit, because those spirits can have their own wills and their own agendas. It's possible in such circumstances to call up something that you won't know how to get rid of if, for example, you're working with entities like the Loa mentioned above.
That being said, I think that if somebody wants to practice magick they should just jump in the temple and do it. To my way of thinking, people who fear magick because they've seen too many horror movies and as a result never practice do greater damage to themselves than they're ever likely to cause by messing up a spell.
This was not in response to anything you have posted. These are just general comments from various forums, and students.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed you tend to write a lot about "magickal talent" and "magickal fakes." It reads like classic Keith418, classist, Thelemic-superiority to me.
This really comes through in your comment: "What I believe is that if you try to do a spell that's out of harmony with your True Will it won't work. Seeing as most people don't necessarily live their lives according to their True Will the potential does exist for seemingly catastrophic change, but as you live your life more in harmony with your True Will that capacity is vastly diminished."
I find this statement to exemplify everything that is wrong with The BIG Lie, Thelema, and the "new" O.T.O. How can you say what is or is not someone's True Will, much less whether or not someone is living in accordance to it. Your statement is contradictory as well. You first say that magick won't work if you are not practicing in harmony with one True Will but then you say those who are not in harmony with their True Will have the "potential . . . for seemingly catastrophic change." Where is that potential if their waywardness negates their magick from the beginning.
I don't want to clash with you. I am typically very open to discussion but this is old rhetoric in my book. I do believe in True Will and I do believe that the energetic current flows differently in your life when you are in harmony with that. I do not believe that Thelemites has a patent on True Will. I do not believe any one person can judge another to be, or not be, in harmony with their Will. And I don't believe being at odds with your Will protects you from being an idiot and calling up something that will kick ass.
I don't think people should be afraid of magick but, like electricity, you should approach it with a healthy respect.
Well, to be honest I'm sorry that my comments come off that way. I don't want to clash with you either and I don't consider magical aptitude to be limited to Thelemites if that's what you're thinking, or that Thelema is "superior" to other systems of mysticism. It just happens to be my own spiritual path and the one that I know the most about. I also am not claiming to know whether or not anyone else is living in harmony with their True Will. I agree with you that under no circumstances one person can judge the True Will of another. And no, I don't think that you have be a Thelemite to live that way.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do think is that most people (myself included) don't always live their lives in accordance with their True Will. As you do mystical practice - just about any mystical practice, from any mystical tradition - you will find yourself in harmony with it more of the time. For successful magick, I think that you need to be in harmony with your True Will while you are casting your spell. You may revert right back to being out of harmony when the spell is done, but the magick will continue to work. Depending on your statement of intent, it's possible that the spell could change or even destroy some other aspect of your life that is out of harmony. As more of your life becomes in harmony with your True Will there are fewer aspects that would be subject to this.
It is always possible to be an idiot and call up something with its own will that wants to kick your ass, sure, but how likely is it in your experience? It seems to me that you would have to do your ritual well up to the point where you summon an entity and then... well, just kind of let the whole thing drop. And even on the few occasions that I've seen people do that, only rarely have they actually gotten their asses kicked in any noticeable way.
Early in the a.m. this morning I ran across a few magick-centered blogs that inspired me to start my own. Then I ran across this post, which inspired my very first post.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your examples are melodramatic at all--in fact I think you've done a *perfect* job of exposing b.s. platitudes of what they are, and *explaining why they are b.s.* (by way of talking about how magick works *in practice*).
"The bottom line is that magick works. If you do it fucked up, it will work fucked up."
Yes.
"Magick isn’t for everyone. Not everyone is ready for magick. That isn’t elitist or judgmental, just a fact."
As far as I can see, it is a factual statement that passes judgment and is somewhat elitist. Not that I have a problem with any of that. But might as well call it for what it is.
Thanks again for your post.
"What I believe is that if you try to do a spell that's out of harmony with your True Will it won't work."
ReplyDeleteExperience tells me otherwise. Crowley's statement that any magick that does not center around raising one's self in a straight line to Keter, tends to run to "Black Magick", leads me to think he might have experienced the same. Not that his opinion is the be-all and end-all, but he was possessed of a certain amount of education and experience.
That being said, if magick won't work unless it is in accordance with someone's "True Will", then perhaps the Will of some persons runs towards self-destruction? It's also possible that Will might operate more on a continuum than a 0/1 on/off basis. And a continuum that exists in the context of the world around it, instead of alone in Plato-like world of ideals, separated from time, matter, context and circumstance.
Experience has also taught me that the more one is bound to one's Will, the harder it is to get results from (or even perform) any operation that might be in conflict with that will.
But stating that any operation out of harmony with one's will, just won't work, seems to me an awful lot like saying "go ahead in stick the fork in the socket--you won't get shocked unless it's your -Will- to get shocked".
(although please note that the "experience" referenced above was my own and not Crowley's...but he's always fun to quote when it comes to matters of Thelemic conception of Will, seeing as how he played a bit of a hand in it)
ReplyDelete"I do not believe any one person can judge another to be, or not be, in harmony with their Will."
ReplyDeleteWhile I certainly don't believe that anyone should go around telling others what their wills might be, I don't think it's entirely insane to make a judgment call as to whether someone is doing their will or not.
I'm sure in the occult community you have met at least a person or two who seems to constantly be caught up in--and focus excessively on--some sort of negative drama, and/or on the affairs of others. I think it's usually pretty safe to make the call that this person is not in line with their Will, whatever that Will might be. And it's best to stay away from them.
(That's a judgment call that not everyone may feel comfortable making, and I don't have any interesting in convincing anyone that it's the right call to make--but I think it's a pretty damn good guideline.)
There are also things you can notice about a person & the vibe they give off that will lead me to believe they're to some degree on track in the Will department (which I don't see as an either/or thing, but more, I guess, a percentage-type thing, perhaps).
NOT that I think it's a good idea to go around saying, "Oh yeah so and so is obviously doing their will, while so and so is avoiding theirs," nor do I feel like it is generally possible to know for certain what another's Will might be (and really why would should anyone but that person care?).
But I do go in for the "by their fruits shall ye know them" attitude, and think it is *sometimes* possible to tell if someone might or might not be in touch, especially if they run to the "very not in-touch w/Will" end of the spectrum. This works for me but I don't expect that too many people will necessarily agree with me on this.
Practically speaking, though, it doesn't much matter to me what someone else is doing concerning their Will...the important thing is just to know who is a good or bad person to let into my life.
Sorry to take up so much comment space...I'm still in the excitement stage of finding writings on magick that I can relate to, I suppose.