It does not matter what you think or say your motivations
were for getting involved in magic, it’s almost certainly really
going to be something to do with power. We want to be more powerful than our
circumstances allow us to be. It isn’t because you want to
serve the light, it isn’t because you want to help people or find
the God within, or any other sanctimonious reason, it’s because you
are attracted to a path that promises power.
But power is a bad
thing, isn't it? The bad guys in the comics like Lex Luther crave
power and magicians want to be the good guy, the Superman. Yeah
right, leaving aside the self delusion behind that statement for a
moment, it is worthwhile pointing out that not only is Superman
famous for being powerful, he only wins because he’s more powerful
than anyone else.
When
people join esoteric groups they write their initial motivations
behind joining an occult group. They are almost always power related,
even if the word is lacking from their application. You will find
phrases like “I want knowledge” when knowledge is power. They
will say that they are seeking Wisdom usually without saying why. It
could be so
that they are superior to someone who is 'ignorant'. Even safe
general phrases such as "I seek the Light of God" can be
seen in terms of seeking power because normal people don’t ever get
see the Almighty.
It
is almost as if occult seekers are bending over backwards to deny
that they are seeking power. It is a dirty word which nice spiritual
types are not supposed to use in mixed company.
We’re
taught that it’s better to be a team player than to be the captain,
or in the chorus than in centre stage. This social programming is
nothing more than a cop-out. It is those forces of darkness that want
to keep you small. Those demons who want to keep you from becoming
and expressing your true individuality. The message of occultism is
that you are a unique expression of God and that doesn’t tally with
a message from society that says we have to fit in and stay small and
powerless.
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| Some powerless leaders of magical groups insist that their students carry out magical attacks "for the defence of the group." Traditionally the method is to slit the jugular of a watermelon. |
However
what draws occultists to this path is the fact that they suffer from
a lack of power. They are usually the oddballs of the society who
find themselves at loggerheads with the way their country is built.
Some of this powerlessness is beaten into them by society and their
families who want them to conform. Rather than fight their way into
society they would rather sit back and moan about it in their various
fantasy worlds; worlds that occultism makes all the more intense. This is one of the reasons why people are drawn to power crazed nut cases who run occult groups. They appear to have power and will reflect their students own feeling of powerlessness. Many a water melon has been sacrificed to a leader's paranoia and the students doing the attacks are not aware that they are damaging themselves and their own karma by doing the leaders's bidding. If they had a healthier attitude to power then they would be less keen to give it away so readily.
These
outsiders still crave power, but have to justify their lack of
powerlessness to themselves. Therefore they invent copouts. They make
society 'material' so that their 'spirituality' doesn’t have to mix
with it. They seek to “escape the rat race” and thus allow such a
system to continue unchecked. They talk about having spiritual
cleansing, while at the same time are unable to find time to have a
bath.
Searching
for God is a quest for power. But it is not a power over others, it
should be a self-power. Irritatingly the new age movement calls this
process 'empowerment' and unfortunately there isn’t a better word
in the dictionary to describe it.
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| You realise that this is a co-dependent relationship where I give you all my power and don't even get a shag out of it? |
When
we look at the nature of that self-power we get into the realms of
that archetypal of Quests the Holy Grail. Although this allegory has
been long castrated by those who would have turned it into a symbol
of the Divine Feminine, the story is about the search for real
spiritual power. Lancelot was powerless because of his neurotic love
of Guinevere which
was why he couldn’t see it.
His
son who was an embodiment of spiritual power was able to take it.
Bors, who was the average family man, also could experience it. The
message is clear. Spiritual power is not for the neurotic or those
who deny the truth in themselves and spend their time picking over
their sins like old sores.
Our
average occultist, who is starting the path, believes in him or
herself about as much as he or she believes in the ability of a rifle
to stop a rogue bull elephant with a bullclip attached to its
testicles. They have a huge task on their hands attracting power
because their personalities aren’t the natural place for such
abilities to grow.
Most
magical work involves visualisation that is charged with emotion and
will. Basically you see something happening as clearly as possible
and will it to happen so that it feels that it already has happened.
You can enhance this process by the use of symbols which are a bit
like pre-made visualisations. The goal of this is to make your
visualisations alive and as real as possible.
Most
people do magic every second of the day. They are just not aware of
the process which is why they aren’t magicians. They get up and
visualise what their day will be, good, bad, or indifferent. They
charge these mental images, normally with their fears, and aren’t
surprised when they all manifest. Those who believe in themselves, or
find life good, tend to be more optimistic and therefore, when shit
happens, it is usually happening to someone else.
In
my book Magical Pathworking, I describe how the universe is basically
God's dream and everything is connected by symbols. Since we are
part of God, we create our universe in the same way and our life is
symbolic of who we are. I suggested various methods of playing around
with those symbols so that we can not only see who we are but
change ourselves and our environment. What I suggested is that we all
carry in our psyches an Inner Kingdom which we rule according to our
own perceptions. Some people make a pig's ear of it, others are
masters of their Inner Kingdoms, while the majority of us do some
things better than others. Therefore, before our occultist can
progress, he
or she must become empowered at the level of his or her Inner
Kingdom.
The
average Inner Kingdom of an outsider is often messier than their
bedrooms. Cluttered with failure, they often find their Inner
Kingdom is ruled by circumstance, bad habit, and laziness.
Symbolically they are the prodigal prince who has left the Kingdom in
the hands of the Grand Vizier, who has done his best to take control
and doesn’t want the prince
to take his rightful place on the throne. If you really were the King
or Queen of your environment, the Grand Vizier would be a dependable
character -- he makes everything you believe in happen. However, if
he is in charge, all he does is maintain the status quo. He uses the
symbols that you believe in and creates an Inner Kingdom which
is usually less than desirable. For example you might have had a bad
boss who fired you for no reason. That boss becomes a symbol for
every employer in a position of power over you. Your Grand Vizier
will dust off that symbol every time you encounter an employer and
make sure that you will come across similar situations.
In
the case of our new occultist, there will be few symbols of power.
However, there will be a lot of symbols of a lack of these things.
When they perform rituals to plant new ideas of power within their
Inner Kingdom, the seeds are often falling on stony ground or among
weeds. There is just so much in the Inner Kingdom that will strangle
such rituals that
they are pointless.
Ritual
does have some safe-guards to over-ride these problems. By calling on
powerful forces in the universe, such as Angels and Gods, it’s
possible to override our feelings of being small. Fully charged by a
good working, and the godform working through us, it‘s possible to
really feel that this time there will be change. We can push
ourselves over our
barriers and believe it’s possible to be wealthy or powerful.
However, our own negativity about becoming wealthy will eventually
shine through and ultimately any ritual will fail, or worse we will
lose anything we gain.
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| Viv Nicholson |
This
can be seen in the case of the non-magician Viv Nicholson who was one
of the UK's pools winners. In
1961, Viv and Keith Nicholson were living on a £7-a-week trainee
miner's wage bringing up three kids in a tiny terraced home in
Castleford, Yorkshire. Then they won the equivalent of £3 million on
the football pools. Far from making
them happy, they spent the money too quickly. Keith died behind the
wheel of his expensive car,
Viv ended up with a string of husbands who married her for the money
that she had already spent. She became bankrupt and later became a
devout Jehovah's Witness. Wealth was not part of her Inner Kingdom.
In
other cases you will find within the occult field those who attempt
to take power from the universe and others to prop up their own
powerless egos. Such types will knife their friends to gain power
that was never theirs to take and find that the universe snaps back
against them. They might end up with seeming power over others, but
end up alone and muttering in the darkness. If such types were more
empowered in the first place this would not happen.
So
what is the process we need to empower ourselves. In the outer order
of the GD we spend a lot of time balancing the elements. Finally in
portal we crown these elements within ourselves with spirit. We
symbolically become empowered. However the process is part performed
every day and not just for the portal grade. The more work we do in
empowering ourselves, the less fall-out we suffer when we hit portal.
Ask yourself the following questions:
How
powerful am I now?
How
do I give my power away?
Why
do I give my power away?
How
do I misuse the power I have?
How
can I increase the amount of power I have?
These
are irritating 'New Age' questions to ask ourselves. But it does not
stop them being powerful keys to unlock our weaknesses. There are no
'off pat' answers here. You have to journey to your own Inner Kingdom
to find out the answers. Then once you have found them, you have to
change so that you are not a victim, or small, but a King or Queen
in charge of your own kingdom.
I
am not saying that magic is all psychological and that ritual is just
a trick you play on your own mind to “get what you want.” Magic
is working with real forces that flow through you. But the first
place they appear is in your Inner Kingdom. Therefore it is really
important to do some personality work and become a little more
balanced before starting on serious work.
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| If I was right, my patents would be the most stable magicians in the world. |
To
resolve “power issues” amongst other things, Israel Regardie
suggested that you needed to undergo some psychological counselling
before you continue magical work. He would say that because he was a
Reichian shrink. I have yet to see how counselling made a difference to
anyone. In fact many people who go to shrinks do so to vent themselves on someone once a week and never change at all. Most of the trained counsellors I have been have seen are
more unbalanced than their patents. But a general desire to work on
one's personality and to see it as a tool which can be fashioned, is
an important precursor to serious magical work. That does not really require a shrink, just the ability to work on your ideas of power on your own.
This article was first printed in the first issue of Hermetic Virtues.
