Subjectivity, Errors and Being Human

I have a general idea of where I'm going with this post but I have no idea what is actually going to fall out of the keyboard. It may be a wild ride. This is inspired by comments to my recent post about planets from Jason and Jow as well as Rufus Opus's new found thoughts on demons of the goetic category subcategory Lesser Legematon.

One of my earliest alchemical revelations showed me something important about the development of my personality. When I was five or six, I was playing baseball outside with my friends. On this particular day, I noticed a group of cars well down the street with flowers pasted on them. When my mother came out to check on us, I pointed out the cars and said there was a funeral. My mom said that it was a wedding and all my friends laughed. To any other person, this was a very minor thing. I bet no one that was there remembers that day. That day and that comment, almost immediately turned me into a very shy and insecure kid. I'd be likely to wager if that same thing happened a month before or after, I may have had a different life. In this incarnation, it was a patterning moment.

The next day, she told me I was correct. A teenager died playing Russian Roulette.  Naturally, there was no one around to hear this correction. And that, dovetails into this...

My father would ask me for a stance on any political issue and argue the opposite of whatever it was I was saying. Once he defeated me, he'd switch to the other side and have me argue opposite to my previous point. Make a statement and I can pick any side to disagree with.

If you put these things together, you'll create someone that will argue almost any so-called fact and has a need to be right. I'm sure that trait has never appeared in this space at all. Over the years, I've really worked on tempering this and am much improved. Yet Friday, my mentor was relating something personal to himself to me and I immediately began arguing the facts instead of relating to him on a human emotional level. I have work to do.

What does that have to do with subjectivity? I see myself as very argumentative. Yet, I have many friends that have argued with me telling me that I'm not. Yes, the irony there is beautiful. Yet, in my life, it is my subjectivity that matters. This subjectivity colors my work. I judge this trait I have to be a negatively impacted Mercury. Thus, I will continue to work with Taphthartharath and other Mercurial spirits.

That was a long winded lead in to the comments of Jason and Jow. You can read them in the comments to this post. They are basically disagreeing on the nature of planets in their cosmologies.

This leads back to subjectivity. When I did the rite that allowed me to finally astrally project from a waking state, I "knew" the planetary hierarchy I was calling was of Luna and Luna had certain associations with astral projection and air. Air also has some associations with both communication and travel. I was 100% confident in these subjective relationships. I've internalized them as 'facts' and those so-called facts color how I can use these 'planets' and the element of air in my magick.

It is the depth and confidence in my belief that aided the ritual. The spirits are real and non-subjective beings just as humans are. However, just like we relate to each other through subjective judgments, we related to spirits the same way. When we treat humans in a manner they feel is conducive to the best parts of who they think they are, whether that internal subjectivity is correct or not, they respond to us better. So too do spirits. I had absolute faith that these spirits of "Luna" could do for me what I needed them to do and they responded.

Let me be clear that if I asked them to do something exclusive to the realm of "Jupiter" they may not have been able to regardless of my subjective faith in them to do so. Just as a human I had faith in to climb a mountain would fail, if he didn't have such a skill.

So, now we have Jason and Jow discussing their subjective perceptions of planets. I will leave them to it.

RO has recently revised his opinion of the usefulness of demons to his practice. His subjective opinion of their use is now a fact to him in this moment, just as his previous opinion was a fact to him in that moment.

Keep this in mind when you read the blogs or some teacher relates certain facts to you that upon closer examination are subjective. Magick, with its objective results, is a very subjective learning process for the magician. The facts of these subjective experience are personally transitory. My view of planets may change drastically once I work with them on an astral level that I can more clearly perceive.  That does not mean that someone is being misleading. It does mean that magicians and would be magicians should read facts related in this space, the other blogs, various books and their teachers with a critical eye.