Things Not to Do

Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, before most of us had heard the term global warming and cell phones were relatively new, I told a friend of mine that my Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) often arrived in dreams in the form of a police officer. My friend, a policeman, was taken aback and asked why. At the time, I interpreted his response as a negative but never asked for clarification.

When the officer appeared, the instructions were always the same. Stop doing that! This is obviously a major role of police officers. Jay walking? Stop. Robbing a house? Stop. Selling drugs to children? Stop. Stop in the name of the law!

Here the law in question is not civil or moral. The law in personal and natural. The law is unique to the way an individual’s soul needs to manifest and cannot be projected onto others, a classic mistake of exoteric religion. The process is also part of the natural unfolding of one’s spiritual nature. Following this law is required of all spiritual seekers that wish to ascend and embody a higher nature than has currently manifested.

I write this today because I have been reading The Complete Book of Ceremonial Magick, shockingly available at The Open Eye and came across this tidbit in the writings of Sam Webster. “Socrates claimed to be guided by his personal daemon, mostly being told what not to do.” Sam goes on to claim this is an obvious reference to the HGA. This struck me as true.

When I looked back at my life, my HGA consistently told me to stop a few things in life. The better I was at not doing those things, the more progress I made.

Jumping to the conclusion that the HGA is a moral compass and is the same as our conscience is understandable but misguided. Our conscience is largely a construct of what we have been taught is right and wrong. This teaching is of social value as it keeps society under some sense of order.

Keeping a family unit together is of obvious value to society as a whole and therefore an extra-marital affair is deemed immoral. Interestingly, the French, ever practical when it comes to human sexual behavior, enter marriage with the near expectation of an affair as long as it is not thrown in the spouse’s face or otherwise embarrasses him or her. Again, this is an obvious practical way of keeping the family unit together. Morals are societally dependent and not divinely commanded.

A lot of Pagans and other spiritual people struggle with the challenges of the bodily demand for sexual activity. I have seen the gamut from abstinence to promiscuity of truly impressive proportions and everything in between. Absolutely none of that actually matters. What matters is what interferes with the connection between soul and manifest personality. That harm can occur anywhere on the spectrum and is totally unique to the individual. So, one’s HGA may issue a stop order basically demanding an end of abstinence, multiple partners, a given type of partner or even a thought that is never acted upon. Again, these orders are simply to further align one spiritually, nor moral judgement is made or implied.

Back in the day I struggled with expressions of anger. Thankfully, acts of violence were not part of my problem. I realized today that my HGA never once instructed me to get over my anger as so many humans did. I was not even told to adjust my behavior as far as expressing my anger. While curbing my anger had beneficial social applications, it did nothing to aid or hinder my spiritual growth. In looking back, I am wondering if the things I was angry at were primarily lessons in what not to do myself. If I am angry with X for doing Y, then I ought not to do X. That sounds like a reasonable interpretation to me.

The problem there was that anger also manifested in conversations that had nothing to do any behavior I would engage in. Such anger was obviously damaging socially. My thought is that my HGA was not concerned with social relationships in the least.

So, what is the purpose of obeying these edicts of the HGA? Unlike the assumptions of those that have not had what is called Knowledge and Conversation of the HGA, the process of the Great Work does not end there. Instead, this is the beginning of work toward Knowledge and Conversation with the soul. Which again is a beginning for the Great Action, which is behaving in accordance with the union of personality and soul.

To this end, the HGA does not normally tell one what to do. The things one does that fall into alignment with the soul are already being done at some level and simply need refinement. Those actions, at least for me, moved from ham-fisted to elegant. When I am not elegant in my interactions, I am slightly off. This is easily recognizable within. That recognition is the only correction really necessary.

Elegant actions give birth to obvious results.

So, what are you not supposed to do? That which does not align with your soul. How do you know what those things are? Well now, that is why it is called the Great Work. Learning what is and what is not in alignment with your soul takes hard work, introspection and observation. There is a reason why the Oracle at Delphi’s famous entreaty is still famous. “Know Thyself”. Stay tuned to this space on how to find out what not to do.