The Magician is Part of the Process

Isn't it strange how certain things line up to get you to understand something. Not long ago, I went after RO in a too over the top manner for not asking of spirits "Jesus is Lord of what?" I went to claim that Jesus could be everything his followers say he is and everything the rest of us fear from the right wing nut jobs out there. In fact, he could be inspiring the contemplative monk and the right wing zealot. All gods have aspects. I maintain that one should damn well know which aspect on is truly dealing with.

After long contemplation I realized I was talking to myself. I too had failed to ask that question regarding Jesus, Lord of what? I had learned to get rid of spirits that sent me messages of ego positive or negative.* However, had I challenged them enough? Had I determined who they were past a surface level or merely assume they were that which I invoked? Bad magician.

So, we asked the Helpful Deity, "Why do we experience you so differently from your lore?" It's answer in a moment.

Jack Faust recently posted this on his blog from which I quote below:

This stance frees me up from pesky questions like: “Will invoking Yahweh lead to my becoming a Fundamentalist Christian?!”

The answer is: only if you're invoking the Fundamentalist Christian 'facet' of Yahweh. Which appears to be all manner of downright fascist and nasty. It's just not a godform I'd select for anything.

Notice he speaks of a facet of a god that we are taught is the One. This is well in line with qabalistic thought and dare I say Biblical thought. The god shown in those books does have a lot of personality (godinality?) and we could easily analyze and categorize different passages and create aspects to work with. 

In the comments section RO wrote:

Once I got fully into the swing of spirit conjuration, I did a full on conjuration of YHVH in its truest form.

I got a desert Zeus. Dry, frickin' potent as a lightning bolt, and lots and lots of static electricity building up as grains of sand are blown across vast plains (and planes) that discharge like the lightning around Muadib's Worms in Dune (Kyle MacLachlan version).

Not much of a sky daddy at all. Nothing at all like the loving Father of Christianity. Christianity's Father Figure of God is so purely neo-platonist "The Good" or the "First Father" that it's just awesome. 

He got one level of a deity by using the YHVH. I'm not sure what he means by "its truest form". I assume he didn't like what he got. I have some guesses as to why. Then he worked another way and found something he liked. Imagine that.

The Helpful Deity's answer made this all make sense to me. After pointing out that we did not know Its lore as well as we thought we did, not that we counted ourselves experts, it told us this:

I appear according to the nature of the priest that calls.

It did not deny that It has a very harsh side. It said that the magician is part of the process.

So this let somethings fall into place. When I started with magick long ago, I recieved a lot of ego filled messages, "You're great at this." "You're wonderful at that." etc. Some of that I bought, some I rejected and some I wondered as to the truth or not. My reaction doesn't matter. What mattered is that despite my conscious desire to evolve into a spiritual person, the rest of me wanted validation. Gods don't do validation. 

If I go even further back, I did the LBRP with fear of raising demons. Fear can never be part of the equation to enlightenment. I got my first shot at the golden ring, when I just dove off the deep end in Wicca. Epic fail! But I was closer.

It also explained why those I knew then, would reject these things and why the valid things were still valid even though they rejected those too. It takes a wise man to shift through his perceptions of another and find the good and bad. At that time, my nature was not pure ego nor enlightened but a mix as we all are. I am the same today -- only different. Having worked my ass at this stuff, I am taught when I invoke. Now my conscious reasons very much match my stated reasons.

Jack will not deal with an aspect of deity that he sees as facist. I see that same deity and see so much destruction that I won't work under the popular religion it inspired at all. However, I can work with those same forces as a formula. The magician is part of the process but not the only part. 

The point of all this is that this is another example of the universe being a mirror. It doesn't tell you if you are good or bad. It tells you want you need to hear, see or experience right now. What you make of that is born of your attitude. If  I need to prove to the world that the Helpful Deity is as wonderful as my experience of It is, I am seeking an ego gratifying experience. The gods don't do validation. If I seek to experience the fullness of that deity just for the experience of It or simply seek It out to ask a specific set of question that I may learn, I will likely have a more gratifying experience. However, the real trick to this game, is being willing to learn, being willing to change, to be willing to unify with as much as your soul and psyche can handle. For in that, lies the unfolding of the soul. Isn't that the point of all this work?

* I'm not sure that despite the advice of the Golden Dawn that one should immediately banish all spirits that are full of compliments. I've had people that were very good at what they do blow smoke up my ass. They didn't do that to use me as much as they were displaying their insecurity. Couldn't spirits want contact so badly that they compliment us in hopes of maintaining contact? Yes, they may be lower level spirits that can be slowly befriended or they can be nasty critters that need to go away. I'm not sure this one trait is cause enough to banish outright. I will have to think more on that.

Correction on Book Sales

I stated previously that no one has ever bought I book I linked to on this blog. Simon posted in the comments section that he had. That caused me to check the report again. I swear the last time I looked it at it, it contained all sorts of stuff including a slinky but not one occult book. This time, it is full of occult purchases and a slinky!