Our UK friend asked some follow-up questions to yesterday's post.
UK Friend, "...just a clarifying point though, when you talk about talking your words through the cards, you could adapt it to a physical situation as well, for example I think the one in your previous post talked about getting organised and doing a lot more using the Ace of Pentacles, would you just visualise the card whilst you go about cleaning the house, or for example visualising the Ace of Swords whilst you were revising to gain clarity of mind for example?
Robert: Yes, that is exactly correct.
UK Friend, "Also, one more question (I hope you don't mind) but you talk about gaining skills before implementing these things, is it possible to try doing these methods with the cards as you work on focuisng and ritual skills, or do you need to be at a certain level before it is possible?"
Robert: I have always been 100% in favor of new magicians doing magick that impacts themselves personally and has very little (preferably no) direct impact on others. Your examples are classic ideas of this. Especially, if you really have a firm understanding of organization, to use your example specifically. In fact, I'd meditate and visualize the Ace of Pents in front of me. Then, let the Ace cover myself, which is a more difficult visualization. During this visualization, pray for an understanding of organization. This will likely result in deeper insights into how to organize yourself in a way that is best pleasing or useful to your personality. It may even reveal why you are unorganized or a host of other things. Then yes, use that understanding but express it only in a word "Organize," as you use the card as you suggested.
To clarify, I am dead set against new magicians doing magick that impacts others at all. I remember reading when I was young, "So called doing good for others should be eschewed for the time being." I don't remember who wrote that but I do remember thinking, "Then what good is magick?" Now, I understand.
Young magicians doing magick for others, even altruistically, are usually coming from a place of inflated ego, a gross misunderstanding of the self, or massive control issues. None of those things is conducive to further progress on the path. Even the blow-ups that normally occur from such things tend to be less instructive. Most likely because the starting point was an exercise in ego inflation. How things start can really impact the outcome.
Finally, magick is a tricky thing to learn to use wisely. No one with a shred of human compassion and decency will advocate doing so while being an active detriment to others. To be fair, those that are about to disagree with that statement will have a much different definition of "active detriment."
To answer the very end of that question, "...or do you need to be at a certain level before it is possible?"
Mileage varies on this. This is a very good way of understanding your basic abilities with this technique. Try it and find out!
2 comments:
I have a hard time believing that magick done for yourself, or others will substantially change one way or another if one is suffering from ego-inflation. The assumption you seem to be making is that magick done for others at an early stage of the learning process will significantly change in result based on who one is doing it for.
If your ego is inflated enough for problematic issues to occur, they will occur regardless of who the operation is performed for. Furthermore, they will almost always spill out into other areas of life, involving other people, because what impacts you will also impact your social sphere. Removing "doing things for others" may lessen this propensity, but I doubt it will lessen it substantially. If you are doing it wrong, the universe will tell you. If you ignore what you have just been told, it will repeat itself louder. If you're lucky, this will happen repeatedly until you get the point. If you are unlucky then the situation will blow up in your face and you will be forced to confront that which you've spent so much time avoiding in some way or another. If you do not learn your lessen at that time, this process will either continue or eventually no one will like you because they don't want to be drawn into the riptide of your bullshit.
Thus: you might as well try to help others. Because they ought to have a reason to like you when the going gets rough. But, I am young, and I have often been told I'm wrong before.
It isn't that the effect will change. It is that when you are the places I described, it is nearly impossible to act with any wisdom, an essential component of a spiritual life, IMO. This lack of wisdom makes you believe you are in a superior position to another, or you are superior to them, and therefore you have the right or "can handle" the result. All of these are false and result in unwise, sometimes dangerous magick.
Example of not spilling over: I did magick to communicate more effectively. I was 'heard'. People may have reacted to my message more but the vast majority of the change was in myself. The difference is my doing magick to "help Jack with alcoholism" even tough Jack never asked me to. Can you say BOOM?
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