Without Magick: Two Days

I must acknowledge that I have gone quite a long time without doing magick. I am sure, the anal retentive reader could find periods of a couple of weeks within the space of this blog. This is the first time I've stopped doing for any length of time on purpose.

The first thing I noticed was Tuesday night. I had a dream of my mentor and his wife. I was crying about all the loses I have suffered this year. Wednesday night returned me to the time of very difficult sleep. There were no dreams that I could recall.

Having said I won't be doing magick for a while has yielded some fruit already.

• I am sifting through practical magick that I want to do, planning and prioritizing. 
• I have writing to catch up on.
• I have bought a Spotify account. Listening to music will break me from my Netflix habit that I developed while my back was too bad to move. The music also makes me more ambitious.

I am doing some contemplation on prayer. In the past, I have noted how prayer can quickly change one's life. Does that count as magick? I have prayers I want to offer to Thoth and various other deities. Some of them are devotional. Other prayers are requests. 

I can make a serious argument as to both being a form of magick. I then thought I should go back to think of why I have stopped doing magick. That reason is because at the moment

• I do not have all of my mental faculties together. I am imbalanced.
• I have a lot of emotional pain issues going on and am a bit of a wounded animal. I don't want to strike out like one, even with the best of intentions.
• My various subtle bodies need a break and time to recuperate.

Devotional prayers may seem less magickal but as they bring you closer to the deity in question, I am betting they exert some pull on the subtle bodies. Requests, while at first appearing to be more magickal, would seem be easier on the subtle parts of me. I suppose that depends how the deity in question would respond. If it changes me to provide what I ask, I am back to the idea that I shouldn't. If the changes are more external, then I shouldn't have a problem. 

Do tarot readings count?

The Dark Night of the Soul

Fear is not only the mind killer; It is a spirit killer.

Many years ago, I noticed that the people have two motivations. They seek pleasure and avoid pain.  I have since learned that I was speaking of the automatic personality but that is of little import. The odd part is that it usually isn't the pleasure they are after. Primarily, the human motivation is to avoid pain.

The pain they are avoiding is a deep seated one. It may be that of an abusive father long dead and no longer capable of inflicting new torment. It may be some long festered social wound from the teen years. The origin doesn't matter. What matters is the torment is old and dead but any form of reliving it stokes a primal pain.

People in this circumstance may seek to dull the old pain with alcohol. If that alcohol consumption causes him to inflict pain upon another, creates DUIs, job loss or divorce, all great pains, the individual will continue to drink. Those huge current pains are worth it, as long as the primal pain is avoided. That primal pain and its avoidance can explain a lot of behavior that is more or less questionable.

Fear is not only the mind killer; It is a spirit killer. Fear is the primary motivator.

It can only be overcome by being experienced with purpose. That purpose is agape. Those that undergo the great work know this even when we are unaware. Every step along the way we batter down fear after fear. Those fears are merely blinds that keep us from facing the primary.

We do this until there is only one fear left. That fear is the center point and becomes obvious when all the interceding fears have been overcome. That fear has always been there. Instilled in a primal way at our incarnation. It is the first test of return.

Facing this fear is called The Dark Night of the Soul.

Hiatus

Given my recent mental/emotional state, my mentor has advised me to back off of magick for a while. Aside from some basic exercises, due diligence and my Greek work, I am going to follow that advice.

This will be difficult. I love magick. I love it more now that my focus is damn good. As my mentor keeps saying, and I keep repeating, I am monk-like in my devotion. Stopping will be an act of discipline but I will be the first to admit that I need to give my various bodies a break. I am not sure how long I will hold off. I think that is a decision best determined by how I feel.

This space will still be active as what I do to distract myself during this time may be revealing. How my various bodies spiritual, mental, emotional and physical react and change will be recorded. My attempts to be very present and in the now will also be written about. I do want to state that I've been feeling much better since the weekend. Also, I have some healing meditations that I have been doing that are quite successful. I am not blogging on those because that is way too personal. Most of you know by now that such statements really mean, "I am not ready to share yet." Most everything gets in here sooner or later.

I have been impressed by the numbers of people that have shown concern for me during this period. Even when I have 'acted out' most of my friends have stuck with me. Some more than others. Some have surprised me by their love and caring. A couple have disappointed but overall I am a lucky guy. This is in stark contrast to how abandoned I was during my first huge crisis all those years ago. I suppose that is a huge improvement. I am associating with a much better cadre of friends now than then.

Magickal Awareness Born of Ethics

I have long since stopped commenting on RO's blog but in this case I am making an exception as he, to my mind, has proved a point that I have been attempting to write on for some time. This is more along the lines of mystical awareness than ethics. I came across his comments through this post on ethics from Kenaz.

In his post, Why You Need Occult Authors to Tell You Right from Wrong, RO wrote:

The fact is, you don't know right from wrong, and you're really not capable of figuring it out. You might think you know right from wrong, but you don't. You just think you do.


He is, of course, correct. Not long ago I had a discussion with Lon DuQuette. I told him that when I was a kid that I used to see the music of Black Sabbath and Ronnie James Dio as enticing but evil. Now that I've practiced for so long, I can see they are singing of holy things. His response was that from a higher perspective the event previously seen as evil can now be seen as good, positive and/or holy.

RO then goes on a bit about how you think killing is wrong and gives examples of justifiable homicide and the like. However, in all fairness that is a word game. If he started out by saying murder is wrong, there would be no way to play the game. To cite extreme examples, murder, rape and a host of other crimes are just plain wrong no matter how spiritual you think you are. Let's not split too many hairs here.

His post continues:

But here's the fucking thing: there is no right or wrong, there's only what you do, and the consequences, and whether you're happy with them or not.


I can fully see and agree with that perspective to a point. However, fucking with someone else's life magickally is nearly always wrong to me, even if I get what I want. Who am I to decide where you work, whom you date or which magickal group you belong to? It is wrong, in my book, for me to determine what is best for the other guy. Why? Because that is nine times out of ten me pandering to my little ego. Do that long enough, or effectively once, and your spiritual development can be done for quite some time. Petty revenge and temper tantrums are not worth it. Then this follows:

But if you're worried about whether or not something is right to do, then you do indeed need to be told what's right and what's wrong. If you're stuck in duality, if you haven't grasped the truth that the Universe appears both Good and Evil while it's actually neither, then you're going to need codes of conduct to keep you from fucking yourself and others up. You need rules. You need to be ruled.


RO is talking about something very real. From the heightened mystical perspective, we can see a perfection in all things. I have talked about it before. In that perfection, all is one, all is perfect, all is wonderful, no matter how bad it sucks. For me the red flag comes in here:

Everything else is motherfucking bullshit, a lie to keep you bound to the feeding trough like the good little fat piggy you are, until they're ready to eat you. Smoked, salted, fried, chopped, baked, diced with asparagus, red potatoes, and alfredo sauce. That's right, you're a ham slice. In shrink wrap, sitting on a shelf waiting to be consumed, staying carefully in the boundaries you have to stay in until someone gets hungry.

I duly note, that RO has not claimed in this post that he is above duality. However, if he did, the above should scream at you. Why? Because the above paragraph proves he sees an "I" and a "Them" i.e. YOU, you fat little piggy.

I bring this up because when you hit those lofty states of seeing the perfection in all things and other mystical experiences, you bring back PART of that awareness but not the full awareness immediately. When folks think they are there but resort to language like this or even a gentler version, their bubble needs popped because they are not where they think they are.

How do I know? Because I have done that! I didn't have the negative language of others at that time but I did see myself as a bit higher than I was.

I want to make it clear that I am not picking on RO here. I haven't talked to him in years. He may be a saint by now. It is just this post of his illustrated a point that I have wanted to make for some time but didn't really know how to say.

All that aside. For most of us, right and wrong applies. Most curses are thrown as little temper tantrums of a flailing ego. Spells to get a particular guy or gal are the same.

Hope

As most of you know I have a magickal life in two cities. My home and one group is based out of my home city. Most of my friendships and my other group is based 160 miles south of me. This weekend, I traveled south for the first time in a very long time for me.

To make things more confusing, I worked with the group based in my home town in the out of town location. Long time readers know that the Conclave of the Greek Key is based on my association with the Helpful Deity (HD), whose real name I am not allowed to mention per Her request. HD has two aspects that we work with. One of them is more immanent and the other more transcendent. 

Normally, we call to commune and learn whatever it is They want to teach us. By They, I mean a host of other Greek Gods and Goddesses that appear whenever the heck they want to. This time, we called the immanent form of HD into my female partner. Without being called the transcendent form landed in me and then brought in Zues into me at the same time. 

HD answered our specific questions thoroughly. It was then time for the other two to proceed. 

The transcendent form gave me a private instruction that I could not even share with my partner. This is rare because our work is very intimate. We see each other in very trying times and trust each other completely. However, this was for me to know and I know only me...at the moment. She did offer a healing. The energy She offered was very ethereal at first but then she gradually ratcheted it down to something more substantial. It was a very cool feeling. It was a bit like feeling the healing energy pass through the four qabalistic worlds. 

Then she brought in Zues. For reasons I cannot explain, as it would not have been my first thought, my partner asked how I may be healed from the trials I have been facing in my dark night of the soul. He gave me some answers and also left instructions for my partners to follow as well. 

I have been afraid of the HD once in her eminent form. Zues didn't scare me but I think that may be because  the transcendent form of HD was there. I will be VERY careful if He ever shows up again. I have never been all that subservient. Zeus, however, would get a lot of "Yes, Sirs" from me. That god is easily offended.

That night, I had a dream. I dreamed that I had just been initiated into Aurum Solis. I believe that is a GD offshot that practices planetary magick on a base eight system. They also are very much into practical magick. I could be wrong. I don't know much about them.

After the initiation, a huge black python type snake appeared. I ran. It killed me. The dream reset to just before that happened. The python appeared and I befriended it. It lay next to me as I petted its head. I am not aware of any association with Zeus and a big black snake but I feel the dream was the result of that working.

I woke with the understanding that much of my problems have to do with the way I think about things when depressed. I posted on that in the Reversing a Mental Habit post. However, if I skip that part, and just go to how I feel about things, I am much better off. 

I tried that with my former coven situation, which causes me angst way out of proportion with the passage of time. It was a long time ago. I found that if I thought about events and how wrong I think they are, I get mad, upset and obsessed. If I think about how I feel about no longer being with them, I am sad but very much okay. At that time in my life, those people were very very toxic to me. 

This may be a technique I can use to pull myself out of this hole. My partners following Zues's instructions may help as well. This is the first time in quite sometime that I have hope for climbing out of this.

Magickal Ethics

So I have been thinking about the ethics of magick. Jason Miller lamented in this post about why people who write about magick have to have "a fucking graduate degree in applied ethics". After all, chemistry books and other subject material doesn’t seem to fall under the same category.

I must again respectfully disagree. Since he responded directly to my post on Mastering Witchcraft in the same way, I think it is okay to assume I was the spark for that statement, which does not accurately capture what I feel on the subject. While every book on a given subject may not include such considerations, every professional organization I know of has a code of ethics, even lawyers. Well, maybe that is a bad example. The point is they have one.

There are many college courses on ethics in various fields as well. I have also see college text books containing little “for discussion” bubbles which pose an ethical question on what was discussed. Where there isn’t an ethical standard a legal one applies. In California a mechanic must give you a written estimate in writing in advance of working on your car.

So to me, not talking about magickal ethics makes what we do seem less serious than other endeavors and less professional. I am not saying that every book needs to mention ethics but I am saying discussing the ethics of what we do, challenging the ethics of certain magicks and living by own’s own ethical code is important. No one has to agree with anyone else but I see little harm in discussing ethics. No do I see harm in taking an personal ethical stand. It doesn't demean the other fellow to say, "I am not going to do that."

Most codes of ethics refer to what happens to the other guy. For instance, a lawyer breaking client confidentiality hurts the client. A doctor discussing your medical tests at home may jeopardize your ability to be employed, if her husband interviews you for a job the next day. Usually, the result of a violation only hurts the offending party when caught or so he thinks.

In magick, an ethical violation can harm others but also reverberate within at harsh levels. Let us use that love philter we have been discussing. A friend of mine once stated that he doesn’t care who has magickal links to him because he can use them in reverse. I agree. Though, I’d prefer not to have to do that sort of thing. So what happens when someone consumes a link and it is part of his or her body for the seven years it takes our cells to recycle? What happens if that hot chick that has this dropped into her drink is bipolar or schizophrenic? What happens if she is not only those things but a talented witch who finds out what you did? Good luck, Pal.

So now we have to add a discussion on how ethics violations impact ourselves. Is it just a wee bit of guilt or a major life altering tragedy?

I try to think about ethics before a situation occurs not during. During a tempting period one’s emotions are all in an uproar. Before a situation occurs you can calmly consider ramifications.

For instance, if someone asks me to do magick for them, I have examples of how magick works in ways that they may not be expecting. Doing magick to get that perfect guy, well, he lives in Toronto. Have a nice trip! In my book, I am obligated to tell them things like that in advance no matter how skilled I am at avoiding those problems. I do that every time and amazingly some people say no thank you. I don’t blame them. Then again, I don’t run a business at it either. Many business associations have rules of ethics that are more to protect the business then they are protecting their clients. 

Even magickal groups have rules of ethics. Many magickal groups have oaths you must take upon admission. Some of these include ethical boundaries. I have seen people take those oaths, forget them and end up breaking them routinely. This does not end well.

Initiation oaths notwithstanding, even magical associations have ethical standards. Check this out from the Association of Independent Readers & Rootworkers, of which I am not a member.

I can give you one more example of the benefits of these types of discussion. My stance on dropping something magickal into someone’s drink was absolute, black and white, no way. Then Jack gave me alternate scenarios in his excellent post. Now, I can see a situation where I just might do that. I still seriously doubt that I would but you never know.

That is the real value of ethics discussions. It is one more way to expand one’s horizons. It can also be a way to recognize your own lines and therefore live within your virtue. To me, those are pretty good upsides. I see no harm in discussion magickal ethics in anyway unless you are demanding others follow your ethics. I am very open to the fact that others may see the world differently than I. I am okay with that. I just ask that you be okay with me following my rules as well. I do not feel that is unreasonable.

Speaking of which Kenaz had some excellent points on this discussion. 

On a side note, I am always amazed that when I post about my magick my readership grows in a predictable pattern. The moment I take a stand on anything, no matter how nicely I put it, people stop following. I find that most silly. I read the works of people that I know disagree with me and even personally do not like me. If someone isn’t wise enough to consider another person’s ideas, disagree and still find value in other things they do, I don’t think much of them. I certainly don’t think they have the flexibility to mature as a human, magickally or not. I wonder how many drops I will get with this post.

Dark Night of the Soul

In my occult career, I have gone through some shit. Each initiation brings it own disaster, large or small. Each initiation can bring multiple such events. It is the job of the the GD-style aspirant to weather the storm, learn, assimilate and move on.

With all that, I have never understood what the dark night of the soul is. I think I am facing that now. I am seeing links to all sorts of negative events in my life. Those that have been done to me and those I have done to others. I can see the very first one as just a moment in life that may have never impacted anyone  but it did. I can see the emotional input and/or lack thereof from my parents that cracked my windshield of life. I can see other events that would be traumatizing for any kid. Still others were horrific acts perpetrated upon me. Other things were from me in the opposite direction. Yet every single one of them is linked.

This is the poison of my life. The venom inherent in the human experience that some simply deal with in ways others do not see. The venom I deal with in socially unacceptable ways.

Intellectually, I know how to  do deal with this. Complete and utter silence on all issues. Know, Will, Dare and be Silent. However, silence never has been my strong suit.