A common myth and misconception about magic is that it is opposed to science, and somehow the two approaches to reality are completely different and inimical to each other. I believe that this myth has been propagated by individuals who are trying to debunk anything that would be considered occultic or metaphysical. Those who are spreading this myth tend to be scientists and the sober representatives of an ordered and rational society. Their belief that magic and the occult are superstitions that should have been discarded from the body politic two centuries ago is based on an erroneous assumption that somehow science is superior to religion in general, and occultism in particular. It’s the old trope of rationalism and the perfection of logic vs. irrational and superstitious beliefs based on ignorance (of scientific facts).
This is, of course, a false belief that is certainly contrary to the history of the origins of science, and that instead of being opposed to the gradual establishment of the scientific method, magic played a role in its development and evolution. In the Renaissance, magic and science were intertwined so much that modern scholars believe that they functioned as a unified perspective, where gradually, science grew out of and completely replaced the rationalism that magic brought to early scientific endeavors. At the present time, magic and occultism still represents a rational and disciplined perspective of the material and spiritual worlds, perceived as being united and indivisible, something that the discipline of science has rejected because spirit cannot be quantified in an empirical manner. While popular pundits for science would like our post-modern society to drop magic, occultism, and the supposed irrational attributes of religion, along with the perpetuation of mythic beliefs and religious world views, they remain stubbornly entrenched and viable within the human condition. There must be some reason for that phenomenon.
The reason that society hasn’t discarded all of the irrational and mythic beliefs, deposed forms of religious immersion, and dropped magic, spirituality and occultism after the supposed triumph of science and technology is because human beings are not robots. As organic beings, we have intense emotions and feelings, we engage with those around us and our social sphere within an emotionally charged bubble, we are moved by personal and cultural myths, we fall in love, get angry, fight with each other, start wars, make peace, and propagandize our relationships with everything in our world view. We are hardly the rational and logical, stoical and self-disciplined mass of people that some think we should be, like the propaganda spread from scientists and their media proponents. We have the ability to function rationally and to discipline ourselves to behave within certain socially acceptable parameters, but we can also act thoroughly irrational and express ourselves in an unpredictable and emotionally charged manner. We are human beings, and we cannot be adequately quantified, qualified, or predicated. As Number 6 said in the series The Prisoner, “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!”
Since we are an irascible species, we cannot be defined, or to define the world, in a purely scientific and empirical manner because our humanity always intervenes. Still, there is no real struggle between the rational and the passionate of life’s experiences, because we need both to function as human beings. This brings me back to my statement that once magic and science went hand in hand, and for occultists and practitioners of ritual magic, they still do.
As a long time ritual magician with decades of experience, I can tell you for a fact that I do not readily succumb to conspiracies, urban myths, superstition, nor unwarranted religious beliefs. I am, in a word, innately skeptical. I am also open minded, and also grounded within my experiences, willing to accept what I sense and perceive as a fundamental part of my reality. I have to experience something in order to accept it as a fact for myself, but I am very curious about our world and the people who populate it. That curiosity and an open minded approach, guided by skepticism and a need to objectify what I experience in a highly subjective environment (magic and occultism) makes me closer to a scientist than a religious adherent who passionately believes their creed is true without any objective proof. That alone makes me pragmatic in my approach to magic, and I regularly subject my ideas and aspirations in that field to experimentation. In fact, regarding the functionality of magic and its practice, I accept nothing and test everything. What that means is the lore that I use is subject to experimentation, review, revision and even discarding unworkable rites and ceremonies that no longer serve their purpose.
There is a rationality underlying my work in the magical arts, as well as a discipline and a regimen of praxis that is always under constant development. I create new rituals to fill certain functions, test them, refine them, experiment with inspired ideas and constructs, and then revise older rites and ceremonies, or retire them as no longer useful. I function, albeit in a very subjective domain, as a kind of scientist as well as a creative artist. I believe that anyone who seeks to practice magic and engage with the philosophy and metaphysics of occultism also needs to be skeptical, objective, rational, mindful, and even a bit empirical in their approach to this art. This practice is an art, by the way, and I don’t consider it either a hard science or a soft science. I am engaged in a performative art form that has the power to transform my mind and ecstatically inspire me with visions and insights, which I call gnosis. Yet I also seek to apply objectivity and rationalism to what I do and the subjective nature of what I experience, because I am skeptical even of my own visions and what I learn from my intercourse with various spirits and entities.
Having made these various arguments about how I am both an artist and a scientist in my approach to magic and occultism, I can make some generalizations about the discipline of ritual magic and about ritual and ceremonial magicians. Science, without considering the human factor and its inherent limitations, that is, without magic, is a soul-less and unprincipled discipline that can only ultimately destroy human life on this planet. I know that is a pretty stark pronouncement, but when science and technology are employed without any ethical restraints or humanistic considerations, it will produce monsters and unleash forces or produce toxic materials inimical to human survival. Humanistic principles, ethics, insightful laws and wise leadership are the guard rails to ensure that science and technology proceed in a manner that benefits not only humanity, but life on this planet in general. Pure and unfettered science and technology are a danger to continued human survival without the intervention of humanistic principles. The arts and social sciences should be the inspiration and guide-posts to building a profitable and humane future.
Similarly, magic without science is also problematic. It is the epitome of pure absurdity, where one passionately believes nearly anything however irrational without recourse to objectivity or disciplined thought. Someone who approaches magic in this manner is more than just a fool; they are advertising their descent into madness and delusion. It is a state of mind where urban myths, conspiracies, fabulous lies are taken as truths however great the cognitive dissonance. While this state of mind might allow someone to be functional and not be institutionalized, engaging in magic and occultism with this kind of mental malady will only help them to step across the border between sanity and insanity. In my many years of practice, I have met individuals who were so impaired, and what they achieved was a tragic end to their fruitless pursuits, as they were either institutionalized or became suicidal. A fellow magician once told me that he thought that practicing magic would never cause anyone to go insane unless they were already on the boarder line between sanity and insanity. Because 1 out of 4 individuals suffer from some kind of behavior health issue then taking a sober and rational approach to the practice of magic is probably a good idea.
Another thing that I have experienced over the years is that some people find themselves wholly incapable of being able to sense the subtleties of the magical or spiritual world. I can see into the spiritual domain and have conversations with the entities within that world, and also engage with the forces and energies that reside there. I have an intuitive ability to expand my imagination that allows me to sense the domain of spirit. I have also practiced and honed these skills over decades of time so that they are a natural part of me. Probably one of the factors for me to have this ability is that I am very susceptible to emotional empathy with other people and even animals (I have a menagerie of pets). Perhaps I am wired with more mirror neurons than the average person, if that causes one to be too empathetic, and I have a natural aversion to opening up to strangers dues to this sensitivity. While I have these tendencies, I have met others who lack it entirely. What I have found is that it is fruitless to try to teach someone magic who doesn’t have this innate ability to emphasize with others and also use their imagination in a free and creative manner. I also find that such individuals have difficulty emotionally relating to religious practices or sensing the presence of deities in churches and temples. A person who does not have these sensibilities can only approach religion with either a steadfast fixed belief (without any corroboration) or to be an atheist who cannot fathom anything immaterial like spirituality.
Since I have a strong sense of the spiritual reality, religion is naturally a practice that I find important and significant in the practice of magic. Religion and magic seem to easily go hand in hand together, similarly to science and magic. It would seem that the ubiquity of magic is the real factor here, because it appear to go together with any discipline. However, I have found that my religious practice, which is melded into my practice of magic, making them one and the same, forces me to adopt a spiritual discipline that determines my overall life direction and guides my choices with ethical considerations and adherence and fidelity to my alignment to my chosen Deities. While I may not have a set of Ten Commandments or other dogmatic rules and strictures guiding my actions, I do have a strong sense of right and wrong as established and inspired by my religious worship. I believe that religion and magic should be in a strong alignment with each other, just as the rational and quasi empirical approach of science should guide the mental discipline of practicing magic. However, my religion is the core of my magic, and with me, they are indivisible. My Gods and Goddesses walk with me in my religious and magical life, but I also approach what I experience with a bit of skepticism and objectivity. The key is to balance the two approaches and to find a peace midpoint where they all meet and function as a very productive and insightful life process.
That said, I must make another pronouncement, and that is a magician without religion is a particularly monstrous individual. Such an individual is without the ability to emphasize with others and engage with spirituality and Deity, but they have developed an intuitive capacity to use magical energies, to enchant others with their false glamor and their fictional persona, and project their will into the world to powerfully influence others and to bend reality to benefit only themselves.
You might be wondering if such an individual actually exists in the world, and they do indeed exist, almost too numerous these days to discount it as an impossibility. You will find them as very successful hucksters of all kinds, con artists, propagandists, peddlers of crank cures and remedies, and perhaps the most successful of all of these individuals is Donald J. Trump, who is currently the nightmarish POTUS imperiling our country. Trump is a masterful and powerful magician, or so one of my close friends has pointed out to me and I have become a believer. Trump has gained this knowledge intuitively and implicitly through learning to manipulate the media, beginning when he was the star of his own reality TV show, the Apprentice. He is a man completely without any empathy, callous, pathologically narcissistic, but he has managed to convince a large population of dupes that he is a great leader who can solve all our nation’s ills. He holds large rallies in order to vampirize the emotions and adulation that he produces and then uses that power to enchant and gaslight the voters of this country. I would call that a succinct definition of a magician, but of a sort that I find monstrous and dangerous, not only to me individually, but even to the world at large.
If I were to classify the kind of magicians functioning in the world today, it would be those who engage both science and religion, those who lack science, and those who lack religion. Of the three, only those who have found a balance between science and religion are the true practitioners of magic, while those who lack science are harmless cranks, but those who lack religion are dangerous exploitive hucksters and con artists. It seems a narrow path to follow, and discipline, objectivity, empathy, and mindfulness greatly help the practicing ritual magician. However, it is a pathway that also has a lot of creative and productive output, and it allows for a great deal of variances in practice. Such a ritual magician is both harmless to others (but not weak and ineffectual) and yet helpful and inspiring to others with their wisdom, gnosis, and artistic perspectives. Still, keeping a balance is a good thing to achieve, and it takes advantage of the powers and insights of the art of magic without falling into the abyss of delusion or fecklessly catering to the complete exploitation of others.
Frater Barrabbas
No comments:
Post a Comment