Tinfoil Hats and the Folly of Magicians

One of the more common questions that practicing magicians usually have to field from those who are either interested or just curious is whether or not magic is harmful to an individual. Can magic drive a person insane? Can it be the very cause of self-destruction and even death? Can magic kill a person?

Such a series of questions open up the door to a deep inquiry about individual and collective psychology. I don’t really feel particularly qualified to have an expert opinion on this subject, or at least one that is medically and scientifically based. Psychology is the key to all of these questions because of the fact that magic is something that is perceived and experienced. It doesn’t actually possess any kind of material qualities that could cause it to be labeled dangerous, toxic or otherwise harmful to an individual or a group.

We know that ideas can cause all sorts of harm in our society; they can cause harm to the individuals who espouse them or to the victims of those who seek to act on them. It could be said that ideas can be dangerous or that they could even kill people. Yet in this case an idea is functioning as an agent to spur action on the part of the people who believe it. An idea merely by itself can neither kill or harm someone. It can negatively impact their mind if it is taken in a certain way. So, psychology is the background where someone or a group could be harmed by magic, either by practicing it or by being the target of someone else’s expertly directed ill-will.

However, from an experiential standpoint, I think that I can present a number of practical considerations about magic that should be able to answer these questions about whether it is harmful to the practitioner and the public at large.

Problems and Practical Approaches to Magical Experiences

First of all, anyone who seeks to work magic brings into that study and practice all of their psychological virtues and flaws. If the statement that one out of five individuals suffers from some form of mental illness in our country is true then it would also be more or less true about occultists and magical practitioners. If a person is suffering from mental illness, whether they know it or not, then the magic that they perform will be tainted and qualified by the effects of that illness.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, magic is a very subjective experiential practice. Magicians experience a lot of internalized psychological phenomena that also powerfully impacts their emotions, beliefs, ideals and motivations. It can make a person feel like they have an exclusive and elevated perspective on nearly everything. Profound experiences seem to expand one’s self definition and also one’s self valuation. Magic is prone to making the practitioner experience what could be called ego-tripping. A magician’s sense of self-importance can become expanded to the point of ridiculousness. This is because everything that a magician experiences must be carefully considered and interpreted in order for it to be useful. 

Some magical experiences, however powerful and grandiose they might be, can be nothing more than a kind of meaningless romp that actually has little value or import. This can happen to even the most sober practitioner, since “magical power” affects the emotions and this can lead to a case of motivational reasoning short circuiting critical thinking. Motivational thinking can cause anyone to build a “house of cards” and think that it is an enduring edifice, when actually, it is an illusion, or worse, a delusion.

Another important consideration is that the practice of magic doesn’t reveal truths unless one is already disposed toward seeing them. Magical power is like a kind of drug that inflates the ego and triggers an intense emotional response. While in the “state” of working magic, a person needs to understand that the experience itself has no real meaning or value outside of the context of that working until after the magical operation is completed, and one has emotionally and psychically decompressed. This is particularly true when using the energy model of magic. 

Using the spirit model can produce similar results, since the revelations and manifestation of a target spirit can have the same kind of ecstatic emotional response as working with magical energy. However, the trigger for all forms of magic is some kind of self-generated ecstasy, where one surrenders to the “power” of the moment and where the normal determinants of consciousness are greatly augmented. This is why I like working magic, because it makes me feel very high and it is like an orgasmic release. I do have to return to earth and then make sense of it all, but the exalted emotions are quite exquisite.

Perhaps the most important mechanism that every magician must learn to master early in their career is to ground themselves after a working. Retaining the “high” of magic, while it might serve some kind of perverse pleasure or even an imagined desire to keep the vision intact, it can actually cause a lot of problems for the magician. Magical workings are a cyclic process, especially a magical working that produces an internal and transformative change, which I call an ordeal. The magical working cycle has a beginning (preparations), commencement (circle casting, focusing, declaration of intent), incremental processes (magical ritual work, invocations, exhortations), climax (magical results directly experienced and projected), conclusion (closing, sealing, banishing) and then grounding.

A grounding should function as a form of objectification, where the very subjective experiences of magic are brought back to earth and into the context of the mundane world. This cycle is integral to many kinds of psychological processes, and it’s archetypal representation is the Hero’s Journey, or the cycle of initiation itself. Therefore, to omit the act of grounding is to also omit the power of objectification, which is very problematical. I have talked previously about grounding, in both articles and in my books. I believe that it is critically important.

Finally, after the magical working is complete and the magician has fully decompressed and had time to ponder and meditate on his or her experiences, only then does the real of work of magic begin. The magician must carefully and critically examine the results of the working and make some judgements about it. Writing up all of one’s magical experiences in a journal is important, but it is not absolutely necessary. The real work is to derive meaning and significance out the experience.

Magical experiences that the magician has undergone are distilled, examined with a critical mind and even researched if necessary. In order to do this, the magician needs to be dispassionate, objective, and most importantly, skeptical. He or she should examine the magical working and all of its associated experiences as if it were something experienced by someone else. This kind of dispassionate thinking will greatly help the magician to understand what happened during the working, and more importantly, what did it signify. It might even be important to perform the same rite at a future date and measure that experience against what was originally experienced.

Having recourse to a peer group or even performing an intense working with other magicians can help one more objectively judge a magical working. If you think that your magical working revealed that you are the true Messiah, but your friends strongly disagree, then you might be well served by taking their advice and re-examining what you experienced.

Not all ritual workings are either successful or meaningful when examined from an objective viewpoint. If you are working magic to just make something happen and it turns out the way you wanted it to, then that is all that one can say about it. It doesn’t mean that you are a god or that you are better than everyone else because your magical operation was successful! However, much of the magic that I have worked did a lot more than just make something happen, and I had to distill and objectify it in order to give it meaning and significance.

I have found that over time even some of my more vaunted magical workings were actually communicating something to me that I either couldn’t see or understand at the time; but reviewing them today makes that missing insight quite clear. Sometimes we are too close to our own psychic processes and that makes it difficult to properly objectify them. Thus, time and distance helps to confer a greater wisdom and understanding to one’s own magical and spiritual processes. It also helps to have someone else not so involved with your process to look over your notes and discuss with you the nature and meaning of your magical workings. Without this very important element of objectivity a magician can devolve into illusion and delusion.

Dealing with Delusions

Even taking all of these factors into consideration and effectively implementing them will not necessarily keep a magician from engaging in delusions. If a magician suffers from any form of mental illness then he or she will be adversely affected by it. Certainly, someone who suffers from mental illness will find it more difficult to objectify his or her magical experiences. He might make excuses to himself and shy away from revealing to his peers what he is experiencing or undergoing. Without the ability to distill and objectify a magical experience, a magician becomes subject to illusions and delusions.

Magic can be a great enabler of self delusion if it is not properly subjected to the rational and objective mind. Over time, these individual delusions can coalesce into full-blown paranoid delusions that erase the border between what is real and what is imaginary. While it is important to have a very vivid and powerful imagination in order to be proficient at working magic, it is also important to live a balanced life and to know the difference between reality and fantasy. When the borderline between these worlds becomes confused or destroyed then that is when magic starts to have a regressive affect on the magician’s mind. Over time this could, if other factors are active, cause a complete mental breakdown - a descent from borderline disorders to complete psychosis.

Therefore, magic, if practiced by someone who is mentally ill can lead to psychosis and the destruction of the self. It can also impact outsiders who are magical targets in the same manner by attacking their weaknesses and bringing out a nascent mental illness. However, magic is not dangerous if the person who encounters or engages with it isn’t also suffering from a borderline disposition or a psychotic malady.

What this means is that you have to be already suffering from mental illness in order for magic to be considered dangerous. A person who is unable to maintain a sharp distinction between reality and fantasy shouldn’t engage in magical workings. He or she should also avoid contact with magic and magical practitioners and when faced with such encounters, to seek out both spiritual help from a qualified source and special psychological counseling. Only those who are strong enough to maintain this important boundary between reality and fantasy should seek to engage with the magical arts. Because magic in particular plays with the “As If” components of the mind, it is important for one to be flexible and well grounded in order to be able to function in both the mundane and magical worlds.

Where the “tin hat” meme comes into play as a part in the practice of magic is when a body of ungrounded and raw magical experiences impacts one’s sense of self to such a degree that paranoid delusions invade one’s conscious mind. Emotional based motivational reasoning can completely replace one’s ability to be objective and grounded in reality. It can shunt one’s ability to reason and critically think, thereby making the most outlandish presumptions into emotionally determined facts.

This happens quite often in the areas of religion and politics to supposedly normal people, so imagine what a rarefied magical atmosphere would do to someone who is not equipped to handle it. Since magical power inflates people’s sense of self importance and significance, it can, if not counteracted with a degree of objectivity, make people feel like they are the very center of their psychic universe. It can make magicians feel as if they are almighty God, or it can make them feel that their exalted specialness has become the target of a maligned and evil world conspiracy. Under such rare but critical situations, magicians could lose all ability to recognize the real world and their humble place within it.

From a rational perspective we are never separated or isolated from the world at large. We are, in fact, a small part of that world. If we are not acting as a known public persona acting on the world stage then we are confined to our small, microcosmic part of that world. However exalted or great we might feel when we are at the climax of a magical working, we are just simply “who we are” when we come back to earth. It reminds me of the cartoon character Popeye, who said “I am what I am, and that’s ALL that I am!” It is another way of saying, “We are who we are, but we are also limited to that moment and persona in time and space.”

Magic also has boundaries and built-in limitations, although they are often more expansive than the mundane world would admit. If we cannot understand nor act in accordance with such limitations and boundaries then we have begun the journey to self-delusion. Things can change, undoubtably, and such a journey can be thwarted by practical insights or by the intervention of other people. However, illusion and delusion are “opiatic” mechanisms in magic that help to keep the magical “high” somewhat intact, but they also cause a loss of objectivity and produces an effect that causes the self to regress.

Regression vs. Progression

How can we judge regression? How can we judge positive personal evolution? How do we know when a magical practice is causing us or someone we know to be regressive? How can we tell if our magical practice is actually causing us to be progressive? Curiously, we can use a simple test to determine which side we fall on. 

Just ask yourself these questions or consider them for someone you know. Is the magic being worked causing me to become more clear, grounded, mature, centered and rational? Do I seem more compassionate, curious about others and have a sense of humor about myself? Am I open minded, emotionally connected and empathetic with people? Am I often composed, relaxed and seemingly imperturbable? These traits are the effects, in my opinion, of someone who is properly practicing the art of magic, and who is progressing.

If the magic being practiced causes one to behave in an obviously immature manner then it is likely that the practitioner is regressing. Do they act childish, do they seem unstable or emotionally volatile? Do they often appear manic, depressed, or do they declare fantastical things about themselves or the world that they live in? If someone acts in this way for a sustained period of time whether in private or in public then they might be suffering from mental illness. 

In my long years of meeting and talking with magical practitioners I have met more individuals who show some regressive tendencies than progressive ones. It seems to be the rule that true masters are rare and they often seem ordinary and normal, and for this reason, they are often unrecognized, perhaps even to themselves.

Conclusion and Reminders

We can therefore now make the tacit judgement that we are all prone to illusions and delusions, since it is one of the risks and problems when engaging with a magical practice. Grounding and objectivity, along with peer review, will help us avoid the worst tendencies that magical experiences and the orgasmic impact of magical power can cause. We also can judge, hopefully, when either we or one of our peers is consistently behaving in a regressive manner. We can also understand that many of us are affected by psychological weaknesses and flaws. It is just part of being human. 

We can also judge both the public personas and also our personal and private encounters with magicians who have obviously begun the devolving process of regression. Some of these individuals are even promoting themselves as occult and magical leaders. However, armed with our knowledge about how someone should comport themselves when actually evolving as a human being, we can avoid having contact with these individuals and their organizations that are functionally regressive. 

It is important not only to guard our own mental health when practicing magic, but it is important to engage with peers and other occultists who are progressive and cogent, and who can actually add to a person’s magical evolution instead of detracting from it.

Frater Barrabbas

Joy of Sects and Living In Peace

Is there a rise in religious intolerance in the U.S. today? Anyone who is paying attention to the news about some of the candidates for president in the Republican party are aware that at least two of the candidates are avowed supporters of Christian Dominionism. There also appears to be some fear in the pagan community that these presidential contenders, if elected to office, would seek to make their religious beliefs the law of the land, transforming the nation into a theocracy.

While it is true that there seems to be more polarization in our society on both sides of the religious divide, I don’t believe that it portends a new age of persecution and religious bigotry. Christian Dominionism, like its close cousin, Dispensationism, represent only a small minority of the overall Christian population. If we consider that there are a lot of Catholics and mainstream Protestants who would neither pledge allegiance to a Dominionist based Christian theocracy nor allow it to even manifest, not to mention all the Mormons, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics and other various sects, then I think we can safely say that such an attempt would fail. Our country is just too diverse and has too many different religious organizations and sects to be accommodated by any kind of government other than one that is secular.

I have been a pagan and a witch since the 1970's, and I have seen the rise and fall of popular socio-religious conservatism at least three or four times so far. During each period of its ascendency, the pagan community starts talking about political oppression and the immanent signs of the creation of a theocratic state, but such talk is always a form of fear mongering and paranoia. In the early 1980's, when Ronald Regan became president, there was a fear of a religious take over of the nation. I remember reading a famous book at that time entitled the “Handmaid’s Tale,” written by Margaret Atwood, and I was quite shook up by the dystopian vision that she so artfully created. However, the 1980's passed, and things seemed to get a bit more open and liberal, and the fear of a theocracy abated.

There had been some rumblings of that kind of social conservatism during Richard Nixon’s presidency, as a kind of backlash to the so-called excesses of the progressive and counter cultural movements of the sixties as well. Then there was eight years of George W. Bush’s administration, when pagan communities began to truly fear some kind of political suppression. Now we see it again with candidates who are publically espousing the most radical of Protestant religious beliefs, and the rumblings have started anew.

Each of these periods of fear and paranoia in the pagan communities have come and gone, and in the end, the level of overall social acceptance of paganism and witchcraft has steadily grown. There were problems associated with movements and individuals in positions of power causing problems, both locally and even on the federal level, but the overall separation of church and state has continued to endure despite any of these superficial challenges.

In order for the U.S. to become a theocratic state, the national constitution would have to be completely rewritten and ratified, and we would have to see the executive, legislative and even the legal systems in tight collusion with each other. Nor could such a transformation occur without the cooperation and use of both the military and the police at all levels. While all of this would be happening, what do you think all of those people who were not steadfast adherents to the one single and narrow religious creed would do? At some point, they would revolt, and the attempted suppression would be very destructive and deadly. Somehow, I doubt that such a series of events could ever happen without the loose collective of the people of the nation throwing a monkey wrench into the whole works.

We are a fractious people who are nearly ungovernable, wanting from our politicians an almost impossible mix of less government with less taxes, but without any kind of diminution of the kind of the benefits and assistance that the government is so good at dispensing. If we have problems agreeing with even the most simple and basic concepts of how our nation should be governed, how would we ever see eye to eye about adopting some kind of religious theocracy? We are also a nation that is dominated by the mega-rich and powerful multi-national corporations, and I believe that they would be against anything that would hurt their bottom line. So the fear of the nation becoming a fundamentalist theocracy is just as much of a paranoia fed nightmare as the fear of the nation becoming a communist socialistic dictatorship. It just aint gonna happen!

The bottom line is that many of us have different beliefs and religious practices, and since we live in a secular society, we may as well seek to acquire tolerance and patience with our neighbors who don’t believe or practice their faith as we do. Perhaps the most important thing that pagans and witches can do (along with all of the other esoteric and earth-based spiritual folk) is to consistently and regularly vote. We should also do everything that we can to make certain that those who do not share our religious beliefs and sentiments have nothing to fear from us. It is the curse of the “other” that you don’t know that is the foundation for fear and paranoia. The more people know about paganism and witchcraft in a general manner, the less they will fear us, and the more accepted we will become. 

 

We need to always tell the truth to the lies, misconceptions and urban myths that others might believe about us, and having a good sense of humor is always very helpful, too. I suspect that similar to the overall general social acceptance of gays and lesbians being allowed to marry just like everyone else, so, too, will the public find less to be afraid of in the pagan and witchcraft communities over time. We need to be patient, tolerant and also, diligent.

I have seen the period of fear and paranoia come and go in the pagan and witchcraft community, and I suspect that this period will also fade in the near future. In fact, the current general intolerance found in the political right-wing today might actually signify the beginning of the end for such themes in our political landscape. It might also allow for a new resurgence of progressivism in our political discourse, which considering the present state of our economy and our government’s inability to act, might be an important course correction for our nation. Who knows what the future will bring, but I have found that an endemic pessimism doesn’t help anyone.

Maybe someday we will all be able to practice our religions in peace, openness and tolerance. That is my dream, and I hope, it’s everyone’s dream. There might be a few folks in our country who wish that the nation was a theocracy where everyone believed in the same religious tenets, but they are a distinct minority and their dream is futile and unrealistic. I think that my dream is much more likely to be realized, since it is based on the principles that founded our country in the first place. My dream is based on the natural state of human religious diversity, its freedom from government interference, its celebration and empowerment, and the sheer joy of sects.

Frater Barrabbas