Purpose of Working Magick - IMO

Over the course of several weeks, perhaps even months, various writers in the blogosphere have been opining about using magick to cause shifts in probability, bending reality or producing outright miracles, either through the “Black Swan” paradigm or by just expecting magick to produce what it has been advertised to produce since earliest times. It would seem that magick is perceived as just a mechanism for causing change to occur according to the magician’s will, in some form or another. However, as the ever dissenting voice that is raised in contrast to the present ululations of how magick should work (miracles vs. probability shifts), I wonder aloud if the real purpose of magick has somehow been lost or just omitted.

This brings to mind a question that I have probably answered more than once over the course of the last year and a half, which I have written in articles posted to this blog, and that question is “why do we work magick?” Do we work magick to just make our lives more advantageous, blessed with material success and personal power? Is that the purpose for magick? Or do we work magick to cause godlike miracles to occur, showing ourselves to be godlike and almighty. Does magick, properly coordinated and worked, make the magician operator into a guaranteed winner?

Of course, for every winner there are a lot of losers, this is true in sports as well as life. For every miracle sought, very, very few ever manifest.  Still, a more simplistic judgement is that the only success in life is survival, and that everything else is merely superfluous. That would translate into the rule of thumb that if you have survived your ordeals in life, no matter what they are, then you are a success. The downside to that logic is that eventually everyone dies, so at some point in life, everyone is a loser.

Success, just like any condition of good fortune is, unfortunately, very ephemeral, whatever ruler you use to judge it. In the greater scheme of things, a person is born, lives, and then later dies, regardless of how great, successful, humble or inadequate - death is great equalizer, as always. This is why the Tarot Trump, “Wheel of Fortune” is such a compelling study for those who seek to master their lives, or at least, it should be. Next to that card in importance is Death and the Hanged Man, but that is another topic altogether.

Yet we still haven’t answered the most essential question as to why we work magick. If life is full of chance occurrences, opportunities, disasters, and a lot of boring same-ness, then applying magick to life situations may improve them, perhaps slightly or even better, but more often it doesn’t make a real lot of difference in the long run. The real purpose to working magick, in my humble opinion, is to cause just one great but essential miracle to occur, and that is the miracle of total godhead assumption and all that proceeds from that achievement.

Other names for this achievement are enlightenment, achievement of Atman (God/dess Within), conscious illumination, cosmic consciousness, Godhead realization, the immortality of individual consciousness and the ability to accept the role of divine mediator, to do whatever is required, however great or small. To be a functional spiritual avatar doesn’t mean that you are suddenly a great person endowed with godlike powers, it means that you understand your purpose and role in life, and seek to unthinkingly and selflessly perform it.

What that means is that the petty ego and it’s needs for status, power, wealth, love and happiness are completely subsumed to the point where they are no longer even relevant. It requires the greatest sacrifice that one can offer. That sacrifice is the willing abrogation and elimination of the outer external self, which is shown to be an illusion and an obstacle to perfectly channeling the Godhead. That, in my opinion, is the purpose of working magick. Wealth, career success, fame, glory, the adoration of the crowd, sexual gratification, these are the many illusions and delusions that confront both mystic and magician alike, and seek to upend and thwart the simple and pure aspiration for union with the One.  

If you think for a moment of what it must be like attaining union with whatever you perceive as the Godhead, and then trying to imagine how that would personally affect you if it did indeed occur, it would suddenly seem kind of odd to think about all of the small things that beset you in your current life situation. They would have receded far into the background of what would be a completely new and redefined existence. It would also make the endless pursuit after the various material accouterments of a comfortable and successful life seem sort of small and petty, and indeed, in the larger scheme of things, they would be.

Does that mean that striving to better ourselves in the material world is a fruitless pursuit, a folly that will cause us to be distracted at best, suborned in our spiritual search at worst? No it doesn’t somehow mean that all material pursuits are wrong or misguided. We do what we have to do to maximize our potential, but we do it both within a material and spiritual dimension. All the while we are living and struggling with our material existence, we should never loose our focus on that ultimate achievement, which is union with the Godhead. Everything that we do should selflessly and relentlessly promote our ultimate spiritual apotheosis, anything else is a distraction. Our True Will should be to achieve that perfect union with the One, and all that we engage in and encounter should merely aid in that process.

In my first published book, “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick,” I wrote some pretty compelling things in regards to the seeker and what he or she is seeking, and also what can cause that search to fail or come to grinding halt. I would like to quote from that section of the book (chapter 3.6, pages 83 - 85), using the more raw pre-published text because it manages to express these ideas in a more direct manner. I’ll let you be the judge, and see if this section doesn’t succinctly answer the question as to why we should work magick and what our ultimate goal should be. To achieve at-one-ment with the Godhead is to take a profound journey through the strata of higher consciousness, but the goal is never to glorify in the achievement or the outward effects, but to unswervingly seek the goal itself.

“Ken Wilber, in his book, ‘The Atman Project’ (chapter 13, p. 183 - 185) outlines the difficulties and the challenges that one must face in order to truly gain, in a permanent fashion, these higher states of consciousness. Whether one is aware of it or not, we’re all seeking enlightenment. It’s the fundamental drive that pushes all of us through the vicissitudes of life. However, there are forces within us that disguise our motives or lock us in a static mental state of development where complacency and comfort are far more important than gaining any kind of new vista or spiritual perspective in life. We all begin our paths with the same objective, union with the All, but very early we are thwarted by the necessities of life, and we must at some point return to the fundamental quest of all being-ness, if we are to find true fulfillment and completion. We should make certain we always question our motives and the nature of our quest in life, so that we have not substituted our goal of perfect at-one-ment of Atman for some kind of imperfect and shallow surrogate, an ‘Atman Project.’

The ultimate nature of reality, according to Wilber, is an emptiness or voidness, but one that is not a true emptiness that is void of all forms or features. It is also a unified field of holism, where all space and time, and even consciousness itself is part of one seamless whole. The ultimate reality and the ultimate state of consciousness are one and the same, a kind of ‘super conscious All’ (p. 184). This unity is the only true reality, and all else is an illusion, particularly anything that is egoically or independently real. Even in the nature of Deity itself, there is only the timeless, transcendent one-ness, and so there is no difference between anything, even between man and God. What this entails is that we’re all part of a greater whole, and that magick is a process that has validity and power because of this wholeness, and cannot be comprehended outside of this unity of being and its various conscious derivatives, since it operates on and through that wholeness.

To be an individual, even an individual god, is to exist in an illusion, since everything is truly one and indivisible. We exist as separate entities glorifying in our uniqueness and our individuality, but we are also seemingly always seeking for something apart from ourselves, and that quest is also an illusion, since everything is whole and subsumed into the oneness. Therefore, living beings, in order to function and survive, have learned to suppress this perception of one-ness, since at the level of the undeveloped or Typhonic state it would lead to a disintegration of the self. At the trans-personal or Centauric level, the boundaries between the oneness and our individuality must be breached, and done so in a manner that does not destroy that individual, but illuminates one instead. Therefore, we live through the illusion of individual entities existing in space and time in order to function, but the irony is that we must transcend this state because it is a barrier to attaining the highest levels of consciousness. What this means is that whether or not we are aware of it, our ultimate quest is for oneness and unity, the ‘rediscovery of this infinite and eternal wholeness’ (p. 184).

Before the emanation of spiritual creation, where Spirit was imbedded in matter, there was the wholeness that is oneness, and we seek that wholeness that is [a] oneness within ourselves. That is the nature of the spiritual quest that the seeker seeks - to be one within the wholeness of the All, our perception of Atman, or God/dess Within.

However, the means to obtaining this sublime state necessitates the death or dissolution of the ego. This perception of ego death is frightening to the individual, especially at the Centauric level, since the ego has become invested with autonomy, and seemingly drunk on its own empowerment and uniqueness. The irony is that to die, the seeker learns to truly live and perceive reality as it actually is, without the limitations of time and space. But getting past that boundary is the most difficult task that seekers can face, and usually they become trapped into accepting their own ego as a surrogate god, thus denying their ability or willingness to evolve to the next higher level. Many occultists have failed this greatest test. Yet the desire for attaining those higher states, and the union of All-Being continues its alluring and seductive siren call, and we as seekers always seem to hear and are drawn to it. It is the ultimate approach-avoidance conflict.

It’s for this reason, because we greatly desire this ultimate achievement and we also greatly fear it, that we end up choosing surrogates instead of actual transcendence. Substitutes range greatly in terms of their variety, and they are usually huge distractions that take the seeker far away from true attainment, such as the usual sensual additions of food and drink, drugs, sex, fame, money, power, and knowledge, but also hidden addictions, such as hubris, self-righteousness, prejudice, misplaced or false piety, cynicism, apathy, and a loss of soul. All seekers truly seek for is the attainment of oneness, but what they actually get if they fail the test is a substitute gratification that makes them think that they have achieved the great quest. Therefore, we must always carefully examine our motives, and ask ourselves the fatal question - are we truly seeking Atman, or are we engaging in a diversion? That question can’t be quickly or easily answered, but we must be aware of what is motivating us, and at what level of our being. At some point in the career of magicians, they must step outside themselves and transcend all of these prior limitations, or be faced with living out their lives with those same limitations forever haunting them. They must [instead] cease working magick, and instead become the magick.”

I hope that this helps to convince my readers that the true purpose of magick is union with the One, and that all else is a potential diversion, an “Atman project” instead of true Atman.

Frater Barrabbas

Thoughts about the Pagan Nature of Deity

"Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 3, scene 2, 110 -115 - Wm. Shakespeare

Inside the Box

In a number of my blog entries I have touched on the subject of Deity and how a witch and ritual magician defines that entity. So I have decided to take it on as a main topic. This will hopefully define what I am talking about, whether as a practicing witch, ritual magician, or an occultist in the Western Mystery Tradition. This is not going to be particularly easy nor is it going to be neat and tidy, so please bear with me. One could also classify this discussion as the nature of the spirit theory of magic as it applies to the Godhead.

Back many years ago when I was just a witchling in training, I was taught that the Godhead of Witchcraft consisted of a Goddess and a God. This became classified later (by sociologists) as a duo-theological premise, which characterizes witchcraft beliefs derived from the Gardnerian tradition of Witchcraft. The Alexandrian tradition that I am a member of uses a minor variation of its Gardnerian source and shares most points in common with it. It would seem that the many Wiccans who draw their literary sources from Llewellyn books also subscribe to these beliefs about the God and Goddess.

So all of these witches would characterize their Deity in probably the same manner, and would apply to it pagan mythology loosely appropriated from classical Greece, Rome and Brythonic Celtic sources. We were taught and believed in an immortal celestial Goddess who was the source of all life and a mother goddess, and her mortal consort, the Horned God. There was also the pair of the Moon Goddess and the Sun God as well. These two pairs were not, however, pulled together into any kind of tight system. They just represented an alternative pairing.

All of these theological musings remained facile, loosely configured, compared to various other pagan religions and believed in without question. There were some other qualities that were tossed into the mix, such as the triple Goddess, Maiden, Mother and Crone, and the Green Man, who seemed to be a vegetative variation of the Horned God. There was also a divine daughter whose name was taken from antiquity as Aradia or Herodotus, and an Oak King and a Holly King who were engaged in eternal combat. We also accepted certain Celtic mythic lore, such as stories from the Mabinogion, Irish and Nordic sagas, and even Greek and Roman sources. It was, in word, a hotchpotch - a kind of assembly with little order or sense.

Of course, this was before the advent of heathenism, which has proved to be a movement that at least attempted to be more cogent of those practices and beliefs derived from verifiable historical sources, whether native writings/practices or archeological reconstructions and theories. Heathenism has forced classical witchcraft to become more consistent and to acknowledge verifiable sources where possible. This has caused some adherents in the various traditions of witchcraft to admit to the contrived nature of a duo-theology and they have begun to practice a more polytheistic liturgy in addition to their traditional teachings and written sources, such as the Book of Shadows. However, Llewellyn and other publishing companies have continued to promote this duo-theological belief of a heterosexual Goddess and God to such an extent that it has become something of a inflexible doctrine.

What this means is that a true examination of the actual nature of pagan deity becomes almost impossible when it is made into a devoutly accepted tenet. This has locked traditional adherents into an orthodox position requiring them to believe in a Goddess and God pair. In many cases, witches trained in the classical traditions are unable to expand their concept of Godhead and freely admit to multiple and even conflicting perspectives. Instead they have worked tirelessly to build a theology and liturgical practice that has at least some consistency, yet still seems to be artificially contrived. However, what they really need to do is to examine the nature of pagan deity without any bias, expectations or preconceived notions - otherwise nothing can be learned or gained. In other words, they need to start thinking outside of the box.

What are these conflicting perspectives? They are the simultaneous belief in multiple and distinct deities, in a divine pair of deities (typically male and female), and in the belief that all deities merge to form a unity of being that is greater than the sum of its parts. There are other considerations as well, such as realizing that the nature of deity is mutable and highly variable. To insist on a heterosexual pair of deities and no other is to ignore the fact that nature has made human beings to behave in a multiple of genders, not just male or female or heterosexual. A realistic approach to deity would have to admit that the same variations found in human nature would also be found in deity, including being sexually neutral and a hybrid of both male and female. All possibilities must exist and therefore, must be recognized and acknowledged in some manner.

Another consideration is that pagans in antiquity lacked any kind of formal or structured theology where everything neatly fit together. What could be said is that it was consistent, in other words, it was based on real practices and belonged to an existing and living culture. Now that paganism no longer has a living culture to give it depth, it can lack the basic consistency of having the powerful elements of language (terminology), songs, stories, beliefs, traditional practices and even food recipes as well as magic to establish its core beliefs and liturgy. Modern paganism existing in Christian dominated countries, especially in the U.S., can be more contrived and artificially structured, therefore, lacking the consistency of a living culture. How can this obstacle be overturned? Are we basically incapable of ever really approaching our faith in a deep and comprehensive manner? I think that there are some things that modern pagans can do to powerfully remedy this situation. The first and most important thing is to rethink the whole premise of the nature of deity and cease from accepting as doctrine or dogma a belief in a heterosexual Goddess and God pair.


Outside the Box

This segues nicely into something that I have recently stumbled upon, and that is how to categorize the nature of pagan deity that exists in the world around me. I didn’t come up with these thoughts, so I must acknowledge their source, a remarkable pagan man who lives in my town named Steve Posch - the one who coined the term "Paganistan" for the Twin Cities pagan community. Steve has been conducting a discussion group on the "Olde Crafte." He discussed this topic of the nature of pagan deity there and also in a number of personal discussions with me. I am going to attempt to put down in words how I understand his opinions about this matter, or at least how I have derived them for myself.

Steve sees the world divided into two domains in regards to the pagan deities - the elder gods and the younger gods. The elder gods are like the sun, moon, stars, storms, lightening, mountains, hills, plains, large wetlands, oceans, seas, large rivers - these are signposts for pagan deities that are as old as the earth itself. The young gods are, of course, the ones that mankind has created and named, and these vary considerable from place to place, as do the people and cultures who worship them. Some of them disappear and new ones are created. Some of them have been pulled into monotheistic faiths, where previously there were many gods. Then there are the deities representing nature, specifically the horned god (Old Horney) who represents the four legged creatures and the life that animates them. There is the green man of the flora, the goddess of the wild woods, the goddess of the crops, and perhaps the over-all power of fertility that acts as the continuation of life. Steve has said that one's geographic location is very important - the local trees, flora and fauna, local rivers, creeks, lakes, standing stones, hills and valleys and the aquifers; these are the true local gods and goddesses. Often these local deities are either forgotten or unnamed, especially in localities in the U.S.

Human beings have also moved things around, made hills and valleys where there were none, planted trees and crops, built tall buildings and roads, and powered these places with electricity (think of the god of lightening) - all of these would be covered by local expressions of the deity. As pagans, it's important for us to be very much aware of our local geography and its characteristics, these are indicators for various deities. Then there are the ancestors who have given us life and personal identity (blood) and our culture with all of its various myths, beliefs, hopes and aspirations. All of this has made us who we are, and within it resides a host of local and intimate aspects of deity. They are mysterious individual beings that we should explore, discover, give them names and then offerings, love and veneration. We should treat each of them as distinct, unique and important to us individually and as a clan or tribe.

Because place has such a profound impact on the nature of one's intimate and immediate aspects of deity, we should pay attention to nature and our local geography in order to determine the true images, personalities and characteristics of our gods. This is the nature of a modern polytheism:  pay attention to your blood, clan or tribe and the place where you live and there you will discover the gods all around you, fully alive.

In the end you will find a modern pagan is a something of a pantheist, which should be expected. Leave no stone unturned or leaf unlooked at in the eternal search for pagan gods and goddesses. I have had a visionary instance myself of seeing in the leaves the many green-man faces staring back down at me from the trees during a dark night's fire, so even the leaves obscure and reveal the mystery of the gods. Keeping this uncountable plurality in mind though, there is an aspect of pagan deity that represents the union of all gods and goddesses, but that does not mean that they are indistinguishable from each other or not uniquely important. What we have here is a truly great paradox, where many gods are also in union. I choose not give a name and a quality to that unified aspect so as to keep it truly a factor of non-dualism and not monotheism, since to me the union is unity and nothing more.

So we have this world that is literally stuffed with gods and goddesses, from various cultures and times and the ones relevant to us in the here and now. Yet how do we relate to this multiplicity of deity everywhere in existence and even beyond? If we talk to the gods, pray and sing to them, give them offerings, respect and love them, how do we know that they talk back? With what do we listen to them? Being gods, are they not so far beyond us that we, who are alive and so terribly mortal, can not fathom anything really about them? That might be true if we didn’t have something of the gods within us, so in a word, the answer is yes, we can hear them and realize them quite well. For we are ensouled, having within us a spirit and even a god like unto the gods in the world around us; we can talk to them and hear them through that godhead that lives within us. In fact, I believe that were it not for that god within us, we would not be able to sense or even comprehend the nature of deity. This is because in apprehending deity, we first apprehend it within ourselves. If we see and sense deity, it's only because we ourselves are an aspect of that deity, each and every one of us.

Call it whatever you like: Spirit, Over-Soul, Higher Self, God/dess Within, Atman, Genius, Holy Guardian Angel or Augoeides, it represents us as beings like the gods. It is our eternal, immortal aspect of self, that which never dies or knows diminishment. We are usually not even remotely aware of it, let alone conscious of its existence, since it does not share in our mental and physical identity. It is our true self, pure, unalloyed and undiluted - beyond life and death, yet very much a part of all life. It is another paradox, but one that releases us to a more profound and wondrous inner being. I believe that if we can become even a bit conscious of that being within us, just for a moment, we can be guaranteed a kind of immortality when we die; living in and through the spirit of all life. This being of spirit that lives within us is directly connected to the union of all beings, including the gods. To become aware of it is to become aware of the union of all being, and what an ecstasy that awareness brings.

To be fully awakened every moment in that inner union of all being is to live, think and act like a god. Such is the paradox of the living and breathing godhead of which we all are a part. Our task is to ultimately become fully awakened and conscious within that inner divine self. Our bodies may age and die, but our essence is eternal. This is, I believe, the great mystery of the gods, and how humans may become like them for a brief moment of time. Magick is the key to unlocking that mystery, or so I believe it to be. Only time will tell if this is true or if it’s just another illusory goat path leading into the mountains of nowhere.

So this is the nature of deity that I find myself exploring and believing in. To me the various names of gods and goddesses and the myriad of creeds all speak of the surface of deity but never the core or the depth of that Great Spirit. To invoke Greek, Roman, Celtic, Hebrew, Christian or any other culturally defined deity from the past, present or from faraway lands is to invoke a mask of deity, and not the deity itself. Perhaps this is why when I finally understood the nature of the Stang, it became for me the place mark of the mystery of deity and nature - the unnamed and powerfully intrinsic enfolding Spirit of All. The emphasis is, of course, on the unnamed part. Our task is to discover the name and then to use it to discover ourselves.

Frater Barrabbas