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Magic. It's a word that evokes all sorts of ideas from various
people. Depending on the context and moment the word can elicit
various responses in a single person. This is a fundamental
principle in magic known as symbology. A symbol is associated with
a concept and is used to help bring the mind into subtle focus.
Magic is a symbol. It is a trick. If we understand the concept
behind the symbol we learn how to operate the trick. The husk of
mystery and illusions is removed and we are left with the fruit,
knowledge. This knowledge is the power to work what is most
profanely considered magic. If we have the knowledge all the
tricks and illusions may fade into unimportance and we are left
with the real. If we lean simply the mechanisms of the tricks and
illusions we might by the illusion and are powerless. This is why
a firm grounding in magical theory is important.
If one understands magical theory and has an accompanying
pragmatic knowledge bas one can usually synthesis knowledge and
through inspiration figure out new techniques with little
information and at times independently. This helps prevent foolish
questions as does responsible thorough study and practice.
If so far this seems like jargon and rambling then you haven't
understood the words. Words are symbols. This is exactly what
we're discussing. Continue reading and rereading thoroughly. If
you have understood, or feel you have understood, good. Continue
reading and rereading thoroughly. To clarify I shall now present a
pragmatic example.
Say perhaps I know a spell for courage. Say the spell consists of
me lighting a red candle focusing on courageous people and bravery
and myself demonstrating these qualities. Then I raise energy, and
release it to fulfill my will. Well if all I know is this spell
it's pretty useless and I'm ineffectual in other situations. But
if I know why I'm doing what I'm doing and understand the symbols
used I can adapt the spell to any purpose. Say I wish to cast a
money spell in the same way. I would look at the former spell and
change the symbols. First I started with a red candle, red to
represent the fires of courage. For money perhaps I would use gold
to represent the shine of wealth, silver is also appropriate. so
lets say I choose a gold candle because I have one around already,
and buying a silver one would be spending money, thus defeating
the purpose of the spell to gain money. So we light the Gold
candle. What's next? Focusing on brave things? Well now we'll
focus on money. Then we raise energy and release it to fulfill our
will. It's as simple as that if you understand the symbols. If you
understand what you're doing and why, you never need to ask for
spells. I've never needed to ask for a "spell" because I learned
symbols, spell construction, and magical theory early on.
Now magical theory? We haven't directly discussed this yet. We've
discussed symbols because we deal with these all the time. By
discussing what is gained by understanding why we use certain
actions you are hopefully primed to understand the more supernal
question of why these symbols cause what they affect.
To begin this we will look at the concept behind the symbol
"magic." The concept is will. Will and its relationship to the
universe.
There are two sorts of will. The more common is the profane will.
The terrestrial desires of man and consciousness and to an extent
perhaps the unconscious. This will is what moves us in the
immediate to make changes to suit us. It is what makes us go buy a
soda or watch a TV program, or weasel out of a tough situation
purely because it suits our perception of the need of the moment,
or possibly of our guess at the needs of the future.
The second sort of will is the divine or holy will. Typically this
is referred to as the True Will. This is the Will of the soul
which constantly drives us to become what we need to become and
then upon attaining this potential move towards fulfilling our
purpose in the great work. We might live lifetimes and not be
consciously aware of our true will. But part of magic is unity
with our higher self and through observation of ourselves,
objective introspection, and unity with our supernal aspects we
can attain revelation and learn at least, in part, to be aware of
our True Will. They say when we follow our Will nothing else
matters. It's treated similarly to being in a state of grace. We
act rightly to fulfill our purpose, but what is right becomes what
is applicable and necessary. It is said that the difference
between a mage and anyone else is that nothing can stop a mage
from fulfilling his will, when he reaches an obstacle he assesses
it and compensates, either removing the obstacle or altering the
means to his end. This applies to either sort of will in this
case, but in the case of a person fully at one with his higher
self and in pursuit of his True Will the drive is different. One's
actions simply are, they are fulfilled with a lucidity brought on
by unifying the means with the attainment of the end and as the
person is unified with the spirit of this attainment he is unified
with his actions. the obstacle becomes unimportant and is simply
bypassed. It has been said that "If you're following your will and
someone gets hurt that's their problem, after all they were
interfering with your will." Now this quote has a truth to it, but
it also has a bravado which puts many people off these days. If
you're acting in harmony with your Will you're acting in harmony
with the great work and the universe. Often this is viewed as a
way of saying that committing harm in this state is impossible but
this is a fallacy. There is destruction and chaos in the universe
which is necessary to the existence of creation and order. If one
is acting in unison with the universe then one is capable of
manifesting other forces in the wake of their path as well as the
destination. This is simply nature. It's not a conscious activity
so much as a living manifestation of the unconscious, not in the
sense of the id being free of the ego and super ego, but in the
sense of an evolved mentality of acting. Think of it like a storm.
The storm is not good or bad or aware or selfful. It simply is a
storm. Its winds spread pollen and seeds and its rains enrich the
soil. These things give life. But as the storm moves it grows and
tears apart buildings with its winds and floods streets with its
rain and starts fires with its lightening. These things give
destruction. The storm was always the storm. Never good or bad.
Simply the arm of nature.
This state of mind is in ways similar to the Zen Satori. A
perfection of balance and action is attained because thought and
consciousness are lost to unity. This state of mind can be
difficult to understand and can not truly be understood in its
fullest unless experienced. Satori, with work, can be obtained
momentarily, or for brief periods. This could give insight into
what it truly is to follow one's Will. But as we move further into
understanding what is behind the illusion we come closer to our
True Will.
Our will, both common and true is related to the universe in the
way we effect the universe, both inside us, the microcosm, and
outside us, the macrocosm.
The microcosm is our own small cosmos. It is the world inside us.
Our thoughts, dreams, emotions, and desires are what make up the
present moment of this internal universe. The past is found in our
memories which have built us creating the moment, and the future
is created by what we do with the moment, how we respond to it and
change it. If we understand our past we can control the moment. We
can see why we feel how we feel and we can change it, or we can
see why we desire what we desire and either attain it or rid
ourselves of the desire. We can learn about ourselves from the
dreams through interpretation and we can look at our thoughts in
order to guide ourselves in anticipating the future and altering
the moment to prepare for it. We create ourselves anew in each
moment, and thus each moment the world is new. In the moments we
have lived in we have created the now. There is nothing mysterious
about this. The magic is to control our future by effecting the
moment. A subtle change in the microcosm will effect the macrocosm
and visa versa. As above so below.
The macrocosm is the external world. It is everything that is
outside us and it contains us. What we do to the world we do to
ourselves, but as we have just said, what we do to ourselves we do
to the world. The two exist as one and cannot be removed from each
other. When we effect the macrocosm we focus on the effect
directly and causing it to be. We effect the macrocosm by
interacting with it and therefore creating a change in the pattern
behind the illusion. In discussing what we interact with we
discuss what the universe is.
The universe quite simply is energy. It is a living energy. It
isn't like light or sound or heat or some other such physical
energy. It is something which simply is. It is on a level so small
that it is what manifests into these perceivable energies and into
matter. All things are this energy, all things contain this
energy, and all things are linked in this energy. Everything is
blurred together as one whole differing only in concentration and
vibration.
In the purest level we have the unmanifest. Actually before the
unmanifest there is nothing. From nothing comes the unmanifest
which is energy in the state of being nothing. It is limitless and
simply exists. This existence flows into various levels of
manifestation. All levels of manifestation, the unmanifest and
nothingness coexist in all points as one while being separate.
None looses any part of itself through emanation. The first level
of manifestation is supernal. It is spirit. Those realms we would
consider aethyric or heavenly, the worlds of the gods are in this
spiritual realm. The next level is transcendental. It is the
intermediary level. It is the world of thought and emotion. It is
the astral and is the bridge between the body and the spirit. The
final level is the terrestrial. This is the level which is the
most quantifiable and is physical. This is the outer, it is the
part of the mask we are most familiar with.
Now with this understanding you may still ask how we may effect
the world in the physical level. The world is made of energy, even
on the physical level, all this energy is joined. Effect a change
in that energy and effect a change in the physical. The physical
world we know is after all just a perception of that energy. When
you develop a greater understanding of this you will see that our
physical actions are not different from our magical ones.
You might ask now how we go about effecting energy. This is also
not overtly difficult. When we move in a physical sense we alter
the world in some small way. With this alteration comes a change
in energy. This change is small though and basically compensates
for the physical change. But as all levels of manifestation
coexist in the same space a change in one effects a change in the
other. When casting a spell or ritual we create physical cues to
provoke a mental response. In the right state of mind this mental
response will be strong and the microcosmic mind will be in
connection with the macrocosmic astral and the strong mental
response will cause a large change in the very pliable astral
space. The change will cause a resonance which will cause change
in the spiritual and physical levels. The spiritual level being
the most pliable will resonate the strongest and push its change
back into the mental gaining strength and then into the physical
adding to the initial physical resonance and effecting a great
enough change in the pattern to see the desired result. If one
focuses the result on effecting change in the astral or spiritual
then the results will manifest there most strongly. But no matter
which level the results are focused in there will be a
manifestation of some sort in all three levels. This is what as
above so below refers to. That which is done in one realm will
effect that which is done in another.
Now let us return to the microcosm and the macrocosm again. These
are what is manifest. In the microcosm we have the soul, the mind,
and the body. The macrocosm is often represented as the Adam
Kadmon, through which the limitless light manifests. This Adam
Kadmon is the image of a man which contains the ten spheres of the
Hebrew tree of life. The top three are the supernals, the next
three are the transcendentals and the final four are the
terrestrial. We don't need a body to see the macrocosm is the same
as the microcosm. The body corresponds to the physical world, the
mind to the astral, and the soul to the spiritual. Each part of
our microcosm is link to its corresponding macrocosmic
manifestation in that while we exist as a whole so does the
macrocosm and so our bodies are tied to the physical, our minds to
the mental, and our souls to the aethyric.
You may have noticed a tendency for threes here. Existence truly
fits well in trinities. There is always a thing, that thing always
has an opposite, and there is always that which fills the in
between. for instant there is the physical, and there is the
spiritual. There are at opposite ends of manifestation, but like
all opposites they are the same in that they are manifestation.
Between them is the transcendental. Or we see that there is black,
and there is white. One being the lack of color and one being all
color, but in between we have the beautiful multifaceted grayness
found in a multitude of colors. In another sense we have a forest
fire. The fire destroys the trees it consumes, it scorches the
nutrients in the ground. But the fire brings new life. It creates
new nutrients from the plants it burned. Soon the soil is alive
again. The fire is neither the creator nor is it the destroyers.
It simply is. But it has the capacity to destroy and create. We
find this in most everything. It is the midway not because it is
the joining of opposites but because it contains the capacity for
opposites.
In this we see the basic breakdown of the universe and some level
of the importance of this knowledge. When you gain a fuller
understanding of this you will be able to work "magic" purely
through your will. All symbols you needed will be understood and
no longer necessary as you touch directly the concept.
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