Tag Archives: planetary magic

Occultism and Esoterism, Spirituality and Psychology

Do Occultists *Need* Meditation?

Leave a comment

A reader contacted me and we started chatting a little on magical training. One of his observations, which I found quite interesting, is that most schools require learning meditation as one of the first steps in occult development, and he was wondering if meditation is really necessary to occult development.

The first thing we need to clarify is what kind of meditation we are talking about. The influence of Blavatsky’s orientalist flavor of Theosophy has made it so that, when we say “meditation”, we tend to mean Eastern techniques. In reality, most cultures developed some form or other of meditation.

Western Platonism, for instance, developed its own form following Plotinus’ doctrine (already implicit in Plato) of “remove everything!” (aphele panta), whereby one strips naked of every specific determination of mind and soul, until he reaches a state of peaceful union with the divine.

This doctrine has been developed by some Christian mystics, especially of the German school, and is still very much present in all the iterations of Neoplatonism that have occurred throughout history (for instance in the Renaissance period). I am currently translating Robert Fludd’s treatise on geomancy, and his advice on how to prepare for divination essentially boils down to Plotinus’ aphele panta doctrine.

This is not just “high magic” stuff (I don’t believe in a high/low magic dichotomy). Even in folk magic, such as certain strands of Italian witchcraft, discursive forms of meditations are used (reciting the rosary, for instance, or using certain mantras). Let us also not forget that all religions have their own forms of meditation.

So why does most occult training start with meditation? In itself, meditation does nothing. It serves no necessary purpose outside of itself, in the sense that it is a sovereign technique. One can simply practice it for its own sake, as a form of spiritual dignification.

However, magic is largely about becoming fit vessels for a power higher than our own. Aside from its intrinsic benefits, meditation, in its various forms and with its various possible aims, is one of the techniques that shape our personal vessel to become more fit receivers.

Many times, within a ritual setting, meditation is practiced as a preparatory step, especially to visionary magic (but really, most magic is at least in part visionary). It is a way of starting the operation with a blank slate and to create an interruption between our daily preoccupations and the ritual.

Finally, meditation famously trains the “monkey mind”. Since our mind is one of our most important tools, we don’t want it running around, slinging crap at passers-by and hurting itself by sticking a finger in a wall socket.

Occult training is a balancing act, and while it is not true that anything goes, there is space for adaptation (if there weren’t, there would be only one occult path in the whole world, which is patently not the case). Meditation is NOT necessary, just like prayer, offerings, divination and many other things. But it is a tried and true set of tools for the journey.

MQS

Occultism and Esoterism, Spirituality and Psychology, Uncategorized

Don’t Overdo Magical Protection!

Leave a comment

This post is inspired by a forum page I was reading where various people whose whole magical practice consists in casting the defensive spells were comparing notes. One thing that often amuses me is that many people who are looking to get into magic often start by practicing random rituals which are either plucked off the internet (trust me bro) or taken from old books (it’s old so it’s true).

Even supposing that these rituals are effective (no, your wanting it to be effective is not enough for it to be) practicing them outside of the cultural, philosophical and magical framework within which they were conceived can be extremely dangerous if it is not done with full knowledge of the facts pertaining to it and by supplementing your magical knowledge with your reasoning ability to work out its inner mechanism. This is why I advocate for magicians to study philosophy and logic, among other things.

The first thing these people will rush to is defensive magic, their reasoning being that defensive magic can do no harm. In fact, it’s good for you! How can it not be? There are some words that unfortunately evoke unwarranted feelings of safety. ‘Nature‘ is one of those words. People hear “It’s natural” and immediately assume it’s good. Know what is natural? Ebola. But people in industrialized countries have a romantic notion of nature due to how distant it is from them–they can afford such a romantic notion, since usually nature is allowed into their lives in small, sanitized drops of color.

The same goes with the word ‘defensive magic’. It must be good if it is just for defense! After all, defense is good: That’s why we take karate lessons and install cameras on the front door. This, people think, is the equivalent of defensive magic.

Yes, defense is good. So is hygiene. After all, while hygiene now falls mostly under the cosmetic industry, it was once a matter of defense: cities with running water and plumbing had healthier citizens who could defend themselves more effectively. And what is hygiene, at its core, if not defending the body against certain biological threats?

Still, most people would agree that taking antibiotica every day without a reason, or washing your hands every few minutes is not only silly but detrimental. Our body exists in a dynamic balance with the forces outside of it, and neutralizing those outside forces will inevitably lead to our body being incapable of resisting them. The same is true for our soul. Magical hygiene is a thing, and it does contain certain solutions to keeping a good equilibrium. So how do we know if something is good?

The one thing we need to ask ourselves when looking for protection is: protection from what? What am I doing that requires protection? To put this into perspective: a welder’s mask protects his face from flying sparks. Do you need such a mask? Are you in danger of being blinded by flying sparks? Unless you are a welder, probably not, and even if you are, you probably don’t need it the whole day.

Most people have a certain inborn resistance to low-level magical threats, often supplemented by whatever protection derives from the religion they practice, so long as it’s a traditional religion with established rituals and prayers. This basic package is usually enough for anyone who is not a practicing magician. There is no point in people going around casting Banishing Rituals for no reason.

One universal law, maybe of magic, maybe of life, is: if there is no problem, don’t try to implement a solution, lest you cause an imbalance that only the presence of the problem itself can solve, thus inviting the problem to present itself.

The more we advance in the magical path, the more we are going to be on the radar of the odd inner-world larvae, and perhaps worse, the more we are going to need to keep the defenses up, and this will usually involve an always unique combination of strategies that are always specific to the kind of work we are doing.

MQS

astrology, Occultism and Esoterism, Spirituality and Psychology

The Objectivity of Magic

Leave a comment

Since it’s Leo season I’m rather busy creating Sun talismans and “recharging” old ones (I am not fond of the idea of talismans as something to be charged, but I digress).

This reminded me of one time, a couple of years back, when hubby was in somewhat of an existential crisis as far as his job was concerned. I was working on a Sun talisman, but didn’t tell him (he knows of my esoteric interests but doesn’t interfere, and I don’t keep him abreast of all my workings).

The night after the consecration, hubby woke up at dawn, something that rarely happens, and was drawn by the rising Sun. Inexplicably he was compelled to open a job-searching app he hadn’t opened in a while. Right in front of him was the perfect job opportunity. He applied and got the job.

This little episode, I think, is a good example of how objective magic’s power is. Of course, if by objective we mean “amenable to consistent, quasi-scientific manipulation” then magic is not objective. The presupposition nestled in the heart of science is the possibility of endlessly manipulating reality, while magic has its unbreakable patterns.

Furthermore, white magic tends to have less dramatic (sometimes hardly noticeable) effects than dark magic, because it largely harmonizes the person with the patterns available in their life rather than running against them (if someone is saying that they’ll bring back the love of your life with white magic, they are lying).

Finally, magic doesn’t work as reliably as the technology stemming from science, and never will. If the remote doesn’t work you know you must either change the batteries or see if some wires have come loose inside. But pinpointing what’s gone wrong in a magical operation is much harder, and sometimes things simply don’t work because screw you any old mortal.

But magic is objective in the sense that its influence on reality becomes undeniable to those who have had to do with it. Just like with divination, it is really hard to find excuses and rationalizations.

Also, magic is objective in the sense that it forces us out of our ego and in contact with objective forces outside of us. Some may argue these forces also exist inside of us, and that’s true. In the esoteric constitution of humanity the seven planets are all present, but in so far as their activity is bound by our limitation it is relatively useless, which is why it becomes imperative to overcome those limitations by coming into contact with those same forces outside of us.

Way too much emphasis today is placed on the psychological side of magic and spirituality. This is in part a survival mechanism adopted by our forebears to allow magic to survive the scientific revolution (you can’t disprove me if I’m just an inner feeling).

Working on ourselves is certainly a great idea, though rarely in the sense that this is done nowadays, which usually plunges people even more deeply in their narcissism. However, I believe much of the value of the esoteric arts is that they force us to come out of our selves and in contact with something objective and far greater.

The famous esoteric/philosophical motto “Know thyself” has been reinterpreted in the most abstrusely psychological ways recently, but it is very unlikely that this is what those who wrote it meant by “knowing ourselves”: in the old view of the cosmos, it was impossible to know oneself without knowing one’s place in the scheme of things and therefore not eluding reality, including higher forms of reality, and experiencing the point of juncture between the individual and the universal.

MQS