About objectivity, reality and dogma in Magick

Well, this is going to be one of those weird articles about dogma I am used to write on a regular basis, but stay with me, ok? :-)

About truth
I think the truth is what we all seek, digging deep into the core of mystery, avoiding the sharp edges of disinformation, fighting the shark of dogmatism with our harpoon of logic to finally find that treasure chest on the bottom of the ocean (too much analogy?). I think this is an important topic everywhere, after all none of us wants to get stuck in a malfunctioning system full of weird beliefs, silly practices and brainwashed hierarchy. We want to avoid all that and get to the sweet bottom where the chest is hidden.

Few years ago I was arguing with psions about existence/non-existence of chakras. They claimed chakras don't exist and I claimed they bloody do. My argument was that I had already seen them, their claim was that you cannot see a chakra of a person that was never in contact with some "guru" teaching about chakras and therefore they are just invented constructs rather than natural occurence of the energy body.

Reality versus experience
Sure I was dogmatic regarding chakras at the time (same as they were dogmatic of their non-existence, duh), but I was also dogmatic much later with my "avoid dogma at all costs" approach. Dogmatic system still has some useful value to it which you wouldn't experience without going through the dogma, which I think is the main point of Chaos Magick and its paradigm shift. To really become the monk, to really become the shaman, to really become the trickster. Only through experience you can move forward.

Let's now check our chakra story. Question shouldn't be whether chakras are real or not. The question should be more like "Can I miss something by avoiding them?" The answer might not be so obvious i case of chakras, but what about elements? Do we really want to miss the experience just because we don't believe everything in this universe consists of 4 primary substances that came from the fifth primordial substance? Same goes for spirits and same also goes for travelling. Whether you believe or not believe in Astral shouldn't block you from Astral projection, because the whole experience of the projection is so beautiful and scary that you really don't want to miss it :-). The whole idea of separating your subtle self from a material body and travel on its own is more than just scary, especially during the first separation, as it equals to the blind jump into the abyss, an unknown place where anything can happen and you don't even know if you can breathe there or protect yourself (or return back, that's usually the major concern during the separation). Yet once you are there you find yourself speechless with the beauty. That's definitely not something to miss because of the dogma "to avoid all dogmas".

New mandala template

I have created a new mandala template. This one has a way more useful center.

Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bcevwfh4704j83o/mandalaTemplateNew.pdf?dl=0

Strange synchronicity

Yesterday my ex apprentice has offered me to get me to the office today as he had a drive by. Thanks to that I got to work 2 hours earlier than usually, coincidentally right on the meeting I completely forgot I had :D.

Squares away

How sad is that? Well, I was about to create new planetary squares for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, thinking it's an easy deal. Unfortunately I just read in J. Vesely's book about this problem.

I originally thought that these planets will just continue in the Chaldean sequence, giving number 10 to Uranus, 11 to Neptune and 12 to Pluto. Unfortunately J. Vesely is right that the Chaldean sequence shows the planets in the order from the further to the closer (or as Chaldeans believed). That means the numbers should be 2,1,0 and you cannot make Magick squares from these numbers. J. Vesely describes a method how different numbers could be extracted but I have to research that one more before I will finally get myself some sweet new planetary squares.

In the meantime I might post something about 3 philosophical principles, also known as the principles of alchemy (mercury, sulphur, salt) and their relation to the elements as it is something not so widely available on the internet.

Downfall of the psychology paradigm

What is the psychology paradigm
It is a concept in Magick that basically says everything in the occult is done via your own unconsciousness, but I have also met with other things like "telepathic fields" etc.

The psychology paradigm is generally dependent on the collective unconsciousness which is some mass form of unconsciousness independent of any individual mind. Users of this concept then believe that you can tap into the collective unconsciousness and via this action cause a change in the external reality. The thing is that such a modification is limited, you either unconsciously change your own behavior or a behavior of another person.

In this paradigm it is also possible to tap into the common behavioral patterns called archetypes (and forget anything you know about Jung's archetypes because this is simply a crazy way to say egregore).

Advantages of the psychology paradigm
This paradigm is great in explaining some simple concepts like how to limit your bad habits, what is a self-fulfilling prophecy or what are desires. Thanks to that the psychology paradigm is an amazing way how to explain what you do to a person not versed in the occult. You will be perceived as a weirdo, but not a complete nutjob...

Disadvantages
There are also disadvantages that become obvious once you try to explain things like telepathy for example. So, there is this independent collective unconsciousness we can tap into and therefore we can relay a message from one individual unconsciousness to another. That's sounds logical, reasonable and scientific, right? Except the thing that it doesn't actually explain anything.

Let me explain on the telepathy example. For us to be able to pass some information from point A to point B, we need a "route", in case of the psychology paradigm it should be the collective unconsciousness which would require us to have another route, route from us to the collective unconsciousness. Of course you could argue that our individual unconsciousnesses are already parts of the collective one, but I will explain why that is an unneeded overcomplication in a minute.

Back to the tradition
As we said, we need another routes between us and the collective unconsciousness (CU from now on) to work. What are these routes you ask? Well, let's take a look at the more traditional approach, Astral plane. Astral is our route from person A to person B, but how does the route work? Simply both person A and person B exist on both the physical (empirical) and astral (transempirical) planes. This gives us the ability to communicate on the astral plane while being physically distant to each other. Of course you could define CU in a similar manner which would then mean the same thing. But why to use a different version of definition of CU, therefore making a doubled meaning of the definition and troubles in communication when we can use a time-proven terminology we all know and understand?

CU also has another problem, unliving objects. In the case of Astral everything has its Astral representation and we can manipulate with it, but CU doesn't have such a thing as it requires a living organisms to communicate, therefore CU doesn't really explain the talismanic magick or weather control to give some examples.

Nothing is true
There is a million of different opinions about how Magick actually works, some better, some worse, but if you nitpick for a long enough, you will find some loophole. I think my long time readers already know that I am a big fan of the meta paradigm. The thing is that you can follow anything you want as long as you get results. What works for you, works for you. If you are okay with the psychology paradigm and sending "spells" to the CU, be my guest. What I see as a problem is when someone becomes a fanatic and starts pushing his way of thinking as the only possible truth. "Dude, psychology model is the real one, it makes so much sense". Well, if it makes sense to you and it works for you, I am happy for that, just keep in mind we are individuals and what works for one won't necessary work for another. That being said, keep it mind it is always better to inform other of various ways and let them choose what's best suited for them instead of trying to push your own ideal on them.

When it comes to the individual practice this includes the psychology model same as the meta model and just like any other thing you can imagine, including hermetic laws, including spirit work, including ancestor veneration. If it works for you, be happy, just don't get angry if someone questions you, it is only a natural outcome of being a bit too pushy. Just like you don't like when someone steps on your foot, others hate when you stomp on theirs.

"New" death posture

So, I recently finished reading a book by Kenneth Grant that I got from my mother-in-law last Christmas. I generally don't like Grant's writing style but I have to admit he certainly knew both Crowley and Spare. In the chapter about Spare I have actually found a description of one death posture that was used by Spare.

It was said that Spare used one hand to cover his mouth and nose (pinching the nose with the thumb) thus preventing the oxygen to come in or out while he was drawing the sigil with the other hand, focusing fully on each line of the sigil.

This find is very interesting, not only because usually during a posture you focus on a finished product, but also because my wife uses a similar method, she usually keeps redrawing the sigil over and over again (deepening those lines with each repetition) while chanting the sigil mantra prepared for that very sigil.

No Meat Report: Day 31

So, this is my last day of the vegetarian August. I have managed to spend the whole month wihout any meat (including sea food).

During this whole period I didn't have even one outburst of energy some people like to speak about while talking about vegetarianism. I also still remember the taste, the smell and texture of any type of meat I am used to eat so there also wasn't any forgetting period also mentioned in sync with vegetarianism. My left shoulder also started cracking back and fourth quite painfully during the movement which is why I had to restart the 5 Tibetan Rites to keep me from "falling apart" (it is not THAT bad, but it is annoying).

I am pretty sure that a lot of people will want to tell me "I was doing it wrong". To you, I would like to say: "not eating meat is not a rocket science, all you do is not eating meat". I think all those positive effects people list are simply caused by the fanatism effect and mass "hysteria", you are meant to feel something so you feel it.

I think it would be wrong to speak only about negatives. There of course was a possitive side, as well. I have become much less animalistic during this period, much less tempered. It is a fine change and I hope it will stick up. Anyway, I am looking forward to waking up tomorrow and saying those sweet words: "I have finished the act of will."