Wednesday, October 24, 2012

What do I look like?

Go Fuck Yourself
So I've noticed a trend recently. People are asking me what I think they should do. Moral questions of potentially significant impact. As if I were Jiminy fucking Cricket.

Of course I want to give really bad advice.

  • Yes, you should totally marry her, you got her pregnant after all.
  • Yes, I would TOTALLY conjure a demon for that. What could go wrong?
  • No, she won't mind.
  • Ooooh, Use your Saturn Talisman to capture one of the ghosts on the ghost tour in that crystal ball and take 'em home for experiments! That'll be SO FUCKING COOL!

And on a couple of occasions, I actually did give that really bad advice. Yeah... Sorry about that. I was, uh, just kidding!

And I laughed when I saw you actually did it, and then felt bad, and the follow up advice I gave to fix everything was totally sound and I'm glad it worked out for you bro!

But here's a clue: I am not the best person to ask about moral questions. I said it at Crucible, I strongly believe moral questions of right and wrong, shoulds, shalts, and shalt nots do not apply to magicians because we are beyond Good and Evil.

Magicians spend a long ass time going through the process of transformation. We reclaim our divine heritage, we become consciously aware that we are the images of God, the Creators of our World. We travel the heavens, talk to angels, demons, and gods alike. We look good, we feel good, and we know mysterious shit.

We see the consequences of actions better than other people. I think we have a different perspective of "now" than other people, once we've been through the Seven planetary spheres and integrated the forces of each. We see further, or maybe we just see the interconnectedness of the information-manifestation exchange system more clearly. I don't know.

But whatever it is, Good and Evil are never really either good nor evil, and are always without fail both at the same time. Magicians get this, intimately. Morality is relativistic, not absolute, just like everything else. It depends. Travelling through the Spheres and doing the Great Work teaches you the Dependencies that matter. It teaches you things about "Good" and "Evil" that make them laughable expressions of dualistic wordplay that does nothing to anything that matters.

Changing your opinion of a thing changes your experience of that thing, to a degree, but it does not change the thing itself. Change the thing itself, magician. That's what we do. We don't worry about how it's perceived, because we realize that's going to depend on a lot of factors. What matters to us is whether or not we are creating the world we want to experience. What we want.

The bottom line for anyone when it comes to moral decisions is whatever they want the most when they are put to the test. We pick the thing that we believe will bring us the most satisfaction. What we want the most. That's what we do.*

Now most of the time, when we figure out what we really want, why we really went through all the work of dividing and manifesting as if we weren't one big thing, we learn some really fundamental aspects to the idea of power, and how it is intimately connected to compassion. We aren't dicks about things we don't like. We might do things other people think are good or evil, but these interpretations are no part of our calculations or criteria for doing what we do.

We are solely focused on doing our will, fulfilling our fate, to love and laugh and create and enjoy.

So really, don't ask me about whether a thing is good or evil, or if it's right or wrong to do something. You can't trust me to have your best interests at heart. Because I have my best interests at heart.

Instead of asking me what I think, figure out what the fuck YOU think. You're the one who has to experience the consequences of your actions. Go out and do the Work. If you want to take the trip I took, take my courses. If that's too expensive, figure it out from the Neoplatonic Basics. The e-books have the methods. Use the Genius and Evil Daimon book to get your Genius Name, use the Modern Angelic Grimoire and the Seven Gates Rites to go up and down through the spheres integrating the forces, read your Agrippa. There's even demon magic available.

If that's not your thing, find your thing and do the Work however you're supposed to. The way that gets it done. The way that is necessary for you. Whatever. Do the Work. So many of us are, and we want you with us too. Come on! It's fun ... having fun!

* That's a good technique to use to figure out what you want, by the way, in case you haven't figured it out clearly yet. Take a look at what you do. Those are huge clues right there about what you want out of life.

8 comments:

  1. In your defense, you've actually warned me NOT to conjure a demon for certain things. "You mean I can't conjure a goetic demon to force contact with my HGA? This is bullshit!"

    In my defense, just because I ended up capturing a legion of parasites rather than the ghost I thought I was getting, does not mean it isn't a great story. I'm sure those parasites were in 7th heaven in my spirit pot, devouring all of my offerings...sons of bitches...

    In the end the Saturn work to clean up the mess ended up being harder on me than the actual experiment.

    Lessons learned:
    1. It is wise to ask RO if he has been drinking before taking his advice.
    2. I'm sure I would have done it anyway. At least this way someone was around to help me figure out wtf was going wrong.
    3. I'm a cowboy, baby!

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  3. Lesson 1 is important.

    But even MORE IMPORTANT is Lesson 3.

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  4. Excellent take-aways Frater IV. And besides, we kinda HAVE to expect RO to screw with people once in a while, after all, quoth he, "This is not a bullshit free zone, this is the RO bullshit zone. Bullshit comes with the territory, and I'm a Taurus, for Christ's sake. There will be bullshit."

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  5. Nothing is true and everything is permitted eh?

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  6. Rusty, hasn't that been your experience to date?

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  7. Rusty, hasn't that been your experience to date?

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  8. I just tell people not to ask me some things... It works out way, way better. For everyone.

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