RHIP

Every time we turn up the heat on our lives magically, every time we try to go deeper and squeeze a little more of that true nectar of the gods out of the creation of the world around us, more crap bubbles to the surface to be skimmed off, or consumed and transformed in hotter fires, or lower heats over longer times. There are brutal sessions of self-awareness that reveal the parts of us that have to be maintained, endured, weighed, measured, consumed in fire, and replaced with something entirely new. There are internal transformations that have to take place, and extended rigorous magical exercises that build up spiritual muscles. There's a spiritual fitness that has to be achieved and maintained if you want to keep going deeper.

Verily, there is a lot of shit to go through to get any kind of attainment when it comes to magic.

And why do we do it?

Why do we go through it over and over again? I mean, once a magician can create the most desired and fundamental goals of the people of our culture, riches, hot sex, fine wines, expensive cigars, delicious gourmet meals, options to live in whatever climate they desire, why do we keep going deeper instead of enjoying the rewards?

The reason we don't stop is because the process of getting these skills, scenarios, things and abilities, that process of ascending to the heavens and returning in power to create the world... it is wonderful. It is an experience of exquisite pure distilled awesomeness. It is chilled liquid orgasm of the Intelligence, the Spirit, and the Body of the magician that hits in perfect harmony across the planes of existence and the realms of the manifest and the unmanifest allatonce.

And after experiencing that, the money, comfort, material luxury that we can manifest just doesn't mean as much as they used to. They're still nice, don't get me wrong. But when you have experienced something better, the absence of that "better" is noticeable, and makes you long more for the thing that was better.

It's like when you're alone doing magic and analyzing and recording the results, vs. when you're with your lover discussing the ritual you've just completed together, writing up notes in your spiritual journals, and running divinations to get clearer details on the results of the Work together. Yes, you can do it alone, but it's not as good. It's still good, but ...

It's not as good.

When you've had better, you want more of it. And the more you get, the more you can get. It's like exercise that way, the more you lift, the more you can lift.

Doing practical manifestation magic, getting what you want, it's all a big trick. It takes advantage of your desire to have a thing, to live a lifestyle, to own a car and a boat and have a hot lover, and it teaches you how to do so, and at the same time teaches you that those things, though really cool and pleasing, are nothing compared to what they can be with magic. The things you want become magical things that make sense in the life of a magician doing magic that works. The lifestyle you want becomes a magical lifestyle, where you use the charts and tables of the grimoires to make your daily teas as well as your astrologically timed talismans. The fast cars and boats teach you that it was the love of controlled movement through time and space that you were after the whole time. The hot lover reveals the steaming intercourse between the manifest and unmanifest united as One in which we are, all of us participating in every moment.

Your life, your kingdom, it just sort of realigns itself to contribute towards the Great Work, all the time, and you look for ways to squeeze more of that feeling, that action, that union and harmony out of your existence. You play with it in your intellect, in your emotions, in your flesh. You breathe it in, and let the friction of the winds become a smoldering coal that ignites a fire in your soul. You push that creative force through yourself on all the levels at once, and you change the world.

The more we do this, the more we can do it. A pure desire for the experience of the creation (and destruction) of the world, your world, and the things in it will keep you focused on the reasons we are here, and why what we do matters.

This pure desire is a Holy Hedonism.

So this is why we do it, we ecstatic Hermetics. We love creating and experiencing things. We are mad scientists curious and entertained by their own inventions. We are children at play with our Genius, for the joy of the playing together instead of the the joy of The Game* played.

So the real reason we keep going deeper is because the deeper we go, the more of this we can experience and enjoy. It keeps getting better, like a beautiful romance. The more we do, the more we can do. We learn to help ourselves, and when we have more than we can need, we have time to look up and notice there are others who don't have enough, and we can pass that on, and keep getting more for our own enjoyment.

Hm... how else to put it? That's it, but too ... passive, I think.

Rank hath its privileges.

It feels good to do magic. It feels good to be able to do magic. I've conjured spirits and broken curses and removed people from situations for clients, and it feels great to be able to do those things. I'm on a project now focused on some mutual personal Work that is great, and we can only do it because of all the Work we've done before. I love what we're learning, I love what we're doing, but more than that I love the doing of it.

We get to do things other people can't do, too. We can take for granted that the magic we do for our resources will work, and so we can focus on collecting and assembling the resources as we see fit. We're artists with infinite supplies, we just have to put in our orders. We've learned how to manifest things** and how those things fit together to make new things. We can help other people. We have established, well-used good healthy relationships with the forces of the celestial, terrestrial, and chthonic realms. We get to conjure spirits that can only be commanded by those with the power and skill to handle them.

It feels really good to be able to rest in the knowledge that your magic is, for the most part, really goddamned scary effective. To be able to take that for granted, not to disrespect it or denigrate it, or to forget its value, but not to have to actively worry and doubt the effectiveness of your rites because you've seen them work so many times before. 

This is where it starts

It starts with sweat.

A quick review:

1. You learn that you're a light that is an extension of a single light that extended itself inward and slowed down and then extended itself inside its own extensions, apparently for the sole purpose of creating and experiencing custom individualized microcosms of the world it created and experienced. 
2. You learn that Magic offers you advanced Creation Training.
3. You learn a technique, preferably something simple and effective, like Hermetics, where you just conjure spirits and start working on creating your world right away.
4. You grow in strength, wisdom, and experience, and you do more.
5. You enjoy the work of your hands, and the hands of your work.
6. Repeat steps 3-5, but deeper, or higher.
7. Profit.

But while it's simple, it's not easy. It's a lot like what you do when you get physically fit. You learn to consume healthy fuel, you improve your efficiency at processing these nutrients through training and exercise. You increase your strength to use your increasingly efficient consumption and expression of the forces of creation. And you feel super good when you're doing the exercises. 

It doesn't happen over night. I've been seriously at this Great Work think for about 8 years. It's only been the last year that things have gotten really good. That was my own damned fault, and hopefully you aren't as stupid as I am. If I'd been on my game, I could probably have wrapped this development cycle up in 3-5 years, easily. It still wouldn't have been over night. And I'd still be just scratching the surface of the next adventure, just like I am now.

It isn't going to be all fun all the time. I opened this post with that black stuff coming to the surface to be consumed. Seems like there's always some black stuff to be consumed when you're going for more and better out of life. The only times I'm not dealing with some bullshit is that blessed period where I've just finished dealing with some bullshit, and I get to see how I did. You deal with bullshit, and it purifies a part of you, and you're able to materialize the force that had been twisted into the bullshit issues without it being bullshit. It becomes a tool you can use to improve your life instead of a stumbling block that's ruining just everything.

But it can be a real bitch to go through. When you're done crying, get up, and go do some more magic. It feels ... good. And it gets better.

RHIP.

* Yeah, you just lost it.

** Take the idea to Saturn, conjure the Archangel, get it to add the Saturnine bits required for manifestation, thank him and move along to Jupiter, repeat down the Tree to the Moon where you leave it with Her to turn over to the Elemental Kings. You don't have to micromanage.