The Magician Transition

Jow's comment on yesterday's post got me thinking about the difference between a magician and a magician-to-be. There is no doubt that we go through a transition between being a socially awkward misfit who doesn't understand the point of "society" (or maybe understands it too well) to a grimoire-following, spirit conjuring participant in the manifestation of reality.

Then again, as we learn the language and symbols of magic, we gain a context that explains many of our experiences in our youth. One of the first things the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) does is take you on a review of your life, demonstrating its influence at every twist and turn, showing you all the times it protected and empowered you, leading you to the point where you established communion with him (or her, but not "it"). The magician truly is born as such into the world, as the Arbatel teaches.

But there's a transition between ignorant participant and mostly aware magician. Looking at my own experience and that which my friends have shared, I think we tend to go through a period of gaining knowledge, gaining expeience, and gaining training to understand the revelation that comes when we experience something like Knowledge and Conversation with the HGA (KCHGA). We're drawn into the occult by a fascination, an irresistible calling in our youth. We spend a lot of time reading, pursuing, testing, and moving on through different occult systems of varying popularity. As we do, astrological forces and initiatory ordeals manifest in our lives, preparing us, guiding us towards a vision of transcendence, a moment where the universe is stripped away and we can see all the pieces and parts of Truth scattered and hidden throughout the systems we've studied snap together to give us a glimpse of how everything works.

I've tried to shorten this period, because it seems like what a lot of us are doing is reverse engineering the basic underlying neo-platonic cosmology. We start with GD interpretations, and work our way back through the source materials until we're immersed in the third century AD, and there discover the foundational bedrock of the Hermetic system. I wrote the Neo-Platonics Basics series as a shortcut to the truth, as I understood it. At the same time, to facilitate the applied heat that transmutes the knowledge into wisdom, I had people start Working with their HGA, Genius, or Solar Intelligence.

I don't think I have succeeded. I think, ultimately, no one can hasten the intiation of another. The best we can hope for is that the pieces of truth we present have missing pieces that will contribute to their revelation of their place in the universal hierarchy, when the time comes. Still, I hope to provide as much philosophical gold as I can. I should probably adjust the signal to noise ratio of my blog.

I've argued before that the Spirit Model is the One True Model(TM), and put together that post that details my current understanding of what that means. I have tried GD-style magic, Crowleyan stuff, Chaos Magic, and a whole slew of Eastern and Near-Eastern practices I picked up on from my dad's career as a Reflexologist. I've done chakra meditations and activations, I've used "psychic warfare" techniques to build shields and make daggers out of mental "energy." I've done Celtic, Druidic, and American-Neo-Pagan too. I fully embraced Chaos Magick, with a "k" and everything for a couple of years.

I got better.

But everything I did in my life leading up to my conversion experience and subsequent KCHGA is completely annihilated by the simple power, or force I see manifesting things in my life. No other approach even begins to touch the raw power I find in the Intelligences and Spirits of the Planets and their terrestrial counterparts. They're immense! They're powerful. They're pleased to work with mankind.

The transition to becoming a magician is definitely there, and I don't think we qualify as full-on Heroes as magicians until we've at least hit that moment of transcendental understanding of the Mechanics of the Universe. I always hated that description, it makes it sound like an engine or motor. It's mechanical, yeah, but in the same way a symphony is. The beings that are the "Mechanics" are more like musicians and master instrument crafsmen.

When you reach that point, you get a glimpse of your own relatonship to the whole. You see your divine nature, you understand that you are literally a "Child of God," that Christ (LOGOS) is your Brother, and that your extended family includes every Name of God he's ever used to get a point across to his kids. When you see that you are of the divine race, you see the source of your power as a magician. You understand it. Then you begin learning how to do Magic, and you learn the value of what you do. You see the results of your Work in the universe from an eternal perspective, and you know the impact you have on other people, and the world around you.


At that point, when you've reclaimed your divine race and reached an understanding of the value you add to the world by being what you are, you begin the Great Work. Everything else is just preparation for the Work. When you hit this point, you finally begin achieving your potential, by taking your wisdom, experience, and knowledge and creating the universe according to the principles you've discovered.

The Power to be a Magician

Magicians are a rare breed. I personally think they're the equivalent of Iamblichus' "Hero" classification of entities. That makes us like Hercules, half immortal and half mortal.

I base this on the Corpus Hermeticum's Divine Pymander, where it talks about the reason Man became flesh, and the nature of Man. Iamblichus would have been familiar, I suspect, of this basic Hermetic belief, writing as he did in Egypt in the neoplatonic period. Man is the Image of the First Father, and is an immortal on par with the Logos in the original hierarchy. Man wanders down through the spheres, pokes his head into Nature, sees a reflection of himself and falls in love. Next thing you know, Nature's created an image of the reflection, because She's in Love with Man's image too. Both can be excused for their infatuation when it is understood that Man was the Image of the First Father. Man cohabits the image made by Nature, and voila, Humankind is created, immortal by being of divine race, mortal in form, and all for the sake of love.

Isn't it romantic?

So we're Heroes. Now obviously, we aren't going around with the strength of the Gods, going on fateful quests, and creating a new cycle of myths for the next generation to evaluate and draw insight from, are we?

Well, honestly, we are. Magicians have the strength of the Gods. We are the image of God, and are aware of "their" divine race. We accomplish creation in an ongoing process that follows God's path of manifestation, through Word and spirits, to accomplish the manifestation of our thoughts.

We go on fateful quests. We work with certain spirits, and the next thing you know you're surrounded by opportunities to implement the experience you've gained. The fates align our reality to accomplish specific goals.

And the new cycle of myths? How many people have poured over Crowley's life, gaining insight and inspiration? Dione Fortune, Mathers, Westcott, Regardie, and the more obscure members of the GD left diaries and records of their Works that have provided our generation of magicians with wisdom and clues to finding our own paths of gnosis. We are currently Working in a time that will become poured over by the next generation of magicians. This Traditional Magic revival we're going through is going to be a page in occult history that feeds the next big movement in thirty years.

Not everyone who happens to be human is a magician. I've had people ask me whether talent or skill is more important, and I've answered both ways and neither in the past. Right now I think everyone can develop the talent, but not everyone is destined to do so. Skill comes with experience, experience comes from being called to the occult, which means you have to have the talent to hear and respond, so it's all pretty incestuous. I think I can get away with saying usually the talent is present before the skills are developed, but both talent and skill increase with practice. They are interdependent on one another.

The Power of a Magician comes from their relationship with the First Father. Being made in his image, we can do "magic" the same way he can. Our thoughts become reality. We can create. We converse with the Angels and Daimons and other Heroes, and we work together to make things happen. It is from our divine nature that the power to be a magician flows.

Arrrrrgggghhhh! Abdul Alhazred, curse your final Work...

Hokey shit time.

Ok, so I get started on this one super cool writing project, and I am approximately 70% complete. So in the middle of some dryish research, Jason says, "I want to read a book on Astral Warfare..."

And I'm working on the Lunar Intelligence and Spirit, right? I'm like totally in the right place to begin an Astral Warrfare book. So Ok, I'm sitting here researching my Astral Warfare book using time-tested traditional resources (think: H.P. Lovecraft), and what do I find in The Whispers in Darkness? The Magical Nom de Plum of the fuse on this time bomb, Jason Miller. "I was into Enochian," he said, "when I was given the Name Inominandum..."

And so it is, of course, that I am off to the DuQuette Enochian Vision Magick book with my pendulum and SDA in hand, searching for the next step in this strange masquerade...

A couple of Assholes, from France of all Places

So a friend of mine writes this book and publishes it on Lulu. It's new age, it's about astral warfare, and its not really my approach to spirituality in general. Regardless, it was her work, her effort, and her words. She published and marketed it completely by her self.

So these French guys translated it and are selling it in France now. When she found out, she promptly contacted them. Their response?

You react as a child, you treat me as thief it is incredible.
Our brother Tau Zorobabel did a BIG job by translating your book into French.
Did you think of all poor persons who does not speak Englishman ???
Your book put in Frenchman one a Honourable thing for you and for other persons who need to be helped.

If your book is in Frenchman, it is because DIVINE PROVIDENCE allowed it.

Fr :. Luxaour

Nice, eh? Apparently God's Divine Providence sanctions theft. Wonder how well that will stand up in court.

So if you're in France and you know these guys, punch them in the face on behalf of the author they have stolen from. Fraters Tau Zorobabel and :. Luxaor are thieves. Don't buy anything they sell, and if you move in their magical circles, let their actions be trumpeted from the roof tops.

Why I'd make a lousy cult leader

A friend asked me today why I don't just try to form a cult to get rich and never have to work again.

I've belonged to various cults, Christian and Hippy alike, and they're pretty lame, for one thing. For another, being a cult leader takes a lot of work. Their lives suck. Lawsuits from families, your followers get abducted and deprogrammed, and the day to day administration of a cult is a wearying task. The trouble with people giving their lives over to you is that you have to make all their decisions for them, and they always find some problem in their daily drama that isn't covered by the freakin' commandments you lay down as guidelines. Eventually you set up a buffer zone of followers who are "in" the inner circle, and you've got a couple of years of decent relaxation while they handle shit for you, but then one of them takes the cult over.

Fuck that.

Besides, what kind of magical cult could I really found?  The Magic I'm into teaches people to think for themselves. Or at least to think like me, and I'm done with cults. Once people made it past the Grammar stage, they'd be like... I'm keeping my shit for me. Fuck off.

So yeah, I'd totally make a lousy cult leader.