Hermetic Musings
You will find the Hermetic Arts in many places. You will find parts of it and its theories and philosophy and practice in all religions, philosophies and belief systems. It is not, like some may have you believe, because Hermes “stole” from all religions…it is because the basic precepts of Hermetics is what all religious systems are based on. In one form or another, in some way or another.
This is the main reason I actually study Hermetics. I was searching for the root of it all, of all belief systems, the core of Universal thought, creation and etc. And so far…Hermetics is where I am at, in/around the Zorastrian/Babylonian type period. …possibly older than that…but I am not sure. Some of the next texts I need to read are not found online and I cannot afford to get my hands on a copy or afford the trips to go to the libraries I need to go. Though that will be changing in the near future.
Anyway that all is somewhat besides the point I was going to make here. That point being is that magic is actually much different than the New Age feel good versions of “universal law”. I have been told many times (by New Agers) that what they do is the same as magic. I do not find this to be altogether correct and especially not across the board.
Self help new age spiritualism if it is even that, may help some people feel good and make everything nice and easy for them and even some of the magic/mystic concepts and philosophy may be present to some degree. But the depth of that degree is quite shallow compared to genuine magic and mysticism. To say that what they do and what I do are the same, is frankly an insult to me and it’s not because I have a large ego…it is because they don’t fully understand magical potential.
Actually, I think a lot of people that say they practice magic really have no idea of the depths they can get to with it..though they may have a tiny inkling.
The differences between New Age, “Think it and you will have it” types of concepts (the law of attraction schtuff) are:
The amount and “type” of energy or essence, power (depth/breadth) of concentration and the application of these two from a spiritual level.
Most Ceremonial Magic requires you place your request in akasha (assuming a spiritual being/joining to god, sending energy/request to a specific being)
Which sounds very similar…since that is the way it is expressed or explained simply.
What a magician does actually though in those “simple” steps is:
Concentrate on the operation until it has weight independent of your mind so that it may flow with force towards its objective on all planes, a magician also can see or comprehend every force, situation, resistance and obstacle that blocks the operation and can direct the force around those obstacles by also again see/comprehend all possible outcomes, giving the operation more strength and weight for its manifestation. This actually makes it so your operation is from wisdom and results in harmony (magical equilibrium)
A magician does not just wish and hope and pretend they have something they want, the direct it.
So we will address the three major differences:
Amount of energy: A wish is not power. A wish is a wish. I wish I were rich, I need money. A wish is actually a negative term. It is not something tangible. It is not an action. It has no input…it’s not a container, it is simply a hope. Hopes do not manifest, desire through energetic intent, concentration and a spiritual understanding….A SOLID spiritual understanding (or you may read: synthesis) does manifest.
By spiritual I do not necessarily mean religious. I’m not a religious person. Spiritual in Hermetics it is most often the universal understandings of flow and force, some describe it as knowledge of the hierarchy, or divine inspiration..divine knowledge. Some simply call it power.
I talk to angels. They listen to me. I have talked to entire legions at a time and they have always done what I asked. Why? Because at those moments I have the proper equilibrium of energy, concentration and divine weight or we can say I am in the correct spiritual alignment to do so.
So does this mean I just pick up the cosmic phone and dial up Remeil and people start spontaneously healing and a butt-load of cash is dumped on my front porch? Hardly. But things do get accomplished and it’s not a rare occurrence. People have been doing this and similar for eons.
Linus reminded me of something. He related a story about .. oh sure now I forget the guys name. But the idea is the same. One man could expel demons out of possessed people by uttering simple words, “Leave in the name of Christ” (or something like that). So another exorcist tried to use those simple words and the demon turned to him and says, “I know who Christ is, I know who the other guy is, but who are you?” And with that the demon possessed the man.
Perfect example of what I am trying to talk about here. If you are not in the correct state of balance with what you are working with, it not only will not work it actually could be dangerous. Possibly you would not be possessed, but any number of not great things could happen to a person because of the “backfire”.
Reminds me of a favorite phrase of mine, “Do not mettle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.”
Type of energy: Here I’m not getting into magnetic and electrical fluid and flows nor am I talking negative positive stuff here. I’m talking about raw primal energy. The stuff that creates. Dynamic, powerful, explosive and intense. Sovereign divine power seeking absolute control. The stuff that does not just hope around obstacles, it is the dynamic will and expansive power, with implacable dedication and electrifying conviction.
You could say that independence, strength, courage, conviction, faith, will, determination, dedication, self-reliance, self-mastery, uprightness, clarity, order, adaptability, practicality, planning, productivity, excitement, exhilaration, creativity, and vision are qualities that are present when this operates successfully.
Fantastic claims? Yes they are…but truer words could not be spoken.
This is where people will get all wiggly on me and start blasting away at how I must be an ego-maniac to be going on about power and control. Nej, quite the opposite. I’m just describing what it is and it is what it is and that is what it is. However, those who are ego driven and those who really are out for control and manipulation of others hardly ever get to this place. Though, there are some that have, I have met a few. They are no more powerful or influential as anyone else can be……but they do have harming intentions.
If ever in your life, you have glimpsed even for just one brief moment of a second the power of the divine…even the power of God…it is what I am describing. I’m not saying you are god or anything..I’m just saying…it’s some of that ultimate stuff that is there to learn how to touch and when you do…well…if you haven’t touched that yet…I’ll leave you to it.
Though.. in the hermetic art there is something you don’t always hear about in other systems…and that is this extenuating consciousness factor. We can say that black magicians have found a way around this and I’ll leave them out of the discussion.
What the ECF is is the forces of the universe…the fluids, that place you and your will in a sort of check. Again this is where the magical equilibrium comes into play.
The question the electrical fluid will ask you in terms of your faith and conviction is “Are you willing to work without using magic to attain what you want if we set a clear path before you?” You want money? Are you willing to work for it? Here is a job. Do you want love? Are you willing to first give the love you want to others? You want to succeed in life? Are you willing to prepare yourself so that you will be ready to seize the opportunity when it comes to you? The electrical likes to check up on just how much you really want what you are asking for.
Think of it as universal checks and balances. I know it sounds a little trite and to some probably sounds a bit “new agey”…but here is my experience summed up nicely:
Hermetics is the art of attaining a constant and consistent magic. One that you will not have to necessarily always do ceremony for, one that you will not always have to do supplication or prayer/meditation for. Once you get so far into Hermetics, it opens up ways of life that you do not have to take special time to do magic…it’s all magic. As the sentence above states, are you willing to work for what you want if we set a clear path.
When your path is cleared through your magic, any human work becomes easy, all the tasks to take you where you want to go are nothing. The Universe opens up for you. And…the best part, those around you are also affected similarly.
However this may sound…and feel free to comment on any of this…most of it I am just rambling anyway, as I feed my need for communication…but truly…when Hermetics is grasped, and understood as completely as possible by an individual…after they have gone through what it takes to be as balanced as possible…there opens a type of life that …as close as I can describe it..is completely divine.
I have had that life….I got sidetracked. And thank you to a special person I am back onto that life. The effects since I have become better and gotten back to my Hermetic life are quite remarkable. It is still a long road ahead, but the point is…there is now a road and it’s not as rough as it was.
Concentration
Some interesting things:
Billy Graham used to say “Don’t pray for more than a minute at a time.” Well that is Protestant Christianity.
I have also been chastised by Tibetan monks for practices in meditation lasting more than ten minutes. When I first started going through IIH I would find myself in meditation for hours at a time.
Even longer when I started working the spheres and vibrating elemental sigils. Six hours has been the longest I’ve spent with an elemental in the astral plane and that was with an Undine.
This is not about bragging…it is about concentration and hand in hand with that is patience. I have noticed something rather peculiar about the New Agers I have met. They are all extremely impatient and uptight people…oddly enough. Sure, a lot of them on the surface show this calm, peaceful demeanor…but underneath and if you spend a large amount of time with a good number of them…they are a pretty rowdy bunch as far as this type of stuff is concerned. It surprised me…and I do not surprise often.
Bardon teaches you how to hone your concentration skills in IIH…it’s extremely important for successful work. It also very much does take self strength and discipline and dedication. You learn a lot about yourself on the way.
And even if you don’t plan on toning spheres or spending time communing with elementals…it is still a good quality to have.
I often smile when I find a person who is so concentrative, so into what they are doing you can tell the entire world has disappeared for them except for what they are currently involved in. If they aren’t a magician…they would make a rather exceptional one, since that concentration comes so naturally.
Children naturally have good concentration skills. Watch one once, while they are playing…especially if they are investigating something. It’s wonderful to watch. Magical even.
This type of concentration is much different from those employed in the “think it, be it” crowd. They are still wishing, shallowly concentrating on that wish, pretending on that wish. Some might even be successful to a certain degree…but then what do they do if they get their wish? They stop thinking about it, stop concentrating on it.
Reminds me of sympathetic magic. Tie some knots in a green string while you repeat a get rich now mantra then bury it under a full moon with a piece of silver as an offering and you will probably find $50.00 in a few days. But then what? What happens when that stops working?
Sympathetic magic is well and fine and it does work…but really that is all the “think it, be it” crowd is doing. There is no depth here…they do not feel it in the core of their being, they do not know it, they hope it.
With Bardon you train your concentration on your five senses. Again, all five are important. Training all five senses enables you to use more of your brain when you concentrate. You learn to sit at least for ten minutes concentrating on each sense by itself without any distraction. It takes time. It takes motivation. This is quality control. You get the training you need and then it is much easier to do the work.
A friend of mine wrote:
“Why is concentration important? After all, there is a lot of energy in the universe. All you need to do is tap into it. Just open your heart with faith, say what you want, and imagine yourself as having it. It will come to you. What is with this magical training crap?
If you want justice, there are people who have made a life long commitment to injustice. If you want wealth, there are people who will try their hardest to steal and corrupt your soul as they offer you wealth. If you have good energy to give, there are negative people who devour good energy. They take it and turn it into something horrible. And if your thoughts are positive there are people who specialize in taking positive thoughts and turning them into discord.
Concentration enables your good energy and good intentions to cut through negativity the way a laser cuts through metal. Thought is like light that falls on your skin. It gives warmth and lights your way in the dark. Synchronize the wave lengths of light and you can create temperatures that cause nuclear fusion. It becomes a power of creation. You concentrate your thoughts and they overcome what opposes them.
Athletes know how to concentrate. Martial artists know how to concentrate. Actors know how to concentrate. They can cry just by thinking a thought.
I have met masters in the business world who takes years of experience and concentrate all that knowledge into one moment when they are looking for an answer to a problem. Nothing else in the world exists but the problem they are concentrating on. Their brains are that focused.”
Last thing.. the spiritual difference. The authority with which you ask.
“I know who Christ is, I know who the other guy is, but who are you?”
Of course, a simple prayer to God puts you in touch with the divine, right??
Prayer does not assume the stance of a spiritual being that initiates new things and takes full responsibility for his actions. Prayer does not enter a spiritual plane of awareness. It does not join itself to divinity. It does not incorporate the skills of someone who labors within the “Divine Workshop.” Heh.. I almost feel like Santa right about now.
The spiritual plane for Bardon is akasha. It is a timeless and spaceless state of awareness. Akasha is the plane of causes. It is from this level that everything that exists has been created and it is here that the world is supervised and maintained. This is where you place things with great will and intent and the other three planes do what is necessary to manifest it.
The new agers have developed that law of attraction movie…
You can send out great and wonderful energy to others and to your wish. You can visualize it. Dream it. Imagine real right now. But the world may exhibit incredible inertia and massive resistance to your wish. You make a wish but laid out before you is an emotional and mental tsunami, a tornado, a pyroclastic flow. It picks you up, it picks a car up, it picks a house up and tosses them around as if they are nothing at all.
Akasha is the first key and the gateway to all the mysteries–to relax so, to be calm, to open from within, to be so still, you reflect easily within yourself the being and the life of all that exists.
The akashic plane supersedes or suspends the laws of physics and law of attraction. In other words, you can create and place causes here that do not exist on the three lower planes. On the akashic plane you can create something out of nothing. There is no equal and opposite reaction on this level of creation. With skill, training, and inspiration you can create causes that nothing can oppose.
Newton in his physics did not know about akasha. Steven Hawking does know about it and puzzles over it finding it hard to comprehend.
For Bardon, entering akasha is simply practicing a combination of concentrations.
If you do the combination of concentrations, you are within everything, you are a part of everything, you are the source of everything, and you know the original purpose behind everything that exists. And so consequently you are sovereign over everything.
Tada!
With that, I leave you for now with a small poem written by my buddy Bill:
There is no vice I can not twist or bend
And make again into its opposite virtue
There is no compulsion or obsession I can not
So fill with light it becomes kind and bright
There is no ill will or malice I can not
Convert into chivalry or true nobility
There is no crunch or karmic bind, no evil intent or design
I can not refine within my mind
Into contentment and absolute satisfaction
Transpersonal Dialoguing II
Recently I made the mistake of asking if something was indeed there or if I was manifesting it myself…and consequently I physically choked on my answer. Which…I should have noticed, without interaction, that the item I was seeing/experiencing was, in fact, operating in its own sphere of responsibility, independent of my contact with it.
Simply I had forgotten something that I knew/know…which is…
when there is an encounter in a meditation/dialogue.. it is best to stand back in silence and let the spirit/being come to you
…which in my case it did do after I was silent…I received a phrase in my head which clearly indicated that it or they did not have time for me. Because this/these spirits/entities were around the goal of my meditation…instead of heeding them…I pressed on…again because I forgot the nature of this exercise…and when I made an inquiry…I received my answer.. choking…too big for you…move on,,,move on.
It is very clear to me now that these items were indeed not my own manifestation, they were the spirits/entities the subject of my meditation was working with (with or without their knowledge) at the time…and they were all busy.
Another way to check if indeed it is something you are encountering in spirit or if it is a manifestation of your own making is to evaluate the quality of the experience.
If you are getting the feeling of power, intense feelings or magifyed sensations….BUT you do not feel as if you are becoming whole within yourself….this is when you need to take a step back and focus on what you are experiencing rather than relating it to a specific being.
Basically…feel it…don’t be or become it…don’t let it engulf you… when you are not in wholeness…erm….well when you feel overpowered or like you may “lose it”… you are not focusing on the experience…you are focusing on what it is doing to you…when the experience reconciles with you…(if it ever does) and you begin to feel the sense of being whole or fulfiled…you are one step further into the I/Thou experience of it. Though you cannot get through this if you are not properly centered within yourself. We hope that at the very worst in an attempt to do this without being centered that simple feelings of drowning or being overloaded with rampant energies would be the outcome. Though one can never be too careful.
I would suggest anyone’s first dialoguing attempt be with something quiet and simple…as with a flower or a blade of grass. Although things found in nature can be brutally overpowering…I have yet to be overwhelmed by small plants…however…this does not mean that it is not an awesome nor unfulfilling experience. The heights and depths a blooming tulip can take you to is actually quite astounding…and may leave you speechless the first times it is successfully accomplished.
In the third-eye chakra, one aspect is that a person can be able to be separate – detached and objective…all the while being completely one with it and still percieve all connections to other things.
“Achieving the art of detachment beyond “small mindedness” is accomplished through developing impersonal intuitive reasoning. It is through an open brow chakra that visual images are received.” – About.com
In dialoguing this psychic quality moves freely…feelings, senses, meditations..through clarity though the oneness or wholeness is never lost. In the sense that energies are ever flowing/changing/moving… never will you have the same experience twice…and never will you learn everything there is to know…as what there is to know…changes with time.
A lot of the time my dialogues will come out in a poem or short story…but more often than not it comes in a string of phrases and images. Some of these results will mean one thing to me, while it may mean something totally different to another. This usually has to do with my intent in the dialogue. If I am using the dialogue to expand my awareness of personal situations (though unlikely I will share publicly)..more often it will have a totally different meaning to another. However, if I am simply dialoguing to feel…say the spirit of water…or an Undine specifically…then I have what I have at (usually) the behest of the spirit. I may ask questions..what I recieve as an answer may be an image, may be inspiration for a poem..may actually be a poem..several times it is too much to put into words…such as my encounters with certain Undines in the past..of which I usually just end up crying for a few hours on the beauty and love I have witnessed and fail miserably when I try to put it all down in writing.
This is really nothing new…people from many traditions over many centuries have done this in one form or another. I was introduced to it with a personal (human and physical) guide, who was nice enough to talk me through it almost every step of the way…but really…for anyone practiced in meditation…it just takes a tweaking of the energies..then removing yourself long enough to attune your energies to the object of your dialogue. Sometimes it works best if you can touch it…or feel it. Say…you want to commune with water..you may sit by or in the ocean..or you may just have a bowl of water. I remember in my practice..once I was able to attune to something…the direct contact with it was not always a necessity.
Meaning & Communication
In the words of the lovely D.H. Lawrence,
“When it comes to the meaning of anything, even the simplest word, then you must pause. Because there are two great categories of meaning, forever seprate. There is mob-meaning, and there is individual meaning. Take even the word bread. The mob-meaning is merely: stuff made with white flour into loaves that you eat. But take the individual meaning of the word bread: the white, the brown, the corn-pone, the homemade, the smell of bread just out of the oven, the crust, the crumb, the unleavened bread, the shew-bread, the staff of life, sourdough bread, cottage loaves, French bread, Viennese bread, black bread, a yesterday’s loaf, rye, Grahm, barley, rolls, Bretzeln, Kringeln, scones, damper, matsen—there is no end to it all, and the word bread will take you to the ends of time and space, and far-off down avenues of memory. But this is individual. The word bread will take the individual off on his own journey, and its meaning will be in his own meaning, based on his own genuine imaginative reactions. And when a word comes to us in its individual character, and starts in us the individual responses, it is a great pleasure to us.”
-Pornography and Obscenity, Harry T. Moore, ed., D.H. Lawrence: Sex, Literature and Censorship, 1953. pp 70-71
If the word “bread” cannot do justice to what it means to us as individuals, how much more frustrating must words be when we try to speak and write of that which is truly most sacred?
We CANNOT describe the sacred accurately with “mob-meaning”. When the sacred speaks to us, it speaks to us as an individual….speaks directly into our heart. Any words used to describe our experience are derivative.
Most often men tend to wrestle with words…in an effort to squeeze more meaning out of them. In so doing, fanaticism and obsessions with forms over substance, and a totally unwarranted, undeserved, sense of spiritual understanding/mission. The words become the source of truth and Truth is skewed.
2 Corinthians 3:6 – “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life”
Neither spoken nor printed, words do not speak for themselves. They occur in contexts, within contexts, within larger contexts. We, as spiritual human beings, choose which contexts to attend, and which to ignore. In this we put our fallible human judgment at the very core of our task of spiritual interpretation.
Thinking in terms of understanding…
When a person communicates each communication invokes three people per person. In a conversation of two, six are communicating in reality. An illustration….
Two people physically present open a dialogue, there should be six persons actually communicating… let’s count….
1) The person speaking…in this case me.
2) The person listening…in this case…someone else.
That takes care of both physical persons.
3) The person who hears what I am saying with their perception of their reality applied.
4) Me, who hears what I am saying with my perception of my reality applied.
5) The person who hears me with their perception of how I percieve them applied.
6) Me, who hears me with my perception of how I percieve them applied.
When a person interacts with another… they are not only dealing with the material that is put forth…but their perception of the material within their reality….their perception of the person who presents the material… and their perception of what the person presenting thinks of them.
Sounds like a circle.. it does make sense, although I am not sure if my communication is up to par today.
Do we ever really know or understand a person… thoroughly I mean… well even not thoroughly…….. if when we communicate we have all these other things going on…. how could we possibly ever really truly know someone?
Since what/who a person is is one thing….and our loved one’s perceptions are their own….they cannot see or feel through us in entirety… do we only know what we want to know…see what we want to…cover the rest?
Transpersonal Dialoguing I
Firstly I will try to explain what Transpersonal Dialoguing is. And to do that I will start off with a borrowed quote from a friend of mine,
“Dialoguing is way of processing our experience. It connects us with
archetypal and spiritual energies. It gives us a chance to respond
personally to an encounter with magical beings or god/goddess images and
also with nature. Even when we may move into a sacred space during the
conversation, our own thoughts and feelings remain central in the
interaction.
Conversations can take place on many levels. We can interact
verbally and also non-verbally. We can talk to a friend in a casual,
everyday setting. We can talk to God with the same casual familiarity.
We can also enter into a meditative trance or speak from the center of a
magick circle after preparing ourselves in a ritual manner. In each case,
there is a different quality and strength to in the connection and the
level of concentration we employ. Eventually, dialoguing becomes magick.
It naturally turns into telepathy, clairsentience, clairvoyance, and
evocation. At the same time, it is a helpful tool reminding us to stay
centered within ourselves.”
-Wiliam Mistele
We all dialogue at some point. Usually it is the dialogue with you, within yourself that leads us into a transformation of the self. I have practiced dialoguing for several years, however, without a real goal…plus have not practiced much of anything for the last several years. Now I have a goal in mind…several really and need to get down to some serious practice if I am going to transform myself in such a way as to attain these goals.
Notes in dialoguing:
To reach full dialogue potential, it is imperative to remain objective and keep a curious/questioning attitude. It is easy to get caught up in and find yourself asking, “Is this real or am I projecting this image/conversation?” This is natural. As you practice with dialoguing you realize the necessity of determining whether or not it is all from you or another entity is not important.
A Magicians Power – Installment One
Often we hear that many study magic in the interests of becoming a powerful magician. What does that mean? Is it possible, and what are the intentions of the people who cite this as their reason for the practice and study of magic?
It is no surprise to the serious occultist that most notable magicians of the past died very similarly. Some were hopelessly addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, some were jailed, burned, beheaded for violating cultural and societal laws of the time, some were blatant criminals, some were charlatans of the least and worst sort. Though most of them died penniless, leaving behind only their words and life history (or what is left of them).
Other than their occult works, most seem to have held relatively unremarkable lives, most did not go down in the annals of history as successful millionaires, philanthropists or really any sort of remarkable characters. So what leads the would-be modern magician to the idea that he/she will gain power, glory, riches and fame?
We can attempt to go on with the assumption that since we surely have not heard publicly of all magicians in the world, that some of those that are people in positions of power or wealthy have been or are magicians. Why not? It’s a safe assumption. Surely there are more successful occultists in the world that are not touting books or who go on public speaking sprees across the country. It would also make sense that these people would not jeopardize their gained status and wealth by announcing how they really made their fortunes. If any of this was remotely and feasibly able to be studied, surely the results would be most interesting.
Even in this attempt at justifying one’s search for “power,” there is still no good reasoning. If the modern magician is going on this assumption then how does he know whether or not these supposed elite and wealthy occultists that we have no technical proof of, would even be practicing the same things that can be easily found by Google or Amazon in the way of magical study?
So now let us examine this “need for power”. It would seem the online habits of those that claim they study magic for power are suspect. In general they are or seem to be young individuals that most probably feel out of control in their own lives. Teenagers are the easiest and most perfect example of this.
Most children are not in control of their lives and usually the time we see expression of the effects of this is as they reach adolescence and are on the verge of going out into the world alone, thus not being “controlled” at all or as much as when they are living at home.
It is generally accepted that adults tell teens how to act, what to do and so forth. In general this is supposed to be the natural conditioning of a person in order for them to better “fit in” and function within society. These teenage years are also when you see the most rebellion against people telling them how to act and what to do. In essence, they feel powerless to control anything in their lives. However, when they come across magic some (not all) see it as a way to overcome or overthrow all those necessary disciplinary and social conditionings. The study and practice of magic seems to call to these kids as a way to regain control over their lives. It is a way they can feel like they are making decisions about things that affect them, a way to control what is happening.
Do not be deceived however, this does not just happen to adolescents, there are many adults that go on this maniacal magic power trip as well and the jury is still out who is more dangerous to themselves.
Ultimately it is a harmless exercise for the most part and a great many teenagers “grow out of” this type of thinking. Just as the teenagers that use drugs or other crime to create the illusion of power and control over their lives, we hope, grow out of it. A phase some say.
So let us now examine what power truly is.
Simply uttering the word, power, conjures up a melee of images and negative ones at that. When one uses this term people can infer a great many things from manipulation, domination and coercion among other even more negative concepts. However, there is a more positive and enlightening way of gaining, having and using power that unfortunately most people do not think of firstly at the use of the word.
Recognizing power, who has it or when you have it is something that indeed, should be managed in a physical, psychological and in a good number of cases, spiritual way. If we think of power as a neutral tool within our grasp and not as something to be horded or used to dominate others it can be extremely useful in life, not to mention within the paradigms of magic.
In most magical thought processes, if you are living, learning and practicing in a healthy and balanced way, the realization of power is more tuned into a feeling of ecstasy and not the “charged” vibrations of ultimate power, or glory. Invariably, the way we think of power, its gain and its use is of the utmost importance. To BE powerful and to FEEL powerful seem also to be two separate entities. One is an illusion.
Any sort of person can do any sort of action to feel powerful depending on the person and the situation. People, who beat their children, in some way, feel powerful. They apparently feel so out of control and powerless within themselves they seek to control something/someone around them and unfortunately all too often this ends in violence and because of this illusion of power and control, it continues.
Those who cheat, lie, or steal feel powerful especially if they get away with it. Because they are doing something no one knows about, they have a ‘secret’ and that gives them the illusion of power.
There are some who are in extreme positions, may it be governmental or business. Those in charge of things in an organization are powerful in the sense that they have the say in the organization about how things are done. Some of these people also are operating out of the feeling or illusion of power and in these cases, because of their position; they often do not recover from the way they behave because the negative power concept is reinforced by their position.
Do even these people have any real power over others? No. Sure, they may have the authority to fire you, cut your hours, and “ruin” you in your career. But ultimately no one has true power over another. We all make our choices in a free and organized society, even if that choice is to be subjugated.
The sad fact is…the majority of the people who use their authority as power to wield over others ultimately are not healthy people, most of their personal lives are in a mess and really while they act as if they are better than everyone else, they are just as common as the most common of us.
So then we have explored a few of the negative aspects of power and the illusionary concept of power, so what of real power, the people who are powerful, that does not simply feel powerful?
Oddly enough, most people who possess true power often don’t feel powerful at all. However, they also don’t feel powerless. We can say power is related to a sense of wholeness. When this is lacking, power dissipates….when this dissipates the vessel of power within tries to maintain this state.
Let us not then confuse wholeness with the common description of enlightenment. It seems once these two words are uttered a good number of people resort to something like, “But I am not an enlightenment freak.” In the context of this article wholeness is a oneness we have to ourselves.
When we accept who we are, where we are in life, take responsibility for the same and decide to then either further our great life or to improve upon it. For the purposes of this article wholeness refers to understanding, knowing and accepting ourselves.
Some will say this is merely New Age hodgey-podgey, though it really is not. Mystics, magicians, philosophers, metaphysicians, occultists, saints, religious people and even social scientists, anthropologists and those in the psychiatry world have all been saying this throughout the ages.
This writer has seen this truth emerge over and over again and in practice, as well, there is proof in the validity of it. Try it out for yourself. Whether you study high magic, low magic, Hermetics, Kabala, or Mysticism, it is all there.
This place you reach we are calling wholeness opens up a great gateway for the magician. It is a paramount understanding and balance within which greatly affects our outer world. Once this place is reached, it is not that magic becomes easier, it becomes more effective. The same is reflected in life. Being whole or under a concept of wholeness does not make life’s troubles less, but it makes you more effective in solving those troubles.
