Magic

If you’re studying magic for the tricks, you’re studying for the wrong reasons.  It’s about seeking greater harmony with, and understanding of the natural world.  The most important aspect to recognize and appreciate is that the two primary forces of Creation are Fire and Water; the Sacred Masculine and Feminine respectively.  Nothing can be created without the participation of both.

Creation is a tragic comedy because Water and Fire can never directly touch, else they annhilate each other.  That’s why Air, or Mind, must exist between them.  Air lets them dance instead of cancel each other out.  It’s tragic that they can never touch, but because of that they can come infinitely closer without ever truly meeting.  The jouney together can be forever.  That’s the beauty part.

When two beings come together, one essentially masculine, one feminine, the outcome is a third being composed of both Fire and Water.  When Water and Fire dance within one being the product is imagination, Creativity.  We do not think with our mind, that’s just where it takes place.

The easiest way to wrap your head around how the Elements overlap, overlay and interpenetrate one another is to imagine spheres in a jar.  Picture a jar big enough to fit 5 fist-size spheres in it so that they’re snug together and rise just to the rim so the lid still goes on fine.  These densest, heaviest represent Earth, but spheres can never fit together perfectly.  There’s always going to be space between.  Now picture tinier spheres small enough to fit between the Earth ones, these represent Water.  Fill the jar with Water.  Now tinier still, between the Water spheres are Air.  Still smaller between is Fire.  And finally the finest Spirit, or Akasha.  It’s also a picture of Infinity because it could go on forever, privided one could keep making ever smaller spheres.

This jar analogy is appropriate because the Elements are a gradual densification of One Substance.  I consider Spirit to be Love because Love is the finest energy we have a word for.  Spirit gets a little denser to become Fire, which is the source of Light and revelation.  Fire cools to become Air, the mediator, which ficilitates the Dance.  Air doesn’t seek to get in the way and so offers no resistence to Light.  Water is clear, just like Air, but being a little denser does give some resistence to Light, beginning the depth, the dark.  While Light reveals, Darkness conceals, and so is born Her Infinite Mystery.  If you’re going to love only one Element, it should be Earth because She is where all the rest are differentiated, individuated, co-opperating and re-integrating.  By honouring Her, we honour them All.

Good and evil are not senonomous with Light and Dark.  Evil is a matter of choices, but because Darkness conceals, evil tends to hide there, when it’s not hiding in plain sight.  Positive and negative are also tremendously misleading ideas as they have a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ stigma.  The passive, receptive, magnetic Feminine principle would more appropriately be considered ‘Pull’ while the active, transmittive, electric Masculine principle ‘Push.’  …more to follow…

Magical pointers: All magical acts are is the gathering, consentration, focusing and intentional direction of energy to a specific purpose.  To achieve feats like lighting candles and moving objects, one must first develop an awareness and sensitivity of their entire being.  To work toward that goal, my suggestions are these: 1) two kinds of meditation, first, calm, content inner quietude.  Letting yourself just quietly sense your inner-world.  The second, imagine an apple (or any simple similar figure) for 5 minutes, or even one to start if it’s tricky to hold.  When you get good at holding only the figure in mind without drifting off, increase the time by a minute or 5.  2) two journals, one for sharpening your observation skills, try to notice interesting thing as you go about your day and record them and what you think they might mean.  The other, a dream journal.  Nature is all about through-flow, and magic flows through the Unconscious Mind, which is why they’ve so effectively knotted and tangled it up.  Keep it under your pillow and every night as you’re falling asleep tell yourself “I will remember my dreams” and when you wake write them in as much detail as you can remember, every little feeling and shard.  The better you get at remembering your dreams the more in tune with your depths you’ll get during waking life.  Be warned!  Personal demons are a huge insideous part of the controlling view they’ve given us and delving into your depths means facing them.  It’s kind of like The Shawshank Redemption…metaphorically speaking.  At least in some cases, it’s like  crawling through a river of sh*t-smelling foulness you wouldn’t want to imagine.

But we also can scarcely dream how beautiful the reign of Freedom can be.