A Different Take Options

Almost every magickal paradigm shares one basic practice with regard to a complete Noob: they require the Noob to take on a new name as a symbol for referencing a new “magickal personality”.

Considering this has caused me to start wondering and contemplating this common practice.

Seems to me that this “magickal personality” is an Artifical Entity. By “artifical” I do not mean what fake, which how that term is popularly used. Instead, I mean created. Specifically: a “magickal personality” is that which a Noobie Mage names and creates – and then subsequently gradually grows through various stages through working the Art.

Yet that Artifical Entity is not a servitor.

That which basically differentiates a servitor and a “magickal personality” compared to each other is: a servitor is created for operating independent to a Mage – while a “magickal personality” is not created for operating independent to a Mage. Indeed, a "magickal personality" is that which a Mage puts on, enters into, operates from within... etc...

Another difference is that servitors can be grown to become egregores – while a “magickal personality” are grow to become something else. But before I get into what “magickal personalities” grow to become, I am going to associate a single, and ancient, term here for simply referencing “magickal personalities” and for providing an intuitive ledge from which you might be able to leap ahead and grasp what I am getting at here before I spell this out a bit more.

Instead of being a servitor, a “magickal personality” is an Avatar.

Yeah – I know that specific term has been hurled around according to all kinds of ways over the years. And I know where the word originally is from – and how it is most often popularly used these days to reference either picture icons, or video game personae. Yet I hope that, given the flexibility of the term over time, you will be able to allow me to use it here as I have (and will) - and that you playfully will be able to try it on, and “run with it” a bit as I am using it here - without mistakenly thinking that I am talking about Hinduism, picture icons, video games, or however else anyone else has used the word avatar.

So – to move on – in a nutshell, here is what I discern:

A Noobie Mage creates and names an Avatar. The Avatar is a vehicle through which a Mage then successively cultivates during magickal work. To use the differentiation of magickal work as I have been elsewhere in these forums: such methods can generally be considered as either thaumaturgical or theurgical.

Theurgical magick work results with growing the Avatar for eventual consummation with the so-called “Higher Self” or “Holy Guardian Angel” or “Divine Genuis” (or whatever a specific pathway prefers to call it).

Okay – what do you folks think about this assessment and explanation?

I can already have some questions of my own further along this line that I am considering, such as:

1. Is said consummation a communion with the “Divine Genuis”? Or is it a different scenario? i.e. Does the matured Avatar become the vehicle through which the “Divine Genuis” can fully, and optimally, incarnate through the Avatar – which in turn interacts with events in this world via the physical vechile (the body)?

Note on #1: those questions rest upon discerning a difference between communion and incarnation. In the case of the former, the result is a fusion of Avatar and “Divine Genius” – such that the two become one with no further distinctions between them being possible. A new entity is created. This differs compared to incarnation, because - in the incarnation scenario - although the “Divine Genius” operates through a matured Avatar, a difference would continue to exist between Avatar and “Divine Genius,” in the same way that a difference exists between a spirit incarnating through a human body. This however leads to other questions connected with those that follow in #2.

2. What exactly is a Mage, such that one can create an Avatar for such consummation? Is a Mage merely a human fooling around with various personas? Or is a Mage really some other kind of entity, in relation to the “Divine Genuis”, with the penultimate purpose of creating and growing an Avatar for the purposes (whether fusion or incarnation) of said “Divine Genius”?

Note on #2: the rub with these questions is – if a Mage creates and grows an Avatar for full incarnation by the Mage’s “Divine Genius”, then what happens to the Mage? Is the Mage just pushed out, annihilated, something else entirely… when the “Divine Genius” fully incarnates? Or what? A similar issue exists with regard to considering the outcome as being communion, instead of incarnation: once Avatar and “Divine Genius” fuse, what then happens to the Mage who created and cultivated the Avatar component of the newly created “Divine Genuius+Avatar”?


Insights, questions, and comments most welcome.

I think that, IMHO, you are overcomplicating this. I don't find that the Magical personality as a Artificial Construct. If nothing else it serves as a convenience to the psyche. The jury is still out in terms of viewing the human structure from protoplasm to spiritual ideal as separate forms. Is the human spirit a separate being from the organic shell? This is a time honored debate. Belief and Faith have a heavy role here and is highly subjective. Does Spirit exist...(without a physical shell)? If one agrees that this is so, then it stands to reason that Angels, etc. do exist. In evocation we call spirits to attend us in a visible form. We even demand that they appear in a shape that is comely to look upon. I've known some spirits to have some very abstract forms...some which made it impossible for them to manifest in this reality as our senses are not equipped to sense certain multidimensional forms... I digress.
I disagree with your lumping the magical personality into or under the label of 'artificial'. If I broaden my scope to include the idea that certain psychological 'tricks' are indeed artificial constructs created to facilitate 'spiritual' progression then I can comfortably work with your model. Now the trick is to be able to see the human being as a multiple form from meat to mind. Your scenario(s) bring some basic questions to the fore even though they deal with man. Microcosm vs macrocosm. Man vs God. These are issues that form the basis for the Occult (hidden). Everybody has their own take and with each argument comes a counterpoint. I don't know the answer. I have my own ideas about things but I view anything regarding spirituality as a very personal thing and, therefore, very difficult to have an objective discussion on. Cop-out? You 'betcha! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/face08.gif)
That an Avatar is more than the Mage is an interesting idea. A personalized egregore that we assume sometime during the enlightment...This is a variation on the 'higher self' scenario...only calling the Avatar as originally being artificial. (btw, as a side note: a Mage is someone who uses Magic...period) This could open some interesting discussions when it comes to the subject of human psychological development...not only of the Magical personality but also just 'ordinary' development. When does this 'Avatar' become a reality? When one makes a concious move toward enlightenment? ...or sooner? Some people spend their entire lifetimes blissfully unaware of any of this 'stuff'. Must one needs be Initiated in order to experience these things? Not conciously. Ah well...my ill deed has been done for the day...I have flailed around in the dark and left more questions than answers. Incoherence is mine....but I promise you this...I will think on this again...and again...and again, for that alone, I thank you! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Well, ya know, bym: that which is familiar to some often is considered as simple, and in the converse, that which is unfamiliar to some often is considered as complex. One can shift back and forth between them, however, as an issue is considered from various vantages.

I wonder if your disagreement about “lumping the magical personality into or under the label of 'artificial'” is based upon not getting that I am in no way derogating one’s magickal personality here. Unfortunately, the popular usage of the term does tend to suggest some kind of put down of whatever is said to be artifical – most often in contradistinction to what is said to be “natural” which is upheld as far more desirable.

Let me be clear: by artificial, I simply and only mean that it is Mage created - with the positive connotation of it being a work of the Art (artificial).

And I suspect that we can agree that a magickal personality is created, and grown, by a Mage by one means or another.

What my exploration of this has been about, is examining how perspective and approach changes when the magickal personality is considered as a purposefully created entity (as an Avatar), instead of just considering it as a technique for psychological partitioning.

After running with this enough to outline the scenario and pose the questions that I have been able to cough up considering the magickal personality as an Avatar – and considering your responses, bym – at least one thing has become clear to me:

I more clearly can see why many balk at considering magick according to the “psychological model”.

Seems to me that considering a magickal personality as a psychological partition (instead of considering it as an Avatar) is very akin to considering angels, daemons, deities, etc.. as psychological aspects (instead of considering them as entities).

I have found myself drawn to the process of entification (rather than the process of psychologization) here, because doing so opens up several different avenues for intriguingly elucidating epic explanations.

However, when delving into all the fascinating explorations is done, I must admit that – on the bottom line level of pragmatic outcomes – whether a magickal personality is, or is not, considered as an Avatar does not really matter. Because, in the end, a Mage still has to do the magickal work to develop the magickal personality: to grow the Avatar.

This all has been useful for me.

By no means do I consider this thread to be done, though.
So if anyone else has insights to share, bring 'em on!