The Costs Of Magick, Is a ritual and a sacrifice really enough? Options

All magick has a cost. A lot of practitioners can psychologically negotiate around them, so they say - I was certainly of that temperment when I first began exploring magick, I wanted something for nothing. But sometimes we have a hard time knowing what's required of us by whatever force we're invoking, and we aren't sure what to give in exchange. Are sacrifices of material things enough? Incense to 'feed' the spiritual force? Our immediate time and attention to give moments of our own life over to magickal purpose? There may be small costs to gain immediate gratification of our intentions, but is that all it really costs?

I've been in the mood to ask myself these questions, lately, and as my professed paradigm dictates, I began to observe.

For context, here's my recent journey through life in a nutshell.

When I left home, I moved in with a friend and her family, and they took care of me. Then I moved in with a partner who was a few years older than me, and he took care of me. Then we moved back to my hometown, moved in with my friend, and by and large, they paid all the bills. Then my friend and i moved back into our respective homes, and then eventually I moved out of my home and into hers to live with their family again.

It began to be obvious that I was not doing a good job of learning how to support myself, and that I had nothing to rely on but these other people. That was the first instance in which I used magick which was singularly for self-growth, and no immediate gratification.

First of all, my journey since that moment, has been more magickal, more filled with signs and synchronicities, more interesting experiences in consciousness and psychological developement, than any period in my life. Now, before this period I was already tapping the Source - connecting to the divine intelligence - to about half the degree that I do now, and much of my essential paradigm remains the same. Parts have been expanded upon, and more thoroughly digested, so that I know now much more than my younger self did. I had achieved lots of magickal successes by that point, but in quality they lacked the 'force' that my successes have now. They're more impactful now.

Then, the cost of magick seemed to be simply the way it would impact your life, and could be negotiated simply by dealing intelligently with that effect, and trying to predict ahead of time the areas that it could affect you, and how to prepare in advance. Now I see it the same way, but I've started to think that negotiating it like that, viewing it as how to avoid the cost, has actually cheated me out of a lot of growth in the past.

I did magick to cut myself off from the negative influences in my life, so that I could begin fullfilling my potential as quickly as possible. Given my situation it was a success, I was 'freed' from my home, which was stifling me bit by bit - and in retrospect I would have grown far more if I had immediately gotten serious about life, and really done my best to be independant; instead I coasted on the new found freedom until I hit a point where I would have to get serious, but instead I negotiated myself into a position where i could be free in one sense, and not have to deal with the responsibility. Now, looking back at what choices I made and why, I realize that I had actually lost the most important part of that freedom by avoiding the initial cost - my immature attitude about life.

I did magick for love. It seemed to be the appropriate next step, and my magick for freedom had worked so well. And I had love, coming in from boys everywhere. Again, I was unwilling to accept the way love would impact my life, so I negotiated by manipulating the people that fell in love with me to being more like entertainment than relationships. Eventually I forgot to learn the lesson that love is supposed to teach, and am still working on getting it back, the hard way.

I did magick for power, and I was given respect by my peers, adoration by my teachers, and a voice that made everyone sure I was right. When the impact happened, I negotiated my way around the responsibility of that identity in life, using that same gift to alleivate that responsibility for the things I said or did. But eventually, my manipulation became lying, and eventually that collapsed, and I no longer had those gifts.

And I had very little powerful magick after that. At this point is when I began to explore deeply the understanding of consciousness that I have now - While I probably wasn't consciously aware of it then, I had recieved a harsh punishment for abusing the gifts I demanded, and giving nothing in return. That punishment, however, redirected my interests inward rather than outward, and I became more diligent with my analysis of myself, no longer overly concerned with expressing myself, so much as learning what it was I was expressing. So my innate energy for exploration was forcefully redirected towards personal growth. I could have maybe used it for some other sort of exploration, drugs, crime, etc... but I was also in a position where those things weren't within easy reach, and so far I hadn't developed the ability to 'reach' for anything in life - I had skipped those lessons that were the cost of my magick.

And when i reached the limit of that growth, or what seemed to be in any case, when the world around me had become stagnant, and i was quickly stagnating with it, that is when I did magick for no other reason than to know what I needed to do to grow out of it, away from it.

And what I got, was a crash course in the same lessons I avoided before, but instead of getting the gains, I was just paying off my debt. I got freedom, in a position where not taking it seriously would get me homeless. I got Love, from someone who I owed a debt to, and who I lived with, and who I didn't really know enough to be sure that he would never let me live on the street. he made me carry my weight, so I was given a 'guide' through my task, in effect, and he gave me the fear that I needed to straighten up, since I didn't know for sure he would just leave me behind if I was a burden. In other words this love wasn't under my control. Finally, I was exposed to a culture of people who are inherently distrustful. So, I had to learn how to fulfill a good ethical code when it came to dealing with people, and never abuse the respect I work to gain.

I had to do the work as it was put in front of me to fulfill those tasks, and now, two years after coming to new york, I am on the bring of really and truly being on my own, independant, for the first time ever. And, it occurred to me that there is a bit of fear there, during meditation today. The fear of not being prepared enough, not having learned my lessons well enough, to exercise the gifts effectively in life, yet. And, following this observation was the thought that I should use that fear to do well. it is worth noting, I think, that the meditation was an excercise for recalling the various seals in the Necronomicon, the most recent of which had been Asarualim, following the construction of the composite seal on the cover of the necromonicon, the Arra/Agga/bandar glyph. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, of using my fear, a counterthought intervened comparing the use of fear as the use of the 'darkside' which is a relative term for an aspect of my paradigm on how we derive motivation in life, from a magickal perspective. That if I am to truly give my intentions over to the 'light' or the opposing archetype to the 'dark' in whatever form, then it seems i should derive motivation from the deliberate want to do well. And then all this thought of the costs of magick occured, and I followed it through my life for a time, being shown the places in which costs were incurred, and not paid, and the places where the gifts had been taken away and how.

Now, by now i've learned those lessons, at least as much as i can learn them where i am - the only way up, is up. So, I think I was finally able to see and understand more thoroughly how magick has affected my life, and how the laws have manifested themselves. It occurred to me to post it here because when I was an initiate cruising the 'net to find out all I could about the things i couldn't buy books on at my local bookstore. I wanted experiences, and effective magick, and wanted to see opinions and examples that weren't written down anywhere. And in all that, all the talk of costs was vague, and there were theories on how to avoid costs, theories about how karma doesn't exist, and they were so specific. it didn't occur to me then that wanting something for nothing is selfish. There is no balance. It's okay to be selfish, I think, in your magickal desires, certainly the desire to grow is selfish to some point of views, but if it is balanced with surrender and selflessness, work for the sake of work, doing well for the sake of doing well, balances that selfishness out.

This was all stuff no one taught me when I was a wee magician.

And it's worth mentioning, of course, that all of this stuff is going to happen in everyone's life. We're all offered the oppurtunity to learn lessons in life, it's why we're here, to understand. Spirituality is about exploring those lessons as they come, and using them to grow - magick is about Asking for those lessons, even if you don't know that's what you're asking for (because let's face it, your higher consciousness doesn't want material things...) and the cost of getting them is understanding what they teach and shouldering that responsibility wisely.

it's repeated everywhere, over and over again, that magick should be used responsibly, that you have to live the magick you work, that you get bad karma for bad magick, it's been said in a million different ways, but when it's explained, for some reason it's usually is something incredibly vague, and there is rarely talk of what happens when you do get around the cost.

hope someone gets something out of this post, sometime.

peace
B

You are, of course correct in many regards. I too will be amazed at how certain unawakend people will will capture the essence of existence. My qualm is not with them, rather it is with those happily marching in step the same souless tune, trying in vain to achieve higher and higher states of social status, caught in an eternal blaze of unyeiding consumption that threatens to destroy everything in sight only to find that the hole in their soul never fills. These people are but lemmings approaching a cliff, and there are times I am tempted to give them a much deserved shove.


The word "hubris" is foreign to me. Pray tell, what is it's meaning?

This post has been edited by Makavelli: Aug 10 2006, 02:20 PM

The word "hubris" is foreign to me. Pray tell, what is it's meaning?

Hubris is a particular brand of pride. Specifically, the Pride that one is closer to or equal to the gods compared to others. It is a greek word, and is generally a 'fatal flaw' in their mythology - and there is wisdom in that.

Your feelings here constitute hubris. It is something that happens to, I believe, all magicians at one point or another. I don't mean this as an attack, but i will explain. Hubris is a natural part of human consciousness which magick naturally enhances - it is an obstacle.

Every type of person in society is critically necessary for the evolution of human culture and biology. Human kind is an organic system which needs to strain against itself in order to grow. Everyone's 'soul' is made of the same stuff. Everyone's soul is the same indefinite size, or quantity. Everyone performs the function of their incarnation, whether they know they are doing it or not. Each person embodies a principle which becomes the template for their consciousness. A person can expand that, and grow outside of that mold. Those people have broken or at least interrupted the karmic cycle. Magicians, I believe, feel an innate call, by nature of their 'template', to attempt that process. That does not make them more special, more useful to the world, or any closer to God, or the Source, whatever you term it, than anyone else. You bear an inescapable equanimity to all living beings, or at least all human beings (I've heard convincing arguments to the superiority of 'human' consciousness that are viable, But i personally believe that equanimity is universal among all living things.) You, like everyone else, serve a purpose whether you know it or not.

The struggle to exorcise that element of yourself - which you'll have to if you're to actually gain anything of real value from magickal practice - is part of the dynamic tension that induces growth. It is the pull between the Source and the Void that is present in every human being. If it wasn't for those two forces pulling, we wouldn't expand.

My qualm is not with them, rather it is with those happily marching in step the same souless tune, trying in vain to achieve higher and higher states of social status, caught in an eternal blaze of unyeiding consumption that threatens to destroy everything in sight only to find that the hole in their soul never fills. These people are but lemmings approaching a cliff, and there are times I am tempted to give them a much deserved shove.

If those people didn't march, if they didn't consume, if they didn't vie for fame and wealth, then society would not advance a fraction as fast as it does. You need to understand that in order for human kind to support it's growing technology, in order for us to accumulate knowledge and then pack greater and greater amounts of education into the years that we have (look at the education of the average american teenager compared to a person of the same age in 1900ce), which is what is required for human kind to evolve, there has to be a commercial, consumer based element to society. Those people that devote themselves to it, to social status, those people who vie for wealth and fame, they are necessary elements to maintain a system in which YOU can have the resources to get the education and understanding that you need in order to expand your consciousness to and even higher state than it is - human consciousness has expanded before, it's been expanding since it began. Just because you are reaching a new level of awareness, doesn't make it special. In fifty years, people half your age are going to have twice the education and twice the awareness that you had when you were that age. That's how this system works.

I'm betting you have lots and lots of leisure time. I'm also betting that you read a large chunk of at least the foundation of all the mystical knowledge you have now. You probably got a portion of that from the internet (supported by that system which is so self destructive) maybe some books at libraries? Fortunately you didn't have to walk for five days to get there, or hitch a ride on a covered wagon. Fortunately you have time to study because you don't need to tend a farm and garden all day.

It's not my intention to be condescending. I simply feel that this is a very critical point to take to heart when approaching a mystical life. The ego will get in the way of your magick, and there's nothing you can do about it. The less ego you have, the more powerful your magick is. Ego is seperateness from the Source, which is what you're really throwing energy at when you do magick, bouncing it off the astral light and back into the material world. You can imagine ego to be a litteral shell around you. The thicker it is, the less light you can see, and the weaker your magick is as a result. To truly expand your awareness and your consciousness - not just your thought processes and observation capabilities - you have to allow that shell to thin, and weaken, in order to litterally expand it until it bursts, like a bubble. If it is thick enough to maintain distinctness, but thin enough to be clear, then you attain clarity. But, that's one in a long number of steps towards truly spiritual magickal experiences. It all starts by accepting/admitting that one is ultimately in a state of unequivocal equanimity with every other individual in the world, regardless of habits, preferences, station, intelligence, power, or anything else.

And that's not just good magick, that's being a good human being.

Now, does that imply that there is nothing flawed about society? No, of course not. There's plenty wrong with society and with people. There's plenty wrong with me, and with you. If there wasn't we wouldn't be doing this, we wouldn't be trying to get better. Better than what? If nothing is wrong, what is desirable? The work of transmuting society, human culture as a whole, into something better is the function of a particular templet of person - some are magicians, and some aren't. Those people need to be able to work grow more efficiently as the 'wrong' in human culture becomes increasingly subtle - and the parts that aren't subtle get more efficient as well.

Compassion, compassion. One must have compassion, or magick is pointless.

peace

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Aug 10 2006, 10:11 PM