The Magical Personality, Its creation, use and purpose. Options

Have been reading into W.E Butler recently, offers a good break from the usual authors...his writing style is much easier to relate to, cites examples of situations whilst teaching rather than saturating the reader with rigid logic and information, manages to place it into context better than Regardie for example although the two aren't to be compared. Anyway... he talks of creating a, 'Magical personality' something that most do but perhaps do not fully take to when choosing a motto for themselves, he also talks of the power of hypnosis and how it can be used to this effect and in magic in general, a very intresting topic. Have to say I'm ''slightly'' dissapointed as he dosen't go into much detail... in fact he goes into it in one book then promises to break it down in another but dosen't... his works are written in a certain style, perhaps too much the opposite of Regardie and Crowely, his approach makes it difficult to follow as no certain format is laid out but is offered enpassing, as though he were addressing a room full of students and has no time for detail or emphasis.

The idea is to create a persona distinct from ones self for use in magickal workings, using hypnotism to program the mind into assuming said persona when a certain item is put on, gives the example of a ring which is probably best. Of the opinion that his works are to be peiced together as in the chapter in, 'The Lords of Light' he talks of using self hypnosis to structure ones personality/mind in general then promises to explain further in, ''The Magician'' where the outline of a method is given. Thinking of using hypnosis in such a way is brilliant, programming the mind to be able to work on the inner planes instantly rather than struggle to achive and maintain that state of mind, controlling the will in that fasion to the point of being able to fully percive the work. To be honest the magical persona part irks with me as I'm not sure how so much can be done under one name and circumstance and then done away with under another... was wondering if anyone knows of anyone who goes into further detail on how to properly go about it as the 4 pages given is not much to fall back on when you find you have a split personality or worse because of it all., don't you find your true name at the end of the work?

Can se why people perfer to keep their own identities rather than adopt a new one while working, intergration would be an issue at some point I think but there you go, its all very intresting, tempted to give it a go as its linked to B.O.L work which is the next step in my magical career.

Has anyone taken to creating a magical personality or used hypnosis to aid their practice?

Peace
.M.

For me anyway, the magical self is the host, or core personality. The mundane self is the mask; the constructed alt, produced for the sake of the world. Although, it's also true that the core self changes more than the mask; and that as we make new masks and try them on, we move elements of them back to the core self as well.

Then in your words, interpret my case. I'm interested in what you have to say.

Then in your words, interpret my case. I'm interested in what you have to say.

I'd suspect you possibly invested a little too much power into the single personality, Ulric, or more specifically, you associated everything you'd learned or practiced with that one particular mode of thinking.

Chaos in particular recognises the power of modal thinking. You put all your eggs in one basket, in terms of one particular mental mode, and if that basket gets thrown out or lost, all of the eggs go with it. The other thing is that magick a lot of the time can be an almost entirely subjective thing, so if you think you're burnt out, you will be, but then you generally find that it's only because you thought you were.

Giving aspects of yourself names of your own choosing can, IMHO, be a very positive and beneficial practice; I've been doing it myself for years. However, instead of investing everything into that one particular aspect, I would possibly try and maybe distribute certain things around a bit. Also, consciously look at the partitioning you do, and ask yourself what purpose it serves; that way you can have a better idea of what should go where.

Now to the other thing; and this is more important. It sounds like you made some mistakes morally, and didn't live, temporarily, according to your highest ideas about who you are. This happens to me all the time, and I'm sure it probably happens to lots of the rest of us, as well. It's part of being human.

It is true, that as a magician, the stakes are higher because we have more ability in some respects, so when we screw up, there can accordingly be greater consequences. However, even though I still intend to avoid screwing up, from now on, I've recently decided, I'm also going to view it as the opportunity that it is.

Me making developmental or moral mistakes, once I have forgiven myself for them, and rectified them to the best of my ability, more than anything else, gives me an opportunity to work on increasing my level of compassion. The reason why is because, the more mistakes you make, the easier it is to view yourself as being morally on the same level as everyone else, and that is part of the definition of compassion.

So in that sense, when you do the wrong thing, it's actually fantastic, because afterwards you have less logical justification for viewing yourself as being morally superior to others. If you don't see yourself morally as being better than anyone else, that then goes a long way towards eliminating any motivation for judgement.

Truthfully, I've been going through a burnt out period currently myself, where I've been feeling very stressed out and impatient, have been finding magick in any form really difficult, and have also done some things recently which I really wish I hadn't.

However, I'm currently listening to an mp3 I've got here about developing psychic ability, and what it is essentially talking about, is that the very first prerequisite, before anything else, is the removal of fear, and as much as possible, the adoption of unconditional love. From what I'm seeing so far, that's partly about forgiving other people and ceasing to judge them, but it's also equally about forgiving and ceasing to judge ourselves as well, and sometimes forgiving ourselves is more difficult than forgiving anyone else.

As an experiment, if you want Ulric back, I would try to let go of the disgust you felt with what that aspect of yourself did. Look at what the motivation of your actions in that scenario was, and realise that maybe if you'd had a little more information, or had acted with a little more patience, you might have had a much more positive result.

An example; two days ago, I kicked my younger brother's cat, because I had grown tired of his persistent yowling, and the entire family had tried everything we could think of to get him to be quiet. Fortunately, the cat wasn't permanently injured, but he did leave the house for probably three hours. I've spoken to Darkmage here before about disciplining cats before, and we agreed that within limits, corporal punishment was acceptable. What I did on this occasion though, was out of bounds.

For probably the next day and a half, I berated myself for having done it, after having cried when the cat came back into the house. I went to another magic forum site that I know of, and confessed what I had done. There were several women there who were animal lovers, and while they emphasised that they didn't judge me as an individual, they felt that the act in itself was very much wrong. For a while, this just made me feel worse.

In the end though, I had to ask myself; am I eternally damned due to that single act of kicking the cat? The answer to that question is no; I am not.

That is not to say, mind you, that I have carte blanche to arbitrarily boot the cat whenever I feel like it, at all. What it does mean, however, is that there's absolutely nothing that I can do that any of us can conceive of, which, if I make an earnest and genuine resolution to change myself, can permanently prevent me from continuing my development.

Hell is entirely voluntary. You can sit in a pit somewhere, whether mentally or astrally, and decide that what you've done is too awful for anyone to forgive you, and that because of that, you deserve to be in that pit and never be allowed to come out of it; that you've forfeited any right you might have had, to ever be able to move on developmentally from that point. However, the moment you decide yourself to get up, climb out, and move on, you also can. God doesn't put any limitation on our ability to continue to develop, no matter what we do. That's all us.

It's actually possible to figure that out logically as well, by asking yourself this question:- If the system did have built into it, anywhere at all, that there was a single thing that you could do which could get you irretrievably put in a single place forever, then guess where literally everyone would eventually end up?

So you might as well forgive yourself, because apart from anything else, the alternative is boring and pointless. If you've decided that you're burnt out because of what you've done, that means that you're not going to be able to do anything magick related again until you do forgive yourself.

"But Petrus, what I did genuinely was evil!"

Sure. It could well have been. Ask one of the guys in the LHP forum sometime, and they'll possibly tell you that as far as magick is concerned, doing evil stuff is entirely the point, and that it's virtually impossible to have any kind of real fun without it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

The thing you'll notice about them, though; has their development stopped? Do they lose the ability to perform magical acts? It's entirely possible that whatever it is that you've been tying yourself in knots about having done, is just another day at the office for some of them; they probably don't have much of a problem with it at all.

That doesn't mean, mind you, that you should get rid of your current ethical model, or that you don't have it for valid reasons. What it does mean, however, is that the Dark Side demographic, more than anything else, are living, tangible proof that being what we might define as "evil," doesn't cause God (whoever yours is) to cease to love us, and it never causes us to cease to be able to move forward.

So re-examine your ethical model. Ask yourself, "Why was what I did then, against my rules? What were the consequences of it, that I'm having a problem with?" If you can identify the reason why you have the rule, in terms of the consequences it produces, that will go a long way to making sure that you don't break it again...because the next time you're potentially about to, you can remind yourself of the consequences of breaking it, and why said consequences aren't what you want.

Realise, however, ultimately, that you are an eternal being; you can't lose, and neither can anyone else. The most you can do is take actions which, in the moment (and sometimes for a long period afterwards, tho not forever) can cause harmful, painful, or otherwise detrimental consequences for both you and other people. Given enough time, those negative consequences will fade, but that can incur a long delay, and if you're like most of the people doing magick, you're likely doing it because you want your development to happen sooner rather than later. So the point of not committing negative acts isn't because anyone's going to throw you in lava and close a gate behind you which will never, ever be opened. The point of not committing negative acts, is fairly simply that they (temporarily) ultimately only screw up your own development, and while it is always temporary, it can sometimes still mean a heck of a long time.

If you don't want to forgive yourself, yet, that's perfectly fine. You've got eternity to work with, so if you want to devote some time to sadomasochism, by all means, knock yourself out. When you feel like climbing back on the horse and starting again, however, the option will be there. If you resolve not to break that personal (and ultimately, morality is purely personal) rule again, and don't, that will likely mean both an increase in your capacity for compassion, and also an absence of any further negative consequences, which are both going to speed your development.

When you start having rules purely because you know exactly what will happen if you break them, rather than because there's a taboo attached and you'll feel terrible if you do it, is actually when you'll stop breaking your rules, as well. Rules only ever mean anything if they're yours, and you know why you have them. If they're not, and you don't, then you'll break them all the time, because deep down they won't really mean anything.