Magickal Addiction Options

I'm not sure exactly where this topic should fit in, so if you can think of a better place for it feel free to move it. I know that a lot of writers and directors use magick as a metaphor for drugs (Joss Whedon comes to mind) and I was wondering what your thoughts were on addiction to magick. Do you think that people can actually get mentally addicted to using magick? And, if so, have you had any experiences either directly or indirectly

This post has been edited by Thorn: Dec 9 2006, 12:03 AM

It's interesting that you brought this topic up because I was discussing this with my friend (a fellow magician) just yesterday. According to him, most magick (other than a few kinds like healing magick) is in essence not meant for this world. He feels that when one draws upon powers for magick it must come from malevolent beings because no being of a higher order would normally intervene with affairs of this reality. As such, magicians draw powers from beings that slowly sap your spiritual energy and cause you to become obsessed. I'm not sure how much stock I put into this theory, however, I think that the idea of using magick (specifically for strictly non-growth oriented or altruistic means) can have long-term adverse affects, such as becoming addicted. Anything that produces pleasure or satisfaction is potentially habit forming and one can become obsessed with it. I think that magick is no exception. If magick works in the way I think it does (and I really hope I'm right), there are natural barriers to prevent individuals without the best intentions of affecting serious results, and such from causing serious negative side-effects. And hopefully individuals who do deal with higher and stronger (and perhaps potentially more addictive and dangerous) magick have already developed their constitutions out of necessity with previous spiritual growth and learning from past failures. I'd really like to see some other peoples opinions on this matter.

I'm not sure exactly where this topic should fit in, so if you can think of a better place for it feel free to move it. I know that a lot of writers and directors use magick as a metaphor for drugs (Joss Whedon comes to mind) and I was wondering what your thoughts were on addiction to magick. Do you think that people can actually get mentally addicted to using magick? And, if so, have you had any experiences either directly or indirectly

Magickal addiction is very real, and can happen easily to people who are just beginning to get effective results for the first time. However, in my own experience, succumbing to addiction quickly blocked the mentality necessary to effectively wield power. So, it's a self-defeating system to a degree.

Now, maybe a more cultivated will, could be a different story but some people will develop a natural talent for affecting a particular kind of system with their magick, usually something paralleling an internal pattern of significance, and in some of those cases it's a particularly exploitable system.

When I was a lot younger, I was better at effecting probability. I could influence a dice roll, or the pull of cards, stuff like that, with what became a peculiar regularity. I was a kid, and did it around my friends when we played games, DnD, cards, etc., to the point that I won all the time, basically, for several months. Then, one day, I started losing, all the time. Now, all these years later, I can do it sometimes, but have to achieve a particularly non-competative mentality in which the game is no fun, and even then, doing it several times in a row is the most I ever get before I almost get fixated on the peculiarity of it, and lose sight of the proper mental 'posture'. It's nothing as special as it might sound, but the same thing sometimes happens during TK practice as well. I'll do good for the first half hour or so, then the second one will be all crap. I don't know if it is just the limits of my psychic stamina, or because I get too involved with the phenomenon itself, because in that state of mind it can be hard to tell, I have some thoughts but ignore them usually, at least to the point that I rarely remember exactly what i was thinking. And, there is some sort of gratification that comes out of TK practice for me. I haven't worked out whether that's totally positive or not - I should feel good about it, but should I notice so much, and is the gratification why i continue to practice? I do think that developing such abilities, and exercising ones will in any way, can be gratifying to the ego, and maybe the ego can become addicted to such gratification.

Interesting thought, good question.

peace

I can see how someone starting out, ie a low constitution, would be more susceptible to getting caught in magick. However, constitution isn't immunity, and someone more experienced still has a limit. What do you think the effects would be of someone strong enough to use powerful magick using too much of it? Do you think it just wouldn't work due to their natural barriers, or do you think it would have an effect on them or anyone else?

I don't know if it is just the limits of my psychic stamina, or because I get too involved with the phenomenon itself, because in that state of mind it can be hard to tell, I have some thoughts but ignore them usually, at least to the point that I rarely remember exactly what i was thinking. And, there is some sort of gratification that comes out of TK practice for me. I haven't worked out whether that's totally positive or not - I should feel good about it, but should I notice so much, and is the gratification why i continue to practice? I do think that developing such abilities, and exercising ones will in any way, can be gratifying to the ego, and maybe the ego can become addicted to such gratification.

Interesting thought, good question.

peace

Well one thing I've noticed when using my "Trafic witch" powers as my friend likes to call it, its fairly easy unless I've been using magick earlier that day or am drained like hell from a previous night. So the mystical stamina makes sense, also if you get thoughts like "OMG its working, OMG I DOING IT AHHHHHHH!" in you mind when trying to preform any magickal or psychic task it completely screws it up.

The ego can indeed become addicted to the power of magic, which is one reason that transcendance of ego is so important to a Magus. When the ego gets in the way, it interferes with the faith and intention of the working, which then causes a disharmony in the energies and disrupts the work at hand.

Generally the feeling of astonishment and surprise towards the results must also be repressed or they will also distract from our intention the same way the ego does. It removes our focus on our faith and intent. When doing any magical work, it is preferrable to go into it with a "willing suspension of disbelief" and assume that it will work. Then, when it does, the mind stops going "OMG it's working!!!" because it already expects it to.

Everything in life can be addictive: sex, chocolate, coffee, surfing the net, forums, work... As with anything balance is required. No matter how much success you enjoy, no matter how much pleasure you derive, balance is still the path to wisdom. I'm a Tantric Buddhist, so this will sound corny, but it's all about attachment; rather, it's about avoiding attachment. In Tantric Buddhism -- which in most ways is no different from any other Magick path -- the gurus are careful to "smash down" the egos of successful students. They teach you how to create a Tulpa (Servitor), then tell you it's all an illusion after you achieve the work. But since they also teach all life is an illusion but at the same time physical reality is just the ego's interpretation of true nature, that actually makes EVERYTHING real. Very circular logic. But in doing so, they demolish the ego in a positive way, and addiction is virtually impossible. There's no thrill. No attachment. It's just a means to an end.

And hopefully individuals who do deal with higher and stronger (and perhaps potentially more addictive and dangerous) magick have already developed their constitutions out of necessity with previous spiritual growth and learning from past failures

"Then does this mean I finally get my DMV (Disabled Magickal Veteran) membership card?"

This is a very true predicament. We are STILL currently in the age of pisces. The piscean approach, so I have seen it, is one of "let it be," and "this is the way things are." It's perfectly fine if someone wants to go Zen, and as of this lifetime and age, this seems to be the only real way "out" of our reality, in respect to the general Idea of a calmness/centeredness/ambivalent unification/etc. This would further go on to point out the possibility that Higher Beings are indeed ones that abide by the celestial rule of which it IS the age of Pisces, and this is the dynamic of which it goes (that's the way it is). Note that there are some allegories, metaphors, and (that literary term that means "a reference to another source") that show that this may be indeed how our reality works in relation to Magick.

For instance, the age old question "Who are you?" when asked to a divine source. It's response? "I AM." Most Theologists and other scholars generally agree that the term is said in the context of "I am who I am. This is a statement of present tense. I am not of the past, nor of the future, for my concentration is NOW." This truly aligns with the concept of "centeredness" and "enlightenment" by "being in the here-now," thus bringing to terms that "God(liness/ship)/enlightenment is found by being centered and rooted in the present."

Bring this point with the former, then we all must realize that at this current point in time, although one may learn about magick in a gnostic fashion, it is actually very dangerous to live in magick as of this point in humanity's existence. After all, this IS the Age of Pisces, and it is to be accepted where we are, when we are, who we are, as of the are-nots. As of now, this is the way things are. This is our reality which must be accepted. When the Age of Aquarius rolls around...then we can hokey-pokey and dosey-do.

Our reality, as of this point, does not accept magick. This is a truth. It is, indeed, unaccepted. Thus, magick, in all it's forms, is not proper when forced into this realm. If it shows itself, it is indeed because it has to be at that point in time. It's not our place to really know how to break the barrier, because it's not time yet. There is no reason, it just -is-, and that's the way it is...

For -now-.