More prompted by questions from intelligent friends of mine. This time around, the question is:
I sometimes wonder if magick isn’t really just a glorified self improvement activity. Is magick ultimately just a life philosophy. Or does it involve something more? If so, what?
This dovetails nicely with my last bit on egregore and the created self.
The simple fact is, we just can’t know. At least not in a logical, “here’s the proof” kind of way. Science has already told us we’re wired to believe. Society pulls and pushes us both ways at once on the topic.
As with many magickal things, there is no easy answer that I expect anyone to accept.
But from where I am right now, with my entire past behind me, with the remembered bits of past life behind me and with the flashes of gnosis that I’ve accumulated over my relatively short time here, I have a definite opinion on it.
First, I’m going to limit the discussion to beneficial and non-invasive magick. What many would call “White Magick” or “Good Magick.” This eliminates all practices done to outright harm others, take from or influence them without permission and which put person gain above all else. Effectively, this limits the magick to workings that directly effect only the worker or just put energy “out there” for others to use as they see fit. In most cases, it would also include healing (with permission) and protection workings, but those don’t necessarily come in to play in the discussion I have planned.
Next, I’m going to go ahead and define self-improvement as working toward a certain image we have of who we think we should be. How we come to create that image is a big issue in and of itself (and I’ll touch on that a little near the end of this).
So already we’re dealing in a very limited universe of the self. At this point it should be very clear that magickal workings can be done for self-improvement. But that begs the question can they be more than that?
I firmly believe that they can be and are.
In the cosmology I work within, I believe everything is connected at a very basic level. As such, the positive development of any one part adds to the greatness of the whole. Conversely the damaging of one part diminishes us all to one extent or another. Both are necessary. There must be both birthing and culling. That dynamic equilibrium prevents stagnation as well as over-growth and complete die-out.
This is all tied directly to my personal growth path I have walked.
For a very long time, I put others far ahead of myself. Everything I did was done only for others. All of my own wants and needs were pushed to the side as my sense of self-worth was tied directly to my impact on others–be it positive or negative.
As anyone else who has walked that path can tell you, it eventually leads to only one place. That place is self destruction. It leads there as surely as seeking only to harm others leads there. But it is a much slower path the that end and can stretch on for years, all the while leaving us feeling like we are making sacrifices for the greater good.
The simple fact is, I am no good to anyone if I am dead. That was a hard realization to accept. It did not reconcile well at all with my world-view at the time which was split along the me and them line.
It wasn’t until I was able to take a step back and see the “us” in the big picture that I was able to save myself from destruction.
I am no good to anyone if I am dead. No one is. We are only useful if we grow. We are only useful if we reach out and expand into the world around us. We are only useful if we improve the only person we can improve–ourselves.
Is that magickal in and of itself? Not necessarily. There are many secular, non-magickal philosophies out there that advocate self-improvement. Some use greed to justify it. Some take the much more sensible and sustainable route of of enlightened self-interest.
It is the root of ones desire for self-improvement that can make the process magickal.
For me, that came from the realization and deep sense of belief that we are one.
From that one realization, came my personal dedication to walk a path of service. But a certain amount of service to self is required–not just to meet the challenges one faces, but to see and grasp the opportunities the Universe presents along the way.
Every time we help others, we help ourselves. Every time we help ourselves with an eye toward the good we can do in the future, we help others.
Is there intrinsically “something more” to it? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We can create that meaning, though, if we so choose. And if enough work toward the same created meaning, we can birth it into this world as plainly as the table in front of me.
Magick is a tool for self-improvement just as it is a tool for the improvement of the world around us. Just like any tool, it can be used to build and destroy. Destructive, forceful and self-aggrandizing magick–Black Magick–can harm the practitioner and the community at large. But, as said before, even that has its place in the scheme of things.
It has been said that we sentient beings are the Universes way of finding out about itself. I believe that to be true. We act as agents of discovery–not only on an individual level, but on a Universal one. We are agents of change and growth. As we evolve, so does the Universe as a whole. And as it evolves, so do we.
As above, so below.
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