DO WHAT THOU WILT, SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW
Welcome back onto our series on 93Magick. Relax your mind and open yourself up for another episode exploring the basics of magick today. Let’s dive directly into it.
The topic of magick is gigantic. There are countless disciplines, traditions, directions and ways of working. For this reason, you can equate the word “magick” with the word “science”, because for there are so many sciences like natural sciences, humanities, social science, etc., which can all be split into an infinite number of individual sciences – and so there is also an immense many number type of magick.
But when asked what science is, the question is much more complicated than if it were related to magick. The answer to the question “What is science” can be short and sweet:
Science is an embodiment of the entirety of human-intellectual knowledge, which is methodically and logically recorded, collected and cataloged using theoretical and practical knowledge and insights so that this information can be taught and passed on in a targeted manner.
The answer to the question “What is magick” can be short and sweet: “Magick is.” Magick is? Yes, what? What is magick now? “Magick is” is not a sentence. You can use all kinds of things there. “
I agree! You can! And this is the magick. But I also want to explain it to the intellect in such a way that it can understand it, even if the intuition now rolls with its imaginary eyes at the latest and exudes a bored sigh.
If you look at the word “magick”, you will find references that “magick” comes from the Greek word μαγεία, mageía, which in translation means “sorcery”, “trickery” or “deception”. At the same time, other sources prove that the word “magick” is derived from the ancient Persian “magush”, which was a name for the Median and Persian priests. Yet today this rather not is associated with the term “magick”.
Nowadays, very different “inner films” and imaginations run from every person. For many, the word “magick” has the same meaning as charlatans, fraudsters, liars or botches.
Most of the time, this also refers to a specific TV station that primarily offers divinatory services. Well, if you associate magick with this genre, I can only agree here. The methods, the promises, the ridiculous articles and the statements made by the so-called consultants there are in my eyes, and in my personal opinion, very well worth the previous accusations.
But this is not magick, nor is it spirituality, and certainly not from help. It is, therefore, necessary that the term magick be viewed critically in equal parts, but also a value-neutral manner.
Some people understand magick as a kind of ritual, a work in which things can happen that are extraterrestrial or extra-human. Other people perceive magick as something very common so that this tool can solve and harmonize an individual problem, which poses life in the context of one’s development.
Too often, magick is also interpreted as the last straw. This straw is seen as the last but also possible salvation so that all possible promises are believed. Regardless of their logic and intuition then, the promises of salvation are readily accepted and huge sums are paid for ridiculous ideas and seminars.
It is this group of people who then find it very difficult to get out of the clutches of obscure business people, for they are firmly tied to the lust for money and the egoism of the respective guru. Everything possible then gets squeezed out of these helpless seekers – regardless of any losses.
It is clear that these charlatans permanently damage the reputation of the magickal scene inherently, but what is obviously not clear to these people is the fact that some magicians act specifically and very aggressively (on an energetic and astral level) against these wannabe masters.
It is therefore not surprising that many so-called Esogurus disappear again very quickly and go down silently and without sound. Even though these charlatans propagate that they themselves have evolved “oh-so-far”, they have nothing against targeted magickal attacks.
Just as these people are in a war of greed for profit, and shamelessly fleece and exploit their victims, so there is also the war on these people to put to stop them by all means. Here the same is fought with the same, according to the motto “regardless of any losses.”
If you research the term “magick”, you will be overwhelmed by countless books, links and of course CDs and films. Therefore, you can sometimes see the image of “Don Quixote” in the mind’s eye. Yet it is not a fight against windmills. It is a fight against parasitic and sponging people who build a golden palace for their ego on the back of those seeking help. Everything is here and there is nothing that does not exist.
You can buy anything, you can handle everything and you can also solve everything – no matter what it is. Money problems, weight problems, problems in relationships and of course the general life problems, which can be solved by success, profit, and luck.
And these problems can easily be solved by strangers and from outside. Of course, if you are dissatisfied with yourself and your life, you don’t have to change anything yourself. On the contrary.
Everyone else has to change because you learn magick or pay lots of euros for seminars in which spirituality and esotericism are marketed. The fact that you have to change something yourself is also kept secret. So it is, of course, sad that the term “magick” is used for charlatanism and fraud, but that is the current reality. Still, it would be absolutely fatal to say that magick is a curse. On the contrary, it is a blessing, if not “the blessing”.
There are dangers and tribulations, but if you have retained just a spark of intuition and paired it with simple survival-oriented logic, you will easily be able to see who is a charlatan and who is following his cosmic path and helping fraternally others, to find their own way.
Finding your own way is not always easy, but just as there has always been magick, there has always been a desire to recognize yourself and to take the “real place” in life. If you look at magick historically or ethnologically, you can see that people have always been concerned with this “evolutionary motivation”.
Since there are written records – which can also include cave paintings – it can be confirmed that magick was practiced during the Mesopotamian, Sumerian and ancient Egyptian civilizations. The same applies to the time that existed before the “written word”. Of course, magick was also practiced here. There is ample evidence of excavations or anthropological research. No matter whether it is cave paintings, ritual artifacts or stone circles of the megalithic cultures.
It can be seen very clearly that ceremonial work was carried out in the distant past. So if you like, you can easily say that magick has been represented or practiced all over the world and will continue to do so. Wherever there were, there are and will be people, there is magick. Nevertheless, the idea often grows that the western world has become much more empirical and scientific.
Well, if you stay on the surface, it may “only” look like empirical thought patterns, but if you look at individual people or communities, you can see that magick is always there too. Often, “natural actions” that are part of everyday life are not recognized for what they are – magick. You can see this very nicely when you talk to people from the Eastern world.
In China, for example. there is a completely natural “everyday spirituality”, which is not perceived as “spirituality” but as a completely normal action. In Austria, one would never think that normal shopping can be something magickal, even if this is often the case.
Nevertheless, there are of course serious differences between the different cultures or the different types of magick. A Chinese healer acts differently than a Central American shaman or a western chaos magician. If you look at the formative lines of magick in Europe, you will primarily find the first peak of a rational examination of magick practices in ancient Greece. The League of Pythagoreans (religious-philosophical school approx. 6th century BC) prepared the ground for this.
Of course, one must also call thinkers and pioneers such as Plato and Aristotle, who through theurgy (literally: “to do divine work”) and through ancient Greek theology, philosophical considerations and explanations that were created in a great number of magickal systems and thus also in magick itself. Vocabulary such as “energy” or “psychology” – meaning “working within” and “soul science” – are just two terms that have become completely usual.
If you look a few centuries later, you can see that it started in the Middle Ages, that magick got a distinction. The view that magick can be divided into two types was once born, a divine “magia naturalis” and a destructive, diabolical magick were conceived. It should be clear that Christianity was the mastermind here.
There is no clear consensus here for when it comes to the “types of magick” there are so many opinions, explanations, and definitions that it becomes an impenetrable jungle. Sometimes it helps the intellect to have a certain division, but it should be made sure that it does not become too dogmatic.
If you want, you can divide magick into “high magick” and “low magick”. The difference lies in the fact that the high magick is used exclusively for self-evolution and the lower magick for the satisfaction of ego desires. But even if this subdivision is very “simple”, it still has the potential for confusion. According to this idea, a love ritual, which refers to a certain person, would be clear black magick work and thus to be evaluated in the area of ”lower magick”. If you love a person and bind him against his will using magick, this is manipulation.
But if you do a love ritual in general and ask the cosmos to send the partner who is meant for you, from the above perspective it would be a magickal operation that can be arranged into the “High Magick” category since it is not about what the ego is concerned of, but about your own evolution, which of course is favored when you get “your partner”. So you can see that such a classification is not without flaws.
Of course, you can also make somewhat more specific classifications and classify magick into the categories “dogmatic”, “pragmatic” and “experimental”. Here, a dogmatic magickal work would be an execution that adheres exactly to rigid basic rules and real dogmas, which should under no circumstances be broken. The pragmatic magick, on the other hand, would end up in works that circumvent or disregard any rule and dogma, so that in the end the saying “Reach the goal. No matter how.” would be the primary work criterion.
In contrast, the experimental magick would form a mix of dogmatic and pragmatic magick, since only fragments may be changed or completely exchanged here. However, this would mean that the magician has to be very familiar with the other two magick classes. Chaos magick would be a fitting titled type of experimental magick.
Although chaos magick is also often seen as the fourth type of magick, it can easily be declared as experimental magick. But even with this triad, a lot of speculation can be processed. Sure, there are dogmatic rituals, but many of these rituals are designed to spirally raise your energy through dogma. One can imagine that there are magickal works that require a “self-energy level” of “5”.
This “5” (which is completely arbitrary) can be equated with the 5th floor of a house. The task of the magick operation is now to get from the front door to the 5th floor, whereby each repetition of the ritual work would mean one floor of this house. From a dogmatic point of view, one would have to do the ritual 5 times in order to achieve a “self-energy level” of “5” through a cumulative effect.
Of course, if you are “full-on it” and a “super magician”, you can, of course, try to get from the ground to the 5th floor with a single jump and get in there through a window. This is almost impossible but is still possible under certain circumstances. If you now apply this “high-rise analogy” to the magick types, the classic stair climbing in the hallway up to the 5th floor is dogmatic magick.
Jumping up in front of the door and reaching the 5th floor with a jump would then be pragmatic magick, whereas experimental magick might want to organize a long ladder or would rather try to jump to one of the lower floors to go from there to run, or even ask someone out of the house to go to the 5th floor to reach the destination on your behalf.
One could continue this example to infinity, regardless of whether it would be described as blowing up the house and dropping the 5th floor to ground level or rappelling from a helicopter – the fact is, you can see from this example, that a clear division is not so easy, for you can create exceptional situations within each division.
It is always essential in magick that a reflective and healthy skepticism is preserved, which can be – in relation to applicable truths – minimized or strengthened through knowledge, experience, and wisdom. Furthermore, one should also have a reflective and healthy belief that there are things that the ratio cannot explain, but which are nevertheless real and existent.
So since the different “types” or “divisions” of magick can end in absurd, yet understandable analogies, one should perhaps strive for a definition, right? So if you browse a little on the Internet or books, you will find definitions of the word “magick” here and there.
Definition1:
Magick is based on the idea that everything in the cosmos is permeated by a transcendent force and that magic can influence this force. The turn of magic – in the sense of a magical action or a magickal means – as such supposedly emanating power or effect is called magic power (Latin: vis magiae, vis magica). Magick is inextricably interwoven with mythology, ethnology, religion, and esotericism. The philosopher Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) defined magic as follows:
“Everything that scientists do in imitation of nature or to help it with the help of an unknown art is called magic. Because technology is always called magic before it is understood, and after a while, it becomes a normal science. ”
Magic is to be distinguished from today’s magic, a form of performing art that is also practiced by a magician, also known as a sorcerer. If one defines ‘magic’ at the level of social action, it can be understood as a ritualized and instrumental access to supernatural forces in a defined social context, which came about through certain objects, arrangements or rituals.
(https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magie – Accessed 01.2020)
Definition 2:
Magick is the art of the initiated magician, to let his will act on an observed actual state of the environment in such a way that a new desired state is observed in the result, without direct influence by purely physically explainable laws being recognizable .
(http://www.astrolantis.de/blog-schwarze_magie.php – Accessed 01.2020)
Definition 3:
“Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.”
(Aleister Crowley – Magick in Theory and Practice)
Definition 4:
“Magic is the Highest, most Absolute, and most Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that true Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange and admirable effects will thereby be produced. Whence magicians are profound and diligent searchers into Nature; they, because of their skill, know how to anticipate an effect, the which to the vulgar shall seem to be a miracle.”
(Magick – Book 4: Magick Magie in Theorie und Praxis (Liber Aba), Part III – Page 15 ISBN: 3901134107)
There are many more definitions of the word “magick”, definitions that say a lot, but which you cannot always apply directly to your own situation, or which you can accept completely.
Of course, one can say that magick follows the law pars pro toto (one-part stands for the whole), but at the same time it is more than the sum of its parts and that it all depends on the different ideas AND levels of consciousness of the person, who uses magick. So since the human being is the decisive factor, one has to clearly state that the different levels of consciousness cannot be reached and experienced “just like that”.
On the contrary for practice clearly shows that you have to control your rational thinking through mental techniques. At the same time, all of this means that magick is something absolutely individual. Every definition is correct and every definition is wrong at the same time.
When it comes to definitions of the word “magick”, you should at best create your own definition, a definition that is individual, but ONLY temporary. Because this is exactly what you can say if you are looking for a quintessence of all definitions. If you want to define magick, you have to do it for yourself. Always AND continuously. Because magick is changing. Change is evolution and evolution is the movement of one’s own being. That is exactly why the only definition or answer to the question “What is magick?” It can only be: “Magick is!”
Since this answer covers everything. Every work, every experience, every thought, every action, IS magick. When I look at a rainbow and realize for myself that I find it magickal, THAT is magick. When I perform a 5-hour mercury ritual with an 8-fold repetition (ie to the 8th floor of the imaginary high-rise) and consider this ritual to be “magick”, THAT is magick.
If I walk through the forest and see a special tree, or a squirrel or any other animal and I find it “magickal” for me, then THAT is magick. When I am completely inflowed in my scientific work and I experience insights that are so fantastic that my biosystem produces endorphins, I also define these insights as “magick moments” is exactly THE magick. Everything and nothing is magick. Everyone decides for themselves what is magick or what is magick for the essential in magick is always the protagonist.
If I am absent-minded, I can quote the greatest mantra without errors, if I do not put an energetic focus on my energy bodies, I can take the most wonderful meditation and yoga postures, it will all just be empty hulls that are lifeless and also worthless. Only the will of the magickally working person revives the “dead matter” and turns everything into … MAGICK.
This magick is of course also a transformative work, and if you really want to get involved in this transformative work, which also creates an “alternative way of being”, you should reflect well in advance, WHAT you really want and research, WHAT physically and psychologically can happen.
Ultimately, everything is possible here, from self-mutilation in the case of a temporary obsession (via invocation) to psychoses, suicidal thoughts and successful suicide attempts. If you want to work magically, you definitely have to have a solid personality. The dangers that exist in unstable people can increase in magickal work.
So it’s not just about protecting yourself from “real magickal dangers” – such as parasitic, destructive, sponging or simply harmful energies – but also about having a solid personal foundation and no psychoses, depression, manic Episodes, bipolar disorders, dissociative disorders or to suffer schizotypic disorders. Addictions caused by alcohol, opioids, medication, etc. have no place in magick. Only if you are “firmly in life”, are aware of yourself and can also master your life, should you venture into the ranks of magick.
That you are in a bad mood and “down” from time to time is not depression, but if you have to save yourself with medication throughout the day, you should first reflect on, recognize and resolve this problem before you can use magick to dare to find yourself in new spheres then.
Practice shows very, very, VERY clear that destructive energies know exactly the weak points of the human being and can exactly “press the buttons”, so that “surprisingly” people do very strange and atypical things and are completely absorbed in their illness/addiction “.
Welcome, welcome to slavery. But what should / can you do if you get a “visit” from destructive beings in meditation, astral work, a ritual or when you fall asleep or in a dream phase? How can you best and most effectively protect yourself? Above all, how can you recognize or verify these energies so that you can ultimately defeat or banish them?
Well, magickal and ritual protection is an essential part of your own magickal evolution, so that “with time” and “growing abilities” you get your own “magickal immune system”. This is good to know, because the fact is that without concrete protection, sooner or later you will suffer great damage, the damage that ultimately has nothing to do with your own evolution or Mors Mystica.
Wait a minute – can I be harmed in Mors Mystica?
Oh yeah. Very clearly, because everything that is unnecessary (from the higher self’s point of view, NOT from the ego’s point of view) will be destroyed, so that not only financial damage but also physical, psychological and emotional “damage” (breaking up a relationship, etc.) can be experienced.
You can “only” protect yourself against these effects by resolving the theme of Morse Mystica in due time. The problem with Mors Mystica, however, is that this essential evolutionary tool always starts where the ego is “blind”. We will describe “Mors Mystica” in great detail and in-depth in another part later on in this series.
The same applies to the topics of magickal protection too. There we will discuss many practical rituals in a specific part “Magickal Protection” of this series. In this part today, however, the theory should first be the focus.
So the author hopes you enjoyed the excursion into the field of magick and its definition today. Please, if you have any questions or other comment you want to share, just leave a comment below. If you like what you read, just subscribe to our newsletter and stay tuned for the next part / episode of this series to come in about one week, where we will discuss in theory the topic “Magickal Psychology”.
May you be blessed and protected on your evolutionary magickal path wherever you go.
And so shall it be!
Fraternally,
NEMO
