Alex Sumner's Blog, page 57

Ask A Wizard: Transformation and Golden Dawn Magick

Inspired by discussions I had recently on Facebook concerning my post on the Aura, here is my take on Transformation, one of the “Magic Of Light” formulae of the Golden Dawn.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: Ask A Wizard, Golden Dawn, I Put A Spell On You, Screamin Jay Hawkins, Shamanism, Shapeshifting, Transformation, Vimeo

The Aura

Recent developments in my magical work have convinced me that the art of discerning the Aura is a hugely under-rated discipline, especially when it comes to applying it to ceremonial magick. I believe that the faculty of Auric vision is essentially the same discipline as catching a glimpse of whatever lies within the Triangle of Art in an evocation, or for discerning whether a talisman is effectively charged as a result of a consecration ceremony.

I even have a working hypothesis that Auric phenomena tie in with some of the more fantastic visual manifestations in magic, such as Invisibility and transformation. I argued this point with two magical colleagues recently: after all I reasoned, if some people can see the human aura – which is a paranormal visual phenomenon – is it so unreasonable to claim that invisibility and transformation can also take place, which are other types of paranormal visual phenomenon? This divided my audience: one guy admitted that it was at least an interesting idea, but the other attempted to tank the plank from my argument by claiming that although the Aura is real, it isn’t “paranormal”!

Well, whatever. I don’t believe that arguing that the aura is a non-paranormal but lesser-known natural phenomenon can sufficiently explain some of the things I have witnessed in my time. I do not claim to be the world’s greatest aura reader myself, but I have definitely seen people light-up, especially when they were engaged in magical activity. One of the most remarkable incidents which occurred to me was when I attended a talk on Reiki. The speaker, a Reiki master, said that as a result of practising Reiki for several years he had found his own psychic abilities increase and improve of their own accord. He then staged a little demonstration.

He got several volunteers – including myself – to attempt tofeelour own auras by the simple method of rubbing our hands together and then holding them close together – varying the distance between them, so as to detect any differences. Then he came round to each one in turn. “Now notice what happens when I put my hands between yours,” he said.

He placed his hands between mine: there was a flash of golden light in the air between his hands as he did so. “Ooh!” I cried. “I saw that!” It transpired that the speaker had indeed been attempting to send a current of Reiki between his hands, and wanted to know if we could detect it, either by noticing a change in temperature or, as in my case, by beholding a strange ethereal glow in mid-air which could not be explained by any light-source or reflection.

The thing is, the ability to gain at least a basic level of Auric-vision is both remarkably easy and fast. Developing it to a high degree however is what takes a lot of practice. Another magical colleague of mine showed the ease with which it was possible to teach basic auric vision by demonstrating it in the pub one evening (which of course is where all the best magic takes place!).  The first step was to acquire a plain black surface to view the results against: we improvised by hanging a black leather jacket on the back of a chair. He held up his own hands and got me to stare past them, and then got me to hold up my own: I noticed that a glow was hanging around them which I had not noticed before. The total time taken was less than a minute.

A magical system like, e.g., the Golden Dawn, presupposes that Adepts will possess “spirit-vision” – most obviously in the analysis of the Neophyte ceremony, where it is claimed that symbols appear in the aura of the candidate at key points in the ritual. Yet there is no teaching on how to attain this spirit-vision! There is plenty of instruction in regard to the use of Tattvas to develop clairvoyance, although this is more akin to seeing visions on the astral plane than ones which occur in physical space. This is why I believe that more emphasis should be given to training people up in basic psychism, before expecting them to accomplish tasks of ceremonial magic.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: aura, Clairvoyance, Golden Dawn, Reiki

Who is the Secret Chief of the Golden Dawn?

This is a response to a blog post by Aaron Leitch about the Archangel Raphael being Frater Lux E Tenebris. IMHO the identification of Frater LET with this Archangel is far too simplistic, as it conceals much more than it reveals. The “Archangel Raphael” is itself a pseudonym: however I, Alex Sumner, the World’s greatest expert on the Occult, can now reveal even this august person’s real-name.

“Raphael” itself is a Hebrew word meaning “Healer of God.” Now to the ancient Hebrews, God lived in Heaven, and Heaven was thought to be synonymous with the Sky. Thus “Raphael” might be more accurately translated as “Heavenly Healer,” “Celestial Healer,” or even “Healer From Outer Space.”

Secret Chief of the Golden Dawn

Yes, folks, the “Archangel Raphael” aka “Frater LET” is none other than The Doctor. As further evidence I cite the following:

Frater LET appeared to Mathers. A secret chief named Frater LET appeared to David Griffin. Clearly it is the same person, who was able to manage this feat by travelling through time!

Secondly: the Doctor is well-known to be cagey about revealing his true name. This is why he attempted to get the Book of Tobit (the only scriptural reference to “Raphael”) downgraded from the Old Testament to the Apocrypha, in the hope that people wouldn’t pay much attention to him suddenly materialising in the life of young Tobias.

So there you have it! Not only have I revealed the true identity of the Secret Chief of the Golden Dawn, I’ve also spoilt Doctor Who for millions of fans!

Filed under: Comment Tagged: Aaron Leitch, Apocrypha, Bible, Book of Tobit, David Griffin, Doctor Who, Golden Dawn, humour, Raphael

The Curious Case of the Hull Poltergeist

Leanne Fennell, 20, of Hull - "victim" of poltergeist activity.

News in the Daily Telegraph today that a young woman has been evicted from her home in Hull after a Poltergeist was throwing noisy parties in her house. But of course! Any other cynic would have disbelieved her, but I would be inclined to be charitable to the young woman. There is however one small problem:

Although "poltergeist" literally means "noisy spirit," genuine poltergeist incidents always seem to centre around one particular living individual, who is exteriorising psychological imbalance in the form of uncontrolled psychic phenomena. In other words, Poltergeist are ghosts not of the dead, but of the living.

The uncomfortable truth then is that even if this young woman was not faking it outright, she was probably responsible for the poltergeist phenomena inadvertantly.

But anywho: this whole story got me thinking about what loud music a Poltergeist would actually put on if it was putting on a party? I therefore present my Ghostly Top Ten:

Filed under: Comment Tagged: Can't You Hear Me Knocking, daily telegraph, Ghost Town, Ghostbusters, Ghostdancing, Ghosts, Hull, Japan, kate bush, Leann Fennell, Madness, Michael Jackson, Mike Oldfield, Poltergeist, Ray Parker Jr, Simple Minds, The Exorcist, The Fall, The Rolling Stones, The Specials, There's A Ghost In My House, Thriller, Tubular Bells, Waiting for the Ghost Train, Wuthering Heights

Reincarnation: A Hermetic Approach

So Jesus said to them, "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Matthew 19:28 (emphasis added).

Reincarnation, metempsychosis, palingenesis, past lives, etc, has cropped up in the Western Mystery Tradition since at least the time of Plato. In the Phaedrus, he *cough* I mean Socrates believed that it was man's destiny to be successively re-born in all walks of life until he was re-born in the highest, which was obviously as a Philosopher, before re-joining the gods.

The New Testament offers evidence that the Jews of Jesus' time thought that it was theoretically possible for a dead person to be re-born – because nothing is impossible to God – but there is no evidence to suggest that they thought it occurred on a regular basis. However, the writers of the New Testament did believe that future re-incarnation would occur at least once: in the Resurrection on the Last Day. Note the biblical passage at the top of this article – in the Greek New Testament the word for "regeneration" is acutally Palingenesis or "re-birth." The same word has been used for both personal re-incarnation and re-birth of the Universe (like a re-setting of The Matrix!) by some pagan schools of thought, although such usage was hushed up by the Church.

So that was the Western appreciation of re-incarnation… until the 19th century, when Theosophy introduced a decidedly Eastern approach – which from personal observation seems to be what most people understand by the term today. One finds it in the work of Dion Fortune, both her fiction and non-fiction work. Aleister Crowley delighted in it, especially if it meant he could claim just about every kewl person from history from Edward Kelly to Eliphas Levi via Swinburne was one of his prior incarnations. Less frivolously the concept of re-incarnation was adopted, from Theosophy, by a large number of occult groups, from Martinism to Wicca and beyond.

It is thus possible to extrapolate some general principles regarding a "Hermetic" approach to re-incarnation, if one is for one moment prepared to indulge the fiction that "Hermetic" refers to the practices of the Occult revival of the late 19th century, and not to actual Hermeticism as it was at the time it was first invented.

The first and most important principle for going in search of one's past lives this:

Have prepared in advance a strategy for dealing with the Dweller On The Threshold when you meet it.

Sensible advice for all initiates seeking knowledge of their past lives.

The "Dweller On The Threshold" (or "DotT" as I shall hereinafter refer to it) is a nasty beasty that you will meet when trying to uncover your past-lives. It is so terrifying that it is likely to put you off attempting to discover your past lives if you don't realise what it really is. The DotT was first described Bulwher("It was a dark and stormy night…")Lytton in his book Zanoni, and seems to have been adopted as gospel by Blavatsky, so that it was repeated in hushed tones by the likes of Dion Fortune, Rudolf Steiner, etc.

The DotT looks different for every person who encounters it: it might appear astrally as a thing, an entity, or a disturbing situation; or instead of appearing astrally it might manifest in your life as something disturbing or challenging. It is described in Theosophical texts as an astral double which each person leaves hanging about on the astral plane from the last time they incarnated.

It is this which gives the key to understanding its true nature: the DotT is in fact an astral representation of all of the Karma you have accrued from previous lives, and a DotT-experience amounts to suddenly having to deal with all your Karma all at once. The Dweller on the Threshold is, thus, you.

The ignorant person thus comes up against the DotT and, not knowing what it is, is put off following the spiritual path for the rest of their life. These people can be found spending their days writing highly cynical and depressive texts for Llewellyn or Weiser or New Falcon about how futile the spiritual path is! The true Initiate, however, recognises the DotT for what it is and takes ownership. By not losing ones nerve and by carefully interrogating it, the DotT successively reveals the Karmic lessons which the individual must learn, and the tasks that the individual must perform in order to free him/herself from his/her Karmic burdens.

This leads to the second important principle that a Metempsychonaut should observe: one should

First, be an Adept of all forms of practical magick.

By finding out from the DotT what one's Karmic lessons are, one is inevitably tasked with list of things to do. It therefore follows that one should be well versed in practical magick, as one can then use one's skills to resolve one's Karmic issues.

Logically therefore, the ideal time for going in search of one's past-lives is only after you have obtained Adepthood. Indeed, Franz Bardon strongly advises the new initiate not to go seeking for one's past lives, because as soon as you do so, you will become responsible for them.

Unfortunately, from my own observations I see people everyday attempt past-life regressions with no thought of what they are going to do when their past-lives are revealed to them. This is not a Hermetic approach, this is just an astral junket – or spiritual tourism.

Conclusion

However there are at least two positive outcomes which will arise from the whole business of going up against the DotT. The first is in the realisation that the DotT is not the Shadow, because it represents all of ones Karma both good and bad. Hence, although the DotT might appear off-putting to some, to those who have lead saintly lives so-far or at least not terribly bad ones, the DotT may well prove far less traumatic than one might have first feared.

Secondly, the authorities all predict an optimistic outcome for those that go through with the ordeal of confronting the DotT and rising to the challenges that it sets. Rudolf Steiner, for one, says that as one resolves each Karmic issue that one has, the DotT appears less and less like a horrible monster and more and more like an Angel of Light, so that eventually it becomes not a barrier but a Spirit-Guide. Most importantly however, it leaves the Initiate with an idea that Death is not the End, and that the terrors of the grave are purely illusory.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: Aleister Crowley, Blavatsky, Bulwher Lytton, dion fortune, Dweller On the Threshold, Keep Calm And Carry On, Past Life Regression, Phaedrus, Plato, Re-incarnation, Rudolf Steiner, Socrates, The Matrix, Theosophy, Zanoni

Abramelin Investment Opportunity: Please Share This With Everyone You Know

You now have the opportunity to make a whole load of cash and participate in one of the greatest magical experiments ever attempted in the history of the occult! This is an investment scheme in which I predict the yield over two years will be a massive 20% above the initial lump sum: which you have to admit far surpasses anything offered by banks or anything like that. (NB What with the current financial crisis just about any investment is probably better than anything offered by the banks, but that is by the by). All you have to do is to keep your money invested for the full two years to reap your rewards. The more you invest, the more you will get out! It's win win win!!!

This is what you will be getting back in return for investing in my scheme!

So how, I hallucinate that I hear you ask, do I take advantage of this great opportunity? The details of the scheme are as follows:

I, Alex Sumner, the world's greatest expert on the occult, intend to undertake the full Abramelin operation: by which I mean not just the 6-month version in the original Mathers edition, but the 18-month version outlined in the more recent Book of Abramelin. I will then use such magical powers as I have gained after attaining Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel to conjure up enough cash to pay off all my backers.

However to do this, I need quite a bit of cash up-front! Hence why I am appealing for investors. I estimate my costs will be as follows.

"Initiation Fee" (see below)
£16,000


Living expenses for eighteen months:

Including rent of premises in which to live and turn into an oratory, purchase / construction of magical equipment, and all other living costs (food, bills, etc).
£45,000


TOTAL
£61,000

The "Initiation Fee" is to reflect a detail from the story of Abramelin which a lot of so-called modern practitioners tend to ignore because they don't understand it. Before Abraham the Jew received the Sacred Magick from Abramelin, he gave the latter Ten Golden Guilders, which Abramelin then used to distribute to the poor. Now a Guilder was a coin representing a tenth of a pound in weight. In other words, Abraham the Jew gave Abramelin a pound of gold: which by my calculations is worth approximately £16,000 at today's prices.

Now I personally believe that there are several blinds deliberately written into the Book of Abramelin, to trap the unwary. One of them is the part where Abraham says that your Holy Guardian Angel will reveal even more than is written in the book. At first the context makes it look as if he means that the Angel will reveal more magick squares than are set forth in the book: but I believe the real meaning is that there is an esoteric interpretation of the Book of Abramelin which is not revealed in the plain text of the story. A fuller interpretation is something like this:

The meeting between Abraham the Jew and Abramelin where the former received the Sacred Magick was in fact an Initiation ceremony;
The surrendering of the pound of gold – nb not for payment, but for distribution to charity! – was in fact a vital part of the Initiation ceremony. After all, if you sacrifice that which is most precious to you, as opposed to giving away just something you can afford, it tends to leave you spiritually motivated.
The gold was not simple gold coins, but gold that had been created as part of an Alchemical transmutation. In other words, only someone who has mastered Alchemy has the right to undertake the Sacred Magick.

This may look at first sight to be a radical notion, but consider the work of the Gold Und Rosenkreutzer Order. The initiate concentrated on progressively mastering alchemy up until the Magister Templi grade, when they completed a transmutation. In the Magus grade, they actually turned to a magickal regime not dissimilar to that of Abramelin. As anyone who has studied Alchemy will know, the Alchemist is transmuted along with the metals, so that by the time he has got to that stage he will have gone through the most intense spiritual and physical purification possible.

There is another similarity to the Magus grade, to wit: the Magus is symbolically an initiate of Chokmah, or someone who has risen above the spheres of the planets. In the Book of Abramelin the magician is told not not to observe astrological conditions, but to invoke any planet when it is at the zenith: which means that an Abramelin-Magician can invoke any planet on any day of the week. From which vantage point can one truly free to work independent of astrological conditions – if not from above the spheres of the planets?

Viewed this way, this would imply that far from being part of the grade of Adeptus Minor, an assumption made by Crowley, the Sacred Magick was always meant to be reserved to the 9=2 grade or its equivalent, and the initiation ceremony through which Abraham the Jew went was in fact the real Magus ritual.

So anyway that is my modest proposal. I suggest that to keep the arithmetic simple you invest in multiples of £1000. Please click on the link marked ALEX SUMNER APPRECIATION FUND in order to make your investment.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: Abramelin, Aleister Crowley, Investment, Macgregor Mathers, Make Money

Alex Sumner Brings Peace to the Golden Dawn Flame Wars

This is an update to the post Secret Chief Sweep-stake! After several weeks  trying to increase traffic to his website *cough* I mean "keeping the Golden Dawn community on tenterhooks," David Griffin has finally named the mysterious individual that he had been threatening to reveal to the world and it turns out to be none other than… Nick Farrell.

I can honestly say that I never saw that one coming! More to the point, neither did anyone who commented on my blog or contacted me privately did so either, so unfortunately the contest has to be declared null and void. However, this brings me to a serious point: the Golden Dawn Flame War has got to stop! And to this end, I make the following pledge:

In order to end the rivalry between the David Griffin's and Nick Farrell's respective orders I, Alex Sumner, undertake to give free, independent and unbiased advice to prospective new members over which order to join. Anyone seeking initiation should contact me privately for further details.

There! I confidently predict both antagonists will now cease attacking each other. By the way, if any leader of a GD order wants to convince me why I should push a candidate towards one order rather than the other, I am now accepting bribes by PayPal – please click on the Alex Sumner Appreciation Fund button which is somewhere in the navigation bar.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: David Griffin, Flame War, King Over The Water, Nick Farrell, Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega

How To Be Chief Adept Of Your Own Magical Order!

So there I was the other day reading Fire and Ice by Stephen Flowers, about the rituals of the Fraternitas Saturni. Needless to say, all that sex and drugs was of interest to me purely for the purposes of research for a future novel *cough*. But one thing I did note was to do with the role of the head of the order. The Gradus Ordinis Templi Orientis Saturni, he was known, had a specific magical role – to bring through the Saturnian Demiurge around which the order was centered.

This got me thinking about the role of the Chief Adept in the Golden Dawn (RR & AC), specifically in the 5=6 ceremony – where he or she effectively plays the part of "Christian Rosenkreutz." So despite the magic of the GD and FS being wildly different, the bloke in charge in each case is fulfilling a similar role – they are channelling the egregore of the order, as if it were a god-form.

Extrapolating from this, we can formulate a general rule about "How To Be Chief Adept Of Your Own Magical Order," to wit: the Chief has to live the egregore. However I would go further than saying this means in a ritual context only – they really have to live the egregore in their everyday life. Perhaps this is the real teaching of the Adeptus Exemptus grade! (I wouldn't know, I'm not privy to that information). So for example – the Golden Dawn, which is the one I am most familiar with. The Chief really ought to be the living personification of Christian Rosenkreutz, particularly with regard to spiritual and moral values. Moreover, the Chief must of necessity uphold every standard expected of the Order's members. This is not just magical egregore work it is common sense: after all, if the Chief cannot live up to (e.g.) the Neophyte obligation, why should one expect the Neophytes to?

There is however a downside to this being a Chief / living the egregore type thang, and that is that if the putative Chief does not make a conscious effort to embody the spiritual & moral values of (e.g.) Christian Rosenkreutz, then the Order will nevertheless take on the egregore of the values that the Chief does embody – for good or ill. This is an awesome responsibility, and those that are not equal to the task really ought to be humble and not put themselves for Chiefship.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: 5=6, Adeptus Exemptus, Christian Rosenkreutz, Fraternitas Saturni, Golden Dawn

Alex Sumner: Interview by Maria Savva

Hi there, just thought I'd do a good turn for my fellow author Maria Savva by plugging an interview she did with me for her Goodreads page. In it I reveal some of my influences and the background to my stories. Although, readers of the interview get a chance to win a free short story. Click this link to read the interview.

Filed under: A Greater Power, Licence To Depart, Opus Secunda, Publications, Shall We Kill The President?, The Demon Detective, The Magus Tagged: Goodreads, Maria Savva

Cognitive Dissonance: It's Not Just For Pagans!

Reading Caroline Tully's paper Researching the Past is a Foreign Country: Cognitive Dissonance as a Response by Practitioner Pagans to Academic Research on the History of Pagan Religions the other day, it got me thinking about the subject of "Cognitive Dissonance" generally and I quickly realised that it applies throughout the Occult, and is not just limited to neo-pagans experiencing problems with people looking a little too closely into the origins of their so-called "tradition."

You can click on the above link to read a pdf copy of the paper but, as it is available for free, it is probably not worth doing so. *

It is not surprising that CD has general application in the occult, as the first academic to write about the subject did so after investigating the behaviour of a cult of whacked-out nutjobs. So here is my personal survey of topics generally covered under the CD-banner, with parallels drawn to the general magical community. See how many of these examples you can recognise from your own personal experience!

Effort-Justification, or: I belong to these weirdos why exactly?

A fairly well-known character on the occult scene, who is the head of an even more well-known magical order (amongst other things) once explained to a packed audience about how his organisation worked. For a start, he made sure that nobody joined the order until after they had jumped through hoops to do so. The explanation given was that this filtered out the time-wasters, making sure that only those properly suited to join would do so. He then admitted that, in his opinion, the study of magicwould not necessarily make one a happier person.

Why then do people continue to belong to this magical order? It is what in CD-terms is known as "Effort-Justification" i.e. because they have gone to so much trouble to begin with – and perhaps they continue to go to trouble once in – they have to invent a reason in their own mind why it is worth it when the benefits are not discernible. By comparison with the example cited on the Wikipedia page, one may speculate that had the same magical order offered the exact same content, but not made the barriers to entry so high, the initiates would not enjoy remaining members as much, and would be more likely to leave.

We may laugh at the example given, but think for a moment: how many orders do you know that demand that their initiates work hard, but shy away from producing discernible results for their members? Given the fact that the bloke mentioned was so upfront and honest about his situation, I must assume that at least he was not being deliberately manipulative.

Belief-Disconfirmation

You've heard the story before. A cult-leader professes high moral values. The said cult-leader is exposed, quite often in a big-way. Do all of his followers desert him? Quite often, the answer is No - at least not all of them. Very often a hard-core of followers will deny the accusations, and quite possibly launch vehement ad hominem attacks on the people doing the exposing, accusing them of lying, having an agenda, etc, on the basis that because "Napoleon Is Always Right," any evidence to the contrary must be false per se. An even harder-core of followers may go so far as to say that although the proscribed behaviour is wrong generally, it is right exclusively when Glorious Leader does it.

This type of thinking has been used in the world's religions to justify things like genocidal massacres in the Abrahamic religions, to Tibetan Monks being absolved from quite brutal rape charges. Because the followers do not like to have their Belief Disconfirmed, they invent some convoluted reason to justify for their own minds why what is wrong is, in fact, right. It is also the reason why it is ultimately futile to discredit the leader of a magical order by showing that their claim to legitimacy is based on lies. One is never going to cause their order collapse, and this being the case, there would be no point in me going to such effort, unless one liked bashing my head against a brick wall. Or of course one liked Blackmail for its own sake, as opposed to the money! (An example of Effort Justification, hehe ).

The Belief-Disconfirmation paradigm has wider application than just explaining why magicians put up with utter scoundrels running their magical orders. Take for example the line I wrote at the end of the section on Effort-Justification.

Given the fact that the bloke mentioned was so upfront and honest about his situation, I must assume that at least he was not being deliberately manipulative.

Thought: am I being objective, or am I making excuses for the fellow??? On the other hand, there are other instances which I have observed in person and people talking about across the interwebby-type thing.

"… but right now, the End of the World is cancelled."

The classic example of Cognitive Dissonance was that of a UFO cult in the 1950s which had been expecting humanity to be wiped out on a certain date, with them as the sole survivors. Needless to say it did not happen. In response, the cult, instead of breaking up, convinced itself that the Aliens had deliberately spared Humanity in order to give it a second chance. The cult further decided that its new role was to spread their teachings to others, so in effect, their activity actually increased after their central Belief was Disconfirmed.

This is not just reserved to small cults: prior to the turn of the Millenium, the Y2K bug was supposedly a big-issue! When it did not happen, was it because the explanation that the computer boffins had done their job was true … or was it a case of Belief Disconfirmation? What indeed will people be saying when December 23rd 2012 comes and goes?

The unfortunate fact is that currently many magicians who ought to know better are disrupting their usual work by being overly concerned with the end of the world. The Mayan 2012 phenomenon may be a boon to new age publishers, but it is a complete pain in the arse to those who have to put up with the credulous.

Then again there is the phenomenon of prophecies which do not come true. I remember when I was a Kid, it was believed that Nostradamus' reference to 1999 was thought to be to the end of the world. Post 1999, this all changed, with people explaining that the coming of the King of Terror did not refer to this at all. On a less spectacular scale, astrologers and tarot readers are everyday coming up with reasons why their predictions are not wrong just because they did not literally come true – and yet they still practice it. Cognitive Dissonance is causing them to accept shoddy quality in Divination, instead of challenging them to improve their skills.

Which leads on to:

Spell Failure

Ah yes, the unfortunate moment when the hot chick refuses to get naked for you, even though Sitri promised that she would! If your experience of ceremonial magick is anything like mine, the results of your spell-workings will fall into one of three categories.

A small number of spells which were spectacular successes;
A large number of spells which had no discernible result;
An even larger number of spells which had a result, but not necessarily the intended one.

Common sense ought to tell you that one should lump the third class in with the second, i.e. as failures, in order to learn and grow as a magician. Cognitive Dissonance, however, can cause some magicians either to lump the third class in with the first, i.e. as successes, or to invent a whole load of egregious reasons why the reason for the spell's failure is not your fault.

Kids! The only way to improve as a magician is to take ownership of your failures – all of them. Ceremony disrupted by someone else? BULLSHIT! If you were a Master Magician, you ought to have prepared for that disruption and neutralised it. Stars against you? BULLSHIT! The whole point ofHermetic magic is that ultimately you can rise above the influence of the stars and planets! You are solely responsible for 100% of your failures, even the ones that seem to have been caused by someone or something else – because a Master Magician ought to be able to deal with that someone or something else.If you want to kid yourself otherwise, you are preparing for mediocrity. Conversely, when you do take ownership of your failures, only then can you rightly take credit for your successes.

* NB: This is a cognitive dissonance joke, if you hadn't guessed.

Filed under: Licence To Depart, Occult Tagged: Caroline Tulley, Cognitive Dissonance