Science and THE SCIENCE
Magick has often been spoken of as the mother of all sciences and arts. Since it seeks to change and then manifest the highest values of the individual, it follows logically that all social and technological constructions must flow from this place. This is similar to the maxim of "revolution from above". Too often, in the occult community, we see that people approach magick using the tools, techniques and approaches of the dominant culture. This is necessary, to a point. We all have to be able to read the material and put it into practice. We also require a paradigm where this change can come into being. You have to build the foundation before the cap-stone is set into place. However, a pyramid lacking a cap-stone is not a pyramid, and this highest point is what determines how the base is built. This is where initiation comes in. The rituals that we undergo give us the structure necessary to assimilate what we experience in the moment of transcendence.
The magician is always in a state of flux. Crowley tells us that magick is the "art and science of causing change in conformity with will" so the temple is always being destroyed and rebuilt. Each time, however, we should be building it higher and stronger. On a mental level, we can see this in Crowley "The Soldier and the Hunchback", but it has broader implications.
It seems to me that any magical gesture always begins with a question, a need. It is up to us to find that question. Levay pointed out that the ritual chamber was the magician's deepest aesthetic manifestation of himself, or at least it should be. Some of my friends have been turned off by his parlor of manikins, but I think it is helpful to compare this to the Chapel of Abominations at Cefalu. This deepest place, where the question or need is stated, is not usually very pretty. However, it is inside this place that the ? becomes an ! While we can use the tools of the dominant culture to take up our question, and put our answer into practice, it is this confrontation with the demon that marks the lynch pin of magick. As such, it is not directly comparable to any other technology.
I find it difficult to get into discussions about magick with people who don't really practice it, because I know they are missing this crucial experience. We can argue the minutia all day. We can compare and contrast the thoughts of various "experts", on any number of subjects that we feel are relevant, all day long, but without this point of origin, we really aren't talking about the same animal. While many of the operations that the magician engages in may appear "internal" ( divination, contact with higher planes, etc), magick as psychology is a very limiting approach. The scope of magick is much larger and more profound that any kind of "mind science" since it deals with the matter of the deep and essential individual. Psychology attempts to produce "the normal" or "the functional" and, while for some this may be a laudable goal, the magician is playing a very different game.
I think, for many modern people, the idea of placing the higher irrationality of the magician at the apex of the pyramid, and allowing it to inform the whole world with its dominant image, is very scary. We tend to see this as a regression to "primitive" times, because we see that "primitive" cultures practice magick openly, while we do not. However, we miss how our own culture is built up from a dominant image that is just as irrational as the magical image. Evola points out that so called "primitive cultures" are not a kind of base state or original culture, but are rather fallen cultures, who have lost their real image and are fragmented. When we examine the lost and scattered tribes of the 3rd world, we usually see people who are only now united by a herd instinct. We also see this in the inner city. This is not magick, even if they still use tricks of sorcery and the technology that their ancestors handed down to them. The psychological or managerial approach in our culture is similar, in that it tries to substitute the demands of the herd with the highest values of the individual. Just as we can take up the tools or paraphernalia of the "medicine man", we can also take up the tools of the psychologist or the effective manager, but we must place these in their proper role and context. If the daemon is not called up and questioned, if these lesser spirits are not put to its service, than we are not doing magick.
The magician is always in a state of flux. Crowley tells us that magick is the "art and science of causing change in conformity with will" so the temple is always being destroyed and rebuilt. Each time, however, we should be building it higher and stronger. On a mental level, we can see this in Crowley "The Soldier and the Hunchback", but it has broader implications.
It seems to me that any magical gesture always begins with a question, a need. It is up to us to find that question. Levay pointed out that the ritual chamber was the magician's deepest aesthetic manifestation of himself, or at least it should be. Some of my friends have been turned off by his parlor of manikins, but I think it is helpful to compare this to the Chapel of Abominations at Cefalu. This deepest place, where the question or need is stated, is not usually very pretty. However, it is inside this place that the ? becomes an ! While we can use the tools of the dominant culture to take up our question, and put our answer into practice, it is this confrontation with the demon that marks the lynch pin of magick. As such, it is not directly comparable to any other technology.
I find it difficult to get into discussions about magick with people who don't really practice it, because I know they are missing this crucial experience. We can argue the minutia all day. We can compare and contrast the thoughts of various "experts", on any number of subjects that we feel are relevant, all day long, but without this point of origin, we really aren't talking about the same animal. While many of the operations that the magician engages in may appear "internal" ( divination, contact with higher planes, etc), magick as psychology is a very limiting approach. The scope of magick is much larger and more profound that any kind of "mind science" since it deals with the matter of the deep and essential individual. Psychology attempts to produce "the normal" or "the functional" and, while for some this may be a laudable goal, the magician is playing a very different game.
I think, for many modern people, the idea of placing the higher irrationality of the magician at the apex of the pyramid, and allowing it to inform the whole world with its dominant image, is very scary. We tend to see this as a regression to "primitive" times, because we see that "primitive" cultures practice magick openly, while we do not. However, we miss how our own culture is built up from a dominant image that is just as irrational as the magical image. Evola points out that so called "primitive cultures" are not a kind of base state or original culture, but are rather fallen cultures, who have lost their real image and are fragmented. When we examine the lost and scattered tribes of the 3rd world, we usually see people who are only now united by a herd instinct. We also see this in the inner city. This is not magick, even if they still use tricks of sorcery and the technology that their ancestors handed down to them. The psychological or managerial approach in our culture is similar, in that it tries to substitute the demands of the herd with the highest values of the individual. Just as we can take up the tools or paraphernalia of the "medicine man", we can also take up the tools of the psychologist or the effective manager, but we must place these in their proper role and context. If the daemon is not called up and questioned, if these lesser spirits are not put to its service, than we are not doing magick.