Emotion, Dispassion, Magick, & Paganism
I've been doing a lot of internal reflection over the last few months. None of it structured per se, but stealing moments alone to go within. It's in these moments that I've unearthed competing goals within myself that have been a running dichotomy throughout my life. A lot of this was brought to a head just this morning as I was looking through Israel Regardie's book "The Golden Dawn" and reflecting on my emtional reactions and connections to things. At the end of book 1, the Golden Dawn looks at the 5=6 grade of Adeptus Minor as reaching a point of separation from the self, a mastery of one's baser elements in subservience to the higher authority of the will. Superego Invictus as it were.
This morning I woke up in an emotional funk. Feeling both covered in people who care about me while at the same time feeling utterly alone and disconnected from them. I was rolling in that emotional well, only to be confronted at breakfast by a magickal tome telling me that the highest aspiration of the magus is mastery of himself. I thought about the various other goetic rituals and the purpose of mastering daemons is also a recognition of the mastery over oneself. I just finished reading Lev Grossman's "The Magicians," and this same element of magic as being the mastery of the self plays a hugely important role in the storyline. Should you lose control in Grossman's world the magus is consumed by his own blue fire and becomes a spirit being of pure vengeance.
I am not a dispassionate soul. At heart I am a very deeply emotional being, with needs, desires and wants just like everyone else. True, I want to understand myself, and that I know that I must exercise control over my emotions lest they effect my life unduly. But I don't know that I would ever want to be rid of my passions completely. Much as they cause my tears of grief I feel like that pain is a part of me, just as my joy is a part of me. I feel that my passion fuels my magic, and that the power of my emotions gives me support in the work that I do in this world.
That's where I start to see a dichotomy between Pagan practice and Magick. Magick is cerebral and contemplative, less of this world, more of the ethereal. Paganism is more rooted in this world, it's cycles, and the purposes of life on this planet. Paganism is less about ascension and transformation as it is about connections with the here and now. About birth, sex and death and the love that binds us all together as living beings, and our interconnectedness with the world around us. Magick goes beyond, its intention as stated in the prefatory matter in the Golden Dawn, to become more than human. It's almost Nietzschean in its goal.
These two strains flow together in my life. When I was a child the decisions I made, as I have stated on this blog before, led me to where I am today. I wanted to live a life with a family and I made choices that brought me there. I also wanted to live a life of contemplation in service to knowledge, and my choices brought me there as well. Now I am in this position where I have on one hand my emotional self, tied to the physical, looking for love and sex and comfort and life, and the other hand my intellectual self, tied to the ethereal, looking for knowledge and wisdom and enlightenment and to some degree ascension or transcendence.
I have not yet discovered a way to balance these humours, to temper these metals into a single unified being. The balance tips in one direction or the other on a regular basis. On some days I am consumed by my intellect and I drive forward seeking new planes of existence, and on some days I am consumed by my emotions and I hunt for love and sex and material comforts. It's a dichotomy that I have not found a sufficient way to resolve.
So I continue to walk down both paths.
This morning I woke up in an emotional funk. Feeling both covered in people who care about me while at the same time feeling utterly alone and disconnected from them. I was rolling in that emotional well, only to be confronted at breakfast by a magickal tome telling me that the highest aspiration of the magus is mastery of himself. I thought about the various other goetic rituals and the purpose of mastering daemons is also a recognition of the mastery over oneself. I just finished reading Lev Grossman's "The Magicians," and this same element of magic as being the mastery of the self plays a hugely important role in the storyline. Should you lose control in Grossman's world the magus is consumed by his own blue fire and becomes a spirit being of pure vengeance.
I am not a dispassionate soul. At heart I am a very deeply emotional being, with needs, desires and wants just like everyone else. True, I want to understand myself, and that I know that I must exercise control over my emotions lest they effect my life unduly. But I don't know that I would ever want to be rid of my passions completely. Much as they cause my tears of grief I feel like that pain is a part of me, just as my joy is a part of me. I feel that my passion fuels my magic, and that the power of my emotions gives me support in the work that I do in this world.
That's where I start to see a dichotomy between Pagan practice and Magick. Magick is cerebral and contemplative, less of this world, more of the ethereal. Paganism is more rooted in this world, it's cycles, and the purposes of life on this planet. Paganism is less about ascension and transformation as it is about connections with the here and now. About birth, sex and death and the love that binds us all together as living beings, and our interconnectedness with the world around us. Magick goes beyond, its intention as stated in the prefatory matter in the Golden Dawn, to become more than human. It's almost Nietzschean in its goal.
These two strains flow together in my life. When I was a child the decisions I made, as I have stated on this blog before, led me to where I am today. I wanted to live a life with a family and I made choices that brought me there. I also wanted to live a life of contemplation in service to knowledge, and my choices brought me there as well. Now I am in this position where I have on one hand my emotional self, tied to the physical, looking for love and sex and comfort and life, and the other hand my intellectual self, tied to the ethereal, looking for knowledge and wisdom and enlightenment and to some degree ascension or transcendence.
I have not yet discovered a way to balance these humours, to temper these metals into a single unified being. The balance tips in one direction or the other on a regular basis. On some days I am consumed by my intellect and I drive forward seeking new planes of existence, and on some days I am consumed by my emotions and I hunt for love and sex and material comforts. It's a dichotomy that I have not found a sufficient way to resolve.
So I continue to walk down both paths.