Further Thoughts on Witchcraft and Politics: Paradox
A good long while ago I wrote a post on here because I'd discovered a quote from a Bush administration individual about how they create reality. At the time I was focusing on the fact that we all create reality, and that politicians enjoy the privilege of shaping reality at our behest, more or less.
That was 2004.
Six years later I'm sitting here reading Al Gore's book The Assault on Reason, where he meticulously details the lies that the administration fed to the American people, and that through their 24-7 propaganda machine basically 1984'd us into believing that Saddam was building weapons of mass destruction even though there was no evidence to support that claim. Gore blames this atrocity on a man operating not only off of Faith and not Reason, but also with willful disregard of facts and intent to manufacture false claims in order to make his decision to run on Faith a "fact."
This got me thinking about the actions of the administration as a magickal act, one based solely on force of will, outside of the scope of any factors that would assist the magus in maintaining this altered reality. This was a huge working, one that relied on tremendous amounts of resources, and continues to do so this very day.
As magickal acts go it started falling apart early, but remains in a steady, slow state of collapse. Obama's task was to undo a magickal working that was eating away at the country. That kind of deconstruction is not easy to accomplish, especially since the repercussions of this dangerous act are still playing out. He's taking his time to do this, because to undo it swiftly would lead to further backlash.
What we're seeing are the consequences of misguided spellcraft. An attempt to create a reality that has created a paradoxical backlash. Unfortunately, the magus who orchestrated this is not the one who is feeling the backlash, at least not directly. Many more people are suffering as a result of this, and being able to not only undo the working, but to actively attempt to heal the damage caused by it is a multi-fold challenge.
When constructing a spell that you wish to take hold, and one you wish will last for a long time, it's best to work within the flow of events as they are naturally occurring. To pluck the strings of fate, one uses a gentle hand to make a ripple, not an axe. By forgoing reason, evidence, and the state of things as they were, Bush took an axe to fate. The changes an individual makes have an effect on an immediate area surrounding that individual. When that individual is the President of a powerful country the changes he makes last for decades if not centuries. All the more reason to exercise an amount of understanding of the flow, the Tao if you will, and how best to effect change, and where that change would leave us all in the long run.
Then again, all this is hindsight. The lesson to learn is to listen to the language of our leaders, and understand how they make decisions.