The Paradigms Of Magic
The Spirit Model: Surely the oldest Paradigm of magic, we assume the existence of real super natural beings (spirits, demons, angel’s, helpers ect…) & the magician can communicate w/them, get to know them, become friends w/them, or submit themselves as servants to them. Hence a magician acts as a mediator between life on earth or everyday reality & the world beyond.
This model is still characteristic of all types of Shamanism, mostly people base their opinions of magic on it as well. In western Europe this model enjoyed the greatest popularity during the renaissance, & still used by traditionalist magicians today. In this day of age it can be found in the magic of Bardon & Gragoruis while the entire Golden Dawn system & a great part of the O.T.O teachings are based on it as well just as is the majority of German occultism of the 1920’s. Master A. Crowley used a mixed form as we’ll see later on.
In the spirit model the goal of the magician is to obtain access to the world of creatures that will be described here as “magical entities” This world has it’s on set of laws that the magician most learn in order to survive, & utilize the power & the entities. Each entity has it’s own name, formula & displays a specific, unmistakable character & can therefore be considered an individual personality that has strengths & weaknesses. With the help of trance, the magician travels to their realm where one can either make friends w/them or have them or have them serve one’s self, provided that one has enough power & knowledge to do so, such relationships can be quit dangerous at times, since some spirits such as demons many not be all that eager to serve the magician &/or just might want not like him/her. And they often they charge a high price for their services which could require a blood sacrifices or something similar. A well known example of this is the pact that Dr Frost made w/the devil (selling one’s soul in return for material & intellectual success). Although the exact terms of such a pact are a matter of negotiation, there’s always the danger (just as w/humans) of a breach of contract, a new interpretation of the agreement, or other difficulties, so the magician needs to be continually alert- unless one only works w/”good” spirits w/ integrity that one can trust completely.
From what I have said above, it is clear that spiritualism (which originated in America in the mid 19th century) & is still popular all over the world today, now often called “channeling” (by new agers) is an excellent example of the spirit model, even though it generally focuses on divination & prayer instead of an actual magical operation.
Once the magician has secured the assistance of one’s spirits/demons either w/a friendly pact or through force, one use it in magic the same way one would use the assistance of common human helpers as well. But since these entities are immaterial they can work on levels that common servants can not, such as the astral plane. Plus most spirits are specialist that are generally superior to magician in their field of expertise. For an example, a magician would summoning the mercury demon Taphtharath to achieve magical goals that related to the mercury sphere. While the Mars demon Bartzabel would be summoned to destroy an opponent or to learn the art of warfare. Or one could use a planetary intelligence such as Yophiel Jupiter sphere to improve ones state of property. The magician generally has certain spirits of one’s own that are specialized in certain areas (e.g.. Healing, making rain, protection, ect..) For an example instead of sending healing power to a sick person from a distance, the magician can send one’s spirit helper directly to the patient.
Spirits and demons want attention or want to be “fed” & can rebel or demand a “Pay raise”. and there not infallible. Just because they’re experts doesn’t mean that they can not make mistakes or fail, but in general they can expand the magicians scope of actions considerably although the quality of ones magic depends on the amount of control one has over such spirits. So those are the basic concepts of the spirit model. It requires the magician to explore an already existing world, & to learn & follow it’s rules right down to the last detail. For example if one does not know the “true name” or the “correct formula” that gives power over such transcendental entities all of one’s efforts to gain control of them will be in vain. Even the means of communication w/ these entities or their magical language needs to be learned & much of this knowledge is guarded secretly & only passed on directly for Master to apprentice. There fore, through training is generally required, before magical operations can be performed.
One last note on the spirit model & one that most don’t even realize is a major part of it, & a very important one to the magician. When we take oaths and vows which is also a part of this model and one that opens us up to many of the things spoken in here, most just look at the vows & oaths as words said not what they really are and that is foundations set in the spirit model that opens us up to this world of theirs. Something for you to think on before you take your next vow or oath.
The Paradigms Of Magic
Energy Model
The Energy Model: With the triumphant march of Mesmerism around the turn of the 18th century, the western conscious mind begins to focus on internal bodily process & energy’s. Although Mesmer basically only rediscovered ancient healing methods (hypnotism, suggestion, healing sleep), he made then socially acceptable in a culture that had made a clear distinction between the body and spirit for centuries. Suddenly it was sensational news to learn that the mind can influence the body and even make it sick or heal it. For Mesmer the means for all healing was “animal magnetism” a vital force that can not be more closely defined in scientific terms. The concept of “viral force” developed by Bulwer-Lytton, who was a Rosicrucian and a magician himself, as well as the odic teachings of Riechenbach, are both proof of the impact that this change in awareness had, which significantly influenced Hahnemann’s homeopathy as well (which is a predecessor to cyber-magick). And Bulwer’s friend, the extraordinary influential magician Eliphes Levi (but to see his true brilliance one must be able to read past Levi’s ego and eccentric views), caused quit an uproar in the occult scene just about 50 years after Mesmer’s death with his concept of “astral light”. This mode a significant impact on magic as well. Although the Golden Dawn still principally remains loyal to the old spirit model even a century after Mesmer’s death, it has been strongly “softened” by psychological animistic elements such as those taken from Indian yoga (teachings of chakras and prana). But the energy model didn’t actually celebrate it’s climax until after world war II or more specifically during the occult renaissance of the 1960’s that mainly took place in England. This was surely aided by the strongly influence of psychoanalysis which didn’t make it’s big breakthrough until after the war, even though magicians such as W.B. Yates, Austin Osmar Spare, and A, Crowley begun intergrading the concepts of psychoanalysis into their magical practice at a relatively early date. In general, the energy model in it’s pure form rejects every kind of spiritual thesis.The magician is no longer a conjure of spirits, but more of an “energy occultist” The Focus is on subtle perceptions, and the magician must be able to perceive, polarize (charge) and direct energies. When the magician wants to transfer power (and that is the main focus of the energy model), one either has to have enough power to do the job him/herself, or one needs access to one or more power sources. In the first case; the magician becomes a walking battery, which the second magician becomes a channel or medium for “higher” or at least other powers. And power isn’t always just power. Depending on the system of magic used, the spectrum ranges from a complicated web of positive and negative energies to the neutrality thesis in which the magician his/herself is responsible for polarizing the naturally neutral energies. With the latter there’s always to much or to little desired or undesired energy; for example to much fire in the directing area; infection: the equation of posture= good and negative = bad (which is usually denied in theory but often found in practice) nonetheless generally doesn’t apply here, and the only important thing is the ability to direct the energy to it’s proper place.
*{Depending on the amount of power required, the magician might even be to weak to act. In magical warfare, the strongest magician always wins (not the good one) unless the weakened one can compensate for lack of power through speed and skill. The magician must be able to rely on oneself for, at least , on physical colleagues who might help (and pray that the are true and trusted colleagues) and there is no use in summing a “higher authority” - although one can trying using a “stronger” energy than ones opponent.} This natural demands higher performance from the magician as well. One must be able to do just about everything without any elemental help (including help from beyond) and needs to have a very high level of personal energy since this self- mainly functions as a power battery. When one is weak and tired the quality of magical operation will suffer and the effectiveness of ones magic depends directly on the quantity of ones own energy. Plus one also needs to have excellent, well trained and reliable skills in Subtle perception.
On a final note to this many may read this and think to themselves that all other model’s are not used or obsolete that is far from the truth for in this world everything is made up of energy, we each have our own unique energy. It is the idea of being able to use everything and not limiting our selves and viewing things as good or evil but finding the right mixture for it is apart of us no matter what path or what you wish to call yourself. One must find there own medium or balancing point but always try to better that never be satisfied that you have found it. And one very important thing one must learn to control there ego or it will be his/hers down fall and every magician will deal with this throughout there life, it has many terms lets just call it God complex and woe to him that falls into this for the fall will be great!
The Paradigms of Magic
The Psychological Model
A Mixture
The impact that Mesmer and his successors made in the 18th century is comparable to that of Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein, in the 29th century. Freud and Einstein were revolutionary pioneers of a fundamental, radical change in thinking that drastically shock up the mechanistic views of the world until it eventually burst. In a certain sense, Freud thesis were derived and developed from Mesmer’s concepts and it is no coincidence that the founder of psychoanalysis originally focused on the study of hypnosis and hysteria. What Mesmer public demonstrated in Europe just before the French Revolution with displays and exbitation is what Freud and in particular Georg Groddek (the founder of psychosomatic medicine) tried to prove scientifically a good hundred years latter, the realization that many, if not all illnesses have mental causes, and the mind is able to affect and influence the body. Since were not going into the comprehensive details here, this brief information will have to suffice. Manly it is meant to illustrate the effect that this development has on magical practice. The 1st well known magicians to apply psychological or psychoanalytical thought to a greater degree were A. Crowley and Austin Osmar Spare. Crowley toyed with the psychological model for quite some time, especially in his middle age years, although he latter became a firm supporter of the Spirit model. Spare on the other hand went just the opposite direction- some of the thesis in his magical writings seem to be taken from a textbook on psychoanalysis. Strictly speaking, the psychological model is just an empirical “mixture” since it doesn’t really go beyond the spirit and energy model, but instead strengthens the homocentric of the latter while disputing the basis of the spirit model by denying the existence of spirits in an objective, internal sense- but not in a subjective psychological one. In addition it doesn’t explain magic with the new or different mechanisms, but instead it just relocates it’s place of origin namely deep inside the psyche with out really explaining the way it works. Of coarse such a claim needs to be proved. According to the psychological model, magic is merely an animistic phenomena. Everything that the magician perceives or does while performing one’s act take place inside the psyche where a certain mechanism (that’s never more closely defined) causes the desired (or “undesired) results. The authority responsible for magic is the unconscious mind (or accordingly to Spare who uses Freud’s geromonolgy, the subconscious-mind) this is where all magic activity takes place. The supporters of this theory (and these include nearly all modern-day authors of magic) I’ve mentioned a word about how the subconscious activity performs this “miracle”. But above all with this model the magician becomes a psychonaut. While one need to be a spirit trader and latter an energy traveler, one now becomes a “Journey to the Soul”. By exploring the internal realm of the psyche and mapping it out, one learns the laws that can help take magical control over ones own life and the world around. (This is why we do things with such repetition till it is no longer memory but thought through action, The most powerful of spells are the one’s done through silence for it is not spoken out load but spoken through thought from our true will.)The mixed form nature of psychological model can be recognized by the fact that- as practice has shown- it can be superbly combined with the other two models the we have discussed so far, which is indeed done quite frequently.
The Paradigms of Magic The Chaostheric Paradigm
The manifest universe is just a tiny island of comparative order, set in an infinite ocean of primal chaos or potential. Moreover, that limitless chaos pervades every interstice of our island of order. This island of order was candidly spewed up out of chaos and will eventually be re-dissolved into it. Although this universe is highly unlikely event, it was bound to occur eventually. We ourselves are the most highly ordered structure known on that island, yet in the very center of our being is a spark of that same chaos which gives rise to the illusion of this universe. It is the spark of chaos that animates us and allows us to work magic. We can not perceive chaos directly, for it simultancely contains the opposite to anything we might think it is, we can however occasionally glimpse and make use of partially formed matter, which has only a probabilistic and intermediate existence. This stuff we call (Aethus). If it makes us feel any better we can call this chaos, the Tao,/God and imagine it to be benevolent and human hearted.There are two schools of thought in magic. One concedes that it is a force of spiritual conscious. Myself I am inclined is the view that my spiritual conscious is random and chaotic in an agreeable sort of way.
Constructive imbalance: from the point of greatest imbalance comes the point of greatest stability.
The spirit of man needs opposition = imbalance in his/hers life to promote growth.
Perfectly balanced forces result in a net movement of Zero = And there can be no growth without movement.
Carroll who's also responsible for the fact that Chaos magic joined forces with the Zos Kia cult of Spare. Carroll and Sherwin assumed some of Spare's terminology, such as "Spark of Chaos" quotes above discourse as "Kia". In Sherwin's "Theatre of magic", kia is described as Soul-individuality without ego; while Liber Null defines it as nascent energy seeking form, or as a great desire/even self-love. It can be represented by Atu (trump) 0, the fool, or joker. It's heraldic beast is the vulture, for it ever descends to take it's satisfaction among the living and the dead. Kia can not be experienced directly because it is the basic of consciousness (or experience) and it has no fixed qualities which the mind can latch on to. Kia is the consciousness, it is the elusive "I" which confers self-awareness, but not seen to consist of anything it's self.
Kia can sometimes be felt as ecstasy or inspiration, but deeply buried in the dualistic mind. It is mostly trapped in the aimless wonderings of thought and in identification with experiences and in that cluster of opinions about ourselves called ego. Magic is concerned with giving Kia more freedom and flexibility and with providing means by which it can manifest it's occult power. Kia is therefor impersonal - which is an imperfect fact and it has nothing to do with common Christian based definition of the "Soul". Although we can recognize parallels to the Tao of Chinese philosophy and the Buddhist concept of the incantations of Karma but not the in the individuality of the living being and even to the Paramatman of Hinduism and the cosmic consciousness of some yoga and Jnana schools, one should avoid getting carried away with comparisons. Kia just isn't the exact same thing as Tao, Karma, or Atman although it may be related to these. The Egyptian concept of Kia comes close yet and may even resemble it more than any of the others, but it's still not the exact same thing.
Kia is the point of intersection between chaos and the matter it created for it's own "amusement". Chaos Magic doesn't recognize an individual soul that’s given to a person at birth, or care that may continually incarnate whether it wants to or not. In this sense it resembles Gurdjriff's system, which also assumes that man as to earn his soul.
A curious error has entered into many systems of occult thought. This is the notion of some higher-self or true-will which has been misappropriated from the monotheistic religions. There are many who would like to think that they have some inner-self, which is somehow more real or spiritual than the ordinary or lower-self. The facts do not lean this out. There is no part of one's belief about one's self which can not be modified by sufficient psychological techniques, the proper stimuli can, if correctly applied turn communist into fascist, saints into devils, the meek into hero's, and visa-versa. There is no sovereign sanctuary within ourselves which represents our real nature. There is nobody at home in the internal fortress. Everything we cherish is our ego, everything we believe in, is just what we cobbled together out of accident of our birth and subsequent experiences. With change, brain washing, and other techniques of extreme persuasion, we can quit readily make man a devotee of a different ideology, the patriot of a different country or the followers of a different religion. Our mind is just an extensions of the body and there is no part of it which can not be taken away or modified. The only part of our-selves which exists above the temporary and mutable psychological structure we call the ego is the Kia. Kia is the deliberately meaningless term giving to the vital spark of life force within us. The Kia is without form. It is neither this nor that. Only the obsolete lack of meaning of everything that exists can give the chaos magician true freedom and make him a God/dess, relatively speaking of course. Belief is understood as pure technique, but not as ontic reality - relativity is the trump, everything is random, with true freedom no more absolute barriers exist, but nor does a right to static or pseudo-absolute structures, such as power, domination, or hierarches. If the magician truly wants to be free he/she has to free themselves form all chains. These chains include patterns of thought, behavior, and belief as well as imbedded emotional structures and urges. This process is deeply a-moral; since there is nothing absolute in the conventional sense of the word. The initiate has the entire world at his/her feet. Nothing is true everything is permitted.
The Magical order of faculty known as the Magical Pact or the I.O.T Illuminates of Thanatiros or "The Pact" is an active melting pot of international magical talent....
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