It’s really important that you understand what your motivations are for getting involved with magic. You might wander down to an occult conference where people introduce themselves with what they are but who says why they have chosen that path?:
“Hi I’m … I’m a “
- “Witch”
- “Magician”
- “Thelemite”
- “Mystic”,
- “Psychic”
- “Medium”
- “Wiccan”
- “Golden Dawn initiate”
- “Sorcerer/ess”
- “Buddhist”
- “Necromancer”
- “Psychic Vampire”
- “Light worker”
- “Otherkin”
- “Shaman”
- The list goes on…
The why goes much deeper into understanding the true-self. Most people don’t know the true-self and getting to know it can be scary for them!
If we introduced ourselves by the why, what would that sound like? How would we say it?
- “I am religious because I need to know I’m on the side of the good-guys.”
- “I practice my path because I have a need to see myself progressing.”
- “I really want to understand and investigate the true nature of the universe and this seems like an excellent way to do it.”
- “I think the goddess is really beautiful and I feel happy when I am celebrating her.”
- “I’m a person who likes to feel in control and magic helps me to feel like that.”
- “I learn magic because I think there are scary forces in the universe someone needs to learn to keep back such forces so why not I?”
- “I just want to get more out of life.”
- “Doing this stuff is fun.”
- “My practice allows me to escape for a while.”
- “I believe in spiritual stuff but my political agenda is too liberal for most major world religions.”
- “I continue to do these meditations because I think that I will ultimately end up happier.”
- “I don’t like people from the other major world religions.”
- “I’m not a very interesting person so I am because I think that being pagan makes me more interesting.”
- “I’ve tried a bit of this stuff because it was cool and now I know it works and it’s real.”
Why should we get to understand our motivations in magic?
Frequently I stand in circle with people whose paths are very different from mine, but with whom I share a lot more in common than people working the same kind of magic as me. That’s because I want to get to the why of people. What are their motives? What is their philosophy? Equipped with this knowledge then we can work together much more easily.
Most people don’t look at why. It’s a toughie and if they did; if they were truly honest with themselves they might be quite surprised as to what their rationale behind practicing magic was. Don’t worry if your why doesn’t sound very praise-worthy, if it’s true then well done for getting there! Now you can practice magic that is going to get you what you want! Denying yourself your desires, will only lead you to get stuck. Often pursuing less laudable motives will allow you evolve beyond those base needs and come to truly understand them.
We get on well with people we understand and when we do not understand people, it’s almost as if we grieve our differences! Have you ever fallen in love with someone only to find them to be a very different person to who you met? When a couple breaks up, one of them might say, “x has just changed so much…” but the truth is most of the time they haven’t changed at all. Often when we meet someone we are exposed to only a small part of their personality and our brain has a horrid habit of filling in the blanks. Later we find out we were wrong about that blank that we filled in and then we grieve for that imaginary person who we think we’ve lost.
The same is true for our co-practitioners. We imagine them having the same motives as us and then grieve the loss of that imaginary person when we find out it’s not the case.
So many children and young adults have fallen in love with Edward from Twilight because his character is made almost entirely of love and primal hunger and they fill in the rest of the character to their own liking. When you ask them what they like about the character of Edward, you often hear characteristics which are not evident in the series at all. They have filled in the blank with what they liked to imagine Edward would be like rather than investigate who he really is!
We do the same with friends! Our magical partners are no exception to this, because of the closeness and understanding that we get from those friends. We like to imagine everyone as we wish they were, rather than who they really are. I’ve heard a person claiming that another member of their coven was incredibly selfless, while we both knew that person had tried to summon up goetic demons to acquire the love of a girl he liked, when he was younger.
Too often we grieve our differences; we are sad to acknowledge them. However the truth is when we acknowledge our differences not only do we become better friends, but we also become much more useful to each other. I know that there are certain people who focus almost entirely on evocation magic because their aims are not transcendence and unity with god and although I’m different in motives from them, I benefit a lot from their understanding of their chosen area. Some take a very psychological approach to magic and some do not, so I benefit a lot from working with both of these as I am trying to understand the universe and so feel a need to battle out these different views in my head.
People are incredible when we can identify their true motives and see where their motives overlap with our own. Two people can have completely separate motives but both benefit from the same exercise and seeing where our true-selves can allow us to work together is really important to our efficiency in working together with magic.
It’s very important not to judge people who have motivations which are different to ours, but it is important that they recognise that we’re not all always searching for the same thing. I often have many people who give me tips for inner peace and happiness when I’m not searching for that, my greater focus is to understand the universe and sadly their advice would give me a contentment and peace which could cost me all my impetus and passion. Because we do not match up in our motivations our practices are going to be very different. We could still learn from each other and there are a great number of practices that we could do together and both benefit, but some practices only lend to a few magic folk. Just because one practice is beneficial for you, does not mean it is for someone else.
When it comes to something as immense, unknown and complicated as magic, you need to understand the why before understanding what to do. Liber Resh vel Helios (a 4-part solar invocation written by Aleister Crowley) is a very useful ritual, but for someone whose practices involve calling upon moon deities and working exclusively with lunar energy, it is essentially useless. For them will feel uncomfortable because it is taking them in a different direction and feels very different from the energy they cultivate in their body.
I hear many people saying, “oh but the sun energy could balance out the moon energy.” Ask yourselves why that practitioner has been cultivating moon energy if she was just going to balance it out afterwards. “She should unite the sun and moon energy to transcend above it.” But what if she does not want to transcend? “But that’s the great work!” How do you know? Are you an omnipotent deity already? Who says that she’s trying to achieve what you think is the great work?
Often people chose to believe things because that makes them happy, but then to someone else whose intention is to believe in the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, no matter how joyous or painful, the information is useless. It is not truth; only a belief that made someone else happy. For example let’s imagine Norman the New Ager and Borris the Buddhist are having a conversation. Borris’ faith pushes him to consider uncomfortable truths like the reality of his own future death, in order to encourage his spiritual evolution and learning. Norman’s group prefer to be relaxed and seeks a form of contentment with everything that reality offers (instead of the Buddhist belief that reality is an illusion from which we must escape). If Norman says to Borris, “it is important in spiritual development to visualize the energy of happiness pouring in to oneself and to not worry about the future” then an error has occurred. Norman has assumed that Borris wishes to become more pleased with his reality, rather than less attached to it. Norman’s advice is poor for Borris’ situation and does not consider his why. In failing to consider his why, it does not aid him in achieving his goals. On the other hand, Martha who is a Buddhist because she gets a lot from Mindfulness practices, really benefits from what Norman is suggesting because it aids her in achieving a calm from which to approach life.
We often focus on how all the religions of the world are the same, but they can be different just as much as they might seem to be alike and often a philosophical mind that seeks to penetrate the thoughts of religious teachers from around the world will further understand religions differences as well as what those differences tell them about the universe.
Some religions encourage their devotees to enjoy reality Trinitarian Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism, etc. Some encourage their devotees to escape from this reality Gnostic Christianity, Neo-platonism, Buddhism, etc. Some suggest devotees should prepare for a place in Heaven while others suggest one go higher and transcend above even god himself. Some idealise asceticism, while others encourage socialization. By truly understanding the differences one can pursue different goals and understand the beauty of all the universe has to offer.
A Hindu practice might allow one to attain Krishna, a Christian practice might allow one in to a Heaven and a Buddhist practice may release one’s mind to Nirvana but who says these different practices are all leading to the same thing? How do you know they are the same? Do you know someone who got in to heaven going through Nirvana and met Krishna there? Perhaps they lead to different results and it is the goal of the initiate to understand his own path and seek its end whole-heartedly.
You might be in the same group as someone, and seem to be on the same path, but the reasons you’re on that path could be totally different and what you get from your practices or initiations could be totally different from what someone else gets from them. Recognising this, is the key to working well with other people. A key I have sadly neglected through much of my work with other groups and a key, that I now realise, is more important than any magical practice or group ritual. You cannot be efficient in participating in or running a group unless you know why your team wants to do the practices they want.
Understanding our motives allows us to be much more efficient in working together and much more efficient in working alone. Why do you think all these business advisers have their advisees set SMART goals? Because people are not honest with themselves about what their goals really are. And then, they are not efficient at pursuing them! You can’t achieve what you want, unless you know what you want in the first place. You might stumble across a £5 note if you were to walk for 10 days straight, but if you knew that you wanted money you could have just washed a neighbour’s car instead.
The same is true for magic. If you want enlightenment; if you want to know what that feels like, then practicing a tradition that does not get you to work on it will not get you there. Alternatively Buddhism and yoga offer a number of systems specifically organised to get people there. One really should understand how their spiritual practice meets their needs and even more they should understand how it falls short.
We live in an age where our globalisation allows us access to a wide plethora of spiritual practices where eclecticism is more possible than ever before and choosing practices from different paths which allows us to reach our goals, enables us to form the most unique and successful paths of any that came before us.
Conclusion
When you work with other Magical people you need to realise that their motivations are often not the same as yours and then avoid giving advice unless you have some idea what a person’s intentions are. Spend a good amount of time allowing people to give their reasons for their path and craft group rituals which your attendees want, rituals that they won’t just enjoy but will also push them to work towards their goals.
Choose spiritual practices that benefit most of the group and then you can deal with beneficial practices for others. Be eclectic! Bring together all the tools you need but understand the why behind them. Love people, no matter how base their motivations may seem because we are all unique and if you understand why a person follows their path then you are getting to know their true-self and it’s an honour to be allowed that close to someone!