Two Cents on Energy... and good old Faust would hate me for it!

By now all of us have been sufficiently saturated with theories and thoughts on 'energy' in magickal practice.  That's why I will keep this post really short. Otherwise we will all need to ask for The Scribbler's support to build a new 'All About Energy' page... 

After reading through many of the related posts I recalled a conversation with my teacher a few years ago... I asked him if the effects derived through magick should be considered effects triggered by manipulation of energy or rather interaction with spirits?

Here is what he answered: "How the effects of magick on reality are brought about will always remain a mystery. However, you are free to chose to treat reality in the way that is most appropriate for you to create a consistent understanding of your own actions. I for myself chose to speak to reality in the language of spirits - because this is how I get the best replies."

So to keep things really simple - let's imagine a room that can be accessed through three different doors. Maybe there are more doors hidden out there; but for the sake of simplicity I will only assume three at the moment. Depending on the door you chose to enter you will find something different in the room:

• Energy: If you enter through the door labelled 'energy' you will find a reality matrix that is essentially build upon and sustained through subtle forms of energy. These energies can be manipulated and stored by means of all types of 'energy work' - such as meditation, yoga, pranayama, bioenergetic exercises, reiki, rituals, etc.
• Spirit: If you chose to enter through this door reality will be an organism of living spirits, each of them gifted with awareness and individuality, yet all of them being interdependent and related to each other by being part of the same macrocosm. Each spirit can be contacted and its force and influence can be used by means of all types of spirit communication techniques - such as magick rituals or pacts, shamanic or trance journeys, divination oracles, etc.
• Information: If you enter the room through this door you will encounter reality as a universal script or code. In this paradigm rather than directing energy or communicating with spirits the magician directly changes the script, i.e. the related underlying information. This can be achieved by means of all types of information related techniques - such as A.O. Spare's sigil magic or Frater U.'.D.'. Kybermagie.  

Essentially, whatever door you chose 'reality' in the room will adjust to the language you are using to speak to it. It will reply and react in similar terms and words, yet your ability to understand and communicate in all three languages might be limited. Thus - in my humble opinion - we should chose the door through which we learned 'to get the best replies' and not worry about the question if what is behind one door is more 'real' than what is behind the others...

Despite the fact that we are still able to perform wonderful acts of magick this might present a huge frustration to many magicians. Think of Dr.Faust who sacrificed everything to solve the eternal riddle "So that I may perceive whatever holds, The world together in its inmost folds" - and all he gets is a room with three bloody doors!

Yet, maybe this also is the answer Faust was striving for so feverishly? That there is no form or shape of reality outside of our own subjective experience. And while we should never mistake form with force, we will never be able to experience force without using the illusion of matter for it to take shape...

So if we dared to solve the riddle - and in case we can bear the huge frustration it brings for any 'truth seekers' - what we actually find behind all three doors might look somewhat similar to this:

Some thoughts on Leadership

I learned something crucial this week. I learned an essential thing about the difference between a leader and a follower: In order to become a leader you need to satisfy your own desires and still your own fears first. If you don't, you will always be a follower to your own wishes and fears. And the leadership you can provide to others at this point will be nothing but a reflection of what you desire or fear for yourself... But true leadership is helping people to get where they thought they could never go. Not to get them where you wanted them to go.


So the problem with leadership is that in order to provide it you have to mind and finish your own business first. The great leaders I was fortunate enough to witness over the last weeks all had one thing in common: They achieved a state of being that allowed them to focus on others. Their leadership had stopped to be a reflection of what they desired to receive themselves.

Maybe the metaphor of a gardener can be helpful here? A gardener spends a lifetime planning, perfecting and supporting a garden. Each plant, each season, each change deserves its own time and approach. Nothing is rushed and nothing is held back, but fostered only to express itself in the most beautiful way that is possible for it. A gardener doesn't create a thing in his entire lifetime, but provides a space in which the beauty of things can express itself. A gardener provides space for creation, rather than filling it himself.

At the same time a garden will never say 'Thank You' in return. The flowers will never look back at the gardener and bow down in awe. As he hasn't done anything for them, except for allowing themselves to become who they truly are. I guess the gratitude of flowers and children is never expressed in direct rewards. The gratitude of flowers and kids is expressed in who they have been able to become, due to the freedom of fears and of weeds, due to light and soil and nutrition. A garden says 'Thank You' by what it is or isn't.

The Tree of Life as a garden of angels.
What if they are the plants in our lives and we
 are the gardeners to give them space
- rather than space to ourselves?

Maybe this is what I learned this week: You need to be a grown up yourself, in order for others to get something from your support. You will spend a lot of time in the shadows if you dare to become a leader... But you will be surrounded by sunlight and by the beauty of the things you gave space to grow.


Now, what does all of this have to do with Magick you may ask? Fair question. And I would answer that this is about nothing but magick. How can you still your desires and fears, if not by ascending above the veil of Paroketh and stop identifying with your persona(s)? What beautiful and powerful tools has our Western lore prepared for us in order to become better gardeners... and start the work in the gardens of our minds and bodies - before we turn to anyone else. 


One of these keys for me is to experience the forces of planets and spirits in our own bodies while in ritual. To create a sense of awareness that our mind is filled by and working of forces that are connected to but essentially different from us. When I am one with Jupiter I am Jupiter, when I am one with Venus I am Venus. But when I banish and leave the circle, I leave myself as Jupiter or Venus behind. And I am humbled by the experience, the direct encounter of these powerful forces in my body and mind. Yet, I always return to the small circle of my own consciousness in the end, humbled and a hopefully a bit less self-centered after each rite...


So the key to me is that magick helps me become a better gardener - by not craving for what isn't mine. Because I have experienced the essence of Jupiter directly, I don't crave for his reflections in Malkuth no longer. Because I have experienced the essence of love in the embrace of Venus, I stop to crave being loved by every person I encounter. Because I have experienced the power of Mars in rites, I stop to crave being powerful myself. So many wishes and fears are taken away from me in rites. And as I finally learn to embrace myself as a vessel, my mind stops identifying with the matter that fills it at any point in time... If I walk through the garden and see all the beauty around me, the beauty or ugliness of myself becomes meaningless. And this is how I can be free of myself.


Here is the tune that inspired this post... Thank You to the wonderful Micah P. Hinson:

Constantly protecting what isn't mine

Constantly protecting what isn't mine

Names on the wall

And ghost chatting down the hallways

Constantly craving what isn't mine

Constantly craving what isn't mine

Hands on the shelves

And wall run down the well 

Tell me it ain't so

Tell me it ain't so

Constantly craving what isn't mine

Constantly craving what isn't mine

Names on the wall

And ghost chatting down the hallways

Tell me it aint so

Please tell me it aint so

Constantly parading what isn't mine

I've been constantly parading what isn't mine

Tell me it aint so

Please tell me it aint so

Micah H. Hinson - Tell Me It Ain't So

On Love and Magick

Okay, the truth is at this point I would have long loved to give you an update on the third Arbatel ritual on Hagith, the Olympic Spirit of Venus. Fact is, however, it hasn't happened yet as February turned out to be much more busy than expected. At first thought that left me without anything to say - as my ritual work is on pause. Yet, on second thought I realized that my whole intention for this blog was to bring life inside and outside of the temple together. So if you allow, let me share a thought that stems from outside the temple...

Today I heard the sad story of a friend whose relationship broke after 23 years of marriage and four kids, all in teenage years. While the marriage ended five years ago already and my friend  is fine now, it still reminded me of the fragileness of life: How little it takes to bereave us of what we cared about most once? How little it takes to make us turn from what seemed to be the largest 'X' on the treasure map of our lives a few years before. What a sad thing to consider, what a horrible thing to experience.

When I came home tonight I shared the story of my friend with my wife. We are a couple since 13 years and while I can say we are deeply in love still, it is stories like this that even create an uncertain feeling of angst and tremor for us... Yet, tonight was also a wonderful reminder how much I can take responsibility for my own little actions - step by step and day by day. It reminded me of a truth another friend told me years ago based on her job as a therapist. She said in her long career she has seen very few examples for why splitting up has to do something with the people we leave behind. Yet she has seen countless examples for why splitting up often is the easy way out from who we have become ourselves.

On recalling this long lived advice, it suddenly dawned on me how important magick is for the health of my relationship. And this is the actual thought I want to share with you...

In my life - as I guess in yours as well - magick provides a deep, powerful and inexhaustible source of meaning. It enriches my life to an extend that I constantly feel blessed and thankful for the experiences and encounters I am allowed to make. It truly is my fountain of youth, if we follow Gustav Meyrink's saying:

The secret of eternal youth is not 

to look at constantly new things with our old eyes,

 but to look at the same things with constantly new eyes.

Magick renews the sight of my eyes - in a rhythm which I rather need to slow down than to increase. And each time my eyes are renewed a part of myself is reborn; I become a different man. It is from these moments that everything derives meaning in my life - and the wonders in the world around me start to matter more to myself than I do. To me this is the biggest, unshared secret of love: to be to yourself what you expect from love to bring to you. I actually never dared to say this, but here is what I think: What makes you ready for true love, is to be free from concerns about yourself. To look at another person, at the world around you, in a state of wonder and awe, without any intent. 

So it is because magick fills my life with meaning, that I can love my wife without intent. She doesn't have to be 'meaningful' to be as beautiful as she is. And she is beautiful because of everything she is to herself, because of how free she is from me, because of her honesty, her integrity, her foolishness and curiosity. She has a kind of beauty that has become more blinding over the years - because she has become more and more herself. And hopefully my love is no boundary to who she needs to become... We accompany each other on our separate ways, we share our experiences, we love - and we are free to discover different sources of meaning.

The husband in the story of my friend left her for another woman right when midlife crisis hit him. Four kids at home, the usual story we all know. The usual story that leaves a scar that never heals... By no means is our love unattainable for strikes like this. My sense of reality has matured enough through encounters with people and spirits to teach me we should never consider ourselves out of reach for pretty much anything... Yet, what I do know is that I am immune to ending a relationship because of the desire to reinvent myself. Because of the desire to be more meaningful as a different person. 

I have learned what magick and love can do if I treat both with respect and tenderness. And I learned not to mistake the talents of one for the talents of the other. The temple was destroyed only when Samson aspired to bring the two pillars of Jakin and Bohaz together...

The biggest gift of my wife to me is to allow me to become whoever I need to be. To not have any fantasies about who I should be - except for true to myself - in order to deserve her love. It's only now that I see this: Her love sets me free, it's magick that binds me.

Well, in the end it still feels like Hagith is approaching?

::

Well, it seems this is starting to become a habit... here is the song I am listening while typing this on a calm Sunday night: Low, Violent Past. Isn't this a wonderful description of what allows our relationships to end so easily? So carelessly as if we didn't care, but fail to show and share... Here is to the dweller on the threshold:

All I can do is fight

Even if I know you're right

All I can do is fight

Pretty fingers, holding fast

Maybe it's your violent past

Maybe it's your violent past

All you can do is hide

God bless the darkness of the night

All you can do is hide

Pretty fingers, the golden calf

Maybe it's your violent past

Maybe it's your violent past

Maybe it's the violent path

Maybe it's your violent past

Maybe it's the violent path

Maybe it's your violent past

Low - Violent Past 

On the Patience of my Angel

The last weeks have been more busy than expected and I have been traveling a lot for my job. Yesterday night I returned home from the airport by taxi and listened to this song while the black fields were rushing along my window.

I hadn’t done my daily exercises and for various private and business reasons I also had to delay the next Arbatel ritual much longer than I had hoped to... Suddenly it dawned on me how patient my angel is with me. I hadn’t cared for him most of my adult life and now I dictate small pockets of time during which we can meet - and whenever I am there, he is waiting for me already.

What kind of self-less love is it that our angels feel for us? Where else in nature do we find this kind of devotion where the tall cares for the small in such a self-less way? When I am entering into my angel’s body and dissolve in it for short periods of time it is nothing but love and gnosis that I experience. Yet, when I am busy earning my living, spending my days unconscious of his presence, involved in petty affairs he is patiently waiting for me.

I feel deeply embarrassed and humbled by his ability to love and ask for nothing in return.  How come we deserve such a force, a might and glory being put over our little lifes? There is is nothing I can give back in return... It truly is a relationship of unequals. It is me who is constantly taking, recharging from him, elevating my frequency through his presence - without being able to give back in any terms, and certainly not in equal.

The words of the song I mentioned above come to my mind...

I gave you my body and you ate a plenty

I gave you ten lives and you wasted twenty

Now I’m standing empty, helpless and bare

Without a morsel left of me to give

My angel’s most recent advice to me was simply and clear as always: “Bind your love to things.” What he encouraged me to do was not to lose my heart in the things and matters I deal with, but to share. He advised me to share his love and bind it to the things I 

A ribbon around
incense of Venus

encounter in my life, irrespective of their perceived worthiness. Because if I am worthy of his love, then the trash can on the street is certainly worthy of my love... I have tried to follow his advise since then and it still is a liberating experience - going through my days not being concerned with how they can help me to grow and mature, but how I can bind my love to them?

The way I think of ‘binding my love to things’ is simple, like a ribbon you wrap around a present. Something that is humble and plain in its expression and doesn’t change the nature of the things I touch, but leaves a mark of love on them. I try to leave a lot of ribbons on my way these days, to share his love wherever possible and wherever my tiny conscious allows... Sometimes I bind ribbons around the food I eat, around my dog during the morning walk, around the keyboard I am typing on right now, around the stewardess on the plane who is stressed, around my anger when it tries to raise from my gut, around the tiredness in my eyes, around the neck of my wife and around the people I meet.

Maybe this can become a craft? Being a ribbon binder around the things I encounter. The Chassid called this process Tikkun: freeing the divine sparks of light from the shells of the material realm through devotion, awareness and love. Maybe this is the way how our love can become a love of equals? Well, probably as "equal" as the love between water and its river bed...

In a wonderful book I currently read the author Brad Blanton says: “If you have never truly embarrassed yourself by what you had to say about yourself, you don't know shit from shinola about transformation.” I guess this is a good expression for how embarrassed I feel about my inability to bind love to the most simple thing in my live. But it seems we are bound together by a ribbon of love...  

I gave you a child and you didn’t want it

That’s the most I have to give

I gave you a house and you didn’t haunt it

Now where am I supposed to live?

I gave you a tree and you did not embrace it

I gave you a nightmare and you didn’t chase it

I’d gave you a dream and you’d only wake from it

Now I’ll never go to sleep again

I’d give you a treasure and you’d only take from it

Look at the hole where juwlery had been

Baby, oh baby, why must you escape from it

This love that once called our friend?

I gave you my body and you ate a plenty

I gave you ten lives and you wasted twenty

Now I’m standing empty, helpless and bare

Without a morsel left of me to give

And oyu have vanished into the air

The air in which I must breathe

Superwolf - “I Gave You”