Twins

I was going to wait until the first trimester was over, but given the news today I can't resis posting that barring any unforseen misfortune I am going to be the father of twins. 

Please pardon me if I have seemed a little off my game for the past couple weeks and if I seem REALLY off my game for the next few...

Spiritual empowerment for practical magick

Two days ago I wrote about how Spiritual illumination and Practical magick are not in any way mutually exlusive. 

Yesterday I clarified my point to note that while not mutually exclusive, they are not inherently intertwined either. One CAN do either without the other. I personally think that Sorcery without Gnosis is futile, but it can be done. I think that spiritual illumination without Sorcery is just fine and dandy. I find spiritual illumination without worldly action to be a bit lame, but there are all types of ways to act within the world. 

Today FRATER R.O. wrote: Jason, can you tie this into that post on how I think you need a spiritual baptism to empower your practical magic though? 

Hell yes I can brother! I never miss a chance to get up on a soapbox and pontifocate. 

The Good Frater made a post last week entitled The Secret to Power which you should all read. In it he details how his practical magick AND his illumination really kicked off after his spiritual baptism in church, and than gave a very pithy exposition on the path his work has taken since. I can really dig this, as I had a pretty profound experience today at the Valley Forge chapel that its gonna take me a few days to digest. 

So, while sorcery is not an obstacle to gnosis, and while spiritual illumination is not necessary for practical magick in general, it is helpful for certain types. Working with spirits for instance, the topic of my next book BTW, is usually facilitated by the power of spiritual authority or offerings or both. We will leave aside for the moment, styles of magick that rest on the practice of offerings alone and focus only on traditions that command the spirits through authority, even if there are offerings involved. 

Spiritual authority is established in a number of different ways before calling upon the spirits. The most common way is to simply do it in the name of a spiritual power. Christ taught that anyone with faith could exorcise demons in his name, of course if one lacks faith this tends not to work. Note the episode in Acts: 

	Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, "I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches."
	Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this.
	But the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?"
	And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. ACTS 19:13-16 RSV

Another way is to perform an invocation or take on a god-form ahead of time and temporarily identify yourself AS a particular power. THis is why Crowley prefaced his translation of the Goetia with the Bornless Ritual, beacuse you identify yourself with Moses, the Law Giver, and are this able to command the Demons. In Tibetan rituals you generate yourself as Hayagriva or other wrathful yidam in order to command the 8 classes of spiirts or to summon the aid of Dharmapalas. This is what I call the "fake it till you make it" way. 

The best way of course is to possess gebuine spiritual authority by virtue of your own Gnosis. This is why Abramelin was so different than other Grimoires. Rather than just telling you to shout out lots of names of God and threats to roast their ass or lock them up in a brass vessel, he is daring to suggest that you should spend a significant amount of time in prayer, meditation, and devotion so that you actually evolve spiritually. In this case the seal upon your attainment would be the Knowlege and Conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel. But there are other ways. 

As the good frater points out, dealing with the Angels of the Higher Speres is another. This is one of the reasons I like my Descent of Divinity practice so much. This is the real secret of Enoch. He was seventh descended from Adam (7 spheres) and lived for 356 years (365 a full solar cycle) and than was taken by God without dying, and according to some sources was transformed into the Archangel Metatron. But I digress.

The taking of Holy Orders and Tantric Wangs and other types of transmission, is yet another way to establish Spiritual Authority, but without genuine spiritual work, that authority is never really actualized. 

Beyond the issue of spiritual authority though is a much more important issue: that of guidance. Whether you are guided by your own heightened spiritual perception, or by what you perceive as the hand of God, or your HGA, it is this guidance that is most important in practical magick. It is only by knowing ones true will, which is synonynmous with the will of the divine, or in eastern terms: enlightened action generated out of rigpa or pure awareness, that your worldly action will be truly fulfilling and successful. 

Frater R.O. has found that while his magick worked well enought before his baptism, it now works in harnmony with the universe itself and is profoundly successful. I have found the same, and in the last several years have found the need to perform formal magick for myself almost non-existant. Almost all the sorcery I do now if for other people. By keeping up my meditation, devotion, and awareness, probability tends to unfold better on its own than when i tinker with it myself. 

Thats all I have time for tonight. 

I will write more on Monday when I get back from vising friends in Boston. 

Prop 8 the musical

Hey, Jesus is in it, ergo it qualifies as spiritual for the blog...

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Spiritual Realization and Magickal Power

An issue that I meant to cover in my post about lines of transmission came up again today in Frater BH's post, and in a reply by Scott Stenwick. The issue is the relationship between efficacy of practical magick and spiritual realization.

Frater BH seems to treat practical magick as a sort of distraction from realization, which we have dealt with in my last post.

Scott however sees the two as interlocked. In his reply to that post he wrote:

“it is a mistake to pursue either at the expense of the other”

and later wrote:

“objective magical results are definitive signs of spiritual progress beyond the psychological realm.”

While I obviously do not see the two as mutually exclusive, this blog is called Strategic Sorcery after all; I also disagree with Scotts view. In fact I disagree with it a good deal more. I do not see spiritual realization and practical magick as necessarily intertwined.

Dealing with the last quote first, I have met many people that possess what I would call a high degree of spiritual wisdom, gnosis, or illumination. Only a few of them have any interest in practical magick. In fact, most do not. Now that I think about it most of the writers and teachers throughout history that I hold the most dear as Spiritual authorities had absolutely no interest in practical magick whatsoever.

On the other side of the coin, I have met many sorcerers, witches, and psychics who have no interest in “realization” or mysticism, but totally kick ass at practical magick. They may be members of a religion, and they may even have a bit of faith, but that is not the same as spiritual attainment.  

Therefore I do not see success at sorcery as evidence of spiritual realization. This is VERY important to realize. You may, in the course of walking your path meet many powerful men who can do amazing things. That does not make them wise! As one friend of mine told me in Nepal about a certain Lama: “He is an extremely powerful Tantrika. If you need a mo or a puja done, you should go to him. Just watch your wallet and your girlfriend because he will try to take them both…”

Now, as to the first quote, I think that practical magick only calls to a small amount of people. In fact, I wish that a lot less people who have no real calling for it, and no real talent for it would just drop it. Your posing and psychological reductions are harming the art.

Spiritual realization on the other hand is something that I think everyone needs. It is only by a great inner revolution that we can ever hope for the mind and spirit of humanity to catch up with its technological progress.

While I do think that spiritual realization should be a concern of practical magicians, I do not see it as essential for the performance of practical magick. 

I certainly do not at ALL see practical magick as necessary for spiritual realization. 

Percival wanted not only the Grail, but the Quest as well...

Frater BH made a post today called Has Percival Made a Come Back? in which he ponders whether he is spending too much time on practical magick (thaumatrurgy) over spiritual Union (theurgy).  This is not the first time he has pondered this on his blog. 

I have struggled with the same issue myself. When I was five I had a vision that sparked my interest in mystecism. Later in life, while exploring various spiritual systems, I found practical magick and found that I had a talent for it. I see no reason for viewing them as separate things. Almost all great spiritual leaders performed actions that effected the world around them. Some of these actions were accomplished through magick, or supernatural means. 

I see practical magick as both a means for dealing with life to the point that we can focus our mind on spiritual illumination. Maslows pyramid teaches us that its hard to work on self actualization while our basic needs are in dissarray after all. Thaumaturgy is also the rays of light that reflect our illumination into the world. I have no interest in spiritual persuits that are divorced from the manifest world. 

While there is no inherent contradiction between Illumination and Sorcery, there is still the matter of striking a balance. I happen to know that our good Frater has been reading up on a bit of the Hoodoo of late, which while not devoid of spirit, is practiced more by people who rely on faith rather than a quest for gnosis as the cornerstone of their spiritual lives. Nothing wrong with that, but its not Frater BH's path, nor is it mine. 

I strongly suspect that his post is the result of a gentle nudging from his HGA to not stray to far from the path. I recognize this because I get those nudges all the time. I used to get them even when I would get caught up in Buddhist Lower Activity practices rather than the Pure search for enlightenment. 

Recently I have made some firm decisions about my activties as a Sorcerer vs those of a Mystic. I have some things I need to accomplish over the next few years and than I will retire from practical magick and devote myself fully to BEING. (ie: Gnosis is not enough. You must BE). These decisions have eased the burden of balance lately, but I have had trouble in the past keeping that balance, and so I sympathize. 

I only wish to point out to my freind, that he claims that he is : "a man without religion seeking the ultimate god, the ultimate unity." If this is ALL he is interested in or called to, than he is going about it in one of the worst possible ways. GD, Enochian, Hoodoo, etc aint gonna get you there in the fastest most efficient manner. You are in fact never very far from what you seek and if thats really all you are looking for than drop everything labeled "magick" which takes long and meandering routes back and forth along the paths, assidulously mapping them as you go, and take on something more direct like Zen, Dzogchen, or some other type of meditation. It will shoot you straight up the middle pillar. 

But I suspect that you are actually called to more than just seeking the ultimate God, the ultimate unity. I suspect that you are called to magick, and at least for a time, must do the balancing act between Sorcery and Illumination. 

Of course. I could be wrong. I talk out of my ass a lot. 

More on Lines of Transmission

In Response to my post yesterday, JM wrote the following: 

"How does this work? It would seem to me that a valid transmission would transform each carrier of the message to at least a semblance of an enlightened or illuminated presence, sufficient to preclude behaviors like nail-gunning babies to anything. If not, and if we cannot look to the results of the carriers as indicators of the quality of their spiritual payloads, then how can we evaluate the value of the transmission?

In other words - I typically would dismiss any habitual baby-nail-gunner as spiritually corrupt to a point that I would limit my learnings from them to "what not to do". If I shouldn't do that, if doing that somehow limits me from noticing other value that qualifies them as legitimate carriers of a powerful spiritual current, then how should I look for that value? What qualities, characteristics or results could indicate possible value enough that I ought to overlook what I otherwise consider clear spiritual deficits?"

Excellent points, so excellent that I thought that they should form the basis of another post rather than remain in the comments section. It exposes a couple issue. 

The first is that of over expectation. There is no transmission that will transform the carrier into an "enlightened or illuminated presence" in and of itself. If there were we would just give it out like pills and all would be well with the world. The types of transmission that I was speaking of do change you for sure, but they do not make you enlightened, or even better. Just different. 

The transmission forms the base from which one would begin ones path. That is all. 

It is entirely possible that someone possesses this transmission and does absolutely nothing with it spiritually. Or, more likely, screws it all up and fails at the work. Or even more likely, makes some progress but still remains a flawed being, and therefore someone who commits errors. In either of these three cases they are still in possession of thing and able to pass it on because the working is in the work, not the worker. 

It would be as if I got initiated into the best most kick ass magickal order on the planet by a complete dullard or shithead. I received the initiation one way or the other. I might have receieved some additional benefit from being initiated by a great magus, but the essence of it was still transmitted. What I do with it from that point on is up to me and is not determined by how good or bad my initiator was. 

My Minerval initation was REALLY lame. It was poorly performed in a shitty space. It effected my time in the OTO not one iota. 

Now, as to eavluating the worth of the transmission, there you are completely correct. If people that have the transmission and work it are not producing results than I wouldnt want it. But that is a totally separate issue than the mechanics of how a line is transmitted. 

In the case of Cliff questioning the integrity of a Christian transmission, I submit that for every person of intolerance and ignorance that I have met within the tradition, I have met 10 more who are moved to extreme acts of courage, compassion, and charity. For every Pat Robertson, there is a Sister Helen Prejean. I also submit that they are no worse than other religions of similar size. Its easy to point to how little violence there is in a tradition that is just over 100 years old and has less adherants worldwide than a small town. 

Lines of Transmission

A couple weekends ago when Cliff and Misha were over, Cliff and I got to talking about lineage, and my ordination as a priest. He in particular was curious about how I could take ordination as a Christian because in his eyes, the line would be so polluted with the Karma of various inquisitions and such.

I promised him that once I had a chance I would write a post about how I view lineage and lines of transmission. So, now that the book is done, here we go. 

Before we deal with the issue of the integrity of a line of transmission, we should first discuss why one would want to possess such a line. I am not speaking only of Christian lines of transmission here, but of all lines claiming to pass on not only spiritual knowlege, but a direct transferance of power. These exist in Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism, and other paths as well.

In some cases it is taught that only those who possess these lines have access to the highest states of realization. I flatly reject such notions. To quote Krishnamurti, "Truth is a pathless land". While I do believe the gates of truth can be approached through various religious paths, they are not the only way in which it is approached. Furthermore, I am a strong believer that the "ism" you approach the truth by, must eventually be abandoned if you are to enter into the Chapel fully. 

You can no more take your religion into the chapel of truth, than you can take your car into your living room.  

All, that said, paths and religions exist for a reason, as do lines of transmission. In general it works like this: A great Saint (Jesus, Padmasambhava, Ibn Arabi, whoever) either attains or is born with a special connection to the ultimate. They attempt to teach their students as best they can when they were alive, so that those students can pass those teachings on. In addition to those teachings they transmit a psycho-spiritual power that acts as a catalyst in co-operation with the teachings that they pass on. In the case os a Sufi Master like Ibn Arabi this is Baraka. In the case of a Tantric Master like Padmasambhava, this is Samaya transmitted through Empowerments. In the case of Jesus this is the Apostolic line of Holy Orders. 

These are lineages are catalysts that enable one to do certain things in the name of the person who started the lineage. In the case of Padmasambhava, you can enter certain mandalas and generate yourself as those Yidams, and practice the associated Yogas and so on. In the case of Christ you are given the power to transmit the sacraments. I happen to enjoy both of these transmissions, and value them highly, but they are not the only way to the truth. Just a way.

Now, as far as the integrity of these lineages goes, there is some debate. Do the lines of transmission actually pass through each person that gives it, going back to the originator? Or, does each person have a direct link back to the fountainhead of the lineage? 

In the case of the former we have a situation where the line can deteriorate over time, just like a message deteriorates from person to person when playing the game "telephone". This is why in Tibetan Buddhism there is a good deal of emphasis on keeping ones Samaya pure. In the Nyingma school this idea has led to Termas (hidden teachings revealed by later treasure revealers) to be more valued than Kama (teachings actually given by Padmasambhava when he was alive) because the lineage is shorter. For instance, the lineage that I recieved the Dudjom Tersar Kilaya through only has a couple jumps from me to Padmasamhava (me, Kunzang Dorje, Dudjom Rinpoche, Dudjom Lingpa, Padmasambhava). The line that I received the Kama through has dozens of people going back to the 8th century within it. Therefore the line can be damaged by being passed through people who broke vows and generally had poor spiritual worth. 

Of course, not every school of Tibetan Buddhism feels this way. All the Sarma schools seem to value a teaching more the closer it is to a Sanscrit original. Thus, they value the age more than the Nyingma do. An irony, since the Nyingma are the oldest school. 

In the case of Christianity this issue of whether a lineage can be corrupted is played out in the Heresy of Donatism. Donatus taught that the efficacy of a sacrament is dependant upon the moral character of the person giving the sacrament. Thus any sacrament given by a Priest who commits a serious enough sin can be considered invalid. This includes the sacrament of Holy Orders. 

The Church declaired this a heresy and established a doctrine of Opere Ex Operato, or working because of the work, as opposed to Opere Ex Operantis, or working because of the worker. It is because of this rule that wandering Priests and Bishops can exist, with orders that are "Valid but Illicit". They operate outside of the doctrines of the Roman Chuch, yet possess spiritual validity. 

So, in other words, even if you get the Jesus Juice from a Priest who enjoys taking the lords name in vane while nail gunning babies to trees and coveting his neighbors wife on the Sabbath, the Lineage you receieve is ultimately between you and the fountainhead of the lineage, not every person it passes through. 

This is how I view it. Even in the case of the Buddhist lineages. I have worked both Kama and Terma and have found no difference between the two as far as quality of transmission. I have found Lamas who feel the same way about it as well.