The Magus’ Social Death
We have said many times that at a certain stage in the development of the Magus’s self-awareness he confronts the obvious fact of the falsity of the world’s order, errors in the worldview’s basic principles, and the inauthenticity of motives in that worldview. At this moment the Magus experiences a kind of “midlife crisis,” but far more serious, often accompanied by illness and depression, and leading to an irreversible change in his consciousness. In fact, we have a complete analogy with the process of dying — just as in death there is a sequential breakdown of the channels of consciousness that sustain awareness of a given worldview, so in this “crisis” the worldview itself collapses. However, there is a certain difference. In the case of “physical” death the process of destruction occurs as a result of the exhaustion of the mind’s ability to exist within the worldview, and the “initiative” for the destruction comes from the worldview itself. In other words, Creation “pushes out” the now useless mind beyond its limits. In the case of the Magus’s “crisis,” the initiative to end the coexistence of mind and the “old” world comes from the mind itself, which can no longer accept the hierarchy of values established in that world. The state of liberation from roles, relationships, world, and self — this is a form of symbolic death. This is well known to various spiritual systems as the principal goal of inner development. The death of the “ego” may occur gradually, over a long period of time, or it may happen suddenly and with great intensity.
Moreover, the falsity of the worldview becomes, at a certain point, so evident that it can lead to the total destruction of a person if that person was too tightly bound to that picture — potentially causing physical death. However, if the Magus prepared for such an event, if he had rigorously tested the world’s principles, by the time the world collapses he is already sufficiently detached from it and lets the collapse pass without destroying continuity of his consciousness.
Among such “preparatory” procedures are the ancient institutions of the Mysteries and the “initiation crisis” of shamans.
Pagan Mysteries were bound up with the Great Secret. Only specially initiated people were admitted; profanes not only were not admitted, they could not know what occurred there. In the Mysteries the ceremonial ritual drama was combined with ideas of the “eternal bliss” of the initiated, those “assimilated” to the deity through contact with it. Eastern and ancient Mysteries were most often connected with the cults of dying-and-rising fertility gods; in Greece there is an antagonism between the aristocratic religion of the “Olympian” gods and the Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone, the goddesses of the earth. The ancients attached enormous importance to the Mysteries: only the initiated, according to Plato, enjoy bliss after death, and, in Cicero’s assertion, the Mysteries taught both how to live well and to die with hope. Respect for the Mysteries was so great that while ordinary myths could be parodied in comedies and the like with impunity, acts against the Mysteries were regarded as sacrilege, bringing severe punishments. The Mysteries included rituals whose very performance was meant to increase one’s power and to make the initiate master of surrounding spirits. In other words, the Mysteries were intended to expand perception, to push perception beyond the social myth’s limits, and therefore to bring about the initiate’s social death, who, having seen (in symbolic, dramatic, or mystical form) the limitations of the ordinary world, could no longer fully exist within that myth.
Unlike the Mysteries, in which a person consciously submitted to symbolic death hoping for rebirth, the shamanic initiation crisis could take a person by surprise. Then the confrontation with the need to change was agonizing. These sufferings could either befall them unexpectedly during the initiation crisis, or the shamans themselves would deliberately undergo suffering during periods of solitude and asceticism. The shamanic initiation crisis begins as acute anxiety that disrupts the habitual way of life. Further experience includes visionary descent into the underworld, assaults by demons, inhuman torments and ordeals, followed by death and rebirth, and ascent into the celestial spheres. During this time the future shaman may experience a wide range of extreme emotions and behave in the most unusual ways. As a result of these processes, shamans undergo a radical shift in their views of the world and their place in it. Endowed with qualities that usually belong only to spirits and spiritual entities, having restored their connection with the sacred through contacts with “wise people” and “givers of life,” the shaman now truly has “eyes that see” and “ears that hear.” Shamanic initiation is the death of a limited mode of thought or way of life.
Resistance to such changes and disintegration of the normal life structure have always been an integral part of the transformational process. Therefore they form aspects of any ritual of initiation. The rejection of the new and unknown is a common human reaction. At the same time, although such symbolic death changes existence itself, the most fundamental change is the leap from three-dimensional to multidimensional perception and experience. The Myth, the paradigm of existence, changes, and this new paradigm will never again be as imperative as the old, familiar social myth once was. The memory of the transition, of the leap, of the world’s collapse will always remind one that any myth, however broad and perfect, is a description of a reality beyond words and forms.
Thank you 🙂
It’s amazing how much easier it is when you understand what is happening. Thank you.
This isn’t the first time I’ve found enlightening material on your blog. Thanks, I will quote it on the forum.
Enmerkar, tell me, does social death imply a complete (or almost complete) break with society? If so, then, for example, how does a magician survive in society? What means do they exist on, how do they earn a living?
The very process of social dying does indeed imply such a break. But, having severed ties, a magician can return to society – after all, it no longer has power over them. And they may choose to remain a hermit, this is a matter of individual choice.
Yes, everything is correct.
I personally experienced such a break; for six months I hardly left the house, but now I have returned to life in society (this means I have contacts with people, not retreating into societal depravity).
About the break… how to earn a living, how to communicate with people in such a case? After all, this is an inseparable part of society as such. Many have families, children… parents. To abstract from everyone is it an exit? Magic is magic, but you always want to eat… or am I wrong?
‘Social death’ is not running away to the desert, nor is it monasticism. It only means that society, its laws and conventions, do not have the power over the mage that they have over an ordinary person. Communicating with people is not necessarily accepting the rules of the game by which they play. And earning a living is essential. Only artists can be hungry. Warriors must be fed. Hungry warriors are poor warriors – they won’t have strength for battles.
To be full, do wars eat meat?
Should they edit the menu to step out of the food chain themselves?
Or is it not important?
Good material, thank you.
Good article, thank you!
In your blog, I read that magicians tried to attract people capable of accumulating power. Can I determine for myself whether I am capable of accumulating power? If not, could you tell me?
I wanted to add. I somehow thought that any person, as a conscious creation living in the myth of the creator, is capable of accumulating power. Perhaps I was mistaken.
No, of course, you are not mistaken – fundamentally, every person is capable of the development of consciousness – the accumulation of Power. But like any other ability, this one can be expressed differently in different people.
The final stage of destabilization of the system,
from the perspective of synergetics (Apocalypse)
What are the modes with exacerbation?
Nonlinear systems are sometimes subjected to ultra-fast processes. Here, direct rather than inverse interaction works. Inverse feedback has a stabilizing effect, i.e., forces the system to return to a stable state. Direct feedback leads the system into an unstable state. At first glance, this is a direct path to system destruction. But, in fact, instability is a condition of development because stable systems tend to freeze.
What is a catastrophe?
It is a sudden change of magnitudes that characterize the system over a finite time. (These systems can be physical or chemical, as well as economic or social). Catastrophes are always caused by modes with exacerbations.
Finally, there are processes of self-organizing criticality. They represent a universal mechanism of catastrophes.
Synergetics established that modes with exacerbations (catastrophes) arise and develop without any external influences.
Let’s summarize the universal model of catastrophes created by synergetics based on a rich experimental material from physics, chemistry, biology, economics, and sociology. And at the heart of the model lie strict mathematical equations.
Let’s present the model in words – because it is important for understanding the prospects not only of Russia, not only of civilization, but also for the future of all living on Earth.
The whole process of catastrophic dynamics consists of seven stages:
In the first stage, a mutation occurs that changes the algorithm, the existence program of one of the important elements of the system. This element is dynamized. Tension appears in the circular causality of the system.
The second stage. The tension of circular causality is resolved through the interaction of the “excited” element with other system elements. The change in algorithms is as if transferred to other elements speeding up their dynamics. Resonance occurs and a dynamic factor emerges. Changes begin to outstrip the dynamics of the whole system.
The third stage. Here the system tries to save itself by extinguishing dynamic resonance and returning to its original state. It tries to exploit the factor of circular causality. But it fails to stop changes in the elements.
The fourth stage. Discord occurs in the system – when the system breaks into islands – patterns with different dynamics, and this destroys the foundation of the system – its hypercycle and circular causality system. Now the system cannot fight entropy and chaos – it struggles with all its might to maintain connections within itself.
If in the first and second stages the system could be called developing within the exacerbation mode, but in the third and fourth stages it transitioned into hard turbulence mode. It becomes impossible to bring different elements of the system into harmony, which exist as if in various times and even worlds. And the process of self-supporting criticality starts.
The fifth stage. It loses proportionality, balance, and harmony. Costs emerge that are not related to development but simply to the functioning of the system. Now all energy goes into merely maintaining the system. More and more information, substance, and energy are not processed but leak out of the system.
In the sixth stage of catastrophe, connections between elements and subsystems break. The hypercycle disappears, and circular causality takes precedence.
Finally, the seventh stage of catastrophe arrives – the disintegration of elements. The system dies in the ensuing chaos. It sometimes perishes entirely. And sometimes not – if one of the elements in the process of disintegration manages to self-organize. Then it can become the progenitor of a new system, starting assembly from the material of the surrounding chaos. And gradually this new system structures the surrounding disorder “to itself.” But if this does not happen, the complex turns into the simple, and in place of progress comes degradation. Circular causality is replaced by simple (linear) dependencies. The era of victorious chaos, darkness, and “white noise” arrives. Entropy triumphs over information.
(1) Pattern – a totality, the integrity of interrelated processes moving at the same speed (for example: in the present civilization, such a pattern is – the economy).