By Whom Is Destiny Ordained?

We have already discussed that the magical attitude toward fate has deeply pagan roots and is connected with the concepts of the «Way» and «Duty».

At the same time, the question arises why an incarnation has a predetermined program — where does the set of tasks that this incarnation must solve come from?

Everything would be simple if the Magi believed in an immortal soul and its reincarnation: then it would be clear — the soul had accrued debts in one incarnation and pays them off in another. Yet from the perspective of the Magical myth, the soul that undergoes incarnations is unrelated to them; it is merely a vessel that holds individual experience. Moreover, as we have seen, the very idea of «reincarnation» in the Magical myth means something different from the modern (so‑called “Eastern”) sense.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that the idea of fate in both its manifestations — Wyrd and Orlög — is in some way connected with the concept of causality.

But where does that causality come from? Monadic nature also cannot serve as judge, since, broadly speaking, it is not a determinate being; its being is potential and transcendent.

To answer this question we must clarify two points. First — whose debts are we repaying?

It turns out that the Magical myth treats fate, «karma», in a rather mechanistic way. Since the first premise of Magic is the Law of Analogies, it is held that every action (every vortex) has the greatest affinity to its source, for it is formed from the source’s nature. Moreover, affinity to the source is even stronger than to the actual goal, so effort must be made to deflect the action, to redirect it and prevent its return. At the same time, it appears that vortices (actions) that have not reached their goal wander in the world-space (Passive Environment), and are drawn back to their source. The time it takes for their return depends on the initial push and the size of the vortex — the larger the vortex and the stronger the push, the longer it takes to return.

With the death of the embodied being and the disappearance of its energies, a direct return becomes impossible. Nevertheless, different manifestations of one Monadic nature are united by a common individuality, which means that the bodies constructed on its basis will also share certain traits. This is especially true of the vortical structure of those bodies. Therefore it happens that vortices from a past incarnation are drawn to a new incarnation, even though there is no direct («personal») connection between them.

Another question is what determines the Way itself that an embodied being must traverse — the key points that make up the essence of the Wyrd. Here, too, everything is fairly simple. Every action creates the preconditions for further events, altering the fabric of the world’s Flow. This concept springs from the notion of equilibrium of being. According to this notion, the primary Creation — the fragmentation of potentialities — brought the Absolute into a maximally unbalanced state: all being was potential and lacked actuality. As the World process develops, the relation between potential and actual forms of being is gradually brought into balance. Moreover, at the initial stage this balancing is spontaneous, and as the world process proceeds it becomes ever more ordered (the Wyrd arises at a certain stage, when the Norns come «from Jotunheim»).

At the individual level this concept reduces to the idea that every action is an attempt by the system to return to equilibrium; however, because the world is differentiated, balancing some aspects leaves others unbalanced. In addition, if a system is in a state of relative equilibrium, adding a new element to it, or reorganizing existing ones, disturbs that equilibrium, and thus a new tendency toward equilibrium arises.

Thus, each action, on the one hand, aims to restore equilibrium in aspects accessible at that moment, but on the other hand it also opens the possibility of balancing subsequent elements, or even creates a new disequilibrium. In turn, this generates a drive for the system to move to a new, more balanced state.

In other words, by actualizing some Monadic potentials, a being opens the way for actualization of the next, strictly determined, potentials. It follows that the next incarnation’s Wyrd is also created by the current one — by solving certain problems the being enables later solutions.

An incarnation lasts only so long as it provides resources to resolve the tasks of the Wyrd. When those resources are exhausted, the balance between solved and arising tasks shifts toward the latter, equilibrium is broken, and the incarnation is interrupted.

At the same time, it is clear that not all of the arising tasks can be resolved within a single incarnation, so «kindred» tasks that tend toward joint resolution and joint realization group together to form the Wyrd, and they constitute the Wyrd.

However, the cosmos strives not only to solve tasks, not only to actualize potentials; it strives to optimize this process, to make it as efficient as possible. This means that although the Wyrd can be realized by different Ways, those Ways differ in which new tasks they will create and which they will also resolve. It follows that each Wyrd has its corresponding optimal solution — this is called the Orlög, the Way. Thus, Orlög is the method of realizing the Wyrd by which the greatest number of its tasks are solved with minimal resource expenditure.

It is obvious that it is in the Predators’ interest, in particular the Parasite of mind, to cause the Wyrd’s realization to take place as far as possible from the Orlög’s possibilities — in doing so the maximum amount of energy, which feeds the Parasite, is dissipated.

Thus, the Magical myth emphasizes the utmost responsibility of the individual for its fate, both in this life and for future incarnations tied to it by the thread of individuality.