Magical Practice

As we have said many times, Magic is the Way of developing consciousness through action — a Way of transformation, transmutation that involves ordering, the interaction of the conscious part with objects of awareness.

Precisely for this reason the Western Way is called, in fact, a “Way” — that is, a chain of interconnected and interdependent actions, realizations.

The distinction within a single process of awareness between two components — awareness itself (in which there is and cannot be any change), and activity (which “provokes” those changes and thus discloses new aspects of the mind, bringing them from potential, unmanifest form into the actual, directly perceivable form) — is, strictly speaking, conditional, yet extraordinarily convenient for the process by which reality reflects itself. Put otherwise: although the process of awareness is one, for self-understanding it is useful to single out two parts: mind and activity.

And although, as we have already discussed, this separation leads to the mind’s “entanglement” in its individual aspects, to the emergence of the illusion of separateness and to the opposition of one aspect to another, it is also the key to overcoming that illusion.

Since in fact we speak of a Way of development, a process that reverses the “unfolding” of the mind, of how the mind can rectify the situation, “return” from a state of clouding and disharmony to a state of free light — we must derive practical benefit from such understanding. The notion is practically useful of two fundamentally possible approaches to the liberation of the mind. The first approach, which we called the “Eastern,” consists in movement “from above down” — the mind seeks in itself its deep foundation, identifies with it and thereby purifies its individual manifestations. The second approach, which we call the “Western,” boils down to movement “from below up” — the mind, realizing itself in actions that ensure its contact with its “pure foundation,” gradually transforms, “melts down” its acting component, the “vessel,” and thus enters into its original nature. In any case, one cannot transform one’s whole being merely by “purifying the mind” or simply “accumulating force or authority.” A “purified mind” must manifest itself in “pure actions,” just as the “realization of potentials” must pour out into “an expansion of awareness.” There are many examples of highly developed meditators who, having achieved astonishing results in concentration and immersion into the depths of the psychocosm, engaged in the most destructive behavior as soon as they stepped out of their meditation cell, just as many highly realized magi demonstrated an incredible narrowness of understanding. The Western Way involves the magus again and again Ritual after Ritual, mystery after mystery, repeatedly placing himself in contact with the Power, with the boundless and unformed ocean of potentials and energies, allowing that ocean to fill, “repair,” and “fit” the vessel of his mind to the pure nature of absolute reality. It is precisely this approach — the approach of conscious activity aimed at harmonizing oneself and the environment, step by step — that leads to the full realization of the magus’s being. The magus’s battles — his efforts to “open the vessel” and to isolate the force this vessel should receive — are not a struggle against being, not an opposition to any forces or currents, but efforts to clear the channel for the Great Flow of mind. When the magus carves Runes, or summons spirits, or appeals to the gods — he transforms reality, “reconfigures” the fabric of being so that it becomes capable of a new contact with mind; this contact can lead either to harmonization or to further destruction of this duality, and herein lies the great responsibility of the magus. A Ritual is not simply meditation, nor is it merely a routine action; it is an intervention into the primal Fabric of being, an impact on the causes, not on phenomena, and therefore it is always a creative act that places the magus on a level beyond ordinary existence. It is a great opportunity, but also a great danger. The active magus can turn from an instrument of the cleansing of being into a means of further polluting it and darkening. However it may be, the magus’s method of development is action, practice, and the more conscious that action is, the more successful it will be as a method of development. It is clear that by “purifying” the aware side, the mind risks less the “destruction” or disharmonization of reality than by acting. Nevertheless, if one system can achieve realization by changing the subjective part, another can find a shorter way through changes in the “objective” component, and one should not think that the Western or Eastern approaches differ in efficacy — they differ in applicability to a specific system, to specific conditions and needs. The Western Way is perhaps richer in traps and dangers than the Eastern, although the depth of those traps is often relatively less. Setting out on the Way, a person must be guided by his own peculiarities, his individuality, yet they should firmly understand that, wherever he begins his transmutation — from being or from the mind — it must be total, touching all layers and levels of his existence as an individual manifestation of the One reality.