Potential and Potencies

As we have already said, from the point of view of the Myth we describe the world-process as a continuous and inexorable transformation of the Power of life into the Power of awareness.

Accordingly, any being is incarnated (is born) in order to carry out this transformation in the form accessible to it.

In other words, it is clear that each person is born with a certain quantity of Power. And although this amount is cosmically vast in everyone, only a small fraction of it is accessible, and this level of Power, available for use in the current state, constitutes the being’s power level.

We also said that the primary impulse of the Power is the impulse toward realization, transformation into a form accessible to awareness, and it is this impulse that creates the manifested world.

Thus, the realization of the potential inherent in an incarnate being is the way to further increase awareness.

However, potential can be actualized in different ways: through work, through creativity, and, more precisely, in the development of awareness. The degree to which the way potential is actualized corresponds to its purpose, as we have also said, and is traditionally called impeccability.

Put differently, the same amount of Power available to different people may give one a successful career, another creative achievements, and make a third a Magus. From this it does not follow that a Magus should not work or engage in creativity; the question is only a matter of priority in self-identification — it is one thing when I consider myself a scholar who practices (or studies) Magic, and quite another if I consider myself a Magus who also engages in science. Depending on that self-identification, preferred modes of behavior and one’s values and life priorities will change.

If from the macrocosmic point of view incarnation is the way of translating Power from potential into actuality, then from the standpoint of the Psychocosm the task of incarnation is the realization of the potencies of the Monad.

In fact, these two points of view describe, of course, the same process, but both are important for effective existence. In the context of the present discussion it is important that effectiveness is achieved precisely by their proper combination: the more of one’s potential is used to actualize potencies, the more effective one’s existence becomes.

In other words, a being can use its potential to achieve outstanding success in work that does nothing to develop the being or manifest its potencies, and such use of potential is not effective. The same applies to all other kinds of activity that require Power but are of little use for self-realization. Most people actively expend Power on such activities, spending their lives in bustling activity, the net remainder of which for their soul is close to zero.

It is precisely the motivation for such activity that the Parasite of mind’s efforts are directed toward — for power not used to increase awareness is wasted, and therefore provides rich sustenance for the predator. Regardless of how one regards the Parasite — as an entity external to the mind or as part of the mind itself (the selfish “desire to receive”) — Magic assumes that the Parasite of mind is a pathology — a “mind cancer”, what one might call the “cancer of the mind” — a structure that destroys the whole even as it perishes. Therefore it is no surprise that the predator’s efforts are aimed at the destruction of the being, at diverting it from its purpose, and ultimately, at self-betrayal.

Therefore, for a Magus striving to increase his effectiveness, it is very important to organize his values and preferences so that on his Way there are as few “idle” actions as possible — actions that neither expand his mind nor are likely to lead to such expansion. Understanding the importance of self-realization on both the micro- and macrocosmic levels, the Magus can create this system of preferences and deprive the Parasite of mind of sustenance in favor of expanding and accumulating awareness of awareness.