Power vs. Love
The much-discussed and widely repeated notion of the opposition of Love and Power goes back to the very origins of human civilization. In all ages, in all cultures, the same question confronts a person: how to overcome estrangement, how to attain unity, how to move beyond one’s individual life and gain that dimly intuited sense of oneness.
Two solutions to this question have been found: joining the World Current of Power, and union with another person (or others). The latter solution, in its highest aspect, manifests as love.
It seems that these two sides of being are binary: Power, as the ability to realize one’s will, is opposed to love, as prioritizing another’s happiness. Power demands extreme individuality, whereas love demands unity.
The desire for interpersonal fusion is the strongest drive in humans. It is thought that love, as a conscious phenomenon, begins to appear among people at the time when a woman falls under the dominion of a man. They say that love arose in the history of civilization as a psychological compensation for the enslavement of women: by subjugating the woman, the man himself fell captive to her — such an explanation reduced love to a rational, explainable concept, and in doing so greatly narrows its meaning.
However, as love enters human life it alters the entire structure of values. It is a wholly new motive for human behavior, and on appearing it casts its light over all other motives, shifting their balance and sharply changing proportions.
The simplicity of human life disappears; the birth (manifestation) of love entangles and complicates individual life, depriving it of its former clarity and wholeness. And long ago people understood: love (or what is called by that word) brings not only light but also darkness; it not only elevates, it also oppresses.
It would seem, then, love only obstructs the path of development.
At the same time, union with the World Current of Power endows a person with the functions of creativity and self-realization. One’s will becomes the Will of the Cosmos, the Creative Will of the deity. The overcoming of alienation is also achieved in consummate form.
Mastery of Power elevates a person to a new rank — it transforms them from a “creation” into a “creator”, from an object into a subject of the world process.
However, the Tradition says that there are two ways to this mastery.
First Way, followed by the majority of Magi, consists in mastering Power through the accumulation of Authority: by using known approaches, the Magus learns the leverage points of realization and uses them to alter the course of the world process. In this case, the Magus remains external to the Flow in relation to the Flow of Power. Such a position places the Magus outside love, because it is vitally important for him to preserve his absolute selfhood, his distinctness, his precise focus — otherwise he will not be able to produce that precise effect which will shift one of the support points of the cosmos, enabling its realization. As soon as a Magus who follows this Way loses his absolute focus on himself, he loses the capacity to realize, loses power.
The second approach implies entry into the Flow of Power and identification with it, “passing between the Horns of Baphomet.” In this case the Magus acts within the Flow of Power. Such a position confers on him the qualities of the Flow itself, including its unifying activity, and therefore creates a need for love. It turns out that in this situation love not only fails to hinder mastery of Power, but, on the contrary, is a necessary condition of that process.
At the same time there is a certain danger, often underestimated: instead of joining the Flow, one may dissolve in it, losing one’s individuality. Even in ancient times the Gnostics, having recognized this danger, introduced the concept of “Pleroma” — “union without mixture.” It turned out that the great Flow of Power can absorb a personality completely, replacing selfhood with universality, or it can include individuality without absorbing it. This is connected to the fact that, as we have already said, this Flow has a dual nature — it contains both the principle of All-Unity and the power of differentiation.
Pleroma differs in meaning from “the Whole“, and Pleroma usually denotes more than mere universality. As a fullness, Pleroma implies an ordered system centered on the Axis of the Cosmos, the Creative energy of the Absolute.
Of course, if an entity is absorbed by the Immanent form of existence of the Flow, there is no question of love, nor of Power — the subject as such disappears, the personality dissolves, losing its connection with its Monadic individuality. However, the great art of the Magus consists in joining the Flow while preserving oneself, entering its differentiating form, the Pleroma.
At the same time, true love is a special talent; many are not ready for it and even fear it, because it requires a “living soul”, selflessness, a readiness to act, to feel anxiety, and to care. Love is not a “happy accident” nor a gift of fate, but a high art that requires self-improvement, creativity, and inner freedom.
Hm, this reminds me of the interpretation of the Tarot arcana ‘Strength’ by Aleister Crowley – in his deck, the card is called ‘Desire’. And the woman on it does not tear the lion’s mouth apart as in classic decks, but saddles him. Perhaps it’s something similar that Crowley, well-acquainted with the concepts of the Gnostics, wanted to convey 🙂
Crowley, despite his flamboyance, received traditional training. As for the Arcana ‘Strength’, its traditional interpretation precisely implies a dual attitude towards Strength: The Girl, on one hand, holds the lion by the mouth, but on the other – does not let him fall into the abyss.
Traveling in the Flow without becoming the Flow only means maintaining self-identity, not acquiring its fundamental properties. It’s like a fish or a stream in a mountain stream – there’s a difference (in fact, if the fish drinks too much water, it will turn into a jellyfish, and that’s already not cool)
With the fish analogy, it’s true, but anyone who looks at themselves in the mirror can easily come to the conclusion that a human is not a fish, and what is true for a fish is not necessarily true for a human.
…but for an ordinary person, feelings like Love are sometimes complicated and unattainable… humanity has lost Unity within itself. Therefore, it is difficult to connect in one’s heart what is not connective from the viewpoint of an ordinary person. But the Mage knows that the highest point of Wisdom’s knowledge is Love, for ‘The Depths touch each other. The measure of the contact of the Depths is Love,’ not simply Love as an abstract-generalized notion (like ‘I love everyone’ – which means – I love no one), but precisely Love that creates new life, new worlds, Love that connects two Depths, i.e., two Wholes, two Absolutes (in manifesting the masculine and feminine principles), and often – from different worlds… New life appears, a new world… And then gods are born on Earth.
The loss of identity seems to be the goal, apparently, in Buddhism, as well as in many esoteric schools – ‘renunciation of the world’, ‘merging with God’, ‘renunciation of individualization’. This intermediate path of the Pleroma is more understandable to me. Does this mean that a warrior on this path becomes good, while at the same time remaining somewhat cold?
🙂 ‘cold’ – within the framework of the described circle of concepts means ’empty’. A magician, from this point of view, is maximally ‘hot’, that is, filled.
Hello. Please tell me what Don Juan did after completing the recapitulation and slipping past the Eagle? In what category of Magicians was the group of the New Seers?
I’m not sure I can and have the right to comment on someone else’s works and someone else’s Paths…
Tell me, do predators and the Parasite of Consciousness strive to create the illusion that a person does not love? Or, for example, direct his actions so that he loses love? This is not in their interest, theoretically, the existence of love.
Yes. Predators love to destroy love. But love itself is too strong for them, it is beyond their reach, so they torment it through attrition, undermining it with petty squabbles.
They say there is no word ‘we’ in magic, only ‘I’… So, all magicians never create families? How can love exist in this case?
Each magician chooses for themselves – the lonely Path or the Path in a group, and the ‘I’ of the magician can very well be identical to the ‘we’ of a person.
As long as I can remember, I have always sought love. Without it, nothing works for me, as if I am a bag with a hole in it and power and knowledge are leaking out. My searches have yielded nothing but disappointment. And now I have run out of strength. I need to be in love at least with a dream so that I can strive toward it, walk my path. Tell me, what threatens a person who feels the need to love but cannot find even a similar feeling? Is self-destruction possible, consuming oneself without a shared feeling which gives strength? Over the years, I have increasingly thought that I am destroying myself, without any possibility of sharing the power of love with someone here in this current incarnation. And what to do now that so many years have been lost and spent?
I might say a banality, but one shouldn’t seek love, one must live, be in the flow of life, rejoice, and gratefully accept what it brings. But one also shouldn’t become like a chip in the river. You can spend your whole life searching for love, as well as preparing for tomorrow, but we live not in tomorrow but today.
Dear Enmerkar, could you please clarify the phrase “internal freedom,” what does it mean?
Internal freedom is the acceptance of oneself, one’s nature, and one’s Path, the absence of internal struggle and internal limitations on self-realization.
LOVE –
IS A STATE OF ONENESS
IN THE UNITY OF ALL…
BUT NOT A FEELING
OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION…
IT IS WHAT
ALL LIVING HEARTS SEEK AND CALL…
WHAT ALL SONGS SING ABOUT…
WHAT ALL PRAY IN SILENCE AND CRY ABOUT…
BUT
DO NOT SEEK THIS CLOSE
LOW
ATTAINABLE
AROUND THE CORNER…
BEHIND YOUR EXCITEMENT…
BEHIND YOUR FEELING…
LOVE
LIKE FAITH
HOPE IN THE FLESH
BELONGS
TO THE SPHERE OF ONENESS
THE INTEGRITY OF THE INDIVISIBLE…
NOT TO THIS WORLD
FROM GOD — THE FALLEN…
NOR TO ANYONE PERSONAL…
TO THE ONE…!
Esteemed Enmerkar. I tracked the relationship between sexuality and realization ability. I found much useful in your works. It’s more convenient to call libido ‘the Dragon’. It feels as if the dragon has its own consciousness; consciousness may not be the correct word, but rather an aspiration. An aspiration for love. Within this aspiration, you are invincible. Outside this aspiration – chronic misfortune. Either the suppression of consequences, which are recalled with horror, or character blackening-invasion with subsequent devastation. And everything seems crystal clear. Yet there exists a concept of fullness and sharpness of spirit. When refusing to move within the scope of the dragon’s aspiration and the intent to preserve the sharpness, the illumination in the picture of the world literally changes. Sharp tension, overt hostility, and all attempts of realization become useless. However, on the other hand, dreams become very clear and easier to attach to. You described two paths. It’s foolish of me to impose various myths onto each other, but it turns out that preserving ‘fullness’ is achievable only on the condition of depersonalization and dissolving oneself in the potential environment. An old Indian said that it’s important for the 3rd attention, but in the 2nd, one can do without. It’s a pity, but it explains nothing to me. Could you shed light on what loss of fullness leads to?
All the creative energy that we have is connected in one way or another to libido, since any creation requires the neutralization of dualities, and this neutralization, in the broadest sense of the word, can be understood as the manifestation of the unifying force – eros. Regarding completeness – in the context of this conversation, it is also about the mutual reflection (https://en.enmerkar.com/magus-way/lyubov-i-samopoznanie) of the psycho-cosmos within each other as a key means of self-realization. Accordingly, completeness (which is also emptiness), which can be achieved either by fully extinguishing all desires or by fully realizing them, is a state that is a goal for any development of a limited being. This means that the loss of completeness signifies fragmentation and separation (https://en.enmerkar.com/myth/individualnost-i-otdelnost).
As you have already answered, “all creative, and thus, realization ability is based on the attractive force of the poles of the executive.” It is probably incorrect to mix sexual attraction with “love,” but on a scale, it is excusable.
In different traditions, a certain leitmotif is traced, in one, Brahmacharya, in another, Tikun A-Brit. This question vividly expresses the same two binders. Solvay and Kaogula.
As you said, “The desire for interpersonal fusion is the most powerful drive in a person,” and if one tries to block it, suddenly it is discovered that the very thirst for life disappears. I have already asked about this, my understanding has formed a picture that is described in the KK. You are left with shields, a sharp sense of death, fate terrorizes you, some mystical and unexplained misfortunes could happen to you. A brick, for instance, might fall from the roof. It thus seems that this path is typical of Eastern currents pursuing the goal of dissolution in a passive environment. No desires mean no and …
But you write that … the mage remains an external force in relation to the Flow of Forces. This position puts the Mage outside of love…
And I have dissonance. How does such a mage remain “alive”? What about his desire for interpersonal fusion?
The point is that there can be two paths of consciousness development – through the deepening of individuality and through rooting in unity. Both these paths end up being poles of the principle of “Unity in Diversity,” which is key for the Western Path as a whole. The first path is the search within oneself for one’s individual traits, seeking and actualizing those potentials that make the monad a monad, an individual and unique mode of self-knowledge of the Great Spirit. It is clear that on this path, maximum unidirectionality of Power is possible, and thus, the greatest effectiveness of realizations. The second path is the search for and actualization of the common expressions of the Great Spirit, even when expressed in this manner. In the first case, the mage is an “external” force managing and guiding the Power Flow. In the second, he is the Flow itself, its inner Nature. However, by moving along the Middle Pillar, it is possible to combine, integrate, and transcend both extremes, and then the contradiction of Power/love is resolved specifically by transcending it, rather than by choosing one side.
Did I understand everything correctly? Being outside the flow, direct realization is not available, that is clear. It may even seem that such a traveler is pursued by evil fate. Whatever the preparation and effort expended, he cannot directly reach the desired. But can such a traveler actually be effective through indirect influences? Is it true that relying on external forces enables him to achieve his desires?
The beaten bumps make one timid and scared.
Realization is impossible without interaction with the Flow. And how this interaction happens – from within or outside – determines the method of development.
I think it is not necessary to fall into extremes, for example, the feeling of separation. One can avoid separating oneself from the world. Just change the point of reference – instead of feeling yourself as a part of the world, feel it as the center. And it will be true from the position that the world we perceive is our Picture of the World. In general, place yourself at the center of your Picture of the World. And love can be regarded as a force of connection and penetration; in general, it can be used as a tool, without falling into dependence. But the key, of course, is not to lose the connection with the Monad; here, first of all, you need to connect with it, as I’ve already said, awaken your True Self.
A story about a sorcerer’s choice between power and love in the fantasy musical ‘The Last Trial’, excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_FHcm3r6Pg&pbjreload=10 Majeri did not read Enmerkar 🙂
How I love your work, dear Enmerkar. Thank you.