Purification and Awakening. Pantheons and Pandemoniums

As we have discussed more than once, Magic as a Way and a technology for the liberation of the mind comprises two great, mutually necessary and complementary arts: Goetia and Theurgy.

In the broadest terms, Goetia includes all magical approaches to purifying the psychocosmos, while Theurgy denotes all methods of activating its Higher principles.

The magical worldview is the heir to hundred-thousand-year methods of imaginal operation of matter and mind. Indeed, before modern civilization appeared (only half a millennium ago) and modern psychology (a century ago), people for hundreds of thousands of years maintained interconnections between layers of mind using imaginal codes, employed nonverbal and indirect means of activating or, conversely, neutralizing particular matrices, models, Me. Rituals of Magic are methods of working with Me that affect simultaneously their psychocosmic and macrocosmic manifestations, and therefore, unlike both psychology and science, they offer a more holistic approach, although they require deeper and more total preparation.

When the Magus calls a demon into a circle or a crystal, he non-conceptually encounters the destructive Me, perceives its energies and manifestations, as well as the reactions of other layers of mind and levels of the world to them, and therefore can gain access to means of resistance against it. Accordingly, goetic theory and practice are an effective method of purifying the world and mind.

When the Magus appeals to a deity, visualizes it or “takes its form” – he non-conceptually immerses himself in the creative matrix, perceives its signs and manifestations, and therefore discovers triggers to fill his mind and the world around him with constructive energies. Accordingly, theurgic theory and practice are an effective means of realizing one’s own and cosmic creative potentials.

In turn, each of these fundamental approaches includes two components – Myth and Law – namely the knowledge of the peculiarities, characteristics and forms of manifestation of those Me with which one interacts, and the skill to work with them, knowledge of methods of activating and deactivating these Me. Accordingly, Power and Authority, accumulated by the Magus in these two practices, also complement each other.

Myth, as a “map”, a guide through the universes of being and mind – is the first component, the first “wing” of Magic. Over the course of civilizations and traditions, many such guides of varying degrees of precision have been accumulated, and many of them remain relevant and energetically valuable to this day. Undisputed leaders in this sense are the Ancient Egyptian and Buddhist Myths, the first of which survived both the collapse of the civilization that engendered it and global shifts in value orientations, yet, by virtue of its exceptional elaboration over more than three thousand years, developed enormous internal inertia and vitality. The second is sustained by thousands of diligent practitioners and vast currents of awakened energy, which also constitute support and protection for its vitality.

Nevertheless, other mythological systems can, of course, offer expansive ways to describe the “Heavens of Mind”, offer keys and access points to the activation of the Higher matrices of the psychocosmos, and for harmonizing “physical” universes. Understanding the internal regularities, the logic of each mythological system, of each pantheon or pandemonium, is the key to correctly plotting a route through the universes of matrices.

This is why it is so important for the Magus to be familiar with the pantheons and mythologies of various traditions: the more at ease with these descriptions, the more clearly he can identify the distinctive features of the Me that shape them, the more opportunities open up for him to seek and cultivate constructive matrices of being and mind.

The same applies to the “underworlds” of the psycho- and macrocosms: the better the Magus understands the distinctive features of destructive matrices, the more clearly he can distinguish them and find the “hooks” by which they embed themselves in minds and worlds, and the tricks to extract energy from them, the more effectively he is able to resist them.

“Law” is — proper Magical Practice — a set of skills that rely on Myth, as well as on the Magus’s Power and Authority. Clearly, knowledge of the Myth alone does not make a Way (just as “techniques” by themselves are not); a Way is effective practice grounded in correct understanding.

Thus, the Magus’s Practice purifies and realizes his mind (and the world around him), based on knowledge of the ethnography and geography of these spaces, where applied Theurgy, as well as Goetic approaches, are basic skills.