The Magus’ Discipline

Among the Magi, especially modern magi familiar with the futility of self-restraint, discipline is not particularly popular. It is assumed that because a Magus strives to expand awareness, to broaden experience, and should not restrain his manifestations (as we have already said), discipline is unnecessary.

And Crowley, with his often profaned “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” added further confidence in permissiveness.

And however often the Masters repeat that “do what you will” also means “do not do what you do not wish” — that is, control yourself, which is already a very severe limitation — the situation remains the same.

No one would suppose that one can achieve real success in science or art while living an unregulated life, yet few believe that such indiscipline can hinder magic.

At the same time, the ultimate clarity of the magical situation boils down to a very simple choice: either we control ourselves, or someone else controls us. This is true in ordinary life, and for a Magus open to a broader spectrum of interactions, the number of those wishing to control him increases manyfold.

The rare exceptions where people who have not ordered their lives nevertheless achieve success are, first, due to their luck (inherited from the past), and second, to the enormous potential they possess, which sweeps away obstacles like a bulldozer. One can only imagine how far they might have gone, what heights they might have reached, had they, after all, ordered the flow of their power.

But one must still remember that they are exceptions, and their very existence confirms the rule: undirected power is ineffective.

The real question is: what is a Magus’s discipline, if not self-restraint?

Formally speaking, discipline is not yet control. It is the way to control. The beginning of that way lies in the awareness of the necessity of control and in identifying obstacles to achieving it. After that, life becomes a hunt — tracking the foreign influences on one’s flow of power.

Thus, discipline is the striving to filter one’s motives — to separate one’s own motives, those dictated by the need to solve tasks and realize their potentials, from those imposed by the parasites of the mind and other predators aimed at making one lose power, “to be ‘milked’.”

For this one must listen attentively to oneself, seek one’s own voice, and distinguish it from voices of enemies in disguise.

The idea is that one’s own motives never lead to a loss of power, since they originate in the potential mind of the Monad and are directed toward the realization of its potentials. Destructive drives are considered external, alien, imposed by the predatory symbionts of the psychocosm. It is precisely this premise that distinguishes the magical view from the psychological. Magi believe in human power, muffled by hordes of parasites that have covered the mind’s core.

In this light, it becomes obvious that the task of separating “I” from “not-I” is key to gaining control and power.