Upcoming classes and events: "Living More Magically", Sun, November 6, 2-5pm, on-line or in person in Catonsville. Friday Nov 24, 4-5pm, "Black Friday" meditation, Revolve Wellness Studios in Catonsville. Contact me to register or for more information.
“TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP SILENCE – such are the four words of the Magus, inscribed upon the four symbolical forms of the sphinx.” Eliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic
“You can observe a lot just by watching.” -- Yogi Bera
“When you know the fourfoil in all its seasons root and leaf and flower, by sight and scent and seed, then you may learn its true name, knowing its being: which is more than its use. What, after all, is the use of you? Or of myself? Is Gont Mountain useful, or the Open Sea?” Ogion went on a halfmile or so, and said at last, “To hear, one must be silent.” – A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula LeGuin
We’ve talked about Aleister Crowley’s definition of magic as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will” and how he said that every intentional act is a magical act.
Change, intention, will – these are active concepts.
But there is another side to it, what I like to call “the quiet side of magic”. This includes factual knowledge, but also insight and divination. And that means watching, listening, and learning to see the patterns of the world.
It’s harder to talk about internal transformation. As Lao Tzu told us thousands of years ago, the Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao. And so we use metaphors of action in the physical world to point the way. But when we forget the metaphor, when we forget that the real story isn’t Gandalf’s spells but Frodo and Sam’s determination and loyalty, that what ultimately made Harry Potter a hero wasn’t his skill with a wand but the willingness to sacrifice himself to protect his friends, then we lose the substance.
The brain is a story-telling machine. It tells stories about where we’ve been, so that it can tell stories about where we’ve going. It is evolution in action: when our distant primate ancestors came to a fork in a path, those who could draw on past experience to tell stories about the future went down the path that led to food and mates, while those who were not good at making up such stories went down the path that led to getting eaten by saber-tooth tigers.
Divination is about the future, but the best way to see the future is to understand the present. And the best way to understand the present is to understand the past. And the best way to understand the past is to understand its repeating patterns – the archetypes of our human experience.
There are many different ways to systematize these archetypes: the tarot, the hexagrams of the I Ching, the signs of the Zodiac. What is key is to find the correspondences between whatever system one is using, and the actual circumstances. This can only be done with deep listening.
The art of divination is much like any other art: inspiration comes from the intuition, not the intellect, and so has the feeling of coming from “outside”. The diviner is creating a work of art – a story – from what the client tells them and their own knowledge and experience. (Maybe that knowledge includes some hints from supernatural sources, maybe not. It really doesn’t matter.) The system – the cards, the lines on the palm, the astrological chart, the hexagram, whatever – is merely a seed crystal dropped into the supersaturated energy between the soothsayer and the querent. But it’s that seed that allows crystallization.
“Know Thyself” – the Oracle at Delphi
To be a great magician is to be able to sit quietly when it is time to sit, and to be able to act boldly when it is time to act; to be able to listen and to speak, to see and to do — and to know when the time is right for each.
The Pagan songwriter Mama Gina once told me that getting people to tell you their stories is a bard’s superpower. So when you’re sitting at the bar or cafe and some stranger comes up to you and, out of the blue, wants to tell you their life story? That’s because you’ve got a magical power. It’s a subtle one...but subtlety is the path to mastery.
And the more of such stories you listen to, the more your knowledge grows; and perhaps, in time, wisdom begins to develop.
I’ve heard Jeff “Magnus” McBride, famous both as a stage magician and for his understanding of ritual, talk about an archetypal model of the development of a performing magician. In this model a performer evolves from the yang, externally-active Trickster and Sorcerer to the more yin, internally-active Oracle and Sage. The huge active spectacle of a David Copperfield is the Sorcerer in action, while David Blaine frozen, still and unmoving in the middle of Times Square, is an example of the Oracle, turning inward.
We can apply the same idea to ritual, spiritual magic. It’s great to be able to lead a powerful working with dozens or hundreds of people – but it’s even greater to be able to give sage advice to a single person in need of insight.
The “wiz” in “wizard” means “wisdom”: to be a magical person is to cultivate wisdom.
And perhaps that’s the ultimate DIY art project, the most punk thing possible.
Now work some magic.
