Posts Tagged ‘Crowley’

On Creating Magick

BY: Mark

I’ve been re-reading Aleister Crowley’s definitions of Magick this morning while reflecting on the effect visualization can have on the magician’s internal mood as well as the external world. We begin with his basic definition: “Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.” Like a number of Crowley’s aphorisms, it seems overly simplistic at first glance, but as you reflect upon it, it unpacks nicely to become a solid foundation upon which to erect further structures. “Magick,” like “Art” and “Science” is simply a term to classify a class of data–be it a rubric of action, a fleeting thought, or a full-on life methodology. Magick, if you will, is a way of thinking, of approaching how we interact with both ourselves and the external world.

If reality is the consensual lie agreed upon by the group mind, then each person’s thoughts contribute to reality. How each person understands reality informs it, and by extension, what you think of reality shapes it as well. While we currently define thoughts as extremely ephemeral states of existence, each and every thought has the ability to create change. Firstly, in our own selves; secondly, and by virtue of their adoption by the larger group-mind, the world can be shifted as well.

Descartes’ axiom–”I think, therefore I am”–can be extended to “I think, therefore I can.”

There are, of course, some physical considerations to address concerning the “I can” part of that last statement, but generally speaking, all change has come about because an individual had an idea and strove to extend that idea beyond the mere thought.

One of the basic complaints held against magick is the “Yes, but why don’t you visualize winning the lottery and be done with it?” argument, and Crowley provides some escape hatches in his definitions for this sort of argument.

Argument III.3: “Every failure proves that one or more requirements of the postulate have not been fulfilled.”

Argument III.4: “The first requisite for causing any change is through qualitative and quantitative understanding of the conditions.”

Argument III.5: “The second requisite of causing any change is the practical ability to set in motion the necessary forces.”

Forcing the lottery to conform to your Will is complicated, after all, and there are a lot of moving parts. Better to stick with things you can influence. Certainly, you can argue that these caveats render Crowley’s entire system nothing more than a thought experiment, but I believe that these caveats simply point out the importance of a more fundamental understanding of Will and Thought.

Before we go galavanting off to making lottery numbers fall as we imagine them, let us consider a corollary to above definitions. Essentially: How we interpret reality is also a magickal act. We are all magicians, and every system of magick is a personal one because it is nothing more than how we Act and React.

Change flows both ways, and our thoughts are constantly creating our understanding of the consensual reality. While we can imagine winning the lottery, our thoughts are not strong enough to effect that change to the consensual reality of the lottery. We, in turn, react to this lack of change by abandoning our vision as being the dominant one. In effect, we retract our Desire when it fails to come to pass.

Yes, I know that wishing does not make it so, but the point here is one of scale. Thinking of change doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. A critical part of being a magician is being receptive to the possibilities that change has occurred. Reacting is necessary piece of participation in the systemic flow of other magickal systems in play.

We are not alone, after all. Everyone else is trying to make Magick too.

The Vibrations of the God-Name

BY: Mark

Taken from one of Crowley’s practical texts, Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae.

1. Stand with arms outstretched.

2. Breathe in deeply through the nostrils, imagining the name of the God desired entering with the breath.

3. Let that name descend slowly from the lungs to the heart, the solar plexus, the navel, the generative organs, and so to the feet.

4. The moment that it appears to touch the feet, quickly advance the left foot about 12 inches, throw forward the body, and let the hands (drawn back to the side of the eyes) shoot out, so that you are standing in the typical position of the God Horus, and at the same time imagine the Name as rushing up and through the body, while you breathe it out through the nostrils with the air which has been till then retained in the lungs. All this must be done with all the force of which you are capable.

5. Then withdraw the left foot, and place the right forefinger upon the lips, so that you are in the characteristic position of the God Harpocrates.

6. It is a sign that the student is performing this correctly when a single “Vibration” entirely exhausts his physical strength. It should cause him to grow hot all over, or to perspire violently, and it should so weaken him that he will find it difficult to remain standing.

7. It is a sign of success, though only by the student himself is it perceived, when he hears the name of the God vehemently roared forth, as if by the concourse of ten thousand thunders; and it should appear to him as if that Great Voice proceeded from the Universe, and not from himself.

In both the above practices all consciousness of anything but the God-form and name should be absolutely blotted out; and the longer it takes for normal perception to return, the better.

Much of a modern writer’s life is taken up with finding the time and space to write; even when the opportunities are found, sometimes they are filled with the noise of other spaces (the “job,” the family, the neighbor’s cat who keeps staring in your windows, the persistent leak in the garage you can’t really afford to fix right now). What you need is a way to clear your mind, to shove all of that other noise away and clear your head. When you perform this ritual (or one of your own making), then what you should seek to have flow back in is the creative spirit.

Ha!

Fall to.

Tarot Roundup

BY: Mark

A couple of things I’ve run across this week while attempting to keep up with other projects.

Alternate Thoth Tarot Cards: Lady Frieda Harris was the artist of Crowley’s Thoth Deck. Caduceus Books has a page linking out to images of some alternate versions of the cards which have been in a private collection for many years.

‘Projective Synthetic Geometry in Lady Frieda Harris’ Tarot Paintings and in Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law‘ by Claas Hoffmann: Yes, I know, and no, there isn’t an easier way to describe the article. Except to say “harmonic collage,” which is probably equally a head-scratcher.

Mary K. Greer on Jung and Tarot: Ms. Greer runs through the data articulating Jung’s awareness of the Tarot, and includes his descriptions of the Major Arcana. Plus, Mary K. Greer has a Tarot blog. Bonus!

Blair MacKenzie Blake on Collecting Crowley

BY: Mark

I recently acquired a copy of Blair MacKenzie Blake’s The Wickedest Books in the World (Confesssions of an Aleister Crowley Bibliophile), and while I don’t suffer from the same desire to aquire first editions like Blake does, I found the book to an engaging and entertaining read. Especially the section near the end where he described his vision of turning Boleskine House into “Crowleyland.”

(Blake, as he notes more than once in the book, is still under the influence of his desire, needing on a copy of The Book of Thoth, one of 200 copies produced in 1944, right at the height of British wartime restrictions on making such extravagances. It’s printed on Arnold unbleached handmade paper (from the Chiswick Press), bound in half-russet morocco leather, raised bands and gold-blocking on the spine, Egyptian-themed boards, and illustrated throughout with both colored and black and white images of the tarot deck as designed by Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris. In case you have a copy lying around, and are wondering what to do with it.)

The Wickedest Books in the World is an oversized volume filled with gorgeous pictures of the first editions (photographed by Duncan Blake), and Blake’s fervent enthusiasm for his bibliophilic condition becomes infectious. By the end of his confessions, I was looking dismissively at the two shelves of Crowley books I have. All reprints. Nothing remotely close to a first edition up there. I was such a dilletante.

Blake clearly recognizes the allure that collecting something that is quantifiable rare, and he doesn’t dwell overmuch on the psychology of the collector. Though he does touch on the myth that Crowley firsts—because of the exacting publication specifications on some of them—still bear an imprint of the Great Beast himself on them, making them more like talismans than bunch of pages stuck together with glue and possibly more unsavory things. Blake’s focus is more on the linguistic fever and mania that comes over those who obsess over Crowley’s output. It becomes so easy to slip into a world populated by esoteric symbols.

Although the proprieter didn’t wear a Phrygian cap, Sanka, and a tourmaline ring seemed promising. Let’s have a look at those worm-eaten grimoires and dusty alchemical tracts—their moldering pages copiously illustrated with a mythic zoology, abtruse glyphs, and occult heraldry. Where were the peacock tails, emblematic paintings of the mystic marriage/conjunctio, and resplendent phoenixes? Further exploration of the place revealed no alchemical menagerie. Not even a tiny back room containing the revolving wheel of the zodiac, celestial-astral liquid in copper vessles, flaming athanors, curcurbites, or the prism of sorcerer’s bottles filled with the frozen flow of silver. Our pockets were filled with francs and bezants, and we damn near had the effluvium of Babalon tucked in our wallets. If nothing else, that ought to put us in a priveleged position in the multiverse.
    —(Blake, reminiscing about Parisian bookstores, p. 42)

I wish my local bookstores were more like this.