we’ve muggled enough with mindfulness.
Let’s talk magic. Magic comes in flavors as varied as fad diets, and like diets, much of magic is hype and misinformation. Many may have heard the call of magic since childhood, only to become disillusioned in later life, after years of make-believe with what proved little more than personality flairs and broken promises.
For magic to be magic, in my book, it has to achieve three things:
- It must demonstrate that reality is an illusion by allowing a more expansive range of reproducible possibilities than consensual hallucination or present conditioning permits.
- It must not lock me deeper into automatic machinations of my ego that meditation practices have already revealed as ultimately pointless and unfulfilling.
- It must not be dull.
My preferred system starts with #2 above using devices called soul mirrors. Even if you’re not interested in magic, these devices can rock your world. And if you are into magic, they become training ground for criteria #1 where we can practice some cool whiz-bang stuff (#3.) Their first proof of effectiveness is in removing the biggest obstacles to what we want in life. Almost like, uhm, magic? And after we get our own illusions tamed a bit, we can wade deeper into pools of the consensual dream.
To construct soul mirrors we first ask this: what do we want in this life? It may be a challenging question. Hey, no one said magic was easy. Well, those diet books did, but they lie. It’s a difficult question because here’s the thing: it’s not about what others want for us. Not what we think we’re supposed to want to fulfill whatever social contract makes us a “good” person, not what some system of belief mandates for our eternal salvation or enlightenment, but simply: what do WE want. Really. The good news is we don’t need a complete answer.
A glimmer of an answer is ok, it doesn’t have to (although it can) be a full blown blueprint. Without at least a spark of our soul, a whisper from our heart, we won’t have enough mojo to pursue magic effectively, much less vibrantly. And magic should be vibrant and engaged in life, in my opinion. Otherwise, why bother?
With a spark to work from and hint of direction, which just needs to be like headlights in our car on a dark road, showing us a little ahead, maybe it’s not a detailed route yet, or ever, but it is a direction. And with this direction in hand we can ask ourselves: what are my character “flaws”, my negative traits, beliefs and habits, my internal adversaries that are major obstacles to following this path that calls me? This becomes our black soul mirror. It requires a compassionate but objective accounting. It’s not an exercise in wallowing in shortcomings, guilt or blame; it’s a first step in developing a clarity about what is preventing us from becoming what our spark partially illuminates.
The next mirror is built in a similar fashion by asking what traits, behaviors and habits we possess which are working for our benefit in this world, that have helped with our pursuits and have at least kept that spark alive. Our internal allies. Again, this is not to pat ourselves on the back, boost our ego or self-esteem, it’s just taking inventory. Because there’s something big brewing, yet to come, with how these ingredients can launch a magical life. (The general advice is to aim for 100 entries in each list :)
Through the white and black soul mirrors, we’ve assessed our strengths and what resources we bring to the table, and our enemy: which behaviors, traits, patterns work to sabotage our efforts. And we’re rekindling our flame and focus.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” -Sun Tzu
The next step with the soul mirrors is to identify the one negative in the black mirror that is currently the greatest obstacle in achieving what we most want in life and then tackle it with both intent, and at least 5 other more magical tools we’ll discuss in the next post, in order to:
- Take on our biggest obstacle in ways that it doesn’t know what hit it.
- Get our first experience using tools that once fully developed will warp our illusionary worlds.
- Learn about the make-up of our strengths and flaws at an elemental level so we can keep balanced and free of ego puffery when we start channeling more energy to do wilder stuff.
“We take our minds, our inner worlds, for granted, and do practically nothing to develop their real potential. That this potential exists, and that it is, if not limitless, at least far greater than any of us ever suspect…” -from the introduction to The Mind Parasites, by Colin Wilson.
Resources
For those curious about the system above, these authors will help in part to bring it to life. The other part is up to us.
The Elemental Equilibrium: Notes on The Foundation of Magical
Adepthood
Virgil (Author), Rostik Balash (Illustrator) (The analogy of Sun Tzu
and some important clarifications on the first step in Bardon’s
initiatory system were cribbed above from this book.)
A Bardon Companion: A practical companion for the student of
Franz Bardon’s system of Hermetic initiation
by Rawn Clark