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readoldthings Dreamwidth helpfully deleted my original draft for this post, so we'll have to begin again at the beginning. The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5, Verse 7 reads:
With the Fifth Beatitude, we start to see the explicit applications of Jesus's spiritual path in terms of practical magic. We are given a specific promise here: If we are merciful, we will obtain mercy. We'll discuss that in a moment, but first let's attend to the general principle here.
Magic, Revisited
To do that, it may be helpful to back up for a moment, and remind ourselves what magic is, and how it works. The definition of magic that I like best comes from Dion Fortune. According to Fortune, magic is
Notice three things:
First, magic has to do with consciousness. Now consciousness consists of 100% of the mental phenomena we experience. And it only takes a moment's reflection to realize that that means that consciousness means 100% of everything we experience. Indeed, the word "experience" itself really only means "conscious activity." When you look out the window at the street outside, the image of the street is just that: an image, assembled by your conscious mind; it is, in that sense, no different from an image seen in a dream. The facts that the image has a relative permanence, and that it is more-or-less shared with others, does not make it not an image-- rather, the facts of permanence and "sharedness"* are the two qualities that an image must possess for us to describe it as "matter" or "material."
(*Does your mind ever blank in such a way that you can't come up with a common word? Mine does. What is the word I'm looking for here, anyone?)
Second, magic has to do with consciousness-- and everything has to do with consciousness, as we've just seen. Therefore, according to this definition, magic isn't something especially unusual; to the extent that we're always changing our consciousness, we can say that we're all doing magic, all the time--
At least, in a sense. Because-- and this is the third point-- to do magic properly is to change consciousness by means of the will. Suppose that I look out the window at the street outside and see something which causes a reaction in me. Say that it's an American flag on my neighbor's lawn, and that this causes a chain of thoughts and feelings in me, something like "That's good-- I want to live in a neighborhood like this-- I'm glad I don't see BLM flags here-- I trust my neighbors." Or suppose it's one of those leftwing Credos that go on about how "IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE BLACK LIVES MATTER, NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL, LOVE IS LOVE," etc, etc, etc, and I think something like "Oh no, not them, we moved out of the city to get away from those people, I hope it never comes to a fight..." In either case, my consciousness has been changed-- but not by an act of my will; rather, by an act of someone else's will. (That's one of the best reasons to learn magic, by the way-- magic is being done to you, all the time, without your consent.)
In order to do effective magic, then, we have to first master our own wills; then we can use them to create changes in the world of experience.
To Master the Will Is to Become Divine
Plotinus, discussing the nature of the First Principle, which is variously called the Supreme, the One, the Good, or God, says this:
Now, herein lies a trap, and we must spring it before we move on. When we start talking about the will, about self-mastery, and so on, the temptation is to visualize a kind of Neitzchean super-man, unbound by any constraint, dominating himself and others by his own power. Not only is that not what we are talking about, that is the exact opposite of what we are talking about. We have already seen that to ascend to the level of God by raising ourselves up is precisely the sin of Lucifer, the cause of his fall from grace. We ascend not by pride but by humility; by humbling ourselves, realizing the limitations of what appears to be our human will, and opening ourselves entirely to God.
The truth is that, if God is Will, then no one, acting under their Will, can ever do an act of evil, because Will is derived entirely from God, the Good.
The program of the Beatitudes leads us to this point. Recall the process: We start by the realization that we are nothing without God, and opening our souls totally to Him; we continue by turning away from the things of the world, which pass away and die, toward Eternal Things, which always live; we tame and gentle the feral desires of our animal nature; and we turn our desiring power entirely toward the Good. It is only at this point that our true wills and our true nature, which is the Will and Nature of God manifested in a particular being, can begin to shine through us, and we can begin to create change in the world.
...So Shall He Reap.
And so this is why I say that Jesus is beginning to teach us practical magic, here. His first lesson is this: Whatever you put out into the world will return to you.
If you desire mercy, you must be merciful. If you are merciful, you will receive mercy.
And the corollaries: If you hate, you will be hated. If you love, you will be loved. If you are cruel,
Another name for this is karma, and there is no escaping it. But if we can understand it, we can use it to our advantage, and the advantage of the whole world-- which is the same thing.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
As A Man Soweth...
With the Fifth Beatitude, we start to see the explicit applications of Jesus's spiritual path in terms of practical magic. We are given a specific promise here: If we are merciful, we will obtain mercy. We'll discuss that in a moment, but first let's attend to the general principle here.
Magic, Revisited
To do that, it may be helpful to back up for a moment, and remind ourselves what magic is, and how it works. The definition of magic that I like best comes from Dion Fortune. According to Fortune, magic is
The art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will.
Notice three things:
First, magic has to do with consciousness. Now consciousness consists of 100% of the mental phenomena we experience. And it only takes a moment's reflection to realize that that means that consciousness means 100% of everything we experience. Indeed, the word "experience" itself really only means "conscious activity." When you look out the window at the street outside, the image of the street is just that: an image, assembled by your conscious mind; it is, in that sense, no different from an image seen in a dream. The facts that the image has a relative permanence, and that it is more-or-less shared with others, does not make it not an image-- rather, the facts of permanence and "sharedness"* are the two qualities that an image must possess for us to describe it as "matter" or "material."
(*Does your mind ever blank in such a way that you can't come up with a common word? Mine does. What is the word I'm looking for here, anyone?)
Second, magic has to do with consciousness-- and everything has to do with consciousness, as we've just seen. Therefore, according to this definition, magic isn't something especially unusual; to the extent that we're always changing our consciousness, we can say that we're all doing magic, all the time--
At least, in a sense. Because-- and this is the third point-- to do magic properly is to change consciousness by means of the will. Suppose that I look out the window at the street outside and see something which causes a reaction in me. Say that it's an American flag on my neighbor's lawn, and that this causes a chain of thoughts and feelings in me, something like "That's good-- I want to live in a neighborhood like this-- I'm glad I don't see BLM flags here-- I trust my neighbors." Or suppose it's one of those leftwing Credos that go on about how "IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE BLACK LIVES MATTER, NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL, LOVE IS LOVE," etc, etc, etc, and I think something like "Oh no, not them, we moved out of the city to get away from those people, I hope it never comes to a fight..." In either case, my consciousness has been changed-- but not by an act of my will; rather, by an act of someone else's will. (That's one of the best reasons to learn magic, by the way-- magic is being done to you, all the time, without your consent.)
In order to do effective magic, then, we have to first master our own wills; then we can use them to create changes in the world of experience.
To Master the Will Is to Become Divine
Plotinus, discussing the nature of the First Principle, which is variously called the Supreme, the One, the Good, or God, says this:
The Good, then, exists; It holds Its existence through choice and will, conditions of Its very being; yet It cannot be a manifold; therefore the will and the essential being must be taken as one identity; the act of will must be self-determined and the being self-caused; thus reason shows the Supreme to be Its own author.
Because God is a unity, His will is not separate from his being; therefore, it can be said that God is a will: the Supreme Will. By acting under our own wills, we come to resemble God. And remember that, in the Platonic universe-- which is the universe of Magical Philosophy-- things do not resemble each other by chance. If we come to resemble God, it is only by participating in the very being of God. As Plotinus says, "self possession must belong to it [that is, to God], so that through It others in their turn may be self-belonging."Now, herein lies a trap, and we must spring it before we move on. When we start talking about the will, about self-mastery, and so on, the temptation is to visualize a kind of Neitzchean super-man, unbound by any constraint, dominating himself and others by his own power. Not only is that not what we are talking about, that is the exact opposite of what we are talking about. We have already seen that to ascend to the level of God by raising ourselves up is precisely the sin of Lucifer, the cause of his fall from grace. We ascend not by pride but by humility; by humbling ourselves, realizing the limitations of what appears to be our human will, and opening ourselves entirely to God.
The truth is that, if God is Will, then no one, acting under their Will, can ever do an act of evil, because Will is derived entirely from God, the Good.
The program of the Beatitudes leads us to this point. Recall the process: We start by the realization that we are nothing without God, and opening our souls totally to Him; we continue by turning away from the things of the world, which pass away and die, toward Eternal Things, which always live; we tame and gentle the feral desires of our animal nature; and we turn our desiring power entirely toward the Good. It is only at this point that our true wills and our true nature, which is the Will and Nature of God manifested in a particular being, can begin to shine through us, and we can begin to create change in the world.
...So Shall He Reap.
And so this is why I say that Jesus is beginning to teach us practical magic, here. His first lesson is this: Whatever you put out into the world will return to you.
If you desire mercy, you must be merciful. If you are merciful, you will receive mercy.
And the corollaries: If you hate, you will be hated. If you love, you will be loved. If you are cruel,
Another name for this is karma, and there is no escaping it. But if we can understand it, we can use it to our advantage, and the advantage of the whole world-- which is the same thing.
