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The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4, Verses 18-25



Fishers of Men

Jesus now begins to gather his group of Initiates. He starts with four fishermen. 

Remember that nothing is accidental. He didn't just pick fishermen because the Teamsters were on strike that day. 

In one of Plato's dialogs-- I forget which one, can anyone help me out?-- Socrates suggests that, because the dwellers in Heaven are so much less dense than we are, the atmosphere of the Earth is like Water rather than Air, and we are like fish, swimming around in darkness. In the Republic, Plato tells us that the Philosopher Kings should study astronomy, but that it isn't enough to just study the physical movements of the planets-- to do so is to stand above them and look down on them; our real concern should be with spiritual things. 

The World Turned Inside-Out

When you read ancient writings, you see that their experience of the world is very different from ours. It's as if they live in a world that is inside-out. In the works of Hesiod, for example, the Gods include natural phenomena like Night and Darkness; social phenomena like the taking of Oaths (Oath was literally a deity who turned up and held you to your word); psychological processes like Love; and abstract phenomena like Fate or Violent Death. In other words, the entire range of events and experiences that a human being can encounter are themselves intelligent beings, and there are no borders between nature, culture, and psyche. Night is the mother of the Fates and of Age and of Sleep, and all these things are beings-- that is, centers of conscious experience who act in the world, rather than mechanical processes. 

When the ancients wish to talk about the spiritual world, they picture it either in the Sky or below the Earth. And it's not that these are metaphors, or, rather, they aren't just metaphors. It's as if all of reality, down to the smallest details, consists of living beings interacting with each other. Some of those beings appear to the human mind as men or animals, others as love or hate, others as oceans or winds. 

And so the spiritual realm is in Heaven, and to the dwellers in Heaven, the bright air of the Earth is like dark water. Jesus is going to make his disciples Fishers of Men. In other words, they will Initiate others by drawing them up, out of the dark water, into the heavenly light. 

The Exorcist

Jesus then begins his ministry, which consists, at this point, of miraculous healings and of exorcisms. 

There are a few things to take away from this.

The first is simply that Jesus is doing magic.

For our purposes, here is the definition of magic:


This is the definition that the great 20th century adept Dion Fortune used. From this perspective, Jesus is doing magic, and nothing but magic. A demon is a disembodied consciousness. To drive it from a body back into its habitation in the astral realm, or into another body, is to cause a change in consciousness. A disease, too, is an element of consciousness. The consciousness of the individual is the representation of the world that he inhabits-- including his body. His disease is his consciousness of disease; his health is his consciousness of health-- or lack thereof, as part of health includes not having to be aware of the body (there is a lesson in this.)

The 20th century definition of magic was not the definition of magic in Jesus's time. The various practices that go into what we now call magic all fall under different headings then-- mageia, the science of the Persian magi; pharmakeia, the use of drugs and poisons, goetia, the invocation of demons-- what we now call "magic" could mean any of these, along with the legitimate divinations of augurs, prophecies of oracles, initiatory work of the various mystery schools, and the ritual theurgy of priests. Moreover, today the word "magic" has connotations of wonder and delight that it did not have at that time. This is important, because from our perspective, what Jesus is doing is magic, plain and simple. In earlier times, things were less clearcut.

The debate in Jesus's time and after was not over whether he performed miracles or "really existed," but how he performed his miracles. Was he a goes, a type of evil and dishonest magician who performed miracles through the aid of demons? Or did he perform his miracles through his own power as the Son of God, or as the son of a god? Sons of gods were not unknown. The followers of Pythagoras believed him to have been a son of Apollo, even if they interpreted the meaning of this symbolically; Apollonius of Tyana, a famous magus during Jesus's time, was another son of Apollo, whose work fell under the same scrutiny that Jesus's did. If we are interested in learning magic-- as we now understand "magic"-- from Jesus, we don't need to subscribe to a particular theology. He may have been a goes or magus; he may have been a human Initiate, who was adopted as a son by YHVH following his baptism by John; he may be the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

It either doesn't matter-- or, it only matters if, by understanding Jesus in a particular way, we may form a relationship with Him that we would not be able to otherwise. 

Divine Healing and Exorcism

Jesus begins his ministry. His work, so far, has been characterized in a few different: He changes the nous of his followers, so that they may experience the reality of God (the "Kingdom of Heaven"); he brings Light, and thereby creates the world anew; he and his followers are fishers of men, raising men out of the darkness of the material world, into the heavenly light. 

Now we have another way of looking at his work. He is a healer, and he is an exorcist. To change the nous is to heal it. If we are in darkness, unable to open the eye of the soul to see the Light of God, it isn't necessarily that we are bad-- it is that we are sick. Jesus's work is the work of a doctor, which to my mind is rather different from going around telling everyone that they'd better wise up, cause if they don't Daddy's gonna come him and kick the shit out of them.

Demons

If God is the Supreme Unity; and the Power that brings the universe into being; and is the power by which the soul comes to mastery over itself and triumphs over its bondage to its lower instincts and social pressures; and is the ultimate goal of the awakened soul--

If that's the case, then the Devil is the Supreme Division; the weakness that dissolves creation; and the weakness by which the soul sinks into the mire of social gamesmanship and its own animal instincts; and is the ultimate doom of the soul that rejects God.

"We are Legion." Hell is not a kingdom, but an anarchy; the demons are the individual points of consciousness in that anarchy. Jesus's work of exorcism is the work of driving out these consciousnesses. As they are division itself, this work has the immediate effect of moving the soul toward unity with itself and with God. The work of healing is exorcism, and the work of exorcism is healing.

Astrotheology

Jesus is born at the Winter Solstice, when the Sun enters the sign of Capricorn, the goat. In ancient times, the Jews brought two goats to the temple. One was sacrificed, to expiate the sins of the people. The other was driven into the desert, for the same purpose. In Matthew 3, Jesus is is baptized by John, the Water-Bearer. He then heads into the desert to encounter his opposite number, the scape-goat. Upon his return he gathers up the first of his disciples, Fishers of Men.

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4, Verses 1-11



Jesus is led into the desert to fast for 40 days, and be tempted during this time by the devil.

The first thing to notice about this passage is just how much it would have sucked. Have you ever fasted for even one day? It's not a fun experience. Have you ever spent even one day in the desert? Actually, that can be a fun experience-- just ask Ed Abbey-- but it isn't an easy one. And as for temptation by demons... well. We'll get to that. 

Notice what is happening here, then. In Matthew 3:17, Jesus has been initiated by John into his magical current. A dove descends from Heaven and the Voice of God says, "This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased." This is a pretty extraordinary experience, and you might think it would be followed directly by Jesus beginning his ministry. But you'd be wrong. Instead of ministry or an ongoing experience of God, Jesus comes face to face with the devil himself. Finally, after fasting 40 days and after overcoming the Devil 3 times, angels come down from Heaven and minister unto him. 

There is a very important lesson here for anyone pursuing the spiritual life, and especially for the practice of magic.

Illumination, Purification, Unification

In traditional Catholic theology, there are three stages to the spiritual life: the Illuminative, Purgative, and Unitive. 

The Illuminative Stage is the beginning of the spiritual life. This often happens with a spiritual experience, a sudden realization of the inadequacy of one's former ideas or of one's way of life. The soul is dissatisfied with material life. It seeks God, and often has an experience of God. 

The Illuminative Stage can occur in any spiritual setting. It can follow the first time you attend mass, sit zazen, attend an AA meeting, or practice the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. It is marked by profound joy and enthusiasm. This is the descent of the heavenly dove. 

But the initial joy doesn't last. The soul soon finds that the initial burst of enthusiasm fades. Mass becomes dull, daily practice becomes routine, meetings get on your nerves, the pentagram ritual becomes a chore. And, very often, all of the old faults that the soul had begun to overcome reassert themselves in a big way: The temptations of the devil. This is the Purgative stage, so named because, in Catholic thought, it requires the purgation of the besetting sin. "Maybe it wasn't for me, after all," is the keynote here. Many, many people leave the spiritual path at this time.  

And they're missing out. Those who persist come to the Unitive stage, named for union with God. Now the old joy reasserts itself, not as a sudden flame of enthusiasm, bright but brief, but as the kind of deep, sustaining fire that lasts through the night. It's the fire of the soul that has persevered, achieved, and won at great price. And angels come to minister to your needs.

These three stages are linked directly to the three traditional sets of Mysteries of the Rosary-- the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious. One day I'm going to put together a 3-degree system of Christian ceremonial magic which is built around the Mysteries and the Three Stages. 

In fact, most-- probably all, actually-- 3-degree magical systems follow this format pretty exactly. It's also the formula of all alchemical operations.

LVX

In the Golden Dawn tradition, there is another way of looking at this. The letters L V X spell out the word "light" in Latin. In the Rose Cross and Hexagram rituals, these letters are used as signs, representing three moments from the story of Osiris. L stands for Isis, the wife of Osiris; V for Apophis, the destroyer; X for Osiris, risen from the dead. In the Analysis of the Keyword ceremony, one pronounces "Virgo, Isis, mighty mother; Scorpio, Apophis, destroyer; Sol, Osiris, slain and risen." 

In this way of looking at things, Isis, in her innocence and joy, represents the Illuminative stage; Apophis the destroyer represents the Purgative stage-- and he was also linked to the heat of the desert by the ancient Egyptians; and Osiris, risen from the dead, represents the Unitive stage.

It's worth keeping in mind, at this point, that Osiris, the dying and rising God, was a God of grain agriculture. 

The Temptations

What are the specific temptations Jesus has to face? The devil tries to get him to satisfy his hunger; to use the power of God to defy nature; and to worship him in exchange for worldly power. 

Some have called the three temptations Hedonism, Egoism, and Materialism. 

There is an enormous amount of material on this subject from mainstream theologians of every denomination, so I won't go over it in detail. For our purposes, I want to note a few things.

First, who is the Devil, again? In the thought of Eliphas Levi, who we've been drawing on, a single, unitive being named "Satan" doesn't exist. It isn't that there aren't evil spirits-- there are. It is, rather, that unity itself is a quality of divinity. Rejecting divinity, the devils reject unity; Hell is a giant anarchy. Levi writes,


Elsewhere, he defines the Astral Light, which is the total current of psychic forces that exist in the world, as the devil itself when it acts upon us outside of our control. How is that? Because the Astral Light carries within it every human passion, every popular enthusiasm and popular madness, and the body of every spirit, whether good or evil. Unrecognized and untamed, it conquers us, and sweeps us along to whatever end. 

The work of the mage is the work of self-creation, which is accomplished by and through the power of God. The temptations to turn aside that one faces during the Purgative or Apophis stage are the actions of the Astral Light working on the soul. The specific forms they will take will be unique to every individual. 

Psychic Anatomy, Again

Jesus is tempted to satisfy his appetite, inflate his ego, and take worldly power. Each of these individual temptations can be seen to correspond with one of the parts of the psychic anatomy we discussed in the last post. 

Two more things are worth noting:

Politics

First, Satan will give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, if he will only consent to worship him. This suggests again what we said about worldly power in our discussion of Chapter 3. To be a mage is to be a priest and a king, but to be a king among human beings is not our goal. The true magician will not have worldly power and must not seek worldly power. The king of all the world's dogs is a dog. 

Plotinus wrote,


Satan grants power to those who worship him. It isn't necessarily the case that to attain power is to worship Satan-- but it often is.

We want to be a different sort-- the sort intent on the realm above, like Plotinus, who, his student Porphyry tells us, came 4 times by meditation into the presence of the Most High God; the sort who will respond to the temptation of power with "Begone, Satan!" and will be received by the Angels instead.

Cycles

These things never happened, but always are. 

And because they always are, they never stop happening. The LVX cycle does not occur once, and then it's over; we don't get to the Unitive stage and discover that we're done. The Unitive Stage always leads to the next Illuminative Stage; Osiris Risen must die again. We will always find that the time of dryness and temptation returns. And we will always find that if we persevere, we will achieve a higher level of power and wisdom.

Nor are these cycles limited to the spiritual life. It will be found, instead, that every human endeavor, from learning to play an instrument to learning to make a marriage work, will follow these cycles. The desert is always out there; Apophis always comes. But beyond the desert, the angels wait.