Sunday, January 22, 2017

Who Chooses Who?

In the relationship between spirits and magicians who is it that does the choosing? Is it entirely the magician or does the spirit have a hand in it as well? Or further still, does the magician have any hand in it at all?

As a preteen child I was doing as much research into the occult and spirit communication as a reclusive 11 year old could in a rural town in the southern United States. I was voracious and read everything I could get my hands on regarding the occult, witchcraft, ghosts, fortune telling, and related subjects. I knew of Urbain Grandier's demonic pact before I hit puberty and I can remember bragging naively to a classmate, at 12 years old, that I knew how to summon demons (not that I had, mind you). As I study more deeply the True Grimoire I am reminded of those days and I am struck by how long these spirits have been a part of my life.

As I've grown and learned, alternately picking up and putting down the practice of magic, I keep coming back to spirit work as the path of my spirituality. They call to me. When I neglect my practices they come knocking and reminding me they are still around. And while I could simply ignore them and move on, I like my life a lot better filled with magic and spirits than not.

Perhaps they have always been around me and it was they who chose me. But this begs the question, why? Why would I be chosen? The answers, I suspect, are tied in with the vocation of being a magician. Working with spirits is a powerful skill that can work for the benefit of myself and my community. Magicians and spirits working together is a relationship of mutual benefit and it is the spirits' best interest to choose someone with whom they can work effectively.

Here again we have an example of a reframing of the classic relationship between the magician and a demon. If the genesis of the relationship is a mutual choosing then there is no place for domination or coercion. It is a spirit positive point of view and a much better place to start than the traditionalist stance of fear and threats.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Blessings for Demons

I was recently admonished quite stridently by an acquaintance on the internet when I suggested that the grimoire spirits should be set free and blessed in the name of God. I was called mad. I was warned that there would be horrible repercussions and that I was suggesting letting "all Hell break loose". He also suggested loosing demons into my life but for pity for what it would do to me.

I am not really surprised by this reaction. After all, this person follows a course of occult study based squarely on the Golden Dawn, Thelema, and Franz Bardon. This is the same lineage that views the spirits of the Underworld as demons and evil right off the bat. I try to point out his preset bias to him but he is too deep in it to see these spirits any other way. To him any suggestion that the grimoire and Underworld spirits are anything other than the sworn enemy of humanity is proof that the demons have succeeded in their deceptions.

One thing I've learned about these spirits is that there is a reflective quality to their nature. They take on and reflect back to the magician the qualities that they are expected to have as well as the qualities of the magician themselves. This is why sincerity and purity of heart are so important and, further, why the Confession is part of the process described in the True Grimoire. Sincerity is met with sincerity, belligerence is met with belligerence, and fear is met with fear.

To extend the blessings of God to the demons immediately removes the barrier of demons-equals-enemy that hampers the relationship from the start. It replaces the relationship of adversarial fear with one of respect much more likely to be mutually beneficial. When I make my offerings I will generally extend blessings to the spirits with whom I'm working.

The question of whether or not I have been deceived and I'm going to Hell to spend eternity in torment is irrelevant. The real question is what form my spirituality takes. Do I want to have a practice based in fear and opposition or do I want to spread blessings, even to those unaccustomed to receiving them, strengthening the light of God in the universe? While I walk this earth I get to choose how to live and I choose one of light even when I work with demons.