Empty Experience
Many people undergo illuminations that should, by all appearances, change their lives completely — yet their way of being does not shift in the least.
It is well known that even a powerful transformative factor such as the religious experience of direct communion with the Divine often fails to make a person even a jot kinder or wiser than before.
The same is true of many Magi: after successful, by their own account, magical operations, they do not raise the overall level of their Power.
The apparent contradiction is resolved simply: even an experience that seems, at first glance, beyond doubt often proves empty, illusory, arising only from the individual’s desire to have it. In other words, the mind deceives itself: it constructs an image and projects it outward (often not without the help of “inner friends”), and then enters into relationship with its own fiction. People often have “spiritual experience” only because they expect it; soon enough, they discover that this experience is empty.
On closer inspection, the principal beneficiaries of such an “experience” are its “shadow players” — the Archons and the Parasite of mind. They take their quarry: the former from the Power invested in the illusion, the latter from the meaninglessness of that investment. The experience itself, for all its apparent importance and significance, becomes a destructor of the very desire that demanded it.
From this it follows that for the Magus it is extraordinarily important to test every such experience by its fruits — by its effect on the overall level of the Power of mind.
Only when that Power increases can one speak of the value of the experience itself, of the insight, or of the attainment.
One must remember that sharp shifts in the level of mind —enlightenments and illuminations— are not a necessary condition for the expansion of mind. On the contrary, Western experience shows that for many people the more fitting way is a gradual ascent: climbing the Tree of the Sephiroth, Dante’s journey through the heavenly spheres, or the “Enochian” ascent through the Ethers. The absence of “higher experience” is not proof of slow or incorrect development; it simply points to the particular contours of one’s personal Way.
It is precisely the hunger for “effects,” and the disappointment when they do not appear, that has knocked countless people off the Way. No fewer have been lost to expected yet false, experiences — experiences not incorporated into the overall current of mind.
A Magus is, first and foremost, a warrior who walks the Way of Power not because it grants advantages or abilities, but because outside the Way his existence is meaningless. We have said many times that the Western myth insists: Magic is practiced not by those who “want” it, or even those who “can” do it, but only by those who cannot not be a Magus — for whom Magic is not merely a suitable or best Way, but the sole Way.
Sealing of Experience
Condensation of Mind
Adeptship and Enlightenment
Insight and Enlightenment
The Magus’s “Great Work”
Artificial Intelligence
Absence of Resistance
Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?
All life is magic, and everyone engages in magic, whether they realize it or not. Cursing in the heart of a loved one or praying in temples for health – doing all this at the peak of emotional intensity – isn’t that magic? And in experiencing this in the way that you do not get the expected outcome, it means this is not your path; you need to seek another. And even better – just stop from running, even if just for a minute, to wake up from the dream, look around, for Life itself offers paths, just not every person finds their path. Or perhaps, they subconsciously do not want to seek it, fearing responsibility. They say the more that is given, the greater the demand, and it’s simpler that way. Slaves do not need to think.
Fantasies and daydreams are the same in both religion and magic.
What I cannot agree with is that a genuine religious experience of communication with the Divine is not a prerequisite for development, after which a person is supposed to become wiser and kinder, but rather the result of immense labor. Usually for many years. To high Divine energies one must ‘grow up’ just like a magician must grow into the ability to accept a large amount of Power.
And religious people frequently display illusions. Look at how many ‘believers’ there are, yet where are the results?
It has been said that true sons and daughters will perform miracles. Something is not visible. They are there and according to what has been said, they dissolve, not showing their capabilities. Because if in our time a believing person does not lose faith, they are already performing a deed stronger than various miracles. Therefore, the believers have many more illusions than the magicians. Quantitatively, they are much higher.
It seems to me that a familiar publicist once said that there are less than 1% of real magicians on earth.
I don’t know if that is true or not.
In the end, it always and completely depends on the person, their intentions, and the means of achieving their goals.
There is one interesting case in literature.
A man lived very religiously. He fulfilled all commandments, rules, and did good deeds. He had a habit of reading a short prayer early in the morning on his balcony. Then, a neighbor appeared who loved jogging (also early in the morning, and singing loudly) and passed under his balcony while he read his prayers. It ended up that one day, the one reading prayers threw a pot at the runner’s head. It just irritated him that the singing disrupted his concentration on the prayer. The essence is that it’s not about the quantity of deeds but rather the quality and set goal.
And the goal, it seems to me, is the same – the ability to receive love (the energy of love) and to share it. And here there is a paradox. The more love (power) you give, the more you receive.
One time I was a witness to such a scene. A little witch (she heals people but has her own agreements with the power) because she’s not a healer but a witch, complained to a friend. She went to the store and bought food. She ate with her son. Her son was fine, but she felt sick after eating. She just didn’t think it could be done to her. Her friend took a match, lit it, and waved it around her back. In short, she removed it. This made her feel better immediately and she thanked her.
Then, after a minute, the one who helped received such a surge of energy. It was as if a tank of powerful energy dumped onto her.
And I observed many who heal people. They cannot not heal. They are simply filled to bursting with the amount of energy they receive from above. And the more they help, the more they give, the more they receive.
And illusions can come not only from internal ‘quality’ and ‘internal companions’ but also from external sources. So one can live for years and not suspect how influenced they are by ‘neighbors’ and ‘well-wishers’ often acting through other people. Because they have developed methods over the years to mislead a person (be it a religious one or a magician) into delusions and create an illusion from which it is sometimes impossible to escape without help. And these ‘well-wishers’ have such an aptitude that they can play on the most luminous feelings of people, let alone those who have none.
I would like to continue the comment.
About the multiplication of power, I spoke in quantitative terms. This is horizontal movement. Power is acquired and its use begins with the increase in quantity that I mentioned.
But this is by no means a change in its quality. For horizontal movement to exist, vertical movement is necessary. This is where strength is acquired in a new quality, with new opportunities.
This is the Path. If a person (magician) wishes to walk the Path, they must ascend vertically (expansion of consciousness), and with the power they have received, they learn to ‘coexist’ with it, that is, learn to manage it practically. Once they have done this, they immediately begin to seek new power.
Usually such magicians are teachers. They show, teach how it can and should be done. But not everyone becomes leaders. There are also simply practitioners. After acquiring strength and learning to work with it, they remain at that level. Is this bad or good?
It all depends on the magician. Clearly, the practicing one spends a lot of time on practice, thus, the time for seeking new strength is much less than that of the teacher. Thus, their vertical movement is much slower. But it must be.
And there are just the lazy ones. And why? I can do both. And I am satisfied with that. But at some point they realize that what they have is insufficient, they’ve been so long without vertical movement that they completely forgot that it’s possible. Especially when internal ‘friends’ help by saying – you are this way, why do you need it?
But something is missing for ‘flight’; the soul remembers how it was both in flight and in collisions along the Path.
And taking the leap back to where there should be movement, sometimes gritting teeth and sending everyone and everything away for the sake of the Path, is very hard for a person used to honors (helping many, healing many). This is when illusions of movement are created, leading nowhere.
And some magicians even perceive experiences as a negative factor.
Why?
Remember the fairytale: if you turn left, you’ll find this, if you turn right…
It is an experience, though foreign.
And few ever have the audacious thought that they can achieve everything. That wherever they go, there is a chance to obtain a horse, a princess, and half a kingdom. Whether they go left or right. Practically acquired experience becomes a limiting factor, hindering one from even imagining the possibility of something one cannot think of today.
As soon as the magician learns not to think about their experience: it was what it was; it was yesterday, and they think about what they can learn tomorrow about what they previously did not conceive, the boundaries of their consciousness will have the opportunity to expand as far as they deem necessary.
It’s true that it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to learn.
And when it happens to be ‘automatic’ the question will only be what is needed and why. This is a huge problem 🙂 for the one on the Path.
For me, it has become extremely relevant lately to analyze my ritual and other experiences for their ’emptiness’. Am I correct in understanding that certain practices may not provide any immediate spectacular effect in the spirit of gods appearing in dreams, visions, or insights, but at the same time gradually contribute to the expansion of the quality of awareness? But how then to grasp the connection between a specific practice and ‘improvement’?
Of course, the instant effect from ‘practice’ is often worse than good, as it may be a sign of self-deception. Correct practice is a gradual ascent to the top, not a ride on a sled down a mountain, so the main criterion should not be its ‘effectiveness’, but its correspondence to inner needs. That is, we must do what we feel helps us to be ourselves, helps to develop and expand our consciousness. ‘Improvement’ is not superpowers, not siddhis, it is the realization of consciousness, its harmony, and internal consistency. Another criterion for the success of progress is the reduction of personal manifestations and their replacement with the development of an individual way of perception. Ultimately, this can be reduced to the well-known magical maxim: ‘it is not what we learn that matters, but who we become.’
Wow!!!!