Falls and Ascents

The life of a magus is a path of self-realization, of self-actualization. We have already said that the Myth we are considering describes this Way as a succession of battles and campaigns of the hunt.

The terms “war” and “battle” are often misunderstood and create the impression of the magi’s aggressiveness; many magi willingly reinforce this notion, falling into the snares of pride.

Nevertheless, the militancy of the magus is merely a description of the intensity of his mind’s movement.

The Myth defines a battle the active overcoming of an obstacle.

From this point of view it is clear that we are not speaking of violence, but simply of the intensity of movement — and, in fact, “active compassion” — bodhichitta — of the Buddhists — is precisely the magus’s battle. Yet no one would accuse Buddhists of bloodthirstiness. At the same time, the entire way of the magus is his war, again, in the sense of sustained overcoming.

However, the notion of battle emphasizes that, first, every act of overcoming has a beginning and an end, and second, it can end either in victory or in defeat.

And here serious difficulties often arise.

Many travellers do not notice the beginning of the battle, “waking” already in its very midst, when changing the course of the battle is difficult, or do not know how to finish it in time.

Moreover, the question often arises — how to tell how the battle ended. In some cases, victory or defeat is fairly obvious, but in others one must make an effort to understand with what net result you emerged from the battle.

A battle is won when new, previously closed possibilities become available.

A battle is lost when the expenditure of power does not lead to any new possibilities.

Note that a vanquished foe is not necessarily evidence of victory, nor is triumph necessarily a sign of defeat.

The aim of the battle is not the breaking of active resistance for its own sake; the battle must open new gates, and having defeated the enemy but remaining locked within the fortress, the magus gains no new opportunities for development. Such a situation often occurs when a traveller intoxicated by victory gets stuck in self-admiration, ceases to develop, and therefore suffers defeat.

Conversely, defeated but learning the right lessons from a fall, the magus can effectively restructure his strategy so that next time he will emerge victorious; thus, the fall opens new ways for him — in other words, it is a victory.

The desire to be victorious, a powerful motivator on the Way of the Magus, is not simply the wish to appear impressive; it is the unwavering striving for liberation, for going beyond conditioning, limitation, and the incomplete actualization of one’s being.

On the contrary, the urge for self-assertion, for “being cool,” is the first step toward defeat, since it makes the Magus easily subject to manipulations by Demons who play on his vanity.

And a typical sign of defeat is precisely the persistent denial of defeat: “I had no choice,” “I was not yet ready,” “circumstances unfolded this way” — typical excuses of the vanquished.

Meanwhile, to acknowledge one’s defeat in time offers a chance to turn it into victory by drawing the appropriate conclusions. But for this one must stand face to face with one’s problems, weaknesses, and the distortions of the soul. Similarly, the timely acknowledgement of victory will allow one to stop “flailing one’s fists” in time, and thus not squander power and not fall into the darkness of euphoria.

At every moment, in every situation, the magus must constantly assess his chances.

Only with such vigilance can one still become victorious even when everything around is burning and collapsing, and remain victorious when foes grovel at his feet.