Vod — the Sails of Inspiration

Inspiration as a state of nondual action plays for the Magus no lesser role than it does for a poet or an artist. But whereas for artists the direct vision of the logoi, which is what inspiration essentially is, is usually only an opportunity to create something beautiful that will spread inspiration further, for the Magus — whose art is the development of the mind — inspiration becomes a powerful force that allows the transformation of the psychocosmos.

We have already noted that the highest form of inspiration the Magus seeks access to is traditionally called “magical frenzy,” “vod,” and that this state, like illumination, provides the impulses for action that largely determine its effectiveness.

The vision of synthesis — the logos — always beneficially affects the functioning of the mind and its creative activity, but vod is not merely a state beyond dialectics: it is a condition of an irresistible will, literally bending the fabric of the universe to its own expression.

It is a state in which the Magus’s will effectively merges with the primordial creative activity diffused throughout the cosmos, a state in which the boundaries of the personality are erased and the Magus acts no longer as a microcosm but as a macrocosmic force.

It is clear that achieving such a vision and bringing it into an active phase has always been one of the Magus’s principal tasks. Because the vodic state requires enormous inner integrity and a unidirectional flow of mind, overcoming fragmentation and the directional alignment of the psychocosmos are of primary importance for the Magus.

The streams of consciousness, subpersonalities, and individual psychic aggregates (“skandhas”) are harmonized and integrated into the Magus’s creative flow of consciousness.

In the work of ordering his flow of mind the Magus does not confine himself to inner effort alone, since for him the threshold between the psychocosmos and the macrocosm is relative and depends on perspective; he uses all available resources and anchor points.

The most important tool discovered by magical schools for directing the flow of mind is runic practice. Runes, as a mytho-symbolic representation of the streams of the psychocosmos, offer an exceptionally convenient field of operation; working with them not only allows one to steer the mind into the desired channel but also helps integrate them. Runic magic, on the one hand, requires vodic inspiration, and on the other is itself a powerful means of inducing it. The process of carving Runes, composing vis, staves and other mind-directing instruments of Galdr, is an invaluable means that enables the mind to set its sails to the powerful currents of vod.

Goetia and theurgy, like other magical currents, are likewise instruments that shift the mind from a state of scattered wavering into a single stream of vodic inspiration.

It is obvious that for the psychocosmos to withstand the colossal strain demanded of it by the vod, it must be developed and trained, since the ordinary low-arousal mental state is wholly unsuited to generating such powerful currents.

Beyond the fact that for an unprepared mind vodic inspiration is extremely draining and is usually followed by a crash and exhaustion, it is also dangerous because of the risk of possession, for the forces that bring the mind into a nondual state are themselves nondual, and among those agents are both ordering and destructive elements.

Nevertheless, despite all the risks and dangers, inspiration and the means of attaining it are for the Magus the primary driving force. Given sufficient training, control and proper motivation, they allow one, within a relatively short time, to attain high levels of realization and thus to draw near to the Magus’s ultimate goal — freedom in his primordial being.