- Joined
- Nov 18, 2024
- Messages
- 52
- Reaction score
- 147
Rock on! Absolutely, one can use Hermetic Mind Manifestation to make things happen in the external-appearing world. Chaos Magic, New Thought (with Neville Goddard being my favorite), or plain old Positive Thinking (probably the weakest—too much non-imaginative, discursive, left-hemispheric brain) are all articulations of the same timeless principles.
I have used New Thought techniques I learned from Neville Goddard’s writings to retrieve a friend’s lost dog (with plenty of neat synchronicities), get a friend a job after months of them being unemployed, and heal a sick cat. It’s pretty great. No (obvious) daimons required.
But once you reach the “sublunar” level of consciousness, you are dealing with an individualized and externalized level of reality, by whatever name. Here, I prefer the traditional terms, like “sub-lunar,” rather than scientific models to make a myth, like bosons, quarks, or other terms. Attempts by magicians to appeal to modern materialists never age well and only look increasingly ridiculous as science advances. Luminous ether, anyone?
But once you get “down here” at the level Goetia functions, you are dealing with externalized intelligences. You, who are reading this screed, are simultaneously part of “The All,” but you are also you, with specific likes and dislikes, food preferences, and habits, as are the spirits. Are we all connected in the quantum flux / Nous? Sure. Hermetic manifestation works because of that field of connection. But the model loses a great deal of usefulness at the level of sorcery / necromancy / Goetia / witchcraft. As the saying goes, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Peter J. Carroll hated the Church’s “foul necromancy” of saints, etc. And while I enjoy his work tremendously, his need to make a scientific myth for ALL magic, and then failt to differentiate between it and sorcery (necromancy, Goetia), has led him to have a few blind spots, especially when it came to the traditional forms. Carroll writes, “Magick will not free itself from occultism until we have strangled the last astrologer with the guts of the last spiritual master.” I agree to some degree, and dislike those gatekeepers, but he throws the horned babies out with the bathwater.
Alan Chapman, in Advanced Magick for Beginners (2008), got scared by the demons of the Lesser Key and warns people away from them. Similarly, Alex Sanders, the “King of the Witches,” summoned a demon once, got scared shitless, and never did it again. Folks who just decide one day to call up the “hotter” Vodou loa are shocked to find they have preferences and have suffered the consequences.
Members of the OTO have found the traditional forms of angels do not respond to the Thelemic pantheon and will just stand around until the traditional names are used; then they jump into action.
In my view, these traditional words and actions form a known set of protocols that are baked into the “mythstream,” which is just a virtual room (UI/UX) in the quantum flux we use to communicate with them. Eventually, with enough time and people, maybe the OTO’s words can get baked into our shared experience of the universe. But who knows when that will be? In the meantime, it’s just easier and faster to use the traditional manuals.
It does not have to necessarily follow that the spirits are 100% completely individual persons. Tthe grimoires like to present them as individuals with compete colorful backstories—but they may be more like offices or masks used by a whole host or horde of intelligences. But how they appear and act is determined by the ritual to some degree, and your own expectations and beliefs to some, or even a great degree. Enough to make them useful.
Or stick to New Thought / Chaos Magic / Hermetic Manifestation “magic,” which I prefer to call “manifestation.” It is also very powerful, I have found. No daimons, or waving a stick around like a crazy person while yelling at the air until they show up, is required.
I have used New Thought techniques I learned from Neville Goddard’s writings to retrieve a friend’s lost dog (with plenty of neat synchronicities), get a friend a job after months of them being unemployed, and heal a sick cat. It’s pretty great. No (obvious) daimons required.
But once you reach the “sublunar” level of consciousness, you are dealing with an individualized and externalized level of reality, by whatever name. Here, I prefer the traditional terms, like “sub-lunar,” rather than scientific models to make a myth, like bosons, quarks, or other terms. Attempts by magicians to appeal to modern materialists never age well and only look increasingly ridiculous as science advances. Luminous ether, anyone?
But once you get “down here” at the level Goetia functions, you are dealing with externalized intelligences. You, who are reading this screed, are simultaneously part of “The All,” but you are also you, with specific likes and dislikes, food preferences, and habits, as are the spirits. Are we all connected in the quantum flux / Nous? Sure. Hermetic manifestation works because of that field of connection. But the model loses a great deal of usefulness at the level of sorcery / necromancy / Goetia / witchcraft. As the saying goes, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Peter J. Carroll hated the Church’s “foul necromancy” of saints, etc. And while I enjoy his work tremendously, his need to make a scientific myth for ALL magic, and then failt to differentiate between it and sorcery (necromancy, Goetia), has led him to have a few blind spots, especially when it came to the traditional forms. Carroll writes, “Magick will not free itself from occultism until we have strangled the last astrologer with the guts of the last spiritual master.” I agree to some degree, and dislike those gatekeepers, but he throws the horned babies out with the bathwater.
Alan Chapman, in Advanced Magick for Beginners (2008), got scared by the demons of the Lesser Key and warns people away from them. Similarly, Alex Sanders, the “King of the Witches,” summoned a demon once, got scared shitless, and never did it again. Folks who just decide one day to call up the “hotter” Vodou loa are shocked to find they have preferences and have suffered the consequences.
Members of the OTO have found the traditional forms of angels do not respond to the Thelemic pantheon and will just stand around until the traditional names are used; then they jump into action.
In my view, these traditional words and actions form a known set of protocols that are baked into the “mythstream,” which is just a virtual room (UI/UX) in the quantum flux we use to communicate with them. Eventually, with enough time and people, maybe the OTO’s words can get baked into our shared experience of the universe. But who knows when that will be? In the meantime, it’s just easier and faster to use the traditional manuals.
It does not have to necessarily follow that the spirits are 100% completely individual persons. Tthe grimoires like to present them as individuals with compete colorful backstories—but they may be more like offices or masks used by a whole host or horde of intelligences. But how they appear and act is determined by the ritual to some degree, and your own expectations and beliefs to some, or even a great degree. Enough to make them useful.
Or stick to New Thought / Chaos Magic / Hermetic Manifestation “magic,” which I prefer to call “manifestation.” It is also very powerful, I have found. No daimons, or waving a stick around like a crazy person while yelling at the air until they show up, is required.
