Magic, when limited to those results achievable in the subjective universe of it's practitioner by power of will or suggestion is undoubtedly easy to master and demonstrate. This is the lesser and ignoble form of magic - whose real results arise from the willingness of its target to subscribe to the illusion thus presented as reality by their sub-conscious mind. This form of magic is only good for the neophyte, the weak or good for those willing to only be entertained or awed by the power of their own minds. Its only attainable real results (if any) outside of the subjective universe occur as side effects of the credulity in those affected.
Real Magic, is that exact science that enables the informed and learned practitioner to employ a definite and repeatable formula to achieve results in the objective and subjective universe by the power of their will to apply the formula and by actually applying the formula. This is the most powerful magic, and it's practitioners are bound to forever obtain their desired results, not because they posses superior wills, but because they've chosen to apply their will to apply an exact science in order to realize their results. And science if it is real science, doesn't fail them. Behold the new Ipsissimus. The real student of magic must learn and master science, even if for the sake of realizing true magic.
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Reactions to these concepts are welcome, otherwise, let's get down to real work.
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Bon Firehead:
Excellent post. I must say your posts are well written, balanced and insightful.
I was thinking about similar issues of your first paragraph not too long ago. My thoughts were on why the movement of ‘mind power’ or ‘positive thinking’ are not treated more directly as a part of Magic. I see the mind power movement as a very large movement with many interested persons and practitioners all over the world. However, I have never encountered any occult based works which speak for any length about it. I believe this is an error in the occult field of work as I see the methods of mind power and the positive thinking movement inextricably entwined with magic.
You cannot have success in occult ritual without a positive attunement to the success of the operation.
Take for example a practitioner who performs a ritual to gain love. If the day after the ritual he entertains thoughts that he is somehow ugly and that this is a reason for his previous unsuccessful endeavors to find love, by the admission of these thoughts he has confused the ritualistic message he transmitted to the universe, in my belief, bringing the whole operation to naught. For he has now transmitted through mind ‘ugliness’ and ‘unsuccessful in love’ which will tend towards fruition the same as his transmission to bring love – in effect cancelling each other out.
I have personally made use of ‘positive thinking’ techniques to bring about incredible success in my life. To the detriment of making this post too long I will detail my experience for those who are interested.
Several years ago I moved to a regional location where jobs were scarce and I found myself working in insurance sales. Sales was never my thing, I had not worked as a salesperson before and I didn’t particularly want to work as one then! Soon after starting I was aware that my sales results were quite poor and realized the company was vigilant over poor performers. Basically, if your sales were low over a period of 3 months you were sacked. I was two months in with poor sales and staring down the barrel of unemployment. I decided to go to the library and get some books on sales techniques. I found a few which were relatively useless but I did find one book which intrigued me it was “Mind Power into the 21st Century”, what we would describe as a self-help or positive thinking manual. I set about employing two techniques straight away the first was a positive affirmation “Every day I sell more and more insurance policies”. The second was every time I had a negative thought such as “geez, what a bad day today” or “maybe I’m not cut out for this” etc. I would immediately destroy the thought by repeating the affirmation.
My sales at the company had consistently been 1-3 policies sold per day. One day a few short weeks after applying this technique I was leaving for the day and the sales manager said “How’d you go today” and I replied “Awesome, I had a fantastic day”, he said “how many did you get?”, and I replied “13”, he was shocked and wished me a good night. 13 was a huge number to sell in one shift. Any employee who sold more than 10 in a shift got an extra $50 bonus in their pay. It was going down in the lift to my car that night that it struck me, this was no coincidence, and this was a result of the positive thinking techniques I employed.
My success continued unabated for 3 years, all the while I used the technique. I rose to become one of the most successful sales people within the whole workforce of approx. 100 people. This also made me significantly more money than my base rate as commissions in insurance sales are attractive. The only thing I ever did to increase my sales was employ these two positive thinking techniques.
If I had of performed a magical ritual to obtain great sales results and then found I had achieved a 400% increase in sales I would have been over the moon. If we take Aleister Crowley’s definition of Magick as “the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with ones will”, what I was doing was a very successful form of simple magick.
I must say employment of these techniques was not easy. It takes considerable effort to be vigilant in applying discipline to your thoughts over a long period of time. The mind is a complex thing and is too ready and willing to offer up reasons and explanations for poor results or failure. It is much easier to rationalize the reasons for failure than to reject them and assert a different reality than the one you’re currently experiencing.
I think occultists shy away from what is commonly labeled as ‘positive thinking’ and self-help manuals of all sorts. Occultists would be more comfortable embracing the notion of ‘discipline of the mind’ which is really what these techniques are.
I posit that these techniques ‘positive thinking’ or ‘discipline of the mind’ (whichever label is put on them) are essential and rudimentary but powerful techniques for all magicians to be aware of and employ.
Nemesis Fixx:
+Bon Firehead Thanks. As you have made it known, am also just "Another seeker on the path". What we seek is truth, and its majestic application to one's will. Take from it what you can.
Otherwise, concerning Positive Thinking as a form of magic, in my opinion, you can't be more right, and am grateful someone (you) has brought this up for the benefit of many. What I think the problem is with popular occult paradigm is that most literature tends to focus on the "fantastic" results of magic - most people that come to magic for serious reasons often focus on the Black Arts and forget or take for granted another important form of magic, White Magic (RHP or whatever notation is fit). IMO positive thinking and self-help work is really a form of White Magic. The reason I want to believe this is? To me, Black Magic is predominantly destructive magic while White Magic is constructive. Both are important and both ought to be learned.
If you think of Magic/Occult in light of Maslow's theories of human needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs) - a very powerful theory IMO, you'll find that it's almost impossible for a sentient human to escape seeking the fulfillment of these "instinctive needs", among which the highest is self-actualization (those in the positive thinking camps already know why this is important). The only other important thing concerning his theory that is found to be lacking being the instinctive need to live socially - a need as important to humans as many other basic ones. Thus I can argue that constructive forms of magic are the kind that allow us to attain the highest need of man - self-actualization, and these forms of magic are indeed simple positive thinking and self-help.
To share my limited experience too [am not yet past 50 :-) ]:
One of the books that had a very deep impact on who I am and how I've managed my way through life is an "ancient" (from 1919) called "The Power of Will" by Frank Channing Haddock, MS., PH.D. It's most important chapter to me being "The Will and Success". This little book reinforced the ideas of positive living and thinking that'd picked up from my earlier days as a Catholic Charismatic and lessons learnt from A.Crowley's "Magic Without Tears". Take for example this excerpt from that book, a letter he was sending to Carol:
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Cara Soror,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Much thought has gone into the construction of your Motto. "I will become" can be turned neatly enough as "Let there be;" by avoiding the First Pronoun, one gets the idea of "the absorption of the Self in the Beloved,"
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Note how Crowley's extrapolation of the principle of self-actualization leads into the ability to create outside of oneself! A very important lesson to the student of the occult, who ought to learn that before you can seek to create in the objective universe (the second form of magic I talked about), it's important to first create in the subjective universe (the first form of magic) - your mind, your self must first "become" that which you will and then can you proceed to create change in the world outside of yourself - the objective universe, as you will.
Let me not protract this discussion aimlessly, and simply say - The definite formula doesn't exclude changing thy self, it requires it. If you seek positive results, expect and require positive changes in thyself, if you require negative results, expect and require negative changes to thyself.
Thanks +Bon Firehead.
Bon Firehead:
Awesome points, all of them! I agree wholeheartedly.
Thanks for that book tip. I will check that out one day. Yes I agree there can be much to gain by wading through the 'self help' genre. I remember being blown away by Napoleon Hill's classic "Think and Grow Rich". There's a chapter in there where he advocates the construction of an imaginary council meeting with a group of people you admire (leaders in your field of interest) called "Invisible Councilors". You create a meeting in your mind with these people you admire and speak to them and receive their guidance. In essence this is a form of mental mediumship - In a self help book!
Thanks again for another elucidatory contribution+Joe Willrich Lutalo .
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