Alchemy and your comfort zone

Here’s a great question I’ve seen raised: how does one know whether or not one is ready for the next stage of alchemical development or advancement within their chosen path?

I’ve seen people race through the grades of the HOGD and similar esoteric bodies like it’s a sprint and not a marathon with the reasoning of “alchemy is just an excuse for being lazy” and other similar bullshit. Honestly, the more I look back on my time spent in the HOGD the more I realize how incredibly valuable the Outer Order was for personal development and how much of it was taken for granted, overlooked, and just plain ignored in terms of importance.

So, here’s the deal: when you’re comfortable, it’s time to move on. If you’re itching to get to the next level, it means that wherever you’re at is still stretching your comfort zone, so it’s time to stay put. Magick begins at the end of your comfort zone, and this goes in all areas of life. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Like with physical fitness, those muscles need growing, stretching, and strengthening time. There are times when it’s good to take a rest day and there are times when you gotta suck it up, buttercup, because you won’t evolve unless you do.

This is why when I first was getting back into yoga I kept requesting core work when the teacher would ask what we wanted to focus on that day. It wasn’t because I loved core workouts; I fucking HATED them. I found them challenging, hard, and I was struggling to get any of it done. Now I have an emerging six pack, and core workouts are now a strength as opposed to a weakness. But that meant sucking it up and practicing, practicing, practicing so I could get better at them.

Alchemy is a very similar deal. Much like muscles, you may find that some aspects of your life are more out of shape than others–and will wail and scream when exercising. Out of all of the grades in the HOGD I had the most amount of growing pains in Practicus. The Water element  was NOT my friend. I was itching to get out of there so badly it hurt because the entire GRADE hurt. There were a lot of lessons I had to revisit later because I don’t think I spent enough time there. I think I should’ve been held back another year, quite frankly, but all in all I have no regrets.

I knew that I had found the ideal magickal system for me recently when I found myself thinking, “Holy hell, I feel like a fucking Neophyte. I know NOTHING. This is all over my head. HELP. WTF.” Nothing good will ever come easy,and pearls are formed in oysters through constant irritation.

How to clear the static and blocks preventing you from performing magick

My previous post in the personal development and alchemy series was about how causing changes within can help cause changes without and thus help one to perform effective magick. In that post I talked about how the internal “static”, AKA our limiting beliefs and personal obstacles, can interfere with our magick and growth as a whole person and magician/witch.

Many of us struggle with our fears, negative ideas, and limiting beliefs on ourselves, our lives, and reality. It could range from any one or all of the following:

  • “I can’t do that, that’s impossible.”
  • “But if I become successful, people will treat me differently. They may resent me or try to attack me.”
  • “I’m afraid of failing. What if I put all of this time and energy into what I want and I don’t get it? What do I do then?”
  • “I’m not worth it. I’ve done too many horrible things in my past and I just don’t feel deserving.”
  • “No one in my family or among my friends has gotten wealthy/successful/happy in their lives, so why should I?”
  • “I’m not good enough. I don’t have what it takes.”
  • “I haven’t succeeded in my past, so why would I succeed now?”

If any of these sound familiar to you or strike a chord within you, take a step back and reflect on that. First of all…don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s not going to help you to get over those feelings and will just add more power to them. What you want to focus on is on how different the actual reality of the situation is. In other words, find out what your inner negative voice is saying and start telling yourself the opposite.

Here’s a great exercise: write on a sheet of paper everything that you want out of life. Don’t hold back, don’t judge, just run with it and be honest with yourself. No one has to see that list but you. Think BIG.

When you’re done with that list, make a new one: write down all of the things within your life that you think is preventing you from fulfilling those goals. Again, be honest. Don’t hold back, and don’t judge. Just let it all out. Think of it as a cathartic rant session!

Once you have those two lists, you want to make a third. This list is the most important of all. Rewrite the second list of all of the things you’ve listed as obstacles and rewrite them in the positive. For example:

Original: “I can’t find a job that I really like that will pay me enough and will last.”

New: “I have it in me to get the best job for me that will pay me more than enough and will keep me employed.”

Original: “I can’t find a good date, no one thinks I’m attractive.”

New: “I’m attractive and have many good qualities, and can find my perfect match who is right for me.”

Original: “Magick doesn’t work, I’m powerless and don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t have it in me to do a good spell.”

New: “I am powerful and magick flows freely within me.”

Coming up: Tying your personal affirmations with your magick. In short, using magick and the power of your thinking to help you along with personal development. Sounds pretty neat, right? And it certainly could help you with more effective magick in the long run, too! Call it “greasing the wheels”!

 

If you find that your list is a bit too tough to tackle and could use a sounding board, I’m here for you. Contact me anytime for a session or a free consultation.

 

Banishing with laughter

Long have I heard the expression “banish with laughter”, and I don’t think it’s been until recent days that I finally grok the fullness of this sentiment.
It’s not just that magicians (self included) are forever in danger of taking themselves too seriously; it’s that we as people tend to be overburdened and overstressed. We have these high goals for ourselves which we are trying to meet on a regular basis, and all of the tiny things due to them just pile up. Because we seek to accomplish the Great Work, we join a mystical order. We then get responsibilities and obligations in said order. We face personal dramas and issues in said order. And then we wind up focusing on all of the stress due to those reasons versus the original and bigger issue to start with: which is to accomplish the Great Work.How many of us suffer from the curse of “We must do it all” and when we let down others because we are too overworked and overburdened to fulfill our obligations to them, we beat ourselves up thus exacerbating the original problem?

By now people are reading this and thinking to themselves, “Scarlet, you’re all over the place! What you’re saying is true, but what the hell does ‘banishing with laughter’ have anything to do with being a type A overdriven perfectionist?'”.

Simple. We in our stressful, overworked, overburdened, and even overmartyred have forgotten two essential things in living a happy and peaceful life:

  1. The ability to relax
  2. The ability to laugh

Without #2, we cannot accomplish #1.

When we are relaxed, we are more focused. Our intuition and ability to move with the Force, the Tao, or what-have-you, is increased. We no longer move against the grain but move with the flow and trust in the Higher Good. Our decision making abilities are therefore increased, and we feel better, look better, and are best capable of handling the situation.

Stress got you down? Too much on your plate? Wondering why the hell you took up this crazy spiritual/mystical path to begin with? Too much spinning around in your head of your lengthy To-Do lists to the point where you literally can’t think anymore and it hurts to do so?

Laugh. Banish your fears and stress with laughter. Laugh some more. Laugh until your sides and face hurt, and you realize that it’s all just too damned silly to begin with. Laugh until you realize it’s okay to be human, and we have to strive to be that first before we reach for the greater gold.

Go on, banish with laughter. I dare you. It’s better than any LBRP or BRH, I swear.

Cause change in your inner world, create magick in the outer world

The other day I covered why personal development is important to magick. Next step in the series: how causing change in your inner world enables you to be a more magickally efficacious magician or witch.

Magick is more than simple rote spells, lighting candles, or chanting weird shit under a full moon. All of these things are meant to jog your unconscious mind and connect with sources of power outside of yourself that will help you to fulfill your goal. I have a magickal mentor who once told me that “magick is about making a connection.” This is entirely too true.

In this instance, YOU are the vessel, and your unconscious mind is a more powerful tool than you could ever hope or dream of. You literally have the power to do anything you want. Maybe not EVERYTHING, but anything. But that’s a topic for a whole other blog post. If you are not a clear and effective channel, all you will receive is static. If you have a crappy cell phone that’s constantly disconnecting on you, running slowly, and is buggy forget about checking your email or browsing the Internet. In short…don’t be a crappy cell phone.

Causing change in your inner world is about removing the static. It’s about clearing up the internal blocks, limiting beliefs, and unconscious ideas holding you back from achieving your deepest desires and dreams. It’s about eliminating the negative voices which are holding you back so you can finally hear the still, small, quiet voice within you which can tell you EXACTLY what you need to do, where you need to go, and who you want to be.

That voice is what helps you to take inspired action, connect with your higher self, HGA, the Force, God, gods, Divine, Flying Spaghetti Monster, or what-have-you. Trusting that voice is vital, but first you have to make sure you can hear it.

Next blog post in the series: How to clear the static and blocks preventing you from performing magick.

 

Need help with any of this stuff? Think you could use a life coach whom you can actually talk to about magick and various other esoterica and help you with your own magick? I’m here. Contact me anytime for a session or a free consultation.

Initiation, Mystery Schools, the True Self, and the False Persona

After many years of belonging to several groups, at some point I slowly began to pair down my involvement in a number of groups I belong to and have belonged to in the past. It’s pretty clear that really there’s only one esoteric initiatory organization and one local spiritual group that I wish to focus my attention on, and everything else is additional stress, aggravation, responsibilities, and drama that I really don’t need.

I hate to phrase things like that, but it’s true. I can’t comprehend why people collect orders and certificates like some people collect baseball cards. I joined to genuinely learn about new things and traditions and therefore grow as a person, and find that joining orders just to get extra titles on your esoteric resume to be not only an utter waste of time–but positively sacrilegious and disingenuous to the organizations you joined by ignoring their teachings and discarding them in favor solely of titles in order to get your ego stroked.If I wanted my ego stroked, I would’ve stayed a dogmatic Greek reconstructionist and on top of the damned Ionic column where people wanted me to be.

Or better yet, start that Greek mystery school which I am still utterly and completely unqualified to begin as both initiator of others and the current itself. I suppose I could’ve done what one person initially attempted to do, which was to lift the Golden Dawn wholesale and “Greekify” gestures which have their origins in Freemasonry and without comprehending their original context have no meaning, an atrocity which would’ve been akin to doing “plug and play” of deities into some other religion and culture’s ritual. But I have both my pride and my good taste, and have refrained from making such poor judgments–with or without the Z documents and Cipher manuscripts.

It doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like to see such Hellenic mystery schools begin; it’s just that I think that it takes a heck of a lot more than a single person to start up such an endeavor. I’m also not entirely certain that’s really what I’m meant to do with my life at this point. If you disagree, take it up with Hekate and Hermes since they basically own my ass these days in addition to my other patron deities. I gotta be in charge of Who I Am and not What People Want Me To Be.

And speaking of which…. In conversations with two separate people on the same day I initially composed this blog post–two people who are completely and utterly different from each other in most respects and I think have yet to even meet or talk to each other, mind you–the same topic came up: each of them had taken on a false persona which they had aspired to their whole lives but later realized that it was not only what they weren’t looking for, but in fact the persona was holding them back from being their deepest and truest self. Once they let go off that shiny mask, they went through utter hell only to determine that it was a blessing. They needed to be their truest self in order to be deeply and genuinely happy, and to spiritually, mentally, emotionally–and even physically–progress as people. I am watching one of them continue that struggle. I think we all do at some point, and sometimes more often than not. I think that may just be part of life.

I can honestly say that without a doubt, I did the exact same thing. I am not proud of the amount of hiding I did from myself and from others on who I really am. But I am neither a special snowflake nor a perfected individual. So before people go “OMGS! You’re kicking people in the head!” please note that I spend WAY more time kicking myself in the head to try and kick someone else in the head. With one leg already poised and in action, I would fall flat on my ass. If your own head has been kicked upon reading any of my posts, kindly examine the foot that hit you and make sure first that it is not already attached to your ankle. After all, it is hardly my fault that you have failed to comprehend Ti Kwan Leep.

Sometimes however, we ALL need to give ourselves a good kick in the head. The point of alchemy is to realize who you really, truly are underneath all of that crap and bullshit by discarding it and everything else that is holding you back (the Black Work) and then exalt your best qualities and gain new good qualities (the White Work) so that you can unify with your Divine Genius and HGA (the Red Work).

Some head-kicking will happen as a result of spiritual alchemy. That’s GOOD. It means that you realize that you’ve done wrong and can do better–think of it as empowering yourself to recognize what you can achieve versus what you are achieving, and know that it’s Ok To Fuck Up As Long As You Realize That You Did, Learn, and Make Up For It. At the same time however, don’t spend so much time kicking yourself in the head that you’re not able to put your feet forward.

If you need some guidance on putting those feet forward, you know where to find me.

The vital importance of personal development to magick

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I’ve touched upon this in various blog posts, but decided to dedicate one especially for this topic. Hell, I may be doing a series of these. It’s that important of a topic.

Personal development is a vital part of any magician or witch. You cannot even think to begin to learn how to handle magick without it. So much of magick depends upon your thoughts, feelings, and unconscious, and the best way to harness and develop that is through personal growth and development.

Why is this? Well, let’s start off with the definition of magick.

“Magick is the art and science of causing change in conformity to will.” – Aleister Crowley

Say what you will about the man, but Crowley was right on target here. My other favorite definition is as follows:

“Magick is about poking at reality with a stick, learning from the results, and using it for useful purposes.” – Scarlet Magdalene

…but I may be biased.

Okay, you may be nodding your head at this point and going, “Yeah, yeah, okay, so?” Well, then, let’s move on to the definition of will. It’s strongly connected with the idea of desires and wishes. Do you know what yours truly are? Do you know what would make you deeply, truly happy and fulfill your life’s purpose?

A surprising number of people have no idea. They just know that they are unhappy and feel powerless to control those circumstances. They think that if they turn to esoteric arts, they will make their lives better and happier and that it would give them the power that they need.

Unfortunately becoming a magician or witch isn’t like Harry Potter; you aren’t instantly imbued with some mystical powers by merely being given a wand or through some sort of blessing. Empowerment comes from within. You cannot cause change in your outer world without first causing change in your inner.

Next blog post: How causing change in your inner world enables you to do magick in the outer. Stay tuned!

 

In the meantime, if you’re a magician/witch or aspiring to be and could use some pointers in eliminating obstacles to getting your magick working, please feel free to give a free consultation with a try to see if I could be of help to you.

“Think globally, act locally”

A lot of people are of the belief (rightly so) that to change the world, first you must change yourself.
While this is true, at what point is your self-introspection and evolution so self-absorbed to the point where you are no longer helping to change the world? At what point do you think people use the excuse of “I’m not perfect enough” to not help out others?

Some additional thoughts: I have wondered from time to time how often my quest to perfect and transform myself has made me oblivious to the needs and feelings of friends and family. I sometimes wonder whether or not I spend too much time navel-gazing and not enough time being of service in my community, or taking the time just to call my parents and say hello.

At what point do you need to sequester yourself, and when does one realize that it’s time to come out and be in the world?