The last week has been sort of blur of fevered states. I can tell when the fever gets over 100 degrees because I start to hallucinate in very specific ways. I have never once minded having a fever, it provides it is own entertainment. Though while it may sound odd, it also provides it's own clarity. Many of the extraneous thoughts simply cannot fit in my post fever brain. It is a good time for reflection.
One of the thoughts that has been ruminating in my noggin is about magickal cycles. Specifically becoming our own experts. When we first start down the magickal path we have a tendency to believe that anything printed in a book or muttered by someone one step ahead of us in the cookbook must be gospel and that our own take on things lacks the wisdom of the ages. We get hung up on this grimoire or that correspondence without really asking where that came from.
Grimiores, like stereo instructions, are just another magickians opinion. Again like stereo instructions, they have probably been translated a few times and may have left a few key pieces out. What they do have going for them is that many people have done it that way and it wears a grove in the magickal current.
When we were working with the Enochians this became abundantly clear. They communicate to you in a language in which you will most easily understand, not in a language that you will like. So while the good Frater and I were aiming for the same spot on the map, what we got were totally different results - in the same general sort of way. The parts that were important to me were often just brushed over for him. The same is true in other forms of magick.
Some of my best stuff has come from very clear mental images of a specific application. A bit of HGA visual if you will. Usually out of the blue, I will get a very clear image of how something should work. The images are different than just passing thoughts as they come from another place in the brain and are absolutely crystal clear. I have often suspected that it comes from our limited understanding of time. It is as though my future self, who has this all figured out, is sending love notes back to the current me. Whatever it is, it is very effective.
So somehow in our wanderings we learn to become our own experts. We take the grimoires of the past and accept them for what they are. We take the correspondences of the past and accept them for what they are. Then we realize that our microcosm slides over the macrocosm like a prism. We take the invisible light and split it into 1000 sparkling colors. From those colors we pick that which best fits our situation.
Don't kick yourself if the magick of grimoiries does not fit you perfectly. Remember it is just another magickians opinion :)
2 comments:
Must be a Pisces thing: when I was a kid I was famous for having downright apocalyptic visions when I had a fever. Some of it was cool, some of it was terrifying. But I do know that some of my first inklings that reality isn't exactly the way the grown-ups say it is came to me in fever visions.
As far as figuring things out for yourself: there's a balance to be met. On the one hand, you gotta respect your elders (teachers, grimoires, etc.), on the other, the map ain't the territory. And you don't really know what anything is like unto you've experienced it yourself.
As one of my early mentors told me "Kiddo Pisces are tenuously held into this plane and that is a blessing and curse."
I agree 100 percent with the balance part. If you buck that grove you better be prepared to do so wholeheartedly. Otherwise you will lack the energy to get over the grove and just slide lazily into it. I have found that recognizing the groves and learning to slide along them is easier than making your own. Not impossible mind you, just easier.
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