In
preliminary occult instruction I was given in the basics of
operating in light trance meditation. The first step in this
process is to ensure that one can easily perform a number of
simple tasks all of which are a starting point from which our
more complex trancework will develop. The fundamental tasks
required to gain a working familiarity with are:
Deep
relaxation.
The
ability to obtain clear internal sensations from your five
senses.
To
see or feel your way around scenery in the astral.
To
call up intelligent beings into your astral scenery at will.
To
communicate with these beings confidently.
Many
occultists are quite familiar with the kind of simple exercises
that compose this early instruction and often refer to such as
'pathworking'. This is not a technically correct term for the
type of work I had to become familiar with but it is used as a
generic term, in the assumed absence of any other, for a whole
range of astral experiences. Pathworking refers more accurately
to those kinds of exercises that apply the technique of creative
imagination towards gaining information and experience from
skrying (scanning) a series (usually) of symbols. The term was
used first, we understand, to donate visualisation of the astral
environments of the paths on the Qabalistic of Life. These paths
embody certain archetypal ‘activities’ that take place
between major 'states' of consciousness. The usual method of
'working the paths' on the Tree of Life was to use the Tarot
card attributed to each path as a starting point and focus for
getting into the astral thought form associated with the
activities of each path.
This
idea of becoming familiar with archetypal experiences through
astral work is, partially, the subject of this particular
discourse. Once the student knows how to call up intelligent
beings into a predetermined specific type of astral scene it is
important for us to turn our focus onto two types of astral
being in particular and explain their functions and their role
in the scheme of occult training.
As
we have learned our mind is divided into a number of
compartments where specific activities take place. Between the
conscious and unconscious levels of mind exists the subconscious
where imagination, astral sensation, is active. Each human being
possesses a personal subconscious field and a personal
unconscious field both of which have connection to the
collective subconscious and collective unconscious. Our personal
versions of these fields of activity are microcosms. That is,
they are miniature models of the collective, universal or
macrocosmic mind.
The
unconscious, as Karl Jung the psychologist re-discovered, is
divided into a number of graded 'potencies'. These potencies
originated with a single cause - separated, divided and extended
themselves out to become the sum total of forces which are the
unconscious. These potencies are what we now call the
'archetypes' of the unconscious. The term archetype refers to an
abstract idea, force and form in one unit. The ancient Egyptians
called these archetypes 'Neters', or natural forces, which
English translators have used the term 'Gods' to describe. Gods,
in the modern Christian influenced understanding of the term, is
not an accurate translation of the Egyptian 'Neter' though. The
English term carries with it too much corrupt religious
connotation which the ancient Egyptian Priest who knew the
subject deeply would not consider as accurate. It is true that
the ancient Sages amidst the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts and
so on, did have a sacred respect for the Gods of their
understanding as well as a more technical/scientific, if you
like, understanding. But it could be suggested without too much
argument that the Initiated Mages of these cultures also
possessed an understanding of the Gods or archetypes of the
unconscious which was not too far removed from the 'Jungian' or
modern psychological view point.
These
archetypes, which the ancients treated as Gods, existing in the
deep, dark, collective unconscious are, as we have said, are
units of mind stuff which contain or embody an intelligent force
focused around one idea. They exist in a hierarchy. They are
living creatures. They are born, evolve and die over vast, vast
periods of time. Their activities are, largely, habitual or
automatic, almost in some cases instinctual reactions. To relate
to an archetype personally is to know, feel and live under the
influence of a form of dynamic consciousness which has a very
powerful influence over huge areas of natural activity. The
life, qwerks and evolution of an archetype effect the area of
natural activity over which it rules like a powerful unseen
dictator. For the average human there is no escaping the
reflection of the effects an archetype has over their lives.
In
another way we might suggest that archetypes are like invisible
powerful natural laws that govern the ongoing progress of
creation. These laws, these natural organic mechanisms, are not
like mans laws which one can choose to obey or not according to
ones desire. Natural laws, the effects of archetypal forces on
creation, are inviolable. Nevertheless, although they cannot be
ignored the degree of their effect on the human life can be
transcended to some degree. In other words by taking our
personal development into our own hands we can, by application
of the proper techniques, rise above certain classes of natural
law, or remove ourselves, to a greater degree, from the
uncomfortable influences of certain classes of archetypal force.
By this we can understand that a human at a particular level of
soul maturity is influenced in specific ways by certain classes
of universal archetypes strongly and almost not at all by
others. As the human develops through his personal evolution
during the process of reincarnation, his soul maturation brings
him under the influence of new archetypal forces more markedly
at certain times and out of the influence of others.
Lets
now look at how these archetypes effect each individual persons
growth and activities. As we have mentioned each human is a
microcosm. This means that our personal unconscious minds have a
model within them, in miniature, of the entire pantheon of
archetypal forces, the Gods of the ancients. But because these
archetypes are personalised they develop with each of us in very
personal ways. Therefore modern psychology has termed these
personal archetypes 'sub-personalities'. In other words they are
divisions of the primary personality, the 'I' we each identify
with as being ourselves, in just the same manner as the
universal archetypes are divisions of the Supreme 'I' or the One
God. For those who consider this fact carefully a great secret
of being can be recognised here.
So
we might now understand how the universal archetypes affect the
personalities of each human. They do so through their
corresponding sub-personality that lives within the psyche of
the individual. For example, a woman who has just become
pregnant has activated the subpersonality within her mind that
is designed to govern the process of pregnancy. As her pregnancy
progresses so does the life cycle of the sub-persona that
governs the dynamic of that part of her life. Her 'pregnancy
sub-persona' is like a seed before she ever begins to be to be
exposed to activities and ideas associated with sexuality,
conception, pregnancy and birth. That 'seed-form' sub-persona is
like a little blueprint of what 'can' happen if she conceives.
The seed-form inherits its blueprint from the archetypal
pregnancy ideal, the Great-Mother Goddess of the ancients. As
soon as the female in our example is exposed to ideas and
activities associated with sexual intercourse the 'seed', the
personal archetype or sub-persona, germinates and begins to
develop. As soon as this happens the seed looses, in a fashion,
its universality, its alignment with the macrocosmic archetype
that gave it its pattern, and becomes a personal archetype. This
effect comes about because as soon as our young girl is exposed
to activities associated with sex then she begins to
'over-write' the original blueprint in the seed-form with her
own version of the 'story' gained from her personal experience.
A connection with the original pattern is never really lost, for
it is always there in the collective unconscious, and our
connection with it remains although we obscure it with our
personal view of things. This whole idea is an important one to
give much consideration. For everything we have been, everything
we are now, everything we can be, is tied up in this mechanism
as we have here described it.
A
magickian is a magickian because the personal archetype he owns
which governs all magickal functions is awake. It has left its
seed-form and begun to develop. That type of magickal tradition
he is attracted to is decided for him by the way his magickal
sub-persona has developed in early life during its germination.
It is affected by religion, by books, and by his parent’s
attitudes to the subject, for example. It is affected by
deliberate study and by information he absorbs unconsciously
from his environment. It is strongly, for those more mature
souls, affected by those magickal interests he has developed in
past lives. We think we choose ourselves to be Alchemist, Witch,
Satanist or Mage, but we do not. Our direction is bias towards
or against those things the germinating seed-form magickal being
has been influenced by.
Our
personal view of things, that 'over-writing' of the Truth with
our own experience, which we obtain so early in life when we are
so impressionable, becomes all-important to us. It is the basis
of our argument, or insistence, that things are the way they are
'because'. Very rarely do such arguments come directly from the
universal archetype and therefore we, in our selfish insistence
to defend our point of view, carry ourselves further from the
Truth.
It
is the vocation of magickal Initiation and Advancement to remove
the 'over-writing' we have actioned on all our primary personal
archetypes. To sacrifice our personal view of the universe in
order to align ourselves with the Truth about reality. By doing
this we destroy the 'blocks' which have cut us off from the Gods
and once again we draw on their great inspiration and power and
become the magickal beings we always were. Gods incarnate.
Understanding
the above ideas we can now see, hopefully, the logic behind the
ancient medieval practice of evocation and invocation.
Invocation being the calling down of creative archetypal forces
into manifestation, evocation the calling up of devolutionary
forces up from the depths in order to communicate with and
control them. It matters not whether such magickal rites produce
physical or astral manifestations of the creatures they are
focused on, which we read about in popular books. All that
matters is that the communication is effective. We must
understand and accept too that this practice as presented in
typical magickal grimoires was not originally designed to compel
'spirits' to satisfy the selfish desires if the Magickian, but
was a form of magickal therapy not unlike the creative
imagination of Jungian psychology.
Either
way, it is important to consider, that the practice of magick
cannot be truly successful until the sub-personalities that are
intimately connected with the arte in each of us are purged of
personal misunderstanding that obscures the Truth. Therefore,
deliberate and conscious effort is focused in our formal
training on effecting this task before the more complex aspects
of magick are taught.
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