Month: November 2012

Ensouling the Rituals

I’ve been thinking about the path from Yesod to Malkuth.

The 32nd Path, the Universe, Tau, is where manifestation happens.

For anything to exist in the physical world, it has to first be fully formed in the astral world, and then it must be ‘ensouled’ by bringing it into the physical.

While re-reading Dion Fortune’s excellent work “The Mystical Qabalah,” I found insight in a passage in the chapter on Malkuth. Paraphrasing, she said, many magicians miss this key step in their ritual work, ensouling the astral images and bringing them down into manifestation.

Isn’t that the biggest problem that magicians deal with? Working on the astral plane, and seeing no results – it is disheartening, and cultivates doubt, an enemy to manifestation and magic.

There needs to be a physical component, Fortune said, which ‘ensouls’ the ritual. Having a ritual purely on the astral plane will not bring about significant changes in the Kingdom, but if we use a physical symbol to channel the idea into manifestation – a gesture, a stone, a crystal, etc – then we provide a physical channel for the astral energies to flow through.

I applied this principle to my latest ritual work. In the mornings, facing the rising sun from the top of my mountain, I have gone through a series of rituals:

  • Qabalistic Cross
  • LBRP
  • Archangel Michael invocation
  • Chakra opening and chanting
  • Pattern on the Trestleboard
  • The Middle Pillar

This last ritual has provided me plenty of advancement over the past two months. When I added a physical component, this advancement increased.

By simply moving my hands in the directions where I feel the light moving, during the Three Circumambulations, the light became much stronger on the astral plane, where I imagined it. I do not know (or care) if it has manifested on the physical plane, although I doubt it. The physical gesture was enough to ‘ensoul’ the ritual, creating a stronger aura of light over my astral form.

Perhaps if I was attempting to create a physical light, this physical ensouling of the ritual would have a physical effect. An experiment for another time.

Marijuana Mage

I struggle with my perception of my addiction.

Generally speaking, I do not struggle with my addiction. I welcome it, embrace it, depend upon it. I have smoked marijuana every week for most of my adult life, and every day for the past year.

The Puritan in me thinks I should go through periods of abstinence whenever I notice side effects creeping above a certain level. If I notice my short term memory slipping, or my mornings sluggish, or my irritation levels high, my immediate response is to go into a period of abstinence to correct the effects.

For a time, this worked well. I would smoke casually, and take a week or a month off when it seemed right, and this kept me in a constant state of recalibration around my balanced center.

With the seizures, things changed.

I had an early Kundalini awakening in my mid-twenties. My investigations into meditation and energy exercises opened a door which I was not ready to enter, metaphysically speaking. The seizures would take me at irregular intervals, and I identified stimulants such as coffee, eroticism, and flashing lights as contributors to a state where seizures could enter.

Marijuana moderated the effects, to such a great deal that I began medicating myself more regularly.

Three hits from a joint every day; that’s been my dose. I haven’t had a seizure in a long time.

Marijuana affects me differently than most people. I use it as an appetite suppressant; if I am hungry, and unable to eat, I can smoke and the hunger cravings go away. This is because of my late teenage years, when I lived rather poor and homeless. Even if I didn’t have money for food, I usually had a bit of pot that I could scrape together to make the hunger go away.

This peculiarity in my own bodily chemistry has led me to consider if marijuana affects me differently in other areas, as well. I still get foggy-headed, happy, and mellow. But I prefer to do things while I am high, whether it is the dishes, or writing, or playing guitar, or, often, exercising. I love to exercise when I am high, and when I was in elite athletic shape, I was a regular smoker.

Yoga, in particular, stands out as one of my favorite intoxicated activities.

So, what of magic?

Every magical text and authority I read is unanimous regarding the perils of mixing drugs or alcohol with ritual work. They all condemn it.

For a time, when I was in apprenticeship with another mage, I entered a period of sobriety that was longer than I cared to keep.

My personal life suffered drastically as a result of the inability to properly manage my moods. With three children in a small house, my life is a constant exercise in accommodation, as I drop whatever I have been focusing on to attend to the loudest and most urgent siren calls in the moment they arise.

Marijuana allows me to allow for this improvisational redirection of my attention. Without it, I get frustrated incrementally every time my focus is taken forcefully away from the object of my attention, and the cumulative effect makes me a bad father.

So I smoke, to be a better parent.

And I daresay it makes me a better mage.

By smoking before a period of ritual work, I enhance my inner perceptions and subtle energy currents. I withdraw from the outside world. I allow.

This state is not easily come by for one of my temperament, yet with one dose of this drug I can attain this state instantaneously.

I am calm. I am present. I am whole.

My investigations into the perils of mixing this drug and magic have borne no fruit. I stay open to the possibility during my inner examinations that there is some unforeseen roadblock in my usage that I have not noticed, but I am unable to find any.

The Puritan in me thinks I should be heeding this ubiquitous advice, and on any day when I find myself exceptionally tired from a binge, I want to throw myself into abstinence to correct the effects.

But the symptoms of withdrawal soon creep in, making me an irritable and unlikable father. I take one dose and all is aright again.

As much as I examine this question (which I will continue to examine throughout my whole life as an addict, to maintain an open and honest relationship with my drug) I continually come to the conclusion that it is better for me to remain an addict, for medicinal, personal, and spiritual reasons.

I cannot ignore what I am, or pretend I am anything different.

I am a Marijuana Mage.