One of my colleagues on Twitter, Joseph Magnuson of Candlesmoke Chapel, made a few tweets over the past few hours that struck a nerve with me describing a general reluctance for magicians and spiritually-minded people to get involved with politics, legal affairs, and current events:
- “I wish you’d just tweet about magic.” Well, laws are Big Magic/rights are Big Magic. Invisible ideas everyone follows. Words made manifest.
- Magic isn’t just reading a book and collecting Supernatural DVDs. It’s all around us in most all movement. Do you not see this?
- Magic shouldn’t be safe and silent/not seen and not heard…especially by “witches” and “magicians.” It is not a special effect.
- So tired of this: “Politics? Not for me. They never got political on The Craft or Charmed. Besides I don’t want to hurt my witchy brand.”
I mean, it’s kinda true. Spiritual people, especially those of a new age bent, tend to be reluctant to watch televised news or read news articles (excepting things like the Wild Hunt or a variety of Patheos blogs), and even more reluctant to even get involved with politics or current events. They see it as beneath them, considering the news to be “a set up to keep us from manifesting the best reality for us”, and that “spiritual people know better than to get caught up in the illusions” (courtesy of Ernesto Mercer for that quote from one of his own conversations with someone he didn’t think highly of). And you know what? Some people aren’t meant to be worldly or get involved in worldly affairs. Some people are meant to be hermits or monks or recluses that shut themselves out from the world, whose arms are no longer fit for the work of the world, who are here for purely spiritual experiences. That’s okay.
You, dear reader, aren’t one of them.
Chances are good that you’re of a spiritual bent, dear reader, and chances are also good that you’re a magician in some regard. You’ve read me talk about rituals for this and that, sometimes on thaumaturgy and sometimes on theurgy, sometimes on conjuration and sometimes on oils. You have the whole internet at your disposal, and a cascade of links, even on this very blog, to direct you to awesome resources for magic and supplies beyond your dreams. You’re educated enough and powerful enough to do some magic. The only thing you really lack is awareness of the world around you, because if you were that spiritual enough to have the capacity for magic, you’d have the compassion to use it for the betterment of the world. So read the fucking news and do some fucking magic, dear reader, because the world around you needs it.
I’ve been chatting more and more with my gnostic friends lately, learning more about the Apostolic Johannite Church and Gnostic Christianity. I come from my Neoplatonic and Hermetic background, but my background philosophies and those of Gnosticism share much in common. One thing that we kinda agree-disagree on is the nature of the world around us. In some ways, the world we live in is the crowning pinnacle of all creation, the final and most glorious stage where everything is brought into completion and can play out the mind of God in all its finery and accoutrement. On the other hand, the world we live in is also the Auschwitz ass-end of the garbage heap tossed unceremoniously into the night outside the walls of the real Kingdom; we’re just the refuse that couldn’t make it any better. The Hermeticist view balances the two viewpoints, though modern Hermeticists tend to be biased towards the former; the Gnostic view has always been solidly focused the latter argument. Both are true, really; the world is an amazing place, a place that feels good, a place where we get to learn and experience so much. It’s a lot like going to college, really, and there are good points and bad points to the world here. That said, we’re here for a purpose, a worldly purpose. If we didn’t have a worldly purpose for being born into the world, we wouldn’t be born here at all. And if the world is broken and requires us to act our parts and make the world a better place, bringing the kingdom of Christ into existence in the here and now or opening the 32nd path or what-have-you, then what excuse do you have to not do this?
People are dying from being oppressed and discriminated against. Whole governments are broken and corrupt. Countries die of famine and plague and war. Families are torn apart and grieve and tremble in fear because of murder and intimidation. There is a litany of things wrong with the world. Surely you must be aware that these things happen literally all the time across the entire world. Or do you feel nothing? Are you so apathetic that all you can do is shrug and say “we have to rise above it” because your new age spiritual avoidance of current events prevents you from getting your hands dirty? Are you imprisoning yourself into a hermitage of your own making where you can wash your hands of interacting with the world while still being delivered its goods for as long as you’re here? Are you so numb to the pain of others who allow you to benefit from the world while keeping yourself from being a benefit to the world? Are you so wrapped up in your own white-light illusions that you’d rather commit spiritual suicide to avoid any responsibility or call to action in the world?
Please tell me that I’m wrong.
Better yet, show me that I’m wrong.
We’re fucking magicians, the successors to the priest-astrologer-philosopher-kings of the ancients. We wield celestial and infernal powers; the gods hear our calls and walk with us; we name the ineffable itself; we understand the mechanics of cosmic systems; we light candles, lay tricks, wave a stick in the air, spin in a circle, splash some rum on a rock, mumble some incomprehensible moonspeak and shit just happens. We have known for millennia what hackers have known for only a few decades, that any complex system can be broken into and manipulated. The archonic owners of those systems do the same every day those systems have been around, every day the mere ideas of those systems have been around. And we, better than anyone, have known that when the systems have exiled us, made us powerless, and stripped us of all legitimate access, we will always be able to act upon the system itself and topple it down from the outside and from the inside-out. We only let the archons win when we let them strip us of our will to get up and fight back and succeed. We only let the archons win when we let them make us resign ourselves to spiritual impotency and kill ourselves. We cannot afford to do that; humanity cannot afford to let them do that.
Magic has always been regarded as the means of last resort by the respectable communities of the world and all its systems. The world is the last part of the cosmos. We are the last thing created. There has never been a last war, last plague, last famine, last death; these things are lasting. Magic is not the means of last resort to action, it is the lasting means of action that has enabled us to cope with, fix, and make better the world. You have better things to do than claim you’re better than the people down on the ground fighting; you’re already down here with us, and we’d really appreciate it if you got off your ass and gave us a hand with the burden. We’ve asked too long what we can get out of the world; ask now what we can do for the world and for each other.
Read the news. Fix the world. Do some fucking magic.
Gaza and Palestine. Syria. Greece. Turkey. Iraq. Ferguson, Missouri. Los Angeles, California. Gang wars. Police brutality. ISIS. Hamas. Chrysi Augi. Racial oppression. Sexual oppression. LGBT oppression. Political oppression. Religious oppression. Ebola. Measles. HIV/AIDS. Floods. Earthquakes. Fukushima Daiichi. Fracking. The list is long and getting longer, and every time someone says that they want to abstain from the political aspect of these things it gets harder for everyone else in the world.
Everything is politics; it’s a system. You can’t just decide to abstain from it, because you’re already in it. It’s your duty to do your part either as part of the system or as an infiltrator into it. Do not be idle; you have work to do.
