OCCULT VIEW

Magician Automation

I like stage and street magic, from Harry Houdini to David Blaine.  Part of it is intellectual.  Can we solve the puzzle how somebody created the illusion?  We know it’s a trick.   Sometimes we can’t solve the trick with logic.  Then it creates an interesting response.  If only for a brief second, it feels as if the supernatural actually happened.  Like wow!

Carter The Magician

There is a small connection between the stage magician and the mystical ceremonial magician of  “Key of Solomon” fame.  Old magic posters of great magicians offer some interesting symbolism.  They often include motifs of the genuine supernatural, such as infernal spirits conferring with or aiding the magician.  The symbolism is obvious…to hint that maybe the magician is something more then only stage magic.  That suggestion is only show business.  However behind the symbolism is the recognition that stage magic plays off the real thing…ceremonial magic.  

Considering the traditions of real magic, in the past people would use magic tricks to pretend they had supernatural powers.  Fake spiritualists used  seances and “spirit cabinets” to commit fraud and fleece the public.  Houdini was famous for his work debunking the frauds.  Today we have famous skeptics like the Amazing James Randi doing the same thing.  Randi is involved with a magazine devoted to skepticism aptly named…The Skeptic.  http://www.skeptic.com/

I blog about the occult and I endorse a magazine dedicated to skepticism?  Yes!  It really is a great magazine.  I understand the importance of hearing all sides of a viewpoint.  The Skeptic magazine takes a strictly materialistic, atheist worldview that I personally reject.  Are we all only Automatons? 

The skeptical viewpoint is important because they are correct more often then not.  They debunk a lot of nonsense.  Beware they have an agenda, a philosophical opposition to ANYTHING spiritual.  To their credit have debates with spiritual types such as Deepak Chopra.  The Chopra articles are especially good…they alone worth reading the magazine.  Thumbs up!

Another magazine I like with a spiritual viewpoint was recently renamed, EnlightenNext founded by Andrew Cohen.  http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/

This magazine offers an eclectic mix of spiritual viewpoints.  I really appreciate that their views are not at odds with science but accept scientific reality as a part of spiritually. Again, not everything they write about I would personally agree with.   But reading only what we believe in is not the approach to enlightenment.   An open mind should not believe in everything, or in nothing.

Below is a video I took at the ‘House On The Rock’ in Wisconsin.  It is an Automaton of a Magician.   A wonderful mechanism!  People who visited House on the Rock said it was awesome.  I followed their advice.  Did it measure up?  It far exceeded my expectations.  It is not a tourist trap.  It is a real experience, if you like interesting objects.  The place is filled with fabulous collections of the real and the imagined.   The pictures of the magician posters  above were taken in their cafeteria.

secret of true magic

The law of attraction, manifesting reality, and magic are concepts that are basically interchangeable.   The methods and techniques used to alter reality are similar when brought down to their essentials.  Essentially, it is using our thoughts to create patterns in some form of cosmic energy or vibration which then reverberates down to affect our physical existence.

The law of attraction uses control over our thought process to accomplish this.  Magic uses ritual and altered states of consciousness to achieve the same thing.  An interesting question is…how does this work?  There are vague ideas about vibrations and energies and unity with the universe.  It seems the techniques are highly developed, but the theories behind the mechanics are not.  Which is reasonable since nobody really knows how it works.  But lack of understanding won’t stop me putting in my two cents worth!

What is this cosmic vibration that manifests reality?  I will offer the ideas developed by mystics, occultists, spiritualists and cabalists.  These ideas are speculative, but make for interesting food for thought.  Above is a graphic I made to illustrate the point I will make. 

According to some mystical viewpoints, there are different levels of reality.  At the highest level is the realm of Spirit which exists outside out time and space.  We have no direct contact with this reality.  Spirit created the Big Bang as an act of creation, the ultimate manifestation of reality.   From the Big Bang and the creation of the Universe, all the levels beneath were created. 

The level below Spirit is the Abstract level.  These are the laws of reality which are revealed in mathematics.  It is not matter and not energy, but the rules that govern physicality.  It seems to be closely related to the science of quantum mechanics.  These laws created evolution…and sentient life.

The level below Abstract is the Astral level.  The astral level is the level of consciousness, sentience, the subconscious, and the mind.  The mind (Astral body) is not matter, it is not energy, and it is not only biology or even information, but something all together different then anything else in the universe.  Consciousness is unique.  It is the pinnacle of Universal creation, the big bang’s last act. 

Below the astral level is the etheric level.  This seems to be a finer form of matter invisible to us.  It is closely related to life, auras, chakra and our invisible body.  It might also be related to cosmology’s dark matter.  Not long ago the idea of an invisible world all around us would be scoffed at.  Now science recognizes that invisible dark matters makes up most of the universe’s matter, but have zero idea what it is.  It is the realm of ghosts and possibility other entities. 

Finally we have the physical world we all know, the realm understood by science, of matter and energy. 

What then is the mechanics behind magic?  The secret is that all these levels co-exist simultaneously in everything.  All individuals are made of the spirit, abstract, astral, etheric and physical levels.  According to the theory, the astral level (the mind) can send patterns up to the spirit level, and then it returns descending back down vibrating through all the levels until it reaches the physical world…manifesting reality.  The tricky part seems to be contacting the realm of Spirit which exists outside of time/space.  The techniques for magic seem to have that as the ultimate goal in one fashion or another. 

In future posts I will examine each of these levels of existence in more detail.

Modern Wizards Aleister Crowley and Pat Robertson

When we think of wizards we usually think of the grand wizards of myth and fiction.  The first names that come to mind could be the legendary Merlin, or the LOTR’s Gandalf, or Harry Potter’s Dumbledore.  Wizard literally means “wise man”, and these characters accurately symbolize that archetype.  I would include characters like Star Wars’ Yoda in this too. 

Merlin and King Arthur

What are their characteristics?  They are all deep in wisdom, they are mentors to young protagonists, and they wield a powerful influence on their surroundings.  Their magical abilities seem secondary to their wisdom and political influence.  They seem to prefer working behind the scenes, inspiring others to achievement.  It seems the wizards who try to directly control events are the evil wizards, like Voldemort or Saruman.  Perhaps the wise wizard understands that power is best used indirectly to inspire and not to control.

The classic wizard seems to be inspired by the mythic Norse god Odin in the visage of the Wanderer.  The wanderer Odin would be disguised wearing a robe and the broad rimmed hat and carrying a staff, and interact with mortals who did not realize that the god was in their midst.  Odin seems tp be the original pagan model for Father Christmas, also Santa Claus.  If we examine Santa Claus, he seems to be a bit of a wizard himself.  Santa has magical abilities and rules over elves!

John Dee and Queen Elizabeth

The wizard is a powerful fictional archetype.  Did the wizard actually exist in real life?  Who are the historical wizards?  By wizard I don’t only mean practitioners of ceremonial magic, but those who also had a measure of fame and political influence.  There were a few.  Nostradamus consulted for French royalty and Catherine de Medicis queen consort for the King of France.  Grigori Rasputin held sway over Russian Tsar Nicholas II.  The famed occultist John Dee was a consultant to Queen Elizabeth I.  For a glimpse of John Dee in film, check “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” where the character John Dee appears consulting for Elizabeth. 

In modern times we had mystics like Arthur Edward Waite and the infamous Aleister Crowley.  We also have the modern wizardry of stage magic.  We could consider Houdini as something of a modern wizard.  Yet, in the modern era, nobody really comes close to the legendary version of the wizard.  Heads of state don’t consult their astrologers anymore…do they? 

I will toss out an idea of who might be our modern day wizards.  I consider television evangelists to be very similar to wizards.  How so?  Some televangelists claim supernatural powers.  They claim direct communication with God.  They predict the future and have access to secret knowledge through “words of knowledge” and even turn aside hurricanes.  I have seem them perform these feats on television with my very own eyes!  They claim miraculous healing powers and can cause the lame to get out of their wheelchairs.  Again, I have seen this happen on TV!  They possess great wisdom about the true nature of the world.   For instance, they know for a fact that events like Hurricane Katrina was a direct punishment on New Orleans for its wicked ways, and that AIDs was God’s punishment on gays.  And above all, the modern televangelists have huge political sway.   Political parties serve at their command.  They are policy counselors to our great politicians, very much like Merlin was with King Arthur, or Gandalf with Aragorn, or John Dee with the Queen.  The great Wizards are still among us today!