Monday, September 2, 2013

I didn't expect this kind of Spanish Inquisition.

Mistaking ones preferred occult current for absolute truth is an error I have been encountering more and more as I become involved in the Esoteric community.
I keep seeing people saying "This is wrong!" about very subjective concepts and tools, when saying, "This doesn't mesh very well with this particular school of thought in this particular branch of the western esoteric tradition.”, would be far more accurate.
One of the greatest 'Metatruths' I've ever discovered, regardless of it's original context is, “Nothing is True. Everything is Permitted.”. I take it as a meditation on the nature of the universe, and use it internally as a refutation of the concept of hierarchy. Just as “As above, so below” is not only a statement on how magic functions, but also a statement on the illusionary nature of spiritual hierarchies in general.
I would say that these two ideas should be paired together, and used as a guide when navigating magic, and when dealing with the various entities one encounters in an evocation.

As above, so below.
Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

How can one cast down other peoples spiritual/magical methods when one has encountered these ideas?
One can make an argument on the effectiveness of certain techniques from a personal perspective, but to say something is “wrong” is to make an appeal to some sort of absolute authority. And if you believe there is an absolute authority and that your preferred magical system/current is the One-True™ system ordained by God, you've descended into fundamentalism. And if you've done that, you have to either pile on the cognitive dissonance necessary to ignore the literally thousands of effective indigenous magical systems and syncretic systems, or you have to declare all those systems as “evil” or “demonic”, and sound just like the worst of the rabid priests of orthodoxy.

No comments:

Post a Comment