I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
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initiated into a secret society or fraternity by the performance of a<br />
clandestine ceremony, heavy on mystical mumbo-jumbo but lacking in any<br />
discernible clarity or usefulness. That kind of initiation, the carefully<br />
scripted induction rite witnessed in Freemasonry or in the magical<br />
organizations inspired by it, is not what we're referring to.<br />
Anthropologists and students of comparative religions also describe<br />
as initiation the sacred rites that mark certain phases of an individual's<br />
entrance into various levels of tribal religions in both primitive and civilized<br />
cultures. While such practices may occasionally possess more authentic<br />
magical power than the first variety, the collective and socially binding<br />
nature of these traditional customs is quite different than the deeply personal<br />
and self-directed initiation of the left-hand path. Perhaps a better Western<br />
historical model for left-hand path initiation can be found in the ancient<br />
Hellenic mystery schools, of which that located at Eleusis is the most<br />
famous. <strong>The</strong>se seemed to partake of some of the same self-directed<br />
development of the psyche we are concerned with in this study.<br />
For us, initiation – especially as it transpires on the left-hand path<br />
direction fostered by this hook – is an ongoing process of radical selfdevelopment<br />
driven from within, rather than a ceremony enacted from without.<br />
However, not everyone who simply practices theurgic, thaumaturgic, or<br />
sorcerous magic can truly be said to be an initiate. A certain amount of native<br />
skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful<br />
magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through<br />
sorcery. You may well be able to create desirable changes in the circumstances<br />
of your life, the people around you, and your environment in general by<br />
developing a fairly attentive magical practice. <strong>The</strong>se outer changes, no matter<br />
how dramatic, will not necessarily have a deep impact on the deepest levels of<br />
your psyche, which is where the process of initiation most meaningfully<br />
manifests. We have known many a magician who developed enough magical<br />
skill to secure their dream job, their dream lover, their dream home, and other<br />
tangible goals. Magicians of this type are certainly not he scoffed at; it takes<br />
hard work to attain such satisfactory circumstances, as any observation of the<br />
generally miserable lot of frustrated mankind will testify. Despite some<br />
magician's success at willing these desires into flesh, it very often happens that<br />
their magical development screeches to a halt upon obtaining their shopping<br />
list of limited needs. <strong>The</strong>y never ask the basic philosophical question required<br />
by initiation, which is: "Who is the person who accomplished all of this, and<br />
what do 1 do now?"<br />
To use magic in an initiatory sense, that is to develop and gain a more<br />
comprehensive knowledge of the self, rather than to merely satisfy one's<br />
immediate needs, goes against the grain of all of the messages being<br />
transmitted to us twenty four hours a day from the forces of social control.<br />
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<strong>The</strong> world generally wants you to be a good citizen, a good consumer, an<br />
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obedient follower of the rules. It offers no encouragement to the magician who<br />
actively seeks to take control of his or her own destiny through initiation,<br />
although there is an abundance of loose talk praising the abstract idea of<br />
freedom. Genuine freedom from the thought constructs of others, followed by<br />
genuine liberty from your own learned patterns of thought, are some of the lefthand<br />
path initiate's goals, and the illuminated libertine can utilize sexual magic<br />
as a method of achieving this daemonic and physical autonomy.<br />
While this book contains practical information that can certainly<br />
assist the magician in achieving sorcerous goals, it is most relevant to the<br />
initiate, who is committed to a life-long process of self-knowledge and selftransformation.<br />
Lest the reader imagine that by encouraging initiation we seek<br />
to nourish a warm, fuzzy glow of hope in the infinite horizons of human