From owner-fiatlvx@cmns.think.com Tue Mar 12 09:08:58 1996 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id JAA10532 for ; Tue, 12 Mar 1996 09:08:57 -0800 Received: from Cmns.Think.COM.Think.COM (Cmns.Think.COM [131.239.2.100]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with SMTP id JAA15125 for ; Tue, 12 Mar 1996 09:08:56 -0800 Received: by Cmns.Think.COM.Think.COM (4.1/Ultrix2.4-C) id AA07089; Tue, 12 Mar 96 11:58:25 EST From: nagasiva Message-Id: <199603121657.IAA09726@jobe.shell.portal.com> Subject: Re: Is The Ego A Help Or Hindrance In Magick? To: fiatlvx@cmns.think.com Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 08:56:59 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: from "Swami GoBeyonda" at Mar 8, 96 04:55:52 pm Orientation: House of Kaos, St. Joseph, Kali Fornika, US -- Kali Yuga X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 5950 Sender: owner-fiatlvx@cmns.think.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: fiatlvx@cmns.think.com Status: RO kaliyuga 49960312 |Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 16:55:52 -0800 (PST) |From: Swami GoBeyonda |Is the ego a help or hindrance, in magickal development? As others have said, I think it can be either depending upon one's stage of growth. |The christians I have observed have shown me that they are sometimes |yielding to a being known as the Holy Spirit. |The non-christian magicians I have met and read about, have exhibited |large egos, were opinionated, and had strong personal wills. Did this |help or hinder their magickal knowledge and powers? I personally doubt that ego-size and arrogance et al are the domain of either Christian or non-Christian (unless you're talking about ideals, in which case surely the Christian is humble and self-effacing). |Is it better to follow ones own will, or to be in submission to |a higher power, such as the Holy Spirit? As Amanda said, this implies the two are different. It is possible that following one's own will is submission to such powers. It is possible that submission is not right at the present and that some other relation is necessarily in order to make later submission possible. The shortest *unobstructed* course between two points is not always a straight line. |...how shall we evaluate people who yield to other deities? Seek ye not the evaluation of other people. Let God do this. If you are concerned about other deities have no trek with them. Some Christians are convinced that Yahweh is one of many gods (thus the 'jealousy' and 'having no gods before Him' referred to in many translations of _The Bible_). Some believe that there is only one god (perhaps an extreme of the first half of the Muslim statement of faith ('There is no god but God'). How this influences our magick is perhaps variable depending on our life circumstances and predilections. I don't know why alternative gods (or alternative manifestations of God, if you are one of the heretics like me ;>) pose any kind of problem for the Christian magician except as those whom one encounters that focus upon some particular and ostensibly separate god may argue against the usual Christian/theurgical stereotypes and principles (often ignorantly). |Are these people more or less spiritually knowledgeable and powerful? I think that knowledge and power vary amongst the throngs of believers, let alone between the God-fearing and the God-denying. If one defines 'magical power' as 'the ability to manifest the will of God to the burgeoning cosmos', then surely those who do not worship and focus upon God within their daily life and magical rituals will be less powerful and, unless unusual, less knowledgeable about this type of magick. |Would there actually be chaos in the universe, if there were multiple |deities controlling reality? I'm unsure how this relates to Christian magick (the topic of this elist) but will tie it in. What you mean by 'chaos' here probably does *not* conform to the definitions touted by chaos scientists, chaos magicians or those who study Tiamat and the Great Chaos Before Creation (mythology). However, there are some who suggest that chaos *does* exist in the cosmos even while the will of God infuses every aspect of its extent. I'm unsure why chaos and a unified cosmic God are incompatible, and I am unsure why a host of deities managing the universe (control ultimately rests with the unmanifest it seems to me, and most of the gods I hear described by today's nonChristians are phenomenal such as you and I or in a more abstract way) would pose any problem to those who wish to coordinate with the Way of Love as expressed by the Creator, whose will is supreme and suffusing. Again it all depends on what relationship you see between these deities. If they are gods in the sense that they have power, not in the sense of the Christian Trinity or some cosmic fundament, then they may not be as effective sources for magical workings as the Lord and Savior whose work proceeds from this realm potentia. If they are somehow *also* cosmic entities (such as are portrayed by various religions), then it would be important to ask your question in another way: If God's will is not primary, then why is our perception of the cosmos such that it yields a continuous fabric, rather than being rent with the struggles of competing powers? Now if we proceed from the assumption that the cosmos *is* such a continuity (which, given potential faulty perceptions based on our tendency to project what we desire, could be mistaken), then either the gods are somehow in agreement with God, their wills are no match for His majesty, or, as is presumed by many Christians, these gods are mere figments of our fevered imaginations. Wrt magick and its relation to this query, I think that if one allows for the possibility that other gods exist, then one's attitude toward God (YHVH) will determine one's reaction to this circumstance. If God is seen as the fundamental principle from which even the other gods arise, then Hir desire and locus will determine the appropriate source from which we may draw our power in magical rites. If God wants us to tap into Hir will directly, then we'd best find ways to effect this if we wish to accede to this desire. If God wants us to find what we can where we can and move ever love-wards, then perhaps a temporary or occasional jaunt into the competition's power-supply could provide where our inability to connect with God obstructs our work. If God is separate from these other gods, then having nothing to do with them on the long-term (some will of course need to experiment before seeing the truth of Jesus Christ and His Parent) is probably the wiser course, drawing on God to assist us, guide us, protect us and see our workings through to completion (being works of blessed theurgy as has been mentioned previously in this elist). tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com nagasiva