The Lust for Result

By Haramullah


Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
La ilaha illa 'Llah.  Assalam alaikum, my kin.

Are the Four Powers of the Sphinx: to Know, to Will, to Dare and to DO?

I've noticed, in my socializing with magicians in various realms, a
veritable lust for action.  So many are aching for a chance to 'get
behind the wand', so to speak, that few take the time to really
prepare themselves adequately.  Desperate to become the Demiurgos,
seldom do aspirants slow down enough to cover the basics.

By 'the basics' I do not mean 'the basic rituals' or even 'the basic
invocations', but the exploration, experience and discipline which
the Master Therion has emphasized quite clearly.  Too often do we come
to equate 'mastery' with absolute control or perfection, rather than
with deep and broad understanding through exposure.  Too often do we
pass up the preparations and thus spoil the Work on account of our
haste.

No doubt the lust for result is born in the ideology of Progress, of
Evolution, of 'movement TO' rather than 'enjoyment OF'.  The typical
narrative focusses on the DOer, moving through a life, rather than on
a place through which a few may pass.  Being under the thumb of
dictatorial parents, we long to overthrow God and become the very
fulcrum of Creation, that powerful Magus who directs the forces of
Universe, to whose will the cosmos respond in concerted enthusiasm,
as to the wand of the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

The preoccupation with accomplishment became evident to me as I
repeatedly heard recommendations to "perform banishings" and "do the
LBRP!", even while the Master exhorted "Exceed!" and "Invoke often!"
My fear of performance and dislike of choreographed rite kept me far
away from such things, and that characterization of "banishing
disruptive energy" led me to evade them still further as my path is
one of Love under Will.  Until and unless I find such actions 
necessary, I shall not indulge the exercise of coercive power.

Yet when I spoke further with these advice-giving magicians, I discovered
a dearth of comprehension, a rote specialization and a distinct lack of
PRESENCE.  These people hadn't done their yoga!  So wrapped up in fantastic
stories of intrigue and power, so taken in by the romantic notion of magical
or mystical achievement, they seemed to have completely overlooked the
abject warnings of their prophet and best teacher.

Now I realize that all students are not alike, and while some have an
aptitude for one sphere, others must wrestle with this same as if a 
sisyphusian boulder.  Indeed, my own lacking in the areas of ceremony, while 
in some ways quite prophylactic, also serves as an obstacle in regards both
practice and instruction.  While I can carry the teachings through to
ground quite well, I find, I haven't yet had the courage to bring them
to a social, symbolic level, likely due to ridicule in my youth.

This places me in a fairly awkward position relative to those around me,
yet it also forces a kind of humility supposedly required by the Elders
of Tradition.  Rumor (history?) has it that those who maintained the
tradition once required very strict standards of those who came to them
for instruction.  This sometimes extended to gender and age; a male of
maturing years was favored.  The roles of society being what they were,
gender was more obviously relevant than it is today, and those beyond
a certain age would likely be more serious about their interests
(enough to devote time and diligence to practice).  Not only this last,
but those of greater age were more likely to have come to terms with the
world, and were probably not simply shifting from arena to arena (e.g. from
social to mystical) in an effort to escape themselves.

It is worth repeating that the prime directive in magick is to 'know
thyself', and to this end the first power of the Sphinx includes and
may initiate the rest.  People learn in a variety of ways, however, and
my own style leans rather heavily on precursory rational analysis.
It was no accident that my best essays have been birthed while sitting
post as a martial guard, reflecting deeply as I meditated on my charge.
I needed time to absorb, analyze and synthesize, allowing that
intellectual bubble to rise to the surface in a surprising gestalt.

Yet these were not simply the products of intellectual absorption,
cogitation and regurgitation.  I found ways to *apply* all the principles
of which I read, concretizing them, when possible, to the most basic
element of experience.  Within previous occupations in my energetic,
administrative juggling and whirling, I was continually handed new
projects.  Dancing between the powers of initiation and negation,
I tested out the attitudes, approaches, tactics, strategems and
disciplines of which I'd read and written.  Often did I faulter, yet
gradually I began to understand the energy of a moving dynamo, even
while, day after day, though I sought to maintain my focus upon my self,
my center, I would wobble and drift, disoriented before 'quitting time'.
Though I bound my will tightly to the passion of my resolve, each day
I would be taken by the faces of need, requirement and reward, led astray
by the temptations of entertainment and escape.

Gradually I came to see that while my inner balance could be maintained
to a great degree, the intensity and volume of activity was just too
much for me, always pushing me past my limits in frenzy or boredom.  Thus
it was that, given incentive from a changing management, I decided to
move my practice into another dimension - one more integrated though no
less challenging: the monastic.

Still I did not take up the ceremonial wand and acknowledge myself in
these realms.  Rather, as the pen was my Wand, the water glass was my 
Cup, the kitchen knife was my Sword and pocket change became my Disk.
I DID, however, don the robes of the mage-monk, and even to this day do I
wear them in public.

Yet always, always do I hear the charge from others regarding 'High
Magick', and 'the Ritual of the Hexagram', etc. etc.  Now admittedly I
have involved myself with an Order that tends to stress the ceremonial
aspects of practice, yet even when I investigated Gardnerian Wicca
(among other forms of magick I reviewed), the emphasis was on 'getting
in there and doing it', sometimes, much to the dismay of some of my 
friends and myself, omitting all else!

Now of course my caution was dual: both to secure myself from faulty
programming and to avoid the horrors of performance for which I was not
ready.  I balked not only at the substance but the METHOD of instruction.
It was a veritable nightmare, a bequeathing of high-powered tools to the
unwary, the uninstructed, the unlearned and the undisciplined.  How
strange to see so many people without question or discussion, given the
ODDness of what was being taught!

Witchcraft indeed!  Had all of them bought this power-lure of 'controlling
nature' and abandoned their love for Mother Earth as well as their reason?
I cannot say, yet to this day I feel that many people involve themselves
in magick as a sort of social game from which they gain very little.  By
itself this is not problematic, yet when I think of the time, the effort
involved by those teachers and students; when I consider the potential
benefit to those truly interested in learning a method of reflection and,
ultimately, consummation, I'm astonished by the lack of serious attention
in an all-consuming desire to do, do, DO!

I've of course considered that this is all a matter of 'difference of
learning styles' and that I've waded into a 'doer's trade', a kind of
'activity discipline', like ballet or martial arts, in which I'm dawdling
in a small pool, practicing my fishy-rithmetic while all the while the
rest of my 'school' has begun their lessons in fly-catching and hook-
banishing.  Yet isn't it kind of dangerous to play with laser-surgery tools
before we know 1) how they work, what they can do, etc., and 2) what we wish
to do with them?

Are we so malleable that 'getting in and doing it' is more like
rollerskating than auto-brain-surgery?  Will our flubs, the limitations
of the system, our teachers, etc. be washed away like so much
butt-smacking-pavement slips from which a light-hearted pillow may
protect us?

I'm unsure of this, especially when I've seen very many individuals who
appeared, to my limited perceptions, to be digging their own grave with
a magical shovel, or downloading the worst aspects of my society
directly into their psycho-spiritual data-centers.  No doubt there are
freaks drawn to such a discipline as the arcane, but where, as V.H. says,
are our success-stories?

Are all successful mages hidden within the folds of society under some
cloaking-device, forever obscured by their perfect humility?  Or is the
present system corrupted by those of little understanding yet forceful
effect, urging today's aspirants, like lemmings, over the cliffs of their
will and into an ocean of slavery, despair and self-destruction, all in
response to that interminable, fervent, LUST FOR RESULT?


Haramullah rasulu 'Llah.  Alaikum assalam, my kin.
Love is the law, love under will.

(C) 2000
Haramullah
nagasiva@luckymojo.com
ArkaotikA
6632 Covey Road
Forestville, CA 95436