Articles Duncan's Blog: criticism faith magick occultism religion teaching
by Duncan
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Magick
A life-long interest in the paranormal led me to occultism. From there it was a short hop into spiritual practice. And from there (conceptually, at least) only another step toward enlightenment.
The insights I’ve gained I owe to magick more than religion. Tarot cards, ouija boards, ghost-hunting and UFO-spotting, sorcery, invocation of spirits and demons – these have played a role in my enlightenment. Going to church, puja to Buddha, adhering to the eight-fold path – have played none.
Yet the difference between the eastern paths to enlightenment and the western magical tradition is not that great. The eastern traditions – Buddhism included – accept the validity of magick and sanction the development of magical abilities, but this is often treated as an extra and there are frequent cautions against acquiring magick at the expense of insight.
What we call ‘reality’ has no intrinsic existence. The lived experience of this understanding is awakening, but what follows even from the mere idea is a notion that ‘reality’ is, therefore, quite malleable stuff. To an extent, it can be bent and shaped at will. Reality is determined by our perception, and perception by our belief. Magick is an intervention at both these levels (and others besides) to alter reality. Meditation is an act of magick.
There is nothing like magick for gaining a first-hand experience of the insubstantiality of reality. The danger is that we may become so occupied with our bending and shaping that we never get around to realising how the bender and shaper too lacks any inherent existence.
Here lies the underlying tension. If we allow people the leeway to muck about with their reality, can they be trusted to progress beyond magick? But if we protect them with faith and rules from the temptations of anarchy, will they garner enough insight to understand the vital role of magick in seeing through the self?
People do not get enlightened by following rules or by proving an idea – not even their own. People get enlightened by having the courage to pick apart their experience and discover something that transcends all rules, ideas and experiences.
But the rule that there are no rules is a rule. And the rule that we should not make up rules is a rule. And the rule that there is no need for rules is a rule.
When people tell me I shouldn’t hold a certain view, or that I don’t need to hold any view, what I hear (all too often) is someone merely parroting an idea.
Probably it was an idea given to them by a teacher, intended to protect them from a pitfall further along the path. But now they’ve mistaken it for a reality, and although they’d do better to concentrate on taking it apart (after all, isn’t that what the teacher always says?), instead they’re waving it in other people’s faces.
The hard part is accepting that you’ve fallen into the trap of faith and religion. The remedy, however, is always magick.
Just keep waving that wand and eventually – poof – it’ll all disappear.
@Duncan
If you’re like me, you must have noticed that decive insights often come as a result of trying things differently… often against the warnings of well intentioned mainstream teachers.
@Haquan
Interesting thought. In Asian cultures true magick often starts after enlightenment. A good example is that of the Mahasiddhas or Shinzen’s taoist wizard. First wake up from the dream. Then change the dream.
If the quest for enlightenment is the way up. Post-enlightenment magick can be seen as the way down towards the perfect embodiment of enlightenment.
-Alex W.
I wonder how much of it is marketing? Some of the bigger Buddhist organizations, for example, probably prefer they be seen as a bunch of peaceful meditators than a bunch of demon-conjurers. And they get more “regular folks” (suburban families, etc) joining if they seem to do nothing particularly scary.
Sort of the way the Mormons have long controlled their external image – banning polygamy, changing to more typical clothing, hiding the Freemason-like rituals from the public. Good for business.
Just a thought.
This is very Zen.
Duncan,
i too was interested in weird/paranormal stuff (still am) but i had never gone the path of magic in terms of actually practicing it. not that i think it’s wrong but i believe that it would be best for me to just take the plunge directly than to risk to get side-tracked by the allure of the magickal path.
having said that, what interests if this question: what is the core of magical and hard core mystical paths that leads both to the cultivation of enlightenment? the answer i got is this: magickal and mystical paths require the cultivation of concentration, clarity, and equanimity. makes sense to me. magick requires focus/concentration, clarity of intention, and then to not get sucked into the allure of the magickal realms a certain amount of equanimity should be present. i’m interested to know if what i mentioned here matches up with your experience.
thanks for sharing.
~C
Hi all.
One thing in my experience with Magick is that it occasionally has surprising side effects, which can then take further clarity / equanimity to deal with without freaking out, or just generally going batshit insane. So it can perhaps, er, reach the parts that other spiritual systems don’t.
allure of the magickal realms –C4Chaos
I’ve certainly heard tales of people doing things like Summoning Goetic Demons and then just, you know, hanging around with them, worshipping them and stuff. As you do. (IIRC, this was mentioned on Thelema Coast to Coast #14). But most people I’ve met don’t seem to have much of an issue with getting too caught up in it.
I seem to recall something that the Labratorian said once, which seems to hold up reasonably well in my experience, was that in magick the absolute insights come mixed in with the relative ones, so If you’re not paying attention, you can miss the wood for the trees so to speak. Absolute insights (eg: with Crowley’s Liber 231) can get modelled in linguistic/symbolic terms, and you may or may not have an opportunity to experience it, depending on how closely you’re paying attention.
Anyway, apologies for the length. Hopefully this is in some way useful,
ps. My apologies for posting under a pseudonym.
CPrime, love the pseudonym 
btw, when i said “allure of the magickal realms”, i didn’t mean just the extreme case of going batshit. anything that enforces the self as a thing (whether magickal or otherwise) is a potential “trap”.
for example, i consider lucid dreaming as some variation of a magickal practice. this is probably one practice that i do that has a “magickal” flavor. in my experience, it’s easy to get trapped in a lucid dream even if i try to view it with mindfulness and equanimity. there are just so many things i could do in the dream: fly, travel to different place, manipulate things with my mind, have sex, etc. that allure is enough for me to lose mindfulness and equanimity within the dream even if i’m still aware that i’m dreaming. i guess i need more practice to cultivate concentration, clarity, and equanimity
bottom line: magickal practitioners dabble in the Intermediate Realms of Power.
http://www.c4chaos.com/2009/10/the-science-of-enlightenment-intermediate-realms-of-power/
hopefully, they don’t stay there for too long.
my two cents.
~C
You’ve done some of the Tibetan Dream Yoga eh?
Sure magicians dabble in the Intermediate Zone, but you have to pass through there to get to Ultimate Reality anyway, and after enlightenment, there’s no place left to go…
Fact is, the thing all the mystical traditions have in common is technologies that produce high concentration states – it’s likely that it is these states that produce the neurodevelopmental changes we are interested in. Magick has a pretty good chance of producing those changes practiced long enough, hard enough, and consistently enough. It’s the last one where most magicians I know falter.
Ain’t nuthin’ for deconstructing identity structures like some good old fashioned Chaos Magic. Random belief, Invocation, anathema rites, and Transmogrification – they all show us that we, and the World, are not who we think we are.
D
After reading Duncan’s post, I realize that I have never acknowledged the important role that my early interest in magick has played in my spiritual path.
In my early 20s I had read Crowley, dabbled in magick, developed an interest in meditation, astral travel, and lucid dreaming. But most importantly, it was during an astral travel event that I had an unameable experience that greatly increased my thirst for enlightenment, leading eventually to buddhism.
I had also had some negative and seemingly dangerous experiences with astral travel and cult spirituality that put me off magick, as well as any form of organized religion for many years.
During my Buddhist period, I always lumped the negative experience with magick — and viewed that period of my life as sort of foolish. In retrospect, and with a now wider vision, I realize that I have been giving short shrift to magick, and in fact never delved far or consistently enough into it to justify my judgement of it.
In fact, I learned a lot from my rank neophyte experiences of chaos and realms of power. Lucid dreaming is a piece from that period that I still retain and it continues to be one important tool among many for opening to awareness.
haquan,
technically it’s not Tibetan dream yoga since i don’t practice Tibetan style. here’s the details of how i currently do it. it’s more scientific and mystical-shmystical
http://www.c4chaos.com/2009/03/open-practice-vipassana-induced-lucid-dream-vild/
“after enlightenment, there’s no place left to go…”
depends on what you mean by enlightenment. i subscribe to the idea that, today’s enlightenment is tomorrow’s mistake. it’s turtles all the way up, all the way down
“Fact is, the thing all the mystical traditions have in common is technologies that produce high concentration states….”
exactly!
~C
correction: it’s more scientific and no mystical-shmystical
C4Chaos wrote (great handle btw):
“depends on what you mean by enlightenment. i subscribe to the idea that, today’s enlightenment is tomorrow’s mistake. it’s turtles all the way up, all the way down.”
All I’m saying is that if the process of enlightenment is continually unfolding for “you,” you still get to have hobbies – that’s all.
Personally, I find the Intermediate Zone more interesting than surface reality – but it really is a matter of taste. The Zen kids probably wouldn’t care for my idea of it being a post-enlightenment practice. But the Taoists and Tibetans would be all over it.
D
“I find the Intermediate Zone more interesting than surface reality – but it really is a matter of taste.”
i’m interested in the Intermediate Zone too. but personally, i think i’ll follow the hardcore Zen master’s advice, enlightenment first, then hobbies later
~C
I wrote the original article in response to some of the criticisms we’ve been attracting on the site, most of which seem to originate from people with a misreading of Soto Zen wedged up their arses!
The thing about magick is you can’t do it properly and remain at the level of ideas, faith and belief. It forces you to engage with your experience and explore the determinants of that experience. All those so-called ‘insights’ concerning meaninglessness and needlessness that the zennies tediously trot out are actually hard-won experiences; you don’t get to spout them just because some bald guy in a robe has told you about them – there’s a certain process you have to go through to qualify you for that. This process involves buying into your experience, and not simply negating it at a perpetually intellectual level. Magick – as a practice – provides less of an opportunity to hide from experience on an intellectual (or faith-based) level.
I agree with the value of magick as a post-enlightenment practice (although I certainly have had some wobbles over this in the recent past) but I’m even more convinced of its usefulness to beginners.
I think it would do our Zen trolls the world of good if they bought even some crappy Llewellyn book of magick spells and worked through it.
But – yeah – as if that’s going to happen! 
If you think YOU might have a problem with Zen intellectualization…
Then there’s nothing like chanting glossalalia, being wrapped in Saran wrap, and having a black candle shoved up yer butt (all while D.T. Suzuki books are burned in asynchronous strobe lighting) for liberating you from ideas, faith, and belief – that’s what I always say.
You’d probably have to get someone to invoke “The Ox” for that one – unless you could get a real one.
The mind finally shuts up when faced with a scene like that – there’s not much it can say.
I’ll write that one up for your site if you guys are interested.
D
Now I know some of you more technically minded magicians out there are thinking to themselves, “Ok Dave, I get the symbolism of “The Ox” and burning the books – but what does the candle symbolize?”
That’s just it: it doesn’t symbolize anything. Get it?
It’s a (large) finger pointing at the moon, if you will.
Zen-like, huh?
But seriously – there are a number of magickal techniques and practices that could be helpful – the Bornless One ritual for instance. This kind of stuff is at the heart of Vajrayana. Couldn’t we consider that all meditation practices have a magickal aspect, or are a form of magick?
D
It’s insane, but those kinds of rituals do actually have an effect. One of my personal favorites: a room full of naked people pretending to be chimps, cavorting around an improvised black monolith to the music of Richard Strauss, in the name of developing ‘transpersonal consciousness’.
That worked!
I am rather sure that I would have not begun the process of enlightenment without magick. Through magick I was able to, over time, to ‘ask the right questions’.
One important point I think is also that, in a sense, magick makes the whole process worthwhile when you are at it – a kind of positive feedback loop. When the process of enlightenment goes forward, the magick works better, and when magick works better, it supports the process of enlightenment.
Has anyone noticed how difficult it is sometimes to explain why you practice magick if that is revealed in some more ‘mystically oriented’ circles? It is much more easier to find good information on Buddhism, for example, than good information on magick. Therefore, it is difficult to explain other people why you do what you when you when you can’t quote some holy books or something like that.
Fortunately the tantric yoga school where I take yoga and meditation lessons is rather liberal when it come to magick. Although that may be because there are a lot of tantric techniques that are actually simply magick.
haquan: that is an interesting point about karma yoga.
- Miikka
Haquan, I’m laughting about your large finger pointing to the moon – lol.
These Western Soto guys ignore the fact that the sucess of the Japanese Soto sect is directly related to its intensive use of Shingon magick rituals.
Does Soto Zen do Shingon stuff?
I guess from the viewpoint of some Buddhists, the Tibetans in particular, the problem with magick is that it is future oriented and that it creates karma. From their viewpoint, that’s probably how it works – you are creating karmic traces or seeds in ritual.
On the other hand, they don’t hesitate to create karma to realize enlightenment. Most of Tantra seems to be magick rituals for the purpose of creating enlightenment. I suppose one could keep at that in terms of making magick karma yoga – the intent being to wake up the whole world.
Miikka, I agree about both the positive feedback loop and the difficulty in finding decent literature on magick – though there’s a bit more nowdays. One of the interesting things about chaos magick in particular is the sizable portion of time spent not only deconstructing identity, but pushing or breaking boundaries, and deconstructing belief itself. The idea of a magickal personality helps with realizing that our regular persona is rather artificial too – and even breaks things down into sub-personas. Now what’s the real practical interest in that? Much of it really is about liberation.
Duncan, I think I heard about the one you mention – that sounds a blast. And the point really is that it works – besides which, in what other tradition can you have experiences like that? Hell, you can’t pay for experiences like that…
… Until NOW – for the modest price of 2,500 US dollars plus expenses I will be happy to meet you in New Orleans, LA USA and liberate you from constricting belief systems, etc. in surprising and grotesque ways, like the ones mentioned above. A signed waiver will be required. Our motto: We will liberate you no matter how much it hurts! Serious inquiries only through Alan and Duncan.
@Alex: “These Western Soto guys ignore the fact that the sucess of the Japanese Soto sect is directly related to its intensive use of Shingon magick rituals.” I don’t know enough about Shingon to dispute this, but it sounds unlikely to me. The Soto Zen group I practice with does pretty minimalistic rituals — the emphasis is entirely on shikantaza. Anyway, Soto is basically Dogen, and Dogen isn’t quite like anyone else.
@Duncan: “I think it would do our Zen trolls the world of good if they bought even some crappy Llewellyn book of magick spells and worked through it.” For what it’s worth, I’m a Zennie who bought “Advanced Magick for Beginners” and immediately blew his mind after doing some of the practices and discovering just how bendy reality can be. Actually, Zen + magick isn’t a bad combination (weird as it may seem), though there certainly is a habit among some Zen enthusiasts to do what you describe — negating experience on an intellectual level. (The tedious paradoxers who flip every goddam thing you say into a fortune-cookie-like utterances.) And magick certainly forces you to face your own experience. But if you read Dogen carefully you would be drawn to the same conclusions. The problem is that Dogen is very hard to read, and the challenge of his writing makes people approach it as if it were philosophy, i.e., something to be figured out and applied on an intellectual level.
@Phil: Nice one! But just to be clear, I want to state my firm belief that Zen is – of course – a genuine tradition that leads to enlightenment.
Unfortunately it seems to be a commonly misinterpreted tradition, which has produced a lot of so-called Zen practitioners who go around stating that there is no enlightenment.
This, apart from being nonsense, is also not a very Buddhist position at all! Alan has previously dealt in some detail with a few of the misunderstandings that can lead to this view, none of which need be regarded as specific to Zen.
As you seem to have proved, Phil, there’s no reason why zennies shouldn’t learn or profit from a little experimentation with western occultism. Although Zen can also function – of course – as an entirely sufficient system in itself.
@Haquan: I like your description of certain magick rituals leaving the mind ‘without any place else to go!’ That really sums it up…
Meh, however you get there is fine by me! It’s even more fabulous if you leave a record for others to glean from.
Alex, Duncan, I don’t always like your stuff (nobody’s perfect, hah!) but I really like where you’re coming from and your stated intentions. Keep up the great work, please!
(Pun intended.)
@haquan Couldn’t we consider that all meditation practices have a magickal aspect, or are a form of magick?
Yes, I think so. “The path” can be read through multiple lenses, one of them being magick.
Dry, technical vipassana develops powers of concentration, noting of precise experience, which also gives the practitioner abilities in hypnosis (noting ongoing experiences of others is a form of trance induction), ability to be calm under pressure, etc. All of these powers and more can be new attachments, diversions, or useful tools.
Magicians get insight and monks get powers. And perhaps reality isn’t so cut and dry that one is separate from the other.
@Haquan @Phil
Sojiji, the second Head temple of ther Soto-shu founded by Keizan Jokin (1268-1325), was initially a Shingon temple called Moro-oka-dera. Sojiji’s shingon tantric rituals have been kept within the Soto tradition and have actually helped popularizing the Soto school around the 13th century. A trip to Sojiji is sufficient to witness this fact. One may also check the book ‘Soto Zen in Medieval Japan’ by William Bodiford for a scholarly treatment of the subject.
I take the opportunity to mention that what we know as Soto Zen in the West is but a small branch of a much wider and possibly richer tradition. My problem with some of these individuals is that they tend to reduce Dogen’s very sophisticated thought to a few simplistic slogans. Their typical dogma is that “enlightenment is realizing that there is no enlightenment”. It sounds deep, but only reflects the fact that they are still waiting for Godot.
For a good treatment of Eihei Dogen from a man who knows what he is talking about, I would recommend “The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing” by Ted Biringer.
-Alex
Nishijima’s translations of Dogen’s Shobogenzo are said to be the best. I have that on the word of an excellent magician as it happens.
Also, Brad Warner was a student of Nishijima and his book “Sit Down and Shut Up” is a good introduction to Dogen.
@Alex: thanks for the recommendations. I’ll be sure to check them out.
Nishijima/Cross is the main English translation of the complete Shobogenzo, but those interested in some of the better-known bits (Genjokoan, for instance) have a lot of options. “Moon in the Water” is a good selection of the best-known fascicles of the Shobogenzo and is poetically rendered in English; Gary Snyder had a hand in the translation, I think. Zensite has this neat thing: eight variant translations of Genjokoan, and you can navigate easily from one translation to another within any given paragraph:
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/GenjoKoan8.htm
The other huge collection of Dogen’s writings is the Eihei Koruko (Extensive Record of Eihei), a huge volume of 531 Dharma talks plus other stuff, recently translated by Shohaku Okumura and Taigen Dan Leighton. It’s not as well known as the Shobogenzo but wonderful, if often baffling.
As for commentaries and essays, take your pick. One favorite of mine is the edition of Dogen’s “Instructions for the Cook” with Kosho Uchiyama’s commentary. It’s been published under a couple of titles, most recently “How to Cook Your Life.”
Duncan, what do you think of magick as a post-enlightenment practice?
Apparently it’s quite acceptable as such in Asian cultures.
I’ve argued other places that magick is karma yoga – a perfect blend of sila, concentration, and insight – the Great Work indeed.
Of course, any role is ultimately too limiting, even that of being a magician, or even “enlightened.”
D