Thoughts on Magical Identity | Part 2
Here is the second part of our short exploration into Magic and Identity. If you have missed the first part, you can still read it here. Also, be warned: I attempt to keep this blog focussed entirely on the Western Magic Tradition. The first post was an inroad to the problem, which identities present to advanced forms of magic, which lived up to that notion. For we spoke about a rather magical dream. In this post, unfortunately, I won’t be able to spare us from a little bit of social theory. I know, it sucks. Or maybe does it? Either way, just stay with me - for we will close with a practical magical vision into the belly of the mountain.
LVX, Frater Acher
May the serpent bite its tail.
In our 2020 Instagram world, many people live or die by the strongly curated identity they project to the outside. The amount of effort that goes into curating such personas is disproportional, to say the least, to the very limited time people have left encountering actual experiences of growth. That is: to be fully immersed in the rather adverse space of becoming, where it is not quite clear yet as who or how we will emerge from it. The latter means letting go of who we thought we were, in order to experience something new. The former means marketing our Self as if it was a brand, which by definition has to be clear-cut and geared towards explicit consumer expectations. And this is only one side of of the problem.
From a sociological perspective identities are tools to fulfil three main purposes: They are designed to create simplification, standards and safety for all community members. Therefore they have to work both on an individual and a collective level, as well as for outsiders and insiders to this identity. Here is a brief overview on this critical aspect on how we choose to relate to the world. For an easy to read deeper dive I recommend the wonderful book 'The Lies That Bind' by Kwame Anthony Appiah.
(1) Identities separate chaos into labels. They provide social demarcation lines; they provide orientation and thus reduce ambiguity and complexity. Example: By choosing to identify as e.g. a Pagan Neoplatonist we unlock the doors to a world of clear orientation: All the ideas and answers any Neoplatonist ever found, we can now claim as ours. We immediately become part of the 'tribe' of Neoplatonists and have ideas on how to relate to other 'tribes', e.g. Christians. We also stop attempting to find our own answers to a huge amount of essential questions. By giving ourselves up to an identity, we move from a blank map to one that is neatly pre-populated on our behalf. We make a choice of comfort over complexity.
(2) Identities create normative significance, i.e. ideas on how a member of an identity group should behave given their identity, a set of intrinsic expectations. Thus identities provide subjective meaning as they tell members how to fit into the social world as part of a group, and which specific behavours or norms are 'theirs'. Example: As a member of an order and holder of a specific degree you are meant to use specific signs and watchwords when encountering other members of the order. A huge amount of socially relevant information can thus be processed with minimal effort. At the same time YOU disappear entirely behind so- cially constructed categories.
(3) Identities provide orientation to others on how to treat members of this identity, i.e. how to behave towards them. Example: By knowing that you identify with the Golden Dawn, Thelema or Ifa I might stop asking a hundred questions about YOU as a person, because my mind tells me I can replace YOU with information stored about the respective social cat- egory (the technical term is 'essentialism'). This is hugely efficient if my goal is to live in a simple world. And it is comlpetly unreliable if my goal is to better know YOU.
So why this long excursion into the academic field of identity research? Well. Because nothing stops you short from growing beyond your own wildest dreams, like the desire to hold on to a clear identity. By definition, having a clear answer to the question who you are - both to yourself and the world - means you have stepped out of the process of becoming. This is a wise thing to do, when we are at risk of losing our own boundaries, when we have walked out into the open too far, when we need to narrow the ring of our self into a more tangible sphere again. It is a positive and powerful mechanism when it is implemented with purpose - and deliberately for a limited period of time only. To mark out a life phase, to describe a transition we went through, or simply not overwhelm the world around us with our complexity. It is the deathbed of your own authentic magical journey, however, if it remains stable and untouched for too long.
Here is a small journey in vision I invite you to. Personally, when I realise I got too locked up in my own skin, I like to remind me of the following image. I settle back into it and allow myself to feel one with this vision. It has helped me a great deal on my path - to stay flexible, permeable and open, where otherwise I might have begun to defend, fight and judge. So here we go:
When you think of your journey of becoming, think of the silence inside of a mountain. All precious stones are grown in wombs of rock. For centuries they lie brooding, their dormant mind present to the experience of utter darkness, heat and cold, pressure, patience and most of all silence. Once they surface, each gem is a perfect expression of the conditions they emerged from; their process of be- coming has peaked and taken shape in the crystalline structure that we behold. Now they are ready to pass on the particular influences and patterns from which they were born, some will heal, some will sicken us, all depending on the reaction that unfolds between their organism and ours, and the specific conditions under which we meet.
For the precious stones that we will once become, we do not know their final colour, shape or patterns yet. Right now, as incorporated souls, we are all still deep under-earth, in our bed of rock, in our brooding state of becoming. We too endure immense pressures, heat and cold and are firmly wrapped in the darkness of our not-understanding. Yet, our dormant minds like to dream. And so we dream of being precious stones already, of having finished our journey of becoming, of leaving our wombs, of being broken open as a vein of gold from amongst a wall of rock. We dream of being longed for, and we dream of that moment when are found in love. By the hands of that searcher who hasn't been born yet, who carries us out through the shaft of the mine that hasn't been dug yet. But for right now, we are still deep under-earth. And our journey is far from being finished, as otherwise we would not be in this world that is a mountain. So the silence goes on. And so does the darkness and the pressure that one day will perfect the substance from which we are made.
In this alchemical process we call life, the biggest favour we can do ourselves as stones-of-becoming, is to stop dreaming and to truthfully seek understanding of the conditions we are under: None of us is gold or silver, amethyst or diamond yet. And even if we were, for as long as we are inside the mountain, there is work to be done, and none of us will yet shine perfected or be adorned. Instead, we are together in a state of raw emergence, of seemingly endless, nameless becoming. And within this process there is no need for 'I' or 'us' outside of our dreams. There is no need for creed or tribe or nation or any other imaginary boundaries between and around us. We are stones-of-becoming, surrounded by mountains-of-becoming, together with whom we are one, in the silent experience of a birth, lasting for millennia.
One day our true shapes will be born from this silence. For nothing awakes us better from dreams of pure identity, of perfection and grandeur, than being present in silence. Experiencing the silence in between breaths, images, desires - nothing breaks the spell of dreams more powerfully than being with the experi- ence where nothing is.