How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Duality:

being a Brief Consideration of Mystical Influences in Magic

by Pharaon
April 1, 2003
In a culture that associates science with modernity and
progress, any methodology designed to get practical results is
going to appear increasingly scientific. Such is certainly the
case with magic in the present age, except in instances of
extreme and effective traditionalism (indigenous magical
traditions, for example) whose practitioners are not likely to
be perusing this essay anyway. This observation that magic
manifests in a scientific way does not mean, however, that it
is identical with materialistic or linear explanations of
causality. Many readers will respond that the truth of this
statement is perfectly obvious, and that magic certainly concerns
a combination of material causality and spiritual or mystical
consciousness, in a way analogous to the popular combination
of mundane science with religious or spiritual beliefs.
Refuting this pernicious misconception about magic is the
purpose of this essay; for the assumption that simply because
magic is not identical with scientific materialism, it is
somehow spiritual or mystical is quite unfounded.
Despite Crowleys clever slogan The Method of Science;
the Aim of Religion, it is important to distinguish methods of
mystical attainment from methods of magical application. The
aim of Magic is not the aim of Religion - and although many
methods may be applied by the magician to accomplish his will
(indeed, it could be argued that acceptance of any efficient
method is itself an integral part of the definition of magic),
his will is not definitionally limited to any particular arena.
Hence I would propose that mysticism is essentially a case of
The Method of Magic (and perhaps some Science); the Aim of
Religion. Hence, for example, the Thelemic system is ultimately
an attempt at a more scientifically minded mysticism rather than
a magical system at all. This is only an example, however, and
as my argument proceeds I will refrain from focusing upon it
due to the possibility that some readers may be unfamiliar with
it. Generally, Thelema is perhaps one of the worst cases of
mysticism masquerading as magic, but the same may apply to most
forms of ceremonial magic in the present age.
The essence of these systems is that their primary aim is
mystical. What I mean by mystical is that they have the
following traits:
-

The system considers the condition of the practitioner

to be somehow flawed with respect to perception of truth
until the systems process of illumination has been completed

The system considers illuminated insight to reveal truth

and other forms of knowledge to be useful only for
manipulation of that which is illusory, flawed, unreal, or
a similar conception.

The system promises not happiness within duality through

fulfillment of desires, nor personal liberty, but rather
somehow the removal of duality, and impersonal salvation.

It should be apparent that magic does not necessarily imply

these three conditions, and that to a great extent, considering

them central is antimagical. Magics main concern is not with
the discovery of any one truth; such aims belong to both science
and religion although they approach them differently. These
approaches, perhaps, meet in mysticism, as its sole concern is the
apprehension of truth directly. In magic, however, what matters
is not verifiable or revealed truth but rather the individual
success of the practitioner in realizing hir will or desires,
whatever they may be, and however s/he chooses to define them. It
is no good to argue that ultimately the will aims at truth;
because this has presupposed that the factor to which everything
must be ultimately reduced is truth, and that deviation from it
is false. Therefore, such an objection will reveal the basis of
my point: a purely magical perspective is that which makes
experiential fulfillment central rather than an idea of accuracy,
for to suggest anything else is central, magic would have to be
in the service of that goal. Magic done for its own sake, purely
within its own context, implies arbitrary choice, rather than
rectitude.
Taking the first of the above three points, while mysticism assumes
that the practitioners perception is flawed and s/he is unable to
perceive truth until the system has been put into practice, magic
assumes that once the practitioner has assumed a magical
perspective, truth is no longer an issue - only skill at magical
manipulation. In other words, while a shift of perspective is
the end goal of mysticism, it is the requisite condition for
magic. However, that is not to suggest that magic must follow
mysticism, as the shift in perspective would appear almost opposite
for each. The mystic ultimately transcends duality in some
form - the magician becomes able to move through it arbitrarily at
will. To the mystic, the magicians manipulations of perception
are unnecessary and frivolous amusements. To the magician, there
is nothing else other than these manipulations, and the mystic
has simply become stuck on one particular manipulation of hir own
consciousness.
The third point has to some extent been addressed above, but
it is also worth noting that successful mysticism ultimately
involves some sort of ego destruction or dissolution to such
an extent that consciousness becomes permanently locked into
a gnostic state, or at least that seems to be the intention.
A magician would consider this equivalent to becoming
permanently possessed or obsessed, and would avoid it at all costs.
In summary, the situation is this: a magician depends upon the
ability to choose between dualities in order to function as a
magician. The mystic seeks to annihilate dualistic experience
and choice altogether. Their paths are diametrically opposed.
Hence, although a mystic might use what appears to be magic to
further hir quest, and a magician will certainly periodically seek
gnostic states, in either case one method includes and transcends
the other.
This should make plain the extreme difficulty engendered by
attempting to perform magical manipulations by means of a mystical
paradigm. Each manipulation will generate a discomfort with
perceived reality acute enough to push the supposed magician
further toward a path of the undoing of duality, and each gnostic
experience will further reinforce the impression that dualistic
reality is false, and gnostic/mystical reality is true. The
magical component of such activity will tend to generate a sense
of comfort as do all successful magical operations, but this
will be juxtaposed with increased discomfort with mundane reality.

Whereas a pure magician will actually find mundane reality

entertaining, and play the gnostic trance off against dualistic
distinctions to maximize entertainment value, the mystic will begin
to associate whatever magic he does perform with true gnosis
and therefore come to despise hir own life more and more.
Ultimately, some kind of final illumination will be experienced
in which the mystic transcends the need to perform magic. All
that has really happened is that the magician has burnt hirself
out, like a musician who has become dependent upon drugs for
inspiration, eventually does more drugs than music, and finally
dies of an overdose.
Finally, it may be worth considering an account of a certain Greek
mystery initiation that rendered the illuminate permanently unable
to laugh. This was considered to be a mark of attainment;
mystical awe is in a sense antithetical to laughter. The mystic
does not experience surprise, only ineffable bliss. The
magician who cannot laugh at hirself, however, becomes doomed to
inflexibility, the first stage of insanity - an inability to cope
with change. It is the act of laughter, the abandonment of
expectation and conception in a shock of connective creativity,
which allows the magician to release hir intents, to unbind her
obsessions, to leap across the between-void along the sudden
lightning path. Without that, the magician is not liberated, but
rather trapped in a prison of hir own consciousness.
To the magician, the liberation the mystic seeks is not final
emancipation, but final imprisonment. Thus, to use a mystical
paradigm as the basis of any magical operation is to invite the
horror of total obsession.