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Differences Between Types of Mantras

 

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Differences Between Types of Mantras
Mantra is used widely as a technique to focus the attention, to awaken the vehicles of consciousness, and to activate the inner forces of transformation. It is important to differentiate between these forms so the aspirant can rightly use these powerful techniques.
Writing a mantra impresses the vibratory quality of the mantra on the Subconscious mind. It can act like an affirmation, processing the content of the subconscious and replacing it with a new impression, or samskara.
Chanting means to repeat a mantra aloud, to speak it or to sing it. Singing the mantra is called bhajan, puja or sankirtan. Its effect is to awaken awareness into the inner vehicles; sometimes it absorbs the attention in these altered states of awareness.
Whispering a mantra heightens the effect on awareness, allowing you to recognize more subtle changes in your awareness.
Breathing a mantra associates the mantra with the currents of life force, and the deep pranic vibrations of the inner vehicles. Breathing a mantra is used to awaken the Kundalini Shakti and in Kriya Yoga practices.
Thinking a mantra moves the attention inward and absorbs it in the resonant vibrations of the mantra on each Plane. If the attention becomes fixed at an inner gate, the awareness continues to awaken. In this form, this practice is called remembrance, zhikir, or simran. When the attention is carried along with the mantra, and becomes deeply absorbed on the inner Planes, it is called laya or samadhi.
Three specialized forms of thinking a mantra can be characterized:
A centering mantra focuses the attention on a nucleus of identity, or the ensouling entity.
A contemplative mantra focuses the attention on the spirit.
An awakening mantra focuses the attention on the attention principle, and promotes inner alertness and mindfulness.
Following a mantra with the attention, also called the thought bubble technique, heightens absorption and brings about profound states of relaxation.
Repeating a mantra with intention empowers the mantra with the force of Spirit and Divine Light. This method for repeating a mantra is used to activate a transformational or bija mantra.
Spontaneous mantra chanting may also occur when the Kundalini rises up or when one is filled with the Holy Spirit or Shakti. Here this ecstatic utterance arises from the unconscious, without conscious attempts to repeat or remember the mantra. This spontaneous chanting may take the form of Divine Identity Affirmations, such as Anal Haq (I am one with Immortal Truth). Aham Brahmasmi (I am one with the Supreme), or the Father and I are One. Alternately, it may give rise to sustained vowel sounds (intoning), babbling in an unknown tongue (glossolalia), or affirmations of inner truths.
As you continue to practice meditation and experiment with the varied techniques of different spiritual and religious groups, you will encounter each of these mantramic forms. It is important to identify the effects of each mantramic method on your consciousness, and to select those particular mantras that are most effective for you.
With time, you will come to recognize subtle vibratory differences between words that have similar sounds. For example, you will find that
So Hum • So Ham • So Hung
or
Hong Sau • Ham Sa
or
Brahm • Ram • Rama • Brahma • Brahman
Are examples of mantras that have very similar sounds, but in fact, have different effects on your awareness.
Moreover, the way that a mantra is intoned or sung may change the way a mantra effects your awareness. The same mantra sung to a different melody may take your attention and awareness to a very different inner space. You can experience this by listening to a chant sung by meditators that come from different lineages.
Ultimately it is important to identify the mantras that work for you to center, awaken and unfold the potentials of your consciousness. Finding the correct mantras keyed to your cutting edge of spirituality and stage on the Path can produce genuine breakthroughs in your meditation practice. Learning to intone mantras correctly geared to your state of spiritual development can promote harmony and calmness. Knowing when to use each type of mantra and how to use it correctly will give you powerful tools to amplify your meditation practice.
Study these methods and master them
www.mudrashram.com/mantradifferences.html

posted by VICKY @ 8:05 PM, ,

Human Voice Mantras

 

by Peter Fenton
The human voice is probably the best instrument for producing sounds to achieve specific purposes. Vibrations created by precise combinations of sounds have long been thought to affect living beings and inanimate objects.
The most powerful use of the voice in Buddhist belief is reciting a mantra. A mantra is a phrase or sentence, generally in Sanskrit or Tibetan, the sound of which embodies the power of a Buddha, deity, or other spirit entity. Lamas, healers, and Tantric practitioners use mantras to cure disease, appease spirits, bring about good luck or other positive fortune, clear obstacles, and for many other reasons. Mantras can also be used for destructive purposes. Stories abound in Tibetan folklore of practitioners directing special mantras at living creatures to injure or even kill them.
Some Sanskrit mantras are so old that their original meanings have long been forgotten by most, perhaps all of the practitioners who use them. Other mantras are believed to be so powerful that they are held in secret by their possessors and revealed only to those who possess sufficient merit.
The Mechanics of Mantras
Professor Lama Chimpa helped me understand the mechanics of mantras. Uttering a mantra, he said, causes a special effect, something like a chemical reaction in the surrounding environment. The reaction is the result of a specific vibration caused by the utterance. Everyone knows that a certain note sung by a powerful singer can shatter a crystal glass, or that an army marching in unison across a bridge can destroy it. The effect of a mantra is created in a similar way.
The lama further explained that each mantra is composed of a specific sequence of sounds to produce a specific result. The process has been compared to mixing paints. Combining red and blue paint produces purple. Mixing the syllables AH, OH, and MM to produce OM also produces a special effect. Initiates into this art, known as Mantrayana, build up a repertoire of sound combinations, each designed to produce a unique effect. Lama Chimpa cautioned that there is no room for error when using mantras; mistakes using seed syllable combinations can have unfortunate consequences, he told me.
Moreover, mantras are said to derive their power from the inner attitude of the practitioner. Thus the intention of the person using them is the real source of mantra power. Considered in this way, mantras can be regarded as spiritual songs which spring from the heart rather than a dutiful repetition of a few syllables.
Magical Mantras?
There are many stories about the magical uses of mantra in healing and to keep away illness, exhaustion, cold, hunger, and disease. One of these maintains that through their use, an experienced practitioner can disintegrate a physical object or even a living being. In the Devil-Dancing ceremonies of Ceylon, fire-cooling mantras are used to "tame" the fire for fire-walkers.
Mantras are also used, sometimes accompanied by other practices, to enable practitioners known as lung-gompas to travel extremely quickly over difficult terrain, moving both day and night until a destination is reached. Another well-known effect linked to mantra practice enables lamas to create an inner body heat known as tumo, which enables their bodies to withstand subzero temperatures without suitable clothing.
One account indicates that, in the past, students had to demonstrate their mastery of this technique by sitting on a solid block of ice in the dead of winter until it melted.
Healing Mantras
Mantras are also among the most ancient healing techniques. One very important use of mantra for healers is in invoking the Medicine Buddha to bless medicines or produce other healing effects. Mantras are also dedicated to healing specific illnesses or to bring about specific results such as long life, clearing obstacles from one's life path, spiritually purifying food and offerings, and so on.
One very interesting story about how mantras are used in healing concerns the use of the purbha, a three-sided magic dagger often used for the "ritual slaying" of psychic foes. The Tamang Healer is well known for his use of the purbha in healing rituals. Sometimes he holds the ritual instrument on the crown of a patient's head while reciting a special mantra. The ritual is performed to expel the evil forces believed to have caused the illness. At other times, he holds the purbha over different chakras or energy centers on the body.
Tantric practitioners also are known to hold up the purbha in front of themselves, symbolically dividing any malevolent psychic force into two parts which are then deflected harmlessly away. In such cases, it is as if the mantras are used to empower the instrument itself.
Mantra Machines
The power of mantras is harnessed by various techniques. As well as being recited, chanted, or sung, mantras are affixed to wheels, flags, the bottoms of shoes, and many other "machines", including nowadays, of course, computers. These machines allow mantras to be recited continuously, to assuage the suffering of beings in the lower realms of samsara and to produce other positive effects.
Lama Chimpa told an interesting story which demonstrates the relationship between a mantra's power and the mental attitude of the person using it. Some time ago, there were two monks of roughly equal knowledge and ability. One was an optimist, while the other was continually doubtful and negative. One day, the two friends were having a discussion. The optimist said, "Using this new mantra that our teacher has given us, I will be able to put this knife right through the middle of that rock, and do it within a day." The other said, "No, it will take at least a week." With that, the two went their separate ways.
The very next morning, each began work on the task. Sure enough, on the first day, the optimist split the rock with the knife. After a week of struggle, his friend did the same. Conviction is the key to the successful use of mantras, concluded Lama Chimpa. Nothing is more powerful than the mind.
http://innerself.ca/Spirituality/voice_mantras.htm

posted by VICKY @ 8:03 PM, ,

Mantra Singing Doc

 

What is a mantra?

Mantras are syllables, words or short sentences which have besides their
literal meaning a special inherent power. Mantras have effects of sound and
resonance as well as metaphysic or mystic meaning. In every culture and language
since ancient times such words of magic existed. The word "mantra" is derived
from sanscrit language and consists of the roots "manas" and "tra". "Manas" is
the totality of thoughts and emotions with all their desires and fears. "Tra"
means saving, holding or protecting. Mantras are words which excecute a
collecting effect on the mind. They work in a way as a key. With their help we
can make certain energies and resonancefields of body and soul accessible.

How come you started singing
mantras?

From my childhood on in India the use of mantras was wellknown to me. To
sing mantras already my father taught me as a little girl. For instance he used
to recite mantra prayers during cooking. I was sitting near by and was listening
with devotion. I felt very attracted by this and was calmed and transferred into
another world. In this way I started already at that time singing one or another
sanscrit mantra and felt happy with it. Until the development of my todays songs
of mantras many years have passed. To tell it straight forward, I love to sing
songs with spiritual background. The singing for the veneration of God is
delighting and it stands on the first place. In so far it is artistic expression
of a devotional feeling. All other aspects like scientific explanations,
different ways and models of explaining the effects of mantras etc. follow
afterwards. For me it was important to come in daily life for a certain time to
peace and selfreflection. In this context I remembered the mantras and have sung
some spontaneously. In the following time I dealt with my experiences in singing
and hearing mantras in greater detail. In doing so I developped a certain style
of singing by which the atmosphere and vibration of the respective mantras was
transferred. In the time when I suffered from a long and heavy desease, I came
to know about the healing and strengthening power of mantras. Since then
mantra-singing belongs to my daily life.

Where is the origin of mantras?

Most of the tradition of mantras is in sanscrit language. Sanscrit is one
of the oldest languages of the world. The scripts of the vedic time report that
rishis the wise men of that time captured and received the mantric wisdom by
intuition. Also today these experiences can be brought back by proper
application of mantras. Wellknown are also the mantras which consist in single
or compounded letters, the so called "bija-mantras" or germ-mantras. The letters
which form such mantras are called "bija aksaras". In hindu religion each deity
is represented by a "bija aksara" which in human language is the most near
equivalent form to the "nada", the sound vibration which arises at the moment of
manifestation of the deity. These "aksaras" or mantras are all used as words of
invocation of this deity. The most wellknown of these germ mantras is "pranava",
"Om" for Brahman. In Yoga the teachings of the chakras - the energy centres -
contains also the teaching of the germ mantras belonging to each chakra. There
are directions of yoga which have registered and discribed systematically
meaning and applications of mantras.



Already in the spripture of Bhagavat Gita the use of mantra is mentioned. Sri
Krishna says in the Bhagavat Gita (10-25):



Among all rishis I am Bhrigu

Among all word I am the syllable Om

Among of all forms of prayers I am the repetition of mantras

Among all mountains I am the Himalaya

In which way mantras do effect
us?

Mantras have wonderful effects, if they are repeated in a proper way. The
holy scriptures of India are full of stories about persons who have reached
superhuman and supernatural powers by chanting mantras. The Vedas, especially
the Rig-Veda contains thousands of mantras. These mantras are considered highly
effective although their meaning is not known. Actually the literal meaning has
little to do with the power which mantras give. Our mind, our actions and things
of our surrounding can be purified by mantras and charged with spiritual energy.
The special vibrations of holy places and centres of pilgrimages arouse from the
fact that someone at sometimes has chanted holy mantras at these places. After
that these places exercised great spiritual attraction for many years. The
vibrations which are set to work by singing mantras make our subtle sensations
receptive for spiritual knowledge. Brahman, the highest and unperishable being
is not only described as light but also as sound. The sound which is emitted by
every being and moves into the atmosphere creates uncounted waves in the ocean
of sound. This total atmosphere of sound effects cosmic interactions. Mantras
have effects on this atmosphere of sounds.

Which role plays the sound and
the breath with mantras?

Each letter, each word and each syllable has beside their meaning in the
general use of language in addition a soundinformation which is a sprecial
pattern of sound. Carrier of this sound pattern is on one hand our body which
consists of different chemical element and on the other hand it consist of the
air stream which is directed by the breath. Diaphragm, larynx, mouth, lips,
tongue and the differently directed air stream are involved in the articulation
of sound. Every sound pattern is based on a certain pattern of breath and
direction of the air stream. The breath is charged with life energy. In the
language of Yoga it is called power of Prana. Great significance was drawn to
the Prana-Yama, the equalization and inherent regulation of breath. Because of
this reason mantras have a breath activating and regulating effect. On a
different level each pattern of breath is based on an energy pattern. Breathing
and articulation of voice creates subtle frictions by the air stream which
vibrates the body cells and the tissues. This further leads to chemical and
electrophysical reactions on for instance the brain waves, microelectric current
of skin and muscular tone. Thus the application of mantras is a sublte energetic
work.

In which way mantras should be
applied?

The body should rest relaxed and the mind should concentrate on the
content of the mantra. Chanting mantras can unfold a strong effect. The song of
mantra with its subtle, recurring melody helps to reach vegetative equalization,
mental and somatic relaxation. The application of mantras however varies
individually. Some who like to meditate in perfect silence and are able to
concentrate accordingly, they will use mantras by silent mental repetition.
Others who enjoy the voice and like to work with voice and sound will prefer the
own singing or to sing along with someone, a cassette or CD. Again others can
concentrate and meditate best by listening to a mantra. Normally it will take a
certain time until the mind has adapted adequately and the mantra can unfold its
effects. It is recommended to apply mantras or mantra songs in undisturbed and
devotional attitude so that the effects of mantras may be preserved.

Which significance has the
repetition in th application of mantras?

Throug repitition the travelling mind is tight up to the mantra. Through
the repetition of a mantra the mind gets a simple and effective task. By this a
spontane meditative effect is reached. From the repetition results a perfect
awareness of the mantra in consciousness. By concentrating the consciousness the
inner microcosm is connected to the outer macrocosm. A subtle flow of energy is
generated. The process of becoming perfectly aware of the contents of the mantra
is very import by the use of mantras. It signifies to bring a state of
consciousness into the presence, to build a bridge over time and space into the
here and now. Becoming aware means to be aware of the perfect presence and unite
the past and the future in the present experience of being. Accordingly the
meanings of mantras like Tat tvamasi - this is You - or So Hang - this I am -
are based on such direct experience of being in meditation.

Which significance has the
language of mantras?

One should not try to translate mantras in another language because this
would change their original charakter. The effects of sound and vibration are
not generated in the same way. sanscrit is a special language for mantras.
Besides many european languages have their roots in the sanscrit language so
that this is not a completely foreign language. Old prayers in their original
form of language had quite another mantric effect of sound and resonance. In
former times for instance the prayer "our father in heaven" from the christian
tradition in the greece form was sung. The "Gatas" too, the holy sayings of
Zoroaster, were sung. The effects of sanscrit mantras are object of todays
scientific research. By experiments and selfexperiments it was observed that
people experienced a deep inner peace and selfintegration. The affinity to a
certain cultural or language group here in was of minor significance.

Is the use of mantras a special
form of meditation?

To my opinion meditation should be an act of devotion to the devine. All
the forms of meditation that fulfill this are to be recommended. Spiritual
matters are not mere subjects of intellect or practical abilities, not to be
possessed etc. Genuine spiritual experience crosses the borders of the own
personality. One cannot bring forward a state of meditation allone by will and
selfcontrol. The meditative state can only happen by itself. Silent meditation
does not available at once and is quite difficult to achieve in times when
everybody is engaged in the working process. The mantra song accompanies the
spirit. By this it is a little bit easier to concentrate and meditate on the
contents. According to my experience mantras are - described by a picture -like
a boat which you may enter to row into the sea of your soul. By this it is a
little bit easier.

How one can use mantras for
healing?

There is quite a considerable potential of healing powers within man
which could be used for prevention or support of treatments of deseases. Many
people would like to use their inner powers more consciously and targeting.
Mantras hereby are quite helpful. The introduced meditative deep relaxation of
body, mind and soul hereby plays an important role. Mantras have different
levels of healing effects. On the body level the vibrations of mantras work as a
subtle massage. On the emotional level positive healing feelings are produced.
Silence, equimindedness, joy, love and reconciliation are experienced inside
which you may call healing of the heart. Subconscious emotional blockades are
dissolved. We gain access to our inner psychic world again. Another dimension of
healing effect lies on the level of transpersonal and transcendental experiences
which are beyond discription.

Does the mantra song effects the
quality of sleep?

One sentence of the old indian scripture "Upanischad" runs as follows:
"In sleep man is near to himself, the Atma". Sleep itself is a mystery and left
many questions to the scientific research open. To remove sleep disturbances by
natural means is an important matter. Already in ancient times sleep was applied
for healing purposes and called as healing sleep. Healing sleep was initiated by
the recitation of words and music. The initiation of sleep by mantra songs
fulfills a similar purpose using the soothing effect of the repetition for
carrying over to sleep. Mantras then continue to effect us unconsciously by
their pleasing vibrations for a while.

What the is the musical concept
of the mantra songs?

These mantra songs are in a way contemporal sacral music which is based
on meditative experience inspired by mantras. Important in this process is the
development of the voice guided by the mantra from a undifferenciated stream of
sound. The immature sound is a cosmic sound equivalent of endless unformed
energy and by this is the source of all shaping processes in creation. The
stream of music as symbol of the primal sound in traditional indian music is
allways present in the background by the sounds of the strings of the Tanpura
which accompanies solo melody intruments or singing. The characteristic voice of
the tanpura creates a pulsing cosmic sound energy in which the listener means to
hear endles melodies and rhythms. They are already there but still unmanifested
and they are so to say felt as potential music. Based on the fundamental tone
rises the song of mantra which consists in secret syllables of sanscrit. The
chant of mantra lives by the msytic union with the fundamental tone which is
experience as precreative primal force. Singing mantras is living practise in
which the mystic of music tries to leave the surface of nature and dive into the
depth of sound and further to the spiritual origin of the self. Mantra are sung
with breads of silence in between. In these breaks the resonance on the human
mind and heart is attentively felt inside.

Can You explain one mantra to us,
for example one which You have received yourself?

I will explain the mantra "Shisha Prashanam". In complete original terms
the mantra goes: "Shisha Prashanam, Chit Anandam, Sukh Prad Vachanam, Smirti
Maya Monam, Dehi Me Jagdeesham, Dehi Me Jagdeesham". This mantra contributes
to being aware of human goals, it removes inhibitions, sorrows and entanglements
by consciously bringing happiness to the heart (shisha prashanam is happiness of
mind). This creates healing words respectively words leading to happiness (sukh
prad vachanam). Because words from a joyful heart have healing effects. Likewise
this mantra was created from a joyful heart. The silent rememberance in God
comes next (smirti maya monam). Happiness of mind also means to be free from the
burdon of sorrows. This is possible by setting free and not to be too much
entangled in wordly affairs. Simultaneously a confidance in the eternal being is
created. It is a fundamental inner detachement. Words coming from the heart have
healing power and they lead to higher knowledge. This effects a silence in real
sense. In daily life, when one is allone and in seeming silence one still is
occupied with different thoughts. This is not really being silent because the
there is no inner silence in mind. Here also is meant the silence (Monam) in
rememberance of God. The mantra prayer helps to set one free from the
entanglements of the world of thougt. Dehi me Jagedishan asks God that this
should happen. It confirms the will for spiritual development and to become
aware of the spiritual goal.

www.doctorshobbies.com/MantraDoc.htm

Mantra singing Doc

posted by VICKY @ 7:59 PM, ,

How come you started singing mantras?

 

From my childhood on in India the use of mantras was wellknown to me. To sing mantras already my father taught me as a little girl. For instance he used to recite mantra prayers during cooking. I was sitting near by and was listening with devotion. I felt very attracted by this and was calmed and transferred into another world. In this way I started already at that time singing one or another sanscrit mantra and felt happy with it. Until the development of my todays songs of mantras many years have passed. To tell it straight forward, I love to sing songs with spiritual background. The singing for the veneration of God is delighting and it stands on the first place. In so far it is artistic expression of a devotional feeling. All other aspects like scientific explanations, different ways and models of explaining the effects of mantras etc. follow afterwards. For me it was important to come in daily life for a certain time to peace and selfreflection. In this context I remembered the mantras and have sung some spontaneously. In the following time I dealt with my experiences in singing and hearing mantras in greater detail. In doing so I developped a certain style of singing by which the atmosphere and vibration of the respective mantras was transferred. In the time when I suffered from a long and heavy desease, I came to know about the healing and strengthening power of mantras. Since then mantra-singing belongs to my daily life.
www.doctorshobbies.com

posted by VICKY @ 7:58 PM, ,

Yantra - The Visual Mantra

 

posted by VICKY @ 7:49 PM, ,

Toltec Black Magic

 

posted by VICKY @ 7:43 PM, ,

BLACK MAGIC IN SCIENCE

 

Commence research where modern conjecture closes its faithless wings (Bulwer's Zanoni).
The flat denial of yesterday has become the scientific axiom of to-day (Common Sense Aphorisms).
THOUSANDS of years ago the Phrygian Dactyls, the initiated priests, spoken of as the "magicians and exorcists of sickness," healed diseases by magnetic processes. It was claimed that they had obtained these curative powers from the powerful breath of Cybele, the many-breasted goddess, the daughter of Cœlus and Terra. Indeed, her genealogy and the myths attached to it show Cybele as the personification and type of the vital essence, whose source was located by the ancients between the Earth and the starry sky, and who was regarded as the very fons vitæ of all that lives and breathes. The mountain air being placed nearer to that fount fortifies health and prolongs man's existence; hence, Cybele's life, as an infant, is shown in her myth as having been preserved on a mountain. This was before that Magna and Bona Dea, the prolific Mater, became transformed into Ceres-Demeter, the patroness of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Animal magnetism (now called Suggestion and Hypnotism) was the principal agent in theurgic mysteries as also in the Asclepieia--the healing temples of Æsculapius, where the patients once admitted were treated, during the process of "incubation," magnetically, during their sleep.
This creative and life-giving Force--denied and laughed at when named theurgic magic, accused for the last century of being principally based on superstition and fraud, whenever referred to as mesmerism--is now called Hypnotism, Charcotism, Suggestion, "psychology," and what not. But, whatever the expression chosen, it will ever be a loose one if used without a proper qualification. For when epitomized with all its collateral sciences--which are all sciences within the science--it will be found to contain possibilities the nature of which has never been even dreamt of by the oldest and most learned professors of the orthodox physical science. The latter, "authorities" so-called, are no better, indeed, than innocent bald infants, when brought face to face with the mysteries of antediluvian "mesmerism." As stated repeatedly before, the blossoms of magic, whether white or black, divine or infernal, spring all from one root. The "breath of Cybele"--Akâsa tattwa, in India--is the one chief agent, and it underlay the so-called "miracles" and "supernatural" phenomena in all ages, as in every clime. As the parent-root or essence is universal, so are its effects innumerable. Even the greatest adepts can hardly say where its possibilities must stop.
The key to the very alphabet of these theurgic powers was lost after the last gnostic had been hunted to death by the ferocious persecution of the Church; and as gradually Mysteries, Hierophants, Theophany and Theurgy became obliterated from the minds of men until they remained in them only as a vague tradition, all this was finally forgotten. But at the period of the Renaissance, in Germany, a learned Theosophist, a Philosopher per ignem, as they called themselves, rediscovered some of the lost secrets of the Phrygian priests and of the Asclepieia. It was the great and unfortunate physician-Occultist, Paracelsus, the greatest Alchemist of the age. That genius it was, who during the Middle Ages was the first to publicly recommend the action of the magnet in the cure of certain diseases. Theophrastus Paracelsus--the "quack" and "drunken impostor" in the opinion of the said scientific "bald infants" of his day, and of their successors in ours--inaugurated among other things in the seventeenth century, that which has become a profitable branch in trade in the nineteenth. It is he who invented and used for the cure of various muscular and nervous diseases magnetized bracelets, armlets, belts, rings, collars and leglets; only his magnets cured far more efficaciously than do the electric belts of to-day. Van Helmont, the successor of Paracelsus, and Robert Fludd, the Alchemist and Rosicrucian, also applied magnets in the treatment of their patients. Mesmer in the eighteenth, and the Marquis de Puységur in the nineteenth century only followed in their footsteps.
In the large curative establishment founded by Mesmer at Vienna, he employed, besides magnetism, electricity, metals and a variety of woods. His fundamental doctrine was that of the Alchemists. He believed that metals, as also woods and plants have all an affinity with. and bear a close relation to, the human organism. Everything in the Universe has developed from one homogeneous primordial substance differentiated into incalculable species of matter, and everything is destined to return thereinto. The secret of healing, he maintained, lies in the knowledge of correspondences and affinities between kindred atoms. Find that metal, wood, stone, or plant that has the most correspondential affinity with the body of the sufferer; and, whether through internal or external use, that particular agent imparting to the patient additional strength to fight disease--(developed generally through the introduction of some foreign element into the constitution)--and to expel it, will lead invariably to his cure. Many and marvellous were such cures effected by Anton Mesmer. Subjects with heart-disease were made well. A lady of high station, condemned to death, was completely restored to health by the application of certain sympathetic woods. Mesmer himself, suffering from acute rheumatism, cured it completely by using specially-prepared magnets.
In 1774 he too happened to come across the theurgic secret of direct vital transmission; and so highly interested was he, that he abandoned all his old methods to devote himself entirely to the new discovery. Henceforward he mesmerised by gaze and passes, the natural magnets being abandoned. The mysterious effects of such manipulations were called by him--animal magnetism. This brought to Mesmer a mass of followers and disciples. The new force was experimented with in almost every city and town of Europe and found everywhere an actual fact.
About 1780, Mesmer settled in Paris, and soon the whole metropolis, from the Royal family down to the last hysterical bourgeoise, were at his feet. The clergy got frightened and cried--"the Devil"! The licensed "leeches" felt an ever-growing deficit in their pockets; and the aristocracy and the Court found themselves on the verge of madness from mere excitement. No use repeating too well-known facts, but the memory of the reader may be refreshed with a few details he may have forgotten.
It so happened that just about that time the official Academical Science felt very proud. After centuries of mental stagnation in the realm of medicine and general ignorance, several determined steps in the direction of real knowledge had finally been made. Natural sciences had achieved a decided success, and chemistry and physics were on a fair way to progress. As the Savants of a century ago had not yet grown to that height of sublime modesty which characterizes so pre-eminently their modern successors--they felt very much puffed up with their greatness. The moment for praiseworthy humility, followed by a confession of the relative insignificance of the knowledge of the period--and even of modern knowledge for the matter of that--compared to that which the ancients knew, had not yet arrived. Those were days of naive boasting of the peacocks of science displaying in a body their tails, and demanding universal recognition and admiration. The Sir Oracles were not as numerous as they are now, yet their number was considerable. And indeed, had not the Dulcamaras of public fairs been just visited with ostracism? Had not the leeches well nigh disappeared to make room for diploma-ed physicians with royal licenses to kill and bury a piacere ad libitum? Hence, the nodding "Immortal" in his academical chair was regarded as the sole competent authority in the decision of questions he had never studied, and for rendering verdicts about that which he had never heard of. It was the REIGN OF REASON, and of Science--in its teens; the beginning of the great deadly struggle between Theology and Facts, Spirituality and Materialism. In the educated classes of Society too much faith had been succeeded by no faith at all The cycle of Science-worship had just set in, with its pilgrimages to the Academy, the Olympus where the "Forty Immortals" are enshrined, and its raids upon every one who refused to manifest a noisy admiration, a kind of juvenile calf's enthusiasm, at the door of the Fane of Science. When Mesmer arrived, Paris divided its allegiance between the Church which attributed all kinds of phenomena except its own divine miracles to the Devil, and the Academy, which believed in neither God nor Devil, but only in its own infallible wisdom.
But there were minds which would not be satisfied with either of these beliefs. Therefore, after Mesmer had forced all Paris to crowd to his halls, waiting hours to obtain a place in the chair round the miraculous baquet, some people thought that it was time real truth should be found out. They had laid their legitimate desires at the royal feet, and the King forthwith commanded his learned Academy to look into the matter. Then it was, that awakening from their chronic nap, the "Immortals" appointed a committee of investigation, among which was Benjamin Franklin, and chose some of the oldest, wisest and baldest among their "Infants" to watch over the Committee. This was in 1784. Every one knows what was the report of the latter and the final decision of the Academy. The whole transaction looks now like a general rehearsal of the play, one of the acts of which was performed by the "Dialectical Society" of London and some of England's greatest Scientists, some eighty years later.
Indeed, notwithstanding a counter report by Dr. Jussieu, an Academician of the highest rank, and the Court physician D'Eslon, who, as eye-witnesses to the most striking phenomena, demanded that a careful investigation should be made by the Medical Faculty of the therapeutic effects of the magnetic fluid--their demand fell through. The Academy disbelieved her most eminent Scientists. Even Sir B. Franklin, so much at home with cosmic electricity, would not recognize its fountain head and primordial source, and along with Bailly, Lavoisier, Magendie, and others, proclaimed Mesmerism a delusion. Nor had the second investigation which followed the first--namely in 1825--any better results. The report was once more squashed (vide "Isis Unveiled," vol. i, pp. 171-176).
Even now when experiment has amply demonstrated that "Mesmerism" or animal magnetism, now known as hypnotism (a sorry effect, forsooth, of the "Breath of Cybele") is a fact, we yet get the majority of scientists denying its actual existence. Small fry as it is in the majestic array of experimental psycho-magnetic phenomena, even hypnotism seems too incredible, too mysterious, for our Darwinists and Hæckelians. One needs too much moral courage, you see, to face the suspicion of one's colleagues, the doubt of the public, and the giggling of fools. "Mystery and charlatanism go hand in hand," they say; and "self-respect and the dignity of the profession," as Magendie remarks in his Physiologie Humaine, "demand that the well informed physician should remember how readily mystery glides into charlatanism." Pity the "well informed physician" should fail to remember that physiology among the rest is full of mystery--profound, inexplicable mystery from A to Z--and ask whether, starting from the above "truism," he should not throw overboard Biology and Physiology as the greatest pieces of charlatanry in modern Science. Nevertheless, a few in the well-meaning minority of our physicians have taken up seriously the investigation of hypnotism. But even they, having been reluctantly compelled to confess the reality of its phenomena, still persist in seeing in such manifestations no higher a factor at work than the purely material and physical forces, and deny these their legitimate name of animal magnetism. But as the Rev. Mr. Haweis (of whom more presently) just said in the Daily Graphic . . . "The Charcot phenomena are, for all that, in many ways identical with the mesmeric phenomena, and hypnotism must properly be considered rather as a branch of mesmerism than as something distinct from it. Anyhow, Mesmer's facts, now generally accepted, were at first stoutly denied." And they are still so denied.
But while they deny Mesmerism, they rush into Hypnotism, despite the now scientifically recognised dangers of this science, in which medical practitioners in France are far ahead of the English. And what the former say is, that between the two states of mesmerism (or magnetism as they call it, across the water) and hypnotism "there is an abyss." That one is beneficent, the other maleficent, as it evidently must be; since, according to both Occultism and modern Psychology, hypnotism is produced by the withdrawal of the nervous fluid from the capillary nerves, which being, so to say, the sentries that keep the doors of our senses opened, getting anæsthetized under hypnotic conditions, allow these to get closed. A. H. Simonin reveals many a wholesome truth in his excellent work, "Solution du problème de la suggestion hypnotique."1 Thus he shows that while "in Magnetism (mesmerism) there occurs in the subject a great development of moral faculties"; that his thoughts and feelings "become loftier, and the senses acquire an abnormal acuteness"; in hypnotism, on the contrary, "the subject becomes a simple mirror." It is Suggestion which is the true motor of every action in the hypnotic: and if, occasionally, "seemingly marvellous actions are produced, these are due to the hypnotiser, not to the subject." Again . . . . "In hypnotism instinct, i.e., the animal, reaches its greatest development; so much so, indeed, that the aphorism 'extremes meet' can never receive a better application than to magnetism and hypnotism." How true these words, also, as to the difference between the mesmerised and the hypnotised subjects. "In one, his ideal nature, his moral self--the reflection of his divine nature--are carried to their extreme limits, and the subject becomes almost a celestial being (un ange). In the other, it is his instincts which develop in a most surprising fashion. The hypnotic lowers himself to the level of the animal. From a physiological standpoint, magnetism (Mesmerism) is comforting and curative, and hypnotism, which is but the result of an unbalanced state, is--most dangerous."
Thus the adverse Report drawn by Bailly at the end of last century has had dire effects in the present, but it had its Karma also. Intended to kill the "Mesmeric" craze, it reacted as a death-blow to the public confidence in scientific decrees. In our day the Non-Possumus of the Royal Colleges and Academies is quoted on the Stock Exchange of the world's opinion at a price almost as low as the Non-Possumus of the Vatican. The days of authority whether human or divine, are fast gliding away; and we see already gleaming on future horizons but one tribunal, supreme and final, before which mankind will bow--the Tribunal of Fact and Truth.
Aye, to this tribunal without appeal even liberal clergymen and famous preachers make obeisance in our day. The parts have now changed hands, and in many instances it is the successors of those who fought tooth and nail for the reality of the Devil and his direct interference with psychic phenomena, for long centuries, who come out publicly to upbraid science. A remarkable instance of this is found in an excellent letter (just mentioned) by the Rev. Mr. Haweis to the Graphic. The learned preacher seems to share our indignation at the unfairness of the modern scientists, at their suppression of truth, and ingratitude to their ancient teachers. His letter is so interesting that its best points must be immortalized in our magazine. Here are some fragments of it. Thus he asks:--
Why can't our scientific men say: "We have blundered about Mesmerism; it's practically true"? Not because they are men of science, but simply because they are human. No doubt it is humiliating when you have dogmatised in the name of science to say, "I was wrong." But is it not more humiliating to be found out; and is it not most humiliating, after shuffling and wriggling hopelessly in the inexorable meshes of serried facts, to collapse suddenly, and call the hated net a "suitable enclosure," in which forsooth, you don't mind being caught? Now this, as it seems to me, is precisely what Messrs. Charcot and the French hypnotists and their medical admirers in England are doing. Ever since Mesmer's death at the age of eighty, in 1815, the French and English "Faculty," with some honorable exceptions, have ridiculed and denied the facts as well as the theories of Mesmer, but now, in 1890, a host of scientists suddenly agree, while wiping out as best they may the name of Mesmer, to rob him of all his phenomena, which they quietly appropriate under the name of "hypnotism," "suggestion," "Therapeutic Magnetism," "psychopathic Massage," and all the rest of it. Well, "What's in a name?"
I care more for things than names, but I reverence the pioneers of thought who have been cast out, trodden under foot, and crucified by the orthodox of all ages, and I think the least scientists can do for men like Mesmer, Du Potet, Puységur, or Mayo and Elliotson, now they are gone, is to "build their sepulchres."
But Mr. Haweis might have added instead, the amateur Hypnotists of Science dig with their own hands the graves of many a man and woman's intellect; they enslave and paralyse freewill in their "subjects," turn immortal men into soulless, irresponsible automata, and vivisect their souls with as much unconcern as they vivisect the bodies of rabbits and dogs. In short, they are fast blooming into "sorcerers," and are turning science into a vast field of black magic. The rev. writer, however, lets the culprits off easily; and, remarking that he accepts "the distinction" [between Mesmerism and Hypnotism] "without pledging himself to any theory," he adds:--
I am mainly concerned with the facts, and what I want to know is why these cures and abnormal states are trumpeted about as modern discoveries, while the "faculty" still deride or ignore their great predecessors without having themselves a theory which they can agree upon or a single fact which can be called new. The truth is we are just blundering back with toil to work over again the old disused mines of the ancients; the rediscovery of these occult sciences is exactly matched by the slow recovery of sculpture and painting in modern Europe. Here is the history of occult science in a nutshell. (1) Once known. (2) Lost. (3) Rediscovered. (4) Denied. (5) Reaffirmed, and by slow degrees, under new names, victorious. The evidence for all this is exhaustive and abundant. Here it may suffice to notice that Diodorus Siculus mentions how the Egyptian priests, ages before Christ, attributed clairvoyance induced for therapeutic purposes to Isis. Strabo ascribes the same to Serapis, while Galen mentions a temple near Memphis famous for these Hypnotic cures. Pythagoras, who won the confidence of the Egyptian priests, is full of it. Aristophanes in "Plutus" describes in some detail a Mesmeric cure--"and first he began to handle the head." Cælius Aurelianus describes manipulations (1569) for disease "conducting the hands from the superior to the inferior parts"; and there was an old Latin proverb--Ubi dolor ibi digitus, "Where pain there finger." But time would fail me to tell of Paracelsus (1462)2 and his "deep secret of Magnetism"; of Van Helmont (1644)3 and his "faith in the power of the hand in disease." Much in the writings of both these men was only made clear to the moderns by the experiments of Mesmer, and in view of modern Hypnotists it is clearly with him and his disciples that we have chiefly to do. He claimed, no doubt, to transmit an animal magnetic fluid, which I believe the Hypnotists deny.
They do, they do. But so did the scientists with regard to more than one truth. To deny "an animal magnetic fluid" is surely no more absurd than to deny the circulation of the blood, as they have so energetically done.
A few additional details about Mesmerism given by Mr. Haweis may prove interesting. Thus he reminds us of the answer written by the much wronged Mesmer to the Academicians after their unfavorable Report, and refers to it as "prophetic words."
"You say that Mesmer will never hold up his head again. If such is the destiny of the man it is not the destiny of the truth, which is in its nature imperishable, and will shine forth sooner or later in the same or some other country with more brilliancy than ever, and its triumph will annihilate its miserable detractors." Mesmer left Paris in disgust, and retired to Switzerland to die; but the illustrious Dr. Jussieu became a convert. Lavater carried Mesmer's system to Germany, while Puységur and Deleuze spread it throughout provincial France, forming innumerable "harmonic societies" devoted to the study of therapeutic magnetism and its allied phenomena of thought-transference, hypnotism, and clairvoyance.
Some twenty years ago I became acquainted with perhaps the most illustrious disciple of Mesmer, the aged Baron du Potet.4 Round this man's therapeutic and mesmeric exploits raged, between 1830 and 1846, a bitter controversy throughout France. A murderer had been tracked, convicted, and executed solely on evidence supplied by one of Du Potet's clairvoyantes. The Juge de Paix admitted thus much in open court. This was too much for even sceptical Paris, and the Academy determined to sit again and, if possible, crush out the superstition. They sat, but, strange to say, this time they were converted. Itard, Fouquier, Guersent, Bourdois de la Motte, the cream of the French faculty, pronounced the phenomena of mesmerism to be genuine--cures, trances, clairvoyance, thought-transference, even reading from closed books; and from that time an elaborate nomenclature was invented, blotting out as far as possible the detested names of the indefatigable men who had compelled the scientific assent, while enrolling the main facts vouched for by Mesmer, Du Potet, and Puységur among the undoubted phenomena to be accepted, on whatever theory, by medical science....
Then comes the turn of this foggy island and its befogged scientists. "Meanwhile," goes on the writer,
England was more stubborn. In 1846 the celebrated Dr. Elliot son, a popular practitioner, with a vast clientele, pronounced the famous Harveian oration, in which he confessed his belief in Mesmerism. He was denounced by the doctors with such thorough results that he lost his practice, and died well-nigh ruined, if not heart-broken. The Mesmeric Hospital in Marylebone Road has been established by him. Operations were successfully performed under Mesmerism, and all the phenomena which have lately occurred at Leeds and elsewhere to the satisfaction of the doctors were produced in Marylebone fifty-six years ago. Thirty-five years ago Professor Lister did the same--but the introduction of chloroform being more speedy and certain as an anæsthetic, killed for a time the mesmeric treatment. The public interest in Mesmerism died down, and the Mesmeric Hospital in the Marylebone Road, which had been under a cloud since the suppression of Elliotson, was at last closed. Lately we know what has been the fate of Mesmer and Mesmerism. Mesmer is spoken of in the same breath with Count Cagliostro, and Mesmerism itself is seldom mentioned at all; but, then, we hear plenty of electro-biology, therapeutic magnetism and hypnotism--just so. Oh, shades of Mesmer, Puységur, Du Potet, Elliotson--sic vos non vobis. Still, I say Palmam qui meruit ferat. When I knew Baron du Potet he was on the brink of the grave, and nearly eighty years old. He was an ardent admirer of Mesmer; he had devoted his whole life to therapeutic magnetism, and he was absolutely dogmatic on the point that a real magnetic aura passed from the Mesmerist to the patient. "I will show you this," he said one day, as we both stood by the bedside of a patient in so deep a trance that we ran needles into her hands and arms without exciting the least sign or movement. The old Baron continued: "I will, at the distance of a foot or two, determine slight convulsions in any part of her body by simply moving my hand above the part, without any contact." He began at the shoulder, which soon set up a twitching. Quiet being restored, he tried the elbow, then the wrist, then the knee, the convulsions increasing in intensity according to the time employed. "Are you quite satisfied?" I said, "Quite satisfied"; and, continued he, "any patient that I have tested I will undertake to operate upon through a brick wall at a time and place where the patient shall be ignorant of my presence or my purpose. This," added Du Potet, "was one of the experiences which most puzzled the Academicians at Paris. I repeated the experiment again and again under every test and condition, with almost invariable success, until the most sceptical was forced to give in."
We have accused science of gliding full sail down to the Maëlström of Black Magic, by practising that which ancient Psychology--the most important branch of the Occult Sciences--has always declared as Sorcery in its application to the inner man. We are prepared to maintain what we say. We mean to prove it one of these days, in some future articles, basing ourselves on facts published and the actions produced by the Hypnotism of Vivisectionists themselves. That they are unconscious sorcerers does not make away with the fact that they do practice the Black Art bel et bien. In short the situation is this. The minority of the learned physicians and other scientists experiment in "hypnotism" because they have come to see something in it; while the majority of the members of the R.C.P.'s still deny the actuality of animal magnetism in its mesmeric form, even under its modern mask--hypnotism. The former--entirely ignorant of the fundamental laws of animal magnetism--experiment at hap-hazard, almost blindly. To remain consistent with their declarations (a) that hypnotism is not mesmerism, and (b) that a magnetic aura or fluid passing from the mesmeriser (or hypnotiser) is pure fallacy--they have no right, of course, to apply the laws of the older to the younger science. Hence they interfere with, and awaken to action the most dangerous forces of nature, without being aware of it. Instead of healing diseases--the only use to which animal magnetism under its new name can be legitimately applied--they often inoculate the subjects with their own physical as well as mental ills and vices. For this, and the ignorance of their colleagues of the minority, the disbelieving majority of the Sadducees are greatly responsible. For, by opposing them, they impede free action, and take advantage of the Hypocratic oath, to make them powerless to admit and do much that the believers might and would otherwise do. But as Dr. A. Teste truly says in his work--"There are certain unfortunate truths which compromise those who believe in them, and those especially who are so candid as to avow them publicly." Thus the reason of hypnotism not being studied on its proper lines is self-evident.
Years ago it was remarked: "It is the duty of the Academy and medical authorities to study Mesmerism (i.e., the occult sciences in its spirit) and to subject it to trials; finally, to take away the use and practice of it from persons quite strangers to the art, who abuse this means, and make it an object of lucre and speculation." He who uttered this great truth was "the voice speaking in the desert." But those having some experience in occult psychology would go further. They would say it is incumbent on every scientific body--nay, on every government--to put an end to public exhibitions of this sort. By trying the magic effect of the human will on weaker wills, by deriding the existence of occult forces in Nature--forces whose name is legion--and yet calling out these, under the pretext that they are no independent forces at all, not even psychic in their nature, but "connected with known physical laws" (Binet and Féré), men in authority are virtually responsible for all the dire effects that are and will be following their dangerous public experiments. Verily Karma--the terrible but just Retributive Law--will visit all those who develop the most awful results in the future, generated at those public exhibitions for the amusement of the profane. Let them only think of dangers bred, of new forms of diseases, mental and physical, begotten by such insane handling of psychic will! This is as bad on the moral plane as the artificial introduction of animal matter into the human blood, by the infamous Brown Sequard method, is on the physical. They laugh at the occult sciences and deride Mesmerism? Yet this century will not have passed away before they have undeniable proofs that the idea of a crime suggested for experiment's sake is not removed by a reversed current of the will as easily as it is inspired. They may learn that if the outward expression of the idea of a misdeed "suggested" may fade out at the will of the operator, the active living germ artificially implanted does not disappear with it; that once dropped into the seat of the human--or, rather, the animal--passions, it may lie dormant there for years sometimes, to become suddenly awakened by some unforeseen circumstance into realisation. Crying children frightened into silence by the suggestion of a monster, a devil standing in the corner, by a foolish nurse, have been known to become insane twenty or thirty years later on the same subject. There are mysterious, secret drawers, dark nooks and hiding-places in the labyrinth of our memory, still unknown to physiologists, and which open only once, rarely twice, in man's lifetime, and that only under very abnormal and peculiar conditions. But when they do, it is always some heroic deed committed by a person the least calculated for it, or--a terrible crime perpetrated, the reason for which remains for ever a mystery. . . .
Thus experiments in "suggestion" by persons ignorant of the occult laws, are the most dangerous of pastimes. The action and reaction of ideas on the inner lower "Ego," has never been studied so far, because that Ego itself is terra incognita (even when not denied) to the men of science. Moreover, such performances before a promiscuous public are a danger in themselves. Men of undeniable scientific education who experiment on Hypnotism in public, lend thereby the sanction of their names to such performances. And then every unworthy speculator acute enough to understand the process may, by developing by practice and perseverance the same force in himself, apply it to his own selfish, often criminal, ends. Result on Karmic lines: every Hypnotist, every man of Science, however well-meaning and honorable, once he has allowed himself to become the unconscious instructor of one who learns but to abuse the sacred science, becomes, of course, morally the confederate of every crime committed by this means.
Such is the consequence of public "Hypnotic" experiments which thus lead to, and virtually are, BLACK MAGIC.
Lucifer, June, 1890
1See the review of his work in the Journal du Magnetisme, Mai, Juin, 1890, founded in 1845 by Baron du Potet, and now edited by H. Durville, in Paris. back to text
2 This date is an error. Paracelsus was born at Zurich in 1493.back to text
3 This is the date of Van Helmont's death; he was born in 1577.back to text
4 Baron du Potet was for years Honorary member of the Theosophical Society. Autograph letters were received from him and preserved at Adyar, our Headquarters, in which he deplores the flippant unscientific way in which Mesmerism (then on the eve of becoming the "hypnotism" of science) was handled "par les charlatans du jour." Had he lived to see the secret science in its full travesty as hypnotism, his powerful voice might have stopped its terrible present abuses and degradation into a commercial Punch and Judy show. Luckily for him, and unluckily for truth, the greatest adept of Mesmerism in Europe of this century--is dead.
www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/BlackMagicInScience.htm

posted by VICKY @ 2:59 PM, ,

That Old Black Magic:

 

By: Judy Harrow
Sometimes a cliche just wears out. It loses meaning or, worse, begins to say things we never meant. I think it's time to retire the phrase "black magic."
Saying "black" when we mean "evil" is nasty nonsense. In the first place,it reinforces the racist stereotypes that corrupt our society. And that's notall. Whenever we say "black" instead of "bad," we repeat again the big lie thatdarkness is wrong. It isn't, as people who profess to love Nature should know.
Darkness can mean the inside of the womb, and the seed germinating withinthe Earth, and the chaos that gives rise to all truly new beginnings. In ourmyths, the one who goes down to the underworld returns with the treasure. Evendeath, to the Wiccan understanding, is well-earned rest and comfort, and apreparation for new birth. Using "black" to mean "bad" is a blasphemy againstthe Crone.
But even if we no longer speak of magic as "black" or "white," we stillneed to think and speak about the ethics of magic. Although black is not evil,some actions are evil. It simply is not true that anything a person is strongenough or skilled enough to do is OK, nor should doing what we will ever be thewhole of the law for us. We need a clear and specific vocabulary that enablesus to choose wisely what we will do.
We need to replace the word "black," not simply to drop it. Some Paganshave tried using "negative" as their substitute, but that turned out to beconfusing. For some people, "negative" means any spell to diminish or banishanything. Some things - tumors, depression, bigotry - are harmful. There'snothing wrong with a working to get rid of bad stuff. "Left-handed" is another common term for wrongful practice, very traditional, but just as ignorant,superstitious and potentially harmful as the phrase "black magic" itself. So inProteus we tried using the word "unethical." That's a lot better - free ofextraneous and false implications - but still too vague.
Gradually, I began to wonder whether using any one word, "black" or"unethical" or whatever, might just be too general and too subjective. Perhapsall I really tell a student that way is "Judy doesn't like that."
I won't settle for blind obedience. If ethical principles are going tosurvive the twin tests of time and temptation, people need to understand justwhat to avoid, and why. Even more important, they need a basis for figuring outwhat to do instead. Especially when it comes to projective magic.
Projective magic means active workings, the kind in which we project ourwill out into the world to make some kind of change. This is what most peoplethink of when they use the word magic at all. Quite clearly, magic that mayaffect other people is magic that can harm. This is the basis of the proverb "aWitch who can't hex can't heal." Either you can raise and direct power, or youcan't. Your strength and skill can be used for blessing or for bane. The choice- and the karma - are yours.
We are taught that we will find the Lady within ourselves or not at all,that the Mother of All has been with us from the beginning. We can't nowestablish a union that was always there. All we can do, all we need to do, isbecome aware. Knowing what it feels like to heal and empower, again and againtill you can't dismiss it as coincidence, is one of the most powerful methodsfor awakening that awareness. It makes no sense to say that the directexperience and exercise of our indwelling divinity distracts from the GreatWork.
Indeed, it is this intimate connection between our magic and ourself-realization that our ethics protect. Wrongful use of magic will choke thechannel. No short term gain could ever compensate for that.
The karmic argument against practical workings seems to me to arise from aparanoid and defeatist world view. Even if we assume that the hardships in thislife were put there by the Gods for a reason, how can we be so sure that thereason was punishment? Perhaps instead of penance to be endured, ourdifficulties are challenges to be met. Coping and dealing with our problems,learning magical and mundane skills, changing ourselves and our world for thebetter - in short, growing up - is that not what the Gods of joy and freedomwant from us?
One of the most radically different things about a polytheistic beliefsystem is that each one of us has the right, and the need, to choose whichGod/desses will be the focus of our worship. We make these choices knowingthat whatever energies we invoke most often in ritual will shape our ownfurther growth. Spiritual practices are a means of self-programming. So we areresponsible for what we worship in a way that people who take their One God asa given are not.
Think about this: what kind of Power actively wants us to submit andsuffer, and objects when we develop skills to improve our own lives? Not aBeing I'd want to invite around too often!
So it will not work for us to rule out projective magic completely; norshould we. Total prohibitions are as thoughtless as total permissiveness orblind obedience. Ethical and spiritual adults ought to be able to makedistinctions and well-reasoned choices. I offer here a start toward analysingwhat kinds of magic are not ethical for us.
Baneful magic is magic done for the explicit purpose of causing harm toanother person. Usually the reason for it is revenge, and the rationalizationis justice. People who defend the practice of baneful magic often ask "butwouldn't you join in cursing another Hitler?"
For adults there is no rule without exceptions. If you think you wouldnever torture somebody, consider this scenario: in just half an hour the bombwill go off, killing everybody in the city, and this terrorist knows where itis hidden....
It's a bad mistake to base your ethics on wildly unlikely cases, sincenone of us honestly knows how we would react in that kind of extreme.Reasonable ethical statements are statements about the behaviors we expect ofourselves under normally predictable circumstances.
We all get really angry on occasion, and sometimes with good cause. Thenrevenge can seem like no more than simple justice. The anger is a normal,healthy human reaction, and should not be repressed. But there's no more needto act it out in magic than in physical violence. Instead of going for revenge- and invoking the karmic consequences of baneful magic - identify what youreally need. For example, if your anger comes from a feeling that you havebeen attacked or violated, what you need is protection and safe space. Workfor the positive goal, it's both more effective and safer.
The consequences of baneful magic are simply the logical, natural and inevitable psychological effects. Even in that rare and extreme situation when you may decide you really do have to use magic to give Hitler a heart attack, it means you are choosing by the same choice to accept the act's karma. Magical attack hurts the attacker first.
The only way I know how to do magic is by use of my imagination, by visualizing or otherwise actively imagining the end I want, and then projecting that goal with the energy of emotional/physiological arousal. All the techniques I know either help me to imagine more specifically or to project more strongly. So the only way I can send out harm is by first experiencing that harm within my own imagination. Instant and absolute karma - the natural, logical and inevitable outcomes of our own choices.
I would think, also, that somebody dumb enough to do such workings often would soon lose the ability to imagine specifically, as their sensitivity dulled in sheer self-defense. That callusing effect is the reality behind the pious proverb that says "if you abuse it, She'll take it away."
But not every other magician is ethical. Psychic attacks do happen. Should we not defend ourselves? Of course we should. Leaving ourselves open to psychic attack is no good example of the autonomy and assertiveness our chosen Gods expect. But first, how can we be sure what we are experiencing really is psychic attack?
The fantasy of psychic attack is often a convenient excuse that allows us to avoid looking at our own shortcomings. When lack of rest or improper nutrition is the cause of illness, or a project isn't completed on time because of distraction, it's a real temptation to put the blame outside ourselves. Doing this too easily betrays our autonomy just as badly as meek submission to attack does. Then, to compound matters, projected blame becomes an excuse for unjust revenge -- and that is baneful magic without excuse.
Once in a rare while, some fool really does try to throw a whammy. It's hard to predict when you might be targeted. Passive shields are always a good idea. Like a mirror, these are totally inactive until somebody sends unwelcome energy. Then a shield will protect you completely and bounce back whatever is being thrown. You may not even know consciously when your shield is working, but the result is perfect justice.
Perfect justice; elegant and efficient. You won't hurt anybody out of paranoia or by mistake. And perfect protection, even though we do not have perfect knowledge.
Bindings, according to some, are completely defensive. They do not harm, only restrain. But imagine yourself being bound - perhaps by someone who believes themselves justified - and notice the feeling of impotence and frustration. Binding is bane from the viewpoint of the bound.
Even if restraint were truly not harm, bindings are just plain poor protection. They target a particular person or group. What if you suspect the wrong person? Somebody harmless is bound and your actual attacker is not bound. Shields, which cover you, not your supposed enemy, will cover you against any enemy, known or unknown.
So, baneful magic, besides being painful in the short run and crippling in the long run, is never necessary. There are better ways of self protection, and retribution is the business of the Gods.
Coercive magic is magic that targets another person to make them give us something we want or need. When most people think of the "Magic Power of Witchcraft," this is what they have in mind.
The spell to make the teacher give you a good grade, or the supervisor give you a good evaluation, the spell to make the personnel officer or renting agent choose you, the spell to attract that cute guy, all are examples of coercive magic.
So, what's wrong with high grades, a good job, a raise, a nice apartment and a sexy lover? There's nothing at all wrong with those goals. An it harm none, do what ye will. As long as nobody is hurt, go for it! But don't strive toward good ends by coercive means.
Although there is no deliberate intent to do harm or cause pain in coercive workings, other people are treated as pawns. Their autonomy and their interests are ignored.
For Pagans, to do this is total hypocrisy. We profess to follow a religion of immanence, one that places ultimate meaning and value in this life on this Earth, here and now. We claim to see every living thing, humans included, as a sacred manifestation. To do honor to this indwelling divinity, we place great value on our own personal autonomy. How can we then justify treating other people as objects for our use?
Nor is it harmless. Forcing the will, controlling the independent judgement of another human being, is harm. Once again, empathy leads to understanding. Just imagine you are the person whose will and judgement is being externally controlled. How does puppethood feel? From the viewpoint of the target, the harm is palpable.
The Pagan and Wiccan community as a whole is also hurt by coercive magic. One of the main reasons people fear and hate Witches is our reputation for controlling others. This is an old, dirty lie, created by the invading religion in an attempt to discredit the indigenous competition. Today, that reputation is mostly perpetuated by people who claim to be "our own," who teach unethical coercive magic by mail order to strangers whose ethical sensitivity cannot be evaluated long distance. May the Gods preserve the Craft!
People who are connected to the situation, but invisible to us, may also be seriously hurt: the cute guy's fiancee, the other applicant for that job. What you think of as a working designed only to bring good to yourself can bring serious harm to innocent third parties, and the karma of their pain will be on you.
That isn't the only way an incomplete view of the situation can backfire. There's a traditional saying that goes, "be careful about what you ask for, because that's exactly what you will get." What if he is gorgeous, but abusive? What if the apartment house is structurally unsound? Better to state your legitimate needs (love in my life, a nice place to live) and let the Gods deal with the details.
Finally, remember this: asking specifically limits us to what we now know or what we can now imagine. But I remember a time when I could not have imagined being a priestess. What if the cute guy in the office is perfectly OK, but your absolutely perfect soul-mate will be in the A+P next Wednesday? The more specifically targeted your magic is, the more you limit yourself to a life of tautology and missed chances.
And beyond all the scenario spinning lies the instant karma, the natural, logical and inevitable consequence of the act. It's more subtle than in the case of baneful magic, since you are not trying to imagine and project pain, but the damage is still real.
Every time you treat another human being as a thing to be pushed and pulled around for your convenience and pleasure, you are reinforcing your own alienation. The attitude of being removed from and superior to other people takes you out of community. As the attitude strengthens, so will the behavior it engenders. The long term result of coercive magic, as with mundane forms of coercion, is isolation and loneliness.
Are you beginning to think that magic is useless? Did I just rule out all the good stuff: love charms, job magic, spells for good grades? Not at all. It is not only ethical but good for you to do lots of magic to improve your own life. Whenever it works you will get more than you asked for - because along with whatever you asked for comes one more experience of your own effectiveness, your power-from-within.
Work on yourself and your own needs and desires without targeting other people. Then feel free! Ask for what you want. Visualize it and raise power for it and act in accordance on the material plane. "I need a caring and horny lover with a good sense of humor." "I want an affordable apartment near where my coven meets with a tree outside my window." "I need to be at my best when I take that exam next week." Fulfill your dreams, and sometimes let the Gods surprise you with gifts beyond your dreams.
Manipulative magic is magic that targets another person for what we think is "their own good," without regard for their opinions in the matter. In the general culture around us, this is normal. As you read this, you may have some friend or relative praying for you to be "saved" from your evil Pagan ways and returned to the fold of their preference. These people mean you well. By their own lights, they are attempting to heal you. We work from a very different thealogical base.
As polytheists, we affirm the diversity of the divine and the divinity of diversity. If there is no one, true, right and only way in general, do we d are to assume that there is one obvious right choice for a person in any given situation? If more than one choice may be "right," how can one person presume they know what another person would want without asking them first?
No life situation ever looks the same from outside as it does to the person who is experiencing it. Are you sure you even have all the facts? Are you fully aware of all the emotional entanglements involved? Perhaps that illness is the only way they have of getting rest or getting attention. Perhaps they stay in that dead end job because it leaves them more energy to concentrate on their music. How do you know till you ask?
And, to further complicate the analysis, it's possible that the person you are trying to help would agree with you about the most desirable outcome, but fears and hates the very idea of magic. They have as much of a right to keep magic out of their own life, as you have to make it part of yours!
Our religion teaches that the sacred lives within each person, that we can hear the Lady's voice for ourselves if we only learn to listen. "... If that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without." In behavioral terms, when you take another person's opinion about their own life seriously, you are reinforcing them in thinking and choosing for themselves. The more you do this, the more you encourage them to listen for the sacred inner voice.
Conversely, whenever you ignore or override a person's feelings about their own life, you are discounting those feelings and discouraging the kind of internal attention that can keep the channels to wisdom open. Although well-intentioned meddling may actually help somebody in the short run, in the longer run it trains them to dependency and indecision. Few intentional banes damage as severely. This is especially true because even the untrained and unaware will instinctively resist overt ill-will, but in our culture we are trained to receive "expert" interference with gratitude.
Check by asking yourself, "who's in charge here?" The answer to that will tell you whether you are basically empowering or undermining the person you intend to help.
And, as usual, the effects go both ways. The same uninvited intervention that fosters passivity in the recipient will foster arrogance in the "rescuer." It's control and ego-inflation masked as generosity. It's very seductive.
If you make this a habit, you will come to believe that other people are incompetent and powerless. Then what happens when you need help? Your contempt will make it impossible for you to see what resources surround you. Manipulative magic is ultimately just as alienating as coercive magic - and it's a much prettier trap!
The way to avoid the trap is to do no working affecting another person without that person's explicit permission. Proteans are pledged to this, and I think it's a good idea for anybody. You don't need to wait passively for the person to ask. It's perfectly all right to offer, as long as you are willing to sometimes accept "no" for your answer. For the person who believes s/he is unworthy or who is simply too shy, offering help is itself a gift. Taking their opinion seriously is an even greater gift: respect.
The rule is that whenever it is in any way physically possible to ask, you must ask. If it's not important enough to pay long distance charges, it certainly isn't important enough to violate a friend's autonomy. If asking is literally not possible, then and only then, here are a few exceptions:
Sometimes an illness or injury happens very suddenly, and the person is unconscious or in a coma before you could possibly ask them. If you know that this person is generally comfortable with magic, you may do workings to keep their basic body systems working and allow the normal healing process the time it needs. If they are opposed to magic, for whatever reason, back off!
Traditionally, an unconscious person is understood to be temporarily out of their body. Maintaining their body in habitable condition is preserving their option, not choosing for them. Doing maintenance magic requires a lot of sensitivity. At some point, the time may come when you should stop and let the person go on. Be sure to use some kind of divination to help you stay aware.
This is a hard road. It may be your lover, your child, lying there helpless. Any normal human being would be tempted to drag them back, to force them to stay regardless of what is truly best for them, regardless of what they want. Don't repress these feelings, they do no harm, even though your actions might. It takes great strength and non-possessive love to recognize that your loved one knows their own need. You may be calling them back to a crippled body, to a life of pain. You may be calling them back from the ecstasy of the Goddess. And this is no more your right than it would be to murder them.
If a person is temporarily not reachable, you may charge up a physical object, such as an appropriate talisman or some incense. When you present it to them, give them a full explanation. It is their choice whether to keep or use your gift. By interposing an object between the magic and the target in this way, you can work the magic in Circle, with the coven's power to draw on, and still get the person's permission before the magic is triggered.
With all these rules about permission, perhaps it would be safer to work only on ourselves? Safer, yes, but not nearly as good. If you have permission, you may do any working for another person that you might do for yourself. Coercive magic is just as unacceptable when somebody else asks for it, and you may not do manipulative magic on your friend's mother, even at your friend's request. The permission must come from the magic's intended target and from nobody else. With proper permission, working magic for others is good for all concerned.
Every act of magic has two effects. One is the direct effect, the healing or prosperity working or whatever was intended. The other is a minute change in the mind and the heart of the person who does the working. Everything we experience, and especially everything that we do in a wholehearted and focused way - the only way effective magic can be done - changes us. Each experience leaves its tiny trace, but the traces are cumulative. They mold the person we will become. Our karma is our choice.
Instant karma can also be good karma. Logical, natural and inevitable outcomes can be desirable. When you send out good, what you send it with is love. Love is the driving force. When you let love flow freely, the channel down to love's wellspring stays clear and open. When you send out good, you direct it along the web of person-to-person connection, and awareness of that web is reinforced. The totality of that web is the basis of community.
When you send out good it feels good. In the same way that sending out bane requires imagining pain, sending out blessing requires imagining pleasure, strongly and specifically. And, when you send out good, just the same as when you call it to yourself, you reinforce your sense of effectiveness in the world. Blessings grow in the fertile ground of mutuality, to the benefit of all.
A pattern is becoming visible. In baneful magic, the magician intends to harm the target. In coercive magic, the intent toward the target is neutral. In manipulative magic, the magician actually means the target well. But no matter how different the intent may be, in all three cases magic is done to affect another person without that person's permission. In all three cases, the target, the practitioner and ultimately the community are all hurt. And in all three cases, there are safer and more effective ways to reach the valid goals that we mean to aim for.
So, perhaps there is a descriptive word that covers all wrongful magical workings after all. How about "non-consensual" or "invasive" magic?
There's one thing left to examine: the paradox of making rules to protect personal autonomy.
If we make some of our choices as a community, by discussing things together and arriving at a common understanding about what magical behaviors are acceptable among us, then we choose and shape the kind of community we become.
Or we could give up our right to choose, because we feel we shouldn't tell each other what to do. Some people believe that a refusal to set community standards promotes personal autonomy. It never has before.
Appeals to individual rights can be real seductive. None of us wants Big Brother looking over our shoulders, telling us what to do "for our own good." For Witches in particular - members of a religious minority with bad image problems - this is a very legitimate fear. But make sure when somebody talks about "rights" without specifying something like "religious practice rights" or "the right to consensual sex," that you find out just what "rights" they mean.
Rhetoric about "rugged individualism" has been used in recent history to fast talk us into letting the rich or strong dominate all our lives. Without anything to stop them, they can destroy the forestland, or deny jobs or apartments to "cultists." Personal autonomy for most of us is diminished when we allow that.
Magic can be used for dominance, just the same as muscle or money. There is no difference, ethically, between the magical and the mundane. We are not obligated to tolerate power trippers among us. We are not obligated to run our own community by the slogans and groundrules of the dominator culture.
Thinking about "rights," or about "laws" for that matter, in the abstract leads to "all or nothing" thinking - immature and slogan driven. I don't think we should ever "just say" anything. We need a deeper and more mature analysis. We need to ask questions like "right to do what?" and "law against what?" We need to get away from absolutes and to look in practical terms at the advantages or disadvantages of our choices.
Once more, our religion itself shows us the way to steer between the false choices. "An it harm none, do what you will." What a person does that affects only herself - magical or mundane - is truly nobody's business but her own. For example, consensual sexual behavior affects only the participants. But toxic waste dumping affects everybody in the watershed.
As long as we look at behavior in terms of private choices or individual will, we obscure the distinction that really makes a difference. If we're serious about wanting to give each of us the most possible control over our own lives, then decisions should be made by all the people affected by the behavior - not just by the people acting.
As soon as another person is magically targeted, that other person is affected. If we allow such targeting without consent, we are not supporting personal autonomy, we are subverting it!
When the behavior begins to affect us all - for example when real estate development threatens the salt marshes, and ultimately the air supply - or, very specifically, when invasive magic erodes the trust we need to work together - then we have a right to protect ourselves as a community. No ideology should turn us into passive victims when something we hold precious stands to be destroyed.
Invasive magic hurts the target first, and soon the actor, but in the long run it hurts all of us. It's been so long since we've been able to meet together, share our knowledge, help one another in need. Pagan community is very new, and still very fragile. It can only grow in safe space.
The People of this Land forbade skirmishes around the pipestone quarries, keeping that sacred source open to all. Otherwise, no sane person would go there, and the Old Ways would wither. For much the same reason, we cannot tolerate poppets in our council meetings.
An atmosphere of coercion and manipulation and magical duels does not nurture community. Eventually, for self protection, the gentle will either change or go away. We could lose what we have misguidedly refused to protect.
www.spiralnature.com/spirituality/paganism/wicca/blackmagick.html

posted by VICKY @ 2:58 PM, ,

 

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