LIBER IGNE I: Magic Is Honesty
If you touch fire, you burn. It’s Nature’s Law, whether you’re a child or a saint.
– U.G. Krishnamurti
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Magic is honesty, and most writing about magic and spirituality is dishonest. The attempted lie tends to vary in its breadth and sophistication, often being dressed up in ceremonial garb, defended by a psychodynamic credential, or inflated by such academic caution that magic becomes de-fanged and materialist dogma is snuck in the back door. The lie, subtle as it can be, transforms communication of mystery and experience into a tacit discussion about agreement and affiliation.
The lie is that magic (inclusive of ‘spirituality’ from hereon) is something other than life, other than your immediate life, right now. That the ‘spiritual realm’ is somehow a separate register and that, as such, the spiritual life is a distinctly different life from the one that includes arguments with your family, emotional outbursts over having to pay tax, getting a stomach ache on a road trip, and the stark reality of funeral costs. That you, as you usually are, are somehow different, and that there is–or could be–a ‘spiritual’ you, who steps in on Sundays for a couple of prayers and a cuppa, but isn’t required for the rest of the week. That something, some event, needs to happen before you can really access the mystery, because the spiritual life isn’t really related to one’s regular life. That, even though one’s everyday life is filled with malaise, anxiety, and a quietly justified unhappiness, this doesn't really have a relation to that presumed grand and lofty state called the spiritual.
The truth is that there is no separate spiritual you, no other place to momentarily step into when the vibes feel right, and that there is no difference between a spiritual life and regular life. How could there be? There is only life. And so, to accept the false separation is to bolster division and fuel the self, filling your life with tension and contradiction. To deny it, however, is to be honest about the inherent mystery of life (for good or ill), and begin a process of immolating everything that stands in your own way, a process of leaning in and self-immolation.
I am not concerned with proving magic exists. Firstly, I have no idea what such evidence would look like, and second, it is surprisingly easy to do magic, on your own, without cumbersome requirements, that produces results. Experience counts for everything, and as I could write a lengthy paragraph describing the taste of a cup of coffee, the only real way to understand, sense, or ‘get’ the coffee is to drink it yourself. Experience is the ultimate authority.
With that said, magic–both as a term and an undertaking–has a long, rich, and complicated history. Complete with periods, schools, and an unfathomable amount of schisms. So, before expanding on what I meant when I defined magic as honesty, I want to look at a few of the historic definitions of magic. Not only to view the shoulders upon which I stand, but also to see whether or not there is a thread that connects them.
Dion Fortune defined magic as the art and science of causing change in consciousness in accordance with will. Austin Osman Spare broadly defined it as the ability to rewrite belief, and thereby bypass conscious censorship to implant sigils in the unconscious. William S. Burroughs said magic is the art of making things happen. Marsilio Ficino understood magic as sympathetically drawing down celestial influences in alignment with the soul. Franz Bardon and arguably Carl Jung viewed magic as the equilibration of the soul. Ray Sherwin viewed magical rituals as those that reprogram the performer. Gordon White views magic as a re-enchantment against modernity's foreclosure. Alan Chapman understands magic as the art of experiencing truth, and states that there isn't a man, woman, or child on this planet that does not know what magic is. And finally, Tommie Kelly says we recognise it immediately when we see it, or more likely when we feel it occurring around us or when we stumble into its aftermath.
Whether it’s in accordance with one’s will, simply ‘making things happen’, or the personal acknowledgment of mystery, in every definition given, the notion of decision is present. To make a decision is an act of will, a magical fundamental that will come as no surprise to anyone remotely familiar with practice. However, to will–and to decide–is a deeper choice than merely deciding between two options; it is always a moment of being selfish or being moved, drowning out or listening, turning away or leaning in, of being dishonest or honest.
To clarify, let’s use Dion Fortune's definition, that magic is the art and science of causing change in consciousness in accordance with will. In practice, this means you (will) perform (art) some-or-other ritual (science) with the intention of changing something or getting something (change). As mentioned, anyone with a modicum of experience in magic will tell you that if the first part of that equation–the will–isn’t focused, intentful, and more cryptically, honest, then by and large, the rest doesn’t follow.
The question of magic, then–if one both agrees that one, in the words of John Michael Greer, this stuff works! And two, that the primary engine of magic working is the will–is: Why do some magical acts produce change and not others? The answer is that genuine or authentic will require self-knowledge, or put more aptly in the negative, the absence of self-deception. A will that is unfocused or fragmented isn’t necessarily weak; it is more likely that the user of said will is conflicted in terms of what they tell themselves they want versus what they actually want, deep down. Someone caught up in the aforementioned notion of supposed spiritual separation, caught up in noble motives and dogmatic ideals, someone whose will has been co-opted by the self.
The ritual fails–or, in the lesser sense, creates mess and confusion–because the operator is lying to themselves as to uphold an image they think they should have of themselves, their practice, or spirituality in general. Aligned planets, fancy robes, and bespoke candles are great boons to a focused will and great banes to an unfocused one. The symbolic reality of the apparatus of the ritual will carry the drama in the direction gestured, but if the desire is built on false premises, flippant beliefs, and dishonest declarations, then at best, change isn’t coming, and at worst, you’re in for a mess; a confused, dishonest, and fragmented will can only bring about confused, dishonest, and fragmented results. To find clarity, honesty, and equilibrium is, first of all, as per the Delphic maxim known by all magicians, to know thyself. The how of that knowing is, first and foremost, be honest with thyself.
Here, then, is the new definition again:
Magic is honesty.
Or, more mercifully, magic is as much honesty as you can muster!
To be clear, I am not saying that magic and honesty are similar or adjacent in some metaphorically helpful way. They are the same thing. Magic is honesty. If you are not honest with yourself, about yourself, about what you want, who you are, and how you feel, then all magical practice will amount to is something to do while your life continues in its current direction, with the addition of a few incense sticks burning. Magic’s synonymity with honesty isn’t, however, a free pass to conflate oversharing with truth or proactively tell your coworkers some hard truths. This is not an externally focused honesty of energetic attack, but an internally focused honesty of self-immolation; continual, ceaseless, moment-to-moment integrity that allows you to get out of your own way. This work is rarely, if ever, to do with other people. It is to do with you. Your life reflects you!
We know the institutions, the media, and the politicians are liars to such a degree that the default approach to each further lie is simply to shrug, take the social lie onto oneself, and cynically state Yes, we all know they lie, that’s just how life is! We all note lies where they are explicit, dramatic, and wrapped up in entertaining gossip and hypocrisy. We all say How could they! and Not me! and I can’t believe they did that! all the while knowing exactly how they could, feeling we also wouldn’t be able to resist, and not for a second disbelieving any of it. Easy, black and white lies we can frame as the real dishonesty of the world because of the seeming gall of it! Another in a long line of easy red herrings the self loves to yell about, all whilst its own life is filled with tension, unhappiness, and fear.
Because what’s less commonly noted is the dishonesty that has led to the life you’re currently living. The nice version that says fine when asked how things are going, the agreeable version that doesn’t say–and definitely doesn’t admit to–what it wants. The noble self that is part and parcel of the whole game, upholding a version of itself constructed from layer after layer of dishonest rhetoric designed to present a safe and comfortable facade for the sake of safe and comfortable appearances. This self with its equally false spiritual Sunday self, holding onto a smorgasbord of socially presumed moral notions revolving around purity, goodness, and virtue, even though, just underneath the surface, you really do desire all those things you tell yourself you shouldn’t really desire; a pressure mounting between dishonesty and honesty, a tension hellbent on a rupture, resulting in the acquisition of what you want in roundabout and slippery means. As truth doesn’t need a soapbox, whether accepted as is without apology, or wearing a foul garb, the repressed always returns!
There is a tension inside you! A friction like a glowing sizzle running amok about your chest! A knot right there in the abdomen, that every day keeps getting tighter! There is something, someone, or some situation that you are being dishonest about. Someone you can no longer stand to visit, whom you continue to visit. A job that explicitly causes you not to want to get out of bed, yet you do nothing about it! You’re miserable, you’re going to die one day, and you’re worried about keeping up appearances. You have ceased to live, and in doing so have become the undead. What keeps this self going is fear. It’s fear all the way down. The fear of judgment, the fear of social embarrassment, the fear of alienation, the fear of fear, and the root of all fears, the fear of death.
The magical path begins and ever continues with an immolation, a burning away of everything that is blocking us from acceptance.
Magic is honesty, and honesty is a fire.