Self-Mastery in Magic by André Consciência

I read today a conversation in a Facebook group with several answers to the question, “Why is self-mastery essential to success in Magic?” As I reflected, I realized it could make an interesting short article.

The first thing to examine is that the question obviously presupposes self-mastery is essential to success in magic. However, there are a few cases where this is not so: magic can succeed through the creation of phenomena that require little self-mastery. This is the case when entities produce the effects, in certain ecstatic states, in possession, in so-called low magic, etc. Such cases are, however, exactly that: cases. We must instead understand success in magic as success as a magician, which takes place only under the right conditions for success to be stabilized, one of which is undoubtedly self-mastery.

I shall examine the hypotheses given by the community one by one:

One practitioner described focus as something that comes from limitation and constraint.

Unfortunately, I must interpret the answer as a misunderstanding of the word yoga, meaning “to bind”. In yoga, the faculties are bound, but not by limitation; they are bound to each other to overcome the limitations of their separation. Focus comes from overcoming limitations and constraints that block consciousness, will, love, and cognition. Magic develops through one’s expansion, and is the enemy of entropy. Worse yet is mistaking self-mastery for self-suppression. We cannot master a thing by reducing it to nothing, else we master nothing at all.

Another emphasized that without self-mastery, distortion and derailment become almost inevitable.

This cannot be the case. I shall illustrate with Adolf Hitler, a man who came to be derailed by the fantasy of the Caucasian blond (having the Caucasian, in reality, a greater percentage of Neanderthal DNA) as the perfect homo sapiens, to rule all other inferior or impure races. Although we can look at this theory as a mere excuse for crimes against humanity driven by a thirst for power, what is undeniable is that the man was derailed by his distorted visions, whatever they may be, feverish and in mastery of the self, magnetizing millions of followers and almost conquering the planet. Self-mastery cannot prevent derailment and distortion, because derailment and distortion are aspects of the kind of self-mastery that sees nothing beyond itself. Only acute, clean attention to what sits beyond the self can prevent derailment and distortion.

A recurring point was that someone unable to govern themselves cannot govern or direct unseen forces.

The case is dismissed if we consider the success of the sorcerer and the scientist alike. A scientist must govern only his theory; a sorcerer, his technique or superstition; and unseen forces will obey. Any person may fall ill from unwise actions and decisions, but that says nothing about success in magic itself.

Self-mastery was also described as: the magician uses consciousness to concentrate and direct the will toward the invisible world; without internal order and conscious direction, the will loses its effectiveness.

I am reminded of this passage by Omran Mikhael Aivhanov:

“The human being has certain centers in the head through which they may enter into contact with the invisible world. These centers, known by different names in different traditions, are like antennas connecting us to Heaven. When Jesus said, ‘If your eye is pure, your whole body will be filled with light,’ he meant one of these centers.

From a physiological point of view, it is absurd to make the condition of the body dependent upon the condition of the eyes (and, in any case, Jesus did not speak of eyes, but of an eye). This eye, upon which the whole body depends, is the center through which, within us, Heaven touches the earth. It can not only see, but also understand, feel, and even act, for it potentially contains the capacities of all the other organs.”

Here, we return to what yoga actually binds. But to think unconscious will is less effective than conscious will is naïve. Order is also not necessarily more powerful than disorder. Both must have an equal, oscillating power for creation, preservation, and destruction to occur. It is true, however, that conscious will loses effectiveness when there is disorder, and that this kind of conscious will can be crucial to self-mastery in itself. Still, many modalities of magic make effective use of the unconscious and of the creative aspects of chaos.

Another formulation identified self-mastery with the capacity to direct the Will itself: the magician must first be capable of directing Will before attempting to shape subtle forces.

If we understand every sanctioned act as an act of will, even surrender, love, letting go, etc., then this must be true. But the sentence inverts the whole matter. As long as a limited self keeps directing the will, then we are directed towards limitation, and magic works against us. It is Will that must direct the self toward the capacity for self-mastery and to shape subtler forces. The question, then, is more about following Will than having it follow us, unless we mistake Will for every impulse.

Others put the matter more simply: how can one command or influence the forces of nature while unable to command oneself?

Again, by studying and applying craft or science. We can then command both self and Nature.

Self-mastery was also presented as the clearest expression of equilibrium within the Great Work.

Yet self-mastery can sustain imbalance and self-destruction. The case, thus, is not everywhere true.

Finally, another practitioner warned that unresolved weaknesses can pull the magician away from the Great Work, making the magician either ineffective or potentially dangerous to themselves and others. Since magical work also operates through the practitioner, failure to establish inner balance can result in an inversion or disruption of that natural order.

This is true when we avoid treating magic as a series of isolated operations and instead consider it an art of living. It is also true that an integrated weakness is a solved weakness. What fails here is the implied idea that magic cannot resolve weakness when applied in that direction. Self-mastery is an important starting condition for magic, but essential only as a result of it. If this goal is ignored, magic progressively loses ground, lacking a stabilizing principle, and quickly turns to quicksand.

The starting conditions must be thought of moderately though, for if every unresolved weakness is potentially sufficient to interfere, then what qualifies someone at all? Thus, even when we consider the human being as a being composed of elements whose powers must be put into equilibrium, we must also see the stages that compose this equilibrium, such as differentiation, intensification, confrontation, states of dissolution or caused imbalance before alchemy, etc. This, and not the other way around, is the so-called natural order: the pulsion of evolution. The magician works it through something less natural: static equilibrium, whose conjunction with the Uranian and Plutonian powers of evolution and change finally make the magician’s chalice hold not static but ecstatic equilibrium.

Then, although weakness of the human scale distorts the magician and, consequently, the magician distorts magic and makes the work unreliable, by Divine Providence magic also exposes weakness; the weakness enters the process, and both the weakness and the magician are transformed by it toward greater equilibrium and strength. Therefore, this ecstatic equilibrium, and no other, is the point of entry to the Will that directs us to self-mastery and the shaping of subtle forces; it prevents calcification in derailment and distortion; and it finally makes self-mastery an expression of balance.