Thank you Ellie. This is a rich seam for you. Of course I can not comment on the Witchy element, but Shakespeare is clear about the Magician in The Tempest with Prospero and those final lines of his about the need for prayer that ‘assaults Mercy itself’. These, the last words Shakespeare wrote for the stage! There seems from my experience that the work to still the mind is important and then the heart opens. The ego is a tricky thing and the Sanskrit Ahankara a more subtle definition. Once the heart is open the divine then seems to enter the being and a sense of an individual self dissolves which moves to a non-dual experience. Impossible to describe. But I don’t think we can control anything, we then become like that Yezidi who draws a magic circle around itself and controls all in that tight circle but can not step out into a larger reality.
Thank you for this, David, and as ever for your generous read. Yes -- Prospero is a great exploration of all this. Have you read Cynthia Bourgeault's Eye of the Heart? Lots of resonance with what you're saying here, particularly in that she repeatedly returns to the image of Prospero's castle as a nexus of potential meanings around divine and human powers and the right reckoning of them.
"Because the moment you approach that Reality with your own agenda, you project yourself onto it, and thus manipulate it, twist it, force its deeper mysteries to hide from you."
The above quote is quite simply my spiritual beacon right now. Our entire life is one of perception. And 'what' we perceive is formed from our parental / carers influences, our 'Education' (Indoctrination), social / cultural environment and later as 'fully formed adults' from those things we believe (as well as our unconscious Shadow projections). This is our "Lens".
I interact with people who during guided meditations persistently report going on journeys where they meet and communicate with Archangels, Irish tribal spirits, Odin, Dragons etc without the awareness to realise that the literature they consume is replete with such images and yet see little to no connection between the former action and the latter experience. And its tolerated in a way which would be absent should a sitter report having had a chat with Christ, or Buddha or some other significant spiritual or religious avatar.
Thanks for taking the time to write these pieces - they are inspiring me do the same.
Thank you so much for this. I think about this a lot too — the tremendous responsibility that comes with realizing that consciousness precedes matter. I think about it particularly in the context of those early colonialists from countries like my own, traveling to communities that were still living in their indigenous traditions and projecting “savagery” onto them — because their own mode of being was so savage that they saw violence everywhere.
Fascinating post Ellie. The distinction between magic and mystic, based on will and human desires for control, is very helpful. It reminds me of a fabulous short story by Ben Okri in Short stories for Apocalypse. I can’t recall the title but it addresses similar concerns to you
Thank you so much for sharing this, Terri! I didn't know about this collection but I'm going to seek it out. And thank you so much for your generous reading.
Another smasher of a post, thank you! I used to have this discussion about will vs mysticism with a friend who'd studied the Occult Arts both academically and...informally! All I know is a lot of the Old Tales warn there's always a price to be paid for working the ethereal realms for what you think you want or need, and as such I share your concerns. A teacher who taught how to use inner vision for tracking, warned me that when used for looking at your own future, something strange (not in a good way) happens. I personally would rather align with something wiser and brigher than me. That said, I think there is something to be said for healers that can walk between the realms, but that's not quite the same as using your magical will to get the house/partner/job you want. Also, the only real Shaman I think I've ever met, said, sometimes, it's not about healing the patient, physically.
However, if 'Witch' isnt someone 'manifesting' the 'perfect life' by buying talismans on etsy, but someone who can work with natural forces as allies to ease and guide the way, rather than control it, I still think it's a title to be reclaimed.
This actually reminds me the picture by William Blake, Glad Day. When I did a close read of it I realised it was a depiction of balance between the active and passive, magical-mystical stance. Like maybe it's both, not either- or.
I love this reading of Glad Day! And yes, I definitely think this is an infinitely nuanced question and that there's a place for those whose access to the otherworld is particularly strong, to put that access to use. I suppose for me it's a question of who's guiding it all. Now that I think of it, I reckon one of our best writers on all this is Ursula Le Guin. She returned to this theme of the responsible use of greater-than-human power time and again.
Sure, we like to divide it up, dissect it. We make our little pieces of reality, trying to understand our place. That’s like dissecting an animal to learn about life.
Doesn’t work.
A mystic has greater awareness. A brighter light to pierce the dark. We’re all mystics in the making.
The great mystery is another name for the Reality beyond our level of awareness.
Rumi said “We are not drops in an ocean. We are oceans in a drop.”
Yes! I totally agree -- there's only one Reality (but that one Reality holds infinite valencies and possibilities). I think the distinguishing factor between the mystic and the magician is the attitude in which they approach that Reality.
all great points, although i'm not sure if the distinction between "magic" and "mysticism" is helpful beyond a certain point. many people would probably say that distinction already exists within magic itself, between theurgy and thaumaturgy.
ultimately, i think a lot of the discomfort comes from not fully reckoning with the extent to which our thinking (in the English-speaking world) has been colored by Christianity's unique brand of ontological dualism. from a non-dualist perspective—if we are the embodiment of Divinity, then we are co-creating the cosmos. there is no Supreme Will to thwart or subvert. we aren't full-fledged gods ourselves, and shouldn't act like it, but we also shouldn't shy away from using the powers we have to shape and explore the world in which we find ourselves. maybe "magic" is just the same force applied with a little more agency, in certain circumstances, applied to our subjective experience of reality—but then we can also switch into a higher awareness and let the larger force of Divinity work through us, instead of us doing the working. both/and, not either/or, depending on circumstances here in the present world, which is up to us as embodied beings—the ones with our feet on the ground—to interpret and respond to.
Thank you Ellie. This is a rich seam for you. Of course I can not comment on the Witchy element, but Shakespeare is clear about the Magician in The Tempest with Prospero and those final lines of his about the need for prayer that ‘assaults Mercy itself’. These, the last words Shakespeare wrote for the stage! There seems from my experience that the work to still the mind is important and then the heart opens. The ego is a tricky thing and the Sanskrit Ahankara a more subtle definition. Once the heart is open the divine then seems to enter the being and a sense of an individual self dissolves which moves to a non-dual experience. Impossible to describe. But I don’t think we can control anything, we then become like that Yezidi who draws a magic circle around itself and controls all in that tight circle but can not step out into a larger reality.
Thank you for this, David, and as ever for your generous read. Yes -- Prospero is a great exploration of all this. Have you read Cynthia Bourgeault's Eye of the Heart? Lots of resonance with what you're saying here, particularly in that she repeatedly returns to the image of Prospero's castle as a nexus of potential meanings around divine and human powers and the right reckoning of them.
This quote:
"Because the moment you approach that Reality with your own agenda, you project yourself onto it, and thus manipulate it, twist it, force its deeper mysteries to hide from you."
The above quote is quite simply my spiritual beacon right now. Our entire life is one of perception. And 'what' we perceive is formed from our parental / carers influences, our 'Education' (Indoctrination), social / cultural environment and later as 'fully formed adults' from those things we believe (as well as our unconscious Shadow projections). This is our "Lens".
I interact with people who during guided meditations persistently report going on journeys where they meet and communicate with Archangels, Irish tribal spirits, Odin, Dragons etc without the awareness to realise that the literature they consume is replete with such images and yet see little to no connection between the former action and the latter experience. And its tolerated in a way which would be absent should a sitter report having had a chat with Christ, or Buddha or some other significant spiritual or religious avatar.
Thanks for taking the time to write these pieces - they are inspiring me do the same.
Thank you so much for this. I think about this a lot too — the tremendous responsibility that comes with realizing that consciousness precedes matter. I think about it particularly in the context of those early colonialists from countries like my own, traveling to communities that were still living in their indigenous traditions and projecting “savagery” onto them — because their own mode of being was so savage that they saw violence everywhere.
Fascinating post Ellie. The distinction between magic and mystic, based on will and human desires for control, is very helpful. It reminds me of a fabulous short story by Ben Okri in Short stories for Apocalypse. I can’t recall the title but it addresses similar concerns to you
https://emergencemagazine.org/print/short-stories-of-apocalypse/
Thank you so much for sharing this, Terri! I didn't know about this collection but I'm going to seek it out. And thank you so much for your generous reading.
Another smasher of a post, thank you! I used to have this discussion about will vs mysticism with a friend who'd studied the Occult Arts both academically and...informally! All I know is a lot of the Old Tales warn there's always a price to be paid for working the ethereal realms for what you think you want or need, and as such I share your concerns. A teacher who taught how to use inner vision for tracking, warned me that when used for looking at your own future, something strange (not in a good way) happens. I personally would rather align with something wiser and brigher than me. That said, I think there is something to be said for healers that can walk between the realms, but that's not quite the same as using your magical will to get the house/partner/job you want. Also, the only real Shaman I think I've ever met, said, sometimes, it's not about healing the patient, physically.
However, if 'Witch' isnt someone 'manifesting' the 'perfect life' by buying talismans on etsy, but someone who can work with natural forces as allies to ease and guide the way, rather than control it, I still think it's a title to be reclaimed.
This actually reminds me the picture by William Blake, Glad Day. When I did a close read of it I realised it was a depiction of balance between the active and passive, magical-mystical stance. Like maybe it's both, not either- or.
I love this reading of Glad Day! And yes, I definitely think this is an infinitely nuanced question and that there's a place for those whose access to the otherworld is particularly strong, to put that access to use. I suppose for me it's a question of who's guiding it all. Now that I think of it, I reckon one of our best writers on all this is Ursula Le Guin. She returned to this theme of the responsible use of greater-than-human power time and again.
What if there is only one capital R Reality?
Sure, we like to divide it up, dissect it. We make our little pieces of reality, trying to understand our place. That’s like dissecting an animal to learn about life.
Doesn’t work.
A mystic has greater awareness. A brighter light to pierce the dark. We’re all mystics in the making.
The great mystery is another name for the Reality beyond our level of awareness.
Rumi said “We are not drops in an ocean. We are oceans in a drop.”
Time to swim.
Yes! I totally agree -- there's only one Reality (but that one Reality holds infinite valencies and possibilities). I think the distinguishing factor between the mystic and the magician is the attitude in which they approach that Reality.
all great points, although i'm not sure if the distinction between "magic" and "mysticism" is helpful beyond a certain point. many people would probably say that distinction already exists within magic itself, between theurgy and thaumaturgy.
ultimately, i think a lot of the discomfort comes from not fully reckoning with the extent to which our thinking (in the English-speaking world) has been colored by Christianity's unique brand of ontological dualism. from a non-dualist perspective—if we are the embodiment of Divinity, then we are co-creating the cosmos. there is no Supreme Will to thwart or subvert. we aren't full-fledged gods ourselves, and shouldn't act like it, but we also shouldn't shy away from using the powers we have to shape and explore the world in which we find ourselves. maybe "magic" is just the same force applied with a little more agency, in certain circumstances, applied to our subjective experience of reality—but then we can also switch into a higher awareness and let the larger force of Divinity work through us, instead of us doing the working. both/and, not either/or, depending on circumstances here in the present world, which is up to us as embodied beings—the ones with our feet on the ground—to interpret and respond to.