Spiritual Development in Context of Magic Tradition

Enlightenment, Awakening, and Spiritual Development are buzzwords that individuals frequently use to describe their status, experiences, life goals, and aspirations.

Everyone puts their own corrupt, selfish, and naive meanings in those terms. The sources usually are:

• Profane pseudo-esoteric books
• Scamgong teachers
• Frauds
• Deluded "enlightened" beings
• Peers studying under scamgong masters

The basic human desire is to feel special, important, valuable, and influential, but not to accept reality or develop self.

In Magic Tradition, if we see people use those words to describe themselves and their path, we already know they are probably fakes and fools who have not passed any training in an actual tradition under the guidance of skilled Masters.

We have observed people claiming spiritual development in stretching, sitting, listening to gurus, and even fasting. Next time you see a starving animal on the street, tell the animal that it is a spiritually advanced being moving fast towards enlightenment.

Essentially these "practitioners" are not interested in Magic or self-development; their genuine interest exists in a mumbo-jumbo social cult, usually consisting of circle-jerking activity and positive affirmations. The daily spiritual activity consists of praising themselves, their teachers, and their peers and being happy about it.

We would not be interested in such people being members of our group or students of our school. In Magus Tradition, there is a precise meaning behind the terms.

Awakening means awakening the spirit and true self - taking control over the body and mind and realizing that you are neither of those on a deep level. A practitioner must distinguish here, once realizing that spirit exists and spirit taking control over the body and mind are very different levels. Even so, it is only the first step of any internal arts training in a "genuine" setting, but most "enlightened" beings don't have it. Most "Internal Arts Teachers" we have observed don't have such qualities.

They are animal instinct-driven fools lacking the intelligence and self-awareness to control the body and mind. The daily life of an awakened being would be different from a regular person, as they would not be chasing base desires or caring much about irrelevant things.

We do not use the term awakening as it is only the first step, and an awakened being is only one small step away from the starting point. It is not an attainment or achievement but a necessity if you want to develop yourself.

Spiritual development means the development of the spirit. You cannot develop something you are unaware of, so someone who has not been able to take over control of their life vessel (body) and mind cannot even comprehend that spirit exists. They either think they are purely physical material bodies or closely associated with their personality or ego.

Spiritual Development is the only development that matters, as the spirit can only pass the life and death barrier. Life is short, and there is something you can save through this experience and many things that are passing and impermanent. Fools lose themselves in a trap of accumulating riches, wealth, fame, or even "siddhis." In the process, they get so involved with the life scenario and daily concerns that they lose control and themselves.

But because your spirit passes through life and death, it does not mean you are immortal as long as you understand spirit exists or by default from birth. Same as with awakening, realizing that you are a spirit does not mean you are no longer an ego or a body, nor does it mean that you can freely control your soul. It takes many lifetimes of a very specific complex practice to grow yourself to the depth and power required to obtain immortality of consciousness.

Essentially it comes to a dead end, and many delusional practitioners seek death or death via meditation (mahasamadhi) to claim ascension or ultimate freedom. Many monks commit to a 24-hour-a-day prolonged sitting schedule until their mortal body cannot hold the spirit anymore and withers away with death. Some false schools and traditions glorify escaping suffering that they consider the cycle of rebirth and brag about endless happiness in higher realms through death.

Due to a lack of intellectual development, they cannot comprehend that if they cannot survive in lower realms, there is nothing they can do in higher realms. It is no different from a desire to skip school and the education process and go into adult life, only to understand you have no skills, not even the basic ones, and cannot work or earn yourself a resource to survive. For people for whom existence itself is suffering and they wish to cease to exist, I can only say one thing. Weak minds are not welcome in cultivation or any internal circles.

Enlightenment comes from the word light, another term ancients used to describe the soul (monad, spirit). But the actual process is more about darkness. Working with the internal darkness and shedding qliphoths is a lengthy process. In this process, the soul grows in power and quality.

The soul is like a core program or source code; the body is the vessel, and the soul needs the body to express itself and gain experience; that is why reincarnation occurs. Life is an opportunity to gain experience and develop/improve the spirit through cultivation, but most people don't use it, nor are they even aware of the spirit. The vast majority are stuck inside a life dream in an induced ego delusion, looking for some pleasure sensations to brighten the mood, having little control over self, and unable to do even the most straightforward practices. Therefore, weak souls keep reincarnating and suffering in samsara meaninglessly until it either grows up and evolve or get forever discarded as a waste product. It won't matter how much money, fame, wealth, or physical ability someone accumulates in this life, as it will all be lost, and nothing can be preserved.

The path of Magus is the path of gaining experience and energies that nurture the soul. Exactly what it requires to grow and develop. Magus's path is a path of Wisdom, accumulating spiritual values and power that allows the spirit to be in control and transcend life and death barriers.

We know that religions are firmly against Magic, as much as praying to other gods. From this, there's a misconception and prejudice about it. Essentially, the saying goes that performing Magic is a sin and cheating and should be reserved only for God. Only God is allowed to use it and perform miracles, and so on.

The ancient religious leaders and text writers were wary of competitors, and Mages were such a force back then (no one knows whether they were real or not). Church leaders did not want the populace to use their services since it meant fewer donations for the leaders of religion. Therefore, witchcraft and Magic were to be eradicated.

While Magic claims to work similarly to an exact science and reproduce results reliably, where is the personal spiritual growth here? In order to access the world of Magic and influence the creation, there's a key element to it: the coachman-reins-horse principle. The spirit controls the body through electrical signals in the nervous system. Similarly, a Magus affects world events by creating distortions in the mental fields of the Earth and by inception.

It's not possible to claim "enlightenment" or "awakening" in Magic. The New Age followers describe their breakthroughs in understanding spiritual development with those buzzwords. In Magic, you record actual achievements or siddhi and replicate them. If you can reliably replicate your skills and acquire a certain number of them, you may be considered Magus. There's no initiation or enlightenment ritual; it results from practice. Generally, a Magus is someone who possesses enough power to influence external events/objects or people via the use of spiritual force. Would a neigong practitioner who acquired telekinesis be considered Magus? It's a tricky question; while the chi a Neigong master uses is not purely spiritual, the means to acquire chi may have involved spiritual work, such as meditation, so the term sometimes may be used with a degree of looseness.

The problem with Magic is the lack of a source of power and the inability to find it. There have been many attempts to describe and investigate the world's governing forces and write grimoires about how to summon spirits. For example, in the book of Abramelin the Mage, you can try and call the spirits to do various things for you. But you can only access the source if you have a certain internal power developed in you. Therefore, we'd like to pay more attention to internal methods that help build your sea of consciousness. The actual growth of your sea of consciousness is the process of spiritual development. Therefore, there's no point in learning Buddhist rules or ethics; they will come about by themselves as you grow your presence in the spirit world.

You can't become ethical or spiritual by performing good deeds and following the rules; those are the consequences of your development. Similarly, dressing as a Taoist won't make you a Taoist. The ethics code and moral code of conduct are reserved for someone with great powers; if you don't have them, there's no reason to adhere to the code.

The ability to obtain information remotely, either from physical or astral/mental worlds, is called clairvoyance. During the spiritual journey, a Magus will acquire this information accidentally or spontaneously. Often, communication may come during sleep, when the consciousness is out of the physical body and traveling in other worlds. Clairvoyance is a skill that comes naturally without special training.

When a Magus advances to higher ranks by developing his skills, it's not uncommon to become more integrated with the world. It occurs because Magus is more aware of what happens in the world and what forces are at play. You could compare a Magus with a President, someone with more connections than anyone else. In the case of Magus, the connections and interactions are on higher spiritual levels.

Usually, the development in Magic occurs much better if you have developed intelligence. Intelligence is a part of the sea of consciousness, where the logical mind prevails. By knowing science, you know the limits of this world, state of the art.

By handling science and mathematics, your logical mind is sharp and able to discern real from illusion. It's also important to understand how to conduct DoE and use statistical methods to understand whether your experiments work. A weak and untrained logical mind falls into the trap of its illusions and cognitive bias. It's a very dangerous path that may lead to wasted years in delusion.

Magic is not free lunch. Laws of conservation of energy work here as well; you can't create something from nothing. You will need to figure out where the energy comes from and whether it's enough to do the work.

While engaging in Magical practices, a practitioner is most likely to keep engaging with society and live among others. However, due to significant differences between a Magus and normal people, it's important to maintain a level of engagement that won't negatively affect a practicing Magus. Some choose reclusion from society altogether, but generally, it is unnecessary and may be required only for certain practices.

At the core, a motivation of a human being is very simple. Over thousands of years of the existence of the human race, any person is hardwired for survival. Therefore, the main motivation of a human is to survive the next day. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a good example of human motivation. Humans are driven by need, greed, and desire. Egos and prejudices largely drive people in more developed strata, such as in expensive cities. One of the key components is the need to gather resources. Magus, on the other hand, is driven by curiosity, exploration, and understanding. The resources are meant not just for survival; they are tools for development.

For a beginner practitioner, keeping a social circle is important, but divulging others in your work is not necessary. Excessively indulging in human vices can be detrimental to your path and is not recommended.

There is a lot of misconception and a lack of understanding of spiritual paths. Some paths lead straight to a dead end. In more twisted examples, the goal is to kill you but glorify it as a spiritual attainment or ascension.

Magus's path is challenging but interesting; Cultivation can be fun and fascinating; with each step, there is more to learn and uncover as you dig in further. Researching and exploring the unknown is a great experience nourishing the spirit.