Magic and Shamanism - Reflections.
It is remarkable, how uninformed most of the people I talk with are,
concerning the different currents within modern magic. I hear from shamans,
that exercising magic is 'infernal stuff' and 'diabolical', or at least
black magic. At once the stereotype pictures of the church are provoked
about satanic masses and human sacrifice. For me this is completely contradictionary:
on one hand trying to find yourself and your roots in shamanism, which
is apparently trendy at the moment, and on the other hand, to ignore or
even refuse to accept the magical traditions (which are, in the end, shamanic),
which are right in front of our faces.
It is neccessary at this point, to make a difference between the magical
and religious lines of thoughts. Wicca, paganism or the anthroposophical
directions are of religious or mystical nature even if they contain some
magic elements. Reiki and other energetical ways show, after a close analyses
of their technics, a part of shamanic work - the controling of energies, the contacting
of the non-ordinary reality (nowadays called 'channeling' some sticky anglicism in german) or the
divination. The problem here is, that these ways often come with a strong
dogma, which makes a free and unprejudiced approach to other lines of thougt
very hard. A magical path is only as good as the human who walks it.
The separation between shamanism and magic is artificial. It happend
subconsciously at the time, the term shamanism was intruduced by Harner
and Castaneda and mutated to a fashionable trend. That this separation
is in the best of cases a supression of obvious facts should be clear to
anyone, who is seriously studying the shamanistc phenomenon in this world,
with the help of the accessible ethnological literature or living shamans.
Within the general consciousness and knowledge magic has still got
an aura of forbiddeness and blackmagic. This may be caused partly
by the almost natural restraint of groups that work with magic to come
out in public (it is impossible to make a difference here wether
they restrain themselfs because of the totally wrong picture that is existing
about magic, or wether it is the other way around). There have been a lot
of good attempts the last decades, to make the pragmatic magic more
accesible to public, but it seems, that this attempts ended with only little
partial sucesses. There are excellent publications about the practical
magic and at the end of this article I will add a small list of literature,
which will contain a few very interesting magical publications.
In the middle of the 90‘s I found out real fast, how difficult it is,
to make the difference between magical and shamanistic lines of thought.
I came to the conclusion, that within the shamanistic methods there are
a lot more magical elements, as there is in gerneral admitted and assumed.
A wide spread element of shamanism is, to get information through contact
and with the help of entities of the nonordinary reality and
to use those informations in everyday life (rituals, lifeaid, healing...).
The shaman does not have to have any special skills except the ability
to establish this contact. In contrary there is the magical thought, based
on experiences and the will to use a ritual for personal use. It depends
on the dogma of the magician, to what extent moral parameters play part
in it. To say it simple, the shaman asks the spirits for help to solve
a problem, the magician tends to trust his own experience and knowledge.
These are two extrem opposite poles. In real usage, the shaman values the
information he is getting and compares them with past experiences, while
the magician very often gets himself detailed information from the entities
about, for example, evocation.
The current terminology differenciates the modern shaman and the hermetic magician
as follows: the shaman uses his abilities to make his knowledge
of the invisible reality accessible to his society, while the magicians
aim is to find his own divine nature, to develop it, to realize it and
to live it. Another, not to be ignored area is, to make everyday life easier
with magical means - the socalled lower or primitive magic (which
also has the worst reputation, even in some magic circles).
The most imortant part of the high magic
is the illumination, the realization of the god within us.. Magicians are,
if they are members of a magic lodge, always initiated by the lodge. Before
the initiation stands a apprenticeship which length differs, depending
on the paradigm the lodge stands for. The magical systems of theories give
us different modells of explanation and matrixes of the nonordinary reality.
A famous example of such a matrix is the tree of life of the Qabalah.
It is possible, to develop your magical character without any personal
contact to a experienced magician, but this is a very hard way and even
with the accessible literature about magical knowledge, it still bears
uncalculateable risks. However, if if one attends a basic seminar about shamanistic
work and learns the fundamental shamanic technics, the danger can be neglected
for the time being. It stays insignificant, as long as the shamanic student
moves within the familiar frame. The poweranimal and the spirit-teacher
are very strong protection authorities and are more than enough within
the norm. Both authorities are important contacts for spiritual questions
or to help with the everyday problems. Since the nonordinary reality
is within itself the best source for own rituals, someone who does shamanic
work will hardly get the idea to do a magical ritual, that he didn’t develop
himself. Usually shamanic rituals, which have been received by the spirits
have a magical nature, which shows the absurdity of the opinions,
mentioned at the beginning.
The nonordinary reality is initiating the shaman, or not. In our culture
especially this important part of shamanism is not consciously embodied
anymore, which leads to the fact that people, who are in an initiatiory
crisis often are not able to realize it or to deal with it. This is not
the same anywhere and for everyone. In the traditional cultures there are
years of studying, with focus on the teaching of the mythological matrix,
which is enabling the shaman to find his orientation in the nonordinary
reality and also enables him to give a correct interpretation of the information
he is getting from there. Further subjects are in the magical area, for example, to
throw back magic, how to regognize magic, the different classification
of the spirits, Rituals as well as the usage of shamanic attributes like
healing herbs ....
Some cultures however refrain in the whole from education over years
and expect from the Shaman after his calling, that he gets the required
information himself from the nonordinary reality, without any dogmatic
crutches (it seems that in such cultures the entities are much more charged
up with vital force as in such cultures, which reenforce the education through an older
Shaman). The Shaman is always also a magician and a sorcerer. For a lot
of small problems it is enough to use magical knowledge, the so-called
lower- or sucessmagic. The high magic is only seemingly not present within
shamanism. The high magic becomes manifest within shamanism in the course
of years of shamanistic practice, but it not to the decleared aim of
the Shaman (which is in fact, more practical oriented).
The lecture of Castanedas works on shamanism reveal yet a completely
different picture of shamans.
There are two Problems in modern Shamanism: Since it is has been revived
in our culture since only very short time, the shamanic experiences are very much
heterogeneous. The practical shamanism is individually marked
by the single Shaman. Even that this is a fact, there are always authors
who want to sell THEIR way as the only true one - which is the other problem.
As I look at the targetgroup of such books - the Shamanist - this sales
stragegy can cause great damage. Very often I receive letters from people,
who, after reading such books, got a very narrow impression of shamanism,
such as of the respective plastique-shaman. After the lecture their opinion is, that
all Shamans must fit into this pattern. Religious elements of other cultures
(particularly those of the indians) are mixed in, which occasionally have
strict dogmatic demands (even at the FSS, analyzing Harners book this can
be observed). Peculiar are the flowers which are brought out by the plant
of esotericism and sometimes it is dubious, whats behind it. As soon
as an author wants to use shamanism in our culture to make a living from
it, he gets under a strong pressure of sucess, which will lead to mistakes.
These mistakes can result in a inflationary ego (one symptom is that this
person lacks grounding) and can even harm a client. Timeo danaos et dona
ferentes - Money and spirituality are not naturally antithetical, but it
should stay within healthy proportions.
In our culture exists a magical tradition since many hundreds of years,
wich developed itself out of branches of the practical alchemy and
the theoretical and practical Qabalah, with underlying influences of the
old druid tradition, which got pushed in the Underground in the 10th and
11th century to make room for the christian paradigm. The roots of todays
traditional and ceremonial magic go even further back in time and reach
back over Greece to Palaestine, Egypt, Persia and last but not least to Africa. Kenneth Grant
found a way in his book about the typhonian magic "Cults of the
Shadow" to show the parallels between the hebrew Qabalah and the fetishcults
of the westafrican coast. Also the roots of the hawaiian Huna go back to
Africa (Max Long: "Secret Knowledge behind Miracles"). However magic, wich
was not acting within the biblical allowed frame, was infernal stuff to
the brainwashed christians of the middle-ages and even nowadays and
its practicians were sought after with great vehemence. The "Malleus Maleficiarium" is a very
depressing record out of the time of the witch-hunt. Active magicians where
forced to hide and work in secrecy. In hard to understandable Grimoires
those magicians tried to preserve their knowledge for the future generations.
They had to encrypt their wirtings to keep from beeing burned at the stake
- which did not always work. The most known works of this time are: Clavus
Solomonis, The Lemegeton, the Grimoire Armadel, the Sepher Jetzirah,
the Sepher Rezial, the Liber Juratus and The Holy Magic of Abramelin.
At the same time, the alchemical tradition, who is dealing with the development
of the alchemist as well as the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone,
had to fight almost the same problems. The alchemists where a little better
accepted as the magicians. For many rulers in the medieaval times the possibility
of changing base metal into gold was a better alternative than burning
the alchemists on the stake (which they did after all, if they proofed
to be incompetent). At last, Agrippa von Nettesheim attempted the risky
experiment of putting the magical knowledge of his time into a system.
His works almost proofed to be fatal to him, he had to espace to another
country. He revoluzionized the practical magic and gave a useful base to
it. Almost during the same timeperiod, Paracelsus wrote fundamentals about
pharmacology and homeopathy. However, up until now, there have always been
sickening deformities of the dualistic christian thinking like the admiration
of the devil and the mockery of the christian rituals. The distortion and
degeneration of some traditional magical arts added to it, with the result
of many small magic books, which where born out of obsessive phantasies,
and which are of no real use at all. In times of victorian England
the enochian system was discovered (or better: revealed),
which was dictated to the royal mathematician John Dee through the medium
Edward Kelley. Only due to some coincidences it was preserved over the centuries.
The macical traditions to be activated and elaborated later by the Order of
the Golden Dawn.
The history of magic in Europe is spread very widly, due to a lot of
undercurrents (various mystical and magical lodges) as well
as many single persons (like Meister Eckehardt,
Eliphas Levi, Alister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, Franz Bardon, Rah Omir
Quintscher, Pascal Beverly Randolph, Mesmer, Gregorius, Pete Caroll a.o.)
who gave the modern magic their own personal imprints.
As mentioned above, the modern shamanistic currents has one disadvantage
(wich is, after a closer look, an advantage). There are nearly none whatsoever
traditions, which deal with shamanistic work in Europe - magic took it‘s
place, or better: whats been left of it. The knowledge of the runes has been
revived not to long ago, without the negative touch of the Nazi-past. Shamanism
got to be realy known through the New Age wave, whereas there are a lot
more shamanistic working people than Shamans. Shamanistics are people,
who study shamanistic technics to be able to heal themselfs or to find
another way to cope with their enviroment, or they ask for the help of
a Shaman. They work (if they do) for their own sake and not for a client.
Very often the thrill of something new is gone quickly and they find themselfes
a new area of interest, esotericism has lots to offer. But the ones who
stick with it and have done years of shamanic work, are the most individual
people I have met so far. They travel trough the nonordinary reality in their
own personal mythology and accomplish a lot more than many magicians I met so far.
The mistakes and experiences which are made over
the years create this new person. The missing of a tradition is a chance
to find new and unknown ways. It is understandable, that this modern shamanic
way has its own dangers after all, wich don’t exist in the traditional magic
and the traditional shamanism. This source of danger can be limited, if
the shamanic interested person also studies the magical currents of the
modern age. For example, Frater V.D. explains in his course for practical
magic (not available in english) a lot of basics and associations which can be of great help to a
shaman. Actually the term 'Shaman' should be substituted by the term 'Zauberer' (in german speaking countries),
because the term 'Zauberer' has ist roots in the german language, in contrary
to the term 'Shaman'. The occupation with magical knowledge gives the interested
person a way to a better understanding of the inner system of a shamanic
ritual. A well balanced proportion between the teachings of the spirits
and the knowledge of traditional magic, free of any dogmatic ballast,
opens new horizons to the shamanic working person (magical literature should
always been read with intellect and a clear mind, never without).
There are several magical works on the book market, wich are of a highly
practical use. Most authors naturally have their own dogma. To gain the
best use out of these works one should realise, that faith (or conviction)
is a tool. A chaosmagic principle says: Maybe there are no absloute truths.
The following works should be read with this princible in mind.
Frater V.D.: Kursus der praktischen Magie - Modul 1-3, Edition Magus
This is the most complete excisiting course on practical magic I know. A little
bit expensive, but it is worth it. Even if this course is not the ultimate
wisdom, it is very close to it.
Franz Bardon: Der Weg des wahren Adepten, Die magische Evokation, Die
wahre Kabbalah
Bardon is highly recommended. Whats missing at V.D., it is found here.
Bardon uses a step-by-step plan, wich makes sense for beginners. The advanced
ones will find will find out quickly, that they already know al lot about
the higher steps - which shows the virtuality of this step-by-step plan
by Bardon. The magical evocation explicitly deals with the invocation of
most planetary entities. The subjects Bardon writes about in his third
book are also practical easy to understand, although it is necessary for
this book, to already have a certain degree of magical maturity.
Nicholas Hall: Chaos & Hexenzauber, Bohmeier Verlag
A magician out of the chaoscurrent, whose theories of the sucsessmagic are highly interesting,
because Hall knows how to stimulate the imagination of the reader and helps
him to find individuall ways to realisation.
Pete Carrol: Liber Null & Psychonaut.
The standard work to comprehend the logic of chaos magic and one of its magical emanations: The Illuminates of
Thanatheros.
Max F. Long: Secret Science behind Miracles.
The one who reads Max Long, throughs Serge Kahili King’s works in the
next corner. Longs work ist written highly intensiv and deals with the
magic of Huna a lot more extensivly and authenticaly, than King ever managed
to do. Vicious tounges say, King copied from Long ?. Max Longs earning
is, to have analysed in detail the system of the Huna. A must for practical
thinking persons.
Max F. Long: The Secret Science at Work
This second work in German language deals with the Huna-magic a lot
more pragmatically than the first one. Exercises and technics develop the
proportion between the middle and lower self - and the contact with the
higher self. Very good!
Austin Osman Spare: Anything you can lay your hands on!
Those who think, the Long’s Hunasystem is only located in Hawaii, are
completly wrong. Spare’s magical system leads to the presumtion, that there
must have been a similar tradition in Europe. There are obvious parallels
between Long and Spare and both systems are extremly efficient. Even that
Spare is very hard to read.
Jan Fries: Visual Magic, Helrunar und Seidhways
Yeah, when it comes to creativeness and inventiveness, Fries is the unbeaten
top of the group. Freestyle shamanism of the best and refreshing new ideas!
Unfortunally Seidhways is only available in English. The only practical
work about the european shamanic way.
I listed only a few works here, there are many other interesting authors
- unfortunally they are very hard to come by. I only want to mention Quintschers
works, which contain effectful and well-rounded instructions. However,
Quintscher is not available in the bookstores and it seems, that nothing
happens to change this situation.
© 2001 by Aufsteigender Adler |
