When Spirits become Apps.
Last night I gave the second of my Arcane Audio Webinars, this one was on Advanced Financial Sorcery. During the Q and A I described a period of my life when, because of my lack of degree, my moving further from the cities, and the general decline of the economy, my day jobs were spiraling into positions that paid less and less for doing work that I felt no excitement for. I described how to re-shuffle the cards you are dealt and the need to keep your head up so you can find a new way of looking at the situation. One of the students, facing a similar situation now, asked “Which god do you go to for that?”
This is a question that I get asked a LOT. “What God do I pray to for that?”
The Gods and Spirits have become like apps on your smartphone.
Want to feel clearer? There’s a God for that….
The funny thing is that very often these folks have gone to dozens of dieties and spirits already. Bune, Jupiter, Tzadkiel, Odin, Dzambhala, Habondia…. They keep asking different spirits to support the same thing and when they don’t get it they move on. Because if they just hit up the right one they are sure that it is all going to work out.
There are three pieces of advice that I want to share about this:
1. The problem is most often not who you are asking for help; it’s what you are asking for. If your business model sucks ass the gods are not going to suddenly make everyone love your product. If you have a crappy resume, the gods are not going to land you a job at Ernst and Young. If you look like an unmade bed and smell like you bathe in Axe body spray and Yak Sweat the Spirits are not going to get you laid consistently. This is why I am always stressing magic being linked to new and more skillful actions.
2. Your own mind is part of the problem. Stop always looking outside for your solution and look in the mirror instead. Stop asking the spirits to lift you up – lift yourself up. Stop asking the gods for clarity, start working on your own mind. There is nothing that you know that is not filtered through your own mind. This is why I am always stressing meditation and mind training. I will be doing even moreso in the future as I prepare for my next big book.
3. Finding the right spirit is not as important as deepening the relationships you have already. I am not saying that you should limit yourself, or not know many spirits, but people get really caught up the these tables of correspondence. If you have a deep relationship with Aphrodite, maybe you would do better asking her to drive customers your way instead of turning to Helios or Zeus.
These three pieces of advice really represent the three things that Strategic Sorcery attempts to combine:
1. Mind Training
2. Skillful Living
3. Sorcery
I tend to view these as overlapping circles, with Strategic Sorcery being squarely in the center of the three. But in a way there is also an order of importance here, and I list them above in that order.
If you have a clear compassionate and strong mind, you WILL be happy no matter what because your joy is based on something beyond outer circumstance. The other two are nothing without a clear mind.
If you have a clear, and strong mind, that is firmly anchored in its primordial nature you can shape your life through skillful living to reflect this. Your actions will be like the rays of the sun carrying the warmth of your Gnosis into the world. As far as I am concerned while Sorcery works without this, it does not amount to much.
Sorcery, that has a clear mind and skillful life to work within is like catalyst added to a chemical reaction. It can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, its effect rippling upwards and outwards into the Mind and Life.
