Whole Magic Part 2: Research vs Revelation
An Ancient Conversation…
Amdo Tibet, circa 1618. A conversation between a Gelugpa Lama who stresses the importance of Tantras that come from India and a Nyingma Lama, who embraces Terma – hidden treasures – thought to be left or communicated directly by the lineage founder Padmasambhava. It might have gone something like this….
Gelugpa Lama: “Dude, do even research? There is nothing in Indian scriptures to support that!”
Nyingmapa: “Whatev’s fucker! Padmasambhava appeared to the Terton in rainbow light and said ‘go write this shit down, its new and cutting edge shit for today, not that old-skool stank.”
Gelugpa: “Real stuff is old and time tested from the ancient scriptures, not some shit some thom-yor ngakpa* made up last week claiming “a spirit told him“.
Nyingmapa: “NO. Your tired-ass scriptures are so far removed from the source that THEY are what’s inauthentic. Have you never played the Telephone game? Your scripture has been passed through generations of people fucking it up along the way – a nice fresh terma is like Guru Rinpoche calling you up on the phone himself and saying “sup dawg…” Short lineage wins Homey! ”
Gelugpa: “You just don’t like to study and do the hard work. You just wanna have sex in the temple all day.
Nyingmapa: “I DO want to have sex in the temple all day, but I also want to learn from the source – not just value something because its old…”
Gelugpa: “Ugh…Do Research!”
Nyingmapa: “Receive Revelation!”
Does this sound familiar? I can easily picture our Gelugpa Scholar as a Solomonic magician bitching about people that don’t follow the script or do magic based on newer processes. I can just as easily see the Nyingma Ngakpa as some wingnut claiming that “what the spirits tell me is all that matters”. The scripture based magus never bothers to ask what the book, or even the living tradition got wrong. The spirit based sorcerer never bothers to doubt their own gnosis, often no more than a brain-fart, even slightly.
My point in illustrating this through a dialogue between Gelugpa and Nyingmapa Buddhists in Tibet 400 years ago is simply to illustrate that this is not a new problem.
Research vs Revelation
Revelation and research both play an important part in my personal practice, and in my teachings. Making them work together is not a matter of jumping to whichever justifies what I want to do at the moment, nor in some half-assed attempt to make them conform to one another though. You need to respect each for what it is, and keep them in harmony without corrupting either. Before we go that though, lets define terms for this post…
RESEARCH: For this post let’s include not only texts that can be researched, but also living traditions that present a set practice that can be studied and adhered to conservatively. Under this heading we can also include the general bias for old vs. new – the older it is, the better, truer, or closer to “right” it must be. For those that veer towards this extreme there is a built-in skepticism is anything new
REVELATION: For purposes of this post I am including not only communications from spirits and mystical vision, but innovations and outright inventions of modern practitioners. We can also here say that there is a general concept of new being better, or at least more relevant, than old. The newer it is, the more direct the connection to spirit and the more applicable it is to the time and place we live. For those that veer towards this extreme there is a dismissal of anything traditional as superstitious, overly burdened with dogma, or outright irrelevant.
Over the 15 years it took to put together the Sorcery of Hekate Course, the issue of revelation vs research was ever present, and I occasionally get push back from students who either are invested in trying to adhere to whatever vision of Hekate they have cobbled together from whatever period in the past they are invested in. These folks would rather focus on obsessing over how Greeks did it in the heyday than how they can manage it today. This is a mistake because your neighbors will probably frown on your sacrificing 100 Oxen the next new moon. On the other hand there are students who simply ignore history all together and throw Hekate into a mix of whatever they are into, be it Hekate as a Crone (which she is not and never was) or Hekate as the wife of Lucifer (exasperated sight and eyeroll…) or Hekate as teacher of Nordic Runes (?WTF?!) .
Whole Magic
I myself stick to a few key principals. I have respect for researchers and their work. I value it highly. Same with linguists (all jokes about their alleged cunning aside). I also respect genuine revelation and innovation. It is because of this respect that my first principal is: keep revelation and research as separate as they can be. Do not to evaluate one in the light of the other unless there is compelling evidence to do so.
If you force revelation to conform to established tradition or historical reconstruction, you are essentially rejecting the agency of the spirit to speak to the needs of the now. There are times when the spirits themselves reject and rebuke the very traditions and people that represent them. Our knowledge of history is always improving because we only have access to a small percentage of the historical record. And yes, as far as innovating new processes that improve on the methods of the past – every discipline seeks to do this. It has always perplexed me when people assert the past as the pure and simple authority for magic. You don’t find many M.D.s recommending we bleed people for fever because it’s was was done in the past, or navigators insisting on using Ptolemaic astronomy, so I don’t know why magic would be the one discipline not in need to jettisoning garbage and improving methods and principals.
On the other hand if you force research to conform with revelation, it is even worse. When historical research gets twisted or misrepresented to support what the spirits are telling someone, we lose any accurate foundation upon which to build. Whether its “biblical archaeology”, “prehistoric wicca”, Tibetan Dugpas,, or a “Thousand Year Old” magical order that has just now surfaced to open a Facebook page, we are better without it. This stuff is nothing but chemtrail style conspiracy theory applied to history.
Good research doesn’t need to contradict revelation if revelation and innovation don’t seek to impose themselves on history. Keep them separate and sacred. Until you can’t…
Sorcerous Synergy
I mentioned earlier that there are occasions when there is compelling reason for research and revelation to intersect, two that I can think of right now. The first is when research confirms revelation or innovation. When Hekate first revealed the guardian spirits that I included in Protection and Reversal magic, and eventually the Sorcery of Hekate course, I downplayed them a bit because they seemed so fantastic that I wanted to make sure I was not projecting my own ideas or fantasy too strongly. Shortly after the vision, a friend I shared it with pointed me in the direction of Stephen Ronan’s book The Goddess Hekate, where in the section on the Chaldean Oracles he details a four headed form of Hekate that possessed the same animal heads as these four spirits. Though it was not four distinct spirits, and certainly not the names I was given, I considered this a strong affirmation to proceed. Since then I have had other instances of artifacts and texts that confirmed things revealed in spirit. This is how Unverified Personal Gnois can become verified, at least in part. When this happens, its a cause for celebration and perhaps a cause to deepen ones faith in whatever is being received, but I still strongly believe that it would be a mistake to assume too much. Let revelation be revelation.
Of course, its not always about confirmation, knowing what to reject is also key, and here research and history can help us reject or at least closer examine, what spirits teach us or innovations that we think are true and useful. This applies to a recent class claiming to teach about Nordic Runes and Hekate. Or Hoot Kumi as a Tibetan Lama, etc, etc.
It is not that revelation must conform to research, indeed the best and most useful revelations reveal connections and practices that are not already understood and practiced. But if what the spirits are telling you isn’t just outside of what is known, but a direct challenge to it, you better have more than the word of something you conjured in a mirror to back you up.
I should note now that I forsee people reading this and taking the opportunity to unload on “grimoire puristss” or “flaky pagans” in the comments. Please don’t. The truth is that a lot of the BEST innovation on the occult scene today is being done by grimoire magicians. Take a look at Humberto Maggi’s “Sepher ha-Maggid – The Book of Asmodeus” for just the latest example of how research and revelation can play together beautifully. A lot of great research is being done by Pagans looking to cut through some of the witch-myths and get a clear handle on history.
Ideally the wise Sorcerer will play research and revelation off of one another – letting initial research and practice based on tradition, open the ways to spirit communication and innovative techniques, which then lead to more research and study.
*loose translation: idiot Sorcerer