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Ethics & the Occult
I thought I’d continue riffing on some of the subjects brought up in recent comments. This is a line of thought plucked from my recent post on what I hate about the occult and alternative religions.
A reader named ‘Petron’ left what I think is a very fascinating comment, which reads in part:
One has to demand the HIGHEST ethical standards from those practicing the occult, higher than those not.
And the reason why could be filled out with an earlier comment left by ‘Pam’:
I’d say the main reason why I hate the occult is that unfortunately it does work in the right/wrong hands (I mean those who are skilled, not those who fool around).
I’m verrrrry interested to hear people’s thoughts on this. I’ll try to elaborate on what these people are saying above (whether or not I believe it myself) and then highlight the alternate views I’ve most frequently encountered.
If I’m wrong, please correct me - but what I interpret the commenters above to be saying is basically that with great power comes great responsibility. Assuming the occult “works,” you have to be careful what you do with it. I guess you could imagine something like the “Jedi Code” - wherein this order of priest-knights have access to a different part of reality than most people, and consequently are saddled with more rules and restrictions about what they can do with it. People practicing a modern “ethically responsible” magick/occultism will typically have a minimal set of proscriptive rules which prohibit them to what’s typically considered “white magic.”
Then you have the flipside of that, which are basically the ‘bad’ guys, the Sith, etc - who believe that if they do indeed have access to power which others don’t have, then it’s their sovereign right to exercise it. Their only responsibility is to themselves and to those more powerful than them. I’d hesitate to point the finger at any particular group or system of magick as being analogous here, but you’re welcome to fill in the blanks accordingly.
More common than that though, is I think the notion that a lot of occultists seem to come to: that good and evil are simply fictions created to maintain a social order. Many occultists see themselves as somehow beyond ethics because they can somehow see through the hollow games and concepts by which society perpetuates itself. When it comes to magickal theory and argumentation, pinning these people down to a system of ethics is usually very difficult. But at the same time, in their day-to-day personal lives, you’ll often see them following a very conventional - sometimes even essentially Christian (or karma-based) - system of ethics. (I know I won’t win a lot of points for saying that, but it’s been true in my experience)
Then of course we have the overwhelming majority whose thoughts on the occult are rooted in straight-ahead Christianity who think any kind of dabbling in the occult is ethically and spiritually disastrous because it pulls one away from the “pure light of the truth” into murky lies and illusions.
The idea of morality and ethics within an area that most people consider totally immoral is to be a really interesting one. I’m curious to hear elaborations on the above by anyone in those camps, as well as any alternative interpretations I may have missed. For further information, try this essay Occult Ethics by Diane Paxton, or there is a lot more material on Google if you look up “ethics of magick.”
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- Your One-Stop Shop for Occult Solutions
- Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics
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January 29th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I think the concept of karma pretty much covers it. If you’re christian, and don’t believe in reincarnation, then karma applies to this life only (i.e. “you reap what you sow.”). If you belive in reincarnation, then karma can stretch over lifetimes.
But in any case, you get back from the universe what you put into it.
January 29th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
who think any kind of dabbling in the occult is ethically and spiritually disastrous because it pulls one away from the “pure light of the truth” into murky lies and illusions.
I think a bigger concern is fear that people are arrogating god-like powers for themselves.
January 29th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
That article on Occult Ethics seems to have a lot of good common-sense advice, even if you’re not a practicing occultist (e.g., don’t spread gossip, use care with your words).
“To fight the Empire is to become infected by its derangement.”
January 29th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
It almost seems with the amount of attention/energy poured into trying to establish morals in magick, people end up separating magick from the very daily life their trying to integrate it into.
People who’se idea of magick borrows from say…Crowley…
if every act is a magickal one, than why should we have a separate moral scale for it?
For me, the idea of karmic feedback makes the most sense for every facet of life.
It’s a law that’s dependent on me and my own reality, something I’ll count myself responsible for.
January 29th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
I’ve been in discussions about the ethics of magic with those for whom, it seems, the rules boil down to: never use magic to manipulate someone / impose on their free will.
Personally, I don’t buy that. Morality sometimes requires us to impose on others free will. I view being skilled with magic as having any other special skill or knowledge. Someone who carries a weapon is held to a higher standard of behavior, as is someone trained to practice law, or someone trained in the martial arts. That standard is basically that we need to be a little more careful than the average person, since our actions can have greater consequences.
If I carry a gun, I will shoot to kill if I have to. I will certainly use my weapon to impose on the free will of another if the situation demands it. So too with magic. So, I subscribe to the “with great power comes great responsibility” camp. The rules are the same, just more tightly binding.
The question, then, is what are the rules of morality that bind us all?
January 29th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
I found this statement to be patently nonsensical. She probably meant magic, and true- magic works whether you’re a good person olr not. But one doesn’t have to beusing ‘occult’ magick to be evil or even to be a magician. I would say the blackest of the black magicians is Jerry Falwell, who uses his considerable influence (ie, magic) in a way that causes harm to living things. Magic is amoral.
Claiming that one must hold it to an ethicval standard is like saying one who uses language or mechanical transporatation must be held to a standard. Magic is a tool, and I can’t imagine how it can be selected out for more scrutiny than any other object, device, or method that can be used for good or ill. Before we single out occultists, let’s look at all of the others who deserve as much or perhaps more scrutiny:
Preachers of many stripes, whose influence have aided totalitarian regimes, abetted the degradation of women and minorities (when have occultists beat a gay man to death or bombed a clinic??!), terrorism, intolerance, censored scientific progress, and blocked important lifesaving technologies.
Politicians, who often sell out the common welfare for money and more influence.
The willfully ignorant, who cause harm to all of humanity by furthering superstition, poor science, and bigotry against their fellow-men.
The greedy- people who place profits, material comforts, and their own recreation over the lives of their fellows. How many stylin’ t-shirts have been proudly worn that were created on the backs of forced laborers in China? How many women, for example, have had force abortions to prevent a slow-down in the production of Kathy Lee blazers?
But sure, let’s waste all of our efforts discriminating against occultists, because the occasional magician might use magick to get a job interview or curse an ex-girlfriend.
January 29th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
In my experience, an individual can practice all the ego-driven reality manipulation they want, but there’s a tendency to hit a wall. It stops working, possibly for many reasons. One might be that by constantly jerking off over talismans to get paid, get laid, and get even, (sam23’s phrase, not mine), you’ll further ego attachments in a ridiculous way–how many love-spells will you need before you realize that sexual attraction can make for disasters, and that the “fuck and chuck” approach will just leave you as that lone asshole without friends, probably balding and fat, e.g.? I suspect that this is the reason Pete Carroll claims that the white and black paths meet in an inexplicable way–eventually, choosing not to want anything, or getting everything you desire, will leave you with the same attitude if you’ve been paying any attention at all.
Likewise, i could say that the more high-ranking spirits in the universal chains stop listening to the individual who keeps demanding that money appear, etc.
I also suspect that the increasing power of “black magicians” to warp reality–if they exist and it happens at all–has to do with their willingness to resort to extremes–first a little cut, next a deeper cut, soon enough, you’re raping children. At some point, rather than hit the wall, some pact, either with oneself or some “external” entity, must be formed, and this pact tends to result in the dedication of the ego to causing nothing but pain and misery–at some point, evil for the sake of getting the money/power/sex/success leads deluding yourself into thinking that you’re getting the money/power/sex/success and all one’s really doing is evil for the sake of evil.
But that’s more about approaches & techniques to effecting will rather than the end goals. About that, while the universe isn’t a zero sum game, it’s a team sport, a lot of people are playing ego-attachement zero-sum games. Sometimes poking holes in their aura might be helpful, especially the higher they rank in the black lodge… But I alternate that opinion with the “feed them love and compassion” opinion..
January 29th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Very well-spoken, Null.
At some point, even the most thick-skulled black mnagician has to realize that gratification is futility. To paraphrase a famous aying, it’s like taking poison and waiting for your enemy to die. Those that don’t take heed may very well be the source of the next guy’s ‘entity’ at some point.
January 29th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
I don’t have much to add to the excellent comments posted above. Just that, a while back in the comments on this very website, I once read a very succinct encapsulization of magickal ethics. To paraphrase:
January 29th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Or worse, what if the boss you hate is stressed because his wife is dying of cancer, or he drops dead just before giving you a promotion? Such action seems to me to be the result of not taking the long view, which to me is worse than unethical behavior.
January 30th, 2006 at 2:58 am
Great discussion here. Here is one more view to add to the discovery.
When one encounters in himself an awareness that seems to have remained changeless throughout life’s journey; the pure consciousness that is the one who notices the thoughts being thought but is not the thoughts itself, “the constant companion” — he has discovered the universal light and intelligence that permeates the universe. Some call this awareness God. This might also be called enlightenment in some circles, however I think “God” & “Enlightment” are loaded terms to be sure. We take for granted sometimes how our realities are sometimes locked into a limited framework of linguistics.
To discover this awareness has been the stated goal of all magic endeavor since the beginning. It is “The Great Work” and Alchemy in a nutshell. Once you connect to this awareness then life becomes a great game of manifesting your will in accordance with universal laws that reveal themselves to you as you go. You are then able to turn base metal(observed present reality) into Gold(reality in accordance with one’s will) We are all creating our own realities and we are all creating our collective reality together whether we are conscious of it or not. The trick is to become aware of yourself doing it and to begin doing it in harmony with your will and in harmony with the universe which are actually the same thing when you get right down to it.
When one has discovered this within himself, this philosopher’s stone, this most sacred treasure it becomes apparent that he has meaning to exist– that he exists is the most fundamental true statement about life, that in fact it is the defintion of life, that he is life in total in his existence. It also becomes apparent that everyone else he sees has just cause to exist by the mere fact that they do exist.
Life just is - the meaning of life is created by each of us as we move through time and space or it is created for us by others if let them. The true meaning of life in general and that which can be observed by studying nature is simply constant expansion in all possible directions in as many different categories as possible. Homogeny is not within nature’s plan– one only need look at the millions of different species of life that exist in the known universe to see this truth.
Like a single ray out of many rays emanating from an enternal sun we each cast our ray through the prism of our unique awareness into an ever changing of array of colors, an ever changing array of uniqueness of life. Each ray is sovereign in its uniqueness but all rays are of the same exact substance and light. We are all one in this regard quite literally.
Morality as defined by man seems simply as an agreement between people living in a certain time and place as to how they will attempt to live in harmony together on the physical plane of existence. Good and Evil are subjective terms according to each man and according to the time, place and agreement that has been made. If we were all awake, morality would become a moot point. All disharmony, pain and evil comes from fear. Fear of lack, fear of ego annihilation, fear of change. When gnosis is achieved lack is revealed as illusion and is something we choose to create in our lives or not create, change is revealed as the default state of life and ego annihilation is what happens just prior to true gnosis.
I think where true evil or universal evil begins is when one man attempts to control another man’s true will to his own ends. This is like trying to raise a tiger cub as an elephant or trying to will the growth of an Oak tree into a pear tree; it simply goes against natural laws. The desire to control or manipulate someone else’s will to selfish ends simply means that one has not yet made contact with their divine spark or awareness. Therefore evil is only a mistake that is caused by ignorance.
Again when one discovers this awareness the idea of trying to control someone else becomes absurd. It would be like finding an infinite supply of money somewhere and then running around trying to take other people’s money — there would be no point in that. Normally what you want to do is run around and tell people how to discover their own infinite supply of money, love, happiness, etc which is, I believe what the great teachers throughout history have tried to do against all odds.
I think the primary problem in the world is that most people are actually asleep and have not discovered that they alone are pushing all the buttons and moving the gears around. They are doing this either according to their own wills or the will of others who have consciously or unconsicously manipulated them. They have not discovered that their mind is sovereign territory and that the greatest evil is that of ideologies(memes > egregores) and dogmas created by other asleep individuals at some time have infected the minds of most humans on this planet. Men kill for other people’s ideas most of the time.
A person who is awake realizes that they are not the ideology or dogma that they were indoctrinated with as children or surrounded by as adults and that they can at will simply slide out from underneath any ideology, belief system, dogma, etc and create their own truths - they can decide to not go and kill another sacred and divine spark of the universal intelligence in the name of someone else’s idea about “the way things are”.
“Plus Ultra!”
January 30th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Ask einstien…science,occult simalar
January 30th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Great comments everybody!
February 2nd, 2006 at 6:34 am
A book which discusses a new approach to things moral, is Rudlof Steiner’s The Philosophy of Freedom:
http://www.antroposofi.org/matherne/philosop.htm
In this era of the Consciousness Soul we can establish a free form of morality from out of our inner being.
And yes, the occultist must behave betterthan the ordinary joe.