JMG interview on Traditional Man

[ecosophia]

Over the last few months I've had an interesting conversation via email with Christian Chensvold, the general factotum of the Traditional Man website, on the subject of will and imagination as envisioned by Eliphas Lévi and the Western magical tradition generally. It's now up, and might make an interesting counterpoint to next week's Lévi post on the blog. Check it out here. 

 

Comments

[tunesmyth]

As I read over your words concerning Schopenhauer's conception of all wills being individual expressions of One Will working out what it wants to be and do, and the most fitting words came to me: "I am one with the One Life of the universe. It flows through me to accomplish all my worthy desires."

Do you happen to know when or by who this affirmation was first formulated?

[ecosophia]

I came up with it in the process of devising a morning affirmation practice for a forthcoming book. As it happens, it's not the one I settled on, but it's still good!

[(Anonymous)]

Oooh, I’ve been using the above affirmation a few weeks now, so I’m super curious to know what the final draft turned out to be! Would you be willing to share it?

[ecosophia]

If you've had good results with that affirmation, keep doing it! The final version is specific to a system of occult training I've devised, which will be published this autumn; if you decide to work with that system, that'll be the time to consider changing.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for this, I found it to be very clarifying :).

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for this, it does indeed shed some light on to the Lévi book club. May I ask a question prompted by the discussion of will from the article? As you indicated, the way to get around the problem of competing wills is to use intelligence to direct the imagination, and the will then follows. I have, upon reflection, three major goals: to learn magic, to eventually learn something I can earn a little money with so that I don't need to retire, and to prepare for the long descent by requiring less.

These aren't mutually exclusive goals, but doing them forces me to allocate my free time differently, and thus they compete. Is this a case of competing wills, in which I should focus on a single one, or is there a way to imagine myself working towards all of them by finding something that links all of them?

[ecosophia]

If you have intentions that are compatible, but conflict in terms of time allocation, choose the one you want to accomplish first and give it the time it needs, while assigning such time as you have left to the other two. Once the first one is accomplished, choose a second and do the same thing.

[brenainn]

"If you jump off a tall building, the law of gravity doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not; it will accelerate you at 32 feet per second per second until you slam into the ground. The laws of magic are just as impersonal in their effects."

This is something that I wish I had learned years ago. When I was a teenager, I briefly explored Wicca. The websites that I visited back in the days of dial-up all said that magic (er..."magick") only worked if one believed it did. Being naturally inclined to skepticism (hopefully in the authentic sense), I eventually chalked it up to make believe and moved on. I think my life could have been better over the years if I had been introduced to work like yours instead of the pop culture magic that I encountered in the late 1990s.

[ecosophia]

I've been trying to let people know about this since, well, the late 1990s... ;-)

belief in magic

[deborah_bender]

I've been studying and practicing a few varieties of Wicca since the early 1970s. None of them teach that magic only works if one believes in it. This may come from a misunderstanding or oversimplification of a couple of maxims that are true.

1. It is possible to cast an effective spell while being agnostic about whether it will work, or as an experiment. However, belief that what you are trying to do will not work lessens the chance of success, because it interferes with mental focus and divides the imagination (you are simultaneously imagining the result and imagining that the desired result won't occur.)

2. If a person believes magical force is being exerted upon them, with either friendly or malign intent, the placebo effect kicks in. People can be healed of an illness, or wander into misfortune, if they believe that someone with ability is blessing or cursing them, even if the other person didn't do anything or even think about doing anything.

In short, belief is a factor in the effectiveness of magic, but it isn't the deciding factor. Some novices learn this the hard way.

Around 1980, there was an explosion of popular do-it-yourself Wicca books. Prior to that, most people who wanted to learn about witchy magic either had to be taught by an experienced practitioner, or piece together a practice from many different written sources, which required thinking about the subject, not just taking assertions on faith.

Before the publishing boom, self-taught witches, whether Wiccan or not, were fairly rare, but often powerful magical workers, because they were highly motivated and worked hard to get a grip of their craft. Once basic information became available in predigested popular form, a lot of people with no real training at all and little contact with more experienced witches started writing their own how-to-do it books and setting up websites. Websites, IMO, are not a very good way to learn about Wicca.

Re: belief in magic

[brenainn]

"Websites, IMO, are not a very good way to learn about Wicca."

I don't doubt that. I was about 12/13 when I first made my way onto the Internet and began my search for a spiritual path. I realized a couple years ago that I got a lot of bad information as a result but at the time, I was a bored kid with few friends to hang out with. I've had to unlearn a lot of bad information since then. I really do wish that I found JMG's work back then or at least someone who knew what they were talking about but I blundered my way from one bad source of info to another.

Re: belief in magic

[ecosophia]

Deborah, I know that trad Wiccans don't teach that, but I've encountered it scores of times in the pop-culture Wiccan scene. Sad, I know.

[gullindagan]

Very concise, yet deep and thorough. Thanks!

Q

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, what a coincidence, I was just gearing up to ask you about Schopenhauer in this coming week's MM.

I've been reading him the last couple of days, particularly this essay on fate: https://hmakse.ccny.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Transcedent_Speculation-Arthur-Schopenhauer.pdf

I wanted to ask you more about his views on free will (which in my reading of his, because of the global will, it doesn't exist). You're saying that free will exists and the global will is in the process of figuring it out.

Can you tell me more about this view? His causality doesn't imply this to me, atleast within space and time, so where is the choice making happening?

Another question, he believes in a global will, but not a god, or many gods/spirits, the spiritual planes, how does occult theory bridge this understanding?

Re: Q

[ecosophia]

In Schopenhauer, the will is the one thing that's always free, because everything else is an expression of it. Your will is not some separate little thing -- it's the way that the universal will flows through the little corner of the universe that is your representation. Space and time are conditions of human consciousness -- that is to say, forms of representation -- rather than objective realities -- so they don't restrict the will in any of its forms: the will brings them into being, and is prior to them.

As for gods, spirits, and so on, Schopenhauer didn't include those but they fit into his cosmology in the same way human beings do. They are each expressions of the universal will, each with its own grade, each expressing some part of the one universal will.

Re: Q

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks JMG, this is great!

This idea of will seems similar to Spinoza's conatus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conatus), except Spinoza thinks the mind and body are correlative extensions of god; and to the quote from Dion Fortune is "god is pressure".

Let me ask you this then, the world of representation is pure cause and effect and deterministic, and usually this is what materialists are referring to in their philosophies.

The will in itself, is the transcendental will and it is free, and so animals and most humans are initially divided from their will and therefore acting out instinctual drives in the world of cause and effect? It's only when one becomes conscious of their connection to the transcendental will does free will start to operate (at the level of consciousness, not in the world of representation, either cognitive or non-cognitive)?




Does the will map on to the individuality or the person or are these two completely different maps? I'm curious how to map the will to the stages in the occult.

Re: Q

[ecosophia]

1) That's correct. The will becomes free when it becomes reflective -- that is, when we start willing to will, deliberately directing the pressure rather than letting the pressure direct us, and that happens once we become aware of it.

2) The individuality and the personality are grades of the will. The will is beyond the individuality -- the will is that which causes space to begin to move, and everything that unfolds from that initial movement is an expression of the will.

Re: Q

[(Anonymous)]

So is the implication then that this "willing the will" is happening outside space-time? Thats the only way it would escape deterministic forces according to Schopenhauer's scheme.

Also, when Schopenhauer speaks of it, he refers to the transcendental will as blind etc but surely there is intelligence embedded in it? Where would, say the Solar Logos, or the God beyond lie in the scheme of the will?

[inavalon]

I'm grateful for this! It clarifies some things I've been trying to understand in Lévi.

Also, I just noticed that the magnificent image accompanying the interview depicts Apollo astride Pegasus! How perfectly fitting to invoke and honor him this day (Sunday).

[deng]

JMG - " I would say rather that there is no subject that Western thinkers have meditated upon more uselessly than the concept of free will." Love it.
Such a great comment showing original independent thought.
And at the end , "...it doesn't matter if you belive in magic or not...". Reminds me of a thought stopper I held for years, a 'spell' that JMG broke when I read on his site, "that a man who believes in nothing will fall for anything."

[(Anonymous)]

This was as pleasant as fascinating to read. I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason you come across distinctly different as you usually do (which doesn't mean that it's usually not pleasant and fascinating ;-) ).

And very pleasant, too, that I can read it. I can't stand listening to podcasts so I unfortunately miss a lot of what's going on in the "interview-format".

Cheers,
Nachtgurke

PS: The WoH-Cookbook arrived just yesterday. I like it very much, I have to say. Although I am a little bit sad (in a positive way), that the Salmagundi doesn't bring a lot of new impulses to my cooking since I cook some variety of it quite often. But it got me thinking - how would a dish like this taste, if you have to produce it under the conditions of a long journey on the sea without cooling and you have to rely on more traditional techniques of preservation (dry meat is probably not an option on sea...) ? Which brings to my mind just now, that my mother owns a very old cookbook she's got from her grandmother which contains a lot of old recipes that draw heavily on conserved foods, using every part of an animal, conserving food, of course, and so on. It dates early 20th century, possibly late 19th. It's a bit difficult to read since it's set in Fraktur - but I have tested some of the recipes and it would most certainly earn to be published again... hmmm.

[deng]

Thanks for introducing me to a new website. I really looks great.

[deng]

From Christian's 'Castles in the Air' post. Shortened and paraphrased in (). Really hits home with many of us facing big life changes recently.

I took the whole experience as a sign that something had to change. I began listening to my inner voice, so long drowned out in the cacophonous chatter of the way we live now. I see now that the apocalyptic desolation I saw ... was merely a projection of my own inner emptiness when torn from (work) and (society), those two co-conspirators of my parasitic existence and neurotic fear that, if they were taken from me, I’d be left with nothing. All fear is ultimately based on the ego’s dread of its own destruction, and yet the ego’s obliteration and rebirth as something transcendent is precisely what the suffering human organism needs. And great is the man who can bear the screaming temper-tantrum of his ego when he wakes up one fateful morning and says, “Today, you illusory construct of hope and fear, is the day you die in order that I may live.”

30 years ago reading 'one must die to the old self' seemed a bit tricky for the self to kill the self. Nowadays if you blink someone is standing ready to do it for you.

Current Mode - Relaxed. Peaceful. Grateful Thanks JMG!

[deng]

The end of the interview you state how those working with negative energies in a harmful way to others ends up soiling themselves. A very hopeful message for the comeuppance awaiting those in power pushing the current state of affairs. Great site. Sorry for the spam. Mulling things over on a quiet night. Thanks. Den

Doubt

[ecosophian]

Instead of seeing your personal will-2 as something to be disciplined by will-3 until it aligns with will-1, he sees will-2 and will-3 (and any other wills that might be involved) as grades of the one Will-to-live, which can certainly be in conflict with itself.

I don't know, JMG, it sounds too Calvinist to me. Either you're driven by the good will and your life will be great, or you're driven by the evil will and then you're doomed, because who's going to save you?

I guess my problem with this worldview is that its so depressing; it makes the individual feel so insignificant. I already feel so small and powerless, it doesn't help to think that all I can hope for is to be driven by some benevolent will.

In a sense it's also demonstrably untrue. I can decide to lift my arm or tap my foot right now, and I know it is my will to do so.

Re: Doubt

[ecosophia]

Okay, you've gotten this completely bollixed up. Of course you can lift your arm and tap your foot; that's your will, and your will is the way that the one will of the cosmos is expressing itself in one little corner of the universe of representation. Think of a mighty river dividing up into lots of little streams in the delta -- the river is the One Will, the little streams are individuals, and they flow this way and that as they see fit, because they are the One Will in its local manifestation. It's not a matter of a good will (note that I didn't use that phrase) or an evil will (or that one).

You are a center of the One Will entering into manifestation. Your choices and actions are part of the dance by which the One Will expresses all its potentialities.

[ecosophian]

Thank you for the river metaphor, it makes things clear. Still there is a lot of questions left.

[deng]

Hi John. Can you share any thoughts or opinions on Julius Evola. Thank you. Den

[ecosophia]

I'm not a fan. You can find some of my reflections here:

https://www.ecosophia.net/blogs-and-essays/the-well-of-galabes/how-not-to-learn-magic-an-introductory-note/

[deng]

Thank you John. Great post with interesting bio for you. Evola wrote a number of books with a range that seemed similar to yours. I ordered a used copy of his 'Doctrine of Awakening" only because I saw it on 'The Traditional Man' website which actually looks pretty interesting to me. I noticed in an Evola 'Doctrine' quote the message of ignoring thoughts which reminds me of the error of some nihilists Buddhist that our thoughts, and even the world, are so temporary and intangible that they best simply ignored. An unconstructive way to live if ever there was one.

The comments on our personality errors was clear and concise and always well remembered. Thanks again. Den

[deng]

Not deep into the 'The Trad Man' site and I've met Evola and now Osho. Not promising signs to me.

Saturn Chows Down

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know anything about astrology but I am definitely getting the understanding of Saturn eating his children in our current myriad situational messes. Den