Grace & Peace!
If spells, magic and occult would realy give their followers actual power and not imagined, it would be far more attractive to many people.
Carn, I’ve done some research into this area (not practical research, mind you!), and the situation is not as cut and dried as you might think.
First–occultism requires a discipline that is not unlike the discipline any religion worth the name demands of its adherents. Sometimes, even more so. The more pious grimoires give some very taxing regimens for what is needed in order for a ritual to “work.” Sometimes what is needed is years of preparation. Sometimes, all you need are a number of months in a highly secluded place where you will read nothing but the psalms, eat bread and water, wear specially consecrated garments, and have no contact with anyone until the ritual (performed at a certain time of year under optimal astrological conditions) is complete. Many people find it hard to commit to going to Mass every Sunday. Adding an occult discipline to the mix is simply beyond most people’s capacity.
Second–the power that an occultist is presumed to possess is not the stuff of Hollywood special effects. The appeal to spirits that comprise most occult rites are not designed to allow you to throw fireballs, but are designed to enable the Operator to pull the strings of the universe behind the scenes. The worldview of most grimoires is an extremely Platonic one and is best encapsulated in a small text called The Emerald Tablet which states, basically: as above, so below. By manipulating objects and things in the physical realm which are in sympathy with principles, ideas and intelligences in the spiritual realm, one can influence the physical realm to a greater or lesser degree. By appealing to an archangel through the power of a particular name of God, it is believed that the services of the angels under that archangel can be used to coerce lesser spirits into doing the Operator’s bidding, very much in line with the old magical goal: to rule with all Heaven and to be served by all Hell.
Third–Many contemporary magicians, after Aleister Crowley, believe that all spiritual phenomena is actually a reflection of mental processes. The vessel containing the demons in the Solomonic grimoires is believed to be the cranium, the demons merely repressed aspects of the individual, whose job it is to whip them into shape in order to achieve some version of Jungian personal integration. In this way of thinking, evocation and control of demons is a way of talking about complete self-control, and ritual magic is a practice of controlled psychodrama, the aim of which is self-realization. This does not make the practice any less dangerous, however. “Self-realization” is a lovely thought, but being so concerned with the self, it’s easy for such an otherwise good intention to miss the mark of where we can actually find ourselves most fully realized–i.e., by losing ourselves in Christ!
Fourth–the principles that supposedly make ouija boards operative are dumbed-down versions of those you would find in any evocatory ritual designed for the physical manifestation of a spirit in the “triangle of art.” The planchette is the stand-in for the triangle, and the various interrogations of the spirit are versions of an invocation/evocation in which the Operator performs the spiritual equivalent of calling every phone in the world at once and hoping someone answers. Some occultists believe that the only things likely to respond to such a general call, though, are so-called “elemental spirits”–basically the psychically activated husks of dead ideas and patterns of thought that are hanging around in the Operator’s subconscious. They assume various shapes, and subsequently begin to obsess the Operator. A similar idea is taught in Tibetan Buddhism through the creation and destruction of tulpas or thought forms–the practice is meant to show to the devotee that all aspects of “reality” are aspects of the mind. A related Western concept is that of the egregore–a magical creature (in some societies called a “current”) which is created and fed by a group imagination. The example of “Philip” a “spirit” created in 1972 by a group of psychic researchers in Canada is most germane here. The members of the research group created a history for the spirit and agreed upon certain personality traits before they “contacted” the entity through “conventional” seance means. The result? Tables supposedly levitated, people felt and heard things as a group, but curiously, the “spirit” would refuse to answer questions relating to aspects of its life that the group had not already agreed upon in advance. The conclusion the research group came to? The mind is a powerful thing.
So is all that to say that occult-oriented stuff is all about control and manipulation of the mind and not about contact with spiritual entities? I don’t think a firm yes or no matters too much. By virtue of our humanity, we are connected to spiritual realities. That we experience some of these connections through the working of the mind should not be surprising. And while there may be some virtue in mind-altering experiences, I don’t think we are meant to toy with our minds in the ways that so much popular occultism (such as ouija boards) would have us toy with them. Instead, we are meant to put on the Mind of Christ. We are meant to alter our minds and our world through the system of the Sacraments–in conforming ourselves to Christ, we can become vessels of grace, co-creators with him of a new world, a new way of being to each other. There is no greater “magic” than living out this ancient formula, which is the formula of open-ness to the Love and Grace of God: “Ecce ancilla/servus Domini. Fiat secundum verbum tuum.”
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
When you hit your thumb with a hammer, I can’t see how saying that it was the dreaded hammer-demon is any consolation. Or try telling a judge that you should be let off because a velocity-demon made you drive too fast.
. More like everyone is competent to approach God according to their own conscience.