As a follow-up to my earlier posts regarding working with one's Shadow and Luminous selves, I thought I'd talk about the importance of balance.
When doing magical work that leans towards one extreme or the other, its inevitable that you'll eventually overdo it. When that happens, you'll become unbalanced and unhappy, regardless of whether you're doing good deeds or trying to be an evil prick. With the former, you usually wind up feeling burned out and unappreciated for all of your compassion, and with the latter, you usually end up being very dissatisfied with your performance or some such thing.
For whatever reason, I've noticed that certain groups of people feel the need to only work with one side or the other. Left-Hand Path'ers obsess over being Thee Empowered Scumbag, and Right-Hand Path'ers obsess over being goody-two-shoes, thereby missing the forest for the trees. This is readily apparent in modern Western magical practices, particularly when folks are out for power.
My point, in talking on this, is that going through the Abyss to gain power is only part of the journey to be taken. In order to be successful, you need to go through both the darkness and the light in succession (in whatever order you choose), and then figure out how to reconcile the two. If you stick around in one extreme or another, either out of fear or out of some misguided belief that you've somehow become a God, you'll lose yourself in it and go no further.
The point of the whole journey is to learn to understand, comprehend, and eventually use BOTH sides, rather than just one. Truth is potent and, when understood and wielded appropriately, it can be an incredible tool, but that requires wisdom. Just as truth isn't found in extremis, so too is that the case with wisdom.
We see this imagery within the figure of the Baphomet, in fact. Its both male, female, and neither simultaneously. If the Qliphoth is female and the Sephiroth is male (Asherah and Yahweh, respectively), alone they are unfulfilled and left wanting, but united they are able to create and destroy as a pair since they know what's above and below - finding the space where Heaven and Hell meet is necessary if you're to control both sides.
Just something to think on.
Regards,
SE
When doing magical work that leans towards one extreme or the other, its inevitable that you'll eventually overdo it. When that happens, you'll become unbalanced and unhappy, regardless of whether you're doing good deeds or trying to be an evil prick. With the former, you usually wind up feeling burned out and unappreciated for all of your compassion, and with the latter, you usually end up being very dissatisfied with your performance or some such thing.
For whatever reason, I've noticed that certain groups of people feel the need to only work with one side or the other. Left-Hand Path'ers obsess over being Thee Empowered Scumbag, and Right-Hand Path'ers obsess over being goody-two-shoes, thereby missing the forest for the trees. This is readily apparent in modern Western magical practices, particularly when folks are out for power.
My point, in talking on this, is that going through the Abyss to gain power is only part of the journey to be taken. In order to be successful, you need to go through both the darkness and the light in succession (in whatever order you choose), and then figure out how to reconcile the two. If you stick around in one extreme or another, either out of fear or out of some misguided belief that you've somehow become a God, you'll lose yourself in it and go no further.
The point of the whole journey is to learn to understand, comprehend, and eventually use BOTH sides, rather than just one. Truth is potent and, when understood and wielded appropriately, it can be an incredible tool, but that requires wisdom. Just as truth isn't found in extremis, so too is that the case with wisdom.
We see this imagery within the figure of the Baphomet, in fact. Its both male, female, and neither simultaneously. If the Qliphoth is female and the Sephiroth is male (Asherah and Yahweh, respectively), alone they are unfulfilled and left wanting, but united they are able to create and destroy as a pair since they know what's above and below - finding the space where Heaven and Hell meet is necessary if you're to control both sides.
Just something to think on.
Regards,
SE