Balance and Personal Gnosis
Two ideas that a priori seem not to be connected but that nevertheless have an intimate relationship. In today’s essay, I am going to discuss what balance on the magical path and personal gnosis is all about.
To fully enter into both topics, we have to understand that magic is subjective, that the path, the experiences, and so on are subjective and personal. Although many believe that this is not the case, the truth is that there is little that can be demonstrated factually, we can speak of synchronicity and experiences shared by several magicians working on the same project, but this does not represent proof of any. Attention, this does not mean that if magic and the path are subjective and personal, everything is valid, well no, and now we enter our first point of this essay: Balance…
The concept of balance is also subjective and personal for each of us because it is an internal concept that we have to experience for ourselves to know whether or not we are on our axis. On the other hand, what for me may be somewhat balanced may not be so for you and vice versa. On the other hand, balance is not something linear either, that is to say, that it is not something permanent, it is possible that certain rituals, certain initiation processes, and issues of life cause an imbalance and it will be our task to return to our axis.
Here I am going to illustrate an example of a clear imbalance situation:
«Some time ago, I received an email from a person who told me that he was just starting with the world of magic, that he did not have great knowledge on the subject, much less practice. However, he had had a dream with Lilith, he knew it was her, and that from that moment she was his fiancée or girlfriend, I do not remember the term he used. Faced with my lack of response, he insisted on sending other emails with the same theme, only that he was adding things, he knew that Lilith was his girlfriend and that he was happy about this and that consequently, he had promised to follow the «Liber Lilith». However, began to see in daily life other Gods who simply appeared out of nowhere, for example, he saw Nyarlathotep climb a ladder, he saw Set in the courtyard of his house, Lilith appeared as his girlfriend, so the story went on. «
Perhaps this person feels an inclination to work with Lilith, but believing that divinity is your girlfriend and that suddenly without ever having done a ritual you begin to see divinities everywhere and at all times, is a clear sign of problems. Things as they are, here I will not be able to analyze the fantasy of this person, but it is clear that he does not have balance and that, to begin with, this he already started badly.
Here I will put another example, in this case, that of a person initiated in the draconian path and more formed:
«The person in question already had a time of practice, and took initiation into the draconian path, however, she maintained a deep fascination with the Atlantean Current, we all know that it is a complex paradigm, just like the Necronomicon Current can be, is based on a very strong personal gnosis. After having taken the initiation, she decides that she preferred to work fully with Atlantean magic and adopts a Goddess of that current as her patron deity. This initiate she decides that she prefers to work fully with a personal system, to create her self-initiatory path instead of going step by step. That leads her to have a closer and closer relationship with this Goddess, the one who manifested herself every day of her life, in dreams, during rituals, whatever she did, she was always there to be channeled and transmitted a fragment of Atlantean knowledge. To the point that she couldn’t do anything else, if she meditated, this goddess would appear to say something, if she took a nap the same, and so on until finally all initiation to Atlantean magic ended in nothingness.»
What do we see here? The first is the inexperience of a person who, despite the advice received, decided to ignore it, and experiment with forces that were far from her understanding and initiatory reach. A person cannot be channeling and receiving information from the Other Side every day, it is not mentally healthy and in the end, one begins by losing the balance without knowing what is real and what is not. It is up to us to learn the concept of balance, and this is accompanied by common sense, being rational and not a fanatic, something essential on this path.
The question of personal gnosis is mostly accompanied by the phrase «unverified», sincerely this last part seems to me to be unnecessary, at the end of the road everything can be something not verified, since this is not something collective, there is no regulation that says this is valid and that is not, nobody has the power of such determination, although many believe that they do.
Those who are more orthodox and tear their clothes due to personal gnosis must understand that this has always existed, perhaps not with this name, but you have to analyze magic from ancient times to realize this. I don’t want to go very back in time, but who was it that said that the seal of this or that demon that appears listed in the Lesser Keys of King Solomon is like that, or that the demon that appears listed there has such a name or such appearance? Isn’t this an accepted form of personal gnosis because it is simply ancient? Another example, Enochian magic, which was created by the messages and experimentations of the magician John Dee, no more no less than a form of personal gnosis that spread in the world of magic and is widely used today, including by critics and orthodox. Following this, Aleister Crowley receives the Book of the Law from an entity known as Aiwass, and it is also another personal form of gnosis. So I can go on listing hundreds of cases where the same thing happened, Michael Aquino received from the Set his «The Book of Coming Forth by Night» and Kenneth Grant received from his Qliphotic explorations the «Liber Okbish.»
Personal gnosis is an essential part of magical practice, it comes in many different forms, one can receive inspiration from the Other Side and we transform that into a sigil or an invocation or a complete ritual. The problem with this is the following, on the one hand, nothing can be taken as a total or absolute truth, but as something that must be tested for how it works for us, and above all, we have to learn to differentiate a real experience, legitimate, a fiction or product of our imagination. How do we do this? Well, first testing that information, this is essential, before giving this or that thing as valid, use it before, test it and then record the results. But on the other hand, the gods, demons, and other spirits do not seek messiahs among us, they do not seek people to spread their word, they do not come with messages from the end of the world, or the secrets of the universe, or anything like it. Sorry, but this is all a story, they are just ravings of people who either want to get money from others, or they are simply people with a deep imagination who believe they are special and who come up with a cosmic plan of divinity to spread the path among men since they have the power to awaken humanity and bring it out of its misery and blindness. Sorry, but this is stupid, no more no less. The Other Side is not interested in what happens here, they do not have an interest in us at those levels, there may be an affinity and because we establish a relationship there is simply an exchange of energies, of knowledge, etc. The rest, as I say, is the story of a group of fanciful or very ambitious people who only seek to strengthen their coffers in some cases or enlarge their poor ego.
Let’s think about the following, why would someone else have such knowledge? What makes them special? Why are they chosen from all of us? Why do they have the power and the mission to transmit a knowledge that will save us all or guide us on a path that is personal and self-initiating? And at the end who wants to be saved? We complain about imperative religions, but we follow like sheep others who claim to be in contact with Lucifer, Lilith, Satan, or Hecate. And the funny thing is that what they claim to be able to do, you can also do, if you have to work, train, and develop your psychic/astral abilities, and become an initiate, but with consistency and systematic work it is possible to achieve it.
In the end, we all like to feel special, and I think each of us is, in our way, in the words of Aleister Crowley: «Every man and every woman is a star.»
Daemon Barzai.