The myth as a magical tool
The postmodern magician has many tools to be used in his magical work, and one of the most powerful is myth and mythology. In this essay, we will see some interpretations of mythology and its use for our practices, as well as I, will also seek to break with a series of ideas and superstitions that are very common among people.
Before going to the practical side of the matter, we have to begin by clarifying some beliefs; the first, a myth is a story, similar to a tale, that tells us about situations, primarily fantastic, tells us about the exploits of the heroes, the gods, their antagonists. There are creation myths; there are myths that talk about regions and lands, and others are the history and life of this or that divinity. All this is part of the mythological folklore of different cultures, especially ancient ones, although there are also modern ones.
When we seek to know about this or that divinity, we usually start by doing research work before starting to work magically. We look for if it had a cult, what things were done, what were the offerings, songs, rites, etc. Then we go to their mythology, and after analyzing all this, we make a synthesis that allows us to work magically. These are usually the conventional processes that a magician applies; at least, that’s how I do it in most cases when I want to work with a pantheon, mythology, or divinity.
Here it is necessary to pause and begin to clarify some ideas, the first, mythology and myths are not a series of historical or anthropological truths; that is to say that this never happened. They are stories and should be taken as such. By this, I mean Tiamat was never sliced in half by Marduk, Prometheus did not steal the fire from the gods to give it to man, Lilith did not go into exile from Eden screaming the names of God, etc. Why am I saying this? Because it often occurs to me that people believe it was real, some defend the myth tooth and nail, as if it were a religious dogma, seeking to impose absolute truth on all this. It is clear that this is how imperative religions have been formed; some try to use the same structure in magic, but this does not work well on the LHP.
Man created the myth to describe some religious, magical, and the very society in which he lived. The tale has enormous value for a modern or postmodern magician, and he uses it as a first approximation before the ritual. If one observes, the gods of many ancient mythologies are strange creatures far removed from man but, at the same time, full of human dramas, infidelities, betrayals, jealousy, love affairs, etc. This is very observable in Greek mythology, for example. And it is here when we see that it was the hand and the creation of man, in an attempt to understand the nature of these forces, forces, that when we approach the ritual level, we realize that they have no genuine interest in the drama of everyday life.
Suppose we want to do balanced magical work. In that case, it is essential to understand that gods, demons, spirits, etc., are allies, mentors, and guides within our magical processes. They should be taken as models, assuming they have an initiation role. Still, they are not human beings, nor do they have the same emotions or experiences that we do. Humanizing the gods is part of the process because we take away the unknown, but at the same time, when we ascend or descend more, it depends on how we want to see it; we realize that these energies are primordial, raw, far from what we can conceive as human, but which, in turn, have a series of masks with which the magician works, and that is when they take the forms with which they are described, but this is only a tiny portion of reality, one of the many forms in which our mind allows us to interact with the Other Side.
I am not saying that we cannot have a relationship of affection with our patron divinities or with the spirits with whom we work daily; on the contrary, it usually happens, but we must not confuse things; we are not going to have tea with cakes in the evening with Lilith and Hecate. You have to be serious if you want to progress in all this.
At the same time, you have to put everything in its place and stop making strange mixes, which in my experience, lead to fantasy and, in many cases, madness. As I always say, magic does not need other disciplines to be explained; it does not need physics or psychology. When we speak of energy in magic, we refer to spiritual or psychic energies, but we do not say of energy as traditional or quantum physics could. It is simply not logical to talk about what we do not understand. Magic has rules that are already complex enough to encourage us with matters that do not concern us and that we are not competent. Tiamat and the Primordial Chaos are not the Big Bang; why want to invent that it is the same thing? The same when we seek to use magic as a psychological tool, but we are not psychologists, so when a psychologist gets angry and denies the magical process, in the end, he is somewhat correct because if we continue insisting on stupid things that come from the mind of someone who does not have academic foundations, it is evident that others say: «this is not so.» And believe me, no matter how much we use the word archetype or unconscious, we are very far from knowing that a person who studied psychology has. The same is true if we use words like energy, planes, dimensions, etc. We are not physical, nor do we come close.
Magic is perfectly explained by magic itself. There is no need to convince anyone of anything. If others do not want to believe in what one does, it’s ok; this is a personal, solitary process, not a massive religion. We do not seek to save or enlighten anyone; in any case, we should do the work for ourselves instead of entering into endless debates with other people. Magic is not religion; it is not a cult, and we do not seek to convince or convert anyone. Magic has no political party and does not advocate for human rights, but neither does it incite hatred or destruction. Magic is an art; it is the art of change and transformation. The magician, through various rituals, transforms himself, igniting the spark of his internal divinity, which allows him to know himself, much more than what many people will do in their entire lives, recognizes their potential and their limitations, seek to overcome them, seeks to empower themselves and gain power, first over their universe and then over their environment, lives in the here and now, embraces life, the flesh, and all its pleasures, and many of us besides, seek the immortality of consciousness. For this, we use the myth, study it and then achieve a synthesis that allows us to operate magically.
I end by saying, let’s try to be logical; we are in postmodernism, in the information age, not in the Middle Ages. Obscurantism is over; let’s not always return to the same patterns disguised as progress or stupid explanations that all it does is create stagnation.
Greetings and good magic.
Daemon Barzai