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by Christopher Penczak, edited by Tina Whittle
Awake. Asleep. Dreaming. Unconscious. We use these words often around the spiritual experience, and they can create as many problems as explanations. Many spiritual seekers will describe their state of consciousness as “awake” when compared to non-magickal or consciously mystical people. Sometimes this leads to a place of being pejorative, of looking at the “masses” as sleepers, and that one who is awake is somehow better than others. I know I’ve said and done as much. There is a basis in some of the more pessimistic gnostic traditions, such as the Mandaeans and later Cathars. That has led to the modern New Age ideologies of the red pill and blue pill, and that we are living in a Matrix, a simulation, from which we must escape like the heroes gathered around the character Neo from the movie The Matrix. What is old is new again.
We often see the same sentiment in the whole sheep/goat analogy, that most people are sheep, easily led, but some individuals and rebels are the goats, and they have important things to do or say. I’ve said that too, and in some moments, that feels true. It can be helpful when distinguishing yourself from your birth religion and breaking societal norms and expectations to dive deeper in the mystical. In other situations, the idea is super dismissive, and it’s easy to get stuck in this “better than” mindset. Yet when you are frustrated with people who are not actively participating in the things you have deemed important, it’s easy to be contemptuous and insulting.
Some look in the reversed symbolism, that the world is akin to a divine dream made from our perceptions and belief structures, and we are all actively dreaming. We are all asleep, but those who learn the arts of lucid dreaming are consciously creating the dream, taking the form of not only lucid dreaming but meditation, affirmation, energy work, trance, spirit summoning, and ritual magick, and those who don’t are still creating, but unconsciously. And this can certainly be a helpful image in our training, though when we use symbols of sleeping and dreaming, there has to then be an awakened state, but awakened is not necessarily superior to sleeping. Perhaps truly awakening takes you “out” of the dream and is the equivalent of enlightenment, ascension, or nirvana.
For those on a magickal path, initiatory experience is often compared to waking from the dream, or inversely, putting you into an enchanted dream world that is more real than the “real” world. In either image, it is a drastic change that alters your perception of the world, yourself, and what is possible. Psychic phenomena, ghosts and spirits, healing, successful spells, out-of-body experiences, verified past lives, and of course, traditional initiation rituals can all utterly change our perception and relationship with reality. That is the key of magickal training.
Yet not everyone stays in that state of wonder and enchantment, or uses it further. This baffles me, but it’s true. Many people have a peak experience, and don’t go further. They don’t seek to understand it, find context, or look for the next peak. They don’t seek greater change. They decide the process might not be for them or that it requires too much. Walking a magickal path requires sacrifice; some say you must be willing to give up everything to receive all. And there is truth to that statement. Ultimately you must give up the comfort of your old self, even if it’s an unhappy self. Change, even needed change, is hard.
But even after a path of mystery, of exploration and challenge, one can hit a moment where they give it all up, consciously in one direct action, or slowly, little by little, losing the new perspective to return for the old. Teachings tell us that once you are a Witch, you are always a Witch. If you say, “I used to be a Witch,” then you never were. Witchcraft was a step on your path, but not intrinsic to your nature. And that is fine. I think some people still are Witches by function and orientation, even if the word doesn’t work for them. For others it was a healing step on the path, and for others still, a lark, an experimentation, an exploration of self. All of that is fine with me until those who are not Witches seek to define the Witchcraft experience for others.
A helpful teaching for me (despite the fact that I am not a Left Hand Path practitioner) is the seven stages of initiation described in the Left Hand Path as outlined in the work of Don Webb, particularly Uncle Setnakt’s Essential Guide to the Left Hand Path. I wrote about its relationship to other models of initiation in The Living Temple of Witchcraft, Volume I. The stages are described as follows:
- Wandering
- First Shock
- Daydreaming
- Second Shock
- School
- Third Shock
- Work
Each of these has an associated virtue to embody and vice to avoid. Each shock is an opportunity to “awaken” to a new level of reality, and each runs the risk of falling back to sleep. Stage three is clear, with daydreaming. One must navigate the daydream to come out of it through keeping a sense of humor and not forgetting past orthodoxies, as they might have had a purpose. In the first shock stage, one can be filled with hubris as the vice, thinking you are better than those still wandering rather than working and creating quantifiable pride based on the results of your work. The second shock can lead to the vice of despair, and one must be open to a new way of being. The third and seemingly “last” shock runs the risk of becoming obsessed with magick, often the minutia or power over, and one is forced to synthesize what they learned into their own magickal paradigm. At any of the seven stages, an initiate can get stuck, fall back asleep, or otherwise grow corrupt. That can be part of the trial of initiation, as long as one moves through it, eventually.
I used to worry or get upset when a fellow Witch seemed to fall “back” into unconscious patterns, losing their magickal perception and will. I think I did because I feared that if it happened to them, it could happen to me. And it could. But you can’t control other’s paths, and you really can’t anticipate and control your own path. All you can do is live it as consciously as you can.
Some feel it’s our duty to “wake up” those who have gone dormant in their Craft. You can’t. You can attempt to, but most often it yields heartache. Going back to sleep most often, but not always, yields heartache, as something will always seem to be missing, the loss of an enchanted worldview, but you don’t know what is best for that person. Perhaps they accomplished the karma of their magickal will. That is why they are done. You can choose how you remain in their life, assuming they want you to do so because some, when they recognize this shift, break all ties to their Witchcraft friends and community. You can also realize that perhaps the friendship is done for now, and that it may or may not circle back again.
I can find it hard when someone leaves Witchcraft and disavows the identity of the Witch after having it. I see the bond of the Craft, and then ask myself, “What bond did we have?” It’s like a queer partner declaring they are straight with no real explanation. It shakes the foundation of the relationship. Of course you share the human experience, but we can feel grief in losing the Witchcraft bond with someone we saw as spiritual kin on a different level. That is a valid feeling and something we need to work through. Ultimately I don’t think it’s our job to awaken anyone. We need to respect people’s wishes, and people’s paths, and let things unfold over their own time. Some will circle back and some will not, but all we can do is mind our own crooked path and realize this is one of those unexpected bends that might shock and surprise us.
Do we use the shock as an initiatory condition and deepen our magickal experience? Or do we seek to go back to the old and familiar? In my experience, the Witch must go forward upon the road and take in all the changes and shifts as they do!