photo by cottonbro studio from pexels
by Christopher Penczak, edited by Tina Whittle
As a teacher, I find myself saying the same thing in multiple ways because you can never be sure what language, which symbol, and what moment will help someone understand a subtle teaching. Magick is taught in a twilight language of poetry, ritual, and symbol along with metaphysics, philosophy, and mythology. Teaching is often stirring up the right atmosphere and circumstances to transmit an idea that is not easily put into language.
As someone who embraces the perennial wisdom perspective, I find approaching a truth from multiple perspectives quite helpful. As l was raised Catholic, it helps me see a metaphysical truth as universal, the true meaning of catholic with a little “c” and not the dogma and control as found in Catholicism with a big “C.”
In a class on the psychology of initiation, co-taught with a psychology professor, I used Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey as an example. While there are many pros and cons to Campbell’s approach, including some sexist assumptions, he distills some core ideas into an easily digestible formula less esoteric than alchemy, astrology, and folklore. As the basic pattern found in Star Wars, we can use that common knowledge rather than the less familiar Epic of Gilgamesh. Specifically when I spoke of the ending of the cycle—after the initiation process and into the return process with the stages known as Master of the Two Worlds and the Freedom to Live—someone later expressed upset with me and the teaching.
After the trials of initiation, one must integrate and return to the world. The master of two worlds can hold the dichotomy of the seemingly spiritual and non-spiritual worlds, the mythic and the mundane, and function in both. During the quest one can often be dysfunctional in the everyday world, so immersed in the mythic. A successful initiation leaves you living between, but far more functional than before your initiation, as you are privy to the secrets of life, and death. This gets you to the Freedom to Live stage, as with those secrets as integrated experiences, you live more fully in the moment, knowing you are supported by the invisible powers and that things unfold as they should. This isn’t always what your ego wants, but you are not your ego, so that’s okay. Regardless of outer circumstances, one is free.
I used the example in my own life of finding a way to do what I wanted regardless of the circumstances. Specifically, I wanted to get married in a society that didn’t recognize gay marriage. Steve Kenson and I called forth a community of loved ones that would recognize it spiritually, if not legally, and just did it. We did the outside paperwork for the legal rights that our non-legal marriage did not grant. Despite the outer challenges, after my initiation periods that changed my worldview, I did as I felt called to do to live in a genuine and authentic way regardless of how easy or hard it was in society. I wasn’t bound. When something wasn’t seemingly possible, I made it possible in my sphere of influence, even if my sphere of influence for that issue was my own heart and mind. I live my life on my own terms and navigate the consequences of that in the world.
The complaint was that I was giving really bad advice and that not everyone has my resources and privilege. And yes, I have more of both than some and less than others. The levels of both have fluctuated as well at different stages of my life, but I came into magickal priesthood in my early adulthood and proceeded in this fashion regardless, often making sacrifices for my intention while others were less thoughtful about their choices.
The problem with the complaint was that I wasn’t giving advice to others. I was explaining the circumstance of consciousness one lives in after a true initiation into the Timeless Tradition, regardless of religion. I was describing a psychological state. One who goes through the twelve to seventeen steps outlined in the journey, or the seven to twelve alchemical operations, or the ten grades of the Tree of Life, or the three stages of some Craft, becomes this. It’s not a choice. If you haven’t been to the Underworld and back, I’m not recommending it at all. Resources and privilege can make it outwardly easier or harder, but not inwardly. An initiate, if moving forward under the guidance of their inner wisdom, will receive the resources and opportunities needed to fulfill their True Will, no more and no less. Living life on our own terms is not the terms of the ego, but the terms of the soul. With it, there is a strange acceptance of what is in the outer circumstance. Life unfolds. We are a part of that unfolding. In that paradox of the higher will of the soul and the acceptance of what is, we find the living mystery.
I experienced gay marriage before it was legal. One could argue that it wasn’t real, as it wasn’t marriage, but that gets to the fundamental key of this teaching—living on your own terms. Those who would make that argument probably aren’t quite understanding what I am saying, and most likely haven’t been to the Underworld and back, through an initiation cycle. Most people haven’t. They might have experienced it vicariously through movies, television, and books—and there is certainly benefit to that over not experiencing it at all—but it doesn’t provide the integration. In that paradoxical balance, my acceptance of my own marriage did not mean I wasn’t also leading groups to do magick to make LGBTQIA marriage legal, and supporting political work with real-world actions for that same end. And while I continue to fight to protect it as the right is threatened in today’s political climate, it also isn’t the high-water benchmark it was for me twenty years ago. If we lose that right I am still married, because ironically after all that effort, we met a third partner, Adam Sartwell, and did not want to invoke a ritually unbalanced dynamic with the act of a legal marriage between two out of the three of us, so we did not get legally married. That does not define our relationship either, and I fight for those who want that legal right even if I never take it, just as I fight for the legal right to abortion, even though I would never personally have one due to my biology.
We constantly make agreements, as Witches and as people. What can we agree to for the greater goal and what can’t we? We all make agreements in society. This is collectively acceptable, and this isn’t. Witches are known to make agreements, pacts with spirits. What will you do for me and what will I do for you? And we can argue that we make agreements about reality. Metaphysicians often call the “objective” world consensus reality. These are levels of terms, accepted or rejected, in stages of initiation. As Witches we have to decide what are our terms and what are our consequences, and then live them under the greater guidance of our Witch soul.