| |
|
A thorny issue this one. I often gravitate to the belief that, at one level, there are no such things as "systems" in magic, and this is largely the invention of occult booksellers. I think that, before you can consider making up your own system, you have to work out what you mean by that statement. What exactly do you mean when you say "system"? What exactly do you mean when you say "magic"? Do you intend to invent your own pantheon of Gods? Do you intend to invent your own unique methods of practical sorcery? Do you intend to invent your own symbol system for understanding the universe? Do you intend to invent your own system of divination?
Show me the magician that doesn't do this sort of thing naturally, to one degree or another, in the course of their career, and I'll show you a rubbish magician. Magic is living, or it's dead. I work, predominantly, within a tradition. But my own versioning within that tradition has created something different from what the person who passed that tradition on to me works with. Similarly, his way of doing things is very different from the person who trained him. Even in the most rigid systems, a marriage naturally occurs between the practitioner and the trad. What you bring to the table is as important as what you take from it.
I work with a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, but there's nothing formulaic about that. It's a living set of relationships, and is constantly developing, constantly changing and constantly being updated on a day-to-day basis, just like any other living relationship. My relationship with a Goddess is probably different from other relationships that Goddess might have with other magicians, just as my relationship with a specific living person is probably very different to other relationships that person might have.
Also, I think an argument could be made that what we call Gods and Goddesses are perhaps more like self aware anthropomorphic masks that make it easier for us to relate and interact with the building blocks of our reality and the human experience. It's easier to have a relationship with something if it has a personality and acts a bit like a human. So in terms of Gods, all of the "traditions" and "systems" are possibly just working with the same thing, the same essential powers, but calling them by different names and approaching them in terms of a different cultural personality. It's not that "all Gods are the same", cos they're not, but the powers behind them are arguably the same – simply because all magico-religious traditions are developed by humans, and humans tend to have similar concerns and share a broad commonality of experience regardless of culture.
I'm not sure that you can "make up" a God, it's perhaps more the case that a unique mask or version of a power/aspect of reality reveals itself to you and resonates with you personally. If this is the way you feel you need to go, then I'd say it's a case of letting them emerge of their own accord rather than sitting down with a pad of paper and trying to "invent", say, a personal version of the Goddess of Love. I don't think it works like that. They have to be alive, they have to come to you, speak to you, and you have to have the undeniable sense that there is something powerful, independent, self aware, and alive on the other end of your invocation. The best way to get that sort of thing working is to create circumstances conducive to one of them coming through to you, rather than defining the parameters of something and then trying to make it real.
Similarly, if you look at methods of sorcery and divination, the actual mechanics of how these things tend to operate within different cultural traditions are really very similar. You get doll magic and jar magic in Africa, China, Europe, and all over the place. For instance, sympathetic magic or theurgic magic could be thought of as analogous to painting and sculpture, what you do remains the same, but the materials you use and the style you adopt can differ greatly. There are several workable methods of sorcery: sticking pins in dolls, binding stuff up, putting things in jars, making potions and powders, variations on the written sign or sigil, candle burning, creation of amulets or charms, and so on. I'm not sure that you can really make new ones up, even Austin Spare's sigil method has its parallels with other talismanic forms of magic. But you can be creative in your choice and use of materials, mix things up, apply 21st century technology to the various forms, and so on. Which you tend to get in all systems and traditions anyway. Hoodoo is a "tradition" of sorcery, but you can practice hoodoo in such a way that you never quite do the same working twice. The magic is often stronger if you tailor it to a specific situation rather than following a recipebook down to the last letter, and particularly if you provide enough space for the magic and your creativity to take over, and allow new ways of doing things to emerge from what you are doing.
Perhaps the lesson of your dream could be read as not so much instruction to sit down and "make your own system", like you were channeling the guy who invented the boardgame 'Monopoly', but maybe the realisation that that's what magic is. It's not a series of recipes, rulebooks, and clearly defined systems of attainment, but something you engage with creatively and make your own. Everyone brews a cup of tea in their own way. Some people prefer darjeeling leaves, others go for lapsang sushong, some dig english breakfast, others like earl grey. But the process of making it is something you engage with personally, and that's what defines whether it's a nice cup of tea, or if it tastes like nonce piss. |
|
|
