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Love, and, well, Magic

  
 
Feverfew
18:50 / 13.02.07


I wanted to raise this question just in time for Valentine's Day, just because I'm in a prosaic state of mind at the moment;

Does(or Can) Love have a place in Magic?

Which calls immediately for a definition of terms.

Love in the way I think I mean it here refers to the wellspring of emotion that is felt by anyone who has family (parents, siblings), friends, or significant others with whom mutual positive feeling is shared. I can't quite phrase it in a non-hallmark way, but it is, (hopefully), the feeling that, no matter how badly you can, as a person, screw things up, that there is someone in the world that cares for you.

Magic is, then, in this case, any sort of working that could spring from the application of the above; can the love felt be put into a context whereby it becomes part of a ritual, or is 'Love' as the all-conquering force over and above such usage?

I come to this from a place of ignorance, and I would be interested to hear any experiences anyone else has had with this.

For my two-penny-worth, Love as part of Magic would seem to me to exist as a sort of grounding force - something that can always be used to bring the worker back down to earth, but in some cases, the grounding force, while an anchor, could become a chain around the person's feet. Maybe. I suspect some people find it essential while, equally, others find it restricting.

For my part, my only work with magic as I termed it was while I was in a serious / committed relationship, and I think it did nothing other than freak the other person out and distance - or, more accurately - 'other' me. This in turn has soured my experience with magic (with or without the extra 'k') to the effect that I haven't effectively tried to get back into the way since.

Is Love a force way above applicative magic? Should matters of the heart not be used or even relevant to a person's practices? Can love be integrated into daily ritual without moving either or both to a completely different place?


*

Also, to anyone that'd like it, Happy Valentine's Day for tomorrow.

Or Happy Singles Awareness Day.

Or Happy Black (Bean Sauce) Day.

Make your choice!
 
 
Unconditional Love
19:06 / 13.02.07
Bhakti is love for love's sake (from the above) Bhakti softens the heart and removes jealousy, hatred, lust, anger, egoism, pride and arrogance. It infuses joy, divine ecstasy, bliss, peace and knowledge. All cares, worries and anxieties, fears, mental torments and tribulations entirely vanish. The devotee is freed from the Samsaric wheel of births and deaths. He attains the immortal abode of everlasting peace, bliss and knowledge.

The fruits of Bhakti is Jnana. Jnana intensifies Bhakti. Even Jnanis like Sankara, Madhusudana and Suka Dev took to Bhakti after Realization to enjoy the sweetness of loving relationship with God.

Bhakti movement
 
 
grant
19:23 / 13.02.07
Empedocles held that everything there was related to everything else in terms of love and strife -- attraction and repulsion. He's also the guy who said everything was made of an admixture of four elements.

So in that sense, yeah. Love.
 
 
Ticker
19:25 / 13.02.07
As love is a strong motivater (one of the strongest, yeah?) it plays a huge giant fat role in my magic and worship.

I am moved to perform magical acts to benefit those I love, to promote love into the lives of those I adore, and to give thanks for the love I receive.

It manifests as connection with lines of resonace between me and my world and I use those connections to cause direct and profound change in my reality. With love I make magical offerings intended to bring joy and delight to others, with magic I summon and bestow love.

There's the steamy sexy romantic love that sizzles when I push intent for deeper connection into a magical gift and the gauzy free floating bliss of lighting offerings of incense and calling the awareness of my Beloved Dead to join me. A bundle of hair clippings and an old t-shirt await a rainy day to be made into a protective amulet to keep the home happy for the sake of love. The roaring fierce clawed love of my Guardians is called up for protection and the laughing appreciative love of my Gods guides me through dark times.

I also wear sacred tattoos designed to unite the love of self into skin and blood using the beauty of the design to wed intent to flesh.
 
 
brother george
20:44 / 13.02.07
I was afraid that this sort of thread would pop these days.
Keep in mind that I`m currently in a rather 'cold' phase so I could be biased in what I`m going to say. But anyway.

A magician basically binds and dissolves 'stuff'. Love binds, Strife dissolves. That's easy.
Another thing is that basically when you seriously start working the mojo, there are going to be times that Beauty will be revealed to you.

In simple things, in simple ways. In muddy street ponds, in reflections of the light, in trashcans, in hanged laundry from people's balconies, in the smells and in the faces of people in the subway. In bookstores and street lights in twilight. Like I said, in simple things.

This can culminate in that rare moment, when everything and everyone around you seems to catch fire and become part of a celebration. There isn't another word more suited for this but celebration. I've found that, in these moments, I would spontaenously lift my hands upwards and a physical sensation of love would spring forth from my guts and to the heavens. Like I said, rare moments.

Or by chance you are spending quality time in the toilet, reading a book about a dear subject of yours. You see the beauty of it, but in the same time, like a mirror, you see the beauty of yourself reflected back to you and back again to that subject!. You are beautifull because you recognize the beauty of that thing.

And closing this in a more down-to-earth manner I've found that the aspects of yourself that you once treated them unkind, in a swooping act to 'get things straight'; can only be mended with love, or they will continue to beat you with clubs and mock you in your dreams.

My journal says so, because like I said, I`m feeling a bit forlorn these days.
 
 
illmatic
22:25 / 13.02.07
A magician basically binds and dissolves 'stuff'. Love binds, Strife dissolves. That's easy.

So does that mean a magician (whatever that is> is against love and pro-strife? Would explain a lot about the board about.

I see "love" as rooted in something somatic - openess in the chest area, which is conditionally on a degree of opening in the throat and chest and respiration. Those wonderfully tender but incredbily uncomfortable feelings which can well up in this are caued by all kinds of situations. I think it's your duty if you are working on yourself to embrace this stuff, and the openess and vulnerability that comes with it. More when I'm not so drunk.
 
 
Ticker
23:06 / 13.02.07
yes please come back when you're done, Eggs. I'd dig hearing a Reichian perspective about the emotion's impact on physical armoring. (though hey I could go google it myself like a grown up)
 
 
Alex's Grandma
23:25 / 13.02.07
I see "love" as rooted in something somatic - openess in the chest area, which is conditionally on a degree of opening in the throat and chest and respiration. Those wonderfully tender but incredbily uncomfortable feelings which can well up in this are caued by all kinds of situations. I think it's your duty if you are working on yourself to embrace this stuff, and the openess and vulnerability that comes with it.

I agree.

But I also think that it's always important to think about staying in control when these feelings crop up, because we're all alone here, after all, aren't we, as people?

You can't really trust anyone, can you?
 
 
EmberLeo
02:28 / 14.02.07
Love is pretty central to my work, but as I explained in the sex magic thread, it's more of a Worship area than a Magic area for me. I think it's somewhat sideways to the issue of the mechanics of magic, but it's definitely not out of the picture.

I have a very specific idea of what Love truely is, which I differentiate from the chemical responses of lust and infatuation, and from the social responses of admiration and attention.

Sometimes I'm really good at explaining it, but I don't think today is going to be one of those times. I'll try anyway:

There are two general manners of Value: BEing, and DOing.

Things that DO are valued as Useful. Things that ARE are valued as Beautiful.

Love is the response to experiencing Beauty.
Love is the value in BEing.

Love is not an exchange. It's a gift. It goes out from the person who experiences it, towards the Beauty that prompted the experience, and does not return. It is not uncommon that two people will find Beauty in eachother, and thus give Love to eachother, but that is not one exchange, it is two paralell experiences. The nifty bit, though, is that we are often able to see the Beauty in the ability of others to Love - so while each instance is it's own, it tends to spiral upward.

This (and other stuff that comes out of it) is the core of my work with my gods - especially Freya. It feeds into absoloutely everything else I do, especially on an esoteric level. But, as I said, when it comes to the *mechanics* of magic, it's not necessarily directly involved.

If you asked me specific questions, I could probably answer them, but I don't know where to go from here. I hope this is useful to you.

--Ember--
 
 
brother george
06:17 / 14.02.07
So does that mean a magician (whatever that is> is against love and pro-strife? Would explain a lot about the board about.

Uh, how did you come up to this conclusion ?
One uses both, when necessairy.
A magician is one who consciously and willingly practises and studies magic. Simple eh ?
 
 
EmberLeo
07:21 / 14.02.07
Since I had to read that one a couple times myself to parse it, I suspect I know why it was read wrong:

A magician basically binds and dissolves 'stuff'.

First time through, I read "binds first, then dissolves the stuff" rather than "binds some stuff, dissolves other stuff".

--Ember--
 
 
illmatic
08:37 / 14.02.07
Gorg: I think I misread, along the lines that Ember suggests. Sorry, I was pissed (and thanks to EL for the clarification). Off topic- I don't like the phrase "magician" for various reasons. To me, it implies an aloofness and outsiderness that has never seemed congruent with my practice. Seems a bit of a fantasy that takes one away from life, rather than closer to it. YMMV, obviously.

But I also think that it's always important to think about staying in control when these feelings crop up

Good point, you old dear. The attitude you're registering has it's roots in fear basically, doesn't it? I don't mean that in a YOU FEAR PUNY MORTAL sort of way, either. Fear of being overwhelmed by the intenstiy of our own emotions, breaking down and crying, being hurt etc.

From my own experience, I'd say that:

i) this fear also has a somatic root - think of the way you tense up or tighten the throat, chest or jaw whenever these very open feelings start to come up. There's a "head" component to this as well - attitudes of habitual cynicism and denigration of emotional expression

and

ii) the fear is often a lot worse than the experience of the emotion itself. TBH, the two exist together and can't easily be teased apart. We have a lot of fearful fantasies about what would happen if we "lose control". We'll start shitting and pissing everywhere and smash everythihg up. Fro a Reichian perspective, these feelings are "second layer" - the supressed anger and rage that one feels from childhood, upbringing, whatever, that exist under the social mask (Reich's third layer).

These negative emotions and feelings cover up and get confused with the first layer - the feelings of openess/tenderness etc. This is what I like about Reich's conception of the person. He posits that our "core" is open, loving, etc and that's closer to who/what we really are,rather than the Freudian pov. that we are all slavering monsters underneath the surface.

My experience bears this out - whenever I have actually managed to open up and let myself go (if my physiology doesn't go against me and choke me back up) going with these emotions feels good. Crying deeply for instance - which doesn't happen very often at all for me - is really satisfying afterward.

XK: I think if you want to get a Reichian pov. just reflect on your own experience of these emotions. For me, it's obvious to say that love is situated in the heart as it's something I feel somatically in this area of my body. This isn't separate from my cerebal/cognitive thoughts of love. The two go together - the former without the latter doesn't happen.

You might see a humna organism as something that express these feelings from the core (the heart), that bundle of complexity in our chests and see this as expressed through the limbs in a reaching and streching out towards the world (towards others). Similarly, I'm sure you can imagine what inhibits this expression. Tightness in the throat (can't speak the feelings), rigidity in the face (can't communicate the emotions through expresson), tightness in the back and arms (can't reach out), immobility in the pelvis (can't connect the genital with the chest - sex and love).

Hope all the above makes sense.
 
 
Ticker
10:33 / 14.02.07
It does, thank you.
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:02 / 14.02.07
Devotional poems

She's Playing in my heart.

She’s playing in my heart.
Whatever I think, I think Her name.
I close my eyes and She’s in there
Garlanded with human heads.

Common sense, know-how-gone,
So they say I’m crazy. Let them.
All I ask, my crazy Mother,
Is that You stay put.

Ramprasad cries out: Mother, don’t
Reject this lotus heart You live in
Don’t despise this human offering
At Your feet.
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:07 / 14.02.07
Love brings forth many different emotions.....


I'm Sick of Living Mother


I’m sick of living, Mother, sick.
Life and money have run out
But I go on crying “Tara, Tara,”
Hoping. You are the mother of all
And our nurse. You carry the Three Worlds
In Your belly.

So am I some orphan fallen out
Of the sky? And if You think I’m bad,
Remember, You’re the cord connecting
Every good and evil
And I’m a tool tied to illusion.

Your name can blot out fear
Of Death – so Shiva said,
But, Terrible One, You forget all that,
Absorbed in Shiva, Death, and Time.

Prasad says: Your games, Mother,
Are mysteries. You make and break.
You’ve broken me in this life.

By Ramprasad
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:22 / 14.02.07
I should of added, Love in this world has taught me about the impermanence of all things and not to be attached to anything, if it were not from the pain of loving somebody i lost, i dont quite think i would have learnt about these things, it was this deep heart felt loss and the love i still felt for what could no longer be that opened my eyes to the transitory nature of all conditions that surround me.

Love is a fantastic teacher and has many lessons to teach, the loss of love is like unto death, until the passion comes to love again, but i sometimes wonder if the pain of the loss makes the joy and bliss of devotion to that which we love worth it, or it could be argued that that pain and heartfelt sadness is the merit of what we have loved and love.
 
 
brother george
12:52 / 14.02.07
Fear of being overwhelmed by the intenstiy of our own emotions, breaking down and crying, being hurt etc.

I wouldn't say fear of breaking down and crying, but rather fear of acting in haste and in a desperate way, which most of the time leads to no good.

I've had numerous occassions in the past 3 months in which I would spontaenously break down and cry (for no reason and for every reason). I welcome this every time it happens.
 
 
Feverfew
17:21 / 14.02.07
And now, it is, the day of St Valentine himself.

Thank you all for your cogent responses to my somewhat garbled query up above - they've made fascinating reading.

I'm not sure exactly what I was aiming to express but I think it's been mostly covered.

My next consideration is whether to begin a "starting or restarting practising from Zero Point" thread, but that's by the by.

I will return to this later, but right now I'm dressed a bit too much like the David Tennant Dr Who to carry this on coherently.
 
 
EmberLeo
17:26 / 14.02.07
Mmm, but I think there's a difference between maintaining control over your actions and maintaining control over your feelings.

In love as with anything else, I always do my best to maintain control over my choices of action. It's harder for me, personally, to succeed against anxiety and fear than in love, certainly, but that's because the love is inevitably balanced by other loves.

But I know so many people who equate "staying in control" in Love to holding back their emotional state, trying to NOT fall in love, trying to NOT feel love, and as far as I can tell, that doesn't help. If anything, it makes them less concious of their choices of action, and it makes what their choices are based on less real than what's actually there - their choices are based on fear of what might be instead of on what IS.

It hurts them, it hurts others, it robs them of one of the most fundamental experiences of sentient being, and it doesn't help them control the actions of their lives any better.

--Ember--
 
 
Z. deScathach
07:07 / 15.02.07
In terms of love's place in magick, to me, it needs to be the ultimate basis of it's practice, at least to some degree, simply because it's the only condition that lessens the crap in the world. Still, for myself, it was the hardest thing to deal with in a magickal context. I'm not so much talking in terms of romantic love as biological attraction, but as an intimate connection with both reality in general and human beings in particular.

It was mentioned above about that "feeling" that one sometimes get's of intimate association. To me, that is love, and it's the reason why I practice magick. I went to see a film called "The Secret", at a local church. In it, people are shown using "The Law of Atraction" to attract a million dollars, to attract a Farrari, to attract the mansion of your dreams, and I found myself pondering, "This is what we think that love is". As a matter of fact, most of these wants were put in the context of love. In western culture, love is confused with desire. When I was younger, I knew all about desire, but I didn't know a damn thing about love. In terms of practical magick, without love, it just becomes one more way to "get stuff", no more than another, "Get rich by buying real estate with no money down" technique. I'm not saying that it isn't OK to use magick to get one's needs met, but there's one thing to getting one's needs met, and another to getting one's wants met. Wants can be endless, and frequently there's no place left for love, because one's own space is taken up by endless wants.

I've come to equate love not with wanting, but with a perception of value. It's looking at something and seeing it's preciousness, it's shining "thereness". If magick actually works, if it is possible to "make things happen", then what is it that I want to make? Invariably social movements rise, and then sour, because while they may look good on paper, human beings fall short. The only solution that I see is the developments of a wordwide sense of connection on a profoundly psychic level. I'm not sure that it's possible, but I don't see much ultimate hope for our species without it. So I suppose that this is a very long winded way of saying that magick should primarily be about love, otherwise why bother?
 
 
Quantum
09:45 / 15.02.07
Love as part of Magic

Strange- I've always thought Love was an end, the aim, and sometimes magic is used to get it (love spells). I'm in love, and I haven't found it terribly relevent to my practice. There's the sort of love-of-the-universe love involved, or feelings of love as a part of work you do but I'm not sure romantic love is the same kettle of fish.
 
 
Papess
12:52 / 15.02.07
True love instills a sense of duty. Romantic love doesn't have this committed nature. Our society has romanticized "true love" which, does cause an indiscrepancy between love and desire. Desire being a longing one needs to gratify, love being an over-riding sense of devotion. When these two states work together, it almost presents a perfect case for monogamy. Almost.

Wants can be endless, and frequently there's no place left for love, because one's own space is taken up by endless wants.

This is so true. It even shows on the tonal of the nations. Shame.

I've come to equate love not with wanting, but with a perception of value. It's looking at something and seeing it's preciousness, it's shining "thereness". If magick actually works, if it is possible to "make things happen", then what is it that I want to make? Invariably social movements rise, and then sour, because while they may look good on paper, human beings fall short. The only solution that I see is the developments of a wordwide sense of connection on a profoundly psychic level. I'm not sure that it's possible, but I don't see much ultimate hope for our species without it. So I suppose that this is a very long winded way of saying that magick should primarily be about love, otherwise why bother?

That just needed repeating, Z.deScrathach. Thank you.

Love is cohesion not fusion. One is about mutual destruction, the other about mutual support. It seems love is quite relevant to magick as a vehicle, but also as destination. Which, makes some zen jokes very funny now, in terms of already being where one is going.

But first, we've got to get in the car, I suppose. It's like we are all fighting about whose vehicle we are going to take to eternity.
 
 
Quantum
17:11 / 15.02.07
Romantic love doesn't have this committed nature.

Mine does.
 
 
Papess
19:52 / 15.02.07
Very good, Quants!

Though, I am talking of a notion of romance as love, that without the other part of the love, the sense of duty to that person or cause - the actual work that nurtures the relationship - it will most definatley, lack commitment.

I did not say that "real love", or devoted love, couldn't be romantic. *wink*
 
  
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