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Magic as Play and Recovering the Inner Child

  
 
Unconditional Love
11:01 / 08.03.07
Alot of the therapy i have been involved with of late has involved healing my inner child, recognising the child like part of myself and learning to play again and engaging that aspect of myself with the nurturing parent part of my psychology.

For me being someone who has day dreamed and generally been a myth maker (as i think most people are) this has expressed itself through my magical practice as much as any other area of my life. The spirits i choose to work with reflect as much aspects of myself as they do spiritual realities. (in the broadest sense)

Recently i have been engaging with Horus the elder and Horus the child, i have been having day dreams/visions that involve these spirits/self aspects taking care of each other, Horus the elder lifting Horus the child from the blue lotus and craddling him, while taking him away from the primeval sea of chaos.

Its been a useful vision and has helped me in therapy to express a process i was going through and understand the work that was involved in learning to play again. (sneaky paradox)

I have not read any of the psychologically orientated literature in this area of inner child work but intend to in the near future. I have been thinking about how magic engages with what is playful and childlike and how as a vehicle it will be a very useful companion in this work.

The thread on maladaptive magic came to mind and i began to consider it and realise that it engages from the Adult logical view point, which is very useful for engaging in the adult world, but doesnt address the needs of somebody with a broken childhood in need of repair.

Magic on the other hand fulfills those criteria very well :

Engaging with the imagination and dreams, playing with the body in a variety of physical postures, banging on drums and shaking rattles, Having conversations with inanimate objects as i used to as a child. Talking and interacting with all the things adults cant see but children can.

For a fully Integrated Adult life i can see how magic could be a maladaptive process, but from my experience and for my current work it seems to be my best choice for engaging with the child in me.

I am going to keep working with Horus the child and Horus the elder and the other spirits that represent as much parts of me that they do there own realities.

I wonder if other people have done any work with there inner child and how playfulness relates to magic, magic as play or playful magic. Magic entered into perhaps without intent but just as play for the joy of playing.
 
 
Unconditional Love
11:42 / 08.03.07
On engaging with Horus i have had some thoughts about Crowley and Thelema, Crowleys notion that the true colours were Blue and gold as opposed to black comes from the golden sun child at the centre of the blue lotus as opposed to the black oceans of the void that surround it. The babe in the abyss.

The aeon of the child should be about the rights of children, the empowerment of children and the removal of abusive systems that treat children as property, the older aeons.

I think some of this is based on Crowleys experience of his own childhood ie his own myths, losing his father while young, forced to become an independent spirit, an abusive mother figure. Explains some of crowleys more abusive behaviours, not that that gives him any excuse.

These are all my own insights, not based on any truth or research just my own thoughts on the associations i have come across.

I no longer work in the context of Thelema and try to engage from a Modern Egyptian view point, one of my reasons for this is that i feel alot of Thelema has come to echo the abyss rather than the babe, at least in my own experience, i also think some of the areas of thelema have become too coloured by the author of thelemas own abuses.

I bring this up as my own experience of reclaiming my own babe from the abyss to employ that metaphor brought these things to light for me.
 
 
Ticker
14:05 / 08.03.07
Engaging with the imagination and dreams, playing with the body in a variety of physical postures, banging on drums and shaking rattles, Having conversations with inanimate objects as i used to as a child. Talking and interacting with all the things adults cant see but children can.


I find in working with trees I am often dropped into a very child like place of wonder and play. In order to attune myself with them I have to suspend much of my adult perceptions and interact without assumptions, a state which I personally I associate with being a child.


I wonder if other people have done any work with there inner child and how playfulness relates to magic, magic as play or playful magic. Magic entered into perhaps without intent but just as play for the joy of playing.

Some of my favorite work in my private temple space is playing, sometimes in the form of dance, or rolling, or just engaging in odd moments of fascination without concern over how I might be perceived. In allowing myself this luxury of true privacy I have resummed many of the games of my youth. Starting with that fascination (last was drawing in charcoal ash on the floor) I have created some powerful moments of magic.
 
 
HeartShadow
14:43 / 08.03.07
I think there's a question as to what's meant by "magic" as far as what's adaptive and maladaptive.

Things that are personal transformation certainly feel like magic from the inside .. but they could also be labeled psychology without really changing the effect or even necessarily the methods. (that doesn't mean I don't think there's power to it. I do. Just that it's a different issue).

When we say magic is maladaptive, I think that implies that my thinking a burning of a candle or whatever /over here/ affects someone/thing else /over there/. And putting too much faith in that, to the point of not doing the work required to get what you want, can certainly be maladaptive.

But when you're talking about affecting yourself, the question of whether it's good or bad is pretty much only determined by results. Are you happier from doing the magic? Are you a better person? Is it doing what you want? It's not the same thing as magic to affect other people, when there are questions about efficacy. Magic upon yourself is definitionally strange, because you're changing yourself. And how you label it doesn't change what it does.

Self-transformative magic is very powerful. This doesn't make it less magical. But it does mean that it could be considered something other than magic.
 
 
brother george
17:42 / 08.03.07
i feel alot of Thelema has come to echo the abyss rather than the babe, at least in my own experience, i also think some of the areas of thelema have become too coloured by the author of thelemas own abuses.

With all due respect, I'm not sure that the term 'Babe of the Abyss' refers to ones 'Inner child' as such. That would mean putting your Genius, Star Daimon, HGA, whatever in the same level with yourself when you were a cute toddler.

You can of course do just that, but since you are working from a viewpoint where such a 'thing' exists (and if you don't I`m terribly sorry and you can scratch this post) it would do good if you dug around a bit and see what people meant when they were refering to this concept.

And I`m not talking about what Crowley said either, for example, Iamblichus talks about the matter in 'On the Egyptian Mysteries' as well as Plotinus (you can see where I`m coming from).

Although there isn't a need to get overly technical about it, I felt that I should pinpoint this as to avoid any future misunderstandings.


When we say magic is maladaptive, I think that implies that my thinking a burning of a candle or whatever /over here/ affects someone/thing else /over there/. And putting too much faith in that, to the point of not doing the work required to get what you want, can certainly be maladaptive.

I wouldn't say so. Thats just practical magic, not maladaptive magic. The strange thing is that with some cases, you get effortless magical results. With others, no matter what you do, it always falls flat. This is the crucial point where you need to re-examine the whole matter, and see what you really need to sort out yourself. Almost all results from working practical magic, contain a small lesson about yourself and the situation, if you know how to look.

Returning to our main subject, I think working with memory as an effort to recover the inner child is somehow relevant. An interesting thing here is that, the Golden Age in one rendition, refers to the time of innocent youth. The Golden Age is ruled by Saturn, which traditionally symbolizes Time. The linear 'cause and effect' notion of Time is possible only because you have memory.

Causality has built you and led you here.
So, see where all this takes you from here on.
 
 
Unconditional Love
11:48 / 09.03.07
I think perhaps there is a magical psychology to play, but psychologising play makes it less playful in some respects, imo. To capture the joy i felt of walking on the backs of crocodiles to get to the safe sofa (not spending to long mind you as they will turn and bite) i dont want to be understanding so much as experiencing and doing, being the play i am playing at.

Its similar with invocation, i am entering into a state where Sobek (egyptian crocodile god) is real i can see him feel what it feels like to be him, notice the bodily changes, how being scaled feels on the skin, how a crocodile moves. Its being the principle of crcodile and the mythology of Sobek.

To pretend like a child pretends is to make real, remember how it was to imagine, there is a real genius to a childs perception, a daimon, as a child i could bring alsorts of things into being for myself, not just as imagination, i would act and react as if they were real. I think as i have gotten older there are many abstract notions that i have habitually pretended are real, many social and individual perceptions that a child relates too as pretense or as playing a game, but an adult takes as being more real than they actually are, my child is far more intelligent than my adults.

I am not talking about abandoning the logical adult in favour of the child, but engaging with the inherent ability of a less conditioned mind, less limited mind for personal transformation. The logical adult and nurturing parent parts of the self still act as guardians, but do not punish the child for playing, imagining and creating.

Many times children are punished or shamed for things that arent bad or wrong, but dont fit with a parents idea of social convention, as a child i learnt certain games, that were most definately harmful to others, violent and abusive games, that expression can only be changed by engaging with that child like part of the self and teaching him more playful fun loving games, so if he likes being fierce then certain aspects of certain spirits fit that bill (because he is still a little insecure), but also other spirits can be engaged with to help him learn new games, Hathor, Isis, Horus, Sekhmet They all have a different set of mythologys and games to teach him. The games they teach are easier to learn because they directly access the child like area of the psyche.

Ritual devotion, is dressing up, dancing around, speaking in funny voices, banging on things, playing with fire and talking to things. Magic engages the child at a childlike level through the process of spiritual play. I can see why people may want to react from the logical adult view point to the idea, because perhaps it makes the magic or psychology seem less serious, i dont think it does, i think it just gives magic a child like application as a process to engage with your inner child for self transformation and remeber the joy of being a child.
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:16 / 09.03.07
Perhaps the real magic is in the unlimited consciousness of the new born inner child, before the games of playing at being this and that take form in consciousness, before conscious habits become unconscious. There are dreams and imaginings that are of the unconscious process but there are other dreams that move past that, dreams i remember from my childhood of dragons particularly make that clear to me, what may well be described as archetypes or perhaps as the child that dreamed them related to them as dragons.

I gave up smoking about 8 years ago, i gave up by going through the process of undoing the game of smoking as i learnt to play it, not approaching smoking as an adult thing, but from the view point of a child, how had i created this game of smoking for myself what were the rules what were the playing pieces, how did i put the building blocks together.

The childs insight is in understanding the mind as play, and the child plays seriously, but understands that in all seriousness it is still all play, theres a power in that that is easy to lose as you get older and think that gaining knowledge is cleverness, when the application of knowledge gives more insight, and the space (abyss) that knowledge needs to grow in is this most fruitful place.

The chaos in the colours merged into one giant sludge is needed in order to distinguish the child from the sludge, although that wont stop the child from picking it up throwing it and plastering it all over his own face or swallowing it.

The child is the unconditioned state, formless consciousness, most adaptive, most welcoming of form to give shape, colour and sound, yet remains unattached to his playing with these forms.

The child is consummate actor and mimic, becoming the god, the words the forms, the joy the sorrow, learning and creating from the point of nothing into something, letting the forms go when he has finished his play.

I think the child is the equivalent of genius. I think as adults we have been taught to fear that power house of transformation the most, the child has been shamed and abused to forget just how beautiful he was.The child has to recognise the joy and recognise all those abusers who would deny him that joy. (or her, but i talk from my own perspective)(i am trying to make sense of something forgive me if it is a little disjointed)
 
 
NyteMuse
03:14 / 15.03.07
I think what is most attractive about approaching magic from the perspective of the child is that fresh, new approach, every time. Too often we can fall into rhythms and routines when establishing a regular (daily/weekly/monthly) practice of any sort, so that it almost becomes a sort of "going through the motions". A child can approach one tree in a park one hundred times and ALWAYS find something new and interesting, and be fully in the moment. In my experience, it isn't until years later that ze starts doing things mechanically (though I also haven't spent a lot of time with children under 5 lately, so I could be wrong ).
 
 
Make me Uncomfortable
04:11 / 15.03.07
My own magical actions as of late have certainly felt like play. Like adventures.

I recently performed a clensing ritual down at the confluence of two local rivers. It's about four miles away, and the bus there is one I rarely take. I trecked to Point State Park only to find most of it, but not the point itself, was being rennovated. But by crossing a shady parking lot and meandering under a bunch of freeways I managed to get to the other side of the construction.

It was not, uh, dangerous, but it could have been, you know? The dark underbelly of the urban jungle and all that. But it all worked out- the ritual went spectacularly, and no mass-murderer hobo assassin werewolves showed up, so my trepidation was unfounded.

Anyway, it was an adventure, like the kind I used to have as a kid. Good stuff.
 
  
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