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Yeah, I did Liber KKK (I assume that's the section you're talking about) sporadically for around a year, starting right before my final year of high school and ending when I had a minor breakdown in my first year of college. After that I stayed out of magic for about six months before getting back into it by only doing basic Liber MMM practice every day consistently for the following six months, leading up to today.
Peter Carroll does indeed say that it's supposed to be a replacement for the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, which is a medieval grimoire that requires a near-full retreat from the world for several months, is mainly based around Judeo-Christian ideology and the kind of crude pre-sigil technology (in my take) of magic squares; it's designed for the aspirant to attain, oh great, wonders, the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, whatever the fuck that really means. This is the source for the G.'.D.'./Crowley conception of the HGA; Crowley tried it once after he got out of the Golden Dawn, I think, fucked it up, and then did it again, successfully, in his late twenties. He seemed to have some problems with it the second time, too–he claimed that one of the demons he attracted the attention of in the process of the operation killed his (very young) child who "actually" died of some rare disease, I think (I'm paraphrasing because it's late, I'm kind of drunk after an MTV Movie Awards bacchanal, and I'm too lazy to go grab and page through Lawrence Sutin's biography, which is what I'm sourcing here). So clearly not to be taken lightly! Liber KKK, on the other hand, is NOT (at least explicity) set up with any such lofty goals; it really has no goals other than mastery of nearly all of the siddhis (magical powers) in Western esotericism instead of some transcendental agenda; it has the aspirant making up their own exercises by the end.
Now, from a personal angle, here's my take on it: I only did it up to level 16 before "dropping out," and it was really cool and helpful in a lot of ways, BUT: I didn't really do it right AT ALL, didn't take it as seriously as I should of, didn't practice every day (I maybe did one half-assed ritual every week or so), AND I found it very easy to attribute things in my life that clearly weren't "magic" to Liber KKK–so, for instance, in my KKK records, instead of planning and performing a shamanic illumination, I would gloss something that had just happened to me as a magical experience (in this case, getting thrown out of my parents' house for a couple of days) and call it a "shamanic initiation" and call that level of KKK quits.
After six months of MMM, I'm beginning to realize how hard it is to get the simplest things right–like breathing correctly, or doing a simple metamorphosis, or even being able to blank the mind, or really doing an ON banishing. Or even being able to just do a divination, which I've always felt was shut off to me.
From my current perspective, I see magic as all about doing things perfectly. Getting them right, starting as small as possible (breathing, thoughtlessness), being exhilerated by your successes, no matter how small–because they are hard-fought and painful, but you KNOW that by NOTHING but your hard work and perseverence, you won, and you gained a powerful new ability. Even being able to stop thinking (which I still haven't fully refined after a couple of years of sporadic practice and six months of daily, slow, steady pushing) is a HUGE achievement. And the way I see it, you make sure you do the job right 100% of the time, no matter how long it takes you. You persevere. And slowly, surely you replace all the fucked up, failing, half-assed, helpless sides of yourself and turn them into Grade-A Prime Shit. And you keep building on your successes until... well until you can do all kinds of crazy shit. But you have to start out knowing what's a success and what's a failure, and how long it takes to succeed, and that you can succeed. That's the training of the Will right there. Gurdjieff valued the "common people," farmers and peasants (which he called "the obyvatel") more than any other class of people because he felt that they knew how to do a job and do it well and what a completed job felt like (he hated bohemians and he called magic "the pit of delight") no matter how small and seemingly insignificant it was (you may completely disagree with that simplistic class analysis–I do–but there is an important truth there). Can you do anything 100% right, he would ask, even if it's just make a cup of coffee? He would ask men, "can you work the land? Can you grow food and make sure 20 people are properly fed if need be? If not, what good ARE you?") Since I was just lollydicking around with KKK, mainly just out of some need to see myself as some "spooky, special magician" and because I was fucking bored with high school, I never built up the momentum that real successes (although I did have some) would have garnered, and I got flipped off the merry-go-round way before I could make a grab for the brass ring.
It's true that people just starting out in magic have lots of wild results. I did. (Then again, weird shit–synchronicities, psychic premonitions, prophetic dreams, "visitations"–happens to everybody, and sometimes seemingly even more so than magicians, which is maddening!) But then that beginner's luck fades and you get to Work. It's a sneak preview of the future, really.
Now, practically, if I were to work KKK again (and I will, sometime sooner than later), here's what I would do. I would make sure that I had a strong, strong foundation in basic techniques (KKK is designed to be operated after successful workings of Libers MMM, LUX and NOX [from Liber Null & Psychonaut]–I know MMM is meant to be worked for six months for at least 1/2 hour a day with nary a break; I don't know the time scales for LUX and NOX or any details about them that haven't been published). I would plan on spending between and year and two years on KKK. I would do work on it every day for probably one to two hours of actual work and be doing lots and lots of research on the side. I would either adopt one magical paradigm (you need a metasystem from which to work chaos stuff, you can't do it on its own as I'm sure you know) for the whole operation or a new paradigm at each level (five in all), depending on how hectic my life situation was. I would probably choose either vodou or, like Trijhaos said, high magick–Modern Magick would indeed be a good book for this–but almost anything is possible. I would have no expectations, but I would work on each aspect of it until scoring at least five incontrovertable successes–not just exteriorized psychodrama–before moving on. I would continue doing basic meditation practices in addition to it, and I would probably be waking myself up early in the morning to do it and then going out and doing something completely different for the rest of the day–living a normal life at the same time.
And, just for perspective so I stayed out of any "woo! enlightenment!" traps I might eventually fall into, I would remember that in the A.'.A.'., the knowledge & conversation of the HGA was only the ENTERANCE REQUIREMENT.
Hope that helps–rant mode off! |
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