REVOLUTION: The Ascent Of Magick, And Death Of Occultism
by Timothy Donaghue
“Long live magick, and death to the occult, I say.”
In this essay I define the differences between magick and the occult, argue why I believe occultism has had a terribly corrupt influence on magick, and provide necessary goals that will cause a magick revolution, thus finally advancing the art and science for the first time in thousands of years.
Magick is a natural process.
It is the act of mental and astral energy affecting the physical plane. It’s happening constantly, and like oceanic tides, volcanoes, and earthquakes don’t depend on humans to act, nor does magick.
It is an organic process that exists beyond humans. With or without us, it persists.
We merely harness the natural power of magick, in order to cause changes that we need or want. This is similar to how we harness combustive firepower, solar power, wind power, and hydropower for electrical energy. But in this case, we are using astral power for magickal energy.
Humans mentally direct astral forces to change their physical reality. We utilize this natural process for our benefit.
This is called performing magick.
This organically occurring process differs fundamentally from what we call the “occult”.
The occult is a manmade contrivance. It is the process of taking knowledge about magick and rendering it secret and obscure.
It’ll interest you to discover that the word occult is both a noun AND a verb.
To occult something is to make it hard to identify.
This begs the question, why occult our precious - and very limited - knowledge of magick?
The Bastardization Of Magick Knowledge
The most common - and flawed, I believe - speculation is that peasant magicians, or “pagans”, had to hide their affiliation with magick from the religious royalty of the age, in order to avoid persecution. And thus, these magicians “occulted” the information to remain safe.
The theory is that over time, these pagans formed little cliques and covens, which turned into big magick orders, where the rituals of magick were passed from generation to generation. And supposedly, here we are today, inheriting their rich wisdom and knowledge.
Quite a romantic story, indeed, one of triumphing over adversity. And this is the traditional heritage on which many modern pagans pride themselves.
The problem is that I don’t buy this quaint fairytale.
And I honestly believe it’s revisionist history, containing obvious fatal flaws.
The most advanced magicians of the ancient civilizations were all high priests and titled scholars of the royal court, not peasants. In fact, very few people outside the realm of royalty were even literate.
Literacy was an educational privilege, restricted to a small elite.
How could a poor feudal slave learn the advanced rituals of magick, let alone entire groups of them?
I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I’m arguing that it RARELY happened.
I mostly believe the whole pagan heritage, from a magick perspective, is an overly romanticized version of history.
Correcting The Theory
In my estimation, what is more likely to have transpired, is the power-mongering royalty of the ages did everything they could to avoid letting anyone outside their courts and sponsored priesthoods learn the arts of magick.
These elites occulted the information by forming secret societies and orders, to prevent average people from learning it, empowering themselves, and rebelling against their tyranny.
This way, they could control who accessed the information, and who didn’t.
Magick orders are a contrived, human-made form of regulation over the study of magick.
I do NOT believe modern magick traditions are the progeny of pagan covens, but rather royal secret societies.
And quite frankly, if these elitists could’ve had it their way, we’d NEVER have found out about magick.
The history of the human race is one giant war over magick knowledge.
Mind you, this is also the foundation of contemporary conspiracy theories- that there are elite secret societies performing sorcery in private, in an attempt to rule the world.
Kingdoms and civilizations have always tried to rule the world, while practicing magick in secret, so why would it be any different today?
And this is where we are now…
Inside the current landscape of the occult, we see countless magick orders, big and small, still trying to replicate the likeness of these antiquated social contraptions - an elitist group requiring initiation to learn the so-called secrets of their particular vein of magick.
How To FINALLY Advance The Study Of Magick After Thousands Of Years Of Occult Corruption
The fundamental secrecy of magick orders sucks. And here’s why.
It stunts the growth of magick as a field of study.
Take science as an example. When one laboratory makes a massive discovery or breakthrough, other laboratories learn of the news, and repeat the experiments to confirm the results. And when enough do, it’s considered a new part of the science.
This is called progress.
The occult, as it stands today, makes no progress.
There is no sharing of discoveries, information or experiences between secret orders. There is a severe communication barrier between magicians who are not in the same order as others.
Furthermore, there is no inter-disciplinary communication. In other words, if one black magick order makes a crucial discovery, members of a white magick group or voodoo cult don’t learn about it.
The occult is at a standstill, and has been stalled since the original occultation of magick.
There is no other field of study on Earth that has made virtually NO PROGRESS or major advancements in hundreds if not thousands of years.
Any other intellectual endeavour that fails to make progress within a few decades dies into extinction permanently.
Why is the occult such a massive failure?
Because it has a closed-source policy.
Why is the internet, by comparison, such a massive success?
Because it is an open-source technology, for the most part.
Magick, as you now know, is a natural process, and thus a natural science. (Or what we’ll call a supernatural science)
The notion that a small group of humans will hoard up all the knowledge about a supernatural science and tyrannically govern its distribution is RIDICULOUS.
That’s not how the arts and sciences work.
That’s not how something flourishes.
This is why all of us in the Become A Living God movement are a part of the most revolutionary advancement in the history of magick.
We are making magick FREE to all.
Now it is true there is a monetary exchange for the information.
But no one needs to initiate into a magick order that is governed by petty leaders who can reject or expel anyone at all for not conforming to their way of doing things.
We don’t care what your background is, what your past lives are, or what type of magick you practice.
If you want to learn, you can.
And this raises another point of stern criticism I have against the occult…
For a field that claims to purvey the knowledge of how to cause desirable change, the occult sure has changed very little in the presentation of its information.
In no other field of study are the books from hundreds of years ago, written in old English, still the premier sources of knowledge and erudition.
Not physics, biology, linguistics, medicine, and more.
Why the occult? Because there have been virtually no advancements since then.
People still read the grimoires of old, considering them to be legitimate sources of information on the subject (instead of just artifactual novelties). And as for modern books, they simply rehash many of the outlandish rituals and beliefs of the past age.
For example…
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Why do modern books on evocation still demand you constrain a spirit to the triangle of manifestation for fear that it could attack you? (As if a hand drawn triangle on a piece of fabric does ANYTHING to stop a godlike supernatural being from acting however it wants)
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Why do they require you to wear fanciful colored robes, and hold metal chalices, wands, and more? (As if dressing like a priest from medieval times suddenly makes a timeless spirit like you more)
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Why do books still tout this hackneyed quasi-religious assertion that demons are evil, and angels are good? (When in reality many demons are more helpful and approachable than some angels)
Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do any of this. Nor am I denying that it can’t improve your power. (I know many people use triangles and robes, etc, and it works fine)
What I’m asserting is that these practices are not necessary, and occult instructions have not changed to reflect this information.
Even contemporary grimoires still threaten fire and brimstone about not following long, intricate rituals, and using all the complex trappings of spirits.
There are very few easy to understand guides to succeeding with magick, that also present the information in clear, modern parlance.
Another apparent flaw in magick literature is the unbearably arcane language and contrived mysteriousness built into it.
It’s completely unnecessary for us to continue to write in medieval diction, aside from aesthetic enjoyment. It’s also unnecessary for us to persist in delivering occult information in book form. Why not video so we can see demonstrations?
Occult writers have deliberately obfuscated the teachings, out of this arrogant, elitist belief that anyone uninitiated into their secret order doesn’t “deserve” to learn.
Refuting The Most Common Criticisms
Here are the three most common criticisms we receive about the Become A Living God movement’s new kind of “open source” approach to magick - and it always comes from egotistical occultists:
Criticism: Magick is called the occult for a reason. It’s supposed to be a secret.
Response: No, magick is a natural process. It’s not “supposed” to be known or unknown.
That being said, it is extremely desirable for magick to be known. But sadly, greedy, arrogant humans have taken knowledge of magick and occulted it to serve their goal of ruling over the human race.
Magick in and of itself is both a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and a supernatural science, that anyone can learn in order to harness its power.
If anything, magick is “supposed” to be a science and an art, but definitely not a secret hidden from humanity.
Only weak-minded egotists care if other people know magick.
Plus, magick is no longer a secret anyway. It’s barely even “occult” anymore. Anyone can learn basic magick from a simple Google search, or a trip to the local bookstore.
Long live magick, and death to the occult, I say.
Criticism: If everyone learns magick, people who are uninitiated will be going around hurting people.
Response: Just because people are initiated doesn’t mean they won’t hurt people. There are magicians in magick orders right now who hurt people. In fact, if the conspiracy theories that small secret societies rule the world are true, then those who ARE initiated are in fact the main culprits of hurting people.
Regardless, a magician must WIELD magick.
Like the legendary story of the “Sword in the Stone”… only he who CAN wield its power, WILL wield its power.
In other words, magick self-regulates. We don’t need to police who learns it, because not just anyone can make it work, per se. Only those with the mental capacity to do so, can.
The laws of magick govern themselves.
Criticism: Teaching magick in systems, without requiring devotion to a particular path or magick order, takes away the religion.
Response: In order to experience the religious and highly spiritual states of magick, you must MASTER the system first.
This is why we are so keen on training specific systems of magick, so that you can HAVE the religious experiences.
The basic problems I see most magick orders have is they are too “religious” and not logical and systemic and technical enough. They spend too much time discussing symbolism and philosophy and history, and NO WHERE near enough time discussing the actual psycho-active techniques and rituals that derive these religious states of the pathworking system.
(Personal note: early on, I was temporarily a member of a well-known Satanic organization, and was shocked and dismayed to discover the entire curriculum is basically a lifelong study of symbolism and history - almost NOTHING on practical magick! - of course I separated myself from this order)
And this personal note leads me to my conclusion.
I Am Calling For A Revolution Of Magick
We adventists of the Become A Living God movement are calling for a magickal REVOLUTION.
We have commenced a true advancement of the cause and practice of magick!
And we are leaving behind the old occult paradigm of elitism, secretiveness, and obscure intellectualism.
We hold these fundamental goals:
1. Practice, not intellect
Actually perform magick, instead of miring yourself in endless academia on symbolism, occult history, and trivia.
There is a basic difference between performing magick, and reading about magick.
2. Optimize magickal techniques
Like in algebraic mathematics, where the goal is to simplify an equation, our goal is to discover the optimal design of techniques for generating maximal results, through experimentation.
In other words, find out whether its really necessary to wear a black robe, versus a purple rob, versus no robe at all. This kind of thing.
3. Model the science
Instead of purveying paranoid superstitions, myths, and rumors, we observe the supernatural science and attempt to discern the laws, so we can draw conclusions on how magick truly works.
I firmly believe that as we realize these 3 core goals we are also causing a massive revolution in the world of magick that is going to last forever.
We will shift from the paradigm of closed-source occultism and secret societies - to the open-source science and advancement of pure magick.
Whether or not you accept all the basic goals of Become A Living God, or whether you fully accept my personal theory about the revisionist history of occultism, is up to you. In the end, I hope you’ve at least benefitted from the distinctions I’ve drawn between the meaning of magick, and the occult.
Be Well,
Timothy
