Things are going well and I’m in a bit of contemplative mood, so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the concept of purpose. Not only the importance of obtaining but also the importance of maintaining throughout life, both in the magical and the mundane.
In this day and age, natural sources of purpose are becoming rarer. By natural sources, I mean sources that grant purpose just by your engaging with them. In the past, this could take the form of a man going out to work to provide for a family and, by the end of his life, having built up a respectable legacy to pass on. It could also take the form of rising through the ranks of a religious order and working to bring more land under your control, in the name of your chosen deity.
However, as an increasingly self loathing and yet simultaneously selfish society develops around us, avenues that provide that sense of purpose have begun to close ( or have at least become archaic in the eyes of many ). Now as much as I would like to keep going with this a bit longer, I fear I would slip into the political so I’m going to get onto how we can relate this to our practice.
We can apply the idea of purpose lost to the conceptualisation of ourselves as potential gods/ the ultimate arbiter of what is right for us on the macro level. Take the idea of seeking to attain godhood of some description; although it may sound like a valid purpose, it is in fact a micro goal that must be framed in a larger macro, overarching purpose. The reason I say this is because a purpose must provide guidance, without this over arching sense of direction the human mind becomes increasingly vulnerable to a variety of psychological illness. Goals such as achieving more power, achieving godhood, achieving some form of ascension do not provide this day to day guidance and so cannot be considered a valid overarching goal ( purpose ).
So how does one go about finding a purpose? Well untimely it boils down to thinking about life in terms of what will and won’t offer day to day guidance. You could, for instance, seek to enact the plans of a god, you could seek to build an ideal community for yourself and rise to become a pillar of it etc. What these goals have in common is that they place day to day events and micro goals in a greater context, and allow the framing of an activity in relation to the rest of your life. There’s a very good reason why people in the past formed large religions: the religion provided purpose in which to frame their actions.
Human beings are clever, but not creative. They can make small steps by themselves, but remove the overall structure and they stagnate or just flat out destroy themselves.
I’d like to stress that this wasn’t meant as a dig at anyone’s goal, nor was it to assume you weren’t doing this already. Just putting my thoughts to paper/ phone screen.
How to find purpose? As crazy as peoples thoughts on here can get on spirituallity, when it comes to my version I like to bring things back down to Earth. All the crazy stuff of higher realms and extra dimensions etc I play off mostly as “Creativity.” Yeah I’m sure other dimensions exist, but one must keep things practical where the Physical and Spiritual Worlds find a happy medium.
So how to find purpose:
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Think about what you enjoy in this world.
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Contemplate and do a little research on whats expected of a person in Society as far as the various stages (age ranges) s/he meets in life. But then see where you are at and what you would rather prefer to build so you have some sort of stable foundation. In this case it will be in relation to money… so how are you gonna make it? Figure that out.
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Insert your desires and figure out how in this structure you have divined how the desires would play out to manifest.
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Use creativity/divination to figure out more things you would like to do. Use magick to help bend the rules a little bit.
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If you are one of those people that feels empty or is bored with life or whatever, then it is time to do Re-Framing and change your overall energy. Some people in their advanced years tend to become bored with life and become depressed or whatever. Find the opposite type of energy to refresh yourself. Maybe Wunjo Rune might help… use the Wunjo Rune and Focus on a Goal that may bring something good.
Excellent post and I think very much needed right now. 
This post is amazing!! Yes we humans have lost our purposes in Life. I mean think about it, we are all focused on working for someone else these days and following the norm.
Yes it was a good thing this was mentioned. I have a tendency to form extreme fixations that I grow completely cold and numb to all else, and in this case mostly small mundane things. Its not that I forgot, but rather set it aside on the back and went Deep.
So I sat (and walked) in meditation today and certain people and spirits came forth (astrally, up until this hour). I layed out my runes and other esoterica and began connecting them and storytelling. I came back to certain fundamentals which relates to certain aspects of Religion, but was ultimately stripped of religion for a cleaner meaning.
Thanks for the post, it makes me lift my head a little and notice more certain others are experiencing similar stages and it reminds me of things I temporarily set aside.
Thankyou. It’s just a bit of psychology framed in magic really, but it’s always good to strive to understand ourselves.
So what you’re suggesting is (and correct me if I’m wrong) we should put godhood/ascension to work if we really want to achieve it?
My point was more that it isn’t a goal capable of standing in its own ( or being achieved ) without being part of a larger purpose.
Achieving godhood isn’t something you actively seek to achieve; it’s something that comes progressively overtime, as you work towards a tangible overarching goal eg. Building up your community, distinguishing yourself in your chosen field of work, enacting the plans of your chosen deity by using magic to aid physical progress ( rather than just spiritual progress ).
As I said earlier though:
You could apply the idea very effectively to current social issues, but I couldn’t do that for obvious reasons. I can say that lack of purpose is one of the largest causes of things like depression and can lead people to get lost in magic, so to speak.