I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this, and for those who are interested in the RHP I think it’s worth sharing.
Before I knew much about magic (and I still don’t know all that much) I had a very interesting experience. I was walking out of a restaurant with nothing in particular on my mind, and there was a woman next to me on the phone in tears. In an instant I was her, and I was me at the same time. I felt her emotions as if I was her feeling emotions and I had my sense of distinct self observing this simultaneously. I went about my life and left it at that for some time.
Having felt a pull to study magic since high school and finally breaking free of the dogmatism in my religion that forbade it, I came to realize that this is the perfect explanation, before attaining union with God, of what it means to have no self. It’s not that there is no self per se, but rather that our self and another persons self are all part of one great self.
John 17 says, “that they may be one, as thou, Father art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us.” Jesus repeatedly taught to “Love thy neighbor as thyself”
This, I’ve come to realize, is entirely what the story is about. We are, underneath it all, one. I mean that you and I are one person, we just think we’re separate. So when a black magician curses another, or when we do anything for or against another, we are literally doing it only to ourselves. We are that person just as much as we are ourselves.
I think this is profound, because so much of the suffering in life is man-made due to this ignorance. If someone hits you you turn the other cheek, because you are literally just hitting yourself if you fight back. If someone is homeless on the street you meet their needs as if they were yours because they are.
Now, I have nothing against black magicians and have dabbled a little in it, but I feel that when they are ascending the self they are merely ascending their part of everyone, they just don’t think about it. And there is plenty of self destructive behavior in humankind. But I think this rule of thumb is one of the keys to understanding white magic
I have a lot of gratitude for E.A making knowledge of the powers that exist to humans available because most religions fall horribly short at what they should have owned as theirs long ago.
Just my two cents.