Another Fine Message
This is a page from the third version of Technopagan Yearnings. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.neowayland.com/C1325529963/E20070508065312
Pulling together the bits on the mind that I have touched on before
I've talked briefly before about the parts that make up the human mind. The Assembly of NeoWayland was one place, The V Ritual was another, and Invoking Passion for Failure or Success? was the third.
So it's time I started putting all this together for people.
If you are going to be serious about using magick to do something original rather than just going through the motions, count on spending time studying many other subjects. For me, psychology was definitely one key, especially the theories of Carl Jung and much of the work of Joseph Campbell. This gave me much of the theory, but it didn't provide much in the way of application. Something to bridge the gaps between the theories and the rituals laid on in modern Pagan books.
Napoleon Hill was a good place to start and I was already familiar with him because of my work as a Corporate Clone. If you have ever wondered why so many self-help books and New Age stuff seems to draw (badly) on a common source, Hill is the reason why. His best known work is Think And Grow Rich but it wasn't his only one. Buried in his more comprehensive Science of Personal Achievement (print edition not currently available, although Nightingale-Conant does a really nice audio version), Hill discusses his Mastermind Principle as applied to his studies of ESP. He created helpers, thought forms really, that were responsible for taking care of things for him, everything from health to happiness. Including one general purpose one whose job was to cover the things that the others didn't.
This sounds like lower elementals, doesn't it?
The thing is, Hill used magickal ideas to achieve results without the ritual trappings of reconstructed religions. That was also my first introduction into chaos magick, although I didn't know it at the time. And if you think that is something, you ought to read what Hill has to say on Infinite Intelligence, his name for the god principle.
Then there is Colin Wilson. Wilson has a lot to say about magick, the occult, human potiential, and religion. Most of it is pure speculation and case compilations, but in his classic tome The Occult there are two ideas that really have a bearing on our discussion here.
First is the ladder of consciousness, although that is not entirely accurate. Instead of a wooden or metal ladder, think of a Jacob's ladder. In it's original form, a nautical Jacob's ladder was probably a rope with loops or just one rope tied around each rung in turn. Regular readers may recognize as another manifestation of the World Tree or The Great Labyrinth or the wyrd or the Weave of Fate. The thing that surprised Wilson was that while "normal" consciousness and "lower order" beings often seemed to be part of the same person, the "lower orders" didn't necessarily know everything that the "normal" state did. And sometimes there was a "higher order" that knew things that neither the "normal" consciousness or the "lower orders" did. At the very least, this implied some surprising things about the hierarchy of the mind. I'm sure that astute readers have already made the connections to the Tarot and the Kabbala. And we've even got knot magick thrown in.
Wilson's The Occult also introduced me to Stan and Ollie, although I didn't realize some of the full implications until after thinking about it while reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
And that brings us to what I really wanted to talk about here, in a rather round about fashion.
Now before I go on, I want to get rid of the whole body image thing before we pick it up as baggage. Even though every human has a Stan and an Ollie, that is not to say that I am implying that you are fat or thin or anything else. They are metaphors, archetypes.
Neither Stan nor Ollie is much good at critical thinking. That isn't their job.
Stan can perform near miracles as long as no one tells him he can't. Most of the time, the only one who talks to Stan is Ollie, so Stan thinks Ollie is pretty important. Which reinforces Ollie's sense of importance.
You have to understand Ollie before you can silence him so Stan will listen.
Ollie is quick to blame, but the last to praise.
Ollie is quick to claim credit, but the last to share the prize.
Ollie is extremely vain, he wants to look good and important and will do everything he can to avoid embarrassment.
More than any other part of you, Ollie listens to your body. He likes sex, he likes good food, he likes to cuddle. He doesn't like to work or exercise. When he is not using pain to get pity, he skirts around it, deliberately putting space between himself and anything that can hurt him.
Ollie's job is to tell you what he likes and doesn't like. His job isn't to run your life. And that is pretty important. Most people put Ollie in the driver's seat and then wonder why they keep hitting buildings. Left to his own devices, Ollie seeks pleasure and avoids pain. He needs discipline. And that comes from other parts of your mind.
Stan won't lift one hand to hurt Ollie. But if Ollie is quiet, Stan loves a good story. If Stan loves the story enough, it becomes real. Not all at once, no, and Stan will have to hear it again and again, loving it more each time.
Ollie can't pooh-pooh the story or Stan won't believe it anymore. Stan knows he is not very good at judging things, and he will depend on Ollie as his closest friend to judge things for him. Remember, Ollie doesn't have long term goals, he seeks pleasure and avoids pain. Ollie is convinced of his own importance, but Stan is where the magick comes from.
Remember that Stan and Ollie are only the beginning. Neither one of them is all that good at dragon slaying. Or taking tea with a Goddess. You need other archetypes for that, ones that you have to construct yourself. Stan and Ollie can get you started, but you need others to finish the journey.
Just look what you made me do.
Posted: Tue - May 8, 2007 at 06:53 AM
