Invoking passion for failure or success?
This is a page from the third version of Technopagan Yearnings. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.neowayland.com/C1325529963/E20070224142555
Why some fail all the time and how they can start to turn it around, with a little help from Stan and Ollie
I am about to offend some of you. Including people who I call friend. And other things. That doesn't mean that what I am going to say in this entry isn't true. Sometimes a real friend will tell you truth when no one else will.
This one has actually been in the works since before I went to Phoenix the last time.
This isn't just my gut feeling, I did research on this and a great deal of thought. It's not just me spouting off. I talked to a couple of Pagans, a few of my Christian minister friends, a counselor friend, and just a couple of all-around wise people.
It's some of the first things that you learn if you start to practice magick. And it is one of the first things that some people choose to forget.
Like calls to like. Magick is shaped by thought and driven by passion. As above, so below.
Or, what you put out influences what you get back.
I have to fill in some background on this, I am sorry if you find it patronizing.
One of the principles of my particular version of magick is that it's all the same thing. Matter, time, space, passion, thought, imagination, life, death, really just different perspectives. I borrowed a concept, I call the pattern of existence the wyrd. The idea was inspired in part by a book by Brian Bates I read back in the early 90's called The Way of Wyrd. But it is also my own meditations and experiences.
The Web of Life, the Tree, the Labyrinth, it doesn't matter what you call it. It is all connected.
Wilhelm Reich had some interesting speculations about energy that he called orgone. He didn't quite make all the connections, neither have I for that matter. I played with it some though and came up with something that works.
Orgone, you see, is raw magick.
When ever you think of something, you send a little "blip" of orgone to that thing. If that thing is a person and thinks of you, when they think of you, there is another blip of orgone that flows back. The "blip" leaves a small trail, a filament between you and the other thing. The more you think about the thing, the bigger the filament becomes and the easier it is for orgone to flow between the two of you. There is some stuff about dimensional translations that I am going to leave aside here, let's just say that time and space aren't the barriers that they would be in "normal" space/time.
The more passionate your thought, the stronger the filament becomes. It's not for nothing that Reich derived "orgone" from "orgasm." For his work, the type of emotion wasn't nearly as important as the peak levels. Hate and lust can equally bind things together.
All those filaments together are the wyrd. It's formed out of our lives and thoughts.
Hang on, I am actually going somewhere with this.
I have talked briefly before about two of the people who live inside your head, Stan and Ollie. Ollie is very focused on what he experiences through his senses and how he believes people think about him. Stan just does amazing things. At least until Ollie tells him he can't. Stan does what needs to be done, but he pays more attention to Ollie than to anyone else.
And now with the background laid, we're going to deal with the situation.
On the pagan web, it's hard to miss certain people. It seems that no matter what they do, life just keeps knocking them down. Terrible things happen to them constantly. They're always on the edge of some disaster or another.
What they keep forgetting is that magick is about tweaking reality.
Like calls to like.
If we wrap ourselves in sorrow and pain and misery and self-loathing, then that is exactly what we attract.
It's trite I know, but it is not what life does to you, it is what you do with life that is important.
That doesn't meant that tragic and horrible things don't happen to people with a good attitude. They do, all the time. But the difference is how much passion is left to make something, to build beyond what existed before.
So who am I to tell you this? How can I possibly understand the pain you are going through? I know, because I was there. I know because some days it is all I can do not to fall back into those old patterns of behavior. I know because stress still puts me a lot closer to my negative mood swings than I want to be.
I know because I made a choice to be someone and something other than the person I was.
One of the easiest ways to get beyond this is a simple affirmation. Write it down. Stick it somewhere where you can read it every morning and every evening. Write it in terms of what you will do instead of what you won't do or what you can't do. Stick to it and make sure you read it every morning and every night. Better still, look yourself in the mirror and read it.
Now I know this is a mindfuck in the best RAW tradition. I know that there is a big, huge, loud part of you that is going to think there is no possible way an affirmation can help. I am here to tell you that is Ollie who is talking and he doesn't know what he is talking about. You have to get STAN to pay attention. Stan has to know about the good things.
It won't happen after reading the affirmation out loud once. Or three times. Or even thirteen times. You just have to keep doing it, one affirmation at a time until the Stan part of you finds a way to make it work.
And he will. Stan can do miracles. Or magick. It can happen in way totally unexpected. Afterwards, it will seem obvious.
You have to choose which you want. It's the peak that Stan is interested in. He can laugh delightedly or cry despondently, but he can't do both at the same time.
You can't keep wrapping yourself in the passion for failure and then wonder why you fail.
Cherish your passion and embrace the magick.
Posted: Thu - March 15, 2007 at 01:25 PM
