One would think that the topic of how magickal styles relate to politics would be about the same as how literary criticism relates to sandwiches. (Here I’m using Aleister Crowley’s archaic spelling of “magick” here, much as he did to discourage confusion with stage magic.) Still, the cultural Marxists did demonstrate quite thoroughly that you can politicize damn near everything. That includes both literary criticism and sandwiches.
Political modes of magick
What would a leftist style of magick be? Generally what comes to mind is some 1960s-1970s approaches, fully encompassing New Age fluff. (I’ve read Shakti Gawain, and the experience was about like eating a bushel of cotton candy at one sitting.) Some politicized forms of Witchcraft fit the bill too. (I’ve read Margot Adler’s Drawing Down The Moon, not bad for a picture of what the scene was like at the time, but her background as an NPR journalist really shows sometimes.) Not only am I familiar with all that too, I’ve studied Anglo-Saxon and actually know the proper way to pronounce “Wicca”.
What is rightist magick then? For that answer, Counter Currents has quite an interesting article called “Evola’s Other Club“. Julius Evola has become rather popular with the “deplorables” (as Cupcake calls us), though I have yet to get into him. As for who Evola was, “Cis White Male With Extra Privilege” has a series about that, and “Philosophicat” does too. Counter Currents detected an interesting trace of thought similar to Ayn Rand. That’s rather surprising, since she was very much a materialist and thought all supernatural stuff was poppycock.
Counter Currents didn’t go too far into it, but there’s more than a trace of British sorcerer Aleister Crowley too. (I dedicated Space Vixen Trek Episode 13 to him.) Consider this quote, for example:
You must know exactly what you want to accomplish, and you must feel it passionately, even obsessively. You must be willing to turn aside everything and everyone who doesn’t contribute to your realization for that aim. . . . If that strikes you as ruthless or extreme, it is because you do not yet possess, or are not yet honest about, your definite aim. When you find it, it will be like finding breath itself.
Also this:
Positive-mind philosophy places a demand on us, one that we may think we’ve risen to but have never really tried. And that is: To come to an understanding of precisely what we want. When we organize our thoughts in a certain way – with a fearless maturity and honesty – we may be surprised to discover our true desires.
This touches on the concept of the true will, a very central concept to Crowley’s thinking. The capsule summary is basically to find out what your purpose in life is and pursue it single-handedly. The article does tend to go back to that frequently.
Other than that, one does magick to get a certain result. Still, one must keep a sense of detachment, something the article does touch on. The basic idea is to put your intention out into the universe, and after doing so, forget about it and let things happen. This is an interesting parallel to Crowley’s passage in Liber AL Vel Legis, “For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.”
What was Crowley’s political alignment? I’m pretty familiar with his writings, but even as opinionated as he is, it’s rather hard to pin him down on that. One thing I do notice is that Liber AL vel Legis, written in 1904, does seem to have plenty of enigmatic New World Order stuff in it, predicting not just the drug use we’d get in the 1960s, but also the tricky globalists pulling levers in today’s politics. (One of these days, I hope to write an article on the subject.) The former is easy enough to explain, though. Crowley did rub elbows with Aldous Huxley – an author and eventually an influential figure for the Counterculture – and turned him onto hallucinogens.
Does that make it globalist magick then? When George Soros wrote The Alchemy of Finance, was the title a little more literal than figurative? Some of the NWO types are into spirit cooking, which does have a very vague resemblance to one of Thelema’s rituals. I’m familiar with the Thelemite scene, who are practitioners of Crowley’s religion. According to Uncle Aleister’s prophecies, they’re supposed to be in charge of the world one of these days. Sadly, that role has fallen to a gaggle of corrupt billionaires. Still, there is hope; as I wrote in Deplorable Diatribes:
Some have speculated that we’re a century into the “Kali Yuga”, an era of decline where powerful coteries run the show. Still, I’m not so convinced that this is inevitable. Even if it’s true, and that’s just how it’s going to roll with power dynamics for a good while, that doesn’t mean we’re stuck with the same bunch for the duration. The potentates of today will be history one day; maybe this will be a lot sooner than they expected. Dynasties don’t last forever, so hopefully we might get a better bunch in the future. Folks like the Medicis and Borgias would be preferable to the bozos of Clown World. Back in the day, they had lots of backstabbing and poisoning, but they weren’t hostile to their own societies, and even had a first rate appreciation for art.
Other than that, Counter Currents mentioned memes, particularly including the NPC meme. Another article, “Lord Kek Commands!“, gets further into meme magick. For some more background that the article doesn’t go into, the 4chan post number-stamped 77777777 was a brief one, simply stating “Trump will win”. Was that a coincidence, or is it one of those things that Karl Jung called synchronicity?
Somewhere on the way, the Korean word “Kek” came up and it turns out that Kek is also the name of an ancient Egyptian frog deity. That’s how we got all the catchy Pepe the Frog images. I’m not sure why an ancient Egyptian deity would interest Himself in American politics, but I’m glad that we had the extra support to keep that Council on Foreign Relations toady Cupcake from getting in charge. All I have to say beyond that is that chaos magick really is weird that way.
How to do magick
An obvious reaction one might have to this could be, “Is this stuff for real?” (Hopefully none of my readers think I’m smoking whacky tobaccy for even writing about it.) The first comment to “Evola’s Other Club” begins:
The way I understand it, New Thought is incompatible with rightist/reactionary/traditionalist thought. NT’s claim that you can modify circumstances via energized thinking is the basis of the utopian/progressive/leftist-liberal approach. Rightists seek to decipher, interpret and adapt to reality (reality is fixed); leftists want to modify reality in order to create something less offensive to their feelings (reality is fluid).
That is a good point. Still, is magick only for crystal-sucking New Age weenies who eat buckets of magic mushrooms? Their “make a wish and it will be so” stuff does seem rather like postmodernism, which is a leftist Ivory Tower hustle. (Still, I’d rather re-read a Shakti Gawain book than a single page of Lacan, Foucault, or Derrida.) Further, my experience as a teenage atheist made me rather allergic to that stuff. If it weren’t for some later numinous experiences, I too would dismiss anything supernatural as wishful thinking. Instead, I’ll say that 99% of it is baloney.
The Counter Currents article does indicate that quantum theory has explanations for how magick can work in the first place. Some serious practitioners of magick have reached similar conclusions. Rather than expounding on all that at great length, I’ll refer you to the original article for explanations. I’ll summarize that magick isn’t really about breaking laws of physics, but rather making use of some little-understood ones in order to nudge probability the way you want. I’ll admit that I tried it on the “Pick 3” lottery once. Two numbers were correct, and the last was off by one. As Bill Clinton might put it, close but no cigar!
Also, magick isn’t about making something completely impossible happen. There’s no getting around objective reality, which rightists realize and also some of the more sensible leftists. One of the article’s quotes emphasizes practicality, a good point that I didn’t see in Shakti Gawain:
Contrary to many purveyors of spiritual self-help, I reject the notion that we can become anything we dream of. Not all desires are realistic. . . . Your age, training, and education matter – as do geography, finances, and time. These are not to be seen as barriers – but they are serious considerations.
As for the actual method:
First, clarify a sincere and deeply felt desire. Second, enter a state of relaxed immobility, bordering on sleep. Third, enact a mental scene that contains the assumption and feeling of your wish fulfilled. Run the little drama over and over in your mind until you experience a sense of fulfillment. Then resume your life. Evidence of your achievement will unfold at the right moment in your outer experience.
Basically, that means to meditate and visualize. In another place, it says to adore the image you’re visualizing, a process it describes in greater detail. I’ll add further that another technique is focusing the will on it with blazing intensity. Some other folks draw sigils and have various ways of charging them.
Once again, is this stuff for real? One thing that can be said with certainty is that if it’s something that helps motivate you to reach a certain goal, why not? Even if you feel that it has zero chance of nudging probability, it will help you reprogram your subconscious mind.
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