True Will vs Impulse in Relation to Magick

[Sutekh]

@Ahanit:

Could I ask you to outline how a typical ritual of your variety could look like? Or point me to literature that describes it?

I personally create and improvise my own rites and invocations, from most of my studies within Magick they mainly teach you some useful things to begin with, but are you the consumer? I would tend to strip a few things out and by adding my own ways within Magick. Magick to me is within ones self, you are of course activating ones psyche and ones self within. I tend to regard initiation as an improvement to the self, I view it as something to gain ones knowledge the more they work with the archetype in general. Initiation for me is like getting interviewed or hired to a job, or even rising up at a work type level. However Initiation for me is a slow step process, it should not be a quick step.

 

[Liu]

Thing is, I'd consider sigil magic a ritual as well. So I wonder what kind of rituals you are talking about - if it explicitly excludes sigil magic, it must be specific variety of ritual you are talking about and not simply, just make something yourself.

I also do some rituals (more a mix of devotionals and theurgy, though) and I don't think I've ever done someone else's ritual without changes - I might adopt an invocation if I really like it, but even then I normally make changes. I also do them spontaneously anyway and without much elaboration or planning, just whatever I feel like after meditating. I don't know yet anyway how a ritual would have to be planned to have a certain effect, so I just experiment for the time being. And I wonder in what way they differ from what you do.

Actually I'm not really into sigil magick myself; it's been quite a while since I last did that.

 

[Adramelek]

I just realized that a portion of one of my posts (#52) in the "Left Hand Path Quote of the Day" thread could pertain to this thread;

"Xeper itself is defined as Coming Into Being, taking oneself up from that lowest-common-denominator mechanical state of being into a functional "divine, Set-like" individual capable of bringing about change in accordance with the Will. If not pursued actively, Xeper will still impact the individual will to come into being, but only as that which he Wills by his actions to Become. Should he operate only in the mode of base desires and the mere impulse to satisfy the desire for gratification, such is the goal he will obtain for himself. Should he, on the other hand, turn his gaze toward an understanding of the cosmos, the resulting state of being will be far beyond that he could have anticipated when starting his journey. The gist of this is that one will become something regardless of which path is followed, but that it is up to the individual to select the goal to be worked toward."
- Magus James Lewis

 

[Ahanit]

What means a Ritualistic/Working Cycle:

As Setian I am walking the Path of Xepher, I come into being at the path, walk the different steps for changing some parts within and die to remanifest again at the beginning.

The first turn is the turn of the beginner, when you die the first time you are no beginner any more, you made experience. Remanifest at the path again you will find out that you are on a higher level. the second turn is accompanied by the Experience of the first and the changes you have done. And at the End when you die and remanifest again, you will be again on a higher level. So the steps are the same the level increases.
In every turn you study, you analyze, you controll the result. to work a real change is more like studying at university and making experiments to research your theories, than to make litle tiny teen witch rituals you see at TV or read in bad witchcraft and Law of Attraction books.

Like in university the question of forgett the one or the other thing about your work can destroy your whole work. You need to know where you are, what you have done and what was the result to use all within a new turn.

 

[Liu]

Thanks for the reply @Ahanit. It still sounds pretty theoretical to me, though. It feels as if you'd try to teach me biology by telling me about how the scientific method works and expect me to figure out the rest for myself, instead of explaining me how to actually do the experiments of the discipline (or of your sub-field of it).
I already know you can't tell me the results of the experiments as in this discipline here they'll look different for everyone.

You need to know where you are, what you have done and what was the result to use all within a new turn.

That's just common logic, and I'm not sure whether it's even applicable on, well, life, as there are too many variables to it to make reliable predictions. How am I supposed to know whether some change or progress that happened was due to something I did or whether what I did actually had the opposite effect and the progress would have been bigger without it? By meditation and introspection? I already try that, but I could use some more specific methodology to it.

 

[ScottySatan]

True will leads to your ultimate goal; impulses lead to the fulfillment of small desires, which may or may not conflict with your true will.

It seems to me that this is a pretty arbitrary distinction. I've seen countless times in countless people a stated goal of long term "true will" that ended up not being true at all. Like how people always say Romeo and Juliet were probably mistaking true love for lust.

How can you know for sure unless you've lived an entire life and found the desire in your youth to still have hold?

Also, what did you see that convinced you that someones goal was just an impulse and not true will? How could you tell? Are you accusing people of not being able to recognise it themselves? If so, how do you recognise it when the subject can't?

 

[Kapalika]

It seems to me that this is a pretty arbitrary distinction. I've seen countless times in countless people a stated goal of long term "true will" that ended up not being true at all. Like how people always say Romeo and Juliet were probably mistaking true love for lust.

How can you know for sure unless you've lived an entire life and found the desire in your youth to still have hold?

Also, what did you see that convinced you that someones goal was just an impulse and not true will? How could you tell? Are you accusing people of not being able to recognise it themselves? If so, how do you recognise it when the subject can't?

I think you are over complicating it and I kind of think maybe sharing my view might give some insight into where I, and by extension possibly Iron Wizard, might be coming from.

If you just wanna get drunk and party all the time that's probably impulse. If you have some kind of vision and want to create that vision, that's more of an actual will.

The greatest people in history were not known for their hedonism, but rather their deeds and their effects on society and history. Socrates, Alexander the Great, Leonardo Da Vinci, Newton, and Martin Luther King Jr as some examples. They all had a purpose.

People often get confused on what True Will is. Crowley spoke of it in terms of orbits. You seek your orbit because it's where you belong... this idea is very close to the ancient idea of destinies as something you are born to do, that you either embrace or reject. True Will in the original sense is when you decide to discover and embrace that through magick. That born to do part is more important than many people realize in some ways, the saying "Satanists are born, not made", while having many meanings kind of came out of this IMO since it recognizes that those called to Satanism realize that they were born with this innate path towards self-realization. The trap that the vast majority fall for though, is not distinguishing their will from their impulses.

Now sure, some people were known for their hedonism, such as Caligula, but they were more "terrible" than "great". And while many great people might of been hedonistic, it's incidental towards what they are famously known for and for what they did that had the greatest impact on the world and history.

As far as Romeo and Juliet, it actually is a good example because they were meant to be portrayed as immature and childish, clearly infatuation based on little more than attraction and not real, understanding and appreciative love. It was meant to be seen as a burden and tragedy for the parents. Shakespeare intended for the audience to see it as a cautionary tale and to feel bad for the families, it was not meant as a tale of actual love. But most people lacked the critical or analytical thought to realize that and only looked at it superficially and over time the newer interpretation stuck.