So why is DMK, Mr. hard core magick, writing a squishy, soft post on…forgiveness?

Most people don’t know it, but forgiveness is a important part of magick. Without being able to forgive, you will limit your magickal success. It’s that simple.

Part of the problem people have with the very concept of forgiveness is that the subject is so poorly understood. Most people think of it this way:

Mr. X wrongs you. If you forgive him you’ll allow him to take advantage of you.
Again.
And perhaps again.

In actuality, forgiveness has nothing to do with this type of repetition at all.

Forgive Does NOT Mean Forget

Many people confuse the idea of forgiving with forgetting. We even have a saying, “forgive and forget.” Not only are these two concepts not twins or related, they are practically contradictory.

If Mr. X wrongs me, I can forgive him. That does not mean I forget the wrong. He was doing what was in his nature and I was either foolish or naive not to acknowledge and expect it. Even so, I’d be an idiot to forget what he did. To do so would mean I didn’t recognize his nature and was expecting him to be something other than who he is. To forget would be to abandon what I learned from being wronged. To forgive means:

• I accept as a fact what happened.
• I accept the person who wronged me for what that person is.
• I accept everything I’ve learned from the negative experience.

To forget means:

• I’m assuming what the person did was a mistake, not part of their nature.
• I allow myself to maintain a false image of the person who wronged me.
• I allow myself to ignore everything I should have learned from the experience.

Who Suffers From Not Forgiving?

Many people think they can in some way “punish” someone who wronged them by not forgiving them. But who is really punished when you don’t forgive a wrong?

Years ago, while living in the midwest, I shared an apartment with my girlfriend whom I’ll call “A. A.” A. A. was incredibly intelligent and talented. She was a musician and a prize-winning writer. She had been a radio DJ and had started a successful and unique bodyguard business. She was a great ritualist and magickian, and had also been a model. One of her challenges was forgiving.

Although she was beautiful and had all of these skills and talents, her father had verbally abused her, calling her worthless and a bunch of other things that need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that the abuse she received from the father who meant so much to her was totally undeserved as well as incredibly hurtful and damaging to a wonderful woman. She held her pain within and, on occasion, would literally seethe over what he did to her.

“I hate him. I hate him,” I remember her saying, her anger and rage filling her eyes. “I’d like to kill him.”

“He lives over twelve hundred miles away. He’s not in your life any more. For all practical purposes, he is dead,” I said.

“I don’t care where he is. I’d still like to kill him.”

Forgiveness is for You

In reality, forgiveness has nothing to do with the person who has wronged you. Forgiveness is entirely about you, your feelings and emotions. The wrong that was done to you was simply an action. The anger, disappointment, rage, etc. you feel—your response to that action—is all within you. The purpose of forgiveness is to get rid of those negative feelings and emotions. It has nothing to do with forgetting what happened. It has nothing to do with letting the person who wronged you “off the hook.”

My former girlfriend carried her anger and rage toward her father like heavy luggage strapped to her shoulders. It had absolutely no effect on her father. It only had an effect on her. Forgiveness wouldn’t have absolved her father of his cruelty, it would have freed her from the weight of her anger that she carried.

Often, when we are wronged, even though there is no reason to do so, we (in part) blame ourselves for what happened. Part of the forgiveness process should also include forgiving ourselves for feeling angry and for feeling as if we should have prevented our being wronged. Forgiveness is about getting rid of our baggage, our anger at others and our anger at ourselves.

Forgiveness and Magick

The Greek words above are pronounced “Gno-thee Sahf-ton” and mean “know thyself.” They were inscribed in the forecourt (technically known as the pronaos) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. When it comes to magick, the more you know yourself the more successful your magick may be. For example, if you have inner feelings that you are unworthy of wealth, your subconscious mind will actually work to derail any magick for financial improvement that you perform. The result will be either lesser success or the outright failure of your magick. If you do not understand your inner mental workings, if you do not “know thyself,” virtually any of your magicks might have a power that is working in opposition to your conscious desires. That power is your unconscious mind.

If you do magick for peace of mind, but refuse to forgive those who have wronged you, your unconscious mind will work to defeat the magick so you can maintain your anger and disorder.

If your magick is not succeeding, is your unconscious actively working against you? You can begin to improve your magick by actively working to forgive all wrongs, actual and imagined, that others have done to you and that you may have done to yourself. Try it and watch your magickal success rate soar!