Who’s to Say?

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Lon Milo DuQuette, author of Low Magick: It’s All In Your Head … You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is and the forthcoming Homemade Magick: The Musings & Mischief of a Do-It-Yourself Magus (August 2014).

I’ve been writing books and articles about magical and mystical things for nearly 30 years. I’m especially passionate about the western hermetic arts (i.e., Qabalah, Tarot, Enochian, Magick, Goetia) and the initiatory programs of magical societies such as the Golden Dawn, A∴A∴, Ordo Templi Orientis, and Freemasonry. As a writer, I’ve been lucky insomuch as I’ve had little difficulty finding quality publishers who continue to be very supportive of my works (and infinitely patient with my shameful sloth and flakiness).

In recent years the medium for my work has spilled over into video and music, exposure which has inevitably brought me to the attention of radio and Internet interviewers who grill me on a regular basis with questions which spring from their very limited interest in and understanding of what “Magick” is really about. The most common questions put to me by my sensation-seeking hosts concern magick powers, i.e., cursing people, influencing elections, and (the juiciest of all subjects) winning the lottery!

What can I answer? I’ve never cursed any one (well, I did once write an unkind song about George W. Bush …. lot of good it did!); my efforts (especially my vote) has seldom influenced an election; and every effort that I’ve made to win the lottery (by magical means or otherwise) has patently failed. Does this mean my magick doesn’t work?

My answer sounds unexciting, un-romantic, and very un-wizard-like:

“The only thing I can change with my magick is myself. If it is truly my will to curse someone, then I’m going to have to magically change myself into the kind of person that successfully curses people. If it is truly my will to influence an election then I’m going to have to magically change myself into the kind of person that successfully influences elections. If it is truly my will to win the lottery then I’ll need to go about changing myself to the kind of person who lottery wins happen to!”

Such an answer doesn’t make for good radio. But it is the truth as I see it. I have absolutely no idea exactly how my magick has changed my life, because I have no idea what the circumstances of my life would now be had I not studied and practiced magick—had I not gone through the process of willed-self evolution known as “initiation.”

I confess. I am not rich and powerful. (Don’t even fanaticize that writing occult books is ever going to pay the rent or health insurance!) Constance and I live a life of, what was diplomatically called in the old days, “genteel poverty.” Perhaps if owning a huge house or driving a luxury car was the focus and goal of my magical aspirations for the last 30 years I might now be a little more prosperous. But, as foolish as it may sound, “happiness” has always been and remains my focus in life, and our emotional and spiritual lives are as rich as any two human beings could hope to dream.

Who’s to say, then, we are not wealthy? Who’s to say the magick hasn’t worked? Who’s to say just how broken or destitute our condition could have been; how diseased, how depraved, how unhappy, how evil our lives might now be had we not worked the magick to attune our bodies and psyches to the universal consciousness of the cosmos? Who’s to say what our lives and personalities would now be like had we not applied the techniques of magick to return balance to our excesses and timidities; had we not conquered and redirected our demons; had we not voluntarily set out upon the spiritual adventure of willed-self evolution known as “initiation?”

Few of us are regularly challenged on the radio to explain or defend our spiritual world view to an unseen audience who may or may not be ridiculing every word we say. But each of us challenges ourselves far more ruthlessly each day concerning the wisdom of our chosen path. We ridicule ourselves every time we curse the circumstance of our finances, our social status, our love life, or the inadequate level of our spiritual illumination.

Who’s to say how terribly screwed up your life could be?

I thought you’d say that.

Okay then. Get over it! Time to accept the reality that you have changed yourself into the kind of magician that wonderful things happen to… and that they are happening to you right now!

Our thanks to Lon for his guest post! Visit Lon Milo DuQuette’s author page for more information, including his books.