Psychological Suggestibility
or Circulation of “The Force”
Estabrooks points out that in Freudian terms hypnosisi and auto-suggestion (self-hypnosis) tend to function like the early traumatic experiences in imprinting the subconscious mind. According to his theory, strong emotional experiences of a negative nature produce complexes and phobias in much the same way as post-hypnotic suggestion causes the subject to react to a forgotten (intentionally suppressed) stimulus in a manner he cannot explain. (E.g., “When I snap my fingers you will sing the National Anthem,” vis-a-vis the person who goes into an hysterical fit at the sight of a harmless insect.) Estabrooks cites several analogies along this line. He likens the brain, in this instance, to a photographic plate on which emotional traumas and/or intense hypnotic suggestions make strong “over-exposed” impressions that do not fade out but continue to “flash” when activated by consciously perceived triggering stimuli. This ingenious theory helps to explain the apparent dichotomy between magick and witchcraft: the ceremonialists stress measured hypnotic conjurations, whereas the witches favor the emotionally stimulating abandon of the circle dance – and yet both achieve similar results. This is because both methods imprint the subconscious mind with the desired impression, or release a specific suppressed component of the personality to be cathected or controlled.
If we accept Dr. Estabrooks’ theory -- and I do, as far as it goes – then we must realize that magick and witchcraft are powerful psychodynamic systems, even in an exclusively subjective, phenomenologically conservative sense. The practice of ‘the art’ and ‘the craft’ is not as dangerous as our credulous Christian critics contend, but neither is it as frivolously dysfunctional as Cartesian pedants would suppose. We are the inheritors of a great ancient system of psychology perfected over thousands of years. It can bring much good and happiness to us and our associates or, like any of the major systems of knowledge, it can be misused with harmful effect. In magick and witchcraft, however, most malicious transitive operations tend to backfire because the would-be sorcerer does not understand the subjective nature of the art. (11.)
As valuable and important as the psychological aspects certainly are, let us not forget “the force’. If you don’t think it exists just remember the last time you were at a sporting event, or in any crowd of people where emotions ran high. You were caught up in the excitement as you never would have been sitting in front of a t.v. set. You were receiving an interchange of energy from the crowd; granted it may have been a secondary interchange via a synchronization of bio-rhythms, but it was a transitive link-up nonetheless. The negative side of this phenomenon is called “mob reaction”, wherein otherwise peaceful citizens become violent in the midst of an angry crowd. The black magick nadir of this syndrome would be Hitler’s Nuremburg rallies, with thousands of mindless stormtroopers shouting “Seig Heil!” Hitler first hypnotized his subjects, using the power of suggestion to open their subconscious minds and make them receptive; then he raised their emotions to an hysterical pitch, creating what can best be described as mass-Mesmerism.
Keeping the Nazis in mind, we would do well to consider the dangers of hypnosis and Mesmerism. People certainly can be hypnotized against their will, and not merely by deception as Estabrooks suggests. Hypnotized subjects have committed murders and other crimes. The use of hypnosis in intelligence operations is common, and such thrillers as The Manchurian Candidate are not as fanciful as they may seem.
In occultism we find the villain in the person of the unscrupulous hypnotist-guru who is always on the lookout for that one person in every dozen with the right combination of characteristics to make him or her the ideal victim: a natural capacity for somnambulism with a credulous attitude and a weak ego. One out of every five people can reach a somnambulistic trance state (the deepest level of hypnosis).
This ability has nothing to do with intelligence or character, any more than having red hair does, but when combined with gullibility and an underdeveloped sense of identity, we have the psychological profile of the “true believer”. These people are the natural prey of the occult Svengali. We can never fully protect them from such exploitation, any more than we can eliminate poverty or crime, but we can substantially reduce the prestige of the shady operators who prey on them by establishing a genuine western mystical tradition with recognized standards.
Applying Hypnosis in Ritual Magick
Having established that magick is a hypnotic process and having examined the theories underlying that phenomenon, we are ready to consider practical application and technique. First you have to establish an understanding of the subjective-hypnotic nature of magick with your students and lodge members. I strongly advise against initiating anyone who refuses to accept this concept. In order to underline this point, I will admit to having made the mistake and finding out that there is no convincing such a person afterward to abandon his objective view. You will only succeed in convincing him that you are a poor magician because you are unable to make the floor burst open and spill forth the legions of Tartarus in cinemascope and stereophonic sound. In this case rely on a good preliminary screening test rather than informal questioning. In cocktail party chatter such a person my seem sophisticated, mentioning Jung and Crowley glibly, but then turn out to be a semi-literate barbarian in lodge. Be warned!
If you are fully honest about the hypnotic nature of magick, you cannot avoid ethical considerations. All conjurations, path-working scenarios, and invocations should be known and standardized. The more traditional they are the better. Everyone operates and everyone receives in turn. There must be a cadre of adepti, but their job is to teach others to be operators. As such they should operate only with members on their own level, or for instructive purposes. In ceremonial magick everyone should have their turn at taking every role in temple rites, seasonal ceremonies, and initiations; otherwise a magical lodge becomes a “cult” in the worst sense of the word.
There is as much self-hypnosis (auto-suggestion) involved in magick as that directly induced by an operator: in fact self-hypnosis may be considered the practical key to developing the magical trance state. The Order of the Temple of Astarte (O.T.A.) insists that neophytes master self-hypnosis as soon as possible. We recommend Leslie M. LeCron’s Self-Hypnotism: The Technique and Its Use in Daily Living as a basic text. Frankly, no one has any business participating in a magical operation (with the exception of seasonal ceremonies) who is not capable of putting himself into a trance state and maintaining it. It is this ability, which can be acquired only through training and practice, that enables the magician to carry out the complex maneuvers required in a formal operation, and still be able to hold his trance. He can quickly deepen the state, or bring himself up to near normal consciousness when necessary. The reader may be thinking that yoga students and Zen sitters can also do this, but I would not agree. Their trance states are closely associated with sedentary asana positions, and induction of the trance is less controlled and direct. It is, in fact, a by-product of the meditation rather than the principle effect.
I do not mean to imply that yoga techniques are not important in magick, or that yoga and magical hypnosis are not interrelated. One of the first techniques the magical student has to learn is the practice of “tratakam”, the “fixed gaze”. This is a hypnotic facet of yoga meditation wherein the student develops the ability to stare at a fixed point, or symbol, for long periods of time without blinking or letting the eyes change focus. This ability is absolutely essential to future Almadel and Goetia operations.
A noted anthropologist once wrote that shamans could be recognized by their agitated manner and shifty glance. If he applied this to magicians, he could not have been more wrong. A magician looks right through you and never blinks. No one can stare him down except another magician.
Before going any further we should dispel the idea that magical hypnosis implies a similarity to the post-hypnotic demonstrations of stage hypnotism. If that concept applied, an operator could hypnotize his subjects and then instruct them – as in the analogy of the fellow singing the National Anthem – to see a spirit in the Triangle when he says the “key word”, Tetragrammaton! Granted, such a procedure would probably work, and might have some value in an experimental sense, but it is not the way the Art is practiced. It would be a gimmicky approach at best, and at worst, it would raise serious ethical questions.
What I am saying is that ritual magick is a type of hypnosis in its own right. It has been my observation, having operated, received, and otherwise assisted in several hundred such ceremonies, that the magical trance state is unique. In clinical hypnosis it is supposed that a somnambulistic state is necessary for visions to be seen and voices to be heard by a hypnotized subject. In Goetia evocation, however, a trained ritualist-receiver can quickly drop from a light (hypnoidal) trance down into a receptive mood where he can appreciate the manifestation of an entity in a speculum, communicate with it, allow it to speak through him; and also answer an operator’s questions in his own persona. His own remarks will be interspersed with the entity’s comments (depending upon whom the operator addresses: the receiver or the entity) – and the ritualist can do all this while standing up as an active participant in a group ceremony. It is important to note that such rituals do not depend on the use of drugs or hysterical dancing preliminary to the experience.
Before any magical working is undertaken , there should be a period of “preliminary meditation”. This is also a hypnotic proceeding, usually led by the operator for the coming operation. It is best done outside the temple in an ante chamber with a suitable atmosphere and dim lighting. In the O.T.A. we like to sit in a circle around a candle set upon an appropriate mandala. We hold hands and establish a rhythmic breathing pattern in unison; then the magus leads us into a reverie wherein we absorb the imagined light of the kabbalistic sephira (sphere or psychic center) in which we will be working. (15.) When this experience reaches its peak, we rise and move into the temple, maintaining our “set”, or trance. This preliminary meditation serves several purposes: it acts as a vital transition stage between the mundane world and the sacred dimension of the inner sanctum within the temple, and, in a temporal sense, it leads smoothly from real time into dream time. It reestablishes what we think of as “the group mind” of the lodge. In this respect it may be said to be Mesmeric, in that an exchange of energy is initiated and power is raised.
Magical Operations
As most readers know, there are three basic types of magical operations: evocation, wherein the operator calls forth the spirit from his, or his receiver’s, subconscious; invocation, wherein a supernal power is called down to in-dwell in the subconscious; and inner-plane projection (path working, soul-travel, etc.) wherein a journey is made into the realms of the subconscious – in this case the collective unconscious. Healing, the building of telesmatic images, the charging of talismans, and even divination are variations on these basic themes. The grand operations may be said to be directly hypnotic, whereas the lesser workings tend to be post-hypnotic.
Of these “grand operations”, magical path working is the most overtly hypnotic in its induction technique. Here the operator induces a trance in much the same way as a doctor would hypnotize a patient in his office. The path-workers lie on the floor of the temple, with their heads on pillows, in the center of the magick circle. They look up at a symbolic focal point overhead while they are told to “relax” and make themselves “comfortable”. Once their heavy eyelids close in hypnotic “sleep’, the operator conducts them, via a descriptive narration, on a tour to the sephira of the kabbalistic Tree of Life, along one of the subjective paths leading from Malkuth upward. The traditional symbolism of these paths and spheres is set forth in Gareth Knight’s A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism (1965), (16.) but remember, this is a reference book, not a manual on path-working. For an example of a path-working scenario you may consult the same author’s New Dimensions Red Book (edited by Basil Wilby, 1968). The method is to create a consistent, realistic fantasy land which will include all the symbolism we wish to encounter --–something like visiting Alice’s Wonderland. One of the most common mistakes made by would-be operators who have written their own scenarios is to take us all along the path, showing us everything, as; as if we were on a ride at Disneyland. This amounts to little more than an entertainment and really can’t compete with a good movie.
The purpose of working a path is to learn more about it and yourself, that will bring something up from your subconscious that will help you along the road to individuation. The way we do this in the O.T.A.’s path-working system is to establish “attention points”.These attention points are situations, objects, or entities that we are instructed to question individually and privately, or otherwise comprehend. We are told to remember the special knowledge we have received. Later, in the critique which always follows any magical operation, we are asked to recount what we have experienced. Some of these revelations are remarkable and often confirm our contention that the collective unconscious is truly a transpersonal dimension.
As long as we stick to traditional symbolism in path working we are towing the mark in the ethics department, but if we venture off into realms of our own capricious devising, taking our hypnotized lodge members along with us as we explore the dark regions of our own subconscious, we are abusing their trust and exposing them to unpredictable dangers. Avoid the magus who has created his own revealed system for it will inevitably reflect the particular imbalances of his own personality. There is a more subtle danger which may be encountered even in traditional working. The operator himself is in a light state of trance (as he would be in any magical operation) and is subject to impromptu visionary experiences. He should not involve his group in such a phenomenon and should banish it, or extricate himself, as quickly and quietly as possible. If the scenario is properly written and rehearsed this should not be too much of a problem.
Always remember in magick that the general laws of hypnosis apply. Keep your narration simple and carefully sequenced so that you will not prematurely evoke a vision that you will contradict with a subsequent description. For example Denning and Phillips published a path working script which contained the following passage: “Some little distance ahead of us stands a solitary arch, built of flints by men in some past age. The keystone of this arch is of pale granite, sparkling with myriad points of transient white fire; and carved deeply into this keystone is an emblem, the curling horns of a ram.”
This is beautiful symbolism, written in a fine literary style, but as a hypnotic scenario, it is improperly sequenced and confusing. As soon as the operator says: “Some distance ahead of us stands a solitary arch. . . “, his subjects are quickly constructing arches – gothic arches, classic arches, megalithic arches – all of which will have to be torn down and rebuilt as the description continues. I don’t think we have to belabor this point. Romantic poetry and elegant prose are excellent mediums for evoking images in the light level of the reading trance, but when we go down into somnambulistic depths, we have to keep out instructions simple and direct.
Thus far we have discussed hypnotic techniques in relation to tratakam, evocation, preliminary meditation and path working. It remains for us to consider invocation. This type of work is usually done on the double-cube altar in the center of the great circle with a crystal orb as a focal point. In our Lemegeton system we derive invocational rituals from the book Almadel. In the interest of maximum participation, we favor a round-robin sequence of invocations. Each member of the circle recites his or her own rendition of the invocation. With trained magicians this group-working actually intensifies the result; even though there is a teeter-totter effect in the trance depth as each one rises from passive to active participation in turn. This should underline the necessity of hypnotic training.
In this article I have taken off my magician’s cloak and talked to you the reader in as straightforward a manner as I can about a subject very few people understand. Of those who are more than casually interested, some can never be enlightened because, quite frankly, they don’t want to be. I am not concerned with them, except to put them on notice that we are going to make our high art of magick into a cultural expression we can be proud of, and if they try to impede us in this process, we will not hesitate to discredit them – And yet there is a danger in too much disembling. We can become so intellectual and sophisticated that we lose our sense of wonder, dimming the light of intuition that leads us on. I hope that I have at least hinted at the philosophical key to avoiding such a trap: the grand Hermetic monism of the Renaissance magi. If we emulate them in audacity, vision and style, we shall surely delight children of all ages – especially the child that dwells within us: our subconscious.
We should establish canons of magick in terms of kabbalistic philosophy, Jungian psychology and hypnotic practice – for these are the three pillars upon which the art stands today. We need to develop magick as the bright, cutting edge of a new romantic movement to rejuvenate our culture. There is no place in such a sublime endeavor for the charlatan or the mystic demagogue. Magick should develop the ego and the willpower of each individual who practices it. Becoming devotees of a “guru” may be a valid Eastern practice, but it is the antithesis of the Great Work here in the West. If hypnosis is our operative method, then we must insist on the highest standards of integrity in magical practice. The power is awesome and the reward is as infinite as man may conceive – for whatsoever he envisions usually come to pass.
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