Spell Craft 101

Don’t ask me to cast a spell for you; I’m not for hire in that way. I might teach you, for honestly, you really ought to learn the art for yourself. You practice daily anyway.

There’s a passage in the bible wherein one of Jesus’s disciples, an apostle I believe, mentions in a teaching something about God being the Word, and that Word being with God, and actually that God is the Word itself. And that Word was there in the Beginning, and through that Word all things are created and not a thing has been created but by that Power.

Now I’m not an adherent to the Christian faith. In fact, I do not subscribe to the organization of any of the world’s wisdom traditions. However, if we investigate what the leaders of those traditions taught, the sages of those traditions, we might discover the integral truths that quite literally underpin our lives. After all, that is precisely what a wisdom tradition exists to reveal.

Isn’t it ironic that the Puritans separated themselves from the Church of England for being too much like the Roman Catholic order. The Romans after all had been responsible for a fabrication back in the 4th century. The Puritans asserted that theirs would be a more strict adherence to the Word of the good book. How they then determined that ladies living in accord with Nature, living quite impeccably according to the Word, were to be deigned witches and burned at the stake is well beyond my comprehension. I think they missed a couple of important passages in their revered book.

Words.

Words are supremely powerful. As if the above three paragraphs were not enough to convince you – of course not. It’s still just a bunch of dogma, right? Wisdom must be grounded in non-conceptual experience for it to have any real and abiding value. So, take a look at your experience if you don’t quite believe in the power of the Word yet. Try a little thought experiment. Feel into your experience a bit and see if you can recognize the power of words from moment to moment, all the way out and all the way in. Start with what’s closest to you. Start with pizza delivery.

When you call up for a pizza and ask that a pizza be delivered to your home, things generally go according to plan, right? If you were clear and precise with the delivery of your order and address, then mere moments later you have witnessed the manifestation of your intent. Asked and received. But that is a simple example, yes? We all know how words act in agreement with common cultural communication rules.

Well, how about interpersonal relationships? Let’s take it to the emotional level. Why though I tell the girl I love her does she not respond to my advances? It’s almost as if she has a Will of her own! I clearly haven’t found the right Word to persuade her. Look, ‘I love you’ has been used far too often in the global lexicon. Its power has been diluted because there is little agreed upon standard in the meaning. In other words, it means too many different things to too many different people. So how might I effect this girl’s heart in just such a way as to make her mine? Ah! Now we’re in the realm of spell-craft. Rudimentary to be sure, for we are still only operating on the level of the emotional, but you can see where this is going, right?

In the Beginning was One. One unbounded, unlimited, unimaginable One – we call that God. Was, is and ever will be – God. Because not even Time exists yet. God is One. Until unless that One, Source, somehow some way, invests Oneself with limitation and capacity; One Becomes. Now there are Two. Source & Force. Energy. Energy of limitation and delineation and choice. How? Force is defined internally. She, the Goddess to His God, is born in the form of Will (to be), Knowledge (of all) and Volition (the capacity for action).

And so it is said that on the Breath of God came the letters and the words that would create the Universe. The One Verse. A magical song which raises life itself!

And here we are today, kids playing in a beautiful garden, doing what kids do. Sometimes playing joyfully. Sometimes making a big mess. Hardly anyone conscious of how we got here or why, just embroiled in the day-to-day grind. The spiritual aspirant though has had an awakening. S/he has clued to her essence nature. S/he has recalled something. Recognized something. Then most often goes back to sleep again behind the veils of her experience. S/he does her best to trace the way home once again.

Words.

Let me show you the power of the word to raise life. See the miracle of how the child came to be. And if you like, I will teach you the Sublime Way, the way of impeccability with your word. And not for free either; you must invest yourself. Emotionally, mentally and physically. This is child’s play, for real children with a vested interest in retaining their innocence within a paradigm that would soon see it slip away. I would receive your intense focus and participation in the process. No flipping it on of a light switch and poof! “I’m a powerful spell-caster!” No. You must work for it. You must want it. With every fiber of your being. That’s what it takes.

If you’re interested to embark on a practice of your own first; if you’d like to dabble, then begin with the yogic arts. A good bhavana meditation that will allow you to feel into the entire reality, couple with a practice we call VIKALPA-KSAYA, will soon see you dissolving the dualistic thought constructs as well as the claim that these thoughts have on reality. The practice leads you to step outside your mental model, and consciously identify evaluative judgments of self and others and release them, including all “shoulds” and “should nots”, and will set the stage for a more skillful engagement with your Word. This is yogi-style spell-craft 101.