Sorcery and Comfort
Just getting some ideas down that occurred to me over the weekend (before I forget them).
For some reason these thoughts relate to a sorcerer and a chaos magician I overheard having an argument about being comfortable so years ago. Basically the chaos magician said that their ultimate aim with magic was to be comfortable. The sorcerer retorted that this would never be the aim of their magic. Such was their reaction that they were clearly shocked to hear the other state this as their aim.
My own thought back then was that being comfortable didn’t sound like such a bad thing, and I couldn’t understand what kind of masochism would deliberately avoid being comfortable. And yet I had much more respect for the sorcerer that opposed the comfortable than the chaos magician who supported it. Certainly I considered them more experienced and accomplished than myself (and still do to this day), so I had a sneaking suspicion that I was missing something important.
Well I can’t say its a problem that has occupied my thinking very much in the last several years since it first came up, probably in the Norwich meeting where KIA was launched in 2001 if I remember correctly, or if not definitely around that time. But it has popped into my mind unbidden every now and then, usually when I’m in some kind of altered mind state for some reason. So the fact its taken over seven years for me to work out this problem shouldn’t put me in too bad a light! Hopefully!
Oddly the answer that has come relates to my initial thoughts on the Senex and Puer in the article Thanateros and Anarchy which I wrote for key64.net (or key23 as it was back then). The Senex being the Jungian archetype of the Old Man, relating to Thanatos, Saturn and Kronos. The Puer relating to the Young Man, and thus to Eros, Mercury, Heros et al.
The Puer achetype often dies young as a result of its foolishness, whereas the Senex archetype often attempts to impart Wisdom to the Puer. Or if the Puer is too serious and responsible, then the Senex tries to inspire them with the joys of apparent foolishness. Merlin and Wart in the animated feature Sword in the Stone are good examples of the latter, and if we forget the masculine elements of the archetypes, the film Harold and Maude is an even better example.
Basically, the Senex, having wisdom, sees the danger both in too much foolishness as well as too little. In this sense Wisdom is not so much the opposite of foolishness so much as an arbiter between a foolish-serious polarity.
Seriousness can lead be what leads to the trap of the comfortable rut. Basically, by observing the consequences of our actions we learn which actions lead to greater happiness and thus repeat them more often, and exclude those actions that don’t bring us pleasure from further consideration. However, in so doing we would be continually narrowing our options until ultimately our life becomes a dull routine of what we previously enjoyed most. We can continue with this routine in the deluded belief that it is the best option to bring ourselves the most pleasure. We are comfortable and don’t want to move.
One of the many things I have observed about my own life however is that my tastes have changed continuously, and only really settle for short periods. Music I once loved now bores me. Music I once hated I now enjoy. Food that once disgusted me is now a regular part of my diet. Food I once couldn’t live without I now never eat. My clothing styles have changed over the years. My taste in internal décor has changed. My favoured means of sorcery and divination have changed. My sexual turn ons, and turn offs, have changed.
If I had simply stuck with what I was comfortable with, I would never have progressed. I would never have realised my tastes had changed and I would be living a bland yet comfortable life. In other words, a fate I would not wish upon anyone! The very fate I took up magic to escape in the first place!
Looking back, I wonder if I have ever needed to use magic to make myself comfortable. And really I think the answer is not only have I not, I don’t think I’ve ever needed to. Being comfortable is easy. Its what happens naturally when you don’t upset the apple cart. When you tow the line and do what is expected. If all you want is to be comfortable, sell all you magic books and buy a nice bed, a nice sofa and relax. If you can’t do that without magic, then I would suggest something is seriously wrong.
So what has the underlying goal of my sorcery been all this time? To upset the apple cart, to challenge myself to break new ground, to step into new situations in which I am not immediately comfortable and therefore escape the comfortable ruts in which I inevitably find myself. To rebel against my own inner tyrant and kick start an internal revolution in my own life.
At least that’s been my experience. Obviously I can’t speak for other sorcerers and magicians, and so I would be interested to hear how they relate to the idea of the comfortable, and especially how it relates to their sorcery.
I had a friend once who used to say “Comfort is treachery”. It took me a long time before I figured out what was meant by that…though I’d change it by saying “Comfort can be treacherous” instead…
I ran into your site, completely by accident, whilst digging around the search-engines for something else, and the title SERPENT caught my eye as it is wont to do, being that I’ve had an irrepressible snake fetish ever since I was a youngling.
In this sense Wisdom is not so much the opposite of foolishness so much as an arbiter between a foolish-serious polarity.
Hear hear! Took me a while to figure it out, but almost any form of foolishness can become wisdom in the sphere of the life of someone who hears the call of hir own life and answers it, and any wisdom can become foolishness to any who either never hear the call, never bother to answer or have a way of always picking up the wrong phone…though that latter case is readily redeemable, since it involves lots of change.
I think I magnetise to Chaos because my weak suit is dealing with change, and this is my means of making it less traumatic, and more interesting.
I’m going to go post a link to this blog at Irreality.net - you would probably like that site, it’s a fabulous community, and a great resource hall. There’s a couple of abbreviations that are bandied about on Irreality that this post here reminds me of: SRSBZN is one and the other is LULZ. The former means Serious Business and the latter is Shits and Giggles. There’s a ‘tracker’ function built into Irreality for its users to graph their head spaces, like a biorhythm chart that’s not based on your date of birth, and so isn’t total bunk.
The design here is absolutely stellar, incidently. More and more, I wish I could run Wordpress on my server…I keep trying other things for my website, which is in severe need of update, and each fails for one dumb reason or another. Sadly, my host does not have MySQL so that I can’t run Wordpress. A bummer, because there’s a reason we see so many blogs on Wordpress now: it’s excellent.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:53Demimonde,
Thanks for your long reply. I like the saying ‘Comfort can be treacherous’ as it softens and therefore weakens the verb ‘to be’.
I tried to look at irreality.net, but it doesn’t seem to be loading. I’m just getting a ’server not found’ error. Is the spelling correct?
I love serpents also, hence having chosen it as the title of my blog. Thanks for the kind words regarding my design, really I just threw it together, so I guess wordpress really is that good. Especially since I added the Akismet plugin. Before that it used to notify me of every spam comment that wanted approval. I love open source software!
April 8th, 2008 at 16:32Never mind about the irreality.net link. It seems to be working now. Must have been some temporary glitch…
April 8th, 2008 at 21:14without even finishing as yet the reading of your well thought post, as they ever are so, …..
I reiterate the comfort I have felt among KIA Illuminated Adepts.
I will likely comment again after I read your missive in full.
The word that caught me eye was comfort, and how recently I had admitted such.
Yet that is where I ‘work’ from. My ‘background’ is as only a mist, yet a mist that seems to have some grounding, as when I draw from it, not quite certain, it works.
April 9th, 2008 at 17:38According to the training programme LIBER MMM, surely the whole purpose of Chaos Magic was to break out of the ‘comfort zone’?
April 22nd, 2008 at 16:05hello , this was a very interesting read please post more
April 23rd, 2008 at 19:49@Tel: Its good that you feel comfortable in KIA. This article isn’t about ending friendships and relationships where we have become too comfortable with people…
@Skratte: Indeed, thanks for reminding me. Although paradoxically, thanks to magic I have found myself comfortable in many situations I would not have been comfortable with had I not taken it up. It seems that by putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations we eventually become comfortable with them. Thus the breaking out needs to be a continual process for continual progression.
@Sharlene: Thanks for your feedback. See you soon?
April 25th, 2008 at 17:07Discomfort is used by the anti materialist and anti flesh religions to mortify the flesh and liberate the spirit from its prison of matter. It rarely works the mortified flesh spirit never departs, merely lurking in silence for a while, before resuming its quest for material ease and fleshly reproduction.
Discomfort, especially prolonged and severe discomfort, can be a means of bringing forth from the psyche powers that in the normal run of things are kept locked away. Magic can simulate or stimulate this kind of discomfort. Carefully tended the unlocked powers can be directed by the trained magician to whatever ends he or she chooses.
April 26th, 2008 at 13:08@Michael: Indeed, but I am not talking about discomfort here, merely moving out of ones comfort zone in order to maximise the potential for pleasure and success in various endeavours. This is not anti-materialist or anti-flesh.
Of course, I am also aware of the deliberate causing of discomfort for acheiving altered states, but this doesn’t have to be anti-flesh either, although a misunderstanding of the importance and use of these techniques may be the origin of the religious aesthetics error.
April 28th, 2008 at 20:47[...] my recent article Sorcery and Comfort I describe this comfort trap, and how in order to progress we must constantly push ourselves beyond [...]
March 5th, 2009 at 4:19