The following essay was written by Dr. Joseph Lisiewski in 2006 and contains a detailed letter that I sent him at that time. It is important read it in the context of what was being said as it still applies to our current human situation. While the interest in Traditional Magic has exploded since this essay was first published, and many of those who benefit from Lisiewski’s groundbreaking efforts are not even aware of him works, it is safe to say that the “Grimoire Revival” of the last 15 years is in large part a result of his efforts – like them or not, agree with them or not – to get practitioners to focus on one thing: the results of their work.
The Word is everywhere today, and it is spreading. The Wisdom of Old System Magic cannot—and will not be hid any longer under the New Age bushel of dogma and pseudo-doctrine; of lodge and Order; of personalities and badges; of half-truths and deceits; of ignorance and fear. As a light that has been hidden by a great darkness must eventually and inevitably put that darkness and its shadows to flight, so too has the light of Old System Magic broken through, once again, into the conscious minds and intellectual strivings of those who would call themselves Magician. After a hundred-and-twenty-plus years of distortion, mutilation, and rejection, the sacred images and words of the Grimoires—those Grammars of Magic—created by the Fathers of Old System Magic, are once more reaching the furthermost corners of the mind of those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. This is the message my friend and colleague, Mr. Mark Stavish, Director, Institute for Hermetic Studies, has summarized so beautifully and eloquently in a post he recently sent to me. Many were the conversations and numerous the hours he and I spent hammering out this magical point and that magical reckoning, all of which led to his quoted letter below.
At the same time, his post captures the essence and extends some of the points I made in my replies to reader questions this week (see the Author’s Reply to Readers’ Questions tab on this website.)
Too many people expect something for nothing when they enter Magic. Still more expect a great something for even less work—or is it from the lip-service they give that masquerades as ‘work.’ It doesn’t work this way as I have said countless times in my writings, and as Mr. Stavish echoes and delineates in additional detail below. From such insights and experiential knowledge as Stavish demonstrates in his letter, one also learns that there are no guarantees in Magic (or in anything in life, for that matter.) All that exists are probabilities; probabilities whose potential for manifestation increase exponentially as the individual follows the simple process of:
Learn—->Understand—->Comprehend—->Apprehend
and whose techniques I have explained so many times in my books and in this column.
I invite my readers to read Mr. Stavish’s paper below, and to pay its contents very close attention, and give its messages special heed. For if this is done, many of the problems that beset you can and will be cleared up in the twinkling of an eye. That is, after you Work, and achieve an Apprehension of its content.
Mr. Stavish’s paper follows….
Dear Dr. Lisiewski,
Our discussions regarding operative magic, with emphasis on Talismans, seems to always lead us back to two very important points. One you discussed several weeks ago in your Magical Thought of the Week, concerning the Element of Fire, and its role in all occult work. Fire is the most important of the Elements and often the least understood or used. Only the Element of Fire can initiate our consciousness to new levels, as it is a direct expression of the energies of the Higher Self, the Holy Upper Trinity of the Tree of Life, our Holy Guardian Angel or true inner initiator.
Along with this is the question of ‘paying the price’ of success in whatever it is we do – magic, alchemy, professional or personal life choices. The price we pay is the mark of our commitment to the goal we seek to realize. How often haven’t you been told by someone who contacts you, “I’ll do anything! Anything to learn magic, alchemy, etc.” only to ask a few questions and realize that the person who has come to you asking for your time, knowledge, and experience places more emphasis on their monthly cable TV fee, martial arts instruction, or monthly visit to the tattoo parlor or body piercing than in actually learning occult arts. They are not willing to do whatever it takes, only to SAY whatever it takes. As such, they will not pay the price in time, money, intellectual or emotional power, in other words – commit the energy – it takes for success.
A simple example anyone can prove to themselves is in what we have mentioned so many times. Energy follows the mental plan. The mental plan follows our actions. Precision in the plan and actions bring precise results. Take making a talisman for example.
Anyone who has taken the time – often only a few extra minutes, a half hour at most – to draw a geometrically exact polygon (i.e. a pointed star) on their talismans can feel it take on the energy as it is being made. The act of will, or focused consciousness, the extra concern, desire for precision, beauty, and actual results, makes the talisman alive long before it is ever consecrated or dedicated to use.
The student goes from being an experimenter to an Artist, and results are guaranteed because of the well established mental framework with which it was prepared and executed.
The price was paid, and the ‘purchase’ made. The Artist owns it because they have created it and deserve it.
You have mentioned to me that when you were doing some magical work you knew what items you needed, heeded the instructions of the grimoires and did not haggle ‘over the price of a black cock’ went your way and the desired effects came forth. Some have wondered why this is, but we know it and it is simple. Emotionally the desired ends were more important than the money it cost for the wand, vessel of brass, or what have you. This is no different than the person who makes the sacrifice to take out a loan, go to college or technical school, and reach a goal rather than sit in fear of a thousand things that could rise up from their subconscious and keep them from doing it.
Today we see a similar thing in the so-called occult community. People who would dare to call themselves students of the Art, blaspheme its holy name by whining and complaining about their lack of this, that, or the other thing and why everything should be handed to them at no cost to themselves.
They dare use the word – FREE. We know there is nothing for free in life. Everything has a price. While they, the end user may not be paying it, someone else is. This kind of ‘spiritual welfare’ mentality is poison to success. While discretion must be used in what one is paying for, how much, and why, in the end, even a fool separated from their money will quickly gain wisdom if they are serious about the Path and not concerned about what it takes from them.
How often haven’t we heard the phase, “But I can’t afford…!” In other words, that acronym you are so fond of quoting, “Behold the Ultimate Truth (B.U.T.) B.U.T. I am not willing to spend that much time, money, or both to achieve my goal, nor am I willing to do what I need to do in order to make the time and/or money available for achieving the goal, and want someone else to do it for me.” B.U.T., B.U.T, B.U.T! There are no “B.U.T’s” as we both know so very well, nor are there any “I can’t!” There is only an Act of Will, an act of choice – I will, or I will not. In magic, there is no ‘can’ or ‘cannot’ nor is there any ‘B.U.T.’
Book Eleven of the Hermetic texts say:
19. Consider this yourself. Command your soul to go anywhere, and it will be there quicker than your command. Bid it to go to the ocean and again it is there at once, not as if it had gone from place to place but was already there. Order it to fly up to heaven and it will need no wings, nor will anything impede it, neither the fire of the sun, nor the ether, nor the whirlwind, nor the other heavenly bodies, but cutting through them all it will soar up to the last body. And if you wish to break through all this and to contemplate what is beyond (if there is anything beyond the cosmos), it is in your power.
20. See what power you have and what speed! You can do all these things and yet God cannot? Reflect on God in this way as having all within Himself as ideas: the cosmos, Himself, the whole. If you do not make yourself equal to God you cannot understand Him. Like is understood by like. Grow to immeasurable size. Be free from every body, transcend all time. Become eternity and thus you will understand God. Suppose nothing to be impossible for yourself. Consider yourself immortal and able to understand everything: all arts, sciences and the nature of every living creature. Become higher that all heights and lower than all depths. Sense as one within yourself the entire creation: fire, water, the dry and the moist. Conceive yourself to be in all places at the same time: in the earth, the sea, in heaven; that you are not yet born, that you are within the womb, that you are young, old, dead; that you are beyond death. Conceive all things at once: time, places, actions, qualities and quantities; then you can understand God.
21. But if you lock up your soul in your body, abase it and say: “I understand nothing; I can do nothing; I am afraid of the sea; I cannot reach heaven; I do not know who I was nor who I shall be,” what have you to do with God? For you cannot conceive anything beautiful or good while you are attached to the body and are evil. For the greatest evil is to ignore what belongs to God. To be able to know and to will and to hope is the straight and easy way appropriate to each that will lead to the Supreme Good. When you take this road this Good will meet you everywhere and will be experienced everywhere, even where and when you do not expect it; when awake, asleep, in a ship, on the road, by night, by day, when speaking and when silent, for there is nothing which it is not.
Herein is the important point. Once we enter our Path, IT decides what our price of continued advancement will be, in time, talent, and treasure, and it will require, demand, and take all three from us until there is nothing left to stand between us and our goal.
You have often said that magic and alchemy are the hardest and most difficult paths there are, and filled with more sorrow, despair, broken dreams and bodies than any other. This I can attest to, and as you so very well know for yourself, once we have accepted this – THEN the Golden Dawn of Illumination arises within us, not before, and not with hidden fears buried deep inside. Once we accept it, then the Good rises up to meet us, and It—the God [Good] is everywhere.
Sincerely,
Mark Stavish
