The brief discussion we had on the "role play" that is frequently used by magicians to separate themselves from their "mundane selves" when they do magic had me thinking more about HP's obsession with the "theater" of ritual. Wife in reading snippets from the book provided me more thought on the concept that 3 sessions with HP on the subject. The idea, put simply, is that a magician enters into an altered state of consciousness to do magic. This altered state is facilitated through various techniques, including but not exclusively ritual spaces, ritual garb, magical tools, incenses, music, and more. The purpose of this is that you, the magician, must step into a transformative reality where magic is not only possible, but simply done.
This can not be done physically, although we make use of physical tools to help free our minds to do so. One mental tool we can use is a "magical self" or "persona", a mask or costume we put onto our psyche when we enter into the altered state. This persona functions as another layer of separation from our "mundane selves". Like with a well acted character in a play or game, the persona allows us to suspend disbelief and function with less doubt or resistance to magical transformation. The idea is that "Jay" has to work to get past his inhibitions and limitations to do magic, but "Jay 2" has none of these obstacles to overcome so all of the energy I use to cast a spell will go into the spell, not fight to overcome the resistance of doubt or fear. This is one reason why when you enter into a magical society, whether a coven or something else, you take a "magical name" or "craft name" which you only use when you are doing magic.
No, this is not essential. Magic will work without such separations, guises, masks, and tools. A well trained, discliplined magician can simply "do magic" at any time, in any location, as needed. I can do so, and have done so for years, but the effectiveness of such "spontaneous magic" is greatly reduced. Even simply stopping, taking a moment to mentally construct a sacred space, possibly tracing it out and adding a few vocalizations, is enough to radically increase the effectiveness of a spell. No matter how skilled or experienced the magician, the ritual and preparations improves the work. It is like an artist or architect who "can" draw the lines on the paper without a ruler or protractor, but if he has the tools available, more of his effort can go into the design instead of the act of drawing it.
I myself have not used personae for magical workings in a very long time. I think the last time I had a "magical persona" was when I was nineteen, almost twenty years old. Now that is a story to be told.
Personae long past
My first "magical persona" was, of all things, female. It is from her that my online identity was constructed. Shayde was my very first magical persona. I loved her. The first time I slipped out of reality and looked at myself in "the mirror" (spiritual one of course), the face looking back at me was not one I had thought was my own. She was beautiful, moonlit skin, starry-night hair, eyes the were black as coal yet had a soft radience from them, and moved with a gentle grace I have never embodied since. I think she was the first aspect of myself I truly loved and accepted without question. I even have a drawing I had found of her at a convention, years later, which is honored near my altar.
Shayde's role as my magical persona was usurped about a month, possibly two, into my original coven training (yes, I've been through this before, isn't it fun how life brings lessons back you didn't learn the first time?). "We" (I as Shayde) were doing work, specifically projecting to another location as a lesson on clairvoyance and sensory projection, when another aspect of myself rose up and enveloped us. Dark, powerful, mysterious, supremely confident, Rune simply wrapped his cloaks of mystery about us and when all was said and done, "we" were Rune. Shayde had simply vanished. (as a side note, I also have a framed illustration of Rune by the same artist as the one I have of Shayde)
I did a lot of magic and training in the guise of Rune over the next year. In many ways he was the ideal "magical me" for the time: never doubted his power or place in divinity, arrogant, intolerant of the ignorant or uneducated, mysterious, revered. He was exactly what an immature magical practitioner would want as an image of himself. Rune was just short of being a "power" in his own right (by "power" I mean one of the personified universal powers, like an elemental or an archetype)... at least, that is how he saw himself. He was one to call to the divine, as HP has dramatized for us, "Bitch, here, now!" Well, not exactly like that. HP is big on the gruff, brutal aspects of Babylonians and Celts. Rune was far to "sophisticated" to debase himself with such crudities.
It was in a meditation of self discovery, near the end of my training, when I encountered Shayde again. In this meditation one steps out of the persona because the facets of the magician become independent entities that the magician can interact with. She looked horrible... her hair was frayed and limp, and her moonlight complexion was dull and grey. Her eyes did not shine. Though I could see no bruises, I knew she was abused... and I knew the victimizer -- Rune. I confronted him in this meditation, and he looked upon me as an ignorant child who was throwing a tantrum. To him, the feminine was weak and was best kept in a submissive role. I didn't even know I had a chauvinist aspect in my nature. Of course, at the time, I thought the personae were more like guides than aspects of self (yes, i was young and ignorant).
I tried to work without Rune after that, wanting to reconnect with Shayde, but Rune had become such an integral part of my magical self that it was impossible for me to separate myself from him when I worked. He was also convenient... he made magic easy and I needed only to evoke him slip out of mundane reality, even in the middle of a crowded elevator. My resentment of him, or as I understand now - myself, grew with each attempt to connect with other aspects of myself.
It was during the initiation of one of my coven mates, a day where we were to lend our energies to keep guard while he met his challenges and "died" to be reborn into a life of power, when I had my own challenges and "death". I was later told that I had gone through a "spiritual crisis" and had a form of "self initiation" that day. It was in the afternoon, while out in the woods holding the walls between the worlds for the sacred space, when I had my final confrontation with Rune. I told him that I would do magic myself, without him, and he laughed at me and rejoined me for my stupidity. We duked it out (in my head, astrally, whatever) and I "won".
In his retreat, he spitefully "took back" all the power we had accumulated together by burning out the pathways my training had created. That was how I perceived it at the time. Today I understand that what I had done was reject an aspect of myself that had characteristics I found repugnant. When I ripped him from me and cast him aside, adding him to my "shadow self", I also tore from myself all the "good" that was a part of that persona. I have come to realize that though I did go through a spiritual crisis that day I did not pass through initiation. I even pushed myself out of the initiation circle that evening, physically and energetically because at the time I had been on the verge of initiation... but a broken person can not survive initiation, and I had broken myself.
HP is determined to put me through the "male mysteries" to "reclaim my power." I am becoming aware that he is correct in his assessment that my "power" is stunted. He is, however, way off base as to the "cause". HP perceives that this lack of "masculine power" is due to never having received it... that like so many men, I never grew up. I suspect he is only partially correct there. I believe it was not that I never received my power or matured, but that at the point where I needed to integrate my male aspect, which had subplanted my feminine, and become a balanced -whole- individual, I rejected my masculine self as an abuser... victimizing it as I perceived it had victimized my feminine... and as such completed the victimization of myself. (how horrifically morbid is that?)
I think one of the reasons I have such a strong attraction to and repulsion from HP is that he is so similar to my Rune that I recognize him on a spiritual level. It is as if my spirit is trying to reintegrate and if I can't do it from within it is willing to accept a surrogate. This, of course, would only be a band-aid over a wound that is long past due for healing. It is also unfair to HP to cast him into such a role. It is a role, however, that he does naturally... the arrogant, self-important holder of knowledge and power who is willing to abuse that which he deems unacceptable or weak. (he has many times commented that he misses the Babylonian times --the parties were unrivaled and you could kill your slaves) Anyway, back to the primary topic...
In all the years since that time, nearly 18, I have never been able to completely embrace my feminine aspect again. I've never undstood why. I now believe that my feminine can not fully embrace me because I am no longer "masculine enough". I tore out so much of my mature-masculinity that there is not enough yet for her to "merge with". I have not used a magical persona since that time. Shayde never "fit" after that and I had no desire to find another. I have worn Rune's "Cloak of Mysteries" in magical work several times since then, but it is more like the remnants... a trophy from a battle where there were no victors. It is no longer the impregnable shroud, but a veil of shadows with tears and gaps.
So here I am, in the "cycle of initiation" once again. This time I arrive with no persona to wear when on the "divine stage" of ritual. Wife says that though she has seen me role play and "become" people other than myself for fun, or at conventions, that when I am in ritual I am "Jay" wearing a costume. I am never my "magical self". I think she's right. I know who and what my new persona should be, but I do not believe I have healed enough yet to reclaim enough of what remains of Rune to embrace Shayde and become what I was supposed to be all along. As yet, there is no unified persona that is the rebirth of male & female as lovers.
LOL, I just had to laugh at the imagery that came up with the last statement. As I now identify my strongest feminine element as my "Taurus" and my primary male aspect (and shadow self) as "
This is going to be an interesting journey into magical and emotional maturation.
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