Excerpt: Ch 4 Mature Speech from The Covert Side of Initiation by Virgil
Chapter 4: Mature Speech
Preliminary Notes on Speech
Speech is two things.
1. A reflection of a person’s maturity level
2. A means through which a person can change his maturity level
Speech is a reflection of a person’s maturity level, meaning that by observing the way someone speaks, you can assess how mature he is. For example, let’s say that someone is always gossiping, lying, boasting, belittling others, and insulting others. Since he speaks immaturely, you can safely assume he is immature. Now, let’s say that someone always speaks intelligently, compassionately, and respectfully. Since he speaks maturely, you can safely assume he is mature. Speech is also a means through which a person can change his maturity level, meaning that by forcing yourself to speak maturely, you will eventually become mature. By forcing yourself to speak immaturely, you will eventually become immature. Needless to say, no one intentionally does that, but it still happens. Whenever immature people speak immaturely, this act of speech reinforces their immaturity. Thus, if you are an immature person who is constantly speaking immaturely, a wise thing to do would be to just shut up until you learn to speak maturely, and then try to speak maturely until one day you really are mature and therefore no longer need to “try” in order to speak maturely.
Covert and Overt Immature Speech
There are two forms of immature speech—covert and overt. Boasting is one type of immature speech. Everyone who has been a member of any online occult forum or group has seen this type of speech in its overt form numerous times. In such forums and groups, people are constantly boasting about how long they’ve been studying occultism, or what degree they are in this or that magical order, or how old their magical lineage is, or how many evocations they’ve performed, etc. Covert boasting is another matter. Let’s say that someone writes an article about IIH. It seems like this article was written to help students of Bardon’s system understand the book, but if the real reason the author wrote the book was to show off his knowledge of IIH and imply that he is an expert on Bardon’s system, then the article is an example of covert boasting. Lying is another type of immature speech.7 Overt lying is also something everyone is familiar with. If you say something that is just plain false and you know it’s false, then you are overtly lying. Covert lying is when you say something that is technically true, but you word it in a way that is misleading and meant to get others to believe something false. For example, let’s say that you are envious of someone named Steve and want to ruin his reputation. You tell everyone that you saw him slap his wife. This makes everyone think he abuses his wife. In reality, you just saw him give his wife a high five. You we’re overtly lying because what you said is literally true, but you were covertly lying. Therefore, from a magical point of view, you were still lying. Insulting people is another type of immature speech. Some people disguise insults as constructive criticism, however, insults disguised as constructive criticism are still insults, and therefore, an example of immature speech. Insults are designed to hurt people —to hurt their self-esteem, to hurt their feelings, to hurt their reputation, etc. Insults are destructive. Constructive criticism, on the other hand, is designed to help people build themselves up. They are complete opposites.
Additional Notes on Speech
At the end of Magical Rituals of the Sanctum Regnum, Eliphas Levi provides a number of esoteric maxims. Three of those maxims are as follows.
Every idle word is a fault. An idle word is either without meaning or is of the nature of a lie. He who is content with idle words is as if he were dead.
Before coming across IIH, I studied Levi’s writings extensively. Coming across these maxims was my first introduction to the idea that regulating one’s speech was an important part of magical training. Shortly after I started training in Bardon’s system, a number of incidents happened in my life that quickly taught me the importance of regulating my speech. In one instance, I was unfairly bad mouthing a coworker whom I didn’t notice was standing right behind me. That was embarrassing. In another instance, I was making fun of a waitress at a restaurant. I was speaking in Chinese to my friend and assumed that the waitress didn’t know Chinese. It turns out she did. That was embarrassing too. A number of similar incidents happened, all in a very short span of time. It was clear to me that the universe was trying to teach me a very important lesson —regulate my speech. In other words, don’t gossip, don’t lie for selfish reasons, don’t belittle others, don’t make fun of others, don’t insult others, etc. When it came to basic magical training, Bardon could only fit so much into one book. He puts all of the absolutely necessary information in his first book. Thus, his system is complete. However, he also leaves students of his system to figure out a lot of stuff by themselves. The importance of regulating your speech is one thing Bardon never explicitly wrote about, but expected his students to eventually learn.
In KTQ, Bardon teaches the art of creative speaking. Literal human speech is NOT the same as the divine art of creative speaking, however, they are analogous. IIH is not the be all and end all of magical training. It prepares you to learn and work with much higher and advanced forms of magic, including evocation and creative speaking. Creative speaking is a powerful means to shape the world. The negative effects from its abuse can result in a lot of suffering for innocent people and a severe karmic backlash for the one who abuses this art. In order to protect the would-be abuser and his would-be victims, Divine Providence puts in place certain restrictions that prevent the immature from learning creative speaking. How those restrictions manifest themselves in the lives of specific aspiring magicians varies on a case by case basis. Using literal human speech responsibly (or as I’ve previous put it, “regulating” it) shows Divine Providence that you can use the divine art of creative speaking responsibly. Since IIH is designed in part to prepare you to learn creative speaking, part of doing the work of IIH is learning to regulate your speech. In this way, when you complete Step 8 and are ready to move on to the work of KTQ, you will have learned how to speak responsibly, and therefore, Divine Providence knows you can be trusted to make use of creative speaking responsibly. Another way of thinking about it is this. If you are a mature person, then you will speak like a mature person. Mature people don’t gossip, lie for selfish reasons, belittle others, make fun of others, insult others, etc. Of course, they can point out the errors of others and offer constructive criticism, but this is never done in a way that is disrespectful or unnecessarily hurtful.
Thus, we have the following situation.
Inner state = immature
Outer manifestation (of inner state) = immature use of speech
One of the things you’ll learn in your magical training is that self-transformation almost always works from the outside in. For example let’s say you don’t have an elemental equilibrium but want to develop one. We end up with the following situation.
Inner state = elements within oneself are impure and unbalanced
Outer manifestation (of inner state) = one exhibits negative traits like irritability, laziness, stupidity, and dishonesty.
Can you establish an elemental equilibrium by using magical techniques to directly purify and balance the elements within you? Nope. You can’t do that. Numerous modern magical systems make the mistake of thinking you can. They use various elemental correspondences (divine names, colors, symbols, regions of the body) in an attempt to force the elements constituting one’s subtle bodies into a balanced and pure state. While this might seem logical at first, anyone with a solid understanding of the occult anatomy and karma will realize that it is an naïve and ineffective approach for establishing an elemental equilibrium. Again, as is often the case, you work from the outside in. In my second book, I give a number of magical techniques for eliminating negative traits like irritability, laziness, stupidity, and dishonesty. By working on these outer manifestations, the inner state giving rise to these manifestations will change. The elements constituting your subtle bodies will go from an impure and unbalanced state to a pure and balanced state. In this way, you will have established an elemental equilibrium within yourself. A similar principle is at work when it comes to regulating your speech. When you’re immature, you speak immaturely. By forcing yourself to speak maturely, you slowly begin transforming your inner state so that it becomes more mature. As without, so within.
Being Accountable
Levi writes the following in The Magical Ritual of the Sanctum Regnum.
God, unless you are illuminated. All the images which you create, whether of God or of other ideals, remain imprinted on that luminous medium—the astral light of the soul, and of the world and there is that Book of the Conscience which shall be opened and its records revealed in the Last Day.
Be guarded in the words you speak. Speak not of This is, I believe, Levi’s way of saying that you are accountable for everything you say, even if you don’t think you are. The universe tried to teach me this lesson very early in my training. I already mentioned the two stories where I was saying negative things about people without realizing they were listening to me. Sometimes you don’t think you will be held accountable for what you say about another person because they aren’t listening so you can say whatever you want about them. That’s never true. The astral light records everything and will hold you accountable for what you say. To become responsible is part of the process of becoming more mature, and part of being responsible is being responsible for the things we say.
Words are Like Swords
In Kenji Tokitsu’s translation of Miyomoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, he writes the following in the introduction.
The responsible factors of such a situation are many but among the most important one is the relapse of primary disease. 2 The long-term survival rate after operation is buying viagra online low. Masturbating to porn is very habit forming and free cheap viagra although they might be able to cut back slightly they are never going to stop completely while their sex lives are not giving them satisfaction. It should however be utilized with many different parts of the viagra samples australia amerikabulteni.com body. The side-effects for these drugs include aches, fatigue, fever and chill, cost viagra cialis but eventually subside.
Like a sword, a word can wound or kill, but as long as one does not tough the blade, the sword is no more than a smooth piece of metal. Someone who knows the qualities of a sword does not play with it, and someonewho knows the nature of words does not play with them.
These are true words. Be careful what you say. I grew up with a sharp tongue and was always hurting people with it. As you can probably imagine, I wasn’t able to make much progress in the work of IIH until I fixed that problem. Can you imagine someone who cannot even control his own mouth trying to control the elements? It is ridiculous, but that was me. We don’t give swords to immature people because they’re either going to hurt themselves or hurt others with it. It’s the same case with words. If you don’t use them maturely, you’re going to inflict a lot of unnecessary suffering upon others and upon yourself. Do yourself and the rest of the world a favor by learning to speak maturely.
Forming Your Speech Code
Some people might find it helpful to write their own code that provides guidelines when it comes to refraining from speaking immaturely. An example of a speech code is below.
1. Avoid making negative remarks about others unless it is absolutely necessary to do so.
2. If you ever do need to criticize someone, make sure to word the criticism in the least hurtful and most respectful way possible.
3. Don’t talk about spirituality unless it is unavoidable. This means don’t bring up spirituality, religion, etc. when conversing with others. If the subject of spirituality and religion does somehow end up getting brought up during a conversation, talk about these subjects as if you had no interest in these subjects.
4. If you do end up talking about spirituality with someone, do not mention anything related to magic or esotericism unless it is unavoidable. If the subjects of magic and esotericism do somehow end up coming up, talk about them as if you had no interest in them.
5. Do not make false or exaggerated statements.
The Speech Journal
It is a good idea to keep a speech journal as you endeavor to make mature speech a way of life. This is a journal in which you record all the times you speak immaturely. Each time you speak immaturely, pull out your smartphone and make a note of what you said. That way, at the end of the day, you can just look at your smartphone to see what to record in your journal. You don’t have to reflect back on the day and try to remember all of the ways you spoke immaturely so you can record them. The speech journal will help you see how quickly you are becoming more mature, and whether there are any patterns in the way you speak immaturely. A segment from my own speech journal is contained in the next chapter. There are several things to note. First, note that I do not write in the journal every day. Some days, I don’t speak immaturely in any way so there is nothing to record. Also, note that the entries either begin with “Today” or “On this day.” If an entry begins with “Today,” then that means the events described in that entry were recorded the same day they took place. If an entry begins with “On this day,” that means I forgot to write in my speech journal on the day the events occurred and am recording them either the next day or at some later date. The date above each entry gives the date the events happened, which is not necessarily the date they were recorded because I was really forgetful back then and often neglected to record speech infractions.
Also, note that I reference the code given in the previous section several times. Like I said, having your own code is useful. However, each person should have their own unique code. For example, I restrict myself from talking about general spirituality or religion. That’s because whenever I talk about general spirituality or religion, I always end up referencing magical ideas and concepts. Thus, talking about general spirituality and religion inevitably leads me to end up talking about esotericism and magic. However, if that’s not the case for you, you may feel no need to have a code that restricts you from talking about esotericism and general spirituality. As one final note, I want to point out that I did not write down the times of the infractions, but after someone advised me to do this, I have begun doing so and think it is a beneficial practice. Thus, in your journal, I suggest that you not only record instances where you spoke immaturely during the day, but that you also not down what time during the day the instance happened. If you can’t record the exact time, record the general time (early morning, around noon, late in the evening, etc.)
To find our more about Virgil read excerpts from his other titles please go to Falcon Books Author Page.
To purchase The Covert Side of Initiation or any other titles please follow the links below:
“Treating others with kindness is the first magical act the magician learns and the last one he masters.”
~Virgil
[wpbooklist_shortcode table=”virgilpublications”]