We seem to be living in troubled times. increasingly we witness greater political tension and polarization of political parties, racial turmoil, the destruction of the arctic river, pandemics, Covid-19 forcing the world into a general retreat and a re-examination of its ways. Instincts forgotten or forgotten urges re-awaken through the collective unconscious, asking to be heard for they cannot heal otherwise.
But what does it mean to the adept, who has spent at least half his life training for individual balance?
I am not really in the position to tell, for individual balance is, after all, individual. But I can, at least, point out the most basic universal aspects there are to it, as true individuality is and must be universal by definition, all else being a part of constructs that fall like sand figures on the wind as soon as they are able to scream “I am I”, only to aggregate again under a different form like the news on the TV.
In times such as these, some adepts may choose to hide like golden turtles on their silver shells, there is the rumour that adepts have been doing it since the mythic fall of Atlantis, not wanting to have anything to do with the causes and effects of this world. But some may choose to stand up and bring their balance to the world at large, in which case they will face a world in a silent or in a not so-silent panic. Whatever the case is, increased time at home or in isolated places of nature is advised while Covid-19 is walking the streets, and unless the adept has found a formula to become invisible to the collective, he will have to feed his equilibrium and have it rock-firm in his body.
I am a part of the artistic community, except for the lack of governmental funding , I know many artists who are in a personal heaven, taking their time to focus on new creative experiments. But, unlike the magician, whose occult art can be hidden from the beginning to the end, manifesting in the quality of life, the creations of the artist must one day find their world on the outside, and the outside world seems to be temporarily closing. Maybe a different world will open, and art is all we take from one world to another. Be that as it may, to the adept art will come easy, and art will have him reach out without any violation of silence and, most importantly, it can help him perfect the outward projection of his mastery over the elements.
It is easy to fall prey to our mental and emotional impressions of achievement, and to the impressions of our plastic imagination upon the senses. But the true test to the Great Work is in what we give to the world and in the extent of the greatness of what we give, on how strongly our impressions can transit from one world to another. It is said that the element earth is the embodiment of fire, water and air in equilibrium, so that in the material plane we may have our test. Art is the most direct way to calibrate the capacities given to us by the elements. Not all art is centered on the earth element, but there is no art without its material product.
1.The Earth Element: Sculpture
Let us take the simple example of sculpture. If the adept finds clay, he may fill his body with light, his light with clairvoyance, he may compress it in his eyes and look upon the piece of clay in his hands, inquiring it about its secret form and shape, and in his vision there will be fire. If he captures it, he must memorize the shape perfectly and firmly, for in that action there is air. When he starts to mold the clay, his water, his sensibility towards that shape will guide his movements and rhythms, his gestures relaxed and passionate, while the mind keeps focused, holding the image in its silence.
When the work is done, how close is the end result to the original vision?
The most common case is that the figure will be less perfect than its original vision, and this reveals imperfection at the level of magical equilibrium. If, somehow, the end result is honestly better than the original vision, it may be a case where the fiery vision turned to fiery inspiration, learning what it could from air and water.
Surely, if the adept tries different materials, such as different metals, he will have different imagineries, for he will be running with the seven planetary qualities on the material plane, but this often requires forges and conditions difficult to get.
We are in the realm of the element of earth. So, let also the adept imagine a temple for one of his favorite qualities, metaphors or principles. He will fill himself with clairfeeling and feel how such a place of reverence is to be, and from it he is to get his vision of the temple and get a sense of its mathematics, symbols and proportions, First he is using water, then fire, then air. Let him learn from the architect and draw.
How close is the final result to the spirit and perfection of the overall concept?
When the result and the aspiration are one and the same, the adept will have proof of magical equilibrium. A fine piece of architecture, materialized, can be the greatest pentacle possible.
2. The Water Element – Dance
Now, let’s talk about water: about the second art, the art of dance. I did the choreography for some dance shows and work constantly with dancers, My specialization is Tribal Fusion Bellydance. We are not to get shy here if we are males, I know how to perform at least a variety of the basic movements and there are great male belly dancers and teachers, such as the Portuguese Horus Mozarabe, known throughout the world. The first thing we must do is to learn a handful of moves, not tribal fusion moves, as tribal fusion is an upgrade of sorts, but belly dance moves. I will use videos to illustrate this , as this is mostly a visual task.
- First, the hip lifts and the basic shimmy. Now that the adept knows this movement and has acquired a new ability, he must learn how to use it magically. I believe he may have figured it out already. This movement is for the awakening of the serpent at the base of the spine, commonly called by the name of Kundalini. An electromagnetic current starts to build between the sole of the feet and the waist until it seems to want to burst up the spinal cord.
- As the next move, we will have the belly roll. The belly roll is that exquisite and exotic move that impresses everyone, for how can the belly become as a moving serpent? There’s nothing too hard about it, it just takes a little practice and what is that to the adept, who has conquered the disciplines of body, soul and mind? Now that he has mastered this move, he must connect it with the first, for the first awakens the serpent at the base of the spine, and the second has it rising through the abdominal region.
- The third move is the chest lift. The adept must have found out where I am going with this. Yes, now the kundalini is at the chest.
- Fourth move: the head slide. And there goes the adept with the electromagnetic current escaping through his neck all the way to the top of the skull. Good! The magnetism of the water will drag imagination, willpower and sensation with it. Here it is, tuning the elements together. The adept will see colors, feel sensations that are very hard to describe. But let him move this force unless it binds him instead of freeing him. Let him use the snake arms.
- And, let’s center the flow again.
- And bring it down again:
Nicely done. When all these movements can connect together and are known by the body and the heart, the adept has a kundalini ritual in his hands. But let’s not get lazy, study the whole Belly Dance 101 playlist, you will realize what a rich treasure hole of ritual movements is at Belly Dance, and these are just the basic movements.
Once you are done, think of a specific something you wish to attain through ritual, and perform the chest lift, imagining all the while that your heart is beating amidst the endless ocean, allowing the magnetism of the ocean to unlock it and its clairloving. Have the magnetism travel through the arms with some shoulder isolations and then to the hands with some wrist circles. At this point, while keeping with the wrist circles, have the hands searching like antennae for the proper movement . You will receive it as if happening from inside of you. Learn the choreography and do it, do it until it is perfect, for such perfection will not be the work of the water anymore, but the work of the four elements.
3. The Air Element – Music
Further down the rabbit hole we jump, to music and air, the first art.
I will not be telling you to learn how to play an instrument or the music of the spheres, as great as doing such things is. If the adept gets lost in intellectual meddling at this point he will lose the true music of the spheres: sound is happening all around him to an unimaginable extent. Each sound has many layers to it, just like a perfume. Among many genres, I do concrete music, but I also use electronic manipulations. One thing I have learned from Karlheinz Stockhausen and then from experimenting with sound, is that my ears, when working with my mind or extrasensorial abilities, can do exactly what the machines do: for instance, they can take the sound of a drop exploding and stretch it to 10 minutes, examining very slowly the chronology of its stages. Let the adept explore sounds, and let him also take all the objects and study the sounds they make. He will be extending his lexicon of sounds so that, later, he can speak through them. Because the adept is an adept, this is not to be a compass in the hands of a monkey. When sound is released, vibration is released: the vibration reverberating the inner structures of the object. For instance, the adept has learned through the depth point how to instantly get to know the mental body of any shape, and through it, if he was diligent in his training, he will have realized the components and how to combine different natures to compose fluid condensers. It is the same with music. Musical fluid condensers are done through sound vibration and also rhythm.
Yet, how can this be done from the magical point of view or, at least, what is one of the possibilities?
Let’s imagine that the adept wants to do music for his beautiful mermaid friend, Istiphul. He focuses on the undine and on his wish, as if he had already done the music and is just now listening to it. The fire element determines the success at this stage. A rhythm will come, then a melody will add to it, then a soundsphere, a three dimensional soundscape. Let the adept record this rhythm by whatever means he has. How good the mind can memorize this rhythm and have it reproduced is the air component. Then the melody, which usually comes as the voice. Don’t be shy, use your voice, it can command djinns, how could it not vibrate in song to fill up a room? At the Golden Dawn initiates test the vibrations of their voices against the shaking of the windows. This is the watery component. The soundscape is composed of sound vibrations and their combinations, it is the drumming of the material matrix. This is the time to use all those objects whose sound vibrations you have been studying or, better put, a proper selection of them. Geometry has some importance here, does the adept want the material to be spinning on a surface or does he want it to be hitting in a straight line? Does he want to hit it where there’s a curve or in a flat surface? Matter itself has all there is to know of symbology and it doesn’t even need to be imagined, it only has to be sensed. Just as the alchemist joins substance and substance together to get to a magical child, so do different materials hitting each other create a third emanation.
Record it, mix it. How good is this?
Forget all that you have learned about classical music and instruments out of tune. Most sacred eastern music is out of tune to the western ear. The mind of the adept learns very little through conditioning although conditioning may have been important in the past.
The question is, if you close your eyes and uncondition your mind, does your product materialize around you what you were aiming for?
If so, good. The job is done.
4. The Fire Element – Painting
At painting we have calibration through the light, calibration through the fire. I can be pretty creative and efficient as a graphic designer, but I do have a handicap with drawing directly with my hands. Unless I put some effort into it, the trace seems to have a will of its own and diverts from the picture in my head. In this particular medium, a fault on the air element is shown, for the intellect fails to firmly connect the emotion on the act of tracing with the image radiated by willpower. The concentration of the mind here that can fix it is similar to that of driving a car when there’s intense traffic. In both cases, it is the visual input that drives the steady movement of the hands. The method for drawing is not so different from the method of sculpting, except the adept isn’t gathering his vision from clay but from the paper being used as a magical mirror. Our interest here is not so much in drawing but in the use of colors, tinctures and paints. To the adept, oils are most often the best, as they are very efficient fluid condensers by right.
Usually, to make it easier, the adept sees, during his mental travels to the higher planes, beings made more or less in his likeness or in the likeness of other creatures or combinations of creatures. A truer experience would easily bounce him off his mental wandering back to his physical body due to its unexpected intensity. But if the adept keeps focused on the being and lets go of the form, he will see light oscillations, each color radiating an intelligence unbearable to the non initiate. The truest form or shade of such beings comes after, as a suggestive translation of the radiation.
How perfectly can the adept reproduce this experience on the canvas?
His sense of plasticity must be acute, his feeling of the colored waves fully relaxed and detached, his idea of the experience must be perfectly clear, and the image imprinted on his mind must be imprinted on eternity. The body of the greatest painters becomes the body of the medium. If your painting truly turns into a gate between the worlds, even to the less sensible, there is victory, there is magical equilibrium in your work.We have addressed the four elements, now let us move forward to higher planes.
5. The Mercury Sphere – Literature
Before we get to the Moon Sphere, let us go through the sphere of Mercury and the sphere of Venus as the Moon seems to reunite aspects of the two and to put them together. We start, with Mercury and literature, the art of the word. The poet, philosopher and novelist Edgar Allan Poe used to say that there is nothing words can’t describe, instead, failure to describe something by words means lack of capacity from the writer. The way with words may not be very different from the experiment with sounds. We take words for granted, but each single word can mean a variety of things, depending on where it positions itself in a phrase and in its symbolic significance, that is, the expression that it is given from the intention of the writer or of the reader as a matter of fact. Even if one is to divide a word in many words, these words have many meanings as well. A word in itself is a text. Great dissertations come from resuming what a word is, or rather, they come from expressing a quality through the vital force of description. A single word can be uttered by the adept on many different levels of consciousness simultaneously, but to the non-initiate words alone are superficial, they need to be expressed with art in order to come as something that is alive, something that can take the word flower and make it into an actual flower, but also something that can take the word flower and make the sun burst out of it. To this effect, the adept loads himself with the akasha, compressing it in the head, and from there leads it to the auditory channels. He thinks of a quality or principle, holds that thought through willpower, then he will hear an abstract kind of melody and rhythm, something that can’t be quite understood rationally nor completely captured by the senses, a song from distant realms maybe or innermost kingdoms. He will start seeing images, light and shadow. Then, in this dynamic silence, words will come, the pen moving at the same rhythm in which the words are received. Surely, when he comes to read the poem or prose he will probably find that he is left wanting. Let the adept rearrange it according to what he aims to be perfectly expressed. This exercise is important because it will help balance the elements, it is a sort of mechanical introspection. But it is not yet the aim, the adept should be satisfied only when the writing is perfect at his first try, meaning there is no missing link between the elements, will, intellect, feeling, sensory and consciousness.
6. The Venus Sphere – Audiovisual
Venus, the sphere of light and form as one, we relate to audiovisual art. While writing can have the essence of the arts of the four elements: shape, movement, sound and color, audiovisual art materializes it, or better put, almost materializes it: it is still digital. The adept writes down the concept and the chronology of the scenes. The writing of the story-line should be as a ritual, a mathematical conjunction of symbols that transmits a meaning difficult to state by any other means. For our purpose, on what concerns the execution of the filming, let him think in terms of movement, color and shape, in the same way as he would perceive meaning on the astral plane. Then he searches for material landscapes or features of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms capable of portraying them. By now, there are no secrets on how to build the soundtrack or soundscapes.
Great mastery over the sensibility and vision that is required for this work is an achievement undoubtedly worth of recognition.
7. The Moon Sphere – Theatre
Finally, to the Moon we assign to theatre. At this point, it is not digital at all, the high art will be fully materialized. The ancient Greeks knew that ritual and theatre were one and the same, but if at all, theatre was a higher form of ritual, the reason why classical and neoclassical hermetic texts seem to be written as theatre plays. The method may not be too different from the one applied here at the audiovisual arts, but this time the adept must use his hands, working with sculpture and architecture for his designs and scenarios instead of picking landscapes to film. He will also have to, as author and actor, embody the writing, the symbols, and the principles himself, the expression of his whole physic being the very breath of such principles.
8. The Sun Sphere – The Artist Makes Himself the work
At the Sun, the sphere of divine beauty, the artist makes of himself the work of art. These are the iconic artists, the ones who changed the paradigm of arts, such as Michelangelo who defied Pope Julius, they become legends because of their own virtues and qualities and because of their charisma, but are first shown to the world through their special kind of art. Their art must be of such an excellence that it is similar to a word that changes the quality of human lives forever. To make a better picture of it, we may quote Milan Kundera, “They, human lives, are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence, like Beethoven’s music, into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual’s life” or, what Antonin Artaud said about Van Gogh “…I will tell you that Van Gogh is a painter because he has re-assembled nature, because he has, as it were, perspired it and made it sweat, because he has spurted on to his canvases in heaps, monumental with colours, the centuries-old struggle of elements, the terrible rudimentary pressure of apostrophes, stripes, commas and strokes, of which we must admit that, after him, natural appearances are made. And how many repressed elbow movements, ocular shocks recorded from life, observations made in front of the subject, luminous currents of the forces which work on reality, were necessary to overthrow the barrier before being finally compressed, raised on to the canvas and accepted?” Divine talent must be earned, but it cannot be conquered, it springs forward like a miracle that was given. In the old times and during the renaissance, the magician would know many human disciplines. He would be the inventor, the philosopher, the medic, the scientist, the mathematician, the politician, the multidisciplinary artist, the mechanicist and the soldier. Can we, at this time where information is so much easier to get, start having such talented magicians again? In future articles, I may dedicate some time to explore some of the non-artistic disciplines and methodologies in the light of magic. In the meantime, let’s not forget that I have but given rudimentary exercises on art. They are starting points. Art is a lens, the whole world is contained in each of the seven arts and there are countless ways to explore them.
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