Apotheosis

March 28th would have been Donald Michael Kraig's 63rd birthday.  Although the memories of him are good, it was a fresh infusion of grief all the same.  I find it ironic that so many people, or at least people I know, have death dates so close to their birth dates.  It would seem that karma is more than just a collection of twists of fate.  Sometimes, it's just plain twisted fate.

Yet even before Don's birthday came to pass, there was a suggestion that the magical community was ignoring the "elephant in the room".  What it boils down to is, dozens of magicians performed hundreds of healing rites for Don, and he died anyway.  Well, those are indeed the facts, are they not?  The implication would seem to be then that this was a great failure for the magical community, and the belief in magic in general, but I find that conclusion to be at least a bit myopic.

As far as healing rites go, suffice it to say, "this ain't my first rodeo".  I have been on both sides of this coin that was minted in antiquity.  I have been a participant in rites which have essentially pulled lives back from beyond the veil.  I have performed multitudinous rites for people who were simply beyond my reach.  Experience, is it said, is the best teacher, and I have learned much from this particular brand of experience.

First of all, cancer is hard.  Diseases usually fall under the influenza of the malefic planets, Mars and Saturn.  The nature of cancer is when cell growth goes unbridled, the case of an afflicted Jupiter gone wild.  That's why treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy are effective countermeasures.  They are basically full-frontal Martial attacks on the body, in the hopes that their effects destroy the cancer before they destroy the host.  That's also why most of the magicians I know were not only doing Solar work to improve Don's health, but Mars work to destroy the cancer.

Furthermore, this wasn't just any old cancer we were trying to get rid of.  This was stage IV pancreatic cancer.  That type of cancer alone carries a woeful survival rate, but by the time it has developed to stage IV, the chance of survival is around 1 percent.  Even if all our magical work had improved his chances ten-fold, the odds were still horribly against him.

Over and over again I've seen, when the sick are beyond curing, the energies devoted are directed then to palliative care.  Both the suffering until death, and the transition to the afterlife, are quantifiably eased.  My best friend's mother died from pancreatic cancer, and the suffering she endured in the last two weeks of her life I would not wish upon my worst enemy.  Don died peacefully and painlessly in his sleep.  That alone is a minor miracle in an of itself.

Personally, I think we as magicians have this tendency to fall into a soft narcissism that "my will be done".  There is some rationale for this, as magicians invoke and banish forces and entities at will, and also create living talismans to do much the same.  That which the magician invokes, s/he may banish, and what s/he creates, s/he may destroy.  Magicians are not the creators of other human souls, so it is folly to think that our magic can control human life and death.  Mages can appeal to the Creator to change a human fate, and that appeal may be answered.  Just as often, however, the final effect feels similar to signing an e-petition to Congress, and just as effective.

In the end, no person can change another person's time, and somehow, we need to find the grace to accept that, especially when it is time for the ones we love.  The original mythical temple of the Order of the Golden Dawn was named "Licht, Liebe, Leben", or "Light, Love, Life", and I think those words are ordered specifically for a reason.  Not only does it reflect the tripartite human composition of spirit, soul and body, but I believe it is in the order in which the magician may affect Creation.  Don received a lot of Light and a lot of Love, but we could not extend his Life.  Despite that, if he died knowing how loved and appreciated he truly was, then I say "two out of three ain't bad".

So much attention has been given to the 30th anniversary of the Consecration of the Vault of the Adepti by Israel Regardie, that another important milestone almost slipped under the radar.  This Summer Solstice marks the 5th anniversary of the publication of Hermetic Virtues magazine.  Vic Sabljic, a tireless and devoted servant of the Great Work, has bestowed a great service to the Western Mystery Tradition.  Furthermore, the list of authors who have written for Hermetic Virtues is a veritable "Who's Who" in the esoteric community.  From many different walks of life and many different traditions, Hermetic Virtues has also served to bring the community together in a greater sense of sharing and harmony.  For all of this, Vic and his Hermetic Virtues team deserves significant accolades.

This edition of Hermetic Virtues also marks my debut as a published author.  The article, Change Your Motto, Change Your Destiny, discusses the concept and history of changing one's name, the various reasons to do so, and provides a deeply meaningful ritual in order to effect such a significant change in one's own magical life.

Here is a small excerpt from the article:

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Abram was promised to be made a great nation by God, but his wife Sarai was barren. Jacob was a cunning lad who undermined his brother and was sent away. Simon was a simple fisherman, Saul a persecutor of Christians. Aside from all being prominent figures in the Bible, what did all these people have in common? They all experienced a life-changing event, after which they took on a new name.

The custom known as Shinui ha-Shem is exercised in the cases in which a person needs to acknowledge life-changing events, change one’s path of misfortune, or even as a last-ditch attempt to save a person’s life from critical illness and imminent death. The foundational premise of this is, if you change your name, you change your fate.

As a ceremonial magician, our first charge is to create for ourselves a magical motto. It is not supposed to be a title or categorization as such, but a conscious definition and crystallization of our intent and aim in our magical lives. It is our first application of Will, the first thing we truly magically create and, in that sense, it is a self-initiation in its own right. This is the magical rendition of Shinui ha-Shem.

However, the magical life is not all roses and rainbows. We endure trials and tribulations, we come to crossroads and, sometimes, we even get lost along the way. As the Hiereus reminds us, “every obstacle can at length be conquered by perseverance”, and when the dawn of a new day breaks, we arise not the same.  As the Angel beseeched Jacob, “Let me go, for the day breaks”, just before giving him a new name, it is such times in our own magical lives that may be opportunities to change our mottos. After all, if changing one’s mundane name changes one’s fate, then changing one’s magical motto changes one’s destiny.

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Be sure to go over to the Hermetic Virtues website and get your copy of the Summer Solstice 2012 edition today.  Personally, my favorite article is Two Thrones for the Golden Dawn by Aaron Leitch, with Enochian Magic in the Golden Dawn Tradition by Dean F. Wilson a close second.  It's a very good edition and you won't regret getting a copy for yourself.