I recently took an online lecture with Conner Habib called Radical Undoing: Decolonize Your Mind with Sex, Science, the Occult&Philosophy. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, but there was one element in particular that lit up for me as something I wanted to talk about here. It is the idea of imposing your will on the world.
Now, before we go further, I guess I should explain why I mean when I say “imposing your will on the world”, as it is maybe slightly different from what Conner means, and I will hazard a guess that it is probably different from what you currently think I mean, given how “Will” is mostly talked about in occult circles.
The Imposing your Will on the world, in this case at least, is about demanding and ensuring that your own ideas and beliefs are accepted in your own head. When I suggest you impose your ideas on the world, I mean it in the sense of your world not the world at the large although there is a big knock-on effect. I certainly don’t mean to impose your ideas and beliefs on other people. Don’t do that. Seriously.
This will probably be best served with an example. Conner gave a great one in his lecture that I’ll not repeat as it’s his story to tell, not mine, so instead I’ll pick one from my own life which should make the same point.
As part of my continuing Sigil work I recently made a simple sigil for a “Magick Moment” as part of a shoal I was working on. This resulted in a really cool sync with a really obscure reference explained in two different TV programs I watched back to back. I knew instantly that this was the result of my sigil Magick and I had a nice little smile to myself to celebrate.
Now, hardly a huge magickal feat by any stretch, but even so, it was something I could very easily have dismissed. But by not dismissing it, I imposed my will on my mind. I made the decision to accept this as a magickal occurrence and then worked to make sure that this idea was unopposed in my mind.
I could have easily started the engine rolling in my mind, after my knowing smile, about what other people would say about it, how they would dismiss it, how they would laugh at me, how did would scorn or attack me for having such beliefs and I could have all too easily fallen into the trap of “Yea, they’re right – this is fucking stupid”. Had I done this, the Magick would have drained from the experience and the world would have become as mundane as usual. I then would have less faith in Magick and my ability to do it.
So by Imposing my Will on the World I demanded that that the Magick was real. When my mind tried to dismissed it as coincidence, or just one of those things I re-enforced the truth of it. Once I have established it as a truth in my mind, the outer “real” world becomes more magickal as a result.
Anton LaVey says in the The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth to: “Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.” I feel he is talking about the same thing here. Unless you acknowledge the Magick, forcing yourself if you have to to the exclusion of all other possibilities, then the universe will suck you back into it’s mundane reality where things can be explained with rational explanations. Magick is so ridiculously good at covering it’s tracks that you really have to be on guard not to let it fool you.
The result of doing this sort of thing is that, the more I assert my own authority over the validity of my Magick experiences, the more Magick shows up in my life. It doesn’t matter to me now what other people think of my Magick experiences, it only matters what I think of them. Releasing the need to convince or prove the realness of my Magick to others, before I allowed myself to believe it, has been massively rewarding.
Now, all of this is not to say that everything you think is totally right and you should never listen to anyone else’s opinion on Magick matters. I’m not saying that – what I am suggesting is that if something Magick happens, accept it as such, impose that on your mind and outlook as being real and then don’t concern yourself with what other people would say about it, and don’t try to convince anyone else of it either. I have to assume that a lot of the whole ” BE SILENT” business comes from this.
I have had some discussion recently about how going slightly crazy may be a benefit to Magick and while I was initially hesitant about the idea, I now think there is something to it. To accept Magick in our lives, you do have to let go of the reins a bit and allow yourself to believe some crazy shit. The concern is, of course, what if I go too far and end up just believing any old nonsense, or just completely delude myself about it all of it – and yes I agree, there is this danger. But, we are pretty much deluding ourselves about everything for the most part anyway, why not just have more interesting, fun and powerful delusions?
And when it comes to Magick, no one really knows what’s it is, how it works or what it ultimately is all about – so why not be OK with your own judgement and beliefs on it? Once you let go of needing validation from others to give yourself permission to believe, then you are free to experience all the Magick things you know in your heart exist.
Learn, read loads, talk to people, listen to their experiences and view points but the ultimate authority in your mind should be you and only you. You are the master of this domain and not the voices of friends, family nor Jim off the internet. It takes practice to totally allow your self to believe your own Magick experiences but it’s really worth the effort. I’m certainly not totally there yet, but the part of the road I have travelled has made life a lot easier.
And Magickal.
So, in a nutshell:
- If you think something Magick happened, then totally accept that idea and be unwavering in your mind about it.
- Don’t concern yourself with what other people would say about it, and most importantly don’t try to convince anyone of your truth.
- The more you accept the Magick in your life, the more you will see it..
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Until next time, folks.***
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