Personal Theurgic Work: Overcoming a Personal Weakness

Back in the day I used to ask my mentor to share his perceptions of my strengths and weaknesses with me. I found this outside view helpful. He told me that I was the only person that ever asked him such a question when it came to doing the Great Work*. I always thought that was one of the basic questions one should be asking.

Someone asked me a question about how to start a path towards one Holy Guardian Angel (HGA)*. I advised him to begin by being brutally honest with himself and make a list of his virtues and faults. The idea being that the work is about getting rid of all those things that interfere with the realization of your divine connections. You have to know your faults. Most people do not include a list of virtues. We need to know them so we can enhance them but also so we don’t feel like complete crap due to an over focus on our faults.

It occurred to me that I haven’t done this myself lately. So Saturday morning I made my own list of strengths and weaknesses. I noticed that a significant proportion of my weaknesses had a common component: I let myself get distracted too easily. I will put aside spiritual work, a book I could learn from, or life plans in order to watch a Dodgers game, escapist television, or cave into my back pain amid a host of other distractions.

My goal is to stop this trend.

I am not a self-help book kind of guy. I find those to be inspiring but the infusion of energy does not last for me and they only help me deal with symptoms instead of addressing the root causes of unhelpful or counterproductive behaviours. Magick will help me find the core issues. I have read that people that are good at what they do often limit themselves by discounting the value of what they offer to the world. I have asked myself who am I to write this book and claim that.... I am guessing that it something like this that I have allowed to be in my way. My guesses as to the causes of my issues are usually wrong. So it could really be anything. Incidentally, this is why I never tell anyone learning from me what their answers are! That is up to them to figure out. A wrong guess on my part could be a harmful time consuming distraction.

To address the problem of my distraction I am going to call upon the forces of Geburah. This is a sphere (world) portrayed on the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Geburah is also known as Strength. It is the martial sphere of war, surgery, power, control and, quite frankly (when unbalanced) that of misery. For those familiar with the tarot it is associated with the fives. In the Thoth Deck these are  Strife in the suit of Wands (the inability to create), Disappointment in the Cups suit (the realization one had the wrong goal), Defeat in the suit of Swords (the realization one is separated from the reward of the goal) and Worry in the suit of Disks (the feeling of being lost and valueless as a result of the other three). Of course those meanings reflect the negative end of the continuum. The other side is creative power, euphoria (in achievement), the mental clarity of success, and Worry is replaced with the four of wands, Completion. In that case the energy of the working towards the goal is waning because the goal, having been met, is no longer able to inspire action.

I will call the powers of Geburah to create an environment conducive to the appearance of the forces of Mars. I shall the call the God (who holds energy too big for man), Intelligence (that which regulates the energy and applies it safely for man) and Spirit (the energy itself) of Mars and tell them to use their martial powers to destroy any illusion that interferes with my perception of the true problem. This will allow me to see what I am really confronting. From there I will magick a solution.

A future post will share what I find and even might share the technique behind this magick.

Eventually I will do magick to resolve whatever core issue I discover. Armed with that knowledge  I will do magick to redirect one of my positive traits, persistence, towards my goals. Getting too distracted is the negative end of the continuum which includes persistence.

*The Great Work is a process by which we return to the creator through our own efforts. We are our own redeemer. The idea comes from Neoplatonism.

** The HGA is one of two things depending upon your school of thought. It is either a higher aspect of oneself or an external deity that is in a position to guide you towards awareness of your highest immortal soul.