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| ISBN-13: | 9780877288275 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 01/15/1995 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 460,966 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.38(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.59(d) |
Read an Excerpt
MAAT MAGICK
A Guide to Self-Initiation
By NEMA
Samuel Weiser, Inc.
Copyright © 1995 Margaret C. IngallsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87728-827-5
CHAPTER 1
THEORY
MAAT, THE DIVINE ILLUSION
MAAT IS THE EGYPTIAN NETER, GODDESS OF TRUTH, justice, righteousness, measurement and balance. She is depicted as a beautiful young woman wearing a feather, her symbol, in her headband. She is the daughter of Ra, the sun god, and is the wife of Thoth (Tehuti), the ibis-headed scribe of the gods, whom she assisted in the ordering of creation.
In the judgment hall of Osiris, the slain and restored King, the heart of the deceased is placed on one pan of the balance-scale of Anubis, the jackal-headed guide of the dead, and the feather of Maat is in the other. If the heart weighs no more than the feather and is not burdened with sin, the soul goes to Amenta, the Egyptian paradise. If the heart is heavier than the feather, the sinner is devoured by the crocodile god Sebekh, or, in some depictions, by Ammet, a chimera beast.
The term neter means "principle," and indicates that the Egyptian Initiates regarded their pantheon, not as gods in the sense of immortal persons to be worshipped, but as ideals and qualities to be honored and practiced.
The Nile's flooding required an annual remeasurement of fields and property lines; truth and justice in measurement were held in high regard as a consequence. This regard for truth extended to ordinary speech and business dealings, as evidenced in the Negative Confession of the Papyrus of Nu:
... I have not done iniquity. ... I have not made light the bushel.
FEATHER OF MAAT
... I have not acted deceitfully. ... I have not uttered falsehood. ... I have not set my mouth in motion against any man. ... I have not made myself deaf unto the words of right and truth. ... I have not multiplied my speech beyond what should be said."
There are a total of 42 sins listed in the Negative Confession, many of which are related to truth. Maat is the most abstract of the neter, a perfect patron for the true goal of Magick.
Aleister Crowley defines Magick as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will." This is a wide definition that encompasses all purposeful actions. In practice, Magick is a way of life that includes ethics, philosophy, scholarship in various fields, ritual meditation, devotion, divination, and discipline.
Contrary to the popular concept, Magick's aim is not to violate or suspend the laws of Nature in order to produce miracles on the physical plane, but to transform the Magickian through the process of initiation. Initiation is a series of stages of realization that expand your vision of reality beyond the physical, mental, and emotional planes, and include the spiritual, the divine and their transcendence.
The physical manifestations that often occur during this expansion are unimportant side effects and shouldn't be allowed to distract you from the course of initiation. These include various PSI phenomena, synchronicities, serendipities, apparitions, and hunches.
Magick transcends the ability of organized religions to unite the soul with God, inasmuch as it is an individual endeavor of direct experience, unmediated by an official priesthood, and independent of dogma, doctrine, and dependency on faith. Magick's initiations provide you with experience, not hearsay, with knowledge instead of faith.
The Magickian has a treasure in the writings and traditions of past seekers of truth; the ethics of the High Art require that each initiate share the findings, experiences, and conclusions with the initiated community through time and space. The body of initiated tradition is a tool and not a restriction; knowledge of a wide range of experiences and methodologies provides a solid base for one's own adventures and means for comparing new encounters with those of other practitioners. Magick includes all of its history in itself, from the spirit-journeys of the shaman and the animism of pre-civilized peoples, through the patient observations of astrologers and alchemists, the elaborate medieval rituals of Ceremonial Magick to contemporary experimental practices.
The Magickian studies and learns from science, religion, and art, all of which were part of the High Art in the past. Contemporary science restricts itself to the physically measurable and mathematically predictable; contemporary religion restricts itself to matters of faith and morals, for the most part, save for fundamentalist literalists. Art, in its many forms, approaches Magick in its individuality and its expression of wordless realizations; art seeks to abolish restriction of vision and method.
Although anyone of sufficient intelligence can practice Magick, few people do. Magick remains occult (hidden) from the satisfied, the complacent, the content. The rigors of the High Art are so demanding and dangerous that only the most determined seeker will choose its pursuit. When the views of life we are taught by family, church, school, and society fail to convince or satisfy us, we have no choice but to explore life on our own, passing beyond the ordinary and the obvious.
Maat Magick has more than one aim in its intent First is the transformation of the Magickian into the realized Self; second is the transformation of the human race into its next evolutionary stage; third is the preparation of our species to meet and understand nonhuman intelligence and events beyond our present accumulated experience.
How does Maat, an ancient Egyptian neter, fit in a future-oriented Magickal system? My introduction to Magick was through the writings of Aleister Crowley, who divided human time into Aeons characterized by particular Egyptian neter.
The Aeon of Isis was the time of the mother-goddess, of integration with Nature in hunter-gatherer societies, of a reverence for fertility and clan. The Aeon of Osiris was the time of the father-god, of the conquest of Nature in city-building and migrating societies, of a reverence for wealth and power. The Aeon of Osiris brought the phenomena of government, organized religion, slavery, war, and money.
In 1904, Aleister Crowley proclaimed the advent of the Aeon of Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child, come to destroy the wrongs and excesses of the Osirian Aeon. The major Western manifestation of Osiris as the slain and risen god is Christianity, a religion of submission and dependency on a divine incarnation. The submission and dependency were transferred to Church, State, and class system. By Crowley's time, repression and hypocrisy were the norm for social and personal behavior.
The Aeon of Horus, the hawk-headed Lord of Force and Fire, manifested the first stage of change in the Western Zeitgeist with the first of the World Wars, and continues today.
Although the Child is the synthesis of the Mother and Father dialectic, there was a fourth factor needed to complete the family of Aeons, to complete the Magickal formula* of IHVH* where I (Yod) is the father, H (Hé) is the mother, V (Vau) is the son, and the final H (Hé) is the daughter.
This fourth factor is Maat, and her Aeon is in effect in tandem with the Aeon of Horus. The female form of Maat links with the infant male form of Heru-Pa-Kraat (Harpocrates), god of silence. HPK is the child Horus and is seen by some as the patron and namesake of the Aeon following that of Ra-Hoor-Khut, the martial form of Horus. It's profitable to meditate on the relationship between silence and truth.
The martial Horus destroys the crippling remnants of past institutions and philosophies; Maat builds and delineates the shape of our social and individual world-in-formation. Maat Magick invokes the principle of truth in this formation of the future and our descendants. All six aspects of the Magickal current are available for present workings.
Under the Biblical idea of "dominion" over Nature, Western society has abused the planet we live on in countless ways. Part of Maat Magick, part of becoming our next stage as a species, lies in the healing of our planetary ecology through integrating ourselves as the Earth's neurosystem, and changing our physical behavior in our relationship with the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms.
Many Neopagans and Wiccans are ecological activists, as are those without labels who have seen the toxic condition of our environment Magickians, on the other hand, have focused, traditionally, on the transphysical realms of the astral planes and the realm of Jungian archetypes. Maat Magick concerns the entire realm of existence, Outer and Inner; knowledge and power demand responsibility. Magick is not an escape from any part of life, but a synthesis of the whole.
Maat Magick arises from and is a form of Thelemic Magick, the system of initiation formulated by Crowley. Although it's useful to be familiar with Thelema, you can practice Maat Magick with no experience in other systems except your own. The only requirement for success in Maat Magick is that you be in the process of discovering your True Will. I do suggest extensive reading of Crowley's writings, however.
Maat Magick draws on Western and Eastern traditions and methods. Anything useful is fair game—Qaballah, mantra meditation, tarot, yoga, astrology, tantra, Voodoo, shamanic journeys, quantum physics, astral travel, genetics, cosmology, trance work, chaos theory, etc. Maat/truth is eternal and flexible, assuming contradictory guises according to the capacity of the beholder.
Maat touches all concerns in life: survival, independence, family situations, love, hate, jealousy, fear, illness, death, eternity, loneliness, purpose, and choices. There is no situation that cannot be improved by an infusion of truth, even though the process is often painful.
No one comes to Magick without a profound dissatisfaction with ordinary answers, conventional wisdom, the traditional institutions of society and one's own thoughts. The essence of initiation lies beyond all naturally-occurring means of realization, and yet, once attained, seems plainly obvious.
I have presented Theory and Practice in separate sections of this book so the reader encounters all of the former before doing any of the latter.
LEVEL 10 MALKUTH / KINGDOM
THOSE FAMILIAR WITH THE TREE OF LIFE WILL RECOG-nize the structure of the levels of density I use here. I thank my colleague, Frater Priba, for the concept and his permission to use it.
There are ten Levels of existence in Western tradition, ranging from the familiar physical world our bodies inhabit to the edges of Nothing. Physical existence is the tenth and densest Level.
Even at its densest, the physical world is built from the most tenuous of subatomic particles that are interacting wave-packets of energy. For practical purposes, we'll consider ourselves and our environment as solid and tangible.
In the history of spiritual seeking, there have been those who hold matter to be intrinsically evil, or to be a snare and temptation to be renounced for the sake of spirit This view of matter in general as evil arose from the distractions from spirituality provided by sex, greed, and violent emotions. Sex is the leading distraction, since it's the strongest and most intimate of the survival urges after hunger (which includes thirst).
Maat regards the material world as holy, worthy of respect and love, and the realm in which all Magick must manifest to be complete. Magick is doing, not talking about or thinking about the changes we Will to occur. Magickal practice begins and ends in the tenth level of density.
In practice, you establish a temple space and an altar, acquire your Magickal tools (wand, sword, cup, and pantacle), obtain your ritual robe and various other objects (such as candles, incense, essential oils, drums, bells, and appropriate pictures and statues). The more of these things you can make yourself, the better. All are consecrated and dedicated to the High Art of Magick, though the temple space can be a corner of a bedroom, attic, or basement, or a secluded spot in the woods.
ALTAR
The establishment of a physical work room (temple) and work bench (altar) is a common feature of all ritualists, be they Magickians, Witches, general Neopagans or members of variations of established religions worldwide. Any and all of the traditional objects and spaces can be reinterpreted and updated with appropriate technology, as long as correspondences are clear. There is a consecration/dedication ritual in the Practice Section of this book.
If you are just beginning your Magickal practice, I strongly suggest that you perform a banishing ritual at the beginning of any ritual, or meditation, before you go to sleep each night, and upon awakening each day. Since Magick is a way of life, you can speed its establishment as such by making each act you do a willed, consecrated act. There are a number of banishing rituals in initiated tradition, which it would benefit you to research. I've included two Maat Magick banishments in the Practice Section.
There are several reasons for doing banishments, each reason based in a density Level from 10 through 6. It's well to remember that the ten-level divisions of existence are an arbitrary, but convenient means of mapping a seamless continuum. Conditions, entities, and characteristics of one level can act and appear in neighboring levels in many ways.
In Level 10, a banishment dedicates a specific space and time to Magickal work, clears away interference and concentrates the Magickian's attention on the work at hand. I suggest the complete banishment for beginners, since they shine like beacons on the astral planes (Level 9) and draw all sorts of lower-astral beings looking for life-force.
Every healthy human being lives on all ten levels of the continuum of existence, even though most of us are unaware, in waking consciousness, of levels more rarefied than Levels 9 or 8. When you take the first actions to begin your Magickal practice, you activate your conscious participation in Level 9. The presence of your conscious attention there attracts the notice of the "natives": ghosts, dreams, nightmares, unresolved negative emotions, psychic vampires (who often have physical bodies—you know them by how they drain you), interdimensional alien monsters, primitive survival urges, Black Lodges, etc.
When you do a thorough banishment, you ward out all such entities from your dedicated spacetime, while simultaneously shielding your neighbors from the energies you raise in your work and the effects such energies have on people and events. Banishments can be done to clean out and dedicate a house, apartment, office, automobile—any structure or place that needs it.
You can carry a protective field about you as you move through your daily life. After you've banished a spacetime for ritual, meditation, or any other purpose, and when the working is completed, imagine the boundaries of the space shrinking around you until it fits your form. This practice is useful in temporarily insulating your developing "extra-senses" from information overload, and in insulating your increasing energy from detection by undesirables.
Banishing on Level 10 has another good aspect, which is being a minor First Initiation Ordeal. Most initiations in the denser levels are preceded or accompanied by ordeals.
There once was a farmer who owned a mule that resisted being trained to harness or plow. The farmer went to town and hired a muleskinner to train the mule: the muleskinner agreed to come to his farm the following day. As the farmer approached the corral the next morning, he saw the muleskinner swing a length of two-by-four and bash the mule between the ears.
"What do ya think you're doing?" yelled the farmer. "I hired you to train that mule, not kill 'im!"
"I am trainin' him, Mister," said the muleskinner. "I just have to get his attention first."
Ordeals are designed to get your attention, to give you an often intense motive, to provide a koan-in-action so you open to a changed point of view. The changed view, the new realization, constitutes the initiation.
For the beginner, the ordeal of doing a banishment consists of embarrassment about speaking aloud, moving about in a strangely decorated place, wearing a robe or going nude, and making odd gestures, even in solitude. Not only is it necessary to engage in foolish actions, it's necessary to be sincere and totally involved in the process. If any Magickal working is done superficially, tentatively, or as camp, it will fail and possibly backfire on the Magickian.
On Level 9, a banished spacetime functions as a stable home base amid a flowing and fluctuating landscape; it keeps your attention free from the distractions of the astral planes.
On Level 8, banishment helps quiet the ongoing chattering of the mind. We rarely notice the continuous monologue of rationalization our mind delivers to us, but it goes on until we learn the art of silence. Silence grows from the regular practice of mantra meditation and pranayama (breathing discipline), but the beginnings of silence can be aided by banishment.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from MAAT MAGICK by NEMA. Copyright © 1995 Margaret C. Ingalls. Excerpted by permission of Samuel Weiser, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Kenneth Grant
Foreword by Jan Fries
Part I: Theory
Maat, the Divine Illusion
Level 10 Malkuth/Kingdom
Level 9 Yesod/Foundation
Level 8 Hod/Splendor
Level 7 Netzach/Victory
Level 6 Tiphereth/Beauty
Level 5 Geburah/Strength
Level 4 Chesed/Mercy
The Abyss
Level 3 Binah/Understanding
Level 2 Chokmah/Wisdom
Level 1 Kether/Crown
Part II: Preshadowing of the Feather
The Coming of a Book
Liber Pennae Praenumbra
Notes and Comments
Part III: Practice
Level 10 Banishments, Feather and Flame Rite, Consecration
Level 9 Mooncup Rite, The Forgotten Ones Invocation
Level 8 Dance of the Mask
Level 7 The Mass of Maat
Level 6 Invocation of the HGA
Level 5 Cosmic Vision, Vortex Ritual
Level 4 Pranayama, Adept's Thesis
Level 3 Master of the Temple
Level 2 The Rite of the Children
Level 1 Invocation of the Strange Attractor
In Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author