Magick, The Sinister, Aeons, and The Psyche of The Folk:

Esoteric Notes XXIX

Essentially, magick - according to the Sinister tradition of the ONA - is defined as "the presencing of acausal energy in the causal by means of a nexion. By the nature of our consciousness, we, as human individuals, are one type of nexion - that is, we have the ability to access, and presence, certain types of acausal energy." [See Footnote 1]

Thus, understood esoterically, an individual represents a willed-evolution: the potential to change and evolve by means of utilizing certain energies, with such change and evolution involving a bringing-into-being, or, more prosaically, a bringing-into-consciousness. That is, a making-conscious of what was hitherto "unknown", hidden and latent, both within and external to the individual. This making-conscious is the first step - the beginning - of genuine individual magick; the first stage of that Sinister Way one of whose aims is the creation of a new, more conscious, more highly evolved, individual.

The psyche of the individual is a term used, in the Sinister Way, to describe those aspects of an individual - those aspects of consciousness - which are hidden, or inaccessible to, or unknown to, the individual. Basically, such aspects can be considered to be those forces/energies which do or which can influence the individual in an emotional way or in a way which the individual has no direct control over or understanding of. One part of this psyche is what has been called "the unconscious", and some of the forces/energies of this "unconscious" have been, and can be, described by the term "archetypes".

Understood esoterically, an archetype is a limited presencing (a manifestation) of acausal energy, which presencing is limited in causal time. [See Footnote 2]

Fundamentally, the basic task of an esoteric Initiate is to make-conscious - to experience, know and understand - their own psyche, and this, in the beginning stages of magickal Initiation, is done by means of symbols and rituals, both hermetic and ceremonial. That is, the forces/energies, both archetypal and otherwise, are objectified, experiences and experimented with - hence such symbols and tools such as The Septenary System (of correspondences, including the Tree of Wyrd), the Tarot, and The Star Game. To complement this, the individual undertakes "Insight Roles" where they identify with a certain symbolic aspect or aspects, or rôle - and/or a certain archetype or archetypes - and thus experience, in real life, such energies, and their causal effects. One particular aspect, of course, is The Sinister itself, which is manifest in archetypes such as "The Magickian", The Mistress of Earth, and in Satan.

As stated in the MS The Five-Dimensional Magick of the Seventh Way:

"All magick - external, internal and Aeonic - is but a means to apprehend, experience and presence acausal energies, and thus create/provoke Change. That is, the conventional magick of the Tree of Wyrd, of books such as Naos, of rituals, is but a beginning - through such things, the individual Initiate acquires experience and knowledge, and also develops as an individual: in terms of character. In the simplistic sense, they move, through the Grades, beyond "The Abyss", toward The Goal, which is the transformation of the individual and the emergence of a new type of being, beyond the Adept."

Furthermore, the archetypal energies which affect and influence an individual - a non-Adept - are, according to The Sinister Way of the ONA, both personal/individual, and related to the Aeon during which the individual lives. In addition, some of the personal archetypal energies which are manifest, or which can be manifest, in the psyche of the individual, are related to the living-being which is the folkish culture of the individual. Thus, in order to properly progress along The Way toward Adeptship - in order to evolve as an individual - the individual needs to understand, and work with, such particular energies.


The Folk Psyche and Folkish Archetypes:

By virtue of being a nexion, an individual is connected to the causal presencing that is Nature, and to those living-beings which are manifest in Nature. One such living-being is the folkish-culture, the folkish-psyche, to which they belong - from which they have come-into-being, as an individual. [See Footnote 3] Basically, this is just a precise way of understanding that all non-Adepts are, or can be or will be, influenced by various unconscious archetypal forces deriving from their ancestors, and their ancestral culture (or way of life) and that, whether they know or not (and they mostly do not know) they are connected to such living-beings. Generally, such a connexion (both unknown and made-conscious) is positive: that is, it tends towards an affirmation of life, and provides the individual with access to certain energies which are beneficial to them.

Furthermore, it needs to be understood that magick as a Way is neutral - that is, it can be used (or more correctly can be assumed, by those individuals below the stage of Mastery, to be so used) to either aid or harm such connexions, such Earthly living-beings, as human beings are connected to and from which they have emerged, such folkish-culture and folkish-archetypes.

In practical terms of self-development and evolution, an individual can greatly benefit from knowing, and from direct involvement with, their folk psyche and folkish archetypes: and this is especially true when the stage of Adept is reached and Aeonic workings are undertaken.



Aeons, Civilizations and The Presencing of Acausal Energy:

An Aeon - according to the Sinister Way of the ONA - is a particular presencing of certain acausal energies on this planet, Earth, which energies affect a multitude of individuals over a certain period of causal time. One such affect is via the psyche of individuals. This particular presencing which is an Aeon is via a particular nexion, which is an Aeonic civilization, which Aeonic civilization [See Footnote 4] is brought-into-being in a certain geographical area and usually associated with a particular people, or folk.

An Aeon can thus be considered to be a type of acausal being [See Footnote 5] manifesting in the causal, and, as such, has certain archetypal energies associated with it: that is, it can to a certain extent be "re-presented", or apprehended, via causal-thinking, in terms of certain symbols, archetypes, abstractions, myths, rituals, and so on. The living-being which is an Aeon is thus "born", lives for a specific period of causal time, and then "dies", as, of course, do the archetypes associated with such an Aeon. Each Aeonic civilization can - according to limited causal-thinking - be described, or re-presented, by a particular mythos, which mythos is a limited causal apprehension of the life-force, of "the soul" or psyche, of the Aeon from which that civilization derives.

Hitherto, we human beings have lacked the ability to affect Aeons and thus Aeonic civilizations. That is, as stated in the MS Aeonic Magick - A Basic Introduction:

"All the individuals associated with a particular civilization - unless and until they attain a specific degree of self-awareness [variously called 'individuation' and 'Adeptship'] - are subject to or influenced by their psyche. This psyche draws its energy from - is determined by - the civilization and thus the aeon. In practical terms, the psyche is a manifestation of the acausal energy that creates/created the civilization..."

However, magick - correctly understood and correctly used - is a means not only of personal development and personal understanding (a freeing from psychic, archetypal, influences and affects) but also of evolving to the next level of our human existence where we can understand, and to a certain extent control and influence, supra-personal manifestations of acausal energies, such as an Aeon, and thus cause, or bring-into-being, large-scale evolutionary change. Such understanding, such control, such a bring-into-being, is Aeonic Magick.

Aeonic Magick is the magick of the Adept and those beyond: the magick of the evolved human being who has achieved a certain level of self-understanding and self-mastery and who thus is no longer at the mercy of unconscious psychic, archetypal, influences, both personal/individual, and of other living-beings, since as the folk, and Aeons.

According to the sinister tradition of the ONA, there have been five Aeons, including the current Thorian (or "Western") one. The current Aeon is, however, unique - for it has, in the last hundred years or so, suffered from a distortion of its life-force, a distortion of its soul. This distortion has been somewhat simplistically and rather graphically described as akin to a "viral infection" which has modified the behaviour of the peoples of the civilization through changing, modifying, and in some cases supplanting, the natural archetypes of the Aeon. In the esoteric sense, this distortion, this infection, can be understood as a natural process affecting our evolution - a consequence of that evolution itself,  and such an infection could have certain undesirable consequences for our evolution, and for our ability to free ourselves from those viral forces which are, in essence, de-evolutionary. That is, this distortion, this infection, represents a challenge to the Sinister Way - to magick, to the alchemy of evolution itself.

Thus, one aim of Aeonic Magick is to counter this Aeonic distortion through various sinister strategies; another aim is to consciously bring-into-being a new Aeon: one which will allow us, as human beings, to evolve and fulfil the potential latent within us.

There is thus a real war occurring at present, part of which is magickal, Aeonic and supra-Aeonic: a war, battles, between those who represent the genuine wisdom and understanding and freedom and life-enhancement which genuine magick (with its presencing of the acausal) brings, and those who represent what is fundamentally de-evolutionary, limiting, enervating and stiflingly causal, and who are manifest through and in the distortion of the Thorian Aeon. [See Footnote 6]



The Sinister Way:

In essence, all genuine magick is Sinister because it is Change: a move-toward a new bringing-into-being. A re-ordering in the causal. That is, it is a presencing of the acausal - from which all that is evolutionary and life-affirming arises.

However, to work - to affect evolutionary Change - such presencings have to be based upon, to manifest, to use, what-is acausal: that is, there has to be a knowing, an understanding, of the acausal as the acausal is. Without this knowing, this understanding, there has been, is and will be only the delusion of self and at best a stasis and at worst a return to the thralldom of the past.





Anton Long
117 Year of Fayen


Notes:

(1) q.v. the MS The Five-Dimensional Magick of the Seventh Way. For a basic discussion of causal and acausal, see Chapter 0, A Theory of Magick, in Naos and the MS Aeonic Magick - A Basic Introduction.

(2) It needs to be understood that the ONA uses such terms as psyche, and archetype, in a particular and precise esoteric way, and thus such terms should not be considered as being identical to those used by others and defined, for example, by Jung.

Thus, esoterically understood, an archetype is a particular causal presencing of a certain acausal energy and is thus akin to a type of acausal living being in the causal (and thus "in the psyche"): it is born (or can be created, by magickal means), its lives, and then it "dies" (ceases to be present, presenced) in the causal (i.e. its energy in the causal ceases).

(3) Such connexions, such living-beings as the folk and the folkish-culture which derives from the living of such a being, are only what-are, on this planet where we dwell. That is, they are aspects of Nature: they correctly describe the reality of how the acausal is presenced, in the causal, on this planet, through that living-being which is Nature. In a simplistic descriptive sense, such folk-beings are among Her descendants, her "sons and daughters".

Furthermore, there is a symbiosis involved in such connexions - or, rather, there is now a symbiosis involved as a result of our natural evolution of will and consciousness; a symbiosis between us, our folk-beings, and with Nature, as well as with the Acausal beyond Nature.

(4) To be precise, this nexion is "a culture" which itself is a living-being, a spawn of a particular Aeon, with the Aeonic civilization itself being a by-product, a manifestation, a stage, of this new culture. However, the general term civilization will be retained, although such Aeonic "civilizations" such be understood in such a context.

Also, note that what is referred to is an Aeonic civilization - not just a "civilization". q.v. Aeonic Magick - A Basic Introduction.

(5) For a basic introduction to "acausal beings" refer to the MS Advanced Introduction to The Dark Gods: Five-Dimensional Acausal Sorcery which explains the nature of the acausal-thinking (or, more prosaically, the "esoteric/magickal" thinking) that is required to begin to understand such beings: to apprehend Them as they are.

In addition, it needs to be understood that, as explained in many other MSS, there are many and varying types of acausal entities, or acausal beings or acausal forms of life. Some exist solely in the acausal; some can manifest in some ways in the causal, with some such causally-manifesting beings - or forms of life - being in symbiosis with the causal (or rather, in symbiosis with causal life-forms) and thus "dependant" on them to some extent. Some such dependant symbiotic acausal beings may cease to exist (in both the causal and the acausal) when their energy fades and "dies", while others may return to the acausal to leave only a dead causal "shell" or "shells".

Further, it should be obvious that the majority of such acausal life-forms cannot and should not be conceptualized in an anthropomorphic way, bound and limited as such conceptualizations are by causal Time and causal Space.

(6) The distortion has been, exoterically, described as "Magian": as representative of a particular ethos deriving from the psyche of a certain people.