Two key points often emerge in various magical literatures and traditions yet I don’t often see them explicitly linked. The points I refer to are:
- You have an “energy body” or ‘light body” that is essential to magical work.
- Non-physical realms and a proto-physical realm exist alongside our material universe and these are integral to the magical process.
As it turns out, according to a particular strain of magical lore known as the Western Mystery Tradition, the energy bodies of a human being coincide with the non-physical planes of reality in a meaningful way.
Ambiguous references to training the light body and vague allusions to the astral light as the formative substance for magical work both make more sense and – importantly – lend themselves to practical advantage for the practitioner when considered as two parts of the same whole.
More succinctly when you realize your energy bodies are part of a personal energy system that corresponds, in the truest Hermetic sense of that word, to the energetic system of the multiverse, you can:
- Build a strong conceptual model used for visualization and other techniques that will actively improve your magic.
- Develop practices and exercises to enhance the connection and interaction between your personal energy matrix and the universal energy matrix, which of course also leads to improved magic but also stronger mystical experiences and, I believe enhanced physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing.
Come on now. What more could one ask for in this shit show of a life?
I’ll just pre-empt with this sad little depiction I made. Note the physical body in the physical park, then the etheric body with the less substantial blueprint park, the astral body with the abstract park, the mental body with the clean mental image park, and the spirt in a pure state of being that we just can’t describe.
Where in this matrix the soul sits is a topic o debate that will be covered in another post.
Two Energetic Matrices
We can envision ourselves and the world around and within us as two systems of energy that are in truth part of the same whole. Because we are dualistic creatures our experience is divided into spiritual (oneness) and material (individuality).
Regardless of all the philosophical musings about oneness, the All, and so forth, in our everyday practical lives we are an individual unit operating around many other independent items and systems. In this context we can divide the great energetic ocean into our own personal energy matrix and the universal energy matrix, the lines between which of course become blurred the deeper we go into esoteric philosophy.
Personal Energy Matrix
This means you. All of you.
Let’s remember energy and mass are two manifestations of the same something, one able to be converted into the other and vice versa. Your physical body with its mechanical energy and mundane processes like metabolism and regulation of emotional states and responses is a part of the energy matrix of your being.
Heat, electromagnetic forces, as mentioned the emotions, are powerful energies you can use to engage magical work and all rely on the physical functions of the body. The physical body is not separate from the energy bodies; on the contrary it is one of them.
The rest of your personal energy matrix consists of the other energy bodies and an interwoven complex of adjacent and connective components or aspects. For example the sheath of life force or vital energy, the etheric double and astral body, the chakras – including the seven main chakras – which reside on the etheric and astral bodies, the middle pillar that runs adjacent to your spine where the seven main chakras are aligned, the multiple layers of your aura connected to the main chakras, the energy meridians that run throughout your etheric form and are studied in acupuncture, thought forms attached to your aura, the mental body, the soul and causal body, the silver cord and any other metaphysical aspect of the human being you can think of.
I present this jumbled and complex view to make a point: It would require years of study and ongoing practice to learn all these systems and to concern yourself with meticulously maintaining them. Leave that to monks and mystics.
All you need to do is be aware of the energetic matrix and understand it connects you to higher realms and finer realities. There are a number of general exercises and practices – some of them you’ve already seen I’ sure – that can refine and cleanse your energy and strengthen your conscious alignment to your energetic makeup.
This is all I ask of anyone who has an interest in taking their magic to the next level. A calm awareness of your higher aspects and an effort to refine and sustain the wellbeing of these energetic characteristics.
Universal Energy Matrix
The many dimensions of space and the phenomenon of time are one part of the universal energy continuum. As vast as this plane or realm is, we experience only a small part of it, with most of the universe reportedly consisting of dark matter and dark energy.
I have read speculations about this dark matter and energy being the other realms detailed in magical lore. I have no idea whether or not this is the case.
Beyond the physical, the etheric realm is a mirror image of our material world. This etheric plane is both the animating and vital force that sustains the world we see around us and the blueprint for our world.
The ether connects the physical and astral realms. The astral plane – often discussed as upper and lower in correspondence with the sun and moon respectively – is the source of desires, emotions, dreams, spontaneous creativity, and magical current used by the magician. It is home to the medium of astral light, which in turn is part of the great magical agent.
Beyond the astral plane is the mental plane, a realm of pure mind and mental constructions and entities. This is the birthplace of intellectual functions and manifestations, perhaps the origin of consciousness as we know it.
After the mental plane is the spirit realm or causal plane, which is the lower part of the divine realm. This is the state of pure spirit emanating from divinity.
I need to make two key points here. Actually I need to make several points wrapped in two statements.
- It is very difficult to conceive of these realms, and it becomes gradually more difficult the farther we go from the material realm. Don’t try to over-intellectualize this, for such a path to understanding such things is an illusion and a threat to sanity. We study them for gnosis – spontaneous spiritual understanding – and concept-building to aid our visualizations and other techniques.
- These realms or planes of existence are presented and studied in a sort of layered hierarchy from the dense physical universe “up” through increasingly higher, meaning subtler and more abstract realms until finally we reach the ultimate divine source of all, called the Tao, Great Spirit, Providence, etc. by different people. This is the ultimate reality that begats the ALL. The tiered hierarchy is a map, it is not the truth about the nature of the magical universe (or five planes paradigm). These various realms all exist here and now or beyond time yet still here with us in the material world; they are not other places, but different states of the same reality.
If they exist at all.
Perhaps they are only mental constructs to help us understand the unknowable and unexplainable. This too is fine.
Regardless of all the philosophical musings about onenWhat matters, stated for the second time now is that reality behaves as if these five realms are real and interactive as described in our magical lore.
I’ll follow this post with some specific exercises and additional thoughts but this is heavy enough for now.