Heaven for form, Hell for energy - a warning

 

From John Michael Greer´s most recent Magic Monday:

0) First of all, I want to make a comment about the "heaven for form, hell for energy" business. That has been completely misunderstood in the modern pop-occult scene -- Jung emphatically did not mean that it's fine to invoke demons for practical magic. He was a capable occultist, and knew better. His point is that power comes from the passions, but direction and guidance from the higher aspects of the mind

1) Of course there is. Any time you work with archetypes, there are dangers. It can still be worth doing.

2) That's not at all the same thing. Your Shadow is the archetypal dumpster that contains everything about yourself you don't want to admit. Jung comments that it's quite common among criminals to find that their shadows contain things like mercy and gentleness! What is in your Shadow is already in you -- you're just caught up pretending that it's not you, oh, no, it's those other people over there who are the Bad Thing you don't want to admit in yourself. Resolving that hypocrisy is an important first step in any kind of inner growth. That's not related to wallowing in the muck of the submaterial and trying to get favors from the debased beings that dwell there.

3) The Abramelin operation is a good model here. In that working, you invoke and interact with your Guardian Angel and in the process rise up toward the angelic level; from that height, you can then command evil entities and they don't argue, because they recognize you as their superior. If instead you lower yourself to the demonic level, as most demonolaters do, you don't become their master, you become their plaything. "Why, this is Hell, nor am I ever out of it," is what Mephistopheles says when Faustus summons him in Marlowe's play; the implication is that Faustus has descended to the demonic level, and his doom follows accordingly.

4) The best approach I know of to Shadow work is to pay careful attention to everything you can't stand in other people. Make a list -- a good, long, detailed list, enumerating every single thing that makes you rage and snarl and gnash your teeth about the thoughts, words, and actions of the people you know. Then, once the list is finished, sit down and read through it, realizing that every single detail is true of you, and the reason it makes you furious is that you can't stand seeing yourself in the mirror. Rinse and repeat, and you lessen the gap between your ego (that is, your self-concept) and your actual self. It's helpful to do this alongside the Order of Spiritual Alchemy work, which can help you clear away the old traumas and unresolved emotions that often underlie the sort of hypocrisy discussed above.

Original posting:

On Jung and demons, etc