Hello Wizards,
I hope this finds you well.
Throughout magickal speculation and theory, is this idea that all magick comes at a cost.
Those fearful of magick will often tell you the cost is far greater than what you gain, or that you "lose your soul" in the process of using magick, especially when working with Demons. People even tell tales of Angels creating chaotic change that can often create severe consequences as part of the "payment"
Some say that you can do the work and that if you don't "pay" then nothing will happen, while others believe that you can still get results but that the "payment" will be "garnished" from your magickal results or in other mundane areas of your life.
Many modern grimoires include the reassurance that there is no "price" or "karmic backlash" while others say you need to "pay' the spirits for their work.
Is there any actual validity to any of these claims or are they simply just a superstition held by those who don't understand the magick? Have any of you ever done work and experienced this?
Personally I don't believe I've ever experienced this but I've only had my feet in the shallow end of the magickal pool.
Any insight is appreciated.
Hello~ Great question. I see three immediate angles to this discussion: Mortality, Morality, Immortality.
Firstly, the occult is hidden, and those who support the status quo (things as they are or appear to be) will always be fearful of change or those that bring change given the taxing load it places on their neat economy of perception, especially the religious folk, and so there are plenty of warnings about doing as you're told, how you're told. Some is sage advice tempered on the reality of mortality, some is zealous lunacy mired in the knuckle-gripping fear of transgressing morality. Which is which, only the willing sorcerer can discover. The further you go from the conformed reality the greater the risk in being labelled an outsider of some description - & stray too far from the orthodox flock and you can well be labelled a terrorist. These labels have consequences.
In the case of Mortality: We don't live long (70-90 years on a good run) and we don't often choose when we die. So, there's always a cost in making a decision as to where and why you will port your 3d body with its Xd mind through spacetime to point A or point B to do thing A or thing B. Since you physically cannot be in two places at once (unless you have that unique power of some twins) you always pay with Time - Tempus Fugit - (time is fleeting) and so the Sorcerer is often trained to use it wisely, because you cannot get Time back. Doing one thing, may mean you cannot do another, so there is a cost built into your decision. I remember having to make a decision to try to master electric guitar which would have bought me great pleasure but required considerable time to outlay in doing so or continue with my occult Temple. I realised I could not do both, and so today I am a poor guitar player. Day by day we are, pointedly, rotting or more elegantly said, succumbing to the natural force of entropy as gravity drags on our mass. So how we choose to spend our time (without knowing how much of it we have to spend) is one cost.
In the case of Morality: A second cost is adopting the games, beliefs, rules of others (including constructions of price) built into what is a foundation of expected punishment for not honouring one's word. Lying, is on the surface of things not considered acceptable behaviour by society, despite being its key universal practice. The social reality of bonds and fealty, promises and deals overlaps the supernatural world with pacts and vows because they are both constructed by the same mortar: morality. That if you do this, I will do that, we will trade our resources and each benefit from the exchange, prompting future exchanges that bring more benefit. And that comes from our civilizing forces (for some at least) which bids us to take a gentler approach to get what we want, rather than obey the reptilian brain of crush, kill, destroy (for some of us at least). Therein, we can work together and share the division of labour which powers commerce which gives rise to cities and civilizations. Constructing the idea of a scale, where one action effects another, is an age-old concept to restrain the impulsive side of humanity so it can work together without war and the terror and horror it brings (at least, in theory) - though a polite way of describing the scale is that it enslaves us to rulers through the weight of sins, guilt, shame etc. Both in life, and in death. The Egyptians for instance, believed that the purpose of being good in this life, was so that you could come back and aid the living, from the next. That above all things, you should be useful. We each know that regardless of our private/public deeds, sometimes there are immediate or expected consequences, and sometimes there aren't. Yet, those deeds have a life of their own, and there may be consequences a long time from their performance yet to 'catch up to us'. This is what embeds a conscience in us, at least, that is the intention of socialisation, wherein we learn different actions lead to reward/punishment. Whether to angels, demons, god, people, a stranger, your goldfish it is considered a Good thing and a sign of Good character to keep your word. This means you are predictable, and predictable means useful. You can be relied on, to do what you say you will do, and thus be counted as a cog in someone's machinations of will to power - or at least, not a threat. So, to be part of a society, generally comes with a cost of a conscience, reinforced by parables, morals, teachings, rules, warnings for breaking a law. And, the laws of the supernatural world often mimic the economic and capitalist ones that govern commerce and trade, because they come from the same place, imagination by necessity. We can't stop being 3d objects navigating around other 3d objects so rules and laws naturally develop - though they are always in a spectrum of lax to extreme, where simply believing the wrong thing or saying a simple phrase, or simply by being there, in some places, in some countries, can kill you. There is a cost, then, for 'breaking' a law on Earth, and so it is inferred that there is a cost for doing so in realms beyond Earth, or 'heaven'. Which is a curious viewpoint to hold and comes from aeons of programming that overlaps many concepts - but that's too far from this discussion. If you think there are angels or demons, or that you can cheat or honour them, you can adhere to that code or try to challenge it, and see what happens. Perhaps they are part of your subconscious projection and you're only playing games by and with yourself. Can you cheat yourself?
Thirdly is Immortality and the cost involved, and this is my subjective personal view. I don't believe you can lose your soul, that is an old holdover of zealous fear designed to constrain people in their living time, I concur with Blavatsky that we are each a flame in a sea that has forgotten its unity, as Seinfeld says on Tool's Aenima: 'we're the universe experiencing itself self-objectively'. I've seen plenty of people involved or not involved with the occult go to prison, go mad, get addicted to drugs, enter psychosis from destabilizing their fixed reality, suicide or lose their moral compass - in an effort to escape the Box or simply because that's the way the dice rolled. But that is the risk of exploring the occult, which regardless of a formal occult journey or simply meandering through life is a confrontation with the unknown. There is always risk. Because what is hidden for you, may not be hidden for me, and we each have our own ideas of what is hidden and how to expose it. And sometimes, we pull up a Pandora's Box that wrecks our shit. My belief is that what we do here has a cost, but it is not paid the way religion claims. God, does not judge nor observe us, neither vengeful nor watchful. We are on our own, here. And, we do what we do here, because we do not know his love and his light, which when known makes all human endeavours and concerns trivial by comparison. But, when we leave, we will come to know that light, and we will weep eternally in coming to know it, judging ourselves by the way we lived. And, there is no greater cost than that.
So, there are at least three costs in being a human being let alone one doing magic:
-Time
-Integrity
-Divinity
