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What is the greatest peril faced by all practitioners, regardless of path, from which all other perils arise and how do you show up for it?

Sedim Haba

Sedim Haba

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MorganBlack said:
Great book! I got tons out of it around age 19, which is just about the right time. After that, you sort of have to "make things your own" and go deep - which I encourage everyone to do with their own stuff, hopefully without going either full narcissist nor full nihilist, which I think are both dangers.

Regarding dogma. I say run with whatever you're smoking. Just come out of it occasionally to talk with the rest of us, and be sure not to run all the stop signs.

Re: the dysregulation. I’m not trying to be too mean here. That was directed at the Europeans who did not grow up with this stuff and might look at it through rose-tinted glasses. I know to those in more traditional, conservative countries, American-style paganism sounds super great, the "do whatever" and "free love."

And I’d say those folks could probably benefit from some of the Southern California (1930s to 1990s) arts culture where all that super loopy material comes from and was drip fed into the global over-culture : sci-fi, comics, the space program, and pulp fiction men's adventure stories. Think of Ray Bradbury, who was friends with Jack Parsons. There is a neat stuff there, but there are also negatives. But it will localize differently for you all in other cultures.

For a snapshot of 1960's to 2025 (very 'Neptune in Pisces' , with two main cycles, the last one which is now ending) Boomer Occultism, see Peter Grey's excellent unpacking of a key thread that run through that mess:

Taking the Abyss trip
Grady McMurtry’s Caliphornia dreaming
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'Boomer Occultism'? I lived thru that, and it wasn't all California Sunshine, let me tell you it was cutting edge rebellion!

While we all waited for our draft number doom, to go die in nam that is.

LaVey and so the 'Satanic Panic' we had to hide and be secretive from actual backlash.

You all today stand on the shoulders of Boomer Occultism, with actual legal protection now in some spaces.
 
MorganBlack

MorganBlack

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I think part of these conversations constitute unpacking what is useful from what is not, without having to re-swallow the whole 1960's hair-ball. I think that broader conversation is starting now, and where the "dangers" fit.

I'm not a pagan, also Gen-X and a native of the So-Cal arts culture (artist, art director, game dev) but I do like Wiccans et all having legal protections under the US civil code. Before anyone starts tooting horns, Boomers overlook the Silent Generation's spearheading Civil Rights, and Jewish contribution to liberalization of US culture, which both precede you.
 
pruner_tipster

pruner_tipster

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MorganBlack said:
I think part of these conversations constitute unpacking what is useful from what is not, without having to re-swallow the whole 1960's hair-ball. I think that broader conversation is starting now, and where the "dangers" fit.

I'm not a pagan, also Gen-X and a native of the So-Cal arts culture (artist, art director, game dev) but I do like Wiccans et all having legal protections under the US civil code. Before anyone starts tooting horns, Boomers overlook the Silent Generation's spearheading Civil Rights, and Jewish contribution to liberalization of US culture, which both precede you.
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One of my favorite fun facts is: The first lesbian kiss on broadway was in a Yiddish play and the entire cast was arrested for indecency. The case was appealed and reversed based on freedom of expression
play was “God of Vengeance” by Sholem Asch debuted on Broadway in 1923 with a scene depicting a kiss between two women, considered the first lesbian kiss on the Broadway stage read more here
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Graycrow

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I believe the biggest peril is giving up during the downtime. Giving up when your workings don't pan out. Giving up when you feel you are losing interest or feel you're not doing "it" correctly. Giving up when you plateau in your studies. Giving up when you don't see the sparkles and shimmering effects. Giving up when you don't notice that you are exactly where you're suppose to be in your magical evolution. Just remember that not giving up doesn't mean you have to stay in a constant state magical action. To me it's knowing that those times, when the above happens, are normal. And guaranteed. Don't beat yourself up over them. Not only should they be expected, they are needed.
 
A.Nox

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Lucien6493 said:
And yes, it goes quite without saying that we can define, or redefine, peril in any way that we want and that our praxis answers to that, but I was going for the most neutral term for "magick going off the rails", shy of the sad state of throwing invisible bananas at flying monkeys. The real dangers on the path it seems to me arise out of our commitment to digging holes that we then blithely fall into as though we had no idea they were there, let alone that we dug them ourselves. The way this question was put to me I will leave aside for the time being. So, again...what do you see as the greatest peril of occultism in any form and how do you show up for it?
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Good question — and one that touches the core of operational work rather than the theatrics around it.

In my experience, the greatest peril isn’t external at all — it’s a structural failure inside the practitioner.

Specifically: the inability to maintain coherence under contact, pressure, or manifestation.

Most people assume the danger comes from entities, rituals, energies, or “going too far.”

But those things only become dangerous when the operator is fragmented.

A fragmented operator misreads signals, projects their own instability onto the work,

confuses imagination with manifestation,

and reacts instead of directing.

That’s when the “holes we dig” become traps.

The real peril is loss of sovereignty — subtle, gradual, often invisible to the one experiencing it.

You show up for it by doing what most people avoid:

• Maintaining internal discipline before touching external forces.

• Not negotiating with your own distortions.

• Knowing exactly where your will ends and the influence of a force begins.

• And most of all, learning to stay cold and lucid when the work becomes loud.

Everything else — obsession, delusion, glamour, “magick going off the rails” — is downstream of that.

A practitioner with coherence can walk into almost anything and walk out intact.

A practitioner without it can fall into their own shadow even in the simplest ritual.

That’s the root peril.

And the root safeguard.
 
Caduceus

Caduceus

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Obsession & delusion for sure is one but on the physical or social is probably letting those you don't know well (which could be everyone or anyone) know practice. This might very much depend on where you live as well. People can be very intolerant and we all judge yet some choose to act on those judgments and that might put you in dire straights.

Of course, one might not care and throw caution to the wind. It just seems like wasted hassles that eat up time when people get bent put of shape and confrontational on something they are likely ignorant of.
 
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