At that moment, I knew that my mind, my dreams had the power to make things happen. I knew there was some kind of living intelligence that hears the yearnings of my heart—a being—a god with the power to bring into reality anything I imagine—anything I intend. However, it would take me the better part of the next fifty years to understand that the nature of that power is Love, and that without that vital ingredient in the recipe, my magick would always fall short of perfection.
[contents]
19 Believe me, writing occult books is an insanely bad way to get rich quick.
20 When I was three years old, I was diagnosed with Perthes’ disease in my right hip. Perthes’ is a serious bone malady that crumbles the topmost part of the thigh. In order to prevent complete disintegration of my hip socket, my doctor ordered me off my feet. When I started school, I was required to use crutches for the first few months. By the age of fourteen I was pronounced free of the disease.
21 Warner Brothers, released Christmas Day, 1954; starring Paul Newman, Virginia Mayo, and Jack Palance.
four
Family Secrets
In parts of Melanesia, where matriliny is the rule, magic is inherited from father to son; in Wales it seems that mothers handed it down to sons, while fathers bequeathed it to the daughters. In societies where voluntary secret societies for men play an important role, the association of magicians and the secret society usually overlap.
Marcel Mauss,
A General Theory of Magic
Some people in the magical community place a great deal of importance on their magical ancestry. This is not surprising because the romance and mythos of our spiritual art is certainly enhanced by the thought that we might in fact be a special breed set apart from ordinary people22 by the very blood in our veins. I believe that in and of itself, this attitude can be harmless enough. After all, who of us wouldn’t like to think that we are (even by tradition) descended from a Merlin or a Morgan La Fey, a Cagliostro or an Aleister Crowley? Taken too seriously, however, such preoccupation with magical bloodlines can easily seduce us into blindly abandoning our common sense and embracing a form of magical elitism as foolish and dangerous as any other name-your-own supremacy.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I fully recognize the fact that a few of us actually have parents who studied and practiced magick or witchcraft, and that they too may have had parents who did the same. For most of us, however, the “magick” we’ve inherited from our parents or grandparents is something less overtly magical than that determined by our family’s participation in generational covens, satanic cults, or secret initiatory societies. In fact, I believe that we can discover more about the magical “blood” of our ancestors by simply examining their lives and characters than we can by analyzing their professed spiritual interests.
I’d wager that if each of us gave it a little thought, we could find the magician in our parents and grandparents and be able to trace that magick (whether for good or ill) to our own lives and personalities. I certainly can. As a matter of fact, if you wish to truly become a wise and well-rounded magician, you will sooner or later have come to terms with both the good and evil locked in the DNA of your own family secrets.
With your permission, I would like to share a couple of stories from my magical family tree. Perhaps you will be able to see some parallels in your own life. If not, you might at least learn a bit more about me.
My mother23 was a fundamentalist Christian who took perverse pride in the fact that she did not know—nor did she care to learn—the history or tenets of Christianity (even her own brand). She did not read (let alone study) the Bible. “Childlike faith” was the sole virtue she boasted would get her into heaven. In her mind, curiosity and education would only open the door to the devil’s wiles and tempt her to doubt the one true way of blind faith that was pounded into her as a child growing up on the unforgiving prairie of western Nebraska. This devotional focus could have been a powerful spiritual tool in her life if it were not for the fact that there was not an object for her devotion. She did not seem particularly devoted to Jesus or interested in the spiritual significance of the passion of his life. She was thoroughly content with the concept that if she unquestioningly believed that he, as an historical character, died on the cross, came back to life three days later, and then he flew up into the sky forty days after that, then she would go to heaven—and everyone who didn’t believe those things would be justly punished in a blazing hell for eternity. Even as a child, I believe she delighted more in the thought of the damnation of unbelievers than in the promise of sweet salvation for believers.
Belief in such doctrines isn’t necessarily cause for criticism or condemnation. Indeed, I’ve known many people that hold very similar religious beliefs—people with loving hearts who possess deep compassion for their families, friends, neighbors, and communities. But with all respect due to the woman who brought me into this dimension, I am sad to report that my mother was not one of these people. For her, this small exercise in intolerant religious absolutism only freed her to focus her entire energies upon the one and only object of her true spiritual devotion—herself.
She was supernaturally psychic and possessed a power of personality so magnetic that it captured and dominated everyone around her. This made her initially attractive to others, and in social environments, very popular. Time after time during her
