One of the problems a magician inevitably encounters is the problem where they buy into their own press release and delude themselves about their magical practice, and who they are, because of that practice. This isn’t a problem limited to just occultists either, but regardless of who you are and what you’re doing in life, spiritually or otherwise, there is that moment where delusion strikes, where you get up in the ego or in reading too much into a situation, or making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Why does this happen? It’s part of the human condition, and its something which happens for a variety of reasons. Maybe you pulled off an amazing feat of magic, or conversely maybe your life isn’t going that great and you need to find some explanation that saves face. Or maybe you think you’ve got the answers, when really you don’t have those answers. Certainly everything I’ve shared above applies to me at some point in my own journey.
There have been times I got caught up in a delusion of sorts. Whether it was buying into a grandiose vision of myself and what I was doing magically, or getting caught up in what I wanted from a situation, instead of really seeing the situation and the players for what and who they are or the desire to want be seen and recognized, I have tripped myself up on my spiritual journey and sometimes it has only hurt me and other times it has hurt other people and cost me friendships with people who are dear to me. Such costs might seem to be inevitable, but I’d argue that they aren’t, provided you’re willing to let of your ego and to recognize when you are deluding yourself.
But how DO you recognize that? Sometimes it only happens in the aftermath of your choices and I hate to say this, but bad choices ARE an inevitable reality of being human. There is no way to avoid making mistakes entirely. What you can do is learn from them and try to apply the benefit of hindsight to your actions and choices moving forward, so you don’t make the same mistakes, and perhaps even make better choices.
Yet I also know it is possible to make better choices without having to fail and screw up. It requires the willingness to face yourself and see who you really are, in your weaknesses as well as your strengths. It requires you to be willing to learn from your fixations, your patterns and loops and make proactive changes because you aren’t letting those reactions define you. And it requires you to catch yourself, when you are beating yourself up, and when you are reflexively engaged in defensive behaviors that served you at one time, but no longer do.
Such work isn’t easy. At the time of this writing, one of the reflexive defensive behaviors I’m working to change is my tendency to compartmentalize my emotions. I have struggled with learning how to feel my emotions, because of how intense they can be, and I’ve used compartmentalization to try and make those emotions manageable, but what it’s lead to, sometimes, is a disconnect with myself. I’ve come to recognize through hard earned experience how problematic that disconnect can be. So I’m unpacking my compartmentalized emotions, slowly and carefully, and in that process of integration I’m hopeful that I can come away with a more proactive approach to life.
Another way to check yourself to see if you’re deluding yourself is to ask someone who knows you and won’t sugar coat their perspective, what they think of how you’re presenting yourself. You may not like what they have to say, but if they’re willing to share what they observe it may bring some clarity to you and the choices you’re making. I do recommend making sure you are prepared for the answer, especially because it may be an answer that bruises the ego a bit. However if you can really hear that answer it may save you from a much rougher fall, further down the line, and benefit you because you can change directions with more self-awareness than you were previously exercising.
The key to all of this work is that you must recognize your own patterns of behaviors and beliefs and how they show up in your life and how they can contribute to a biased perspective and experience that leads you toward delusion. If you can sustain an objective perspective it allows you to acknowledge when you may be setting yourself up instead of actually being open to what’s really happening.
