Social Responsibility and Magic

I've previously posted on here about magic as a social practice, but I've decided to expand on that further by examining the concept of social responsibility and whether magic has any role in it, or not. As far as I can tell this is not a question which has really been asked in occultism, beyond the Ethics of Thelema by Gerald Del Campo, which ultimately focuses on a religion and its approach to ethics. Given that I don't consider my practice of magic to be a religion, I'm not interested in approaching this argument in context to what a central figure wrote. Del Campo's discussion inevitably has to revolve around Crowley because he is the central figure of Thelema, but such a narrow focus ultimately doesn't examine magic and its relationship to social responsibility (nor, to be fair to Gerald, was that necessarily his intent).

The other reason I'm not interested in approaching this issue from a religious angle is that all too often moral and ethical authority is placed in the hands of some cosmic being, as opposed to residing in the hands of ourselves. By placing such authority in the hands of a deity that may or may not care about what happens, we abdicate our responsibilities to ourselves and each other, or worse come up with ways to conveniently invoke the name of the deity while flogging our personal values and beliefs on other people. The Far Right Conservative Christians are an example of what happens when people choose to conveniently displace any sense of personal responsibility into the hands of a deity while promoting what is ultimately a hateful and destructive agenda in the name of religion. It is harder, but much more important to place the responsibility of how we treat each other and this planet in our own hands.

I suppose one could argue that the ethics of magic is examined in the Wiccan rede, but I've never found that to be entirely satisfactory either and beyond stating that one shouldn't harm others in acts of magic, it doesn't seem to deal with the concept of social responsibility at all. Then again, I haven't even defined social responsibility, so let's focus on that for a bit.

I recently finished reading the Analects by Confucius and have just started reading The Mencius. Something which really impressed me about what I read is the concept of social responsibility toward your fellow person and indeed the overall society one lives in. Confucius calls social responsibility benevolence, but I'm going to refer to it as social responsibility. In the works I've read social responsibility involves having an obligation your family first and formost and from there other people who are connected to you. The more connected people are to you, the more obligation is involved. This sense of obligation also applies to statecraft in the sense that one has an obligation to be involved in statescraft.

I don't entirely agree with the Confucian model of social responsibility because it can be fairly elitist, but I do recognize one important aspect of it, which is the focus on taking care of the people you are connected to. However, I also see the possibility for some extensions in other directions.

The concept of social responsibility is something I've been thinking about and trying to act upon in my personal choices for quite a while. I think of social responsibility as a recognition that the welfare of the community is equally as important as the welfare of the individual, if not more so, for the simple fact that an individual has a much harder time living and surviving alone than if s/he has a community to draw upon (and also resources to offer the community). In other words, it is important that the person recognizes that s/he needs to be an active participant in the community s/he is a part of in order for both the community and the person to flourish.

An additional layer of social responsibility is the recognition that each person must be a responsible steward of this planet. This involves more than just recycling and cutting down on one's carbon imprint. It involves recognizing that the planet is a living being in its own right and we live in a symbiotic relationship with this planet as well as with all the other life forms existing in it. It involves making an active effort to connect with the land, similar as you would with the community you are a part of. Some of starhawk's work and the tradition of Reclaiming focuses on environmental work and one's obligation to the environment, and that can be a useful jumping off point for exploring environmental action and magic.

Part of what has motivated me to question the occult culture (and magic) and its significance or lack thereof in contemporary society and culture is that I've rarely felt that my spiritual practice has actually connected me to the people around me. It has been useful in getting me results, but it seems that the focus in Western Magic, at least, is primarily a me-ist focus...what can I get for myself, as opposed to what can I give of myself. While I certainly appreciate the effectiveness of results magic in terms of making some situations in my life easier to deal with, I've also, especially over the last five or so years, questioned how magic can be integrated into society, and whether magic can be incorporated into society as a method and practice of social responsibility.

The magical activity I've observed as having aspects of social responsibility  has inevitably focused on using magic to attack corporations or subversively undermine values of society that the magician doesn't agree with. I certainly think subversive magic has it's place and that utilizing magic in regards to protests of corporations or unjust wars is of value, but what stands out to me about those activities is that they seem mostly destructive and of course focused on the existing archetype of the magician as a rebel. I have not observed any constructive focus or practical application of magic as a force for social responsibility and the closest archetype I can find that might involve a positive role is that of the Shaman serving his/her community.

I think it is vitally important to determine if magic as a methodology can be used to promote social responsibility to ourselves, and to others...not a religion, but instead as a dialogue for how our interactions with spirit mesh with our interactions with the everyday realities of this world and with how we treat each other.

One direction to explore is the path of using internal work to cultivate an increased conscious awareness of one's actions and the effect those actions have on not just the self, but other people, and also the other lifeforms we are symbiotically connected to. While I don't believe that internal work can solve all of our problems, I will note that an increased awareness also leads to an increased focus on being socially responsible in one's actions and words. It certainly has for me...as five years ago I generally only cared about myself and how anything anyone did benefited me. Internal work is not just about becoming spiritually liberated or psychologically sound of mine. It is about recognizing the profound connection we have to each other and to all living things and the decision to step up and become actively responsible in how we choose to interact with all those living things. It is not merely a healing of childhood wounds, but an awareness that for true healing to occur, it cannot be limited to just the self, but must be extended through actions and words to what is around us.

But magic as a form of social responsibility must be taken further than just internal work. We need to ask how it can be applied practically to the world around us. Do we do a ritual to heal the Earth and if so what does that practically mean? How does that ritual change our consciousness and does that change only last while we do the ritual? How do we take magic and change the focus from me to we?

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I finished reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. Although I've reviewed it before, I've never reviewed it on here, so below is a new review, fresh off from re-reading it.

This is a book that will always challenge you and cause you to discover something new about yourself each time you read it. Having read it a second time, I found myself realizing new lessons which spoke to the heart and soul of my current situation and have no doubt that this book will be relevant again down the line for other situations. This isn't a book which offers concrete meditation techniques, but rather offers perspectives and reflection for you to consider as you meditate and indeed navigate everyday life.

5 out of 5 meditators

Random notes

I'm starting to learn about planetary magic. I've done some work with the planets years ago, but not enough to feel really informed about it. One of my magical brothers who has some background on planetary magic told me about some of his work and instructed me a bit about some of the correspondences. So I decided to take that learning and start applying it by spending some time with each planet. I'm going with the traditional seven for now, but could easily expand it further. A couple nights ago I spent some time with a friend and helped her create a servitor to find a roommate. When we started the process, she first constructed a magical circle/sphere and called the quarters and also above, below, and center, as well as the spirit of the house. I was really impressed by the spirit of the house and how clearly it came through. It has inspired me to continue working with the spirit of my magical room, but also to consider what I will do, when I eventually buy a home, to tune into the entity of the home. What also stood out to me is how different individual styles of magic can be. I never cast a circle when I do magical work (except when working with the Dehara). My reason for not casting a circle is that I have already constructed a very specific space for magical work and part of that space is my body. When I go to perform magic, my body is the circle. However, I definitely could feel the intention and energy that my friend put into her circle and I recognized again, how different methods of practicing magic are valid. Just because I don't do something, doesn't make it less valid or efficacious...and perhaps by occasionally doing what she did, I can also keep myself flexible in my approach to magical work.

Review of the Analects by Confucius

I found this to be a fascinating book because it presents a perspective on social morality and the obligations constructed around having a family and a duty to the society you live in. I'm not sure if the translation is as accurate as it could be and there were times where the subtlety of the subject matter escaped me, likely because I'm not from china nor do I really have an accurate understanding of the culture in Confucius's time, let alone present time. Still, I found this book fascinating because it presents a different perspective on social responsibility and morality toward the people we interact with. I highly recommend reading it as an opportunity to expand your horizons both culturally and for social responsibility.

4 out of 5

Review of the Fabric of the Cosmos and some thoughts on being a moral person

Book Review: The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

This is an excellent book on contemporary physics. It is written for a popular audience, but even with that, it is a dense book. However Greene does an excellent job of making the material easier to approach. He uses some pop culture references such as the Simpsons to illustrate and explain the concepts involved in the physics he's discussing. What I enjoyed most, however, is the evident enthusiasm in Greene's work. His enthusiasm consistently made the book more enjoyable and the concepts easier to understand.

I highly recommend picking this book if you want to learn more about physics, or if you're interested in how science can inform your spiritual practices. I found it useful in helping me understanding some of the finer details involved in quantum mechanics and how time and space work from a physics perspective.

5 out 5.

I've started reading Confucius: The Analects. Vince Stevens recommended I check his work out, especially given some of my interests in looking at occultism from different angles outside of the rebel archetype. So far, I've just been reading the introduction, but the passages already stand out to me:

Behind Confucious' pursuit of the ideal moral character lies the unspoken, and therefore, unquestioned, assumption that the only purpose a man can have and also the only worthwhile thing a man can do is to become as good a man as possible. This is something that has to be pursued for its own sake and with complete indifference to success or failure.

and

Love for people outside one's family is looked upon as an extension of the love for members of one's own family. One consequence of this view is that the love, and so the obligation to love, decreases by degrees as it extends outwards...our obligations towards others should be in proportion to the benefit we have received from them.

I left some of the examples in the second quote, but reading both passages was interesting because while I found myself in agreement with the first passage, I had a definite knee jerk reaction to the second. nonetheless on further reflection about the second passage I could certainly see the point of the author and agree with it as well, mainly because I see this particualr pattern demonstrated in this culture all the time.

The first passage speaks a lot to my current spiritual journey, with the focus being on a process of change with no definite result in mind, so much as a desire to become what and who I can become as a result of going through that process. If it seems odd that I don't have a specific result nailed down, it's because I realize that having a specific result would necessarily diminish the opportunities and possibilities I can experience as I undergo this journey. In fact, that speaks to the weakness of result oriented magic...The focus is so heavily on the result that the process isn't fully explored or experimented with. But what could that process tell you if you did explore it? So no specific result...I'm involved in a process of change, with indifference to success or failure in any traditional sense of the words. Perhaps the lack of concern about success or failure is what makes all of this efficacious. There's no external standard or bar to compare myself to, no definite end of the journey or a sense of completion. It just is...and so am I and the only constant in that is change...it's a process of change, and whatever results arise out of that change ultimately feed right back into the process, and so have meaning only as a context to the process.

The second quote, in reflecting on it...I see it in the cliques, family structures, etc. The degree of separation definitely impacts how people treat each other and/or the willingness of said people to help (and harm) each other. I can see how the benefit cycle influences how people treat each other...It goes back to the concept of give to get. You give, in order to get benefits. It's an eminently practical method of handling social relationships. The idealist in me cringes, and yet I see the same behavior repeated in myself and others. If you belong to x subculture and so do I, the chances of us helping each other is increased because of that connection. Granted, that increase may be minor, but it is still present. Obviously as you get to know people better, and incorporate them into a friend, tribe, or family structure what you are willing to do for those people increases as well. I see this behavior in everyone. I don't think I know anyone who falls outside of it. And I recognize it as a survival strategy, something which has worked really well for humans for who knows how long. Is there a way to get past that survival pattern? Do we really want to? I'm not sure...I had my kneejerk reaction, but as I think about it more, it makes a lot more sense. I'll be curious to see what further reading yields and I'll be sure to share it with the rest of you.