The following article is from our forthcoming book Magick Here and Now. We will make it clear that ‘ordinary life’ is a very serious obstruction to magick and yoga. This will be explained.
As we are going to talk about magick and the magician, it needs to be made clear that we are concerned here with the Real. We are not interested in exploring imaginary worlds, as is the way of the occultists, who do not do or think anything that is beyond what is in reality completely ordinary. We do not refer to the ‘real world’ in the conventional meaning of that, which limits the Real to what is called ‘ordinary life’. This so-called ordinary life is a very modern concept that was completely unknown to the ancients who wrote down and encrypted in artefacts the traditional sciences that we now call magick or magical arts. Magick is best understood as a very necessary support to yoga, especially in the present time; by yoga is not meant here ‘yoga for health’ or even postures and breathing exercises but the means of knowing the Real or absolute, with steps or gradations along the way to that supreme goal. While the means are not supernatural, experiences along the way might include that, though such results should never be seen as the goal. Ordinary life, which excludes both the sacred and the supernatural, is one of the most formidable obstacles to magick and yoga—practitioners who fail to realise this know not what they are doing and will only follow out a self-isolating path to increasing self-delusion. Ordinary life will be explained here concisely:
Modern man has become quite impermeable to any influences other than such as impinge on his senses; not only have his faculties of comprehension become more and more limited, but also the field of his perception has become correspondingly restricted. From this severe limitation arises the notion of ‘ordinary life’ or ‘everyday life’. This is a life in which nothing that is not purely human can intervene in any way, owing to the elimination from it of any sacred, ritual, or symbolical character. Everything that surpasses conceptions of that order is, even when it has not yet been expressly denied, at least relegated to the domain of the extraordinary, and is regarded as exceptional, strange, and unaccustomed.
This is a reversal of the normal order as represented by integrally traditional civilisations where the possibility of spiritual influence goes without question. As ‘ordinary life’ involves a more or less total reversal of the normal or traditional order of things—an order we have not seen for many centuries in the West—it is, as should be completely obvious to those who have observed modern civilisation without prejudice, a completely abnormal state of affairs.
We must make it very clear we are not in any way concerned with changing the social order let alone changing the world or ‘saving the planet’. Our world always changes, as its nature is impermanence. Humanity is likewise defined by the fact that it is subject to birth, growth, decay and death, as are all other creatures on earth. Our subject here is magick and the Real, which means we are going to discuss various ways of escaping such limitations—that means being ‘more than human’. It is admitted that we must firstly pull ourselves up and away from the abyss of demonic or sub-infra influences to realise what being human can really mean. Like the Golden Ass of the second century novelist Apuleius, we will take a beating from life until we learn to overcome the demonic nature in us. Only then does the real journey of initiation begin. We are speaking of demonic forces are we not? Do we refer to supernatural entities? These are not ruled out but everyone experiences the direful afflictions of fear, greed, anger and lust when these take human form. That is how we see them. Such afflictions easily become addictions, for all the hell we suffer as a consequence. These feelings link us to the sub-infra forces previously referred to, on the lower threshold of the subtle plane of non-physical forms perceptible to the mind. By sinking to their level we enter the worlds they control and are controlled by them. They are not in any way kind, though charm, flattery and seduction are their primary weapons; on the contrary, they are very cruel and unforgiving. Hell is not a place it is a state of mind.
Access to the world of magick and traditional sciences depends on the application of the Hermetic axiom As above, so below. That is to say, the microcosm, of which man is a symbol, is known through such applications as a reflection of the macrocosm, the greater universe. It does not stop there, although much that has been written on the subject goes no further. Admittedly, a cosmology can take us a long way but if we desire to transcend all limitation then we cannot separate magick from metaphysics.
Metaphysics, in the way we mean to use this term, embraces all that is beyond even traditional sciences to realise in any full sense. Metaphysics is ‘beyond the physical’ and so nothing to do with the chemical state of the body or brain, or the psychological domain. It refers to the infinite, unlimited universal doctrine that can only be known metaphysically. As it depends from a supra-human source, it can never be a branch of philosophy or some other science. Philosophy and the other modern theoretical sciences were originally derived from metaphysics and not vice versa.
Symbolism is the only way to convey metaphysical reality without direct knowledge; language itself comprises a set of symbols. Ancient languages, with all their subtlety of etymology, roots of words and phonetics, are nonetheless well equipped to symbolise metaphysics, which is solely concerned with principles that amount to pure knowledge. Such principial knowledge is most adequately set down in the Hindu Vedas and Vedanta. Such knowledge is not in any way derived from an individual author, as is the case with all Western philosophical theories. With the Vedanta, the goal is always that of pure knowledge: untransmissible, infinite and absolute reality. That is what we mean by ‘metaphysics’.
This knowledge is not then in any way apprehended by reason or argument as it is derived from a supra-human source. All dialectics of the ancient sciences, including Hermeticism—something that in itself has been confused with profane science—form only an outward veil of that which is truly esoteric, which is inevitable. Magick and yoga when separated from the metaphysical principles from which they were derived as applications become degraded; there are hundreds if not thousands of books that seek to present magick and yoga as means by which any person can obtain very ordinary goals. In this morass of darkness (or ignorance) there is no certain ground. We will provide the means by which those who are qualified to become practitioners may build a citadel and a tower of defence against this malevolent tide, so that a Great Work is even possible.
Notes
© Oliver St. John 2025
This article is read by the author on YouTube. The direct link is here.
Books by Oliver St John
Oliver St. John YouTube Channel
Ordo Astri Home