Secrets

If you’re new to magick, or even if you’re not, you may be wondering why there’s still so much secrecy enveloping the practice of magick. Some practitioners love to surround themselves with an aura of mystery, it makes them appear mysterious and powerful to the easily impressed. You could be a total twit who’s never even performed a proper banishing, but act secretive and you’re sure to attract a few lost souls.

Just to be clear, I’m not speaking about keeping one’s magickal practice secret from the public eye, historically that practice makes sense depending on one’s environment. I speak of secrecy among practitioners. It seems like there are those who get off on claiming great magickal knowledge and then withholding it or using it as a bargaining chip to obtain… well, it’s almost always sex or money. Those people are to be avoided, they usually haven’t learned any secrets except the secret of appearing to have secrets, which can be a powerful tool, but they are charlatans, they are seeking to use those around them, pursue them at your own risk. Also avoid the braggarts, they are pretty much the same, except instead of sex or money, they are more interested in having their egos stroked.

However the tradition of secrecy among practitioners has another purpose and it is one that is seldom spoken of to the uninitiated, and that is that acquiring a magickal secret is a true initiation. Ignore group initiations for a second, those are what cement a magickal order together, but the secrets conferred by a group initiation are not true magickal secrets because a true magickal secret cannot be given by anyone else, it must be earned by the initiate. So possessing certain magickal secrets serves a a form of recognition among those who have acquire a certain level of magickal knowledge, if everyone knew of those secrets, everyone could claim those high titles and cheapen the effort of those who had actually come to earn that knowledge. But if that was all there was too it, magickal secrets would be spread, because even if they were not earned, shouldn’t learning be passed on?

The trouble is that magickal secrets cannot be passed on. To explain why, I must resort to analogy. This is pretty much the parable of the cave so just bear with me if you know your classics. Imagine that you are blind and I want to teach you about the color red, I cannot show you red, you’re blind. I can describe the color red, but without a frame a reference, you would have no way to picture it. I could explain the emotions associated with red and you’d probably think it was a pretty sultry color, and it is. But that is merely a cultural association with the color red. The real problem is that if I told you all about red, even though you were blind, you would think that you had grasped some element of what the color red is. If you were not blind but only color blind you might even think that you had now identified the color red. And if you had your eyes closed instead of being blind, you wouldn’t learn how to open your eyes because you’d already think you knew red.

That is much the same with a magickal secret, I could tell you the words that represent the magickal secret to me, but if you had grasped the secret at least slightly, you would understand the words and only think you understood the idea behind them. A true magickal secret is world shattering, it changes the world you live in. If you posses what you think is a magickal secret, it probably isn’t one. If you have a magickal secret, you know it, you’ll know it because when you obtain it, it brings you to your knees in awe, in terror, in joy, or in sorrow, but probably in a mix that ends in laughter.

So I won’t tell you my magickal secret, because you can’t hear it, I could tell you the words but I would only be doing you a disservice and lead you to chase shadows. But when you get there, not only will you know that your magick has brought you something special, but you’ll realize you’re not the only one because you have heard the secret before. Others have spoken them but you had never realized exactly what they were saying until just now. In a way, occultists have left graffiti around for those with eyes to see, a way to say to others we may never meet that we too had realized what they had. Because having a secret you can’t share is lonely, so we try to show others the way to get there, or we hold on to them jealously, it depends on the occultist and the secret I suppose.

And that concludes this chapter on magickal secrets. They are there, or at least one of them is, that I can say for sure. I get the distinct impression there are more but I’m not there yet. Oh and don’t now waste your time scanning this article for secrets, the only secret here is the one that is plainly spoken, the secret about secrets.

NITEIP