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ABSAgrams
ABSAgrams
05 Aleister Crowley, Consultant?
While perusing a volume by Aleister Crowley, the notorious occultist and magician (in a silly mood, sometimes I wonder that his parents didn’t just name him “notorious,” so often did he get to be called that...kind of like Biggie Smalls!), I came upon his explanation of the altar area where magickal (not a misprint, that’s how Crowley spelled it, one guesses to distinguish it from stage magic [prestidigitation]) ceremonies were performed. What struck me was how Crowley’s advice to the neophyte magician (sorry, AC, not doing “magickian”!) closely resembled the training management consultants get, regarding everything from the overall organizational dynamic to the choosing and use of objects and physical environments.
Being a Magus: What does it take?
To say that ceremonial magicians are a picky lot would be a colossal understatement. In, for example, grimoires (these are books about magical procedures, such as spells), one can find extraordinarily detailed descriptions of relevant procedures, plus the usual warning that every detail must be managed correctly, or else failure would be the result. You can check this for yourself at ABSAgram01 (“More than Halfway Home?”) In this day and age, where we too often accept the “pretty good,” to see their level of dedication is very inspiring.
Over about forty years, ABSAprime has worked both as university professor and consultant in the training of students to be good managers (one of her various pedagogical “specialties”). Absent the trappings of the ceremonial magician (incense; drawings of pentagrams or other sigils on the floor; bell, book, and candle 😊; and so on) Crowley’s advice sounds remarkably like the advice my students got. The magician becomes a manager, a manager of the ritual and its environment. And the reverse may not be far off the mark, either: ever hear of a particularly high-powered, effective manager referred to as "a magician"?
Look at this list of points of advice for neophytes to Crowley’s system:
1. Discipline yourself and keep a detailed magical record.
2. Master concentration and meditation before complex magical work.
3. Approach magic scientifically; demand results.
4. Discover and align with your True Will.
5. Invoke often; engage in ritual work regularly.
6. Beware of ego-inflation and self-deception.
7. Follow a structured path of initiation.
8. Expect hardship and sacrifice in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment.
Wait...isn't this like "normal" management?
Why, yes, yes it is 😊Just taking a stab here, but with the exception of perhaps number 04 (discerning one’s “true will” is really a lifetime task, fought for long and hard, and treasured once achieved or even approached, and definitely in the realm of the esoteric), but it’s not hard to see that every other suggestion on this list should be treasured by anyone wanting to manage people effectively. Of primary importance is discipline, absolutely essential to the rise in managerial competence, referenced in numbers 01 and 08 (and of course the big one, number 04, oversees everything and is never-ending). Also mentioned are the valued management skills of planning (number 02); careful record-keeping (number 01); planning for results (numbers 02 and 07); showing initiative (number 05); and firm self-control (numbers 01, 06, and 08).
Can you see the resemblance? Now, of course Crowley starts with a highly esoteric view of the universe, encompassing a veritable choral choir of spirit presences (demons, angels, intelligences, and so on, all described in excruciating detail). Such knowledge is thus seemingly far removed from the “hard fact” basis of the modern B-school lenses we use to analyze management. That said, it should be clear that the task of the magician and the task of the management consultant are in many respects the same. Confronted with an extremely ill-defined problem (in one case, say, wholesale management restructuring in an unexpectedly downsized sector; in the other the devising of an incantation to accomplish the difficult [or impossible] task of physically healing another human), both the consultant and the magician must summon assistance, must marshal what is available, so as to fashion a procedure to, in both cases, accomplish what is willed.
Here's one difference between Us and Crowley
And this is where we part company, just a bit, with Crowley. We adamantly do not prescribe—as an automatic presupposition—the judgment in number 07, that one must follow a structured path to initiation. (Let us be perfectly clear, even though we’re aware that “perfectly clear” often constitutes what is known in poker as a “tell”: whatever politicians say after “Let me be perfectly clear…” is usually, to a greater or lesser extent, a lie 😊 (fnord).
So, let us be …that 😊… and tell you that there should be no confusion about our stance regarding initiation into lodges devoted to magickal and occult sciences: none of us here at ABSApundit has done that (or at least I’ve not been told about it 😊), and we stand one hundred percent behind anyone who undergoes such rigorous training. The initiation into Crowley’s order(s), in particular, seem extremely strenuous and require impressive degrees of commitment.
It's up to you: Not Crowley, nor anybody else
However: you are the author of your own existence, so if a program of initiation demands an unacceptably extensive level (you define “unacceptable” here) of conformity and obedience from you, and especially if such stands against what your inner self tells you, you should not be obligated to continue that particular training or to commit to it any more than you have. And how will you know when you’ve reached an “unacceptable” level of authoritarian demands for your unquestioning loyalty? Learn to listen to your “inner voice,” pay careful attention to your impulses, and believe us…you will know. We so look forward to the time this happens to you!
As we will say many times on these pages, no “system of understanding” exists, apart from the people who enact it, who espouse its principles and practice it. [Note: we use the word "enact" in the same sense Weick did (***CITES***). See also some of the material at ABSAdomain07. The collection of folks espousing a system of understanding will evince levels of familiarity ranging from raw recruit to seasoned master, with all stops in between. Upshot? In any collectivity, espousing some Grand Philosophy, undergirded by rock-hard principles, you have literally no one grasping these supposed “eternal truths” in anything close to the same way! That is how schisms happen, and how many of those has humanity experienced over the Earth’s history?
You know what comes next...don't you?
So, when we go forth and test our assumptions in comparing Crowley's Magus (another common crowley word for "Magician") and management consultant—again, cross-fertilization is the main purpose of ABSApundit—we could try to match up specific things that we find in both sources. Let’s say we consult a true classic, Peter Drucker’s The Practice of Management : “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” Then we see in Crowley’s discussion of Magick, where, in recommending qualities a good magician should have, this: “Success is your proof; courage is your armour; go on, go on, in my strength; & ye shall turn not back for any!” (The Book of the Law, II:21), and, again, in number 03, above, Approach magic with skepticism; demand results.
We could go on, but, as usual, we now want you to do that for yourself. For now, it should be clear that whatever stereotype you might have had of the Magician as some doddering old social reject muttering incantations in dodgy surroundings (like in Disney's classic, Fantasia?), that doesn’t seem to be the kind of folk that Crowley has in mind. His conception of the magician is an individual who’s dedicated, sharp, astonishingly well read, skilled at social interaction, humble, yet daring in taking on difficult tasks—in short, the magician would be just like the very best managers (and consultants).
"As Below, So Above"
[Graphics by Descript's Overlord and Microsoft's Powerpoint. Background videos by Wix.com].
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