In the formal practice of Magick, one will first work at building what is called the ‘Body of Light’—more commonly known as the Astral Body. One is taught to fully imagine an identical replica of the physical body, and then to put one’s consciousness inside this. With success at this, symbols are given to the aspiring Mage to enable an exploration of the psyche, which is also called the Astral Plane. Descartes has demonstrated a metaphysics that shows the mind as separate from the body, as Jung has shown us the psyche to be the Soul. And we can then surmise that the Soul is that consciousness which is projected into the Body of Light.
But of these symbols and the psyche, the whole of the psyche is to be explored. In this, one encounters a variety of lesser-Selves. There’s the intellectual part of the psyche that needs to be fortified through education, which expands the breadth and depth of what the mind can perceive. And there’s the emotional part of the psyche that helps us to understand the world about the Body, with the former adjudicating the latter of these two primary astral-oriented vehicles. But with this also, is the hint of a third part of the psyche; that which is said to connect with the stars about the heavens, or that we call Spirit. Success at this effort, that begins with what is called the ‘Practice of Holiness.’
Of all this, a fourth dimension (sotospeak) is the experience of life; confronting the inner and outer lives to produce a certain evolutionary tension that brings the Soul to its own peak of personal power. The Self that is produced is one of pure Genius that is sometimes marked with an experience of what is called the Augoeides or the Holy Guardian Angel. But indeed, this is an entirely natural experience; all of which evolves of its own accord, if one but feed the intellect, nurture healthy emotions, and learn to find holiness in all things and all people.
Note that we all start out with a minimal potency of this Soul or mind-stuff, that is of the body, and can be shown to be an aggregate of the collective consciousness of our cellular mitochondria. These are symbiont beings that not only determine the energetic expression of each cell in the human body, but also take the body from its initial formation as a combined singular cell, to a group of stem cells and then to the various organs and components of our bodies. The initial intelligence of such a being formed of the combined DNA of the male and female sexual secretions creates a spiritual force that results in a human baby.
The first thing that this infant experiences is comfort vs. discomfort in this dualistic world. And really, most people spend their lives developing these two sensibilities to the exclusion of Soul growth and the evolutionary development of the intellect and the emotional centers of the psyche. Some development is of course natural, as one matures into adulthood; but this may not be measured with any sustaining balance, and the mind or Soul can be perverted into all sorts of neurotic and psychotic behavior. And certainly, in our superstitious culture, the spiritual part of the psyche is immediately cut-off from our awareness.
Our religions have taught us that we are born with a Soul that can be punished or rewarded throughout eternity, if we but learn a virtuous approach to life. And those virtues are listed for us, along with those sins we need to avoid; removing from us the need to emotionally and intellectually arrive at our own sensibility in this initial philosophy. From this situation, the chance to create the Soul is removed from us and indeed, we as individual egos can only hope to die what is called the ‘Second Death.’ Know then, that we must give us this unconsciousness and develop our spiritual aspiration, while feeding our intellectual and emotional experience of our lives. We start by stepping out of this superstitious nightmare by learning to find the inner life and the inner motivations.
Reading, the Arts, Psychotherapy, the study of Science and Mathematics; these are all important educators that build the Soul that the world religions don’t want you to discover without them at least guiding you into these in such a way that you’ll maintain the false security blanket of the superstition of the family that you were born into. And one certain mark of your success will be that you’ll be put out of both family and society for having done so. But on this breathtaking journey of the heart, be assured that you will encounter meetings with remarkable people that will inspire your Soul to its individualized genius—your godhood.