Numbers. Strange artificial squiggles, the first writing, all around us in the urban environment. Quantity exists everywhere, tis true, but numbers, as the signs, the representatmens of quantity, they are a different game.

The Babylonians started it, counting grain by the sack load coming in and going out of their storehouses. Precious metal tributes from their allies/enemies (Orwell’s conflation of these concepts demonstrates nothing new under the sun!) flooded in and the treasure keepers had to maintain lists of the top 10, so they would get prime spots in the next procession.

They also used numbers when they realised that days could be counted too, to keep lists of stars, the times when dragons appeared above the horizon, and scorpions sank below. Now they were really on to something; the wheel of the year handily divides into 360 (give or take) bits, and geometry adds to the range of complex puzzles that make sudoku look like the child’s play it is.

Stars and moons in their revolutionary aspects as seasonal time pieces, give us an undeniable cue for group/community agricultural annual practices. One suspects that previously the sign of a full moon fulfilled practical roles such as signalling the right night for a good feast, as it continued to do up till the invention of electrical lighting. For many people and places the full moon still acts as lamp in this instance even today.

But back then the authority of the heavens telling when the work in the fields had to occur, was an apposite metaphor for the overseers. If a man could foretell the future days, of blood red eclipses, and exactly which nights a star spangled character peeped over the horizon, then they surely knew the ways of the gods. They were the mouthpiece of heaven, and what they said was the lore.

So numbers, and the art and science of manipulating these signs, gave great kudos to the priests.

Fast forward a bit, to the time of oceanic navigation (well actually oceanic navigation has been happening for thousands of years but for an easier story, we will ignore those mysterious adventurous Pacific voyagers). Tides and moons rise and fall, in the northern seas some tide ranges are enormous (tens of metres). Knowing in advance when spring and neap tides are due gives the knower a distinct advantage over mere mortals, allowing cargoes and vessels to move efficiently and safely. Counting days and sleeps until tide timing and moon phases coincide with weather and daylight hours allowed to plan for the continued livelihood of the crew, and increase the possibilities of trade and travel.

Numbers had added importance now, arithmetic as a methodology vital to the functioning of travel, exchange and making a living had arrived to stay. Architecture, design, biology, chemistry, all found ways to use the practical application of precise figures.

I have railed before about the primacy of number in science, a trend championed by that obsessive Isaac Newton, who wasn’t interested if you couldn’t make a graph out of it.

In his time as president of the newly minted Royal Society, he steered the fledgling entity of science into a career of counting quantities, to the detriment of quality. Numbers that go up remain, many centuries later, the yardstick by which we measure everything.

Mercantile culture seized this vision of reality as numbers, the elevation of numeric quantity over quality suited the marketplace just fine. Far easier to understand, to make definite decisions, to attract investors. Numbers that go up! (Unless they go down.)

Similarly, reducing a social issue to a simplistic snapshot of statistics, instead of the stories beyond the graphs, gives those who tend towards wanting clear answers clear conclusions rather than otherwise messy and complex situations.

Mapping dualities onto one another has been a habit of humans since they learned to tell their right from their left. Levi Strauss took this to the ultimate level, with his tactic of pairing comparisons.

I would like to draw up one of these charts for you:

Raw	Cooked
Emotional	Intellectual
Verbal	Calculating
Moon	Sun
Home	Work
Pretty	Clever
Complicated	Decisive
Love	Money

So, in which columns of these dualities would you place the pair Man Woman?

I hope that like me, gentle reader, you were able to say that you know men and women who fit equally into either column, and even mixtures of the two apparent ‘polarities’. However I fear that (eke like me) you were aware that the initial impulse was to see one of these lists as dualities associated with the one gender.

Leaving aside the false nature of dichotomy and ‘opposites’ itself, the way we think on the fly often approximates to making these types of associations. Without the conscious awareness of such inbuilt convenient quick reference tables, we can easily fall into the trap of mistaking them for some kind of reality. In a situation where a snap decision needs to be made (snake, lookup table says = danger), they can prove immensely useful and allow us to react faster than we can think properly. Reflex thinking like this is awesome in an emergency situation.

However. When we have time to reflect, and mull over our courses of action at leisure, often we see in hindsight that we had other options, fight or flight from that bear has other possibilities suddenly; climb a tree, spread out your coat to look big, lay down and play dead. Which of those works with bears… um I would have to think about that before I could work it out… The prevalence of mathematics with its two dimensional descriptors of the world (numbers go up vs numbers go down) supplies us with a poor model on which to hang real life. Even with the orthogonal axes of 3D choices added, the basic premise is still dual in nature, merely negative or positive steps summed together.

We usually tend to think of the sexes as being two. One of these is Woman, representative of the Goddess of Nature, animalistic and ‘in touch’ with the cycles of life (as unfertilised incubator), menstrually ebbing and flowing, with the tides, with the moon.

The average (mean) length of time between menstrual cycles is indeed, according to wikipedia 29 days, like the moon’s cycles (although, the ‘normal’ menstrual range varies by nearly the length of the cycle (22 to 43 days). That is a fairly wide spread of numbers and can cover the potential range of one woman’s personal average cycle length from, not just the variation in regular cycle length of all women.  In ‘normal’ (evolutionary timescale) reality, it is thought by many that a woman would have few periods during a lifetime; either pregnant, nursing or not weighty enough to have regular predictable bleeds.

I therefore question the identification of the female menses with the moon’s monthly visits; it is an approximation at best for a few women, and for most of us probably not an exact synchronisation for more than a few cycles at a time.

So to believe that the natural way is to bleed in time with the tides, leaves a lot of women disenchanted with the notion that they personally have anything to do with Mother Nature (as they ‘should’). Counting the days until the regular (there are in fact some reprobates who bleed in an untimely fashion, known as the ‘irregular’) red spots appear, we go through agonies of fear at what this means if a day or two late: Pregnancy? Menopause? Illness?

Are we women who draw down the goddess if our defining periods of bleeding and fertility are not 29 days apart?

This version of what it is to be a person of the female persuasion does not resonate with me. Where is the rest of my life in this Maiden Mother Crone categorisation? This triple aspect goddess has a role for sure, however to define myself primarily in these terms does not sit well with this child of the 60s, who was told to think outside of stereotyped gender roles, and to value many other characteristics, applicable across the range of possible human sex-based definitions.

The need to count, to discover the divine Laws behind signs of such import, provides some amazing results. Newton’s project to reveal the hand of God in all of nature’s patterns, has given us bridges, engines and space travel.

But did he go too far by expunging from science, from ‘reality’, all that could not be counted?

As our exercise above demonstrated , there need not be a wholly positive or negative descriptor of anything, and the predilection for counting everything, seeing only the regular as correct and the irregular unpredictable unclassifiable as somehow wrong, can lead us into reflexive reactions when instead a more measured approach might provide different results.

This mechanism of preferring simple either/or choices when in a state of panic could explain the way that the differences in socio-economic thinking recently described (see Wikipedia) gets utilised by  political parties. An unstable and urgent atmosphere pushes the decision making system of the individual into a snap reflex action based on immediate evidence.

Encouraging a more nuanced approach gets stereotyped into an intellectual liberal wishy washy indecision; where do you stand on immigration, benefits, bringing back hanging? Yes or no? (Or, in a less stressed environment, maybe we might think, perhaps we need more information and a list of alternative approaches…?)

By encouraging a lack of debate over alternatives and restricting the presented courses of action to given simple easy to grasp binary options, the small c conservative status quo quashes dissent.

Whether these contrasting and complimentary (both have their uses) ways of weighing up information are intrinsic to the human species, cannot be ascertained easily without control groups of differing cultural backgrounds. Perhaps, you might like to try the thought experiment of mapping the idea of left/right brained thinking (where each hemisphere is supposedly either creative/holistic/spatial/artistic, or analytical/linear/verbal/scientific) onto this, if one were to go along with the dualistic listing and direct one-to-one matching approach described above.

My take home message from all of this messy thinking is, that statistics rarely fit to reality. Just as the average number of legs per person in any given country will be less than two, the average length of biological cycles cannot be meaningfully reduced to a single number, and those who vary from the average are not abnormal… an obvious statement yet one packed with allegorical significance.

So what on earth does this have to with magick?

I have been asked repeatedly for years, by several people, about the idea of collecting evidence or reports demonstrating the overall rate of successful results magick. This would give us, I am informed, a nice measure of whether doing magick is a worthwhile occupation.

Leaving aside the incredibly tricky issue of defining ‘success’ in these circumstances, the statistics of success still don’t supply us with an answer to the basic question. I could succeed in only 10% of cases but that 10% might include a particularly spectacular and life changing spell. Or the converse of that, 90% success, with only minor consequences. How does this analysis affect my world, my magickal conduct?

Magick, like much of life, cannot be reduced to a linear scale of numbers or values that go one way or another. A balance sheet approach to life leaves us bereft of almost all which makes it worth living; a love life cannot be judged on the number of lovers, the number of years spent in love, or by comparing scores of various attributes. A day is neither good nor bad when we reach the end of it, as what looks like a fail can often pave the way to opportunities, and a win could lead us into further enjoyment or, to a crash back down to earth. If we expect to either epically win or fail, we leave no space for the complexity of life’s rich tapestry, pulsing with moments of sheer awe, of solid everyday satisfaction, of unexpected uncertain outcome events, those ordinary outside description times which we flourish on using, transforming, when given half a chance.

Approaching magickal practice with defined results in mind gives aim and purpose to our behaviour. The process of deciding on those aims gives opportunity for reflection on the implications, the motives, the ramifications. The underlying history. How we subsequently assess the results of our practices (was it worth it?) can often become a deeply meaningful process, in itself taking us around the loop of reframing or wider understanding (overstanding), of the specific action, and also how we think about it.

Ramsey Dukes once challenged his readers to accept every occurrence they experienced (for a limited period of time), as a message directly to them from the heart of Chaos. As a paradigm, this challenge resulted (in me) with a more conscious willingness to listen, to understand, to reflect upon, and to keep looking even after I had already got a story from the apparent facts. Creative people continue to seek for alternatives even after finding solutions, the search for diversity of choice, of looking beyond the adequate.

(I have to add that it also taught me the immense value of being able to apply shallow thought, where cake is simply an enjoyable foodstuff, rather than a total minefield of extended meaning.)

This need to seek for ever more unknown, more Mysteries to understand, whilst aware that one may never reach that understanding; this is the Great Work.

Reducing that epic quest to a series of Wins or Fails, by quantifying our progress with a scorecard, seems to me to miss the mark by some miles…

 NW

“Understand now that in yourselves is a certain discontent. Analyse well its nature: at the end is in every case one conclusion. The ill springs from the belief in two things, the Self and the Not-Self, and the conflict between them. This also is a restriction of the Will… Ultimately, therefore, the problem is how to destroy this perception of duality, to attain to the apprehension of unity.”
-Aleister Crowley

I was chatting to a friend recently about her deepening involvement with Vajrayana Buddhism and whether she should take the initiatory step of formerly taking refuge. Her dilemma was whether to “enter the stream” of the tradition or simply continue to benefit from the techniques being taught. For me this highlighted some questions that I’ve been musing on with regards the nature of what initiation is and how it may (or may not) be of benefit.

Arguably, the moment we direct our will and intention towards spiritual or psychological change, we are undertaking initiatory work. From such a perspective each moment in daily life can become an opportunity for transformation. However valid such an approach, as someone who chooses to utilise the tools of ritual and other magical technologies I believe that such change can be more actively pursued and intensified. But why go to all this bother? What is it that I’m really hoping to gain through this investment of time, energy and money? Why not just spend more time surfing? What follows are the beginnings of some answers:

1. Knowledge.

Wizards have always loved books. Checking out the work of Owen Davies we can see that by owning books and even possibly knowing what’s inside them, the magician acquires prestige and thus power. Times really haven’t changed have they? A quick scan of my friends on Facebook tells me that most of us love weird tomes, the more expensive and obscure the better! Rather than wanting to debate the merits of the current trend in talismanic publishing, I’m more interested in what it might represent in relation to people’s search for (cue spooky sound effects) “initiated knowledge”.

As we seek to explore the deeper aspects of both ourselves and the universe, it’s understandable that we should seek expertise in navigating these occult realms. Whatever the credentials and affiliations of such authors, are there real limits to what can be conveyed magically through the written word alone? As many of us spend more time typing, texting and liking, it’s easy to dismiss the idea that certain wisdom can only be conveyed via direct relationship. The Kabbalistic maxim “from mouth to ear” for me conveys something of the person specific tailoring that most deep engagement with a tradition seems to entail. In the context of psychotherapy, Carmel Flaskas speaks of the importance of being “Witnessed”- a sense of being truly seen by the other. There is something profoundly transformational about real interpersonal connection-perhaps even more as we seek to develop soul. This may be about the sharing of some great wisdom, but it might be as much about real presence whilst having a beer together.

2. Collective Identity.

Even for those of us fortunate enough to be part of a regular coven, lodge or working group, it may well be that the majority of our practice is carried out in a solitary context. This may feel fitting given the degree of consciousness needed in order to strike out on a magical path, but for many of us such isolationism rarely sustains the project. However a specific tradition expresses its collectivism, for me one of the key components to initiation is that it is into a community.

Within the Buddhist tradition “sangha” or the community of practitioners is one of the three treasures (along with the Buddha and dharma). This is a key recognition that for a spiritual path to be sustainable it needs to have a sense of the collective. The parameters around a community will vary from tradition to tradition-some may emphasise ascent to a core set of ideas e.g. Thelema, others may emphasise either adherence to a type of counter-cultural tribalism (some Chaos Magickal groups adopting this pattern). Whatever the social glue that emerges during the life of a tradition, what seems to be important for people giving their allegiance to such systems is the sense of trans-personal purpose in feeling the weight of the groups history, its current egregore/group mind and the potential teleos often connected to its role in some sort of aeonic unfolding!

As someone who has worked within several initiatory traditions I recognise both the strength and potential danger connected with stepping inside the “inner court” of their processes. The Kaula Nath tradition that I’ve worked within for the last ten years is a path that emphasises the connection between tribal identity and initiation (one of the primary meanings of Kaula being clan). Such initiatory families can be a source of support, security and necessary balance, but they can also reflect the less helpful aspects of family life. All families run to scripts-we rely on often unspoken principles and roles in order to create a sense of certainty and continuity. In and of themselves such scripts are not necessarily negative, but what happens if we want to try something new, or re-negotiate our role within the tribe? Along with John Byng-Hall I’d agree that the litmus test for the health of any group seems to be whether we are permitted the reflective space to name the scripts and improvise new ways of being.

3. Direct Transmission.

The late Georg Feuerstein highlighted that in the tantric tradition, initiation could take many forms varying from prolonged preparation and elaborate ritual to the lightning flash of the guru staring into the core of ones being. While the advent of skype etc. might make cyber-initiations a useful tool if travel is not possible, for me there is something both potent and fundamentally congruent about initiation taking place in the flesh. For a child to be healthy in early life it needs to be held and truly seen by its care giver-should the needs of the spiritual new-born be any less? Whether our initiation is into the group-mind of an Order or the familial lineage of a guru, it seems that the most powerful transmissions occur via the direct activation of the body, mind and emotions.

For those of us who’ve spent more than their fair share of time lost in the spiritual supermarket, the location of a teacher or a well-balanced tradition can feel like the goal itself rather than the beginning that it actually represents. Any group or guru worth their salt should come with a health warning-if they don’t make at least some effort to put you off I’d be worried. A good friend likened initiation being like spiritual dynamite! This seems to be in keeping with Feuerstein’s observation “the guru’s work with disciples is both a demolition job and a rebuilding.” Indeed! As someone who has sought and undergone a number of initiatory processes, they definitely accelerate a process of change. Be careful what you wish for!

SD

Sources

John Byng-Hall Re-writing Family Scripts (Guilford Press 1995)

Owen Davies Ordinary Magic (Hambeldon Continuum 2007)

Georg Feuerstein Tantra (Shambhala 1998)

Carmel Flaskas Family Therapy Beyond Postmodernism (Brunner-Routledge 2002)

Geoffrey Samuel The Origins of Yoga and Tantra (Cambridge 2008)

Check out enfolding.org