Part 1: how to make contact.
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
Hamlet, Shakespeare
After allowing myself to be blown off-course I have returned to my study of Applied Magic by Dion Fortune. Reading this is part of a deeper course of study exploring various philosophies and practices of magic.
Applied Magic is a series of essays written by Fortune likely between 1920 and 1940 but not published until 1962, over 20 years after her death.
I am currently reading Non-Humans which explains, from Fortune’s perspective, the practice and implication of working with ‘sentient intelligences’ not at this time incarnated in a human body.’
I almost didn’t read this essay. The only thing I expected to get from it was the exercise of rolling my eyes. But again, I was wrong. In earlier posts I had mentioned reading this book in my late teens. This was back in the 80s, and writers like Fortune were being dismissed in favour of Starhawk’s feminist/goddess based approach to magic in books like the The Spiral Dance.
When I did read this essay I almost allowed myself to get blown off course again. The subject is much vaster and more interesting that I thought. Everyone from Plato to Marina Warner has something to say about it. In the interest though of keeping this a blog-post and not a dissertation I will limit myself (for the most part) to this essay.
Returning to Applied Magic now, I find my imagination being stimulated in a way that I had not expected. What if? What if we suspend disbelief and consider the idea that there are other forms of consciousness that we can work with outside of human consciousness? After all, almost everyone has been touched in someway by the supernatural; a glimpse of something not quite there, the feeling of not being alone, a voice that does not seem like one’s own.
To the animist of course this is a natural expansion of thought. If everything manifest has consciousness, then of course consciousness might also be present without being manifest in something.
Diagram of angels and archangels, their names and correlations.
Fortune lays out how to make contact, the types of beings or intelligences that have consciousness, who works with them, and how.
Fortune suggests that we can make contact with these other intelligences in three ways. Firstly, by changing our own perceptions of reality we can begin to encounter other forms of consciousness. Secondly, by consulting a ‘physical medium’ who can exude ectoplasm. Fortune’s last recommendation is through occult training through which we can learn to manifest these beings using magic.
Personally, I am not believer in ectoplasm nor would I be remotely interested in being near someone who ‘exuded’ it if it did exist.
I wonder what would be involved in changing perceptions. Certainly when I have used psychedelics I have experienced the existence of other consciousnesses outside of my own. I am not sure that experiences while tripping could be representative of reality…maybe though.
When I feel into ‘changing perceptions’ I get the sense that it is possible, but I think there might also be a fine line between changing perceptions and delusion. How would we ever know unless someone else could verify our experience.
When I communicate with other consciousnesses I do so through trance, a sort of deep meditation. But, I have no evidence that this is ‘real’. It is only a sense-feeling that these experiences are communications beyond my own consciousness. Everything that happens though, everything we experience only exists in our consciousness, otherwise we would not be aware of it.
I feel like this brings up some fundamental questions about reality, and about consciousness. Is all of reality happening in my consciousness. Do you really exist? Or have I conjured you up? Perhaps I don’t exist, and it is you that has conjured me. Perhaps we are the apparitions.
As for Fortune’s third suggestion of using occult magic to contact other sentient beings, well, I think we have all seen enough Twilight Zone episodes to know this is perhaps not a great idea. Like love spells, calling spirits through magic is a complex contract and we never see the fine print. Excellent story material though, and if you have been conjuring daemons please do be in touch, I want to hear all about it.
Dion Fortune’s studies are interesting, but she is definitely a creature of her era. In part 2 I am going to cover what Fortune says about the types of beings out there, and who can make contact…
