Towards an Understanding of Magic: Beauty

[gullindagan]

So far in our exploration of magic we have looked at power, and wisdom. The addition of beauty turns this tense binary into a much more pleasant ternary. For without beauty, what's the point of power and wisdom? Beauty is elegance, poise, feeling... it is the 'art' in the "art and science of causing change in accordance with will." You can make a ritual using words of power and the naked  reason of the intellect, but beauty is what gives the ritual it's real power; there is a world of difference between reciting a ritual by rote, and performing it with feeling. As Ross Nichols says "ritual is poetry in the world of acts."  To me, poetry is what happens when words are put together in a beautiful, condensed way so that meaning is multiplied on many levels. To Wordsworth, "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" - this is the ritual that finally has power because the magician has finally tapped into the sphere of Netzach. Poetry is elegant language. Language where form and function are unified in pleasing sounds. A ritual makes use of sound, imagery, movement and emotion, and when these all interrelate in elegance, the ritual reverberates through space, time, and the psyche in the same way that a word of power reverberates through a living body when vibrated correctly.

So what is beauty again? Wikipedia says "Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive." Oxford "a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight." So, images that elicit pleasure...

Beauty is, of course, subjective, but to me it is that feeling of admiration, of pleasure induced by the form of an object of consciousness. Order has a relationship with beauty, symmetry has a relationship with beauty, but there is also beauty in the "wabi-sabi" of something just off, or of a wild mountain blooming in springtime. Since beauty is subjective, of course it is affected by each individual's programming, but it seems that there are also many things that humans of all cultures find beautiful. Who doesn't love a sunset full of pinks, purples, oranges and yellows?  Maybe beauty has something to do with feeling connected to something larger, of being part of a greater whole, despite the transitory nature of experience?

What is essential to the experience of beauty is the feeling that is generated. That feeling of pleasure connects one to a higher sphere. In the cabala, Netzach is the sphere of emotion, but Tiphareth is the sphere of Beauty. By feeling that beauty, we connect through the realm of images (Yesod) to the realm of feeling (Netzach), to Tiphareth (and maybe just maybe, from Tiphareth, straight to Kether.)

In magic, images are of utmost importance, and the beauty of the image is what allows us the channel to the divine power. Look at John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica... there's just something supremely pleasurable about it to me. I bet when Dee did all the intellectual work of putting the symbols together, and then he actually looked at the image, he was stunned by the sight. Of course, we'll never know, but I certainly was when I first laid eyes upon it. One could say the same about the hexafoil, or many bind runes, staves, or sigils.

So, when practicing the art and science of magic, do not neglect beauty. It is wise to make rituals and images elegantly, so that they are efficient and beautiful. It also makes the workings that much more powerful. I am the type that is much motivated by beauty. It, in many ways, is the impetus, the form, and the outcome of magic. But when I search inwardly for the feeling that beauty evokes, it is at once tragic and transcendent. More could be said, but maybe not yet. What do you find beautiful? What does beauty mean in your experience?

Comments

[jprussell]

Thank you for continuing to post, this was another thoughtful piece. I would like to point out that both definitions you quoted are somewhat self-referential: neither "cause pleasure to perceive" and "please the aesthetic senses" would mean much to an alien with zero concept of beauty. I suppose that "cause pleasure to perceive" might start giving some insight, if you know what pleasure is, but the reason I point this out is that I think beauty might be much more fundamental to our experience of Being than most of us realize. The fact that we have a similar reaction to a striking human, a vivid sunset, or a perfectly not-perfect sculpted teacup suggests that there is more going on here than simply "what physical features mark a person as a good potential mate".

I think you're on to something that magic starts to give an explanation and application of the insight that beauty is deep and primary - perhaps beauty is often (always?) a marker of something important going on in the subtler levels of Being.

[gullindagan]

Ha, yeah it seems like definitions of words that point towards abstractions can be pretty circular. Feelings are hard to describe too!

This is reminding me that I need to re-read the Symposium, because I believe Plato talks about this at length there...

[jprussell]

Oh, and off-topic for this post, but I would like to humbly request a post where you discuss in more depth your preferred sources for magic and religion, especially the Germanic ones. I saw some familiar names and titles in your first post on this journal, but it is exceedingly rare to find people who are all of a) reasonable b) knowledgeable about Germanic magic and religion c) not overly wedded to "one true way".

You've shown yourself to meet all three criteria here and over on JMG's journal on Magic Mondays, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[gullindagan]

That's a great idea! Thanks, I'll get on that. And thanks for the kind words.