Low Magick by Lon DuQuette (the reading strategies book TXT) 📕

of anyone acknowledging the presence of Deity prior to embarking on any serious and important undertaking. Indeed, by turning our attention “above,” even briefly or halfheartedly, we connect something of ourselves with the universal source of creative energy. And honestly, who among us couldn’t use a little shot of that kind of juice when we want our team to win, our fish-fry to sell out, our sermon to change lives, or our prayers answered?

But, even though magical invocations are (or at least should be) something dramatically different, most models presented to the modern magician (at least those examples that have come down to us from the magical adepts of the nineteenth century) are pretty damned boring too:

Unto Thee, Sole Wise, Sole Eternal, and Sole Merciful One, be the praise and glory for ever. Who hath permitted me, who standeth humbly before Thee, to enter thus far into the sanctuary of Thy mysteries. Not unto me, Adonai, but onto Thy name be the glory. Let the influence of Thy Divine Ones descend upon my head, and teach me the value of self-sacrifice; So that I shrink not in the hour of my trial. But that thus my name may be written on high, And my Genius stand in the presence of the Holy One. In that hour when the Son of Man is invoked before the Lord of Spirits and His Name before the Ancient of Days.74

In my rebellious and cynical mind, this Golden Dawn prayer and others like it are only slightly more magical than the pep-talk invocation bellowed through bourbon belches for the benefit of the proud Screaming Eagles. It would take me many years (and more than a bit of magical ripening) before I got it straight in my mind exactly who (or more precisely, what) I was invoking. Until then, my invocations remained breathtakingly anemic.

So, who is the “Sole Wise,” “Sole Eternal,” and “Sole Merciful One?” Who is “Adonai?” Who is the “Holy One?” When I stick my Solomonic magician’s finger up into the great cosmic overhead electric light-socket of “above,” who is the “above” I’m plugging my below-ness into? If it is the same abusive father-god of the great dysfunctional family of Chrislemews before whom I resentfully bent my boyhood knee, then “no thank you!” If it is the same phantom ear into which I superstitiously poured my teenage quid pro quo prayers for my girlfriend’s menstrual regularity—if it is it the same ghost-god of birth-blinded nationalism in whose name every family, clan, tribe, and nation goes to bloody war—if it is the same all-powerful (yet curiously money-starved) god of oily televangelists—if it is the same might-and-white-is-right god of the fascist pundit or politician—or, indeed, if it is any god who would damn me for possessing common sense and daring to use it—then I most disrespectfully say, “Screw God!” I’m better off invoking my own goddamned common sense!

Eventually, I discovered that’s exactly what I needed to do.

In the introduction to this book, I revealed that I “worship” a supreme consciousness that is the ultimate source of all manifest and unmanifest existence; and that I believe the ultimate nature of this super-existence is transcendently Good—a Good so all-comprehensively (and incomprehensively) infinite that there can be no-thing outside of itself—no “opposite” of this great Good. It swallows up all concepts of duality. If we could wave a magick wand and strip away all the superstitious absurdities and bigoted nonsense that infect most of the world’s spiritual institutions, we would discover that this supreme consciousness, this Great G, is the true “God” of every religion.

The Great G is not the limited or parochial totem of any particular race or family or tribe or nation or culture or cult. The Great G is too big to be the purview of any cult or philosophy. In fact, the Great G is so big there is only one cosmic vessel capable of accommodating its more-than-absolute absoluteness. And that’s what invocation is all about—squeezing the Great G into the only place in its own universe where it can fit—and that one place is you.

One would think that it shouldn’t be too difficult to connect with the Great G. After all, it can never be anywhere other than completely within you and without you. There are, however, many obstacles preventing you from waking up to the reality that you already are, at this very moment, wallowing eternally in the infinite wall-to-wall bliss of Great G consciousness, and every one of those obstacles is also you! And that too is what invocation is all about—getting all the phony little “yous” out of the way in order to make elbow room for the Great G.

Unfortunately, all those phony little yous are pretty much everything you mistakenly think you are. But there is a fast and extremely effective way to burn away all the phony little yous and by doing so create the super-vacuum needed to suck in the glorious inrush of the Great G. It is a two-part magical technique is as old as human consciousness itself:

The first part of the technique is the act of falling utterly, absolutely, unwaveringly, breathtakingly, helplessly, hopelessly, physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, in love with God;

The second part of the secret is allowing yourself to simultaneously receive back the same measure of love from God.

Like audio feedback created by a microphone that has been placed too close to the speaker of an amplifier, this simultaneous giving and receiving of love creates an ever-increasing feedback of bliss that is nothing less than the alternating electrical current of Great G consciousness—the current that joyously creates, sustains, and destroys the cosmos.

And that’s what invocation is all about.

It took me a long time (over thirty-five years) to finally come to this realization. It came through the magical agency of a simple ritual which I will now share with you.

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72 In the United States, praying out loud in public schools is now a no-no. But when I was in high school, every