{"id":91,"date":"2012-07-16T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/low-magick-by-lon-milo-duquette\/"},"modified":"2012-07-16T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T18:58:00","slug":"low-magick-by-lon-milo-duquette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/low-magick-by-lon-milo-duquette.html","title":{"rendered":"Low Magick by Lon Milo DuQuette"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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One of the problems with occult studies is that they\u2019re occult<\/i> \u2013 hidden. What does a real magician do? Most of us don\u2019t run into magic workers in our daily lives and when we do we don\u2019t recognize them. Fictional stories of magic workers are fun and can be inspirational, but most of those stories involve magic that simply doesn\u2019t exist. We don\u2019t have good, tangible role models.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the real value of Low Magick<\/i><\/a> by Lon Milo DuQuette<\/a>. It\u2019s not a how-to book and it\u2019s not a book of magical theory. It\u2019s a book of real stories about a real magician who started low and a lifetime later is one of the most knowledgeable and powerful ceremonial magicians alive today. DuQuette shares his triumphs and his failures and he talks about what he\u2019s learned from them. In doing so, he shows us what a real magician looks like.<\/p>\n

I first discovered Lon Milo DuQuette on Thorn Coyle\u2019s \u201cElemental Castings<\/a>\u201d podcasts. He was part of a panel discussion from Pantheacon 2009 titled \u201cThe Non-Dual, Polytheism and Contemporary Magic(k): Is the Divine zero, one, many, none, or all of the above?\u201d (Elemental Castings #10) The conversation was amazing in its depth and maturity and I immediately liked DuQuette\u2019s sense of humor. He was also part of another panel discussion on Elemental Castings #29 and had a one-on-one conversation with Thorn on #41. <\/p>\n

Low Magick<\/i> begins with the exhortation \u201cDO NOT BE AFRAID!\u201d DuQuette says \u201cplease know that I am not preaching this gospel of fearlessness from the marble pulpit of righteousness and courage. On the contrary, I\u2019m shouting it from the pasteboard megaphone of my own ignoble and cowardly character.\u201d He explains that the fear of magic and what you might encounter with it mostly stems from the dualism of Abrahamic thinking, which DuQuette called \u201cChrislemew\u201d \u2013 Christian, Moslem and Jewish. DuQuette says he doesn\u2019t believe in an all-good anthropomorphic god or an all-evil anthropomorphic devil. He\u2019s not an atheist either. He says<\/p>\n

I most ardently believe in (indeed, I worship) a supreme consciousness that is the ultimate source of all manifest and unmanifest existence \u2026 the ultimate nature of this super-existence is transcendently Good \u2013 a Good we can never adequately define with our words or understand with our meat brains \u2013 a Good so all-comprehensively infinite that there can be nothing outside of itself \u2013 not even nothing. There can be no opposite of this great Good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

DuQuette tells the story of summoning a demon to materially provide for his family at a time when they were in dire financial circumstances. It didn\u2019t go well \u2013 the demon was the worst of his own nature. But after much work \u2013 and much suffering \u2013 it all worked out. \u201cThe real miracle was not the magical quid pro quo of a demon bent to obedience by the will of a magician, but the miracle of a magician who had redeemed a better demon of his nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lon Milo DuQuette was a magician at an early age. He tells the story of how at six years old he manifested a date with a girl in his kindergarten class. It taught him \u201cmy dreams had the power to make things happen \u2026 However, it would take me the better part of the next fifty years to understand that the nature of that power is Love, and that without that vital ingredient in the recipe, my magick would always fall short of perfection.\u201d<\/p>\n

A large portion of the book is devoted to his story of an exorcism at a Catholic girls\u2019 school. As for how a ceremonial magician came to be doing that instead of a Vatican-approved exorcist, well, that\u2019s part of the story\u2026 and it also shows how the current Catholic power struggle isn\u2019t the only place where the nuns know better than the church hierarchy. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve done house cleansings on several occasions. DuQuette\u2019s school exorcism looks familiar\u2026 in the same way that a Honda Civic looks familiar to a Formula One race car. <\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t know how to do a house cleansing this book won\u2019t get you started. If you already know the basics, this book will show you just how much room for learning and growth you have \u2013 and point you in the direction to learn it.<\/p>\n

I love the subtitle of this book: It\u2019s All In Your Head \u2026 You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is<\/i>. I see magic as one part psychological programming, one part manipulation of unseen forces, and one part intercessory prayer. The only part I\u2019m 100% sure of is the psychological programming \u2013 what\u2019s inside my head. If DuQuette is right \u2013 even partially \u2013 then it may not matter whether the other parts are \u201creal\u201d or not. <\/p>\n

I had been meaning to get one of Lon Milo DuQuette\u2019s books since hearing that first podcast and I kept not doing it. I\u2019m a Druid and my heart lies with Nature and the old gods and goddesses, not with ceremonial magic. But after reading Low Magick<\/i>, I\u2019m going to go find some more of his books.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the problems with occult studies is that they\u2019re occult \u2013 hidden. What does a real magician do? Most of us don\u2019t run into magic workers in our daily lives and when we do we don\u2019t recognize them. Fictional stories of magic workers are fun and can be inspirational, but most of those stories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLow Magick by Lon Milo DuQuette<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of the problems with occult studies is that they\u2019re occult \u2013 hidden. What does a real magician do? 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