It occurs to me that the very state of being self conscious is self-defeating in all areas in one’s life, particularly in Magic. I have a house guest for the weekend. It is time for sleep. She lays next to me, and I’m wondering who will fall asleep first. Because I have a slight cold and may snore. And I don’t want to snore and prevent her from falling asleep. So I’m hoping she will fall asleep before I do. So I delay, hoping she drifts off. In this instance I’m too self-conscious to sleep. I’m also one hell of a sweet guy to even worry about such things.
In Magic, it goes something like this: I want to perform the LBRP. Not for any specific ritual, but merely because I want to. But the windows are open and the neighbours may hear. Or the people in the next room. And the Great Voice doesn’t cut it; I want to bellow out the Archangel names damn it. But for self-conscious reasons (and for sound Magical ones too), I barely whisper the ritual so no one will hear. Or perhaps it is time for Resh and not wanting to make a spectacle of myself, I slip into a dark alley.
What is even worse is when you have a ritual you have written or borrowed, and you don’t believe in what you’re saying. Maybe the words sound silly, maybe they have you call upon Godnames that you simply don’t believe in. Whatever. But being self-conscious will kill the moment to be sure.
Being seen or heard during a critical moment of an Operation can have dire consequences, so it’s not just a matter of saying “screw it” and doing what you want, as loud as you want, and not giving a damn about what people think. But I do think that self-consciousness can really mess things up. So I’ve decided to really look into situations in my life where I can see it having a negative effect and possibly try to correct it.
I have this problem sometimes, never knowing how “safe” a certain volume is for this ritual or that, even having a fantastic and totally knowing and understanding room mate doesn’t help much when you hear a creak in the next room and suddenly wonder “Is he listening?”.
The LBRP in a public bathroom stall sometimes requires less than a great voice, ALTHOUGH practicing it normally and seeing the look on the face of the lady washing her hands could be priceless. Maybe she’ll just scurry along quickly forgetting to even turn off the water. Priceless.
Well oh my stars Petah Petah … you are human after all … it’s warming to my core to hear that you have this worry … not that im at all happy that you have these feelings … just that you showed quite a very real and vulnerable ‘normal’ human emotion ;o)
Shhhh, please don’t tell a soul. You’ll ruin the whole “evil magician” vibe I’ve worked so hard to create. xo
This is sooo true.
When i was practicing the GD rituals, resh and LBRP i would do them 5 days a week when my husband wasn’t home so that he wouldn’t think i was a freak. Seriously . Even though he is a magical person and he would completely understand what i was doing, and he wouldn’t care, i simply didn’t want to be a spectacle. i just wanted to do my thing. so i planned my life around it. it gave me some discipline. i no longer practice those things, but i did learn from them while i was doing it.
All in all, magic is sometimes done best when no one is looking, as being self conscious redirects the will and imagination to things that are counter productive.
makes me wish i was a hermit sometimes… *sigh*