Inner Harmony: The Key to Unlocking Your Potential
In the last five years, the greatest lesson I've been taught was about finding harmony within myself. Once I did, everything got easier. In particular, I found that I really didn't need to do rituals, sigils, spells, etc. anymore to perform magick. That's not to say that I don't still do those things on occasion; but it's reserved for times when I want extra help in focusing or I want to add a little extra umph behind what I'm doing. For everyday mundane stuff, I'm able to do that directly with no need for a middle man. How?
To make it easy, I like to think of myself as having three aspects: the ID (subconscious), the Ego (me, my waking consciousness), and the Superego (the Higher Self). That's not completely in line with the psychological aspects of the same name, but it helps me to visualize things and it's an easy way to describe it, so just go with me. The point of sigils, rituals, spells, etc. is to trick your subconscious into directing the energy and doing what you want according to your will. When you get all three aspects of yourself on the same page and working together, it simplifies that process and allows you to focus your will and the energy and apply it directly towards whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. To get to that point, you have to be able to directly communicate with your subconscious. That's possible through meditation and shadow work.
It's not a quick process in the beginning. First, you have to work through a lot of your internal crap that's holding you back. For me, personally, that was confronting a lot of the hang ups I had about my body, my hatred of myself, pains and trauma that I was still holding on to from the past. The first three years of me being a practicing occultist was spent pretty much doing that. Don't get me wrong, I'm still doing it. It's going to be a lifelong process; but when just starting out, there was A LOT there that I needed to unpack and address to get anywhere, because I was a hot mess. Now, I don't necessarily recommend this next part for everybody. I'm only sharing what I did and experienced. You can absolutely accomplish the same thing without the use of anything but meditation. It'll likely take longer, but there's nothing wrong with that.
My biggest breakthrough came when I did a heroic dose of "magic mushrooms" with the express purpose of facing my inner self. This actually took two sessions of a heroic dose about a month apart. It was incredibly intense, and again, I'm not recommending that everyone do this. That first session, I faced my inner self as though it were an antagonist. It appeared to me as a demon, taunting me. That's because deep down, that's how I saw myself. It forced me to face all the things about myself that I hated, all the lies that I believed about myself. By the time it was over, I had made peace with a lot of those things. The second session, my inner self didn't appear as my enemy, but more a teacher. It was still incredibly intense. I'm not going to go into details, because it's not relevant. That was for me, alone, and what I needed to learn. The point is, by the time it was over, I'd gotten myself to a place where I felt I had a direct connection not just to my higher self, but my subconscious as well. I no longer had to "trick" my subconscious to do what I wanted, because we were on the same page with the same goals. I found I could now just focus my intent and will at what I wanted, directly apply the energy, and I got the same results as I got when using sigils. It has completely changed my daily life and how I practice magick.
Again, I'm only sharing my personal experiences. I am absolutely sure that I could have gotten the same results over time with continued meditation and shadow work sessions. Using the mushrooms was just like doing an intense crash course. It's certainly not for everyone, and it's not something I'd recommend trying right out of the gate without any prior shadow work. It took me about three years to get to the point where I felt I could handle it; and it was still an incredibly intense experience that was not always very pleasant. If it's something that you decide to try, especially if you have no experience with psychedelics, make sure you're in a safe place where you feel comfortable and have a sober person that you trust nearby the entire time.
