(Note: The below commentary applies to all sorts of ceremonial magic but is primarily targeted towards those brave individuals performing Goetic operations. Do not attempt to apply or evoke these understandings unless you have a command of the technical performance of ceremonial magic, particularly in the context of the Goetic operations.)

In principle, the magician is the master of the universe. He or she directs the powers of creation and destruction and all forces answer to him. This is in direct conflict with the realization that the magician can not, may not, exert control or command over the Archangels or other beings who directly serve God. This ends up confusing a great many people, particularly since the work of the ceremonial magician is so often to assume the mantle of God, to assume his authority.

The people who don’t get confused by this usually don’t think of it in terms of control or power. They don’t lean towards the type of tyranny that many magicians do, so they don’t come into conflict with the idea that they are supreme, but not supreme enough to command the higher beings. These magicians are either very good or very bad at their art, because they either understand what I’m about to explain on an intuitive level, or because they don’t have the analytical ability to consider the purposes and foundations of the power they are attempting to summon.

In this, as in many other things, the ceremonial magician who has a background and discipline in other arts has a leg up on the magician who practices only the operations of the Golden Dawn or OTO. They have this advantage because, by and large, they are accustomed to understanding that cosmology is mystical in nature. They are willing to believe that apparently contradicting theorms may simultaneously be true without creating paradox. For instance, the dillema mentioned above. How can the ceremonial magician be both the master of the universe, but unable to command the servants of God?

Logically, one could argue that if he can not command the servants of God he is not Master of the Universe but deluded into thinking he is. You could also say that if we assume the magician is Master of the Universe then the Archangels must not be part of the universe. Both of these logical tactics are functional to resolve the contradiction. Unfortunately they both have pitfalls for the magician. A ceremonial magician who does not believe he is imbued with the authority of god is prey to all manner of spirit influence, including that of demons. Similarly, a magician who segments reality to place the Angels outside the realm of his authority will similarly recognize that the demons and spirits he tries to control are also outside that authority. Opening the door to an extra-universal being brings with it a host of those problems.

The solution is to allow the apparent contradiction without being bound by paradox. The solution is something that many magicians already do, but they must extend themselves to offer the same courtesy to beings whose primary manifestation is internal to the magician as opposed to external.

We know that everything we know is based upon our perceptions, and that our perceptions are influenced by our current state of body, emotion, mind, and spirit. Our definition of the universe is created entirely within our mind by perceptions which are influenced by state. Understanding this, it is easy to see why so many people are able to engage in delusion and to impose motive or behavior upon people even if it’s not present. Some of us, however, being aware that our senses are a reflection of ourselves choose to accept the actions of other people and attempt to divine the truth of those behaviors by counterbalancing it with our knowledge of self, of our own state. In this way we struggle to deduce the true nature of things.

The first step of that process is to relinquish control of the external world. The magician must understand that he is in control only of his own processes and perceptions, and to engage with others he must be open to behavior or action that comes from motivations not his own. The result is a consciousness that accepts its absolute control over the universe (since the universe is our model of it based upon our perceptions), but also recognizes that there are things outside that universe which influence and cause his universe to exist. In so doing, the magician gives up control of the parts of the universe that are not part of the universe, and strives to observe them as objectively and clearly as he can. The magician must then take this understanding and apply it not only to the physical realm he interacts with, but to the spiritual and psychological realm. If he accepts that the Archangels and Demons are both part of the universe and external to it, he is able to navigate the conflict without creating paradox.

Why then, if they are both external and internal, does the magician have authority over the demons of the Qlipoth but not the angels of Heaven? He doesn’t. He allows himself to focus on one side of the equation or the other for various purposes. The magician can control the power of the Angel inside his own perceptions, but the result is that he will hear, see, and recieve only that which he is expecting and desiring. As a result he pays homage to the Angels as outside his realm of control, thus opening himself to the reality of what they are saying or offering. Conversely, the demon is most often cast in the role of servant and is given a task, command, or query to respond to. Thus, the magician emphasizes his command of the spirit in his universe and diminishes the autonomy of the spirit external to that universe.

It must be noted that although the spirit is under the control of the magician, in order to get significant and powerful results the magician must actually walk a fine line between exerting absolute control of the spirit, and allowing the objective spirit to show itself.