Esoteric spirituality is no panacea to the current material condition
[A post I made on the Islamic Theurgy and White Sorcery list]
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I get message after message after message after message from people with the same general theme: I am stuck in my life, nothing I do works, I experience loss after loss, I believe I am cursed or I am doing something wrong in my practice, help me to change my material fortunes and along with it, my life.
Without wishing to sound harsh or like Oswald Spengler or the Neo-Trads, welcome to life in the real world (small 'r') and especially to life in the world of post-industrial, global neoliberal capitalism under a civilization that is clearly in decline and in complete decay from within: the (post-)modern global West. The consolation, if it can be called that, is that you are not alone and the angst you experience about your personal lives is now almost universal among humans everywhere. The issue is how you are going to cope and deal with it and so transmute the proverbial poison into the Medicine because the bad news is that there is no magical panacea out of this condition other than your own effort to pull the veils down from your own eyes about the greater condition of things and your individual place in it; and this is called the beginning of the Journey itself.
Given this, any magician or guru who comes telling you that you can use esoteric spirituality to materially change your condition is a liar, a charlatan, a fraud and snake oil salesman that anyone in their right mind must run away from in the opposite direction quick smart because this is Mephistopheles himself and you are standing in the position of Faust about to make the same bargain he made to your detriment!
The first piece of sold advice my own Sufi teacher ever gave to me over 30-years ago now before he even initiated me into the Path and gave me hand (baya'a) was that "if you think that by coming into this Path, your material life will somehow improve or you will get rich - or even attain an immediate peace of mind - do not come because this is not what such a Path does. Everything you know and cherish may even be taken away from you at some point. You will be tested to the limits of your endurance and to the point of complete breakdown - even death! - time and time and time again until you master yourself and your environment. This Path is not one for emotional weaklings. This is a Path for those who would become warriors who would become Kings/Queens!" So understand!
Unfortunately, this golden piece of advice is one diametrically opposed to everything the contemporary, mainstream zeitgeist is telling everybody. Most of the so-called teachers and gurus out there in the mainstream are preaching the very opposite of this using the inverted counter-spiritual zeitgeist of capitalism to create false hope and so to unwittingly draw many desperate people into their business orbits and traps by talking about "manifesting abundance" and other such nonsense by following their ridiculous so-called spiritual curricula while meanwhile such false gurus and teachers are laughing all the way to the proverbial bank at the expense of those whom they have lured into their circles. Such abuse is now pretty much common and normalized literally everywhere, East and West, North and South.
I am not going to tell you any of this stuff. Magic and theurgy will not improve your material life. Over a usually long period of time, it may - if you are diligent, committed and hardworking - change your inner life and perspectives regarding your material life - and there are no short-cuts even if you follow an Islamic Tantric version of the Left-Hand Path (in its original denotation as "goddess worship") as I do. There is no spell or magical operation that will instantaneously make you a millionaire and remove all the material obstacles out of your way. Anyone who has remotely convinced you that this is not true, and that you can, is simply full of sh*t! Don't listen to them because they are misleading you into a mirage like the devil tempting Christ Himself with mirages in the desert during Jesus' 40 day trial in the desert.
You see, as the first of the noble truths of Buddhism teaches - a noble truth which is fully endorsed and embraced by Sufism and its science of Quranic Theurgy - is that "life is suffering" and you must fully come to terms with this and even embrace it to its very last bitter drop before making even the slightest progress. This is the Way of things. So if you are continually persisting in looking for that magical formula that will materially transform your material life and conditions into something better, you have literally barked up the wrong tree and perhaps instead you should seriously think about cutting your losses right now and permanently leave the world of esoteric spirituality altogether because here we are walking against the stream of the world (dunya) and not with it.
So perhaps the people contributing here, lurking or new to this list [i.e. Islamic Theurgy and White Sorcery] should consider the above and stop asking me for what is not even the purpose of the Path that I am on (or those who are with me are on) or what Theurgy is even about. You need to understand and fully grasp this Truth because it is literally the distinction between night and day.
Listening to
