Found myself giving Scorpio some consideration time today, with a focus on its occult connections to all things involving the secrets and rituals related to “magick.” First of all, I’m NOT a witch/wizard/magician per se, and make no claims to be. I also do not typically engage in any magical spell casting and the like. At the same time, the definition of “causing the world around to conform with will” leaves it pretty open for EVERYTHING to be a magical act, and in certain ways, everything is. It could be argued that, generally speaking, we’re all engaged in magic constantly. However, I’m choosing to focus on the more intentional type of magic that may involve using symbols, tools, invocations, and rituals to make something happen that may not seem to be a direct effect of the actions/behaviors employed. This is definitely Scorpio territory, but like much of its shadowy archetype, there are dark places one could get lost…

The first thing that comes to mind is hearing Rumpelstilkin (from the show “Once Upon a Time”) assert that “All magic comes with a price!” That it does, but what that price is can be tricky. We could start by saying that of course a cause leads to an effect, “every action has an opposite but equal reaction,” and for every act there is some consequence, and that’s what magic is about, right? You take some actions while mentally and emotionally “jazzed” and the consequential effect is fulfilling your desire? Well, sure…but what else goes into “getting what you want?”

Scorpio is also the domain of “others’ resources.” It can sometimes just be what “they” (whoever applies) have or can do, and it can sometimes be what “we” have and can access together with them. At its higher level, one’s power through Scorpio is to be attained by the soul conquering the personality to merge with Source, and then all desires and aims taken are done WITH the power of Source, in accordance with the WILL of Source, only perhaps facilitated through our small self’s personality. When that’s the case though, what we “get” from the exchange isn’t for ourselves at all; it’s “for” Source (as the All), and only for us to the extent that we are identifying with/through Source. For most magicians, that probably isn’t the case…Many magical novices want more money, a new love, or this or that. (Let’s even completely forget about people wanting to use magic to intentionally harm someone, which is OBVIOUSLY black magic…) Sadly perhaps for some though, magic employed for ANY selfish desire may qualify as black magic…If it’s not helping the Whole, it’s not being used as optimally designed. Anything selfishly achieved, without merit for All, may eventually need to be (over cycles of time, subtly and/or directly and subjectively and/or objectively) “deconstructed” and “let go.” That’s no easy task necessarily, even if we, ourselves, were the only one involved. However, when “getting what we want” involves others and their resources, the karmic convolutions necessary to “unwind” whatever we’re “wound up” in can be more a bit more tricky…

So how is magic working when we DO “get what we want” (or what we think we want…)? Well, things usually involve a collaboration with other forces, energies, or entities that are “called forth.” The magician fancies themselves as the conductor (see the baton as a “wand”) who orchestrates how, where, and in what way the energies operate. (When all energies are considered to be conscious, or consciously emanated, it should be obvious that one is subjugating “their” will to one’s own personal desire’s will.) Wherever these energies are “sourced,” and regardless as to whether any entities/beings are directly involved, one is “making” them to do one’s own bidding. This sets up the power struggle/imbalance archetype Scorpio can demonstrate where one party controls the other to access their resources. Here, the magician demonstrates a controlled superiority to “command” energies/beings to effect some change, and if the magician’s knowledge and power allows, they’re successful. However, any “other” we wield power “over” tends to resent being controlled and manipulated (or more “sterilely” without any personification, matters simply “wind up” through their manipulation for some recoil…), and so a potential “backlash” may ensue.

But let’s even consider a type of magic that might not be FORCING (via the will) energies to do our bidding. Perhaps we’re appealing to higher “light” beings to help us meet our goals. Well, for one, whatever beings exist that seem interested in furthering our selfish aims may have a questionable integrity of their own. Of course, I suppose they could invest in us “getting what we want” to learn that our desires will ultimately only disappoint us (like having a genie’s lamp but being upset with each wish we enact), but any being that’s approached for such employment may not be everything we believe them to be either… However, regardless of all that, in ANY event, we are achieving OUR means through OTHERS’ (more or less invisible) resources. Whatever we are setting up to have happen, it is either our superior command of “others” to use their power, or our inferior requesting to use the power of “others” that makes something happen. Unfortunately in such cases, either way, OUR OWN POWER HAS BEEN GIVEN AWAY….On one hand, what we hold power over, ultimately has power over us as we must “bind” to it to exert control. On the other hand, whatever we believe we need outside power for/from, also confirms a sense of powerlessness within. To me, it seems that pretty much any selfish use of magic involves a DISEMPOWERMENT of our true Self in order to “get what we want.”

With such magic, we basically “outsource” our power to “others” for things to happen, broadcasting a vibration and energy that essentially “says” we are without power ourselves. I’d imagine that many New Age witches and magicians may, along their journey, involve themselves with some amount of such “black magic” before the effects come around to demonstrate the ultimate undesirability of taking such actions. (It’s like the boy from The Never-ending Story 2 who, every time he uses his power to make a wish actualize, he forgets another piece of who he really is…) Quite honestly, our desires and actions can get us “bound” into enough without further involving others (perhaps with differing agendas or dispositions) and causing further diffusion/obstruction to ourselves. However, we ARE allowed to “meddle” down here in incarnation, within certain boundaries, with the aim of eventually “tiring ourselves out” so to speak and re-orienting our aims. Doing harm to others may visit us with harm ourselves, which is rather immediately undesirable and can be quickly discerned against. Selfishly making things happen by giving power to forces outside ourselves (or even using our own personal energy/will to forcefully supersede a larger harmonic disposition) may take longer for the damage to be noted. It doesn’t seem like harm is being done perhaps, but the harm is to oneself. Again, the selfish component makes it an act that furthers the illusion of separation, the utilization of “others’ resources” can further fragment and disempower ourselves by implying our own essential “lack,” and even using one’s own store of vital energy to “force their way” simply drains one’s own vital life energy. All involved mechanics seem geared towards our own breakdown…which is actually good in the long run! Whatever “tears us down” is helping us reach a “bottom” from which we’ve “had enough” and are ready to reverse the “downward spiral.” What doesn’t directly help us, still helps by wearing us “out” to the point of eventually helping ourselves turn/tune back “in” to help ourselves again;)

So is all magic “bad?” Absolutely not. In fact, the intention is half the determinant for that, while the methods employed may determine the rest. All the struggles and battles and death and decay of Scorpio’s trials are all geared towards re-orienting an individual’s energy to serve the soul instead of the personality. The personality, in essence, is what must die. Until it is ready though, the personality will do all sorts of things with the power of its will…until it, sometimes through pain, crisis, and suffering, learns the error of such a way that is without more contributive merit. However, when the individual IS ready to stay fixed to the soul, Scorpio’s use of power becomes unmatched because it is directly collaborating with, and infused by, Source. (Ultimately, Source is the ONLY “safe” option of “other” with whom to collaborate for empowerment, and that is so because it ultimately reflects our inherent existence AS Source.) The personality must learn to discriminate what is self-serving, and only “good” for the satiation of personal desire, and what is all-serving, and “good” for the whole, which may seem better or worse from the individual’s perspective, although any long-term effect would be ultimately beneficial, since an individual is also a part of the Whole. However, until one has reached a state of conscious evolution where they are able to fully know, understand, and CHOOSE the soul over the personality when these conflicts arise, people are more or less stumbling through a little of it all as they learn the difference. When the soul is “ripe,” a true “white magician” may be granted the power to “move mountains” and wield the elements in ways we’ve no way to scientifically or intellectually understand as of yet, but that would only then be because they KNOW it is not “them” doing it so much as Source doing it “through” them, and “they” can only be a fit “instrument” by demonstrating the personality integrity and ethics needed to operate objectively for the good of the whole without the vices of various personality neuroses. At such a point, one (individual) is completely identified with One/Source, and therefore may act AS Source being particularized as an individual :D (Again, think Jesus or Buddha.)

Practicing magick doesn’t make someone “bad” or anything, but it does highlight the potential for them to have some profound soul learning experiences that re-orient their approach to life as the result of “gray meddling”… (Of course, those experience happen for those who don’t “do magick” at all, and the lessons of Scorpio apply to everyone in some respect. Remember, ALL acts can essentially be considered “magical,” and so the lessons can involve our emotional interactions and business dealings with others, and the basics of how we wield our personal will, when the more spiritually occult dimensions are not being considered.) I’m sure there are those who may argue or oppose the perspective I’ve presented, and I’d be open to hearing and considering any such points of view, but as far as I have seen, this conception that’s been incubating and dwelling within, which I’ve now attempted to articulate in writing, feels to be (at least to me) the motivating impetus behind a lack of desire to meddle with most forms of magick myself. Slowly but surely, we all grow to question our desires and our means for achieving them, and it’s all part of life’s embedded “learning curve,” which “spirals out,” up, beyond, and “over the rainbow.” Make your OWN magic, but make sure you’ve held your intentions, methods, and actions up to the light so that no “Hydra” lies sleeping in the darkness of the “swamp,” growing the “heads” of more vices with which to pull you under and away from where your soul truly aspires to go ;)