Magical Musings on Annihilation Part II: Self-Destruction
Self-destruction is a major theme in Annihilation. In the movie, self-destruction refers not just to the destruction of aspects of yourself, but also of aspects of your life. This includes things like your career, your relationships, your family, etc. For reasons that will become clear later on, self-destruction is also a concept that Bardonists should reflect on. In fact, the very first astral exercise of IIH has you making a list of all your negative self-destructive tendencies.
Before I discuss negative self-destruction, I want to point out that self-destruction is not always negative. Sometimes it is positive. When we "destroy" detrimental aspects of ourselves (e.g. bad habits or addictions) or destroy toxic aspects of our lives (e.g. toxic relationships), we are doing ourselves a favor. Note that I put the word "destroy" in quotes. Rawn would probably find this word problematic, preferring instead to use words like "transform" or "transmute." Speaking for myself though, I've never had a problem with the word "destroy." While I understand where Rawn is coming from, I don't think the word "destroy" is inaccurate here. Yes the basic components of anything we destroy still exist (sort of a magical version of the law of conservation of mass), but the way they were organized no longer exists, and has therefore been destroyed.
So self-destruction can be positive, but it can also be negative, and I doubt I need to spend much effort convincing you that is the case. Negative self-destruction occurs when we destroy aspects of ourselves or of our lives that are good and that bring us joy. The biggest example of this is suicide. However, there are plenty of less extreme examples of negative self-destruction. Smoking, picking at one's fingernails, eating unhealthy foods, doing things that make us unnecessarily stressed, etc. are all common ways for people to self-destruct. If you want to know your own negative self-destructive tendencies, examine your black soul mirror. Irritability destroys your positive relationships. Incompetence destroys your career by getting you fired. Paranoia destroys your peace of mind.
When it comes to the Step 2 astral work of rooting out traits like irritability, incompetence, and paranoia, the important thing to understand is why we self-destruct in negative ways. There is no one reason, but one of the biggest reasons is that we just don't want to be happy. Maybe we don't think we deserve happiness, or feel guilty about being happy, or whatever. That's kind of funny. The following two quotes come from two separate articles by Frater Acher.
"The essence of a magic is the ability to lead a happy life."
"The job of all my magic is to lead a happy life."
Bill also points out in several of his essays that magic, if practiced correctly, should make you happy. Of course, some people are going to use this as an excuse to do rituals to win the lottery, or get a new car, or compel women into having sex with you, or whatever. It's important to remember that when Frater Acher and Bill speak of happiness, they are referring to true happiness and not merely the satisfaction of one's petty desires. That may make your id (to use Freud's term) happy, but it won't necessarily make you happy. There is a danger in identifying with your id, but this is a mistake. There's also a danger in assuming that what makes us happy is also what will make others happy, but that's a subject to be discussed in a later blog post.
You're never going to be happy if you don't think you deserve to be happy. That's why students of magic need self-esteem. There are two parts of self-esteem, at least according to Nathaniel Branden, one of the earliest pioneers in the field of self-esteem research. One part is having confidence in your ability to overcome challenges. That part is also very important for magicians, but not the subject of this blog post. The other part is believing you deserve happiness. That's the part I want to discuss in the rest of this blog post.
Nathaniel Branden also came up with six practices to help people develop self-esteem. These are known as the six pillars of self-esteem, and they are conscious living, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully, and personal integrity. Of these six pillars, self-acceptance is the one that will be most useful when it comes to getting rid of your self-destructive tendencies. If you don't accept yourself, you're going to destroy yourself. If you don't accept parts of yourself, you're going to destroy those parts of yourself. Sometimes we don't accept the parts of ourselves that make us happy or the parts of our lives that make us happy because we don't think we deserve to be happy. Therefore, we destroy the parts of ourselves that make us happy (e.g. our health) and the parts of our lives that make us happy (e.g. our relationships or our career)
The negative traits that assist us in destroying the parts of ourselves and our lives that make us happy are a major subset of the negative traits you listed in your black soul mirror back when you were on Step 1. Your laziness may have prevented you from exercising, thus destroying your physical health. Your anxiety may have caused you to constantly worry, thus destroying your mental health. Your pettiness may have caused you to frequently argue with your spouse, thus destroying your marriage. Go back to that first soul mirror for a second and see if I'm right. Are many of the traits listed on it self-destructive in nature? In other words, did they cause you to destroy positive parts of yourself and your life that make you truly happy?
In the Step 2 self-transformation work, we root out our negative traits. However, to succeed in this task, we must realize that many of our negative traits exist because we don't think we deserve to be happy. In order to successfully rid ourselves of those traits, we must develop self-esteem. We must realize that we do deserve to be happy. That doesn't mean we develop a sense of entitlement and hope the universe will simply bring us happiness if we sit around and do nothing. It means we feel motivated to work for the happiness we deserve, and that when we do receive happiness as a result of our work, we do not feel guilty about receiving that happiness. From the self-esteem point of view, that's the first major thing we must do - truly realize that we deserve to be happy. When we do that, our subconscious will not sabotage our efforts as we use the six-pronged attack to rid ourselves of the personality traits that destroy the parts of ourselves and our lives that bring us happiness.
The other thing we must do is accept ourselves. It is unfortunately also very easy to misunderstand what this means. The magician is someone who seeks to change the world for the better. In one of Bill's stories, a character gives the following advice - "Become a stronger, wiser person who both accepts the world exactly as it is and who strives with absolute determination to make it a better place." This advice pertains to improving the world, which is the macrocosm. In Step 2, the focus is on improving oneself (the microcosm). What's important to remember is that the macrocosm and the microcosm reflect each other, and therefore, the process of improving oneself parallels the process of improving the world. Improving the world requires that you both accept the world exactly as it is and strive with absolute determination to make it a better place. Therefore, improving yourself requires that you both accept yourself and strive with absolute determination to make yourself a better person. After our discussion of self-esteem, you can hopefully see why it's important to first accept yourself before you can succeed in improving yourself. When you accept yourself, you no longer desire to destroy yourself, so therefore the foundation of many of the self-destructive negative traits listed on your black soul mirror dissolves. This weakens those traits and makes it easier to root them out using the six-pronged attack. Also, acceptance does not equate with complacency. In other words, accepting yourself does not mean being complacent with yourself and not desiring to improve yourself. This is a common misconception. The example I usually give to illustrate that this isn't the case is that of good parents. Good parents accept their children, after all, children who grow up feeling continually unaccepted are never happy and often develop psychological problems. However, good parents also desire that their children improve. Similarly, you must accept yourself but also desire to improve. Again, accepting yourself will help you improve yourself because it will dissolve the foundation of many of your self-destructive negative traits. It will also help you develop self-esteem, which will make you want to work to become happy because you know you deserve happiness. This will motivate you to develop positive traits like assertiveness, patience, charisma, etc. because those types of positive traits bring you joy and success.
Before I discuss negative self-destruction, I want to point out that self-destruction is not always negative. Sometimes it is positive. When we "destroy" detrimental aspects of ourselves (e.g. bad habits or addictions) or destroy toxic aspects of our lives (e.g. toxic relationships), we are doing ourselves a favor. Note that I put the word "destroy" in quotes. Rawn would probably find this word problematic, preferring instead to use words like "transform" or "transmute." Speaking for myself though, I've never had a problem with the word "destroy." While I understand where Rawn is coming from, I don't think the word "destroy" is inaccurate here. Yes the basic components of anything we destroy still exist (sort of a magical version of the law of conservation of mass), but the way they were organized no longer exists, and has therefore been destroyed.
So self-destruction can be positive, but it can also be negative, and I doubt I need to spend much effort convincing you that is the case. Negative self-destruction occurs when we destroy aspects of ourselves or of our lives that are good and that bring us joy. The biggest example of this is suicide. However, there are plenty of less extreme examples of negative self-destruction. Smoking, picking at one's fingernails, eating unhealthy foods, doing things that make us unnecessarily stressed, etc. are all common ways for people to self-destruct. If you want to know your own negative self-destructive tendencies, examine your black soul mirror. Irritability destroys your positive relationships. Incompetence destroys your career by getting you fired. Paranoia destroys your peace of mind.
When it comes to the Step 2 astral work of rooting out traits like irritability, incompetence, and paranoia, the important thing to understand is why we self-destruct in negative ways. There is no one reason, but one of the biggest reasons is that we just don't want to be happy. Maybe we don't think we deserve happiness, or feel guilty about being happy, or whatever. That's kind of funny. The following two quotes come from two separate articles by Frater Acher.
"The essence of a magic is the ability to lead a happy life."
"The job of all my magic is to lead a happy life."
Bill also points out in several of his essays that magic, if practiced correctly, should make you happy. Of course, some people are going to use this as an excuse to do rituals to win the lottery, or get a new car, or compel women into having sex with you, or whatever. It's important to remember that when Frater Acher and Bill speak of happiness, they are referring to true happiness and not merely the satisfaction of one's petty desires. That may make your id (to use Freud's term) happy, but it won't necessarily make you happy. There is a danger in identifying with your id, but this is a mistake. There's also a danger in assuming that what makes us happy is also what will make others happy, but that's a subject to be discussed in a later blog post.
You're never going to be happy if you don't think you deserve to be happy. That's why students of magic need self-esteem. There are two parts of self-esteem, at least according to Nathaniel Branden, one of the earliest pioneers in the field of self-esteem research. One part is having confidence in your ability to overcome challenges. That part is also very important for magicians, but not the subject of this blog post. The other part is believing you deserve happiness. That's the part I want to discuss in the rest of this blog post.
Nathaniel Branden also came up with six practices to help people develop self-esteem. These are known as the six pillars of self-esteem, and they are conscious living, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully, and personal integrity. Of these six pillars, self-acceptance is the one that will be most useful when it comes to getting rid of your self-destructive tendencies. If you don't accept yourself, you're going to destroy yourself. If you don't accept parts of yourself, you're going to destroy those parts of yourself. Sometimes we don't accept the parts of ourselves that make us happy or the parts of our lives that make us happy because we don't think we deserve to be happy. Therefore, we destroy the parts of ourselves that make us happy (e.g. our health) and the parts of our lives that make us happy (e.g. our relationships or our career)
The negative traits that assist us in destroying the parts of ourselves and our lives that make us happy are a major subset of the negative traits you listed in your black soul mirror back when you were on Step 1. Your laziness may have prevented you from exercising, thus destroying your physical health. Your anxiety may have caused you to constantly worry, thus destroying your mental health. Your pettiness may have caused you to frequently argue with your spouse, thus destroying your marriage. Go back to that first soul mirror for a second and see if I'm right. Are many of the traits listed on it self-destructive in nature? In other words, did they cause you to destroy positive parts of yourself and your life that make you truly happy?
In the Step 2 self-transformation work, we root out our negative traits. However, to succeed in this task, we must realize that many of our negative traits exist because we don't think we deserve to be happy. In order to successfully rid ourselves of those traits, we must develop self-esteem. We must realize that we do deserve to be happy. That doesn't mean we develop a sense of entitlement and hope the universe will simply bring us happiness if we sit around and do nothing. It means we feel motivated to work for the happiness we deserve, and that when we do receive happiness as a result of our work, we do not feel guilty about receiving that happiness. From the self-esteem point of view, that's the first major thing we must do - truly realize that we deserve to be happy. When we do that, our subconscious will not sabotage our efforts as we use the six-pronged attack to rid ourselves of the personality traits that destroy the parts of ourselves and our lives that bring us happiness.
The other thing we must do is accept ourselves. It is unfortunately also very easy to misunderstand what this means. The magician is someone who seeks to change the world for the better. In one of Bill's stories, a character gives the following advice - "Become a stronger, wiser person who both accepts the world exactly as it is and who strives with absolute determination to make it a better place." This advice pertains to improving the world, which is the macrocosm. In Step 2, the focus is on improving oneself (the microcosm). What's important to remember is that the macrocosm and the microcosm reflect each other, and therefore, the process of improving oneself parallels the process of improving the world. Improving the world requires that you both accept the world exactly as it is and strive with absolute determination to make it a better place. Therefore, improving yourself requires that you both accept yourself and strive with absolute determination to make yourself a better person. After our discussion of self-esteem, you can hopefully see why it's important to first accept yourself before you can succeed in improving yourself. When you accept yourself, you no longer desire to destroy yourself, so therefore the foundation of many of the self-destructive negative traits listed on your black soul mirror dissolves. This weakens those traits and makes it easier to root them out using the six-pronged attack. Also, acceptance does not equate with complacency. In other words, accepting yourself does not mean being complacent with yourself and not desiring to improve yourself. This is a common misconception. The example I usually give to illustrate that this isn't the case is that of good parents. Good parents accept their children, after all, children who grow up feeling continually unaccepted are never happy and often develop psychological problems. However, good parents also desire that their children improve. Similarly, you must accept yourself but also desire to improve. Again, accepting yourself will help you improve yourself because it will dissolve the foundation of many of your self-destructive negative traits. It will also help you develop self-esteem, which will make you want to work to become happy because you know you deserve happiness. This will motivate you to develop positive traits like assertiveness, patience, charisma, etc. because those types of positive traits bring you joy and success.
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