Who Are You?
The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.
“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, ch. 5
Every journey has a destination, every journey has a path or paths to that destination, and every journey has obstacles and challenges along the way.
For magicians, our destination is supreme enlightenment (union and absolute integration) with the Supreme Intelligence of the cosmos—complete identity with the universal consciousness.
The path is (at least for a little while) the magical arts and disciplines.
The obstacles and challenges on the path are all our shortcomings, character flaws, vices, bad habits, fears, imbalances, misperceptions, and personal demons that are currently distracting us and preventing us from waking up from the dreamworld of un-enlightenment.
Before we can even discuss the destination or the path or the obstacles, however, we need to identify just who it is that will be taking this journey. We need a traveler, a sojourner, a hero, someone to experience the trip. The journey needs you. It sounds simple enough, but it really isn’t. Who you are (or who you think you are) is vitally important. Allow me to digress for a moment.
Constance and I were very young when we first started living together. She was nineteen years old and I was eighteen. (Yes, she’s almost six months older than I.) From the very beginning of our relationship, we identified ourselves as spiritual adventurers, cosmic gypsies, who had once again incarnated to pick up where we left off … to continue our quest and take the next step toward enlightenment. Admittedly, we were romantic and naive. But we were also spiritually audacious, and we delighted in our explorations of what were for us exotic foreign religions and cultures. We enjoyed fantasizing about our previous incarnations. We playfully identified ourselves as our own homemade mythological characters on a timeless quest. We assumed whimsical Native American names (Sleeping Bear and Smiling Squirrel—guess which one I was) and speculated about medieval lives as court jester and scullery maid, or Mandarin lord and youngest wife.
We hand-painted bizarre (and patently offensive) anti-Christmas cards and mailed them to our clueless and easily shocked relatives, and when-ever possible we wore our new and colorful mystical opinions and personas on our sleeves.
As sophomoric and silly as these fanciful lovers’ games were, they taught us how to begin discovering who we are. They served to seriously establish and formulate our magical identities and train our imaginations.
Constance and I were fortunate that our youth and silliness allowed us to fall quite naturally into the spirit of the game of magical self-identification. For others, it might take a little more effort. No matter what your age, background, or circumstances, the process must begin by asking yourself, “Who am I?”
So … who are you?
Don’t answer with your name, because you know darn well that’s not who you are. Don’t try to avoid this question, because it’s a big one. Unless you can come up with some kind of answer to this question, there won’t be a magician to work the magick.
Well, who are you?
Traditionally, the phrase “Know thyself” was chiseled in stone above the threshold of the temples of the ancient mysteries. That sounds like wise and serious advice, doesn’t it? But think about it: the chances of you truly knowing yourself anytime soon are slim to none!
Know thyself? Give me a break! Even though those words represent the first piece of advice you get at the beginning of your magical career, the cold hard fact remains that true self-realization is likely to be the very last thing that’s ever going to happen to you. Who and what you really are will be the final revelation in life’s great mystery play—the last tiny bit of information your (by then) near-infinitely expanded consciousness will process in the blinding micro-seconds just before you ecstatically sizzle into pure undifferentiated Godhead—
But if you don’t know who or what you are, there obviously can’t be a you to take the journey. There is no you to choose the destination, no you to find the path, no you to overcome the obstacles, no you for the magical universe to torture and delight and broaden and purify and perfect, no hook of a you upon which to hang the great adventure of your destiny.
But don’t worry. There is a real you in there somewhere, and even though you currently don’t have a clue about who or what you are, the discovery process has to begin somewhere! You begin by first pretending you know who you are.
Yes, like everything else in life, you are going to have to fake it till you make it! There’s no other way to start. Sound silly? Sound irrational? Sound insane? Sound like cheating? Welcome to the world of homemade magick! No need to wait for a guru, or a magical mentor, or some lofty adept, or a high priest or priestess, or some mysterious secret-society hierophant to initiate you. You just have to haul off and do it yourself.
Go ahead! Roll up the sleeves on your magical robe and start faking it till you make it. Start right now by pretending you know who you are! It’s easy. You begin by renaming yourself, by giving yourself a new homemade identity—a magical motto.