The Higher Self
and True Will
The Higher Self is our divine consciousness. It’s an aspect of yourself that has never left divinity. It has been referred to as the Personal God, the Holy Spirit, Holy Soul, or the Holy Daemon (which is a Greek term for spirit, not a demon in the popular sense). It is the part of us that is perfect, eternal, and consistent through each lifetime. It is beyond time and space and isn’t linear at all. It is one with the whole Universe, and its full nature is slightly beyond our scope of complete understanding. The Higher Self is aware of all of our incarnations and oversees our experiences in those incarnations.
The Higher Self is usually referred to as that spark within us, but it is most often perceived as a spark above our heads and not directly located within the body itself. It’s literally higher than our physical bodies. Before I knew about the Higher Self, I had this experience where I woke up one night and in a hypnogogic state saw a white glowing orb hovering about a few feet above my face. It was a beautiful pearlescent white globe about the size of a cantaloupe. This orb was beaming a white light upon my face, and I just had this acute sense that this light was myself somehow. Later when I learned about the Higher Self, this made much more sense to me.
As mentioned earlier, before we incarnate, the Higher Self is looking to have specific human experiences and also to fulfill a role in its interaction with other Higher Selves. The Higher Self connects with the stream of ancestors and creates a contract. The ancestors provide the physical vessel of a body, and the Higher Self delivers the spirit. They unite together to form the Middle Self of personality. This is paralleled in alchemy where three elements are emphasized—Mercury, Sulfur, and Salt. Alchemy is greatly misunderstood as being literal instead of the exploration of spirituality and experimenting with transmuting the self. In alchemy Salt is born from the union of Sulfur and Mercury, two elements that are seen as opposite combined into one.29 Among these many layers of meaning and association with these elements, we also understand that Sulfur refers to the Higher Self, Mercury to the Lower Self, and Salt to the Middle Self.30 So again, Higher Self mixed with Lower Self creates the Middle Self.
As mentioned, the Higher Self is looking to have learning experiences to add to its knowledge to evolve itself. This knowledge was called the Akashic Records by some mystics such as the Theosophists and Edgar Cayce. Mainly, it’s the memories and records of every experience of every incarnation that the Higher Self has had. The Higher Self is always in contact with the Akashic Records, since it’s part of the consciousness of the Higher Self itself, and all the Akashic Records are part of the Divine Mind and Collective Consciousness’ memory. And just as the Lower Self relays intuitive information that it’s picking up on an instinctual level to the Middle Self based on information of its surroundings, the Higher Self conveys information of a psychic nature to your Middle Self, meaning when the two are communicating information is gained that couldn’t be gained by other means, often transcending space and time.
The Higher Self’s energetic anchor point is the crown of the head—or in witchcraft, the Cauldron of Wisdom. “The Cauldron of Poesy” indicates that the Cauldron of Wisdom is upside down when we are born, empty and unaware of our divine nature. I see this state as the wisdom of the Higher Self splashing against the underside of the cauldron which is facing upward, spraying outside of ourselves and not hitting the middle Cauldron of Motion. When we come into alignment with our Higher Self, the Cauldron of Wisdom is turned right side up, and the wisdom of the Higher Self fills the cauldron and overflows like a fountain into the Cauldron of Motion of the Middle Self.
The animal imagery of birds—frequently a dove or an owl—often represents the Higher Self, swooping down in flight from the heavens to the earth, as it is not from this world at all but rather from the divine cosmos which is its home. The Higher Self is connected to the Upper World, which is the abode of the Divine Mind, the Collective Unconscious, and the realms of cosmic and divine forces. In the World Tree, it is the branches of the tree reaching upward to the sky. Elementally the Higher Self is that of air and corresponds to the Celtic realm of sky. The idea of air and breath and spirit are linked almost universally as the “breath of life,” and even the word “spirit” comes from the Latin word spiritus which translates as “breath.” Similarly, the word for spirit in Hebrew is ruach, which translates to “wind”; in Sanskrit the word prana is the word used for life force and translates as “breath.”
True Will: Our Divine Purpose
The role and mission that the Higher Self is looking to fulfill is its purpose of incarnating onto the planet. This higher purpose—the desire of the Higher Self—is often referred to as the True Will, meaning the primary drive of the Higher Self for this incarnation. Occultist Aleister Crowley coined the term True Will. Being in alignment with your True Will doesn’t mean that life will be easy or free of conflict, and not everyone will discover or fulfill their True Will in a lifetime. Your True Will is not one singular thing to accomplish, but I think it’s better to think of it as a journey instead of a destination. Being in alignment with your Higher Self is like having a compass that will help direct you along that journey. To come to know our True Will, we must transcend the ego and the Middle Self’s desires. Crowley referred to the desires and wishes of the ego and external motivations as the “lust of results” and stated that True Will should be fulfilled without resistance or the lust of results.
When we are in alignment with our Higher Self, we begin to have direction in life and are fulfilling our True Will. True Will is the conversation between Spirit and the Higher Self. The Higher Self speaks through synchronicity, symbolism, and revelations. We come to know the nature of our True Will through aligning with the Higher Self. When you are in alignment with your Higher Self, you can express and experience Divine Love and divine grace—or in the terminology of witchcraft, “perfect love and perfect trust.” We experience deep states of peace, harmony, and union with other people.
The closest psychological parallels that the Higher Self has would be a combination of Freud’s theory of the superego and Carl Jung’s theory of the Collective Unconscious. While the Higher Self isn’t the superego or Collective itself, these are aspects of the Higher Self that help us to understand what the Higher Self is. The superego is composed of two primary aspects, an ideal self (a perfected sense of ego) and a conscience. The superego tries to control the id’s impulses and behaviors that are out of alignment with the superego’s sense of morality; it may relay feelings of pride for embodying our morals and may cause a sense of guilt for disregarding our morals.
The superego is always striving to be the ideal versions of ourselves when it comes to being a “good person.” While I am not entirely of the mind that the superego’s conscience or striving to be the perfected ideal version of a righteous person accurately embodies the Higher Self, I think if we replace these with the idea of always attempting to embody our True Will and for our ego and id to come into alignment of the superego, we are closer to the essence of the Higher Self’s nature. The Collective Unconscious is the part of our consciousness which is not formed by experience and is a universal transcendental knowledge which all people are tapped into, albeit unconsciously, that can be likened to the Akashic Records and the Divine Mind.
Going back to the earlier metaphor provided by Freud of the Lower Self being a wild horse that the Middle Self is training, we have a similar metaphor being used in Plato’s Phaedrus, in which he refers to the soul as made up of three parts: a charioteer, and two winged horses.31 The charioteer, like in our earlier analogy, is the Middle Self, the conscious aspect of us trying to direct two very different aspects of ourselves. One horse is completely of divine origin. This parallels with our idea of the Higher Self. This winged horse wants to assist us in flying directly into the abode of the gods and the path of enlightenment, as is the nature of True Will. The second horse, though, is partially a normal horse of earth and as such has earthly desires and appetites, and can be unruly and stubborn, which fits great with our notion of the Lower Self. When the two horses and the charioteer are not in alignment they have difficulty moving in any one clear direction, because their will isn’t unified. The Higher Self knows exactly where we should be going, but cannot get there unless the rest of our parts are working in alignment.
Witchcraft as a Priesthood
It’s through alignment with the Higher Self that one is able to better understand and commune with deity and higher spirits in whatever form that they may experience it. Many witches are also priests and priestesses of different gods and spirits, while others may just be focused on being a priest of their Higher Self. Regardless of what spirits or deities a priest or priestess serves, they are first and foremost servants of humanity, since every human is divine. By servant, I don’t mean a slave or any connotation that brings up, but rather that priesthood is a path of service. A priest or priestess guides, directs, and counsels others. A priest or priestess of the Craft holds the door open to seekers just as the door was opened for them. A priest or priestess holds the space for healing. A priest or priestess helps point others in the right direction without telling them what to do.
A priest or priestess of the Craft differs from priests and priestesses of other religions and traditions in the sense that the mission is to lift other souls up instead of holding sway and dominance over them. A priest or priestess of the Craft empowers and helps others find their own path to healing and connection with the Divine, instead of dictating dogma to those they are serving. In fact, most priests and priestesses of the Craft don’t agree 100 percent with one another. This is bound to happen when there’s no central authority when it comes to witchcraft; everyone has a different relationship and connection to magick, and everyone has a different True Will. Fiction writer Terry Pratchett hilariously wrote, “Some people think ‘coven’ is a word for a group of witches, and it’s true that’s what the dictionary says. But the real word for a group of witches is ‘an argument.’ ” 32 If you interact with the larger Pagan or witchcraft community, you’re bound to find strongly opinionated people arguing about their points of views and beliefs. A priest or priestess of the Craft is also a bridge, a bridge acting as an intermediary of the gods and spirits and humanity to create good relations and connections with one another for the highest good.
In my perspective, a priest of the Craft walks the crooked path between the left-hand path of personal power, sovereignty, and self-service, and the right-hand path of healing, serving others, and empowering others. It means that the witch is sovereign as an authority of his or her own spirituality, not an authority over the spirituality of others nor has another jurisdiction regarding personal gnosis of another. It is likely that you will come across the terms “high priest” or “high priestess” in witchcraft too, and that has different meanings based on which tradition of witchcraft that individual follows.
When studying in the Temple of Witchcraft, I had a conversation with Christopher Penczak, who was my mentor at the time. He explained that the most fundamental difference between the two is that a priest or priestess of the Craft is one who conducts rituals and develops magickal skills for a personal relationship with deities, powers, energies, and spirits; they are ultimately responsible for their own reality and self. A high priest or high priestess, on the other hand, takes the role of working with others, and takes responsibility for a part of the greater whole. Also traditionally, a high priest or high priestess is the priest or priestess in service of other priests and priestesses that are learning and working under that high priest’s or high priestess’s tradition.
Does being a priest or priestess mean that witchcraft is a religion? No. Witchcraft is not inherently a religion, though it can be for some. Witchcraft is more of a spirituality, or rather how one relates to the world of spirit, and that’s going to be unique and individual for each witch. Witchcraft can also be religious in some cases depending on how you interpret the word religion. For example, in the tradition I’m in, the Sacred Fires Tradition of Witchcraft, I view the higher levels of it as a religion in the sense that the priests and priestesses all have a common language, understanding, and interaction with the gods of our tradition on a mutual level of understanding despite our individual personal experiences when alone. We approach the gods and the mysteries in a prescribed way so that we’re all on the same page and same wavelength as each other when working together as a group. By having a common theological, philosophical, and cosmological model that we share, one could see this as a religious model. We also view ourselves as ministers of the gods and goddesses of our tradition, acting as intermediaries between them and our people.
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Self-Possession: Invoking the Higher Self
The Higher Self can be invoked to learn your mission, life purpose, and True Will within this lifetime, and to commune with deities and angelic entities. I invoke my Higher Self when I’m feeling lost and need divine guidance in life. The Higher Self can also be aligned with for purposes of growth and development as a witch, psychic, and human being. The Higher Self can also be invoked when you’re dealing with entities or situations that are dangerous and you need a stronger authoritative power. The more you come to know your Higher Self and learn to embody it, the more authority you will have over unbalanced energies and entities. Energy tends to want to adjust to other energies that are more dominant or prevalent in the area, as energy seeks to conform in resonance with other energy. A high vibrational and balanced resonance will either make lower energy flee or balance it out in harmony.
Begin by tuning in. Bring your awareness to your upper cauldron. Keep breathing, and focus your attention on a spark of prismatic and opalescent white flame refracting all the colors of the rainbow within its whiteness just above your head. This is your Higher Self, the indestructible holy aspect of your divinity. It begins to pour down into your upper cauldron, filling it and overflowing the cauldron, pouring all around and within you. Solidify the experience with the invocation of the Higher Self by saying:
“Higher Self, the Holy One, Made of Light and Breath,
Divine Spark, Bornless One, Never Knowing Death,
Seraphic Soul, Angelic Role, Shining in the Heavens,
Ascended One, Enlightened One, Master of Quintessence,
The Unconfined, Mastermind, Bestower of My True Will,
Who Understands, Hidden Hand, the Mover of the Mill.
I call you forth to descend now as a holy part of me!
I call you forth to descend now, overlighting me!”
To return back to your normal Middle Self consciousness, just perform the Closing Down exercises.
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is a concept coined by Carl Jung which he defined as a meaningful phenomenon whereby a link between two events without a cause-and-effect explanation appears to be coincidental on the surface, yet holds great significance.33 Jung believed that the Universe, through the Collective Unconscious, was constantly trying to talk to us through synchronicity. Both psychics and witches know that the Universe is not random but instead has patterns, cycles, structure, and most of all, meaning.
An example of synchronicity was several years back when I was living in California. At the time I was working with my father in his plumbing business. One night I had an intense experience with a spirit who took the form of an owl. The experience was so surreal yet vivid that I wondered whether I had had a dream of experiencing an owl spirit or if it had been some sort of creation of my own imagination. The next day as we approached the first client’s door I noticed that the doormat was an owl. I thought that was an interesting coincidence.
However, as the day unfolded every single house that we went to had either an owl statue, doormat, wind chime, sign, or some other representation of an owl. I was pretty amazed and realized that this was a sign from the Universe that the experience was real. While thinking about how strange it was that every single house had an owl of some sort, I came back to my apartment and there was an advertisement flyer on my door with an illustration of an owl. Over the years, that spirit has been my closest spiritual contact and ally.
As psychic witches, it’s important to be aware of and open to moments of synchronicity. It’s equally important to not consciously force synchronistic meaning in things. For example, there are many people who believe that 11:11 is a sign from above, which perhaps it may be. However, I’ve also seen that a lot of folks who believe this are constantly looking for 11:11. Around 11:00 a.m. or 11:00 p.m. they’ll start repetitively looking at their watches until it’s 11:11 and then take that as some sort of sign. Synchronicity is more spontaneous and unexpected than actively seeking out patterns where there may not be any.
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True Will Synchronicity Meditation
In this guided meditation, you will be meeting with your Higher Self to receive a symbol that it will use in your daily life through synchronicity to show you if you are in alignment with your True Will, and a symbol to show you when you are straying greatly from it.
Tune in. Invoke your Higher Self. Close your eyes and envision that a heavy fog begins filling the area. The fog begins obscuring everything around you. The fog fades and you find that you’re standing in front of a castle. Take a moment to really take in what the castle looks like to you. What material is it made out of? What does it look like? The castle is strikingly beautiful and vaguely familiar, though you can’t place it. You know that whoever owns this castle is a powerful individual.
You step forward toward the enormous castle doors. As you approach the doors they begin to swing open, inviting you to step inside. Inside the castle, you enter a great hall with beautiful and enormous stained glass windows on every wall leaking in colored light everywhere. There’s a regal red carpet leading to the back of the hall and at the end is a magnificent throne. High above the throne is a mirror suspended in the air and covered in silk cloth. Down around the throne are entities composed of light. These are your spirit allies and guides, some that may be known to you and some that are not.
You approach the throne and sit upon it.
The throne is comfortable and thrums with power. Slowly the throne begins to levitate with you upon it. You rise higher and higher until you’re positioned directly in front of the silk-covered mirror that is suspended in the air. As you look at the mirror, the silk cloth lifts off the mirror. You gaze into the mirror and see your reflection, but instead of seeing the face you’re accustomed to, you see the reflection of your Higher Self in its image. Take a moment to see how your Higher Self is presenting itself to you at this time.
You ask the reflection of your Higher Self to give you a symbol to show you when you are in alignment with the path of your True Will. The reflection on the mirror shifts and changes and you are shown a symbol. What is it? This is the symbol that your Higher Self will communicate to you through synchronicity in your daily life that you are on the correct path.
You thank your Higher Self and ask for a symbol to show you that you have strayed greatly from your True Will. Once again the mirror shifts and changes and you are shown another symbol. Take a moment to observe this symbol. It is a warning sign that your Higher Self will show you through synchronicity in your daily life that you are straying far from your True Will. Thank your Higher Self for this symbol. As you do, the silk cloth covers the mirror and you find yourself upon your throne descending back down to the ground.
Stand up and walk back down the regal red carpet and out the doors of the castle. Once more a fog begins swirling around you obscuring everything in sight and you find yourself back where you began this meditation. Open your eyes and write down your experiences in your journal.
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Spell to Transmute Blockages toward True Will
In this spell, we’re using sympathetic magick (sometimes also called imitative magick). Sympathetic magick is when you’re using spell items to metaphorically represent something else. Sympathetic magick is one of the oldest magickal practices, and some believe that an example of it goes as far back as early man painting images of successful hunting on cave walls to ensure a bountiful hunt.
For this spell, all you will need is a small bowl, a small tea light candle, and about four ice cubes. In this spell, we’re using the ice to represents the blockages in your life that are preventing you from being in alignment with your True Will. The tea light represents you and the light will represent your Higher Self’s intervention to not just remove the obstacles and blockages but to transmute that energy to assist you in coming into alignment with your path. All energy can be transmuted according to the Hermetic Principle of Vibration, which states that all energy has the potential and ability to be changed.
Tune in. Invoke your Higher Self. Place the tea light in the center of the bowl. Place the four ice cubes in the bowl to surround the tea light.
Focus on the divine light around yourself from your Higher Self invocation. Firmly speak:
“I light this candle with the power of my Higher Self.”
Light the candle, feeling the over-lighting of your Higher Self infusing the flame. Feeling the divine authority of your Higher Self hold your hands over the bowl with the tea light and ice cubes and firmly state:
“As the light melts the ice, the magick begins,
Transmutes blockages without and within,
Assists me in rising above to now fulfill,
The divine unfolding of my holy True Will.”
As the ice melts, the tea light should rise higher and higher up until it’s being supported by all those previous blockages. When the ice is melted remove the tea light and dispose of it. Pour the water onto soil so that the earth may gain nourishment from it and break down and transmute those blockages even further.
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Universal Unity
This meditation will help strengthen your spiritual powers by connecting you more strongly with everything in the Universe, and helping you to learn to identify and relate with it. This will enable your psychic powers to flow more easily as you realize there’s a common aspect that you share with everyone and everything. It will help you with your magick as you understand your interconnection with everything else as self and your ability to alter it as you would your body. Think of this exercise as a great workout to help build all those spiritual muscles to be strong and effective.
Tune in. Invoke your Higher Self. Close your eyes and focus on the prismatic white light above your head that is over-lighting your physical body. Focus on everything within the light of your Higher Self’s halo. Your Higher Self is a part of Source. All of you is a part of that Source as well: your body, your emotions, and your thoughts. Take a moment to open to the Divine Love of Source, a feeling of unconditional love for existing, a love without judgment but just for being. Mentally think to yourself, “This is me and I am that—powerful, divine, and united in love.”
Feel the Divine Love strengthen the Higher Self’s over-lighting halo. The light grows brighter and encompasses an area beyond your body—five feet in every direction. Repeat the process of mentally taking in all that exists within everything the light touches and repeat to yourself, “This is me and I am that—powerful, divine, and united in love.” Keep repeating this process extending your light more and more in every direction in larger and larger increments while reciting the affirmation. Keep expanding it until it’s lighting your entire space, your country, your continent, the planet, the solar system, the galaxy, the Universe, and so on for as long as you can imagine. When it’s reached the farthest reaches you can possibly fathom of reality, feel the light withdraw back to its normal glow around your body. When you are ready, open your eyes.
29. Dennis William Hauck, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Alchemy (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2008), 99–100.
30. Christopher Penczak, The Three Rays: Power, Love and Wisdom in the Garden of the Gods (Salem, NH: Copper Cauldron Publishing, 2010), 63.
31. Plato, Phaedrus, edited by R. Hackforth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 69–77.
32. Terry Prachett, Wintersmith (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2006), 94.
33. Eugene Pascal, Jung to Live By: A Guide to the Practical Application of Jungian Principles for Everyday Life (New York, NY: Warner Books, 1992), 201.