Form Follows Function:
Toward a Consent-
Based Magical Praxis
In 1896, American architect Louis Sullivan published an almost mystically poetic essay on, of all things, the architecture of office buildings. This essay is largely remembered today for its explication of what would become a standard design principle in modern architecture:
Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling workhorse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. […] It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul …83
At the risk of mixing metaphors, I submit that the concept of “form follows function” has insights that go far beyond designing buildings. By looking at our magical and devotional practices through the lens of form and function, we can bring our praxis in line with our desired goals and our stated principles.
In Chapter 3, I wrote, “just as sex without consent is rape, sex positivity without consent positivity is rape culture.” Much of this chapter is about unpacking that statement and pointing a way toward a magical and devotional practice rooted in consent. To do that, we’ll have to start by defining what we mean by consent, and by examining some of the problems that the esoteric community has with the idea of consent.
All too often, a chill sweeps the room the moment you bring up consent. Some people freeze up, others get visibly uncomfortable, and still others glaze over and zone out. I’ll confess, I find this perplexing and troubling. Consent shouldn’t be a boring, conversation-killing topic all knotted up in confusion and accusations of social justice-warriorship, and it definitely shouldn’t be something we’re afraid to discuss. Consent should be as basic a concept as adding two and two to get four, as comforting as a favorite shirt, and at least as conversationally stimulating as an episode of Game of Thrones. And yet, we find that people get into raging arguments about consent and express all manner of confusion about what it even means, much less how to negotiate it.
Let’s make this really simple. Consent means assenting, agreeing, saying yes. Why on earth would this ever be a controversial subject? I suspect the answer lies in the issue of power: who has it, who can exercise it, and how we feel about it.
Consent is a funny thing. It has the potential to start or end relationships, to create or ruin lives, to rupture or repair communities. It’s a magical word, consent. It has power. Consent is power, and human beings have a deeply ambivalent relationship to power. We crave it, usually for ourselves, and we fear it, usually in others. We love the freedom and safety it can provide, and we dread the responsibility and accountability it incurs. Consent is power, and power is complicated.
Unfortunately, there’s also power in the inverse of consent, in its absence. That’s what rape is, after all: nonconsensual sexual aggression to assert power over someone. One of the most heinous things about sexual assault is that the perpetrator intentionally disregards and violates the will of the victim, stripping them of power at the most intimate level imaginable. It’s a violation of another’s agency, for the express purpose of the perpetrator getting what they want from the victim. It’s the reduction of another person to an object, a commodity to be used. It’s an attitude that should have no place in any kind of civilized society, much less in a community that claims to foster spiritual growth and personal empowerment.
Some years ago, I took a leave of absence from magic, witchcraft, and Paganism. One of the main reasons was my growing dissatisfaction with what I perceived as an unresolved, unaddressed set of ethical dilemmas in the communities of which I was part. The dominant discourse in those communities promulgated what I saw as some incredibly ill-informed, unhealthy, and even actively dangerous ideas about power. Power was deemed a moral good in itself with no accountability or honesty around who held power, how it was exercised, and to what end. (It is not much different from mainstream culture, really.)
Rather than engage with those problems, I took a break. To my surprise, when I reengaged with the community, some things had actually changed in the discourse around power, and some of the issues I had found so repellent were being discussed, both privately and publicly. To my horror, it had taken the revelation of some genuinely awful abuses and betrayals of trust to bring those changes into being. (I won’t get into any specifics here; they’re not the focus of this piece.) To my utter lack of surprise, some things had failed to change. The community still had predators, and people were still making excuses for them. Some people still treated other people as fonts of power to be drained and cast aside: “batteries for their betters,” as I once heard it phrased. Some people still believed they were entitled to other people’s time, energy, attention, and bodies.
Some of what I’ve just mentioned is human nature; we have an unfortunate tendency to believe that we should get to have what we want—that we are entitled to the thing we want—merely because we want it. This tendency is understandable in newborn children, whose wants tend to revolve around basic survival needs, or in toddlers, whose brains simply aren’t developed enough to understand that other people are just as real as they are and have needs just as much as they do. When children leave the toddler stage, however, we start expecting them to understand that their wants and needs don’t automatically trump other people’s. By the time they’ve reached what we call adulthood, we have a general expectation that they’ll have grasped this concept well enough at least to get through a day without stealing other people’s lunches from the work fridge.
Unfortunately, based on personal experience, this assumption isn’t as well founded as we might hope. The reality is that while most people are decent enough, a statistically non-trivial number of people are willing to do things they would themselves define as morally and ethically wrong if there were little to no chance of being caught. Worse, a non-trivial number of people would do things most of us would define as morally and ethically wrong—such as, say, sexually assaulting another person—because they don’t see those actions as having a moral and ethical value.
Moral values are not universal, nor are their ethical applications. While many things about what we call civilization merit criticism, one of its great benefits (when done well) is that it allows people with varying sets of moral and ethical frameworks to exist more or less in peace, mostly by demanding that everyone adhere to the same basic set of externally imposed rules—what we call laws—which may or may not have any particular grounding in morals or ethics. The point is, we all get to live in relative harmony because I agree not to punch you in the face and steal your phone, and you agree not to kick me in the stomach and steal my wallet. You respect my right to hold power over myself, I respect your right to hold power over yourself, and we call it civilization.
All of it relies on consent: on respecting other people’s autonomy and power, and owning our own. If consent isn’t the basis of our interactions with other people, individually or corporately, we have no right to claim to be mature human beings, much less to claim membership in any sort of civilized society. By the same token, if those of us who work with gods, spirits, powers, and our fellow practitioners aren’t basing our communities and our praxis in consent, we have no claim to any sort of spiritual advancement or wisdom. We’re merely overgrown toddlers who haven’t learned that other people, other beings—human or other, corporeal or not, living or dead or something else—don’t exist for our convenience, to sate our desires. They have their own agency, just as we do, and understanding that agency should be the core of any interaction, magical or mundane.
This notion does fly somewhat in the face of conventional wisdom in the magical community, which often tends toward what I call the conjure-and-command mentality: if I say the magic words and do the magic dance, the beings I’m summoning are required to show up and do what I tell them to. It’s common to think of this as the model on which grimoiric magic operates, where demons are bound with terrible threats before being ordered to find treasure or something, but the most common example of conjure-and-
command I know is found in almost every Wicca-influenced Pagan group out there: I say the invocation in the proper direction and draw the appropriate sign with the correct tool, and the Watchtower (or Guardian, or whatever you call it) will show up to protect that quarter because … that’s what you do. In both cases, we’re assuming that beings we work with will show up when we call them, that they’ll do what we tell them to do. We’re assuming consent, in other words.
To What End, at What Cost?
It gets complicated quickly, this business of consent, doesn’t it? Fortunately, there are ways to work through that complexity.
It may be useful when entering into an interaction—whether with gods, spirits, or our fellow human practitioners—to ask ourselves what we’re looking to get out of it, and what we’re willing to put into it. My shorthand for these questions is “to what end?” and “at what cost?” It may seem overly transactional or even mercenary, but I find it tends to elicit a much greater degree of honesty in my interactions. That may not be exactly comfortable at times, but if we want to see things as they truly are, we have to be honest about who we truly are to ourselves at the very least. Similarly, if we want to manifest our will, we have to know what we actually want and what we’re willing to do to achieve it. Answering “to what end” and “at what cost” shifts us away from treating our interactions as avenues of conflict and dominance, and instead approaches each interaction as a negotiation in which all parties have agency, autonomy, and an opportunity to become invested in the outcome. (For more on answering “to what end,” see the exercise “Answering the Grail Question” on page 256.)
Venues of Interaction and Consent in Praxis
Making the transition from dominance to mutuality is fundamentally what consent is about. If we want to get a yes, we have to be willing to accept a no. In fact, the ability to say no is what makes saying yes so meaningful and so powerful. Remember, the definition we’re using for consent is “freely-given assent or approval related to a specific action or course of action.” Thus, I can give (or withhold) my consent for medical treatment, having my hair cut, or having sex with someone. Similarly, a medical professional, a hairstylist, and a potential sexual partner can all consent (or decline to consent) to interact with me in the aforementioned ways.
Consent doesn’t pertain to situations which don’t involve action, nor to actions which don’t involve my person in some way. I cannot give or withhold consent to how people think of me, for instance, nor to how they speak of me to other people. I cannot consent to being white, having freckles, or having been born in the United States; those aren’t things I do, and they don’t involve action between myself and another person.
Consent can only exist between two or more parties within an interpersonal interaction, all of whom possess moral agency. This is a key concept, one that some folks might not know by name, so it’s worthwhile to take a quick sidebar here. Agency itself simply means the ability to act or effect something. This isn’t unique to humans, nor even to living creatures; machines act, as do corporations, weather systems, and other noncorporeal agents. In philosophy, this concept expands into the concept of moral agency, the ability to choose to act or not act based on moral values of right and wrong, which also incorporates notions of responsibility and accountability. So consent exists only as a negotiation between parties that have the ability to make choices and take actions.
It’s worth taking a moment here and briefly outlining the different sorts of consent we’re likely to encounter in our communities and our practice.
Express consent is an affirmative stated clearly and unambiguously through words or actions. This can be an enthusiastic yes, a signed statement, a nod, or some other action to indicate that the person in question has heard the request, understood it, and is responding in agreement or affirmation.
Informed consent refers to express consent given by someone who has demonstrated a clear understanding of the request, including the surrounding circumstances and possible consequences.
Implied consent is the assumption that consent can be inferred by participation in an activity or situation or is implicit in the circumstances of a given situation. An example of the first sort of implied consent is the assumption of consent to being touched when voluntarily playing a game of tag. As an example of the second sort, medical professionals might provide treatment to an unconscious person under the assumption that, were they able to respond, they would give consent for treatment.
The “freely given” part of our definition of consent is important and shouldn’t be glossed over. Consent is agreement, but not all agreements involve consent. Some, in fact, involve coercion, which is just about as far as you can get from consent without crossing into overt physical force. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept (a vanishingly small number, I hope), coercion means forcing someone, overtly or implicitly, to do what you want them to do by threatening them with some unpleasant outcome if they refuse. The nature of the threat can vary widely, from social stigma to actual violence, depending on the context of the coercion. (As I am foursquare in favor of consent in all things, I hope it goes without saying that I find coercion anathematic.)
Unless one is a hermit, most of human existence involves interactions between two or more parties possessed of moral agency. Within the context of magical and polytheist practice, however, there are a number of scenarios particular within our context that merit some consideration, especially in relation to consent. Below are a few, along with some relevant questions we can and should ask ourselves.
Between working partners.
These are the people with whom one shares ritual work: coven-mates, circling partners, fellow lodge members, and so on. Is everyone in the ritual space on the same page—figuratively or literally—about what we’re doing in the ritual? Does everyone have buy-in to both the outcome and the methods? If there are roles assigned to specific people, are they aware of what’s expected of them in that role and freely willing to perform those duties?
Between lay participants.
Here, I mean the people with whom one shares ritual space, perhaps in a public ritual setting without being celebrants or operators in the ritual. This tends to be a pretty flat, even power dynamic, but there are still issues of consent to consider. Are my actions impinging on other people’s ability to have their own ritual experience? Am I attempting to make someone else part of my experience without their consent?
Between caster and receiver.
I’m referring here to the person performing a spell, prayer, or work of some kind, and the one who receives it. Is the receiver aware that the caster is working on them? Are they a willing recipient of the caster’s magio-spiritual intent? In cases where the recipient is unaware and unable to respond, as with some circumstances involving healing magic, is the caster relying on the concept of implied consent, as mentioned earlier?
Between summoner and spirit.
I’m using the most generic terms I can to refer to the person who is requesting the attention and effort of a being of some sort and the being they’re calling. For the former, we could substitute a number of terms: invoker, evoker, priest/ess, magician, witch, spirit worker, and so on. Similarly, we could identify the latter as demons, angels, ghosts, elementals, guardians, and others. In any case, what is the relationship we’re assuming between ourselves and the beings we summon, stir, and call up? Are we superior beings binding them to our will, possibly with threats of immolation or torture? Are we inferior beings supplicating ourselves and submitting our own wills and power to beings we hope will be nice to us? Are we assuming that the beings we summon are willing to be summoned, and to do what we want?
Between devotee and deity.
The issues at work between devotees and their gods are similar to the previous dynamic, but far more complex … enough that it’s covered in greater length in the following chapter.
Between initiator and candidate.
The complexity of power dynamics and consent between seekers of mysteries and the gatekeepers of tradition or those who hold the power to grant or deny access to those mysteries are complicated by the secretive nature of many initiatory traditions. Is the candidate aware enough of what may be asked of them, and of any potential risks, that they can give informed consent? Is there an element of coercion in the ritual drama of the initiatory ceremony? If so, is it necessary, and why?
Between teacher and student.
This relationship is one of the oldest in human experience: the one who seeks knowledge, and the one who gives knowledge. This relationship has a hierarchy built into it: the teacher is the one with the power, expressed as possession of knowledge, which they impart or withhold from the student. If I’m a student, am I shouldering my part of the work of learning? Am I honoring myself and my teacher, or am I trying to subvert the boundaries around our roles to advance my position? If I’m the teacher, am I using my power equitably, or am I trying to manipulate my student? Am I teaching my student what they want to know, or what I think they need to know? Am I utilizing the power dynamic between us to inappropriately cross social or sexual boundaries?
Not for Teacher: Addressing Sexual
Power Inequity in Mentorship
Especially in light of this book’s subject matter, that last point is worth spending a little time expanding. The inherent hierarchy of the teacher/student relationship derives from a power inequity and consequently creates an inherent kind of dependence; the student trusts and relies on the teacher to educate them, to help them empower themselves. There’s a whole body of academic literature discussing the issue of power dynamics between teachers and students. Those dynamics are further complicated by issues of sexuality and gender, and even more so by their intersection with magical and devotional praxis. At a certain point in discussing sexuality and spirituality, it becomes impossible to avoid the subject of sexual relationships between seekers and mentors, students and teachers, disciples and masters, or whatever names you apply to those seeking knowledge and power and those who purport to offer it. Many traditions and teachers explicitly prohibit any kind of sexual contact between students and teachers, citing the inherent power difference between the two roles as an inherently unhealthy dynamic, while others suggest that there is no other way for students to learn sexual techniques of magical or devotional praxis. It’d be one thing if this was a subject about which we could all agree to disagree, but the reality is that this is a topic guaranteed to set fire to your next social gathering of practitioners, largely because no one can agree about the fundamental ethical issues at the heart of the question.
Having been on both sides of the teacher/student power dynamic in the context of traditions with an explicitly sexual component, I’ve had the opportunity to engage with this issue along multiple axes as well as a front-row seat while others engaged with it, to varying results. It’s from that perspective that I’m speaking when I say that it’s simply not possible to have an equitable, consensual sexual relationship in that context.
In other words, if you’re a teacher, don’t have sex with your students, and if you’re a student, run from any teacher who says you have to have sex with them.
To offer an illustration by way of pop culture, there are reasons why “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by the Police is objectively a better song than Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” Regardless of one’s feelings about Eddie van Halen’s guitar skills, the narratives of these two songs are in completely different artistic galaxies. While they both explore the sexual element of power inequity in teacher/student relationships, the former is a tense, queasy story about a stuffy English teacher’s socio-sexual paranoia about being targeted by a Lolita-esque schoolgirl with lascivious designs on his body, while the latter is a leering paean to the permanent state of sexual arousal teenage boys are assumed to have over hot young female teachers.
What’s curious is that both songs implicitly acknowledge the taboo of those relationships, drawing on an ambivalence that goes back as far as classical Greece, if not further.84 In the Van Halen song, that taboo is played for naughty humor, whereas the Police mine it for drama. Nevertheless, both songs are underscoring what we all understand on some level to be an inappropriate situation.
Some people reading this may be responding with words to the effect of, “But my situation is different!” Dear reader, I promise you: it’s not. It’s precisely the same. People concoct all kinds of justifications for sexual relationships between students and teachers—we’re both adults, the student initiated the relationship, we’re being open and honest about everything, it’s true love, and so on—but all of those justifications merely underscore the reality that there’s an inherent power inequity in such relationships. Any trust-based relationship involves a power dynamic of dependency: therapist and client, doctor and patient, teacher and student. One person is the gatekeeper: the one who holds the keys to the kingdom and provides or denies access to the mysteries. That’s power. The other person is dependent on the gatekeeper to hold that power and provide that access: to wellness, for patients and clients, or to wisdom, for students. It’s not difficult to see how easily that dynamic complicates questions of consent. We can dance around this as long as we want but the bottom line is that consent isn’t possible in a situation where one person has power and the other one doesn’t.
If you’re in a position of any kind of authority over someone—teacher, mentor, priest/ess, whatever—you have no business being sexually involved with them in any way while in that relationship. If you find that you’re having sexual feelings toward a student, you have two honorable choices as their teacher: you can redirect your feelings away from sex or romance, or you can find another teacher for that student. Similarly, if you find that a student has developed sexual feelings for you, you can either gently redirect them, responding to their overtures with nothing more than friendship and professionalism, or you can hand their instruction over to another teacher.
Of course, if you’ve developed feelings for someone you’re teaching, you may want to believe there are other options, that you can find a way to express and explore those sexual feelings with this student without a bad outcome. Many other teachers have felt the same way—and in the vast majority of situations, it doesn’t work out well. Even in the best circumstances, you’re still engaged in a violation of that student’s trust and therefore gambling with their emotional and spiritual well-being.
Likewise, if you’re in any sort of subordinate position—student, disciple, coven member, and so on—to someone with authority over your spiritual or magical education, there is no good reason to be in a sexual relationship with them. It’s not uncommon for students to develop sexual feelings for a teacher, but it’s never a good idea to act on them. If you’re in this position, I’d again suggest redirecting your feelings away from sexuality and romance or explaining to your teacher that you’re not able to be in relationship with them. If possible, ask for a referral to another teacher. If your teacher expresses sexual interest in you, it’s important to remember that they are in a position of power over you, and by asking you to engage with them on a sexual level, they are violating a boundary of trust. This relationship is not viable, and I would encourage you in the strongest possible terms to consider leaving that person’s tutelage immediately.
Now, I say “redirect your feelings” as though it’s as simple as just deciding not to feel something; emotions don’t work quite like that. We can, however, choose how we relate to our emotions and how to express them. In fact, we always do. Unless you’re experiencing symptoms of mental illness, the experience of being overwhelmed by our feelings is a lie we tell ourselves, an abdication of responsibility we pretend is a loss of control because it makes us feel better to say we “lost control” than to admit that we consciously chose to do something we knew was unethical. If we’re going to work magic and walk with the gods, we don’t have the luxury of “losing control,” or of lying to ourselves and everyone around us to avoid responsibility for our choices.
Boundaries Are Magic!
Looking back at the venues of interaction and consent described above, one of the key recurring themes is the establishment of boundaries of acceptable behavior and action. These social and emotional boundaries can be established by means as simple as stating unequivocally what you do or don’t want, or as complex as negotiation between members of a group. In expression, they can be as explicit as the written code of conduct for a large-scale event or as unspoken as a guest list written to include or exclude certain individuals. Establishing boundaries is as magical an act as the scribing of a circle for sorcerous protection, and, like any magical act, it’s important to have a firm grounding in your own sense of self. After all, as flight attendants remind us every time we fly, we have to secure our own oxygen masks before assisting anyone else with theirs.
It’s easy to be caught up in the moment, to be swayed by others’ emotions or glamour, or to feel persuaded that our own boundaries are somehow restrictive or unfair. In such situations, it’s helpful to be able to reestablish and reinforce our own boundaries in the moment both emotionally and magically as well as to remind ourselves of our own power, autonomy, and sovereignty.
The following exercise is a tool I use in those situations, or in any circumstances that call for establishing or bolstering my personal boundaries on the fly.
— Exercise —
Expanding Your Sphere
For this exercise, you don’t need any tools or even a special place to work. All you need is a couple of minutes, a few deep breaths, and the ability to visualize.
Wherever you are, take a moment to interrupt whatever thought processes are going through your head. I do this by literally halting physically, or by saying or thinking “STOP.” Take a slow, deep breath and hold it for a moment, gathering any tension in your body, then exhale slowly and release that tension. Repeat this twice more, each time gathering the tension in your body and releasing it.
While continuing to breathe slowly and evenly, focus on the center of your body, wherever you feel that to be. For some of you, this will be your heart, while for others, this will be your lower belly, a couple of inches below your navel. (Both of these are loci of power known as dantian in traditional Chinese medicine, with the lower also known as the hara or tanden in Japanese martial arts and traditional medicine.) Envision a point of light in your center: white, or blue, or any other color that speaks to you of protection, strength, and safety. This point of light is your own vital power, what I’ve called eros. Breathe into that point of light and see it grow brighter and more brilliant within you as you breathe.
When you’re ready, take a deep, deliberate breath, hold it for a moment, then exhale slowly into that coruscating point of light and see it expand in all directions, becoming a hazy sphere or nimbus of light and color surrounding you. It doesn’t have to be large; it can be no more than an inch or two beyond the surface of your skin. Nonetheless, the nimbus you’ve projected around yourself is a clear boundary, a sphere of demarcation between you and not-you, pushing out influences that aren’t of your own making or invitation, leaving behind only yourself and what you’ve chosen to bring into your emotional and spiritual space.
This exercise is what I think of as quick-and-dirty magic meant for practical use in the everyday world to reassert your emotional and magical space. With practice, this technique can become second nature, an almost instantaneous ingrained response to unwanted feelings of incursion or imposition. I’ve used this technique to good effect while walking through a crowded room, stuck in traffic in my car, or in the middle of a heated conversation. You can also explore ways to strengthen, expand, and contract your boundaries as needed.
As ever, I encourage you to make some notes in your journal about your experiences with this technique. In particular, you might write down how you visualize the spark in your center and any sensations or emotions you felt as you expanded the spark into the sphere or nimbus around you.