Introductions - Your Profession vs. Your Practice. Analgesic - Sep 03, 2008 - 08:27 AM Post subject: Your Profession vs. Your Practice.
The simple question being as follows; Does your career reflect your more 'esoteric' interests?
For example, I know of a few people who have made their career a reflection of their path: Practitioners of eastern medicine (acupuncture etc), yoga instructors, psychotherapists, artists of all mediums etc.
I know many others who would rather keep the two strictly *polarized.
Working 9-5 office jobs or working freelance jobs that enable them to pay the rent and take care of those basic needs ensuring a solid foundation to continue the 'great work'.
What is your profession?
Does your career directly reflect your more esoteric interests or would you fall under the more polarized category? Are you happy with the juxtaposition of the two? How does this relationship reflect your Thelemic viewpoints and/or other philosophies?
Personally I am a college student taking things slow, exploring heavily in my own time whilst gradually trying to tie the more esoteric and the more traditional education together.
(Admin: please feel free to move this thread into a more appropriate sub-forum.)Camlion - Sep 03, 2008 - 04:50 PM Post subject: Re: Your Profession vs. Your Practice.
93 Analgesic,
An interesting and important topic. Each of us has our own Will, and each requires a means to support, sustain and secure the accomplishment of that Will. The ways available are many and diverse but, certainly, the closer the Will and the way are in proximity, the better. Otherwise, our time and energy are divided and, to some extent, diverted, dispersed or distracted from the object of the Will itself. This seems a necessary evil, in many cases. Crowley himself is perhaps an example of someone who mostly refused to compromise, as he saw it, and thus was often without adequate material resources to accomplish the various stages of his Great Work. He had few 'day jobs,' unless they were directly related to the primary function of his Will. This might be an interesting thread.
93 93/93
Camlionthe_real_simon_iff - Sep 03, 2008 - 07:24 PM Post subject: RE: Re: Your Profession vs. Your Practice.
93!
Okay, I'll be first: My career does not reflect my esoteric interests. I also don't have some 9-5 job that pays the rent and sustains my family. I simply love my job, although it is pretty time-consuming and full of stress at times and definitely slows down the progress of initiation, which sometimes is really annoying, but I am in no hurry. I am working as a movie title designer and digital compositor since 1988 (of course back then I was an "optical compositor") which was also about the time my interest in Aleister Crowley and Thelema arose. Who knows what have happened if Crowley had come much earlier? As a drummer and "painter" I might have chosen a different professional path. At work (I am self-employed) I have constant high-speed access to the digital realm which is great for research. Sometimes it is possible to use my esoteric interests on a fantasy or magic themed project or to hide some hints for insiders on other projects (I just finished work for a pretty big movie where I had to create a "newspaper headlines sequence". For copyright reasons all the surrounding articles had to be created by myself, so amongst others an editor named George Archibald Bishop will appear on the big screen and guess what person I selected for a "quote of the day" section?). Okay, there are days I am still dreaming of a career as a screenwriter which would give me the chance to combine my interests, but the time has not arrived so far. But overall, no: I have my job, I have my family, I have my esoteric interests. They do not mix a lot. And if one of the three would ever demand to quit one of the others, the one demanding would have to go...
And what's most important: I am still young!
Love=Law
LutzrevltAMK - Sep 04, 2008 - 03:34 AM Post subject: I'm a college student, which I suppose is my profession/career (at least currently) and I try to sync my esoteric interests into my academic work. Example, for two papers I've written I chose to identify Sylvia Plath's occult interests in her last collections on poems "Ariel", which I still haven't actually finished yet (I did "officially" finish it for the class). I also wrote a response to a Yates poem through a historical lens, so I obviously had to include information on the Golden Dawn.OliverP - Dec 04, 2008 - 03:58 PM Post subject:
I am a journalist; I write mostly about computers and technology. This hones my reading, analysis and writing skills (and notably my scepticism - my unwillingness to take on trust what I am told by any source or shown by any "system" no matter how shining and majestic). These skills I use in the service of my esoteric interests.
Dealing with computers and their tricks and wiles throws into relief the tricks and wiles of phenomena and "systems" versus the underlying "reality".
There is an expression in computing, "data hiding", which is the very essence of Magic[k] as it is of life. Clicking on an "icon" and being confident that it will launch the right program has much in common (and also much to contrast) with travelling mentally or ceremonially along a "path" or conjuring a spirit and communing with it or commanding or requesting it to "cause change to occur". They are both, as AC said, "things that may or may not exist" [Liber O]. No, strike that; the icon doesn't exist in any real sense; some of us may know what the Ding an Sich ("thing in itself" [Kant]) is, but even if we write it as raw binary 1s and 0s, that is still just another "icon" for the pieces of electricity and magnetism that are "really" there; or are they..>
[that intended ? came out as a forward arrow. Let it stand; in my diary I often record my 'typos' and the spellchecker's suggested corrections; they can sometimes be a sortilege that casts an alternative light].
So yes, my working life illuminates my esoteric life and vice-versa.
How could it not?
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C Clarke
"But you know, I know when it's a dream" - Blessed John Lennon.ozzzz666 - Dec 04, 2008 - 04:21 PM Post subject:
93, Excellent topic!
While nothing would please me more than to be able to hold a job that is more conducive to my magickal aspirations, so far I have been unable to make that happen. With child support dragging me into poverty, I have to stick with what I know, to make the money I have to make. I do definately hope that at some point I will be able to find a way to make the two aspects of my life more complimentary than they are now. The grind is very tiresome. Perhaps someday I'll catch a break, and be able to make enough to survive on my music. That would be my ultimate accomplishment. Even If I could somehow manage to write some ambient stuff for movies or commercials. How one would go about getting stuff heard for that purpose is a hard thing to learn though. I think it's important to try and make the two balance out, but what it comes down to for most I think, is the fact that we must survive in the society in which we currently reside.aleph93 - Dec 04, 2008 - 11:38 PM Post subject:
My work involves the practical application of Nuit and Hadit in electronics. We try to avoid the direful judgments of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, as that usually involves blowing fuses, tripping circuit breakers, and even fire.BlueKephra - Dec 05, 2008 - 12:10 AM Post subject:
I'm a nurse. I have to respect peoples choices.einDoppelganger - Dec 05, 2008 - 05:54 AM Post subject:
I am an artist, something I count myself extremely lucky to be able to do for a living. I try to keep a seamless blend between art and the esoteric as much as possible without one overtaking and smothering the other. My journal is my sketchbook is my magickal diary is a hypersigil.
Interestingly my work is mostly focused in the entertainment industry. Recently while working on an upcoming feature I introduced the art director to AO Spare. It excites me to no end that his asthetics may in fact influence the final characters seen on screen. Who knows how much will be visible in the final product.
By the way OliverP: Great response! I have known a few folks in IT who were also Magicians and they too saw analogs (pardon the pun)
einDoppelgangermagispiegel - Dec 05, 2008 - 11:17 AM Post subject:
Very good question einDoppelganger,
Being in the family for two generations, I chose at the age of eleven to become an Osteopath, Naturopath and Acupuncturist. Reason? I intuitively 'knew' that it would help me to complete the Great Work.
Best Wishes
Charles
P.S. I do often wish I was a collector of super rare books on alchemy and magick though...Walterfive - Dec 05, 2008 - 05:38 PM Post subject:
Does your career reflect your more 'esoteric' interests?
No. My career is often the antithesis of my esoteric interests, but between the disparity of the two I find balance.
"Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity." -- Unknownzardoz - Dec 05, 2008 - 07:24 PM Post subject:
My occupation as a sound engineer definitely reflects my esoteric interests. As a matter of fact, I'm reasonably sure that my esoteric interests have landed me some incredible gigs including working with such thelemically sympathetic individuals as Bill Laswell and John Zorn and recording the Master Musicians of Jajouka.Lillianu - Dec 16, 2008 - 10:48 AM Post subject:
There is a definate reflection between my 'profession' and my being a devotee of Babalon.