What's wrong with prosperity?

"Gotta make this money and I make this money
This money is me this money is everything I do and see
Who you to judge me?"

-Kid Rock, Fist of Rage

A friend of mine posted the quote below on a social networking site, and I couldn't help but think the thing he's poking fun of sounds a whole lot like most of what I've written for about five years, and basically how I still feel today:

It doesn't have my name on it, but ...

I really do believe the idea behind Hermetics is that we're all supposed to aspire to being 'beacons of enlightenment,' while simultaneously entangling ourselves in the material world.

I don't think that because it sounds good, or because my favorite invisible voices told me so, I believe it because when you get down into Hermetics, in the core texts that are supposed to sum it up, that's what it says you're supposed to do. The Emerald Tablet of Hermes says so. You are a holy thing born on the Earth under special circumstances. You are to ascend through the heavens. You are to return in power. You are to create the World.

The Phases of the Alchemical Great Work also say that's what you're supposed to do. You are to purify the base material. You are to then configure it to accomplish a specific outcome. You are then to create the Philosopher's Stone. You are then to grind it up and use it to heal the sick, and to increase longevity.

The Abramelin rite is about going through a ritual purification rite, a spiritual retreat, a series of increasingly fervent ecstatic rites of adoration, and achieving a mental state so altered that you become aware of the Holy Guardian Angel in a conscious and bi-directional manner. What happens next? You go through the elemental/terrestrial/infernal realms and obtain four elemental entities that will serve you as you go through life, bringing all the things that the society of the time equated with prosperity.

The Stele of Jeu is designed to put you in touch with otherworldly powers that will then put all the terrestrial spirits and spells of the gods under your command and control. The Supernatural Assistant rite is designed to bring you a familiar spirit who can take care of your very-specifically-material-world-related needs, and also to provide you access to those spirits that control such things. Also to embalm your material body in a way that prepares you to become a god at your death.

Are we supposed to become beacons of enlightenment? I dunno. I don't think everyone needs to have a web site advertising their revealed pathway to emotional well being, spiritual attainment, perpetual happiness, and financial security.

But I do think we all look around at the world and see that it's got a lot of room for improvement. The things in our experienced worlds that we don't like are the things we are empowered through the Work to address. If you're doing the Work, you will be in a position to reveal solutions to problems, to uncover ways to make things better, to take that which is hidden in darkness and bring a light to bear that eliminates sources of frustration, confusion, and pain. You will find yourself doing it out of habit, because as you go through the spheres and talk to the angels, that's what you end up doing. You lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas. You conjure up Archangels, you get up with Powers.

And Principalities, and Kerubs, and Seraphs, and Ishim.

And when you become a thing-fixer, people notice. They come to you with problems to fix. They ask you not just to fix things, but to help them understand how they got broken. Then they want to know how to fix things themselves. Then they end up helping others.

That's the Great Work. You do become a beacon of enlightenment, and people come to you like moths to a ... beacon of enlightenment.

But entangled in the material world?

Well... I mean, yea. Most of the rites I base my tradition on are all about that. Four elemental kingdoms, four quarters, four archangels, four ... kings of hell I think? Maybe three. I can't recall. Agrippa teaches the elements first. The more Work you do, the more you'll understand about how the material world manifests, whether as politicians or job opportunities, or vacations to Venusberg.

One of the things that happens to people when they go through the process is that they find there's something they're really good at doing that makes them really happy. When they figure out what it is that makes them the most content within the time and space of the rest of their lives, they also start looking for ways to do that thing, or those things as often as possible, in a way that maintains the joy of the experience.

And to do that thing, while they are alive, they will need a material body to do it with. And that body will need food and drink and sleep and shelter and clothing and a way to pay for those things even when it is too old to provide the basic necessities on a daily basis.

And honestly guys, the whole "Merge With the Godhead" thing is not the end-state of Hermetics. It's just the first step. Once you plug back in, you become fully human, and that's when your adventure begins. That's when you start the fun part, creating what you want, and then tweaking it until it hums just right, then doing it again if you feel like it.

Why else would a grown up play with trains?

But as my friend went on to point out, there's more to it than just that...

So I get where he's coming from here. I don't have the same understanding of "enlightenment" or "liberation" that he has. I consider the idea of "liberation" from materialism to be an oligarchist plot extending back millenia to keep wealth within a single genetic tribe. For obviously bullshit reasons.

Politics aside...

Yes, there are a lot of Hermetic and Gnostic traditions that say the material realm is shit. There is a lot of the old Gnostic influence that says everything material is painful and everything spiritual releases us from that pain. There's a lot of talk in even our Western traditions that associates "desire" for material things, and attachments thereof with "Suffering."

But frankly, I think they're wrong. I don't play fast and loose with the definition of liberation and enlightenment, I very carefully point to selected aspects of our Hermetic tradition that actually define this thing we do as the process of establishing ourselves firmly in the material realm so that we can continue to do the things we incarnated to accomplish.

I'm not discounting those folks who advise asceticism. Go for it. Punish the flesh, and understand it, and tell me what you learn. I bet you come to the same conclusions as those with four elemental familiars that obey their desires and manifest their Will came to through the Abramelin rite:

The flesh is a sensor bank through which we experience existence, and through which we cast our spells, our attempts to change the experiences coming our way next.

But then what? Keep on being ascetic? Sure, if you want.

Life is really pretty easy, when you get down to brass tacks. No one needs 6 figures a year to do their Will. It's usually not necessary.

But it's not wrong either. I can do my Will rich as easily as I can do it poor. And have better drinks. I like that, and it's totally preference.

But hey, if you're a middle class wanker who thinks I'm assuring you that you'll be merging with Godhead any day now because you did magic on the weekends, you aren't reading the instructions.

It's on weekdays in planetary hours, and when you reach the "godhead" you'll just find a really good human instead, and manifesting that really good human doesn't happen over night, and it's not any easier than reaching that state in the first place was...

Interruption: this just in...

Dammit. I hate when I put all this into something to prove a point and the point wasn't even being challenged.

It does look like you go up and get empowered, illuminated, enlightened, return and create a world that works the way you like when Hermetics is done right. And yea, you elevate the world as a result.

But you don't do that by disconnecting from materialism completely, and I'd bet most folks that propose this is the way are on disability.

But yea, anyway, prosperity isn't wrong. It's OK to do well, and this stuff we do... it works to make it better.