Healing
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93,
Aside from attainment to the Highest, the only other worthwhile application of Magick, IMO, which is not an abomination, is possibly healing others and providing relief from pain or sickness. I have seen this topic discussed in various forums, and of course constructing the proper Magickal operation would follow standard formula and correspondences as one would to accomplish any Magickal objective. Information as a whole seems spotty, although there are a ton of suspicious looking crackpot information which I'd rather skip altogether. Are there any specific Thelemic sources/practices related to healing that are available? Thanks for any help.
93 93/93
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If you are asking whether the formal Thelemic canon (and, in particular, Crowley's writings) has specific instructions on this, the simple answer is "no." (Almost the only example in AC's writings is his reference to the technical method taught in IX° O.T.O. to accomplish this, as well as many other things. There is also the inherent virtue of the sacrament of The Thelemic Mass.)
Rather than talk about method (which can be a somewhat complicated and extended topic), I want to give a core idea, and some of Temple of Thelema's ethical teaching on the subject.
"To heal" literally means "to make whole." Making whole is, therefore, the undertaking. There are many technical methods, many of which (and the ones which give the best analogies for the subject overall) involve the use of colored in conjunction with magical methods. As the longer quote below will indicate, most of the time the proper method is to transmit unconditioned white light to the afflicted person, and with no specific intention of a particular result other than to increase that flow to them. That is, the best approach is more make "make me well" than "fix this particular problem."
There are two main reasons for that. One is purely diagnostic: There is so much wrong diagnosis going about that trying to fix what is believed to be a particular problem may be off target. It might even make things worse. (Some symptoms are actually the result of processes that are protecting a person from something worse.) - The second main reason is that it isn't our job (not even our right!) to "save" a person from a particular set of circumstances, when we have the power, instead, of empowering them to get what they truly need.
White light is used for the specific reason that it contains all colors of the spectrum. A person can (unconsciously) extract from that whatever is really needed, and the rest falls away. Think of it as a complex nutrient supplement where everything not taken up by the body is eliminated without residue. It works, and it also protects us from our sometimes extensive ignorance about what's really going on!
Here is a more concentrated form of these teachings, which I have extracted and rewritten from a private instruction in my care:
"Healing is never sent if it is in conflict with the expressed (or otherwise known) will of the recipient. Nor do we usually attempt to “heal” by attempting to produce a specific result. There are always forces operating in an individual’s life far wiser than our limited human minds, and it is never our purpose to interfere with the True Will or the soul growth of another. Hardships are commonly instructive, although the instruction is often only available to those who consciously and courageously confront the ordeal. There are, of course, more specific healing methods that often are able to reverse a particular health problem; but these are only employed in special situations and under careful ethical safeguards. Usually it is both adequate and more desirable to use more general healing methods whereby only unconditioned light is transmitted. This unconditioned spiritual force aids the recipient in whatever way is genuinely needed, whether to relieve from physical, emotional, or situational distress; or to fortify the person that they may endure a current ordeal required of them by their life; or to enlighten and inform a person so that they come to understand the instruction that life is seeking to offer them; or even, in some cases, to release them to death. The choice is not ours, but theirs, at that deep (usually unconscious) spiritual level at which each of us is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent."
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Thanks Jim, yes that was my question. The absence of Thelemic materials on the subject is noticeable, and I suspected it was related to sensitivities around the Will of others. The theory of sending Light and letting the other use it or not, makes sense in terms of not interfering. I guess there could be several methods for this, visiting them in the astral and project light from my Body of Light into theirs, or the establishment of a sympathetic link used for transmission, meditation and visualization, even ritual I suppose.