Sense of humour

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You seem to like 'absurd' humour? I am not alone. Many philosophers find the human condition is itself absurd. We should not take these questions too seriously because, they suggest, that way lies madness. Well, I do not go quite so far as that, but it if you know what makes a person laugh, you have gone a long way towards understanding them. True, a disordered mind also finds matters absurd, but in a way that is quite different from other people. If we explore the phenomenon of humour-why we laugh and what we laugh at-we can perhaps untangle our thinking processes and shake out some of the emotional knots. In other words, I look on humour as a valuable part of the healing process.

If you had been alert and perceptive, you might have noticed that I also like laughing at myself or even making jokes about myself. Since I do work with people who have sometimes 'gone under', I try to administer the occasional self-massage. I would never wish to become a dull sanctimonious bore. I can do little if people are offended by either humour or truth. Should I stop telling jokes and start lying instead?

Instead of wit, why not explain? Aleister Crowley once described the toilets in his Cairo hotel as pithy and witty but you must remember that he had a slight lisp. Exhaustive explanations are not to everyone's liking. Most of them want to know what is, and not how it came about. This book is meant to be more of a helpful commentary on points that other would-be students found difficult. I am not giving lessons; I offer little samples to taste. You can get the flavour of the pudding before you actually decide to place your order. At your present state of knowledge, I have to guard against saying too much. You would like that, I am sure. You would urge me to spill the beans and tell the full story. Alas, you would get Occult stomach-ache coupled with the magical equivalent of diarrhoea. I have to consider your welfare and not just your demands.

Another consideration is the size of this book. It has to be of reasonable length or else production costs would soar and the price would rise. It would also be too heavy to carry out of the shop! So pithy and witty will have to do for now.

Is a sense of humour important? In my opinion, it is vital. I am not just stating a personal preference for smiles and pleasantness rather than frowns and offensiveness. It is more the case that I see danger in the stern, unforgiving outlook of an outraged Puritan. True, early man might have seen God as bad-tempered and unpredictable.. or even lofty and unfathomable .. but why on earth would he want us to meditate on hell-fire or tremble at the expectation of wrath and punishment? Let us repay our debts but there is no need to grovel or abase ourselves. We are god's handiwork. We are god's creation. We live and our life is a journey of discovery. We should enjoy the pleasurable sensations that a good life can bring.

In our moments of ecstasy and possible revelation, men have even dreamt of becoming gods. However, at least we are not laboratory animals being used to prove which religion is best.

How does humour help? Shared joy can help to unite people. Take the power of love as one example, of two people with souls so burning and incandescent that they switch out the light and tremble in their downy cocoon. Compare that with the brittle gaiety of people at a fairground.. a motley crowd wrenched by swings, physical strains, tawdry prizes and ghost trains, and who are terrified if the lights go out. A Magician lives with laughter because it marks off man from every other animal. 'Beware the man who laughs not in his belly,' says a Japanese proverb. Well, I have never seen the Pope laugh. Few spiritual leaders throw back their head and chuckle. Moreover, is it not fascinating that Demons detest laughter and that they have even been driven out or exorcised by means of jokes?

People say that Occultism should be reverent. It is reverent, but not necessarily in the usual way, of hushed awe or tiptoeing round an echoing cathedral. One can admire and praise God in many positive ways, but the most significant of all is to exemplify the qualities of life. Instead of dropping to our knees or prostrating ourselves in fearful adoration, why not leap, jump, shout, and sing? It is possible to display reverence in several other ways, not just the one that comes with a religion that sees God as a divine bank manager, along with angelic accountants and diabolical debt collectors.

There is no need to hide our heads, cover our faces, veil our bodies, or silence our mouths. Do our gods sleep that we should be fearful of waking them? May we not stand by the side of our beloved's bed and gaze in awe at their beauty? Nurse a baby in your arms and stroke the brow of a dying man. Pick a flower, catch a raindrop, smile at a butterfly-worship your lover. All of these are ways of showing appropriate honour to god.

Is it holy to practice self-denial? This is the position held by the Christian churches and their doctrines of Redemption and Atonement. However, Occultism holds that it is also holy to be happy and to function according to nature's design. We should of course do all we can to surpass that design, but not by testing it to destruction, so to speak. If you are already psychologically damaged then you may not feel free to be happy. You may think that you deserve to be punished. In which case, join a religion that teaches you to waste life in getting ready to die!

There is a divine essence in our being that allows us to laugh at the sheer absurdity of human ideas. We find that there is a mystery, and one that is worth thinking about! When you fathom that secret, you will be ready to climb.

What is" the magical life"? It is a life that harmonises with Nature. It is properly controlled rather than left to chance, accident, or happenstance. It is informed by awareness of truth rather than by animal whim or impulse. It is not overly solemn or po-faced, but filled with humour. It is serious without being grave, solemn, and yet cheerful. It is graceful without too many ceremonial constraints, and yet elegant without the stiffness of formal etiquette.

A person who lives 'the Magical Life' is growing, like a plant, towards full flowering. They strive to achieve the realisation of the original self, and to install their true will. Such a one is neither lonely nor alone because they live as one locked or keyed in to relationship with a group or community of kindred spirits. Such a person treats 'self' as an integral part of a larger, organic whole. Through this expanding "sense of mutuality", they become conscious of the different levels of being. The focus of their attention shifts and they take up their proper position in a nexus of spiritual relationships. Their world meshes with the world beyond they weft the "here and now" with the warp of "there and then".

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