“A person desires things of this world- but where is the difference of
desiring the "Supreme Bliss"? Which is the more selfish? Which is
nearer you? Which pleases the Creator more? Are you certain of the Creator's
will and are you sure of your own desire? Are you the Creator or just yourself,
as you fondly imagine your contents?”
AOS – The Book
of Pleasure
Works of
love, works of binding love, works to dominate a beloved, works to get back
lost love are probably the life situation people ask for magical aid in more
than any other.
But when we
speak of love we need to be more precise, because love is bound in so many
different forms of relationships and sentiments. We know the Greeks had at
least six words for love and the form of love most praised seemed to be Philia, which is about the love that
infuses and defines friendships. The philosophical work of Epicurus are all
about this form of love that he praised higher than anything and we find a
similar sentiment in Plato’s dialogues. Philia
was related to Philautia, or self-love,
however, narcissism was not a part of the understanding of what self-love was
about, yet the ecstasy of being who you are in calm acceptance and satisfaction
along with a willingness to transgress and transform the entire landscape that
you are strikes the cords of self-love.
Hence in this
landscape if you find yourself void of worth, a lone outcast wolf, a seductress
of no victories… do you have sufficient self-love to call upon love?
In this field
where the hunger for love is frustrated we nurture desire and we nurture ego
and fantasy, it is as Austin O Spare wrote in The Book of Pleasure:
The Ego is desire, so everything is ultimately desired and undesirable,
desire is ever a preliminary forecast of terrible dissatisfaction hidden by its
ever-present vainglory.
And so, when
we ask for love, to bind an object of desire to us, to call back a wayward wife
or husband, what is the ‘’love’ in this desire we seek to bind?
We can
exclude ideals such as pragma, the love that grows over time through deep
understanding of one another as we can exclude ludens, the playful flirtatious love of passing moments (yet, at
times such moments sow the seed of perpetual desire and haunting memories) as
we can exclude agape, the unconditional
and selfless love for everyone, due to the person exercising agape being truly full of love and void
of self-doubt. Quite often agape is translated into ‘charity’, but I find the
word generosity to be a word more proper to describe this form of love most
difficult to attain. Generosity is about giving freely and willingly because it
affirms Love, and if we are generous we also become kings and queens of love
and in the spirit of love we can become architects and masters of our own Fate.
And so, when
we think of love in a greater scope, the love between parents and children,
between friends, the love in a flirting moment, the agape that happens with nature
in meeting with rain and dew, that moment of true connection, passing or
lasting, it be in sharing a common understanding, a shared preference… love is
like the Devil, it all rest in the details.
And if we pay
attention to the details many of us will find that there is much more love
going around than what we care to notice because we tend to focus on that
primal, passionate love, eros.
Eros, child of Venus,
spirit of desire and also the daimon of divine desire was always viewed as irrational
and volatile, a mercurial Venus that with his arrows and rosy cheeks could
inspire passion and creativity wherever he went. The arrows of Eros piercing
Romeo and Juliet led to death and tragedy as it did with St. Cyprian and Sta.
Justinia and it is this love, eros,
the erotic and sexual passion, that divine glue, that tend to be at work when
someone ask for a work of love being done.
In this I would say
with Epicur that “It is folly for
a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by
himself.”
Because if
we don’t have Philautia,
how can we expect to be the object for any kind of love?
I believe love,
no matter the type, is bound by some form of generosity. To be generous is not
only about giving because you have; it rests in some selfless nobility that
rest in your heart. It is that love that speaks good words to the lover that
left you, the love that holds on to what was good in what is not anymore with
fond memories, avoiding the abyss of want, desire and depression.
Love is
about giving and in giving we attract the same. Desire is about having and in exercising
desire we also exercise this very same possessiveness desire is in our want for
the other, often because of our own lack of self-love or misplaced love for
self that makes us feel unwanted, unsuitable, unlovable and what not.
And so,
with love, it is tied in with the mystery of the erotic, which is the
enchantment and passion of merging, it is something of an expansive and
creative dynamic that happens in the field of eros, but love have at least six heads… the seventh is your own…
And then; when you are there seeking to bind someone, is it an object of desire? Is it a
persona filled with love? Why would you bind what is not naturally bound to
you?
As a
spirit worker, I am so reluctant to make love workings, because they are so
often desire workings, and desire is irrational, volatile and floating. We are
speaking of eros, not any other form
of love. Eros is the cosmic glue,
that is true, but the nature of this force makes everything like he is, unpredictable
and volatile. Working with desire is a complicated thing and I must confess
that magical works tied into the mystery of Eros
are amongst the most unpredictable workings any spirit worker can do.
Sometimes
it works well, because there is a bond between the one asking for the work and
the object of desire, we are speaking of a certain generosity made possible by
mutual self-love. Other times the implicated parties rekindle love for some
passing moments, just to the dissatisfaction of one or both and there are of
course effects like the wayward husband desiring his wife who closed all
conversation with him – and after the work is done – he she opens her heart,
her door just to be beaten once again by that abusive SOB… And there I am, as a
facilitator, knowing very well that Maria Padilha was teaching a lesson… but
still… is it love when you want to mark that soft skin purple and blue just because
you are in a frenzy of erotic desire that calls the truth out of who you are
and what this ‘love’ is about? No, it is desire in its pure and undirected way,
it is the frenzy of Eros, unpredictable angel of love and desire that makes warriors
sweet with the taste of fervent blood… the same blood that makes a dick hard
and the heart to beat faster in the embrace of passion, it be of pain, anger or
lust… It is not eros calling upon philia or neither agape nor even ludens, it
is love turning into self-hatred exercised in the world, so we can all witness
the pain of the desirous one. And there is in this the most common of cases,
the lost love returns, but upon his or her return the desirous one don’t want
him or her anymore… so in the end, as Epicurus wrote: “why spoil what we have
with what we have not”?