Making the Break By Donald
Michael Kraig I'm writing this just a few days before the new year. If you're anything like me, 1996 has been tumultuous in both your professional (business or school) and personal life. Sometimes we can dwell too much on those events. In fact, two writers with no psychotherapeutic training wrote a book that tells people to focus on past problems and ignore trying to resolve them! Without going into details, the result of this nonsense has ruined lives, destroyed families and even put innocent people in jail. Many years ago I had a teacher who gave me some wise advice. Learn from the past. Live in the present. Create your future. That's all well and good, but how can this be achieved on a practical basis? That is what I will discuss here. Learn From the Past If we ignore what has happened to us we are almost fated to relive it. I refer to this as rescripting. That is, we repeatedly go over the same script in our lives. Most of us know people who, time after time, end up dating a person who is wrong for them. Or perhaps they go from one job to another, always finding the work to be unsatisfactory. Well, I've got good news and bad news about this. The bad news is that until you find out why you continue to repeat the pattern you will continue to repeat it. This can go on for years or for your entire life. For that matter, it can go on for life after life. Some people say that this is their karma or fate and glumly live out their unhappy existence. I disagree with this attitude. We each have free will. It is our fate to go through such rescripting only so long as we want it to be our fate. It is our karma to discover the source of the problem, get rid of it and move on. Many people, including myself, believe that our purpose in life is to discover those things that make us sad, unhappy, etc., and change them. The good news is that there are many ways to determine the causes of our problems. Once we find out the causes we can work to overcome them both on a physical level and magically. The problem with finding causes of problems is that most people look for easy answers. In fact, when you first identify a problem, chances are that you are only seeing the physical manifestation of a deeper cause. It is that deeper cause which must be discovered. That is the true meaning of; learn from the past. By keeping a record or journal, or just remembering past events, you can learn what those physical manifestations are. Let's assume, for a moment, that the problem you see is that you cannot find a good, long-term, romantic relationship. By looking at your journals you notice that over the past several years none of your relationships have lasted longer than a few months. The initial reaction to this discovery would likely be, Well, I just haven't found the right person, yet. But let's look at this a bit deeper. Why is it that you keep being attracted to, and keep drawing to yourself, a person who just isn't right for you? What is the real, inner cause for this? Perhaps it's because you have feelings of inferiority and only deserve a person who is bad for you. Perhaps it's because one of your parents often verbally abused you, saying you were worthless, and on an inner level you accepted that. Therefore, you are attracted to people who are only good for a worthless person. Perhaps it's because you haven't identified your real needs and just get involved with the first person that comes along. Perhaps it's because your parents divorced when you were young and you can't bear to get really involved with someone who you could care about only to have them leave. So you set yourself up not to have any long-term relationships. Perhaps it's a mixture of these things. Perhaps it's something else. As you can see, it is not so easy to determine the real cause of such a problem. People go to psychiatrists for years or decades trying to get to the root of their problems. Often they get help. Sometimes they do not get help. Sometimes their therapists' predispositions actually prevent them from getting help. If, for example, a therapist is convinced that the reason you have trouble staying in a relationship is because you were sexually abused as a child (even though such abuse never happened), that therapist will work with you until you invent such abuse. This may sound bizarre, but there are many records of this occurring on a regular basis. I like to think that I have a more pragmatic way of resolving the issue: do a divination. Go into the divination with the question, What is the cause of [name of the physical manifestation of the problem]? This works very well when using the Tarot or I Ching; however, any good divination system will work. Some people do not like to read for themselves. In that case, find a friend who also does divinations and do an exchange. You do a divination for your friend and your friend does one for you. Another good system is known as self-questioning. Find a comfortable place, relax, and get into a meditative state. Ask yourself, Why am I experiencing [name of the physical manifestation of the problem]? Allow your mind and inner self to come up with an answer. At this step it does not matter what that answer is. Do not assume that it is right or wrong, only that it is incomplete. Repeat the question to yourself, Why am I experiencing [the answer to the first question]? Repeat this process until you can go no further. The first time you try this you may not be very accurate. However, with practice, self-questioning can be a very precise tool. One of the advantages of this method is that you will also learn how your mind works and how it often tries to avoid certain paths. Those are exactly the paths you should explore. If you are not mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually ready to explore them at this time, your mind will not let you do so. That is why it is safe to make the attempt. Once you have determined the exact cause of your problem, we'll call it Cause X; you are ready to move onto the next step. Live in the Present Once you know what Cause X is, you need a way to deal with it. I gave a way that has helped many people in Modern Magick. It is called the IOB technique. The letters stand for Identify, Objectify and Banish. The first step you have already done: you have identified the problem as Cause X. The next step is to objectify it. That is, you turn Cause X into an object. Some people visualize it as a monster or an ugly statue or something totally repugnant. Spend some time making this as real in your mind as possible and identifying it with Cause X. When you are positive that Cause X and the Object (which we'll call Monster X) are totally linked and virtually one, it is time to go to the next step: banishing the monster. Prepare your area as you normally do both physically and spiritually. Do appropriate banishing. Have in your mind a power symbol that you use for protection. Many people, including myself, use a single-point-up pentagram that is electric blue in color and seething with power. The actual ritual is very easy. One you have completed your preparation, cut or allow a door to appear at the west of your protective, magical Circle. The west is the place of the setting sun where things fade away. Visualize Monster X between you and the door. Make it as real as possible. Notice that there is a link or cord between you and it. Using the index and middle finger of either hand as if they were a pair of scissors, cut the cord. Then project your power symbol right at Monster X, forcing it through the door and out of the Circle. Your power symbol fills the doorway, preventing Monster X from returning. Stay in your Circle for some time. Celebrate the departure of Monster X with anything you have in the Circle: food and drink, dance, singing, music, sex, whatever you feel is appropriate. Close your Circle and be joyous. After all, you have removed the cause of your problem from your life. Well, not quite. If it really were this easy every therapist would be out of business in a few weeks. I believe it was Carl Jung who said that when we look into the mind we expect to see the secrets inside. Instead, we find that the mind is like an onion. If we peel back one layer there is another layer below. And inside that there is another layer and another. Getting rid of Monster X may help you to learn that there are other monsters within you. To end your problem using this system each cause must be identified, objectified and banished. This may take a long time, but you do not have to get totally rid of the deepest, inner cause of the problem in order to have the problem lessen or even go away. Create Your Future By the time most people start working on this adventure of self-discovery and freedom, they are at least in their late teens. Often they are in their 20's, 30's, 40's or older. Their past has been about dealing with problems and their causes. However, being freed from the cause may not end the problem. This is because, after a life of working with a particular cause, we are used to it. We may automatically act as if the cause still exists. The problems created by the cause still manifest. To correct this we need to approach each day as being new. When we find ourselves repeating negative patterns we need to ask ourselves, Why? After all, the cause no longer exists. This could lead into another round of self-questioning, but there is a wonderful alternative. This alternative is known as self-challenging. Simply put, you challenge yourself to do the exact opposite of the manifested problem. You consciously look for a job that will make you happier. You consciously look for a positive, long-term, romantic relationship. Whatever your problem was, you consciously challenge it. Self-challenging is very frightening. It is change. For most people, living in a familiar, unhappy state is easier than changing. But by using the self-challenging method, you can gradually overcome the problems and create your future. Success You'll know you are successful when you no longer have the problems on which you were working. I can guarantee that other problems will manifest in your life, but the more problems you deal with the better you will be able to deal with them and the fewer in number they will become. Eventually, you will not have to worry and be sad over your problems. That's not to say that you won't have them, but knowing how to deal with them gives you a freedom that you didn't have in the past. In this way you will have learned from the past, but can live in the present. No longer will you be morose about what went on years ago. Instead you can live your life to the fullest in the here and now. The same teacher taught me that one of the signs of good health was a memory of the future. This means the ability to remember the goals you set for yourself years ago. Often they become forgotten as our lives and daily cares and problems get in the way of those goals. We abandon them and forget them. But if we can get rid of those problems and cares, such as by using the techniques described in this article, we will remember those goals. Then, we can truly strive for them; we can work to make our dreams come true. We can each create the future we desire.
1997, Donald Michael Kraig
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