Copyright (C) 1998 by William Mistele. All rights reserved.
See also Geriola, 6 degrees Sagittarius and Ikon, 24 degrees
Sagittarius, who also specialize in magical equilibrium.
Jvar, 3 degrees Leo
Reason for working with Jvar: I am interested in better
understanding the elements in my astral body and in how to change
passive energies so they are more positive and productive.
Preliminary Considerations: Bardon says of Jvar, [He] "informs
the magician on the origin of passions and how their talents are
established firmly in the astral body. In this connection, the
magician also learns to understand the deep secret sense of all
passions, which serve as means for a certain purpose and are to
strengthen will-power and other magic faculties. Jvar tells the
magician how to control passions by certain magical aids and other
means and how they can be transmuted into opposite, positive
qualities. The practices recommended by this head may be applied
by the magician as an aid for those scholars who are on the way to
magic development, and who have certain passions they are not able
to control."
Jvar adds to Bardon's exercise on equilibrium a sense of quest
and divine pageantry. From Jvar's point of view, passions hide and
disguise divine ecstasy within themselves. There is a role to be
played by our minds. With relentless tenacity we study the specific
nature of our passions and desires. There is a part of be played by
our wills. Similar to a hunter, we track and stalk what we are after
until we hold it within our grasp and power.
There is also a part to be played by the spirit. In this case, you
identify the specific elemental ecstasy hidden within the passion.
Finding it, you then embody that ecstasy reflecting divinity within
yourself. This turns psychology and self-mastery into a means for
uniting with the divine. Working at magical equilibrium then similar
to a Grail quest or an alchemist refining and transforming dark
matter into nature's quintessence. In this way, the obsession or blind
craving for gratification is exposed to the light of awe and wonder--
the conflicts within the personality are perceived as part of a divine
pageantry--the mystery of life unfolding within us.
In Initiation into Hermetics, attaining a magical equilibrium and
balance between the four elements begins in chapter one. In chapter
ten, there is another exercise relating to spiritualizing the astral body
so it reflects the four attributes of spirit--omnipotence,
omnipresence, omniscience, and immortality. But this
spiritualization of the astral body is on-going through the basic
practices and forever afterwards. The symbol of the magic circle in
The Practice of Magical Evocation and working with cosmic letters
in The Key to the True Quabbalah also directly bare upon this
endeavor. The enlightened mind seeks to transform the elements by
working with all four levels of consciousness.
I have an interest in transpersonal psychology because it has a nice
way of placing individual problems within a larger context. It says,
"This problem you have is not just yours alone. It belongs to many
individuals. It is part of the path of life, of moving from where we
have been to where we wish to be. This is an individual and also a
collective journey. We can draw upon and learn from others'
wisdom as we seek to transform ourselves."
If we consider the subconscious and unconscious to be a matrix
of blind and chaotic cravings, then we no longer look for the
greater harmony and purposes underlying our desires. But if instead
we hold the energies of life as being sacred, then we can take
personal desire and move it to an entirely different place. Every
desire within life has its place and role to play in a great harmony
and celebration. This path leads us more quickly into the heart of
wisdom.
There are, however, significant differences between transpersonal
psychology and magick. The magician will spend far more time
training his imagination and developing the physical, astral, and
mental bodies. He will also be far more comfortable entering an
akashic trance and contemplating human conflicts from a position of
divine awareness.
Jvar's Outer Aura: Jvar's aura is bright, clear, radiant, and
integrated. He communicates self-mastery and how to take charge
of oneself. He is very Leo--his energy is shiny and bright. He
moves to the center, bringing everything into clarity and balanced.
He is very strong and dynamic.
Jvar's Inner Aura: Jvar has an intuition which reveals things in their
wholeness and integration. He indicates how to find that place in
yourself.
The main thrust of Jvar's teaching is to become your own
guardian angel. See your life from this transcendent, benevolent
perspective of blessing and wisdom. Feel yourself within and one
with its radiance. Draw upon its divine authority to fulfill your
purposes in life and to dissolve all obstacles and resistance by being
who you are as a being of light and an agent of the Divine world.
Akashic Plane: Jvar has a powerful mesmeric concentration
especially when you focus on any obstacle or obstructions in your
life. You then comprehend it in all its aspects and in its most
opaque influences so you see how to undo or overcome it and to
untie the knot.
Vices, passive personalty traits and weaknesses, and out of
control passions arise from attachment to specific images and
complexes which are not consciously directed. These passions and
drives may arise from personal, collective, or global levels or be a
connection between all three. When your life is dominated by
unconscious forces then years and decades of your life are wasted.
Your inner self is unable to shine. You do not transform yourself or
the world around you.
Your true will knows itself as divine ecstasy and expresses itself
easily through all four elements. It rejoices in its power to perceive
the truth. If something is binding you or pulling you down, do not
respond with fear, despair, or feeling helpless. Rather, see hidden
within the passions the divine power which enables the archangels to
spread their wings and to fly unhindered through all domains of
nature, human, and divine. Be willing, as these divine beings, to
comprehend everything that exists from within all-embracing love.
Passions, desires, cravings, obsessions, and compulsions--they
burn themselves out like shooting stars with a self-consuming fire.
Instead of following that path, be as a hunter who follows the tracks
of desire, observing its nature and habits, its cycles and expressions
of its life. The hunter tracks the desire back to sources which
nourish it and to where it dwells within the wilderness of the soul.
He uncovers the spark of the divine life hidden within it. He
nurtures and amplifies that ecstasy of divinity that has granted the
passion existence as a reflection of a greater and purer light. Then
the passion dissolves.
Desire is like a dream which bottles up an energy and specific
quality of feeling alive. The dream is enchanting and alluring. It
captivates and focuses your attention like a lover whose presence
makes your life radiant. Yet the nature of lovers is that they search
out and satisfy the deepest desires within each other's hearts.
Through love they transform themselves into spiritual beings until
their hearts are so pure and clear they reflect the universe.
The elements in nature are a path of ecstasy offering a taste of
divine bliss. A journey begins with sensual pleasure. But if you
open your heart and mind to sensuality and pleasure, your journey
leads on until you learn to see with the eyes of divinity and are
finally being reborn as a spiritual being. The five senses are that
rich.
A basic practice is, as Bardon mentions, learning to attribute to
each element the desire or passion associated with it. To fire are
will and power. To water are love and feeling. To air are clarity of
mind and wisdom. To earth are the integration of consciousness
and the ability to accomplish work.
It is not enough to meditate on the opposite of a passion, e.g.,
anger is replaced by a relaxed but dynamic will or balanced by love
and empathic understanding. You also need procedures for
penetrating the resistance within you to making these changes. The
process of transformation can move immediately to the solution and
it can also go gradually step by step. There is a process involved in
which you become free by understanding all aspects of your desires-
-every sensation, feeling, thought, and energy which is present
within them.
For example, empathy is a quality of the water element. It has
many components and there are many books on this ability.
Empathy has social-linguistic aspects. You can frame questions to
others by stating something you observe about them and then asking
a question about it.
For example, Larry King on his talk show asks a guest who has
been promoted to a cabinet position, "I notice you have never had
this kind of job before. It is my guess it has been quite challenging
for you. Is that right?" The way this question is phrased disarms the
other individuals and offers a safe space and context in which to
disclose more about personal experience.
There are non-verbal aspects to empathy. You notice another's
physical gestures, tone of voice, and facial expressions. You see
when the body language is incongruous with what is verbally
expressed and then you ask about this. You say, for example, "You
hesitate when you answer. Is there more going on than what you
have said?"
There is a role played by imagination. You briefly place yourself
within the other's situation and see what that feels like to you. You
look at the experience from outside your own mind and point of
view. Each of these methods increases your sensitivity.
None of the above, however, offer much change in the amount of
water in your astral body. Individuals with strong and positive water
energy naturally feel connected to others without the need for
method or technique. Automatically they set up a circulation of
feeling or astral energy between themselves and others. They are
not only animating and vivacious. They make others feel alive just
by being in their presence.
To get a feeling for this watery energy you can imagine you are
another individual who has this ability. Relaxing and without
distraction, you spend some time imagining you are the other. The
chameleon changes color to match the environment due to the
pigmentation in its skin. The astral body changes its vibration
according the dream like image held within it. As you extend your
imagination, you can taste and even immerse yourself within new
feelings. With work, your astral body can open so new channels of
energy flow through it.
In magick, there is another set of steps. You study and
contemplate water in nature--streams, rivers, pools, lakes, oceans,
rain and clouds. Again, you place your mind within these things as
if you are them. At this point, you imagine you have become or
have a connection with an undine.
The undines possess marvelous faculties when it comes to
empathy and circulating energy. The undine's existence is a pure,
sensual feeling and receptivity. Most of the astral qualities within
undines are already familiar to us. We meet individuals who are
sweet, serene, tender, healing, and passionately in love. Undines
just take the normal range of these feelings and amplify them
sometimes by a factor of ten and sometimes by a factor of a
hundred.
An undine will not counsel you like a therapist or a minister on
what you might wish to consider when you care for others. Human
morality is absent. Undines embody the energies underlying nature.
They are able to focus these magnetic and magical powers through
their consciousness.
Undines will introduce you to another mode of perception and the
amplification of the life within you. Undines are the connection and
missing link within the water element between human feeling and
divine, omnipresent love. There are times when human empathy is
not adequate and belief in divine love is not daring enough. Then
the magician creates and directs through his own volition the
magnetism within water to heal, to inspire, and fulfill the purposes
of love.
My point is that striving toward magical equilibrium takes more
than making our negative qualities positive. We need to also
develop the strength of the four elements within us so the amount or
quantity of their presence in our astral bodies are relatively equal.
But this is procedure of strengthening the amount of the elements
within us is also built into Bardon's basic practices. He has the
student condense and then dissolve the four elements one after the
other in his body. In this way, the student learns to amplify and
strengthen the elements. He experiences what it is like to have a
great deal of each element within himself.
Mental Plane: On the mental plane, the idea is to watch your life so
it is continuously moving toward fulfillment. The mental plane
develops an understanding of the importance of establishing
elemental balance and equilibrium.
There is a tendency among New Age practitioners to desire
teachers who are warm, cuddly, and full of hugs. This gives those
attending seminars an opportunity to regress back to a child's level
of trust and security. This is fine. The problem comes in the
transaction. It is a temptation to trade curiosity, longing for the
truth, and rigorous observation for whatever it takes to gain well-
being supplied from outside of themselves.
More mature teachers are also tender and loving. But they
challenge the student to enter a process of self-discovery and direct
encounters with others. They keep the center of focus off of
themselves as teachers and on the group and the individual
members. The tension between individuals and the encounter with
darkness within oneself are reframed as an invitation to establish
your own sense of well-being.
Jvar will recommend and explain how to work on a specific
element in order to overcome a personality weakness or work
through an obsession. You get to scrutinize a difficulty from Jvar's
point of view. The experience, however, remains your own. It is
for you to discover what it is like to live with a richer and stronger
amount of an element within your astral body.
Astral Plane: On the astral plane, you see your life from a place of
light and harmony. That is, imagine you are in the situation where
you are working from your highest level of motivation and
inspiration. Work with this concept and explore this image. Go
inside of it like you are waking up within a dream. Taste it and feel
it. Then work with it through extended concentration so it becomes
quite real to you.
For example, if you feel you need an inspiring guide or teacher in
your life, visualize such a teacher right now sitting beside you.
Practice talking to him and discovering all that he has to say to you.
Similarly, if you feel you need more support and love, visualize this
also. Enter the house of your imagination. Better, think of your
mind as divine temple. Use your creative thought to reshape and
reframe the way you see yourself.
It is the nature of Leo to radiate light to all aspects of life. Every
desire and ideal finds a place and time to be fulfilled. Become this
radiant sun of inspiration shining beauty and harmony to all aspects
of yourself and your life and to those you would love.
Physical Plane: On the physical plane, the idea is to become
transpersonal with personal problems so your insight is universal, so
that you are not just more adaptable, successful and happy but also
wise--understanding the heart of life. See personal conflicts in a
larger context so that you end up holding healing power within your
hands.
Use all conflict and problems as fuel to generate more light and
love. Draw your problems and all life experience into your heart
where it is transformed into wisdom, light, and love which is then
freely shared. This is the spiritual capacity of Leos of being at the
center, of supporting a community and of transforming yourself--
that is, to begin with, your inner community of desires, drives, goals,
purposes, etc.
On the physical plane, then, the radiance of Leo becomes an
etheric energy within oneself which fills others' lives with inspiration
and encouragement.
See Introduction to the Psychology of the Four Elements which I
wrote under Jvar's inspiration.
Back to Basic Practices