Karma'quences

I hear people talk about avoiding something because they don't want to deal with the "bad karma" that will result. I heard my friend, Renee, joke about the "karma'quence" of something.

Others talk about "working off bad karma," but I can't imagine what that is. Karma is like gravity. You can't work off bad gravity. What would "bad" gravity be? Or if you build up a bank account, could you jump off a tall cliff and be protected by all your good gravity?

There are a few techniques that lessen the pull of gravity -- airplanes, rockets, hot air balloons -- but these only temper the effects. Not even a space ship in deep space is completely away from gravity.

Gravity is a natural law.

Karma is a natural law. If you put out energy (actions, thoughts, emotions, etc), there is a natural reaction.

Visualization: The Looking Glass

The Christian scripture says if you so much as think about doing a sin, it is the same thing as actually doing it. Bingo!

A Zen teacher once said: There is no sin, but thinking so makes it so. Bingo, again!

Hermetic masters teach that visualizations need to accompany energy work. What they are saying is that your work is done best if you can visualize the desired outcome. This visualization creates and energizes the result using the laws of karma.

When you put a visualization into the universe, there will be a result.

When you pray for love or do a "Come To Me" spell, the law of karma steps in and announces to the universe that you are completely hopeless in attracting love. About a zillion energy beings show up on the astral because they like to point and giggle. Doing a love spell is a good joke, and the joke's on you. You don't need to pray for a lover because that won't to a bit of good. You don't need to burn "Come To Me" oil because it can't result in a lover. The only thing those techniques do is brand you as a loser.

I don't know about you, but I don't want that sign stuck to the back of my shirt.

Pond Slime and Redemption

Christians have an idea that is something like karma, but they often get fixated on the "bad" aspects of it: SIN.

How many people do you know who figure there is a stern old man somewhere beyond Mars who has a big list. If you have too many red marks in His Giant Scorecard, you don't get into heaven.

Yikes, what a deeply scary concept.

But it can result in interesting results. The line goes something like this: you are no better than a cockroach crawling through time and soaking up oxygen; we have a set of actions that will give you the "grace" that will keep your butt out of eternal fires of damnation. There is hope for you, even though we still know that you are little more than pond slime.

What makes this interesting is that it can bring about the total deflation of ego, described by William James in the Varieties of the Religious Experience.

St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila wrote about this process. It is how we are tempered and made tough during a period called a "Dark Night." When SJC or STA explain it, it makes perfect sense. When I hear a Tel'evangelist tackle the same topic, I feel like I need to hold my wallet and hide the silver.

Sin, Contrition, Forgiveness, and Purgatory

Most Christian sects include some kind of idea of forgiveness. It often involves a kind of divine propitiation dating back to when some Jews and Romans executed the Messiah.

Some Christians sin all over the place, figuring they can be forgiven at the last minute. It smells like a twisted interpretation, but I'm not an expert.

To me at this point in my life, the confession is handier than the forgiveness. To each his own. For me the steps in the exercize include the searching inventory ("good" and "bad"), followed by a verbal review to myself, to another person, and to my spirit guide (or Holy Guardian Angel). If I keep it unspoken, it doesn't work -- I have to share it with another human being. If I only want absolution, it doesn't work -- I have to do the inventory: just the inventory, no "because" or "wherefore."

Anyway this idea of forgiveness is completely absent from Hermetic teachings on karma: if you do the crime, you do the time. Period. No exceptions.

Formal Christian sects, like the Roman church, have a kind of halfway house called purgatory. If you aren't clean enough for heaven when you die, you can stay in purgatory for awhile. This is getting dangerously close to the idea of karma!

An awesome spin-off is the Sacrament Of Confession. This appears over an over in spiritual programs:

• Hermetics -- I.'. -- use Setapa-su as one of the highest forms of initiation.

• Alcoholic Anonymous has a Fourth Step, which is a "fearless and searching moral inventory."

• In the early 1900s, a movement called the Oxford Group used public confession as one of their fundamental tools for growing spiritually.

These three examples are supposed to include both "positive" and "negative" incidents. It is an inventory, not merely a confession of bad stuff.

There is something magickal about confession or inventory. None of it is fun, and somebody has to be seriously motivated to do. In AA, folks are motivated by fear. In I.'., initiates are motivated by whatever motivates mystics. Inventories are hard to start and hard to finish, but the results are always far greater than expected.

The result, especially for Hermetic mystics is a karma inventory: a confession without any hope of forgiveness. It's a tough path -- wear a cup.