I've always thought of the Kabbalah as esoteric Hopscotch, a mystical version of Snakes and Ladders, a parlor game that should definitely be played instead of studied. On a recent slow news day, I thumbed through a local newspaper article about a self-described wizard. At first I thought he was merely an overgrown child playacting his Harry Potter fantasies, and vainly scanned the accompanying photographs for that revealing claret and banana colored Hogwarts rugby scarf. But no, this wizard meant actual reality-altering business. He mentioned the Kabbalah frequently and a diagram of its pathways was tattooed upon his forearm. To be fair, he called himself a 'chaos magician,' not a wizard, although the difference between that area of speciality and reading spells from a book while wearing a spangled conical hat was not made clear. Surely one cosmic conjuror is much the same as another? As long as summoned succubi do his bidding, what does the wizard care about nomenclature? I guess even enlightened masters enjoy their little cliques.
Rather obese, balding and squinty-eyed, sloppily dressed in a Heavy Metal t-shirt and cargo shorts, he looked more like someone who spends too much time sitting down watching television than an explorer of Astral Planes. Perhaps the numerous metal piercings in his face made it difficult for him to achieve any sort of transcendent travel arrangements? I also wondered why, if he could command the spirits of the air, he was still living in a studio apartment? And why was he running a Go Fund Me campaign to self-publish his guide to chaos magic for beginners? Could he not both resolve his inadequate living situation and satisfy his authorial ambitions with two waves of his magic wand? Apparently not. My reading suggested he always needed to push his bed up against the wall to create enough space to chalk a magic circle on the floor, conditions that hardly seemed conducive to lording it over powerful demons.
No doubt the wizard would claim material success was not the goal of his craft, that he was seeking sacred knowledge and not money in the bank. But he didn't know anything beyond vague intimations of a primitive animist philosophy. His magical studies appeared to be nothing but the extensive coursework for a doctorate in gibberish, a lot of theatrical sturm-und-drang effort for zero tangible reward. I couldn't help thinking how humans complicate everything and that the wizard was a prime example of such self-delusion. The secret of life is probably much simpler than we can ever understand. The Kabbalah is a map of psychic territory that needs no mapping, and those who consult it only become further lost than they were already, not being able to see the ladders for the snakes.
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