The advantage of having a spiritual blog are, among other things, that I get free copies of spiritual books occasionally. So far that’s limited to spiritual fiction though, in my case. And it’s not exactly the best fiction I get sent home for free either. I recently received ‘The Happy Soul Industry‘ by Steffan Postaer. I read it out in one go, which means it’s compelling reading. Would I read it again? No, not really. It’s a bit like those books which build in the success of the ‘charmed’ series on TV. I read them, I like them, but I don’t think they’re high standing literature. I would never review them here.
Why is this book an exception? Because it touches on an important theme: the eternal question in Western Society: what is evil and where does it come from? It’s an eternal question because the very question has, as usual, the answer buried inside it. If you look at the world through the paradigm of a war between good and evil, then evil is something that needs to be fought. If on the other hand you see misfortune and greed as the prime suspects, you come up with totally different responses.
Steffan Postaer frames his book in as classically Western a paradigm as possible: God, the Devil and an angel are the prime characters in his novel. It’s set in 20th century USA (or perhaps early 21st century). God, as the source of everything, is the mother of the devil as well. This is a slightly Gnostic (and more logical) version of our old creation myth.
Shifting capacities, miracles, seduction – they all play their part. The main theme is that God has chosen a new way of bringing her message to the people: advertisement. It turns out that actually the devil has a near monopoly on the advertisement industry. After all, it’s all about seduction and greed – two of the specialties of the classic devil. Weren’t the seven sins used some time back to sell ice cream? How diabolical can you get?
What I don’t like about the book is that all the responsibility is ultimately that of God or the Devil. No ordinary people involved at all. But the book has a point. The Advertisement Industry uses state of the art psychological knowledge to get us to buy as much as possible. Whether it’s good for the whole of humanity or not. Profit is the ultimate bottom line. Money as the measure of all things. That’s our culture and spiritual people all over try to find their own way of not getting caught up in that, while not hurting their own bottom line.
For me this is perhaps, and that’s why this book gets mentioned here at all, the hardest spiritual question of all: when does using knowledge turn into misuse of knowledge?
The classic theosophical answer is: Motive. Motive determines whether an action is positive or negative. Motive determines the direction a person grows in. Motive alone. But effects count for something as well. After all – cause and effect together make up the law of karma.
Blavatsky wrote about this stuff in a rather black and white way. Literally. In one Secret Doctrine Studygroup we came to the conclusion that her definition of black magic was: misuse of power. What is misuse in her book? Selfish use. What is selfish? When the self comes into play at all. White magic is then the use of power and knowledge for the good of mankind. Or in Buddhist terminology I’m sure she’d have liked: the use of power and knowledge for the good of all sentient beings.
I’ve looked up examples Blavatsky gives of black magic and most of them would be called psychological in our time. That is: black magic is often the misuse of psychological insight to hurt people or get your own way. Doesn’t that sound like advertisement?
While we are at it: note that this is a rather stricter definition of black magic than the classic Crowlean one. Crowley had it that black magic is only black when other people get hurt. Advertisement doesn’t directly hurt people though, it merely seduces them in doing things that ultimately aren’t good for them, like getting into credit card debt.
The question this book asks is a valid one: could those same techniques be used to inspire people to live right? Without any ulterior motive? Without the wish to sell more books, or even pay the rent, or ‘build good will’?
Hi Katinka,
I agree with you and Blavatsky, and I’m pretty sure Carl Jung gave a virtually identicle definition of Black Magic as well, I’ve forgotten where I read it though. I have a close friend who is studying hypnosis, and had previously worked as a salesman. He tells me he learns the same things in both, except with different motives. In sales he learned about psychology in order to manipulate the customer (he didn’t do this for long), where as in hypnosis the aim is to help the patient heal.
I recall someone else telling me that when they worked in a music shop the owner tried to get him to use “psychic persuasion” to hook the customer into a sale. He was told to visualize tying a rope around the customer and pulling them in. Surely that’s Black Magic, though amazingly many people consider that White Magic.
God Bless,
Hari Om
Jung may have talked down on Blavatsky, but he was friends with people who definitely knew her work. It doesn’t surprise me at all that he’d have the same (or a similar) definition of black magic.
That story about visualizing pulling the client in using a rope… Oh gee.
A widening appreciation of all and ‘the’ one seems a help.
Thank you for this thoughtful review of my novel. Having read it all in one sitting is a deep compliment, regardless of the criticism, which, by the way, I found greatly rewarding. In the end, the story was intended to be a modern fable about good and evil. Thought provoking entertainment is the book’s primary goal and, judging from your remarks, it succeeded! Thank you for your readership. If others are interested in the pursuit of “goodness” while working in advertising please check out my blog, godsofadvertising.wordpress.com
This is from my favorite book “Queen Cleopatra” by Talbot Mundy..
“There are two forces, each having seven streams, and they again seven times seven, and so on downward unto an infinity of numbers.
They are right and left, hand positive and negative, light and darkness, good and evil. Each has many names and many attributes,
and in the ultimate the two are one; though not yet, nor for many eons, is their oneness manifested, and until then they are opposites.
Their oneness is an occult secret, difficult to understand, and it is madness for the choosers of the left hand force to meditate their treacheries when the star of the right hand force is in the ascendent.”
FRAGMENT FROM THE DIARY OF OLYMPUS
Despite your ambivalent review of my novel, The Happy Soul Industry I dearly thank you for it… and for the thoughtful essay it inspired. If you have a minute please do check out my blog, godsofadvertising as I’m discussing good and evil right now.
-Steffan
Blavatsky wrote about this stuff in a rather black and white way. Literally. In one Secret Doctrine Studygroup we came to the conclusion that her definition of black magic was: misuse of power. What is misuse in her book? Selfish use. What is selfish? When the self comes into play at all. White magic is then the use of power and knowledge for the good of mankind. Or in Buddhist terminology I’m sure she’d have liked: the use of power and knowledge for the good of all sentient beings.
Question – why does Blavatsky associate black or dark as something negative or evil? Why does this person associate white or light as something positive or good? Why does Western society view black=evil and white=good?
I can’t speak for Blavatsky, obviously. In general of course white and black should NOT be seen as at all related to skin color.
I’d say that perhaps it’s as follows: White is the color of light, and we need light to find our way. Black is the color of darkness, the absence of light: confusing, scary and also the unknown.