Martial Magic 101 — part 1
No, you don’t need to be a warrior to learn it — but it helps.
First of all, a warning: I speak from a spiritual perspective. If you’re a sceptic, cool, keep doing you — but don’t troll here, or I’ll deal with you like I usually do to disrespectful people. I speak to those who already have similar beliefs.
On to the post:
Lesson 1: Who do you fight, and why?
Let’s face it: we all have warrior “moments” in life. It’s naive to think you won’t ever be involved in a conflict, be it physical or not. One can choose to deal with these moments in autopilot, or take charge of the battle strategy. If you choose the latter, maybe this new series I’m writing on Martial Magic will come in handy. Feel free to discuss it in the comments, RESPECTFULLY and in GOOD FAITH. (I exercise my own discretion to decide what these mean. No you can’t talk to my manager).
The first and most important thing to keep in mind is the fact (not just my opinion — it’s a FACT) your own battle strategy is not “wrong”. There is no wrong when it comes to war. I know it’s a morbid thing to realise, but it’s true. That’s because when you try to regulate war, you miss the point of it entirely: externalising a conflict. A conflict can’t be borne out of cooperation. I’m not here to glorify war (literal and metaphorical), I dislike it myself, but I’m simply telling you what it is, and what it isn’t. If you take an objective stance, you’ll agree.
With the above in mind, I hope you understand that nobody is “shaming” your battle strategy for what it is. It can’t be shamed, because it can’t be wrong — whatever it is. No “conflict” is ever about “being the saint”. These two things are mutually exclusive, because if you truly want to be a saint, you prove it by including and loving everyone; you don’t prove it by, ya know, FIGHTING. There’s a big contradiction there. Yes, I am saying you’re immoral by default when you engage in a conflict — but so is your enemy. You’re never “more saint than” your enemy or vice-versa, so you might as well go ahead and fight without guilt.
In case the above still doesn’t make a lot of sense, maybe this metaphor will help: sport. Think of soccer, basketball, shinty, chess, e-sports, whatever it is people in your culture play. Sports are what I usually call “war in a sandbox”, because they have every element of a real-life conflict except for ONE important difference: the objective. What is the objective in a sport? Well, at first impression, one would say “to win”. But that’s wrong. Winning is just a means to an end. The real objective in sport is in the meaning of the word “sport”, itself: a bit of competitive fun.
I know it will sound like a tired cliché, but hear me out: I’m not necessarily saying “the important is to participate, not to win” (as in, trying to uplift the loser). What I’m actually saying is “if there was no fun, we simply wouldn’t let any sporting tradition continue”. That’s an undeniable, objective, truth. If you win, hurray! If you lose, ah well, there is always next season. War is not like that, and it’s not even supposed to be like that.
This is why athletes can afford to be in a specific team today, and maybe in a different one tomorrow, without harm to their reputation. In the end of the day, they’re simply entertaining the public, not just trying to “win”. Complete and utter lifelong loyalty [to a team] is not the be-all-end-all of sport because, let me repeat, winning is never fateful in sport.
It can be fateful in war, though. This is why it’s stupid to be all apologetic and fake like “oh, I’m such a saint, I never wanted this battle” — no, that’s a lie, those who don’t want it don’t even go to the battlefield. Yes, even if you’re just defending yourself. And hey, I’m not judging. I’m a warrior, it’s Tuesday to me. All I’m asking is please admit you’re doing what I do. Enough denial already.
Maybe what I am saying will sound obvious in theory, but in practice, we often ignore the obvious. This is why it needs saying. If you’re simply “playing ball”, you don’t need to do any soul searching on WHY you’re doing it or WHO you’re doing it against — regardless of how much violence ends up happening during the game. If on the other hand, you’re facing an opponent for real (whatever the context: a fight, an argument, a real-life and not “sandboxed” debate, etc), there will be a need for knowing thyself first and foremost.
Always keep in mind: war is not sport. It should never start by accident or go on ad infinitum. No, if you’re in it, YOU KNOW, and you have a strategy. It’s not playing ball. So let’s own that. Let’s admit that. If you truly didn’t want confrontation, you’d be like Jesus and give the other cheek. Am I advocating for being like Jesus? Hell no. Look at the title of this article, lol. I’m warning you that although I’m helping you, I won’t be romanticising what we’re doing. Fighting makes you get dirty; there’s no understatement; there’s no saving face. Is that crystal clear now? It’s important to get out of denial if you want any hope of victory. Denial will hijack every single one of your strategies no matter how brilliant.
But ultimately, the choice is in your hands: do you want to fight? Or would you prefer to maintain your good image? You can’t have both. This realisation is super difficult, and often extremely painful, because, again, to clarify: I am no attacker. I don’t advocate for attacking anyone out of the blue. You won’t find that kind of thing on my blog. I work with defence. And sometimes, you end up with NO CHOICE BUT having to defend yourself; But, nonetheless, you’ll end up at least a tiny bit “dirty” as a side effect of that. I empathise, I really do.
Not every opponent is worth your time and energy.
Of course people will taunt you. Re-read what I said in the intro: no strategy is wrong. Just because you don’t like it, that doesn’t invalidate it. But the question is: valid or not, will you take the bait? Why? What’s in it FOR you? If the reward is simply “this random unimportant person’s approval”, then I must ask why you devalue yourself so much.
I’m predicting a lot of people will agree here, but then they’ll turn around and be like “yeah, no” and keep caring about the bullies who taunt them. And why is that? Well, perhaps it’s because they agree on the surface with me, but not deep down. So let’s take a dive and see what IS deep down.
“I agree I don’t need THIS BULLY’s approval — but I DO need to look good in front of everyone else”
This could be the feeling behind agreeing, pero no mucho, with what I said about picking your battles. It still carries a streak of low self-esteem though, doesn’t it? When you’re confident, you don’t automatically assume people will listen to ANYONE ELSE BUT you. Confidence comes with the ability to trust yourself, to know in your heart that the truth about you will come forth to those who matter, and you don’t need the morons who are believing the bully in your life anyway.
Feel free to interpret the above as motivational, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a basic universal fact that no two people are exactly the same. Disagreements are natural. So why are you thinking everyone would agree with a bully? What about those who disagree? Wouldn’t they side with you?
Why try and win “difficult” people over, when you can have easy allies? You already have them, naturally. There’s no need to move a finger. All you have to do is look around; look AWAY from the negativity.
The thing is — and this will be a hard to swallow pill, but let’s face it — if the above resonates, chances are you’re being your own worst enemy. I know. I’ve been there. I see it a lot in so-called warriors (in the spiritual sense), this urge to face everyone and everything because they’re lost. Deep down, they’re lost. They’re still acting out their childhood trauma of getting ignored and invalidated. They must realise, first and foremost, that it is over. OVER. O-V-E-R. The wider world has good people in it. But you must decide to believe it, in order to find them.
If this helps, let me repeat a thing: the world is NOT homogenic. If the small circle of people you grew up with were horrible, well, rejoice: somewhere, somehow, things will be different, because the world is not homogenic. People aren’t all the same. Differences are a thing. They provide you with a wide range of options, a wide range of people you can choose to either approach or stay away from. The choice is in your hands.
Yes, I understand. The unknown is scary. But if you have to choose between “traumatic known” and “scary unknown”, why not go for the latter? A potentially good uncertainty? Better than a certainty you ALREADY KNOW is bad, aye? It’s the difference between 100% bad for you VS less-than-100% bad for you. Not rocket science.
Aye, this is a paradox, but it needs saying: every warrior needs a loving family. I’m not talking about blood.
Astrology has a good metaphor about that: Mars (war) is exhalted in Capricorn (the sign of “getting shit done”). But that’s only possible BECAUSE, NOT DESPITE of its opposite Cancer (the sign of family). If you ignore this opposite because it’s too girly or so-called “stupid” or whatever, you’ll get lost. You’ll start fighting yours too, instead of just the enemy. You’ll defeat yourself and never get any shit done. And that’s all because you took family for granted; you assumed “it is what it is” and you don’t need to carefully choose and curate this group of people you keep around, just like you carefully plot your battle strategies.
Some will be confused. Indeed, western society doesn’t like paradoxes, we like things to be straightforward pieces of cake… I’m sorry, but sometimes paradoxes are necessary. Sometimes we have to stop and THINK, embrace complexity, surrender to the fact we can’t always have a straight answer in a bite-size format. Either that, or just stay stuck with the problems you “can’t possibly know” how to solve. The choice is in your hands.
I’m using family here as a metaphor. Don’t take it literally. It just means “your people”. It can be circumstantial. Maybe one day you’re fighting one battle which involves one group of people; the other day you could be fighting another, which involves defending another group. Both are families, in a way. They’re “yours”. You don’t turn against them. No, not even if someone taunts you to turn against them. Good old divide-and-conquer. Do you SERIOUSLY wanna fall for that?
Let me tell you a secret about divide-and-conquer: it’s not efficient in and of istelf. It’s part of a bigger plot. Divide-and-conquer only works when you’ve already planted the seed of insufficiency on your victim. So, first you go like, “you’re not good enough”. Only afterwards, you say “you should distrust your allies”.
I only know that, for 2 reasons: 1, I talk to the Picts, who weren’t conquered, because they understood the meaning of making an active effort to stay together (like, “oh, these tribes around me aren’t my people by default, but let us unite on purpose and see where this goes”). 2, I wasn’t personally conquered by a narcissist either, for the same reason (“I can see a world beyond my dysfunctional family. I wonder where it leads and who I can purposefully keep by my side”). The common denominator is a failure in a divide-and-conquer strategy. And let me tell you, things are so much healthier where I stand now.
Divide-and-conquer is what narcissists do, via triangulation. It’s what bullies do, via intimidation and emotional manipulation. It’s also what the Roman Empire did, via the myth of civilizing. “Oh look, I have this new thing here, but you can’t have it. Or perhaps you can? Only after you leave your family behind and make ME your new family. Deal?”
Don’t go on that kind of deal. The competition for a “big prize” this narcissistic person (or power structure) is offering you is not real. You’ll forever be not-good-enough. And besides, when they say “this thing over here is superior to yours” that is just their opinion. They don’t own the truth. Don’t let them own YOUR truth.
When you try to prove a bully wrong, you’re putting time and effort into someone else’s narrative. Why not just focus on your own?
This is the reason why I keep telling everyone “I’m not obligated to listen to random people if I don’t wanna”. No, that doesn’t mean I’m afraid of them. It means they’re TAUNTING ME TO BELIEVE I’m afraid of them by not playing their game. Well, let them think that. It’s not my problem.
These people’s battle strategy is valid, because I’ll repeat, no strategy is invalid. No strategy is wrong. It’s valid to try and get me (or you, or anyone) to play by someone’s arbitrary rules via emotional manipulation. I don’t like it, but I won’t say it’s invalid. However, I see what’s behind it. And in seeing what’s behind it, if I still chose to engage, I would be stupid. It’d be like jumping into a trap I already know was set up for me.
If your entire warfare consists of taking everyone’s baits, you’re no smarter than a goldfish. But of course you’ll keep doing that unless you learn to value yourself; value what’s yours and who is yours. There’s no protecting without first valuing — which is why divide-and-conquer can’t even begin to work without first making you believe you aren’t good enough.
But Lucy, what does this have to do with “magic”?
Indeed, this entire article was about psychology. It’s a bit of a prerequisite in order to understand the next ones. There is no working magic, or metaphysical, or even metaphorical, without first making peace with your mind. I’ve always said it and I’ll say it again: mental health comes first. Spirituality comes second.
Stay tuned for the next lessons in this series, where we’ll explore more exciting topics and exercises. Love it or hate it, the boring work comes first — but if you ignore it, you’ll get seriously hurt down the line.
Ultimately, I’ll emphasise a phrase I’ve been repeating throughout this article: the choice is in your hands. It encapsulates everything I’ve said above. Don’t forget your power, and don’t give it away to a random loser taunting you from the sideline.
