Will and Attention

The word will appears on almost every page of the literature of magick, and it is almost always misunderstood. It suggests gritted teeth, the furrowed brow, the effort to force oneself or the world. The tradition means something quieter and far stronger: the power to give oneself a direction and to go on in it, undistracted, for as long as it takes. Its partner is attention, the power to keep the mind on what one has chosen. Together they are the engine of the whole work.

What the will is

Consider how seldom an ordinary day is directed by a decision. One wakes at a time set by obligation, reaches for whatever distraction is nearest, responds to what others say, eats what is there and is carried from one thing to the next by habit, mood and circumstance. The principle of cause and effect describes this exactly: most of the time we are effects.

The will is the faculty by which a person becomes a cause. It shows itself in three ways. In choice, when one decides what is to be done instead of drifting. In initiation, when one begins the thing at the appointed time and not later. In persistence, when one continues after the first enthusiasm has gone. None of these involves strain. A person with a trained will is recognizable by ease: they do what they said they would, without fuss.

Will and desire

Will is easily confused with desire, and the difference is worth getting clear. Desire is a pull felt toward something. It comes and goes, conflicts with other desires and takes no account of consequences. Will is a decision of the whole person. One may will what one does not at that moment desire, as when rising to practice on a cold morning, and desire what one does not will.

The tradition does not ask for the suppression of desire. Desire is the fuel, the sulfur of the alchemists. It asks that desire be gathered and given a direction, so that a person is moved by one considered purpose and not by forty passing wants.

Attention, the first act of will

Before the will can act on anything outside, it acts on attention. To attend to one thing is to refuse, for that time, everything else, and this small refusal is the will in its simplest form. It is why meditation is the primary training of the will as well as of the mind. Each return of the wandering attention to its object is a complete act of will, performed and repeated hundreds of times in a session.

Attention is also what we are most often robbed of. A great deal of modern life is arranged to capture it and sell it. A student of this art has a particular reason to notice where attention goes during the day, and who or what decided that it should go there.

How the will grows

The will is strengthened in one way only: by being used successfully. Each time a resolution is made and kept, the faculty gains a little. Each time a resolution is made and broken, it loses more than a little, since one has practiced not doing what one said. Two rules follow.

Resolve little. Make few resolutions, make them small and make them exact. I will sit for ten minutes at seven each morning this week can be kept. I will become more disciplined cannot, because it does not say what is to be done.

Keep what you resolve. Having made the resolution, carry it out to the letter, however you feel when the time comes. If you find it was too much, complete it anyway, and resolve less next time. A record of small promises kept is worth more than any quantity of ambition.

Exercises in daily life

These exercises are done in the course of an ordinary day and take no extra time. Take one at a time, for a week each, and record the results every evening.

One thing at a time

Choose one routine activity, such as washing up, walking to work or eating breakfast. For that activity, do only that. No screen, no music, no planning. When the mind leaves, bring it back to the hands, the feet, the taste.

The appointed time

Fix one small action for an exact time each day: to stand and stretch at three in the afternoon, to write one line in a notebook at nine at night. Do it at that minute. The action is trivial. The punctuality is the exercise.

The unwelcome task first

Each morning identify the task you least want to do. Do it before anything optional. Note how much smaller it was than the reluctance suggested.

The small restraint

Choose a harmless habit: crossing your legs, a particular filler word, checking a device at meals. For one week, refrain. Each time you catch yourself, simply note it and keep a tally. The tally will show how much of behavior runs without you.

Finishing

For a week, leave nothing half done that could be completed. Close the drawer, answer the message, put the tool away. Unfinished actions leak attention all day long.

The pause

Before speaking in any conversation that matters, and before replying to anything that provokes you, wait for the space of one breath. In that breath a reaction can become a choice.

The deeper will

So far we have spoken of will as a capacity. The tradition also speaks of it as a content: the idea that each person has a true will, a course of life that expresses their real nature, as distinct from the wishes picked up from family, fashion and fear. To find that course and follow it is said to bring a characteristic sense of rightness, as of a river in its own bed, and to do otherwise is to be in conflict with oneself whatever one achieves.

This will is not chosen from a list. It is uncovered gradually as self knowledge deepens and as the louder, shallower wants fall quiet. The early exercises serve it in two ways. They build the capacity to follow a direction once it is known. And they teach, by daily experience, the difference between what one merely wants and what one actually wills.

Faults of the will

• Strain. Tension, forcing and heroic resolutions are signs of a weak will trying to imitate a strong one. Lower the demand and raise the reliability.
• Rigidity. A will that cannot change course when the facts change has become mere stubbornness. Earth without water.
• Harshness. Self punishment for lapses adds nothing. Note the lapse, find its cause, resume.
• Use against others. Strength of will is for directing oneself. Turned to overriding other people, it becomes the thing the ethics of the art forbid.