I was listening to the album The Looks or the Lifestyle by PWEI earlier and thought of how the title was very true for the study of magical traditions. People can get wrapped up in the techniques and philosophies, and take them on board and use them to transform themselves and their lives (the lifestyle), or they can get wrapped up in the outer trappings, the uniform, as it were, and the irrelevant (though admittedly often interesting) details about the personalities of the main practitioners of the tradition. An obvious example of this is the level of fascination (some might say obsession) which is frequently exhibited about the lives of Aleister Crowley or Gerald Gardner. At the end of the day it should be a case of judge the work, not the artist – unless you are a historian and study the historical impact of a person.
Of course you could argue that you need to understand a person to understand their contribution, and this is true ot a point, but a level of knowledge to provide context is a world apart from excluding positive change through practice by concentrating on where somebody was on a particular day, what they wore or what they ate! To make a difference we need to act, and to act we need to be effective at what we do. So the lifestyle wins over the looks every time, as far as I am concerned!
Every religion and magickal current takes ineffable Truths that cannot be fully expressed by mere words… and then attempts to express them by mere words.
Alas, the Truths cannot be conveyed directly as they are, so the words, symbols and personalities delivering them are ultimately just a necessary vehicle to convey the ideas, just like a wrapper is necessary to convey a candybar without it melting all over your hands.
Once you get the idea, you can throw away the imperfect words, symbols and personalities used to convey it, just like you’d throw away the wrapper after eating a candybar.