From the series “On the Work of the Grades” – reflections on the path of the Candidate through the Grades
The work of the Practicus bears fruit when the student learns to see clearly into the waters of their own nature.
In the Water of Hod, emotion must be transcended and transformed.
Emotion often precedes our thought and compels our action. It can colour perceptions, distort reflections, and can also move the Soul more swiftly than reason can follow sensibly.
For many, emotion remains an unseen master. Anger rises and speaks before reason can intervene; fear paralyses the will before understanding has a chance to give perspective.
Note that the task of the Practicus is not to suppress their emotion, but to know and then channel it—be captain rather than prisoner.
To help achieve this, each feeling must be recognised as it arises, and named without judgment. Eventually, when this self awareness arises automatically, emotive reaction ends. Conscious action then follows naturally.
This discipline soon extends beyond the self. The Practicus begins to sense their ripple on the waters of others, to feel more keenly the atmospheres of those around them—the quiet tension of a conversation, the pulse of a group, the tone of a word.
Such perception, once trained, becomes an instrument of service to oneself and to others: the ability to bring calm where there is confusion, clarity where there is conflict.
Although it begins at Practicus, this discipline endures and serves throughout one’s life.
Be aware that not all water remains calm. Awareness must not become identification. To feel another’s emotion is not to take it on oneself. One may mistake emotion for depth, or sympathy for wisdom; yet uncontrolled sympathy is weakness.
Let conscious will guide feeling toward purpose rather than allow it to run uncontrolled.
This is why the Cup of the Stolistes is an appropriate symbol for the Practicus — Water contained. The cup gives it form. So must the student learn to hold emotion without being swept away by it – to give it form and not be formed by it.
When this discipline matures, emotion becomes malleable, ready for direction.
The waters of Hod then become calm, and in that stillness the Higher purpose is better perceived. Feeling and thought no longer work subterfuge upon each other; they align. From that harmony arises the beginning of the student’s transformation.
Where the outer world speaks of mastering emotions as though they were enemies to be conquered, the Order teaches otherwise: that emotion, rightly undwrstood, is an instrument of self-revelation.
When the Practicus perceives this, each feeling becomes a teacher, and a reminder that every action has its reaction—an essential lesson for all theurgic work.
Kasmillos
