The world lies as a banquet before us. At any given moment, we are either eating or in the process of being consumed. Hunger is an ancient biological imperative. All living things cat and are eaten: the magickian is no exception. A11 things, all people, must take their place in the banquet hall.

It is the intent of this paper to initiate discussion on the processes which affect the "Eater" and the "Eaten". The Eater is defined as one who consumes power and thereby increases it's energy to do work. The Eaten is consumed by power. This power, in both cases, may take the form of another magickian, Deity, or elemental spirit.

The eater consumes power and is made larger thereby. The movement is toward a state of ever increasing largeness. That which initially was, grows, in it's ability to do work. As more work is taken on, more Food is required. The process is toward rover greater complexity. The change in the Eater is one of quantity. The Eaten is changed more by the experience; the quality
of the Eaten shift. S/he becomes one with that which consumes.

In eating, energy is taken on from the substance of that which is consumed. There is growth. "You are what you eat" and the more that you eat, the more that you are. The name Magickian is, synonymous with those who eat. The Magickan commands all things by bringing them into a web of the Self.

The movement of the Eaten is toward Nothingness. Nothing is expended.  The power of the paten is the power of the Mystic; that of dynamic passivity. Dissolution, and the emptyness which accompanies it, is the Mark of this path. All weight is given freely to the Eater. Karma and Ego are jettisoned into the maw of the voracious. That which eats takes on energy to do the Work. That which is eaten becomes One with the Work.

It may be well not to judge too harshly those whom you see in the process of self-destruction; they may be taking the first gross steps on the path of the Mystic. Growth may be painful. "Try all, hold fast to that which is good," is an old anarchist dictum.

The Eater must digest what is taken in. The transmutation of that which is eaten must occur for balance to be reestablished. Power is consumed and the power must be integrated with the whole. Without this integration, the parts of the Eater will turn against themselves.

inertia (the tendency to remain in a fixed condition without change) and entropy (an increase in degree of disorder within a closed system) are the stumbling blocks of the Eater. The magickan's work lies within their realm, while the Eaten, in it's acquired Nothingness, can manifest in a limitless dance of Creation. Life proceeds from the Void.

Looking at the Tree of Life, each sphere can be seen as consuming the sphere which lies before it. For example, Chokmah is the power of the Word. The light which flows into, and informs the Tree, is digested in Chokmah, and voiced as the Word of the Magickan. The Word defines and directs the light. The essence is transmitted to Binah. In Binah, the Word is consumed as pristine form.

Atu 10, the Wheel of Fortune, can be considered the significator of the Eaten. The Wheel, or ROTA, encompasses the Taro with it's symbols of All and Nothing, it's connotations of Fate and Chance, and speaks to the infinite possibilities which lie in the experience of the Eaten. Atu 1, the Magician, is an apt significator for the Eater.

It is well to remember that Eater and Eaten are possibly useful conceptual categories imposed upon an unknowable existential space in an effort to create order. There is no difference. They are perspectives on tire same phenomena. By virtue of Being, we drift inexorably into Nothingness.  Once Nothingness is attained, the creative urge asserts itself and Being is again re-established.

Copyright 1984 Louis Martinie and Mishlen Linden