Majokkid - Magia Records

Engaging the Doppel as Shadow Work

The work I am presenting here is not a replacement for therapeutic practices administered or recommended by a professional. If you do not have any previous experience with Shadow Work, I urge you to have a conversation with a professional, such as a therapist, or a trusted and seasoned practitioner and decide whether or not it would be most beneficial to do this work on your own. I would also strongly advise any magical hero to have a strong foundation in grounding and shielding practices before engaging in any Shadow Work.

In the mobile game Puella Magi Madoka Magia Side Story: Magia Record we are introduced to the concept of the Doppel. According to the official Magia Record website, "Magical Girls in Kamihama City can summon a power known as a Doppel. Only awakened Magical Girls have this ability, which allows them to invoke a portion of the Witch power in their Soul Gem when it becomes fully tainted."

In the Puella Magi Madoka Magia universe, a magical girl typically becomes a Witch when their Soul Gem turns completely black from developing too many impurities. When they use their magic, experience strong negative emotions, or sustain physical injuries, the magical girl’s Soul Gem gathers impurities and becomes progressively darker. Generally, the way to rid a Soul Gem of its darkness is to extract it with a Grief Seed or Grief Cube but inside of Kamihama City, however, the ‘Doppel’ power can be invoked instead.

If a Doppel is summoned, a subconscious confrontation occurs between the magical girl and their Witch self, in which the Witch attempts to convince the girl to give in to their inner darkness and relinquish control. Usually, the Doppel user will reject their inner darkness and the Doppel will be semi-autonomous; but by fully accepting their flaws and achieving a catharsis, a fusion referred to as a Doppel Version can be achieved in which the user is fully in control of their Doppel powers.

Doppels are extremely powerful, making them useful in battle, but come at high risk to its user. This transformation is only possible because of the trauma a magical girl is forced to endure, whether as a consequence of their wish to an Incubator or by merely existing. Most of the time, we need to suppress our traumas and anxieties just to get through the day but the Doppel System is a stark reminder that we can become over-encumbered at any moment. (Not to mention that in its semi-autonomous state, the Doppel will thrash about and attack without abandon, potentially causing serious harm to its magical girl and those around them.)

So, as magicians and magical heroes, how can we utilize the Doppel System in a healthy and constructive way? How can we harness the power of meeting our inner darkness and bringing it out for good? The most obvious, and arguably most difficult, method I can think of is engaging in Shadow Work.

The goal of Shadow Work is to bring suppressed personality parts back into our consciousness and learn to accept and even love them. This is easier said than done, as Shadow Work forces us to confront parts of ourselves that we rather not know about and then actually take responsibility for that which we judge in ourselves and others. Like the Doppel System, Shadow Work asserts that the solution lies not in the permanent avoidance of our darkened soul parts, but in their full acceptance and approval.

Shadow Work a process of acknowledging the ‘ugly’ parts of ourselves and learning to love them despite our judgements or fear of them. Our shadow parts can look like many things in our conscious lives including:

Jealousy

Addiction

Depression

Anxiety

Codependency

Self-sabotage

Excuses

Lies

Procrastination

Resentment

Passive-aggressiveness

Bitterness

Aggression or Anger

Violence

Victimization 

Guilt and shame

Lack of confidence

Issues establishing or maintaining boundaries

Shadow Work is also trauma work; many shadows are created as a result of developmental or attachment trauma when we were children and didn’t have the resources to deal with our emotions fully and so are stored in our bodies and in the stories we tell ourselves. Your shadow can control your life and will keep presenting you with uncomfortable opportunities to integrate it, as Witches and the Doppel System threaten to do.

As our shadows form and present themselves in different ways, there is no set approach for dealing with them. Shadow Work can be practiced by:

Self-observation and mindfulness Practice being present and conscious of your reactions. Identify your triggers; when your reaction to an event or someone’s behavior is out of proportion it is usually rooted in your past and in your shadow.

Practicing emotional inquiry Develop a sense of curiosity for your inner emotional world and view your emotions as information.

Journalling Start with a prompt that forces you to identify parts of your shadow or go with a stream of consciousness.

Analyzing your favorite stories Make a list of your favorite media and jot down their rough storyline. Think about the characteristics of your heroes and how they might relate to you, your unfulfilled potential, or secret desires. This is an intuitive way to explore your shadows by looking for symbols and archetypes in the stories you resonate with most.

Sitting with your shadow in meditation Learn to sit with yourself in silence. Just being able to be with yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings is a powerful way to get in touch with your shadow parts and sit with your emotions.

Inner-child work Since most of our shadows are created during childhood development, there is a lot of potential here for healing and integration. There are many guided meditations out there that can help get you started on this particular journey.

Seeking therapy and/or coaching

By working in these ways, we can essentially tap into the Doppel System and achieve untapped magical potential by integrating and purifying our shadows.

This post is part of my Magi Praxis series. If you have any suggestions for future topics, or you have attempted anything I have shared and want you share your experiences, please send me a message! I am always happy to go back and provide further explanation as well. ☆

Kero-chan wished me a Happy Birthday today! ☆

Why I am a Materialist

It be surprising or confusing to some that I am both a materialist and practice magick. I believe that comes from a misconception of what materialism means. Wikipedia gets us off to a start:

"Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things."

To this I say yes, but where I differ is what follows:

"Materialism directly contrasts with idealism, according to which consciousness is the fundamental substance of nature."

To this I say no, there is no conflict. The apparent conflict is the result of a kind of category error. Consciousness produces material and then binds itself to it. At one level of emanation consciousness is fundamental and at the next the material is fundamental.

But what is the material? Well, physics is essentially mathematics. The physical/material is whatever can be described by mathematics. Absolutely anything that exists and can be shown to exist can be described by mathematical equations. Anything with a stable predictable nature can be described by math. We mistake the map for the territory when we assert this means that the entities in these mathematical models are "real".

If anything non-physical could be proved to exist it would be physical by the definition by whatever proof could be provided. The proof itself is a type of mathematics.

Now, what may be more surprising and confusing is that I don't think magick is real, and yet I practice it. The confusion again is a type of category error. Magick is what makes reality. It isn't real because it isn't the sort of thing that would be real. Magick isn't a thing and it can't be described. Magick can only be performed and no explanation can explain it.