experiential embodiment

The difference between visualization and experiential embodiment

One of the problems I see occasionally in occult literature and conversation is that a given term will be used to try and describe a wide range of experiences that may not fit that term. For example the term visualization is sometimes used to describe sensory experiences that aren’t visually based. It’s a convenient term because its meant to describe an experience you’re having, but the problem is that the focus on the visual and on the sense of sight influences the understanding of that term.

If I use the word visualization to describe a magical working, what I’m typically describing is an experience where the visual component of the experience takes priority. For example, if I’m doing a pathworking, I might visualize specific imagery that is used to create the environment I’m going to work in. Visualization has become a more prevalent technique, in part, because of visual media and the role it plays in our everyday lives.

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I walk with spirits

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In a recent blog post I shared how my relationship with the spirits has evolved over time into a symbiotic relationship. Part of how that relationship has come about has involved taking an approach to spirit work which goes against what you typically find in western ceremonial magic. In traditional evocation, for example, a person might summon a spirit, compel it to do specific actions with other spirits and then banish the spirit. This creates a relationship based on coercion of the spirits involved, and also attempts to separate out the spirit world from our world, creating a false division.

I’ve never found this approach to evocation to be workable, perhaps because I have a fundamental problem with the concept of coercing a spirit to do something. I’ve also never employed banishing techniques in my work with spirits, because of that false division it creates. Instead my approach to spirits is informed by my desire to have an ongoing, symbiotic, cooperative relationship with the spirits I work with. As such, I’ve always approached my spirit work with a perspective of how can we mutually achieve our desired goals and help each other.

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Wu Wei and Magic

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One of the books I’m currently reading is Effortless Living by Jason Gregory (Affiliate link). In that book he shares the following: “When we fervently seek power or use force, we exhaust our system by swimming against the current of life instead of flowing with it. A sage or an artist allows life to present itself instead of dictating toward life…When you finally realize…that the whole universe is happening to you right now all at once, you will cease projecting yourself onto the world, because you will become receptive to the universe. This will align you with a real trust in life that confirms that you belong.”

Over the last couple of years my approach to magic has shifted toward a similar outlook. Instead of trying to control everything, I’ve surrendered myself to the experience and allowed the experience to speak through me and take me where I need to be. That kind of approach to magic can seem to be contrary what magical practice is, but I think that’s because a lot of how magical practice is discussed comes from a place of control (and I say that as someone who’s written about magic from that perspective and still does sometimes).

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How Embodiment connects you to your environment

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The majority of my current magical experimentation is on experiential embodiment, which is focused on entering into a conscious relationship with the body, as opposed to merely inhabiting it and treating it as an object. Yet what I’m finding with this work is that it’s not merely helping me continue to collaborate with my body as a living universe in its own right, but also connecting me more intimately with the environment and world I live in, as well as with the fellow living beings I share this space with.

I’m reading the Spell of the Sensuous and Processmind and both books explore how connecting with your body also opens you up to connect with your environment. What both authors recognize is that the choice to be sensually and experientially present with your body necessarily also opens you up to becoming present with the space you are interacting with in your everyday life. Embodiment teaches us not to take for granted the world we live in or the bodies we are fortunate enough to have access to.

Liminal Space and experiential magic

I’ve started re-reading the Spell of the Sensuous, which is one of those books I’d make mandatory for any magician. In the book the author notes that the magician’s place is on the edge of society, mediating both the human community and the community of nature and spirits that the magician connects with. This role is essential and the magician maintains it in order to connect with the wild, with the spirits and as a result bring about equilibrium in the human community.

The author shares this contextual definition based on his experiences in SE Asia, and so I found myself asking if what he defined as the magician’s place is applicable to Western society. And I think it is. Not the least perhaps because I’ve always seen myself on the edge and that I prefer to live in hard to find places that have a connection to nature, but just as importantly because I think that regardless of where you live, its necessary to find a way to connect with the larger world around you, and with what awaits in that world, both in terms of life and spirit.

The magician’s space is liminal space, that place between worlds where everything is possible, and yet until something is done, everything is also unmanifest. In such a space the magician has access to all the experiences and possibilities that she needs access to and most importantly to the allies she needs access to, but such relationships must be cultivated purposefully. If you want to connect with a spirit in the liminal space, you must necessarily seek that spirit out, but here’s where experience comes into play because how you connect with that spirit is through the awareness of experience. You aren’t just saying the name of the spirit or using a sigil to invoke or evoke the spirit. You’re feeling the vibrations of the name, as you say it, directing the name inward and outward. You’re paying attention to any sensations that feel unusual, any sensation which speaks to the presence of the spirit coming through. You are making space for something to happen and going outside of normative consciousness to connect with the experience you are having.

The focus on experience is the cultivation of the liminal, the awareness of subtle nuances and sensations that signal here is magic, here is possibility becoming into reality. It’s tapping into the numinous and letting that come through you and using your sensorial awareness to fully embrace the experience and allow it to take you out your everyday consciousness. And this is something that can happen any moment, at any given time. For instance, I can take a walk and during that walk if I choose I can connect to the spirit world by simply opening my perceptions up and choosing to let in every experience that is available. Underneath the ordinary there is often more going on that we don’t recognize or see., because we’ve blocked it out. Now we can use ritual, use various magical methods to get us there, but i’d argue we can also simply learn to open ourselves to what is around us, and challenge our awareness by letting in what we normally block out.

When I first started practicing magic, I spent a good half a year just learning different techniques of opening the perceptions and connecting with the elemental, underworld, cosmic, and other altered states of reality. Why did I spend so much time just focusing on opening up my perceptions? I realized that if I wanted to do magic I first needed to teach myself how to be aware of magic in all of its forms. Even now, so many years later, I still continue to work on honing my awareness and perception because I find that it keeps me open to all the ways magic can show up.

In the book I mentioned above, the author watches as some people in SE Asia leave an offering to the spirits and then discovers that the spirits are ants. Many people would look at that and say there’s nothing magical there, but what the author was able to see was the spiritual significance of the moment and recognize that what the people making the offering were doing was establishing and maintaining a relationship with the life around them, and as a result were connecting with the spiritual world in ways that were subtle yet significant. We might ask ourselves if we can’t do the same by simply discovering that any given moment and how we approach that moment can provide us an opportunity to discover and work magic. How then might that change our relationships everyday in the world we live and in the routines of the day we choose to engage in? How might our magical practice evolve if we allow ourselves to fully subsume ourselves in the experience and let it speak through us?

Learn how space/time magic works
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Experience and the art of magic

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If process is the methodology of magic, experience is the art of magic.

When I talk about experience, I’m talking about engaging your magical work on a sensorial level, opening yourself to the subtle nuances of magic as it expresses itself in your life.

Experiential aspects of magic can happen during ritual workings. In fact a lot of magical workings are purposely designed to engage the magician sensually in order to alter the consciousness and prepare the magician for the spiritual workings, but ritual is just one example of experiential work in magic.

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Memory, Embodiment and Exercise

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In the last couple of months I've been memorizing some chants for some work I'm doing with the Elemental Archangels. The purpose of memorizing the chants is to embed and embody specific associations with the archangels and the correspondences that they mediate. By memorizing the chants, I'm not just learning the words, but also developing an understanding of what those words represent and creating and deepening my connection with the archangels.

I find that memorization is a skill that isn't always appreciated in magical work. The idea of memorizing correspondences or chants can seem like a lot of tedious work, from a surface perspective. The value of memorizing chants and correspondences is that its actually a process that allows you to intimately connect and get to know what you are working with.

Where I'm going next with magic: Experiential Embodiment

I've been thinking a lot about where I want to go next with magic. When I wrote Magical Identity, I felt like it planted a seed for what I'll term experiential embodiment. But like any seed, some time was needed to let it germinate and flower. 

But for the near to intermediate future I'm finished with pop culture magic and I find myself coming back to experiential embodiment, both in the form of the current book I'm writing, and in my magical experimentation in general.