How to Re-Write and Re-wire Memories

Awhile back I went to a restaurant and took myself on a dinner date. I don't normally eat out alone, but I wanted to re-write and re-wire a memory and I've found that sometimes the best way to do that is to revisit a site and make a new memory that overwrites the old memory.

But what if we can't do that? What if we're too far away or if the memory is simply too triggering?

We may still want to change the memory, but we may need to take a magical approach to doing that work that liberates us from the trauma and tyranny of the past, while also enabling us to transform our present and presence. 

I like to take two different approaches to this kind of magical work.

1. Use pathworking to rewrite the memory and create a new story and narrative

I have used pathworking to rewrite traumatic memories. In the book Magical Imagination by Nick Farrell (Affiliate link), there's an excellent script you can use where you create this idyllic garden in your mind.

The garden seems really peaceful, but there's a rotting tree in it and that tree represents the memories you need to work through. You go into the tree and you find a corridor of doors and each door leads to a memory. 

You go into the memory but you have complete control of that memory. You can change it anyway you want and rewrite the memory and experience however you please.

You can make different choices and cause different actions to happen and transform the way the memory unfolds. It's magical and it can help you change the deep patterns in your life.  

2. Transform the memories with the memory box.

You can also use a magical tool like a memory box. A memory box is a tool where you store memories in order to transmute them into energy in your life. It's similar to that magical tool in the Harry Potter fiction...the pensieve.

I created my first memory box many years ago and I've used it for a variety of space/time magical workings, but one of the workings I do is I store memories in it, and convert them into energy for transforming my life.

The traumatic memories become fuel for empowerment. By removing them from my active and unconscious memory and storing them somewhere else, I let them go from my life and this frees me from the trauma I would otherwise be holding onto and allowing to define me in my life in a way that empowers and frees me from the past so I can embrace the present.

3. And sometimes you just need to do a cathartic magical working...

I said I was only going to share two ideas, but I thought about it and sometimes what you need to do is a cathartic magical working where you release the emotions, thoughts and triggers of the memories.

In the summer of 2022 I hiked Mt. Pisgah. I took with me three letters I had written. Two of them were written to an ex. One was a letter where I just vented over my hurt feelings and another was a gratitude letter. The third letter was for me and in it I wrote about the life I wanted to create for myself. It was an act of magical writing designed to help me create a new narrative for my life.

I hiked all day and I found three different spots. At each I did a ritual where I buried a letter and did a ritual of release where I cut the ties that bound us, and in the process began healing from the traumatic experiences and memories I was feeling. By the end of the day I was physically and emotionally exhausted, but I also feel cleansed and this began a process of healing that is allowing me to radically transform my life.

Our memories don't need to define us. We can turn them into tools, we can heal them and we can let them go and live our best lives.

Imagination as the seed of reality

Imagination is where reality begins. It is the seed of potential and the promise of manifestation and I share why your imagination can be one of your most potent magical tools, as well as how to work it in to your magical practice.

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How to attune your intuition to the right timing

Photo by Will Truettner on Unsplash

One of the ways that I work with my intuition involves connecting it to the right sense of timing, in terms of taking action on something that I want to manifest. Not all moments are equal and the right timing can make all the difference in terms of manifesting results that allow you to move forward in the directions you want to go in. Bad timing, on the other hand, can hold you back, preventing you from succeeding because you are picking the wrong time to take action.

Some of the ways you can determine the right timing can involve learning about your astrological cycles and using those to help you take action or doing divination to ascertain when you want to take action on a given project. A way that I tap into the timing is also through the aid of spirits that I am working with. For example, there have been several times this last year that Saturn advised me to take action on specific situations. I had done magical workings to call the Saturnic influence into my life and work with it, and given that Saturn plays an integral role in time, it didn’t surprise me when there were some moments where I clearly received a message that NOW was the time to act.

For instance, during my house buying process I looked at a number of houses, but none of them felt quite right. Then I woke up one day and got the message, “Today you’ll find your house.” My magical partner also told me to go buy a house and it felt like she was tapping into that same current. I want out with the realtor and the first house I visited felt right. I put and offer in and by the end of the weekend had it accepted. There were some other facets to that experience, but the timing played a role and my receptivity to the spirits (as well as my partner’s intuition) clearly made me aware that it was time to buy a house. Interestingly enough an astrological reading I received also indicated a time span that would be ideal for me to buy a house and I saw the house on the very first day of that time span, which was the beginning of a saturnic cycle for me.

There are multiple ways to attune your intuition to the right timing. One way that I find helpful involves paying attention to your body rhythms. Your body is often attuned to the subtler aspects of reality around you and will tell you something about the environment around you that you can draw on. If you spend time working with your body consciousness through meditation, qi gong or some other type of activity it can help you start paying attention to the more subtle messages that your body is sending. Intuition is one of those subtle messages and so is timing, so you can combine that awareness of time with intuition to help you determine the best moment to take action.

Take a given situation where you need the right timing. Do some meditation or some qi gong or something else to tune into your bodily awareness and once you are tuned in, bring the situation up and ask your body to notify you of when you should take action. When the time comes you’ll feel a sense of intuitive awareness, a ping on your consciousness that will tell you to take action. It may come in the form of a picture or words or it may just be a sensation. Take action then, because what is happening is you are tuning into the optimal moment that you’ll have the success you want.

These seems like a simplistic approach to take to tuning into the timing of a moment, but you have to keep in mind that you don’t need to make something more complex than it already is. Tapping into your intuition can be an experience where you feel into the awareness you already have available to you and trust that it will help you get what you need.

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The Mysteries of Death and Rebirth part 2

We live with death everyday, but we don’t always recognize it. In this video I discuss not just the obvious examples of death, but the subtle nuances as well. I also share some of my previous near death experiences and how they have lead to different rebirth experiences.

Memory Resonance technique

I recently saw the movie The Green Knight. It was a fascinating movie to see because of how it evoked specific experiences during the watching of the movie. Whether this was intentional or simply a byproduct of my own spiritual sensitivity, I couldn't tell you. But what I can tell you is that any such experience can be stored away and used as a way to help you sync up with related experiences.

I call this the memory resonance technique and the way it works is that you use the experiences you are having to connect with the memory of other experiences, and in turn you use those memories to enhance the current experience and open you further to liminal reality.

The Mysteries of Death and Rebirth part 1

Death and rebirth are integral part of our life cycle. I discuss the mysteries of death and rebirth in relationship to the movie The Green Knight and share an experience I had with Cronus, as a result of watching that movie.

Timing and results

How to factor timing into your results and how to adjust and adapt.

Learn how magic works at https://magical-experiments.teachable.com/

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How I calculate probabilities in order to manifest them

Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2020

I was recently asked if I have a method of calculating a probability and how likely it is to manifest as a reality. The person wanted to know if I use a divination method or anything else along those lines in order to calculate the probability. As it turns out I have a way that I calculate probabilities in order to determine if I’m going to manifest them. I should also be clear and mention that I’m not interested in predicting world events or things along those lines. My calculation efforts are entirely focused around achieving results.

This recent blog post speaks to my stance on divination and how I use divination to manifest results, but the calculation aspect of divination is found in the presentation and manipulation of information. Any divination technique presents information within specific contexts, and usually the context most focused on is the information itself. But a look at the design aspects of divination can also be useful because of how that design can be used to calculate and manipulate a probability.

For instance, with tarot cards, the design aspect shows up in 3 distinct ways: the art, the spread, and the positioning of the cards. The art, obviously, is the medium by which information is primarily expressed and presented. But for purposes of calculating a probability, I like to look at the spread and the positioning of the cards. I don’t use fixed spreads with my readings, because I find them to be limiting, in no small part because the design of a given spread is used to portray the information of the reading in the context of the spread, even if that context isn’t always applicable to the reading. the same applies to the positioning of the card. I have no real investment in whether a card is reversed or not, unless it’s useful to use that positioning as a way of opening and closing aspects of the reading.

So how I do use the spread and position design to calculate probability?

When I create my own spreads, I create them for each situation and I use the spread to help calculate the probability, because where a card is placed can signify its influence on the possibility, but also the route of least resistance and its that route I’m particularly interested in. If I want to manifest a result, I want to use the path of least resistance, because the less resistance there is, the easier to manifest the possibility. But the calculation of that route is also the creation of it, because the spread isn’t just used to determine the best possible path…it’s also used to create it.

Likewise my use of positioning is really about using the position to determine what information/influences I want to either amplify or minimize. The position of a card either indicates that other cards and what they represent should be applied fully to the path of least resistance or that the information/influence should be contained and mitigated or redirected differently.

I calculate a probability on the basis of what effort and actions will be needed to manifest the probability into a result, and how that effort and action must be aligned with available influences and resources that can pave the way for realization of the result, i.e. the path of least resistance. By using my divination tool to create a path of least resistance and align or redirect relevant information, I’m able to determine how likely a probability could become a result, while also creating an avenue of manifestation that starts the process for turning the probability into reality.

The use of design in this process plays an important role because it contextualizes the information and focuses it toward the specific outcome. This is also true outside of divination. The design of any process of magic has implications about how that process will work and what it will do to help you achieve a result. Studying the design aspects can help you optimize your magical workings, because you aren’t just focused on the information or actions, but also the context in which everything is happening. Using design to turn that context into something that works for you can make your magical work that much more effective.

The power of the imagination in magic

Photo by Porapak Apichodilok from Pexels

I’m currently re-reading The Way We Think, which explores conceptual blending and how we are able visualize and do other amazing things with our mind that are much harder to replicate with computers. The reason is that a while a computer can do rational analysis, what it can’t easily do is imagine. The power of the imagination allows us to experience the world from a multitude of perspectives and find novel solutions to problems that fall outside of rational analysis.

I’ve always treated imagination as a sacred aspect of myself. While there’s a tendency in Western culture to treat imagination as something restricted to children or being childlike, I think we lose out when we don’t use our imagination. The imagination is the gateway to the possible of the universe, the means by which we can entertain what might be instead of just sticking with what is.

In my work with space/time magic, I’ve utilized imagination as a tool for the forecasting of timeline possibilities, wherein you essentially access a possible future and live it through your meditation. It’s a useful way of getting a sense of probable outcomes without committing to that future and it’s enabled me to also project potential consequences for achieving the result of realizing that future.

Another way I’ve used imagination with space/time magic is to create a mansion of identity/memory, where I’ve created multiple versions of myself, each version focused on a specific topic of interest I want to learn about. I can interact with each version and get information from them on a subject, but they are also actively acquiring additional experiences and information and then processing it so that I can draw upon what’s been learned quickly and efficiently. Imagination allows them to model what they learn and work with it to come up with solutions to problems I’m trying to solve. By applying my imagination to the problem and allowing the appropriate versions of myself to have at the problem (whatever it is) I can come up with a solution that resolves the problem.

Imagination has played a role in every magical technique I’ve developed, because I ask myself what if, and then use my imagination to help me map out the reality of that what if wonderment and turn it into something that can be applied practically to the world. You can do the same thing: Take an existing problem and ask yourself what if…what if I could solve this with whatever I wanted to solve it with. Then let your imagination entertain that possibility and chart a path forward for you to discover the answer.

We use imagination to meditate, to do pathworkings, to connect with the sacred and merge it with the profane. Every act of magic is an act of imagination that allows us to turn the possible into reality. When you recognize what a role imagination can play in your magical workings, it helps you see how it opens us to the hidden world. It’s imagination that allows us to connect with the spirit world and the spirits, because imagination is a state of being that touches the essence of all beings that can imagine and wonder. We channel that imagination, through stories, but we can also channel it through our capacity to imagine possibilities and turn them into reality.

I’d invite you to consider imagination as another part of your magical tool set. What can a sense of wonder and imagination teach you about magic, life, and whatever else you apply it to? You may be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.

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An example of how Retroactive Magic works

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I thought I would share a practical example of how retroactive magic works. This example pertains to the recent move I made at the end of 2018. In 2018 my family and I lived in a duplex. I had lived there for a decade and most of the time it was a pleasant living experience, but we had new neighbors move in in 2018 and they were the kind of neighbors who were loud and unpleasant to be around, and seemed to lack any awareness of how their actions were impacting our sleep or overall quality of life.

The question I had to consider was what could be done. On the one hand, I liked living in the place and had a lot of good memories. On the other hand, my land lord was powerless to do anything, even when issues were pointed out that demonstrated that the neighbors weren’t honoring the agreement of their lease. The laws around evictions favor the tenants even in cases where its clear the tenants are not honoring the agreement that’s been made. When it became clear the neighbors weren’t going to be evicted I began to consider what else I could about this situation.

In late November I mentioned to my wife that I thought it was time we considered moving. She agreed and mentioned that she had been feeling that way for a little why because of the neighbors and because of a couple other issues. I decided to look up our lease and was pleased to see we only had until the end of January until the lease was up. Clearly it was time to start looking for a new home. So we started looking but experienced a bit of sticker shock when we saw how much rent had risen. We had been fortunate to be at a place where the landlord didn’t obscenely raise the rent and we did debate whether we should just try and stick it out, but after doing some financial research, realized we could afford the higher rent.

So we started looking for a new home. We initially found one right away that seemed perfect, but ended up not working out when we realized they didn’t like pets. And as we kept looking we discovered how hard it was to find a home that would allow us to have more than 2 cats. And when we did find one that might work it was much further out from my work and the landlord lived next door. It was clear to us that we need to start doing some magic that would help us get a better result.

Why not do magic right away? We initially wanted to get a feel for what was available and I think it was good we did. By doing our research we were able to figure out the specific criteria about what we wanted as well as what we didn’t want, in a home. Price was obviously part of the criteria, but we also needed a place that would allow us to have more than two cats, and didn’t charge pet rent. We also wanted a place that didn’t share a wall with anyone else and we wanted a place that was centrally located, yet also quiet and isolated enough that we could enjoy our privacy.

So the night we decided not to go for the one place, I pulled out my two tarot decks and did a reading/enchantment for us that would help us figure out the best choice to make and point us in the right direction of the home we wanted to find. Part of what went into that reading was all the previous efforts we’d made to look for a home. We didn’t want to waste that effort, but instead took the energy of it and applied it toward the reading/enchantment so that we could get a result that was ideal for us. What the reading indicated was that settling for the one home wasn’t ideal and that staying where we were also wasn’t a good idea. But it also indicated we’d find a new home if we kept looking. After the reading wrapped up, my wife got an intuition, checked a site we were using to find potential homes, and lo and behold we found the place we’re now living. It was ideal and although there were a couple details that needed to be ironed out, we knew it was the place we were looking for.

Within the week we secured the place and at the same time I contacted my previous landlord and was able to make an arrangement with him that got us out of our old lease a bit early without paying a full month’s rent and being able to transition the utilities to his name. Everything else lined up smoothly and by the end of December we were in our new home. And the new home has met our criteria. We don’t share a wall with a neighbor, we have quiet neighbors and our home is secluded and yet has access to everything we want access to. The commute to our respective workplaces is shorter and the energy of the place, overall size, etc fits what we need for where we are. And we could rent it with all four of our cats.

Where does Retroactive magic come into this?

I applied retroactive magic the night I did the tarot reading. I used the tarot reading as a medium through which to work magic that was focused on helping us achieve several specific outcomes.

1. Assess our current situation and the possible outcomes available to us, as well as environmental information we may not have been aware of. This was the divination aspect of the reading and it helped us get a better lay of the land, while also allowing us to look back at the previous work we’d done to find a new place and put it into context with what the reading was telling us.

2. Take the information and experiences, and create a new path forward that would direct us to the place we were fated to live in. I treat my tarot readings as enchantments, so once the cards were laid out and we eliminated the possible paths to focus on the one path that indicated what we needed to do, I used the reading to grab the experiences of the previous month, the emotions we felt about leaving and about our annoying neighbors, and I took all of that and turned it into momentum for creating a result in the present or near future that would get us what we wanted.

This is where the retroactive magic came into play. I couldn’t change the past and what happened, but I could use the past to open up opportunities in our present/future that weren’t readily apparent to us. I could take everything up to that present moment, the experiences and emotions we felt and turn it into raw magical energy that could take a probability and create a path of manifestation for its realization. And that’s what I did.

The result…we got our new home, got out of the old place sooner than later, without having to cover utilities for the last month and only paying a half’s month rent. Everything lined up to help us get where we needed to go. We just needed to use what had already happened to propel us toward where we wanted to go, and to help us achieve the desired result we wanted.

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Can you physically change the past?

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Recently I was asked if you could physically change the past with space/time magic. The person specifically brought up a technique I mentioned in Space/Time Magic, where you can influence your past self via a meditation technique in order to guide and influence that past self.

Throughout my life I’ve had moments where I’ve encountered a future version of myself that gave me advice or pushed me in a specific direction or warned me away from a direction I might have gone down. I know when I’ve followed that advice/push or pull in a specific direction its generally worked out in my favor, but it does create an intriguing question.

Was I interacting with my future self or with a version of my future self, or what?

I’ll be the first to tell you that so far as I know you can’t physically changed the past. I’ve never physically time traveled to the past or hopped into a DeLorean and gotten a sports almanac or hopped in to a Tardis. Nor have I traveled back into the past in any other way that seemed remotely physical

Yet nonetheless I’ve had moments where I’ve experienced a sense of myself, older, who’s taken it upon himself to show up in dreams or meditations and either give me a push toward a certain direction or provide some type of instruction that has shown up as a spiritual transmission of sorts. I’ve also purposely initiated workings where I connected with a younger version of myself and provided him information and directions.

The question is who am I interacting with? Am I interacting with the future version of myself that I am becoming or am I interacting with a version of myself that made some different choices and knows those outcomes, and so points me in a different direction? I’m inclined to think its the latter case, because it is possible that there are multiple versions of ourselves and that under the right circumstances those versions could interact with us, via something like dreams or meditation when we’re in an altered state of consciousness.

That version wouldn’t be changing his past, but would be providing a change to my version of the life of Taylor Ellwood.

Alternately perhaps it is truly my future self and that future self, with the wisdom of a life lived, is choosing to look back and make some suggestions so that changes can be made.

If that’s the case, how is this change happening if for that future self its the past? And what is changing for that future self.

This is where our notions of linear time run smack into non-linear time. In either scenario what we have to recognize is that our notions of linear time set everything up with a distinct path forward. You have a sequence of past, present, and future. One moment leads into the next and never is that moment revisited save through remembrance.

Non-linear time on the other hand offers a different perspective. Past, present, and future aren’t delineated in the same way. They inform each other, explore each other and change each other. The past and future are just other moments of the present that a person slides into.

The question then is what changes and do we notice that change in the everyday life of linear reality?

This is a sticky question to answer because when you throw non-linear time and space into the mix there is no conveniently easy answer. Yet nonetheless while I can point to moments where I felt a sense of self come through and say, “Go here and do this or don’t do that,” what I can’t point is the alternative, because that alternative hasn’t happened or if it did happened, it happened to a different me. So has something changed? Maybe, but if so its a subtle change, something experienced subjectively that nonetheless has an effect on your life.

And what about me and where I am at? Having done some work with my past self, providing him instructions and direction, I can tell you that something may have changed in my life as a result, but I can’t point to something specific that tells me what changed. I don’t have objective evidence that a physical change occurred. I only have the subjective experience and as a result this is why I can’t say that the past has physically changed. Maybe it did but I can’t be entirely sure it did. All I know is that I influenced the path of my life in some way and as a result I’m where I’m at, but what changed…I provided myself suggestions and he followed them. If he hadn’t, something else would have happened.

It’s not terribly specific or measurable. It’s probability and when you deal with probabilities, you’re dealing with non-linear time and space, where nothing is convenient and everything is possible. Nonetheless the question still remains, “Did I truly change my past?”

You changed a past…but is it yours or another version of you? There’s only the subjective experience, the feeling of change and difference and what you make of it.

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