I stand on the outside looking in

I've never really felt that I've fit in with the Occult or Pagan communities. I hold some rather unorthodox views including a vehement dislike of Aleister Crowley's influence on occultism. I've also managed to get into some heated arguments about my practice of magic (specifically pop culture magic) on at least one podcast, where they felt compelled to argue that because what I practiced was partially based on pop culture, it wasn't as valid as more "traditional" perspectives of magic. My writing has been called chaos magic for dummies and I've been told it hasn't broken much ground by people who have as much admitted they don't really practice magic (that one still boggles me). I maintain I'm not a chaos magician. I'm an experimental magician. Chaos magic is  just one of many systems I've drawn on, and not even the most significant, but I guess when you don't do anything that's considered traditional, its get lumped in as chaos magic. Regardless if it isn't traditional, you will get flak for it, or be ignored...

I get my books published by a small independent press, that I co-own, in part because I don't trust large publishers who seem more interested in the bottom line and in the broadest possible audience than in anything I might have to write. I've built the non-fiction line of Immanion Press based on the belief and idea that there is an audience for niche and advanced topics. It's something I continue to hold to and as a result we've been able to publish books and anthologies that likely would never be published otherwise.

I'm saying all this because I am a contrary person and I don't regret any of it. I'm saying this because fitting in isn't all that important. I fully acknowledge my responsibility for not fitting in...because it's a choice.

I stand on the outside looking in. I have stood on the outside looking in many, many times during my life, and in many different communities.I stand on the outside and I welcome it because of the perspectives it has brought me. I welcome it because being outside the mainstream of a subculture or culture can take you some interesting places and can cause you to challenge what is accepted in a way that forces whatever is accepted to really examine itself.

I don't know that I will ever fit in to the pagan or occult communities. I'm grateful that I have, over the years, gained some recognition from people who have found real value in my work. There is something very humbling about hearing someone tell you that you've inspired his/her's magical practice and even life choices. It makes you realize that you can have a positive effect on people's lives.

I have always advocated that people should challenge authority, and should go their own way. My entire life has been about going my own way, even though going my own way hasn't involved taking the obvious routes of rebellion that some occultists take. I've had many people try and discourage my vision for my life. "That book will never get published" or "your reinventing the wheel" or "Your not hardcore enough" or any number of other things. I've always maintained they're wrong and I'm right...because when it applies to my life, the only person who can really make a judgment call on if what I'm doing is right or wrong is me. The people who have tried to discourage me are people who just don't get it...they don't get that you don't need to fit in with what everyone else is doing. You just need to be who you want to be...and let that manifest in your choices. You also have to accept the consequences, like some of the ones I mentioned above. You have to accept that you won't fit in, that you will be disliked and that what's more important is your vision. Life isn't about pleasing everyone...it's about being true to yourself so you can also be true to the people who really matter.

I stand on the outside looking in...It's a pretty damn good view, if I say so myself.

Book Review Earth Light (Affiliate Link) by R. J. Stewart

This book is a continuation of Underworld Initiation. In this book Stewart presents further refinements to his system as well as explaining and presenting information about the faery and how they can be worked with. The pathworkings he provides are useful for exploring the tradition further. I'll admit that my main interest is in the techniques and I found these to be solid and very helpful for some of my ongoing work. I highly recommend this book.

Developing a relationship with the spirits

I've been reading a lot of spider-man comics lately and one theme I've noticed in some of them is an exploration of the spider as a totemic being that spider-man is aligned with. It's interesting to me because at the same time the question is raised as to why Spider-man hasn't explored this connection in a more meaningful way. He's accepted the spider on the surface level, but not necessarily gone deeper. I think that commentary speaks as much to people in general as it does to him, but I'm not referring so much even to an exploration of the spider in more depth, but really a more in-depth exploration of any being or spirit a person would work with.

In the comic book, the character of spider-man never really does explore the connection he has with the spider to any greater depth than he had before. There's a brief move in that direction, but then other writers took over, and spider-man moved on to other things.

How I apply this to magic is just this: it seems like in some cases, working with an entity is really a casual experience. You get an idea or two or something and then you move on. But I think that kind of approach is really the wrong way to go about it. When I started working with elephant, I did some research by reading about elephants and did some meditation work as well to just get to know him. Even now I've continued to learn about Elephants, because its a relationship I want to maintain and explore. I recognize that there's a lot I can learn about Elephants and to just work with the spirit of elephant on a casual level doesn't really do justice to the relationship I could have.

The same has applied to working with Goetic spirits, angels, and other spiritual entities. Really working with these spirits means forming some kind of relationship that goes beyond just calling them up when you need something from them. But there's this tendency to do exactly that. What I've found to be most meaningful is developing a relationship with a given entity in such a way that it knows there is reciprocity involved. And there's good reasons to do it, not the least being, that you can learn the full extent of how you and the entity work together if you take the time to really develop that relationship.

Spider-man never really gets curious. Maybe part of him is even afraid of what he'll discover.  But it seems to me that curiosity is a good thing with entities. We ought to really know more about what or who it is we choose to work with. And when we don't take that time to really explore this relationship we've created, at some point you've got to wonder when the piper will come for his due. By taking the time to get to know different entities, to form relationships that involve treating the entity as a separate being instead of a psychological construct, and understanding that for what is given there is always a price, I've learned a lot about the entities I work with. I feel like we've got the measure of each other, and that's definitely a good thing.

My interview with Mona Magick on Inner Alchemy

Last week Mona Magick interviewed me on her radio show about Inner Alchemy, Neurotransmitters and Space/Time Magic. It's been a while since I've been interviewed, so it was cool to be on this show. Thanks very much Mona Magick!

Intellectual Passion

When we usually think about passion we associate it with emotion, but in doing some reflection I find that a lot of my passion is intellectual. There's something exciting about learning something new or putting together an experiment. or following through on a plan of action. I've always felt a passion for that. It might be an emotion, but it's not quite the same as feeling love for someone. It's a flash of excitement that burns in a different way than an emotion does.

When I feel intellectual passion, I feel like I've found a clue or something that I can then pursue until I find everything else associated with it. It is a single-minded focus that blocks everything else out. What matters is this intellectual passion and that's all that matters.

Applying it to magic usually involves doing research and or experimenting with an idea. It drives me to focus on it until its finished. I don't want to let up when I could achieve something if I follow through. For magical work its important to explore every possibility and every part of your process. Ideally you are curious about why and how magic works and you explore all of it so you can refine and personalize your practice.

Intellectual passion is curiosity...it's never being satisfied with the answers of others or settling for the idea that as long as it works that's all that matters. The magician wants to know more, wants to explore every angle. Only the dilettante settles for the push button approach to magic.

Do you feel intellectual passion for your magical practice? What stirs it up? What excites you?

Identity Tattoo Part 2

 

Yesterday I went in for the last session of the identity tattoo. This time, for me, the focus wasn't on covering something up, but being open to identity and where it could take me. Instead of trying to rewrite the past, I just allowed myself to be open to the present, and the possibilities of the future. I think part of that too came from the sense of completion I feel around writing Neuro-Space/Time Magic.

Identity has been such an interesting element to explore...it's a meta-element really because its present in everything, no matter how much we try to deny it. It could even be argued that our denial just strengthens it. Regardless of how you look at it, however, identity is present. It goes beyond a constructed sense of self to something much deeper. It displays itself in everything we do or don't do. It's a cycle, and that's why the tattoo ending up the way it has makes complete sense to me. All of the internal work I've done, everything I'm doing now is part of a cycle that's my identity. And it goes beyond one life time, I think...it's a continuing exploration of everything, changing in a dance that we can sense if we are open to acknowledging it.

Opening the Gate

Unlocking yourself releases heat that flows to all extremities,bringing forth a heightened awareness of life and your connection to the environment, There's a moment of oneness in everything, a close kind of warmth that snuggles and smothers simultaneously, releasing with it a cry of fear and liberation, I am free and chained at the same time

In the confrontation of opposites, there is the fusion of the similar, which creates a cycle of entropy, as the polar opposites turn on the similar and turn on themselves a cycle that never stops and reveals in its intricacies everything falling apart to come back together again

The inner worlds are revealed by the outer world unlocked by the people who can understand that its not all in your head there's real meaning and power in the symbols you hold so dear. There's liberation in the facing of fear and fear in the liberation you achieve for the unknown calling on and on that you come forth and face the consequences of your choices.

Liberation and Tradition

The value of any transcendent tradition should be found within its liberating qualities. A tradition, of any sort, has no other ultimate value. The use of tradition for tradition's sake is a perversion, a tool of suppression.

From The UnderWorld Initiation (affiliate link) by R.J. Stewart

I've just started reading this book, but I found this paragraph to be tantalizing because of what it says that a magical tradition should do, i.e. provide some form of liberation or freedom through the magical work a person does. That theme is present in a variety of different occult subgenres. Chaos magic advocates for it, as does Thelema, but the danger within any subgenre is the blind adherence to tradition because that's the way it's been done and that's how we should do it.

The idea of examining a tradition or practice of any kind for its liberating qualities is something I agree with, because ideally any magical working you do will be meaningful in a personal way that improves your life by freeing you of limitations either imposed on you by other people or self-imposed due to your own circumstances. When a tradition fails, it is because it actually imposes limitations in the form of dogma and non-questioning. It's easy to fall into those traps, particularly if you are in a group setting and want to "belong" to the group, but when such belonging becomes the priority, the liberation the tradition might offers falls to the wayside in favor of trying to fit into what you think others want.

One of the reasons I've pushed for experimentation with magic is to get out of such group think dynamics. Its good to work with people, when you do so with a spirit of inquiry and acceptance that the experience one person has doesn't need to apply to everyone else, to be valid and useful for that person. Experimentation encourages the idea that magic is best experienced in an environment where a person can try an idea out without getting shut down. When people try to shut you down, it is usually because they feel threatened by your desire to liberate your preconceptions by challenging them through experience. They may feel that by challenging your own preconceptions, you challenge their own, but this is projection on their part, done as a way of preserving a cherished image they want to cling to, without recognizing that the value of experience is that it allows us to shatter what we hold onto, in order to discover how much it may have held us back.

The Spiritual Tipping Point

I think of magic as a process that's akin to a tipping point, a spiritual tipping point. With magic, you're stacking the odds in your favor, and focusing on creating a very specific outcome. Part of how that works is that you create a tipping point where the amount of resistance against the desired outcome tips to the desired outcome, because enough action has been put toward the outcome that the resistance is a less viable option. This kind of approach to magic is useful in long term scenarios, where you're trying to achieve a specific outcome but you recognize it might not occur right away. A good example is a job hunt. When you're hunting for a job, you have to do a number of activities that will help you get the job. you need to fill out applications, network, develop a resume, go to job interviews, and do other related activities. When you add magic into the mix the focus is on using magic to help you get a job that you want, but in order to accomplish this, you know it could take a little while, because you're dealing with a number of people who are also job hunting. Those people, along with employers, create a resistance field. For the magic to work you have to specify not only what you want, but also how you'll turn that resistance into momentum. How I have approached this in the past is simple: I'll do a magical working for the job or create an entity to help me get it and part of what fuels the spell or entity is the activities I do that are related to the job hunt. They create a momentum that starts to create a tipping point.

Possibilities become reality when there is enough momentum behind them that reality tips in their favor. So with the job hunting example, multiple actions done in conjunction with magic can create a tipping point where the desired possibility becomes reality because the other possibilities, or field of resistance, doesn't have enough momentum to sustain itself against the dedicated momentum you've built up on multiple fronts.

Personally I prefer to employ the tipping point approach to any situation where I know I'll already be spending a decent amount of time working toward achieving the outcome through mundane means. The spiritual tipping point just makes it happen a bit sooner, and it always works, because its done on the understanding that what you accomplish will occur, and you're just helping to make it inevitable with everything you are doing to create it.

What you can learn from Pop Culture characters

I study pop culture characters in comics, cartoons, shows, books, etc., because of what I can learn about them, in terms of character development, attributes, correspondences, and how you can apply all of that to your own magical work. There's a lot of detail that's put into a character, in terms of origin, history, personality and all of these details are useful not only for developing a pop culture magic working, but really for developing an eye toward the kind of detail that can be necessary to pull off a good magical working. With a pop culture character, the details that go into the development of the character are ones that help make that character memorable to the people watching the show or reading the book or comic the character is in. If you want to create a compelling character you need to develop all of those details, because they will all help draw the interest of the audience.

How does that apply to magic? If you're creating a magical entity you want to be as detailed as possible in the creation of it. What are its characteristics and mannerisms? What is its origins, its special abilities etc.? Those details can bring that entity to life for you, and empower the magical work you do.

But lets look beyond entities to other forms of magical work. I find that paying attention to the details is essential to being successful with magical work. When I put a magical working together, I try to think of the details as part of the narrative of a story I'm writing. By taking lessons from pop culture, I've been able to put those details into focus in my magical work, so that I don't leave any loopholes in what I'm trying to accomplish.

The Process of Magic Radio show

The latest radio show is on the Process of Magic. I discuss why the process of magic is important, answer a question about energy, and provide a couple of examples. For the next radio show I'll be interviewing Crystal Blanton. It'll be a two part show.

Listen to internet radio with Experimental Magic on Blog Talk Radio

Patterns of Reality

"Mind patterns could be 'woven' like cord patterns, and these mind patterns were what 'move' spells. Different coloured threads indicated different kinds of consciousness, and their physical arrangements had to be projected into equivalent Inner patterns of power" -- From Magical Ritual Methods (affiliate link) by William Gray I pulled this quote while doing a bit of research for Neuro Space/Time Magic. The concept is interesting, using different colored threads to represent specific patterns of thought and being. I was once part of a ritual where we used silver threads to create a tesseract matrix of time. The thread represented the journey to access temporal possibilities, but what I find interesting with this concept isn't even that, but rather how the mind can be organized into different states that can then be evoked using a simple prop such as a colored thread, and a pattern or shape to bring it forth.

This concept can be replicated with other methods as well, such as using an alphabet of desire to embody different states of consciousness and patterns of reality. The key, however, is to recognize how you will actually use a specific state of being to change a pattern of reality you are in. Lets say you are doing a habitual behavior that you want to change. You are aware of it, and you can name it, and provide a symbol/shape to embody it. Now you could take this embodied shape and destroy it, but would that really solve your problem?

An alternate approach would be to devise a symbol and/or shape that represented a desired state of mind/being that you could use to counteract the habitual behavior. Ideally, this symbol/shape could even be the same color of the initial symbol you developed to represent the habitual behavior. Thus when you started to do the habitual behavior, you could visualize the shape and letter of that state, and even vocalize it. Then you could change the shape and letter to the new state of being, even as you also changed the vocalization, imprinting the new behavior on the habit, in order to change it into the new behavior.

All of this I got from a quote by Gray. If you haven't read his books, give them a try. They offer a lot to any occultist lucky enough to find them.

Deadpool as a memetic virus

One of my favorite comic book characters is Deadpool. Since the very beginning he's actually been a favorite character for a lot of readers and at the same time he's a bit more than that, and also something that Marvel didn't expect in terms of popular interest. Deadpool's popularity has grown enough that he's gotten multiple comic books and even a possible movie deal. The character is fascinating in his own right, breaking the fourth wall frequently and at the same time playing with a lot of comic book tropes in terms of hero and anti-hero concepts. There's enough character development to keep him interesting, but a lot of the focus is on his humor, self-destructiveness, and the healing factor that keeps him alive despite it all.

Why do I think of Deadpool as a memetic virus? In part, I think of him as this because of how much his character has come to pop up in video games, comics, etc., and in art because he breaks the fourth wall frequently. I see him as an agent of chaos (which can be good). More than that I see him as a sticky character, which is to say he stands out in the minds of the readers in ways other characters don't.

Having been familiar with the various iterations of the character, since he was first invented, its interesting to see how he's evolved from a comic book villain to something more than a comic. I find tracing the history of such entities can be useful for learning if you'll work with them, as well as understanding just how they've changed due to popularity and interest.

Why magic isn't a bunch of categories or labels

I think sometimes people try too hard to boil magic down to categories. You ask someone what type of magic s/he practices and you get a long list list of categories such as Chaos Magic, Postmodern Magic, Shamanism, Ceremonial Magic, etc. Add in magical lodges the person belongs to and you've got another set of categories (made into Acronyms) such as TOPY, OTO, OSOGD, GD, Etc.,I see these categories applied to the future of magic as if that can be boiled down to a specific type of magical practice. I'm guilty of this too. I talk about experimental magic as a label of some kind, as a way of trying to differentiate what I'm doing from what others are doing and labeling their practice as. Yet at some point it becomes a haze of semantics and the question that arises is: Are you doing anything with all of this anyway or just armchairing it?

On some level there's a necessity for labels and categories, to be able to provide some vocabulary for the discussions, but when we get obsessed with it, it ends up becoming some kind of circle jerk indulged in for the sake of trying to prove who is cooler than thou or who's the most elite occultist out there, or whatever. We all want to stand out and how better to do it than come up with some crazy ass term that sounds cool and might even mean something up if we get through the semantic haze.

But I like my magic simple. Yes, I want to experiment with it, but I also want it to be something other people will do and understand without having to throw in a lot of specialist jargon. So I'll use a definition where applicable, and otherwise keep the focus on doing the magic.

Time Dilation Experiences

Time dilation is one of the experiences that's always fascinated me. I suspect just about every person has experienced time dilation. Time dilation is the experience of time either slowing down or speeding up. For example, if you've done a magical ritual before and you've felt like hours passed when perhaps only a half hour passed, you've experienced time dilation. Or if you've raced for a bus and felt like time sped up around you, you've also experienced time dilation.

When I do space/time magic, I like to warm up, as it were, using time dilation techniques. they are techniques that help to push the mind out of the linear frame of thinking it is used to, while prepping it for opening the doors of consciousness to explore time from a non-linear perspective. One of my favorite exercises to use comes from Jean Houston's Book The Possible Human (affiliate link). In this exercise you visualize time as a yard stick with past, present, and future occupying 12 inches each. Then what you do is take the past and give it 12 more inches, while having six inches off the present and future, and focus on experiencing a perception of time where most of the perception is on the past.

You can do the same exercise with the future, giving it 24 inches, and giving the past and present 6 inches each, or apply it to the present. Now you'll note that this is still a fairly linear perception of time, but the point of the exercise is to loosen up your habitual perception of units of time.

Time dilation is the first step toward experiencing and accepting that time isn't a constant and that we have influence on it. The usefulness of doing a time dilation exercise, whether in daily work, or just before you do a space/time working is that it'll push you outside the digital measurements of time we've come to rely on so much. And learning to activate time dilation at will can actually help out in those everyday situations, as well, because it teaches you to rely less on external measurements of time and more on internal awareness. You can apply that internal awareness toward shaping time around you, like in the time sphere working I discuss in Space/Time Magic.

Time dilation frees us of the automation of time, challenges us to question the measurements and schedules of others and shows us a glimpse of what time could be, if we are open to altering our perceptions of it.

Some thoughts on protection magic

Each day I do meditation to ground myself, but part of the meditation also involves sustaining protective magic as part of the grounding aspect. Protection from what? Protection from external influences, or internal beliefs, or a combination of the two, or some dastardly wizard out to get me, because of something I said or did? I've seen several books on protection and reversal magic, where someone throws something at you and you say, "I'm rubber and you're glue." I've always found it interesting that people will buy the books and put so much effort toward protecting themselves and then I'm reminded I do daily work that essentially acts as a protection.

I think protection is important, to one degree or another. For some people, who have a need for drama, protection may be especially important as a way to protect against the magic someone else might do toward them. Whether someone is doing magic or not is a question, because for such people there is a suspicion that it's all in their heads. On the other hand, there are legitimate cases where another magician will try to mess with you for whatever reason and it pays to have protection against those people. Setting up your home with wards and reinforcing them can pay off, when someone comes knocking on your door with a desire to put the hurt on you.

But for the majority of times that I really think about magical protection, it's really for potential mundane disasters. Car accidents, natural disasters etc. It's magic you do for that eventual day when something comes up that's out of your control and the only thing you can do is hope what you've put into place will turn it aside enough to make sure you walk away.

There's always a place for protection, so long as we don't let it stop us from experiencing the world. Protect yourself, but also challenge yourself.

How I use paintings in my magical work

I use paintings in a lot of my magical work. I'm currently working on one now, which is a self-evocation piece. The majority of my paintings tend to be used for entity work of one form or another, but I also have used some of them for specific spell work, like when I created a painting for an astrological alignment that was occurring. I find that paintings provide me an opportunity to align myself with particular events, people, etc. and express that alignment as well.

This is a painting I did a while back for my work with Elephant. It's obviously not a literal painting of an elephant, but it is an expression of my connection to elephant and at the same time functions as a portal to connect with the primal energy that represents elephant.

This is a picture that represents the spider queen of time. It's fairly abstract, because it's actually focused on representing the web she weaves, but it works to convey that web as well as provide a gateway to it.

This is a painting I did for Bune to thank him for his aid in my wealth magical workings. It's his goetic seal, but it's personalized because of the painting. Any work I do involves using this painting.

As you can see paintings are an important tool in my work. I find that the creative expression puts me into the right frame of mind to do magical work, and that the space I create via my paintings is useful for shaping the magic I need to do.  Do you use any art in your magical workings, and if so how?

Where research fits into experimentation

Research is an integral part of experimentation for magical work. When I'm working on a project, writing a book, or looking at working with a pop culture icon or brand, I do a lot of research. Whether its researching the history of a character, or reading up on neuroscience, I know that to get an accurate understanding of what I want to work with I need to do research that will support my experimental work. An experiment is defined, in part, by the information you have available to you, as well as by the desired outcome you want to accomplish. An experiment can't be structured effectively until you've examined relevant information that can provide an understanding of what you'll be working with.

When I first began my experimentation with neurotransmitters I'd already done my research by finding out what they were and how they worked in the brain. I couldn't have developed a neurotransmitter entity technique if I didn't already have some information on what to look for and what to potentially expect. My real test was sharing the technique with other people who hadn't necessarily done the same research. When they got similar results, that told me that the technique was sound, but also that the research had paid off, because I was able to provide enough information to help people work with the neurotransmitters effectively.

Magical experimentation doesn't occur in a void. Every magician I know who experiments isn't just coming up with something off the top of their heads They are researching information, looking up what others have done, and putting together a technique to experiment with, based in part on the research they've done.

What about you? What research do you do, in order to improve your magical work?

Some experiments I'm working on

I'm currently working on some different experiments. Some of these are in concept phase, while others are being developed as practical applications. All of them represent ongoing work I'm involved in. 1. Neurotransmitter work: I've been working with neurotransmitters as entities for over 7 years now. The current work I'm doing has involved working with multiple neurotransmitters at the same time, for purposes such as emotional regulation, healing, and related work. I'm writing about this work in Neuro-Space/Time Magic.

2. Web of Space/Time: This is my system of space/time magic. I've been working on it for a while now and its partially related to the work I've been doing with movement and space, as well as exploring time's role in navigating space. There's also some work with possibilities in imaginary time. I'm writing a thorough explanation in Neuro Space/Time Magic.

3. Movement/space work: I've been exploring how to use movement as a form of magical work and expression for a while now. It's another of those current projects that's focused on the book, but also focused on working with the body as the main form of magical expression.

4. Brandscapes: This has been inspired by the class I'm teaching on pop culture magic. At this point it's a concept, but one I want to explore further as a way of working with a company entity in a purposeful, and focused manner.

These are a few projects that are on my mind. What about you? What's something interesting you are experimenting with in your magical work?

Radio show on Magical Groups

Here's the latest radio show on magical groups. Take a listen, and leave a comment, if you agree, disagree etc.

Listen to internet radio with Experimental Magic on Blog Talk Radio

Credibility, causality, and magic

When I think about causality and magic, one realization I have is that trying to make the causality of magic credible is really trying to apply a different model of thinking that may not fit magic. Magic doesn't really operate on Scientific laws of cause and effect. It has its own rules, and those rules involve a different angle and take on causality, as magic applies to it. Trying to fit magic into some box or hole of another discipline isn't useful, if you are strictly applying that discipline to magic as an explanation of it. It can be useful to draw on concepts and practices from other disciplines in your magical work, but that's a different post altogether. Wanting magic to fit some kind of scientific, rational explanation is really taking the wonder out of magic, in my opinion. Even in my own work of defining magic, I've never really tried to fit it into another discipline, so much as I've tried to explore my own experience of it. And when I think about it, magic is really about experiences. Yes it can be a technology, and an art, etc., but its more than that. It's experiences and its stepping into a frame of mind that is willing to accept those experiences and find meaning where most people wouldn't. It's not about credibility in the standard sense of the word, because such ideas of credibility are based off specific disciplines that try to structure the experience of the world in very specific ways, different from magic And to be fair, magic also is about structuring experience in a very specific way.

My point is this: Trying to approach the causality of magic in terms of credibility as derived from other disciplines doesn't work too well, because there's a predisposition to view magic as some kind of primitive activity done by people who don't know any better.

We do know better however. We know that magic works and we can even explain how it works, but the explanation we provide won't necessarily fit within the accepted perspectives of other disciplines. Nor does it need to. If the result occurs consistently, the process works and that's all the credibility you need. The causality is involved in the process and your understanding of that process is a large part of the causality of magic, and how it's bringing desired change into your life.

Book Review: The Emerald Tablet (Affiliate link) by Dennis William Hauck

This book provides a good explanation of the seven stages of alchemy and how they can be applied to a person via psychology. The author does have a tendency to mix in some inaccurate history and also tries to connect alchemy to UFOS, but even with those flaws, this is still a useful book for someone wanting to learn about alchemy and begin applying some of the concepts to his/her life. I recommend it primarily for the explanation of the seven stages of alchemy, which you can apply to your life via your own internal work.