Researching the brain

Although I've already written the first draft of my new book, I'm still continuing to do research on the neuroscience of the brain (one of the books I've recently read is reviewed below). It's a fascinating subject for me, even without writing a book, but writing a book does shape a lot of the reading and experimentation I'm doing. What interests me the most is how much a person's sense of self is wrapped up in the brain and how easily that can be changed by an accident, stroke etc. It demonstrates just how fragile a personality is...its based on biological realities as much as on any metaphysical sense we attribute to it. A lot of my work with the brain has involved being able to go in and interact with the neuro-chemistry in order to effect desired changes in personality. For example, no longer having to suffer a mental disease such as depression involves making changes to the biological aspects of depression. Some people accomplish this through drugs...my preference has been targeted meditation work with neurotransmitters.

The brain is adaptive enough when it comes to doing such work, because it naturally has the capability to change, thanks to neuro-plasticity. Nonetheless making such changes has to be done carefully and one of the reasons I've read up so much on neuroscience, is to understand the mechanisms of change that are already incorporated in the brain. Even knowing that information, I think its important to carefully experiment with desired changes you want to bring to your brain.

It's also important to recognize that what we know about the brain is still not entirely accurate. Not so long ago, there was a belief that the functions of the brain could be mapped to specific parts...while there's some truth to that, there's also a lot of truth that functions don't solely belong to a specific area, but are shared in part by the neural network and specifically how it shares information across the network. Experimentation needs to be done cautiously, with a recognition that in someways all we have is an idea of how the brain works. We can test that idea...we can experiment with it, but we also need to acknowledge its limitations and recognize that experimentation will take us off the charted edge to the unknown space, with all of its mysteries.

Experimentation should challenge us to go into the unknown, while research grounds us in information we can use to push ourselves toward that unknown space. What we bring back from the unknown space is more information, to provide further grounding and a better sense of what we can do with what we have. I recognize my magical work with my brain will likely never be perceived as scientific or as valid as what actual neuroscientists do in their studies, yet I also know it has brought desirable changes into my life, improving the quality of my circumstances, and that others who have followed my work have also benefited. That's the real test for the magician...not if something fits acceptable scientific paradigms and knowledge, but rather if you can take it, obtain a result, and then share it and help others achieve similar results. Sometimes magicians forget that in their fervor to "scientifically" fit-in with the dominant paradigms of acceptable thought. To them and all others I urge: Take what you can from the system, but don't restrict yourself to what others have told you...try it out yourself, test through your own experience and let that be your record and great work.

Book Review: The Tell-Tale Brain (Affiliate Link) by V. S. Ramachandran

In this book, the author explains what mirror neurons are and presents a variety of case studies on them as well as discussing various neurological diseases and what causes those diseases. He also discusses the connection between linguistics, art, and neuroscience. This book is fascinating and the author presents compelling cases. More importantly, he helps the reader understand some of the science in neuroscience with stories and examples that provide context to the science he is explaining Overall a really good book on a fascinating topic.

My high school years

I practiced magic for the majority of my high school years. I've already touched on how I first began studying magic and my first teacher. After what happened with him, I realized that I needed to look toward books and my own experiences to teach myself magic. I had a couple of friends who practiced, but all of them were in the same place I was...little to no experience. And I was the most focused of the bunch. I hungered for magic in a way the others did not, because for me magic was about empowerment, whereas for them it was more of a novel interest. In high school, I was one of the weird, unpopular kids, and that brought with it all the bullying and negative attention that arises. It probably didn't help that I purposely chose to stand out, but it also didn't help that I was a relative newcomer and as such didn't fit in with already well-established cliques. For me, magic was a way to empower myself, both in terms of doing an activity I was really good at, and in terms of doing an activity that intimidated others and sometimes caused them to back away from me. I was labeled a black magician and I'll admit I purposely chose to embrace that label. Ironically it was a label that would follow me into college.

I never got into Wicca. It was popular, and a lot of people practiced it, but I didn't care for it or the practices or the Wiccan rede. In truth, I felt it was too popular. I wanted to explore the more obscure practices and techniques (which still holds true to this day). What I found in the books on Wicca and encountered in the people who labeled themselves as such was more of a religious focus. I didn't want religion, already getting more than enough of it from my mother. I also didn't care for what I thought of as a narrowness in the Wiccans I met. I heard too much about what you couldn't do and I found that when such naysaying was going on, it was happening because people didn't want you looking into something. So I looked into what they didn't want me to look into.

In those years, I didn't experiment with magic for the most part. Instead I read the books and did the exercises faithfully, just trying to learn them. My studies focused on a combination of neoshamanism, elemental hermeticism, and Golden Dawn Ceremonial Magic, along with Crowley's Thelemic works. (yes you read that). I hadn't heard of chaos magic, or of the works of other magicians. For the most part, I understood magic to be a very formal, ritualistic activity. I knew I didn't have most of the tools, so I made do with what I had, but I did my best to faithfully replicate ceremonies and rituals. The neoshamanism was what taught me flexibility and a very practical, technique oriented approach to magic. It also introduced me to a lot of visualization exercises. The ceremonial work introduced me to discipline, vocalization, and planted the seed of my process oriented approach to magic (Ceremonial magic is very much a process).

There was one experiment I did however, and it was done because I knew it could work and that the benefits would outrank any consequences attached to it. Also I took and still take a very traditional perspective on body fluids, understanding them to be a conveyance of the power of the person. And also understanding that the land has power.

I lived in York, Pa at the time and there was this place called Reymeyer's Hollow. It was a cursed place, cursed by the magician who was murdered by another magician. It's a place where the air seems to stand still, where there's always something menacing...visiting it at night brings this sense of menace out even more and people will tell you they can see spirits there. It's a nexus of power.

One night I traveled there with a friend and I did an evocation of each of the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, and an evocation of spirit. I had a knife I used for ceremonial work and I took that knife and cut my right upper arm. It was a deep cut. I gave each of the elementals my blood in exchange for their essence and swore a pact of alliance with them. I'll admit, I got the idea from reading the Elric series by Michael Moorcock, but I also got it in part from some of the books on elemental hermeticism. From the beginning I understood that working with the spirits was best done as a collaboration. My reason for doing this working was that I wanted direct access to the elemental energies. I got that direct access with the ritual I did. It changed me profoundly, and changed my understanding of magic as well. It's fair to say that my concept of the elemental balancing ritual came in part from doing this working. It changed how I experienced the world and how I experienced magic. It changed how I interacted with the land.

It wasn't until College that I began to really experiment with magic, but that first experience taught me I could and inspired me to start thinking outside what the books were telling me.

My first experience with a teacher

I've only worked with a couple of people as teachers during my magical practice. None of the experiences were positive enough for me to keep looking and I came to the conclusion that I was better suited to teach myself and better suited to understand what I needed to learn. I still feel that way to this day. My first teacher was a fellow student in my high school. He was learning Shamanism (whether self-taught or taught by someone else I can't recall). He was half native American, but he didn't seem to mind that I wanted to learn. I'd met him shortly after I started practicing. Our student-teacher relationship didn't last long...perhaps a week or two. He recommended a few books and taught me a couple of exercises. I diligently reported back to him and then...

He called me up one day and told me he couldn't teach me magic and I shouldn't practice magic at all. When I asked why, he told me (drum rolls please): You have no soul! I'm not making this up and to this day it still amuses me because it was such a teenager thing to say. At the time, I was stunned, and hung up and momentarily thought about giving up the magic. Then I came to the conclusion that he feel threatened by me, and that inspired me. If he felt so threatened, I'd just have to show him there was good reason for it. Plus anytime someone has told me not to do something I want to do, it just makes me determined to prove the person wrong. This was no exception. I also figured I still had a soul.

I began reading even more books and doing the exercises in them and just practicing everyday, determined to prove to this person I could do magic better than he. It was admittedly a juvenile reason to practice magic, but I was a teenager and that's what motivated me then. And before long I felt I had surpassed him. I was diligent in my studies and I did everything I could to apply magic to my life. He and I never talked about what he'd said, but I could tell he knew I was still practicing.

I learned a really important lesson from him. Don't believe what anyone tells you about yourself or your fitness to do anything, until you've tested it yourself. To this day, its still a lesson I live by and one I try to pass on to my readers and the occasional person I take on as a student.

Why its not a good idea to destroy part of yourself

The other day I decided to do a meditation technique to work with a part of myself that I thought I wanted to change. I did the meditation technique and basically I ended up poking a part of myself that didn't care for what I was doing and responded with quite a reaction, which showed up both internally and also in my life around me. Fortunately, I was able to sort matters out in my life, but I realized that what I'd tried to do, which essentially was to get rid of a part of myself, wasn't really a good idea. At times, in our lives, there can be a temptation to try and get rid of part of yourself or change it or try to fit it some standard of behavior that doesn't really apply to it. Inevitably, what ends up happening is that the part you try to change defends itself quite vigorously and you realize that it wasn't such a good idea.

This isn't to say you can't change behavior. You certainly can, but trying to do a radical change is never advised, and doesn't make you happy. Instead such changes need to occur gradually, being worked through, and even when such changes are made, they usually focus on behavior, as opposed to identity, which is essentially how you define yourself. You can change behavior, but changing identity can be a lot harder and you genuinely have to no longer want to identify yourself in a particular way to make the change successful. This means you need to work with the values and beliefs that represent that part of your identity and determine if they no longer relevant to your life.

My main point is this: Don't try and get rid of part of yourself for anyone or anything. Better to do the internal work and determine how it really fits into your life. Accepting who you is the greatest liberation you can give yourself.

Book and Video Review: The Lost Secret of Immortality (Affiliate Link) by Barclay Powers

The video is well done and presents a lot of ideas on internal alchemy as its done in both the the East and West. I'd particularly recommend it to anyone just starting out as it has a wealth of information, but even more seasoned practitioners will find it useful. The book serves as a useful complement to the video, providing further information on concepts discussed in the video. I'd have liked to have seen some exercises included in the book, but the author does a good job of pointing to additional sources. Overall a a useful resource guide.

Call For Papers for Magic on The Edge 2.0

Magic on the Edge 2.0 is an anthology of experimental occultism, testing the cutting edges of magical practice to reveal intriguing experiments and new ideas, to push the future of magical practice forward and provide further inspiration for other practitioners. It is edited by Taylor Ellwood. We are looking for articles 3k to 6k words in length on topics that can include the following:

• Innovative explorations of magical traditions
• Experimental techniques with contemporary disciplines such as space/time magic, internal alchemy, laboratory alchemy, etc.,
• Creative meditation practices
• Got an idea? Run it by me and I'll give you feedback (see contact info below).

The deadline for the first draft is December 15th

For more information or questions contact me.

Please share this with anyone you know who might be interested in participating in this anthology.

My first experience of Magic

When I was 7 years old I had my first near death experience and what I'd consider to be my first genuine experience with magic. I was drowned by an older kid, held down underneath an intertube in the ocean. I was, fortunately, pulled out in time. That older kid was yelled at, but nothing else was done. But what I remember the most was a sensation of blacking out and finding myself in a space with an entity, which asked if I wanted to live. I remember that experience vividly to this day and it is after that experience that I began to show an interest in magic. I became a voracious reader, and while I enjoyed reading a lot history, I also read a lot of fantasy and found myself wanting to be the magician. I figured the magician was the coolest person to be, and I think I'm still right about that one. I wanted magic to be real and in the years between 7 and 16, I did look for it, but I wasn't really sure where to look or who to talk to. What I had access to were fantasy books, and while they were fun to read, they didn't encompass what magic was. I knew what they presented wasn't something that seemed possible. I mean as much as I liked the idea of being able to conjure a fireball, I didn't think it was really possible, and to this day I have yet to conjure one up or see anyone else do it. But still, I knew magic existed and was real. I knew it on a fundamental level. I knew it as something essential to who I am...

It wasn't until I was 16 that I found magic. I was reading one of my fantasy books and this one kid thought he'd freak me out by telling me about an experience where he astral projected and encountered a demon. Far from freaking me out, I wanted to know more. I felt tense excitement, thinking to myself that at last I'd found something more tangible than a fantasy book. I plied him with question after question and made him promise me that he'd bring me books to look at the next day.

The next day arrived and he gave me a couple of pamphlets on astral projection and Shamanism. I devoured them that night, trying out the exercises and experiencing something. Here at last was the magic I'd been looking for and if it didn't allow me to conjure a fireball, it did allow me to do something I'd been longing to do since I was 7. That kid became my friend and he showed me a shop where you could get more books. I remember buying a couple on Shamanism and hermetic magic. I read them religiously and did the exercises just as fervently, determined to master this strange new force in my life. Shortly after that I encountered my first "teacher." But that's a story for another blog entry.

Book Review: Magick Works (affiliate link) by Julian Vayne

Part memoir and part grimoire, this book is an excellent guide to how magic works. I like how the author weaves in personal narratives from his life to explore and explain how magic has worked for him. I think some of the best essays are on identity and space, but all of them are good and this is a valuable book to have because it makes you think about magic from a different perspective.

5 out of 5

Communicating with the Land

I've always communicating with the genius loci or the spirits of the land. Communication with the land is not something verbal, so much as kinisthetic. It is a feeling, but it is even more than that. It's a relationship. Communicating with the land also differs from place to place. In my recent trip to Seattle, I was reminded of why I dislike living there, and indeed why I needed to move from there. The connection I have with the land in Seattle is a connection where that land speaks of how unhappy it is. The entire state of Washington is always a place that prompts a negative reaction on my part. I know when I've left Oregon, because I can feel a shift in my connection with the land. Communicating with the land in that sate and/or city is a communication that speaks to what the land is feeling and how it is shaped and is shaping what lives on it. Oregon, as a contrast, feels like home. There's something about the land that fits me, that fits together with who I am. Whenever I leave this state and go somewhere else, I feel a shift. I know I am not home.

I have no doubt that for people who live in Washington and/or Seattle, that those places are just as much home for them and that there is a connection that is fundamentally as deep for them as Oregon is for me. I know some people have told me that in Oregon they don't feel comfortable. It makes sense to me that the relationship any person has with the land is going to be unique to some degree, shaped in part by personality and in part by the land itself, and how it fits that person.

My connection to the land is an elemental connection. I do a lot of work with elemental spirits and bonding with the land has always been part of my work. The exchange of essence is an exchange of trust, and an acceptance of a close relationship with the land. I don't think of the land as a place or thing, but as something living, with its own input and feedback. It may not communicate that message through means most of us are aware of, but the land speaks, if you know how to hear and feel it.

Further thoughts on the psychologizing of magic

I'm really hard on Crowley sometimes. Actually make that all the time. Readers of this blog know by now that I have an avid dislike for his legacy. One of the things I come down hard on him is in regards to the psychologizing of magic. In the radio show I did on Friday, I commented on that in regards to his treatment of the Goetia. One of my listeners took the time to write a response and I really appreciated the critique in the spirit it was offered in:

While it is true that Crowley said "the demons of the Goetia are parts of the brain" and thus the psychologizing of magick can be traced at least as far back as him, but I think it is a mistake to assert that this is the only way he saw them. He also endorsed the preaterhuman existance of Aiwaz, Abuldiz, the Wizard of Almalantra and others. It's ok if you have a real issue with Crowley (welcome to the club!), but I have a real issue with your misrepresentation of the facts! You might be able to trace the psychologizing of our Art to some of his remarks but it was people after him that contributed most to this trend. All in all, though, I liked your talk and I must agree with you: Sprits Are Real! (I also like Lon Milo Duquette's "It is all in your head--you just don't know how big your head really is!")

This is a fair critique. Crowley isn't wholly responsible for the psychologizing of magic. Yes, I really wrote that. I actually will admit that I was a bit unfair to him (I bet some of you never thought you'd see this day). But (and you knew there was one of those), his effect on occult thought and theory is substantial enough that it doesn't take him off the hook entirely. A lot of contemporary occult theory is based off his ideas, so when he made that remark about the Goetia, for better or for worse, he did promote the psychologizing of magic (and IMO, it was for the worse). And unfortunately what I've noted is that people don't focus on his alternate perspectives about spirits nearly as much as they focus on that remark about the Goetia (I'm guilty of this).

With that said, this trend of thought and theory about magic has been around for a while and has had other people advocate for it. We see it in chaos magic, most notably, but I've also seen it espoused in ceremonial magic as well. It's something which a lot of contemporary magicians draw on as a way of explaining how magic works.

I don't care for the psychological model of magic. While I recognize that psychology has some useful concepts that can be drawn on, I'm leery of assigning magic as a psychological phenomenon that's all in your head. The reason magic is labeled in this way comes down a valuation of empirical methods of knowing and experiencing the world over other ways of knowing and experiencing the world. While I won't deny that magic is a subjective experience, I don't think it makes magic inferior or that it makes me a superstitious loon that I believe in the objective existence of spirits.

By the same token I realize that for some people the psychologizing of magic is how they best understand and explore it within their lives. I can respect that, but I don't agree with it, just as they don't agree with me.

Using sleep deprivation as an altered state of consciousness

Whenever I don't get enough sleep I can feel it through out the day. My response time is a bit off, and my thought process just isn't as focused. I don't normally go out of my way to get into a state of sleep deprivation, but I recognize that it is an altered state of consciousness, albeit one that is less than pleasant to experience. The feeling of fogginess is a state that can be worked with in a magical context. Sleep deprivation causes a blurring, not quite in control feeling. That feeling is useful for doing magical work where you are raising magic through activity, such as exercise or ecstatic dance. The reason its useful is because you're pushing your current state of sleep deprivation through activity to a point of exhaustion which in turn creates an altered state of no-mind, which can then be used to focus on the goal the person wants to achieve.

Ideally what will happen is that a person will use a state of sleep deprivation in tandem with an activity such as dance. S/he will either create a sigil or will develop some other magical technique that s/he will employ while dancing. For the sake of example, we'll just say the person will focus on the sigil while dancing. Eventually when the person is truly exhausted, s/he will stop dancing, but will continue to focus on the sigil, using the exhaustion as a way to focus every last bit of awareness on it. Then when the person can't keep awake any further s/he will go to sleep, continuing as best as possible to focus on the sigil, so that s/he can charge it in his/her sleep.

When a person has been sleep deprived and goes to sleep exhausted the sleep can be much, much deeper, so this is useful because as the person sleeps s/he allows the sigil to germinate.

Now if the person has thought ahead, s/he will have the sigil positioned in such a way that when s/he awakes, s/he will see the sigil, and recall the activities of the other night, and in that process, fire the sigil. It's a long build-up, but its effective, because you combine a variety of states of awareness into the working and when it fires, all of that effort contributes to the realization of the possibility you want to bring into reality.

Are spirits real?

I asked this question yesterday on my social networks and it looked like I had an even distribution of people who argued they are real vs people who are argued that they are just psychological. I present my own take in my radio show, but the gist of my take is I think entities are real.

Listen to internet radio with Experimental Magic on Blog Talk Radio

My inspiration for my magical systems

I was recently asked where I got my inspiration for the Sigil web technique in Space/Time Magic. But the person who asked also noted that he felt my work was writing was far enough away from the sources I cited that he was curious in general. It's a good question to ask. Where do I get my ideas for my magical work? If you look at the bibliography of any of my books, you'll probably note that one third to one half of the titles cited have nothing to do with magic. Or rather, they only have something to do with magic, because I saw something in the material that I knew I could apply magic to. The rest of the sources are books on magic...some traditional, some less so, all interesting to me, only so much in how I can take the content and experiment with it, in order to adapt it to my needs and circumstances. That's really how I approach anything I read: "What's in this book that is insightful and useful and how can I take it and experiment with it, both for my own needs, and also for curiosity's sake?" But that's just the surface. I'm an insatiable reader. I'm usually working on about six books at a given time, and all of it is very interesting, but that's only part of my inspiration.

I'm really motivated by curiosity more than anything else. I'm insatiably curious. I want to know what I can do...I want to test my limits, and I want to know how I can take all of my interests and apply them to magic. There's no tradition for me, no specific way of doing things. I get that for some people, a lot of people, that works...but not me. I want to know and explore and try things out. I want to be on the edge.

I'm inspired by resistance as well. Every person who's told me, "You can't do that", or "It's reinventing the wheel" has inspired me. I can't thank enough those people.

And I'm creative. I've always looked at the world differently. I see how things fit together and I run with it and play with it, and experiment...and so on.

My inspiration for how I approach magic, how I approach everything I do comes down to this: "It's always better to play by your own rules than someone elses" That's why I do magic the way I do it...because anyone else's rules for doing magic only interest me insofar as I can take it apart and put it back into something that fits my style, life, and needs.

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.