Tarot Readings and spontaneous spreads

 

I was doing dual deck tarot readings at the local yule fair last week and what stood out to me was how people would create their own spreads, which didn't necessarily look like anything I'd create, but nonetheless made perfect sense for those people. What I liked about that realization is that it proves that fixed spreads are not a necessary part of Tarot reading. In fact, I'd argue that the spontaneous creation of new spreads made the reading more effective because the layout of the cards demonstrated the mental "space" of the person, and how the different cards were situated in that space.

Space, mental and physical, is part of how a person defines his/her identity. The manipulation of space via placement of objects is part of that identification process and it can tell a lot about what obstacles a person is encountered. A spread that is chaotic with elements all over the place still has an order to it, even if its an order that only the person who created the spread understands. A reading I recently did initially looked very chaotic. It took asking some questions to really get to the central issue, but once those questions were asked the spread made complete sense and fit the issue rather well.

What makes this approach dynamic however is that if you use a tarot reading as an act of enchantment, you can make the person's ability to change the spread, to reorganize it an essential part of the reading. In other words, the person changes the spatial identity s/he inhabits by changing how the cards are spatially organized, as well as how s/he understands the underlying message of the card. The result is a different reading, one that plots how the person will make changes to the existing pattern in order to resolve whatever issues are represented.

Here's a podcast episode where I talk about some of my initial experiments with Tarot.

Change starts from within

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves" Leo Tolstoy When I think about Western Magic, and one of my problems, this statement from Tolstoy sums it up nicely. In late teens and early to mid twenties, I remember being that person who wanted to change the world, but didn't think of changing himself. That's not surprising because within western magic there is no overt forms of internal work provided, beyond perhaps some pathworking exercises. I had to go to Eastern systems such as Taoism to really discover in-depth meditation techniques. Since learning those techniques and implementing them into my daily practice, I've found that there is much less of an overt need to change the world. In fact, usually where the change needs to start is from within.

Magical techniques such as sigils or evocation aren't focused on internal work. There's nothing wrong with that, but it is worth the magician's time to actually apply some degree of introspection in order to look at the underlying motivations behind doing the work. Such internal work can help clarify the motivations and even ensure that the working will be successful by removing any internal resistance toward it.

Internal work is an essential part of magical practice. When I take magical students on, we spend a fair amount of time initially exploring what their values and beliefs are, how they define themselves and their place in the world, as well as teaching them meditation techniques. I've found that this initial work is crucial because it helps them remove a lot of internal obstacles and most importantly helps them understand how to effectively use magic to make changes in the world around them. Practitioners who actively use internal work will also cut down on the need to do more overt acts of magic...and not surprisingly will also lower the overall level of drama and chaos as they work out their issues. Instead of having such issues come up in their lives, the practitioners are able to identify  the triggers and make changes to their behaviors. The result is a better life and more clarity about what they want and need to live such a life.

Changing your Identity by Shifting your Balance

Every year I do an elemental balancing ritual. The purpose of this ritual is to create balance in my life by working on aspects of myself that need to be balanced. Really what I'm doing it changing my overall identity by shifting the balance using an intensive working to generate a specific direction for my internal work. I think its worked well to help me make conscious changes to who I am in a positive manner. Internal work isn't something that can be done in one moment. It takes dedication and focus. I figure that by shifting my balance using elemental energy each year, I can actually put dedicated time into internal work that focuses on particular themes I need to work on. I put a year's time into each elemental theme and a years work does provide enough time to make substantive changes to a person's identity. It's not easy work, but it is work that makes your life easier.

Shifting your identity, your state of being, if you will, necessarily changes the relationships that you are in. I've had friendships fall away, a marriage end, and and started new relationships in large part because of the elemental balance work I've done. Shifting your identity also shifts the connections you have with people. You have to decide if that is worth it. I think it is worth it, because even though some relationships have changed, what has changed even more, on a fundamental level is my relationship with myself and how I live in the world. And I find the changes to be satisfying. I like who I am as a result of doing the work.

I've always said that you can't please everyone and I mention that because when you engage in internal work you necessarily have to accept that the changes you make won't please everyone. That's part of the price of doing internal work. You confront who you are, you make changes to your identity and those changes manifest in how you interact with the world.

Changing your balance changes your place in the universe and your awareness of that place. You start asking hard questions of yourself and others and you look at what you can change and you make those changes because you want to shift your balance, want to shift to a new place. That's what internal work does. It spurs you on, pushes you to make changes, demands the best from you, refines you alchemically, and when you do all of that the result is a changed person, someone different from before. And everything that doesn't fit, falls away.

Book Review: On Desire (Affiliate Link) by William Irvine

On Desire is a fascinating book that looks at how we interact with desire. The author comes off as a little prudish, advocating more of an approach of ignoring desires, but even with that tone, the book provides a look at what desire is, what the neurological basis of it is, as well as how different cultures and communities deal with desire. I would have liked to have seen exercises in this book from the author. It is more of a philosophical treatise than anything else, but still worth a read.

Elemental Fire Month 1

10-22-2011 I've been staying very mindful of the element of fire in my life. I attended a divination party tonight, where you could offer readings or get readings. I did five readings for different people and told them about the magical experimenters meeting. And while doing their readings, while talking with them, I had a sense of seeking, a sense of fire as seeking, discovering, but also a sense of fire as a qualifier. Intuitively I knew that the people that needed the invitation would follow up on it because it was the right invitation for them and they'd fit the group as well. 10-25-2011 The last few days has involved a dialogue between Dragon and myself about Fire, passion, and consumption. What stands out most is the focus on fire as a metaphor for passion and why that's not such a good thing. Dragon points out that fire ultimately consumes, and if passion is fire, than its more about consumption than anything else. If fire is a metaphor for passion, there can be danger in that metaphor, in terms of how people approach passion. And I think he's right. My experiences with passion, in part, has been more about trying to experience a sensation that I might think of as fire, but in the process I've gotten burned a lot, because it's not something which is sustainable. Dragon pointed out that fires eventually consume themselves, until there's nothing left to give...Some interesting thoughts come to mind about American Culture and its focus on consumption. What does that teach us, about ourselves, others etc? Is it all something to be consumed, or can we really experience it?

10-31-2011 Fire just is. The association of doing and activity is meaning attributed to fire, but dragon asked me what it would be like to just contemplate fire as it is, instead of contemplating fire as doing something.

11-07-11 Dragon brought up something that really grabbed my attention. He said what a person fixates on or desires or obsesses over can burn him/her and the people in his/her life, because f how it consumes them. But if a person can consume and let go of what s/he desires, then it no longer takes up his/her energy in quite the same way. Now this is nothing new...you find this advice in meditation, but looking at it from the perspective of fire, and consuming something so it turns to smoke and then is wafted away...that's what grabbed my attention. And I have to admit that I'm in this process of consuming instead of being consumed. Not an easy process, but it is freeing up a lot of energy.

11-16-11 I haven't been as good about updating this entry as I'd like, but a lot's happened. Kat and I noticed that the stray black cat that lives near our house had kittens. It's getting really cold out, and this summer we'd actually found a dead kitten. It was pretty upsetting. So we decided to catch the mama cat (to neuter it) and catch the kittens as well. We managed to catch two of the kittens. The other one is gone, may be dead or alive, and the mama cat hasn't shown up lately. I took the trap back today, but I'll deploy it if she comes back. What does all this have to do with fire?

Dragon brought up a very important point. When you create a spark, you are responsible for nurturing it and using it wisely. When I think about the mama cat, I remember that my ex-wife chose to feed her. I don't know if it would've stuck around anyway, but I do know that feeding it encouraged it to stay in the neighborhood. I realized that I should've tried to catch that mama cat much earlier than now. More importantly, in catching these two kittens I felt that I had chosen to take on the responsibility of doing something with them. The animal control shelter told me if they weren't tame enough, they'd be euthanized, and that they might be euthanized anyway because of how many cats they have. There's no way I'd let two cats be euthanized simply because they'd been caught. I've learned about another place, the Cat Adoption Team, where they don't euthanize cats, but we have had these kittens for a week and we've all gotten attached to them. They seem to feel the same. And the point here is this: You always have a responsibility to see through what you take on. I've taken on those two kittens. They're part of my responsibility, that spark of life I've nurtured by capturing them and taming them.

11-18-2011 Sometimes I wonder if I've left my passion for all things occult somewhere else. Actually I sometimes wonder if I've left my passion for lots of things somewhere else. And I guess that's a reason I'm doing this work with the element of fire. I want to get in touch with that passion, and yet ironically I think I am in touch with that passion...it's just a slow process of rekindling it. I let it get banked by personal circumstances, by my choices to try and make myself into something I wasn't. Never again. Never again will I give my fire, my passion, my intensity away or push it down. That kind of give away can hurt you so much and it hurts your creativity as much as it hurts in other ways. I feel like my creativity is finally coming back because my passion has a safe place to be.

11-21-11 There is nothing worse than feeling that you failed yourself or someone else. And yet failure prompts growth and change. It forces you to reassess what's truly important and then claim that importance through the actions you take to bring change to your life. The ashes of defeat are also the loam that prompts growth. What you hold dearest can fall away in a moment and yet when it falls away it reveals who you are through how you respond. Do you rail against it? Do you accept it and learn from it? Do you burn yourself or do you warm yourself? It's a fine balance to walk. I choose to cultivate a warm fire instead of a vengeful fire. Where that takes me as a result is hopefully to a better place in my healing as well as in my passion.

How to learn process and apply it to magic

I talk about the process of magic a lot on here, but a question that might arise is: What exactly is process and how do I learn it? Or more specifically, How do I turn magic into a process? I learned about process from two different disciplines: Academia and Technical Writing. Both disciplines are process oriented, albeit in different ways. In academia, the process is research oriented. If you have an angle you want to explore, you need to do a lot of research and find corresponding evidence that supports your claim, and protects it from potential attacks by other people. This approach to process is more theory oriented than anything else, but it taught me a lot about how to construct an argument, and develop a defense for that argument. It also taught me to appreciate research and the need to ground any work you do in what others have already laid out. To this day, my approach to magic is always based in ongoing research into various subjects that are relevant to the experiments I'm working on. At the same time, academia also taught me the dangers of being too focused on theory. Within the particular disciplines I studied there was very little application, which caused me to question what, if anything, was really being done with the research academics were conducting. I recognized that while research is a necessary and integral part of a process, it must be balanced by something else.

Technical writing was the other discipline that taught me about process. It likely helped that my first tech writing job was at Boeing, where one of the phrases is: "Process is king" In that position, I learned that good technical writing had to address the right audience, while providing step by step practical explanations of how to use a given technology. Research also still played a role, but the practical application was the most important part. If you couldn't apply it, it didn't matter. That made sense to me and I realized it was the missing piece that academia didn't have. If you can't apply it, it doesn't matter. Or in occult terms, if you can't apply it, you're just an armchair magician.

That's how I learned process, but I doubt most people really want to follow my exact footsteps. But the two lessons you can take from those steps are: Anything you do must be grounded in research in order to show others where its come from and If you can't practically apply what you are working on to improving your life, it doesn't matter.

So figure out what you need to research and determine if you can apply it to your life. But there's another lesson I learned from technical writing as well, that can help you develop a process. Everything you do can be broken down into steps.

Once you break something into steps you have a rudimentary process. Apply lessons one and two as well and you have a full fledged process. And lets not forget you also need to measure results. If you have a process, you have a result and you need to measure that result to determine if your process works. A process is only effective if you can consistently achieve the result you've designed the process for.

What makes effective experimentation in magic

When I think about effective experimentation in magic, I think that its essential to have a group of people who are willing to test your experiment. These people don't even need to know each other, but they need to be people who are willing  to give your experiment a try and provide honest feedback. Anyone can come up with an idea, and an idea can even be developed into a process that the person extensively works on and fine tunes. But until that person has shared the the process with other people, so that they can test it, its fair to say it's not an effective experiment. Effective experimentation calls for feedback and input from other people that aren't familiar with the technique and are willing to test it with the appropriate balance of skepticism and open mindedness that is needed for effective experimentation. As an example, when I experimented with a technique to contact neurotransmitters, I knew that to truly test its effectiveness, I needed to find other people who could verify if the technique worked. I ended up having a variety of people experiment with the technique. Some were from the U.K. and some were from the states, so they didn't all know each other. The consistent results that they achieved was what verified the technique and made an effective experiment.

You also need to be able to explain how your process works, so that other people can duplicate it. If a reader just gets lots of vague theories about how it works, but there isn't any practical instructions then what you have is more of an armchair approach to magic. Sounds great in theory, but can I implement it?

Perhaps what is most vital to effective experimentation is curiosity. You have to be curious and open to exploring what's around you. My curiosity is what has motivated my exploration of magic. I've always wanted to know what the real limits of magic are, as well as what my limits are. So if I can test something out, I will, in order to see what I can do, but then I'll bring it to other people and ask them to test it, to see what they can do. Naturally the people I look for are curious as well.

Effective experimentation is about developing a consistent process that can be done again and again and again, with the achievement of consistent results. Its as simple as that, and yet that simplicity demands careful attention to detail, to ensure your process does work.

Art and Magic

I posted an updated on different social networks asking people how they got creative with their magical work. I got a couple of interesting responses including one about a coven that uses arts and crafts in their rituals and it got me to thinking about my own artistic approach to magic. I've always been in favor of taking a creative approach to magic and while some of that creativity has focused on blending pop culture into magic or applying principles from other disciplines to magical work, its also focused on using art in the magical work as well. One of my favorite mediums to work in is body paint. The body becomes a canvas, which is painted with body paints that can be used to express and explore the magical work in context to the body.

Collage is another medium I've always enjoyed. Cutting away the meaning from text and picture and then reassembling it into my own image has always appealed, because it gives a person an opportunity to create something that runs counter to the messages that were previously imbedded in the media.

Painting with water color is another medium I've liked using. I tend toward abstract paintings, and there's something fun about letting go of any shape and just painting, but I think you can have a specific concept in mind and still make it magical.

Singing, whistling, and lately playing with my harmonica has been another creative activity I've applied to my magical work. I'm doing some experimentation with Tuvan throat singing as well. I think exploring what your voice can do or what a musical instrument can do in terms of magical work can be a lot of fun. Certainly listening to some of the musicians I enjoy has taken me to some novel spaces with their intentional blending of magic and music.

Wood work is something I haven't done recently, but I used to do it a lot and actually created a couple of altars. It's something I'd enjoy doing again, with the proper tools and facilities.

I think applying creativity to your magical work can be a lot of fun. It's a great way to get flexible about your magical work, and challenge yourself to come up with something that's customized to you. If you haven't applied your creativity to your magical work, give it a try and have some fun!

Call for Papers for Disabled Paganism Anthology

E-mail for inquiries and submissions:  tara.miller21 (at) gmail.com; please put “Immanion Press Anthology Submission” in your subject line. Megalithica Books, an imprint of Immanion Press (Stafford, U.K./Portland, OR, U.S.A.) is seeking submissions for a magic anthology from the perspective of practitioners with disabilities or developmental differences. This includes but is not limited to practitioners with mental, cognitive, emotional, physical or sensory impairments and/or practitioners who are part of the Deaf or Blind community.  We have not come up with a title for the anthology yet. That will hopefully present itself through the contributions.

There is much debate about how the words “disabled” and “disabilities”. For the purpose of this publication; however, we'll use the World Health Organization's definition: “Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations.”

This anthology is intended to explore magical, occult, and esoteric topics from the view points of practitioners who are disabled or part of the Deaf and Blind community. Equality and access within the magic/Pagan community and society in general are important issues. You can include them as a part of your submission but not the whole. Keep in mind that addressing such topics aren't the sole purpose of this anthology. When thinking about your submission consider what rituals and practices are or have been most beneficial to you. What mystical or magical experiences or knowledge shaped your life for the better? Contributers can be from any magical background or tradition. With all Megalithica publications, the intention with this anthology is to go beyond introductory matters whenever possible.

We are accepting:

essays (academic and personal)

short rituals, prayers, meditations, activities, or spells (not lists of correspondences)

We are especially interested in rituals that take into account limited mobility or immobility, sight impairments, and rituals for the Deaf and blind. Also, some practitioners with disabilities have limited attention spans and would benefit from shorter rituals that include minimal visualization.

Some suggested topics:

Practicing magic in hospitals or other facilities. How can you improvise while complying with facility regulations?

Is the state of the body and mind a reflection of a persons purity or power? Is it a sign of the practitioner working out past wrongs?

Psychological or physical emergencies as shamanic or magical breakthroughs.

Do we choose our bodies and experiences? Do the Gods/Goddesses or Divinity create our bodies or experiences this way for a reason?

Medical symbols and their Pagan history and magical properties. How to enchant and use these symbols.

Gods and Goddesses of Health- such as Asclepius and his daughters. For example: Hygieia whose name is the source of the word hygiene. There is a lot of Pagan history in the medical community.

How to discern spirits, entities and magical experiences when you are dealing with health issues that can impair judgment such as being on pain medication, dealing with mental illness, etc.

How a disability or impairment offers a new perspective on magic practice and theory.

How communing with nature has it's rewards (i.e. ecopsychology or closeness to a specific God(dess) etc.) and challenges (i.e.  mobility issues)

Working magic with companion and/or guide animals or stories about their spiritual significance.

What are some ways to find self-acceptance and empowerment?

Viewing scars from surgery, injury or otherwise as part of your story or “battle scars” or proof of survival.

From the first diagnosis of disease or disability to the loss of a physical function or independence, we feel grief. How can we cope with grief?

Ways to mend the fragmented self i.e. lucid dreaming, soul retrieval, astral travel.

Working with archetypes or mythic images.

These suggestions barely touch the myriad of possibilities. We're interested in any other topics contributors wish to explore. It's your voices that will make this anthology powerful and possible.

Requirements for submission:

Citations for all quoted, paraphrased, or otherwise unoriginal material

Bibliography for works cited

Use the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/mla

Send the file in Word or RTF format

Do write in your voice! If you’re academically inclined or trained, feel free to be as intelligent and technical as you like. If your work entirely speaks in the first person about your own experience, that is also permissible, but please use a more formal writing style for as much as possible in your piece that is not quoted speech. Unless you do so sparingly, or define your terms (either in the main text or footnotes), DO NOT use lolcat-speak, text message speak, or anything else that could be considered para-English. Our lives are full of abbreviations and “lingo” which we understand but others may not, even people with different disabilities. Please define any “lingo” you use such as Talk Doc (psychotherapist) or P Doc (psychologist) or medical abbreviations.

Rough drafts are due March 01, 2012. These drafts will be edited in a back-and-forth process with the editor. Essays need to be 1500-4000 words, although if your work falls outside those limits, do submit it – we can discuss this during the editing process. Do drop me an email if you are unsure whether your idea fits into the content. We hope to include many voices and the sooner you start the communication process the better.

If your essay is not accepted for the anthology, we will tell you after the first round of edits. All contributors will be provided with a contract upon final acceptance of their essays, not when they are accepted for editing. Compensation will be a free print copy or an e-book of the anthology when it is published and additional copies sold at 40% off the cover price to contributers.

The anthology will be edited by Tara “Masery” Miller. Her blog, the Staff of Asclepius, is featured in the Pagan Portal at Patheos.com. It's for Pagans with mental, physical or sensory impairments; who are in recovery from major injuries or addiction; and/or who are members of the Deaf or Blind community. “It’s a place to share how a spiritual and magical life gives us strength or peace through all of life’s joys and struggles. There are also news updates and interviews with Pagans and experts on various topics affecting the community.”  http://www.patheos.com/community/paganswithdisabilities/  She has Turner Mosaic which created a massive failure of her endocrine system causing many health problems.

Immanion Press is a small independent press based in the United Kingdom. Founded by author Storm Constantine in 2003, it expanded into occult nonfiction in 2004 with the publication of Taylor Ellwood’s Pop Culture Magick. Today, Immanion’s nonfiction line, under the Megalithica Books imprint, has a growing reputation for edgy, experimental texts on primarily intermediate and advanced pagan and occult topics. Find out more at http://www.immanion-press.com.

image and reality

I always find it fascinating to study people considered famous within a given subculture. I wonder what makes them famous, what makes people want to follow after them, what is the glamour that draws them so? And yet I know what it is. It's an ability to create an image that glosses over the reality. That probably sounds cynical, but there's an element of truth to it as well. Do we really know anything about that actor, singer, or author, beyond what the tabloids gossip about or the marketing facade that is built by the person?There's a false kind of intimacy that is created with marketing. We look at pictures of this person, look at how the person portrays this rosy kind of image that is merely a gilded picture, and yet is so captivating because the person has spun a glamour that doesn't even hint at the realities underlying the gilded picture.

I've never really bought into the glamour. Maybe it's because I'm an occult author. Maybe it's because I've actually made it a point to talk with people as myself, instead of trying to trade off on the fact that I've written books. I remember one time a person said to me that he was amazed I'd spend time talking with him, because I was an author. I told him that writing was something I did, but that it didn't define my reality or how I would treat him. That's always been my approach. I don't want people to fall in love with an image, or buy into some presentation. If you want to get to know me, then get to know me for who I am, warts and all.

At the same time, from a magical perspective, there's a lot to be learned from such glamour tactics. Knowing how to present only what you want people to see can be quite useful in job interviews, as well as in other situations that call for a different appearance beyond what is usually present. Of course you run the risk that if people see through it or discover that you weren't authentic, they may feel deceived or betrayed.

There is something to be said for being humble enough to be honest. And there is a strength in that reality, magically and mundanely that goes beyond any glamour that is put together. It's when we can take the mask off, step outside of the illusion that we then discover the reality behind the image.

A broad approach to love magic

I think its best to take a broad approach to love magic. What I mean is, its better to do love magic that isn't focused on getting a specific person, but instead is focused on drawing the right people to your life. And its important to remember that any love magic also needs to focus on self-love. Looking to someone else to fill something in for you won't work. If anything the person you bring into your life into emphasizes the issues you need to work on. That person has their own issues and you will embody those issues, even as that person embodies your issues. Thus the person you bring into your life necessarily will be someone who challenges you in some ways as much as s/he also brings joy and happiness. People have this idea about love, prompted by the concept of falling in love, that its always something wonderful, but while falling in love is a wonderful experience, being in love is necessarily an experience where you truly face your own issues as well as the issues of the other person. The challenge is how you face those issues and evolve past them so that you can truly be with someone, and also so you can truly be with yourself. People go into a relationship hoping their partner will somehow fill in the gaps, somehow solve everything. Little do they realize that your partner isn't a cure-all and if anything s/he will exacerbate the issues because s/he is a mirror that shows you both the wonderful qualities and unpleasant aspects of yourself. Of course you do the same for that person.

Kat and I have, since February, been reading books on relationships and love together. These are typically the books people will turn to when their relationship is in trouble and they are grasping for anything that will save the relationship. I got these books when I was in my previous marriage for that very reason. This time we took a different approach. We decided that we wanted to read these books and talk about the issues that came up as a proactive activity, as something we'd do in order to build a dialogue around love, and allow us to learn more about each other and where we were respectively coming from. And thus far the journey has been very illuminating for both of us. The discussions that have arisen out of what we've read have helped us both look at our respective issues and understand how they contribute to the relationship, as well as what we can do to change those issues.

What I've learned about love magic is that it rarely brings what you think you want, but it always brings what you need. The question is: Are you prepared to accept what you need? For me that preparation has involved doing a lot of internal work, owning my baggage (and letting it go), as well as coming face to face with my desires and understanding where they fit into the entire mix. And I'm still doing this work! It's nothing something where you just get finished, but I can say that taking a proactive approach can make for a much smoother relationship, with both yourself and your partner.

Here's a few books I'd suggest complete with affiliate links

The Passionate Marriage

Undefended Love

Journey of the Heart

Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships

Love and Awakening

Book Review: Brain Magick (Affiliate Link) by Phil Farber

In Brain Magick, Phil Farber presents a thorough approach to invocation that is a combination of neuroscience and NLP, and is by far one of the best cutting edge books on magic that's available. The author includes lots of exercises the reader can do to test his concepts, and at the same time makes all of his explanations easy to follow. Farber shows you how to bring some woohoo into your life!

System or process, its still the same issue

  It seems like I've gotten into quite a discourse. In his latest post, Mike argues that magicians don't experiment because most of them ignore 2/3rds of how magic work. He also argues that in my last post, I only argued that people don't experiment because they perceive it as not fun. Actually, I spent the majority of the post discussing at some length that they don't experiment because they don't understand a process oriented approach to magic and they are encouraged to not approach magic from a process oriented perspective. I think that what Mike means by system is what I mean when I discuss process...kind of, because this what he says:

1. Your conscious mind uses some form of symbolism (either traditional or personal) to signal your goal to your unconscious mental muscles.
2. Your mental muscles act on this goal, usually by sending instructions to an external force (a “system”).
3. The system shifts probabilities, produces energy, or does whatever else to make the magick happen.

I take a different approach, which goes like this:

Step 1: Define your result. What it is you want to accomplish and what will the consequences be? Many magicians focus only on what they want to accomplish, and don't consider the consequences of achieving said result. Defining the result is a necessary step, as we need to know what we want, before we can even do the magical work.

Step 2 is Define the actions (both mundane and magical) you will take to achieve this result. I include mundane actions because they are an integral part of what makes magic work. What you are on the mundane level contributes to the overall process of magic, and must be factored in order to understand your process. Magical actions refers to the actual magical act you will do. A magical act could be an invocation, evocation, enchantment etc. When you define the magical act, you need to define all of the contributing factors, which includes tools used, spiritual entities worked with, symbols, etc. You do this, so that you can you understand how they all fit into your process, and into the magical action. Most important note: Everything this step is really a way for you to communicate with your identity and the external systems its connected to (see step 3)

Step 3: Define your beliefs and values and how they contribute to the achievement of the defined result. This where you do the internal work. Before you even begin your act of magic, you need to determine if your values and beliefs and values align with the desired result. Note that I'm not just talking about examining beliefs and values on the level of consciousness or even unconsciousness. That's a good place to start, but you need to dig in further and explore this from an ontological perspective, aka identity. Is your identity in alignment with the result? Your identity, which is really your connection to the systems or external forces is where the magic begins and ends. Beliefs and values are just the tip of the iceberg with identity, which is why you need to do a lot of internal work. In my forthcoming book Magical Identity (due out in January 2012), I discuss at some length why magicians need to incorporate identity into their magical process, and why the psychological model of consciousness and unconsciousness is out of date.I'd argue what makes magic work, and really what drives change in general is a person's ability to make changes to his/her ontological identity and its agreement with the universe.

Step 4: Do your process and observe both the process and result. If you don't get the result you want, its time to look at your process and determine where the problem is. Chances are its step 3, but don't rule steps 1 or 2 either.

That's what I mean by process and it looks like Mike and I are discussing the same thing, but using different words. Regardless of the words, its still the same issue: The reason experimentation doesn't occur is because of an inadequate understanding of the process of magic.

Why I think there isn't more experimentation in magic

In response to this post I wrote, another post was written which commented on the lack of experimentation. I think the author was dead on in his assessment, but it also prompted some further thoughts on my part on this subject.  I agree with the author that magic is a highly personal journey in some ways. I've certainly seen that with how people have taken some of my techniques and personalized them. I advocate for such personalization and my point that people should be able to explain how magic works really comes down to being able to explain to other people how they approach magic, with an understanding that is developed based off experience and a willingness to explore the mechanics of magic as it applies to their use of it. Will I get the same result as someone else does if I copy his/her technique? Maybe yes and maybe no. What I know is that if I take a person's technique apart and reassemble it into a process that I understand, I will get results. That's how its always worked for me, and in my books I have advocated for a similar approach on the part of my readers. I'll provide you exercises you can do, exercises that have been tested by myself and other people, but I've always urged people to make any such techniques their own, to personalize and experiment and tinker with the techniques until they have a thorough understanding of the technique from personal experience, which also fits their definition of magic. I don't know that there is a universal theory of magic. I do know that I find certain models of magic don't work for me because they seem counter-intuitive to my understanding of the world, but those same models work for other people just fine. What I object to however is the tendency of many occultists to not critically examine their process of magic. One of the reasons I think experimentation doesn't occur as much as that there's this focus on obtaining results, with an attitude of, "If I got it, why should I care about my process". We see this attitude echoed in the works of occultists such as Grant Morrison and Patrick Dunn, both of who have stated it doesn't matter if you don't know why or how magic works, as long as you get a result. We've seen it echoed in chaos magic, where it's all about results. If it doesn't matter, then why even examine your process?

However it DOES matter, and the magician who aspires to do more than just get results cares enough to explore his/her process in order to understand and cultivate their magical work more effectively, as well as to pass it onto other people. If the magician understands his/her process and can take the time to explain it and provide opportunities to both try the techniques as well as personalize them, there should be no problem in passing on the how and why of magic.

Another reason few occultists share their experiments is because there has been and is a tendency for many occultists and pagans to be judgmental of the people sharing their experiments. Since the late 90's I've experimented and shared my ideas, and for the majority of that time, I received more contempt and insults than people actually interested in what I had to offer. Even with that kind of obstacle, I persisted and found people to experiment with in groups, in order to try my concepts out. Even now, I have a small group I work with and in that group everyone is encouraged to share ideas and experiments so all of us can try them. But finding such a group is rare. I've had people call me too open-minded, fluffy, etc. I've also had people react because they feel if magic isn't done a particular way, it's not real magic. Obviously such infantile behavior has never stopped me in my work or in publishing it. In fact, one of the reasons I founded the non-fiction line of Immanion Press was to make sure that books that didn't fit conventional or traditional ideas of magic would have a chance to be published. Such traditionalism isn't confined to occultism. I've also seen it in academia. The reality is that in any given field of study there are few pioneers and many people sticking with what's tried and true. The pioneers have to be willing to take risks, and try and find like minded people who are willing to advance the evolution of magic by thinking beyond what has already been presented to them.

Recently, I had a conversation with the editor of a Pagan magazine. We were trying to figure out which themed issue we could do an interview of me. She mentioned that her readers wanted material that was grounded and practical, essentially material that fit what they knew. We came to the understanding that I didn't really fit her magazine in a conventional sense, and we decided we'd have the interview for the spell casting theme issue. I remember writing her and explaining that I'm out there on the edge, experimenting with magic, trying ideas out, fitting other disciplines to magical theory and practice. I am out here on the edge and there aren't many of us here, because to be on the edge is to go where the dragons roam and the angels fear to tread. It's to experiment beyond the tried and true, to defy what is considered known in order to bring the unknown into manifestation. And really, truly, I've been out here on the edge for most of my magical practice, experimenting on magic, trying things out, going with ideas that might seemed half baked and talking about them, because I don't care if its heresay...it won't become more than that if we don't share, if we don't publish, if we don't challenge what's known in favor of exploring the unknown.

I'm out here on the edge. Won't you join me?

Shunning as Banishment

I've been thinking a bit about shunning as a form of magical banishment. In my own experience, when I've decided to cut a person out of my life, I essentially end up shunning them, but shunning for me works on a magical level as well, because part of that process involves systematically getting rid of everything that connects me to the person and using the process of destroying such connections to build the banishment up and create a field of shun (as it were) that keeps the person from connecting with me as much as possible. I use a shunning banishment when I recognize that I will still encounter the person in my life, but I want to minimize those encounters to as few and far between as possible. The field of shunning essentially keeps the person away and interactions to a minimum.

My reasons for taking this kind of action is based on a fundamental recognition that a person brings with him/her a level of chaos and dysfunction that is no longer considered acceptable, or considered to match up with where I'm at. The person and I no longer fit and the relationship has become toxic enough that its no longer sustainable. Under such circumstances, creating a banishment of shunning can be useful for insuring that the person's presence intersects with you only on rare occasions if at all. It insures that you can move on with your life, without having to put energy or effort into a relationship that you no longer want to have. Such relationships take up more time and energy than you want, and you may find, as I have, that the best way to move on and heal is to simply move on, and see as little of the person as possible.

Some might argue that shunning seems a bit extreme, but to my mind, why allow more drama and toxicity in your life than you need? It's as simple as that: I value my sense of well-being and happiness over putting up with people I'd rather have nothing to do with. Instead of trying to sustain a relationship with those people, I feel its better to focus on the relationships which do matter to me, with people that I have confidence in.

It is possible to keep certain things that you might associate with the person and still set up a shunning field. While I normally will get rid of everything I have that connects me to a person, I have on occasion kept a couple things, after disassociating the person from those things. This can be accomplished through purification workings.

I don't recommend doing shunning for every situation in life. You have to be willing to invest in the relationships you have in your life, instead of giving them up at the first sign of trouble, but shunning works in cases where such a relationship has become unsustainable because the amount of toxic interaction exceeds any positives the relationship might bring with it.

Book Review: Rhythms of the Brain (Affiliate Link) by Gyorgy Buzsaki

This book was a hard read. Thanks to reading a variety of other books on neuroscience, I was able to understand what the author was explaining, but I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who hasn't read any books on neuroscience. The author discusses oscillation theory and although he does his best to make the concept approachable, it still ends up being fairly esoteric in content because of the technical information he provides. It is a good book, and one I'd recommend. Just make sure you've grounded yourself in other books on neuroscience.

4 out of 5

Book Review: Buddha's Brain (affiliate link) by Rick Hanson

This is a good 101 introduction to your brain and how it works, as well as providing instructions on how you can consciously work with your brain through meditation. I'd recommend this book to someone that wants to do inner alchemical work or internal work with their body, as it provides some well-rounded information on the brain and how changes can effect you. The authors provide some useful stories and metaphors to explain their concepts and I like the exercises because it provides a practical component to the book.

5 out of 5

The disappointment of magic

I came across an intriguing blog where the author discusses why chaos magic disappoints him, as well as why that disappointment is good. As I read his posts I found myself nodding in agreement, seeing some of my own frustrations expressed. Like me, he recognized that there has been a distinct lack of inquiry into why and how magic works in favor of simply shrugging off that it does work. It's the lack of questioning and critical inquiry that bothers me, and not just in chaos magic, but really in just about any system of magic that's currently out there. What I want to know, and what he doesn't really discuss, is why there isn't more experimentation with magic? And let me be clear: I don't think of chaos magic as a form of experimental magic at this point and I don't think it's been that way for quite a while. Ok you can borrow from other systems and put together a ritual that's a combination of those systems or you can create an entity or do a sigil. But that's the extent of it, and the extent is focused on obtaining a result. Being a process oriented magician, I think of a result as an indicator about the process, and useful in its benefits to my life, but I want more...I want a process I can use to achieve consistent results, and where if something doesn't occur, I can go in and fix it.

The process is more than just that. It's coming up with an idea and then testing that idea by developing a process to support the implementation of it into your life. It's experimenting with the idea, testing the idea and the process, until you are satisfied you've gotten everything out of it that you can achieve.

I see a lot of contemporary work that I'd label as experimental magic, which others would label as chaos magic. And I've been labeled a chaos magician even though its not a label I hold to. I think the difference comes down to an orientation on process. I care about the result, but it's not the only reason I'm practicing magic.

Switching to Elemental Fire

Every year on my birthday I switch to a new element. This year, it felt like a good idea to switch to the element of fire. I feel like I'm ready to work with fire, to find my balance with it and through all of that come to know it in a different way than I had before. I first did the closing ritual to the elements of Space and Time. I evoked the spirits for those elements, thanked them for their transformative work and promised to keep the lessons I'd learned embodied in my actions and life, and that I'd continue to work with them.

Then I pulled into the circle a dragon statue I have. I placed my hands on it, and called to the spirit of the Fire Dragon. I was born in the year of the Fire Dragon and this coming year will be a year of the dragon, albeit, ironically the year of the Water Dragon. Nonetheless I felt it was auspicious to work with this entity for the element of fire.

I invoked the dragon into me, and began to do bellows breathing, focusing on a rhythm that would allow me to simulate the feeding of fire by a bellows. Once I'd gotten to a point where I felt connected to the element of fire, I explained my desire to connect with it, and invoke it into my life for the next year, as part of my balancing work. I also explained that while all they ears of my elemental balancing work had helped me manifest many changes, I felt my fire had become banked and I wanted to develop a healthier relationship with it.

I felt this warmth go into my hands from the statue. My hands felt very warm, felt very much on fire and that warmth then spread into the rest of me. As it did, I heard the dragon speak about fire as both a creative and destructive force. It inspires, but also destroys. It burns, but from the ashes growth can come. It can warm you, but it can also hurt you with that warmth. All of these things and more said to me and I realized that fire, both as a literal and metaphoric force has many sides to it.

I'm looking forward to this year's work. Since fire is an element I already resonate with, I think this work will help me channel that element in many useful directions.

Black magic reputation

When I first moved up to State college, I had a reputation as a "black magician" This was admittedly part of my own branding that I'd done in high school to get people to leave me alone, but it surprised that this branding followed me to a place, where I knew almost no one. You have to remember that this was 1996, so even the internet was being used, it wasn't the same as it is today or will be in the future. But there was a lot of e-listservs, basically email newsgroups. Regardless of how that particular bit of branding got spread, the reality was that when I came to State College, I had to deal with it, both when I encountered the College pagan group and when I encountered the locals. I remember with the locals that there were a couple of guys my age who wanted to learn how to practice magic. They were part of the music scene and what you could think of as hippies, or rainbows. There was this woman they both knew. She was a Dianic Wiccan and she told them men couldn't practice magic. So when I came around and they found out I did, she promptly labeled me as a black magician, because she didn't want men practicing magic. It struck me as juvenile, but it was telling just how influential she was because then some of the locals either avoided me or started acting rather careful around me.

I never had a good relationship with the locals as a result, and similarly my relationship with the pagans at the collage group was not a good one. Some of it was me...I was young and brash, and lacked a lot in those essential social skills that can make life much easier. And some of it was them. So it goes. I also found I didn't have a lot in common. Most pagans or magic practitioners I encountered weren't doing hermetic magic or experimenting. There wasn't a lot to talk about.

So I turned more toward the internet, joining e-lists including the infamous Zee-list, as well as lists about Demonolatry and ceremonial magic. I have and had an insatiable hunger for learning and I wanted to learn as much as I could. I also wanted to share ideas with people and I hoped I'd find a more receptive audience online than I'd found in person.

Even with that said, I did find a few people to work with in person. They were people who were just as interested in experimenting as I was. We would get together and share ideas and then try experiments out and talk about results. Then I'd share those experiments with the different e-lists online and see what others had to say. I did this from the late nineties to the early 2000s and it was a period of my life where I really stretched my wings, and began to look outside hermeticism, Golden Dawn ceremony, and neoshamanism to other forms of ceremonial magic and to Tantra and chaos magic, while also beginning to explore themes of pop culture and different applications of hard science to magical work.

Those years were interesting years in other ways. I lived with a drug dealer for the better part of a year (I didn't find out he was a drug dealer until a couple of months in), then lived in a sober house for a year (Not because I drank, but because I was straight edge back then and wanted to be in an environment where others felt the same way), and then lived with friends, before finally moving on to a Masters degree at Clarion University. Those years taught me a lot about magic, people, and how I interacted with all of it. I learned some hard lessons, but I the most important lesson I learned was to never let anyone discourage my creativity or belief in myself. It's a lesson I've held to every single day since those times and its served me in good stead.

Why and when I first started Experimenting with Magic

I've told this story a couple of times, but its one that's pivotal to my magical practice and life. I was 18, when I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 depression, otherwise known as manic depression. My family on my mother's side had a predisposition toward depression and I had spent a good part of my life depressed, as much by life circumstances as by genetic predisposition. I knew that such a disorder usually brought with it medication and I was very reluctant to use medication because I didn't want to deal with the said effects. I decided to look toward magic for a solution. I already did daily practice, which included some form of meditation, so that helped quite a bit. Even to this day I still meditate every day, in part because of the mental health, but those benefits alone weren't enough.

It wasn't until I was 20, and now living in State College, Pa, while attending college that I found the solution to my problem. I was reading Hands of Light by Barbara Ann Brennan and Programming the Human Bo-Computer by John Lilly. Brennan talked about Lilly's concepts at length and included an exercise where you could travel into your body as a cell. I thought it intriguing and used the technique to travel to my brain. I then made some adjustments to the reuptake cycle for my serotonin production. This adjustment slowed down the absorption of serotonin, which in turn stabilized the electro-chemistry of my brain. This experiment also started my fascination with neuroscience and magic, which I still pursue to this day.

That experiment taught me to look beyond the conventional perspectives that were available in magical works, but also to look beyond such perspectives within any discipline or tradition. I realized that conventional thinking would always blind people to alternative routes and possible solutions, and that sticking with it would have had me on medication for something that I ultimately could treat through my own methods. I've continued to refine and develop techniques based off that initial working, in large part because I don't believe people should have to suffer because of a biological or genetic predisposition. I do think its important people consult with a doctor or psychiatrist, but I also think there's nothing wrong with trying to find your own answer to the problem, so long as that answer doesn't harm anyone else.

That initial experiment inspired me to start exploring other aspects of magic with an eye toward meshing that magical work with other disciplines. I explored elemental magic with an eye toward applying it to DNA, as an example. Nothing was too outlandish or impossible for me...and even to this day that's still the case. Some people have and likely always will dismiss this as being too open or being flaky, but I think the profound results to the quality of my life speaks much more eloquently than anything else. It's better to pursue your ideas, and your path, than let others tell you how to do it.

Music and magic meditations

At the most recent magical experiments night, we decided to do three meditation exercises with music out of the book Arcana V (affiliate link). I was intrigued by the exercises, partially because of the focus on space, sound, and silence, and partially because it reminded me of my own experiments with music and magic in my early 20's. The first experiment involved a minimalistic approach to sound. The goal was to focus on the silence that occurred between sounds being made. I chose to ring a bell for this exercise. I'd ring the bell and as the sound faded, we focused on paying attention to the silence. What we all agreed on was how little silence there was! Whether it was the bark of a dog, the hum of the refrigerator or the sound of a lawn mower, all we heard was sounds. I personally think that silence is an artificial construct, as opposed to an actual experience. There is always sound around you...you can't get away from it...at least not on this planet.

The second experiment involved listening to music that could be defined as sensory overload music...in other words white noise. I picked Merzbow for this experiment. The goal of the exercise was to meditate and in the process ignore or block out the sounds. Everyone had varying degrees of success. We noted that when vocals were included it was a bit harder to ignore the sounds.

The third experiment involved listening to layered music, or music with multiple sounds themes (but not white noise). The goal was meditative absorption...absorbing the music without dwelling on a particular theme or noise or word. We listened to Tangerine Dream's Atem, which is richly layered music. I found that relaxing into the music allowed me to be with it. This was the easiest exercise, probably because I listen to music all the time, when writing or working, and actually just absorb it as a way of keeping me focused.

All three of these experiments were fun to do and brought to mind the early experiments I did, where I would use selected albums to create sonic soundscapes for ritual purposes. We'd put the music on in the background, while doing our ritual, using the music itself to create the sacred space as well as any defenses we felt we needed, while we were doing magical work. I particularly liked using Coil's music for that purpose, but have also used Rapoon, Scorn, Current 93, and other such bands to produce sacred space and altered states of mind for doing ritual work.

The other experiments this reminded me of were experiments I did with my voice. I created sound sigils, which I would activate through vibratory vocalization of the sigil, or through whistling specific sounds at specific tones to activate the sigil. I also experimented with using vibratory vocalizations for invocation and evocation work. I still do use these techniques now, but using them now is not so much of an experiment for me anymore, though I suppose it could be an experiment for others. It is something I will write more about for an occult journal or two.

The Sacred Cow of Science

I've written before about the tendency for some occultists to value science over magic and their attempts to apply the scientific method to magic, to the point, where they end up disillusioned with magic, because it doesn't really conform to science (nor was it ever meant to). This passage, I think explains part of the problem as well:

An all too common perception of science is that it deals in authoritative facts - truths that are immutably recorded in peer-reviewed journals and blessed by academia. In actuality, science is a method of inquiry that generates theories. Theories are forms of metaphors that explain a body of data, although scientists often may shy away from admitting the metaphoric quality. Metaphors are rarely perfect and almost always leave a lot of room for interpretation. theories are updated, hopefully on a regular basis, to best fit the map of the world we operate from.

From Brain Magick (Affiliate link) by Phil Farber

There is a perception that science deals in authoritative facts, because of how the scientific method works, but what people forget is that the method accepts that there is no fact...it's all theory, which means it could be changed down the line with new discoveries. As Farber puts it theories are used to explain and interpret data. And that's really what science boils down to...a way to explain data based on repeated practices that seem to verify a consistent outcome.

Magic doesn't work that way. I can give you a technique I've done and you can do it and get consistent results, but you can also modify that technique to get better results that fit your personality, nature, etc. Magic is personalized, and that's what makes it work. We have techniques, we have foundational principles, but when it comes down to it, magic is much more of a personal experience.

Trying to fit magic into science doesn't work so well because of that personalization. I favor the opposite. Take scientific principles and concepts and fit them into your magical work, without trying to make magic fit those scientific principles and concepts. Science is about laws, rules, and until proven otherwise those laws and rules are what people rely upon to understand the world. Magic is about breaking and bending rules. It's about making possibilities happen even if those possibilities don't exactly align with scientific principles.

There's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from scientific principles and practices, but the magician should never allow those principles and practices to dictate how s/he practices magic. Keep yourself open to the possibilities and use that to create opportunities!

My Experiences with Persecution

When I was 18, and still in high school, I dealt with my first experience of being persecuted for my spiritual beliefs. I'd been careful about hiding what I believed from my mom, and from most others, but I had a few friends and one of those friends had fundamentalist Christians for parents. They found a book I'd let him borrow and he told them it was mine. They contacted my mother, who was furious. She is a hardcore Christian herself. My friend told me that they had told her about my beliefs and I remember going home, dreading what would happen. She didn't bring it up. She'd been acting weird the last couple of days, and I realize she must have known and been chewing on it. I actually wrote her a letter, explaining my choices and why I'd chosen not to tell her...when I got home, I was greeted to an ultimatum. I had a half hour to choose. I could choose to move out, and no longer live with my mom, or I could choose to burn my books. This was a hard choice, because I didn't have a job at the time and I had no way of knowing if she'd even let me take the car I usually drove. I made the most practical choice, and allowed her to burn my books (most of them anyway). There were a few books I was working my way through or hadn't read, so I hid them carefully, and the ones I burned were ones where I'd already mastered the exercises. When I told her my decision she searched my room carefully, and even made me burn The Books of Magic comics. It was a shameful experience and one I've never forgotten. She grounded me for a week and several days into it, I told her if she ever made an ultimatum like that again I would disown her for the rest of my life.

Why did I do it? I did it because I didn't have much money or a place to live. I was still in high school and I wanted to graduate. I wasn't about to ask one of my friends for a place to stay. I did it because it was the practical choice, but making that choice forced me to evaluate why I was hiding my beliefs. My mom burned my books because she was a Christian and had been taught ignorance through her own beliefs. Even to this day, I don't talk my spirituality with her, because she judges me for it. She knows I've written books, knows I don't believe in her God or the values she ascribes to. She doesn't approve of my choices. Then again I don't approve of her being Christian and I've made it clear I don't want to hear about her beliefs. Most of the time she honors that request...and occasionally she doesn't.

My second experience with persecution occurred later that year. The father and step-father of my friend decided that they should kill me for my beliefs. My friend's father called me once on the hour, every hour, telling me how he was going to kill me, and how I was going to hell. I told him I had a cross bow bolt just for him, and I called the police. He didn't call after that, and my friend later told me that his father had called me, and that his step-father was in on it. Nothing else ever happened, but I still remember those calls.

That experience convinced me that hiding my beliefs was wrong. If people were going to judge me for those beliefs and possibly harm me, it was better to be completely in the open about my choices. It was better to come out of the closet. I went public from the late 1990's and on.

Currently I have somewhat different feelings about that choice. I'm still open about my beliefs, but I don't go out of my way to talk about them. If you Googled my name, you'd find out quickly what my beliefs are, but I've found most people don't go out of their way to do so. I think most people aren't that curious, unless its for a job search. Good thing I've chosen to go self-employed, as I'm willing to bet that many companies would hesitate to hire me on the basis of my spiritual choices. Occasionally I do have people Google me and it always prompts some interesting conversations, but I notice that people seem to be more tolerant and accepting. I factor it in large part to where I live. I know in other parts of the country people are less accepting and willing to tolerate beliefs that run counter to the mainstream religions.

Even to this day I am wary of Christians. I have seen too much of their fanaticism and willingness to forcibly convert people to their beliefs. I know some who don't act that way, but my experiences with the religion, both in growing up, and in the recent past and present has shaped my perspective. I can accept their choice to believe what they want, but I want them to leave me alone and allow me to follow my beliefs.