Magic

How to understand magic intellectually and spiritually

The other day on the Magical Experiments Facebook page, a commenter summed up his challenge with magic by sharing, "I'm trying to find an intellectual understanding along with a spiritual understanding of it without losing myself to it."

I think this is a challenge many people experience on their journey with magic as a spiritual practice. We can try to define magic as a set of practical techniques or describe it as a way to exercise our will, but at a certain point, in my experience, you move beyond such definitions when you recognize that magic moves and shapes the practitioner as much as the practitioner seeks to move and shape it.

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Sometimes you just have to let go

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Recently I binge watched the last season of 12 Monkeys and as a result I had this dream of a time paradox I was trying to solve and every time I thought I solved it, it would change and I would try to solve it again. Finally I came to a point where I realized it couldn't be solved and that the only solution was to let go. Yet it was such a hard decision, because letting go went counter to everything telling me I could solve this time paradox. But the longer I kept trying to solve something the harder it was.

So eventually I let go. I stopped trying to solve the time paradox, the problem, and just moved on. And when I did that, the dream ended. The stress went away. The problem was solved.

How to break your magical workings into steps

When I look at a given magical ritual or working or spell I can break it down into steps. It may not be written that way, but realistically a magic spell or ritual is a set of step by step instructions that you are using for the purposes of doing some type of spiritual work. And when you approach you own magical work that way and organize it into specific steps it can help you get perspective on what you're doing and start seeing the underlying process of magic.

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The Process of Magic is now Available

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My newest book, The Process of Magic: A Guide to How Magic Works is now available.

The Process of Magic was originally a class I taught I took the 26 lessons, plus some bonus material and converted it into a book.

In The Process of Magic, we explore how magic works and what you can do to improve your magical workings as a result. I also show you how to troubleshoot existing magical workings. The goal of the book is to help you create a stable foundation for your magical practice.

How to turn your Memorization into Ritual

For the last half year I've been memorizing a ritual. What that process has looked like is I would spend a week memorizing the lines for one particular segment of the ritual and making sure I really had those lines memorized. Then I would move on to the next segment. In the midst of this memorization I also ended up modifying the ritual and adding some additional lines of my own, so those also needed to be memorized and integrated into the working. I needed to get a feel for how what I added fit into what already existed.

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Memory, Embodiment and Exercise

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

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

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The Creative Genius as a Spirit

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One of the books I'm currently reading, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear offers an intriguing idea about the nature of creative genius. The author shares that the ideas a person gets and acts on are the result of the genius, but the genius is a spirit working through you.

Kind of like A Genius Locii (a spirit of place), but instead its a spirit of creativity.

I think its an intriguing way to look at one's own sense of genius, because instead of claiming something as you're own, you acknowledge its a gift that's been given to you, an offering that you've been allowed to express (should you take it up). It's an opportunity to be humble and recognize how your creativity is inspired.

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Videogames, Emotions and Magic

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Lately I've been replaying the God of War series. It's one of those videogame series that I play as a way to process emotions and solve problems. Losing myself in the game and in the character of Kratos and his own issues with rage allows me to come to a meditative space. In that space, each push of the button is mirrored in the meditation and what is presented is a space where the problem can be worked through, while the game is being played. 

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How Pop Culture Magic works: A guide in theory and practice

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If there's one perception about pop culture magic that stands out to me as being inaccurate, its the idea that people practicing pop culture magic are winging it. It's as if people think that pop culture magic is an undisciplined approach to magic that's really about wish fulfillment as opposed to a genuine magical practice.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

When I started practicing pop culture magic, I knew that in order to make it work, I needed to draw on my previous experiences with magic. In fact, I wouldn't recommend pop culture magic to someone who didn't have at least a couple of years experience with magic under their belt, because you need that experience to make sure that what you're doing actually works and isn't wish fulfillment on your part.

How I became a Practical Magic Minimalist...

At one time, whenever I would do a practical magic working, I had to break out the bling...

You know the fancy tools, the smelly incense and candles, and all the other stuff we're told we need to have in order to do practical magic (and other types of magic for that matter). 

And don't get me wrong, those fancy tools, incenses, and candles could be a lot of fun to use. They can really set the tone of a ritual, create an atmosphere and experience that whisks you from mundane reality and opens you to the sacred mysteries of the universe.

But as I continued doing practical magic, I began to wonder if there was an easier, better way of doing practical magic, without all the bling and other stuff.

And as it turned out, there was.

How Magic Works: A guide in theory and practice

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So how does magic work?

I like to use the word process when I describe how magic works. It's a deliberate choice, because when you look at magic as a process, you strip away the esoteric, flowery language and focus on what's actually happening.

If we map out a magical working what you'll discover is that its possible to break a given magical working down into specific steps.

Now that alone doesn't tell us how magic works. But what it does allow us to do is actually examine the actions we're taking in the magical working and this is important because if you're going to do a working you need to know what steps to take.

Where we start to discover how magic works is through the application of the Principles of Magic which allows us to discover what is actually happening when we execute each step of the process. 

When we understand what action to take and what is actually supposed to happen when that action is taken, then that understanding allows us to take apart any magical working and figure out how it works. Even better, we can then put it back together and personalize it, using what is relevant to us, or we can experiment with the working, in order to improve on it.

And the reason we ultimately do this is not just to learn how magic works or even to get consistent results (though those are quite nice). It is to make sure that magic evolves, that it is relevant and that we can take any other discipline or practice and apply it to magic in order to enhance our lives.

But in order for any of that to happen we need to have a solid foundation and that's where the principles of Magic come in.

What are the Principles of Magic?

I'll share a brief overview of the principles here. There are 11 principles of magic and these principles describe how magic works.

The Principle of Results explains that you can't have a magical working without a result of some type. The result, in and of itself, justifies and creates the process.

The Principle of Definition explains that how you define the world or how the world is defined for you determines what actions you'll take and what probabilities you'll be open to.

The Principle of Change/Transformation acknowledges that change happens and seeks to intentionally harness that change into productive transformation, both in the world around us and within us.

The Principle of Where, When, Why, What, and How recognizes there are multiple variables that need to be planned for and aligned to help you turn a probability into reality.

The Principle of Need explains that need can be a powerful catalyst for magic and shows you how to harness the emotional aspects of need to fuel your workings.

The Principle of Ethics/Morals describes how your ethical and moral compass plays a role in your workings and shows you how to account for your beliefs and values when doing magical workings.

The Principle of Connections recognizes that magic works because of how actions and events are connected together.

The Principle of Intention factors in the power of the conscious mind and shows how attention can be focused and used in magical work.

The Principle of Limitation recognizes that if you want to manifest a possibility into reality, you must provide it form, which brings with it limitations.

The Principle of Function explores how spirits are defined by their function and operate within specific parameters.

The Principle of Mundane Actions recognizes that mundane actions can be paired to magical actions in order to achieve results.

These core principles describe the mechanics of magic and when understood by the magician can be used to take apart any magical working and customize it to what is relevant to the magician.

Why is Relevance Important?

When I talk about using what is relevant in your magic, what I'm talking about is drawing on what you find to be spiritually relevant. The way magic is typically portrayed discourages people from using what is relevant to them. We're told to focus on ancient cultural mythologies and religious practices, but not everyone connects with these older mythologies and practices, as I share in mroe detail in the video below.

Want to actually do this, not just read about it?

How Magic Works is where I teach how to take a desire from intent to an actual result, step by step. Start the class →

Not ready to buy anything? Why Your Spells Don't Stick is a free guide to the most common reasons a working stalls, and where to start fixing it.

If you want help with a specific situation, work with me one to one.

What isn't shared is that magic is much more customizeable than is typically portrayed. The majority of books tend to prescriptively argue that magic can only be practiced certain ways, but if we look at magic as a process and break down what is happening with given actions, what we find is that magic is descriptive and as a result you can take things out that don't work for you, and plug what does work for you and you should be able to get similar, if not better results.

For example, instead of using classical deities and spirits to represent the 5 classic elements, we can use pop culture mythology that we connect with and apply it to the 5 elements and discover that the pop culture mythology works. And the reason why is simple:

When you use what is relevant to you, in your magical practice, you understand why its relevant and how it can help you connect to the spiritual forces that it mediates. 

That understanding is powerful and what it tells us is that a given magical system or tradition essentially has a lot of optional features to it, which can be swapped out for what makes sense to you. Consequently you can build your own correspondences and connections that you apply magic to the world around, while also making sense of the deeper spiritual realities that magic presents to you.

As long as you understand the core principles of magic and how they connect to and can be used to modify magical workings, then you'll find that magic becomes much more versatile than it is typically portrayed. But this only happens when you develop a genuine curiosity about how and why magic works. You can learn more in my free How Magic Works Workbook.

Explore related entries in the Library

Related: the Magical Experiments Alchemy Lab

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4 Reasons you aren't getting the results you want

One of the frequent issues I notice magicians experience is they don't always get the results they want, or they get the results, but then the results slip through their fingers. So they went to all that effort to get that result, and yet it hasn't worked out. It's enough to make a person really doubt whether or not magic works.

Yet, so many people do practice magic and do get results, so surely it works. The question is, "Why aren't you getting the results you're shooting for?" And in this article I'm going to share 4 reasons you may not be getting the results you want as well as what actions you can take to remedy that issue.

How is Magic Different from the Law of Attraction?

The other day, a student of mine asked me, "Taylor, what's the difference was between magic and the law of attraction? Why should I practice magic if I can just use the law of attraction in my life?"

It was a good and fair question to ask. Why should someone practice magic, which seems like a lot of work, when they can just adhere to the law of attraction and use that for their life.

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July and August Magical Experiments Podcast Episodes

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Magical Experiments
Magical Experiments

Did you miss an episode of the magical experiments podcast in July and August? Listen to them.

Magical Experiments podcast: Performance Art and Magic with Hannah Haddix

Magical Experiments podcast: Victor Anderson: an American Shaman with Cornelia Benavidez

Magical Experiments podcast: The Masks of Lucifer with Asenath Mason and Bill Duvendack

Magical Experiments podcast: The pop culture magic of Star Wars with Leni Hester

Magical Experiments podcast:Practical Sales Magic with Dubious Monk

Magical Experiments podcast: The pop culture magic of Zelda with Cloud Jetters

Book Review: The Hidden Adept and the Inward Vision by R. J. Stewart

This is the fascinating story of A. R. Heaver, a little known practitioner of magic and his work with Stillness as well as the western mystery traditions. It's more of a biography and history book than anything else, but there are some interesting esoteric gems in the book and if you have an interest in the Glastonbury well, then this book will have some pertinent history that's worth learning. I do wish the author the author had included some of his own interactions with A. R. Heaver in the book. He only gives a passing mention to them. That said, I've found reading and meditating on some of the material of the book to be helpful with my own meditations on stillness.

The Possibility you feed is the reality you create

The other day I was having a conversation with one of my friends. She shared she was feeling anxious about the upcoming weekend where she would be doing a lot of vending and she pessimistically said she didn't think she'd sell a lot of product.

Now I'm no stranger to such pessimism, having some of it myself, so after she vented for a bit, I asked her if she was open to some feedback.

Results vs Consequences and how to plan for both in your magic

Recently I was having a conversation with a friend about results and consequences. Often times in practical magic workings we focus on the results that we want to achieve, but what isn't always considered are the consequences that come with the results. Yet consequences are a natural reality of a result. The problem that happens is that the result is treated as a point of closure. You've created and executed the magical working and then the result has occurred and that's the end of the story. But is it?

The Devil is in the Details: Why knowing how magic works matters

In my own magical practice I'm a real stickler for details. The reason is because I like to figure out what is working and how it's working (or conversely what isn't working). Not everyone feels this way about magic. Sometimes I'll hear people say that it doesn't matter how magic works, as long as it produces a result. I always find this response (and variants of it) to be fascinating and perplexing. "Why wouldn't you want to know how something works?" is one of the questions that I ask, along with another one, "What do you do if your magical working doesn't work or produce the results you were going after?"

I never really get a satisfactory answer to those questions.

How to stack the deck of reality and possibility in your favor

I find that a lot of people think of magic as something you actively are doing, but sometimes the way magic works has more to do with being in tune with the flow of possibilities into reality and allowing the right possibilities to come through. What does that really mean?

I look at it in this way. Yes, sometimes the magical work involves taking action, but sometimes it involves being in a situation and recognizing how to make that situation work for you, even when it seems to be stacked against you.