Have you ever had that feeling, that sense of certainty, a feeling of fate or destiny when it comes to your life, where you just know that certain things will happen? I have and each time I’ve experienced it I have recognized that what I’ve tapped into is a possible future state of being, a potential maybe that could be a reality in my life. It’s an awareness of reality that transcends the present moment and the linear experience of time and aligns you with the future spiral.
The power of having
One of the simplest principles of life, but one often missed out on, is the principle of having. The principle of having is a fundamental form of wealth magic and realization that actively encourages the attraction of what you already have, because when you have it, you can draw more of it to you. It is a principle that seems counter intuitive, but when you consider it in context to wanting something it actually makes sense.
When you want or need something or someone, what you experience is a neediness that can actually repel what you want from you. The reason is simple: when you want something or someone, you set up within your mind and identity the lack of that thing or person that you want and this creates tension between you and what you want, because you are establishing that it isn’t part of your identity and that you don’t really have it. You want it, but the wanting of it creates distance.
Stepping across realities
One of my favorite metaphors, though it is more than just a metaphor, is to look space/time as a spider web. It’s a useful non-linear device for conceptualizing space/time as a web. The strands become time lines and where two or more strands meet you have spatial nodes which represent events that the strands of time intersect with. It can be a useful tool for helping you wrap your mind around the non-linear aspects of time and I’ve found it particularly helpful in relationship to identity work, because you can move from one event identity to another using the strands of time to bring you to that event.
Identity as the compilation of the past
In the last week and a half I’ve been engaged in an experiment around how I frame my past, in relationship to my present. This experiment came about as a result of reading The Courage to be Happy (affiliate link) In that book the author makes the point that people often use the past to define the present, justifying their current circumstances because of what previously happened. Certainly, this has been my own experience and I found myself in a place where I was feeling on edge because of events that had happened over the course of the last year.
The author makes the point that an alternate perspective can be adapted, where we consider what meaning a person’s present identity is giving to the past. He also argues that the past doesn’t exist, because its something that can’t be regained It is simply gone. Instead what happens is that people compile their past experiences and use them to justify their current sense of identity. Anything that runs counter to the present experience they want to cultivate is conveniently forgotten and ignored. Consequently what ought to be considered is that a person’s now defines their past as opposed to the past defining the present.
Divination, the observer effect, and results
One of the fascinating aspects of divination is the observer effect, where the act of observation, or in this case divination has an impact on the magical work a person does, or for that matter the mundane realities of a person’s life. In this video I share some of my thoughts on this aspect of divination and share why I use divination as an active form of magical work, instead of for the purposes of getting information.
My process for creating a magical space out of my home
I recently moved into my own space, and this gave me the opportunity to create a magical space out of my home, because the space is entirely my own to design and shape as I please. I decided to employ principles of organic design that I’ve been learning about from Christopher Alexander’s works as well as Sarah Goldhagen’s work on the topic. Both of these people, as far as I know don’t practice magic. They are architects that help design buildings and landscapes. Their knowledge of designed space is quite profound and has been very useful to me in developing a space of my own that not only reflects who I am but allows me to turn my lived in space into a spiritual sanctuary for my magical practice.
I mention their works because as always I find that the majority of my inspiration in magical practices comes from outside the magical current, where the perspectives of other disciplines can be fruitfully employed to inform the way we practice magic. In this case, I’ve taken the principles these authors have described in their books and used them to help me create an organic generative space that enhances my spiritual work, connects with the entity of the home I’m living in (and allows it to become part of the spiritual work), and at the same creates a space that is very comfortable for people who want to visit. In this article, I will walk you through my thought process and the overall development of this as a case study example of how spatial design can be employed to create an ongoing magical space to work and live in.
The Mysteries of Death and Rebirth part 2
We live with death everyday, but we don’t always recognize it. In this video I discuss not just the obvious examples of death, but the subtle nuances as well. I also share some of my previous near death experiences and how they have lead to different rebirth experiences.
The Saturnic power of weaving and unweaving reality
Recently I created a magical painting dedicated to Saturn. when I created it I worked with the wet and dry alchemical essences of lead. It was a powerful magical working, but what happened as a result of that working was even more intriguing and powerful in its own right. I was given the opportunity to take a peek behind the curtains and I got a very different perspective of the interweaving of reality and possibility.
When many people think of Saturn as a planetary energy to work with they think of it in terms of limitations and specifically how obstacles, boundaries, and limitations can get in the way of a person’s journey to achieving specific results. Or perhaps they consider the artful application of limitations and how those limitations can actually be used to create a refined and focused magical work that gets specific results. Certainly these aspects of Saturnic work are true and the planetary energy of Saturn can be worked with in that way.
Fear as the seed of potential in your life
When you think of the experience of fear, or feel the experience of fear, what comes to mind or feeling? I can’t speak for you, but what I’ve learned to do over the years is embrace fear. It isn’t always easy, but it is always empowering, because when I embrace my fear, I’m no longer letting it dictate my existence, but instead using it to motivate and drive me.
The depiction of fear, when it’s not horror movies, is that fear paralyzes us or causes us to run and hide from what we’re afraid of (for that matter, its the same in horror movies). But if we take a different approach to fear, one where we recognize how fear can be a useful ally and helper in our quest to deal with the circumstances that come into our lives then we can change how we handle fear.
A meditation on centers and life
One of the books I’m reading right now is The Phenomenon of Life (affiliate link) by Christopher Alexander. It’s a book about the art of building, but its really much more than that. It’s about the appreciation of life and how life shows up in the spaces we navigate and create. One of the concepts the authors talk about is how a given space is defined by its center and how there are actually different centers in a given space that all play off of and define each other.
What this discussion of Center has made me aware of is how in touch I am with my awareness of what my center is, physically, spiritually, and mentally. At the same time, I’m aware that even my perception of the center is governed by how that word is defined. Alexander makes the point that any space is made up of multiple centers. There is no one center so much as many centers and they all combine to shape the experience of a space.
Timing and results
How to factor timing into your results and how to adjust and adapt.
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Perception, filters, and how to divine
In the magical experiments facebook group, one of the members observed that they get better results with divination when they provide themselves a map/model that allows them to filter their perception. The benefit of doing this filtration is that it allows the person to focus in on the information that is relevant, while excluding information that might be a distraction. The question that arises is: Is this the best possible way to get the most out of one’s perception of information, using divination?
It’s an interesting question to ask, especially when considering the medium through which you’re getting the information. Any divination system is already providing a filtering of sorts, because of the limitations that come with that system. If you use a pendulum, you only have so many directions that it can move and only so much information it can provide. With more advanced systems such as runes or tarot cards, more information is available, but there are still limitations because of what is presented, as well as what isn’t presented. And of course there’s another limitation often ignored, but very relevant to this question.
An example of how Retroactive Magic works
Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash
I thought I would share a practical example of how retroactive magic works. This example pertains to the recent move I made at the end of 2018. In 2018 my family and I lived in a duplex. I had lived there for a decade and most of the time it was a pleasant living experience, but we had new neighbors move in in 2018 and they were the kind of neighbors who were loud and unpleasant to be around, and seemed to lack any awareness of how their actions were impacting our sleep or overall quality of life.
The question I had to consider was what could be done. On the one hand, I liked living in the place and had a lot of good memories. On the other hand, my land lord was powerless to do anything, even when issues were pointed out that demonstrated that the neighbors weren’t honoring the agreement of their lease. The laws around evictions favor the tenants even in cases where its clear the tenants are not honoring the agreement that’s been made. When it became clear the neighbors weren’t going to be evicted I began to consider what else I could about this situation.
In late November I mentioned to my wife that I thought it was time we considered moving. She agreed and mentioned that she had been feeling that way for a little why because of the neighbors and because of a couple other issues. I decided to look up our lease and was pleased to see we only had until the end of January until the lease was up. Clearly it was time to start looking for a new home. So we started looking but experienced a bit of sticker shock when we saw how much rent had risen. We had been fortunate to be at a place where the landlord didn’t obscenely raise the rent and we did debate whether we should just try and stick it out, but after doing some financial research, realized we could afford the higher rent.
So we started looking for a new home. We initially found one right away that seemed perfect, but ended up not working out when we realized they didn’t like pets. And as we kept looking we discovered how hard it was to find a home that would allow us to have more than 2 cats. And when we did find one that might work it was much further out from my work and the landlord lived next door. It was clear to us that we need to start doing some magic that would help us get a better result.
Why not do magic right away? We initially wanted to get a feel for what was available and I think it was good we did. By doing our research we were able to figure out the specific criteria about what we wanted as well as what we didn’t want, in a home. Price was obviously part of the criteria, but we also needed a place that would allow us to have more than two cats, and didn’t charge pet rent. We also wanted a place that didn’t share a wall with anyone else and we wanted a place that was centrally located, yet also quiet and isolated enough that we could enjoy our privacy.
So the night we decided not to go for the one place, I pulled out my two tarot decks and did a reading/enchantment for us that would help us figure out the best choice to make and point us in the right direction of the home we wanted to find. Part of what went into that reading was all the previous efforts we’d made to look for a home. We didn’t want to waste that effort, but instead took the energy of it and applied it toward the reading/enchantment so that we could get a result that was ideal for us. What the reading indicated was that settling for the one home wasn’t ideal and that staying where we were also wasn’t a good idea. But it also indicated we’d find a new home if we kept looking. After the reading wrapped up, my wife got an intuition, checked a site we were using to find potential homes, and lo and behold we found the place we’re now living. It was ideal and although there were a couple details that needed to be ironed out, we knew it was the place we were looking for.
Within the week we secured the place and at the same time I contacted my previous landlord and was able to make an arrangement with him that got us out of our old lease a bit early without paying a full month’s rent and being able to transition the utilities to his name. Everything else lined up smoothly and by the end of December we were in our new home. And the new home has met our criteria. We don’t share a wall with a neighbor, we have quiet neighbors and our home is secluded and yet has access to everything we want access to. The commute to our respective workplaces is shorter and the energy of the place, overall size, etc fits what we need for where we are. And we could rent it with all four of our cats.
Where does Retroactive magic come into this?
I applied retroactive magic the night I did the tarot reading. I used the tarot reading as a medium through which to work magic that was focused on helping us achieve several specific outcomes.
1. Assess our current situation and the possible outcomes available to us, as well as environmental information we may not have been aware of. This was the divination aspect of the reading and it helped us get a better lay of the land, while also allowing us to look back at the previous work we’d done to find a new place and put it into context with what the reading was telling us.
2. Take the information and experiences, and create a new path forward that would direct us to the place we were fated to live in. I treat my tarot readings as enchantments, so once the cards were laid out and we eliminated the possible paths to focus on the one path that indicated what we needed to do, I used the reading to grab the experiences of the previous month, the emotions we felt about leaving and about our annoying neighbors, and I took all of that and turned it into momentum for creating a result in the present or near future that would get us what we wanted.
This is where the retroactive magic came into play. I couldn’t change the past and what happened, but I could use the past to open up opportunities in our present/future that weren’t readily apparent to us. I could take everything up to that present moment, the experiences and emotions we felt and turn it into raw magical energy that could take a probability and create a path of manifestation for its realization. And that’s what I did.
The result…we got our new home, got out of the old place sooner than later, without having to cover utilities for the last month and only paying a half’s month rent. Everything lined up to help us get where we needed to go. We just needed to use what had already happened to propel us toward where we wanted to go, and to help us achieve the desired result we wanted.
Explore related entries in the Library
Can you physically change the past?
Picture courtesy of Pexels
Recently I was asked if you could physically change the past with space/time magic. The person specifically brought up a technique I mentioned in Space/Time Magic, where you can influence your past self via a meditation technique in order to guide and influence that past self.
Throughout my life I’ve had moments where I’ve encountered a future version of myself that gave me advice or pushed me in a specific direction or warned me away from a direction I might have gone down. I know when I’ve followed that advice/push or pull in a specific direction its generally worked out in my favor, but it does create an intriguing question.
Was I interacting with my future self or with a version of my future self, or what?
I’ll be the first to tell you that so far as I know you can’t physically changed the past. I’ve never physically time traveled to the past or hopped into a DeLorean and gotten a sports almanac or hopped in to a Tardis. Nor have I traveled back into the past in any other way that seemed remotely physical
Yet nonetheless I’ve had moments where I’ve experienced a sense of myself, older, who’s taken it upon himself to show up in dreams or meditations and either give me a push toward a certain direction or provide some type of instruction that has shown up as a spiritual transmission of sorts. I’ve also purposely initiated workings where I connected with a younger version of myself and provided him information and directions.
The question is who am I interacting with? Am I interacting with the future version of myself that I am becoming or am I interacting with a version of myself that made some different choices and knows those outcomes, and so points me in a different direction? I’m inclined to think its the latter case, because it is possible that there are multiple versions of ourselves and that under the right circumstances those versions could interact with us, via something like dreams or meditation when we’re in an altered state of consciousness.
That version wouldn’t be changing his past, but would be providing a change to my version of the life of Taylor Ellwood.
Alternately perhaps it is truly my future self and that future self, with the wisdom of a life lived, is choosing to look back and make some suggestions so that changes can be made.
If that’s the case, how is this change happening if for that future self its the past? And what is changing for that future self.
This is where our notions of linear time run smack into non-linear time. In either scenario what we have to recognize is that our notions of linear time set everything up with a distinct path forward. You have a sequence of past, present, and future. One moment leads into the next and never is that moment revisited save through remembrance.
Non-linear time on the other hand offers a different perspective. Past, present, and future aren’t delineated in the same way. They inform each other, explore each other and change each other. The past and future are just other moments of the present that a person slides into.
The question then is what changes and do we notice that change in the everyday life of linear reality?
This is a sticky question to answer because when you throw non-linear time and space into the mix there is no conveniently easy answer. Yet nonetheless while I can point to moments where I felt a sense of self come through and say, “Go here and do this or don’t do that,” what I can’t point is the alternative, because that alternative hasn’t happened or if it did happened, it happened to a different me. So has something changed? Maybe, but if so its a subtle change, something experienced subjectively that nonetheless has an effect on your life.
And what about me and where I am at? Having done some work with my past self, providing him instructions and direction, I can tell you that something may have changed in my life as a result, but I can’t point to something specific that tells me what changed. I don’t have objective evidence that a physical change occurred. I only have the subjective experience and as a result this is why I can’t say that the past has physically changed. Maybe it did but I can’t be entirely sure it did. All I know is that I influenced the path of my life in some way and as a result I’m where I’m at, but what changed…I provided myself suggestions and he followed them. If he hadn’t, something else would have happened.
It’s not terribly specific or measurable. It’s probability and when you deal with probabilities, you’re dealing with non-linear time and space, where nothing is convenient and everything is possible. Nonetheless the question still remains, “Did I truly change my past?”
You changed a past…but is it yours or another version of you? There’s only the subjective experience, the feeling of change and difference and what you make of it.
Explore related entries in the Library
Space/Time Magic Foundations is now Available
Sometimes you just have to let go
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.
The Problem with Prescience: How Observer Effect muddies up the water
I was recently re-reading Dune Messiah and what fascinated me about the book is how the character relies on prescience to direct his actions, but also how he recognizes that prescience can be problematic. With prescience the character is always scanning the possibilities and trying to choose the best path forward, but the very path becomes the trap that takes away all his choices.
In my own spiritual practice I've used a variety of tools that can have prescient applications. Those tools include Tarot cards, writing, and collages. I've also used meditation as a way to access prescient probabilities.
Eligos and Boundaries
Recently a friend of mine observed that in the last couple of months I had various situations come up where I needed to express and enforce boundaries for myself, my community, and other assorted issues. After she made that observation I thought about it and I realized that for me the work with boundaries had really started in November with my month long spiritual retreat (and work with Eligos).
And if you do a little research into Eligos, it makes a lot of sense. Eligos is a Daemon of writing and of time and both writing and time are in some ways very much about boundaries. When you write something you are defining what it is and what it is not. You are creating a very specific reality with your words (though the reality is open to interpretation). And with time, particularly linear time, you have a concise placement of temporal boundaries which is used to measure time and define it. Actually this can apply to non-linear time as well, in the creation of the rhythm and cycles of non-linear time.
A lot of my work with Eligos has ultimately been around boundaries. When we first started working together he told me I needed to take a break from my regular routines of writing and in retrospect my regular routines of time. In taking that break, I had the opportunity to really explore what I want my boundaries of writing and time to be and not too surprisingly I changed those boundaries, but in a way that really empowered me. Before I'd been working around other people's schedules far more than I wanted to be and what Eligos demanded of me was that I really look at that aspect of my life and make changes that allowed me to define my time and writing on my own schedule.
And since then, in various ways, large and small, boundaries have come up. And each time they've come up, the challenge has been around getting very clear on what is in my life and what I need in my life to be doing the work I've been called to do. What Eligos is really helping me see is that the boundaries I have in my life are in place in order to protect my time and space. And that protection is helping me be a lot more creative and productive...and much happier than I've ever been.
Part of successful space/time magic is the ability to set up boundaries of space and time with your working. One can argue that space and time in and of themselves are boundaries and that's true, yet in working with them I find that if I want to manifest a specific space in my life I need to get clear on what space is and isn't. The same applies to time. If I want to manifest a possibility at a specific time, I need to claim that time, define it and make it part of the magical work I'm doing.
By defining the boundaries you also open yourself to working with possibilities contained in those boundaries and what can be surprising is what possibilities you discover. While a boundary is a limitation, what it includes in the limit is what possible in the context of the boundary. The boundary provides you the context to realize those possibilities through your magical work.
How to turn Zero into your spiritual ally and secret weapon
Last week I posted a video on how to work with Zero as a principle of space/time magic. However Zero is more than just a principle of space/time magic. Zero is a state of being. And Zero is a process. Zero is razor edged. It'll slice you up if you're not careful, and sometimes even if you are...
So why would you want to work with Zero?
Here's a secret you won't find in most books on magic. What makes magic work is what you put into it. All those spells you read about, with the incense, candles, etc....you know they only really work if you're willing to give yourself to what you're working with. And by giving yourself I mean putting something of yourself into the working to make it happen. If you hold back in some way, well that's when magic doesn't work. And Zero can teach you that because zero is infinite possibility, but more importantly Zero is a state of being that requires an investment of sorts from someone who works with it to turn it from one state of being into a different state of being.
With Zero what you have is a fundamental departure from the normal boundaries of space and time. As I explain in my Space/Time Foundations course (The next round is starting February 17th), the invocation of Zero puts you outside of linear time and space and as a result allows you to work with the infinite possibilities contained within it. But the infinite possibilities are seductive and its easy to get caught up in the lure of those possibilities without actually doing anything. The present themselves before you and can suck you right into them. Your challenge as a magician is to make a choice to turn the Possibilities of Zero into the Manifestation of One.
You have to learn to work with Zero first. Zero can come in many forms. It can be invoked through sound or experienced as a meditative state of stillness or brought about through pushing your limits so that you reach a place of sublime perfection where everything is crystalline clear and perfect, making sense in a way that defies description and yet nonetheless comes together seamlessly. That's the temptation and brilliance of Zero. Yet for Zero to become something more than just possibility, it relies on something essential that it lacks.
What does Zero need?
You and the principle of embodiment you represent. Actually that's true of the spirits in general. The reason they work with us (another secret you won't find in most books on magic) is because what we offer is a taste of the manifested world when we invest ourselves in the work we do with them. You can't turn a possibility into reality without a means of embodying that possibility and so the magician must act as the agent of embodiment. What the embodiment does is limit the possibility into tangible reality, something to be experienced in the linear space and time we are all part of.
With Zero you experience the infinite possibilities as a stream of consciousness, a flow of experience that allows you to open yourself to what could be. Then you pick what you need from what could be and you bring that into yourself and provide it the embodiment, the manifestation it needs to be more than just a possibility. Pretty amazing really.
You must have discipline to turn Zero into One, to turn away from the sublime perfection of entropy you experience and limit it into something you can work with in the reality of life. You give of yourself by choosing the possibility, because at that you've committed to it and made it part of your experience. That's really how magic works in general. It's so simple and yet so often people make it more complex. They add in lots of tedious details that keep you from really experiencing magic. And don't get me wrong those details can be helpful, but more often than not they end up becoming a distraction.
Zero can change that for you, become your spiritual ally and secret weapon where you strip away everything that isn't needed and get back to the pure simplicity of simply investing yourself in what you want to turn into a possibility. What Zero wants is that investment. You want it to, or you wouldn't be practicing magic. What Zero can do is show you how to make that investment by turning it into the 1 of manifestation and building from there.
Magical Experiments Radio: What is Inner Alchemy with Vincent Piazza
Magical Experiments Radio: The Mysteries of Avalon with Annwyn Avalon Obermeyer
Magical Experiments Radio: What is Atheo-Paganism with John Halstead
Magical Experiments Radio: Pop Culture Magic Panel with Terra Ahkert and Samantha Chaney
Book Review: Captain Z-Ro's Indispensable Book of Days by Bill Whitcomb
If you're a SF geek or a Fantasy nerd or a pop culture magician, this book is an indispensable resource for you. The author has put together a calendar/book of notable in SF/Fantasy as well as some other interesting finds within the book that you'll enjoy. This book made me smile a number of times and is one I recommend for the fantasy and SF geek in your home.
Book Review: Language Intelligence: Lessons on Persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga by Joseph Romm
If you are a writer or a presenter or someone just interested in understanding how language works, this book is a must read. In this book the author shares the rhetorical strategies of politicians and entertainers and show how these strategies are used to get fans, persuade people to causes, and otherwise influence how we think about the issues in our world. Reading this book was eye-opening for me and has helped change how I write as a result. If you want to become a better writer then read this book and keep it as a resource to draw on in your work.
Stillness in Space and Time
One of the practices I associate with space/time magic that other people have shared is how they've created a distinct space separate from mundane reality, in which to do magical work. Now, it could be argued that casting a circle is exactly that, but I'm actually referring to techniques specifically designed to remove a person from their participation in space and time. One technique that both William G. Gray and R. J. Stewart share involves using sound to create a sphere of art. The practitioner vocalizes the vowels O A I. Each vowel is associated with a form of stillness. The O stills your sense of time, moving it from a linear perspective to a holistic, cyclical, spiral perspective. The A stills your sense of space, expanding it from a contracted linear experience to an expanded non-linear awareness. The I stills your sense of movement, getting you to slow down and just be with your expanded sense of space and time. Doing this technique shifts you from linear time and space to a rarified sacred time and space.
In Dzogchen, the cultivation of Zhine, a meditative state of stillness, leads to a similar state of awareness. As you still yourself and your thoughts, you enters into a place of hyper awareness that goes beyond the physical and ventures into the spiritual, or at least I do. In Zhine, I feel as if I can see all these possibilities around me. the goal isn't necessarily to do anything and it could be said the possibilities are a distraction, but experiencing them is similar to what I experience with the OAI.
I find it interesting to examine these two techniques which are distinctly different from each in terms of how the state of stillness is reached, as well as culturally, and are also different from each other in terms of the desired result. Yet nonetheless it seems that both of these techniques take a person to a similar state of consciousness. However with that said, I think its important to honor each technique and so when I do Zhine work and cultivate stillness, I'm not necessarily doing it to access possibilities so much as be present with them. And when I do the OAI and set up the Sphere of Art I'm doing to commune with my spiritual contacts and sometimes for the purpose of manifesting possibilities into reality.
Stillness plays an integral role in my space/time work. It's within stillness that possibilities can be fully explored. Stillness is the 0 of space/time, the potential for everything. The potential of stillness is changed when you chose to manifest a possibility. At that point you shift from stillness into movement, for movement is what is needed to turn potential into reality. Yet I would argue stillness is a profound state and that what it can teach us is the importance of not taking action too quickly, but instead really being present with the possibilities and exploring the consequences and results of realization. By learning to still ourselves, we expose ourselves to the gift of making a choice from a place of proactive awareness instead of from reaction. When you are ready to move, you move yourself knowingly, to achieve results that are consistent with what you want for your life, as opposed to just solving a problem that has come up in your life.
Magical Experiments podcast Interview with Sara Star about Kitchen Alchemy and traditional witchcraft.