I stand on the outside looking in

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of Wounds and Tattoos

In a previous post, I showed off my most recent tattoo. Since showing it off, I've had an interesting, if somewhat painful experience that I want to relate. A couple days after I'd gotten the tattoo, I had three sores appear around the tattoo. One sore was actually in the tattoo, but on a spot that hadn't been inked. Another appeared in a straight line below it, and another appeared at an angle, where you essentially had a triangle. Without getting into too much TMI, the sores ended up infected, with one becoming an abscess. The timing of this was interesting. Kat, my wife, thinks that my body was responding to the tattoo and releasing toxicity. Given that I'd gotten all the work done in a 3 week period, I can believe that, but at the same time I can't help but wonder if it was also a demonstration of what the tattoo represents: Balance in Identity. Achieving balance means facing and releasing toxicity in your life. It means recognizing where you've allowed yourself to be held up by your own issues.

In meditating on the wounds that appeared, I realized that they represented the work I'd done and continue to do with my elemental balancing ritual. I've worked through a lot of internal toxicity and cleaned it out of my life. It's been painful, but it's also freed me of so much of what I was holding in. Those physical embodiments of the toxicity reminded me of all that work. They're also a reminder that such work can be ongoing.

In other news...

Recently Immanion Press released its latest Anthology: Shades of Faith. You can order the book via this website or via Amazon. Here's a brief description of what it's about:

Shades of Faith: Minority Voices in Paganism is an anthology that encompasses the voices and experiences of minorities within the Pagan community and addresses some of the challenges, stereotyping, frustrations, talents, history and beauties of being different within the racial constructs of typical Pagan or Wiccan groups.

Moving away from linear time

In this radio show, I talk about why its a good idea to move away from linear perspectives of time in order to do effective space/time magic.

Listen to internet radio with Experimental Magic on Blog Talk Radio

Somewhere in Time

I watched the movie Somewhere in Time last night. It's an interesting film because of the time travel aspect. In the film the protagonist travels back in time and to do this he hypnotizes himself to believe he is in the year 1912. To make this work, he has to remove everything from the room that would remind him of the modern era. He also dresses himself in clothes from that time period, that would fit in where he is going. He then hypnotizes himself and ends up traveling back in time. It's an interesting idea for a technique. In the movie he had a specific day and time he was showing up. What ends up bringing him back is an encounter with something modern.

Could this be used as a technique for retroactive magic or for space/time magic work in general? I don't see why it couldn't be. If you were going to use this for retroactive magic, you'd need to acquire period technology, clothing etc. This would help your mind accept the idea that you were traveling back into the past.

Applying this technique to the future would be harder, as obviously you wouldn't have access to period clothing or technology. Nonetheless I don't think it's impossible. It really comes down to questioning if you even need a label of the future to access a different point of time. And if you are concerned about that, the way you could get around this is to use the technique to contact your future self or a future descendent, to provide you a repository for your consciousness.

What makes this technique so interesting is that hypnosis is used to achieve an altered state of awareness that accepts the possibility of being in another time (although in the case of the movie, anchored to the same space). The anchoring of the space provides stability for the mind, in terms of accepting the temporal shift, but still having a space the mind is familiar with. I've used hypnosis enough to know it can be useful for hitting heavily altered states of awareness, including temporal shifts, so I think it's possible to experiment with a concept such as this and use it with some degree of success for making changes to your past or future.

You'd need to develop a script that you could use to put your mind into a deep state of relaxation while also pointing it to a specific temporal moment you want it to inhabit. It also helps if you can describe the spatial aspects in some detail, in order to provide a grounding in the new environment you want your mind to go to. Most of all though you have to want to go there. It has to be somewhen that you want to be more than anywhere else.

My own experiences with retroactive magic have involved going back to a past version of myself and then helping the version make a different choice. I've found it useful to thoroughly explore the memory setting of that past version in order to fully integrate my present self into that post moment, but I've also used my past version as my anchor point. That past version has also provided that emotional basis for needing to be in the past. In the movie, since the character was going into a past where he didn't yet exist, the emotional basis that caused him to need to be there was his desire to meet someone in the past that he felt an attachment to. We can't ever underestimate the power of desire and emotion and where and when it can take us.

Developing a relationship with the spirits

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

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

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

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

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

Conscious awareness as a reaction

As I've been writing Neuro-Space/Time Magic and exploring the concept of Identity, and how genuine changes occur in a person's life, I've been thinking a lot about consciousness. Consciousness is put on a pedestal in a way, as a big accomplishment, and I understand why that is. Consciousness, when applied in a mindful manner, can help a person control his/her reactions and even develop proactive strategies. As a friend of mine put it, it's awareness of awareness, which is significant when you consider that such awareness can be used to put a situation and responses into perspective. But (you knew there was a but coming), I also think that consciousness is a reaction. It's a reaction to the environment around you, as well as your internal responses to that environment. It's a reaction that focuses on controlling your response. You realize that a controlled response is the best possible solution for handling the situation. And perhaps what makes consciousness so useful is that such awareness can be used to put into place responses that are more useful for handling future situations. Awareness without action won't change anything, but awareness with action changes a lot. Those actions can be integrated into how we respond to situations, and in that process we can acknowledge that such actions are still reactions...conscious reactions applied to handle a situation from a place of awareness.

For a change to occur as it applies to behavior, you've got to make that change on a deep level. It's a change of identity, which includes a change of values and beliefs in order to support the action you'll take. Those kind of changes go deeper than conscious awareness, but conscious awareness can be used to go in and implant those changes and make them part of your reactive responses.

Consciousness is a tool. It provides some awareness of self, enough to be aware of the need to change and enough to allow a person to enter into an altered state of consciousness to go in and make those changes...and we'll still react...we'll just react with chosen reactions as opposed to ones put on us by events an circumstances.

My interview with Mona Magick on Inner Alchemy

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

Intellectual Passion

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

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

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

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

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

Identity Tattoo Part 2

 

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

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

pop culture magic and magical traditions

An intellectual interpretation of a symbol is by no means identical to experiencing the energy embodied by the symbol, particularly when the interpretation involves offhand alterations of basic meaning in respect or relevant words that should describe the subject matter accurately...a magical image, by way of contrast, may or may not have similar attributes to any specific psychological archetype, which persists in the innerworlds or shared imagination for immense periods of time.

From The Underworld Initiation (Affiliate link) by R. J. Stewart

This is an interesting quote from Stewart and one I found useful for understanding Pop Culture Magic from a different perspective. I've never favored the psychological approach to magic, and neither does Stewart. He discusses the concept of inner worlds, which are worlds accessed through specific media such as story, myth, or song. The characters in myths, stories, and song are symbolic, but also represent an energetic connection to the inner world that a person can use to bring meaningful change into his/her life. Stewart explains the following about inner worlds:

Many Innerworlds are intentional structures built through group visualization, linked to specific life-energies. They are given their stability not only by the beings that occupy them, but by the active co-operation of humans...Most of the Innerworlds that we can enter are reflections of patterns that appear, or have appeared, or will appear, in our outer world. Some act as matrices for creative energies, which mould the generation of the outer world, both social and environmental.

This concept can be applied to pop culture. Grant Morrison's The Invisibles explores it in terms of using the characters to reveal the inner world of London, but also to examine the Beatles, especially John Lennon, as a viable contact to a type of godhead that again allows another way to contact the Hidden London. You can also see it with other pop culture and even corporate culture. Storm Constantine and I have worked with this concept via the Wraeththu series, and I've also used it with the Harry Potter universe. Imagination is the key to the gate, and helps bring to life the characters that people interact with. It also brings to life the world those characters inhabit.

Pop Culture can present viable inner worlds that the magician can explore. The reason they are viable is because they are part of the cultural consciousness, and are supported by people interacting with them. Thus Harry Potter, as an example, is a viable Inner World that can be worked with in part because so many people already have invested some belief into it, and also because the characters have become real for people. They may not be real in the same sense as you and I are, but on some level they exist and when people interact with them, they are also able to interact with the meanings associated with the characters. Their is intentional visualization associated with such worlds, even if that intentional visualization is only to interact with those worlds via one's imagination.

The logo for a corporation can also be a gatekeeper to the inner world of that corporation. Corporations can have an inner world, in part because of the investment of the people that work in them and by the consumers, and even by the people and other corporations who are against a corporation. Such interactions are a form of intentional visualization that is sustained by the commercials and brand activity, as well as by how people participate in the corporations. They can be worked with on a magical level, though caution should be applied. A corporation is always out to get more from you than it is willing to give in return.

A magical tradition might not look at pop culture as a viable representation or means of magical work, but the methodology of a magical tradition can be applied to pop culture and it'll work, because pop culture, and even corporate culture are to some degree formulaic. The themes we find in older cultural traditions can be found in newer culture as well, and such themes can be used to provide a meaningful structure for an inner world to be worked with. Identifying such themes can take some research, but they aren't hard to find, precisely because they are formulaic. One might then question why even look to pop culture and in my experience it comes down to what is relevant to a person and will help him/her learn and grow. If Harry Potter is more relevant to someone, it doesn't make it less magical as a result.

Book Review: The Underworld Initiation (Affiliate link) by R. J. Stewart

This is an interesting book that examines the concepts of symbolic meaning and archetypes from a non-psychological stance, while showing the weaknesses in the psychological model of magic. Stewart presents a solid methodology of magical practice that can be applied to the examples he provides, but can also be applied to any story or myth that a person finds meaningful. I highly recommend this book for its solid approach to magical theory and practice.

Being present with your desire

One of the books I'm currently reading is Undefended Love (Affiliate link) and within that book they discuss the importance of being present with something you think you need and learning how to work with it so that eventually it moves from a need to a want and then to a desire and then to a preference. It's something I've been working with lately as I continue to do a lot of internal work and dissolution around different issues. I've found this to sequence to be a good model that explains how something that was a need can turn into something you want, but don't need. When we can learn to recognize that a need doesn't define us, it no longer is a need. When you need something it defines you, but if you want something, you know you don't necessarily have to have it. And as you continue in this process of dissolution you can eventually step away from any labels you'd previously been attached to this.

This practice can also apply to labeling yourself with dysfunctions. I've noticed that many people now label themselves by their dysfunctions and in the process define themselves by the dysfunction. They try to claim the dysfunction, but what they end up doing is "needing" the dysfunction. So instead of working with it, and trying to change it, they let it control their behavior. But it's entirely possible to step away from the label and in the process examine the "need" for that label, and ask yourself why you need the label. You may even find that by doing this practice it can also help you begin to take steps to deal with the dysfunction in a manner that allows you to heal from it.

I've used this practice lately to examine some of the needs I haven't previously questioned and its helped me recognize how many of those needs have been defined by dysfunctional and unhealthy behavior. This isn't to say that there aren't healthy reasons for wanting something, but if something is a need, chances are there is some unhealthy behaviors contributing to that sense of needing it. By examining why I need it, I've been able to focus on those unhealthy behaviors and start healing them through focused meditation. The sense of need has shifted to want, and in turn has allowed me to approach what it is I want from a place of conscious recognition about the value it brings to my life and where it fits in with everything else.

Book Review: Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion (affiliate link) by George Thompson and Jerry Jenkins

Verbal Judo is an excellent book that presents techniques that anyone can use to help defuse tense situations with language. It also helps you understand how to be a better communicator with people in general. I like the stories and examples the authors use to demonstrate the technique, because it shows how it can work and what to do to make it work. The book is broken into small chapters which makes for easy reading, but I recommend taking your time and trying out the techniques. It is a little slow at the start and the authors do a bit of ego stroking, but overall the book is good.

Four out of Five stars

Opening the Gate

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

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

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

Connecting with the land

I'm visiting the Black Hills in South Dakota with Kat. We drove through Montana, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming to get here and for the last couple of days we've been exploring this area, seeing Mt. Rushmore and Mt. Crazy Horse, the needles, the lakes and the wildlife here. Something which is really important to me, and always has been, is the connection I have with the land. I love Portland and Oregon because of how the land's energy and my own mesh. I could also feel a resonance with the energy in Montana and in the Black Hills. That kind of resonance is important for me. To be really comfortable, I need to connect with the energy of the land. That's why Seattle didn't work for me. The energy of the land and my energy didn't mesh well. Connecting with land isn't as simple as deciding it feels right to you. The land needs to tell you if you feel right to it, if you belong there. And if you don't belong, it will tell you. The land doesn't belong to you. You belong to the land. It's something where the land basically says, "You fit with this land, so I call you as one of mine." I've felt that feeling in a few places in my life, where I've known there was this acceptance from the land and an equal acceptance from myself.

I think of the land as alive, and myself as just one microorganism among many that effect the land, either for good or ill. While a land can accept you, there's still something to be said for making an offering to it. An offering of your sweat, tears, and blood, of your effort, of going into a place, and blending with it, letting it speak to you and through you.

Anytime I feel such a connection I am reminded of how small I really am, how important it is to respect the connection and respect, and how much it matters to me, to feel this intangible connection that speaks so loudly to me and reminds me that I am not over or on top, but really just a part of something much more powerful, much more beautiful, much more significant than myself.

Discount on Space/Time Magic class

Space and time are two elements of our lives that we live with and use every day. In the classic models of magic, these elements are not overtly included. In this class, I will show you how to integrate both of these elements into your magical work. You will learn why its important to factor time and space into your magical workings, as well as how the inclusion of these elements can radically change your understanding of magic. You will also learn:

• How movement and space can be used to construct sacred space.
• How to manifest multiple possibilities using sigils.
• How to create a sigil web that maps your life in terms of space and time.
• How to work with your future and past selves.
• What time dilation techniques are and how to use them.
• How to work with alternate selves and learn from them.
• Free e-book version of Space/Time Magic included!
• Free Tarot Reading included, when you sign up for this class!

Space and Time are two elements that we can’t ignore if we want to really understand magic. This class will help you take your magic to the next level.

This is an eight week class starting on August 1st from 5 pm to 6 pm PST and ending on Monday September 19th. A free e-book version of Space/Time Magic is included!

The cost for this class is now discounted to $165.00 until July 31st. You can pay via check, paypal, or credit card. If paying by credit card, contact me. Payment plans are accepted.

Liberation and Tradition

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Interview with Crystal Blanton Part 2

In this interview we discuss the forthcoming Shades of Faith Anthology and minorities in Paganism. I'll be scheduling a show again in the near future, when I'm back from holiday.

Listen to internet radio with Experimental Magic on Blog Talk Radio

Tattoo for Identity

When I ended the elemental Emptiness working back in 2009, I'd switched to the element of Time, or so I thought, but I ended up realizing part way through the year that I'd really ended up with element of Identity, which makes perfect sense, because after emptiness I found I needed to establish a new identity. I'd cleared so much of myself out that I needed to rediscover who I was. Not to long after the emptiness year ended, I also got divorced, which brought its own change in identity with it. And in looking back at the years I'd done my different elemental balancing rituals it became apparent that much of my understanding of identity is wrapped in that elemental balancing work, because that work gave me the first opportunity to move past so much of what had held me back and replace it with what was healthiest for me.

As you can see the tattoo isn't finished yet, but this is what we gone done today. I hope to finish it up in a month, but I'm really pleased with the work the artist did.

I waited awhile to get this tattoo, partially because I had to decide if I was going to cover up a tattoo I already had. In the end I decided to cover up the old tattoo as the final part of a reclaiming/purification ritual for myself. Reclaiming my identity and my freedom to be who I need and want to be. I've pretty much done that already in my life, but this tattoo is the final part of that reclaiming, the last resolution needed to move on.

It's a lot more than that as well. I chose the Yin/Yang symbol surrounded by the five classic Chinese elements of Fire Water, Metal, Wood, and Earth. It represents the elemental balancing ritual and how much of a role it's played in my life, in terms of establishing and exploring my identity and place in the universe. And the yin/Yang symbol is representative of the Taoist meditation techniques I've used to help me do so much of the very needed internal work I needed to do.

Today as I was inked, I did the water breathing meditation and relaxed into the pain of the needle, letting it wash over, purifying me of the past, even as it helped me embrace the present and my promise to myself: Never to sacrifice my identity for anyone else. To always strike the right balance in all my relationships so that I can honor myself and the people I interact with. To be honest with myself so I can be honest with the people in my life.

I let the pain wash over me and I meditated on the pain of change and realized how good it can be. It's hurt while it's happening, but the end result, the realization is you're in a better place than you were before. And that's how I feel: I'm in a much better place than I've ever been.

Zeroing Time

The first author who really introduced me to Space/Time Magic was William G. Gray. In his book Magical Ritual Methods he talks about the Zero exercise, where a person created three circles around him/herself and brought them into alignment with each other to create space/time point of zero possibilities, where nothing existed except the person and what/she brought into the Zero. I've lately been reincorporating this practice into my daily work as one of the ways I can align with the elements of space and time. The concept of zero is a place where all possibilities can exist, but no reality occurs. Reality can only occur when an action is taken that moves a possibility into an actual reality. Zero is a state of being, a way of looking at space and time and the intersections of the two elements and the possibilities that spring out of that intersection.

Actually it's fair to say that Zero, as a concept that Gray introed to me, has been around since I first learn about it. It's an integral part of my mythology as it applies to space and time, and emptiness. What we can learn from zero is to how cultivate a state of being that's simultaneously removed from the present and connected to every possible moment that was and could be. The benefit is a temporal-spatial awareness that enables you to find possibilities that might otherwise be missed. It does make you somewhat non-linear...and zeroing is just the first step to hitting this state of awareness.

The Spiritual Tipping Point

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

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

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

What you can learn from Pop Culture characters

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

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

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