I've finished final revisions and I started layout last night on the print version of Magical Identity (It will also be available at Smashwords and on Kindle, but that will happen a bit down the line). If you haven't pre-ordered Magical Identity, now is a good time. From now until the book is in print, I will offer a free e-book of your choice from my other books, when you pre-order Magical Identity. This is a great opportunity to not only get my next book in print, but get another book for free. Once the book is in print, I won't offer this promotion.
How you manifest Wealth
In my business coaching practice, one of the topics that inevitably comes up is wealth and money. As I tell my clients its not enough to want money as an end goal, if you don't know what you'll do with it. You have to understand how you'll use money and how it will benefit you before you can really acquire it. That's the first step toward manifesting wealth. You recognize what allows you to attract wealth into your life and then you establish how you will use that given medium to attain and sustain that wealth.
Money is just one medium for acquiring wealth. But any medium you are going to use to manifest wealth can never be an end goal in and of itself. More importantly you clearly have to define what you will do with the wealth you attain. Wealth is movement. Just attaining it doesn't mean much if you aren't sure how you'll apply it to your life. In fact not knowing how you'll apply it will likely cause you to lose it because its an indication that you aren't ready for the wealth.
Manifesting wealth is a result of a process where you define what wealth is, as well as the means you'll use to get it, and what you'll do with it once you have it. Manifesting wealth is a continuous process by virtue of the fact that you are continually manifesting it and moving it in your life in order to create more. This can be a bit intimidating if you aren't sure how to continue to move wealth. This is one reason I recommend learning about finances. It teaches you a lot about what you consider to be wealth and helps you learn how to move with it, as well as how to change the direction of movement (i.e. spending).
If you want to manifest wealth, be prepared for it. It's only when you are ready for it, that you should seek to acquire it.
Strategic Sorcery Report: Lesson 0
I just did Lesson 0. Without going into the specific mechanics of the ritual, which I can't share here, what I will share is that when I intoned the word and vowels and looked into the symbol, I came to a place where I saw lines of force and felt the presence of other people, all of them pouring their energy into a central space, and yet conversely all of them being filled by that energy. I felt myself touched by that energy and then felt the connection strengthen as I continued with the ritual. Even now I can still feel this connection and I recognize I have chosen to intentionally connect with something which embodies the Strategic Sorcery course, but also embodies the collective efforts of everyone who has taken the course. I am filled with a sense of respect and admiration for those other people, and a desire to contribute my own effort, to pay it forward to others who take the course.
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Re-branding myths
I'm currently re-playing the God of War video game series. Its one of my favorite series and part of what I like about it is that it re-brands the Greek myths. You're playing a character who fights all the Greek Monsters and challenges the Titans and the Gods and runs into the other heroes of Greek Mythology. You're experiencing the Greek myths through the lens of Pop Culture.
You see this replicated in pop culture a fair amount. Whether its Marvel comics with their exploration of Thor and Norse Mythology or various video games that explore different mythologies from a modem perspective, there is a re-branding of myths that occurs. And there is also the infusion of new contemporary myths, such as what we find with Batman.
It serves as a way of introducing people to cultures and mythologies they may not have encountered otherwise. And sometimes it inspires research and study to find out more. Purists will argue that a game such as God of War is inaccurate because it reinterprets myths and inserts a character that was never part of the mythos. There is truth to that statement, but that's why it's a rebranding of mythology as opposed to the actual myth.
The re-branding of mythology is good because it shows us how timeless the myths are and how we can't leave them behind. We retell them, we reshow them and maybe we change them a bit, but nonetheless we are influenced by them and the power they have in our lives. They live on in us, not only in the reading of the original myths, but the reinterpretations of them that are created in contemporary culture.
Why I'm out of the closet
Since I was eighteen I've been out of the closet when it comes to my magical work, and chosen lifestyle. That choice was forced on me initially when a friend's family outed me to my mom, but that situation made me realize that hiding my beliefs was denying who I am and was also helping to create an environment of intolerance.
Recently I have re come out of the closet. I've been rebranding my core business and in the process of doing that, I've realized that I'd hidden part of myself away to fit in, and it didn't make me feel good, because not only was it denying a past choice I'd made, but because it wasn't realistic. If you search for me on Google, you'll find evidence that I'm an occultist fairly quickly.
Re-coming out the closet has been good for me. I feel like I'm in touch with a part of myself that I'd buried away and allowed to be buried. I'm not listening to fears or worries because I realize that if people choose to not do business with me because of my choices its actually better for me.
I'm out of the closet because I'm proud to be an occultist. I'm proud to be myself. There's no shame in my choices and the intolerance of others is not something I will support by choosing to hide myself for their benefit. If I make that choice I am denying an essential part of who I am and denying my community as well.
Why terminology is important in magical work
In both Multi-Media Magic and Magical Identity I devote a chapter to discussing definitions and why its important to understand the power of definitions in magical work. In my recent post on Magic and Biology, I got into some conversations about how terms were defined which illustrated why its so important to define your terminology as clearly as possible. At the same time, you also have to accept that no matter how clearly you think you've defined a term, there's always room for interpretation on your definition.
One of my favorite books that I would make required reading for any magician is Defining Reality by Edward Schiappa. The reason is because he spends an entire book exploring definitions and how they are used to frame and construct arguments as well as people's perceptions of reality. Combine that with William S. Burroughs perspectives on language and you can develop some powerful approaches to words, language, and magic.
Even a word like evocation has different meanings. Some people associate it with the grimoiric traditions, and others approach it from a psychological perspective. And then someone like me agrees with principles of evocation as they are framed from a more traditional perspective, but I like to experiment with how its done. And since I think terminology necessarily involves explaining how something is done this creates different definitions as well.
I like definitions, because I think of them as magical workings. They embody a current of meaning and perspective that is shared with others, interpreted by them, and reshared. They are discussed, debated, and embodied by the people involved with them. I perceive writing as an integral part of my magical work, which is one of the reasons I write about my work so much. It's as much a part of the magical work I do as any of the other activities associated with the magical work.
Why I'm taking the Strategic Sorcery course
Last night I signed up for Jason Miller's Strategic Sorcery course. I've heard about his course for a while and I've seen a few cases where its clear people applied the work to their lives and made some changes. Now you might wonder, "Taylor you are making changes to your life with magic, and you've developed a variety of practical systems that work. Why are you taking the class?" You're absolutely correct. I have developed a few different systems, detailed in my own books and my approach to magic is practical and I regularly get measurable results. But just because I've done all that doesn't mean I've stopped learning. One of the primary reasons I write books is to educate myself about what I'm writing about. The process of writing and developing the magical practices is how I learn about something that interests. But as I write about in my Holistic Business Coaching blog, I'm also a firm believer in learning from other people. For the most part, with my magical practice, I've self-educated myself, and my prior experiences with mentors is one I don't care to try and repeat, but taking a class is different. It's purposely set up to provide guidance, but also freedom to learn, without necessarily having someone try and constrict your creativity. At least that's my feeling on classes. So I figure taking this class is a good opportunity to learn from someone else, improve my skills further, and become a better magician.
When you rest on your laurels is when you stagnate. Challenging yourself to grow is an integral part of living life and improving your craft. I do it with my business coaching, and I do it with my magical practice.
I have another reason I'm taking this class. I'm in the process of developing my own course work for magicians. It focuses on the process of magic. I have no idea how to set it up though. I don't want to copy Jason, but I want to get a sense of how someone creates and sets up a class. So it's a case of not just learning magic from someone, but also learning a bit about how they do business. If you want to be good at something, then learn from someone who is already doing it.
Tradition vs Experimentation
Jason Miller wrote a recent blog entry about tradition vs experimentation and it prompted me to do some thinking about the topic as well. If you've read my books you know I don't decry tradition per se, but I definitely favor experimentation. Nonetheless I think tradition is important. Tradition grounds us, provides us an awareness of where we've come from. Tradition provides the training in the principles. Tradition is useful because with it you have perspective on what's come before and how its worked and if you've done your work, you gain a solid understanding of magic.
Experimentation frees us from the limits of tradition, from the limits of doing something the way other people did it. Experimentation challenges us to look beyond what we know, to explore possible alternatives. Experimentation relies on a sound understanding of the principles of magic, but also challenges those principles through the very act of experimentation.
I'm an experimenter. I did my time with both ceremonial and ritual magic, and with any given system of magic that I learn about, I do my best to learn it as its practiced before I start making changes. Yet what thrills me is the cutting edge and doing something different. I respect that people can get measurable results by doing magic a specific way that others have done, but I've also gotten measurable results through my own work and the reason is simple. Magic operates on specific principles or rules and if you understand those rules the trappings don't matter.
But you'll say "The trappings do matter" They only matter because you choose to make them matter. you've read meaning into them and invested in belief in how they matter and as a result you need them. But experimentation challenges that and argues for making whatever props you want, or even doing it all without props. As long as you get a measurable result, that's what matters to most people. I'll add that as long as you can explain your process so that others can reproduce it and achieve similar results...then you're doing it right.
I look to tradition because I've used it to understand how magic works, and also to understand how people have limited themselves in their approach to magic. I've used experimentation to free myself of their limitations and to challenge my own as well. What I love about magic is there is no one true way to do it. And the people who try to sell you on one true way are fooling themselves. Their unwillingness to test their own limits ultimately causes them to fail. It doesn't even matter that they achieve measurable results, if all they ever do is stick with their own limited perspective on magic. In fact, its truly disappointing when you find such people. Their lack of perspective causes them to fail magic itself.
Magic isn't meant to be limited to one true way. Learn the traditions. They will benefit you. But experiment as well. Test yourself. The whole point of all this is to do more than just repeat what's already been done.
Priming the Pump: An Excerpt from Magical Identity
Note from Taylor: This is an appendix in Magical Identity. Thought I'd give a little teaser of what to expect in the book. I hope you enjoy!
In this book I've discussed identity and how it applies to magic. Now I want to present an example of how magic can be applied to identity. One of the biological features of identity is associative activation:
Ideas that have been evoked trigger many other ideas, in a spreading cascade of activity in your brain. The essential feature of this complex set of mental events is coherence. Each element is connected, and each supports and strengthens the others. The word evokes memories, which evoke emotions, which in turn evoke facial expressions and other reactions, such as a general tensing up and an avoidance tendency. The facial expression and the avoidance motion intensify the feelings to which they are linked, and the feelings in turn reinforce compatible ideas. all this happens quickly and all at once, yielding a self-reinforcing pattern of cognitive, emotional, and physical responses that is both diverse and integrated (Kahneman 2011, P. 51).
Associative activation triggers a flood of ideas. A few of them register with us consciously, but the majority of them aren't consciously thought of, but nonetheless are integrated into our identity. What this means is that we have a variety of associated ideas with a given stimulus that we may not have conscious access to, but nonetheless influence our activities and choices. This is known as a priming effect. For example, if you saw the word EAT and then saw a word fragment SO_P, you are more likely to fill in the blank with U, creating SOUP, than with A, which would would create SOAP (Kahneman 2011). The word eat primes associated ideas and experiences that are evoked by seeing the word and considering it. You might feel a sensation of hunger as you've read the last couple of sentences, and this also is a result of priming. This effect occurs in a variety of ways. Kahneman cites another case study where a group of students were given scrambled sentences, half of which included the words Florida, forgetful, bald, gray, or wrinkle. Once the task was completed, the students were asked to walk to another place to do another task. The scientists observed how they walked and found that people who'd formed sentences using one or more of those walked significantly slower than people who did not (Kahneman 2011). The reason is that they'd been primed by the experiment, and even though they didn't consciously think about it, their identities embodied the associated ideas with the words. Their actions were influenced by the idea.
Priming is used in marketing, both in politics and in business. For instance, if a school wants to improve the chance of getting more funding, having a voting booth at the school will significantly increase the votes in favor of the funding, even from non-parents (Kahneman 2011). The reason is simple. Being surrounded by imagery associated with schools evokes memories and other ideas about education that prompts a desire to improve funding. We see this effect in commercials as well. Watch a fast food commercial and you may feel a sudden hunger pang and craving for that food, even if you'd recently eaten. Even when we consciously think about the fast food, we're still priming ourselves in favor of it to some degree, unless of course you have associations that are unpleasant. The point is that we are primed on a daily basis and don't even realize it. Consciousness allows us to recognize some of the associations, but others are experienced and acted on without consciously considering why. After all, if you're hungry you won't spend much time thinking about why you are hungry. Instead you'll satiate that hunger.
Priming is even used in social media. Facebook ads is a great example of priming at works. The ads you see on Facebook are targeted toward you based on your interests and your friends interests. Additionally if a friend of yours likes the service or product featured in the ad, it's indicated as a way of building further association. You are primed, so that even if you don't click on the ad, it's still may an associative impression with not just your interests but also with the idea that the next time you see or hear from that friend it'll trigger an association with what was advertised.
So how can we apply priming to magical work. We understand that a given idea will trigger an association of ideas, some of which will be integrated into our identity. There are two approaches we can take to this matter. First we can be selective about what we allow to influence us. For example, I don't have cable TV. I've purposely chosen not to in order to save money, but also to limit the exposure to commercials. The result is that I only encounter commercials if I watch a show on Hulu, turn the radio on or see them on a bill board or on the internet. I keep my radio off, limit my access to social media sites and while I enjoy a good show on Hulu, I also tend to ignore the commercials by focusing on something else at the time. Conscious actions can limit associations, if done right. At the same time, I know I'm going to be influenced to some degree and I accept that such an influence will be there. What I try to do is question why I'm feeling hunger for a particular food as opposed to just being hungry. This kind of question can be effective for helping to limit the effects of priming.
The second approach involves actually using priming to prime the pump of your identity and set up associations that are favorable for you and motivate you to do activities that will help you accomplish goals you set for yourself. Recently I acquired a whiteboard to use as a priming tool. It's set up so that I have to look at it when I come into my office and it reminds me of various projects I need to work. It primes the pump because when I see the tasks I need to do it consciously evokes the given task as well as associated ideas and experiences that are relevant to that task. I see it as being a useful stress tool in the sense that it keeps my attention consistently focused on the goals I want to achieve.
You can set your own environment up with similar cues that prime you. For example laying clothes out the night before primes you in the morning when you wake up. The clothes have associations with your professional life and activities and can even evoke associations of whatever you were thinking about when you laid them out. Putting an open recipe book with ingredients nearby can be useful for priming you toward cooking at home. In essence you learn to use priming to remind you of what you want to do, both in terms of actual activities and lifestyle choices. You prime your identity to keep your consciousness on task.
You can also use priming in your magical process. In fact the use of sigils works on the principle of priming. The sigil is associated with the desired result as well as the process that will be used to obtain that result. Every time you see the sigil you are primed toward achieving that result. Similarly if you ritual tools or other props you can create specific associations with those tools that will prime you. The different attributions we associate with tools are essentially primed ideas that prompt action, and we don't have to limit them to magical actions. We can deliberately create mundane actions that we associate with a given tool that prompts follow-up actions on our part to create a path of least resistance for the magic to manifest through.
The deliberate set-up of your environment as well as the crafting of chosen associations is how you turn priming into a magical tool and make your identity into an ally that supports your conscious goals and activities. If we're going to have associations that effect us on an identity level then we should do our best to pick those associations so we can prime the pump and create an embodied identity that enables us to achieve the results we desire and sustain the life we want to live.
Consciousness isn't special
Mike made another post on his blog (can you tell I like this guy's work?) and it prompted some thoughts. He notes that consciousness isn't special and I agree. In Magical Identity, I discuss at some length why consciousness isn't special. Consciousness is the apprehension of our activities and the application of a rational explanation for why those activities occur. It's basically a filtered awareness and explanation of what we do and why we do it.
That said, what makes consciousness important for magical work is the fact that we can experienced altered states of conscious awareness, and while consciousness is a ultimately a filter, it nonetheless is also what provides a sense of self-awareness and an ability to question and examine what we are doing.
Situating consciousness in the proper context is useful because then we know its limitations as well as what it can do within those limitations. That understanding allows us to apply it toward our magical processes at just the right place to use it effectively, while also enabling us to be skeptical of it, as it is ultimately a very subjective experience.
What would you want in a class on the process of magic?
One of my projects is developing an online course on the Process of Magic. I've put together some material, and I'm going to get back to work on this project this week, now that the revisions for Magical Identity are finished. I'd like to get some input from readers of this blog. If you were taking a class on the process of Magic from me, what would you want to learn? What areas of magic would you want covered? What types of exercises would you expect out of this class?
If you can take a moment and answer these questions, it would really help me. I want to put together a class that helps people improve their process of magic, as well as personalize it.
Magic and Biology
Mike recently posted some intriguing perspectives on energy work in his blog. He noted the inaccuracy around the language that's used to describe how energy work happens, and where it interacts with the biology of the person. He uses a concept from computer programming called scoping to demonstrate the need to differentiate the definitions being used to discuss energy work. I find myself in agreement with him, which makes me then think about magic and biology, as it pertains to cells and what's really happening with energy work.
Mike notes the following:
So, let’s apply scoping to energy healing. There’s bio::energy, for the normal energy that makes cells operate when there’s no magick going on (ATP, electrical impulses, etc.), and there’s magick::energy, for the energy we use that makes you feel all tingly. And, most importantly, they are different.
It's clear that biological energy isn't the same as magical energy perse, but people do conflate the two, which can create an inaccurate understanding of what is being done when healing or working with your physiology in general. Mike argues that increasing the energy of a cell using magical energy doesn't seem to work. I agree with him, and I'll explain why further below, but he also notes that you can use magic to kill bacteria, decelerate a specific biological function (which doesn't involve adding energy, but could involve changing specific outputs in a cell) and finally that you can use magic to cancel one type of energy and substitute another type of energy, basically bringing in a different energetic signature. My experiences with healing have provided similar observations, so I feel fairly confident that he and I are on the same page with how energy work actually seems to work.
I made my own response to Mike and noted that part of what I think occultists are fudging or portraying inaccurately is how we communicate with our biology (if we do) and where does energy fit into that communication. Mike responded in agreement, but argued that its not communication but influence. I note this because both he and I would agree that word choice is very important in describing how a magical process ( or any process works).
Why do I use communicate? Well for one thing I'm not ready to assume that an individual cell isn't intelligent. It may not exhibit intelligence as I understand it, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have intelligence...it just may be a very different type than I know. More importantly however, we have to consider if cells are communicating with each other, and I would argue they are. In both Inner Alchemy and Magical Identity I discuss biophotonic energy, which is an energy that cells emit and seem to use to communicate with each other.
If we go with the process that magic energy can be used to accelerate or decelerate biological processes, we still need to figure exactly how that occurs, and just as importantly we have to ask if the cells have any "say" in how that process is being changed, and if so what kind of say they have. The reason I opt for intelligence when it comes to the cells is that if I'm going to go in and make some changes to my biological structures, I want to work with those structures and I need to be able to communicate with those cells, to get input or if nothing else a stop order when enough energy has been applied and they need to take over with the healing work. From my experiences with working with my body on a cellular level, I'd argue that the magician is not merely influencing a cell, but is communicating with it and that the communication is occurring via the interaction of magical energy and biophotonic energy. It turns out that biophotonic energy can accept a variety of frequencies of energy and since magical energy operates on a frequency it makes sense that communication could occur if biophotonic energy accepts that frequency. If that's the case, then what we're dealing with is communication wherein the cell(s) provide information and even notify us when to stop applying energy in order to let them do what they do.
As a final note I haven't even discussed mitochondria or the metabolism of the cell which could be additional factors to consider when it comes to communication or influence, depending on which route you want to go with. Regardless I think its really important to examine the interaction of magic energy and bio energy if you want to nail down a comprehensive process of magic.
A recent healing experiment
One of the areas of magic that I find most fascinating is healing work, especially the healing work that is challenging and can't be resolved right away. Currently I'm working on an injury my wife had received years ago from a car accident. She experienced really bad whiplash that damage one of her nerves and ended up getting a Titanium plate inserted into her neck. Nonetheless her neck is consistently sore and tense, as is her upper back. It's the kind of challenge I like because I know it involves some detailed work that doesn't deal with even just the physical issues, but also underlying energetic and emotional issues.
I've been working on her for the past few weeks and we've already seen some changes in her energy level and in her muscles, in terms of the stress and tension that is in them. And not surprisingly, I've also helped her work through some emotional tensions that have been locked into the tension and stress she's feeling, including working some of the trauma of the accident that she hadn't faced.
My techniques have included a combination of Taoist massage and energy work, as well as using energy techniques of my own invention. I massage her neck lightly with the tips of my fingertips, while also pushing energy into her neck in order to start dissolving the tension. I pull out unhealthy energy and then replace it with healthy energy, using a pulling technique I've come up with. I've also synchronized our breathing while I'm doing, to put her into a mild meditative trance that allows her to focus on any emotions that come up as I'm working on her. Consistent work has made her muscles much looser, but I'm careful about it, because I am working with her neck and there's ten years of pain and tension that I'm dealing with.
While I'm working with her, I'll sometimes bring up impressions I get from the work I'm doing. A Few days we talked about the accident and how she felt afterwards as a result of impressions I was picking up. This proved to be helpful for her, allowing her to release some of her anger and fear from that experience.
Initially when I worked on her, it made her neck hurt more, which makes sense because we were starting to release both physical end emotional toxins. She's noted that after I work on her there is a release of physical toxins. We're making slow progress, but I figure if I consistently work on her I'll be able to get rid of the majority of the trauma over the next month.
Magical Identity Pre-orders
Magical Identity explores magic from an ontological perspective, to show why identity is an essential part of your magical practice. In this book, author Taylor Ellwood explores how you can change your identity and why making changes to your identity is the most effective magical practice you'll ever learn. In this book you will discover:
- Advanced neuro-magic techniques for working with your body consciousness and neurotransmitter entities.
- The web of Time and Space, a space/time magic technique for changing your life.
- The key to successfully changing bad habits into positive habits.
- and much more!
Magical Identity challenges you to take your magical practice to the next level. You will learn techniques that will change how you think of magic and yourself and will show you how to create effective change for your life.
Here's what other authors are saying about Magical Identity!
Like Space/Time Magic and other of his works before it, Taylor Ellwood has filled Magical Identity with a potent combination of magical techniques for change, the neurological discoveries that explain how these techniques work, and accounts of how he has applied them in his own life. -- Bill Whitcomb, Author of the Magician's Companion
Throughout this book you'll find a sparkling clarity in the writing (seriously; no mystic mumbo jumbo, no obscure oh-so-spookyness). And when you've read this book the chances are that you'll have discovered an attitude to magic that is rich in new ideas and perspectives and will undoubtedly enhance your own approach, whatever your style or tradition. -- Julian Vayne, Author of Magick Works and Now That's What I Call Chaos Magick
Learning the answer to the question “Who am I?” may prove vitally important, at some stage of the game, for most magicians. Allow Taylor Ellwood to be your guide; his answers aren’t simple ones, rather, he describes a method for exploring the interconnectedness of human and universe in a way that promises to help you find your own answers. -- Phil Farber, author of Brain Magick
This book is now available for pre-orders. The book will be available in March 2012. The cost is $20.99, plus Shipping and Handling.
International orders
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Books will also be available on Amazon, Immanion Press and in your local Occult bookstore
Does the Magic move you?
In my previous post about evocation I made a point about being moved by the entities you evoke and how that should be a criteria of evocation. In thinking about this further though, I want to make another qualification. The act of magic itself should move you. So what do I mean by movement in this case? Being moved by magic is allowing yourself to experience magic as an ontological agent of change that doesn't just bring a result into you life, but also changes how you approach life, in order to sustain the result you've wanted to achieve. In other words, successful magic is something that changes your life and how you live it.
This approach treats magic as more than just a tool or technology. I don't think of magic as just a tool or technology. While I discuss process in magic quite a bit, I also think of magic as a force that is experienced. I recognize that at a certain point magic isn't something that I use, its something that I experience. I am moved by it, and the result is a changed life.
A commentary on Evocations
There's this idea about evocations that if you do them and you don't see the spirit, you aren't doing them right. Some of this attitude comes from Joe Lisiewski's books, with his focus on doing traditional evocations. The consequent result is this elitist belief that people who don't see a visible entity clearly are doing it wrong.
As someone who's done a lot of evocations, I can safely say that the criteria that you need to have a visible appearance of an entity to prove you've done it right is just a bit biased toward a traditionalist perspective of magic. Then again, I've also successfully evoked three people into my life, so that not only have I visibly seen them, but also physically felt them. To be clear though, I've never approached evocation as a mental experience that just happens in my head. The concept that an entity is just a psychological aspect of yourself is the excuse of people unwilling to apply themselves.
But what I disagree with is this notion that you have to do evocation a particular way in order to establish contact with the spirit of your choice and achieve the result you desire. Although I have a background in ceremonial magic, I've long since stopped using the props and focused on personalizing how I do magic. I figure as long as I understand the underlying principles, the entity in question isn't going care how I evoke it.
More importantly, if I'm doing it right, it won't matter if it visibly shows itself to me. I will know its presence. I will feel its presence. And maybe this just a case of semantics, but I've never visibly seen an entity, at least not with my eyes. I've visualized an entity and I have felt its presence in the room with me, but I've never physically seen one. Nonetheless I have successfully evoked entities and achieved measurable results with the aid of those entities. I've developed and maintained relationships with those entities. They have moved me.
It could be argued that if I took the time to evoke the entities using the traditional grimoires I might actually see them. Yet nonetheless, I know that my approach to evocation seems to work well. It's not traditional, because I find traditional boring. Nonetheless there is still real work involved in the practices that I'm doing. Genuine communion with an entity is not something that can be judged solely on if it appeared before you. Genuine communion is an experience and how that experience manifests may differ from person to person. Nonetheless if a person is genuinely moved by the experience, what speaks to the success is not just the manifestation of a result, but a true relationship with the entity that brings about a consequent change in the person's life that is truly sustainable.
The role of results in your process
Last week Mike wrote an article on results vs mechanics. I agree with his stance that doing magic for results is different from doing magic that is focused on process (or mechanics). A process oriented is focused on tweaking your process in order to improve it, and understand how it works. Nonetheless I also think that results play an integral role in a process oriented approach to magic.
Results are indicators that tell you if your process is working. If you don't achieve the desired result, it indicates you need to do more tweaking, and if you do obtain the desired result it indicates your process works. Nonetheless it can also tell you if you need to improve that process. I use results to tell me what works in my process and what doesn't work. Without results, I can work on a process, but I won't know if its viable until I've executed it and gotten a result.
Results matter in your process. So even though my approach to magic is process oriented, I know I need results to measure my process and evaluate where changes need to be made.
Do you think results are relevant to a process or mechanics approach to magic. Why or why not?
Book Review: The Power of Habit (Affiliate Link) by Charles Duhigg
This is a must have book if you are a business owner. The author provides case studies that show the power of habits and how habits can make a difference in your life and business. He also supplies excellent ideas on how to change negative habits. The book is well-written and the core concepts are easy to understand. You'll come away with a new appreciation for habits as well as tools for how to change them!
Game Sigil
The other day my family and I were playing a game of Triominos. This was the shape we'd put together toward the end of the game. As I looked at it, I was struck at how you could use the actual shape and tiles as part of a sigilistic working. The purpose of the game is to match tiles together by the numbers. You can get some interesting shapes as a result.
I figure you could approach this technique in two different ways. You could do a solo working where you lay all the pieces on the blank side and then start pulling pieces and matching them together until you get a shape that you can use for a sigil. Or you could do a group working, where instead of focusing on winning the game, everyone focuses their intent on building a sigil shape that they'll use for the magical working. The entire activity could be focused on the actual working you want to accomplish, with the goal being to use the pieces to create the shape or appearance for the sigil to work.
I know it's a little odd and different. Why not stick with the same old, same old, right? But I like having fun with magic and this has a lot of potential for fun as well as working as a focus tool.
Have you repurposed any games for magical purposes? If so, how?
Habits and Magic
I've been reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. He breaks habits down to a cycle of a cue, routine, and Reward and explains that what makes habits really stick is the craving we feel when we get something that we want more of. When I read this I began thinking about how it applied to magic, or didn't apply.
I could see it applying to a daily practice. A person does a given set of exercises and meditation practices each day and receives an award of not only feeling accomplished about it, but also feeling physiological responses that create craving to experience, kind of like a runner's high. I know after I do my meditations each day, I not only feel calm and focused, I also feel a sense of pleasure and that's part of what motivates me to continue doing the meditation.
But this can be extended further. We talk about results quite a bit in magic, and what defines if someone is successful is the achievement of a measurable result. And the achievement of that result brings a sense of happiness, and a sense of power...and perhaps a craving for more results. This could even be where the admonition of lusting for results comes into play.
At the same time creating a habit of your magical practice doesn't have to be about a lust for results, so much as its about achieving a sense of well-being and fulfillment that a person wants to sustain. And then there's the added factor of considering whether the craving a habit can bring about is a conscious experience, or just a physiological inducement that we may not entirely be aware of.
How much of what we do is a result of habit? It's an interesting question to consider both in context to your life and magical practice.
What's your magical language?
What's your magical language? What terms do you use to describe and define your magical workings? This post is prompted by Mike Sententia's writings about etheric software. What I've recognized is that he's drawn on software programming terminology to help describe his approach to magic. I've seen him draw on some other discourses as well, most notably from the medical community. For that matter I also draw on different terminology that's not traditionally occult oriented to help explain my approaches to magic. Whether its linguistics or culture studies or something else, the different discourses I've had access to influence my explanations about magic to other people, as well as how I construct magical workings.
What disciplines do you draw on? What terminology do you use to explain and define magic, both for yourself, and others? It's a good idea to look at those questions and do some work with them. The language we use can simultaneously open us to possibilities we hadn't considered, even as it also limits us by nature of how it frames our model and application of magic.
One of the reasons I've diversified my reading and exposure to a variety of disciplines is to keep myself open to new ideas and challenge the models I rely on. While a model can provide a useful explanation, it also creates tunnel vision that funnels our acceptance of a given situation into specific lines of inquiry that rule out anything that doesn't fit the model. The terminology we use needs to be carefully examined for not only what it allows us to explains, but also how it can limit our explanations.
Language is powerful, and often times we don't realize how powerful it can truly be. The reason a person can nitpick a definition speaks to the power of language, because a definition defines a person's perception of reality about what its defining. Testing your terminology makes you aware of how it can help you and allows you to critically examine where its failing you.
Book Review: The Wealth Magick Workbook (Affiliate Link) by Dave Lee
This is probably the best book on wealth magic I've found, mainly because the author does such a good job of differentiating between what wealth is and what money is. His approach, consequently shows the shortcomings of enchanting for money without really understanding how that money will apply to your overall sense of wealth. He provides some excellent exercises, which I highly recommend doing. I only wish the wealth section of the book preceded the money magic section, but overall its an excellent book for anyone who wants to do wealth magic.
5 out of 5