Doubt and magical workings

Mike has posted some interesting thoughts about doubt in magical works. You can find them here and here. When I think about doubt and magical workings, I think that if doubt is entering into the picture, it's better to not do the magical working and instead really examine your doubts and why they are coming up. When I do a practical magic working I don't want doubt to be in the picture, and for me it isn't. I know what I want, I understand the consequences around getting it and I'm ready to handle the reality of achieving it. Doubt is a sabotager...its that little voice that says, "You don't deserve this." And if you hear that voice, then you haven't done your due diligence.

What is due diligence? It's doing the internal work necessary to ensure that the desired result (or manifestation) is something you truly want with all of your being. It's addressing the doubts and resolving them before you even do your magical work.

It doesn't surprise me that some magicians experience doubt and have it sabotage their workings. I think this is due to the fact that they haven't done that necessary level of internal work that's needed to make sure everything is in alignment with the desired outcome. Without a process for doing dedicated internal work to address doubt and other sabotage emotions, those emotions will present themselves in your working and undermine your results. But with a dedicated process for internal work, its easy to deal directly with any doubts or other emotions and resolve them in your favor. Then do the magical working and you'll get consistent results.

This actually applies to decisions you make in general. For example, when I decided to rebrand my one business, I had already gone in and done the internal work to deal with any doubt or fear I may have felt. Once that was cleared out of the way, I started my rebranding and pursued it wholeheartedly. I didn't leave myself room for doubt, because it would've slowed me down. I knew what I wanted and I knew I could do it. The business is rebranded in terms of content and message (The visual design is still being reworked) and the previous services have been let go of.

If we look at this from a process approach what we get is assess the change you want to make. Determine if there is internal resistance (i.e. doubt). Resolve the internal resistance or make a different choice (sometimes there are good reasons not to do a magical working or life change). Do the magical working and any other actions needed to manifest the desired result. Simple, effective...and the doubt is dealt without having to continue entertaining it. There should be no room for doubt if you really want to manifest a desired result.

A Meditation on Freedom and Responsibility

In the Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte she says the following about Freedom: "In seeking our freedom, we liberate our potential to accomplish incredible things". John Parsons in Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword notes: "Freedom is a two-edged sword of which one edge is liberty and the other responsibility, on which both edges are exceedingly sharp; and which is not easily handled by casual, cowardly, or treacherous hands" He further goes onto argue that to truly be free we first need to master our inner impulses, passions, fears, etc.

Both perspective are valid. I agree with Parsons that true freedom is held by being able to take responsibility for handling it. That responsibility is gained by doing internal work to master yourself, your emotions, desires, beliefs, and values, and to put them to work toward truly experiencing freedom. The experience of freedom is as LaPorte puts it: Its the liberation of our potential to accomplish amazing things. That liberation can only be experienced when we master ourselves and truly identify what it is we want.

Freedom isn't necessarily about doing anything you want, which is a rather vague statement, but rather is about identifying what truly brings you alive and then choosing to do it, with an understanding that you must take responsibility for doing it and for the consequences of seeking it. And this applies to magic as a methodology used to help achieve that freedom. If we want to experience liberation, then we need to know what tools to use that will get us that liberation.

Liberation is the choice to do what you love, and freedom is the experience of embodying what you love as an active and passive principle of your life. Responsibility is holding yourself accountable to continue to do and be what you love, even and especially in the face of resistance.

I value liberation above all else because it is the realization of potential, and the empowerment that comes with it is unlike any other experience out there. To truly be liberated is, in my opinion, to experience fulfillment and happiness. It's not always an easy road, but its a road that embodies the best of yourself and the realization that what you truly want can be experienced and achieved if you are willing to take the risks and truly give your liberation what it deserves: Your full and undivided attention.

Value and Wealth

Jason recently posted a blog about value and wealth. He basically did an exercise that looked at the value of what he wanted to buy vs the price of what he wanted to buy vs the value of what he could put that money toward. It's a good exercise to do and its something I'm familiar with from Your Money or Your Life (affiliate link).  In that book, one of the exercises has you look at the real value of what you are purchasing vs the amount of money and the amount of time spent earning that money. And much like Jason's exercise, what it really does is force you to look closely at your relationship with money and how you are spending it.

So you might wonder why I'm writing about that on here. Wealth magic is an ongoing interest of mine, and I think to really apply magic to wealth in any substantial way you really have to understand money and its relationship with your life, as well as the value you ascribe to a given purchase. An unexamined relationship with money will find people buying anything that catches their interest, while also accruing a mountain of debt. If you want to do magic for a specific result, you've got to understand what that result will really look like in your life, and be prepared to handle any consequences that are associated with it.

This is why people who win the lottery typically end up spending their way through the money they won. They played to win, but they weren't prepared for the consequences of winning and likely they didn't really examine their relationship with money. So they win the money and they get deluged by relatives and friends who suddenly care (as long as the money flows) and they also have vague ideas on how to spend the money. I'll buy that Porsche I always wanted or pay off the house, or whatever else. Rarely do I see anything about investing the money when I hear stories about someone winning the lottery.

Money magic tends to have a similar effect. the focus is on getting the money, but once you have the money what do you do? Doing magic to get money may work, but having it is another reality and one that most people seem ill-prepared for. The question then is this: What is my relationship with money and what do I want to do with it, both now and in the future? Knowing the answer can help you figure out if you can really handle more money and if you really understand the value of what you are trying to get with that money.

An important part of magical work is the relationship. Looking at your relationship with money and knowing what you want to change with it can help you do wealth magic more effectively than just trying to get money. It's that internal ingredient that is needed to effectively integrate a force into your life, whether that force is money, love, power, or something else altogether. Can you handle the consequences? Is the value worth it and do you know what you'll do with the result, once you've got it.

A Commentary on Witch Hunts in Africa

I was pointed to this documentary video about witch hunts in Africa. And if you go to this link you'll see an article that discusses how witch hunting is alive and well in Africa.

This is sickening  because these children aren't identifying as witches. Instead they have been labeled as such in order by people who are choosing to use those labels to get rid of children they don't want, or because some Christian pastor has decided to demonize them. The end result isn't just intolerance...its death. It's people being persecuted for beliefs and practices that they don't even do.

It makes me realize how fortunate I am. I've experienced some discrimination for my beliefs, but I don't face it on a daily basis, and I'm not being accused of something I don't actually believe in. Any of us are lucky to be able to practice our beliefs. Whatever discrimination we might face, its nothing like this. These are people who are killed for superstitious beliefs. When you watch the videos for the documentary you'll see such ignorance displayed it will sicken you as well it should.

It is important to raise awareness of this issue. I'm also looking into how to donate to this cause and will post details in a later post.

Embodied spirituality and liberation

I posted this recently via my various social media accounts:

An embodied spirituality recognizes the value of the material world and celebrates it and experiences as an inherent part of a person's spiritual evolution. When the body is discarded as dirty or something to be left behind, and desires are perceived as unacceptable or attachments that hold us back, the person loses an essential perspective that is necessary for genuine transformation. The body, desires, etc, ground us and provide a way to experience the immediacy of a situation and learn from it. The body is not a shackle...it is part of our liberation.

Recent conversations I've had around enlightenment as well as a continued practice of Tantric philosophy and spirituality prompted this observation. I genuinely believe that the body is an essential part of human spirituality and that the denial of it is a dysfunction brought about for reasons that are related to either over population or to a fixation on an ultimate reward that involves transcending the body.

A better approach would be to recognize the role of the body as a mediator of physical existence and spiritual identity. Additionally, people who take this perspective would also carefully consider the consequences their choices have on the environment and each other and thus would question consumerism and explore what it means to have enough vs what it means to live in excess.

True liberation isn't found in deprivation or excess but in a balanced perspective that celebrates the glory of life while also cultivating it for future generations. Thus tending your own garden where you grow food is a spiritual and practical activity. It teaches you the value of cultivating life, the recognition of death as a transformative agent that is also part of evolution, and the necessity of using resources wisely instead of wasting them.

Your body is part of your liberation, and the sensual experiences it provides is a part of that process, but equally as important is learning how to take care of yourself. Thus exercise is just as liberating as any other activity, and eating a healthy diet is important for cultivating your life. These activities can be just as spiritual as meditation provided we apply a mindful awareness to them.

A desire can be liberating both for the experience of it and the choice to not experience it. Longing is as much a celebration of desire as is the experience of the desire, and longing can teach patience but also liberation in terms of recognizing the true value of a given desire. The experience of desire can be a liberating experience provided we know how to enjoy it without allowing it to enslave us. Thus the need for balance and consideration of the body as a spiritual teacher which allows us to embody our desires but also uses them to teach us from experience how best to truly find liberation in our experiences and in our choices to sometimes delay having the experience to know its true value.

Magic as a Transformative Process

If there's one description I'd use about Magical Identity is that its really an exploration of magic as a transformative process. So what does that mean? When I think about western magical practices mostly what I think of is a fixation on achieving measurable results, but I think that's what missing is an exploration of transformation and the role magic can play in the transformation of your life. I'd argue that any result you achieve isn't merely a change in the external environment that happens to suit you, but is also a transformation of you as both a person and magician. That this transformation isn't considered is always a cause for concern, because its something that shouldn't be ignored.

If we look at the anatomy of a magical act, there is a focus on change. Something needs to be changed in order to bring the world back into balance for the magician. But assuming that the change only occurs in the external environment is a mistake. The magician is also changing his/her internal reality in order to align it with the desired external result. And if s/he can't change the internal reality, the external result may manifest, but it won't last. At a recent talk I asked attendees how many had manifested a desired result only to have it go away without bringing the desired change they wanted. Most nodded their heads and the reason for that is simple. Their internal reality didn't align with the desired external reality they wanted.

Effective transformation calls on the magician to be in touch with his/her internal reality so that s/he can truly determine if a desired result is in alignment with his/her life. The magical act is a transformation of the life of the magician as well as the environment. The two aren't separate, and whatever separation we assign is a convenient illusion used to avoid understanding the act of transformation.

This doesn't mean magic involves the law of attraction or other newagey concepts. Rather what it means is that achieving a result involves a level of internal work that complements any external work that is done to achieve the result. The recognition that magic is a transformative process is a recognition that a given magical act occurs on an ontological level and involves a recognition of embodiment as a principle for manifestation. The result you desire is something that you need to embody in your existence, write it in your code to use a technology metaphor.

Archetypes, movement, and getting into the role

I've been reading Acting and Singing with the Archetypes (affiliate link) and trying out some of the exercises. My main draw for picking up the book was because of my ongoing interest in integrating movement, dance, and space into my magical work and I thought the book might prove useful for that purpose.

It reminds me a bit of Antero's Paratheatre techniques, and I find that with the archetypes I need to get into a state of mind and body that allows me to channel them. It's not all that different from doing an invocation, but what stands out most is how mutable a given archetype is...or rather I find that it is much easier for me to draw on a variety of pop culture sources as well as more traditional sources. The various archetypal labels of Child, Devil, Trickster, etc. are useful, but in a way I wonder if we confine ourselves to much to those labels? Is the space pirate an archetype in its own right or just a variation of an existing one?

The process of orienting yourself into invoking a particular archetype requires two essential behaviors. The first behavior is an ability to let go of your ego or sense of self. You empty that awareness. The second behavior is the ability to embody the archetypal awareness and characteristics and traits. There's different tools you can use. I've seen people use masks for example, which can be a lot of fun, but your body is the ultimate tool. The change in posture, facial patterns, voice, and even a change in clothing and accoutrements can be quite useful. It's also a change in emotions, and energy. What are the emotions the archetype feels? How does that translate into space and movement? What are the functions it embodies and how does that change the space and movement of the body?

Getting into the role is getting out of the way and allowing the archetype, spirit, etc fill me. I allow my body to become a vessel for the divine force I am working with. I open myself to the experience and let the experience define the space.

Book review: Acting and Singing with the Archetypes (affiliate link) By Janet Rodgers and Frankie Armstrong.

This book was written for an audience of actors, but as someone who is not an actor, but nonetheless does work with archetypes I found it to be a valuable read, with useful exercises that can be applied to more than just acting. I like that the authors drew on perspectives of movement such as Laban's work, but also that they made their work very accessible. This is a book I'd recommend to a counselor, actor, artist, or the magician who wants to take a different approach to his/her magical workings.

Updates on current projects

Here's a few updates on various projects I am working on. Magic on the Edge 2.0

I've just finished first round editing of all the essays I received. I have about nine essays. I could use more and I have two people working on essays. If you would like to write an essay for Magic on the Edge 2.0, check this post out, and contact me. I am pleased with what I've gotten so far and I plan on publishing this anthology by fall of this year.

The Book of Good Practices

Bill Whitcomb and I have a project we are working on, the title of which is marked in bold. It admittedly feel to the wayside while I worked on Magical Identity, but now that MI is finished I've started to focus more time on this project. I'll have more details in the future.

Wealth Magic book

Yes I am writing or rather researching for a book on wealth magic. I've got a decent outline and also some practical experiments that I'm currently running, which seem to bearing fruit as it were. I hope to finish the first draft of the first chapter by tax day of this year (how apropos).

Process of Magic Correspondence Course

This hasn't been forgotten. In fact, I and another person are in the process of getting this website ready for a change that will practically support the ability to do a correspondence course. I already have some of the lessons for this course written and I have a better idea of how such a course should ideally work, so my plan is to fully manifest this course by Memorial Day Weekend. It will be the first of a number of courses on magic experiments ala Taylor Ellwood's style of doing magical experiments.

Current magical experiments

I'm also engaged in a few experiments as well as regular workings.

The regular workings include the year long invocation of the element of Fire (I post about that work once a month) and daily meditation practices. A weekly offering to Dragon has also been added to the mix.

Experiments include working with Bune on my businesses (This is a long term working and it has worked marvelously with all three of my businesses). I'll be writing about this experiment in the wealth magic book in a lot of detail.

Another experiment has involved improving healing work, with an eye toward exploring past life regression as part of the healing experiment. I've posted occasional updates and it is fascinating work. It also convinces me further that there needs to be an emotional component factored into healing (that and my internal work experiences).

There's more in the works as it were, but I don't share anything until its the right time to share it.

Strategic Sorcery Course

I am taking Jason's Strategic Sorcery course. It's proven to be an interesting course, in terms of getting a different perspective on how someone approaches magic. It reminds me of my traditional roots in magic (which is good) and I'm definitely getting a lot from the course.

That's it for updates on current projects.

How I do healing work

My approach to healing is multi-layered. When I am working on a person I am working on the physical body, as well as the energetic equivalent, and on the emotional level as well. But more specifically I am working on the area of the body that needs healing.

I'm a reiki master (something I don't discuss much), but one of the problems that I've always had with Reiki is that its energy that is channeled through you and its not necessarily a precise experience. Its useful in its own way, but my approach to healing is about precision.

When I heal I work with what I might consider to be lines of force with the person. Some might call this meridians and that would be accurate as well. Some of the healing work involves pulling negative energy out of the person. I'll feel a string of negative energy and I'll start pulling it out and away from the person. Then afterwards I'll replace it with healing energy. While I'm doing all of that, I'll also communicate with the cells of the affected area, so that on a physiological level healing is also occurring. There may not even be a real difference beyond that of perception. One thing I would acknowledge is that my approach to healing is based in part on framing the healing work in a way that is conceptually sound to me. In fact, with healing and magic in general, I think this is true. We draw on a model or conceptual framework that allows us to understand what we are working with and develop a process around it.

With all that said, whenever I do healing work on someone I check in to see if their experiences match what I'm doing. I'll share intuitive insights that come up in regards to emotional issues around the healing I'm doing and see if what I'm getting is accurate to what the person has experienced. The verification that people provide is what tells me the healing is working and that its not all in my head. Their experience and resolution is the result that I'm working toward with the healing.

I do find that approaching healing work as just a physiological issue or an energetic issue isn't the best approach. Incorporating an understanding of emotional stress and trauma seems to be an important part of the healing, so that even if I'm healing a physiological issue, checking in on the emotional level can actually be conducive to helping with the healing of the physiological issue. I think the reason this is the case is because the experience of a health issue brings with it not just the physical symptoms or energetic issues, but also emotional patterns that may need to be explored in order for a person to fully heal.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Fire Month 5

2-23-12 There are times I feel broken, times I realize how profoundly the abuse I experienced has affected me. I look back at a history of my life and I see patterns in different ways than I had before, and while I recognize that I've healed from a lot of it, I also see how much it still affects me. I've been thinking lately as well of my early sexual encounters with women who were much older than me, and how naive I was, and how much I didn't realize how those encounters affected my perspective on relationships, love, lust, and what would be considered acceptable. Until recently, I believed love was always conditional as a result of those early experiences. Now I realize it doesn't have to be conditional, but that belief about love came about because of circumstances that shaped what I thought love and commitment was. Understanding that history has helped me look closely at my choices, both past and present, and with the present choices, make them from a place that's less reactionary. That's the whole point of doing internal work. It challenges you to explore and understand the underlying causes of your choices, so that you know why you are making, and can ideally make them from a place of health as opposed to dysfunction. It challenges you to take responsibility for your choices, instead of trying to blame everyone else for your problems.

2-29-12 When I meditate with fire each day, what strikes me is how people have created such a mythology around such a primal force of life. The various stories about how fire was discovered or given as a gift, the focus on the creative or destructive nature of fire. This raw, primal force has been made into so much by how people try to negotiate and understand it. I don't think many people, even now, really look at fire as a wholly physical phenomenon, but even if they do, they still have to acknowledge its a force that can have an effect on our lives. A burning house is a prime example, as is a campfire that people huddle around to keep warm.

3-1-12 I've been feeling a bit nostalgic lately, prompted partially by listening to music I haven't listened to in a long time that reminds me of later teenage years spent trying to find myself. The right sound, the right sight, and you can get taken to a different time, a different awareness, then as now. And suddenly you have two temporal experiences, and you reconcile the memory with the place you're at now. My memories of my teenage years are bittersweet (but who's isn't?), mostly bitter, and yet listening to this music touches a place of naivety, of hope that's not quite gone. There's a sense of longing, and sadness, and experience as I listen to this song. There's a sense of change, and the appreciation of that change. We are not static. We are changeable and the changes are for the best. The right experience will trigger a doorway to the past, to an intersection with a you from before and the you of now. Two moments merge into one and both variants influence each other. It's fairly amazing when you allow yourself to fully open up and experience the merging of past memory with present experience, and sometimes even future dream.

3-5-12 Knowing when to take a break from actively being creative is important. I haven't done much writing since I wrapped up Magical Identity. I'm glad I took the time off, because now I'm feeling primed again and looking forward to writing. The days of pushing myself to write are over. I'd rather honor my creative genius by giving it the time to recharge so I can write with focus and verve.

3-7-12 I've been reading about and considering the emotions of jealousy and compassion. I think jealousy gets a bad wrap, but that if you consider it in the right context, it can actually be a warning system of potential problems with the connection (or lack thereof) that you have with a person. Sometimes jealousy is overblown, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it indicates real problems that need to be addressed. If I were to map jealousy to an element, it would be fire, because of how it feels and the associations it has with other emotions like love. I'd also map compassion to fire, because of the feeling of warmth it can convey.Compassion is the comprehension of another person's pain, and the ability to reach out to that person with genuine understanding. It's a very giving emotion, whereas jealousy is a very protective emotion.

3-10-12 I look back at the first entry of this post and I find it ironic today because when you learn something about yourself that you hadn't faced, it forces you to see patterns in your life in different ways than you'd acknowledged. Its good, even if its not pleasant to face. Maybe in a way that's why its good. It forces you to see what you've kept hidden from yourself. It's in facing yourself that you bring healing to yourself, but facing yourself means acknowledging not just how other people hurt you, but also acknowledging how you hurt other people and doing your best to learn from it and be a better person.

3-16-12 I'd never wish any of my past experiences of abuse on anyone, even my worst enemy. Experiences like that, where you are a victim, they make you protective of the people in your life, because you know you don't want them to ever have such painful and disempowering experiences. At the same time, as you get to know people you realize on some level or another everyone is dysfunctional, carrying wounds with them that define their lives. I think its a shame, because when a wound defines your life you can't move past it. It holds you back and keeps you in a restricted pattern that hurts you more than it does anything else. I've managed to let go of some of the wounds that previously defined me. I've learned my lessons from them, but I don't hold onto them anymore. Some of them I'm still holding on to, figuring out how to let them go and how to redefine myself in the process. Again that's part of internal work. It's not an overnight cure-all. It's doing the work so you can let go, heal yourself and move on.

3-22-12 - Magical Identity arrived today. It feels strange to realize that the journey to write this book is finally over. There's nothing more to do beyond selling it and talking about it (very important activities). It's created, birthed, realized, manifested. It exists...a part of my thoughts, ideas, life, etc., expressed into written form. I'm glad its published, and yet I find myself facing this curious feeling of "What next?" I actually know what's next, but it doesn't change the fact that I feel this feeling. I feel it anytime I finish any project. It' that realization of separation. This is no longer just mine. Now it's something that belongs to whoever chooses to adopt it and use it. It belongs to all of you as much as it belongs to me.

The fire doesn't burn out when somethings created, if you know how to cultivate it. It's alive. I'm a live. And that next project is beckoning.

Is Magic a luxury of modern times?

Mike posted a thought provoking entry recently on the luxury of energy, noting that the fact that so many people can study magic is a luxury of time that we have access to, that previous generations didn't have. I agree with him. If you look at the people who were in the Golden Dawn in the late Nineteenth century, all of them were very well off and had the time to study magic. You didn't see people working at factories having time to study magic (and probably didn't even know about it, beyond superstitious beliefs).

We do have the gift of free time, but its not just the luxury of time, it's also the luxury of education and information. We have a level of access to education and information that makes it much easier to find information out on just about any subject out there. The real challenge is sifting through the information to find what's really useful.

Nick Farrell also made an intriguing point when he notes that the best time to be involved in magic isn't in centuries past, but in the present. There's definitely some truth to that, when you consider that the level of information and collaboration that's available is much higher than it likely would have been in the past. The fact is most modern magicians are fortunate because we have an availability of time and energy we'd likely not have if we lived one hundred years in the past. The immediate needs of survival are much easier to meet when everything that's needed for survival is easy to access.

So yeah I think a magic is a luxury of modern times. And I have no problem with that because having that luxury is something I enjoy immensely. It's a significant part of my life and having the time to study and experiment has enriched the quality of life beyond measure.

My books are now available on Kindle and newest radio interview

I'm pleased to announce that my books are now available on Amazon Kindle. We recently were able to work out a deal where we could get them  placed on Kindle. We'll also be converting other Immanion Press books into Kindle files as well, so be on the look out for those in the near future. My latest book, Magical Identity, is now available in print, on smashwords, and Kindle.

In other recent publishing news, I was pleased to hear that smashwords was able to come to an agreement with Paypal where paypal will continue to accept payments on books published on smashwords. It's definitely a victory for free speech.

I was recently interviewed on The Infinite Beyond radio show about my newest book Magical Identity. Take a listen. It was a fun show to be interviewed on, and we got into some interesting discussions about identity and magic.

The magical effects of what you wear

Bill Whitcomb pointed me to an article about how wearing lab coats make people smarter. It was also found that when volunteers wore other coats they didn't do as well as on the tests. It was only when they were told that they were wearing lab coats that they performed better. So does this mean there's something magical about lab coats?

Not at all. If anything what it really demonstrates is that people read meaning into items of clothing and associate specific behaviors with those items, which causes them to then embody those behaviors when they wear the clothing. In other words, there's nothing inherent to a lab coat that makes a person smarter. It's the person's perception about the lab coat and what it imbues them with that causes them to associate intelligence with it. Scientists and doctors wear lab coats and generally we think those types of professions are populated by intelligent people. So a person puts on a lab coat and performs better, but the coat has nothing to do with it. That person could focus just as intently without the coat.But the perception associated with the coat is what makes all the difference. I put on the lab coat and because I associate specific attributes with it, suddenly I have access to those attributes.

Perception is a powerful tool, both in every day life and in magical workings. I've discussed using clothing to invoke specific traits or behaviors and this is a prime example of how this principle works. It's similar, in my experience, to putting on a suit. You feel a sense of change, both in terms of how you perceive yourself and how other people perceive you. It's magical in its own right, but its also perception. Understanding that distinction helps you also understand how to use perception as tool in its own right. That's when you get into some interesting experimentation with perception and clothing, specifically in terms of how you can manipulate your own perception or even the perception of others based on how you present yourself.

One of the reasons I wear a hat with a multicolored feather is because when I go out in my professional clothing it sticks out. It's an anomaly compared to everything else I'm wearing. It allows me to show my personality while also invoking the professional persona I've chosen to adopt. It's fun for me, and I've experimented with it further just in terms of letting my "true" self shine through with people in professional settings. I actually think its helped business a bit. So I think if you experiment with clothing and your perception of it you'll likely see similar results with what was discovered with the lab coats. Give it a try and let me know!

Book Review: Thinking, Fast and Slow (Affiliate Link) by Daniel Kahneman

In this book, the author explores intuition and rational thinking, in particular focusing on both the strengths and flaws of intuition. The author does a good job of presenting his research and reinforcing it with case studies. He makes it easy to understand the concepts. What I found most fascinating was how much we take for granted intuition in terms of what it tells even though it can be wrong. We don't really question that and he explains why we don't question it. This is a great book to read if you are interested in psychology or social behavior.

Some Thoughts on Offerings

In the latest lesson from the Strategic Sorcery Course, Jason talks about Offerings. It was interesting to read what he said and to see a similar philosophy when it came to offerings, but a different approach to doing offerings. I think his approach works and I'm actually doing it with two entities I'm working with right now.

Ironically before even reading that lesson or starting the course, I'd been doing a weekly offering to Dragon. Each week I make an offering of rice and tea to Dragon. Once a month I do a full ritual, where I paint myself and allow Dragon to do a full possession of my body.

I've also done an offering to Bune, which has involved writing about him on occasion, as well as doing a painting to him, and even incorporating him into my vision board for 2012. In the forthcoming book on wealth magic, don't be surprised if you see his seal on the cover. It's another offering I'll make to him.

In Magical Identity, if you look carefully, you'll see the seal for Purson, another entity I've worked with in the context of time magic. His seal shows up on the cover of another of my books.

I've also offered daily prayers or devotions to different entities I'm working with. So I don't think my approach is all that different from Jason's, but my expression isn't as traditional, at least in some cases. For example, when I was eighteen, I offered my blood (and life force) to the elemental spirits in return for their life force. One could argue it was a bargain, but I don't think of it in that way. I see it as more of a kinship oath, where each person swears kinship with the other person. Certainly my connection with the elements is different as a result of that working and I feel its fair to say that my elemental balancing work is its own offering to the elements.

But another type of offering I do is through tattooing. I currently have five tattoos, with at least two more planned. Some of those tattoos represent life events, but the dragon on my arm is an offering to the spirit of Portland, and the tattoo on my right forearm is an offering to XAH as well as a recognition of my emptiness working. My newest tattoo is an offering to the elemental spirits. By giving them skin, what I am truly offering is an acknowledgement of the highest form. They are placed on my body as a way of acknowledging their role in my life. The next two tattoos will also be offerings to specific entities I've worked with or am working with.

What it really comes down to is making the offerings from a place of sincerity and appreciation. Nothing less will do.

Is there Privilege in being out of the closet?

Is there privilege in being out of the closet? Lupa posted a recent entry where she argues that people who can choose to decloset and argue that other people should come out of the closet don't realize that they have privilege. Specifically she notes:

you have the option to decloset (or not) and can decide whether you feel you can handle whatever negative consequences may occur without having it made for you.

She goes on to criticize decloseted people who think closeted people should come out (and I suppose this would include me):

Moreover, it’s a dick move to criticize people who stay closeted to any degree, or their reasons for doing so. Not every decloseted person attacks their closeted associates, but some do. I have seen many people over the years complain about people not decloseting, whether that was the broom closet or the queer closet or whatever closet others were using for protection, I’ve seen them called traitors, and I’ve seen the blame for continuing discrimination against everyone else laid at their feet for not standing up and being visible. I’ve seen pagans say “You should have nothing to hide if you’re strong in your faith”. I’ve seen radical queers tell closeted queers that all they’re doing is milking the “benefits” of the closet and not taking the full brunt of queerphobia. I’ve seen closeted people being told that by staying in the closet, they’re actively supporting the bigots themselves.

In my most recent post about coming out of the closet I wrote (amongst other things): "When you don’t stand up, you essentially are condoning the way things are, and the intolerance and prejudice that comes with it." I think Lupa has a point when she says:

Privilege isn’t a criticism of the fact that you HAVE something; it’s a reminder that not everyone ELSE has what you have, and that affects the options each of you have access to in a given situation. The criticism comes when you forget that imbalance, and act in spite of it, and thereby harm those without your privilege.

So is it unfair to the closeted when someone like myself says what I wrote in the previous post? Yes and no. On the one hand it comes off as unfair to the people who feel they can't come out of the closet because of the consequences that could occur. They get criticized by someone who is out of the closet and are told they aren't doing enough. That's pretty presumptuous of the person whose out of the closet. That person is judging those people for not getting out of the closet. That's essentially what's being said when its argued that a decloseted person has privilege. And if you look at it from that angle, there's validity to it.

The people in the closet have my empathy, because I've been there. I remember as a teenager being asked by my mom a number of times if I practiced it and I denied it each time because I was afraid of the consequences. And when I was forced out of the closet, my fears came true. There were negative consequences. But here's why I wrote what I wrote and why I think it doesn't come from a place of privilege.

I get that some people don't feel they can come out of the closet and I understand the reasons for why they feel that way. But as someone who was forced out of the closet, and then chose to stay out, I have to say that being out of the closet isn't privilege. In graduate school I had two fellow grad students anonymously cyber bully me in part because of my beliefs. And when I worked in a corporate setting I always had to wonder what would happen if people googled my name, because I'd written about my spiritual practices with my given name. And in all honesty, there have been times where I wish I could change that because it would make life easier if I'd used a pseudonym and stayed in the closet. But I can't and I realize that if I did, I'd be leaving it to someone else to carry that responsibility. Even now me being out of the closet isn't all that wonderful. I'm self-employed, and I live and work in a fairly "liberal" area of the country, but that doesn't mean I don't get nervous or even uncomfortable when I find out that potential prospects have looked me up. Most of the people I've worked with don't seem to care, but I can guarantee that if I lived in a more conservative area they likely would care more and you better believe I feel lucky to be living here.

Being out of the closet isn't a cake walk. And it isn't privilege. It's hard and it comes with responsibility. Would I like it if people in the closet came out? Yes I would. There is strength in numbers. But I understand why it doesn't happen. The pain of being rejected by family and friend is harsh. The persecution and prejudice that can be faced is hard. And maybe I am in a place of privilege (as a decloseted person) because I wrote that people who stay in the closet are essentially condoning the way things are. Not everyone has what I have. Fair enough. But neither has everyone faced what I have, or what I continue to face as a result of being out of the closet. Being out of the closet isn't comfortable and when you minimize that, when you paint a brush over the people who are decloseted and make assumptions about what they face as a result of being decloseted, that's unfair too.

To anyone who's in the closet and feels that I've judged them, I apologize. You have your reasons for staying in the closet and they aren't wrong. They are valid reasons and I get it. I don't judge you for staying in the closet and I take back my statement that you're condoning the way things are. I don't think that's the case, but understand that when I write about this issue, its not from a place of empowerment and privilege. It's from a place of frustration and hardship, and that's true for anyone else who's come out of the closet.

To the people who've come out of the closet, I salute you. You've made a choice and chosen to face the potential complications that come with it. But there is hope that if we continue to raise awareness and visibility in a respectful way that we can make a space that is more tolerant and accepting as a result. And that's why I'm out of the closet.

Where psychology fits into magic

Jason recently posted about some of his thoughts on where psychology fits into magic. He and I share a similar opinion about the perspective of treating magic as just a psychological phenomenon, but I agree with the point he makes: There is a place for psychology within magic. In Magical Identity, I discuss different psychological methodologies and how they can be applied for magical work, especially for internal work.

One of the areas that I personally feel is neglected far too much by magicians is internal work, i.e. working with your internal values, beliefs, attitudes, and dysfunctional issues. Meditation is one method for doing internal work and when it's combined with psychology, it can be truly dynamic. I've made some amazing breakthroughs using meditation as well as working with a therapist, and applying psychological perspectives to my work, which in turn has allowed me to achieve greater clarity and focus in my life, making the living of it much, much easier. I've actually found that the need to do more overt acts decreases when you do internal work.

Before I did internal work and underwent therapy, I was a mess. I could practice magic as effectively as any of them, but my use of magic was mostly reactive, used to solve a crisis or problem, but with little thought put toward understanding my role in that crisis or problem. Choosing to do internal work freed me from a lot of unhealthy behaviors and provided me the opportunity to become much more proactive and focused in my magical work.

Aside from that psychology can provide a useful avenue of exploration in terms of understanding your magical process and how specific techniques work. It's fair to say that my background in social sciences informs my magical process and some of that background is related to psychology. Where I make a key distinction is recognizing the limitations of using psychology to describe magic. It's a different discipline and where there are insights, there are also limitations.

A commentary on paypal and smashwords

Recently I learned that smashwords, which is an online e-publisher site is getting hit with possible sanctions from paypal, because paypal and credit card companies have decided they have a right to interject their moral codes on other people. Basically paypal is telling smashwords that they'll shut down the smashwords paypal account as long as smashwords publishes fictitious works that include sexual stories. You can read the article to learn more, but suffice to say I find the matter to be another example of how some people think its perfectly acceptable to impose their moral issues on other people. They want to censor people that don't comply with their perceptions, and in this case they're basically censoring fiction. So why should I care? I write non-fiction, so it doesn't effect me. That's true, but it does effect my small press, since publish fiction and some of what we publish fits in the categories they want to ban. But even if that wasn't the case, I'm opposed to censorship in general, on the basis that when a society bans what people can or can't write, discuss, etc., then it becomes a case where they are trying to limit essential freedoms. That's why I care. I like smashwords a lot. While Immanion Press is moving forward with converting books over to Kindle, I like knowing we have an alternative to amazon.

Those are my thoughts on the issue. If it bothers you, speak up and make your voice heard.

Influence, networking and magic

Rufus recently posted an interesting article on the Favor of Kings. What I got from it is that you essentially enchant for favorable influence to be shown to you by the people in power, so that you can have opportunities presented, and just have an easier life overall. It's an interesting concept and one I'm familiar with from networking, but I'd say that while it's awesome to feel the favor of people in power, and to have their momentum behind you, its even better to become one of those people, not only because it generates consistent favor from other people, but because you also embody the very force of the favor you want to bring into your life.

I do a lot of networking as a self-employed business owner, so I have to generate my own favor, as well as hopefully get the goodwill of other people. In a corporate setting its different. You have the people above you to think about, but beyond that its not something that matters as much...or does it? I'd argue it actually does, but most people in a corporate setting don't think about it that much because they've got the relative "security" of having a job, and having that job addresses the sense of need a person might have.

Networking has its own energy. When you are networking with people, you are connecting to them, learning about them, and thinking of how you can help them. You are directing your favor toward them, in the hopes that they will do the same as well. And your favor manifests as a business referral, or a connection to a power partner, or even to the acknowledgements that you receive from other people who are in a similar position to you, in terms of owning their own business.

However, people in a corporate setting are still networking as well, albeit in a much tighter microcosm. You've got your fellow employees as well as your managers, your competitors in the company, the clients of the company, and the competitors outside of the company. And all of that creates an opportunity to generate and share influence which is the core essence of favor.

Favor is the manifestation of positive influence. It's found when a person puts in a favorable recommendation about you at work, or gives you a kudos at a networking event. It's also found when you do something positive for other people, whether its offering a suggestion, or referring someone else. Favor is an integral behavior and social dynamic within society. The people who consistently have the favor of others have done something to earn it, or they wouldn't be smiled on and helped.

So how does this work on a magical level. On the one hand, you can work with entities, such as the ones Rufus mentioned, and ask them to push the favor up a notch. This certainly works and it can be quite useful. I actually have an entity that helps me find opportunities (which I'd see as a form of favor). He pushes those opportunities to my awareness, which in turn allows me to capitalize on the expression of favor. So the entity approach works.

But there's another approach I like to take. It involves becoming the embodiment of favor. In other words you become what you want directed to you. Think of it as a kind of invocation, because in a sense it is an invocation of a very particular force. For me the embodiment of this force starts when I put on my business clothes. The particular look that I go for carries with it specific associations including networking and the spreading of influence and favor. My approach targets the vector that if you want to receive more favor and influence, you need to also exert your own favor and influence for others. My embodiment allows me to consciously focus on riding the social interactions of favor and influence in order to arrive at the right confluence where I exert myself for others and in turn they exert themselves for me.

Healing experiment update

I posted a little while back on a healing experiment I've been doing with a patient. Since then I've continued the work on this patient's neck, with some interesting developments. One of those developments has involved working with past life memories that s/he has, which are embodied in hir neck. For example, one of the healings involved removing the sensation of a noose around hir neck, as well as helping hir work through the associated past life memories. Most recently we're working with another past life that has "come out" now that the noose has been removed.

Now I'll admit, I'm actually fairly skeptical about past life memories. Or rather while I think its certainly possible that a person's identity or soul has experienced multiple iterations of life, I'm not always convinced whether the current sense of self has access to those past lives. But in doing this healing work with this patient, I admit that I'm more open to the possibility of past life regression and experiences than before. It's been clear that I'm working with hir on an energetic and physical level, but also on a memory level. Resolving those memories has healed hir neck quite a bit. It's not nearly as sore and she has more mobility with as well as more energy in general. It's definitely layered work, in terms of the emotions that come up, but this isn't a surprise. I think that most, if not all tension, has some emotional attachments included. Working through those emotional attachments can be just as healing as resolving the physical pain.

If I had only one technique I could keep it would be...

Meditation. Jason Miller said much the same thing in the Strategic Sorcery Course. I think meditation is the most crucial skill a magician can have. It's something I do as consistently as possible. Occasionally I miss days, and I can always tell when I miss a day because I'm less focused. Meditation is similar in benefit to exercising on a daily basis: It keeps you toned.

There are some magicians who will say they can't meditate, but I don't buy that. They can meditate, but they're unwilling to discipline themselves enough to do so and they've likely bought into the popular idea that meditation is just about emptying your mind (that's one form of meditation, but not the only kind). The key is to accept that if you do have random thoughts arise, you don't give up. You note them, maybe even follow them, and then return to the breathing, letting it carry you deeper and deeper into an altered state of consciousness. It takes some work, but if you are consistent about it, you'll succeed eventually.

I think one reason people say they can't meditate is that they are so distracted by every thought and emotion, and perhaps even afraid to face those thoughts and emotions. Meditation does give you the chance to work through thoughts and emotions and sometimes its not fun. But doing it frees you of those thoughts and emotions. It gives you clarity, focus, awareness, and perspective.

Meditation teaches you to sort through the chaos of your internal reality. It's doing the internal work, so that the external work of living your life and manifesting your magic is a lot easier. Certainly in taking up a dedicated practice of meditation I have needed to do less overt acts of magic, save on the rare occasions where its really warranted. By doing the internal work, my life has gotten much easier. It didn't happen over night, buts it a cumulative effect if you are consistent.

So that's the one technique or practice I'd keep. What about you?