The value of continuing education

I'm taking a marketing class right now through the local Small Business Development Center, and I've been taking a small Business Management course through most of the year. I'm also taking Jason's Strategic Sorcery course, and of course I'm also educating myself at my own pace with a variety books I'm reading and exercises I'm trying. I'm a life long learner and its something I apply as much to my magical work as to anything else. Every book I read, every experience I have, or class I take all has the potential to offer something that not only improves my business or life, but also inspires my magical practice.

Whether its formal education or educate yourself, the real value of continuing to learn is that it challenges you to grow as a person. I the variety of topics I can learn about fascinating and I know that I'll never learn everything, but I know learning as much as I can inspires me and excites me. There's a thrill I feel when I'm learning something or trying something out, the thrill of being alive, the thrill of the moment.

It's easy to get pigeonholed into one subject or area of interest, but the peril is that you become myopic in your perspective. I'd have never discovered the joys of experimenting with magic if I just continued to read books on magic. It was reading books about a variety of subjects that really made me wonder if I could apply magic to those subjects and vise versa. The joy in doing something unconventional, just to see what would happen, that became the overriding focus of my magical work and its still there to this day. I couldn't have discovered that if I hadn't diversified my interests and started learning whatever I could about any and everything.

I can't say that I've always been able to apply everything I've learned, but I'd like to think that my unusual perspectives are cultivated by the choice to learn any and everything, regardless of how relevant it seems to be. Sometimes it doesn't seem relevant, but then at some point it becomes relevant. I figure with magic, especially if you want to manifest specific results, its good to have a foundation to draw on that can inform the magical process you are using to manifest that result.

Planetary Magic Experiment

I've never worked with planetary magic. I got wrapped up into elemental hermeticism and didn't really explore the planets. But I'm taking the Strategic Sorcery course and one of the homework assignments involved possibly working with planetary magic so I thought I'd stretch myself. Jason thoughtfully provided symbols he'd gotten in his own work, but I decided it was better if I went straight to the source, and the other day in How to Meet and Work with Spirit Guides by Ted Andrews, I found pertinent information on contacting the archangel associated with each planet. I decided to work with one planet: Jupiter, which is associated with wealth magic. The archangel associated with Jupiter is Tzadkiel. The first step was to contact Tzadkiel. I meditated on the astrological symbol of Jupiter and Tzadkiel's sigil, as well as vocalizing Tzadkiel's name. It took a little while to make contact, but eventually I did. I asked him, if I could get a symbol for Jupiter that represented the planetary energy and associations with wealth and other areas. He was happy to provide it to me, but then we got into a discussion about the associations. I asked him about the association of wealth with Jupiter and what made Jupiter as a planet have anything to do with wealth. He replied it was less about the planet and more about how people perceived the planet (and associated God) with wealth. That what made it powerful had more to do with the perceptions that people invested in the planet. What I'm really tapping into are those perceptions of the power, the perceptions about the associations and how those associations can be worked with.

Since then I've taken the symbol and put it on my whiteboard and each time I've done anything associated with my business or a financial transaction, I've mentally imprinted the symbol on the business or financial transaction, with the idea of drawing on those associations to provide a favorable outcome for me. I plan on doing work with the other planets (and their archangels )and also with Tzadkiel, but it is an interesting thought, to look at the planetary energy in terms of the perceptions invested into it.

Process of Magic class starts tomorrow!

The process of magic course is starting tomorrow. You'll get 24 lessons for $80 dollars on the process of magic and how to develop your personalized approach to magic while also learning the fundamental principles of how magic works from a process oriented perspective. You'll learn:

• What process is and how it can be applied to magic.
• How to take apart any magical working you've done and identify what is and isn't working in it.
• What the principles of magic are and how they can be applied with any tool or technique you can think of.
• Why internal work is a necessary part of your magical process.

Those are only a few things you'll learn when you take this class. Over the course of 24 weeks we'll cover magical techniques from a process perspective, identify your definition of magic, and explore how to use results to refine and improve your magical process. You will get:

• 24 lesson for $80 dollars (That's less than a dollar per lesson)
• A FREE e-book Creating Magical Entities
• 5 homework assignments to help you apply the concepts to your magical workings.
• The ability to work on the course at your pace.

If you want to sign up for the class or you have questions, contact me.

What's one of your earliest influential occult books?

Recently I was looking through my magical library and I came across two books by Ted Andrews, books I've had since I was 16 or 17. They were books I'd hidden away when I was 18 and told I had to burn my books or leave, because they were books that were essential to my practice at that time. I was using the exercises in them for my daily work and also to connect with the elemental spirits. And to this day those books are essential to my magical practice in terms of the information and experiences they first provided. While my magical practice has gone far afield, the principles I learned in this books still inform and guide my magical practice. The books are How to Meet and Work with Spirit Guides and Enchantment of the Faerie Realm. Perhaps what I liked best about the books then and even now is the balance between practical techniques and theoretical information. As I looked through both books the other night, I felt a smile appear on my face, rediscovering a sense of wonder I first felt when I began practicing magic. As a teenager these books were doorways to a better life than the one I was living in. They provided me a sense of empowerment, a feeling of control, and a sense that I could actively make a difference in my life by employing magic. I still feel that way, but holding those books and flipping through them brought a sense of nostalgia and happiness over the memories themselves.

And flipping through them also provided inspiration for a working I did recently and am still engaged in currently, which I'll write about on Wednesday. It illustrated to me that going back through something you've kept for almost 20 years can still provided you surprises and realizations that you can work with.

What was your earliest influential texts that changed your approach to magic?

Mystery, Secrecy, and Magic

In a recent conversation about the process of magic, one person mentioned that they felt that mystery was an essential part of what makes magic magical. My response was: "Why does there need to be mystery? Mystery is a trope associated with magic, but its just a prop in the end. Looks nice...the real question is does it serve a real function or purpose in the process of magic. If it does, use it, but if it doesn't, strip it away."

The counter response was that removing mystery made magic a rational process or a scientific experiment. But I don't think removing mystery guarantees rationality, as emotion can still factor significantly into a magical work. More importantly the person's experience and perspective is also a significant factor in magical work and not something that automatically lends itself to rationality. I don;t really hold rationality in a esteemed position anyway, as I think its an artificial state of being. In other words, there's no such thing as a purely rational state of mind. There's always some level of emotion or feeling involved. Perhaps the closest experience of rationality is data, but even the interpretation of data is not wholly rational, as there is always an agenda and argument for how and why data is interpreted a particular way.

Regardless that's a topic for a different blog post. Getting back to mystery...I don't feel mystery is a necessary part of magical work. It's a trope, a prop that is associated with magic, and also with secrecy, which is another trope associated with occultism. I dislike secrecy, as I feel what it ultimately encourages is a potential loss of knowledge, experiences, and information that could benefit others. Nonetheless secrecy is one of those tropes that magicians hold fast to, much as mystery is held onto.

When I look at mystery and secrecy I see power games being played, the secret club handshake, the knowing wink, and the decision about who is included and who is excluded. And yes it can have its uses, to create a sense of atmosphere, but ideally the magician can accomplish without needing to resort to such theater unless it serves a purpose.

I'll admit I take an approach to magic that has been describing as a stripping down of it. Yet I don't feel I'm missing out on anything by doing so. Removing all the extras has just provided a way to get to the heart of the magical working, to the connections that are made with the spirits, with the possibilities, etc. without needing to draw on the props. Some people find the props necessary and if that's the case, then that's what they need to use, but magic is ultimately a variety of paths. I just like to explore how you can strip it down and build it back up to fit your needs, while getting rid of what you don't need.

Cut-up writing as a gateway to spiritual transmission

I've been reading Thee Psychick Bible for a little while now and came across an article by Genesis where he notes the following:

No matter how short, or apparently unrecognizable a sample might be in linear time perception, I believe it must, inevitably, contain within it the sum total of absolutely everything its original context represented, communicated or touched in any way; On top of this it must also implicitly include the sum total of every individual in any way connected with its introduction and construction within the original culture and every subsequent culture it in any way, means, or form, has contact with forever.

It's interesting perspective about cut-up and one that Burroughs alludes to in his own writings, but in not so explicit a manner. My own approach has favored the idea that the act of cutting up text frees it from its original author and meaning, and that the rearrangement of the text is the appropriation of it by the person doing the cut-up in order to create a new message, but I can also see validity in Genesis's approach to cut-up, especially if you apply the concept of spiritual transmission to cut-up.

Burroughs talks about how doing cut-up allowed him to catch divinatory glimpses of things that could occur, but it stands to reason as well that in a way you can't really cut out the original author of a text. You can rearrange the text, change the meaning, but there is still a connection of sorts to the author, to the original vision of the text. If we think of words as a means of connection with the author, not merely in terms of meaning, but in terms of an actual spiritual meeting with the author it changes our approach to text in some ways. We see it not even as a divinatory practice, but as a practice that allows us to meaningfully connect with the essence behind the writing. The rearrangement of text, and the reading become an invocatory practice that shifts us into an experience of transmission from a variety of sources.

It always fascinates me with how people approach a given technique and end up using it in different ways than others do. It demonstrates, to me, that magic is much more of an experiential process than anything else. Different people will have different methodologies and perspectives on how a technique works and all of them will be right.

The Process of Magic is Going Live!

I'm very pleased to announce that my first correspondence course: The Process of Magic is now going live. The class will officially start May 16th. It is a correspondence course, which means that I'll send a lesson once a week. There a total of 24 lessons which explore magic as a process. A Full description of the class can be found here.

I previously offered a live version of this class and one of the attendees had the following to say about it:

By describing the process of magic(k) rituals, Taylor Ellwood taught me how to enhance my work. He taught me how to analyze and improve some rituals I had made, how to apply proved techniques to experimental rituals for internal magic and how pop culture can also be useful for creating pantheons more in relation to oneself. After this class my rituals have been really effective, and I started to think of magic as a means for transforming myself to get the best out of my environment. Highly recommendable class, I’m really happy I took it.

I'm currently offering this class for $80. You will get the following when you take this class:

• Access to forums where you can ask questions and learn with other students.
• Access to me, so that you can ask questions and get a response that is helpful.
• 24 written lessons sent out each week on Wednesday which includes exercises to help you develop and refine your process of magic.
• Homework to help you proactively apply the principles of this class to your magical practice and life.
• A Free E-book copy of Creating Magical Entities

If you’ve always wanted to develop your own personalized system for magical work or just wanted to understand how magic works and can be used to improve your life this class is for you. To sign up for this class contact me at magicalexperiments@yahoo.com.

I'm looking forward to sharing this class with any who take it. We'll be refining your magical practice, and examining what really makes magic work!

Meeting the author through writing

I can't say all writing does this for me, but I've had a few experiences in my life where I've felt that reading the books of a given author has put me in touch with that author directly, in a way that I'd think of as spiritual transmission of sorts. It's actually happened with four different authors, although I've only actually met one of those authors in the flesh. The first author it ever happened with was William S. Burroughs. He was dead by the time I read his books, but reading his books put me in touch with the Old Man on the Mountain. Burroughs was there in the text, ready to come forth if the right person read his works. It's no surprise to me that his work has influenced my own approaches to magic, both in terms of textual magic and design and in other forms of practical magic. Even though I never met him in person, my encounter with him via text was one I've never forgotten. He is always there, ready to be found in his writing.

The second author and the only one I've ever met is Storm Constantine. I read her Wraeththu series and while it was a fantasy series, it was one that nonetheless felt channeled. My encounter with the spirit of Thiede, who became a permanent part of my pantheon was a powerful one, and subsequent books in the series have continued to embody that. But I also got a sense of Storm the writer and when I contacted her via email there was an immediate connection between us that is sustained to this day in the work we do together via Immanion Press. It's fair to say that Storm is one of those people I needed to meet in order to move forward with my calling and spiritual process.

William G. Gray is another author who's spirit I've encountered via his books. It's fair to say that there has been something of a spiritual transmission, at least in terms of how I approach the process of magic. Gray, in his own writing, is very systematic in his description of magical processes and I've felt his presence as I've read the books. In discussions with several people who actually knew him, I've described his presence and they've indicated it was an accurate description of him. I don't feel his presence as much now, because I think I've gotten the gist of what he wanted me to know via his writing, but as with Burroughs I can still sense his presence when I read his works.

The last author is one I've recently started reading, and I'm not sure if it's so much a spiritual transmission from him or just the fact that I can pick up something of William Gray's influence in the writing. I haven't met R. J. Stewart at this point, but when I read his writing I feel a sense of familiarity with it, and with the systematic descriptions that he provides, and it turns out that at one time he did study under Gray. So with this one I'm less certain as to whether its really a spiritual transmission or just the fact that there is some resonance in the writing that reminds me of the spirit of an author I have encountered.

I've met many other occult writers and read their books and I've gotten a lot from their works, but this kind of intimate connection is something that has been rare for me to experience. Have any of you had such experiences?

Forum is now Live!

I'm pleased to announce that the Forum are now live on Magical Experiments. You can find it here. Please feel free to join the forum and discuss topics related to magical experimentation and practice. There are also forums for each of my books. Additionally you'll notice a class forum. Next week The Process of Magic class will be going live and if you take the class you'll get access to that forum. Join the forums and lets talk magic on them. I will check up on the forums on a regular basis, and I hope to get into many intriguing conversations with all of you!

I also want to give a shout-out to Cassie Bruce who patiently did the majority of work getting the forums set up. Having that kind f help is priceless.

Book Review: The Well of Light by R.J. Stewart

In this book R. J. Stewart explores in further depth his tradition and how to work with Faery Allies as well as why the work is done. Perhaps what's most unusual about this book is the emphasis on doing on spiritual work for the benefit of the planet, as much as for the self. R.J.'s writing is crisp and he defines and explains various magical processes in exact detail. Even if you don't follow his tradition (I don't) you'll get a lot out of the book, especially because it will prompt you to think about your relationship with the Earth as well as how you work with spirits.

Change and magic

Change is one of those understated elements of magic that is part of any and everyone's process. That's probably why its understated, because change of some kind or another is expected to occur when you do magical work. So why even focus on it?

I think it is worth focusing on, especially when we look at change in conjunction with results. Your result is the explicit indicator that change has occurred. Without a result you wouldn't really know if your magic worked. But change is more than just a result. Change is a transformation of the environment around you and within you.Respecting that aspect of the magical process is really important for understanding how magic work. There needs to be a change built into your process. Magic is a causative agent of change, and the employment of it is a signal that you want to bring change into your life. But its also worth noting that even though you might get a specific result, you might also get other changes that are connected to the result, but weren't necessarily desired. This occurs, not because of the magic, but because of a lack of specificity about the result, or because specific consequences are triggered when a specific result occurs.

Change is a constant in our lives. We change moment to moment, but intentional change is something a person chooses to create, and that's what makes magic distinct. It's a methodology used to to produce intentional changes. When we recognize that change is intentional, then perhaps we consider it more carefully, recognizing that what it brings isn't just a result, but also the consequences that come with that result.

Radio Interview

If you missed the interview on Stirring the Cauldron you can listen to it here. It was a good interview with some great questions.

Book Review: Rebounders by Rick Newman

In this book, Newman discusses the characteristics of the rebounder, a person who is able to take failure and turn it into success by learning from it. Newman uses over nine case studies to demonstrate how various people have rebounded from failures and mistakes to become successful in their fields, while highlighting the mental skills and tools that are necessary to accomplish this. I found the stories to be inspiring and useful for helping me see how I could become a better rebounder.

My Definition of Elementals

My recent post on Elementals generated some critiques from people who pushed for a more traditional model of elemental magic. I could appreciate where they were coming from, especially when they cited Quabalistic perspectives on the elements, but my definition of elementals is different and I thought it worthwhile to include that here.

When I define an elemental I define it as a representative of a primal force that effects all of us. It's something that defines us in some ways, even as we define it. There's a symbiotic relationship of sorts. So the four traditional elements certainly fit that definition, but when I look at the emotion of love I don't associate it with fire. That's an arbitrary association. So instead I associate the experience of love with the Element of Love. I associate the experience of emptiness with the Element of Emptiness.

It's just as arbitrary as associating emotions and behavioral characteristics with a traditional element. The difference, in my opinion, is that I'm treating those emotions as separate elements in their own right, so that I can develop a deeper relationship with them. This isn't to say that using a more traditional approach to elements doesn't work, because clearly it does, but rather to point out that there can be viable alternatives and that they work. It's all arbitrary in the end, because its all defined by people for their own purposes of categorizing and explaining something they are working with.

Book Review: The Little Book of Odes and Invocation by Auntie Matter

This is an enjoyable book with invocations that have been developed by the author and shared with readers. But perhaps the greatest I got from this book was the value of developing your own personalized invocations. When I read Invocation to Raise Power, it made me really pay attention to the words and how the author put everything together to raise power through the words and the phrasing. I highly recommend this booklet as something that will inspire your own invocations as well for what is offered in the invocations the author has written.

Do you Rebound or Wallow?

I'm reading Rebounders by Rick Newman. He offers some fascinating case studies about people who taken failure and used it to learn from their mistakes and become successful. He also divides people into two categories: Rebounders and Wallowers. It reminds of what I wrote about in Magical Identity, in regards to people who are professional victims versus people who choose to learn from tough circumstances and make changes accordingly. According to Newman "Rebounders know how to solve problems and overcome setbacks, often because they've done it before. So they tend to react with calm determination, and even a sense of humor...They'd rather solve problems then complain about them or blame someone else...They analyze their mistakes and learn from them, and change their mind when new information turns out to be better than old information.

Wallowers, by contrast, often do the opposite. They get rattled when something goes wrong, even something small, because they're not accustomed to solving their own problems. They complain or get indignant instead of simply trying to fix things. They spend a lot of time figuring out who to blame for a problem usually absolving themselves...they tend to be the people who get stuck in their careers and don't understand why, and who remained convinced that their tribulations are somebody else's fault"

The rebounder learns to take responsibility for him/herself and solves problems, while the wallower makes lots of excuses, blames everyone else, and acts passive aggressively when problems occur.

The magician is ideally a rebounder, instead of a wallower. Wallowing is a waste of time and effort. It's something the professional victim does, crying "poor me, Poor me." But what goes does that do? You might get some attention, but in the end the problem is still there, still present. The problem can only be solved when you take responsibility for it and determine a course of action to make a change. Whether that's magic, something, or a combination thereof, the point is that it's better to focus on solving the problem than just wallowing in it and letting it define your reality.

Act instead of reacting.

Speaking of Magical Identity, this Thursday I'll be interviewed on the Stirring the Cauldron radio show at 9pm EST and 6pm PST, where I'll be discussing my new book and ongoing projects and other fun magical topics.

Elemental Fire Balancing Ritual Month 6

3-28-12 A lot's happened in the last few days. Pagan Faire was last Saturday and I was pleased to feel no reactivity, and a feeling of being energized (due in part to the recent release of Magical Identity). I ran into someone who'd participated in some of my magical experimenter groups early on and it was good to catch up with her. It'd be good to have a larger group to work with now and that may work out, especially if I enhance it with a working to draw the right people to the mix. There's also been a dissolution of several internal blocks, and the realization of a sabotaging behavior that involved a tendency to pursue getting forgiveness over getting permission. I'm working on it currently, rewriting the behavior with new behavior that will ensure that I'm more team oriented, as it were. I've traced the previous behavior through most of my life and I can see how its created problems for me and for others.

Meditation on Fire has been interesting, both in terms of how fire illuminates and creates shadows. You can't treat fire as solely a creative or destructive force. It's both simultaneously. Working with it metaphysically involves a recognition of balance. Go too far in one direction and you end up finding yourself in the other direction. The creativity of fire feeds the destruction and vice versa. You've got to respect an element that is so primal and can embody contradictions in itself that aren't really contradictory so much as a warning: Be careful how you work with it...

3-29-12 I wrote this gem the other day: When you uncover a sabotage behavior, its a good idea to trace it back to its origins and imprint desired behavior on the original memory. Work your way through other memories, imprinting them with the new behavior as well. This will allow you to proactively change behaviors.

I've used this technique time and again to change behaviors that needed work and I'm using it right now with the beg for forgiveness behavior. It's odd how being uncomfortable can be such a motivator for change. The humiliation and shame a person feels burns away the illusions that otherwise create a comfortable lie. When you can't hide from your truth as it applies to how you act, there is a demand for change that is motivated by both external and internal circumstances. The external circumstances are the stimulus, and the internal circumstances is the spark that takes that stimulus and feeds it into the internal work that needs to be done to resolve the issue. I've always found discomfort to be an excellent motivator for change, which is why I've always embraced it. Yes it's uncomfortable but if it wasn't, would I need to change? I think you can measure how much a person is growing by how much discomfort is in his/her life, as well as what s/he is actively doing to address that discomfort. If there's no discomfort you're at a stable place and if there is discomfort there is a need for transformation and change.

4-5-12 Fire represents passion, but it can also represent action, movement, impulsiveness, and so much else. Fire can represent liberation, and yet also can entrap you. So much of fire is really just perception...all these words I associate with a primal force of life, buts it convenient to associate words, to assign values and meanings, to create metaphors that explain concepts and help people relate...or maybe just help me make sense of fire and all these emotions and words and associations I have with it. On one level its just an exercise that yields a kind of insular thinking that draws you inward and on another level it challenges you to apply a particular understanding and perspective to your life and your various patterns, habits, issues, oh my!

4-11-12 As I continue to unravel some patterns I've discovered I find that as always internal work is simultaneously the most freeing practice you can do and the hardest. Makes sense, because true freedom and the experience of it involves responsibility. Responsibility for your actions, your choices, but also for everything you recognize that you didn't see before. The people who play at meditation but shy away from doing the hard work are the ones who focus more on the labels they give themselves than on just doing the work and letting go of the labels.

4-12-12 In my Small Business Management course we ended up discussing the culture of a business as well as gatekeepers for the business. It proved relevant to a recent realization I've had about how I keep most people at a certain distance from me. I can't say I have many friends, let alone close friends. I have lots of acquaintances and a few people I genuinely I consider to be friends. Letting people in has always been a challenge for me. I'm very self-sufficient and independent, and while that can be good in some ways, its not so good when you realize that your business relies in part on being able to get to know people and in turn letting those people get to know you. It's a realization that's made me decide to push myself to be a bit more social with the people I network with.

4-16-12 Sometimes it surprises me how many people are following this blog or the Facebook page or whatever else I'm putting out there. It's nice to be recognized, and I guess that's a benefit of social media: It's much easier to be found and most of the time you're even found by friendly people. I'm looking forward to unveiling some new programs for people in the near future.

4-23-12 Act, don't react, because when you react you are responding to someone else and what they want to get out of you. That's a lesson fire can teach, because fire doesn't have to be reactive. It can be active, and usually prompts reaction on the part of people that deal with its effect on their lives.

Are pop culture entities real?

In a recent blog post Jason wrote about Post Chaos Magic (sounds like Post modernism) he argues that fictional or pop culture entities don't have the same effect as more traditional gods, demons, entities, etc. He notes the following:

Some chaos magicians have claimed that in the modern, largely secular world, a figure like Superman receives more collective belief than a pagan deity like Mars, thus making comic book or pop culture characters even more viable for magic than traditional gods and spirits. Even if we accept that it is belief, rather than the object of belief, that holds the power to magic, this thinking confuses attention with belief. Attention and belief are not the same thing, there is a different quality to the experience all around.

Now I want to first issue a caveat. I have not ever identified as a chaos magician. I've always identified as an experimental magician (which is its own path).  I mention that because in my book Pop Culture Magick I made similar arguments to what is mentioned above. I have, however, distinguished between attention and belief. In my book, I acknowledged that attention was not the same as belief and that while a pop culture entity might get lots of attention what made it an effective force was the actual belief the practitioner had in its existence and abilities. And not just belief in the entity for the course of a ritual, but actual, honest to goodness belief that lasts longer than a moment.

Back in the late 1990s I had the privilege of connecting with Storm Constantine, author of the Wraeththu series. We've continued our contact over the years (In fact I co-run Immanion Press with her). We both worked on the Dehara system, which is a system of magic based on contact with "fictional" entities from the Wraeththu series. As we developed this system, other people got involved and what stood out to me was that none of us treated the entities as fictional entities, but rather as genuine spirits we'd contacted. To this day I continue to work with the Dehara as do other people who've chosen to believe in them and form a relationship with them. The impact the Dehara have had on my life has been just as real as the impact my work with with the Goetia or other more traditional entities has been.

Jason rightly points out that one of the core issues of Chaos Magic (and for that matter some forms of ceremonial magic) is a tendency to treat spiritual entities as psychological extensions of ourselves. But to me what has always made pop culture magic a viable magic is the ability to genuinely believe and interact with entities that may not date back to Ancient Greek or Celtic cultures, but nonetheless have a real and viable presence, provided the magician is willing to explore that presence. I think that what has stopped many magicians from doing so is a combination of the psychological model of magic and embarrassment about considering the possibility of forming a spiritual relationship with a pop culture entity. After all the Pagan/occult community can be fairly harsh with those people deemed fluffy, as I can attest to from my own experiences. Yet as someone who unashamedly does work with pop culture entities from a spiritual perspective, all I can really say is: Such relationships really can be as effective provided you invest them in as equally as you expect the entity to.

I will note that there is a difference when you're working with a pop culture entity in a manner that is driven more by getting a specific result as opposed to forming an ongoing relationship with it. I've certainly done that kind of work as well and while useful it's not quite the same as when you develop an ongoing spiritual relationship with an entity.

Why the Categorization of Elementals is flawed

I'm reading The Well of Light by R. J. Stewart right now (amongst other things). He makes an interesting point when he argues that the categorization of elemental spirits into Earth, Air, fire, and Water (and spirit) isn't necessarily accurate. He points out the following:

If we think about Elementals as small components of 'pure' Air, Fire, Water, and Earth with some sort of limited consciousness, we are making them too abstract and too small...they are large conglomerate beings of one primary Element, but with the other three also present...elementals are perceived and encountered during a gathering of forces into undeniable, visible, tangible patterns: the forest fire, the volcanic interruption, the tornado, and the earthquake.

My own experience with the primary elementals has always been a recognition that to one degree or another the elements are interacting with each other. Think of a cloud in the sky. Sure there's Air, but there's also Water. But even leaving out the periodic table (which is a scientific analysis of the physical elements), I've never really been satisfied with the four or five elemental approach to magic. In the Strategic Sorcery course, Jason also discusses the elementals from the perspective of the five core elements and his approach to the elements is reminiscent of my early delving into hermeticism right down to the kings of the elementals. I've worked with them in the way Jason describes and I've also experienced them the way R. J. describes. In fact, my experience of elementals shifted to how R. J. describes them after my the working I did when I was eighteen where I exchanged some of my life essence for the life essence of the elemental spirits. And reading R. J.'s description made me appreciate that distinction he makes.

But as I said above, even the four or five elemental model never really worked. When I first started doing the elemental balancing work I realized that drawing on a traditional model for the elements was very limiting. An elemental force such as Gravity wasn't included, nor sound, nor even emotional forces that I'd consider elemental such as love or emptiness. So I started including them because I liked the concept of elemental spirits and could certainly attest to my own experiences with them, but I felt that there were more out there than what was readily available. I still hold to this perspective, so that even though I am working with Fire this year, I could just as easily be working with Gravity another year and find that it has much to offer from a spiritual perspective as what fire offers.

What do you think? Do you stick to a traditional perspective on elementals, or have you tried my approach and worked with an elemental that wasn't traditional?

Can spirits evolve?

In reading Mike's Blog as well as R J Stewart's books, one question that has come up for me is, Can spirits evolve? Mike seems to argue that spirits don't evolve and that the ethereal software they create is based off their understanding of the world and needs to be updated by people to understand contemporary concepts. R. J. Stewart discusses them in context of what they do and the sense that I get is that they might not evolve in a way that we understand, but that doesn't mean they don't evolve. That and applying a human centric perspective to the spirits is limiting because it is human centric.

My various experiences with the Goetia, elemental spirits, and even pop culture spirits is one that leads me to think that spirits are defined by function, but that the function can evolve. To argue that a spirit doesn't really understand modern day concepts could be accurate, but it might be even better to ask if it cares or if those concepts are relevant to its function. It might also be useful to ask how relevant humans are to its function?

When I've worked with Purson or Bune the experience I've had with them is one where they seem very up to date with the times. When I've worked with elemental spirits, that hasn't been the case from a human centric perspective, but the kind of information they provide me from an elemental perspective about technology and the environment suggests they have evolved as a result of changes brought about by people.

I think spirits can evolve, but that their evolution is defined by their function, and the domain that function operates in. I say that with a caveat, because I'm applying my own human centric perspective to this question, but based on my experiences I don't think of spirits as static or out of touch with the changing times and concepts...it just might be a question of what's really relevant.

Web of Time and Space Tattoo

On Tuesday I got my latest tattoo. It's an hourglass surrounded by a web and it represents the web of space and time, as well as being dedicated to the Spider Queen of Time, Purson, Thiede, and Elephant. I'd promised them and myself that when Magical Identity was published, I'd get this tattoo as a way to honor their contribution and as an affirmation of my work with space and time.

Shortly into getting the tattoo I felt the endorphins hit and I entered into a light altered state of consciousness, where I then evoked the aforementioned entities. My offering wasn't just the tattoo, but also the experience, and at the same time as I experienced it, they didn't just come for the offering, but also took me to the web of space/time and continued to instruct me in it, and in possible avenues to take it further. I'll just say for now a lot of it has to do with movement as a form of being, but it's given a me a lot of food for thought on how to take Magical Identity into new directions.

The Obsession with Banishments

Both Jason Miller and RJ Stewart discuss the obsession with banishment that is prevalent in Western Occultism. RJ notes that you can't really exclude anything from your circle as long as you have some trace of it or fear of it within you, which makes sense, because holding onto any such feeling is essentially an invitation in. I do banishing, but I don't do it as an everyday magical activity. There's a specific time and place for banishing and knowing what to banish is equally as important as when to banish.

For example, I have done banishing rituals for people I wanted to move on from in my life. They weren't in my life any more, but I was holding onto the memories, which wasn't healthy. In most cases, I was holding onto a lot of pain and anger toward those people and I didn't feel there was any other resolution. So the banishing served as a way for me to resolve those feelings and let go of the memories I was holding on to justify the feelings. Since doing the banishment I haven't really thought of those people or the memories.

When I clean my house, I use the cleaning activity as a banishment ritual, but in my daily work I want to connect with the various spiritual allies I work and since I've developed a relationship of trust with them its important to me that they are present in my space. They are as much a part of my life as anything else and to banish everyday would be to tell them they are not welcome.

Being Magic vs doing magic

I'm reading the Sphere of Art by R. J. Stewart. It's a fascinating book and I can see William Gray's influence in both the writing and in how Stewart explains the magical concepts he's working with. Initial experimentation with the technique, on my part, has built off of Gray's Omnil technique and the Sphere fits the Omnil technique like a well crafted glove fits a hand. There's a point that Stewart makes about magic which I really like because it hits on the difference between an ontological approach to magic and an approach that's focused on doing magic.

Most powerful magic involves not willing things to be but allowing them to be what they already are. This process of allowing is not easily understood, for if it is assessed by the mind alone, it creates a minor paradox. The mind has to be stilled, the will set at peace, within conditions of attuned energy. Not as a meditative process alone, for this merely preliminary training, but as a sacromagical process that uplifts our manifest creation into another octave of being. Only when we allow this do we discover that there is no paradox and that the other octave of being has always resonated and interleaved with our manifest nature.

My own work in Magical Identity involved learning how to let go of doing magic and focus on allowing situations, circumstances, etc.,  to be what they are, while aligning my ontological state of being to the desired state of being that I wanted to have access to. By taking such an approach and embodying the desired reality I learned how to enter into the right time and space that fit the desired state of being I wanted to access. So instead of trying to will something to change externally, I allowed myself to change to fit what I needed. It's a different approach to magic because its based on an internal approach to magic. This isn't to say that I've stopped creating sigils or entities or doing other forms of magical work, but the need to do that type of work has diminished by applying an ontological perspective to magic and myself.

An ontological approach to magic enables you to enter into a receptive awareness of possibilities that allows you to form a specialized state of being (sacromagical perhaps) with the desired possibility. This state of being initially involves emptying yourself of everything and then inviting into your magical space the specific possibility you want to manifest into your life. You become that possibility, and give yourself over to the expression of it, allowing it to express itself in your life and actions. Instead of trying to force it, you become the possibility, letting it guide your choices, until it is realized. It's not a passive approach to magic, but instead is an approach that involves shifting your entire state of being into the preferred space/time you want to embody.  It recognizes that magic is an integral part of your being as opposed to an activity you do.

The role of concepts in magical works

Another interesting post from Mike on the word concepts. The more I read about his system, the more I understand it both in terms of entity work and in terms of using language for magical purposes. He explains the following with concepts:

Communication is actually about concepts, not words. You wouldn’t have a problem sending the concept of “computer” to a modern Frenchman, but it would be incredibly difficult to send it to someone from the 1700s.

I think that's an accurate description of communication, as well as the limitations of communication, which is probably why I remove the Ethereal Software (What I'd describe as entities) out of the equation for the majority of my workings. I create entities on occasion and the process that Mike describes for ethereal software is similar enough that I'd call it entity work. He'll likely disagree, which is fine, but that's my interpretation of his concepts based on his descriptions of the processes he uses to work with ethereal software. And when I create an entity I program it. I define it both in terms of concept and words used to describe the content and when I need to fine tune the entity its usually for the same reason: It didn't get the concept and the language used to convey the concept was imprecise. Further programming and fine tuning is needed to make it perform up to specs. Or as I like to put it, a more specialized definition is needed in order to insure an accurate understanding of the task that needs to be performed.

In general, people use language to convey concepts to each other. Sometimes ala William S. Burroughs cutup technique they use language to disrupt or attack concepts, while creating new concepts. Language is a useful tool for magical work because it provides a structure of limitation that can be used to sharply define and explore concepts, and then re-present them to the magician and/or entity (ethereal software). You even see this utilized with sigils, which start out as words (in some techniques) and end up as symbols that nonetheless embody a concept. And you see it with symbols that aren't sigils but nonetheless are used to convey a concept.

Concepts are constructs. They present an initial framework that is used to convey the experience of the concept. Words define concepts, give form to the frame, ground it in ink and white space and verbalized sound waves. Manifestation takes words and turns them into actions performed to achieve outcomes. Outcomes turn into experiences and then concepts...the whole cycle starts again.

When I don't work with entities, when I do a magical working directly the experience is different. The conveyance of the concept is to the magic itself. It's a direct experience, no mediator required. Maybe the magic, in Mike's system is the meta ethereal software, the force that channels all the other forces. In my system, and in the various methodologies I've developed over the years, magic is reaching in and pulling out the possibilities and melding them with reality, melding them with my reality. So when I do a magical working and I'm not using language or entities, but instead I am using movement or meditation or some other process less overt when it comes to communication the focus is on embodying the concept, making it a part of me, of reality as it is mediated and experienced through me. Actually even my approach to word magic is really about embodiment. No doubt a result of Burroughs influence, because the cutup method is really about disrupting the message while imprinting your message into the body of the word so that the word embodies your concept. The embodied experience of being as opposed to doing...doing is an echo of being, a way to move through the motions, but not really letting the motions move you to the space you want to reach. When you become the motions, embody them, you let them move you to the conceptual space and time you want to occupy. You become that space and time and in doing so you allow yourself to fully be present with a manifested result that is as much an extension of you as it is an effect on the environment around you.