Two purposes for utilizing magic

"Magick is by one definition, if you will, the science of making things happen according to your desires in order to maximize control over one's life and immediate environment to create a universe that is perfecting in its kindness to you" - Genesis P-orridge

The definition I've used above is a good one for describing one of the purposes that magic is used for. Indeed its fair to say that its descriptive of how most magicians approach magic. But it's not the only purpose. What should be clear however is that magic is a process of turning possibilities into reality, when this kind of definition is used. This kind of definition focuses on thaumaturgical or practical magic. The purpose of this kind of magic is to create practical solutions for a person's life, or to create a universe that is perfecting in its kindness towards you. How this occurs is through turning possibilities into reality, but to do that, there also needs to be an awareness as to how likely a possibility could become reality. The more likely a possibility can become reality, the easier it is to manifest that possibility through magic. The more unlikely, the more energy required. Thus one of the reasons the wise magician marries mundane efforts to magical efforts to realize a practical goal. For example, if you want to use magic to find a job, you still have to go out and fill out applications, submit resumes, and get interviewed. The magic doesn't work in the absence of those activities. It enhances those activities and more specifically the favorable and desired outcome that results due to doing those activities. It's stacking the odds in your favor. If you don't do the mundane activities, it becomes harder to manifest the desired possibility. Many people, when realizing that magic works this way, seem surprised because they have believed in magic as a kind of wave of the wand and everything appears. The reality is that magic is a process that interfaces with other processes. When you utilize magic you are accessing possibilities and discovering what it will take not only magically, but alos mundanely to make it all happen.

Turning possibility into reality involves clearly understanding what the desired result is, as well as understanding how it will apply to your life. In my previous post I mentioned that many people take a reactive approach to utilizing practical magic, which means they'll employ it when they need to solve a problem. The proactive approach involves utilizing magic to make your life easier, but this also means doing a fair amount of internal work to understand and work with your issues. I think its fair to say that there will always be some reactive use to magic, but if a magician can make the practical work be more proactive, s/he will find it much easier to manifest and keep desired results.

There is also theurgical magic, magic done for spiritual work. This type of magic differs from practical magic because the focus is not on obtaining practical results, but instead is focused on spiritual communion and the evolution of the magician. Theurgical work involves the attunement of the magician to spiritual energies and forces. It can also involve doing work for your community or environment that isn't necessarily for the benefit of yourself (as occurs in practical magic), but instead is part of the mission of your theurgical work. A fair amount of theurgical work is also internal work, in the sense that the magician needs to understand him/herself well enough to not sabotage the theurgical work s/he is doing. Know thyself magician is a fundamental understanding of the necessity of self-awareness as it applies to the spiritual evolution of the magician and his/her spiritual mission.

Practical and spiritual magic can and do sometimes blend together, but in general I'd say they tend to be different focuses and paths. I'm more of a practical magician, with the majority of my work and experiments focused on obtaining results, but there is some work that is more theurgical in nature. Both purposes are equally valid forms of magical practice. Magic is less about the fantastic and much more about living life on your own terms. When you realize this, you also realize that living life on your terms is actually quite fantastic, not only in terms of joy, but also the recognition that many people do not live life on their own terms.

Book Review: The Psychick Bible by Genesis P-orridge

In this book you'll find a collection of TOPY essays including the Grey Book and other materials not previously published publicly, as well several previously published essays that are fascinating in terms of the biographical information provided, and also a one-sided perspective on Genesis and TOPY's falling out. I enjoyed reading this book a lot, and found the various texts to be informative and useful as it applies to my own magical work, especially as applied to the cut-up methodology and its application to magical work. It was also fascinating to learn more about the history of TOPY, albeit through a filtered perspective. I also enjoyed the essays on pandrogeny. I consider this a historical text that any magician, particularly those in chaos magic, might want to pick up. It demonstrates as well some of the issues that can arise in any magical organization.

Two Popular Misconceptions about Magic

"Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." -Roald Dahl, 1990

There are two popular misconceptions about the practice of magic that occur, which can hinder useful inquiry and understanding of magical work. One popular misconception is special effects magic, the type seen on TV shows, video games, and movies, comics, and fantasy books. For example, Darth Vader using telekinesis to crush the throat of someone, or a sorcerer changing into a serpent or throwing a fireball, etc. The second misconception is a belief that magic will solve all your problems, or as I call it the cure all approach. These popular misconceptions can obsfucate what genuine magical work is about, and typically are sought after because a person desires a sense of power in his/her life.

Special effects magic looks impressive. Who wouldn't find it thrilling to throw a fireball or change their physical shape, or do something else equally impressive? I've yet to meet a magician who can perform special effects magic (without using special effects). If there were such people, I suspect the world would be a different place, though I can't help wondering how such power wouldn't be abused or worse end up like a comic book formula of endless battles and trite commentary. There's also the principle of limitation to consider, specifically the understanding that force needs to be limited in order for form to be realized. In magical work, the achievement of form occurs when force is limited. Additionally, it is understood that when you work with magical energies you can only raise so much of that energy before you hit a limit, and/or have that limit imposed by the forces you are working with. Thus throwing a fireball, which would require a lot of force is not something that will be easily performed. In fact, when you account for the amount of energy needed to generate a fire ball, plus the amount of protection needed by the practitioner while handling said fireball, what you end up realizing is that it's not a very practical working. And if you mess it up, you'll either internally combust or burn your hands or do something else equally messy. The same applies to shape shifting and telekinetically handling objects or crushing people's throats. The physical demands, plus the amount of energy that needs to be raised to perform either feat is not something that is physically or magically possible. Special effects magic looks impressive and thrills lots of people, but a practical approach to magic acknowledges that the main focus of magic isn't to necessarily generate such physical demonstrations and also notes that such demonstrations may end up being more of a waste of energy than anything else.

Then we have the cure all misconception, which focuses on the idea that magic will solve all your problems. The sad fact is that while magic can be used to solve problems, most times its used in that way, it is done so as a reaction and usually what is solved the symptom, but not the underlying issues that need to be examined by the magician. A proactive approach to utilizing magic to solve problems generally involves a fair amount of internal work and a willingness to own your dysfunctions and make changes that resolve those issues, with the understanding that such changes will also improve your life, and surprisingly enough decrease the number of times magic is needed to solve a problem.

There's also the fact that sometimes magic complicates issues more than it cures or resolves them. It shouldn't be surprising that many magicians end up complicating their lives when using magic to solve a problem. The problem might be solved, but not in the way they expected, and it may bring out underlying issues that need to be addressed (thus the need for internal work). A person who believes magic will solve all their problems needs to examine the level of responsibility they are willing to take to have those problems solved, because that level of responsibility is exactly what you'll be dealing with when you utilize magic as a cure all. There is no force that can solve your problems for you, better than your own ability to take responsibility and deal with the problems head on. It can be hard work, but it is good work as well.

In my next post, I'll discuss two purposes magic is used for as well as provide some commentary on what it means when a magician turns a possibility into reality.

Book Review: A Spiritual Worker's Spell Book by Draja Mickaharic

This book, like Draja's others books, is interesting because it provides a variety of spells a person can do as well as case studies of how people have used the spells. I've already tried a couple to good effect and it'll definitely be a useful book to have, especially because I represents the work of an old school magician. My only complaint is that I'd have liked more information about the underlying magical process. Much like other authors who put together spell books, Draja doesn't really explain the underlying mechanics. the few times he does offer some explanation about the process, it proves to be quite fascinating. I highly recommend it as an interesting book on a variety of topics.

Do the tools define your practice?

Recently I asked people if they thought components such as herbs or candles were necessary to work magic. This question was prompted by reading some of Draja Mickaharic's work. He offers a variety of spells in his various books and all of them inevitably have some physical component. The responses I got mostly agreed with my own perspective, in that they weren't absolutely necessary to work magic, but sometimes using them was more useful than not using them, and just as importantly, it was good to be able to improvise, up to and including not using the usual tools. All seemed to agree that the various tools aided in the focus and concentration needed for working with magic. However all the responses did get me thinking about whether or not the tools defined the practice of the magician. One person offered a quote that the tools don't make the blacksmith, but rather the blacksmith makes the tools, and in thinking about and applying that perspective to magical work, the same principle applies. The magician makes the tools, and what that ultimately means is that the magician decides what tool is significant and why and most importantly s/he realizes that what empowers the tool is not anything necessarily inherent to the tool, so much as the meaning and connection that the tool represents. One person pointed out that as he worked with a specific type of tool, it helped him align with the energies he was seeking to connect with, and consequently brought about changes within himself that aligned with the forces he was working with. Another person shared an example of how using tools allowed a member of her family to connect with spiritual entities that in turn helped him heal the person sharing the example.

To some extent tools do define the practice in terms of what they enable or allow a person to do, but first they are defined by the person, specifically in terms of the actual function they serve in order to focus the person and/or represent a connection with something else that can help them. This recognition however is useful on an improvisational level, because it allows the magician to adapt an item in his/her immediate environment into a tool for use in magical work. Chaos magicians have demonstrated that principle a number of times, as has anyone else that had to improvise on the fly in order to pull off a magical ritual. In the end, our tools can be as flexible as ourselves, provided we have the right mindset when using them.

A Wealth Magic Myth

I'm reading Draja Mickaharic's A Spiritual Worker's Spellbook. He offers an interesting explanation called the sphere of availability:

This principle relates directly to the amount of economic support that the universe is willing to provide any particular individual at any given time in their life. The sphere of availability for each person is variable, in that it may either expand or contract by the thoughts, actions, and beliefs of the person themselves. The more sincerely grateful that a person is, and the more truly charitable they are, the greater this sphere of availability becomes. On the other hand, the more greedy that a person is for material things, and the more they turn from properly relating to their fellow man in a charitable way, the more their sphere of availability contracts.

He goes onto argue that anonymously giving out small sums is more spiritually productive than giving out large sums to charities. It's a nice sentiment, but I'm not convinced of it, much as I'm not convinced of the new age law of attraction, which is a similar derivative of what's mentioned above. Speaking as a business owner I can say that the majority of people I've met who are financially successful are very focused on making money. They have developed a relationship to money that makes them very comfortable with asking for what they feel is their due. At the same time, I can't say that these people are charitable in the way Draja suggests a person should be. They are willing to make donations to charitable causes, partially because they believe in the charitable cause and partially because they know they can get a tax deduction and being financially aware entrepreneurs they plan accordingly. Anonymous donations aren't really what they do, and they'd likely argue that however spiritually productive it might be to donate the way Draja does, it wouldn't be as beneficial in their minds to society or to themselves.

The majority of magicians I know aren't wealthy. Most of them don't care to be wealthy and that's fine, but if you are serious about being wealthy you've got to be willing to devote time to learning about money and wealth and this includes learning how money works in the system it exists in. Money, in and of itself isn't bad and neither is learning how money works. I tend to think of concepts such as the sphere of availability and law of attraction as wishful thinking for the most part. It's nice to wishfully think of what it would feel like if you had more money, but if you aren't willing to earn it or work the system you are in, that wishful thinking won't get you far.

Of course it is important to be aware of your attitude about money. The truth is that people are adept at sabotaging themselves with limiting beliefs about money. And working on those limiting beliefs can be very helpful because it allows you to approach your relationship with money with a perspective that is unburdened by limiting beliefs learned from your family and environment, or at least to be aware of those beliefs. But truly working with money on a practical and/or spiritual level involves understanding how money works, the way it moves and prefers to move, as well as how people who are successful with money work with it and use it.

Draja's principle of the sphere of availability is an interesting principle and he rightly notes that people who have an entitled perspective that money should just come to them won't get very far, and will in fact find themselves in hard circumstances fairly quickly, but giving all your money away anonymously doesn't suddenly make you more receptive to money. Donating it to a charitable cause allows you to take a deduction, while working the system that money operates in. And I'd argue that there is spiritual productivity in choosing a charity and making a donation to support a cause you genuinely believe in. You are helping to advance that cause by giving of your own efforts to support it. Granted there are people who choose to donate money mainly for the tax break, and in that case, I think it isn't spiritually productive, but the majority of people who choose to donate are likely doing it because they genuinely believe in the cause they are supporting. They know they'll get a tax deduction, but the deduction isn't the motivating factor. The motivating factor is to contribute something of their effort to a cause that is believed in, while letting their money move, which is ultimately what money as a force prefers.

The Role of Proof in Magic

Every so often, as a practitioner of magic, I'll encounter someone who wants me to prove that magic exists. They want me to demonstrate an act of magic on the spot or something else along those lines. My typical response is to blow them off. I figure that what they are really looking for is a way to disprove magic. I doubt anything that I could show them would really sway their opinion one way or another. In my experience, when a person says prove it, what they are really saying is: "I already know the truth and no matter what you say or show me, I'll find a way to disbelieve it." And chances are that person will do just that, at least subjectively. What they really want to do is confirm to themselves that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They have a deep seated insecurity within themselves and likely a lot of anger at the world as well. There is also the question as to what constitutes proof and how you measure proof. What some people perceive as magic others will perceive as happenstance. For example, I have evoked two different people into my life: my ex-wife and current wife. In the case of my ex-wife, I created a collage in January of 2005. This collage was created to bring a magical partner into my life. This collage even contained a picture of her (Bear in mind I had not met her at this point and didn't know what she looked like). All the sayings I clipped out and pasted into the collage were directly relevant to her life. We met in July, sometime after the collage had been created, but I recognized her instantly from the collage. I even gave it to her. We both felt at the time that something clicked into place when we met, and obviously it did, at least for a period of time. To me, that was proof that magic worked. I created a collage as a magical working with a picture of a person I hadn't met and didn't know and later that person and I were significantly involved with each other's lives. A skeptic might argue that it's not proof. After all I didn't meet her right after I created the collage. It might even be argued that it was sheer coincidence that I clipped a picture of my ex-wife and put it on the collage and that her seeing it on the collage must surely have contributed to her feelings (if anything it freaked both of us out just a bit). And that kind of response illustrates the subjective nature of proof. I think any magician reading this would conclude that what happened with my ex-wife and I was definite proof of magic working, but someone not practicing magic would argue it was coincidental.

However, I replicated this process. In October of 2009, right after I finished the year long emptiness working, I created another collage with the purpose of using it to evoke a magical partner into my life. It didn't include a picture of the future person, but it did include all the traits I was looking for in a partner. In February of 2010, I met my wife. We met at a convention and briefly talked. I honestly didn't expect to hear from her and was surprised when I did, after the convention. We started emailing each other and getting to know each other and quickly found we had a lot in common. What I noticed is that she fit all the traits I was looking for in my magical partner that I had put in the collage. Once again the collage evocation magic worked and here was my proof. But again, a skeptic might argue that it was coincidence that this person came into my life or that I subjectively assumed a connection between the collage and this person. What I perceive as proof, a skeptic will argue is not proof. And thus we have the trap of the prove it crowd, because such people will take any claim of proof and try and disprove it to suit their own ends. They aren't interested in proof. They are interested in being right and proving that everyone else is wrong.

As an interesting aside, in the case of both my ex-wife and my wife, I met them within a month after my previous relationship had ended. Coincidence? Possibly, but I think of it as timing, specifically the magic bringing together the right time and space for the possibility of meeting a magical partner, with the recognition that a previous relationship was over and would not be an obstacle to that realization. Magic is a process that involves the right timing and space for a possibility to occur. Thus what seems to be coincidence is anything but. It would be interesting to see if there is a higher rate of "coincidences" for magicians than other people.

I recognize that for the magician there needs to be some realization of magical work, or otherwise the person wouldn't continue to practice magic. This is why there is so much discussion about results. Results are how we measure and track the magical work we are doing. A result indicates what is working or not working within your magical process. But there is also a recognition that you have to actually engage in the process and realize that it can take some time for the result to manifest. Rarely does a result manifest right away. While reality is permeable to some degree, bringing a possibility into reality involves setting up the right conditions for reality to accept the possibility as reality. That's what the process of magic does...and all those things that seem coincidental are really signs indicative that the magical work is occurring.

I can't conjure a fireball up and I have yet to levitate (and I'm not sure why I would want to anyway). I can't telekinetically move something with my mind. That's not how magic works. But what I can do with magic is make my life easier. I can turn possibilities into reality. I live life by my rules, make a living doing what I love, live with a partner who I love, and continue to improve my circumstances. Some of that is through mundane efforts and some of it is through magical efforts. Some will argue that I delude myself and others by my belief in magic. I'd argue in return that they choose to settle for a lesser existence. If I am deluded, at least I am happy in my delusion and that seems to be much better than settling for less from life!

Finally, I say if you want proof of magic, dedicate 5 years of your life to practicing magic, learning about it, doing it etc. That should give you enough time to figure out whether its real or not and provide you the proof you so desperately require. And if you are unwilling to obtain that proof through your own efforts, then that speaks to your laziness and lack of discipline. Don't demand of others what you are unwilling to do! Whatever proof you find or don't find...that will verify your perspective...just don't expect me to jump on your band wagon. I know magic works and I'm happy with how it works in my life!

Names and magic

The role of names in magic fascinates me. Even in the Bible, names had a magical power, being used to label everything in existence. For humans, names assume a kind of power, especially in terms of how we use them to understand what is around us. A physical location is named to differentiate it from another location and in that differentiation is an understanding that there is in fact something different. In a sense, names draw out what is distinct and different for us, so that we can situate it in our consciousness and our experience as something distinct that we can work with.

This isn't to say there aren't other ways to discover this difference, but names play such a powerful role that we end up using them even in describing those other ways of realizing the differences. And that's my point: Names have a way of shaping our perceptions and descriptions of what we work with. They are an essential tool of magical practice. We use names for calling entities, use names to describe places we've worked with...they are embedded in how we describe reality.

What make them important to magical work is how we use them, not just in term of describing or labeling something, but also using them to attune ourselves to the specific entities, places, etc., that we want to work with. I think of names as being like tuning forks. You say a name, you vibrate the name and you've set off the tuning fork and sent out a call to whatever it you'll connect with.

Book Review: Arcana V: Music, Magic, and Mysticism Edited by John Zorn

Like most anthologies out there, this anthology has a mix of interesting essays and essays that leave the reader (well this reader) wondering how they got accepted into the anthology. I'll admit that I found the premise of this anthology interesting, i.e. the intersection of music, magic, and mysticism, and some of the essays lived up to what I was looking for, but a fair amount of them didn't. I would've liked to have seen more essays on practical applications of music and magic. The ones in the book were excellent and intrigued me. I did appreciate some of the mystical leaning essays, but with some of the essays it seemed like nothing so much as a rant by the authors about whatever they were discussing, and not all of it readily focused on anything that was mystical or magical. I'd recommend this anthology with the caveat that you'll find some diamonds and the rest may not appeal as much as you'd hope.

Limitation and how to work around it

I've been thinking about this post I wrote recently on limitation, especially in conjunction with my evocation practices. My approach to evocation, whether its evoking an entity or a specific type of energy, involves the use of a painting or drawing as a gateway. The act of creating the drawing or painting is the initial evocation of the entity, usually finalized with a consecration of some sort.

However, once the drawing or painting is created, the evocation portal is also created. Nothing else needs to be done, save to make sure you close it when not evoking the entity or energy in question. The entire point of it is to remove a lot of effort out of the equation, by making it simple to access to the entity or energy in question when needed, whether in a strict evocation, or to enhance a magical working being done at the time. But it occurs to me that this is also a way around limitation, as R. J. Stewart discussed it. Specifically if the spirits you work with are going to limit how much you can draw on, why not instead create a way to tap into the power current when you need it, where you have a consistent flow of energy or access to enhance or power up your magical workings? You won't necessarily move beyond the limitations imposed, but instead of having to do a lot of work each time, cut down on the effort involved and get the same return you'd have gotten before. It seems like a short cut, but my reason for creating such an approach to evocation was to make it easy to access whatever it was I wanted to work with. I figure if such an entity is willing to work with me, I have its blessing to make that process easier for both of us.

This also depends on whether or not you accept that such limitations occur when you evoke or invoke an entity. Personally I'm inclined to believe in those limitations as my own experiences suggest just that. For example invoking an entity to do a full on possession of the body takes up a lot of energy, and not just for myself but also the entity. At a certain point there is a strain for the entity as well because it is placing itself in a foreign environment that its not necessarily suited to. An evocation portal provides a different level of interaction and one that's not as demanding on either side of the equation. The limitation may still be there, but it'll take longer to come up against, which can be useful for prolonged magical workings. It comes down to being aware of a limitation and the figuring out how to bend it, to make it work for you, instead of against you.

Book Review: The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty by Dan Ariely

This was an intriguing and occasionally amusing book about the behavior of dishonesty and how dishonest people are in general. The author provided a variety of experiments and show cases where he demonstrated that there is some degree of dishonest in most people's behavior, though not so much that everyone is a thief or a crook. A lot of dishonesty ends up being based partially on altruism and in general people don't always weigh the benefit of being dishonest, so much as decide to do so for less rational reasons. It's a book I'd recommend anyone read to better understand the role of dishonesty in our lives, and how it shows up in our own behaviors as well as the behavior of people around us. It can also be useful as a way of looking at dishonesty on the level of an organization and business, though the author doesn't offer too much in the ways of solutions for handling dishonesty, so much as demonstrating its presence in our lives.

Planetary magic update

The drawing you see in this post is for Jupiter. You can see all the drawings I've done thus far on my Facebook page. At the time of this writing I still have a few more drawings to complete. I chose to use colored pencils as opposed to water color paints, just to try a different medium out, instead of the same old, same old. In each case, what I chose to do was first look at the sigil I'd been given and use it to invoke the planetary energy into me. Then I started drawing letting the planetary energy guide my hands in the drawing. As you'll likely note the drawings aren't overly complex, nor are they meant to be. They are meant to act as gateways for the planetary energy, and represent the movement of that energy as I worked with it.

My next step is to place each gateway at appropriate places in my house, to capitalize on and direct the planetary energy toward specific areas of life that the drawings would be related to.

The value of limitation in magic

The first time I encountered the principle of limitation it was in The Cube of Space by Kevin Townley, where he discussed a little known quabalistic glyph and the principle of limitation as it applied to magical work. Recently, in reading R. J. Stewart's The Sphere of Art 2, he also discusses the role of limitation in magic:

Only when we understand how protected, how beneficially limited we are, in our sacromagical work, can we begin to be truly effective. In the classical magical worldview, such wise limitation is often associated with the North, the cosmic Laws of Being the element of Earth. Such limitations associated with Earth require that to take form we must limit force.

It's a point well made that often isn't as appreciated as it could be. Limitation has value as a principle precisely because the movement from potential into reality involves the focus of force into the creation of form. Magic isn't about tossing fireballs or levitating. It's about the focus of force to create measurable results or changes within a person's life, but even change is limited to some degree by the physicality in which it is expressed in.

The realm of ideas is also the realm of endless possibilities or chaos. Nothing is true and everything is permitted, but without limitation all that exists is endless potential. The change from possibility to reality involves some form of limitation. This is why a magical working is really a descriptor and definer of the possibility being brought into reality. In other words, a magical working in and of itself limits the expression of possibility into specific results. The benefit of this is that you achieve a specific result that can be applied to your life, other people's lives etc. The more improbable your possibility, the harder it is to bring into reality, for the simple fact is that it requires more "energy" to overcome the distinct limitations that we deal with on a practical level. At a certain point the exertion of so much "energy" becomes more and more impractical.

Limitation provides an awareness of boundaries, but also provides the magician something to strive for, in terms of bending the rules. While force must be limited in order to manifest form, drawing on force is necessary to create form. Potential doesn't become reality unless force is applied to potential. The realization of form, or the result, is due to the application of force to potential, shaping it, defining it, limiting it, and thus creating form. Force is needed to create form, but the application of force necessarily is a fixation on a specific form or result.

Limitation, in and of itself, is a form of force, in the sense that the limits we encounter actually serve to create possibilities that we can interact with. Sheer potential, which has no limitation, can't really be worked with, until some form of limitation is imposed on it. A blank sheet of paper is raw potential, but once you draw a line, you've limited the potential and started to create the form. The limitation of potential still creates possibilities, but those possibilities are defined by the limitation, and have a relationship with it. The exploration of that relationship is what allows a magician to discover possibilities and begin to move them from potential into reality via magic.

Book Review: The Scientific American Healthy Aging Brain by Judith Horstman

This was a fascinating book to read because of the information it provides on the brain in general, as well as what occurs as your brain ages. The author provided useful advice for keeping your brain sharp as you age and reducing the risks of Alzheimers and Dementia, as well as explaining what types of activity keep the brain stimulated. What I enjoyed the most was how the information was presented without a lot of technical terms or jargon. Anyone could pick this book up and learn a wealth of information about the brain and how it works as well as how aging effects it.

How I came to Wealth Magic

Jason wrote a recent post about how he got involved in Financial Sorcery. I'm getting his new book (called Financial Sorcery) soon, and looking forward to it, but it got me thinking about how I got involved in wealth magic as well. It happened shortly after my birthday in 2006. I had shifted my elemental focus to the element of Earth and one day while at a bookstore I was prompted by my spirit guide to pick up rich dad, poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Up until that time I'd had a mediocre relationship with money. I knew how to handle it and make it work for me, but I had no long term plans and no idea what to do with it, beyond using it for everyday expenses. My spirit guide told me that part of grounding myself involved learning solid financial skills.

Reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad didn't provide me with a font of practical financial tips, but it opened my eyes to my poor financial attitudes and helped me recognize that the mindset I had about money and finances wasn't a healthy one. I started picking up more books on finances including You have more than you think, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, and Your Money or Your Life. Some of the books had practical financial advice and some were more about the emotional attitudes and beliefs regarding finances. All of them were useful and helped me change my relationship with money. I started planning a financial future.

In mid 2007, I moved to Portland. I used wealth magic to land me a tech writing contract at Nike. At the same time, I could see that tech writing was a dead end, so I began planning my exit out of the field by getting certified as a coach. I moved from contract to contract until I worked for a telecom company, based in Florida (even though I was in Portland). I also started my coaching practice and I kept reading about finances, and started learning about investments in particular. In August of 2008, I left my latest tech writing contract, and started searching for another tech writing job, but the economy collapsed in September and I found myself with no job postings. In retrospect, I might not have quit that job. However we did have emergency savings and so I focused on my coaching business.

I have to admit that 2009 and 2010 were lean years. Business was slow and I made mistakes, which happens with any business owner. Still I learned a lot and gradually business improved. In 2011, I decided to do some wealth magic for my business, even started working with Bune as a patron of my business, and he pushed me to read more books on businesses, even as he opened up some business opportunities for me, and helped me see that a rebranding of my coaching business was in order, as well as helping me to see how I could monetize Magical Experiments.

I think what I've learned the most is how important it is to be financially literate so you can make sound financial decisions. I find myself fortunate enough to be in a situation where I can work on my own schedule, and work on each of my businesses with the support of a partner who believes in me completely and recognizes how hard I work. And wealth magic has played a role in all of this, in terms of educating me, but also providing opportunities for growth in my respective businesses and my life.

Like Jason, I'm not necessarily out to be a millionaire or billionaire. I am out to live my life on my own terms, and I'm well on track for doing that, but it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't started learning about finances and recognized something essential: There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to make money or be prosperous, or apply your spirituality toward your practical well being.

Respect and magical entities

In a recent post, Mike asked what people's experiences with the Goetia were like. I found the responses interesting, because most people described having problematic encounters with them. I've never had any of the problems the people mentioned in my own encounters with the goetia, but it likely helps that I've never done traditional evocation with them either, where you command them to appear and threaten and coerce them into working for you. In fact, I've never really understood the appeal of doing such evocations and have always focused on a more cooperative approach to any magical entity I work with (whether goetic demon or something else). I'd rather establish a relationship of respect and mutual benefit with the entities I work with. Consequently I've never experience any of the problems mentioned in the comments on Mike's post. If anything, I've had an excellent track record with the entities I work with. I've given them what they wanted and they've given me what I wanted. Everyone's happy.

Respect goes a long way, with people, animals, and magical entities. Instead of doing a traditional evocation, why not take a more respectful approach? Instead of being adversaries, why not work toward each other's benefit? And if nothing else why not critically question the cultural and historical beliefs that inform such an adversarial relationship?

Why I like to work with the Goetia (and other spirits)

In a recent blog post, Jason Miller argued that one of the things we need to the gravity of is the goetia. His point is that working with goetia has defined how people work with spirits and that it can become an obstacle to discovering your magical path. I agree with him, but in thinking about it, I realized that one of the reasons I like to work with the goetia and other established spirits sometimes is that they may not be the most powerful entities out there, but they are convenient to work with, in the sense that people do know about them and have some awareness of what expectations are involved.

But with that said, I think its important to expand your horizons. I do work with Bune, but I also work with Dragon. I have worked with Purson, but I've also worked with other time and space related entities. I've worked with the classic elemental spirits, and I've also chosen to explore the possibility of working with other elements.

There's value in going with what's tried and true, but there is something to be said for leaving the convenient behind and seeing what other spirits are out there. Thus lately I've been working with the planets, both in terms of contacting the archangels, but also working with the spirits of the planets in and of themselves. But you could just as easily work with Franz Bardon's lists of spirits, or with spirits from other grimoires.

At the same time having hopped on the Bune band wagon myself, I can say that choosing to work with him has been useful because he's getting so much notice. If everyone's working with him, there's probably a reason for that.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Fire Month 8

6-8-12 Usually by now I've written some entries in this kind of post, but this last month has been simultaneously busy and uninspiring. The experience of burn out, when the fire can't stay lit and there's no ready source of fuel to keep it burning. I don't know if I've hit that, but there is a sense of tiredness lately. I guess that's what happens when you revamp your businesses and your identity...you hit a point where you need to take a rest. Good thing I'm actually going to do that later this month. I have a habit of pushing myself hard...part of it is having so many ideas in my head, with thoughts continuing to just go, go, go, go. I want to catch up with myself, get all of those ideas on to paper or into reality. Part of it is filling up the time, filling up the space, doing something, anything...and as much as I've got the meditation schtick down, there's still the reality that sometimes all I want to do is fill the emptiness up, escape from it...do something with it. Being creative allows me to do something, move in a direction, make something happen. Sometimes that's all I've got. 6-15-12 I played golf for the first time ever Wednesday at a business event. Not something I'd imagine doing, not the least because in some ways it served to remind me of the awkwardness I have with social situations. I had fun with it, both the golfing and the interaction, but it took a while to get into it. I'm a very cerebral person, which can be good in terms of the projects I'm working on, but less so in social situations. I've always envied people who seem to mesh well with social situations. Any social skills I've learned have been ones I've had to observe many times over. Still that awkwardness hasn't stopped me and I know if I'm invited to another golfing event, I'll go because its an opportunity to connect with people. Besides pushing out from the comfort zone is the only way you grow.

In reflection about what I wrote about a week ago, I think what it really boils down to is an awareness that if you've been broken, no matter how much you heal there is still something of that broken part in you. My emptiness is that indicator of those past experiences. You can heal, try and find closure, move past them get over them...but still they are there. They don't go away.

6-16-12 Nostalgia is an interest of mine. Playing a video game that I haven't played in years has evoked memories of nostalgia, of my days in the ph.d program at Kent State. The right stimulus can bring the past into vivid color...much like telling a story around a fire. Atmosphere creates the story as much as the words do. A game can have a life associated with it, or at least moments of life that come back to represent where you've been and where you could go.

6-24-12 Amazing what a few days away from everything can do, in terms of breaking writer's block and bringing clarity to the creative process. This month's been about burnout...so lets see what next month brings.

In with the new, out with the old

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I don't subscribe much to tradition or sticking with classical approaches to magic, just because everyone else has done them ad infinitum. At a certain point, a lot of my skepticism boils down to the fact that we're relying on outdated information or wishing to be part of ancient culture so we don't have to deal with the ugly reality in front of us.

A while back I mentioned that I don't use the classical model of the five elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit. It's an outdated information and categorization based off Aristotle's observation of the world around him, some 2,500 years ago. It worked for him then. It even worked for a while after that. Now its outdated. People can still use it and obviously they do, but why not change it up? What is it we are really holding on to?

The majority of resistance I've encountered has usually boiled down to: Don't change what's already there. It works and all you're doing is reinventing the wheel. And maybe they are right. Maybe I am reinventing the wheel by not sticking with what's tried and true. But my resistance to what's tried and true is why settle for the wheel you've been provided. Why not upgrade it? Why not experiment with it?

R.J. Stewart says the following in Sphere of Art 2:

While our huge spiritual and magical revival, from the late 19th century to the present day has liberated many from the suppressive tyranny of authoritarian religion, it has also created an artificial comfort zone of false, or at best harmless and reassuring, pseudo-knowledge. The deeper esoteric traditions have been glossed over, in a process that has steadily created a new body of dogma no less restrictive than that of religion...signs of such dogma are most easily visible in the many boiler plate books on chakras, Wicca, and more recently neo-shamanism, repeating the basic material over and over...After three generations or more of basic material within our overall magical/spiritual revival, material that has, in some streams, noticeably rigidified over the years, the time is right for further work and radical reassessment.

I'm all for further work and radical reassessment. I'm all for doing something different for the sake of exploration and experimentation. I get the need to have a solid foundation. I used the classic model of elements at one time...but at a certain point, you've got to look around and start getting curious about what you can change and experiment with. Information in disciplines evolves and the same should hold true for magic. If we only stick with the way its always been done at a certain point it just becomes another form of religious dogma and doctrine.

My radio interview with occult of personality is now available. You can go here to listen.

Spirits spawning spirits

A little while back Mike asked a question about one of my posts, specifically whether or not I thought spirits could spawn new spirits and whether those new spirits would evolve. It was an interesting question, but I didn't really have an answer for him. It wasn't something I'd really thought of. Recently Justin emailed me about the idea of working with the spirits of the founders of a business and that prompted me to think about my other business. When I started that business in 2008, it went through several changes as I figured out what services I was offering and who my target clientele were. Eventually I settled on a business model and up until December of 2011 I stuck with that business model/entity. Then I decided to change my business once again. I changed not only the services I offered but also the logo of the business. In a sense, the old spirit of the business (in my original logo and services) birthed a new spirit (with a new logo and services) before moving on. I think of my businesses as entities in their own right. I need to feed them through my business activities and I treat them as entities in how I think of them and interact with them. So when Mike asked his question and Justin emailed me, I thought I might contact my business as an entity through the old logo and the new logo to see if there was any difference. And I found there was a difference. The old logo allowed me to access an entity that was in the process of fading away. It was no longer being fed by my activities and it knew its time was at an end, while my work with the new logo connected me to a business entity that was in the process of growing as I continued to work on it.

I didn't change the name of my business. I changed the services and the logo to reflect the direction I felt the business was moving in. It occurs to me that what I really saw was simply one version of the business being replaced by another version. It could be any of those things, but since that question was asked its something I've thought about and experimented with a bit. And it shows the value of asking a question like that...I never thought about it until it was asked and yet its leading me down some interesting paths.

Presentation skills and magic

Recently Donald Michael Kraig made a post about workshops and the need to develop more better presentation skills. He made some good points about the need to practice your presentation skills, and not rely too heavily on your visual aides. I agree with him completely, but I also think that there's another level to be explored when it comes to workshop presentation and that's the magical level. When I get booked for a workshop, one of the practices that I do involves creating a mental mansion for the workshop. I create talking points and exercises for the workshop and then what I do is create symbols I associate with those talking points and workshops and I place the symbols into the mansion. When I rehearse a workshop I visit the mansion and access the symbols to draw on the stored information. When I present the workshop I can use the same technique to access the information. This helps immensely with confidence for the presentation.

Another practice I do involves some energy work and personas. When I'm getting ready to do a workshop, I think about the energy I want to project to people. Are there specific emotions I want to draw on? If there are, then I'll draw on those emotions for the presentation. For instance I like to draw on confidence and charisma. they are excellent emotional energies for a presentation. I also draw on personas for my presentations. I'll think about people, pop culture characters, deities, etc that personify professional speaking. I'll then visualize myself drawing on the characteristics of those people, pop culture characters, etc to create a "suit" to wear. I then imagine that I'm wearing that suit and drawing on those characteristics while I'm speaking.

Of course what helps the most is to practice your professional speaking. You might consider joining a toast masters or similar organization where you need to speak, or taking on a part time teaching opportunity so that you can practice speaking to people. You might even take acting classes. If you want to become a better speaker there are lots of ways to do it, some mundane and some magical. I recommend using both.

Planetary Magic update

A while back I'd written about my work to connect with Jupiter and its planetary energy. Since that working I've done similar connection workings with the other planets, including Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto. I didn't stick with the "classical" model of planets because its outdated and inaccurate, but it also meant I had to do some research to find the correspondences for the other planets.

At this point I've gotten symbols for each of the planets from the archangels. My encounters with the various archangels was interesting because of how focused they were on their own functions as it related to the planets, so they didn't provide much information, instead encouraging me to make my connection with the planets via the symbols.

I debated a bit on my next step, but I decided to settle on creating individual paintings for each symbol. I'll use the paintings as gateways that use the symbols to open up or shut down access to the planetary energies. The act of painting the symbols will be a good exercise for connecting with the planetary energies and learning more about them and how I can work with them. But I'm also going to experiment with specific placements of the paintings in specific rooms of the house, with the idea being to enhance specific characteristics of those rooms with planetary energy. I'll post more information once I've proceeded to the next step.

Video games, exploration, and the occluded mind

I'm playing Max Payne 3 and Metal Gear Solid 3 right now. In playing both games, I've had to do a fair amount of exploration to find things that the characters could use to help them through their various quests. That's actually a common feature of video games. Most games, at least current games, involve some level of exploration of the actual game levels in order to discover essential items to your quest or Easter eggs that game developers have placed into the game. If the player just relies on the map, s/he won't necessarily find or experience all of the treasures of the game. Those can only be experienced by choosing to experience the territory of the game as it is, while only using the map as a superficial guide. The experience of the game is what makes it enjoyable.

In the Sphere of Art 2 by R. J. Stewart, He makes some interesting points about maps and territories:

When we begin to relate to the territory as it really is, we swiftly begin to lose our limited map. This can be a fearful experience of a joyous one, depending on our individual training, preparation and understanding. To be cast loose without the map that you need for for stability is at risk of going mad in unknown territory, while to throw the map away willingly in full awareness is to embrace risk and enter a new condition of sanity.

The experience of the territory is different from the map, because the territory is the actual experience, while the map is just a description, and not always an accurate one. Usually the map isn't accurate because it can't really show everything that is actually in the territory. This truth applies to video games, mystical secrets, trips on the road, any really any other experience you can have in life. The tendency to rely on the map isn't necessarily bad or wrong. The map can be useful in terms of providing guidance and helpful hints for navigating the territory. But ultimately the map the can only provide a vague sense of the territory.

The experience of the territory is where the magician discovers the secrets and treasures that can only be found by choosing to explore what's in the territory. Just as with a video game character, the magician needs to thoroughly explore the territory of the ritual. The magician needs to be curious and not settle for what is in front of him/herself. After all there are potential Easter eggs just waiting to be found, as well as story elements that might be missed if a thorough investigation isn't performed.

What video games have taught me is that unless you fully explore the environment and get very curious you'll likely miss key clues and information and resources that could help you with the game. I find the same is true with magical work, and while I wouldn't necessarily say a magical working is exactly like a video game, there's something to be said for cultivating curiosity in your magical work, to embrace risk and discover what is hidden away.

Contemporary Technology as Ritual Tools

One of the ways I like to experiment with magic involves integrating contemporary technology into magical practice, including making technology into ritual tools. This can be something as simple as turning your toothbrush and toothpaste into a tool that you use for a ritual of banishment (not only does it fight tooth decay, but it also cleans out lingering psychic plaque!) or using a video game character to charge and fire a sigil. It could be as complex as using static on your TV screen for scrying purposes (ala TOPY) or treating your cell phone as an evoking tool for working with specific entities (think Jozef Karika on this one). For many magicians, these ideas may seem foreign or blasphemous, but that's only due to a lack of imagination on their part. Any type of technology could be a ritual tool. The coding language you use to create a program can also be used to inject a magical working into that same program or into what the program is supposed to interact with. A paint brush can become a wand when its used to paint the seal of an entity, summoning that entity into an evocation that the painting itself activates by the choice of the magician.

It is the use technology is put to that defines if it becomes a ritual tool. There is nothing inherent within any tool that makes it magical. What makes anything magical is the intention of the magician, and specifically how s/he uses a given tool to convey that intention to the world around him/her. A tool is a physical expression of a concept the magician is expressing as part of the magical work s/he is doing. If that concept is better expressed through modern technology then use modern technology in you're workings. If we assume that modern technology can't be used because its modern, what we are really doing is limiting the ability to evolve magic, as well as adapt to situations that our contemporary to our time and space.

This isn't to say we should discard the athame or other traditional tools, but why not also look at how you could use your toothbrush in a magical working? As I said above there is nothing inherently magical in any of our tools. What makes the magic happen is the magician and his/her ability to turn possibilities into realities.

The Evolution of Spirits

I wrote a post a little while back asking if people thought spirits evolved. My own conclusion is that they do evolve and the best way I can demonstrate that is through examining several on-going relationships I have with different spirits I work with.

The first case study is Bune. Bune is a goetic demon of wealth and death. My work with him has focused on his patronage of my businesses. In working with him on my business, what I've been struck by is how much he has actually understood about business and how that understanding has manifested in my life. Even though it can be argued that he is a spirit, that identity doesn't automatically stop him from growing or evolving or being aware of the modern world. He has actually explained as well that by helping me learn about what I need to learn for my business he is also learning through me, which suggests that there is an interest on his part to continue to evolve his areas of expertise.

The second case study is Purson, another goetic demon with a focus on time. In working with him, he has shown me the connection between vibration and time (which isn't surprising since one of his tools is a musical horn), and in fact this has also pushed me into a direction of exploring some aspects of music and magic. As with Bune part of my on-going relationship with him involves a transference of information I learn in return for his insights. There is a decided interest in evolving and learning on his part, as well as on mine.

The third case study involves working with elemental spirits. As readers of this blog know I don't stick with the classic western five elements, but have branched out into working with other elements such as emptiness, love, etc. This has occurred in part because of my work with the elementals, and with their suggestion that elemental magic has evolved beyond the classical consideration of it, and that an exploration of elemental magic from a contemporary consideration of elements could be useful.

Finally there's Thiede, a pop culture entity from the Wraeththu series by Storm Constantine that I've worked with since the later 1990's. Many magicians wouldn't consider him a real spirit, but I've found that he seems to have all the characteristics of other spirits. He's shown me a lot of information on space as well as the leyline that connect planets and stars with each other. He's evolved significantly in the context of our workings together and continues to have an on-going presence that changes in part due to our interactions as well as his work with others.

I think that something which is ignored in working with spirits is the possibility that one of the benefits they get from us is an interaction that allows them to learn more of our perspective, even as they share their perspectives with us. Not all spirits are necessarily interested in our world or our perspectives, but I suspect the ones that get as much from the interaction as we do.