4 Book Reviews for January 2018

Book Review: On Writing by Stephen King

In on Writing, the author shares both an autobiographical account of his life as a writer as well as his tips and suggestions for being a writer. While the book primarily deals with writing for fiction, I feel the ideas shared can be applicable to non-fiction as well. It had some good insights on both the act of writing and the business of writing. If you are serious about writing then pick this book up to help you on your journey.

Book Review: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

I found this to be a very helpful book because it helped me recognize how I was limiting myself in different situations in my life and it equipped me with processes I could use to call that out and start working through it. Also reading this book has helped me ask what my zone of genius is and start being true to that zone of genius instead of getting distracted and weighed down by work I don't really want to do. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to discover their zone of genius and stop getting in their own way.

Book Review: The Old Sod: the odd life and inner work of William G. Gray by Alan Richardson and Marcus Claridge

I've been a fan of William Gray's magical work since the late 90s. I've also had the fortune of meeting a few of his students and learning about the actual man as well as the magician. I found this biography to be useful as well in filling in some blanks about the actual person and providing some context around his magical work. Whether you're interested in the magicians of the 20th century or a fan of Gray's work, this is a good book that shares his life, faults and successes.

Book Review: The Power of Ted by David Emerald

In this intriguing book, The author explores the Drama triangle that many people find themselves in and offers an alternative, The Empowerment Dynamic. He shows how the drama triangle disempowers people and creates a lot of drama because of the conflict generated in it. With the Empowerment Dynamic, the author shows you how to claim the role of creator and change your relationship with yourself and other people by choosing how you approach situations. I found this book to be insightful in terms of recognizing ways I've disempowered myself and been a victim. Implementing the concepts in this book helped me start making changes that have benefited my relationships and business. It's a short and powerful book that will change your life.

3 book reviews for your spiritual path

Book Review: The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely

In this book, the author provides further social experiments where he explores irrational behaviors and shows why people make the decisions they make based off emotions and other factors that aren't rational. It's a fascinating book which explores human behavior and provides insights and glimpses into why people behave the way they do. The author also explores how irrational behavior can benefit us, in the right context. If you're interested in understanding human behavior, this book will provide some fascinating insights that you can apply in your life and work.

Book Review: Rising Strong by Brene Brown

In Rising Strong, Brene Brown explores how to reset your life when you've experienced adversity. This book was very timely for me to read because of some tough experiences I've had n this last year. Reading through it gave me valuable techniques to draw on as I work through those experiences. It's helped me work through some tough emotions and behavior patterns and provided me a way forward. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone dealing with some life changing struggles, who needs some guidance on how to move forward, but also to anyone who wants to improve how they work through difficult situations.

Book Review: Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown

In Braving the Wilderness, The author explores the topic of belonging and how to discover true belonging with yourself, as well as how to brave the wilderness and stay true to your journey and message instead of trying to fit in. Reading this book has been timely for me as I've gone on my own metaphorical journey into the wilderness with my business and life. I particularly found the idea that I belong to myself and that I can give permission slips to myself to be helpful, because its allowed me to look at my life and give myself the necessary breathing space I needed as I made some tough transitions. I highly recommend this book as a guide to help you brave your own wilderness and find true belonging. 

A couple of book reviews

Book Review: Tao of Letting Go: Meditation for Modern Living by B. K. Frantzis

In this book, the author introduces readers to the Taoist water Breathing meditation. This book is similar to his other book Relaxing into Your Being. If anything it's a bit more stripped down and focuses on the basics, but its a god book to start with and I'd recommend it because the author takes the time to explore how to apply this technique to internal work and emotional blockages that's a bit more grounded than his other books on the same topic. I found it useful for revisiting what I'd previously learned and it will also be helpful for anyone who wants to learn meditation. 

Book Review: An Outlook on our Inner Western Way by William G. Gray

This is a book I will read again and again and each time I know I will discover insights and perspectives that will blow my mind. Reading it the first time, what struck me the most is how concisely and clearly Gray predicted modern society and the place of magic in society. And he does something so rare for frankly any magician to do and its that he advocates for experimentation. Actually that's one of the reasons I love all his books. And this one is no exception, with amazing insights that will challenge what you know about magic and push you to experiment.

How Magic Works: A guide in theory and practice

So how does magic work?

I like to use the word process when I describe how magic works. It's a deliberate choice, because when you look at magic as a process, you strip away the esoteric, flowery language and focus on what's actually happening.

If we map out a magical working what you'll discover is that its possible to break a given magical working down into specific steps.

Now that alone doesn't tell us how magic works. But what it does allow us to do is actually examine the actions we're taking in the magical working and this is important because if you're going to do a working you need to know what steps to take.

Where we start to discover how magic works is through the application of the Principles of Magic which allows us to discover what is actually happening when we execute each step of the process. 

When we understand what action to take and what is actually supposed to happen when that action is taken, then that understanding allows us to take apart any magical working and figure out how it works. Even better, we can then put it back together and personalize it, using what is relevant to us, or we can experiment with the working, in order to improve on it.

And the reason we ultimately do this is not just to learn how magic works or even to get consistent results (though those are quite nice). It is to make sure that magic evolves, that it is relevant and that we can take any other discipline or practice and apply it to magic in order to enhance our lives.

But in order for any of that to happen we need to have a solid foundation and that's where the principles of Magic come in.

What are the Principles of Magic?

I'll share a brief overview of the principles here. There are 11 principles of magic and these principles describe how magic works.

The Principle of Results explains that you can't have a magical working without a result of some type. The result, in and of itself, justifies and creates the process.

The Principle of Definition explains that how you define the world or how the world is defined for you determines what actions you'll take and what probabilities you'll be open to.

The Principle of Change/Transformation acknowledges that change happens and seeks to intentionally harness that change into productive transformation, both in the world around us and within us.

The Principle of Where, When, Why, What, and How recognizes there are multiple variables that need to be planned for and aligned to help you turn a probability into reality.

The Principle of Need explains that need can be a powerful catalyst for magic and shows you how to harness the emotional aspects of need to fuel your workings.

The Principle of Ethics/Morals describes how your ethical and moral compass plays a role in your workings and shows you how to account for your beliefs and values when doing magical workings.

The Principle of Connections recognizes that magic works because of how actions and events are connected together.

The Principle of Intention factors in the power of the conscious mind and shows how attention can be focused and used in magical work.

The Principle of Limitation recognizes that if you want to manifest a possibility into reality, you must provide it form, which brings with it limitations.

The Principle of Function explores how spirits are defined by their function and operate within specific parameters.

The Principle of Mundane Actions recognizes that mundane actions can be paired to magical actions in order to achieve results.

These core principles describe the mechanics of magic and when understood by the magician can be used to take apart any magical working and customize it to what is relevant to the magician.

Why is Relevance Important?

When I talk about using what is relevant in your magic, what I'm talking about is drawing on what you find to be spiritually relevant. The way magic is typically portrayed discourages people from using what is relevant to them. We're told to focus on ancient cultural mythologies and religious practices, but not everyone connects with these older mythologies and practices, as I share in mroe detail in the video below.

Want to actually do this, not just read about it?

How Magic Works is where I teach how to take a desire from intent to an actual result, step by step. Start the class →

Not ready to buy anything? Why Your Spells Don't Stick is a free guide to the most common reasons a working stalls, and where to start fixing it.

If you want help with a specific situation, work with me one to one.

What isn't shared is that magic is much more customizeable than is typically portrayed. The majority of books tend to prescriptively argue that magic can only be practiced certain ways, but if we look at magic as a process and break down what is happening with given actions, what we find is that magic is descriptive and as a result you can take things out that don't work for you, and plug what does work for you and you should be able to get similar, if not better results.

For example, instead of using classical deities and spirits to represent the 5 classic elements, we can use pop culture mythology that we connect with and apply it to the 5 elements and discover that the pop culture mythology works. And the reason why is simple:

When you use what is relevant to you, in your magical practice, you understand why its relevant and how it can help you connect to the spiritual forces that it mediates. 

That understanding is powerful and what it tells us is that a given magical system or tradition essentially has a lot of optional features to it, which can be swapped out for what makes sense to you. Consequently you can build your own correspondences and connections that you apply magic to the world around, while also making sense of the deeper spiritual realities that magic presents to you.

As long as you understand the core principles of magic and how they connect to and can be used to modify magical workings, then you'll find that magic becomes much more versatile than it is typically portrayed. But this only happens when you develop a genuine curiosity about how and why magic works. You can learn more in my free How Magic Works Workbook.

Explore related entries in the Library

• Aphrodite
• Archangel Uriel
• Thoth
• Zhuge Liang

Related: the Magical Experiments Alchemy Lab

Magical Experiments Podcast August and September 2017

Magical Experiments Podcast: Traveling to Sacred spaces with Vyvianne Armstrong

Magical Experiments Podcast: The Magic of Melusine with Annwyn Avalon

Magical Experiments Podcast: Home Herbalism with Victoria Pike

Magical Experiments Podcast: Pop Culture Magic systems with Terra Akhert

Magical Experiments Podcast: The Pop Culture Magic of Digimon with Eryk Adash

Magical Experiments Podcast: Pop Culture Magic Systems 2 with Wild Healer and Coleen Chitty

Magical Experiments Podcast: Opening the Doors to Psychic Perception with Ivo Dominguez Jr

Book Review: The Arch of Heaven by R. J. Stewart

In the Arch of Heaven, the author shares a prayer/working that he has used to deal with lingering ghosts. He then explains the origin of the working and offers some insights on spirits, death, and related topics. It's a short, focused book on a specific type of magical working, within the magical tradition that the author is part of. People in that tradition or in the Avalonian current will find this book valuable. For other practitioners it does provide some useful gems on working with inner contacts and some insights into the tradition the author is part of. I found the material useful and accessible and would recommend it to anyone.

Book Review: Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

In Daring Greatly the author explores what it means to be vulnerable and how being vulnerable can help you become a wiser and stronger person. As I read this book and applied it to my life, I found that I had deeper, more intimate conversations and connections and that I was able to create a space for myself that truly helped me embrace who I am. I highly recommend this book for internal work and meditation.

Book Review: Keys to Perception by Ivo Dominguez Jr

In this book the author shares the keys to perception and walks readers through a variety of exercises he's developed that can be used to cultivate psychic abilities. What I think stands out to me about this book is how the author manages to make the book relateable to people regardless of what their spiritual background is. So while Pagans and magicians will get a lot from this book, so will anyone else who has psychic abilities or simply wants to learn more about them. The exercises are well developed and described and its clear the author has done the work, but he also makes a point to describe the mechanics of the workings, which is helpful if people want to experiment with it.