Push, pull, and flow in magic

In my magical practice, I’ve lately been taking an approach that has incorporated elements of flow, push and pull in magic. Some of this has come about because of my continual work with Taoist moving meditation, and some of it has come about because of my shift toward experiential perspectives that have my embracing a sensual awareness of my spiritual work over a conceptual one.

In a sense, what my magical practice has been shifting toward is a harmonious model of alignment with the universe that works with the universe as opposed to trying to force a desired change on the universe. With all that in mind, I think its useful to define key terms in this approach so that what I’m doing can be more readily worked with and appreciated.

Flow: This is a state of being which is effortless, where everything seems to come together. The passage of time is experienced differently and it can feel like you lose yourself in the work. You experience an intuitive approach to the work that shows you what to do without you having to consciously think about it. The experience of flow can occur in many different disciplines.

Push: This is the state of effort for a person, or fire energy in Taoist practice. I think of it as yang/active/movement. Push often seems to be used to force the universe in one’s favor, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. Sometimes the right push in the right place is exactly what’s needed to make something happen in your favor.

Pull: This is the passive state, or water energy in Taoist practice. I think of it as Yin/passive/stillness. Pull is a gravitational approach to working with the universe, where you become a center of gravity that pulls exactly what you need to you, when you need it. At the same time you also open yourself to and accept what you need to work with to manifest what you want. For example in my work with the archangels, they end up working through the ritual magic to align me with the circumstances needed to achieve the desired transformation.

If this sounds radically different from what you typically see in magical books that’s because it is. Generally what I’ve read over the years is much more oriented toward a push approach to magic. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think that it can take up a lot more effort than may necessarily be needed. Certainly, in my own approach to push oriented magic, I’ve looked for ways to lessen the amount of effort needed and have often found that by marrying the magical work to mundane actions that already are driven toward achieving a specific result.

My shift to pull oriented magical work has been slowly happening for the last few years. It’s occurred as I’ve shifted toward more of an experiential approach which requires that you pay attention to the journey itself, and recognizes that the result is really just a milestone along your journey. It has significance, but the significance has more to do with the journey and how the result impacts that journey. Pull oriented magic doesn’t require a lot of effort, because the effort is generated by the inevitable gravitational force of your stillness and how it pulls everything to you that is needed.

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How to draw on multiple sources of energy for your magical workings

One of the questions that recently came up in the magical experiments Facebook Group was if its possible to draw on multiple sources of energy, instead of using your own for magical workings. The short, flippant answer is yes, but I want to share in detail what this really looks like, because this is an approach to magic that I specialize in.

In my approach to magical workings, one of the questions I ask myself is how best to fuel my magical workings. I’ve rarely taken the approach of using my own energy, because a person’s energy is limited ultimately, and I’d rather focus that energy on my health and well-being. So when I consider the fuel for the magical working, what I look is how the magical working can be tied into existing efforts and actions already being taken. The reason is because those actions and efforts involve some energy, so why not harness what you’re doing and turn it into metaphysical fuel as well.

For example, if you’re looking for a job, take the effort you put into filling out applications, sending in resumes, and interviewing and make it into fuel for whatever workings you’re doing. What this lets you do is take what you’re already doing and turn it into a potent source of fuel for your working that also helps you accomplish your result.

Emotions are another source of energy that are often underutilized. You are already feeling the emotion, so why not take feeling and use it to charge your working? I’ve applied emotions to my own magical workings, in situations where the emotions would otherwise get in the way. By providing my emotions an outlet through the magical working, I’m not letting them become an obsession that blocks me from achieving a result. Instead I’m turning them into a source of energy that benefits the working and keeps me from fixating on the situation I’m applying the magic to.

Of course, in both examples above, you might note that I’m still, to some degree drawing on my own energy. But what you should also be noted is that what I’m actually drawing on is the expression of that energy. In other words, the energy is being directed somewhere. I’m just choosing to optimize it so that it really does two things instead of one.

That said, there are still other sources of energy that we can draw on. A person’s attention is one such source. even the act of casually paying attention is an expenditure of effort on the part of the person paying attention and this can be taken and applied to magical workings. I call this attention stacking, because you take the attention someone provides you and redirect it toward a magical working, to fuel that working.

Then there’s the case of harnessing other sources of energy for your magical purposes, such as elemental and planetary energies. In such cases you can draw on these energies or work with a spirit that can mediate those energies for you. I have set up specific magical tools that I use for the purposes of channeling such energies, and I apply those tools as needed. Such tools can be talismans that a person has created, or an active tool that you might use like a wand or an athame.

My magical workings are set up so that they draw on multiple sources of energy. I may setup the initial working and charge it with expressed energy, such as emotions, then draw on relevant external sources of energy that can also help empower the working. By using multiple sources to empower the magic working, I effectively keep it charged until its realization…and even after because I set my workings up to be retroactively charged even after the fact. That’s my approach to using multiple sources of energy for my magical workings. What’s yours?

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An example of how Retroactive Magic works

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

I thought I would share a practical example of how retroactive magic works. This example pertains to the recent move I made at the end of 2018. In 2018 my family and I lived in a duplex. I had lived there for a decade and most of the time it was a pleasant living experience, but we had new neighbors move in in 2018 and they were the kind of neighbors who were loud and unpleasant to be around, and seemed to lack any awareness of how their actions were impacting our sleep or overall quality of life.

The question I had to consider was what could be done. On the one hand, I liked living in the place and had a lot of good memories. On the other hand, my land lord was powerless to do anything, even when issues were pointed out that demonstrated that the neighbors weren’t honoring the agreement of their lease. The laws around evictions favor the tenants even in cases where its clear the tenants are not honoring the agreement that’s been made. When it became clear the neighbors weren’t going to be evicted I began to consider what else I could about this situation.

In late November I mentioned to my wife that I thought it was time we considered moving. She agreed and mentioned that she had been feeling that way for a little why because of the neighbors and because of a couple other issues. I decided to look up our lease and was pleased to see we only had until the end of January until the lease was up. Clearly it was time to start looking for a new home. So we started looking but experienced a bit of sticker shock when we saw how much rent had risen. We had been fortunate to be at a place where the landlord didn’t obscenely raise the rent and we did debate whether we should just try and stick it out, but after doing some financial research, realized we could afford the higher rent.

So we started looking for a new home. We initially found one right away that seemed perfect, but ended up not working out when we realized they didn’t like pets. And as we kept looking we discovered how hard it was to find a home that would allow us to have more than 2 cats. And when we did find one that might work it was much further out from my work and the landlord lived next door. It was clear to us that we need to start doing some magic that would help us get a better result.

Why not do magic right away? We initially wanted to get a feel for what was available and I think it was good we did. By doing our research we were able to figure out the specific criteria about what we wanted as well as what we didn’t want, in a home. Price was obviously part of the criteria, but we also needed a place that would allow us to have more than two cats, and didn’t charge pet rent. We also wanted a place that didn’t share a wall with anyone else and we wanted a place that was centrally located, yet also quiet and isolated enough that we could enjoy our privacy.

So the night we decided not to go for the one place, I pulled out my two tarot decks and did a reading/enchantment for us that would help us figure out the best choice to make and point us in the right direction of the home we wanted to find. Part of what went into that reading was all the previous efforts we’d made to look for a home. We didn’t want to waste that effort, but instead took the energy of it and applied it toward the reading/enchantment so that we could get a result that was ideal for us. What the reading indicated was that settling for the one home wasn’t ideal and that staying where we were also wasn’t a good idea. But it also indicated we’d find a new home if we kept looking. After the reading wrapped up, my wife got an intuition, checked a site we were using to find potential homes, and lo and behold we found the place we’re now living. It was ideal and although there were a couple details that needed to be ironed out, we knew it was the place we were looking for.

Within the week we secured the place and at the same time I contacted my previous landlord and was able to make an arrangement with him that got us out of our old lease a bit early without paying a full month’s rent and being able to transition the utilities to his name. Everything else lined up smoothly and by the end of December we were in our new home. And the new home has met our criteria. We don’t share a wall with a neighbor, we have quiet neighbors and our home is secluded and yet has access to everything we want access to. The commute to our respective workplaces is shorter and the energy of the place, overall size, etc fits what we need for where we are. And we could rent it with all four of our cats.

Where does Retroactive magic come into this?

I applied retroactive magic the night I did the tarot reading. I used the tarot reading as a medium through which to work magic that was focused on helping us achieve several specific outcomes.

1. Assess our current situation and the possible outcomes available to us, as well as environmental information we may not have been aware of. This was the divination aspect of the reading and it helped us get a better lay of the land, while also allowing us to look back at the previous work we’d done to find a new place and put it into context with what the reading was telling us.

2. Take the information and experiences, and create a new path forward that would direct us to the place we were fated to live in. I treat my tarot readings as enchantments, so once the cards were laid out and we eliminated the possible paths to focus on the one path that indicated what we needed to do, I used the reading to grab the experiences of the previous month, the emotions we felt about leaving and about our annoying neighbors, and I took all of that and turned it into momentum for creating a result in the present or near future that would get us what we wanted.

This is where the retroactive magic came into play. I couldn’t change the past and what happened, but I could use the past to open up opportunities in our present/future that weren’t readily apparent to us. I could take everything up to that present moment, the experiences and emotions we felt and turn it into raw magical energy that could take a probability and create a path of manifestation for its realization. And that’s what I did.

The result…we got our new home, got out of the old place sooner than later, without having to cover utilities for the last month and only paying a half’s month rent. Everything lined up to help us get where we needed to go. We just needed to use what had already happened to propel us toward where we wanted to go, and to help us achieve the desired result we wanted.

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Book Reviews Jan through March 2019

Book Review: The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

This is a whimsical book which explores the poetics of space, of the home, and the environment. It asks you to redefine your awareness of spaces you take for granted and provides appreciation and perspective about what space is really about. What I liked is how the author combined poetry, philosophy and design to create this treatise and its one I'll return to from time to time to help me appreciate my own space anew.

Book Review: Processmind by Arnold Mindell

In this book the author explores how to connect with the environment through meditation and internal work. This is a fascinating book which examines not only how we relate to the human body, but also to the environment through our body, both natural and manmade. It provides some useful exercises that can help you implement the practices described in the book. Worth reading if you want to develop a deeper connection with reality.

Book Review: The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

This is a must read book which will transform your relationship with yourself and your community. This book has helped me examine my relationship with myself as a writer and artist, but also as a person and the lessons its provided me have helped me become more confident and focused on doing the work instead of worrying about things I can’t control. It’s a relatively quick read with a socratic dialogue, but take some time to ponder and meditate on what is shared.

Book Review: Zero to One by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters

This is a fascinating, must read book on startups that applies to any business. The principles in this book will help you start a business or change an existing one. Most importantly what this book teaches you is how to focus on making your business successful, without falling into the trap of competition. Instead you learn why its important to do your own thing well and with a plan.

Book Review: Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal

This is a fascinating overview of the ways people are exploring ecstatic practices in modern times. I don’t feel its comprehensive as there’s areas the authors haven’t explored but its a good book, which can give you some food for thought about how altered states of consciousness can be applied to your life to increase your innovativeness and productivity. What it also reveals is the importance of altered states of consciousness for helping us achieve breakthroughs.

Book Review: White Moon on the Mountain Peak by Damo Mitchell

This is an excellent book which explores the alchemical firing process of Nei Gong and how it works. It’s not a book for beginners, and it requires that you already have some experiences with Taoist meditation practices. I read this book and clearly understood some of it, and some of it I realized I needed to go back and get some more experience. The author does present the information clearly, but its important that you have the requisite experience to fully implement and comprehend this book.