Stupidly Effective Foolish Magick

There is one form of stupidly effective foolish magick. This warning applies to newbies and experienced people alike.

Qabalistically speaking, there are many levels of the soul. The lowest is the physical body. The one above that is the instinctual body that rules fight/flight and reproduction. Basically, it keeps you alive long enough to reproduce and to keep your offspring alive long enough to do the same. These two soul levels are not usually capable of a lot of thought but they have a lot of energy.

When we are motivated by these lower needs and draw upon the power of these souls we can do some effective magick. For example, if a person is frightened that their children might starve, the blind energy of those fears (generated in the lower souls) gets poured into the magick. That energy has a powerful but low vibrational rate. There is no thought to it at all. This sort of energy is the equivalent of a magickal hand grenade. When we are worried about starving children we don’t have a great deal of ethical concerns. We are going to feed our kids.

The problem is that most of the time things are not that dire. You do not need ten dollars that badly. You do not need a date that badly. You do not need the promotion that badly. However, our lower psychology can convince us that we do. This sort of thing comes from the survival instinct. We convince ourselves that one more dollar an hour will keep us alive.

Is one dollar an hour worth throwing a hand grenade? No.

The warning signs for this sort of magick are desperation, nervousness, apathy towards others, feeling like you’ve drank twenty cups of coffee and feeling a bit out of control. Never do magick in these states unless your kid is starving.

You can do magick for that dollar an hour raise when your rational mind guides your actions. It is even safer (and more effective) when you are guided by your soul. At the very least, make sure your rational mind is in control before tossing a grenade or you will eventually regret it. 

Pitfalls for Newbies

Jason Walton just published on the same topic. (or will shortly)

What follows is a top of the head list of things that can be classified as newbie pitfalls of magick. This list is was combined with the inexperienced in mind. I am sure some of my more experienced readers remember making some of these mistakes as well. You cannot enter the realms of magick afraid of making mistakes. You must enter the path vowing to learn from them.

The same is true for danger. Yes, magick can be dangerous. As Jason Miller put it, driving a car is also dangerous.  That should not stop you from getting yourself where you need to go. Just as you could learn to drive a car on your own you can learn magick on your own. In both cases, a teacher is probably better. 

The difference is that with magick more than one teacher is ideal. If anyone ever tells you that you are only permitted to learn from them or their group, run. Run far and run fast. These people are usually insecure egomaniacs that do not have the experience, wisdom and skills to teach. If they did, they would not be afraid of you thinking for yourself. They would encourage it! There is likely some exceptions in some teaching situations but when you hear this be very careful.

Newbie Problems

Often when people have their first brush with the astral it feels to them like they have discovered something the rest of the world does not know. They wallow in a sense of otherness. Quickly, there are only two groups of people, the ‘muggles’ and the ‘in-tune’. The latter have a deeper understanding. This can turn into a sense of being better than muggles faster than you can imagine. If someone is in this stage, they don’t know diddly. The only person that hasn’t figured this out is the person that feels this way. If this is you, all your friends and acquaintances know more than you do. Yes, I fell for this one.

Magick is a freeing experience. It rejects the idea that other people’s moral dictates apply. You have to figure those out for yourself. Especially for Pagans, this leads to the idea of sexual freedom. While I have no problem with doing whomever you want whenever you want to, this sort of freedom can be acted upon too quickly. It may be true that you can do half the people in your social circle and suffer no social consequences. It may also be true that your current state of manifestation cannot handle that sort of input (pun intended). It can eat at your sense of self in very negative ways.

For new Pagans, I have a piece of advice based on the two items above. Keep your mouth shut and your pants on. If you really do know more than everyone (you don’t), there will be time to communicate your earth-shattering wisdom. If you really can handle ten partners a month, you will be able to handle it a year from now. Take small steps. Know thyself. Doing that will leave you in better shape. I promise.

The most dangerous part of magick is that it works. People either recognize the responsibility and own the necessary humility immediately or some time passes before they figure it out, if at all. There is nothing more dangerous than someone that thinks he can fix the world. These people will try to do spells that impact their entire apartment complex, bring ‘love’ to their friends, and teach ‘that bastard’ a lesson. These people are not mages. They are jerks. The level of arrogance required to do this stuff after a successful spell or two is off the charts. Yes, I have been arrogant but not that arrogant.

Love spells. Just don’t. The first rule about love spells is not to do them. The second rule is about love spells is not to do them. I know that technically those are the same thing but I feel that rule is so important that it needed to be said twice.* The term ‘unmitigated disaster’ can be applied to almost all newbie love spells. For those where that cannot be said mitigated disaster works just fine. Yes, I am sure there is an example of success out there. I have never seen it. I fell for this one and was quite fortunate to get away with being able to label it ‘difficult’.

The only thing worse than doing a general love spell is trying to make someone specific fall in love with you. As Cunningham says in The Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, the best that you can achieve with this is infatuation or, a white hot flame of attraction. Otherwise, you get a person of very confused emotions. The target may feel that she ‘loves’ you but just doesn’t love you at the same time. She may not even like you. The target may feel a pull to see the caster or have sex but are repulsed at the same time. The target basically undergoes emotional torture. You can also get a person that becomes obsessed with you. BAD IDEA.

I was the target of one of these once. The spell backfired. I fell head of over heals for someone else and the spell caster had to watch. Imagine thinking you are in love with someone and having to watch them fall all over someone else. To say that I was out of control would be an understatement. The same could be said about my partner for a while. She pulled out of it faster than I did. After all, she was not the target of the spell and the original caster did some magick to calm her down. Casting against your own magick is ALWAYS a bad idea.

The price the caster paid was having to watch that relationship as the price of admission for her entire social circle and her only in person access to magickal teaching. I am sure that it sucked. Just as Cunningham warned, the relationship flamed out quickly. It left me devastated for a while but lead directly to my Vision of Perfection. The would be mage was ejected from my life.

This is one of the few cases, perhaps the only, where someone became quite angry with me when I literally did nothing to deserve it. It was either be angry at me or face up to her own foolishness. Most newbies are incapable of the latter.

That leads right into the next one. Self-Justification. This is a problem for everyone but particularly for magickal practitioners. Power corrupts. The way to avoid that corruption is to be ruthlessly introspective and take responsibility for your errors. If you are not capable of saying, “I am sorry. I did X and I was wrong,” you are unlikely to escape the problems of those that justify any action they take. Woe to you and your friends.

Newbies get a taste of magickal success and think they can teach. Donald Michael Kraig often warned people to avoid IROBs, I read one book. These people will not only rob you of an education. They will put all kinds of things into your head that you will have to unlearn later. Unlearning is very hard to do. Challenge people on their experience and education. Challenge yourself. Do what you can to avoid falling into the hands of an IROB. Do everything you can to avoid being one.

Another problem is a lack of balance. Some newbies read about magick but are afraid to do it and still identify as magicians, witches, etc. Most people fall on that end of the spectrum. They never really learn because they never give themselves an opportunity. They often sound good when talking about magick. Others, like myself, dive in and have to be restrained a bit. I was fortunate enough to have a teacher that was able to guide me through this with balance. I did a lot of magick but if I went too far, he reigned me in. A good teacher is of great value here but they are very hard to find.

I am sure this list should be longer. Maybe I will add to it in a “Part II”. Though, I am still working on a Part II of the darkness post.

*Yes, Wolf. If you are still reading this blog, I give you full credit for that line. It remains one of your best.

Candle Magick Tips: Size Matters

       

When doing spell work do you let the candle burn out or do you snuff it out for safety? I see this question about once a month on Facebook or via a private email to this blog. This answer relates to spells that you do over the course of an evening.  Those that take days to unfold often have the practitioner snuff the candle to be relit later. The same “How To’s” apply in both cases.

I have tried both letting candles burn out and snuffing them.  I have found that letting the spell candle burn itself out is the most effective for my magick. I encourage you to experiment and figure out what is best for you. That said letting them burn while you sleep is a hazard. That hazard can be eliminated.

First of all, why do we use candles at all?

The flame is primal and more then represents the safety of light and heat. There is a comfort and feel to candlelight that cannot be matched. Being comfortable with your magick is a necessity. Secondly, a flame is a beacon on the astral. Electric light is just not the same either to our eyes or to astral perceptions. Candles are also great at transmuting energy from one form to another, as well as moving it on the course we want the energy to move. Magickally, we want our energy to move from our mundane earthy selves up to the astral plane and create a form that descends back into the mundane causing an effect. Physically, this process is mimicked. The flame heats the air around the candle. That air rises until it cools and comes back down closer to the earth.  Lastly, candles are easy to work with.  

The mage can write her spell directly on the candle. “Attract Love”, “Protect me”, and similar core purposes of a working can be written on the smallest of candles. Six to eight words can easily fit on a tiny spell candle. She can then generate whatever energy she wants and massage it into the candle as it is oiled.

My formula is simple. I take whatever emotion I happen to be feeling at the time and allow myself to feel how that impacts every body part. I then work to push that feeling down from the top of my head until my head does not feel like it did moments before. Then I do the same at the neck level and all the way down. Eventually, I’ve pushed all that emotional energy to my feet. I bring it up in a compact ball up to my heart and push it out to my hands. At this point, I feel nothing of the original emotion. The energy ball is now just that, clear energy. I simply tell the ball of energy what I need it to do. I then put some oil on my fingers and anoint the candle as I let the ball of energy transfer into the candle. I light the candle and just let it work.

After pushing all the energy down to the feet, it is important to do an internal check. If you feel any of the emotion you did before in any part of your body, redo the process until it is gone. Secondly, you should feel the ball of energy in your hands become completely absorbed into the candle. Astrally speaking, look, listen and feel to confirm the process is complete. Taking your time does not dissipate the energy but enhances it.

If you are not feeling particularly emotional for that working or on that day, it doesn’t matter. Simply think of anything that generates emotion. This can be the moment you first made love to your mate or that time in kindergarten where someone dumped Tempura paint on your head or the last time your boss pissed you off. Heck, think of puppies play. As long as it generates emotion the thought is fair game.  It can even be sexual energy assuming you don’t make yourself happy but instead pour ALL of that energy into the candle. Remember, you should not feel the original emotional energy at all when you are done with the first step. That is what makes it clean, clear and useable without fear of corruption or cross purposes.

That process can be done with a huge candle but why bother? If you do that, you have to worry about it burning while you are asleep. That is a real fire hazard! That worry also impacts the spell negatively. A small spell candle will burn out in an hour or two. If you can’t dedicate an hour or two make sure your house is not going to burn down, you should not be doing the spell. That means you don’t want the result badly enough to put in a little effort.

Candle magick can be done very safely with small candles.

So what if you feel that your spell needs the symbolism of an extended working. For instance, you are trying to instill yourself with determination? You can do this with a huge candle that you burn every day for a prescribed period of time and then snuff out. Or, you can infuse ten small candles on that first day and then burn one a day. If those don’t work for you, you can do the same spell over and over for ten days. All of these options can be done safely.

Do you know the real trick? Stop reading about this stuff and go do it! Your magick will never work unless you actually do it.

Exploration of Darkness, Part I

Note: This is the first in a series of posts about darkness. I have reached some conclusions about my life and the role darkness will play in the future. Frankly, the conclusions and their implications scare me. I am going to make an effort anyway. I feel this exploration is important.

Lately, I have been asking what is darkness? No one gave me a satisfactory answer. It became apparent that the term meant whatever scared someone.  Yet, within the Golden Dawn style officer installment ceremony there is a clue. The hierophant (the expounder of the mysteries/light) says to the newly incoming hiereus (the limitation of the light/darkness), “The divine darkness is the same the as the divine light.” How are they the same? They both reveal divinity.

Let’s examine how this is explained in the Golden Dawn Zelator Ritual.

“The Great Angel Samael answered and said, “I am the Prince of Darkness and of Night. The foolish and rebellious gaze upon the face of the created world and find therein nothing but terror and obscurity. It is to them the terror of darkness, and they are as drunken men stumbling in the Darkness….”

A short time later we hear this, "The Great Angel Metatron answered and said: 'I am the Angel of the Presence Divine. The wise gaze upon the created world and behold there the dazzling image of the Creator. Not yet can thine eyes bear that dazzling Image.'

The light reveals creation. The darkness obscures it and thus creates terror. In short, those things that scare us do so because they appear to separate us from union with That Which Creates. Therefore, it is important to not only to seek the light but to find the dazzling image of the creator through the obscuring darkness. Another name for darkness is ‘that which hides G-d’ or ‘that which appears to destroy unity with G-d’.

For me the biggest thing which hides my inner divinity is my frustration/anger. When I act this way, I feel removed from all the work that I have done and all the results that I have achieved.

The trick for me is to explore my frustration/anger at the deepest levels. I have done this once before. Hecate took me to the Tartarus twice. The first time showed me that all I had to do to walk away from there was to give up everything that took me to that place. She offered me a doorway of light to walk through. I just could not do it. The second time, She showed me myself locked in a deeper level. That part of me lives in a deep blind rage unlike anything you’ve ever seen on this earth, at least I hope you’ve never seen that.

This winter, I will ask Her to take me back. I want to deal with that poor fellow trapped in the depths. I want to rescue him. This will be a journey to find the dazzling image of the creator within my own dark self.

This is only one way to look at the darkness. Another way is to see it as a part of creation itself. That will be covered in my next post.

Diverting From the Well Worn Path

The other day I saw a Facebook meme in a magick group. The meme claimed that a phoenix was associated with Leo, a vampire with Scorpio and other such things. Maybe this association is of some long-standing tradition. If so, I have never seen it before. I suppose the meme made some people feel good because it appeared to validate their feelings of personal association with various creatures. Oh! That explains it! One person now feels happier about her upcoming tattoo. I am not against anyone feeling happy. Find any reason you want to be happy.

I am not going to try to read their minds. Maybe some thought it was totally legit. Others thought it was just an amusement. I cannot read the minds of Facebook users. I know that I am about to step into some dangerous territory here.

Traditionally, a lion is associated with Leo and the phoenix is one of three animals of Scorpio. I am not going to go on a rant and tell people there is only one way to do things. This is not correct. There are traditional ways of doing things and those traditions exist for a reason.

The first reason occurs within particular traditions. Within the Golden Dawn framework, there would likely be some difficulty if someone used a funky meaning of a tarot card within the initiatory framework. Such actions may make one feel good in the short term but someone is going to feel a lot worse in the long term because the energy pattern of the initiation was modified without making corresponding adjustments to the entire system of magick. In a system as complex as GD those adjustments are difficult just within the initiatory structure alone.

The second reason is one of ease. This is much more important to folks that are working on their own than many of them realize. Those that have worked within the Golden Dawn current are familiar with the line from one of their initiation rituals, “By names and images are all powers awakened and reawakened.”  There is a truth there that operates well outside the realms of ceremonial magick.

Over the centuries, people that have wanted to tap into the persistent powers of Leo have used the same sigil, (below), name (Leo) and animal (lion) as well as more obscure names and images. These things work like a combination lock. The difference is that a combination will simply open the lock. 

In magick, the power that comes through that open door depends upon the power invoked and how far the door swings open. The latter is determined by some things out of the magician’s control, such as the time of the year. The amount of usable power also depends on  how much power the magician is capable of bringing to the earth and processing. You do not want to generate more power than you can effectively use.

That last part is sticky. If I were to pretend to quantify power, I would say the full power of Leo is 100 and no Leo power is 0. Someone that normally can move 15 units of power can suddenly generate 80 and then not be able to do that again for quite sometime. Trust me, that will change your perspective on the powers of magick in a hurry. You will find a new found respect, if that ever happens to you. You will appreciate safety measures that so many blithely throw away. Why because that unused 65 units of power has to go somewhere. The last place you want it is stuck in your own psychology. Have you ever had to deal with a Leo?

The reason that combination works is the same reason one follows a trail through the forest. All those people that came before you have marked the way. They have found ways around rocks, learned that going that way leads to a cliff and have broken any branches that may have grown across the path to snag those nifty magickal robes.  You can get to your destination by going off trail but the level of effort increases along with the danger.

So, if you are tempted to wander off the trail, ask yourself why. If the traditional way is not working for you but it has for 10,000 people before you, why is that? Are you missing something or are you that unique? Is it your ego, “Well, I am not going to listen to those traditionalists!” Have you not done the preliminary work?  Is it that your path follows a totally different set of associations? There can be a thousand good reasons to move off the trail and just as many bad ones. Make sure you have a reason. Otherwise, you are making your explorations harder and more dangerous for no reason at all.

Are Tools Necessary?

Note: My friend Jason Walton over at Three Dragons Grove is also posting on this same topic.  

A while back, I came across a post by Jason Miller. I cannot find it again to link. He said that some people feel that they have outgrown tools. That is fine for mental magick but for manifestation you need tools

.

That post hit me between the eyes like a Nerf two by four*. Just a few days before, I asked someone how her magick manifests so quickly. My magick always works but it can take a very long time. I can set records with the length of my manifestation curve. I was not fond of her method. Jason had taught me a similar lesson to tool use once before but I had forgotten.

The next day, the sun rose.

On that day, I conjured a spirit of the Lesser Key using no tools at all** while sitting in my office at work. Most of the time, I just chat with them. This time I asked for something. What I wanted manifested in less than twenty minutes.  So what gives? How can Jason be correct and I received the results that I did?

I will get back to that.

First, we have to define what a magickal tool is. To me, a tool is any physical object that aids the practitioner in doing magick by aiding in the creation of a proper environment for the working. That can be anything from a Solomonic  circle, triangle and the like to a tree-filled environment.  Yes, the setting you choose for your magick could be considered a tool. The set of tools most common to Neo-Pagans are the elemental tools. Some tools are consecrated. Some tools are not. Most of the time consecrated is better.

In Golden Dawn traditions the tools are basically very colorful cheat sheets. Each of the elemental weapons has a list of 8 items the god name, the Hebrew name of the element, the cardinal point, names of spirits and their sigils etc. When invoking or evoking a power of the element these names are used. The problem of course is that it is hard to get in the proper headspace if you are using cheat notes.  So certainly, the exact construction of a GD tool is unnecessary.  You should be able to outgrow the cheat sheet portion. Your magick will be better for it.

And now to completely contradict myself. That cheat sheet is there for a reason. First, the names and sigils are telesma. When you call on the spirits to consecrate your tools having their names on it helps.  Just as a physical shape in alignment with the element helps. Secondly, using the tool when calling a spirit of that tool is a great advantage. After all, when you are calling a spirit specifically named on the tool, you are calling one that helped consecrate the object. Thus you have at least some relationship with the spirit that you are calling.  You are also working with an object the spirit ‘touched’.  Is it any wonder that the tool makes it easier to call upon such spirits? Basically, the tool is the proper environment to call the spirit into. This is most easily seen with the water cup but it applies to others as well for various definitions of ‘into’.

There is very little need to “outgrow” the use of the tool. I do not live near a body of water. If I am going to call on a water spirit, it seems reasonable to have a bit of water in a cup. You would be surprised how little water can make a water spirit comfortable. Do you need a nice pretty GD water cup? No. Can you use a paper cup that held your soda ten minutes before? Yes. Would it create a better environment or vibe to have a cup that you always use for that purpose and is treated with reverence and respect? Yes.  This creates not only a physically acceptable environment but a psychic one as well. Further, it shows respect to that element you are calling.

Some of that environment is for the magician. Very recently, I had a little water spirit crawl out from inside a plastic cup of water. It was quite content and simply appeared as I was making offerings to the local spirits. I would have felt much better had I seen the tool as dedicated to holiness in much the same way you feel better inviting an acquaintance into a freshly cleaned room rather than something more ‘lived in’.  

For some magicks to work, you absolutely, positively need to create an appropriate environment. A wide variety of tools can be used. Scent is great for creating a general environment.***  Cloth is often neglected. Imagine invoking water in a room full of deep blue cloth covering the walls with orange highlights (GD colors) and a similar cloth and cup on the altar. Then add sound from a bell or gentle gong, the scent of a lilly etc. Being a good magician can mean being a good host. Make your guests comfortable!

Solomonic magick is a bit different. I have found the tools in that system work more like a combination lock. The more dialed in you are the better.  In this case the wrong combination doesn’t just fail to open the lock, it sets off an alarm. The alarm is one that warns other magicians not to do what you just did.  You could wind up in a lot of trouble.  As Jason Miller says, “Magic is dangerous,” which is the topic of my next post.

Now, why did I get manifested results when I used no tools? Because I was mentally/astrally able to create the environment necessary to interact with those spirits. In Solomonic magic part of that is an attitude. Part of that is a profound understanding of my circle. Part of it was I did not ask for something that I did not need. Had I asked for ten dollars it would not have worked. I would have needed the full layout. I asked for something that is an expression of my soul’s manifestation. Theurgy has its advantages.

You can, with what is misleadingly called visualization skills, get by without tools and still manifest. The problem is that you have to have a great deal of focus. That may be pretty hard to do in an emergency or when you are upset. You could also just do it with tried and true safe basics. I recommend the latter. To completely contradict myself again, manifesting without tools is quite satisfying in its own right.

*In the past that two by four felt like a steal beam.

**Do not try this at home.

*** I prefer oil on cotton or myself. This just lets the scent evaporate and, to me, is more air-like than a fiery censor. The latter is best used when an overwhelming scent is needed. 

Theurgy Vs. Psychology

As a budding new theurgist, I often heard that theurgy was nothing more than psychology. I knew this was incorrect but I never had an argument that could hold water. I could share definitions like those below but I had no experience to back them up.

Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring the physiological and biological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors.(1)

Theurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.(2)

Henosis is the word for mystical "oneness," "union," or "unity" in classical Greek.(3) In Platonism, and especially Neoplatonism, the goal of henosis is union with what is fundamental in reality: the One (Τὸ Ἕν), the Source, or Monad.(4)

Any long time reader of this blog will have seen that psychology has a part to play. I would say that huge part of my work was personal psychology. I do not think other people would necessarily be the same. It is possible to mystically hop up levels of awareness. My path was and is more like a snake, twisting, turning, revisiting, clearing etc. A lot of that psychology had to do educating myself on thought processing and expression. This had behavioral results which granted social benefits. That process also helped to get myself out of my own way, at least partially.

Being in your own way means that one is preventing one’s own progress by clinging to idea or behavior that would be best discarded. This is because the perceived benefits of the idea are greater than the benefits of growth. The other possibility is that the fear of the pain involved in separating from the idea. This occurs because people identify with the idea as part of themselves rather than understanding the false and insubstantial nature of thought. The trade their true worth for the dubious value of an idea of self.

This is made harder because most people do not understand they are living an idea not enjoying a behavior. For instance, the non-alcoholic that gets drunk at parties is living the idea that one is supposed to get drunk at parties. It never occurs to him that he is the only one nor does it matter that he feels miserable the next day or worse have to apologize to someone. He is capable of real change only after he gives up the idea of proper party behavior. Maybe to do so, he has to give up the self-perception of I am the life of the party.

What most people really do not understand that severing one’s allegiance to an idea is easier than clinging to an idea that no longer serves. That understanding is where theurgy becomes easier to differentiate from psychology.

Theurgy has nothing to do with healing as we commonly think of the word. Theurgy does not care directly about changing the behavior. That is the specialty of behavioral psychology. Theurgy has to do with living by the ideas that express the highest level of your soul. These ideas are not based on human morals, ethics or religion. Instead, they are based upon what your soul needs to manifest in this world.

Thuergy took me to a place where I could see the Perfection. That was a moment of mystical union.

Mystical union takes place when one is not simply invoking deity but allowing there to be no difference (or very little) between oneself and that deity. The “I” of self can be discarded and reclaimed in an efficient manner. This means a completely alien presence speaks and exists within you and it is not only totally normal but a reality deeper than most get to experience. This experience can become so deep that I have witnessed a person’s eyes turn totally black like a deer’s. I have been told my skin complexion changes during the invocation of certain deities. A very experienced Native American that attended the Cult of Hermes told me that my eyes turn ‘other worldly’. Those observations are not the result of psychology or pharmacology for that matter!

So how do you transition between working psychologically to theurgically?

I was afraid you were going to ask that.

My first thought is that one reaches theurgy through intense focus. Psychology often involves the milieu of people in your life, their reactions to you, yours to them, associated thought process etc. As introspective as it must be this is broad spectrum thinking. Hyper focusing thought upon the deity being invoked, even if that deity is nameless or nearly nameless like Aaoz, opens the doorway to contact. Once deep contact is made, the psychology for further exploration is brought back with you. The more you do this the less barriers you face.

The psychology allows the theurgy which enhances the psychology.