spirits, Magic
Taylor Ellwood
The relationship between sacred kingship and ...

One of the books I’m reading lately is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette. It’s a fascinating book that explores the archetypes of the mature and sacred masculine. This is currently part of the spiritual work that I’m engaged in as I explore my own relationship with masculinity and heal the ancestoral and contemporary wounds that I’m becoming aware of as it relates to how masculinity is treated and perceived in modern times.

One of the aspects I’m exploring in particular is related to sacred kingship and the land. I am in the process of exploring the new city and surrounding areas that I live in. While I’ve lived here for a year, I didn’t have much opportunity until recently to really begin exploring the area and developing a relationship with the land. I find it fitting and useful that part of the process has also involved cultivating a relationship with the land, particularly on the basis of the relationship has with their home and how that relationship plays out in sacromagical work one does in connecting with the land.

near death experience

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My first experience of Magic

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When I was 7 years old I had my first near death experience and what I'd consider to be my first genuine experience with magic. I was drowned by an older kid, held down underneath an intertube in the ocean. I was, fortunately, pulled out in time. That older kid was yelled at, but nothing else was done. But what I remember the most was a sensation of blacking out and finding myself in a space with an entity, which asked if I wanted to live. I remember that experience vividly to this day and it is after that experience that I began to show an interest in magic. I became a voracious reader, and while I enjoyed reading a lot history, I also read a lot of fantasy and found myself wanting to be the magician. I figured the magician was the coolest person to be, and I think I'm still right about that one. I wanted magic to be real and in the years between 7 and 16, I did look for it, but I wasn't really sure where to look or who to talk to. What I had access to were fantasy books, and while they were fun to read, they didn't encompass what magic was. I knew what they presented wasn't something that seemed possible. I mean as much as I liked the idea of being able to conjure a fireball, I didn't think it was really possible, and to this day I have yet to conjure one up or see anyone else do it. But still, I knew magic existed and was real. I knew it on a fundamental level. I knew it as something essential to who I am...

It wasn't until I was 16 that I found magic. I was reading one of my fantasy books and this one kid thought he'd freak me out by telling me about an experience where he astral projected and encountered a demon. Far from freaking me out, I wanted to know more. I felt tense excitement, thinking to myself that at last I'd found something more tangible than a fantasy book. I plied him with question after question and made him promise me that he'd bring me books to look at the next day.

The next day arrived and he gave me a couple of pamphlets on astral projection and Shamanism. I devoured them that night, trying out the exercises and experiencing something. Here at last was the magic I'd been looking for and if it didn't allow me to conjure a fireball, it did allow me to do something I'd been longing to do since I was 7. That kid became my friend and he showed me a shop where you could get more books. I remember buying a couple on Shamanism and hermetic magic. I read them religiously and did the exercises just as fervently, determined to master this strange new force in my life. Shortly after that I encountered my first "teacher." But that's a story for another blog entry.

Book Review: Magick Works (affiliate link) by Julian Vayne

Part memoir and part grimoire, this book is an excellent guide to how magic works. I like how the author weaves in personal narratives from his life to explore and explain how magic has worked for him. I think some of the best essays are on identity and space, but all of them are good and this is a valuable book to have because it makes you think about magic from a different perspective.

5 out of 5