I was recently reading Howlings from the Pit by Joseph Lisiewski and I was struck by something he wrote in regards to ceremonial magicians creating magical tools that took away from the actual experience and success of magic they worked. What struck me is that the magicians were giving up the essence in favor of the form, when in fact they ought to take the opposite approach and give up the form to understand and work with the essence.
Being the magical nerd that I am also made me think of a scene in God of War Ragnarok where Brok the Dwarf tells Kratos that to create the form you have to find the essence. The essence is the key to the form. The form doesn’t exist without the essence. It made me consider Lisiewski’s perspective from another angle: How much of the essence do we give to the form, which in turn causes the form to have the power, presence, magick, etc that would otherwise stay with the essence?
In my own magical work, I’ve typically taken a minimalistic approach to my magic and spirit work operations. I have sometimes added some effects because I recognized that those effects would enhance the overall work, but even with the inclusion of those effects the question I always ask is: Does this help me connect with the magic/spirit more effectively? This is the question that any magician ought to ask themselves in order to best understand how magic can work.
What helps me get to the essence of the work? Is the form a distraction or does it actually help me truly connect with what I want to work with? These are additional questions that are useful to ask. I personally would never take the approach that Lisiewski takes, which is grimoire based because I find that form distracts from the essence. My form, developed and personalized to help me with both magical and spiritual work allows me to connect with the essence of the work I am doing…but Lisieswki would have similar issues, in no small part because of his adherence to his own system of magic and the limitations he operates in.
A given system of magic has its specific rules and limitations. If we recognize this we can see past the form to the essence and focus on working with the essence to help us achieve the ideal form we planned for. We naturally want to attend to the details of a magical working but part of attending to those details is taking the time to understand how the form magic takes actually allows us to connect with the essence and what that means as a result of the work we do.
