Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash
One of my favorite fantasy books is The Soulforge by Margaret Weis (affiliate link) and one of the reasons its one one of my favorite books is because it has some valuable lessons to offer about what it takes to practice magic. Now, you may read that and wonder why a fantasy book would have any valuable insights to offer about real magical practice, but as I’ve discovered time and again, some of the best lessons you can learn about magic come in the form of stories.
Just in case you’re not familiar with the book, it’s a story about how Raistlin Majere becomes a magician. In the story, Raistlin has to make some critical choices that test who he is and defines how he becomes a magician. I want to share some of the key lessons we can all learn from this story and discuss how they apply to the practice of magic.
The practice of magic is a refinement of who you are. In the book a young Raistlin is told that “A mage’s soul is forged in the crucible of the the magic.” The person telling him this goes on to explain that the magical work will change him and that experience will temper who he is, refining and focusing him, provided he’s willing to to do the work.
There’s a lot of truth to that lesson. When we do magical work we change ourselves. The experiences we have do serve to temper us. One of the reasons I advocate for doing internal work is precisely because it helps you process the lessons you from your magical work and apply what you’ve learned to everything else you’ll do.
You must be willing to give in order to get. At one point, Raistlin has to take a test if he’s going to continue his magical practice. He takes the test and at first nothing happens. Then he does the following:
“Raistlin turned inward, to the very core of his being, and he vowed, I will do this. Nothing in my life matters except this. No moment of my life exists except this moment. I am born in this moment, and if I fail, I will die in this moment.”
For magic to work we must be willing to give of ourselves. Magic doesn’t happen in a vacuum and sometimes what we must give must come from the very depth of our being. We also need to focus, to make what we do in the moment be the only thing that matters.
If you make a promise honor it. Raistlin ends up making a promise to the gods of magic that he will dedicate his life to them if they help him pass the test. They visit him and ask him if he really knows what he’s offering and is he prepared to follow through on the promise. Raistlin tells them he is and they agree to help him, but remind him that they expect him to never falter in his dedication to them or deny them.
When you make a promise to yourself, someone else, or a spirit its important to honor that promise and follow through on it. We are defined in part by our choices and the actions we take or don’t take to honor those choices. This is one of the reasons I never enter into an agreement lightly, but always find a way to follow through, because in doing so I’m honoring the agreement and those I’ve made the agreement to.
Magic starts from within. One of the key lessons Raistlin learns is that magic comes from within…that its something you must put part of yourself into. While this echoes what I mentioned above giving in order to get, it’s also a reminder that the magic is an intrinsic part of us. It starts from within us, from our souls, our hearts, our mind, our body, and it expresses it through us. We are the medium of magic if we are willing.
We all fail, but if we are willing to learn from failure, we will rise. At one point Raistlin is trying to make a spell work and it doesn’t work. His teacher points out that he’s getting in his own way and that he must be willing to learn from the failure in order to achieve success.
We all fail. If we can learn from that failure, we become better for it. Failure is the necessary toll we pay to become better at what we do.
Lessons like these are good ones to consider in your spiritual work and your life. While they aren’t hidden occult secrets, they nonetheless bring something with them that we can learn from and apply to our own magical practice, if we’re willing to.
