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.

happiness

Is Success and Happiness integral to Magic?

Recently I shared a friend’s memetic flowchart about cursing and how to evaluate the effectiveness of that curse, based on the curser’s happiness, success, and whether or not they have their lives in order. I saw another friend share some thoughts which may or may not have been in response to the memetic flowchart. He essentially made the point that a person doesn’t have to have their lives in order or be happy and successful in order to practice effective magic and that using such metrics to assume the effectiveness of a person’s magic or lack thereof is faulty. He makes a good point and this leads me to ask an important question.

Is success and happiness (and for that matter having your life in order) integral to getting results in magic?

On the surface, the answer is an easy no. People can practice magic and get results and not have their lives together or be happy and successful. And these same people can curse other people. I should know because I’ve been cursed a few times by people that didn’t have their act together and aren’t happy or successful people in any sense of the word and for a short time the curses worked until I figured out what was going on and took appropriate action to remedy the situation.

But I’m going to give a more nuanced answer here, based on my own experiences. I want to be clear this isn’t a commentary on other peoples’ lives or magical practice per se, but simply an illustrative example of my own life and where happiness, success, and having my life together fits into my magical practice.