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.

Magic

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Two examples of pop culture spirits I'm working with

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I’m currently engaged in three pop culture magic workings. I’m going to share two of those workings now, because it’s a good example of how working with two different pop cultures can be effective, under the right circumstances. The two workings are focused on the same goal. Each working is an evocation of a pop culture spirit that’s been chosen for strategic purposes. The pop culture spirits I’m working with are Grand Admiral Thrawn from Star Wars and Sam Bridges Porter from Death Stranding.

I’m working with Grand Admiral Thrawn because of his strategic genius and his ability to apply unconventional thinking toward solving situations. Thrawn has an appreciation of art, and uses the study of art to understand other cultures and the way those cultures behave. Thrawn also puts his community first. He doesn’t act from selfish ambition, but rather from a focus on trying to figure out how best to serve his community and put the community welfare first.

Why I integrate the mundane into the magical

I was recently asked by a reader why I emphasize integrating mundane actions into magical work, especially when no one else really seems to write about it. Doesn’t taking mundane actions defeat the point of doing magical work? Why should we marry the mundane to the magical, if magic is supposed to allow us to pull off the impossible.

I can’t speak for why other writers mostly ignore integrating the mundane into their magical work. I can tell you why I do it and write about it. I’m a very practical person in every aspect of my life, and that includes the spiritual work I do. But I also don’t really separate the mundane from the magical. The mundane actions I take are part of the magical work I do. Making a distinction between specific actions and categorizing those actions as magical or mundane ignores something pivotal to life itself: How we live our lives is informed by how we define our lives.

Do I define my life as compartmentalized sections? Or do I define my life by how I truly want to live it…a magical life where every choice and action is magical?

Why you need to work the process of magic

Sometimes, in your magical practice, you can be so caught up in the results you want that you forget something essential about your practice: that you need to work the process of your magic and worry less about the results. I found myself having this re-realization recently because I was getting fixated on a specific result and when I recognized I was getting fixated, I gently reminded myself that I needed to re-orient and focus on the process instead of the result.

Now it may seem strange to say that in the context of results based magic. After all, if you’re focused on getting a result, shouldn’t the result matter the most? That’s a good question to ask and it is fair to say that conventionally results are treated as king/queen in that context. But as I’ve learned with my practice, it can actually be more beneficial to focus less on the result and more on the process, especially when you’re engaged in long term magical work.

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How I craft magical tools

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One of the practices that I like to do is craft my own magical tools. The benefit of creating your own magical tools is that you have this intimate experience with the entire process where you marry the emotional, mental, spiritual associations and correspondences to the physical tool you are creating. The result is that you know that tool in a different way than one you might be. You’ve created it.

But there’s an interesting challenge with creating a magical tool. What if you don’t have the skill set to tool making tools to create a magical tool? What do you then? For instance I don’t how to work with metal, and while I have limited experience working with wood. I don’t have the tools or space to work with wood. What do you when you want to create magical tools, but can’t create them traditionally?

What should a daily practice of magic look like?

The other day I was asked what a daily practice of magic ought to look like, for someone who’s starting to practice magic. The answer I give is going to be general for a specific reason: I can give you some suggestions on what a practice ought to look like, but the specific practices you decide to do are your own, and should be, because what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. I throw that in there, because as always, YOU are the authority of your life and so you should be the one to decide what you’ll do or not do.

With that said, I do have some recommendations on daily magical practice that can greatly benefit you and is really applicable across the board to anyone who is new or who has been practicing magic for a while. And if you don’t already do a daily practice, I highly recommend it because by making it a regular part of your life, you really get the benefits that are otherwise missed out on.

So what are my daily magic recommendations?

How I calculate probabilities in order to manifest them

Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2020

Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2020

I was recently asked if I have a method of calculating a probability and how likely it is to manifest as a reality. The person wanted to know if I use a divination method or anything else along those lines in order to calculate the probability. As it turns out I have a way that I calculate probabilities in order to determine if I’m going to manifest them. I should also be clear and mention that I’m not interested in predicting world events or things along those lines. My calculation efforts are entirely focused around achieving results.

This recent blog post speaks to my stance on divination and how I use divination to manifest results, but the calculation aspect of divination is found in the presentation and manipulation of information. Any divination technique presents information within specific contexts, and usually the context most focused on is the information itself. But a look at the design aspects of divination can also be useful because of how that design can be used to calculate and manipulate a probability.

For instance, with tarot cards, the design aspect shows up in 3 distinct ways: the art, the spread, and the positioning of the cards. The art, obviously, is the medium by which information is primarily expressed and presented. But for purposes of calculating a probability, I like to look at the spread and the positioning of the cards. I don’t use fixed spreads with my readings, because I find them to be limiting, in no small part because the design of a given spread is used to portray the information of the reading in the context of the spread, even if that context isn’t always applicable to the reading. the same applies to the positioning of the card. I have no real investment in whether a card is reversed or not, unless it’s useful to use that positioning as a way of opening and closing aspects of the reading.

So how I do use the spread and position design to calculate probability?

When I create my own spreads, I create them for each situation and I use the spread to help calculate the probability, because where a card is placed can signify its influence on the possibility, but also the route of least resistance and its that route I’m particularly interested in. If I want to manifest a result, I want to use the path of least resistance, because the less resistance there is, the easier to manifest the possibility. But the calculation of that route is also the creation of it, because the spread isn’t just used to determine the best possible path…it’s also used to create it.

Likewise my use of positioning is really about using the position to determine what information/influences I want to either amplify or minimize. The position of a card either indicates that other cards and what they represent should be applied fully to the path of least resistance or that the information/influence should be contained and mitigated or redirected differently.

I calculate a probability on the basis of what effort and actions will be needed to manifest the probability into a result, and how that effort and action must be aligned with available influences and resources that can pave the way for realization of the result, i.e. the path of least resistance. By using my divination tool to create a path of least resistance and align or redirect relevant information, I’m able to determine how likely a probability could become a result, while also creating an avenue of manifestation that starts the process for turning the probability into reality.

The use of design in this process plays an important role because it contextualizes the information and focuses it toward the specific outcome. This is also true outside of divination. The design of any process of magic has implications about how that process will work and what it will do to help you achieve a result. Studying the design aspects can help you optimize your magical workings, because you aren’t just focused on the information or actions, but also the context in which everything is happening. Using design to turn that context into something that works for you can make your magical work that much more effective.

The Magic of Writing is available for pre-order!

My latest book The Magic of Writing is available for Pre-order. It comes out on the 15th of May.

Learn how to apply practical magic and writing techniques together to achieve consistent results that transform your life.

In the Magic of Writing, I show you how writing can become a potent magical tool that you can use to achieve consistent results.

Best of all you don't need to be a an author or writer to use writing magic. All you need to do is pick up the pen, paper, or keyboard, and start creating writing that allows you to embody your magic and generate real results that change your life.

In this book you'll learn the following:

  • How to create definitions that you can use to program your magical workings

  • How to change time and space using writing

  • How the design of writing can help you influence the way people read your writing.

  • How to create enchantments with metaphors.

  • How to use the power of story to rewrite your life and experiences

  • How to get results with your writing magic that transforms your life.

The Magic of writing will introduce a whole new set of techniques and tools to your magical practice that will enable you to get amazing results that change your life.

Why I don't close my rituals anymore

The other day in the Magical Experiments Facebook group I was asked if I had a process for closing out of a ritual that I had shared in a book. I explained that I didn’t actually have a process for closing out of a ritual and that I don’t do closes with my rituals anymore. In fact, I haven’t closed out of a magical working for a long time now. I thought I would share why here.

Conventional wisdom in the occult would argue that it is essential to close out of a magical ritual so that you can banish any left over/unwanted influences from the working and so that you release the magical working to do its thing, while you go on with your life. Its argued that if you don’t do a close out of the ritual, you could be endangering yourself with the spirits you worth with or that the magical working won’t actually be executed. These are the reasons I’ve seen shared for why you want to close a ritual.

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Sigil Walking

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Sigil walking is a technique I’ve developed based off Bua Gua, which is a martial arts moving meditation of circle walking. I recently had the opportunity to learn the basics of Bua Gua and it occurred to me that the principles of circle walking could be applied to charging and firing sigils for practical magic, or for invoking and working with a spirit. It is suggested that for you to get the possible use out of this technique, you should make yourself familiar with some type of walking meditation that moves the energy.

In Bua Gua, when you walk, you are pushing your internal energy to the Earth to connect with the Earth energy and then bringing that energy back up through your body and connecting it with the Stellar energy. Or at least that’s my experience when I do the walking. Since you are raising energy in this way, it occurred to me that you could also direct that energy accordingly, either for a practical magical working, or as a way to connect with a spirit.

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I walk with spirits

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In a recent blog post I shared how my relationship with the spirits has evolved over time into a symbiotic relationship. Part of how that relationship has come about has involved taking an approach to spirit work which goes against what you typically find in western ceremonial magic. In traditional evocation, for example, a person might summon a spirit, compel it to do specific actions with other spirits and then banish the spirit. This creates a relationship based on coercion of the spirits involved, and also attempts to separate out the spirit world from our world, creating a false division.

I’ve never found this approach to evocation to be workable, perhaps because I have a fundamental problem with the concept of coercing a spirit to do something. I’ve also never employed banishing techniques in my work with spirits, because of that false division it creates. Instead my approach to spirits is informed by my desire to have an ongoing, symbiotic, cooperative relationship with the spirits I work with. As such, I’ve always approached my spirit work with a perspective of how can we mutually achieve our desired goals and help each other.