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.
I interview Luxa Strata about the magical group work she is doing with the Green Mushroom project. We discuss the importance of group work, especially during the pandemic and how working in a group remotely can still bring you together with people. We also discuss the value of a beginner’s mindset and how this can help you learn more about magic.
To connect with Luxa visit her instagram
When you think about your emotions, perhaps the last thing you might consider is that there is a magical aspect to your emotions, or that emotions should even be worked with magically. After all, emotions seem to fall in the domain of psychology and while you can do shadow work around emotions that isn’t always considered “real” magical work. Yet in my own experiences and in observing other magicians, I think there’s a real need to work with the emotions and to do so in a way that is healthy, while also recognizing the role emotions can play in magical work.
What I’ve discovered in my own magical practice, and from observing other practitioners is that while magic can solve some problems, it can also exacerbate other issues, and this can include issues around the emotions. Certainly when I look back at my younger self, I see recognize times when I was reactive with my magical practice because of the emotions I was feeling at the time. I let those emotions take over my identity in the moment. As I began doing internal work aka shadow work around my emotions, it also changed my magical practice. I became less reactive in my usage of magic to resolve problems and started to carefully consider the impact.
I was asked the question what practitioners overlook in magic. Today I came up with an answer to that question, but it's not the answer you'll likely expect. Watch the video to learn what I think practitioners overlook in magic.
Sometimes you do a magical working and the magic doesn’t seem to work. Why? You’ve gotten all the required resources, done all the steps, but despite doing all of that work the result you wanted didn’t manifest. I share some thoughts on why magic doesn’t always seem to work as well as how to troubleshoot your magical work.
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One of the most important lessons I learned in my magical work is the lesson of consistency, specifically the need to be consistent with a given practice of magic, especially when you’re learning that practice. From the very beginning of my magical practice to now I’ve applied a consistent approach to what I’ve learned in a few different ways. That consistent practice has instilled a level of discipline with me that has helped me become a better practitioner of magic, and helped in other venues of my life, such as with my writing.
When you aren’t consistent with your magical practice it is hard to create a truly sustainable practice, because you’re not giving yourself the benefit of sticking with that practice. Instead when you jump from one magical practice to another you only the barest taste of what that practice can provide you.
So how do you develop a consistent practice of magic?
In this episode Elise Oursa and I discuss how to mediate and work with spirits, how to work with Tarot and the finer pragmatic details of creating change in your life with spells.
Elise's Website is http://www.eliseoursa.com
and her facebook group is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cardsncoffee
Elise's new tarot deck Blood and Ink will be available for pre-order soon!
When I think about applying practical magic to my life to effect change and get results, there’s usually two purposes that such workings are applied to. The first purpose is to solve a problem that has come up in your life. You need a solution, and magic is a means of obtaining that solution and resolving the problem. The second purpose is that you’re trying to design your life and you’ve decided to apply magic to that life design in order to help you achieve it. I also consider this to be short term vs. long term magical workings.
Should you do magic to find your ideal romantic partner? And if you do love magic should you try and get a specific person to love you or should you take a more generalized approach? I answer these questions and explore the topic of love in general and share my own pragmatic approach to handling love and love magic.
Whether you've done magical work to make change happen or just had some mundane changes come up in your life, its important to make space for those changes to settle and to give yourself a way to fully process the change and consequences that come with those changes.
Lately I’ve been watching the 2004 remake of Battlestar Galatica. I’m really enjoying re-watching the series because of the different themes that are interwoven into the story. Yes there’s the SF theme of space battles, but there’s also the exploration of mystical and spiritual themes, such as some of the characters interacting with spirits. However what really interested me about the show was the Hybrid character that pilots the basestars and how they live in a state of being that can be described as non-linear. When they tell the ship to jump, I think of that as having some potential to be worked with in terms of space/time magic.
In this episode Alison Chicosky talk about her magical work with Greek Papyri and pentacles. We discuss how to experiment and reconstruct ancient magical workings as well as how spirits can help with this kind of work.
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Have you ever done a magical working and had experiences that went counter to the established goals and progress you were going for in that working?
Today I explain why its important to pay attention to the experiential data and how that data is different from the goals we might establish in magical working. I also discuss how that data can still be used to help us meet our goals in our magical workings.
I explore how to recognize and let go of expectations around results and how to be present with the actual transformations and changes that occur with your magical work.
One of the perceptions I find fascinating in regards to magical experimentation is the perception that there’s little to no research involved in the choice to experiment with magic. It’s an erroneous perception, but it can be forgiven because most of the time when people think of research in magic, they likely think of it in relationship to the attempt to replicate older magical workings. Certainly that is valid research and a lot of it goes on, when people are trying to either reconstruct older magical workings or learn more about the magic of antiquity.
But magical experimentation involves a fair amount of research as well. The majority of my magical experiments aren’t ones I come up with off the top of my head. They come about because I’ve gotten curious about a topic and decided to do some research in order to answer questions I have. From that research, magical experiments arise because I want to put the research into practical implementation.
I answer a question I was asked about what the hardest part of magical work is and share the why behind my particular answer. I also discuss why I still think its the most essential aspect of magical work.
I discuss my thoughts on occult community drama and how to deal with it. Most importantly I share what you should really focus on and why that is more important than getting into arguments with people about what you do with your spiritual practice.
I created the Elemental Balancing Ritual in 2004 and I have used it ever since then as a year-long (or more) magical working dedicated to an element that I work with during that year, as a means of both doing internal work and aligning myself with the elemental energy I’m working with. Elements I’ve worked with include earth, fire, and water, but also include emptiness, love, movement, still, and creativity. This year I’m working with the elements of Connection and Truth, which is the first time I’ve worked with two elements, but there’s a reason for it, because of the spirits I’m working with.
My definition of an elemental energy and/or spirit differs from the conventional definition which only recognize 5 elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit in the West and Earth, Water, Wood, Metal, and Fire in the East. I’m not basing my definition of elements solely on a seasonal perspective or from the perspective of what constitutes the Earth in a primal sense of the word. Instead I consider elements to be primal forces that move us and are mediated by us. For emptiness, as an element is something most people grapple with at some point in their lives and it is something that can move a person to take actions to try and fill that emptiness or come to peace with it.
10-21-2020 Today I switched over to the elements of connection and truth. I don’t normally do two elements but these go hand in hand, because they are the forces that the archangel Suvuviel mediates and he’s one of the two spirits I’ll be working closely this year. The other spirit is She Who Watches. They both made themselves known to me in different ways, with some hard truths coming out, but later healing connection occurring. It’s not the way I imagined my birthday or the start of a new element going, but that’s kind of the point of this work. If you want balance, you necessarily have to open yourself to how that balance will show up in ways you don’t expect or plan for.
I’m glad for the switch though and I’m glad that I’m doing this work now, when I especially need to do it. It will continue to carry me forward on this journey of life and learning I’m on. I wouldn’t have it any other way, because this is the work I need to be doing that calls and speaks to and through me.
Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels
In last week’s article I shared my perspective on when it’s best to start experimenting with magic. This week I thought I would share an example of an ongoing experiment I’m doing with an existing magical working that I’ve modified extensively. The working in question is the Sphere of Art. I first learned about this working through Robert Stewarts books entitled The Sphere of Art. Before we get into the ongoing work, let me provide a bit of history around what I’ve done with this working.
In October of 2017 I decided to do the Sphere of Art working. The first task I undertook involved memorizing the chants for the sphere of art so I could call in the relevant spirits and energies for setting up the basic Sphere of Art. This memorization took approximately 6 months to accomplish. The benefit of it is that conditioned my mind and body to receive and connect with the spirits and energies embodied by the sphere. The original chants were for the four directions of East, South, West, and North with appropriate correspondences derived for each direction, but after I memorized those chants I made my first modification.
My first modification was to create chants that represented the underworld, the stellar cosmos, and the final point, a point of fixed manifestation that binds all the forces together. These chants were not arbitrarily added to the Sphere of Art, but rather were included because of careful research I did with both the source texts and supplementary texts that indicated that these chants and the corresponding connections with spirits and energies would fit into the Sphere of Art work. So I came up with and memorized the chants and found that indeed there is a fit with the existing material.
Once I memorized all the chants I was ready for the next phase of work which involved gathering together alchemical materials and prepping them to be worked with in the Sphere of Art. In this case I opted to work with homeopathic materials, which I ordered and then stored in 10 glass vials. I also collect spring water and Vodka to be used in 10 additional glass vials. This was all part of the original working, but I also modified the working by creating sacred art for the planetary/elemental energies being worked with, as well as the archangels being worked with.
In October 2018 I started doing the Sphere of Art work, which involved not only the recitation of the chants but also working with the alchemical substances, specifically charging first the dry and then the wet materials for a specific cycle of time. I did this work over the course of two months. A the end of those two months the charging was done.
At this point I modified the working again. Over the course of the next 10 months, I mediated and worked with the alchemical substances, archangels and corresponding planetary/elemental energies for each alchemical substance. For example, in the first month, I worked with dry and wet substances of Carbon, as well as with the underworld energy of Earth and the archangel Sandalaphon. This work involved creating the sphere of art each day, and then taking the substances of the month and meditating with them in order to mediate their energies into the ritual space. I also put up the sacred art in appropriate locations around the ritual space. The purpose of this work was to create a permanent rarified ritual space where the energies and spirits are continually mediated by the space itself, and by the sphere of art work.
In October of 2019 I concluded that work, but continued on with working with the Sphere of Art, specifically in relationship to cultivating a deep and abiding relationship with the elemental energy of creativity. From October 2019 to October 2020 I worked with this element via the Sphere of Art and found that this, along with the previous years’ work set me up with enough creative ideas and work to last the rest of my life. I currently have at least 50 projects to work on, in terms of books alone, with more ideas waiting in the wings.
During this time I also focused on utilizing the Sphere of Art to enhance practical magical workings, specifically around wealth generation, with the goal being to get me back to full time self-employment. I have found that the SOA does amplify workings done within it because you are setting up a very specific space and time with what you want in that space/time and nothing else, until you do the magical work and release it into the universe.
Current work: I am still doing the Sphere of Art everyday, though I did take a month hiatus in late August/early September due to life events. In the last half year or so I’ve also begun learning a lot more qi gong, specifically nei gong work that involves cultivating the internal qi of the body and marrying it to the external forces one chooses to work with. I do find that the Sphere of Art is uniquely suited to this work because it provides the external environment and mediation of forces that can be worked with, but I’m also finding its necessary to first build up one’s internal stores, which is what the main focus of my current work is. I do anticipate as I get more practice I’ll be able to fruitfully join the practices together to enhance my connection with the relevant energies and spirits, while also working with the internal energies I’m cultivating.
All of this work has been carefully done in stages, with any modifications only being done after ensuring necessary precautions have been taken. Overall the work has been beneficial and life changing. I anticipate that this will continue to be life long work that continually changes and develops because of the continued mediation and refinements of the connections being worked with. I share this case study as an example of long term experimentation and what thought/practice must go into such work.
I discuss why magic isn’t meant to be prescriptive, but often is treated that way because of how it is written about. I also discuss how to take a more descriptive approach to writing about magic and what the benefits of such can be for people who are learning about magic.
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