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.

spirits

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Now available for pre-order: Walking with Elemental Spirits

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In Walking with Elemental Spirits I share the modern system I’ve developed for working with elemental spirits that gets you consistent results while helping you build collaborative relationships with the elemental spirits.

The elemental spirits can be potent allies to work with and in this book you’ll learn how the practical magic skills that you can use to forge strong relationships with the elemental spirits that allow you to work with them as allies. In this book you will also learn the following:

  • The classic Hermetic and Taoist systems of the 5 elements, and my modernized system of elemental magic.

  • How to connect with elemental spirits using evocation portals and experiential embodiment

  • How to do internal work and health magic with the elemental spirits.

  • How to work with the elemental spirits to get practical results

  • and much more!

If you’re ready to learn a new approach to elemental magic, this book will teach you how to work with the elemental spirits and use elemental magic to get results that transform your life.

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Magical Experiments Podcast: The Luciferian Current with Anima Noira

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In this episode of magical experiments podcast, I discuss the luciferian current with Anima Noira. We discuss spirit work and how to work with Lucifer as well as discussing love spells and magical workings and when one should or shouldn’t employ magic for results driven purpose as well as what its like to do magic for the purposes of internal work.

My magical name has been variously translated as “Breath of Darkness”, “Dark Life Force” “Animating Darkness” or “Dark Fire”. Anima Noira is an occult writer, artist, videographer, and host of the Devil’s Disciples talk show. She has done the Devil’s Work as a model, witch, and priestess. She publishes her essays on the occult on her website, Inner Ignition.

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Breaking out of the 5 Element model: A different approach to elemental magic

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I’m currently writing Walking with Elemental Spirits, which is a book that explores my system for elemental magic. One of the central arguments of that book is that the 5 element model of earth, water, fire, air, and quintessence is a bit outdated. It has worked well as a model, but its evident that there are more elements than just the aforementioned elements. Why are we holding onto an outmoded model that was used to describe reality a long time ago, as a taxonomic means of categorizing the experiences of the world? I’ll be bold and just say we hold on to such models because we are taught that something which is old is typically considered better and if it works why change it.

I don’t agree with this sentiment. While I think the 5 element model is a great foundational tool, I also think that when we hold onto an old model and never question it we’re missing out on an opportunity to evolve magically, as well as to evolve the overall discipline of magic. I’ve been practicing elemental magic since I first started practicing magic, and for many years I did rely upon the 5 element model because it was what was available. Yet being the magical experimenter that I am, I inevitably ended up questioning it.

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Magical Experiments Podcast: Skrying and Spirit Work with Harper Feist

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In this interview Harper Feist shares her experiences with skrying and spirit work. We discuss the different types of skrying people can do and why skrying can be a viable alternative to invocation/evocation, as well as leading up to those practices. We also discuss the nature of spirits.

Harper has a class coming up on Skrying

Harper Feist is a member of the OTO, a past master of Leaping Laughter Lodge, an ordained priestess of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica and the current interviewer of U.S. Grand Lodge’s official podcast, “Thelema Now.”

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Magical Experiments podcast: Heart Magic with Irisanya Moon

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In this interview Irisanya Moon discusses what Heart Magic is and shares how it can be used to help you heal your heart as well as sharing her work with Aphrodite as a goddess of love and initiation. We talk about what the relationship with a godd can look like and what that entails for one's personal work as a result.

Get Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow and Messenger of the Godds - https://amzn.to/3r7XPgj (affiliate link)

Get Aphrodite: encountering the Goddess of Love, Beauty, & Initiation - https://amzn.to/3ngHfK6 (affiliate link)

Get practically pagan: An alternative guide to health and well-being: https://amzn.to/3Gen3A5 (affiliate link)

Get Reclaiming Witchcraft: https://amzn.to/3tkKjsy (affiliate link)

Irisanya Moon (she/they) is a writer, priestess, and teacher, and has facilitated classes and camps around the world, including the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. She was initiated into the Reclaiming Witchcraft tradition in 2014. She is a frequent contributor to Moon Books anthologies, a contributor to Witches & Pagans magazine, a columnist for Pagan Dawn, a blogger for Moon Books, and a blogger for Patheos.com (Charged by the Goddess). Irisanya has written and published four books: Pagan Portals - Reclaiming Witchcraft; Pagan Portals - Aphrodite; Practically Pagan: An Alternative Guide to Health and Well-being; and Pagan Portals - Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow & Messenger of the Godds. Three more are in the works. She is a devotee of Aphrodite, Hecate, the Norns, and Iris. They seek to find love and to inspire love by reminding us we are not alone, while meeting at crossroads, holding the threads of time, and bringing down messages from the godds. She is passionate about the idea that life is a love spell, a dance of desire and connection, a moving in and out of the heart, always returning to love.

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Magical Experiments Podcast: Appalachian Folk Magic with Byron Ballard

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This week I interview Byron Ballard about Appalchian Folk Magic. We discuss how folk magic works and how to create a spiritual lineage of your own. We also discuss the importance of research and why folk magic can be done anywhere. Byron Ballard is a rootworker and energy consultant; a freelance writer and an urban farmer; a weaver of words and webs, and the author of Roots, Branches, and Spirits, Staubs and Ditchwater, Asfidity and Madstones, Earth Works: Ceremonies in Tower Time, and Seasons of a Magical Life. Links to her books are below and are affiliate links.

Roots, Branches and Spirits

Seasons of a Magical Life

Staubs and Ditchwater

Asfidity and Madstones

Earth Works

You can Learn more about Byron and her work at https://www.myvillagewitch.com/

Why build a relationship with spirits

Recently a friend asked me what the point is around building a relationship with spirits. I think the relationship with spirits is much like any other relationship, where there is a give and take and benefits all around, but you have to be open to the relationship and what it can offer. For more of my thoughts on this watch the video.

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Can pop culture spirits die?

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One of the questions I ask is whether or not pop culture spirits can die, especially when they die within a story and it becomes part of the canon of the story. Are the pop culture spirits because the character is dead in the story and can you still work with them? In this video I share my thoughts on these questions.

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Integrating Qi Gong into Magical Workings

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One of the activities I’ve lately been doing, while performing the Sphere of Art, has involved doing some of the Qi gong movements I’ve learned. I was inspired to do this one day, just for the sake of seeing what if anything would happen if I started integrating qi gong into the SOA. I did this with two different Qi Gong movements, Cloud Hands (affiliate link) and Heaven and Earth Qi Gong (affiliate link) and what I found is that with one of those moments it seamlessly integrated into the SOA work, while the other did not.

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Magical Experiments Podcast: Elemental Magic with Ivo Dominguez Jr

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For the second episode of Magical Experiments Podcast, I have the great pleasure of hosting Ivo Dominguez Jr and we discuss elemental magic and how to incorporate it in your life. We also discuss the problem with categorizations and Ivo shares a couple exercises you can do with elemental magic.

Watch the video on Patreon (Note this interview will be available to the public for a week and then after that only available to people who subscribe to the podcast Tier or above on my patreon.

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An Elemental Magic Exercise

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Note: this article is available in full on Patreon. Become my patron to access the article.

I'm getting ready to write my next magical book, which is going to be about my work with magical elementals. One of the ways I've taken to working with the classic elemental spirits has involved going for walks. When I go outside for a walk, it allows me to open myself to their energy and experiences, but its not simply a matter of going for a walk. There is a precise state of being that is involved, as well.

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Breaking the web of reality

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In Living Magick (Affiliate link) one of the authors makes an interesting claim about how magic can be used to fundamentally break the web of reality, though apparently it can’t be taught, but only carried out as a unique act (Needless to say I don’t agree with THAT assessment). In contrast, in The Elements of Spellcrafting (affiliate link), the author argues that magic is not the direct cause of change, but is merely an influence of change. I agree with him that a lot of magic is more influence based, but I do think magic can, under the right circumstances have causal aspects to it, and be quite a direct force in a person’s life. These two opposing perspectives, where one can break the web of reality (although supposedly only in a unique way) and that magic is only an influence instead of a direct cause of change illustrates the weaknesses in modern occult theories and the limitations that we all too often readily accept in the explanations other people offer us. My own perspectives and theories and processes have their limitations as well, which is one reason I always say challenge what I share, because its not gospel truth, anymore than what these other two authors, or all the rest share.

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The benefits spirits get from working with us

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When you work with spirits you get the benefit of their knowledge and expertise and their help with manifesting results. You might also develop an ongoing relationship with the spirit. But what do spirits get out of the relationships with us? What are the benefits they receive? I share my thoughts on this topic in the video below.

If you want to learn more about working with spirits, check out my book Walking with Spirits

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How to recognize Humanocentric limitations in our spiritual work

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The other day, in the magical experiments Facebook group, a really good question was asked about what people consider a deity to be, versus what a spirit being is. One of the respondents noted that non-physical entities really don’t care about labels attached to them, and that the labels are mainly used for the convenience of humans, as a way of providing context and categorization for them. when working with spirits. The person went on to note that such categorizations are subjective. I agreed with the person’s response to the question, because in a very real sense the categorizations that occur with spirits are rooted in a humanocentric perspective.

A humanocentric perspective is a perspective rooted in the human experience. It brings with it set expectations around how spirits are encountered and worked with. For example, one such expectation is the expectation that a spirit will appear before a person in a form that makes sense to the person and speak in a language that the person understands. Such an expectation is based around the human need to control and label the experiences we have as much as possible.

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Spirit relationships and the magic of writing with Stephanie Connolly

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In this interview Stephanie and I discuss how spirit relationships based on respect and how to work with spirits. We also discuss writing about magic and what goes into writing a book, and how books speak to us.

Learn more about stephanie and her books at http://sjreisner.com

Learn more about Demonolatry at http://www.demonolatry.org

Learn how magic works: https://magical-experiments.teachable.com/p/home

Get free e-books: http://www.magicalexperiments.com/free-books

Become my patron: https://www.patreon.com/TaylorEllwood?fan_landing=true