Why I do magic when life is good

I share why it’s useful to do magic when life is good to continue to build off what is working in your life and why a strategic approach to magical workings can help you achieve long term success and happiness with your magic.

Learn more about strategic magic: https://magical-experiments.teachable.com/p/strategic-magic/

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How non-occult books inspire my magical practice

In today’s video I share how non-occult books inspire my magical practice and explain why non-occult disciplines and practices can help you develop creative approaches to magical work that expand how you understand and practice magic.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 24

9-22-2020 This is the last month I’m working with creativity as an element. When I look back over the last couple years, overall, I’m happy with the work I’ve done and how it changed my relationship with creativity. I think my biggest takeaway though was learned in the last couple months. I need to protect my creativity and I need to protect who and what helps protect my creativity. My creativity is what feeds my soul, but its also my livelihood and to let anything get in the way of that is to disrespect a fundamental part of myself that must be taken care of, so it can do the work its called to do.

9-23-2020 I’ve been processing some emotions the last couple days over recent events and how I feel toward certain people. And it’s helped re-reading The Slight Edge, where the author talks about the power of time and how the real power of time is the gradual changes that occur. They aren’t dramatic or loud, but they happen gradually, and if you apply the slight edge to time in a positive way, you make those changes work for you.

For me that slow gradual work is found in trying to find forgiveness in my heart for myself and other people as I slowly detangle and unwind from the recent drama of life. And its also found in coming to grips with my accountability for my actions and choices. The Slight Edge reminds me that it’s all a matter of time and that these moments will inevitably pass to new ones and what will be found in those moments will in part be informed by the work being done now.

Social Media Sigil Technique

In my recent interview with Soviet Mercedes, one of the topics we ended up talking about was a social media sigil technique based off using hashtags. Soviet Mercedes inspired this idea for me, because of how she uses hashtags on her FB posts, especially one in particular: #meetmeatthebank. I’ve recently started adding this hashtag to my daily gratitude posts as well as any other posts oriented around wealth magic.

This particular hashtag embodies the concept of wealth magic, because the bank, in one form or another, is where your wealth goes. Whether it’s a physical bank, or a metaphorical one or the bank of your body and the health you have, to meet at the bank is to also meet in the place of your wealth. It’s also where you show your receipts, because those receipts validate what you bring to the bank and what in turn the bank provides you. Note: This is my interpretation of #Meetmeatthebank and not necessarily how Soviet Mercedes would define it.

Magical Experiments Podcast: Money Magic and Working with Spirits with Soviet Mercedes

In this episode of the magical experiments podcast I interview Soviet Mercedes about Money Magic, Showing the receipts, and how to work with spirits. We also come up with an on the spot magical experiment!

To learn more about Soviet Mercedes and the classes she teaches visit The Hag School at https://www.thehagschool.com/

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

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

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How to recognize when you are deluding yourself

One of the problems a magician inevitably encounters is the problem where they buy into their own press release and delude themselves about their magical practice, and who they are, because of that practice. This isn’t a problem limited to just occultists either, but regardless of who you are and what you’re doing in life, spiritually or otherwise, there is that moment where delusion strikes, where you get up in the ego or in reading too much into a situation, or making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Why does this happen? It’s part of the human condition, and its something which happens for a variety of reasons. Maybe you pulled off an amazing feat of magic, or conversely maybe your life isn’t going that great and you need to find some explanation that saves face. Or maybe you think you’ve got the answers, when really you don’t have those answers. Certainly everything I’ve shared above applies to me at some point in my own journey.

The role of visualization in magical work

I discuss the role of visualization in magical work and what the advantages and disadvantages of visualization are as well as how to use it effectively in your magical work.

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

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

Walking the Land

One of the earliest magical practices I did and still do to this day is something I call walking the land. Walking the land is a practice where you connect with the elemental energies of the land, by walking the land and opening yourself up to the experience of the spirits speaking to you, through the journey you take. I first started doing this when I began practicing magic. I would go for long hikes, alone, and just walk and connect with the land, letting it speak to me.

Many years later, and I still do this practice. I have a small park, near where I live, and I walk it every few days, just to experience the place and the life of the trees, plants, and other beings that live in that park. I also do this whenever I go hiking in the gorge or along the coast. When I do this practice, I do it in silence, my hands outstretched, and I will just quiet my mind, and listen.

Book Reviews September 2020

Book Review: Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Land and Win (Affiliate link) by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

This is a really fascinating book that explores how to apply the strategic and tactical leadership skills of Navy Seals to business. The author shares stories of their time in Iraq and then explains how those same principles apply to business and life. Reading the book and applying the practices to my life and business has already produced some good results because of the discipline that comes with the integration of such practices.

Book Review: Mastery (Affiliate link) by Robert Greene

Mastery explores the stages of development that lead a person to become a master in their chosen discipline. The author uses the lives of various historical figures to illustrate these stages of mastery and then explains how to apply those stages to the development of your craft. While nothing I read here was earth shattering, perhaps because I’m immersed in such a journey myself, it was very helpful to read this book and understand the process of mastery.

Book Review: Enchantments of the Faerie Realm (Affiliate link) by Ted Andrews

This is one of the first books I ever read on magic and I recently decided to re-read it. It’s got some useful and solid information on working with faeries and elementals. I like the exercises the author includes in the book. Some of the book reads more like a dictionary, but if you work the exercises, you’ll get a lot out of it and its a good introduction to working with nature spirits.

A meditation on centers and life

One of the books I’m reading right now is The Phenomenon of Life (affiliate link) by Christopher Alexander. It’s a book about the art of building, but its really much more than that. It’s about the appreciation of life and how life shows up in the spaces we navigate and create. One of the concepts the authors talk about is how a given space is defined by its center and how there are actually different centers in a given space that all play off of and define each other.

What this discussion of Center has made me aware of is how in touch I am with my awareness of what my center is, physically, spiritually, and mentally. At the same time, I’m aware that even my perception of the center is governed by how that word is defined. Alexander makes the point that any space is made up of multiple centers. There is no one center so much as many centers and they all combine to shape the experience of a space.

Magical Experiments Podcast: The Future of Magic with Astrid the Psychic Witch

In episode 1 of the Magical Experiments podcast, I interview Astrid the Psychic Witch about the Future of Magic. We discuss the place of tradition in the future of magic, and explore how form can be mistaken for substance and why evolution is a necessary part of any discipline.

To learn more about Astrid visit her website: online-tarot-reader.com/

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

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

Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 23

8-22-2020 I started reading Beyond Victim Consciousness today. It had been recommended by a friend and given recent events, I felt like it would be useful to take a look and see what might be applicable to myself. My first impression is that some of the perspectives the author shares reminds me of the Adlerian psychology espoused in The Courage to be Disliked, namely that you choose the perception you have as opposed to how trauma defines. I don’t fully agree with that perspective, but I also recognize how much my own trauma can become can excuse, which really isn’t useful, if I’m going to own my choices and the consequences of them. In that sense the perspective I bring to an event defines that event subjectively. And it is all to easy to use a given perception to justify your actions, choices, blamelessness or blame, so I’m really sitting with that. I’ll be curious to see how the rest of this book can inform my journey forward, as well as what I learn from the past.

8-23-2020 I read some more of Beyond Victim Consciousness tonight. Victim consciousness wants to be right, wants to protest, wants to control, wants to make others as we are and when they refuse we become angry and punish them. An internally focused perspective wants peace and accepts the situation as it is, recognizing that the perspective you apply to the situation dictates the experience of the situation.

Why pop culture magic works

I always find it interesting when critics of pop culture magic make the arguments that pop culture magic either can’t work or if it does work, the results aren’t as good as other systems of magic. I wonder why they make those criticisms, especially when its clear that for the most part they haven’t actually tried pop culture magic, and therefore don’t have any qualified experience to critique pop culture magic. The conclusion I’ve come to is that such critics attack pop culture magic because they feel threatened by the idea that pop culture magic my supplant their practice of magic. As a result, they feel the need to try and take pop culture magic down.

When I first started writing articles and later my first book Pop Culture Magick, I was on the receiving of similar criticisms. I was told I was reinventing the wheel and that pop culture magic wasn’t real magic. Nevertheless I continued writing articles and books and giving talks on the topic, because I knew there were other people practicing pop culture magic and I also had tangible results from using pop culture magic. And over the years I have heard from people who read my books and articles and told me how they didn’t feel so alone and realized that pop culture magic could be a viable path of magic, one where viable systems of magic could be developed and used.

Cobra Kai and Pop Culture Magic

One of the most fascinating aspects of pop culture (and by extension pop culture magic) is how pop culture reinvents and refreshes itself. The most recent example that comes to mind is the show Cobra Kai, which was recently acquired by Netflix. This show takes place 30 years after the Karate Kid movie series and is an update on that series, which focuses on the characters from the first film (initially). I watched the entire series myself recently and like many other people got caught up in the Karate Kid saga again.

There’s two factors that make a given pop culture relevant for people who practice pop culture magic. One factor is the personal relevance you attribute to a given pop culture. People who are die hard fans of a pop culture will be so invested in that pop culture that it won’t matter if it is or isn’t relevant to other people.

Why internal work isn't always enough

I recently blew my life up. I’m not happy about it, but it’s my own fault, and it could’ve been avoided, but sometimes that’s the way things go. Nonetheless, one of the lessons I’ve taken from this recent experience is how important it is to recognize that sometimes internal work isn’t enough, especially when you’re dealing with situations of stress and trauma that you haven’t fully processed.

Meditation and other forms of internal work are good for working through issues, but one of the pitfalls that accompanies any form of internal work is that it is subjective. You may be thinking you’re doing okay because of the work you’re doing, but actually there may be patterns you aren’t seeing or recognizing as problematic. When that happens you can end up sabotaging yourself.

Walking with Spirits is now Available

BOOK 2: WALKING WITH SPIRITS: HOW TO WORK WITH SPIRITS AND GET CONSISTENT RESULTS IS NOW AVAILABLE!

In Walking with Spirits, I share my process for connecting and working with spirits that enables you to get consistent results, while building collaborative relationships with the spirits you work with.

Working with spirits doesn’t have to involve the coercion of spirits that you find in conventional approaches to spirit work. What I share is an alternative approach that enables you to develop a friendly relationship with the spirits you work with and allows you to get results. Instead of trying to force a spirit to do something for you, you’ll learn the following:

  • How to create a rapport with spirits that allows you to become allies.

  • Why a co-equal relationship with spirits is better than any other type of relationship you could form.

  • What the problems are with conventional Western spirit work techniques such as what you find in the grimoires.

  • How to use experiential embodiment to connect with spirits.

  • How to use a simplified approach to invocation and evocation that allows you to work with spirits and get results.

If you’re ready to learn a different approach to working with spirits, where you don’t create enemies, and instead have life long relationships where you and the spirits from working with each other, Walking with Spirits will show you a different path for working with spirits that gets you results.