Magical Experiments blog — Magical Experiments

magick

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Releasing Old Identities: How changes in appearance inform reality

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picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

For the first time in over 30 years, I cut my hair short. I've had long hair since I was a pre-teen but I recently decided that I wanted to make a change. I felt like it was time to cut my hair and in the process shed old identities in favor of new ones. For me, getting a hair was a magical act of identity transformation. I had long hair for so long and in a very real sense it was an established part of my identity as a person and even as a magician.

Yet identity is fluid and malleable. What seems fixed can be changed. A lot of times what makes your identity seem fixed has more to do with your perspective and attachment to that identity than to the actual physical reality of it. I kept my hair long because I was attached to how I looked, and how I felt about having long hair.

The act of getting my hair cut may not seem overly magical, but for me it was the choice to let of attachment to appearance, to looking a specific way. It was the choice to let go of not just the physical appearance of long hair, but also all the attachments I had to that appearance and just as importantly it was an act of letting go of the weight of that hair, physically, but also metaphysically.

An astrological magic working with Saturn and the Moon

Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

One of the ongoing magical experiments I am exploring involves integrating astrological currents into my magical work so I can optimally draw on those experiences to help me with my magical processes and work. Recently there was a new moon and Saturn was going retrograde. It seemed like the perfect time to do a magical working to capture the essence of the experience and apply it to my life.

For the working itself, I created a painting, where I painted the Astrological symbol for Saturn, the moon, and then painted the sign for Leo. I picked Leo because Leo is where my Saturn sign shows up in my natal chart and because Saturn in Leo represents the need to work on self love, specifically applying it to your life.

You can apply a similar approach to your own life, by taking the time to learn about the astrological currents that are currently happening and may apply to you. Working with an astrologer can be helpful for getting this information, but applying it magically is ultimately up to you.

Walking with Nature Spirits is now Available!

In Walking with Nature Spirits I share how to develop a collaborative relationship with nature spirits and nature in order to create a rooted and embodied life.

Nature spirits are unlike any other kind of spirit you can work with. They don’t care about making pacts or bargains. Their focus is on taking care of nature and if you want to work with them you have to shift your approach to spirit work in a way that will seem radical and yet can help you develop a deeper relationship with the world around you. In this book you will also learn the following:

  • How to meet and recognize the spirit and character of the land and communicate with it.

  • How to identify power spots and ley lines and form a bond with them.

  • How to work with the land you live on and make it into a place of power.

  • How to use all of your senses, psychic and physical to work with nature spirits.

  • and much more!

If you’re ready to develop a deeper relationship with nature and nature spirits, this book will teach you a new approach to working with nature that will help you develop bond with the land.

How to Cultivate Patience in your magical practice

picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

In March, I started attending a Kung Fu school. I had previously been taking Qi Gong classes there but I finally cleared some obligations away and was ready to begin my Kungfu practice. For the last several months I’ve been learning specific techniques at the white belt level that will help me advance to the yellow belt, and today my Sifu determined that I learned them enough to qualify for my first yellow stripe. I appreciate earning that yellow stripe, because I put a lot of effort and exercise into learning the techniques. I can still improve on them, but I have learned the basics.

However the most important lesson I have learned from this process of learning these techniques is patience. I needed to put the time and effort into learning the techniques and I needed to let go of any expectation on when I might advance and instead simply focus on learning the techniques and letting those techniques teach me…not just the movements or the qi, though I learned about those things, but also the virtue that comes in focusing on the practice for the sake of doing it without expecting anything.

I’ve applied this same discipline to my magical work, because as I’ve learned various techniques over the years, what I have always come away with is an appreciation that truly learning those techniques has involved repetition, focus, and dedication. And while I have experimented with various techniques and systems, that experimentation has always occurred after I had already invested substantial time in learning the given system or technique as it is. If you want to learn any practice, in any discipline, you must cultivate patience. And actually that applies to other areas of life as well. But for this article I want to speak to how you cultivate patience for your magical practice.

Common problems with sigil magic

Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

With any type of magical working there can be challenges that occur which need to be addressed if you’re going to become proficient in that magical working. For this article I’m going to address issues that can occur with sigil magic that may cause your sigils to fail and suggest possible actions you can take to help you improve the efficacy of your sigil magic. Context: When I refer to sigil in this article I’m referring to the chaos magic method of sigil, as opposed to a spirit’s sigil.

I also want to note that with any type of magical working, it can be normal to encounter failures as you learn how to do a given magical working. As with any discipline you learn, it takes time, practice and experiences to develop the expertise and skillset that produces better results. with that said, let’s explore the common problems that can occur with a sigil.

1. You don’t have a well defined statement of desire. The basis of any sigil is the creation of a statement of desire. The statement of desire establishes the intent and defines the desired result, ideally in concrete terms. A well defined statement of desire not only defines the result but also ties up any loose ends. A poorly defined statement of desire leaves room for interpretation and in my experience when there is room for interpretation there is also room for results not manifesting exactly what you want.

For example the statement I want a job is a very broad statement. We can use that statement, but unless we’ve put some thought into the programming of it we are leaving a lot of room for interpretation and that room for interpretation can leave the door open for not getting the result you want or getting one that seems to fit the bill but has aspects you don’t care for.

I treat sigils as programs so when I create a statement of desire. The statement of desire should be the finalized expression of your thought process and include what you want, as well as excluding what you don’t want. When I create a sigil from the statement of desire I put all of that programming into the sigil, in order to define, focus and crystallize the sigil.
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Fear as an Ally in Your Magical Practice

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Fear, in all of its guises, can be a force in our lives that either stops us in our tracks or motivates us to make changes The relationship we cultivate with fear can either turn it into one of our greatest allies or one of your greatest enemies. In this video I explore both aspects.

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How to Fuel your Magical Entities and get better results

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Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

Recently I was asked a question about how I fuel magical entities. The person asked if I relied upon deities, elemental or planetary currents or other traditional forms of fueling that are typically used with magical entities. It's a good question to ask, because there are many different ways you can set an entity up, both in terms of how you fuel it, and in terms of other specifications and customizations you can make to the entity.

While I can and do draw on more traditional methods for fueling entities, these methods are only one part of my process for fueling entities (or doing any other kind of magical work that requires a fuel source). The benefit of drawing on more traditional sources is that they are tried and true. For example if you create an entity that's focused around love, it makes sense that you might draw on the Venusian current or seek the aid of a love deity to help you with empowering the entity to perform it's specific tasks.

On the other hand, one might rightfully ask why not just go directly to the source and work with the love deity or the planetary energy without drawing upon an entity for the purposes of doing the spiritual work? Certainly that's a good question to ask as well.

The reason I choose to work with a magical entity is because I can tailor the entity toward the specific needs of the situation, which can be useful, especially if the situation doesn't exactly fit within the domain of a given spirit's influence. Another reason I might create an entity is because I want some distance from the situation, but I still want a magical working to be done, but through a lens that focuses in on my understanding of the situation. A deity or more traditional spirit may not have the exact understanding of the situation that an entity can be programmed to have...and that can be very useful with specific examples.
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Deep Cleaning as a form of Release and Healing

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Photo by Riya Kumari: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photograph-of-person-sweeping-the-floor-1433350/

Just this past weekend I decided to do a deep cleanse of my house. My roommate was moving out so I was going to need to clean anyway, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to do a physical deep clean of all the rooms of the house and in the process also do a deep clean on the emotional/mental and spiritual levels of the house and myself. I had previously done a deep clean in the fall and this process helped me realize that this should likely be a twice a year event.

I do a lot to keep my house clean normally, but a deep clean is different. With a deep clean what I'm doing is getting everything cleaned on every level. I'm also getting a work around as I move furniture around and so this process becomes a purification on the body level as well.

I also treat a deep clean as a cleansing of emotional and energetic residue that needs to be released. For me, this deep clean was about releasing the residue from 2022 that had been acquired through various experiences I had. Before I started cleaning I called to the spirit of the house and land and asked their blessing for the cleaning. Then I called on patron deities and asked their blessing because I'm cleaning this space as a devotional activity for them as well. Once the blessing is received, the cleaning becomes a work of service to the house and deities, as well as to inhabitants of the house.
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Further Scrying Experiments

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I took a little break from my scrying experiments because of a weekend trip I took where I did a lot of intense shadow work. I knew I needed to make time to integrate that work back into myself and that doing scrying work on top of that work wasn't a good idea.

But on Saturday night I decided I as ready to start the scrying experiments up again. This time I chose to work with Goetic Daemon Andras, around helping me release and let go of some fear I'd been feeling and to help me also get to the core of that fear.

I chose to evoke Andras via a candle and the black mirror. I also recorded a video of the scrying via Instagram, in part to set up the phone recording as another version of the scrying. What I've noticed is that when I record the scrying, it actually creates an intriguing effect with the candle, where the light of the candle creates a sphere of light in the recording that can also be used for scrying.
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How to Integrate Initiatory Experiences in your everyday life

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This previous weekend I went away for a weekend retreat where I went through an initiation process. I can't really share any details about what happened there, as its part of a mystery tradition, but what I can share is that I came into the event as one person and came out of the event as a changed and more grounded person.

That is part of the purpose of initiation. We go into an experience, not knowing what will happen and we are changed by that experience in fundamental ways that we may not even fully understand but that nonetheless become part of our rooted being.

Over the years I've had the fortune to attend other events where I've experienced an initiatory change from who I was, wherein I felt a shift in my state of being. This happens any time you remove yourself from mainstream society and immerse yourself in a different environment physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Some experiences may be more intense and driven than others, but all experiences that take us out of the comfort zone will inevitably bring about change.

The question arises though: How do we integrate that change back into our everyday lives?
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Sound baths and audio magic scrying experiments

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image copyright Taylor Ellwood

I have been continuing to experiment with scrying, and I recently decided to switch from candles and mirrors to using modern technology.

My initial experiment was inspired by a Gong ceremony I attended. The Gong ceremony put me into a deep state of altered awareness and I ended up experiencing a sensation of time dilation. It was a deeply fascinating experience and it prompted me to consider how I could attempt to replicate the conditions of a sound bath, while using my black mirror and a candle for scrying.

What I did was set up a cd player with two speakers so that one speaker was to the left of me and the other was to the right. I then picked out music that would be helpful for stimulating the mind via biaurnal beats and soundscapes. I used music from Coil, Rapoon and The Anti Group Collective. I played the music and then lit the candle and proceeded to do my usual scrying, but with the music creating a sound batch effect for the purposes of deeper states of altered consciousness.

What I found is that with the right music I definitely achieved a deeper state of altered awareness which led to more visions and experiences via scrying, both for behavior alteration and spirit work. I then decided to move on to another experiment...
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Scrying for changing behavior

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Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

Sometimes the reason you want to scry is because you want to change a specific behavior. 

For example, you become aware of a behavior you do that sabotages your interactions with other people. You aren't sure how to change it. 

Scrying may be just the right tool you could use for the purpose of behavior alteration. 

Why?

The act of scrying opens us to the experience of using fascination to draw us into the underlying narrative that informs the behavior and it provides us a ways of changing that behavior, because we use scrying to change the narrative. 

The key though is to create the experience of fascination via the scrying tools you are working with. And there's a hidden component to this as well.
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Scrying for spirit Communication

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Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

One of the ways I like to work with scrying is with spirit communication.

I already have a strong connection to spirits, having always had a natural proclivity toward communicating with them, but what I'm finding with scrying is that this proclivity is further enhanced when working with the right tools.

In my case, the right tools are a combination of candles and black mirror, along with sometimes using additional tools including a pendulum, Tarot, or cowrie shells for divinatory purposes.

I'll also work with specific spirits around specific themes or areas of interest. In the picture above I have a sigil for the goetic spirit Camio that I'm working with for the purposes of enhancing my skills with candle magic and scrying through flame work.
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How to create and activate collage sigils

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For new years I decided to revive an old art magical practice that I haven't done for a few years. I decided to create a collage sigil.

First I needed to decide on the theme. I chose the theme of YES, specifically saying yes to myself.

The theme is what ties a given collage together. It informs what images you use, what words you'll be drawn to, and what it is that you're ultimately calling into your life.

It's not all that different from any other themed work I've done in my life, and what I find with themed magical work in general is that the theme WILL show up in your life, but often in ways you don't expect. This is because when you utilize magic to call a theme into your life, you are calling in that theme but in a way that is needed.