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As I've posted in the past, the proper use of "magick" as a specific term for the spirtual arts makes Google searches a whole lot easier. When I'm interested in searching for information on ritual techniques I'm really not interested in getting back pages describing the cups and balls trick or how to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Similarly, if I'm looking for good card tricks I would rather not be pulling back pages on reading Tarot. Using "magic" for stage magic and "magick" for ceremonial and ritual techniques really works - or at least it would if people would follow the convention.
This brings me to a recent article referencing "magick" that completely misuses the term. This weekend in Tacoma, Washington a self-described "magickian" named Gf Kanick put on a performance. From the article:
Kanick spells magick with a "k" to distinguish his art. Magick with a "k" is a linguistic signal pioneered by Victorian bad boy, mountain climber and legendary mystic Aleister Crowley, who used the word magick, with a "K," to distinguish his explorations of consciousness and other psychonautic systems from the stage work of everyday magicians. Kanick, like Crowley, is no everyday magician, and says his goal is to take people out of their comfort zones to a place where magick is more than an act.
I'm sure Kanick is quite good at what he does, but if he's comparing himself to Crowley on the grounds that he does innovative illusions all I can really do here is call bullshit. Aleister Crowley spent his entire life developing an innovative spiritual system for personal development and beyond. Anybody who would compare that level of work to putting together a compelling stage performance doesn't really know anything about Crowley and shouldn't be appropriating his terminology incorrectly.
Let's face it. This:
A master of many arts, Kanick's talents will be offered as part of Hypothesis, a synthesis of illusion, comedy, sideshow feats, juggling and vaudeville variety.
Has absolutely nothing to do with ritual or ceremonial magick, or with Crowley's work, and it is exactly the "counterfeit" from which the science of the Magi needs to be distinguished.
For what it's worth, though, I'm happy to see that the article describes Crowley as a "legendary mystic" rather than as a baby-sacrificing Satanist. Maybe after more than fifty years some of the media nonsense surrounding his life is starting to die down.
In this post we will just be ( briefly ) discussing few methods of finding lost items, for there seems to be an ever-pending interest for such magick. And it's no wonder, really, for most of people do loses something almost every day, be it just a dropped coin. As to that, apparently to find money that You might have lost all one needs to do is to "kiss a Negro" rofl ;)
Hoodoo people will commonly seek aid of either Lord Himself, or St Anthony, to find lost items, usually in form of prayer. Now since it's a method of folk magick, rather than religious praying, prayers can be made up by oneself, honestly offered anywhere, anytime and they can even appear in form of simple rhyme! Most of folk prayers to Saint Anthony for finding lost articles rhyme, and contain but few rhymes made easy to memorize and chant. It's customary to give some sort of thanks to Lord or Saint that aided us in finding lost article.
Witches use various forms of spells, sometimes ( thought that's rarely done ) addressing to some deities to aid them in their quest, but most frequently simply using the power of symbolism and sympathetic magick. They will often invoke aid of certain deities in restoring stolen good, and compelling theft to return them or reveal themselves ( rather cunning examples of such magick appear in Heka ) but this is another type of magick, really. Stolen articles and lost articles, though each absent from us are not the same, and therefore are not dealt with in the same manner in occultism. In Middle ages, it was said that witches and sorcerers would lay a hand on their familiars ( most often cats and birds were used for this ) and would spoke some incantation that would ask the aid of animal to help them find what they have lost. The animal would then either guide them, or would occasionally even bring back the lost article.
Another frequent method used to help finding lost items is seek of guidance through
dream incubation. Invoking aid of St. Anthony is a simple example of guidance seeking. Dream incubation might include anything from inspiring prophetic dreams or visions of lost items in dreams, to asking from guidance from Higher sources in dreams.
The best time for such magick, is really anytime, for time correspondences in such cases is often a luxury one simply cannot afford, and the urgency of finding what's lost takes precedence. If You can however, perform magick for finding lost articles in Mercury correspondent day, hours or in time of full Moon, or in Midday. Also any days and hours good for general divination will work here as well.
Now let's go through a few simple example, for this is, as I often stress out a "practical" blog :)
SPELL TO FIND A LOST ITEM
Take a new piece of paper, and draw as best as You are able, in all possible riches of detail, the item/s ( or even a person ) that You have lost. It's favorable to have a light blue candle lit as You do this. Now simply wrap the paper around a lodestone ( charged ) and carry it on Your behalf and sleep on it. Alternatively, You could sprinkle some lodestone dust or brown sugar on a paper and then fold it thrice towards oneself, place in small sachet ( preferably blue or yellow ) and also carry on Your behalf and sleep on it.
PRAYER/S TO SAINT ANTHONY
There is a whole host or, short rhyming folk prayers to Saint Anthony to help us find what we have lost, be it an item or a person. Sometimes they were "composed" by a single person and handled down to successors as a part of family tradition. Here are few examples:
St. Anthony, St. Anthony
Please come down
Something is lost
And can't be foundNext one comes from Chicago ;
Dear St. Anthony, I pray
Bring it back, without delay.
Though You can always make up Your own, that should ( in the spirit of the tradition ) rhyme, and hence could represent, sort of Your personal way of petitioning the Saint.
For example ( my own phrasing )
St. Anthony please, help me out
Where have I lost that, to find out
Guide me and lend me clarity
Or bring the item into ( my ) proximity
Or something like that, You get the idea
Finally, it's wise to note here, seems that people of all traditions and roots ( origins, nationalities ) have used this ( magickal ) mean of tracking down lost stuff, be them Christians or not. It is important however that when a Saint grants Your request, You express Your gratitude ( I feel bit silly for having to point this out, but I ought to, just in case ), and a common way of giving thanks to Saint Anthony are ex votos.
You can ask G'd, directly as described in one entry { 13161; 3rd Edition, 2002 } in anthropological Work of Henry Middletone Haytt, "Folklore in Adam County Illinois"
SCRYING
Either take a piece of paper with possible locations of the item ( start with broader categories, them go on more specific one, elimination method ) or go straight forward and take a map. Light a purple candle and ask Your higher source to aid You in finding the lost item. Around the chain or cord of Your pendulum wrap the piece of paper with the description of the item, or hold ( alongside the pendulum ) any form of link to this object in Your hand. I dress the top of the crystal ( or whatever You might use as pendulum ) with "Spirit guide oil" or "Psychic vision oil". You could use any oil associated with some specific Deity who's help You'd like to invoke. Now simply scry ( dowse ) with the crystal as You normally would.
GUIDING SPELL
On a piece of paper describe what You have lost on one side, and on the other, draw an All seeing eye, or AGLA symbol. Place it under glass of bowl of Blessed spring water, symbol side pointed upward.
Light Angelic Influence candle ( or any candle of nice, soothing pale blue color ) and place next to it a small glass with Blessed spring water. Place some Althaea root nearside as well, and preferably also place a piece of Quartz, or Amethyst alongside. Then chant
"Guding spirits/angels, I need Your assistance,
For I have misplaced something dear
Bless me with knowledge and clairvoyance,
And bring me to what I've lost, be it far or near" 3X-7X
Use just few drops of that water to dress Your third eye, and let the candle burn itself out. Wrap the paper around the crystal and sleep on this charm. In the morning pour the water outside. Carry the charm with You until You find the item. Then burn the paper, scattering ashes to the wind and giving thanks to spirits.
DREAM INCUBATION
While spell used to gain answers through dreams, not being a typical/specific " find lost article" spell, it should be obvious how it can be constructivel y employed in such case
There are many examples throughout classical grimoires, among others perhaps that from Clavicula Solomonis, "To get answers in/through dreams"
http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/ksol.htm
If You have had the badfortune to misplace something, I do hope this article and ideas presented here might help : )
NOTE: This article was written and composed by myself, therefore should You desire to use any part of it elsewhere, give credits : Shadow of Shadows magick place or Shadow-333@hotmail.com or direct link to this post
CREDITS: According to entry 13163 in "Folklore in Adam County Illinois" third edition, 2002th, by Harry Middletone Hyatt
Source of prayers : www.luckymojo.com more precise http://www.luckymojo.com/saintanthony.html, site proprietor's informants contributions
IMAGES source : Wikipedia, page on St Anthony http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony of Padua
Many Blessings
Shadow
Suggested ebooks:
John Yarker - The Anglo Saxon Chronicle
Will Herberg - The Writings Of Martin Buber
Once you've seen yourself clearly you can study yourself and determine what traits you have that are not serving you, whether they be bits of personality, habits, communication styles, or something else entirely. Traits that no longer serve are the bits of yourself that are working against your goals or are in some way delaying your accomplishment of goals for personal growth and transformation. These are not necessarily "bad" traits. We often develop traits, like not caring what other people think or eating quickly, in order to protect ourselves (mentally, physically, spiritually) and those traits are appropriate when we're threatened in certain ways. However, once the threat has passed those traits can become problematic and end up being counterproductive. That's when it's time to sever them and move on.
You can find a plethora of personal cleansing techniques on the web and in various New Age/Metaphysical books and most of them will work for most people. However, for those of us who do a lot of shadow work the gentle garden variety cleansing can be a bit too gentle. There are many cleansings that go along the lines of "step into the shower and visualize the water washing away your negativity/stagnant energy/unwanted trait/etc. and the black ooze of this flowing off your body and down into the drain." For an everyday cleansing that sort of thing is great, but it isn't always enough. Those sorts of cleansings area bit like vacuuming the carpet - it takes care of dust and a bit of grit, but does nothing for set in stains. That requires something a bit stronger.
I recently performed the Order of Scathach Armouring Ritual which included a self-cleansing. In that ritual you write down a list of traits of which you would like to be freed and then burn the list to banish them. Before performing that ritual you do about six months of work. After six months of introspection I was pretty much rid of the surface level grit that such a simple cleansing could effectively get rid of. So I had to ramp things up a bit in order to feel really cleansed. In the ritual you need a physical fire to burn your paper and I did this as step one of the process. Then I closed my eyes and went to my astral temple (a sacred space in the astral plane that I can go to mentally and energetically to do workings that I don't want to do physically - very useful when your mental work would be dangerous if carried out physically).
At my astral temple I called the spirits of fire to be present and to aid me. They showed up in the form of a large magickal bonfire directly in front of me. I asked the spirits of the fire to help me burn out the things I was having the most trouble with (self-doubt and fear). I then, astrally, stepped into the fire and let the flame burn. As the flames burn my clothes and skin I visualized all of my ingrained fears and doubts burning away. I stayed in the fire until it seared through my bones and reduced all but the best parts of me to ash. All that was left was the etheric body in its purest form. As I stepped out of the flames my physical body regenerated without the old patterns. I thanked the fire for its help and watched it depart. I then returned to my physical body and completed my ritual.
This type of intense visualization is a very effective way of giving magickal workings extra oomph. It's not the sort of thing that anyone in their right mind would ever do physically - it would kill you. But doing this sort of thing mentally sends a definite message to your subconscious and will generate much more powerful energy than your average rite. It's not for everyone, most people don't want to dig so deeply to root out the source of their problems - particularly when they "are" the problem.
This sort of work should only be done after months of prep, working through the cycle of cleansing and realization gradually. Every time you cleanse yourself of one kind of negativity it allows you to see the negativity underneath, you get rid of that and see what was below that, and so on forever. This sort of work is never finished, but as you do it the process becomes its own reward. With each layer of myself that I cleanse and purify I find myself become a stronger, kinder, wiser person. It can be really hard to look at the components that have caused me problems over the year and harder still to see what I did to make it worse, but facing it sets me free. Self-examination is hard work, but we owe it to ourselves to undertake it and become the best we can be.
Suggested ebooks:
Susan Greenwood - The Nature Of Magic An Anthropology Of Consciousness
Peter De Abano - Heptameron Or Magical Elements
Aubrey Bell - The Magic Of Spain
Mike from Magick Of Thought was asking me some questions about the different kinds of magical links on one of the older threads. In light of that discussion, this seems like as good a time as any to go over the different kinds of magical links and how they work. Magical links let magicians to cast spells on people, places, or objects without needing to be in direct contact with them.
Magical links follow Sir James Frasier's two primary laws of magick, generally refered to as the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contagion. In "The Golden Bough" Frasier writes:
"If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: that like produces like, or that the effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed."
The first principle, the Law of Similarity, states that when any two objects share a particular property that property can allow one to influence the other. The more properties the two objects have in common, the stronger the link. The stongest similarity link is going to be a current image of the target, such as a recent photograph. The second principle, the Law of Contagion, states that once any two objects have come into contact one can be used to influence the other. The closer the contact, the stronger the link. The strongest contagion link is going to be created by something that not only came into contact with the target but which was once part of it, such as hair, blood, fingernail clippings, and so forth.
A third law of magick has been proposed by some practitioners, generally refered to as the Law of Opposites. This law states that when two objects are of opposite natures one can be used to influence the other. As far as I can tell from my own work, though, this law is essentially useless in the context of practical magick. I hypothesize that The reason for this is that the meaning of "opposite" is subjective. Is red the opposite of green? Male the opposite of female? Dog the opposite of cat? Salt the opposite of pepper? When you start trying to break things down like this it gets silly pretty fast. And if you're sloppy about your definitions you wind up with a tautology - similar things influence each other but so do dissimilar things. That is, everything influences everything else. From the standpoint of ritual design this is not helpful.
The Law of Opposites does have a particular application in mystical spirituality. For the development of spiritual realization it is important to understand that when you define X you automatically define Not-X as well. For Good to exist as a distinct thing Evil must exist as well, in that Evil can also be defined as Not-Good. Furthermore, the process of enlightenment involves, among other things, the evolution of a perspective that can accomodate both as complementary rather than exclusive. When talking about properties of the physical world rather than components of consciousness, though, this utility is profoundly limited. It is telling that the last group clinging to the Law of Opposites as applying to the physical world, practitioners of homeopathic medicine, have largely abandoned it in favor of the more similarity-based "water memory" model over the course of the last two decades.
What magical links conduct is probability shifts. When you cast a spell on an object linked to a target, any influence cast on the object will also surround the target. The strength of the transmitted shift will be directly proportional to the strength of the link. This may be modeled as a simple percentage, in which we for example would define a link that transmits 80% of a shift a link of.8, a link that transmits 50% of a shift a.5, and so forth. This is essentially how the L (Link) variable is used in both my operant equation and Peter Carroll's original equation on which mine is based. Direct contact is always a 100% link, or 1.0, whether you are casting a spell on yourself or on someone or something that is physically present in the temple. What this means is that most of the time casting over a link is going to be at least somewhat less effective than casting directly.
A trick that Hoodoo practitioners commonly use to get around this problem is to enchant powders, oils, or other substances and place them strategically so that they will come into direct contact with the target. This results in the creation of a 1.0 link due to direct contact even though the spell itself was performed earlier in a different location. The ceremonial schools raely teach or work with this method but it is easy enough to adapt using a resource like "Liber 777", which lists various herbs, incenses, and materials associated with particular powers. Any material appropriate to a particular power can be used to contain a shift related to that power, which provides the ceremonialist with many different options. As long as the target comes into contact with the enchanted material the spell's probability shift will be transferred optimally.
Mike's first question was in regard to the use of names as magical links. Essentially a name can be used in two ways, as a weak similarity link and as an identifier. You can cast a spell giving only the target's name as a link, but this is not a particularly effective method. You generally want to augment it with a better similarity link like a photo and/or a better contagion link like hair clippings. As an identifier, though, names are much more useful. For example, let's say that you enchant a powder to dump across your target's doorway and they live in an apartment building. You don't necessarily want everyone walking in and out of the building to be affected by the spell, just the individual you have targeted. So in your enchantment your statement of intent would include the target's name. That way the shift will only transfer to the named individual, not to anyone who touches the powder. This also renders the powder safe for you, the magician, to touch without risking exposure to the spell's probability shift.
Mike's next questions were related to whether or not links could be used to target "energy work" based magick, such as Qigong healing. In my experience the answer is yes, but there are some limitations involved. Chinese researchers have proposed that Qigong's healing effects may at least in part be produced by infrasonic waves emitted from the hands of Qigong masters, and such waves cannot be transmitted by a magical link. However, energy work also seems to include a probability-shift based component and that can be transmitted just like any other magical effect. I will say that I have been able to produce distance-healing effects that incorporate Qigong, but direct contact has always worked better. I suspect this is due to the absence of infrasonic waves when performing a distance-healing, not necessarily just because the shift degrades when passing over the link. If that's the case there's going to be an upper limit to this sort of effect and direct contact is always going to produce the best results.
The best way to build a strong link is to exploit the two basic rules to the greatest possible degree. In other words, you should have a current image that if at all possible is augmented by something that has come into contact with or come from the target. In theory, one of the best possible links you could have to a target is a Polaroid instant photo, seeing as the photons from the target will have made direct contact with the picture, representing both a similarity and a contagion link integrated together. This may mean that magicians could be a new market for Polaroid cameras, which are unfortunately being replaced by digital cameras that only create similarity links.
The image accompanying this article shows how these principles are applied in radionics - that is, magick performed by an electronic device. The TARGET LINK is what I'm talking about in this article. The TREND is the term that radionics practitioners use for the probability shift. The TREND LINK doesn't really have a correllate in ceremonial magick, but in radionics it represents the connection to the probability shift that you are creating, which is envisioned as being related to a particular energy frequency. The LIFE FORCE FIELD is what I refer to as the general field of consciousness, which may be represented as consisting of information, energy, or both depending upon one's model of what consciousness is made up of.
UPDATE: It seems I spoke too soon about there being no real equivalent to the radionics "trend link" in ritual magick. As I replied to Frater Barrabbas in the comments, a device like a planetary tablet or some other symbolic representation of a particular magical power or vision would seem to fit the bill. So for a Jupiter ritual, my usual go-to example, the magical qualities of Jupiter would correspond to the Trend and a device bearing the symbols, characters, and names of power associated with that planet would correspond to the Trend Link.
Suggested ebooks:
Jarl Fossum - Seth In The Magical Texts
Peter De Abano - Heptameron Or Magical Elements
Aubrey Bell - The Magic Of Spain
"The first version of this article was published on 6/19/2006 on the previous version of this blog. "
A hundred years ago most men belonged to fraternal orders of one sort or another, many of which had initiatory rites largely copied from those of Freemasonry. These days many books on magick and witchcraft support the concept of "self-initiation" and the popularity of secret and semi-secret fraternal orders has waned. Does that mean that formal initiation has become a quaint anachronism, or is it still an effective spiritual technology?
What the concept of self-initiation gets right is that regardless of the rituals and ceremonies you go through and the degree titles you hold, you have to do the corresponding spiritual work yourself. There is no real way around this basic truth. Spiritual realization is experiential - it cannot be taught or even directly explained. Because of this a degree title does not guarantee spiritual wisdom or power. In many organizations, advancement to higher degrees is contingent upon service to the organization rather than actual spiritual attainment, and the fact that someone is a hard worker in the mundane realm says nothing about their capacity for magick or mysticism, or the quality of their realization.
Nonetheless, formal initiation is a powerful method for imprinting the mind with concepts and ideas that will facilitate the spiritual evolution of a dedicated spiritual practitioner who takes those lessons to heart. The secrecy that surrounds initiatory traditions is related to a powerful psychological techique - the mind becomes more sensitive and attuned to information when it is placed in a situation of uncertainty, so an initiatory ritual will create a much more powerful imprint if the candidate does not know what is going to happen. Enough has been published that it is possible with some diligence to locate the degree work of most initiatory orders, but if you ever plan on taking the degrees all you are doing is cheating yourself.
I am convinced that this is the sole practical reason for secrecy surrounding initiation rituals. For much of human history it was believed that secret knowledge was somehow more powerful, but I suspect this belief was due to a misunderstanding of the mechanics of mind. When a candidate knows what is going to happen it is not that current of magical energy is weaker but that the mind expects the form of the ritual and is less moved by it. As a result, the magical effect of the initiation is reduced and a reasonable person might conclude that the power of the rite somehow grows if few know its details. What really happened is that the mind anticipated the actions of the rite, conceptualized them, and processed them ahead of time so no effective imprint was formed.
So does this imprint hypothesis mean that initiations are merely psychological? In a sense the answer is yes, but there is no "merely" about it. All magical rituals raise energy if performed by skilled practitioners. The difference with an initiation is that the psychological imprint allows the psyche of the candidate to be more open to that energy than they might otherwise be, and gives that energy a framework in which to work toward creating change in the candidate's life.
One of the wonders that the Internet has brought us is the concept of "astral initiations" that is, a group of magical practitioners will ask candidates to send them photographs or some other sort of magical link and then perform the initiation rite on the magical link, presumably to transmit a current of energy to the candidate corresponding to the energy summoned by the initiation rite. While the people doing this work may be sincere, I have trouble believing that it is all that effective. Without the imprint, the initiation will not work nearly as well. A magical force may be set in motion, but the effect will be reduced if it has to travel over a magical link and there will be no imprint created since the candidate has not gone through the physical experience of the initiation.
A couple of people have reported to me that they took astral initiations and felt some sort of tangible energy effect, and I believe them - I just think that the effect is unlikely to be any greater than that of performing a self-initiation rite and perhaps that would have been a better route to take. For one thing, it's free. Second of all, I think that any magician will learn a lot more writing and conducting his or her own initiation ritual than he or she will possibly pick up going through any sort of "astral ritual" conducted by others, regardless of how talented those others might be. Better still, though, would be to find a friend who is also a talented magician who can write a ritual that will be completely unfamiliar to the candidate so that an imprint will be properly formed.
Because this can be a difficult situation to set up, existing fraternal bodies still have an important role in initiation. In general, the rituals they perform were originally developed by talented ritualists and improved over the years based on changes that were found to work better for initiating candidates. Such improvements are based on empirical observation that a single individual could never undertake on short notice, and as a result the rituals themselves are cleaner and generally work better. While groups like Ordo Templi Orientis are more explicitly magical, the Masonic fraternity also puts on good initiation rites that have been tested for centuries on millions of candidates, a very impressive track record. Also, Masonic initiations are not only available to men - American Co-Masonry (http://www.co-masonry.org/) offers initiation to both men and women and has lodges in many areas of the country.
If Masonry is any indication, today more and more people are becoming interested in initiation and fraternal orders and seeing the value in joining such organizations. After losing members for a long time, it seems like Masonic lodges are finally starting to find more qualified individuals seeking initiation. The Internet helps make these groups easier to find, and it is clear that this is where many of the inquiries are now originating. My Masonic lodge has a very nice website at http://braden.org/ that has a lot of information, and I am also an initiate of Ordo Templi Orientis (http://oto-usa.org/) and a member of the local OTO lodge (http://www.leapinglaughter.org/) here in Minneapolis. Feel free to check out the links for more information.
Suggested ebooks:
Aleister Crowley - Magick
Aleister Crowley - Magick Without Tears
Kuro5hin is the original Scoop site, where the software that ran the original Augoeides was developed. I actually saw this article posted there almost a year ago, so it's a little out of date, but it still is cool.
Thelema: A Modern Religion for Modern Times
The article is not perfect, and quite a few of the comments show that most people are not that familiar with Aleister Crowley and pretty much buy the stuff John Symonds wrote in "The Great Beast", but it's still cool to see people talking about Crowley and his work on a site that is for the most part non-occult.
By the way, a full analysis of everything wrong with "The Great Beast" would be a long article unto itself that I might attempt someday when I have more time. Many of the incidents described in the book are taken from dubious accounts in John Bull, a series of British periodicals that were essentially early tabloids.
Suggested ebooks:
Dean Hildebrandt - Essay On Enochiana
Andrew Lang - Helen Of Troy
