From a magickal perspective, it’s also important to “Talk your Walk,” too. This comes from two concepts:

Magick isn’t something you do. Magick is something you are.
Magick takes place 24/7.

What this means is that magick is always happening whether you realize it or not. In fact, I’d say that one of the major differences between a magician and a non-magician is that the magician realizes this.

The example I like to give is this:

Let’s say a person named Zeke spends ten minutes every morning doing a ritual for better finances. But then he spends hours every day worrying about his bills, wishing for a better job, complaining about how bad the financial situation is, etc. After weeks of doing his morning magick, Zeke is in a worse financial situation than ever. His conclusion: magick doesn’t work.

In actuality, Zeke’s magick worked perfectly! He spent hours every day creating continued poverty. True, he spent a few minutes working against this magick, but it was massively overpowered by the duration and focus of his poverty magick.

I would contend that the lack of understanding of these principles is the major reason many people’s magick fails. Even those who have studied and practiced techniques of magick for years may, on occasion, not have luck with magick because they’re constantly doing magick—perhaps unknowingly—that works against their consciously-desired magickal goal. Learning to stop working magick against yourself isn’t difficult, but like magick itself is a skill that needs developing.

Watch Your Mouth

Many magicians study for long period of time to learn the correct way to pronounce individual words or phrases. The implication is that words are important. Indeed, I would contend that they are important.

What they ignore, however, is the use of words outside of ritual or magickal work. This approach, whether you like it or not, assumes magick only occurs as a result of a particular spell, rite, or ritual working (ignoring the concept that magick occurs 24/7). It also assumes that you only do magick during ritual rather than understanding that magick is something you are, not merely something you do.

Many magicians realize that words have hidden meanings, and the understanding of these hidden meanings is important. These magicians will spend hours of research trying to find the roots, sources, and original meanings of words to discover hidden meanings. While that can be incredibly valuable, I’m describing something else. What I mean here is that the ordinary meaning of words often has an impact we ignore!

I first became aware of this concept when I read the book Meta-Talk: The Guide to Hidden Meanings in Conversations by Gerard I. Nierenberg and Henry H. Calero. An example of understanding the concept of meta talk is simple:

I’m not a gossip, but did you hear what John said about Mary?

According to Meta-Talk, the word “but” negates everything that comes before it. People who use these types of expressions do so because although they actually are one way (i.e., a gossip), they don’t want others to think they’re that way and, psychologically, they can’t accept they are, in actuality, that way.

I often see one particular blogger who posts that he has worked tirelessly to stop different occult groups from attacking each other…and then he immediately goes on to attack others! I read his posts because they are so unintentionally humorous. It’s sort of like promoting chastity by urging licentiousness!

The truth is that saying you aren’t some way, then proving you are that way, is not excused by the use of the word “but.” You may, on some level, think that the word “but” excuses your words and behavior, but your inner mind and spiritual entities aren’t fooled. If you say, “I really want X” as part of a magickal ritual, but then talk or act as if you don’t really want it, you’re telling yourself—and spiritual entities—that on a deep level you don’t want X. You’re working magick against your stated goal. Both your personal magickal energies and the workings of spirits tend to go along with what you really want, not what you say you want. This is true even if you say you want something in ritual because magick occurs 24/7.

You’re not talking your walk.

The solution is to “watch your mouth.” Listen to what you’re saying: Is that what you mean? Is there an underlying meaning to your words that your inner mind knows and that you’re ignoring?

“I want peace between all magickal groups. Oh, and by the way, John’s magickal group is scum.” That means you don’t want peace. Your magick is creating more disagreement.

“I’m not a racist, but…” attempts to disguise that on some level you are a racist.

“I call on all the spirits to bring me love.” Then later, “I’m so lonely. Will I ever find someone to love?” This means you doubt your magick will work and your magickal energy will work to ensure loneliness and lack of love.

Magick and language have naturally gone together since the beginning of time. It may even be that the use of words or sounds in magick was partially responsible for the development of language. Become aware of the meanings of your words and choose not to use words that negate your magick. You will be far more likely to achieve magickal success.

They put out a wonderfully strange and complete catalog, in tabloid format, offering everything from the strangest herbs to “Aleister Crowley’s altar” (well, I think it was a night table from the last place he lived and that might have served as an altar). The owners eventually went in separate ways, and Slater kept the store.

It was many years later that I finally met “Horrible Herman,” and I always found him an open and generous gentleman. He actually gave me a copy of the hardbound version of the Simon Necronomicon.

And that was one of the things that Slater and the Magickal Childe were also doing, publishing catalogs, books, and a magazine.

The magazine was named Earth Religion News. It was originally published in the mid-1970s. I don’t know how many issues were published. I have two copies, one a combination of two issues.

I’m only showing the cover of one issue because the other issue has a photo with nude women (gasp!) and I wouldn’t want anyone to get in trouble if they view my blog at work.

The reason I’m taking this walk down memory lane is that Earth Religion News had a motto:

Guard the Mysteries. Reveal them Constantly.

As a young neo-occultist, this motto didn’t make sense to me. The mysteries of Wicca and Witchcraft, and of various magickal orders, were secrets. I understood the first part of the motto. It meant to keep the inner teachings—”The Mysteries”—a secret except to those who were initiated into the group and granted entry into the Mysteries. But it was the second part that was confusing. If you were guarding the Mysteries by keeping them a secret, how could you “reveal them constantly?”

Walk Your Talk

In discussions with friends, I came to the belief that the meaning was that Pagan and ceremonial magick groups had their own sets of ethics that were a reflection of the group’s set of Mysteries. You could reveal the Mysteries constantly by living your beliefs, by doing what people refer to as “walking your talk.” How could outsiders take us seriously if we did not practice our beliefs? Why would the gods and spirits respond to our requests if our actions showed that we did not mean what we said?

As a relatively new entrant to the occult world this made sense. But as I reached out to work with more and more people I discovered that, as with other beliefs and faiths, followers will say one thing but do something different. “Perfect love and perfect trust” often weren’t as perfect—not even close!—as I would have liked.

I know that many people want to work by themselves for just this reason. I know what that’s like. When I was younger I went through a period with an approach to life like this in my personal life. It’s easy to avoid being hurt by not allowing anyone into a position where they can hurt you. My personal motto from that time was taken from a song by Simon and Garfunkle:

I am a rock,
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

It’s mentally and emotionally very safe. It’s also very lonely.

Many people today get around the loneliness of isolation by communicating with lots of people over the internet. While this has some positive value, it’s not as great as you might think. I discuss the value of meeting with people in person in a previous blog post.

Since the time I’m talking about was B.I. (Before Internet), I didn’t have the same sorts of social media available today. Instead, I had to climb out of isolation by realizing that people are people and they will behave as they will. Instead of making assumptions as to how people will behave and becoming disappointed when people don’t behave that way, I came to accept people as they are and appreciate the time we have together. That is, instead of emotionally depending upon the way I want things to be, I focus on the way things actually are. As one of my teachers used to say:

Learn from the past.
Live in the present.
Create your future.

So I came to a realization that since people are people and don’t necessarily walk their talk, my interpretation of the motto of Earth Religion News was either inaccurate, overly simplistic, or meant something else.

Another Meaning?

There was something about that motto that fascinated me. I looked for other possible meanings and eventually found it…in the movies.

Since the earliest days of movies, filmmakers have been fascinated with the occult. One of the earliest filmmakers, Georges Méliès (see his somewhat fictionalized story in the recent film, Hugo), made films with devils and angels and dragons and other occult or mythical figures. The films all had one thing in common: although they used the trappings of real occultism, they presented a false view of the occult. Badly mumbled evocations and meaningless wand waving don’t do anything…except in the movies.

[The same is true in most novels that involve occultism. One of the reasons I wrote my novel, The Resurrection Murders, was to present a more realistic view of magick and the occult within an exciting story.]

One of the things I’ve taken to saying is that if the occult grimoires worked like they show in the movies, they’d all be impounded and locked up under the Patriot Act!

The words are there, but if they’re not understood, they’ll be useless to the people trying to work with them.

Aha!

That was the “aha!” moment for me. There’s a myth that mystical concepts were saved by putting them into an artistic form used for gambling, The Tarot, so that even if the inner meanings were lost on most people, those who were “in the know” would get the secret. In this way you could constantly reveal the secrets of the occult while guarding their continued existence. Share them with everyone…only the initiated would understand.

This makes great sense to me. Is there any evidence to support this concept? I think so. Aleister Crowley complained that when he was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn he took extreme vows, acknowledging terrible things would happen to him if he ever revealed their secrets. However, the secrets turned out to be astrological symbols and the Hebrew alphabet.

Superficially, I have to agree with Crowley. Hebrew and the astrological symbols, along with elementary Kabalah, simple meditation techniques, etc., were well known at the time. But what I think he missed was the real secret: that these things were used for magick. You needed the initiated interpretation of those things to understand them (an interpretation Crowley came to understand).

Yes, You Can Teach

With the understanding that not only can the Mysteries be revealed, but that we absolutely should reveal them (I take “reveal them constantly” to be an instruction, not an observation), I find teaching and writing on occult topics should be encouraged. The Mysteries should be revealed. The time for secrets is past. Leaders who say they have secrets they’ll only give to people whom they approve of are not real teachers. They are following the age-old tradition of the power-hungry seeking to be or become the heads of cults. Reveal the Mysteries constantly. Keep the inner meanings of the Mysteries for the initiates.

Years ago, Scott Cunningham taught a particular tradition of Wicca called “American Traditionalist.” He publicly taught everything in that system except for one thing: the name of the Deity worshipped in that system. When he initiated me I vowed not to reveal that name, and I take my vows seriously so I won’t reveal it here. I did a web search on the name, however, and discovered that it’s the name of a RPG (role-playing game), a DJ’s remix of songs, and more. Does that honor the Deity? I don’t think so. Can someone work with the Deity, stealing thunder from the tradition? Again, I don’t think so; not unless they follow the teachings and beliefs of the tradition, making them a de facto member of the group (although not an initiated one). If they don’t follow the practices and beliefs, why would the Deity bother to listen?

There are two exceptions I make to this concept of revealing the Mysteries and, by extension, revealing occult secrets. I’ve been “out” of the occult closet for so long that disguising it is meaningless. I’m fortunate that I can afford to be so open. Others have jobs and relationships that might suffer as a result. Therefore, I strongly support the idea that where a group has private meetings they should be kept secret. In conjunction with that, those who choose not to be identified as a member of an occult group should have that choice respected.

We should guard the Mysteries and reveal them constantly. It is, perhaps, the only way to assure their continued existence. This corresponds to what Carl Llewellyn Weschcke once referred to as the “Democratization of Magick.” He has worked to accomplish this on a large scale as the head of Llewellyn Worldwide. I’ve tried to do this on a small scale with my books and various workshops. And although all people may not be able to walk their talk—indeed, we may not be able to do it all the time—we should also reveal the Mysteries by living our lives in accordance with those beliefs.

There was a long line of people waiting to see a movie that was actually named The Wicker Man. Most of the people were dressed in black and wearing silver jewelry.

For me, the movie was spellbinding. It actually had two plots. The superficial plot was of a deeply religious (Christian) British police officer who learned of a missing young girl on a remote island off of Scotland. He goes there to investigate and is confronted with a deeper mystery. People don’t give him sensible answers to his questions. Plus, the local customs are entirely Pagan in nature, and he is so unacquainted with any Pagan thought that he is flummoxed at every turn.

The second plot is that the island, which is famed for its apples (which shouldn’t be able to be grown there), has had an unsuccessful series of harvests, leading the people to need to make the ultimate sacrifice to their Deities in order for the apple crop to become abundant once again.

Poster used to advertise British release of the film in 1973

They do everything possible to get Sgt. Howie to leave. They tell him to go. They offend him with their Paganism. They try to have one of their very open young women seduce him. But he is driven to find the missing girl.

And that is what makes Sgt. Howie, played by Edward Woodward, so darn likable. He’s trying to find a young girl in mortal danger and save her life. It makes people unhappy at his eventual fate and forget his unrelenting Christian evangelical dogmatism.

Over the years since I originally saw the film, The Wicker Man has become a cult favorite. Cinemafantastique magazine called it the “Citizen Kane of horror films.” Pagans all over the world discuss it and argue over its ethics. It was so popular that it earned a remake. That remake was released in 2006 and starred Nicolas Cage. It has become a cult favorite, too, as one of the worst and most unintentionally funny films ever made.

In actuality, I didn’t see the director’s original film. Instead, I saw the “American version.” I now own, thanks to videotape and DVDs, several versions of the film. One of the big losses that most people don’t see is the backstory of Sgt. Howie and how he is so devoutly Christian that he loses his fiancé and has co-workers make fun of him.

Not a Remake

Many of the people involved with the original wanted to do a new version of it, too. And finally, that film (as of this writing) has now received a limited release. Living in a major city, Los Angeles, I was able to take the subway about 20 miles to see the movie last Saturday, the day after its official opening, at the famous, hands-in-cement theater, Graumann’s Chinese. Well, actually it was at the annex next to the main, large, Chinese-styled cinema, but you get the idea. Big theater. It was there I saw The Wicker Tree.

When the movie started, there were only two of us in the theater. After the film started about six more people slipped in. I believe they were associated with the production of the movie and may have included one of the stars. This was a far cry from my experience of the original.

This movie was based on the director’s 2006 novel, Cowboys for Christ. This is said not to be a sequel or remake. Rather it is spiritual companion piece dealing with the same sort of issues. In the movie, a sexy country singer who has become a demure, born-again evangelist (who hates her past—a theme that could have been explored but wasn’t) goes with her fiancé (they have promised to remain virgins until they marry) to a small Scottish town. Their goal, as part of a group called the Cowboys for Christ, is to convert people to, or “remind” people about Jesus.

Like the earlier film, there is a secondary plot unknown to the singer and her fiancé. Here, the leader of the town is also the owner of a nuclear power plant (the company he owns shares the name of a deity invented for the earlier film) and now, after an accident, the people are sterile. There are no children around. (Well, there’s one, but how he got there is unclear.) They hope that their sacrifice will lead to increased fertility.

The director uses techniques he used in the original film. Quick shots of local people. Their somewhat over-the-top enjoyment of both their own Paganism and the evangelization by their visitors. The plot has numerous similarities with the earlier film, and there is even a cameo by Christopher Lee, one of the stars of the first film.

A Hit or a Miss?

Unfortunately, this new film fails to capture the magic of its earlier cousin. There are several major problems with it. In Man, Sgt. Howie was bright, intelligent, dedicated, and trying to save a young girl’s life. In Tree, the two leads are insipidly moronic. The female lead, played by Brittania Nicol, could have been played by Anna Farris, who has made a living out of playing naive and stupid blondes, the archetype presented here. The male lead, played by Henry Garrett, reminds me of the innately stupid but at times clever Jason Stackhouse character, played by Ryan Kwanten, on HBO’s “True Blood” series. They did a take-off (without realizing it—they’re too dumb) from the famed musical, Annie Get Your Gun, repeating lines from Irving Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do” ending with, “Yes you can. Yes you can. Yes you can!” Not only are the characters stupid, they’re trying to say they’re superior due to their religious beliefs. This pomposity makes them extremely unlikeable and expendable, and I found myself anxiously awaiting their demise.

When it comes to the Pagans of the town, there is far less presented here than in Man. Further, in the earlier film, there is no doubt that the leader of the Pagans, Lord Summerisle (played by Lee), was a firm believer in the Pagan traditions. In Tree, the leader of the town, Sir Lachlan Morrison (played by Graham McTavish), doesn’t seem to have any beliefs, saying that the Pagan religion is simply what the people need now. Like Lee in the original, McTavish is handsome and dapper. Unlike Lord Summerisle, his focus is not on his people and their crops, it is about overcoming the local disaster caused by his nuclear power plant. Ultimately, he is also unlikeable.

In the original, I liked everyone, even the pompous Sgt. Howie. In The Wicker Tree the characters are driven not by their religions, but by their own, petty desires. The overblown evangelicals are so much like the ever-present and ubiquitous televangelists that I was quickly tired of them and didn’t care about them. The concepts that enlivened the earlier film were lost, here. The Pagans appeared to be more like the kids of the Children of the Corn movies and I found myself waiting to see what horrible ends awaited the evangelicals, much as some people look forward to new and more outrageous tortures and killings in various slasher and killer cult ultraviolent films.

In Closing

The Wicker Tree is an odd film. It was highly anticipated. It wasn’t a remake or a sequel but it was related to the respected and honored The Wicker Man. Even the titles are similar. How could any film live up to that build-up?

This one doesn’t. Regrettably, it’s not even in the same class. The lack of admirable characters, of selflessness, of inner devotion to faith, make this film feel false, almost like watching Citizen Kane being done on “Robot Chicken.” Instead of a meaty dish we get children of the corniness. It’s not as awful as Nick Cage’s remake of the original. It suffers a worse fate: it’s mediocre at best, boring at worst.

My suggestion: find as complete a version of the original The Wicker Man (The original director’s cut is about 112 minutes long. The American release was 88 minutes long.) and watch it with some friends on a large screen TV. Wait to see The Wicker Tree until it comes out on a TV broadcast and watch it if you’ve nothing better to do.

You Can Read Palms by Richard Webster
Instant Palm Reader by Linda Domin
Palmistry Quick & Easy by Peter Hazel
Palm Reading for Beginners by Richard Webster
and
The Hand from A to Z by Judith Hipskind

There is a good reason for palmistry’s popularity: you don’t need any props. You don’t need cards or runes, tea leaves or crystal balls. All you need is your hands.

But it’s not the Tarot.

For magicians, the Tarot has far more uses than divination. The great occultist, Eliphas Levi, wrote,

So even if you decide never to give a Tarot reading, learning to work with the Tarot is of inestimable value. That’s one of the reasons I include information and techniques for people to begin work with the Tarot early in my book, Modern Magick.

The images on the Tarot cards, especially the Major Arcana, aren’t selected at random. Over hundreds of years they’ve evolved to become archetypal and a part of our psyches. We are each unique people, and different artistic approaches and styles may or may not appeal to our deep minds. So there are many decks available. When choosing a deck, look at pictures of the cards. See which ones appeal to you the most, then go with that deck.

So why Tarot?

Tarot and the Kabalah

There are several approaches that link the Tarot to the Kabalistic Tree of Life. Since most forms of Western magick are directly or indirectly linked to the Kabalah, it is an obvious connection to use the Tarot.

Unfortunately, reality must step in. The Kabalah is thousands of years old while the Tarot is but several hundred years old. Merely because there is a similarity between two things (the number of paths on the Tree of Life and the number of Major Arcana cards, for example) does not mean that they were originally linked. There is no evidence that they started together in ancient Egypt or anywhere else.

But even if two things aren’t directly linked, they can still be used to illustrate principles and increase understanding. The Tarot Major Arcana fits beautifully on the paths of the Tree of Life and, thanks to a lovely coincidence, can be used to help explain the meanings and actions on the Tree. The Tarot may not have begun as a Kabalistic tool, but it has evolved into one. Therefore, the Tarot is good to use in magickal practice.

Image by Morgan Leigh

Tarot and Astral Projection

The kabalah did not appear fully born like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Although some “experts” will deny it, the Kabalah evolved over centuries. Thankfully, in my opinion, it continues to evolve. Things that stagnate tend to die out, and I am glad to say that the Kabalah remains alive, vibrant, and useful to philosophers, theologians, magicians and others.

One of the sources from which the Kabalah evolved was Middle-Eastern shamanism. A technique of shamanism that seems to have developed around the world consists of:

• Altering the consciousness
• Following a path through a cave, hole, door, etc., into another plane or world
• Communicating with entities in that world who provide information, support, power, etc.
• Returning to the physical world
• Return to everyday consciousness

These techniques are hinted at in the Jewish Bible and explained more thoroughly by the late Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in his Meditation and the Bible and Meditation and Kabalah. The ancient version of this technique involved such things as fasting and sitting in positions that changed the blood flow to the head, then going on a “journey.” The modern version, for magicians, involves the Tarot.

The Major Arcana cards are seen as pathways to other worlds. Some Kabalists believe the other worlds are on a very real astral plane while other believe they are parts of our unconscious. But the bottom line is that you can alter your consciousness through ritual or other means, stare at the Tarot, and use a card as a doorway into another realm. This is one of the bases of modern Kabalistic Pathworking.

Doing such work also enhances visualization skills that are so important in magick.

Tarot and Meditation

Of course, Rabbi Kaplan’s books aren’t about the Tarot, they’re about meditation. The ancient Jewish and pre-Jewish mystics didn’t just take mystical journeys, they also meditated. The techniques used are similar to ones used today. Anciently, they may have focused on a Hebrew letter. In today’s worlds with far more colors and imagery reaching us daily, I contend we need more complex images as a point of focus in this form of meditation. The Tarot is perfect for this purpose, and I describe the technique in Modern Magick.

Balance

Israel Regardie has been quoted as saying that before starting a study of magick, or at least early on in the study of magick, a practitioner (or potential practitioner) should go through psychoanalysis. Well, he was a Reichian therapist, so that might be expected! However, in conversations I had with him he told me that his main purpose in stating this was to help people accept the idea that we had both a conscious and an unconscious mind, something that was not always accepted during his earlier days. Later, he continued stressing the value of analysis so that people would not develop an inflated ego as a result of their magickal work.

Today, most people accept that we have both unconscious and conscious minds, although concepts about them may differ. Getting into therapy so we don’t become ego inflated is also a valuable idea, although perhaps a good kick in the pants from a friend could be just as valuable. Besides, traditional Freudian psychoanalysis has lost popularity and most modern psychiatrists are focused on issuing drugs while most modern psychologists are focused on obtaining behavioral change using some form of “cognitive-behavioral therapy.” For these purposes many of these professionals do great work.

But just finding balance in one’s life can be another thing entirely. Developing an understanding of how the universe works and your place in it is a valuable part of spiritual growth, one that most psychiatrists and psychologists avoid.

One solution may be the Tarot.

The archetypal images of the Tarot can literally send messages of balance, peace, and understanding to our unconscious minds. This will eventually “trickle up” into our conscious minds, resulting in feelings of balance and being at peace with the universe. In Modern Magick I describe a technique that simply involves looking at one Major Arcana card of the Tarot for a few minutes each day. It’s not meditation, it’s just looking. The purpose is quite literally to send the Tarot’s imagery to the unconscious and bring you balance and understanding of the nature of the universe. These instructions occur early in the lessons so that, as you progress with the study and practice of magick, you’ll be better mentally equipped to deal with the challenges and benefits of being a magician.

Summation

So the Tarot is good for understanding the Tree of Life, for developing intuition and visualization, for meditation, for shamanic journeying, for balance, and for many more things associated with the study of magick. This makes the Tarot one of the great modern tools of the magician. If you haven’t explored the Tarot in the past, I highly recommend you consider doing so in the future.

That’s why Tarot.

He was called the “Dark Knight.” But I am talking about some similarities to the Batman. He had to deal with issues arising from watching his parents’ senseless murder. He wants to follow a path that will prevent others from having to deal with the issues he did. In fact, he becomes so obsessed with his path that he becomes the archetypal loner, pushing away not just friends, but even companionship. He’s like the Hermit of the Tarot, a shining light if others will follow. Few will.

When most people start on a spiritual path, especially a non-traditional one such as the path of magick, it usually starts as a relatively minor interest. Eventually, that interest turns to a focus. For some, that focus may even turn into an obsession. Magick isn’t something you do. Magick is something you are.

The Separation

As you follow a spiritual path, something odd happens, especially when that path isn’t swimming on the mainstream. You become fascinated, intrigued, and virtually in love with your path. And when you love something it’s a common desire to want to share. Share your path with friends. Share your path with relatives. Maybe even share your path with strangers.

And they all look at you as if you’re the stranger.

Congratulations! You’ve left the mundane. You’ve left the world of the ordinary for something closer to the Divine.

But your friends, the ones you’ve known for years, perhaps all your life, are firmly swimming down the mainstream. You’re evolving. You’re changing. You’re asking, “But why? What if we…?”

In response, they continue swimming down the mainstream. “Don’t make waves. Swim with us.”

But you can’t. You’ve seen too much. You’ve experienced too much. The universe is so very much bigger than you used to imagine. It’s so much bigger than they still imagine.

They’d like to keep you with them. They’re you’re friends! But their path is no longer your path.

You’d like to take them with you, soaring through the astral plane around new universes filled with light and life and pure love. But they can’t go. They’re stuck. It’s so easy for them to swim down the mainstream. It’s so easy not to try a different way. It’s so easy not to question.

They’d go with you if they could, but they cannot. They can’t see what you see. Their world view is too small. You have no choice but to separate.

There Is No Try

Yoda of “Star Wars” knew it. You can try to stay with your friends, but to do so means abandoning your path. On some dark night you have a choice to abandon your path of spirituality and stay with your friends, or let them go. Can you abandon your path? “Do or do not,” says Yoda. “There is no try.”

Stay with them, abandon your path, and eventually you feel angry, restricted, unhappy. It comes out in arguments, disagreements, and then you leave your friends anyway and don’t understand why you’re unhappy.

Or abandon your friends and stay on your path. Alone. They are friends. They’d come with you if they could; but they cannot. And so, you’re alone.

Alone

Alone

The night is dark.
There are no stars to guide you.
You’ve never been so……alone.
So very,
very,

alone.

But when you’re at the bottom of a crevasse, there is only one way to go—up. Yes, you have given up much, but you’re receiving something far more than others can imagine. From the distance, a beam of pure, scintillating light confronts you. It brings you perfect love. It brings you feelings of spirituality and bliss that go beyond anything the muggles could possible imagine.

You are at one with the Divine and the Divine is at one with you.

No religion does this. No faith does this. It transcends both. That’s not to say religion or faith are bad or lacking, only that they do what they do. This is a bliss beyond comprehension. This is ecstasy beyond imagination. You can’t abandon this again. The sheer power of the experience literally makes you glow. Your aura expands.

Emergence

Slowly, you emerge from the crevasse. The dark night ends and the Sun rises in the east. You pull yourself up. The climb has left you stronger than ever.

And then, a strange thing happens. People notice your glow. Oh, they may not recognize it for what it is, but somehow, on a subconscious level, they recognize it. They want to drink it, to feed off your endless supply of spiritual energy.

And the solitude fades.

Somewhat.

For even though you are no longer alone, you remain by yourself. They want to be around you, not follow the same path you are on.

But something happens. Your energy cannot be defined or ignored. It is magnetic. It draws to you not just those who want your glow, but those who recognize a kindred spirit.

They don’t need a secret handshake or special password to know you.

They know.

You.

And you recognize them, too.

Finally, as you walk down your path, you have people to walk beside you. Not leading. Not following. Just beside you.

And you know you’ll never be alone again. You know?

Are You There?

I have met many people who are going down into the crevasse or are at the bottom. There is no Moon in the sky, no north star to guide their journey. Their night is beyond dark.

Are you there? If you are, I’m writing this to let you know that no matter how dark, you have options. You can return to swim with your old friends down the mainstream, forever being unhappy, having a life that is…ordinary.

Or you can choose to know that this dark night will end. The sun will rise. Things will be better than before. You can live a life that is extraordinary.

You may not climb Mt. Everest, swim the English Channel, or rocket into outer space. But an extraordinary life doesn’t have to be that obvious. If you can help one person, if you can change one life for the better, you are changing the universe.

And nothing is more extraordinary than that.

You may have seen similar posts or heard questions like this. I have a few problems with it.

What is a Spirit?

My first question is what does this person think a spirit is? Today, some people (notably members of religious sects) put the blame for all their problems on spirits or demons. Are you an alcoholic? Are you broke? Are you unhealthy? Did you lose your job? Are some of your teeth missing? Did you get a divorce? You’re not responsible for any of these things! There’s a demon or spirit in you for each of these problems.

Uhh, no. Sorry. If you have a problem in your life you’re responsible.

Wait! Some problems are things people can’t have caused. If they’re born with a medical condition certainly they’re not responsible for that! If the company they work for goes out of business and people lose their jobs, they can’t be responsible for that!

Nope. They’re not responsible for causing those problems (some may point to karma from a past life as being a cause, but it’s not something in their current life that’s the cause). However, we’re all responsible for dealing with those problems now. As a result of this experience, what do you need to learn in order to achieve the most you possibly can in this life? This is the concept of personal responsibility rather than victimhood.

In my personal experience, I was working for an advertising agency that made the mistake of focusing on one major client. When the client went to another agency, the agency I was working for had to cut back. I was laid off. On the same day I applied to take training in advanced computer techniques at U.S.C. I was able to get into the class, got training, and not only went on to get good-paying jobs at companies such as Disney, I eventually became an assistant to the instructor for the classes at U.S.C. Although I lost my job at the ad agency, I refused to be a victim.

So if spirits don’t go around causing problems for people, what are spirits? Simply put, they are non-physical entities having consciousness and manifesting a certain type of non-physical energy which can become apparent in the physical world. If we don’t like the energy they manifest we call them “demons.” However, that’s our interpretation of their energy. I reveal this concept a bit more in a story format in my occult-oriented novel, The Resurrection Murders.

How Do You Know It’s A Spirit?

The original poster figured that a spirit had attached itself to another person. How does he know? Similarly, how do you know if you’ve been cursed or someone put the evil eye or a black magick spell on you? The answer, in my opinion, is this: You live on the physical plane. Therefore, physical causes should be the first thing you look for when it comes to any problem you experience. If, after possible physical causes have been eliminated, then you should look for non-physical causes. Do this “up the planes.” That is, after the physical, look to the mental. After the mental, look to the emotional. Only after you are sure the causes of issues are not of the physical, mental, or emotional planes should you consider a spiritual plane cause.

The original poster did not say whether he had looked at physical, mental, or emotional causes of whatever it is that the poster thinks is spirit-caused. People who jump from problem to spirit causation often fail in resolving problems because they’ve ignored the actual cause in one of the other planes. So how do you know if a problem is caused by a spirit? I would give you the advice of a believer in spirits, Sir Author Conan Doyle, who used his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes (in the story The Sign of the Four), to say,

…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

When you have made the determination that it is impossible for the cause to be physical, mental, or emotional,  it is perfectly reasonable to assume it may be spiritual and use magick to get the spirit or “demon” to leave.

Heads of Evil Spirits from Francis Barrett’s The Magus

Against the Spirit’s Free Will?

The original poster wondered if by doing magick to make the spirit leave he would be forcing the spirit to do something against its will and thus disobeying the Wiccan Rede. I have often seen a similar argument used against the idea of spirit evocation as described in my Modern Magick. How dare I force a perfectly happy spirit to leave it’s home and come to a particular part of my magick circle just to answer my questions! I’m working against the spirit’s free will. There’s just one problem with this:

The non-physical entities we call spirits don’t have free will.

That’s why the traditional books on spirits describe what each spirit does. For example, in the Goetia, we’re told that the spirit Bael can give you the secrets of invisibility and Paimon “can teach all Arts and Sciences, and other secret things.” They can only do what is in their nature. You can ask Bael for the location of money or Paimon for the location of a hidden treasure and you’ll get no response.

So a spirit can only do what is in its nature. If it’s in its nature to leave when you tell it to do so by using a particular ritual, it will do so. If it doesn’t leave it’s because you don’t know what the nature of the spirit is. The spirit isn’t resisting your orders, it just doesn’t understand them. Your commands are not in its nature. Give it the right commands, orders that are in its nature to fulfill, and it will do what you ask.

Similarly, if you successfully evoke a spirit it’s not because you’ve made it do something against its will, but because you’ve given it the opportunity to function within its nature.

In a sense, spirits are like computers:

• Perform a set of actions in a certain order and the computer will start and open an application. Perform a ritual properly and you’ll evoke a spirit.
• If you’re in a word processing application and try to do some advanced artwork, you won’t have any success. Perform a rite to evoke a spirit but don’t follow the appropriate ritual and the spirit won’t appear.
• Type a letter in a word processing application and it will work well. Do the ritual to evoke a spirit properly and you’ll have success.

What is your experience with spirits?

I’m not criticizing Facebook or Twitter for what they are. Rather I’m suggesting that people should realistically understand that while using Facebook and twitter may be good for communication, they’re not so good as sources of socialization. Sitting in your room, staring at a monitor, is not the same as meeting people in person. You can’t hear the tone of voice of the people you’re interacting with. You can’t see their body language. That’s why it’s a good ideas to use “smilies” or “emoticons” to indicate the inner meaning of something you write. “I hate you” has a different meaning than “I hate you .” I’ve seen disagreements start because people fail to use emoticons or ignore them.

But just as it’s important to understand the true nature of the so-called “social networks,” it’s also important to understand their realistic effect, especially upon occultists. You might like or dislike their effect on the occult, but they cannot be ignored.

One of the major effects of the internet and social networks has been the decrease of direct, in-person, social interaction among occultists. Before the 1980s, the primary means of learning usable magickal concepts, techniques, and practices was through in-person contact in meetings, magical lodges, and covens. The great advantage of such meetings was that you could observe what people were actually doing. Without such meetings—perhaps just reading books—people were lost. I remember one person who rarely met with others, explaining that he was going to perform some “writs.” It took some time for those of us who met in groups to realize he meant “rites.” He had never heard how to pronounce the word. If he didn’t know how to pronounce that word, how many other errors did he make? He was dedicated and serious, but without in-person interaction he was facing challenges. The internet and social networks have the result of allowing such things to continue.

I know of one person who goes on the internet and claims to be the head of one branch of a magickal order. He repeatedly reminds people that he has been asking that the bickering among various branches should end and that all the branches should be united. In his most recent version of this he attacks the head of another branch three times! Without groups of people talking with each other and laughing at this hypocrisy some people will actually take him seriously.

Getting together in person allows you to see how rituals are performed, learn from others, see what others are doing, and learn about the questionable actions of those whom we might otherwise take seriously.

Remember, however, I suggested that it’s important to realistically assess the functions of the internet and social networks. By the same token we need to assess the way society is evolving. We are becoming more isolated. Most of us don’t live as part of covens or magickal orders. We occasionally attend meetings if we’re part of such groups at all. We’re solitaries.

The explosive growth of the internet has coincided with the similar growth in solitary occultism. It’s quite possible that the number of Wiccans, Pagans, occultists, magicians, etc., would be much smaller if not for the internet and on line social networking.

So we have this contradiction: in-person socialization is positive for occultists (and for all people), but we seem to be moving away from that. We’re retiring to the privacy of our own homes and “socialize” only from a distance, often using fake names, fake images, and fake details about our lives. Is there a solution for this split?

T.A.Z.

One of my favorite books in T.A.Z. by Hakim Bey. A combination of politics and radical spirituality, he proposes the concept of the T.A.Z. or temporary autonomous zone. He suggests that rather than trying to set up permanent towns and cities, we should set up temporary areas where people of similar beliefs and feelings can come together for a short time and then separate and go their own ways.

This can sound radical, but it certainly has a strong basis in history. The village fairs would occur (often during a celebration period such as for Beltane) and people from all over would come together to socialize. Today, people from all over the world are familiar with the Burning Man festival where “…tens of thousands of participants gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever.” Of course, not everyone is able to travel to a southwest desert and go camping under difficult conditions for a week.

When it comes to occult people, however, we don’t have to do this. All over the country there are conventions and festivals. I would strongly encourage you to attend at least one festival or convention the year. Later this year I’ll be in Florida. At another time I’ll be in Indiana. Next month, I’ll be in San Jose, California, for Pantheacon.

Pantheacon

Pantheacon takes place in San Jose’s Doubletree hotel (no camping!) February 17–20. It is one of the world’s largest occult-oriented conventions, and is certainly the largest in the western U.S. There will be people coming from all over and you’ll have a chance to spend time with several thousand occultists. You’ll get support for your beliefs and practices and not have to hide away. You’ll see what others are doing (there will be lots of rituals) and have a chance to learn from lots of workshops and lectures. And there will be bands, dances, meeting new friends, shopping, and much more.

Look at just a few of the people who are currently scheduled to be giving presentations at this year’s Pantheacon (in no particular order):

• Ellen Evert Hopman on “Blessing and Cursing – An Overview of Scottish Folk Magic”
• Circle Sanctuary’s Selena Fox on “Triple Goddess Magic: Inner Guidance Quest”
• The Grey School of Wizardry’s Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (and Llewellyn contributor) on “2012: Year of The Awakening”
• World-famous author Starhawk on “Magic in the Streets”
• Famed Wiccan minister Patrick McCollum on “Touching The Sacred, the Power of The Tangible”
• Chic Cicero & Sandra Tabatha Cicero on “The Rosicrucian Vault: A Compendium of the Universal Unity”
• Yoruba Chief Luisah Teish on “Oshun: The Daughter of Promise”
• Solomonic and Enochian Magick expert Athena Wallinder on “Enhancing evocation with Sacred sexuality and BSDM”
• Amber K and Azrael Arynn K giving a talk entitled “Through Magickal Eyes”
• Mary Greer on “Who Are You in the Tarot?”
• Rachel Pollack on “Tarot–Prophecy, Catastrophe, and Rebirth”
• Holly Allender Kraig leading a workshop on “Yoga for Every Body”
• Lon Milo DuQuette on “The Holy Guardian Angel: Isn’t it Romantic?”
• Famed author and radio journalist Margot Adler on “Ritual Chanting as A Seemless Ecstatic Experience”
• Raven Grimassi on “Rethinking the History of Witchcraft”
• Brandy Williams sharing the “Sisters of Seshat Moon Ritual”
• Diana Paxson on “Oracular Seidh”
• Melanie Marquis on “Psychic and Magickal Development for Kids”
• Sylvia Brallier on “Tantric Shamanism Breathwork Ceremony”
• Raven Grimassi & Stephanie Taylor on “Greenwood Magic”
• R J Stewart on “The Sanctuary of Avalon,The hidden Fire Temple” (he’s giving a concert, too!)
• A Panel of Llewellyn’s Pagan authors discussing, “Are YOU a Pagan? Are we?”
• Christopher Penczak on “The Three Rays of Witchcraft”

And there will be many other speakers, musicians, and performers on an astounding assortment of topics. Many of the people listed above are giving multiple workshops. I’m giving a talk on “Why the LBRP Matters” and will be giving a performance called “The Seance Experience” where I’ll take a small group of people back to the experience of a Victorian seance combined with modern ghost hunting.

I have no doubt that Pantheacon will be this year’s premier occult experience. Many of the people named above (including me) will spend the weekend walking through the convention so you can meet them one-on-one.

I’ll be there. I hope you’ll be there, too!

By this I mean they begin with the externals of the ritual being rather generalized—everything colored red for added energy, for example—along with a specific intention such as bringing yourself more energy to “pull an all-nighter” studying for a test. For some people general externals and specific internals are effective enough and are all they will ever need or use.

However some people, including myself, want to use externals that are more specific. The idea behind this is that the more specific everything is, the more the magick is focused and directed toward your goal.

To this end, magicians such as myself use correspondences. Thus, I’ll use both traditional symbols and/or symbols I create specifically for the purpose of a particular magickal ritual. I might use a Tarot card to represent a particular magickal goal. I may take an entire series of specific symbols and include them on a talisman that I’ll charge.

The Power Above Us

As a way of advancing this specificity, magicians often use the power of the Sun and Moon. For the Sun, we use a technique known as the planetary or magickal hours. This divides the hours from sunrise to sunset (and sunset to sunrise) into twelve equal divisions. Each division is related to a planet. This is usually equated only with the power of a specific planet: Mars has certain qualities associated with conflict, strength, and courage. Jupiter has qualities associated with speculation, gambling, leadership, and health. I discuss this in Modern Magick.

Now, here’s a secret I did not overtly reveal and I don’t know of it being published anywhere else. Personally, I’ve always thought it would be self-evident, so I didn’t stress it. But some people haven’t figured it out, so I’ll reveal it here.

In Modern Magick I wrote that the best time to charge a talisman is on “the day and in the hour associated with the planet appropriate to your working.” Sadly, I have yet to have anyone ask why this is so. In the newest edition of the book I stressed that, as Dion Fortune stated, there is no room for authority in occultism. There should be a reason for everything that is more substantive than “some famous occultist wrote it.”

So what is the reason that using both the day and hour associated with a planet makes the best time for charging a talisman? The answer is simple: it’s because the energy of the day and the energy of the hour modify each other. Doing a working during the hour of the Sun on Sunday (the day of the Sun) is more likely to be successful than one performed during the hour of the Sun on Monday (the day of the Moon). The more specific you get, the more your energies are focused toward achieving your goal.

Adding the Moon’s Influences

Generally, magicians who also add the Moon’s energies do this on a very basic level. If the Moon is waxing (appears to be growing in size), perform magick to bring something to you. This is the most powerful on the Full Moon. If the Moon is waning (appears to be shrinking in size), perform magick that dismisses or sends things away. This is most powerful on the New Moon (when the Moon is dark). Are there smaller divisions of the cycle of the Moon, similar to the way there are Planetary Hours dividing a solar day? Absolutely. These are called the “Fingers of the Moon” or “Mansions of the Moon,” and there is very little written on this topic from a magickal perspective. I do introduce a system of associations for this in Modern Magick, but there is much more. The best explanation I’ve seen of this subject* is in the book Mansions of the Moon for the Green Witch by Ann Moura.

In her book, Moura briefly traces the history of the Mansions, including China, Hellenic Greece, and back to their earlier, probable source in India where they are known as the nakshatras. They came to Western magick by way of the books The Picatrix, Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, and Barrett’s The Magus.

There are 28 Mansions of the Moon, corresponding with the number of days of a Lunar month. They are associated with the zodiacal signs through which the Moon is traveling. Maura writes:

Each mansion has traditionally held associations, and the magical work that draws on the energy or wards against it relates to the context of the mansion, the lunar phase, and the energy of the zodiac sign. Some of the mansions overlap signs and provide different energy relationships for the same mansions, depending on the Moon’s position at the time of the magical work. Utilizing the sign energy in coordination with the mansion and the lunar phase allows for a coherent magical practice that acknowledges the ancient interpretations and can be updated and applied to modern times and thought.

For example, the first mansion is known as Alnath. It occurs when the moon enters Aries. If the Moon is waxing, it indicates a time to do magical work for safe journeys and to build energies for structures and armies. If the Moon is waning, it is for creating discord or ruining a foe. This could mean a time to do magick to overcome adversity, addiction, or opposition to plans you’ve made.

The book goes on to list the remaining 27 mansions and their associations. She also includes concepts for working with them as well as rituals. I hope this gives you a bit of the concept of the power hidden within the Mansions of the Moon.

Ann Maura’s focus has been on the system of Witchcraft she practices that she calls “Green Witchcraft.” While this book certain fits into that system, it also transcends any system of Witchcraft and easily can become part of ceremonial magick techniques.

If you are a ceremonial magician I hope you will see beyond the Witchcraft association of the title and understand the practical value of this book for all ceremonial magicians. If you are a Pagan, Wiccan, Witch, or follow another path, I hope you will give this book a chance and add its techniques to your repertoire and become a more powerful magician.

_____________

*I just received the recently-published book, Liber Lunae that goes into this subject, but I haven’t studied it yet. After a brief and superficial thumbing through the book it appears to be a thorough and historical look at the subject, although perhaps not as practical as Moura’s book. My guess is that magicians will want to have both of these books. After I read it I’ll present information on it.

After the dinner, my parents, grandparents and I walked around the area. I was immediately drawn to the tourist-oriented sleight-of-hand magic shop that was there and talked my parents into buying me a deck of Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling Cards (they wouldn’t go for the rubber chicken).

I eagerly read the little instruction booklet and gave my very first reading to my grandfather, predicting pain and an early death. He retired to his bedroom where he had oxygen awaiting.

I didn’t give another reading of any kind for about five or six years, and I never used that deck again.

* * *

You may have read this article or seen a video about Antonio Vazquez, the self-styled “Brujo Mayor” of Mexican brujeria. The title means “Major Witch,” but the seemingly incompetent BBC incorrectly calls this “Grand Warlock.” (Warlock actually means a traitor.)

In the article, Brujo Mayor Vaazquez predicts that President Obama will not win re-election. He has been making predictions for several decades based, he claims, on a combination of Tarot and astrology, and has a very mixed record. However, he also states that the reason President Obama will lose the election is that, “They will attack him a lot. The Republicans have all the money in the United States and so they are putting a lot of pressure on him to make mistakes.” I don’t think you need the Tarot or astrology to figure that out.

He predicted that singer Britney Spears would die in 2008 and in 2011 he foretold of a Latin leader being assassinated. Both, obviously, were wrong.

* * *

In his blog, Chas S. Clifton notes that predictions from certain Cuban Santeria priests include such things as “war and conflict.” Considering the nature of our world today, such “predictions” are, indeed, highly accurate. This technique of making broad and general statements that simply can’t lose is often used by “readers” who are fakes and frauds. They state something obvious as if it were something amazing, and we sometimes accept it as being a valid and paranormal revelation. This technique can even become quite personal and is often used as part of a cold reading to make you believe in the accuracy of the fake reader.

For example, if you come to the fake reader looking desperate, the fake might say, “I see you are going through trying times.” Well, duh! Why do you think you came to the reader in the first place, because things were going swimmingly? Besides, even if things were going well, everyone has challenges in their lives. This broad statement can accepted as an accurate comment by many, if not most people. Clifton (whose Letter From Hardscrabble Creek blog you should be following) correctly states it’s “hard to go wrong” with such broad predictions.

He notes, however, that Brujo Mayor Vazquez’s prediction about President Obama is of the true/false variety and wonders if anyone keeps track of such predictions, “like an NFL quarterback’s pass-completion average.” There actually are a few sources that let you give predictions and then track their accuracy, but the professional prognosticators, such as the Brujo Mayor, don’t participate.

Predictions Can Be Right and Wrong

Over twenty years ago, I self-published a small booklet called “How to Avoid Psychic Fraud.” The premise was that most books on psychic powers were either of the debunking kind or of the “it’s all true!” kind. I tried to identify the truth as to what was real and what was not. Later, I re-wrote it and Llewellyn published it as “The Truth About Psychic Powers.” It’s out of print and rather dated, but one aspect of it is still true and relates to this discussion.

I dislike the term “fortune telling.” It assumes that your future is foretold and there is nothing you can do about it. For example, a fortune might include that in May of this year you’re going to take an ocean cruise and drown. This implies that such is your fate and there is nothing you can do about it.

Except I don’t have to go on that cruise. I don’t have to suffer that fate. Predictions given in fortune telling are true only if we don’t change our direction in life. The fortune warns me of the possibility of calamity and allows me to change my future. So even though such predictions imply that we have an unchanging fate, by telling me that fortune I have the knowledge to change my fate. It’s a curious self-contradiction and frankly, I remain confused as to why people believe in such predictions.

The Nature of Life

Imagine, if you will, a long tunnel with a large room  at its end that has an infinite number of doors. That is much like our life as we progress through time. The tunnel is our past and the room is the present. We move through that tunnel and are most likely to go through the door directly ahead of us. However, there is nothing to stop us from turning slightly to the left or right or even widely to the left or right and move in a different way.

That’s why I prefer the term divination, meaning “to make divine.” When you achieve a state wherein you can see (with or without the help of things such as Tarot cards) the possibilities, you can describe to yourself or others the path that is most likely to be taken if the person being read for continues on his or her current path.

Remember, however, that in the metaphor of the tunnel leading to a room, the room is the present time. Each moment is a new present and a new room. Every change away from the door directly opposite the tunnel leads you farther and farther away from the prediction that was made.

When you give a divination, predictions are based on the present situation.
Actions right now and in the future can alter the outcome.

Hearing this you might think that predictions based on a divination are useless since, as time changes and we naturally change our lives based on both actions around us and new information we gain, the less likely they are to occur. In fact, I consider this to be a law of divination:

In divinatory predictions,
the further in the future events are described,
the less likely they are to occur.

You may think this implies that valid predictions of all kinds are meaningless because they can be changed through our actions. Actually, just the opposite is true. Divinatory predictions indicate the path we are on. They give us information that can help us to insure that something happens or prevent it from occurring.

This is why I say that accurate divinatory predictions can be both right (at this time) and wrong (because with the information we can choose to change things).

The Purpose of a Divination

Most people assume that the purpose of predictions is to tell you what is going to happen. This is completely false. The purpose of a divination is to give you information to create your own future.

When giving divinations, I like to begin predictions by saying, “If you continue on your present path, X will happen.” This is like a doctor saying, “If you continue smoking, you will die of lung cancer.” The doctor is right. You can continue smoking and meet your predicted demise. Or you can take the information as a guide, use it to change, and avoid the negative implication of the prediction.

The prediction was right for all things at this time, but you changed and made the prediction wrong.

I consider divination an important part of magickal work. It’s one of the first things I teach in Modern Magick. But please don’t assume that divinatory predictions reveal what must happen. They simply share information so you can make the future what you want.

As one of my teachers used to say:

Learn from the past.
Live in the present.
Create the future.

1. Evoke a spirit for a purpose and
2. You later obtain the purpose or think you get a message concerning that purpose.

I believe this is fairly accurate. As Fra.AshenF.:N.:F. accurately points out, if you achieve your goal without seeing the spirit, how do you know you actually evoked a spirit? The successful results could have been caused by some other type of magick, such as sympathetic magick, triggered by your unsuccessful evocation.

So the essence of spirit evocation is, well, directly communicating with the spirit you’ve evoked. As Fra.AshenF.:N.:F. adds, this does not mean the spirit takes a 3D form in the physical world. Rather, it means you are able to actually see the spirit.

Again, I agree. This is primarily the position I take in Modern Magick, and in my book, I give instructions on how to do evocations. You’ll also find some good information on this in Konstantinos’ book, Summoning Spirits.

When I first started investigating magick, the truth is that few people were actually doing ritual work. There were far more armchair magicians than practicing magicians. While there are still plenty of magicians in their armchairs, there are currently an increasing number of practicing magicians. Some new magicians, fascinated by the idea of evocation, try this type of magick early on in their “magickal careers.”

I think this is a mistake. There are a lot of basics to learn and magickal abilities to develop before most people will be easily successful with this type of work.

Why The Current Beliefs?

So why is it that people think that all evocations consist of either making some critter jump out of the ground or simply ooze into your mind during dreams or trance? Well, I think people believe the former because of their superficial reading of the original texts, relying on mistaken secondary sources (usually written by people who have never performed any magick at all), watching fictional movies or reading novels. They believe the latter because of one (or both) of two reasons:

1. They are followers of what I call “The psychologization of magick.” This is the belief that everything non-physical is in the mind—including gods, demons, spirits, etc.—and are nothing more than manifestations of our psyches. Demons, for example, are just neuroses or psychoses and evocation “externalizes” (let’s you deal with them as if they were separate from you) them.
2. They try evocation and don’t succeed. However they desperately want to believe their mistaken concept of nasty little demons popping into the physical world is accurate and accept anything as a sign that the evocation succeeded.

A Magick, Not the Only Magick

Evocation is simply one type of magick. It’s dramatic, but it is not the only kind of magick there is. For some people, actually seeing a spirit is the proof they need for the validity of magick. Therefore, some people spend a lot of time trying to conjure up a spirit for the purpose of, well, basically saying “Hello.”

All of the ancient grimoires indicate that the different spirits have various purposes. I do not advise essentially wasting your time (and the spirit’s time) by calling them up for no purpose other than to call them up. Instead, evoke them for one of the purposes where they can assist you.

This makes evocation into just another form of magick. If you need money you could do a planetary magick ritual, an elemental ritual, a natural magick spell, an evocation, or many other types of magick. When doing evocation to get a spirit to aid you in achieving a magickal goal, seeing the spirit isn’t as important as obtaining a positive result. As Crowley wrote, “Success is your proof.”

What Fra.AshenF.:N.:F. didn’t stress in his original post (but which M.C. does make clear here [in response to a comment here by Rufus Opus in his response to Fra.AshenF.:N.:F.'s original comment]), and I would stress, is that what you are doing first is magick. Evocation is the method. If you achieve your goal the magick worked, even if the method you thought you used wasn’t the means by which the magick occurred.

I Didn’t See Nothin’

If you are doing magick to achieve results—and by results I mean a change that you are seeking—is the exact reason why your magick worked important? I don’t think so. I think the important thing is that it worked.

But if your goal is direct communication with a spirit, then I mostly agree with Fra.AshenF.:N.:F. that you are only successful if you see the spirit. And yet, many practitioners believe you don’t have to see the spirit. Do the evocation and wait for a message in a dream, a stray thought, a curious coincidence, etc., and this will prove that your evocation was successful. Again, I agree with Fra.AshenF.:N.:F. when he says that it isn’t so.

Fra.AshenF.:N.:F. believes the reason most people who believe that this is the nature of evocation do so because they’ve never been successful with real evocation. If a practitioner has never succeeded in doing an evocation they can’t really know what evocations are. He writes, “Claiming something does or does not work a certain way without really having the experience in it, is obvious faulty reasoning.” (Emphasis in original.)

I have had some remarkable results with evocation, some of which have been published in Modern Magick. So I agree with his concept of drawing spirits to visible appearance. However, I must respectfully disagree that this is the only way of knowing that you have evoked spirits.

When you see auras or create visualizations so clear you can practically touch what you visualize, it is because you have developed your astral vision. All of our senses have astral counterparts and can be developed (if they’re not already available to you). Again, Modern Magick has instructions on how to do this. To see a spirit requires that you have developed your astral vision. Without it, you won’t see anything. Someone who peeks into your ritual room without such abilities (either natural or developed) won’t see anything either. That does not mean the evocation was unsuccessful, only that your vision (and the outsider’s vision) wasn’t developed.

Fra.AshenF.:N.:F. requires visual proof of the effectiveness of evocation. And he’s 100% correct for him. It’s also a good proof for many others. But respectfully, it’s not the only proof. One of the advantages of working with groups is that different people develop different skills. It may be that you, or another person in the group, never develops astral vision to a level where a spirit can be seen. Someone else may see the spirit but you won’t. The evocation can still be considered effective.

By the same token, you may have developed astral hearing to a high level and be able to hear the evoked spirit without seeing it. In this case your evocation may also have been effective. The means of determining whether you’ve evoked a spirit if you only have astral hearing is through questioning the spirit and checking the responses via known correspondences. Again, this is described in Modern Magick.

Today, the sense of astral smell seems to be rarer than 100–150 years ago, but it is possible that a change of perceived odors can indicate a successful evocation, although I wouldn’t entirely depend upon this sense for this purpose. The same is true with an astral kinesthetic sense or feeling that the spirit is there. I would consider these two senses to be indicative of success but not complete proof.

Where Is That Angel?

While such discussions are fascinating to both practical and armchair magicians who are also magickal philosophers, it is, in the long run, as important as figuring out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I mean, really? Is this what you want to spend your time on? For me, the important part is doing the work. Magick is about change. Did you get the change? If not, why not?

Evocation is fascinating, but it is just one form of magick. I find it a fascinating practice. There are many books with information on how to do it, and they’re all good after you develop your astral senses.

In the meantime, Duke Zepar and I are going to hit some clubs!