Do you do magic for the mundane?
Last week I was talking with a writer who has spent a lot of time with Pagans, and some of his closest friends are Pagans, but he is not a Pagan himself. We got to talking about people who work magic, and his main question was, “If these witches and magicians are so great, how come they can’t pay their rent? How come they’re in such poor health? How come they can’t seem to get their lives together?”
Now, almost all of the Pagan and Wiccan authors I work with are successful in both realms – magical and mundane. They own houses, support their families, and don’t seem to be any worse off than the average Joe. Some of them have used their talents to spur themselves to go running every day, to establish non-profit organizations, to go to law school, to get a master’s degree, to own a bookstore, and other shining accomplishments. But this writer did hit on a good point – if we look around, we can also see people with real troubles in our community. The ones who drift aimlessly from job to job, or even from couch to couch. The ones who can’t quit smoking or lose weight when they try. Just look at the preeminent magician of the early 20th century, Aleister Crowley – for all of his magical and spiritual prowess, he was a slave to his heroin habit.
Focus and will are two of the most important skills of a witch, so how is it that some witches don’t have the same focus and will when it comes to their mundane life? Maybe they see these mundane things as secondary to their spirituality. In other words, they may have done a lot of work on the inner planes that allows them to be fully present in their lives, so they are “OK” with the outer trappings of their life, no matter how poor that may look to us on the outside. They may be so involved in enriching their inner life that bettering their mundane life is just not a priority.
Obviously there are many shades of gray to this, so I’ll put the question to you. How much magical work do you put into your mundane life – for example, eating better, quitting smoking, finding a better job, planning a career path, getting better grades, getting together rent or mortgage money, supporting your family? Are there areas you’d like to work on more? How much of your magical work is solely aimed at spiritual development and inner transformation and has no concrete outcome in the mundane world, other than making you feel better about your life circumstances? Are there some parts of your life that you’ll “tamper with” and other parts you won’t? (For example, in my own experience I’ve done magical work for concrete things like jobs, money, finding an apartment and healing but I’ve never done magical work for things harder to measure, such as enhancing my relationships or creativity.)
Please take a moment to share your thoughts – either here on the blog, or on our Facebook page. Better yet, if you have specific examples of using magic to improve your mundane situation, please share!
more than a year ago,
I used meditation, centering, and ritual
to help overcome a mental stumbling block.
it succeeded beyond my dark shadows of doubt.
specifically: widowed, and angry at the thought of
learning to deal with another, look for another,
*date* again (gasp! at my age!)
so every evening, after getting the wee bairn to bed
would light the candles, do the corners, put on one particular album, and let my mind drift, towards possibility.
and yes, the love that entered my life and continues
to light it also counts that album as a long-time favorite.
certaintly, it could be merely circumstance.
but on the mundane level: giving thanks, breathing deeply, being centered and directed, helps me be present in the moment, throughout the whirlwind moments of the day.
That is a beautiful story!!
I know for me, life experiences go so much more smoothly (or is it that I stop stressing the small stuff?) when I make spirituality my highest priority. My experiences with magick have always been lessons in self-mastery.
Recently I had fallen out of a habit of daily prayer. It had felt like days of grimey psychic build-up, and I knew I had to do something about it. A small spell for motivation, I figured, should help lift me out of my funk. A prayer spent sorting out my specific goals and a divination to find the best way to achieve it are usually what I do before performing any spellwork.
Before I could utter a word, They spoke (is speaking the right term for it?) to the effect of, “Are you really about ask the gods for something you can easily do on your own?”
“…but I have a hard time building habits again. I just need – ”
“To get off your lazy ass. See what you can do yourself before you ask cosmic aid for every little thing.”
“…well, okay.”
“Good. Do it.”
Now I don’t get clear cut respones that like often, but I learned (continue to learn over and over again) that we’re often more capable than we give ourselves credit for. You can’t work magick and live in a way that repels the energy that you summon.The best magick, I think, just provides an opportunity to be yourself more productively.
Might I remind everyone that we are all human. Whether we are witches, shamans, christians, etc. We all have our own shortcomings and cannot possibly be perfect. And maybe we have our faults for a reason. Thats not to say we can’t try to do better, but even the most powerful spiritual person is still human.