I’ve been reading about magick, and discussed magick, and I’ve finally found a few explanations that helps me understand how to do magick.
Understanding magick in theory isn’t so hard, it’s how to do it in practice I’ve been struggling with understanding.
Many things I’ve read about magick, and discussions, have been about energy. Which isn’t helpful when you can’t sense energy.
Some think my problem is faith or belief, but that’s wrong. Of course I can do magick, or Loki wouldn’t be pushing me so much about doing it. I know I can do a few types of magick already, but spellworkings has had me stumped.
I’ve been told to just have fun and experiment and find out what works for me. I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to be able to do that, when I can’t sense anything happening at all. If I try a dozen different spells, then for all I know and can sense, I’m just doing live action roleplaying pretending to be a magician/witch.
I’ve been told that you’re supposed to just know that a spell works. That you’re supposed to see it or feel it with your heart/gut/intuition/whatever. That just makes me go: Bwuh? Do what with the what now? “See with the heart”, is that the same as “feel it in your heart”? What does that even mean? Sense something in my heart chakra??
One of the problems I’ve had with spellworkings and spells is: if I am to practise doing magick each day, does that mean that I have to come up with a new spell each day? How can I manage to come up with an endless stream of spells?
I define spells as a very specific and narrow type of magickal workings. To me spells are like those I’ve seen in movies, on the telly and read about in Fantasy novels; the kind that are written down in a grimoire, which magick users chant aloud, and preferably the spell should rhyme and sound old-fashioned. Or spells that are drawn as sigils
The spells I’ve seen when I’ve googled, is always about wanting something, usually money, sex, love, and mundane power. I just don’t have a lot of wants, at least not concrete one like that. And wouldn’t casting spells to get something you want, every day, be very greedy?
On Saturday I tried my first spellworking, a candle spell.
I focused on what I wanted to happen, the goal of the spell.
I carved a sigil I’ve come up with for this spell into the candle, and a rune. Then I bloodied both the sigil and the rune. Maybe that will give the spell a bit extra power, I thought.
Then I used some scented oil I’ve made for Loki and used a finger to put some on the candle, while slowly chanting the simple phrase of the spell.
Then I lit the candle, and let it burn for an hour. I’m supposed to light it at the same time each night, and let it burn for an hour, until it’s burned down.
I wonder if I might’ve picked a too big candle? Maybe I should’ve used a standard, slim one? It’s going to take a very long time before it’s burned down. Oh, well.
Oh, one interesting thing: I didn’t realise until the next evening, that I had chosen to light the candle at nine o’clock, and nine is a sacred number in the old faith. Heh.
Yesterday I tried another type of spell. I sat down in front of Loki’s altar, and lit a candle. Then I wrote a spell down on a piece of paper, while focusing on what I was doing and on my intention. I held the note and read the spell aloud, slowly and being as focused as possible, three times. I folded the note, while chanting the spell another three times. Then I burned the note in the candle flame.
The spell was about asking the Universe/the Divine to give me new understanding of and knowledge about magick and spellworkings.
Some hours later I suddenly began to wonder if I have misunderstood what Loki wants me to do. When He’s said that He wants me to practise doing spells, did He really mean just spells? That’s a very narrow type of magick. Then I thought, I’ve experienced before that Loki has a very different definition of some terms than I have, so maybe He means something else with “spells” than I do. After all, Loki is a witch/magician and a great initiator of witches, wouldn’t it make more sense if He wanted me to do magick and not just spells?
This morning I talked to Loki, and used my pendulum to clarify what I was hearing.
And Loki has indeed a different, far wider definition of spellworkings.
And He wants me to practise doing magick, not just one limited type of it.
That makes things so much more understandable!
I know a couple of Feri excercises, which I can repeat and do every day.
I found a website that explains Feri and some exercises in a very simple and easily understandable way: Vicia and the Anderson Feri tradition
A type of magick I like, is Chaos Magick, which Goat-Willow explained this way:
“To me, magic of any sort involves using whatever works at that moment–or whatever I *believe* works at that moment–no matter how ridiculous it might seem, or whether or not it will ever work again.”
Columbine explained magick in a simple and understandable way:
“You needn’t understand the mechanics of everything yet (or ever, for that matter), nor do you need to see or sense energy in any capacity. Magick can be summed up thusly: It is simply thought made manifest. If you can think and concentrate on a goal for a period of time, if you can fuel that thought with emotion, and (this is the most important part) if you can let it go after the working is complete, then your magick will be successful 99% of the time. Everything else, is just props.”
Today I stumbled over this:
“1 Lesson Correspondence Course” in “Rob’s Magick Blog“
“Right now the important thing isn’t results. Right now the important thing is to be doing magic. Even if it doesn’t work, it’s still a first step on the journey to becoming an adept, and even a horribly bad novice magician is still a magician [...].”
YES! THANK YOU!
I’ve been completely focused on results, when what I should be focused on as a n00b novice is training.
I think I’m getting an understanding about how to do magick in practise now.
Took you long enough…
“No thanks to you Loki…”
I wanted you to figure out things on your own.
“Mrrrglblrrrgl…”
