Category Archives: Personal Alchemy

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On being magic

This was a blog post I was going to make before the total proverbial shit hit the fan and I had to make a post about that instead. What I am about to discuss is a case of “no one’s wrong, it’s just a matter of different perspectives and words getting in the way of understanding.” It’s a kinder, gentler post, but no less important. So without further adieu….

I posted a link to a blog a week or so ago entitled Magick, Money, & Bullshit: Do the F**cking Work. Literally my only complaint about this post was the need to censor an excellent word such as “fucking”, but I digress. One of the best parts about it was this section here: “Magick isn’t something you do. Magick is something YOU ARE. How you think. How you live. How you love. How you behave all affect any magickal working you perform.” 

When I posted this to Facebook, I was surprised at a few who didn’t seem to understand the spirit of what was being said, namely “Magick isn’t something you do. Magick is something you are.” One felt the need to point out that magic(k) is a practice while another voiced the idea that once you hit Adepthood, magical practice is something you do less often out of pursuit of other things. Neither of these statements are “wrong”; they just weren’t the point that I felt the deep need to express and celebrate. I also fell short of being able to explain it on Facebook, as the medium really isn’t sufficient for this sort of discussion. Expressing why magic is who you are and not just what you do requires more than it provides.

Magic is a mindset. It’s a mentality. There is no separation between your “mundane” life and your “magical” life, and when you live out your life in a way that expresses that, all of the barriers towards manifestation come tumbling down. It’s not just something you do when you’re lighting that candle, casting that spell, doing that working, this invocation, robing up and entering your temple room, or spending all of your hard earned money over at Wolf & Goat.

Yes Virginia, you ARE magic. This is why it’s so important to take care of yourself, get your physical needs met, and don’t neglect any part of your life. If there’s an area where you’re struggling to manifest something take a good look at why. Maybe it’s your approach, maybe it’s something you haven’t quite digested yet, or maybe you’ve been treating it as something you’re not yet worthy of. Maybe you’ve only done it when you desperately needed to as opposed to making it something you do on a regular basis, like brushing your teeth. Perhaps it’s a fear of failure o the belief that magic is somehow limited to certain things. It’s time to put all of that away and set aside the notion that you’re not deserving. Yes, you ARE worthy. You don’t need to feel guilty or make excuses as to why you can’t do money/job/career magic or any sort of magic; you are the vessel from which the power of the gods flow. You are a magical being, and with every step you take to perfect both the person whom you are and what you put forth into the world, you can make the world around you more in touch with the very essence of magic.

I’ve always found that magicians who quote the statement “As above, so below” and yet draw lines in the sand on their spiritual/personal and “mundane” lives to be demonstrating a sad cognitive dissonance. Repeat after me: it’s all the same. There are no lines, no boundaries, no differences between them. You cannot keep your altars tidy and not extend that into the rest of your life, and while doing one can help to improve the other it’s not enough. Take action, get it done.

One of my magical teachers once said to me that magic is about making a connection. And it’s true. We need to make connections between all of the bits of our lives, and if it’s the physical world we’re struggling with we cannot continue to divorce ourselves from it. Ultimately it’s about striving for what is termed in my faith as areté: excellence in all things and living up to one’s full potential.

Don’t just do magic, be magic.

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On being ready

When it comes to magic as well as personal alchemy, I’ve discovered two things about being ready:

  1. It’s easy to underestimate when you are
  2. It’s easy to overestimate when you are

#1 is the one I tend to be the most familiar with, and what I typically tell people who are wondering when they need to begin the next phase in their spiritual and alchemical development is basically when they’re feeling comfortable. Like, maybe TOO comfortable. Perhaps they’re even dragging their feet and feeling like the water is just fine so why get out?

But then there’s that second one. I see it all the time. People win the lottery but are unable to handle it, aren’t prepared to deal with it, and lose it all and then some. People who do job spells, money spells, love spells, and are totally unable to deal with the consequences that follow because they haven’t done the personal development and growth necessary to be able to deal with that next stage. And when your magic is good and that spell is all well and awesome,  you could very well lose any sense of safety net which prevents you from getting in over your head.

Take money magic, for instance. If you’re convinced that rich people are conniving and that it’s impossible to be both a good, spiritual person and have wealth, that’ll mess you up royally. You’re already standing in your own way and have issues with the very thing you’re trying to draw into your life. And like the biggest and worst enemy  you already are for yourself, you’ll commit self-sabotage. If you struggle with feelings of self-doubt, lack of “worthiness”, and wonder who you think you are to be doing such things when xyz people are poor and hungry, you’ll never get anywhere. Instead, think of the people who got rich and did good things with it. JK Rowling was homeless and poor before she wrote the Harry Potter series, and she was a billionaire–up until the point where she gave away so much to charity she was downgraded to a millionaire instead.

You don’t need to have heroes to lift you up, but finding good examples of people who are living the sort of life you want to live often helps. If you can’t find any, think up one and write it down in every detail the sort of people you want to become should your magic work. Visualize it. If you find that you need to develop certain traits in order to get there, work on it. Find out where you’re lacking and get on it.

Otherwise, you’ll get the job and later the promotion of your dreams and find yourself in over your head, worrying about whether or not you’re really qualified, and ultimately sink yourself. You’ll meet your soulmate but find that you’re getting in the way of both yourself and the relationship.

It’s okay to struggle and it’s okay to have doubts. Just don’t commit the ultimate self-betrayal by giving into them and not letting yourself live the life you richly deserve to have.

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True will, personal development, and the most dangerous of all journeys

I got into a conversation today that got some wheels spinning on a long overdue blog post on the subject of magic, priorities, True Will and all that. I touched upon it briefly during the Esoterinerd podcast I was interviewed in, but I’d like to expand upon it further.

People cannot have their magical wills so completely drained by the need to survive, to be able to take care of themselves and the basic necessities, to the point where they cannot thrive. And worse yet, not even know what it means to be able to thrive. It is vitally important as a magician to learn how to set things such as financial needs, the roof over your head, basic health and well being into a self-sustaining but constantly fed magical system for yourself that you can spend time focusing on other things such as emotional, mental, and spiritual needs.

This isn’t an unusual or unknown concept. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs covers it quite succinctly:

2000px-Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg

This is why I am very, very big on being able to take care of yourself in regards to your health and wealth as a magician, and why using magic to aid you in this endeavor is not only not a bad thing, but it is an absolute must and necessity. There are various traditions that may disagree with me on this, but I am giving of no fucks and will say flat out that they are wrong. I’ll merely offer up my own experiences and fruits as proof of this: once I set magic into motion in a way that not only had me both feeding it and feeding itself to give me a fulfilling occupation and the monetary benefits that came with it, much of my life–and my magic–got that much easier. Suffering isn’t a virtue; using your magic in a practical way helps both you and those around you gives you a means of perfecting your magic doing something you absolutely need to do. It’s a win-win scenario for everyone. Throw out your old programming and join those of us who are living happy and fulfilling lives while helping others to do the same. You have nothing to lose but your excuses, and nothing to gain but greater happiness, magical mastery, and the ability to help others.

Once you’ve got a reasonable handle on the basics of life and survival, you can focus on the rest of the stuff to power your life, thrive, and make you happy. What does it mean to be able to thrive? What would it mean for you to really, truly live a fulfilling life? I can’t answer that for you. Instead I’ll turn to one of my most favorite passages in all of literary history in Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story:

“What do you suppose it means?'[Bastian] asked. “”DO WHAT YOU WISH.'” That must mean I can do anything I feel like. Don’t you think so?
All at once Grograman’s face looked alarmingly grave, and his eyes glowed.
‘No,’ he said in his deep, rumbling voice. ‘It means that you must do what you really and truly want. And nothing is more difficult.’
‘What I really and truly want? What do you mean by that?’
‘It’s your own deepest secret and you yourself don’t know it.’
‘How can I find out?’
‘By going the way of your wishes, from one to another, from first to last. It will take you to what you really and truly want.’
‘That doesn’t sound so hard,’ said Bastian.
‘It’s the most dangerous of all journeys.’
‘Why?’ Bastian asked. ‘I’m not afraid.’
‘That isn’t it,’ Grograman rumbled. ‘It requires the greatest honesty and vigilance, because there’s no other journey on which it’s so easy to lose yourself forever.”

In short, what it takes for you to thrive is essentially your true will. I can’t tell you what that would mean for you, nor can any other magician in the blogosphere. But I can tell you that if you spend much of your time stressing over bills and basic necessities that it is very, very difficult indeed to have energy left over at the end of the day to spend on thriving. I also don’t want to give the impression that anyone who continues to struggle making ends meet cannot advance spiritually or magically, as that’s certainly not the case! It just happens to be easier to get other needs and desires met once the basic ones have been dealt with. But do not despair; in order to learn how to fly you gotta master the art of getting up onto your own two feet then walking. And that fine art of learning how to stand up is beyond essential. Don’t neglect it, and don’t think that you are doing such a terrible job in your own life that you’re still learning it. Some go into the grave before ever having given it the slightest chance; just the fact that you’re trying puts you way ahead of the game.

Figuring out what works for you and how to get your life in order is all a part of that personal development which is magical, difficult, essential, and humbling all at once. And as I’ve covered in another blog post, personal development is about 80% of the work. Get that done and you have much of the rest made. Fail and just do magic alone, and it’s basically the equivalent of trying to out-train a bad diet. Which is, if you ask anyone in the fitness world, impossible–you cannot. It’s well worth getting all of that under control and figuring yourself out before mastering the art and science of magic.

What can I tell you about the personal development process and figuring yourself out–aside from it being a nearly never-ending process? I can tell you that I learned my own true will, staring at me right in the face during what was the most magical and ultimately later the most traumatic of times for me. It’s not the way I wish for others to figure it out, that’s for sure. You are best off just figuring it out quietly one day or merely moving from one thing to the next until you reach that “ah ha” moment. But once you realize it, it’s a lot like falling in love, it just happens and no one can do it for you nor tell you how it goes. But some of us gotta walk through hell to find it then claw our way out afterward. And if you plan to make it out alive let alone thrive, you can’t do it by magic alone.

All in all, just trust me on this one: Do. Personal. Development. It’ll help you with your finances, practical goals both big and small, and last but definitely not least in your magical and spiritual work. Don’t know where to begin? Read the works of others, figure out whose writings and ideas jive with your own experiences and inspire you, and take it from there. Examine your life and learn from others who took the time to examine theirs. People have walked these paths prior to you, and while their experiences may or may not resonate with you, it’s a start. I’m a big fan of Wayne Dyer and Joe Vitale but they’re not the only names out there. Some jive on the Law of Attraction stuff but for myself, I’ve found that while it’s useful it’s typically oversimplified, doesn’t tell the full tale, and is merely a stepping stone. People often like to tell you that the so-called switch is perpetually on and everyone’s always attracting (and of course insert blame/victim nonsense here), but that’s not actually the case. The reality is that most people are in neutral gear and being thrust along according to the whims of the Great Magnet. Master yourself and master magic, and all of that changes.

 

On a side note: I am toying with the idea of doing a series of personal and practical alchemy/development classes in a learn-as-you-go email series with readings and various ritual and meditative practices to go along with it, all of which would be at a reasonable cost. Essentially I would love to boil down the esoterics and complicated nature of both personal development and alchemy and build it in an organized fashion in a progressive fashion–no initiation or mystical order membership required. If this sounds interesting to you, let me know. If enough people are interested, I’ll do it. It’s something I’ve been slowly writing a book on, but I’ve often wondered if the classes should come first and the book itself broken out into chunks taught in the classes and given out as readings. Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments, on Facebook, or by email: scarlet.magdalene@gmail.com

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Wax on, wax off: how learning physical fitness helps with magical fitness

When I decided to do the Abramelin in 2014, I knew there was no way I could have the “ideal” conditions for it. I researched the ritual at great length through both the translations, Mathers and Dehn, and determined that if I were to take the plunge I would take it with this attitude:

  • I will never do things perfectly.
  • If I wait to be “perfect”, I will never get it done.
  • I need to be willing to potentially make mistakes, learn from it, and move on.
  • I have nothing left to lose at this point and I desperately need to get my shit together.

As some people who have been following me online know, I’m also a passionate fitness enthusiast. I’ve had my ups and downs and learned a lot from them, but on the whole I’ve made great progress in this arena. I ran a 5K, 10K, and half marathon this past weekend at DisneyWorld with only the bare minimum of muscle soreness afterwards and felt great enough to start getting back to routine two days later. While I still have a great deal of progress to make I’ve also come a long way.

So without further adieu, here’s a list of things that hold true in the wide, wonderful world of fitness which also apply to magic:

  1. You need to pencil in your workouts and get them done. Make them non-negotiable. Get your magic done. Feed your altars. Have regular things you magically contribute to. Things like employment, finances, and well-being are things which need to be perpetually fed. Do NOT get complacent in this arena, not even if you land the perfect job or win the lottery. This is a magic which needs to be kept up. Anything you need on a regular basis is something you can get done regularly.
  2. Length doesn’t make strength. You don’t need to work out for hours a day in order to get results. Likewise with magical ritual. It doesn’t need to go on until the wee hours of the morning to be effective.
  3. You have to train for half and full marathons, you can’t just jump into them and you have to have the proper gear or risk injury. Meditation, trance work, and energy work, while both can come more easily to some than most, do require proper training. Expect your immune system to be shot afterwards. Ask anyone who’s done the Abramelin or any lengthy  working if they got sick after they completed the rite. It can happen to you, be prepared.
  4. If you run into obstacles, work around them and get done what you can. Can’t do a full workout? Do a partial. A partial is better than none. Not much more I need to add to this one. Life happens, just keep moving.
  5. You will have good days and bad days. Motivation is like bathing; you have to keep working on it because it doesn’t last. Just keep going and remember what brought you here to begin with. In short, you will struggle, you will fuck up, you will have days when all you want to do is stare at that Candy Crush game on your phone and just be mindless. And that’s okay.
  6. If you fall off the wagon, just get back on and don’t waste any time or energy beating yourself up over it. It’s very easy to get jolted out of our routines and find it difficult to return to them. We may even feel like we failed on more than one level. Don’t worry about it and either just pick up where you left off,  go back a few steps and start from there, or just start a new cycle over again.
  7. Find something you love to do which works for you and your goals, and keep doing it. If you find a particular system of magic to be drudge work and not very effective, stop torturing yourself with it and find something else. What works for others and calls their inner spirits and get results won’t necessary be the same for you. I love to run and lift weights while there are people who loathe running and would rather do crossfit or Zumba. There are a myriad of systems and disciplines out there. Find one that works with your personality, suits your goals, and keep going with it. This doesn’t mean that you need to find something which isn’t hard. Newsflash: it’s ALL hard. You need to choose your hard and get your self discipline on, but it’s got to be the sort of hard that you will want to invest in.
  8. Don’t judge your beginning by someone else’s middle. You may be working on a discipline which someone else has been working on for years, and you just got started. They’re getting great results while you’re just turning up pennies and feel like the spirits are laughing at you. What gives? It’s not you, they’ve just been at it longer. Be patient, get better at it and the results will come.
  9. Stretch and foam roll after every workout to prevent muscle injury. I’m going to equate this rule with a few things: magic doesn’t begin and end only during your ritual work and the proper conditioning will not only make you more effective but also help you to not burnout. The more strenuous your practice, the more that this becomes important. Obviously a quick candle ritual or offering rite is going to need a lot less “decompression” than an hours-long recitation and ritual, and some might not need any if much at all. There are many ways to do this ranging from shutting down with a banishing rite to just quietly going off to meditate. It’s all about doing grounding and centering rituals. In fact I’m going to go with just the basic idea of grounding and centering as being excellent analogies for stretching and foam rolling. Just. Do. It.
  10. Fitness is 80% diet, and 20% exercise. It’s not just what you’re doing but how you’re feeding your body which can be the more important of the two. You can’t out-train a bad diet. Saving the best for last and I bet you’re wondering how this translates into magical practice and work. Well, here’s the deal and I’m going to italicize and bold this for emphasis: you need to take care of yourself and do the necessary internal work and personal development just as much if not more so than the actual practice of magic. Personal growth and development is the “diet” of the work. Do not confuse it with the “exercise”, which is magic. Personal development is not magic, but it helps feed you as a magician so you can do your magic. Got it? Good.

And now I’ll end this blog post with a piece of advice from one of my favorite fitness trainers, Tony Horton: “Do your best and forget the rest.”

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On Adeptship

The discussion has been brought up on The Great Work list: “what level of adeptship do we feel ourselves to be”? I wound up writing an email long enough that I figured it belonged as a blog post.

Before you can delve into determining level of adeptship, you first must answer the question of what an adept is.

If we’re talking about the general term, the literal dictionary term means “Someone who is skilled or proficient at something”. If we get into certain occult traditions, the term becomes far, far more loaded. I’m going to approach it from the literal dictionary definition and not press forward on any one tradition.
We become adept at something or an adept through years of study, practice, and experience. We are not likely to get there overnight, and the idea that this can be brought to us in an instant through an initiation is actually absurd. It’s akin to saying that merely giving me a college diploma gives me all of the knowledge I need when in fact it’s just an acknowledgement of the work I’ve already done. All an initiation can do for you is just that, simply acknowledge what you have already done, and bring you to the next level that you may realize just how much of a neophyte you still are on the path. Life doesn’t end after graduation.
I am adept at Usui Reiki and various other Reiki traditions because I have studied, practiced, and experienced them for years. I am adept at divination, particularly tarot, for the same reason. I am adept in the Golden Dawn tradition for also the same reason. I can claim the same for computer programming, particularly C# and .NET development.
The idea of mastering something, whether it be a craft, tradition, or any one skill, comes through focus and perseverance. It does not imply perfection, nor does it mean you have nothing left to learn. I’ve spent a decade or more in any of the above that I listed, and never once have I felt that there was a stopping point; perhaps a desire to focus on another tradition or move on, but in any of them I have the capacity to teach and transfer information.
It’s interesting; right now I’m in the process of transferring out of the IT industry into a completely different career, and after my time in the Golden Dawn I went onto other things. I don’t think it’s unusual once you’ve gained a particular skill that what you’ve learned from it is something which guides you into another direction. I still engage in Golden Dawn related discussions and talk with people in the tradition all the time, and much of my knowledge and experiences I’ve gained from it continue to benefit me in day to day life.
At present, I am eyeballs deep in the Abramelin rite. Various traditions stress the importance of doing this once you’ve reached the level of adeptness, and yet it’s something you can do even as a neophyte. I do think however like all forms of personal development that doing any one thing is easier once you’ve already done a good deal of personal work.
A huge part of mastery is self-mastery, and even in business people stress the idea of doing personal development and growth. The most invaluable thing about the Golden Dawn, IMHO, is its elemental alchemy which provides a basis for doing just that. People who race through the grades like people collecting Girl/Boy Scout badges miss the boat entirely, and are depriving themselves of the most powerful aspect that particular tradition has to offer. I cannot stress its importance enough. It is far, far more important than all of the memorization and ritual that the grades have to offer, and will make you into a much more magically efficacious magician.
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Money = energy

There is often a negative backlash against doing magick and spiritual work for money. Some people belong to traditions (or have ideologies) which are seen as being opposed to such things. I’ve actually heard some defensiveness go along with it; I spoke with someone who actually sells magickal items, including books and supplies, for a living but was struggling to make the rent for the storefront. When I suggested using magick as an aid, the walls went up. The idea was clearly seen as a Bad Thing.

I’m not sure where this came about, and I suspect it came with the idea put forth amongst some religious adherents that poverty was a blessing and somehow a sign of “being spiritual”. There are two things that come to mind with this: 1) this is often preached or hinted at in religious traditions where its highest members work in elaborate, expensive buildings 2) you can’t help out others if you can’t help yourself.

Money isn’t evil. Lusting after money, being greedy about it, and doing unethical things in order to obtain and keep money is what’s evil. Money is just another form of energy, and the more of it you have, the more you can give to others–not to mention inspire others to do the same.

Practical Alchemy is about both practice and being “down to earth”. If you cannot manifest money for your rent or mortgage, how do you expect to be able to manifest results in the Great Work?

With increases in income, you can find more and better ways of being of value to your family, your friends, and your community. There are many ways in which you can use your hobbies and things that you love not only to gain money, but also to benefit charity. I myself do charity 5K runs and similar events.

People need to ditch the bad feelings of unworthiness, inappropriateness, or flat out guilt over the idea that something that they love and are passionate about can make them financially successful and more than capable of supporting themselves. There is no better time than today.

 

Need some help ditching old habits and limiting beliefs preventing you from reaching your goals and being happy? Sign up for a free consultation.

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Reclaiming your personal power

I think this blog post will undoubtedly be filed under “The most difficult but most essential blog post written on here yet”. For the sake of others, I will also highlight this with trigger warnings for touching on topics such as rape, abuse, and assault. However, I will urge those who HAVE undergone such things to read this post, as I hope it will be of help to you.

Before I begin, a caveat: I am a Certified Life Coach, not a licensed therapist or counselor. I am speaking strictly from my personal experience and what has worked for me. You may find that some of what I say will not work for you. In that instance, consult a professional. Here’s a list of important hotlines for people in need of help, take a look at it and see if anything there may be of use to you.

People often give their personal power away regularly albeit unintentionally. Other times it is taken from them. In both cases, they need to recover from the damage done to them, their lives, and of course in their magickal practice.

The Law of Attraction has been written and spoken about to death, and the biggest detractor/rebuttal to it has been questions such as “But what about people who undergo massive trauma such as rape, attempted murder, war, or assault?” What about when there are people in your life who have wronged you in some way, shape or form? I personally think that the Law of Attraction has been massively misunderstood and oversimplified by well-intentioned people, and even used against others as a form of New Age Bullying. The original idea is never and has never been about either blaming people, victimizing them, or taking away their personal power–rather in fact, the opposite. It’s been about empowerment and taking control over your life, even in the face of hardship and struggle. Because of all of the negative connotations that this whole “Law of Attraction” approach now has towards sensitive issues like this, I won’t even address it in this blog post as I think it’ll detract from the overall message and scope of what I want to write about, which is reclaiming your personal power.

First of all, the absolute worst thing you can do in the process of trying to get back your sense of self and personal power is to place the blame of what happened on you. Where you were, what you did, who you chose to hang out with, and all of that line of questioning won’t help you. Unfortunately too often after a series of events such as a bad or abusive relationship, personal trauma, etc. it’s hard to shift focus. Once that power has been taken away, it often continues to be leeched away. Having had that experience, knowing what it is like, it changes things. It changes us. We may even get used to being depleted, which of course doesn’t help in any way, shape, or form.

Then there’s the other side of the coin. We want the party who wronged us to face some sort of karmic retribution, and a part of us may feel that if we let go of what happened to us we are somehow excusing it, that if we manage to somehow “get over it” that it wasn’t a big deal to begin with. At the same time, it’s challenging to not review what happened in our own minds and try to think of ways we could’ve prevented it, could’ve seen it coming. The scars from these sorts of things can affect people for years.

I am not writing this blog post without personal experience. I have been in an abusive relationship, am a two-time survivor of date rape, and had someone who had been my best friend sexually assault and threaten me with rape. Coming back after that was difficult. It affected my spiritual work, my personal development, health, finances, pretty much everything. I spent a good year or two afterwards just “getting by”, struggled with emotions ranging from depression and anger to total numbness, and have described the experience as being out of “cell phone range” from the gods. I found that ultimately what helped me was realizing that I could not wait around for a major change or a breakthrough, I had to take small steps and cherish small victories. As they piled up over time, my life became easier and better. I got healthier, my finances got better, and I started to feel good again about myself and my life.

Reclaiming yourself and getting yourself back on track is ultimately your road to victory. It means not letting the guilty party continue to win over you. It also means forgiving yourself for what you never should’ve had to forgive yourself for in the first place, which is being a person with feelings, emotions, and the capacity to have bad things happen to them. So ultimately what you may need to do is to forgive yourself for needing to forgive yourself, and that’s okay. Realizing that what happened was not your fault and that you CAN get back in the driver’s seat again is a form of release, but it is one of those things which can take time. You will have good days and bad, but in the end the bad days will get fewer in number and the good days will increase.

One of the things I determined for myself after what happened to me was that I wanted to get out there and do positive things, be a stronger and better magician, and inspire others to transform their lives. It also forced me to take stock of what was important for myself in the grand scheme of things, beyond life and death, and what would ultimately let me live a happy and fulfilling life with purpose.

Here’s my list of things of what I did that helped me over time:

  1. Take time out for yourself. Watch good movies, read great books, listen to your favorite music.
  2. Make a to-do list every day of absolutely everything that must get done daily. Put events and reminders of them on a calendar. You may find that during this time that your usual memory, especially short term, will not be as good as it normally is, and these lists and reminders will save you grief and added stress later. Anything that is on that list, bite off the biggest pain in the ass that’s on there first and get it done and out of the way so you can focus on the rest of your day. Eat that Frog! by Brian Tracy touches on this and more.
  3. Take care of yourself. Physical exercise has been my best source of sanity. Go outside for a walk, go running, find something to do which is physically active that you enjoy. Emphasis on ENJOY. Also, eat good, healthy food as often as you can and do your best to avoid any habits which are self destructive such as eating bad food, overindulging in alcohol, etc. The better your body feels, the better YOU will feel. Anything else is a temporary distraction to mask the pain for a few moments and will make you feel even more miserable after and will negatively impact your physical health besides. Please trust me on this.
  4. When hit with bad memories, thoughts, or feelings caused by previous events, you may want to distract yourself with things which are fun and frivolous. Watch cute kitten videos on YouTube. ANYTHING. 80s movies, cartoons, and comedy have been hugely wonderful for me.
  5. HOWEVER…you may find that there are times when you DO need to process your feelings and emotions about what happened to you. Doing that versus repressing them may be of use to you. Trying to figure out when you are processing versus when you are dwelling can be a challenge. If you are finding that your negative feelings and thoughts are getting in the way of every day life, I would pursue #4 first before doing #5. If it gets too much and #4 isn’t working, please consider getting in touch with a professional, especially if #4 is beginning to look more like the symptoms of PTSD. I’ll be touching more on the subject of how to deal with bad thoughts and feelings when I get to #9 and #10 on the list, so stick around.
  6. Remember the people in your life who DO support you and care about you. You’ll have moments when you’ll want to retreat into your shell and others where you’ll need to be surrounded by positive people. Having a nice balance of both will help you.
  7. Eliminate absolutely everything and everyone in your life who is a drain on you, your energy, your emotions, and your resources. If you’re dealing with any form of struggle to reclaim your personal power, this is essential. You may find that you have some toxic relationships to dump. Avoid the Negative Nancies like the plague. You’ll find that some people want to feed off of you as opposed to help you during this time. Identify them as quickly as you can (some will take the burden away from you and will identify themselves without your help), and quietly distance yourself from them. You will be grateful for it.
  8. Find things which inspire you and surround yourself with them. When the going gets tough, turn to those things for support and direction. This could be anything from your favorite personal development books to your spirituality, it could be music, it could be whoever is your personal hero. It does not matter. Whatever will inspire you and make you feel good AND is good for you, find it and thrive in it.
  9. Do healing work. Get Reiki done, do healing spells, etc. Find whatever magick and energy work you can do in order to help you to better deal with the problem and DO IT.
  10. When the negative thoughts and feelings do occur, ask yourself why you feel this way or what brought it up. Then–and here is a question which may seem weird to you–ask yourself what fears you may have if you were to stop thinking or feeling this way. Once you uncover any, ask yourself if you really believe that those fears are true. Keep digging. Sometimes we think that emotions and feelings happen out of nowhere when in fact we have utterly no idea that our unconscious mind is really, really busy and hard at work dealing with all of the stuff we’re not aware that we’re busy processing.
  11. There are two things which will not necessarily always be your friend during this time, and you’ll have to learn how to reprogram them. One is your thoughts, and the other is your feelings. Each will affect the other in a vicious cycle. If you focus on the things which make you feel good, you will think good thoughts. If you focus on the good thoughts, you will feel good. Ending the cycle of internal negativity is challenging, but it can be done. Again, as always, small victories and steps will snowball over time.
  12. If you ever get to the point where you feel like you can’t handle this on your own, either find some good self-help books on the subject, see a therapist, or call an appropriate hotline for support and guidance. There’s only so much any one of us can do or deal with, and if we’ve reached our limit, that’s okay. It doesn’t make us bad, broken, crazy, damaged, or worthless–it just means that we have some stuff to process which a third party may be more equipped to help us deal with. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.

There is no right or wrong way to deal with this, there’s just what works for you and ultimately makes you healthy and happy. There is also no such as thing “that pain is greater than this pain”; get rid of your sense of worthiness in terms of whatever you went through and whether or not it qualifies as something to be concerned about. Ditch comparisons. It doesn’t matter if you were dumped by the love of your life, were raped and/or sexually assaulted, had your home robbed, lost your job, lost your pet, lost a family member, lost a spouse/significant other, etc. Pain is pain, period. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, ditch them too. No one should have to feel guilty or feel that they are not worthy of expressing that they are suffering for whatever discernible reason or cause. How you go about dealing with the struggling, what happened to you to get you to this point, and how you feel about it has no bearing on your worthiness as a person or as a magician. As always, this is ultimately the best time to do personal work and growth as it will help you to recover.

As always, if you want to talk, I’m here.

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Maintaining motivation and using your unconscious mind as an aid

Maintaining motivation is crucial, whether it’s motivation to work on your financials, improve your love life, work on your fitness goals, you name it. You especially see this in the fitness world, and people complain regularly that some days they just don’t feel motivated.

“Motivation is awesome,” you might say, “but it doesn’t last.”

Well, neither does bathing…that’s why we recommend it daily. 😉

Yes, you will have your good days and your bad. Yes, there will be times when it may seem that this process is taking forever, isn’t coming along as quickly as you would like, or seems like nothing is happening just yet. Patience, grasshopper. Good things will come your way. Just keep your eye on the prize and savor every victory, no matter how big or small.

Maintaining that motivation is key to a few things:

  • Keeping your spirits up
  • Helping your unconscious mind to stay in gear and on target

Now, about that unconscious mind. I mentioned before that symbols, rituals, chanting and what-have-you in magick are important because they help that unconscious mind. There are various brainwaves we operate at, and all of those things help to put us into Alpha state. We are in Alpha state when we are reading, driving a car, daydreaming or otherwise “spacing out”, etc. It’s a normal state of consciousness, nothing too fancy about it. But it’s an awesome state to be in. When we’re in Alpha we are more receptive. We learn better and are more easily influenced. This is why it’s a great idea to listen to inspiring music and/or audio while driving or have some of that music playing while reading or engaged in certain activities. It helps to gear our minds towards positive thinking.

So much of personal development is reprogramming yourself to be the absolute best you whom you can possibly be. The more effective you can become, the more effective your magick will become. And at that point, you will be able to move mountains. 🙂

 

Need some additional help getting that motivation going? I’m here for you. Contact me anytime for a session or a free consultation.

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What it means to be a magician or a witch

A blog post by Nick Farrell on signs you are not a real magician has been circulating through the occult community. Although an excellent and well-written rebuttal has already been posted (and you should check it out), given the topics I’ve been blogging about lately I figured I’d add my $0.02 worth. Edit: another good (but brief) rebuttal can be found here.

First of all, to address the idea of whether or not you are a “real magician” or a witch: if you study and practice any form of magick or have at any given point, you are indeed a real magician/witch/occultist. Nick compares this to whether or not you are a “real writer”. Well, guess what? Same thing! If you write, you are a writer. Period.

There was an excellent article in the September 2013 issue of Runner’s World about this, actually, under the “Newbie Chronicles” section by Marc Parent. The title of the article “You’re a Real Runner If…” with the byline, “How do you know? Never mind the miles and shoes, look at the laundry!” In that article, he states the following: “The problem with authenticating yourself as a ‘real runner’ is that the distinction is a moving target. If a real runner is someone who goes long or fast, then almost any measure pales in comparison to the person who goes longer and faster.”

And it’s true. Being a runner, a writer, a magician/witch isn’t a destination, it’s a process. And if that process is yielding proof that you’ve been sweating/doing the work, you are IT! You are REAL! You have arrived. You don’t need a special title, approval from your favorite occult blogger, or any of that bullshit.

There are a few key points in Nick’s blog post that I want to address however, so I’m going to tackle them in order.

  1. “Your life is the same.” If your life has remained the same, it’s not that you’re not practicing magick and/or not a “real magician”; it’s that you are not growing as a magician and as a person. It means you have not done enough personal development to get your Will to the point where you’re out there, kicking ass. It doesn’t have to come overnight, and anyone in the craft will tell you that not only does “slow and steady win the race”, but also that “small steps add up over time.” If you’re expecting only huge epiphanies and changes as signs of growth, you may be quite disappointed. Cherish every victory and change, big or small. Look for them and EXPECT them. Be a magnet for the change and growth you wish to see in the world and in your life.
  2. “You have not lost at least one relationship because of magic.” It is true that with personal development often comes separating the wheat from the chaff, and that sometimes you will be forced to let go of people in your life who are either toxic and/or holding you back. But if you are isolating yourself to the point where magick is an obsession and you are not giving your partner, family, or friends their just due, it’s time to pull back and remember why you’re here to begin with. Some alone time to reflect, meditate, and process your life changes is normal. Hurting those whom you love is not. Therefore I don’t think making a sweeping statement without reflecting upon both sides of the story can be used here; as the saying goes, it takes two to tango. I also think that the whole “poor, persecuted magician” mindset needs to banished. Are we trying to grow as people, or are we trying to do some weird teenaged rebellion? If you’re finding that the time and attention spent on magick is making your relationships difficult, you need to evaluate: is it that the people in your life are unhealthy for you, or are you becoming unhealthy to both them and yourself?
  3. “You have lots of hobbies.” I laughed long and hard at this one, because it goes along with my previous point. If you are obsessing over magick to the point where you are alienating everyone around you and you have no other interests or pursuits in life, it is unhealthy. You are neither developing as a person or as an occultist. Here’s the thing: to truly bring about your Will into manifestation, you need to realize that every single part of your life is a part of your magickal practice. Every. Single. Part. The moment you absorb that, there is nothing you cannot affect from your practice, and you become more magickally efficacious as a result. From that perspective, you need a balanced life. I myself am a fitness nut, a writer, have numerous geek interests, and take the time to cuddle my cats whenever I can. All of these things contribute to my life as a magician, not detract. Who I am as a magician does not begin and end with my donning a robe and going into my temple room. It is a part of my everyday life. I am a magician when I pay my bills, when I drive to work, when I go out for a run, and when I give one of my kitties scritches under the chin.
  4.  “You have an active social life.” Nick argues that occultism is a “lonely thing”. Please see #2 for my full philosophy on that.Yes, you will find that there are, on occasion, people who are either toxic and/or unhealthy for you. They may be pedaling backward while you’re trying to move forward. Some people will pass out of your life as a result, and you will have to let them go. On rare occasions they will spring back and come to realize what they did to themselves and their relationship with you. On the other hand, isolating yourself is unhealthy. Friends and family are important. In addition, having a sounding board of people who can call you on your shit is immensely invaluable. If you have a friend or a loved one who does not hesitate to praise you and be happy for you when you do good and also let you know when you’ve screwed up (albeit in a caring and constructive way), treasure them like gold. Again, people practicing magick with the idea that it is some weird teenaged rebellion need to rethink their approach, attitude, and reasoning behind why they are here. It is not meant to isolate you from the world but to help you become a better contributing member of it. If you’re not able to do that, it’s time to do some serious personal work and find out why you feel that being around others is holding you back. Is it the wrong choices of people, or is it you? Find out. Dig deep. Leave no stone unturned and remember that your shit stinks just as much as someone else who doesn’t practice magick.
  5. “You think that something else is important.” Yes, your health is important. Your family is important. Your friends are important. Taking care of yourself is important. And all of these things are a part of the practice and work as a magician. Your life is not separated out into little boxes labeled “Personal Development”, “Family”, “Health”, “Work”, and “Magick”. All of these things overlap and affect one another, and something out of whack in your life could be the proverbial canary in the coal mine. The more you get involved in magick, the more you will realize that it’s not the equivalent of drive-through Sunday church. You are not solely a magician whenever you perform a spell or do a meditation. It is a part of your everyday life. It’s who you are to yourself and to others. Any separation is artificial and will hold you back from doing the Work. I cannot stress this enough.
  6. “You think that things in magic are literal and physical.” Nick argues that “nothing in magic is literal, most of it is symbolic and few things relate to physical events”. Speaking as a magician who does indeed do a lot of astral work, I could not disagree more. The idea that magick is symbolic and only exists in your mind also completely contradicts the idea that if you’re really progressing in the craft that your life should not remain the same. Magick is more than mere symbolism, and YES, you can cause physical changes on a very great scale. The idea of magick being merely psychological is a very “in vogue” thing in the modern day occult community, and it’s something I very much wish would die. If you are causing no changes to occur in the physical world and in your life, you are doing very little other than engaging in mental masturbation. In essence, you are saying magick doesn’t really exist. I’ve often found that magicians who claim the “magick as purely psychological” model are those who are disillusioned, cynical, have not genuinely done the amount of personal work and growth needed to practice magick, have strong doubts over their own magickal capacity and of themselves in general, and think that just because they have not succeeded in bringing about any sort of physical change that it cannot happen for them or for anyone else. People who have limiting beliefs on what they can and cannot accomplish will naturally find themselves gravitating towards this paradigm.

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, either way you are right.” -Henry Ford

People hold themselves back all the time and make excuses for it. In this instance, I see a LOT of problems with little to no personal development or work being done and blaming it on the practice of magick–or worse yet, seeing it as being NORMAL for practicing magick. If what you are doing is causing harm to yourself and/or others, is ultimately unhealthy, and isolates you from everyone else, you are not progressing. You are, in fact, moving backwards.

I am very grateful for Nick’s post as it’s a perfect illustration and teaching tool for what I’ve been saying in my Personal Development and Magick blog posts. This is why doing personal growth and development is so essential as as magician. Anything else is just an excuse to not leave your comfort zone. Magick will not necessarily destroy your life, but YOU can destroy it as a result of not doing the very important evolution you need to do as a person. And also, in case it hasn’t been already been inferred from everything I’ve been saying here: if you are a magician/witch/occultist and you are fighting very real obstacles in your life towards happiness and well-being, it’s not that you’re not a “real” magician; it’s that you haven’t done the necessary internal work in order to “purify the vessel”, as it were. You are that channel for your Will, and if the channel is cloudy, your Will will come out cloudy too.

The whole stereotype and mindset of magicians need to be poor, struggling, suffering, and impoverished in every way and that this is a “normal” and “acceptable” part of being involved in esoteric pursuits needs to banished, never to be seen or thought of again or used as an excuse. If you were truly evolving as a person and as a magician/witch, there would be none of that. If you are practicing magick and you are still struggling with the basics (ie., living from paycheck to paycheck, no friends, health is awful, romantic life is miserable, etc.) you need to get your shit together and start getting some personal work going. Read some good self help books. Hire a life and wellness coach, especially one that understands occult practices and can help you from that angle. I’m both a Certified Life Coach and an occultist, am available if you need an ear, and can be contacted for free consultations.