Welcome to my Magikal Space

So, what even is magik?

So what is magic anyway?

Magic is the courtship of fate through correspondence.

We do not cause change in accordance with our will alone, rather, we attempt to charm fate by presenting her with a scenario in which she might like to participate. With this attitude, we encounter fate as a living presence in the world with her own agency and predilections. Magik is a “relationship” between the practitioner and fate and, like any other relationship, consent is a requirement for ethical action.

Charm

Charm is an essential to magik. The practitioner who gets the most enduring results with the least residual “side effect” is the most charming. As in any interaction between living beings, it is possible to get what you want from another by threat and deception, but such results carry toxic traces (karma) which will eventually be released within the unfolding of a magikal operation. It is always best, therefore, to ask for what you want in the most direct and honest terms possible. This is what is meant by intention and why the purity of intention is essential to magik.

Charm is an art. The word charm descends from the Latin word for song or verse. The prayers and invocations, the gestures and rituals, the specially selected and prepared materials used in magikal workings are all designed to enchant, to place fate under a spell.

But how does it work?

It seems that the correspondences, the material and conceptual components of a spell, relate to the natural world in much the same way as mathematics. Whether numbers and mathematical operators arise from nature or are “subjective” artifacts of human cognition is a philosophical question which has been with us for a long time and is far from settled. I am going to assert, without submitting any proof that mathematics are literally metaphysical, existing outside of nature. I believe this is also true of magikal correspondences. Such correspondences are narrative, they tell stories to, and about, the world. These stories might, or might not, influence “nature” based on how closely they cleave to the way things are in actuality.

To give an example; say I like someone and want them to like me. To begin with, I do not experience this person as they are, rather, I experience them as I am when in their presence. My sense of who they are may or may not correspond to who they feel themselves to be. When I reach out to them with a word, a gesture or a gift, it is as if I were presenting them with a mask of their own face as I see it. If they like the way this mask fits, that is to say, if the image I reflect back to them is to their liking - if it charms them - then they might be more likely to act in concert with me.

How this works between people has a lot to do with things like pheromones and histocompatibility as well as what advantages both parties might feel that they would gain through association. But if this is all there it to love, than there is probably not much point in thinking about magic at all. I think there is more to it and most people who have felt a romantic, or even Platonic attraction to another person would probably agree.

Expanding the analogy (which is a big part of magik), what are we attracted to when we imagine a situation which is not directly before us? Creating the career we want, the life style we might like, the sort of relationship we would like to find ourselves in (all popular goals for magikal operations) obviously involve specific “mundane” activities (education, character development, etc.). At the same time, these scenarios and others like them might not manifest even when we make all the normal, common sense efforts in their direction. Magikal operations, from “superstitious” gestures like carrying a rabbit’s foot or wearing a medal baring the likeness of a saint, to elaborate rituals involving incantations and offerings are performed in order to “sweeten the pot” for fate.

But do they work?

This is perhaps an impossible question to answer. Suppose I apply for a job for which I am qualified but also Cary a green aventurine with me to the interview for luck. If I get the job, does it prove the reputation of green aventurine as a stone of opportunity? If I do not get the job, does it disprove it? Magik doesn’t come with guarantees (if anyone offers you one, be very suspicious). Magik is a practice who’s effectiveness is demonstrated through experience. If we seek insight by consulting the Tarot, for example, and we get helpful council, this experience is its’ own criterion of effectiveness. Magik, like any spiritual practice, is founded upon faith. You can, if you like, keep meticulous records of the operations you have performed and their results, but you will not have proven anything.

In the end, an appeal to fate is like an appeal to another person. You can not know that other people have an inner life (although you’d probably do well to assume that they do). Ultimately we are confined to our own subjective bubble, faith in the subjective experience of others, which is, by definition, unverifiable, is the only path out of solipsism.

So try it! I have been doing divination in one form or another for many decades. I have followed the advice of oracles to good places and ignored such advice to my detriment. I have performed divination for others who seemed to benefit from them enough to pay me for my work. I have petitioned Hekate for help in breaking bad habits and had success. I have created spells for protection and peace for loved ones who have seemed to benefit from them. I have developed relationships with my ancestors which have put old family traumas to rest. I have no idea whether any of these things were the result of “real magik”. I only know that I and the people around me seem to believe.

So now I have presented, in very broad outlines, what I think magik is and speculated upon how it might work. I hope that you find the essays I will present in this space helpful and inspiring. Magik is, to a large extent, a practice that flourishes in a social context. In sharing our experiences with it we strengthen both our practice and the community that forms around us.

Lets make some magik!