I began by doing a tarot reading to explore any unforeseen consequences that may arise out of a magical working towards this purpose. After following prescriptive spreads during my years as a Wiccan, fellow magicians have encouraged me to break from my habits and allow spreads to intuitively form. In other words, rather than placing cards in a specific, instructed way (e.g. the Celtic Cross spread), I simply draw any number of cards that feels right to me at the time and arrange them in anyway I wish. The result becomes more freeform and creative, often leading to interesting interpretations and relationships between the cards that I would have not previously considered.

I drew three cards and arrange them as a simple fan and my interpretation of them led me to the impression that I should be employing a two-pronged approach with my magical working, something that had not crossed my mind. One of them was the more material, immediate aspect of allowing the person to see their mistakes and the damage it is doing to our family. The second, represented by the Queen of Swords, spoke to me about changing my consciousness, in particular, to heighten my perceptiveness about the situation. Prior to the tarot reading, my mind was predominantly fixated upon the first prong, that is, wanting this person to see their mistakes so naturally, I was motivated to begin that one first.

I relied on a favoured workhorse of mine, the sigil, and designed one for this purpose. I charged it and set the wheels in motion before I left on vacation.

While I do not feel at liberty to speak of the result in detail, there has been one occurrence that I know of, which suggests the sigil has been effective so far.

When I returned from vacation, I began the second working. I read a few interpretations of the Queen of Swords card until I decided that perceptiveness and deliberate action were the two aspects that resonated the most with my purpose. I took a blank notebook and constructed that as a magical working. In the first page, I wrote some details about the Queen of Swords, then divided the remaining book into two sections, ‘Perceptiveness’ and ‘Action’. It is a record-in-progress of this particular prong of my working and I intend to write down my ideas and results to maintain a perceptive and assertive aspect of myself when it comes to dealing with this person.

Last night, I had a friend over for dinner and we were talking when I suddenly had something which I described to him at the time as an ‘epiphany’. I came to a conclusion that the resentment I feel towards this family member is not for them, but rather, for who I am when I around them. It is as if the Perceptiveness facet is coming into fruition where now the Action facet remains for me to strategise how I will further attempt to alter my consciousness when I am around that person to be something more constructive.

Catnip Brew

Between July and November 2008, I dabbled in podcasting following the tremendously inspiring range of podcasts available in the Pagan community. The result, Catnip Brew, followed the characters Fortuna and Fluffy (her talking Atheist cat) for nine episodes before I strayed off the Pagan path and became invested much more heavily in magic and my real cat, Salmon, chewed through my microphone headset. Although I have no intention of podcasting again, I have retained all the episodes, including a never-before released pilot episode. Please enjoy!

Episode #0: Pilot

Episode #1: Pagan Podcasting and Introductions

Episode #2: Disgraces to the Pagan Community

Episode #3: Wicca and Paganism for the Future

Episode #4: Postmodernist Paganism

Episode #5: Pompoms and Paganism

Episode #6: Generation Y-tches

Episode #7: Apathy and Disillusionment

Episode #8: Online Paganism Schools

Episode #9: Creating Original Traditions

Fluffy and Fortuna

I have also found this technique present in a variety of forms in Wicca and Paganism books such as Witch Crafting by Phyllis Currot, where the exercise involves finding yourself in a natural setting, leaning against a tree and feeling it giving you strength, dipping into a cool stream that refreshes and cleanses you, feeling the sun beat upon your back, energising you, and so forth, tying this ‘astral temple’ to the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. However, I like the techniques outlined by Nema because they allow for an exciting degree of creativity and open up countless possibilities for magical workings uniquely appropriate for your astral temple that extends beyond utilising it as a meditation setting.

In my own experience, I have experimented with an underground temple made up of sprawling caverns.  There is one area where the rock forms a reflection pool at the centre of the ‘room’ and I have used that to scry as well as perform necromantic rites on the astral level. The latter was not effective, which may or may not signal that necromantic rites are grounded instead, on our earthly, material plane.

In a related experience, I have ‘met’ with three other magicians from other parts of the world on an agreed time at a collective astral temple. The results were startling and surprisingly effective in the way many of us were able to regularly describe same or similar aspects in the temple later.

Further Reading

Nema (1995), Maat Magick: A Guide to Self-Initiation, Red Wheel/Weiser: Newburyport, MA, p. 17-22.

Miller (2009), ‘The Astral Temple’, Strategic Sorcery. Retrieved 18 December 2009 from: http://strategicsorcery.blogspot.com/2009/03/astral-temple.html.

In Summer

1997-2003

My childhood fascination with magic drew me to happen upon articles about Wicca on the Internet.  My memory is hazy at this point, but I remember writing spells and then later, performing a self-dedication ritual.  New Age stores began opening up around my neighbourhood and I invested some pocket money in 1998 for a thick book on various forms of fortune-telling, including tarot, runes, palmistry, and graphology.  I began seriously learning about Wicca through the books of Australian author and musician, Fiona Horne, although that was also greatly supplemented by the popular websites available at the time.  I purchased my first athame in 2000 and expected the results to be significant in my magic, but ended up being largely unsure what to do with it.  It was shelved after gathering dust on my altar.  In 2001, I began working at a local New Age store and had even greater access to tools and books.  Having an income for the first time also meant I had greater freedom to seek out events in he greater Pagan community.  I attended the Magick Happens festival in 2001 and 2002, including several workshops ran there, including one memorable one on Tibetan magic and an extremely crappy one run by an Alexandrian High Priestess on creating spell bags.

It is probably also worth mentioning that I made my interest in magic and witchcraft known from the onset and after I began identifying myself as Wiccan, openly shared the fact with my family, friends, classmates and teachers.  I remember making some comments that people’s impressions of me changed after they understood I was Wiccan, but I cannot recall a single event where I was persecuted.  Rather, a lot of people surprised me in how tolerant and genuinely interested and supportive they were of my practice.

I met a girl my age who was also a practising Wiccan although she was still ‘in the broom closet’ from her more conservative (Muslim) family.  We started sharing books and web resources and then sometime in 2001-02, founded a coven together.  Beyond designing it a beautiful website on which I posted my spells, we did not take it much further, largely due to our inability to commit much time to the venture (we were both 16 yo girls who still had to ask permission from parents to go out on the weekends) and our initial ventures were marked by foolish attempts to connect intellectually with fellow adolescent magicians and witches.  I remember one case where a 17 yo boy contacted us and suggested that he was interested in participating in our coven events, only to then insult us for replying to an email of his two days after he sent it as he expected all magical organisations to be prompt with their responses.  He also resisted the term “witch” and insisted that we refer to him as a “majikcian” (yes, with that spelling).  Ladies and Gentlemen, this was indeed the first ‘majickian’ I have had the pleasure of meeting.

2005-2007

The more education I underwent, the more Paganism felt wanting.  I am just stating a correlation here, not downright writing off that the prerequesite of Paganism is a lack of education.  There seemed to be little room in the Pagan community for scepticism and level-headedness.  Constantly seeing new Wiccans and Pagans crop up and validating their path with stories of their supposed paranormal talents repeatedly confirm this.  The romance of Paganism was wearing off for me.  While by day, I read books, observed the Sabbats, and did spells, my motivation came from a powerfully romantic inclination.  That is, the illusion (delusion?) that with every wave of my athame, I was a weaving myself into a beautiful tapestry of long-lost mystery traditions where men and women were equal under the eyes of the God and Goddess.  With every shake of the besom, I would be closer to a lifestyle of perpetual celebration (“Oh look!  A tree, let’s dance and praise the Lady and Lord!”), self-empowerment, and spiritual bliss.

2008-Present

I am not at all convinced that there is anything wrong with Paganism.  There are Wiccans and Pagans out there who not only do not perpetuate the romantic delusions of witchcraft, but actively dispel those myths, so that Wicca and Paganism can progress into the future on a foundation of truth.  Nevertheless, I received those romantic ideals and subsequently had my lofty expectations shattered.  I accept full responsibility for that.  After all, I chose to read simplistic books for many, many years that further accentuated the sense of romance in witchcraft before I thought to myself, “What do the critics of Wicca and Paganism say?”, “Are the legends of an ancient matriarchal tradition true?”

I think this kind of tendency to avoid critical examination can be observed in people of every religious path, career choice and life decision.  But the higher we allow ourselves to drift into a fantasy, the harder we will fall.  And I fell pretty damn hard.

This is where it becomes rather impossible for me to reflect because it is very much still a work-in-progress.  At some point in my disenchantment with witchcraft, I discovered a group of magicians who practice magic separate from a shared, overarching religion, and it was encouraged by their ways, that magic for the first time in my life, felt right.  I was no longer purchasing herbs and oils because some book said so, but doing magic when and how it felt good to do so.  I have subsequently, met Wiccans who also believe whole-heartedly in this philosophy, yet somehow, I feel as though the Pagan ship has sailed for me.

Altar

Inspiration has struck me recently and I began formulating an invocation ritual where the magician can create and assimilate a Guardian self who works to protect the magician from the malicious actions of others, such as slander, theft and exploitation.  It’s not that I have found a particular need for this magic, rather oddly, it was Isaac Bonewit’s preface in his book Real Magic that gave me the idea that it may be useful for all magicians to create for themselves this Guardian as a kind of insurance.

I probably won’t need to explain to the readers the kind of motivations rampant in the occult and Pagan communities where greed for profit as well as fame and glory is quite common.  I also quite regularly hear of ideas, especially when they are experimental and innovative, to be stolen and claimed as passed down by the culprit’s ancestors, not to mention quite regularly see the ideas of others being distributed (sometimes incorrectly) on the Internet without the permission of its author(s).

First, the Guardian needs to be personified. Any entity will do. For my purposes, I have chosen to invoke a warrior form of myself. The warrior in this case acts as the defender of the mage. She wields a mirror shield and a sword through which she directs her power. I found this imagery interesting to note as it symbolises that the mage is present within all forms–even my academic self wields a pen of ‘power’. Specifically, when malicious acts are done to the mage, conscious and unconscious, the warrior lifts her shields to deflect the negative energy straight back at the attacker.

She guards a fortress of knowledge. When the magician’s knowledge, whether they be her painstakingly formulated systems and theories, half-baked ideas, or even aspects of her constructed identity, the warrior turns her sword towards those who seek to steal, appropriate, and imitate for selfish gain will be struck with a powerful counterattack. When this sword is directed towards the guilty, it will turn the very things they stole against them. For instance, magical rituals and techniques misused without the permission of the author does the opposite of their intended goals. A ritual to make them wealthy throws them into financial hardship. When knowledge is claimed as one’s own, the stolen materials themselves ring the truth of of their origins so that anyone who looks upon them with question the honesty and trustworthiness of the thief.

A friend of mine was having a tough time with a friend of hers who had recently been kicked out of her own home by her father. She contacted my friend as her final resort, who took her in and allowed her to live under her roof until she could get her life sorted. After she moved in however, warning signs began to flash, signalling that it would be a bad idea.  From the first evening she moved in, it was disaster.  Things were left damaged or broken, her mess littered all throughout the house and showing no respect for others’ living spaces or treasured possessions.

After a while, she confronted her friend, had a discussion with her and asked her to consider moving out, but she was brushed it aside and said it would be too inconvenient for her.  My friend was frustrated at her dismissive response but acknowledged that she was extremely busy with study and work, so she waited a few more weeks until her semester was over. Unfortunately, her visitor began dropping hints that she needed to stay even longer, while the entire household was furious at her by having to spend their evenings and weekends after work cleaning up after her.

When my friend told me about her situation, I made a sigil that would prompt her visitor’s quick departure.  I designed the sigil and drew it out onto a 4cmx4cm square card, but made very sure that when I charged it, I visualised her leaving without any damage done to herself or her family.  I definitely did not want her to have to leave because she fell critically ill or one of her family members passed away.  After I charged it, I gave the piece of cardstock to my friend who later told me that she tucked it under her mattress while she was out.

After a week passed, the visitor left suddenly, months before anyone expected her to. However, at first, my friend heard through the grapevine that she had been dumped by her boyfriend. My friend was terribly worried, concerned that in her misery, did something to hurt herself. She had not returned from the night before but her things still remained. Fortunately, a few days later, my friend discovered that what she heard through the grapevine was false and she was fine. She did eventually come back for her things after she found a house, and moved out completely within a few days.

Magical experiences are often relayed by isolating events that have been made coherent and meaningful in narrative, for instance, “I raised a servitor for prosperity last Sunday and today I received a raise”.  The narrative may seem simple but the reality is anything but.

Like most things in life, the processes of magic itself can be a complex and chaotic web of cause, effect and utter rubbish.  I think it is crucial for our own development and the more accurate portrayal of the everyday practice of magic that we as magicians begin to be more critical of the processes that lead from intent to outcome.  A more profound understanding of the processes of our practice will help us refine our methods to be as effective and efficient as they can be.

More importantly, when we can acutely examine our processes, we ought to remain open and candid.  Your secret embarrassment with having created your own magical system but never being able to remember the ten Sephiroth of the Qabalah could inadvertently deceive others into thinking you’re perfect.  And they’re somehow inferior for being less than perfect.  As one of the 99.9% of magicians and witches who were not the 13th child of the 13th generation of witches, divinely SMSed by Osiris, Zeus or Thor, or even able to prophesy the future/manifest her animal spirit guide to physical form/reanimate the dead by the age of three, I avow to be as bloody forthright about my countless failures as my pride can handle from here on out.

Recharging Wealth Entity

My first confession: my magic is pathetically short-lived.  After I cast a spell, perform a ritual, raise an entity, the energy around me buzzes furiously and effects can often explode themselves into fruition.  Fast forward to the day after and the spiritual tumble weed blowing around won’t even lead on that anything magical happened here.  Already today, the results of my initially effective PhD entities seemed to have worn off.  I just couldn’t find any rich articles and yet great articles of other leaders not in my sample kept falling into my path.  I am going to work on making my magic more sustainable.  A friend of mine is coming over on Wednesday for some jewellery making and it has been my desire to create something magical with my craft for a while.  Perhaps sustainability will be the perfect objective for a magical necklace.

Philosophically, I am also prompted to ask, should magic necessarily create perpetual positive effects (yang without the yin) or is its purpose to be specifically short-lived, thus giving you the control for when, but not how much, of positive effects occur?

Notes [02/12/2008]

After publishing this entry on the seemingly short-lived effects of my magic, I received some pearls of wisdom that helped me to see things in a more sophisticated way. Since then, I have increasingly begun to acknowledge magic as a continuous process, a journey where the short-term outcomes such as the monetary gains I received as a result of raising my wealth entity are simply road signs that remind me that I am travelling in the right direction. Furthermore, I had some technical difficulties with my entities such as not making it explicitly clear what I wished them to do after they had manifested some results for me.

After considering these issues, I rectified my mistake with my wealth and PhD entities by calling upon them and asserting that I would like them to sustain their efforts. Additionally, I emphasised that the processes of magic should have a self-transformational role to play and reaffirmed my own commitment to generosity as a result of the wealth work and the open and honest sharing of all my knowledge as a result of the PhD/life-long learning work. The road signs have once more become apparent.