CHAPTER 1
MAGIC AND THE MIND
We do not affect fate by our magical operations, we affect ourselves; wereinforce those aspects of our nature which are in sympathy with the powers weinvoke.
—Dion Fortune
There have been many excellent definitions of magic given over the years bymetaphysicians and those who study esoteric tradition, but the best (andcertainly the most complete) that I have read is Murry Hope's:
Magic is concerned with the conversion of universal energies into practicalfrequencies that can be utilized according to the needs of the occasion. Theseenergies in themselves are totally neutral, having no affiliation with anybelief, system or personality either here on Earth or anywhere in the cosmos,their manifestation at the magical level being coloured entirely by the natureand intention of the user.
Hope's definition makes it clear that the practice of magic is essentiallynonreligious. You need not hold any formal (or even informal) religious beliefsin order to practice it. This doesn't mean, however, that spirituality plays nopart in magic. On the contrary, there are important magical techniques whichdepend upon spirituality for their effectiveness. But the means of expressingthis spirituality—whether you choose to work with deities or not, for instance—mayalways be freely chosen.
MAGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY
To practice magic is to set a goal and to perform actions symbolic of itsachievement. Symbols have a profound effect upon the human psyche, a fact wellknown to psychologists and politicians. Since magicians have always made lavishuse of symbols in their work, it might be assumed that they, too, areconsciously aware of their impact upon mind and heart. But this isn't always thecase. Many magicians do not understand the mechanism whereby psychologicalchange produced by the use of symbols translates into desired external results.For them, magic is purely a matter of formula, strictly adhered to. As aninexperienced magician who wishes to attract a lover, for instance, you mightread in some magical text that to burn a pink candle for ten minutes every dayfor a week will produce the desired effect. So you purchase a candle anddutifully burn it according to instructions. Your operation will almostcertainly fail, however, because you haven't yet learned that it is thepsychological work that accompanies magical (symbolic) action, not the actionitself, which produces results.
The great magicians have always recognized the link between psychology andmagic. In modern times, the practice of one discipline has frequently led to aprofound interest in the other. Dion Fortune, for instance, was a psychoanalystbefore she was a magician:
As soon as I touched the deeper aspects of practical psychology and watched thedissection of the mind under psycho-analysis, I realised that there was verymuch more in the mind than was accounted for by the accepted psychologicaltheories. I saw we stood in the centre of a small circle of light thrown byaccurate scientific knowledge, but around us was a vast, circumambient sphere ofdarkness, and in that darkness dim shapes were moving. It was in order tounderstand the hidden aspects of the mind that I originally took up the study ofoccultism.
Israel Regardie, another great name in modern magic, was first a magician, thena practicing psychologist. He was quite specific about the links between the twodisciplines when he wrote in 1938:
Analytical Psychology and Magic comprise in my estimation two halves or aspectsof a single technical system. Just as the body and mind are not two separateunits, but are simply the dual manifestations of an interior dynamic "something"so psychology and Magic comprise similarly a single system whose goal is theintegration of the human personality. Its aim is to unify the differentdepartments and functions of man's being, to bring into operation those whichpreviously for various reasons were latent.
This may sound somewhat abstract to the reader interested in practical magic,but in fact the fusion between magic and psychology of which Regardie speaks andits result are of great importance to magicians on a practical level.
HOW MAGIC WORKS
To understand how magic works, you must first understand the difference betweenthe conscious and the unconscious minds.
We are all very familiar with the conscious mind, which is your ordinaryeveryday walking-around consciousness. When your body goes to sleep at night,your conscious mind goes to sleep as well, and your unconscious mind wakes up,becomes active, and begins to communicate through dreams which your consciousmind may remember upon waking. The same process occurs during meditation whenboth your conscious mind and your body are stilled: your unconscious mindbecomes active and begins to communicate through waking visions, hunches, orsignificant insights. Given the opportunity, your unconscious mind is a goodcommunicator. It constantly sends helpful suggestions to your conscious mind inthe hope that they will be heeded and acted upon.
To practice magic is to reverse the process. As a magician, you set a goal withyour conscious mind, and attempt to communicate your desire to your unconsciousmind in the hope that it will heed and act upon it. Provided your communicationis clear, your unconscious mind will take the instructions it is given and goquietly to work to produce the desired result in material reality. We don't knowhow the unconscious accomplishes its task, only that it does. What you need toknow as a magician is how to clearly and directly communicate desire to yourunconscious mind. The unconscious does the rest. This is the essence of magic.
There are as many methods for communicating desire to the unconscious as thereare people who wish to use them. Provided only that the communication is clearand direct, there is no right way or wrong way to give instruction to theunconscious. There are, however, some archetypal communication techniques whichhave proven effective for magicians for literally thousands of years. It isprimarily these techniques—or variations thereof—on which we will concentrate inthis book.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TEMPERAMENT
You will find that some methods presented here work for you and that othersdon't. This is to be expected, given that each individual is unique intemperament, interests, and skills. Finding what works for you comes only withexperience—and experience can't be gained unless all techniques are tried.
At first, you may experience some failures. But you will also have somesuccesses. Naturally intuitive types may have trouble with some of the physicaltechniques, but will probably excel in spiritual practices. Practical, down-to-earthpeople (sensate types) may find spiritual procedures difficult, but sailthrough the physical ones. Intellectual (thinking) types will probably findmethods appropriate to the emotional plane hard going, but will find mentalplane work easy. Individuals who tend to "think with the heart" (feeling types)may find purely mental work such as goal analysis difficult, but exercisesinvolving the emotions exceedingly simple. None of this is predictable. I knowhighly spiritual types who revel in physical magic, as well as intellectuals whoexcel in emotional techniques.
Don't be discouraged when you fail. Keep trying, because you will eventuallyfind the methods which will always work for you. You should perfect these to thebest of your ability. Your education shouldn't stop, however, with thosetechniques which you find easily effective. In fact, the methods which initiallyseem difficult or out-of-character are those that will eventually bring younotable—perhaps even your greatest—successes.
Dion Fortune thought that candidates for initiation into magical societiesshould be sorted out by temperament. Those who were naturally psychic shouldreceive instruction in magic, while natural magicians should receive instructionin psychism. Ideally she felt, this "cross-grain" training would develop thosefacets of the candidate's character which were undeveloped and thereforeunreliable. Fortune's principle is sound because to develop skills which are notnatural to the temperament is to develop a system of checks and balances whichcan help offset the dangers inherent in the path one naturally follows.
Natural psychics don't need instruction on how to be psychic; the gift andskills are already there. Psychics tend to be too receptive. They need to learnhow to generate positive energy so that they don't become unwitting victims ofany negative influences which happen to be floating around in their vicinity. Onthe other hand, natural magicians easily generate energy and tend to be willful.They need to learn how to be receptive to incoming impressions, so that theydon't attempt to achieve goals in the face of subtle but insuperable obstacles.
Solitary practitioners of magic may never be forced by a magical society tolearn skills foreign to their natural temperaments, but this doesn't mean theycan afford to ignore this very important principle. On a practical level,learning difficult skills means greater safety in magical practice, because theuse of these skills allows you to achieve a goal without being forced to dealwith unexpected or unwanted phenomena at the same time. This alone makeslearning seemingly difficult techniques worthwhile. But there are other benefitsas well.
When you deliberately go against temperament in order to master difficultskills, you automatically develop new facets of your character, and this allowsyou to achieve goals in every area of life. By contrast, if you have animbalance in your character—you may be too intellectual, for instance—you mayonly achieve success in certain areas of life. For practical purposes, then,it's important that you stretch yourself in every way you can. For those whoaspire to the highest levels of magic, there is an additional but lesspractical, benefit to be gained. Magicians with well-rounded temperaments becomecandidates for what is termed high magic, a form of magic which has little to dowith the achievement of mundane goals.
Novices should work through all the techniques contained in this and other booksand, should concentrate initially on those which prove successful. This willbolster your self-confidence. When you have a number of successes under yourbelt and know that you are working with power, you can tackle those techniqueswhich originally proved difficult.
Along the way, you should do everything possible to develop the intuitive,intellectual, emotional, and earthy aspects of your character so that you becomea well-rounded, healthy human being, capable of achieving goals in every area oflife.
CHAPTER 2
MAGIC AND ETHICS
Any attempt to dominate others, or in any way to manipulate their minds withouttheir consent, is an unwarrantable intrusion upon their freewill and a crimeagainst the integrity of the soul.
—Dion Fortune
Most readers probably realize that it is morally wrong to harm another beingthrough the use of magic, and that there are severe penalties to be paid forsuch behavior. You may not realize, however, that it is equally wrong to helpothers without their conscious knowledge and without first obtaining theirexplicit permission. This may make some readers indignant, especially those whoare amateur healers, or who take part regularly in healing circles.
If you have difficulty believing it's wrong to help someone who is in obviousneed, but who has not requested assistance, try putting the shoe on the otherfoot. Imagine that you have a friend who, being very conservative and perhapsreligious in the traditional sense, disapproves of metaphysical pursuits ingeneral, and of magic in particular. This person discovers with great alarm thatyou are reading this book and privately decides to save your soul fromdamnation. To this end and on a regular basis, your friend mentally beams to youthe thought that magic is dangerous and should be given up. If you discoveredthese efforts to "save" you, how would you feel? Those who have no knowledge of,or belief or interest in, the powers of the human mind might be faintly amusedor mildly contemptuous, but others—you, presumably, since you are reading thisbook—might feel quite differently. For who has the right to intrude upon yourthoughts, even if the motive for doing so is "good"?
The same principle applies to "absent" healing. As Dion Fortune unequivocallystated:
It may be laid down as a maxim in spiritual healing that no one has the right toapply any alterative mental treatment to another without that person'sconsent.... It has been argued that surely anybody would welcome relief frompain. But this is far from being the case. Many people have profound religiousconvictions, and would consider such interference blasphemous. Even if we do notagree with them, we ought to respect their opinions.
Religious convictions aside, people don't like to be manipulated. Furthermore,people know on some level (perhaps not conscious) when an attempt is being madeto manipulate them, and they pull away from the manipulator. The fastest way tolose your friends is to practice magic on them.
I once knew a man who, despite considerable knowledge of healing and magicaltechniques, was unable to find a way to practice his skills professionally.Frustrated, he attempted to fix his friends' problems on a psychic level.Sometimes he did this in the presence of the person, more often not. He neverasked permission to help, and apparently didn't consider his actions intrusive.I was one of his targets and, when I realized what was going on, my reaction wasto carefully conceal any troubles I might have had, and to avoid him. Desperateto uncover information about my personal life, he tricked a mutual friend intogiving him my horoscope, presumably with the hope that it could tell him what Iwould not. That put an end to our friendship. Since then, he has lost otherfriends for similar reasons, and no longer has any standing in the metaphysicalcommunity.
As this story suggests, the desire to help others often stems from somethingother than purely altruistic motives. Compulsive do-gooding usually masks a deepneed for power, which may manifest as a desire to control others, or as a desireto attract admiration. Either version of the power motive creates problems forvictim and perpetrator alike.
As anyone who has studied history or mythology knows, saviors usually end up asmartyrs to the causes they have espoused. Power-types who manage, by whatevermeans, to control the thoughts and actions of those around them eventually findthemselves so burdened with responsibilities that they have little time to meettheir own needs. When the man mentioned earlier found his source of "patients"drying up, he single-handedly attempted to heal the entire planet and toprevent, through magic, its destruction by "threatening" groups. It's nocoincidence that he was constantly ill and that his marriage was in trouble. Thedemands made by an inflated ego can be prodigious and exhausting.
Unwilling victims of power-types suffer from intrusion into their personallives, but it's much worse for willing victims. Those who are very happy to handtheir responsibilities over to someone whom they see (or claim to see) assuperior pay a great psychological price, because the level of their self-esteemdrops each time they ask to be rescued.
The metaphysical law which underlies the problems attendant upon magicalmeddling is known as The Law of Rebound, which states that if you direct aforce—any force, even a benign one, such as love—toward another human being andit is not accepted or absorbed by that individual, the force boomerangs back toyou with three times its original power. The results are invariably unpleasant.
To illustrate this law with an image, imagine that you, the magician, arestanding at one end of a long, dark, and narrow corridor. At the other end ofthe corridor is a door opening onto a room belonging to one of youracquaintances. Because of the darkness and length of the corridor, you can't seewhether the door opposite you is open or closed. You project a magical forcetoward the person at the other end of the corridor. It travels down its length.If the door is open (as it might be if your friend has asked for help), theforce enters freely and is absorbed by the person. If the door is closed,however, the force slams against the door and makes its way back, hitting youwith three times its original power. And you are ensnared in your own net.
