Do You Know Your Magickal ABC's?

In most school systems, children are taught the most basic ideas first, followed perhaps by more complex ideas, and finishing with learning how to string all of these ideas together.

For instance, consider how most students are taught to read and write in grade school. First the child is introduced to the alphabet. Teachers spend time helping students learn how to recognize the 26 letters of the English alphabet (as an example), plus the name of that letter. Next the student might learn how to make the sounds associated with that letter, as in the letter "A" could be pronounced "ay" or "ah."  Helpful tools such as the alphabet song remind students about the name and order of the letters. Next letters are put together to form words, and then words are put in order to create sentences. From there, paragraphs can be written, followed by articles and essays.

This all seems very logical, and many people find this learning process satisfying--learning one aspect of a subject really well before moving onto the next subject. This logical progression means that each new step is built on the knowledge learned in the previous step.

How Most People Approach Magick
Although many people might agree that the act of learning to read or write is best done using a logical method, when magick is the subject at hand then huge numbers of people want to skip the beginning ABC's and jump right into producing term papers... in the case of magick, a complex multi-candle spell would be the equivalent of a term paper.

Somehow the word "magick" causes people to think that the process of learning magick should be just as seemingly non-logical as the effect that magick produces. On a regular basis we receive emails from people all over the world. These emails correspond roughly to this format:

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Dear Esoteric School:
     My name is Bob. I have this huge complicated problem in my life [the problem is described here but often with very few details], and I can't seem to solve it through the usual methods or channels. Magick is just the thing I need to fix this problem. I have no experience with magick but I am desperate for help. Please send a spell that will fix this problem right away. Tomorrow will do, but yesterday would be better.
Sincerely,
Bob
P.S. -- I have no money, I am very poor, so please do not ask for money. I am begging you for your merciful help.

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How We Respond to These Types of Requests
As you can imagine, in the early days of the school, we received fewer of these requests as we were a relatively new entity. We did try to help people in the best way possible. In case you're wondering, the "best way possible" did not include doing all the legwork for and launching spells in response to every request. Instead, being of the "teach a man to fish" school of thought, we gave people free ebooks, we created article libraries, we addressed common problems with using magick, we taught teleconference classes, and we offered online classes. We offered deeply discounted rates for our online courses and other materials.

We were shocked to discover that less than 7% of people to whom we offered free ebooks or courses ever bothered to read through the material, work through the exercises, and get back to us with results so that we could help them with the next steps.

We used to think that people would say to themselves, "I wish I could wave a magick wand in my life and all of my troubles would disappear."

Now we know that most people say, " I wish that someone ELSE would wave a magick wand in my life and all of my troubles would disappear."

Almost 20 years later, we are no longer shocked when people not only want high level spellwork applied to their lives, but that they want US to create, test, and launch the spell for them, and for no reciprocal payment of course! These days we are older and wiser (we hope) and we simply write back with an email full of links to no-cost resources in our blog, article library, YouTube Channel, "How to Study Magick" tutorial, and even no-cost access to one-third of our 30 week comprehensive Basic Magic course. We then add that we are happy to answer questions about magickal topics covered in these resources.

All of these resources are the ABC's of magick. In fact, a resourceful person willing to dedicate some time and elbow grease into learning from these online resources could learn almost as much as most students in our beginner classes.

Sadly, in response to our email filled-to-the-brim with links, most people write, "Yes thank you for the links but could you do this spell for me?" Nope. Not gonna happen. However, we remain hopeful that there is a group of people out there who really want what magick has to offer, and will follow through in learning their magickal ABCs.

Magick is a spiritual road that can be walked with others and guided by more experienced practitioners... but at the end of the day it is your own desire and motivation that will gain you the necessary magickal knowledge to create the effects you want in your life!

If you are one of those creative people, check out the no-cost access to the first 10 weeks of or 30 week Basic Magic Course. The knowledge is golden and you can start using it right away. Get more details by emailing info@shamanschool.com with the subject line FREE COURSE and we'll send you the details.


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