What is Magic, Really?

Confused About Magic?

With Harry Potter, the Halliwell sisters on Charmed, Race to Witch Mountain, and all the other books and movies out there about magic, people can get very confused about magic. People ask us all the time, "What is magic, really?"

Good question. And we have an answer. So here goes ...

Magic is a precision science! It is also:

• The science of deliberate creation.
• The science of effective prayer.
• The science of manifesting Higher Will (God's Will) on the energetic and material planes.
• The science of heightened awareness, selective perception, and dynamic, harmonious relationships.
• The study of intention (as per Aleister Crowley, one of the greatest magicians).
• The system of creation, not coercion.

Note: The word manipulation is often used in conjunction with magic, but manipulation simply means the use of the hands. It should be an "OK" word without a lot of charge, but currently it is used mostly to mean coercion. Look it up!

Every intentional act is a magical act! Magic gives us the ability to communicate with beings on all levels, and allows us to understand, through direct experience, the actual workings of the Universe.

Magic is the traditional path of spiritual growth.
Magic is not extraordinary knowledge. It is the "normal" way of life. We've just lost access to it. When you have this kind of knowledge in your understanding, you have the ability to resolve spiritual questions that otherwise become catechism. From a magician's point of view, catechism is not acceptable, since a magician must experience and verify everything for him or herself. It avoids the trap of dogma. In past time, having a magical foundation was essential so that we could go and talk directly to God, the devil, etc.

Magic is necessary to effective religious practice,
In religious practice, a priest is qualified to perform rituals, but not to create them. Only the magician has the ability to create because he has the tools of divination to test the rituals he creates.

How Do You Spell Magic?
There is some confusion as to how to spell the word "magic." There are three different commonly used spellings: magic, magick and majick. Eliphas Levi first used the form "magick" to differentiate religious or ceremonial magick from stage magic.

Does this make sense? Have more questions? Here are a couple more resources so you can delve deeper:

How to Study Magic

Basic Magic Course (starting soon)


Photo credit: Dreaming Like a Fairy

Ask Alan – Need Help With Visualization

Dear Alan,

I have been studying various magical and shamanic methods of creative visualization (including NLP, Silva Mind Control, Tom Brown, Jr. among others) and I just can't seem to "see" visualizations clearly using any of these techniques. I would really like to be able to harness my psychic powers through creative visualization. Can you suggest anything that would help?

-- Visualization Impaired, Belton, TX

Dear Visualization Impaired,

I understand how frustrating it must be to not be able to "see" the visualization you desire in your mind's eye. However, I'm not surprised that you can't. Actually, many people have difficulty seeing creative visualizations because many people are not dominantly visual. If your dominant sense isn't visual, you won't be able to "see" a visualization. However, that doesn't mean you can "hear" or "sense" or "feel" creatively and psychically.

Seeing something in your mind's eye is only one of your many Spirit perceptics, or abilities. Your Spirit can also sense in many other ways, including hearing, sensing, smelling, or feeling emotions. If you have difficulty seeing a visualization try instead to feel or hear a scenario in your imagination. I liken this kind of exercise to the state of reverie or daydreaming.

Active Daydreaming as Visualization
With whatever sense is strongest for you (hearing, touching, emotions), daydream about what you want to occur. Just imagine that you are in the scenario. Some people actually get up and move around instead of sitting still for their visualizations. They "act out" the visualization so that it has more power and force.

For instance, suppose you have trouble "visualizing" a check coming to you in the mail. It might help to actually walk down to your mail box and "act as if" you were getting a check out of the mailbox. Actually open the mailbox, stick your hand in, and act as if you were pulling out a check. Feel the excitement of opening the envelope and seeing a check with a big dollar figure written on it. Play out the whole scenario and see what happens. You'll be surprised. This form of active visualization works for many people.

Using the Auditory Sense
If that doesn't work for you, you can always try listening for voices in your mind. Some people have good experiences with hearing a pre-planned script in their head, a script of something they want to happen. Suppose you want a promotion. Simply rehearse script in your mind and play it over and over. You might script a conversation where you accidentally overhear two people discussing your promotion. Whatever the script, be sure to write something that is convincing to you.

As you can tell, there are lots of different ways to do creative imagination, even if you can't see anything in your mind's eye. Try a variety of different techniques until you find one that matches your dominant Spirit ability. Then use that method frequently to help you manifest the desired results in your life.

Deeper Psychic Development
You can further develop and harness your psychic abilities by learning the techniques in our ebooks and email courses:

Daily Rituals for Attracting What You Want in Life Ebook

Everyday Magic Email Course


Photo credit: Dream Catch Me (8/365)

Why Spells Work for the Halliwell Witches on "Charmed"

This is admittedly a somewhat silly post but you would be surprised how many emails we get from people asking why spells work for some people (even TV characters like the Halliwell witches on "Charmed") and don't work for other people.

On the show "Charmed" supposedly the reason spells work for the Halliwell sisters is because the sisters are prophesied to be charmed and are part of the powerful Halliwell line. Spells work for witches but not for ordinary people-at least according to the show.

That is true on television, but doesn't apply in the real world. First of all, in the real world there isn't a dividing line between witches and ordinary people. Anyone who wants to can practice magic and, as with everything else, practice makes perfect. But there is a dividing line between someone for whom a spell will work and someone for whom the spell will not.

That dividing line is called the level of being.

A person with a very high level of being casting a spell would get a positive and quick response. A person with a very low level of being casting the very same spell would get little or no results, or possibly even some backlash. The higher the person's level of being the easier it is for that person to get good results with spellwork.

So what is your level of being? Unfortunately there isn't a specific yardstick out there that you can use to measure your level of being, but here are some factors that tend to increase and decrease your level of being.

Factors that increase your level of being:
- belief in a friendly universe
- positive outlook on life and predominantly positive emotions
- trust in higher powers and beings
- relationship with higher powers and beings (angels, totems, etc.)
- a sense of patience and acceptance
- use and practice of magical skills
-a spiritual practice

Factors that decrease your level of being:
- negative emotions including doubt, fear, anger, and guilt
- a feeling that you are alone in the world
- lack of spiritual practice or belief in spiritual forces
- distrust of higher powers and beings
- impatience and frustration with life
- the perspective that life is poor and will never get better
- lack of a magical practice

These two lists could go on endlessly but you get the picture. Those who are able to cast a spell and then "let it go" have a much higher level of being. A higher level of being, characterized by trust and acceptance, gives a spell room to work without interference. If you have a low level of being, your tendency will be to cast a spell and then immediately begin doubting its effect. You may feel frustrated that the spell isn't working fast enough. In doing so you will be interfering with the way your spell works because doubt and frustration just add to the resistance your spell has to overcome before it can create an effect.

So the level of your being has a lot to do with how well spells work for you. People with a very high level of being, like Sai Baba for instance, don't even need spells to do magic. Sai Baba was able to manifest sacred ash from the palms of his hands and scatter the ash among his followers. He was witnessed doing this by thousands and thousands of people.

But if you're not to Sai Baba's level yet (and very few people are), one way to increase the effectiveness of your spellwork is to increase the level of your being. It is not as hard as you might think. Simply adding a 15 minute meditation to your daily regimen can raise your level of being immensely. So can making the decision to stop doubt for 10 minutes each day. Take a small step to raise the level of your being on a daily basis and you'll be surprised how much better magic spells work for you.

How to Do Voodoo

Do you want to know how to do Voodoo? So do a lot people, and most of them particularly want to know how to use Voodoo dolls. The use of Voodoo dolls has become well-known in popular culture mostly through movies, books, and television. Voodoo has also been portrayed as a dark, mysterious, and often morbid tradition. In actuality, Voodoo is simply a West African religion, which is also known by similar names like Vodun, Vodoun, Vodou, Vudu, and Voudou. Voodoo practices include much more than the use of dolls, and involve circle rituals, dancing, singing, drumming, and ancestor worship.

Voodoo Dolls
But let's focus for a moment on Voodoo dolls. If you want to know how to do Voodoo you have to know something about the use of the Voodoo doll. A Voodoo doll, in more normal magical terms, is a simulacrum. A simulacrum is an object that is a likeness of something. In magical operations, if you want to affect a person without direct action, you could choose an object that resembles the person (like a small figurine) and make a psychic connection between the object and the person. To make this psychic connection, also called "keying," you just hold the object in your dominant hand and think of the person. Flow thoughts and energy about that person into the object until the object begins to feel warm or tingly. Now the object is connected to the person and, depending on how strong the connection is, anything that happens to the object also happens to the person.

For a simulacrum you can use photographs, pictures, dolls and other small models, lists, symbols, Tarot layouts, and other objects as simulacra. You can also use chess pieces or objects made of stone, ceramic, wood or glass. If you use wood be sure it is fairly dense otherwise it will not easily key. Plastic and rubber do not key well so don't use them. According to the Law of Similarity, the greater the likeness between a simulacrum and that to which the simulacrum is keyed, the greater the psychic connection will be. Photographs and pictures have a great likeness to the original subjects and they already access the original subjects. So now you know a little more about how to do Voodoo, or at least the principles of how Voodoo dolls work.

Be Careful with Simulacra
Of course, be very careful about keying simulacra. If the connection between the simulacra and person is very strong, anything that happens to the object happens to the person. If something accidental happens to the simulacra and also happens to the person, according the Rules of the Road (the laws that govern magical practice) the Universe will hold you responsible. You really don't want that kind of karma on your hands. For instance, once a practitioner keyed a figurine to a person and then left the figurine on a table. While the practitioner was out of the house, his cats began playing with the figurine, batting it about and throwing it in the air. The person to whom the figurine was keyed felt horribly nauseous and dizzy until the practitioner returned home and rescued the figurine. Take this example as a warning if you want to learn how to do Voodoo. Don't key anything for which you don't want to be ultimately and forever responsible!

How to Figure Out If Your Magic Spell Will Work

This may seem like a "Well, duh!" title but you would be surprised at the number of people who write and launch magic spells without first figuring out whether the spell will work. My question to those folks? Why go to all the trouble to do a spell when you don't even know if it will work? It seems like a waste of time and energy.

The good news is that a little divination is all you need to figure out whether your magic spell will be effective. The type of divination you use should depend on the size and complexity of the spell you want to launch. Here are three types of divination that you can use to predict the effectiveness of your spell, listed from simplest to most complex:

1. Pendulum
2. Question Circle
3. Tarot Reading

Pendulum
For simple magic spells, you can use your pendulum to do simple "Yes/No" testing on whether your spell will be effective. You can also use your pendulum with a 1-10 scale and ask it to tell you the level of effectiveness of your spell for solving your problem. To do this, you will need to swing your pendulum over a sheet of paper with 1-10 arranged in a circle. Be sure to be clear whether 10 means least effective or most effective. Ask your pendulum to rate the effectiveness of the spell and then decide whether the spell is worth your effort.

Question Circle
With a question circle you can ask the Winds of the four directions about the effectiveness of your spell. There are a lot of ways to do question circle, but here are the basic steps:

1. Cleanse the area by smudging or using some other method
2. Formulate the question you will ask each direction, such as, "How effective will this spell be and what can I do to make it more effective?"
3. Starting in the east, go to that direction and sit facing the direction. Ask the question out loud and have pen and paper ready to record the results.

Each direction will give you a different kind of answer. The east will give you thoughts, ideas, and ways to improve the lines of communication in your spell. The south will give you action steps and ways to increase the power of your spell. The west will tell you about feelings, emotions, and spiritual insight. The north will offer answers regarding the strength and perseverance of your magic spell. Using these answers you can improve your spell before launching it.

Tarot Reading
For the most complex spells a series of tarot readings always helps you determine the exact effect of your magic spell. Tarot readings, especially 12-card types, will show cause-effect flow lines. You will be able to determine exactly how the spell will work (i.e., which part of your situation will be most affected and how) and how effective it will be. If a cause-effect flow line in the reading shows very little change or a lot of resistance that cannot be overcome, you will need to change your spell to address these issues. Tarot readings are best for single and multiple candle spells that handle many complex issues. I also recommend that you do tarot readings on any symbols, chants, or litanies you are going to use in your spell.

For most spells simple divination will do the trick. A little extra planning and guidance before you launch your spell can save you the hassle of having to take down a good spell that has gone bad and prevent you from wasting your time on a spell that won't work. Good luck!