Thursday, June 4, 2009

Question from a list

I belong to few lists these days. They either have too few posts and die, or to many posts for me to keep after. One of the few that I keep up with tends to stir the pot when things get slow by the moderator asking questions. 

Here are three that came up, and my answers:


What are the common mistakes that folks make when they first embark on a magickal path?

Not doing enough practical magick that will actually effect your life. People spend way to much time on the sidelines for fear of the danger or the feeling that they need to read every scrap of paper penned on drawing a circle before actually doing it. Get in there, get your fingers burnt, mess shit up. At least you will know that its real.

What are the common mistakes that are made by folks that 'ought to know better'?

Doing to much practical magick to effect your life. After you know its real, it can seem like the answer to everything. This causes problems. Spells can become like lies, one built upon another holding a patchwork life together. If you are always looking to influence people, you run the risk of not listening to what they say. If you are always looking to keep yourself from getting fired or evicted, you run the risk of missing the opportunities that come from having things dissolve down to a blank slate.

For those of you that have been on a magickal path for more than three years and two months, has anything happened that your beginner self would have a hard time even believing could happen?

Not really. I started pretty young, so I had a pretty wild imagination of what the potential of magick could be. If anything the opposite is true. I have been surprised at how bad magick is at certain things.

5 comments:

WitchDoctorJoe said...

Hahaha Nice. "mess shit up, at least you'll know it's real" That's awesome, I agree with you a hundred percent!

Persephone said...

I agree... but it's hard for me to think about the beginning of a magickal path, since I've always been this way. I definitely made mistakes when embarking on formal study of magick, but that's different.

I would just add that hanging out with other magicians, of any stripe, is really, really important. People you can talk magick with and who can give you ideas and also tell you when you're going a little nuts. I mean, not that that's ever happened to me. ;) And it's fun to work together. I've done more work with others in the last few months than I ever had before, and it's amazing how much more can be accomplished.

Great entry!

P

Scott Stenwick said...

People spend way to much time on the sidelines for fear of the danger or the feeling that they need to read every scrap of paper penned on drawing a circle before actually doing it.

I couldn't agree more with this. You learn magick by doing.

Doing to much practical magick to effect your life. After you know its real, it can seem like the answer to everything. This causes problems. Spells can become like lies, one built upon another holding a patchwork life together.

With this, though, not so much - unless you're talking about people who use magick as a substitute for taking active steps to improve their lives. That can certainly be a significant problem, and I've come across it all too often in the magical community. As I see it you take the necessary active steps in the mundane world and you do the magick - for everything. That way you always have the best possible chance of accomplishing your will.

If you are always looking to keep yourself from getting fired or evicted, you run the risk of missing the opportunities that come from having things dissolve down to a blank slate.

I'm not sure if this is where you're coming from, but I've always been skeptical of the idea that bad things happen for some positive reason or that they are really good because they open up new opportunities. In my experience, most of the time bad things that happen are just bad. If you have the ability to "walk between the raindrops" by using magick, why shouldn't you?

I would just add that hanging out with other magicians, of any stripe, is really, really important. People you can talk magick with and who can give you ideas and also tell you when you're going a little nuts.

I second that "talking shop" with fellow practitioners that you respect can be immensely helpful. It can motivate you, give you new ideas, and highlight potential errors in your practice that you could easily miss working on your own.

Jason Miller, said...

I'm not sure if this is where you're coming from, but I've always been skeptical of the idea that bad things happen for some positive reason or that they are really good because they open up new opportunities. In my experience, most of the time bad things that happen are just bad. If you have the ability to "walk between the raindrops" by using magick, why shouldn't you?

I don't mean this in a sort of "things happen for a reason way", just a simple fact that magick is quite good at prolonging the status quo, when you could be doing much better.

Jason Miller, said...

I'm not sure if this is where you're coming from, but I've always been skeptical of the idea that bad things happen for some positive reason or that they are really good because they open up new opportunities. In my experience, most of the time bad things that happen are just bad. If you have the ability to "walk between the raindrops" by using magick, why shouldn't you?

I don't mean this in a sort of "things happen for a reason way", just a simple fact that magick is quite good at prolonging the status quo, when you could be doing much better.