Post by watershield on Feb 11, 2006 23:23:12 GMT 1
This is a bit of a long post and I apologise in advance. But I felt I needed to express two things. First, the evolution of my own understanding of magic. And second, an attempt to give some insight, in my opinion, on just what magic really is. This is from my own BOS, my own thoughts. Sorry if they seen randon at times.
What is Magic?
There is no easy answer that can be given to help someone understand how to use magic or the correct ritual for that matter.
To deal with this question, we must identify what it is we believe.
I think most Wicca's, Witches, Druids, and Pagans of every sort will agree and quickly identify with a need or desire to connect with nature. Some will admit to doing spell work to promote healing, promoting harmonious living, attaining restful sleep, calm minds, and so on.
Very few will claim to have preformed works such as bending another's will, causing harm, controlling the weather or anything that has a visible or verifiable effect.
Why is that? The answer is actually very simple. Because it takes more concentration, passion, and focus than the average person can muster in this hustle bustle noisy world we live in.
The first thing I think we must understand is everything is composed of energy. The things we do in our every day lives, affect this energy in random ways.
For the moment, forget about good and bad, positive and negative. Think of the effect as ripples on the surface of a vast sea.
Our thoughts, our actions, yes even the very fact of "being" sends out energy waves. Tiny ripples across the surface of this sea.
Even the plants and animals, and even the earth itself, because they exist, send out waves of energy or ripples on this sea.
Every minute, every second, our ripples are interacting with the ripples of every other "thing".
Energies, interrupted, redirected, randomly. Some of those ripples come back to you, changed from what they might have originally been, weakened, stronger, noticed and unnoticed. It may be the ripple of some other “thing” but it could just as easily be your own.
The surface of that sea is an area of turmoil, constant chaos.
Attempting to perform magic is like attempting to navigate a small boat across that sea of chaos to reach some distant point. If you lack the knowledge of the sea, you will never travel far from the shore.
Every “thing” on this plane of existence has a certain duality. A God / Goddess aspect if you will.
The physical form and the spiritual form. Both are of the energy and connected, yet at the same time are separate in their existence.
The physical body, the anchor, the ground, the God form.
The spiritual body, the wisdom, the insight, the Goddess form.
Because they are of the energy, while separate, they still remain as one. Because some people have perception of the energy, they attribute personalities to these forms as they anticipate these forms to be represented, in part by their own expectations or according to parental up bringing.
The mind is a powerful tool. It is the link between the two forms. It is the only tool that can be used to manipulate the energy or in other words perform magic.
As I said, this is a noisy world we live in, hence many of us use tools such as wands, athema, Candles, etc.
But these only have value as things we use to assist us in our attempts to focus our minds and concentrate on a specific goal.
When I refer to Placebo Magic, what I mean is when we do things that give us the sense that we are benefiting the emotional well being of either ourselves or someone close to us.
We let them know we are sending them positive thought, good wishes, etc and because they believe in your good intent, their minds translate this into beneficial energy for them. On the same note, we attain some benefit because we believe that we did a good thing.
As another example, Voodoo is dependant upon common knowledge of the act.
This however is only scratching the surface of the use of the energies around us.
Now, here is where I was going to discuss “real magic” the act of directing energy toward a target, touching on “dark Magic” as well.
But in the writing I discovered that too is just Placebo magic. The need to defend, the ability to attack. Whatever, just something we have visualized in one way or another and so by doing have given it “essence”.
If we can set aside the clutter of emotion and connect with the energies that flow from your own duality we can experience a true reality of the concept of magic. That’s the truth in the balance.
It’s not really about doing anything. It’s about being.
To attain a oneness with the energy is to attain enlightenment.
To attain enlightenment is the first step on the path to truly understand the meaning and purpose of life.
What is Magic?
There is no easy answer that can be given to help someone understand how to use magic or the correct ritual for that matter.
To deal with this question, we must identify what it is we believe.
I think most Wicca's, Witches, Druids, and Pagans of every sort will agree and quickly identify with a need or desire to connect with nature. Some will admit to doing spell work to promote healing, promoting harmonious living, attaining restful sleep, calm minds, and so on.
Very few will claim to have preformed works such as bending another's will, causing harm, controlling the weather or anything that has a visible or verifiable effect.
Why is that? The answer is actually very simple. Because it takes more concentration, passion, and focus than the average person can muster in this hustle bustle noisy world we live in.
The first thing I think we must understand is everything is composed of energy. The things we do in our every day lives, affect this energy in random ways.
For the moment, forget about good and bad, positive and negative. Think of the effect as ripples on the surface of a vast sea.
Our thoughts, our actions, yes even the very fact of "being" sends out energy waves. Tiny ripples across the surface of this sea.
Even the plants and animals, and even the earth itself, because they exist, send out waves of energy or ripples on this sea.
Every minute, every second, our ripples are interacting with the ripples of every other "thing".
Energies, interrupted, redirected, randomly. Some of those ripples come back to you, changed from what they might have originally been, weakened, stronger, noticed and unnoticed. It may be the ripple of some other “thing” but it could just as easily be your own.
The surface of that sea is an area of turmoil, constant chaos.
Attempting to perform magic is like attempting to navigate a small boat across that sea of chaos to reach some distant point. If you lack the knowledge of the sea, you will never travel far from the shore.
Every “thing” on this plane of existence has a certain duality. A God / Goddess aspect if you will.
The physical form and the spiritual form. Both are of the energy and connected, yet at the same time are separate in their existence.
The physical body, the anchor, the ground, the God form.
The spiritual body, the wisdom, the insight, the Goddess form.
Because they are of the energy, while separate, they still remain as one. Because some people have perception of the energy, they attribute personalities to these forms as they anticipate these forms to be represented, in part by their own expectations or according to parental up bringing.
The mind is a powerful tool. It is the link between the two forms. It is the only tool that can be used to manipulate the energy or in other words perform magic.
As I said, this is a noisy world we live in, hence many of us use tools such as wands, athema, Candles, etc.
But these only have value as things we use to assist us in our attempts to focus our minds and concentrate on a specific goal.
When I refer to Placebo Magic, what I mean is when we do things that give us the sense that we are benefiting the emotional well being of either ourselves or someone close to us.
We let them know we are sending them positive thought, good wishes, etc and because they believe in your good intent, their minds translate this into beneficial energy for them. On the same note, we attain some benefit because we believe that we did a good thing.
As another example, Voodoo is dependant upon common knowledge of the act.
This however is only scratching the surface of the use of the energies around us.
Now, here is where I was going to discuss “real magic” the act of directing energy toward a target, touching on “dark Magic” as well.
But in the writing I discovered that too is just Placebo magic. The need to defend, the ability to attack. Whatever, just something we have visualized in one way or another and so by doing have given it “essence”.
If we can set aside the clutter of emotion and connect with the energies that flow from your own duality we can experience a true reality of the concept of magic. That’s the truth in the balance.
It’s not really about doing anything. It’s about being.
To attain a oneness with the energy is to attain enlightenment.
To attain enlightenment is the first step on the path to truly understand the meaning and purpose of life.
