When I started practicing magic I thought there was a missing link. Something I didnāt understand. Sure, I could look up spells, but surely that wasnāt enough. There must be something else, something I didnāt understand. After all, simply repeating words and tying a red ribbon around an egg couldnāt be enough to affect reality, could it? What was the secret that would turn words in to real effects?
It would take me years before I was able to put together a model of magic that fit what I observed. As a spirit worker and an animist, my model of magic revolves around the spirit world. As I began to understand my model more and more, magic made more and more sense to me and my skills increased. I would like to share with you my model for understanding magic and how it helped me understand the world in a new way.
Everything has a spirit. Well, almost everything. Everything organic and living has a spirit, as do many man-made things like cities, houses, and objects. These spirits do not follow physical laws, because they are nonphysical. They exist in a highly symbolic world, where snipping a string is symbolic of breaking a relationship apart, or tying a string together can represent a binding.
Humans are able to interact with spirits because, well, the veil is thinner than we all like to think. Spirits are not off in some far-away āspirit worldā that we have to travel to. Spirits exist alongside us, around us, and in some cases within us. The spirit of your house is not locked away in some ivory tower in a remote spirit world; it is around you always, slumbering, watching, and waiting for human contact.
When you take an egg, or a ribbon, or some string, the physical objects are nothing but representations and symbols. The true magic lies with the spirits, and energies (which are nothing but spirits without a mind; or it could be said that spirits are nothing but energy with a mind), which you are going to manipulate. And we can manipulate it because the veil is so thin, and humans are so excellent, that it is hard not to manipulate it.
So you are going to cast a spell to end a friendship. You take some ribbon, which is black, the color of bindings. Again, this is symbolic ā most metaphysical bindings are not black at all. And then, the real magic is about to begin.
When you use your words (and all words are magical, and everything you say and do is a force of magic), and your actions, and focus intently on the metaphysical reality around you, it is just like tapping in to the Matrix. And yes, everything you say and do and think is a force of magic, which is why itās pretty vital to be in control of yourself if you do magic. This can be an anxiety-inducing thought for some, who want to say and think and do whatever they want, and then still lead the special life they want to live. Well, it doesnāt work that way. If you want to be a good person, it starts with good actions and good thoughts. If you want to be a prosperous person, it means focusing on prosperity and not worries of debt. A spell is just a hyperfocused laser of intent, but intent is always radiating out of you like gentle waves in an ocean. But I digress.
When you focus on the metaphysical reality around you, and truly believe you are interacting with the metaphysical using your physical symbols, then true magic really begins. And when you, with your iron will and laser focus, turn that ribbon in your hands in to the bond of friendship, the magic really starts. And when you snip it with silver scissors, the metaphysical bond is also snipped in half.
This essay is called āhow to do magic.ā So here is how to do magic:
Come up with a working model of magic that makes sense to you. One that, when followed, improves your power and understanding of the universe.
Use physical objects to represent the metaphysical, and meditate, focus, or enter a trance state or a frenzy until you can truly believe that what you are holding IS the metaphysical energy or spirit.
Carry out acts on your physical objects that symbolically represent what you want to happen in the real world.
Sit back, relax, and reward yourself with a smoothie.
The missing link I never found was linking the metaphysical to the physical, and causing my physical objects to become the metaphysical spirit or energy. Once I discovered that, everything fell in to place and I became a much better sorceress for it.
