Reading Materials:

As with the Magick lesson before, this one assumes that if you are really very interested in Magick, you will have studied it elsewhere. A Ceremonial Magick Pod is available to CFFN members, email me at my "free-time" address, Kaatabasis@aol.com, for more in depth information.

Skipping the "high Magick" or ceremonial magick, that requires more intensive training than I have the capacity to give, I've chosen to focus these two magick lessons on five aspects of "low magick" that are often featured in Wiccan books as "Wiccan Magick." They are not Wiccan magick, but magick done by Wiccans. Wicca is NOT a metaphysical system. To use Murray's terminology, what I have taught in these two lessons is "operative witchcraft" whereas Wicca itself is "ritual Witchcraft."

I prefer the term "Wicca" for the religion, and "Magick" for the magick. As with the other lesson, I've tried to sculpt this lesson in such a way that your belief or non-belief in magick is unaffected. This is because I feel that religion that requires you to abandon your belief or disbelief is failed religion. UEW attempts to be Wicca that does not require suspension of disbelief to be followed. If Magick does not appeal to you, this lesson should still introduce you to common metaphysical concepts.

So what's the difference between High and Low Magick?

High Magick requires a belief system to work efficiently. Enochiana, for example, requires a belief in the validity of John Dee's research to function. In short, the Enochian Calls must be believed and accepted. Likewise, Kabbala without Judaism is an insult to both the faith and the art. Properly done, Kabbala enhances a relationship with YHWH. To those who do not follow him, Kabbala is a "hobby" and High Magicks should never be a hobby.

As Wiccans, our Patron gods influence the High Magick that is open to us, because Phoenix and I are Hellenists, for example, the High Magick of The Greek Magickal Papyri (GMP) is open to us. High Magick in general requires something more than mere dedication to the art. Most High Magicks require that you follow a particular faith or are part of a family. Phoenix, for instance, as a Sicilian, could study genuine Sicilian Stregaria, but I, as a Scot, could not. As a Morgan, I can study the High Magick of my Fam-Trad, but Phoenix could not. While it seems woefully unfair at the outset, it must be remembered that most High Magicks come from seats of power dating back thousands of years. High Magick is rooted in noblesse oblige, the requirement of the leadership class to work for and die for their people, whether their people accept them or not. For example, during World War Two, a mage of a once-royal Welsh fam-trad committed suicide to protect his ancestral lands. Whether he was known to his people or the effect of his action was known is unimportant, I just use this to make a point about High Magick. The powers are NOT more powerful than low magick, that is, the effects of Low Magick and High are pretty much equal in 90% of the workings, and the 10% in which High Magick is more powerful usually involves some extreme self-sacrifice, going mute, dying, going blind or the like.

And all this without knowing if it will work.....

So I suspect you see why I refuse to teach High Magick, or even the ceremonial forms of Low Magick that claim to work with powerful energies and entities. 

MOST Low Magick (and what I'll teach) involves the manipulation of personal and/or divine energies, invocation and evocation, prayer, sympathetic magick, healing, divination, and the like.

I have already told you, and if you read Crowley, he told you too, that magick is the act of living with intention. EVERY ACT becomes deliberate, every intention becomes known. Attunement to your own self, or "knowing your will" is the only way to achieve this, and I CAN'T tell you how to find your True Will, other than tell you that you will KNOW when you've found it. Low magick is the tricks and techniques that you can use on your way to finding your True Will, at which point you may find you no longer need Magick at all. It is also, in the form I am describing it, a powerful tool for getting in touch with your Gods and/or your self.

The Five types of Low Magick I am covering in these two lessons are:

If you master these five things, and find your True Will, you've done more in your life than 3/4 of the people who call themselves workers of magick.

With that introduction out of the way, I'm going to go RIGHT to sympathetic magick.

Sympathetic Magick takes the hermetic axiom "As Above, so Below" to its inevitable conclusion. It is the belief that by physically altering the structure of a representation of a desired target, you can focus energy (yours, or the Gods) on effecting that target in that manner.

Poppets and Voodoo Dolls are perhaps the most commonly known forms of sympathetic magic. A poppet is a small doll in the form of a person carried for luck or to aid the ill. For example, a person plagued by depression may have a poppet made for them by the local shaman stuffed with candied angelica. This poppet is then focused on by the person doing the spell and "positive energy" is cast into it. The sweetness and hope that angelica archangelica is supposed to carry is then said to have entered the heart of the person. Voodoo dolls, which have very little to do with the faith of Voudoun, are images, usually made of wax, which are used to harm a person. A bit of unknotted hair or clothing is incorporated into the wax and sticking things into it causes pain to the target. Tossing the wax in a fire is said to kill the target.

Sympathetic Magick is also done with cards, pictures and clothing. A person grieving over an unfaithful love may take a picture of the two of them and rip it in half, emotionally separating the two. 

Sympathetic Magick is also the art of using similar things to "call" real thinks, like using a green candle to attracted green money, or tying a string around a rock to represent a "binding."

Assignment: 

Surf the net and find three examples of sympathetic magick used in Wicca. Do you think Sympathetic magick works? Why or why not? What does it do?

Example #1.

Witches Brew "Red For Love" Gypsy Love spell

The Gypsies say that to find anything red means luck in love. If you find a piece of red thread, red wool, a red button, or whatever, pick it up and carry it with you for luck. It serves as an amulet. 

As you stoop to pick it up, think of the person you love and say: 

"Red is my blood 
And red is my heart. 
Lucky in love; 
Never keep us apart."

Example #2.

Gruenwold Cottage To Stop Slander Spell

Make an image of the person; stuff the mouth with slippery elm bark and sew up the lips chanting: 

"If nothing but ill from your lips can fall 
Let there be nothing from them at all."

Note: if you are not trained in poppet making, the accompanying rituals and later proper disposal, do not do this or any other similar spell. Learn the basics first. 

Example #3.

Crystal Forest Make a Witches' Ladder Charm

This charm can be of two varieties. One is a general purpose charm of protection and good luck, the other for a specific purpose. 

Supplies needed for a general purpose charm:

If it is possible, make the Ladder on the night of a Full Moon. Arrange your alter and cast a circle. Use about a yard of each color yarn. Tie the ends together then braid the yarn together while you say :

"Yarn of Red, Black, and White
Work Your magic spell this night."

Repeat this until the braid is finished. Braiding is a magickal act because it makes three strands into one. This represents the three aspects of the Goddess in one. Tie a knot at the end of the braid. Starting at about a foot from the beginning of the braid, tie a feather with a knot around the base and say : 

"With this feather and this string
(state purpose) this charm will bring"

Tie all nine feathers to the cord, spacing them as evenly as possible. Tie the ends of the cord together to form a circle. Pass the finished Ladder above a candle flame then incense smoke. Sprinkle it with consecrated water and say : 

"In the names of the Goddess and the God
By Air, Earth, Fire and Water
I consecrate this charm
Of feathers nine and cord of three
As I will, so mote it be!"

Hang the Ladder where it will not be seen by others but where you will see it every day.

Oh I most certainly do believe that sympathetic magick works, I've seen it in action, and it can be very effective!  The reason I feel this way is because sympathetic magick uses methods that link images, colors and other things to make a link in the mind to something else.  The concept is along the lines of "like attracts like", so therefore if you use an object that symbolizes what it is you desire, and then pour energy and will into it, you will manifest your goal.

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Divination is the "art" of seeing what cannot normally be seen with our eyes. The future, the past, the contents of a person's soul, auras, spirits, what have you. Divination can be a powerful tool when interpretive divination, looking at random shapes or symbols, including tarot cards and runes, is used to aid in introspection. I cover divination briefly in All One Wicca, and encourage those interested in it to start there. Non-interpretive divination includes things like Magic 8 balls, which answer questions with yes/no answers.

Assignment: 

How might Divination help with introspection? What do you think divination really shows? If you practice it, what form and why? Is non-interpretive divination valid?

Well, me personally, I use the tarot and also use pendulums.  I started off with the tarot, my first deck was gifted to me at my 18th birthday party, and was the Waite-Tarot deck.  A good deck to start off with, really, the symbolism is easy to understand.  I've collected 3 more decks since then, the Faery Wicca Tarot Deck (I use this one exclusively in personal readings for myself), Legend: Arthurian Tarot Deck (ritual readings) and then there's my Goddess meditation cards.  I like to use tarot when I'm feeling introspective, because in my opinion the cards never lie.  They layouts change from reading to reading but nothing is ever set in stone.  I feel that the tarot helps me to recognize and pinpoint areas of my life that need work.  I actually do a series of readings at the start and end of each week just to see what things I may need to work on and also to see if my readings were accurate.  It's helpful as well as extremely enlightening for me.

I also use the pendulum, which I suppose could be considered a non-interpretive divination method.  I feel that it is a very valid form of divination, and my accuracy with the pendulum is rather spooky "on".  I have 2 pendulums at this time, a rose quartz pendulum which I use more frequently, and a carnelian pendulum which I also use on occasion.  I'm looking at getting a gorgeous pendulum that I saw a while back made out of Aventurine, but I need to wait until I can really afford it ($20 may not seem like much, but it's a lot to me, lol).  I suppose the validity of a non-interpretive method of divination depends on the method and the person using it.  I studied pendulums with a woman who I feel is very accurate and gifted with them, and we've tested my answers with hers on many occasions. It's really a question of what one believes, and I believe that pendulums are accurate.

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Power Transfer is rooted in the belief that our energies, the life force of our bodies, can be transferred to another object. It is often used in sympathetic magick to imbue and item with power. Many techniques of power transfer exist, from holding a cold stone in your hand until it heats up to feeling a rush as your prayers escape the cone of power and fly off to their intended target. This is unlike sympathetic magick in that it can only be practiced to understand.

Assignment: 

Take a small stone, at room temperature, and place it in your hand in a quiet room. Close your hand. As you feel the stone getting warmer, and your hand getting cold, and your arm sending blood to your hand to make it warmer, try to feel the heat cycle through your body, cold slowly moving to your center to become warm. Imagine that your core energy moves with that heat. If you practice this, you'll pick up power transfer pretty quick. 

I've been practicing power transfer for several months now, and I believe I correctly learned the method in an offline series of classes that I took last year.  The reason I say that I correctly learned this offline, is because there is only so much that a person can learn online and from books, and when I was able to take these offline classes, I was able to learn from a real live, breathing person.  She helped me to identify the feelings associated with power transfer and how to identify that it has been correctly done.  It was a neat experience for me the first time I realized that I was transferring power.

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Power transfer is at the core of laying on of hands and healing, in which ones healing powers, or the powers of your gods, flow through your hands and into your patient. Power transfer is also at the center of the concept of blood and breath sacrifice, the belief that as something gives its breath or blood to another thing, it gives up its power. Sex is a form of power transfer, as well, as a circuit between lovers is created and a "connection" which goes beyond physical is established.

Other than these five things, all I can tell you is Find your Will. Like teaching, doing magick, if you choose this path, is something your body and mind naturally know how to do. The key is listening, and I can only tell you TO listen, not how to listen.

Well, that's it for all the Magick I'll teach as part of CFFN. Not much, I know, but enough to get you started if you are interested, and enough to gain you the lingo if you're not.

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