Foundation Of Practical Magick

I have been pondering the nature of magick and how it appears to work. Often, when you come up with ideas and theories about magick, something comes to your attention later to show you that you were wrong, or that your theories were incomplete. What amazes me the most about magick is that in regards to a ritual working, even the most incompetent execution and the poorest design can be successful. I am not advocating any kind of sloppiness or laxness in the design, creation and execution of ritual magick. In fact, I believe in crafting the best rituals possible, studying and then performing them to the highest level of my creative ability. One could say that I am a perfectionist, so there are no doubts as to where I stand in the practice of ritual magick. However, perfection is not required for ritual work to be successful.I have lived in many locations over the years and I have attended quite a number of gatherings. I have worked magick with individuals and groups, both large and small. I have been exposed to a wide range of ritual and ceremonial practices. I have witnessed truly astonishing ritual workings, absolute bone-headed abominations and everything in between. What I have found in these many experiences is that the threshold for success in the art of magick is actually quite low. Rituals that are poorly designed and executed, and from an esthetic standpoint, truly stink, seem to work anyway. I have often wondered why this is true, and now I think that I can pull together some of my ideas and beliefs to explain it.All of these points are anecdotal and quite subjective, but if you can trust that my judgment is grounded in years of magickal experience, then perhaps my opinions can be accepted as a kind of provisional truth. Not every ritual that I have witnessed has worked, and many don't work very effectively, in other words, they don't precisely define the parameters for determining success. Nebulous and disorganized ritual design typically produces nebulous and chaotic results. Perhaps that is the first rule that we can take to heart.So it would seem that we could make the following statements about the practice of ritual magick. * Rituals can be simple, intermediate or complex - all levels of effort seem to work. * Rituals can succeed or fail, depending on certain criteria, although that criteria is very basic. * Rituals require a certain level of belief, imagination and enthusiasm in order to be successful. * Clarity and focus are important factors in designing and performing successful ritual magick.Now let's look at each one of these points and expand on them. By doing so, we may actually determine and identify what makes a ritual successful. Complexity or simplicity have no bearing on how effective a ritual will work. Often times, complex rituals may become too difficult to perform or may be too redundant or cumbersome. Efficiency is often more desired than complexity for its own sake. A ritual magician is best served by constantly editing the rituals that are part of his or her repertoire, cutting down the extraneous and unnecessary parts and tightening the strategic elements. A ritual is seldom in its final form, there can always be additions or deletions. Editing and reformatting can make a ritual far more effective. My advise is always to start with a set of simple rituals that can be chained together, later on you might then take the chaining of smaller rituals and produce from them a larger ritual that is more efficient and effective. Rituals succeed or fail because of certain criteria or basic rules. In other words, all rituals have to possess certain elements or they are guaranteed to fail. So what are those rules that are essential to a successful ritual? They are actually quite simple, straightforward and few in number. 1. Establish sacred space and prepare the "self." This can be accomplished in many different ways, but it builds a base for the practice of magick. Simply stated, sacred space is that the area where you are performing ritual has been altered and prepared for magickal work. Self preparation is nothing more than getting yourself into the right mental attitude. This is a combination of exuberance for the work and obtaining a certain altered state of consciousness. Altered states of consciousness are achieved through techniques of meditation and trance induction. Assuming one's magickal persona is also very effective, providing that the magician has one. 2. Establish an energy field or summon (invoke) the assistance of spirits, or a combination of both. This, of course depends on the kind of magick performed and the model of magick that one is employing. This step is actually nothing more than preparing the elements of the ritual for the core of the rite, which is the next step. 3. Define the objective of the magick (usually in symbolic form) and focus on it with great intensity, imprinting it with one's desires and affirming it as a part of one's will. If the energy model is used, then the energy field is imprinted with this objective. If the spirit model is used, then the spirits are constrained in some manner to carry out the objective. Sigils can be deployed to symbolize the objective or other tools can be used, such as a spirit bottle or medicine pouch. The magician must also use his or her imagination to visualize the objective and how it should be realized. 4. Project the resultant energy field or the constrained spirits from the focus of the magick circle or sacred space out into the material world. I call this step, exteriorization, since it represents the phase in magick where the focused elements and components of the magickal rite are projected outward into the material world, where it is impacted by the charged enthusiasm and boundless optimism of the magician's magick. These four steps must be a part of the ritual working or it will fail. The sequence is not important, but it does help to start with a good foundation and to build to a climax from that point. Ironically, the most omitted step in rituals that I have witnessed is the final one - projecting the power or spirits summoned into the mundane sphere. However, even a poorly designed and executed ritual, if it has all four of these steps, will succeed in some manner. Belief, imagination and enthusiasm are the glue that holds all of the parts of a ritual together and can make it work even if it's poorly contrived. These elements are qualities of the mind of the practitioner and they are characterized by the all-powerful "As If" mental proposition. If you passionately believe something to be real, then for you, that something has a certain reality. Being excited and passionate, and having a powerful imagination, help to make the ritual effective despite anything else that it is lacking. However, the "As If" proposition has some limitations. It can't make an incomplete ritual complete and it can't turn a failed working into a successful one, unless the magician is willing to completely forgo all objectivity. Of course, forgoing all objectivity is the beginning of the path of confusion, delusion and perhaps, even madness. Conversely, even a masterpiece of ritual design and construction will fail if these powerful elements are missing, so they, too, must be considered integral to performing a successful ritual working.Finally, clarity and focus are important factors in making certain that a ritual produces the effects that one is seeking to produce. Often the bar for working magick is very low. If the ritual produces any effects, even if they are completely irrelevant to the objective of the working, then the ritual is deemed a success. Of course, what this means is that the ritual had all of the elements necessary to produce an effect, but the objective was poorly defined and not researched. Clarity helps one to properly focus the magick on the exact objective that the magician intends. As I have said previously, nebulous objectives produce nebulous results, clear objectives can at least be measured in regards to success or failure. One very important factor is reducing the number of items that are part of the objective down to the absolute minimum - preferably, just one solid objective. Meditate on that objective and ask, "Is it reasonable? Can it be accomplished in the allotted time and with the means at one's disposal?" Perform divination on that objective and carefully examine all of the various parts of that goal. Are there any internal blocks that need to be removed? Do I have all of the mundane actions listed that are required to make this goal successfully realized? The more time that one spends in answering these questions and refining the magickal objective before doing any magick, the greater likelihood that it will be successful. Once the magick is performed, then divination can aid one in determining if everything is moving in the direction required in order to be successful. Are there additional mundane actions that need to be accomplished or does one need to perform additional magickal rituals? These questions need to be answered after the magick is performed. The old adage is that knowledge is power, and divination gives the magician that kind of power and more. To work magick without careful consideration, meditation, contemplation and divination means that the magick will be performed in a blind and contrived manner. This will also ensure that the magick worked will fail to produce the desired objective. All of these elements characterize a kind of approach to life that is practical, open minded, flexible and dynamic. Using these kinds of qualities in the practice of ritual magick will ensure that the rites that one works will be successful and personally empowering. Rituals don't always work all of the time, but often learning why a ritual failed can be the best tool for improving and adapting one's magick so that it becomes successful. Frater Barrabbas

Credit: modern-wiccan.blogspot.com