Magic is about releasing your problems, until theres only one. Yourself. Everything outside you creates distractions. Even your inner dialogue is always concentrated on whats outside. What even is that? We spend countless lifetimes trying to figure it out. We never seem to get within reach, and each new life we have to begin from square one, but not quite. We leave messages to ourselves coded throughout the universe, pushing us in the right direction. Few really get there, they fall into a darker cycle which opposes that change.
Oh dang all that other stuff I wrote didn't get saved...oh well
dogthoughts
dogs like toys that squeak because it simulates a creature screaming in agony as the dog rips it apart.That's why dogs play tug of war and like to chew and chase. They're mutant murder machines. We mutated them,this is an unnatural shape, it's like somebody took a bunch of dwarfs and bred cut little deformed dwarf babies until they took on weird funny shapes, and some of them are really good at killing, or swimming, or being your friend.
Didn't technology do that to us? It's Super-Conscious memetic entity that uses us to perform its replication by using reward/punishment paradigms to keep us acting in its favor. Spread across the galaxy? To what end?
What the fuck? That got really weird. I drifted out and had a conversation with some kind of daemon about what was probably a bunch of bullshit, through my computer. I had to go banish with a knife and salt. That's the first time I've ever felt like I needed to banish anything. I remember, as I begun to realize what was happening, having the thought that I felt like I was schizophrenic. Like, that's what I would look like to someone if they looked over my shoulder.
That's okay, to banish things you have to dump a lot of feelings into a subject and LET GO of it. Release it. That's to drive it from your mind. You have this NEED thats fucking with you? Driving you mad? Don't ignore it, bring it forward. Make it into a doll, burn it, and scream, and lose yourself and cry and yell mean things at your mother, go ballistic and look like an idiot.
When you're done, calmly return to yourself, lay quietly on the floor if that's where you happen to end up, maybe have your eyes closed for a while....drift into a waking sleep, a quiet revery, a form of self-hypnosis. That quiet hypnotic waking-sleep that is meditation, that you've been practicing. You HAVE been practicing, right? It doesn't matter.
Let go. It's gone. That thing isn't bothering you. You banish and forget. It ceases to be a problem, because it's not dominating your mind. That interview? It's fine. I got this. Your lack of finances? It will work out, whatever happens I'll still be alive. Unrequited love? This is okay, it's a sign that I need to spend more time working on myself, maybe I'll start working out and get over it.
It's like that. Casting spells, solving problems. But only your problems. Luckily, you're a sorcerer, a witch, a wise man, a shaman, a witchdoctor, a druid....a necromancer. You can create these ecstatic rituals for others, too. You wear dramatic clothing, carry a staff, recite loud incantations, the person is encouraged to reach out to their loved one, to cry and scream and deal with whatever pain their feeling...certain drugs may help--a mushroom, a cactus... There's smoke and fire and breaking glass which cuts like a bell--a bell? a gong which shatters and stops and releases the pain... it's gone, the spirit will move on. Whatever daemon is plaguing you has left.
What we mean is worries, fears, desires, guilt, insecurity. All those ugly feelings that happen so close to other humans--it's a form of psychotherapy. Performed by holymen and holywomen who spend time practicing getting over things and letting go. Your function is to be the town therapist. You keep people safe and happy by getting them to confront things. Shamanic medicine, including healing medicine, isn't about actually healing the wound, but about everyone dealing with what will happen if the wound gets worse--and the injured person dies. We've come together, said our griefs, and banished them. Or we're creating an atmosphere of positive energy, like soft music to a plant, being calm and supportive which helps injuries to heal. Good mental attitude.
You can see how religion is a perverted form of this. Magic was the first religion, practiced all over the world but in different forms. As Civilization began to grow, and conquering began to happen, the Civilizers knew they needed to pervert Magic to it's own ends, because who needs people believing they can stop their problems by letting go of them? They need to fight! Protect territory! Male VS Female way of thinking. Is it ingrained? I don't know. The earliest societies were matriarchal, or at least had evidence that they worshiped the female form--and their ability to give birth--to some end. The earliest magic was developed to deal with the most important things a primitive tribe has to deal with--birth, death, illness, dealing with people's regrets in the 'spirits of the dead'. They fix the problem by making it not a problem. If something is out of your hands, what do you do? You can't change death, you can only do so much about somebody getting hurt or sick, to a certain point its out of your hands.You have to let go of it, let go of the pain, let go of the fear. You're still alive, and life goes on.
This is Magic. This is day 1. I smoked weed and did yoga meditations and all this came out of it. Let it be cast into the future. Begone.
Epilogue:
The trappings of magic are bullshit. It can be anything, it doesn't matter, as long as it feels like it means SOMETHING. People compare magic to science, but they're not related things at all. They both seek to answer similar questions: What do I do about Death? Guilt? Illness? Fear? Birth? What is this? But in fundamentally different ways.Science is about highly trained specialists uncovering truths about the nature of the physical world and applying those truths to answer questions.
Magic is about highly trained specialists accessing human emotional frequencies to resolve conflict within people's lives.
This explains why Magick was taken over by Civilization and turned into Religion, to control it. If people can solve their own problems they don't need Civilization. So it was manipulated. But Magick still exists, and you can still use it.
Use Magick to deal with and let go of your fear of failing as an artist, so you can finally begin to practice again and get better, so you can succeed as one.
Use Magick, to contact your grandma, and tell her how much you miss her, and remember the jokes she used to tell, and to remember the smell of her cooking, because you still love her even though she's gone. Yeah, I'm crying right now, I wasn't even that close with my grandma, who must I be thinking about? Maybe I should go use Magick to delve into myself and figure that out so I can deal with it!
That's all Magick is. Dealing with it.
