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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781564144959 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2001 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 975,047 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d) |
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CHAPTER 1
Magick and Wiccan Spellcraft
Do you want to be Pharaoh or do you want to be a cowering slave?
Magick started with our first observation of the universe. Like science, magick is a way of explaining the amazing things we observe in the natural world. Thousands of years later, Pharaoh (or some other poser) warned that he would blot out the sun. His people were terrified. Without the sun, crops would fail and people would starve. When the day became night at Pharaoh's command, it was the magick that made slaves cower and masters beg. Well, it was magick to anyone who did not understand the natural laws that govern a solar eclipse.
Wiccans and other nature-based religions see absolutely nothing supernatural about magick. The very idea that we believe in a difference between magick and science is insulting. Our religious views are not how we explain the supernatural because we do not believe that anything exists that is supernatural. Naturally we believe that magick really works because it is a system of understanding the very real natural world.
The word magick is just a word that is used to describe natural laws that we are not yet aware of or do not fully understand. Once that law has been discovered, the event is typically called science. I'll let you in on a little secret: Your local occult store will sell you a green candle that can reportedly fill your pockets with money. If you honestly believe the candle will bring you money, it will bring you money. But that magick is not a function of the candle. It is a function of your mind. If your mind expects results, you will generate results.
This does not mean you must believe a spell will work for that spell to cause change. The science of subliminal messages shows us that we can affect the minds of people who are completely unaware of the process. Likewise, the magick of scent and other stimuli can be used to affect our minds and the minds of those on which we cast our spells.
Magickal Guideline: Stupid spells will work for stupid people
The phenomenon of subliminal messages can be called stupid spells work for stupid people. Chances are the green candle will work if you are gullible enough to believe it will, but very few people are that stupid. Instead of blindly believing in the power of the green wax, most people purchase the candle because they think it won't hurt. Such a driving force is entirely too impotent to cause the manifestation of intent. This is why most spells do not work. Speaking as the owner of one of the largest pagan shops in the Midwest, I have to let you in on a little secret. With only the exception of the few customers who are mostly brain dead, the only ones I see making money off this practice are the store owners. Do you really think a lump of green wax controls your level of wealth? Do you really want your level of wealth controlled by a lump of green wax? What would happen if your former wife had a lump of black wax and wasn't happy with the terms of your divorce? Running a retail store is very hard work. If almost any other shopkeeper or I had special candles that could fill our pockets with money, we would not be selling them for $5.99. The magick is not found in the candle. It is found in the mind and your intent.
Just like Pharaoh's subjects, such tricks are only really magick to the uninformed. You might think this ranks Pharaoh's people with the truly gullible. In all truth they were, but that's not a bragging point. Our modern culture is almost as ignorant as any that has ever graced this Earth. Trust me on this one; I sell a lot of green candles. The sum total of today's human knowledge is only marginally greater than that of the most primitive society. Only a fool would believe he understands anything more than a tiny portion of the natural laws that operate the universe. This leaves the greatest portion of our world unexplained. That is where we find magick, in the unexplained. The process of magick is kin to the process of science because both are attempts to understand natural laws. The only real difference between the two is that science is generally thought to fully understand these laws. I say generally because science cannot always explain what takes place inside a laboratory, much less the whole of the universe. Science once taught that the sun revolved around the Earth and that the flow of electricity was exactly the opposite of how it is taught today. Science has been wrong before, and it will be wrong again.
Before meeting my lover one night, I wanted to do something that would better my odds of an amorous evening. I rubbed a few drops of patchouli oil onto my wrists. While rubbing my wrists together, I visualized our bodies rubbing together. That night, our passion found a new peak.
Was it magick? Guidelines of magick and spellcraft have included lust as one of the powers of patchouli for a very long time. Knowing that part of the lore of patchouli is that it inspires lust, I have deliberately observed the way my lovers have responded with and without the scent. Even if I cannot explain the properties of patchouli in a scientific manner, I can still study its effects and predict the outcome of its use within an acceptable risk. It is magick!
Was it science? Chances are, in just a moment the lust attribute of patchouli will no longer be magick. Patchouli tends to inspire lust in women, but only when worn by a man. It appears that the scent of patchouli either mimics or heightens natural male pheromones. So, if you believe my assessment of how patchouli works, most of it is no longer magick. I say most of it because the volume of different responses the human mind has to the scent of patchouli is probably larger than the human race will ever be able to catalog. Just about everything that is magick has elements that are science, and just about everything that is science has elements that are magick. Which word we use is just a matter of our perception.
The essential oil of patchouli was only one of the agents involved in causing my intent to manifest. The oil simply helped to establish an environment favorable to my intent. It increased the odds that I would be successful at manifesting my intent. The real magick can be found in the mind that created the intent and the mind that was influenced by the intent. This is the basis for a great amount of what we call magick. I consider it the single most important guideline in magick.
Magickal guideline: Internal visualizations tend to manifest in external tangibles
What we think tends to come true. More precisely, the thought of an event may not be enough to bring that event into manifestation, but that thought is enough to change the probability of the event taking place. Even though we use only a portion of our mind, it is a very powerful tool of both science and magick. Some of the most successful people may use as much as 10 percent of their minds, but the great majority of us use far less. What if we could use that extra 90 percent? If we can't access that other 90 percent, what if we could better focus the 10 percent that we do use?
There are countless examples of the mind causing both internal and external manifestations. I found an amusing example on the label of a popular antacid. The label claimed that the product was "twice as effective as placebo." This did not mean the antacid was twice as good as nothing. Placebo is a very powerful medicine. It is the invocation of the mind to heal the body. What that label said was that without any practice or training, our mind will bring about half of the cure. The medicine is twice as good as placebo because we cannot remove the placebo effect. We cannot turn off our minds, but if we could and we were able to see the medicine act without the assistance of the mind, we would see only half the effect. If the label was accurate, this would be roughly equal to placebo. Hence, the mind is just as effective as the medicine, but using both produces the best results.
Our ability to heal with the mind is not limited to only our own bodies. Studies have been clear that prayer will induce healing. In a study reported by Marilyn Elias in USA Today in March 1998, Elisabeth Targ of California Pacific Medical Center divided 40 equally ill AIDS patients into two groups. One group received prayer from volunteers; the other did not. Neither group of patients knew about the prayer. After six months, it was determined that the group that was prayed for spent an average of 10 days in the hospital, while the group that was not prayed for spent 68 days in the hospital.
(Source: Power of prayer passes muster in AIDS study, Marilyn Elias, USA Today, Arlington, VA; Mar 12, 1998, pg. 1d)
* * *
My Catholic mother might say that this result was divine intervention. She is right! The cross between Catholic prayer and Wiccan spells can be found in the different concepts of divinity. Wiccans do not believe in a supernatural god who watches us from his seat in heaven. Although Wiccans and Catholics worship the same creator, our archetype of that creator is distinctly different so the formats of our prayers are different. We view divinity as a natural part of all living things. We see the creator as both eminent (external) and immanent (internal). Every man is God. Every woman is Goddess. It is impossible for you to think without prayer because thou art god. If that is too much to swallow, consider yourself a part of god. At a minimum, you are the lesser deity that controls your own reality. Thus, anything you do to cause intervention in your reality is divine intervention.
Knowledge of the mind's ability to cause change is not new. It has been accepted by both ancient and modern culture. It has been studied, documented, and developed. In feudal Japan, archers practiced a principle of Zen. Before the arrow was released, the archer knew it would strike its target. Why? Because he had already seen it happen in his mind. He visualized the arrow meeting its mark before he released, maybe even before he drew. The power of positive thinking is taught at entrepreneur seminars where the motto is "Think and grow rich." Today's spiritual leaders with instructions to "visualize world peace" have tapped combining the power of many minds.
Why then do we not have world peace? Without discussing war, how many newspaper articles discuss peace? How many movies are made about peace? Each day, how many people do you think visualize peace and how many visualize war?
Leading minds in the field of quantum mechanics believe we cannot observe an event without influencing that event. Go a little bit further left than the typical quantum physicist and you can find scientific theory that human consciousness defines and redefines the universe. Now there is a scary thought. Consciousness defines the universe, but we do not control our consciousness. If every stray thought were to manifest, how long would a man remain faithful to his wife?
The ability to cause manifestation is directly related to our effort and skill. This is good because it prevents us from accidentally burning down our homes when we think of bonfires. But don't let it fool you. We are not safe from our own minds. Because manifestations don't tend to be as dramatic as sword and sorcery movies, we have virtually ignored the daily manifestations that do happen. A lack of skill does not mean the untrained mind is unable to cause large manifestations and changes. It just means the manifestations will not be guided by clear intent. Changing the tiniest of things can cause great changes in our lives. The difference between a perfectly healthy mind and suicidal depression is only a tiny change in brain chemistry.
A great portion of this mastery is simply learning what our true intent is. Instead of running haphazardly through our lives, accepting the state of being that our every whim deals, we can determine what it is that we intend to accomplish and then determine the best method to achieve that intent while avoiding the daily whims that seek to distract us.
Even the slightest whim can certainly cause difficulty in our lives. Mentally healthy people do not deliberately sabotage their own lives, but causing undesired manifestations is as easy as self-doubt. Reverse the visualization conducted by the Zen archer. What would happen if he visualized the arrow missing the target?
If we can cause health through a positive mental image, surely we can cause illness with a negative mental image. Referring back to the placebo example, if we take a sugar pill thinking it will make us well, we tend to become well. What if we take the same sugar pill thinking it will make us sick? We have the ability to manifest both creative and destructive influences on our health. Medical science has accepted this as fact for many years. The phenomenon is commonly called psychosomatic illness.
Remember those studies on prayer. If keeping another person's health in our mind will cause their health to improve, what happens when we keep a person's illness in our mind? If a parent constantly worries about his child becoming ill, chances are his child will become ill.
Once the manifestation has taken place, it is difficult to end. When we perceive an illness with our senses, those perceptions become a mental image. Because the thought of a sick person will tend to manifest a sick person, we can see another important magickal guideline taking shape.
Magickal Guideline: Like attracts like
Most men have experienced the "taken man" syndrome. When you are not in a relationship, women don't seem interested in you. But when you are in a relationship, women start to notice you. When that relationship becomes serious, women really start to notice you. The more committed the relationship becomes, the more women seem to want you. If only we had a cosmic hold button.
There are no coincidences, but there are patterns. You attract more women who want a relationship with you when you have the clear image of a relationship with a woman. Being in a relationship automatically generates that clear mental image. The mind works in both directions. What you see inside the mind tends to manifest outside the mind. What you see outside the mind tends to manifest inside the mind. If there is a woman in your life, your mind will tend to manifest women in your life. If you are surrounded by poverty, you will tend to manifest poverty. Your mind acts on all that you perceive. The more you consider a situation, the more attached you become to that situation.
If it were only that simple, you could think of something and it would happen. But controlling the mind is not nearly that simple. Try thinking about anything for more than a moment or two. Try concentrating on one thing and absolutely nothing else. How long until you have to scratch or cough? How long until the position you are sitting in becomes painful?
A good way to gauge and improve your ability to concentrate is to close your eyes and visualize a cube floating in a sea of nothing. Concentrate on that cube and nothing else. Assign a color to each face of the cube. Concentrate on that one object for as long as you can without thinking of anything else. In your mind, rotate the cube horizontally and then vertically. Can you remember the colors for each of the six sides? As the cube rotates, do the colors of the faces come up in a set pattern as they would if the cube was tangible? How many times can you rotate the cube before the color patters become different? How many minutes can you think of the cube and absolutely nothing else? As these numbers go up, your ability to control your mind will increase.
What we hold in our minds can also be detrimental to our goals. Even if you are able to visualize intent with absolute clarity, how many times during that same day will your mind drift onto doubt that will defeat the visualization? If you spend an hour visualizing success and an hour visualizing failure, where do you think you will be? Zero plus one minus one is zero!
If you don't like your job, how long can you go without thinking about it? Are you in a bad relationship, low on money, or sick of your roommate? The more you think about something, the more likely it is to manifest even when it is something you truly do not desire. Your relationship will get worse, your money will become less, and that roommate will invite his brother to live with you.
Try not thinking about the forefinger on your right hand. How long can you go without thinking about that finger? Carry a notepad for one day. In it, record each time you think of the forefinger on your right hand. Do your very best to keep it out of your mind and count how many times it finds its way back inside. As you improve your abilities to keep things out of your mind, the number will decrease.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Wicca Spellcraft for Men"
by .
Copyright © 2001 A.J. Drew.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword,
Introduction: Wicca Is Not a Fashion Statement,
Section I: Magick and Spellcraft in Theory,
Chapter 1: Magick and Wiccan Spellcraft,
Chapter 2: Men, Wicca, and Spellcraft — Thou Art God,
Chapter 3: Warnings and Ethics in Wiccan Spellcraft,
Section II: Magick and Spellcraft in Practice,
Chapter 4: To Cause Internal Change,
Chapter 5: To Cause External Change,
Chapter 6: To Cause Etheric Change,
Section III: Magick and Spellcraft in Lore,
Chapter 7: Magickal Incense and Tinctures,
Chapter 8: Magickal Oils,
Chapter 9: Miscellaneous Magickal Lore,
A Final Word,
Appendix A: Contact Information for Organizations,
Appendix B: Spellcraft Sources,
Bibliography,
Index,
About the Author,