From Novice To Adept: Understanding The Basic Principles Of Magic

 Today I'd like to talk about some basic principles of magic. Magic is the science and art of using unseen forces to create changes in consciousness and the physical world aligned with an individual's will. When you read about magic, it can seem very complicated. Sometimes beginners get confused and overwhelmed with different concepts, and that's why I think it's very important to approach magic with fundamentals first, if you understand the basic fundamentals, the complex topics are much easier to understand.

Because you can break them down into their component parts and not feel overwhelmed by them. Starting out with a lot of complexity and then trying to make sense of it is not the most productive way of studying anything, especially not magic first and foremost, A magician's perspective of the universe itself is a non materialistic worldview.

Most magicians view the universe as being filled with unseen forces beyond what our physical senses can perceive. The physical world, thus is seen as a manifestation of these invisible forces. It's not that we're hooing the material world when we say that it's a non materialistic viewpoint. We view the material world as an effect and the invisible world as a cause.

The universe is seen as a cohesive system with patterns that can be deciphered using basic principles such as the hermetic principles. Speaking of the hermetic principles, one of those basic principles that most magicians will adhere to on some level or another. Is the maxim as above so below as above so below explains the connection between the macrocosm and the microcosm, the invisible versus the visible world.

The origin of that teaching, along with many of the other hermetic principles can be found in the Emerald tablet. We look at the universe as existing through a unifying energy that pervades all existence and is present within everything. Our relationship with this force determines our level of success in our magic we perceive, and then harness this field of energy.

Align it with our desires and magical effects. Stem from the skilled application of this universal force. Contrary to popular belief, magic has nothing to do with supernatural forces. It has to do with natural forces. There is nothing above nature. There is nothing supernatural. There's only that which is invisible.

But invisible doesn't mean not part of nature. It's the causative side of nature. There is no place that is not natural in any part of the universe in learning how to harness these forces. We are sometimes creating results that others may perceive as being supernatural, but that's just because they don't understand what we're doing.

The people that desire supernatural abilities are desiring something that doesn't exist. If you are getting very practical with your magic and you understand that many things that appear to be supernatural to the untrained eye are extremely natural, bridging the gap between that which is seen and that which is unseen happens through practice.

Ultimately, there is nothing that is outside of our sphere of influence, nothing, because there is nothing different about our energy. Any other cosmic energy in the world. When we are stripped of our ego minds and our bodies and our personalities and any sense of limitation, we are just as powerful as any other force in the world.

So ultimately speaking, there's nothing that's outside of our sphere of influence, but practically speaking, that's not true. Practically speaking, we are involved in a closed system here, existing in bodies and in personalities, in ego structures that are extremely limited. And just denying those things and pretending that they don't exist doesn't make them go away.

I. The only way to let go of those limitations is by allowing ourselves to be right where we are and take it one step at a time. You don't dissolve your ego mind in one fell swoop. It happens over time. I. And it's not that the ego mind is an enemy. It's a habit that tends to keep us stuck. It craves status quo and it doesn't like change.

So it wants us to stay the way we think we are. I. So change sometimes can seem very slow because of that, and magic seeks to accelerate that change by putting us in touch with the powers that exist outside of that closed system. This can happen in an instant, but for most of us, it has to happen gradually.

So our magical sphere of influence tends to grow over time. As we allow ourselves to dissolve more and more of our limitations of what we think is possible for us. We have practical results that reflect that, and that's how our magical sphere of influence increases over time. That is really up to us.

Similar to how a person that wants to excel in a musical skill, it's up to them how well they practice and how frequently they practice. They. Become very good very quickly. If they're following certain principles or people that go into fitness, their bodies become more and more fit over time based on how committed they are to those activities and following principles and protocols.

And the same goes with magic. Our sphere of influence increases as we are committed to practicing and following certain principles and protocols. Invariably, part of what comes up when we talk about magic is the consideration of ethics. And that's because there's a lot of propaganda about magic being a sin and injunctions supposedly in the Bible about it, which we can talk about at a different time because a lot of those are misunderstood.

Then there's the Hollywood aspect of it. There's the graphic novel aspect of it. There's all kinds of fiction about what magic is that many people just believe. And unfortunately, many people that are drawn to magic want to believe as well. They want those fictional stories to be real. Then you have the Magi who are committed to the ancient practices that we are describing, and they're usually not that interesting to the people either that are against magic or the people that really want the stories to be true.

It isn't scary. There aren't the kinds of practices and beliefs that have been made up. Most people who are part of this ancient practice are searching for wisdom and they're searching to increase and expand their magical sphere of influence. They are looking for peace and harmony and enlightenment.

Most people that are sincerely practicing the ancient science of the Magi in whatever iteration are not interested in harming other people with their magic. But that's not to say it doesn't exist, but think of magic as a neutral force. Water's a neutral force. Water can drown people. Water can also cleanse people.

Electricity can light your home up, it can electrocute you and kill you. Money can buy you wonderful things, but people murder over money. These things are neutral. I. But how they're used can be bad. And the same thing goes with anything including magic. Magic is a method of working with unseen forces in order to produce results.

And if somebody takes the principles of using unseen forces to produce physical results and decides the the physical results they want is to hurt somebody, they're practicing magic in a way that's harmful. I call that attack magic. I don't like the word black magic and white magic. If I used black candles and wore a lot of black and was really into black, that doesn't mean that I wanna hurt people.

It doesn't necessarily mean I wanna hurt people. But then you get all these people that are into white and wearing white and white light and stuff, and they can be just as vicious as anybody else, but. Authentic Magic is not usually oriented toward harming people. That's not to say that people don't use it to harm people, but it's not the norm, and there is that which is popularly known as the Threefold Law or the Law of Comeback.

It's important to understand what that is. When we create a thought form and we project it out onto the screen of space to manifest, when it manifests, it seems to expand. It seems to be stronger than what it was when we, then we cast it out there, and that's a good thing. We want it to be stronger because it needs to be strong so that it can manifest.

So by the time it quote comes back to us, it seems to be more than what we first projected out onto the screen of space. That's how manifestation works. It's the law of increase, it's the law of expansion. What we think about expands. It's the expansive nature of the mind, but this idea that something's leaving your mind when you cast a spell and then coming back to you is somewhat misguided because there's no place for it to go.

Your mind is your mind and your mind encompasses your entire experience. Past, present, future. It's bigger than the globe. Your mind is huge. So it's not that it's leaving you and coming back to you multiplied. It's just multiplying. By the time it gets into physical manifestation, it appears that it's come back, but it never left you.

Where would it go? So the same is true for attack magic. By the time it multiplies, it may harm somebody, but it can't help but harm you too. Because you're part of it. It's part of you. It's not going to leave you and only affect the person that you want it to hurt. It's gonna affect you as well because there's no place for it to go.

It may appear to come back on you with three times the pain that you sent out, but that's just an illusion. It never left you in the first place. It had nowhere to go. That's your energy. It's your thought form. It knows who you are because you created it. The idea that it comes back to you times three is good for some people to say, okay, do I really want this?

Am I being manipulative about this? Is this gonna cause harm to this person? But most people don't wanna hurt others. Sometimes we'll have a fleeting thought. Ugh, I just like to smack him. But most of the time when we are taking the time to create a thought for him, which takes a lot of effort, by the way, it takes a lot of skill and practice to do all of that in order to harm another person.

Most of us aren't interested in that, and those who do go through it. And decide that it's worth the so-called punishment that they're gonna receive. It's not my job to police, which is why I don't like the Wiccan read. The Wiccan read says eight words. The Wiccan read, fulfill, and it harm none. Do what you will.

I don't need you to tell me not to harm somebody. I'm not going to. If I want to, I'm the one that would have to pay for that. Not you, but most of us aren't gonna go out attacking people, and if you don't realize that, you're going to have to pay the price for that. I don't know where you got your education, because usually by the time you're good enough at creating thought forms that would enable you to attack another person, you would already know how magic works.

This is why it's important for us, for the most part, when we're studying magic, to keep a healthy mindset, to keep healthy self-esteem, to keep a healthy idea of wanting the best for all around us. The whole idea of the golden rule, it's a very positive way of living. It's the way that most magicians live their lives.

I've noticed, because they understand that you don't have to create a thought form. In order to bless somebody, you don't have to put a spell on them in order to bless them, but when you're blessing them, like we said before, it comes back to you because it never left you. So if you're living your life blessing, then your life is going to be blessed.

If you live your life cursing, your life is going to be cursed. It's just pretty easy. So having that healthy mindset is a smart idea. After a while, it becomes normal for you just because you understand how things work. But the other part of magic too, that I think isn't talked about enough, especially with students, is that you shouldn't believe any of it.

Don't believe anything that anybody tells you. You can accept that there's a principle that is being given to you, but if you don't test it out and prove it to yourself, it's meaningless. Then all you are doing is operating on belief and systems of belief are weak. Belief systems are not as strong as knowledge.

If you went into a court of law and you had to put your hand up and take an oath and somebody asked you, did so and so come to your house on such and such a date, and you say, I believe so, that's not good testimony. Do you know or don't you know the more you live in this realm of, I believe, I hope that's not very magical.

You have to test things for yourself and have verifiable proof for yourself that a principle is real. So whatever you're learning, when you're studying magic, respect it and suspend disbelief possibly for a moment. But doing that to test it. To put it to the test. And if it's a true principle, it will prove itself to you Have that natural, healthy skepticism about all of it.

The best and most effective magicians are ones that are coming from a point of view of, I'm going to test this out for myself and see not so much cynicism. That's different than skepticism, but simply I'm going to suspend disbelief long enough to really give this a fair trial. I'm going to do these things that I'm being taught, and if I get results, then that's my proof.

If I didn't get results, I'll ask the teacher why. If they're able to troubleshoot it and we can fix it, and then I get results, great. But I don't just believe blindly. There are several beliefs that have just become popular, like the whole idea of that you must use Sage to cleanse your space. I don't use sage.

I cleanse my space all the time, but I don't use sage. I don't like the way it smells. Somebody was arguing with me the other day about saying the word smudge. You can't say smudge when you cleanse. 'cause I say smudge all the time. You can't say smudge when you cleanse because you're appropriating Native American rituals and they don't want you to do that.

But see that there's that belief. And I said, but that's not true. Smudge is an English word, not a Native American word. There's not one Native American language with the word smudge. So there's a lot of beliefs out there that you have to just question. It's also important with magic that we develop a magical identity, a part of our personality, that we may not keep up in our day-to-day affairs just because it's so pure.

But while we're working magic, we want to live in this idealized person. And that's why a lot of people will adopt a magical name. It's not necessary, by the way. You don't need to adopt a magical name, but many people do when they identify with that name. They're able to leave their day-to-day personality behind for a few minutes while they're working on their magic.

All of the history that is connected to their old personality, they can just put that to the side while they're working their magic and exist in a more pure state of who they are as divine expressions. Another real basic part of magic is the idea of levels of the mind. I. We use arbitrary levels that have been around for a long time.

The threefold mind is what I was trained in, the superconscious mind, the surface mind, and the deep mind. The deep mind is that unconscious or subconscious part of ourselves that communicates in symbols, that is part of our dream world, that is connected with the totality of the world, that doesn't interact with the world the way our surface mind does.

I. The surface mind is the smallest part of our mind, the logical part that thinks it's the boss that thinks it's the biggest part of who we are. It's where our personality lies. It's constantly thinking. If your mind races, it's your surface mind that's having racing thoughts. It's where your ego mind is constructed.

Your ego is your surface mind is an important part of the mind while you're living in this body, in this time space continuum, because it exists with the. Third dimension, that's what it does. It only understands what the physical senses report to it, whereas the deep mind doesn't care what your physical senses report to it, 'cause it knows things on a more intuitive level.

Now, the super conscious mind is the soul. That's who you are as a spiritual being. It doesn't engage in the same kind of thinking that our surface mind does. It's the part of the mind that is pure spirit and a direct extension from source. And it's so different than what our surface minds and our deep minds are like that it can seem like a separate entity.

It'll show up in our experiences as a spirit guide or as angels, but it's really your super conscious mind that is in charge of those kinds of experiences. So learning to balance these three minds. Learning how to communicate between them is what magic is all about. And really that's what spells are.

That's what rituals are. That's what talismans are. They're devices of communications between different levels of the mind. In most magical systems, there's a training of the mind, the mind training that is part of it. Learning how to quiet your mind. Learning how to discipline your surface mind, because the more you can discipline the surface mind, the easier it is for you to access your deep mind, which is what you want to access when you want to have things appear in your physical universe.

It's there to keep your life going. So if you want more money or if you want more health, or if you want a new mate or whatever you want, it's your deep mind that's going to give you those things. And so it's important that you learn how to discipline the surface mind in order to communicate with your deep mind, to bring you the things that you want.

And it's also through the deep mind that we access our super conscious mind. The surface mind can't comprehend something that doesn't happen through the five senses, the deep mind and the super conscious mind can work together to bring impressions to the surface mind so that the surface mind can be educated.

But none of that can really happen from the surface mind directly. So balancing the minds, training the minds, that's part of magical training. When you are first learning magic, you have to understand that even though we want you to have healthy skepticism, you also have to give yourself time. Just like playing the piano or any new skill, it may seem like it's taking forever for you to get any good at it.

That's why it's important to have modest expectations of what you can achieve at first. Because you will be having setbacks. You will be having doubts, you will be having failures, which are normal when developing a new skill. That's just part of having a new skill is failure. That's how we get better.

That's how we learn, how we improve, but at the same time, we're building our magical faith. It's so important as a beginner to work within your magical sphere of influence and not try to do things that are too big too soon. Work within that sphere of influence and build your magical faith, and that way you can expand that sphere of influence much more quickly and effectively because you have the skillset to do so.

Especially at the beginning. We want to cultivate confidence in ourselves, faith in our magic, and learn that we achieve success in magic through persistence, focusing on mastering those fundamentals first before trying to do anything too complicated. I hope this has been interesting for you, learning how magic is a skill and that it's through your own discipline practice.

That you will achieve success in this just like any other skill, and that magic is a lifelong study. That's why we say don't dabble in magic. Don't dabble in the occult because you'll never give yourself enough time to master anything or have any success if you're just trying a little of this and a little of that to master magical skills requires dedication and focus, and it requires frequently questioning your belief system entirely.

To accommodate a new desired reality for yourself, and that takes time, persistence, and commitment, and you can do it. If you'd like to read more about magic on our website, we have a suggested reading list for all witches and magicians, and you can get to that by going to Arielscorner.com, and if you hover over the Learn Magic tab on there, you'll see a huge dropdown list.

At the bottom of that dropdown list, you'll see an item called Recommended Reading. I am constantly adding new books in there, but this is a good, basic, general, well-rounded reading list for anybody that's interested in the Oak Cult and witchcraft. I look forward to talking to you again real soon. Until next time, blessed be