UNTITLED MAGIC TEXT v0.1

OUTLINE

WHAT IS MAGIC AND WHY SHOULD YOU CARE

“Magic is an impossible thing to define. It is something felt, something done, and a quality something can have. It is the difference between the house and the home. It is the held hand. It is what we fear about the dark.”

In my time as an occultist, the question I am asked more than anything is “I want to learn, where do I start?” and I have been frustrated for lack of an acceptable answer.

The Occult is a broad and diverse field. There are texts on alchemy, on witchcraft, on spiritualism, and ritual magic, but nothing that quite covers everything an interested mind could be looking for.

If you are interested in magic, welcome. My goal for this text is to give the burgeoning practitioner all of the tools they need to build a practice that feels like their own. ”

A SHORT HISTORY OF MAGIC

Prehistoric magic

• Magic and anthropology

Magic in the ancient world

• Mesopotamia and Egypt (Book of the dead)
• The greco-roman world

Magic in the Middle ages

• Simon Magus
• Isidore of Seville
• Magic and early pogroms
• Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, etc
• Hermetica
• Agrippa

Magic in the renaissance

• Ceremonial Magic
• Alchemy
• Neodruidism

Magic in the modern world

• Blavatsky
• Crowley
• Gardner
• The New Age

THE THEORY OF MAGIC

• The Three Forms of Magic:
  • Transcendence,
  • Transaction,
  • Transformation
• The Five Relationships to magic: ?
  • Dominant force,
  • Magic and Lineage,
  • Magic and religion as equals,
  • Religion dominant magic ambiguous,
  • Science religion magic in that order,
  • a discussion of where we fall.
• The Seven Laws of Magic:
  • Contagion
  • Sympathy
  • Correspondence
  • Resistance
  • Balance
  • Reciprocity
  • Reversal

Types of Spells, The Aims of Magic (Give examples of how people cast these spells in the past)

• Forming Relationships - Thaumaturgy
• Apoptropic Magic - Wardcraft
• Divination - Divination
• Understanding the past - Augury
• Interacting with the dead - Necromancy
• Medicine, Sickness, Health, and Possession - Zoimancy
• Understanding and effecting Transformation - Alchemy and Artifice
• The Manipulation of Desire - Amoramancy
• Harmful Effects - Curses
• Malign Effects - Hexes

BUILDING YOUR CRAFT

• Learn to meditate
• Learn the rules of magic
• If you plan to venerate something, learn about it
• Learn the rules of YOUR magic, not all spell structures are created alike
• Setting up a workspace
• Practice building spells
• Research research research
• 
  

Common sorts of spells

• Intro to summoning
• Intro to Sigilcraft
• Intro to herblore

Building your craft

• Customizing your practice

HOW TO DO RESEARCH

• Start with a google search
• Find a text
• Understand the context of the text
• Understand the author of the text
• Where do these ideas come from?
• What were they used for?
• Is this okay for you to use?
• Avoiding cults
• Red flags
• Avoiding racism and appropriation