Magick of Thought

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I’d thought writing a book would be like writing a long blog series, but there is a ton of work to organize your material upfront. Thanks for bearing with me as I figure this out.

My first couple outlines weren’t bad, but they didn’t really captured what I wanted to discuss. But third time’s the charm, and at this point, I have a structure that feels good enough to start writing (though I’ll probably change it as I go). It’s divided into five sections, plus an intro and conclusion:

Intro

Who I am, what direct magick is, and the layout of the book. Standard stuff, taken from my front page and about page. I’ll probably write this last.

Part 1: Connecting My Terms to Your Terms

This idea came from Ananael, who asked me to step him through the LBRP in my model. That’s a great way to introduce people to my style. I’ll cover one style per chapter: Hermeticism (with the LBRP), channeled energy healing, psychic intuitions, and a few more. For each, I’ll explain their magick in my model, with a couple of tips to get better results based on my model. (It’s important to have a reward early, to get people to read, and to show that my models have some value.) For anyone who’s never done any magick, I’ll have an energy meditation, followed by the same explanation of what it is you’re feeling.

The styles should be widespread and standardized. Enochian is a match, prayers to superman is not. The goal is that everyone is familiar with at least one styles I cover. Readers would probably only read about styles they are familiar with. The goal isn’t to cover all the magick of that style, just one common practice so they have a concrete way to connect to my terms.

Got a recommendation for a style or particular practice to cover? Let me know.

A lot of these models will be quite contrary to the conventional explanation, so I’ll need a quick introduction to this section, too. It will suggest that you only read the chapters for styles you practice, and suggesting that you just treat this as a speculative model for the moment, with a promise to show you why I believe these things later in the book. I can’t convince readers of my model up front, but at least I can acknowledge that I’d be skeptical, too, and ask them to bear with me.

By the end of part one, readers should have a passing familiarity with the major pieces of my models: Ethereal software, connections, energy, signatures, mental muscles, etc. They might not know how to work with each of those, but they should at least know what the words mean.

Part 2: Using Ethereal Software More Effectively

Since most styles of magick use ethereal software, the biggest bang for your buck comes from learning to use ethereal software better. This section is about getting better results from the magick you already do. (Faster, more precise, etc.) It will follow the outline of what I taught Lisa, up to the point where she had to learn to awaken her mental muscles.

I’ll include some new ethereal software, tied to a sigil, for you to experiment with. You would use it along with any ethereal software you already use.

Part 3: A Tour of Direct Magick

Before, we were focused on getting you immediately useful techniques. Now, it’s time to explore the model, and for me to show you the things I saw that lead me to this model. I’ll give you exercises to find all the different parts of direct magick, along with a useful technique for each. The focus of this section, though, is on exploring magick and seeing the parts of the model for yourself, so you can make up your own mind about it.

I’ll write each chapter independently — mental muscles, ethereal software, connections, energy, etc — then see which chapters depend on which others, and organize it based on that.

Part 4: Techniques Unique to Direct Magick

Most readers will already know at least one traditional style of magick. So, rather than replicating skills you already have, we’ll focus on the parts of direct magick that you won’t find in most styles: Awakening mental muscles, techniques for sensory connections, and so on. The focus will be on using these techniques to complement the magick you do already. I’ll figure out the exact list of techniques after getting through the other sections, but broadly, sections 4 and 5 will cover the earlier list of techniques I’d made.

Part 5: Creating New Techniques

This is the real point for me: Using direct magick to understand how your ethereal software implements your instructions, and improving on what it does. I’ll cover techniques I’ve already developed, but the focus will be on how I developed them (and how you can develop your own techniques), rather than just having you copy my techniques.

Conclusion

What to do next with your direct magick practice, where I see magick going, and other closing thoughts.

That’s a Big Book

After putting this outline together, I read it and felt intimidated. This is a much larger book that I initially imagined writing, and I wasn’t sure I could do it. But then I made a plan: Blog each chapter. (There’s nothing in here I can’t blog as a one-off post.) Paste them all into a word doc. (I’m good at ctrl-c.) Then edit the whole thing into something cohesive afterward. (Editing an already-written book takes a lot of time, but it’s not intimidating.)

Depending on how long sections 1 and 2 are, I might pause there to turn those sections into a book before moving on. I’ll distribute it as a free PDF first, then turn it into a paper book after everything is done.

Next

Next, I’m going to write section 2, on using ethereal software more effectively. This will also answer a lot of recent questions from my comments, so it works well.

Why not start with section 1? I want my report on each style to grow from direct observation, rather than speculation based on my model. Which means I’ll need to attend some rituals. Shouldn’t be too hard to do over the next six months, but I don’t want it to delay the rest of the book.

Other posts in this series:

• Final-ish Book Outline (April 30, 2012)
• How I'm Self-Publishing a Magick Book (March 20, 2012)
• Who is My Book For? (April 15, 2012)
• The Main Skills for Direct Magick (March 24, 2012)

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

Tags: Book Publishing, Learning Magick, Writing

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2012 at 3:46 PM and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.