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When I write, it’s often to figure out how to explain a topic. That’s definitely the case with this visualization series, and as I’m sketching it out, I’m realizing that yesterday’s post was the wrong entry point yesterday. So, let me start anew, and talk about just what it is we’re doing when we do magick.
Specifically, the idea that nothing “just happens.”
Say you follow a standard Chaos Magick model. In that case, your magick works by creating an intent in your mind, packaging it in some way, delivering it to an Egregore, which then influences the physical world — lottery balls, weather, peoples’ decisions, etc — to cause the desired change.
Or maybe you follow Ananael’s quantum model. In that case, your mind turns your thoughts into a probability wave, makes some path for that wave to follow, transmits the wave to the object you’re affecting. The wave then alters the physical state of that object.
Or maybe you follow my model, with mental muscles and ethereal software and all.
The particular model doesn’t matter for this post. The point is, magick doesn’t just happen. There are a lot of steps along the way. And each of those steps has sub-steps: How does your mind deliver your intent to the Egregore? How does your mind package an idea into a probability wave? How does the ethereal software know how to heal, and what energy signature to use? You can break any step down into substeps.
We might not know what those steps are, and mages might not even be aware of most of them. We might disagree on exactly how magick works, or even the gross model. But hopefully, we all agree that there are some underlying mechanics to magick, and that each step can be described in smaller steps. Hopefully, once you think about it, this simply seems obvious.
This is the starting point of our discussion on visualization. Really, this is the starting point of all my thinking about direct magick, and magick in general. More coming tomorrow.
Other posts in this series:- Visualization is Overrated (August 25, 2012)
- The Many Substeps of Magick (August 25, 2012)
- Some Magick Won't Come Naturally (August 28, 2012)
- Why We Need Unintuitive Magick (August 29, 2012)
- Directing vs Perceiving Magick (September 2, 2012)
- Visualizations Direct (But Don't See) Magick (September 3, 2012)
- What I Do Instead of Visualization (September 5, 2012)
- The 3 Ways I Direct My Mental Muscles (September 8, 2012)
- How I Develop New Techniques (September 12, 2012)
Tags: Models
Everything you mention here is why I apply a process perspective to magical work. If you want to know how magic works, you need to understand the underlying principles, and not just the overt actions that a person does. That’s true for other areas of life as well.
Well put. Couldn’t agree more.