Who Makes the Grass Green?
Why you shouldn't sell yourself short in magical practice.
Everyone is trying to sell you something.
There are the obvious things, the things that you see ads for on TV or on a website. These are more or less clearly marked and easily ignored. Then there are the cultural norms that have a momentum of their own, often pressuring or guilting people into conformity. These are much harder to ignore, but still possible with enough determination and a healthy amount of bravery. A third category is more insidious, thought viruses that you don’t know have shaped your perceptions and actions. The thing they sell are persuasive and insidious ideas, and it’s hard to avoid what you don’t know is manipulating you.
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on Reddit in the ask astrologers and occult subreddits that go approximately like this: “Can you please tell me if <insert placement> is making me <insert personality trait>?” Or, in a similar vein, “Can someone please tell me if I’m doing magick, or something else?” It seems that people have it in their heads that someone must tell them if they are doing things right or wrong, as if there is such as thing.
No blame can be dealt to the average Redditor making these posts, because the problem stems from the virus that has infiltrated the way we think of ourselves in relation to the esoteric. This particular virus has told us two things: We aren’t qualified, and we can’t tell what is magical and what is not.
The first part of the virus tells us we aren’t qualified.
This is not exclusive to the esoteric world. The problem more or less lies in how society has been structured, especially in the western workplace. Most of us are familiar with companies that have a top down hierarchal structure that administers power and authority from above. This has conditioned many of us to look to a superior for permission to proceed, because we are told we are not qualified to do so on our own. It is no surprise that many bring this worldview into the esoteric community. We have told ourselves that we are not qualified to conduct our magical affairs with confidence, because there is some ever-shifting Ipsissimus level of wizardry we must first attain before we are somehow perfected enough. Only then, will we be capable of the real arte magick. See also: imposter syndrome.
Let’s not confuse beginner’s anxiety with what we are talking about here. There is always a learning curve to any new skill, and it is beneficial to ask questions and hear other people’s experiences when learning to do it yourself. The issue lies in the cronic lack of confidence many have with critically looking at their own work and judging for themselves if it is effective or not.
Magick, the occult and astrology are built on a foundation of texts stretching back hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. People tend to take these tomes very seriously. Without discounting their value, I’d like to propose a shift in perspective that might change minds on the reverence given to the old works.
Most extant magical, occult and astrological texts were once just someone’s magical journal. They were at one point simply one person’s record of their personal observations and ideas. That’s it.
Not to say that there isn’t value in the old books, there is. It’s putting them and their authors on a pedestal that is problematic.
The key to disengaging the first half of the virus from the machinery of our minds is to realize that Eliphas Levi was just a person doing what he thought was getting him results. Aleister Crowley was just a person writing things down that were working for him. Bonatti, Buddha and Blavatsky all shared the commonality of finding a system that worked for them and then they wrote it down. You can do that too.
Don’t worry about messing it up, saying the words wrong, or anything like that. Hell, even better to make up your own words and say them how you want.
I want to make a quick sidebar about magical systems. There is nothing inherently wrong with the choice to work within a specific system, like the Golden Dawn or Thelema or Hellenistic astrology or one of your own making. The key word is choice. A conscious and considered choice to take part in a system is different from a blind and thoughtless following of dogma of any type.
Really the only requirement for knowing if you are doing it right is, did it work? Yes or no? It doesn’t matter if it worked for Crowley, or a thousand other people before you. If it doesn’t work for you, then it doesn’t work. That’s fine. Find something that does work for you and do that. Only you are the authority on the matter. This extends to most things in life, regardless of their esoteric status, which leads me to the next point.
The second part of the virus tells us that some acts are magical, and some are not.
What makes a ritual different from reading poetry aloud? What separates burning a candle for spellwork from burning it to make your house smell nice? Is it intent? What if my house smells funny and my intent is to transform it into a house that smells pleasant?
Crowley famously defined magick as “the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.” My will is to light the candle and dispense with the bad smell!
You can be a magician and do absolutely no spellwork, no ritual and read no occult books. This is because all of the above listed are artificial constructs that gatekeep the definition of what is magick. I can make hiking a trail at my local park more magical than the most elaborate ritual ever could be. I could make the Rites of Eleusis more boring and stale than doing my taxes. The common denominator in all of this is you.
There is a Zen saying:
Who is the great master, the magician that makes the grass green?
It’s not Crowley, Levi, Regardie or anyone else you could name. It’s not your superior in whatever magical order. It’s not a YouTube guru or some dusty old long dead philosopher.
It’s you!
You are the experiencer and the experienced. When you boil it all down, that’s all there really is. There is not some imaginary border between mundane and ritual unless we say so. There are instances when it is productive to do so, but it is not the rule unless we want it to be.
This part of the virus is easy to dispense with, once we realize it is there. We are our own limit when it comes to defining magical practice. What is magical is magical, what is not is not. Sometimes the bird flying over is an omen, sometimes it isn’t. Trust yourself to know what is what.
Once we recognize these two parts of the same problem, we are able to stop it from spreading in the wild, or at the very least stop ourselves from being infected by it. There is a large segment of the magical world that has become monetized and relies on the spread of this virus to keep itself alive. Paying hundreds of dollars for special candles and trinkets falls well within this category because it relies on those who do not have enough confidence in their own skills. Even if it takes a little work, or research, or just a little bit of improvisation, your results will be just as good and your knowledge and confidence in yourself will be that much greater at the end of it. Just as there is no boundary between the mundane and the magical unless we say so, there is no mystical boundary between a regular candle and a fancy one we ordered from the internet, other than what we decide is so.
Praxis
Here is a fun one: Take a regular everyday item and impart upon it the highest magical potency you can muster. For example, if you have a stack of post-it notes on your desk at work, imagine this post-it has the supreme power to manifest into reality anything written upon it. Write your wishes on it and take note of what happens.
Here is another: If you know a ritual, perform it with an attitude of silliness. Does it still have the same effectiveness? What is the result?
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