Magick 101

It is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I mean intended to produce very definite results.
~ William Burroughs, Essay in Contemporary Artists Magazine

Mage Music 75  

Here it is, everything you need to know, the whole of Magick in one list.

• Understand what Magick is and can do
• Identify your desires
• Engage your will
• Prepare and execute the perfect ritual
• Step into the new reality
• Cement the new reality

What it is

Bare bones: Magick is purposeful use of the raw energy of the Universe. No, not raw as in bare-skin naked. Raw as in not pre-processed, pre-digested or pre-packaged.  Raw as not things, but the stuff things are made of.

Bare as in without covering, without disguise. Unvarnished, without the trappings of mumbo-jumbo that cause confusion. The stark core of power and nothing else.

Magick at its most fundamental: That's where you start.

Honestly?  Anything else is unnecessary. You might think all the people and organizations that speak of What Magick Is and say they know How Magick Works are going to tell you what you need to know, but they aren't. They're only going to tell you their version of things, their niche. And in doing so, they steal potential from you - they steal your power.

This is not to say that there is nothing offered by such groups, but of course the moment you take someone else's truth for your own, you have replaced your own pure truth with something less pure. A cracked, imperfect version, one that serves others as much as yourself. Or maybe serves them more.

Magick is an art, not a religion. Magick can be art.  Knowing truth and expressing it doesn't require a guide. The truth is inside of you. You have direct access to truth and power, all you have to do is take it for yourself.

It's not easy walking that path, though. Everyone is eager to tell you where you're wrong and wants you to do what you're doing a different way. Everyone else is the expert, except for you - but it's your Magick and others can't make your choices for you any more than you can do so for them.

It's lonely walking that path. It’s easier to lean on others, even if their truth isn't yours. But the creation comes from inside you, not outside.  If you are paying more attention to the outside than the inside, you won't be able to find, much less fan, the flame of your own muse.

So you start with the fact that you already know everything you need to know, that you have all the tools you need to have, that you can develop what you need by yourself by doing.  You simply need to locate the path inside you and use it.

The more a person develops the skill set needed for Magick, the greater the Work can be.

Magick is purposeful use of the raw energy of the Universe

Magick works the same for all living beings that have the ability to consciously make choices in this Universe. Where there is purposeful creativity, there is the potential for Magick. The law of Magick is the law of deliberate creation. This is different from the laws of other physical objects in the Universe, even of other living beings, because the law of Magick is one of conscious creation.

The law of Magick opens the physical self to the infinite energy of the Universe.  Theoretically, there are no limits to what Magick can manifest, but in practice what is actually possible to manifest is limited by what a finite being can express of the infinite. Obviously the one can only contain a minuscule fraction of the other, just as cupped hands can only hold a minuscule fraction of the contents of the oceans. 

But... a Mage pushes the envelope of what is possible.

The law is this: As above, so below; as below, so above.  Think on that for a bit while you listen to the music of a Mage.

Evolution

"What is important is that pursuit of something new and capturing that moment."
~ Jimmy Page (from Brad Tolinski's Light & Shade)

Mage Music 38

Rock and roll was was born from blues, country, jazz and the big band sound.  It was shaped for the teens and young adults of the 1950s and 1960s whose interests were very different from those of their parents' generation. The lyrics addressed topics that teens cared about - young love, young lust, young broken hearts, young loneliness - but the music itself was old and wise from the beginning, shivering with hidden meaning that was more enduring and universal than the immediate concerns of teenagers.

Rock as a musical genre has matured since then and so have the musicians who play it today - particularly those who were young when rock and roll first hit the airwaves and who have allowed themselves to grow up since then. Lyrics aside, the music has become more sophisticated, capable of conveying nuances and meaning well beyond the simple desires of youth.

And the Magick has changed, too.

Redefinition

As I write this week’s post, I’m listening to the audio of the O2 Concert yet again, paying close attention to the meaning-beyond-words conveyed through music by Jimmy Page. The evolution and maturity of the guitar work is obvious, something that is possible not only as a result of constant practice but also because of more than 25 years of life experienced between John Bonham’s death and those hours on stage in 2007.

No, it didn't sound exactly like 1980 or any other prior year in the active reign of Led Zeppelin - and why should it?  After all, the music of Led Zeppelin was that night just what it had always been: A musical expression of that moment in time, as individuals and as a band.  When they stepped onto the stage that night they weren't the same people they had been before and neither was the music.

The O2 Concert was the Led Zeppelin of 2007 - not 1977.  And, wow.

Wow because the music was great, of course - but even bigger wow because the Magick was not only still there, but better - richer, deeper, broader and more complex - then ever before.

The Led Zeppelin of 2007 had matured into something it could never have been 25 years ago.  Led Zeppelin - and Jimmy Page in particular - had always offered grace and depth and meaning (not to mention raw emotion and a violence and exultation of spirit), but never in such full bloom as they had on the O2 stage.  Like wine that had always tasted very, very good but that had finally aged to something extraordinary, in 2007 the music had evolved to a new plane of musical excellence.

And the Magick had evolved with it.

Evolution

There can be no Magick without the human component for Magick is solely a human thing.  It is a relationship and process and experience that is shared between Mage and the life force energy of the Universe.  Even when absorbed by multitudes through music, Magick is the personal experience of the Mage.  Quantum mechanics tells us that at the level of energy itself - which is the level where true Magick takes place - the observer must be considered part of the system being observed.  Thus the Mage is a component part of the process of Magick, not external to it.  

This means that every instance of Magick must necessarily be unique from all others, because a living human is changed by life from moment to moment as it is lived. As the Mage changes over time due to constant new input that life itself brings, the Magick must necessarily change.  

Mage and Magick evolve, and yet The Song Remains The Same.

Happy New Year from Mage Music

Everything is energy.

The light our eyes perceive is energy, although it is an incredibly small part of the electromagnetic spectrum - a tiny little range of energy somewhere in the middle of the immense spectrum between radio and gamma rays. An infinite range of energy exists beyond human knowledge - energy that humans have not imagined and likely will never identify.

Vision and hearing are two of the processes that humans (and other beings) employ to perceive and use energy in very narrow and specific ranges within the infinite spectrum of possible energy that exists.   Magick is another such process. Just like with vision and hearing, some humans can perceive a greater range of Magick than others, and some can use the energy better than others.

Everyone can access the energy of Magick

...but there are vast differences in the ability to use Magick effectively. The difference is power, which from the human and Magickal standpoint we can understand to be the rate at which humans convert energy into use in some way. With the Magickal process, more power means more success in converting the energy of Magick into reality within a given time.

We all have at least a little bit of Magick in us.  Anyone who wishes to can generate sufficient desire, will and some sort of ritual to create Magick to some degree.  Not all can be Mage level, but still this does mean...

You can create Magick.

May you walk in the Light 

and 

find the Magick in your life in 2013