One of the most difficult aspects of magick is understanding that it is a science and an art. Since there is a scientific aspect to it there must be some presuppositions about magick that have acquired the quality of being rules or laws. In my Modern Sex Magick I describe what I contend are nine basic theorems of magick. These general rules are not sexually related. In my book I gave a list of other theorems specifically related to sex magick. What do you think of these?

THEOREM ONE: All actions have magickal reactions.

This means that everything you do, whether you are conscious of it or not, has a magickal reaction. Many people fail with magick because they do a brief ritual to achieve a desired result then spend hours bemoaning their lack in that area. That negative attitude, energy, and accompanying actions creating magickal results that are the opposite of what was intended.

This theorem implies that everything you do is magick and that everyone is a magician. Observation shows this is not true. So there is a bit more to this.

Corollary: Only a willed action is a magickal action.

Because every action has a magickal result, it is hard for a non-magician to deal with the seemingly unknowable reality of the universe. They blame their problems on fate, bad luck, kismet, or something similar. By not being able to tell what will happen as a result of their actions, they are spun around helplessly by the results of those actions. Life is a mess.

By doing as little as possible—leading an austere and isolated life such as that of a renunciate monk—it is possible to live a somewhat peaceful life: no actions, no magickal reactions. But for such a person there is also little freedom and no adventure.

A magician understands this theorem and its corollary and acts accordingly. He or she accepts and deals with any problems that are created. This is the essence of personal responsibility. You’re free to do what you want and create your future, but you’re responsible for everything you do.

Magicians go beyond merely accepting responsibility for their actions. By realizing that actions have magickal results, they can perform acts—rituals—that will successfully achieve desired outcomes and overcome the presence of unwanted or unexpected responses to actions.

Here’s an analogy: A non-magician is like a man falling from a great height. The effects of winds and gravity control his fall and he believes there is no way to avoid his inevitable fate. A magician can also fall from a great height, and knows that wind and gravity will buffet and pull him or her down. But the magician’s magick is like flying in a plane, controlling the fall, moving up and down, and landing safely. Magicians don’t fight gravity and wind, they work in harmony with natural forces to achieve desired goals.

THEOREM TWO: Magick is not something you do. Magick is something you are.

The idea that you can pick up a book, mumble some Latin (poorly), wave a stick in the air and have real magick happen only occurs in novels, comic books, TV and movies. Real magick is more than just something you do.

With study and practice (as with the study and practice of any learned skill), magick becomes a part of you. It is something you are. With the skills of a magician you can correctly use a book of magick and obtain desired results. Further, by understanding that everything you do has magickal results, you can literally design your own rituals.

THEOREM THREE: Magick requires—
……1) The ability to generate or raise magickal energy
……2) The ability to manipulate that energy to an appropriate frequency for a goal
……3) The ability to direct that energy to achieve a desired goal

A magician, as the result of months or years of practice, can do these three things almost automatically. It is usual for most magicians to begin the process of learning these abilities with the help of tools such as wands and talismans, but with practice, although such devices may be used, no props are required.

Corollary: The nature of magickal energy is threefold.

I refer to it as the psycho/sexual/spiritual nature of magickal energy. The “psycho” (as in “psychological”) aspect of this energy indicates that magickal energy is controlled by the mind. It can be strengthened with the help of the emotions. For example, being happy or sad, angry or loving, affects how well you can manipulate the energy.

Part of this is that for magick to be controlled you need to have a positive attitude about your success. This does not mean magick is all mental, just that a positive mental attitude will have an impact on your magick. Consider what might happen if you spent hours directing all of your energy in a negative, unhappy, failure-focused way toward your magick. You’re literally controlling the magickal energy with negativity toward achieving your goal. The practice of meditation and breathwork can help you develop an attitude of balance and equipoise.

The second part of this is the energy raised with the help of the body. It is sexual in the very broadest of senses, that of male/female, yin/yang, magnetic/electric, or the anode and cathode of a battery. This is not about physical gender; it’s about the movement of the energy in cycles.

Finally, this energy transcends your physical body and your mind. It’s also spiritual. It is linked to the Divine, the Godhead. Thus, the energy is spiritual, mental, and physical.

THEOREM FOUR: Creation on the spiritual planes results in creation on the physical plane.

Since natural forces created the universe, the concept of magick being supernatural doesn’t make sense. Everything is natural. We may think of something as not being natural simply because we are uncomfortable with it.

We do not have astral bodies because our physical body was born. Rather, the physical body is the inevitable end result of our spiritual bodies being created on their associated planes.

Therefore, if we create something on the spiritual planes, eventually, it must manifest, via natural means, on the physical plane. Of course, this only remains true as long as we do not, knowingly or unknowingly, create magick that counters our spiritual creation.

THEOREM FIVE: A ritual’s success is inversely proportional to time.

I credit this theorem to Chaos magician Peter Carroll. As a comparison, if you’re doing some sort of divination, the farther in the future you’re looking at, the less likely is the divination’s accuracy. This is because unknown and unplanned actions (the result of free will activities by you and others) between now and the distant outcome you’re considering may send unplanned and/or conscious magickal energy to what was the focus of the divination. Things change. If the event being divined is to take place soon, it is much more likely to occur as predicted when compared to something in a distant future.

Similarly, when magick is performed, results desired to have a rapid manifestation are more likely to be obtained than those planned for years from now. For something in the distant future, events not anticipated by the magician, may creep into his or her life and thoughts (these events are called noise) and pull the magician from focusing on the magick. Other interests may simply pull the magician away from his or her conscious desires. Other people may work, knowingly or unknowingly, to counter your own work. In fact, your interests may change so much that you end up consciously working against your original magick.

Therefore, rather than focusing on grand magickal experiments with goals intended to take place years from now, I suggest that you have a series of intermediate goals that you do magick for and that occur between now and the ultimate goal. For example, if your ultimate goal is to become a schoolteacher, your intermediate goals might be something like:

A)   Get good grades at school

B)    Graduate with a great GPA

C)   Get accepted into a good college

D)   Get good grades at college with a degree leading toward teaching

E)    Get accepted into a teaching program

F)    Do a great job as a student teacher

G)   Get a degree in teaching

H)  Get accepted to teach the subjects you want at the school you want

Using magick to help you achieve all eight goals, one at a time and in the appropriate order, will tend to be more effective than just doing magick to become a schoolteacher.

THEOREM SIX: Let go and let the magick work.

As I have repeatedly told magicians of all kinds: just do the work. Do the best you can. Don’t focus on whether you did something perfectly, whether you mispronounced something, or whether it will really work. All of that sort of mental focus will send magickal energy away from achieving your goal and toward your doubts. This does not mean you shouldn’t strive to do everything as accurately and passionately as possible. Rather, it means once you’ve completed the magick, don’t obsess about it.

Keep a record of your magickal work, including all of the variables such as location, time, your feelings and attitudes, etc. Look back at your record later.  You’ll see any patterns that encouraged success or failure.

If your goal takes place in many months, you might want to occasionally repeat your ritual, not with the intent of “fixing” what you did wrong, but rather, to amplify and add to the original rite.

THEOREM SEVEN: Magick is magick.

Nobody talks about good or bad electricity; there is just electricity. It may be used to light up the night or kill someone. Similarly, the notion of black, white, gray, pink, puce, green, or octarine magick may be good for theoretical or philosophical classification of the results, but the methodologies are still the same.

Magick is magick. I suggest performing a divination before doing an actual ritual. When doing the divination, don’t ask “Should I do this ritual?” That places the responsibility on your divinatory tool rather than on you. Instead, ask, “What will be the result if I do this magick?” When you learn the result you can adjust the magick if necessary to avoid any problem or enhance potential success. This empowers the magician and helps prevent doing anything stupid that might harm the magician or someone else.

Corollary: An effective magician may choose to be “stupid.”

Real magicians don’t need to do magick to harm others. In fact, they won’t do magick to harm others because the karmic response to such an action would be to harm oneself, and that would be stupid.

In some circumstances, however, a magician may consciously choose to do something “stupid,” something that will harm him or her, because the situation warrants it. For example a magician I know used magick to stop a rapist who was attacking women in his neighborhood. Within a week the alleged rapist was in a serious auto accident and the police were able to catch him. A month later, the magician was laid off at work. He believes it was a karmic response to his actions (working the magick) that resulted in another person being harmed.

To this day he doesn’t care about losing his job. To him it was a conscious effort to stop a person who was harming people around him. He performed more magick to obtain a better job and a short time later he obtained a position that paid him much more than his previous job.

THEOREM EIGHT: Magick is a science and an art.

This means that some people may have a natural ability to do magick. But don’t let that bother you! If you study and practice you can become as good or better than even the most naturally skilled person who doesn’t continue to study or practice.

THEOREM NINE: Magick is synergistic.

Synergy is the concept that the total is greater than the sum of its parts. Saying magick is synergistic means that the amount of energy raised during a group (two people or more) ritual is greater than the amount of energy that can be raised by each person working individually.

However, remember the old saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. One experienced, well-trained magician may be far more successful than a group of untrained people or people who simply do not work well together, or are not synchronized on the magickal goal of the work. Help the weakest person of a pair, or the weakest people of a group become better at magick in order to enhance the magickal energy.

 I hope these nine theorems have given you some ideas to consider.
Can you think of some others?
Please send comments with your ideas.

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I’m Being Interviewed Sunday on
Pagan Science Radio!

This coming Sunday, September 22, 2013,  at 10:00 p.m. Central Time (8:00 Pacific) I’m going to be interviewed on Pagan Science Radio. You can go to this LINK (it will take you to the blogtalkradio site) and listen in live. We’re going to be talking about a wide range of subjects ranging from Tarot & Magic to hypnosis and NLP. I may even share an introduction to smoking cessation that beings with…explosive cow flatulence! This should be a lot of fun and I hope you can listen in and say hello! Pagan Science Radio

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Sunday, September 29, 2013
12:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. Eastern——9:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m. Pacific
Topic: How to Make and Use Talismans and Amulets

Summer is rapidly drawing to an end. Just as many people have started or are beginning to go to school, it’s time for you to add to what you know. That’s why I’m so happy to have a relationship with Thelesis Aura and their Online Academy. They’ve already held some live webinars for me (and for others teachers) and the attendance has been wonderful, including people from North and South America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

My next webinar will cover talismans and amulets. Throughout history, humans have used objects to bring health, safety, good luck, and to fulfill desires. Today, these objects are known as talismans and amulets. In this live, worldwide webinar, you’ll learn how to create them, how to turn them into powerful magickal tools, and how to use them effectively and safely. Topics include the three necessities of magick, differences between talismans and amulets, timing, designing effective magickal goals, types of talismans, how to prepare a talisman, what to do after you create a talisman, and more. When completed, you will have the information you need to create powerful talismans that will help you achieve your goals.

This webinar is not some recording. It is a live, online training event. You will hear me live, just as I am talking. You’ll see my presentation slides, live, right on your computer. You’ll be able to download handouts. You’ll be able to ask questions during the webinar. You’ll see everything and hear me giving the webinar live. It’s as if you were in a room with me, only you can participate from your location anywhere in the world.

In this online workshop-webinar, I’ll be sharing practical techniques you will be able to use to make positive changes in your life. You’ll be able to create and use talismans for any purpose, including healing and improving your luck. This is invaluable information with techniques that can be used by individuals and groups.

Please note that this is not a recording. It is a live event you can attend. You will be able to interact with me, live, from anywhere in the world. Therefore, please make sure to check the time. It’s 12:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. Eastern U.S.; 9:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m. Pacific U.S. time.

Registration is now open. Here is the LINK. Due to software limitations, attendance is limited to only 200 people, so I would urge you to register as soon as possible.