Magick 101 # 8.1: Powers of the Sphinx #1

Today I received an email from a musician. He explained,

To Know

One of the things I like to stress is that magick isn’t something you do, magick is something you are. What you know is also a major component of what you are. The more you know about magick—and subjects associated with magick—the better a magician you become. Many magicians I know have huge libraries. When he died, Dr. John Dee—co-discoverer of the Enochian Magick system—had the largest library in all of Europe. Today, many of the magicians I know have libraries that make Dee’s look tiny.

But owning a thousand books or more is of no magickal value when compared to studying and using even just one book. That’s why some of those modern magicians spend untold hours studying their books and practicing techniques from them. If you are looking for some new books to read and study, I suggest a few from Steven Skinner’s Golden Hoard Press:

Geomancy in Theory & Practice is simply the most comprehensive look at the history and practice of this divination system ever published. It’s surprisingly easy to do and was practiced by members of the Golden Dawn (basic instructions can be found in Regardie’s The Golden Dawn) and by Aleister Crowley (who wrote a brief booklet on the subject).

Dr. John Dee’s Spiritual Diaries is the first fully readable edition of Dee’s True & Faithful Relation. These are Dee’s diaries as you’ve never seen them: completely revamped, reorganized, corrected, and reader-friendly. It covers Dee’s invocation of the angels and the reception of their Enochian system of magick, his experiments in alchemy, and experiences in the courts of the crowned heads of Europe.

These two books can keep you busy gaining new knowledge and techniques for months or longer.

Know Thyself

But there is more to knowledge than just reading old books and practicing magickal techniques. It’s also about knowing yourself, who you are, your strengths and challenges. Israel Regardie has written that people studying magick should also go to a psychologist in order to learn what their motivations and desires are. Crowley wrote about challenging yourself to see how long you could go without food or sleep. The more you know about yourself, the better you can determine what types of magick to do and why a certain rite did or didn’t work. The more you know of yourself, of magick, and of the physical and non-physical worlds, the better a magician you’ll be.

Now, I want to share another secret of magick with you:

Knowledge, in and of itself, is a form of magick.

Let me explain what I mean. Traditionally, one of the most desired forms of magick is that for improving wealth. If you go to Las Vegas, you’ll find an enormous number of people with lucky charms and personal rituals trying to make a “big score.” Most of them never make it.

But let me share an example with you.

A few months ago a friend asked for a ritual to win on the slot machines in Las Vegas. Since she already knew my position on self-empowerment, I instead gave her some information: The machines can be set by the casinos to pay off at different rates. The ones that pay off most often (but with smaller amounts) are on the main aisles near locations where people congregate, such as near doors to restaurants.

When she and her husband returned from their trip to Las Vegas she told me that they only gambled for a short time, but they both took my advice and played machines on aisles near doors to restaurants. He played for ten minutes and made $20. She played for fifteen minutes and won $70.

Last weekend her husband returned to Las Vegas, and in his spare time he tried testing the knowledge I had given them. He told me that he tried one machine and quickly lost $20. He move to another one and lost $10. Then he went to a third and lost another $20. Finally, he went to a machine on the aisle next to a restaurant door. In five minutes he won $150.

Knowledge, in and of itself, is a form of magick. With the knowledge I shared, they were able to do as much as if they had spent hours learning and practicing rituals and then had performed a ritual for gambling success.

Knowledge, in and of itself, is worthwhile. You can get it from books, school, training, self-talk and experience.