Immortality Magick

“No. Please no. Not after all this time. I mean a stupid accident. But I did okay, didn’t I? I mean I got, what, fifteen thousand years. That’s pretty good. Isn’t it? I lived a pretty long time.”
“You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less.”
-From Sandman by Neil Gaiman

At this time I’m reluctant to post the actual rituals I used. I’m still too involved with what I did to fully understand it or what future consequences it still might bring. Moreso I’m fearful that someone may attempt this ritual, and then attempt to kill themselves to see if it works. While I can guarantee that if they did what I did they would survive it, I can make no guarantee of anyone’s competence with the rituals save for my own.

Likewise I usually don’t post personal accounts for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I think they would be of little value or use to most people, especially if I provide the theoretical information and practical methods I used. Secondly I don’t want to brag. And lastly, I don’t want to sound like a crazy person, which I’m sure I would sound like. Unfortunately though I haven’t been able to analyze my personal experiences to the point where I can fully realize their meaning and convey the information in a generalized manner. So I have provided here some personal information to be used and analyzed as the reader wishes.

To begin, the original ritual I used I discovered by accident. I was attempting a ritual that would help me win the lottery, but I botched it (and was aware that I screwed up the ritual at the time). I believed that what I was manipulating would naturally fix itself if not correctly manipulated by me, but it didn’t. It was only recently that I realized the full impact of what I did and how to correct it. This is due in no small part to the information I gained from what I call the black grimoire and the aid of a mentoring spirit.

I can’t recall the exact timeline, but between the two rituals was a span of a couple of years. I cannot say for sure exactly how many times I should’ve died in that timespan. However there are two instances in which I know I should’ve died, and the only explanation for my survival is some sort of miracle. In neither case was I testing my mortality. That seems like a very stupid idea to me.

In the first instance I was shot, at close range, through the left side of my chest by a close friend and medium who had become possessed after a ritual. Based on the position of the wound I assume my heart was hit, and I was unable to move anything lower than my neck right after (whether this was because of the pain or blood loss or paralysis or something else I don’t know). I bled for a long time, received no medical attention, and after about a day of pain survived without even a scar to prove the bullet went into me. I know this makes me sound crazy and I’m already regretting writing this. However this is the abridged version of the events as best I can recall them.

In the second instance I was performing a spell and had created my own oil using herbs and burned it on a candle in a closed off room with little ventilation while I slept. I didn’t realize that one of the herbs I was burning was poisonous. My body shut down completely, I was no longer breathing (no idea about if my heart was beating), and it triggered a spontaneous NDE astral projection.

Is it still bragging about my magical accomplishments if they amount to a list of rituals I totally fucked up?

In the past I’ve noted that entities with longer lifespans often do as much or less with them than humans. Elves are a good example. Elves are typically portrayed as gay and frivolous in mythology. It’s because real elves don’t do shit. They jack around a lot. They live more than ten times longer than humans, on average, the majority of that is their adulthood, they spend about as much time raising children, and at their best they achieve, in terms of personal growth and development and their lifetime accomplishments, about as much as a typical human does. The same could be said of their civilizations culturally. As far as the development of art, science, spirituality, ect. it develops at about the same rate as a human civilization when measured in generations. Dragons are another example. They live even longer than elves and they’re far more driven. However it takes them a very long time to finish doing anything. It takes them a very long time to even contemplate or decide to do something.

I used to think this all came down to time management. Having a very minimal amount of time humans are very good at managing it efficiently. Creatures with longer lifespans tend to manage them very poorly and accomplish much less in the same time period.

I now have a new perspective and I realize it has nothing to do with time management, and it goes back to that Gaiman quote. All of us, elves, dragons, humans, whatever, will all achieve about the same amount in a single lifetime. Sure some will excel and some will be underachievers, but on average every species is the same. We all get the same amount of time for our personal growth and development, a lifetime. If you become immortal and live 5000 years you will have accomplished and grown no more than if you had died at the age of forty. In the end you got what anybody gets, one lifetime. Our true spiritual ages and growth cannot be defined in years or hours or moments, but only in lifetimes.

Things move in cycles. Each cycle has a beginning and an ending. After we finish one cycle, we begin a new cycle. Each cycle affords us opportunity for personal growth and expansion. Each new cycle is different than the one that came before it because we have grown and expanded, or if we have failed to do so then we repeat the same cycle over and over again.

There are many different kinds of cycles. We can be going through a long cycle, and inside that cycle there are many shorter cycles. We can also be going through multiple cycles at once.

The changing of the seasons is a cycle. The way the moon changes is a cycle. Life is a cycle that begins at birth and ends with death. As we move through that cycle we age and grow older. Lots of other things happen too, and we find many smaller cycles within the life cycle, and we grow as individuals. This is the cycle that concerns us because it controls our mortality.

Now there are two methods to immortality. We can control our movement backwards and forward through the cycle, and thus age ourselves prematurely or regain our youth at will, and so long as we never get to the very end of the cycle, we will never die. The other option is to remove ourselves from the cycle all together. We will then stop aging and live forever at whatever age we are.

Removing myself from the cycle is exactly what I did. With the perspective I gained I understand how to control the cycles too.

A friend of mine that was studying Comte de Saint Germain and other supposed immortals once told me that he believed the secret to immortality was loving your current life and living in the moment, since this seemed to be a trend he saw among certain legendary immortals. He was half right.

If you remove yourself from the cycle, you can no longer grow. Whatever situation you’re in is pretty much the situation you’ll be in for the rest of your immortal life. Some things may change. You might not always have the same job, but you’ll always have a job you enjoy as much as your current job and you’ll always be in the same financial situation you currently are. If you’re not in a relationship, you probably never will be in one, and if you are in a relationship, you might not be in that relationship but you will be in one like it for the rest of your immortal life. You’ll never spiritually grow into anything stronger than you are right now. Everything will stagnate.

Manipulating the cycle to change your age has a similar effect. Different periods of our life are defined by different levels of personal growth. When we manipulate a cycle to achieve a certain age, we ascend or descend to the level of personal growth that is defined by that age and we relive the situations and events that we experienced during that age.

For instance if you want to be eighteen again, know that you’ll also be working a job and making the kind of money that you did when you were eighteen. You’ll be in a relationship like you were when you were eighteen. You’ll have all the same problems and issues you had at eighteen.

Some of you might be thinking that if you could get back to a certain age, you could live it better and improve everything about your life. You can’t. If you fucked things up the first time you will fuck things up the second time and every other time you go back to that age.

The only benefit to immortality is if you love your life you can go on reliving the best parts over and over, or if your life is perfect you can stop it and remain there forever.

There are a couple of ways to cheat and change your situation even when you’re entirely outside the cycle.

The first cheat is that other divine actions that have precedence have to be carried out. You have to make an appeal to certain divine providences to remove yourself from the cycle. Normally events that fall under the providence of other deity’s cannot effect you since this would be overstepping divine boundaries. For instance death falls into the providence of several different deities, and you cannot die if you are no longer in the life cycle since this would be overstepping into the boundary of the deity that took you out of the cycle. If however a divine action has precedence, which is the case when the event started prior to removing yourself from the cycle, then the event must be allowed to continue even after being removed from the cycle, otherwise it would violation of another deity’s providence. For example if you had made a pact with a god so that certain events would occur prior to removing yourself from the cycle, these events would still occur.

The second cheat is that you can gain things if it is inevitable, you just can’t use them until you rejoin the cycle. This is especially true when you are set to gain things at a certain future point in time prior to removing yourself from the cycle (like an inheritance from a relative that will one day die). Removing yourself from the cycle won’t stop your relative from dying, and yet you can’t really receive the inherence being outside the cycle, but that isn’t recognized by the courts. Of course there is a chance you will lose the money, but you may get the money and just not be able to ever spend it for some reason.

For my own part, years prior to removing myself from the cycle I had sent a large piece of myself and my personal power away to attend to other business. When it finished it returned to me and I received a great deal of power. Although I had that power, and could feel it, I could make no practical use of it until I reinitiated the cycle

These are the cheats that I have found. I believe there may be another cheat, in regards to manipulating the cycle to change your age, and this may in fact be the great secret of immortality and how to use it.

Reinitiating the cycle has itself been an experience. I feel mortal again, and it’s a good feeling. When I initially removed myself from the cycle, I didn’t feel any great change. The change that occured was gradual enough that it went by almost unnoticed. But there was a change.

I felt the effects of the reinitiation immediately. The first thing I noticed was that life energy came into me and flowed through me. I lost this so gradually I didn’t even notice it was missing until it came back. As soon as I got that I felt a greater connection into the Earth, into all living things, into the movements of the universe. I can also sense and feel myself aging and growing older moment by moment. I couldn’t do this before and I seem much more sensitive to life energy. Whether this is a side effect of removing myself from the cycle, or if this is due to the power I gained going into effect the moment the cycle ended I cannot say. I also can’t say if this is a permanent sensitivity, or if I just feel it so strongly now because I’m not used to it. In a few months from now when I am used to it, I may not feel anything at all.

I also noticed that my life energy is not what it used to be. There’s a slight taint of decay on it. It’s death energy. Although for the most part the energy flowing through me is life energy, the energy of a living thing, there is also death energy not just mixed in, but like oozing off of the life energy (for lack of a better description), like I’m also a dead thing. Kind of like I should be dead but I’m alive. And I should be dead, I should’ve died at least twice already. As of yet I haven’t been able to control, change, or limit the death energy, at least not completely, and partly because it seems tied directly into my life essence. I can’t help but think that this exists for a reason, as a way to mark me as something that should be dead. Which makes me wonder if it’s meant as a target.

I’ve been drawing many spirits to myself lately, but the increased energy could be part of it, and the death energy I’m currently putting out is the sort of thing that tends to draw dead things to you. I also received omens in my dreams last night that I was being hunted. No idea how valid the information was, but it goes back to the theory of being marked with a target.

While writing this article up another strange side-effect became apparent. I killed a cockroach. First off I felt its spirit leave its body. I’ve felt that with people in the past and even animals, but never with something as small as a bug, granted I never even tried to sense a bug’s spirit leaving its body, but I also seemed super-sensitive to it happening. I also felt something else connected with its death that, to use a cliche, hit me like a ton of bricks. It knocked a lot of energy out of me for a few minutes, like I had just done some great magical feat. I’m not sure exactly what I felt. If it was its spirit leaving this world, or some other spirit or god come to claim it, or if I had made something concerned with death or the dead aware of me by killing something else. I could swear I felt the veil being broken though. The whole event is a swirl in my head and I wasn’t prepared for it. I’d have to experience it at least once more to get a handle on what actually happened.

Well that’s everything I have for now, except for some specific information on the rituals which I’m not sharing at this time. I also know how crazy all of this sounds, if I were reading this on the internet I would have a hard time believing it, so please don’t think I’m crazy for writing it. I have lots of other good articles on magic and spirituality, many of which are far more sane, to prove that I’m not crazy. Also I’m trying not to brag or place too much importance on myself. I mainly wanted to get the information up and available ASAP, and it’ll probably be months if not longer before I can view this all objectively without regard to my personal experiences. In the future I’ll try to leave my personal accounts out of the articles.

The Blogosphere Book Game

Okay, I’m playing Gordon’s book game. Considering the last post, this is the most ironic time for me to make a post like this. But I like games, and I want to feel included. Plus it’s a fun game and I do think books are useful and valuable tools. And this post helps me make it clear that the previous post wasn’t in retaliation to the book game everyone is playing (it was just a coincidence really, I didn’t know about the book game until after I posted the article).

Essentially the goal of the game is to create a list of ten books that a completely new practitioner (actually an unbelieving agnostic) will read in order over the course of a 1 month period while locked in a cabin alone. It’s assumed that they will follow the exercises of the book, but they will receive no other outside help, guidance, or read any other material. In the end the practitioner should have a firm grasp on magic.

Another stipulation is that the books should build a certain type of magician (aka a chaos magician or a ceremonial magician) that must be decided on beforehand. However the booklist should contain books from at least three different disciplines (this is to discourage listing one book as the end all be all in building a certain type of magician). Here is my list, with an explanation at the end:

1. The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies, and Magic by Wippler – Several years ago this book was recommended to me by a guy who used to teach classes on magic. He always recommended that new students read through this book before beginning their magical careers. I have to say the book is a great introduction to the world of magic.

The book covers a wide variety of different beliefs and practices. It also contains a lot of different spells and techniques (some drawn straight from the old grimoires) so anyone wanting to jump right in can. In a lot of ways it seems to me like a modern day version of Waite’s Book of Black Magic and Pacts.

My main reason for including the book, and putting it first, is because it’s an overview of whats out there magically for the prospective practitioner of magic. A newcomer will not only learn a little bit about a lot of different subjects, it will also help them determine what direction they want to take their magical practice into, and provides a good source of ideas about what a person may be able to do and how the universe might work.

2. Illusions by Bach – This is the very first book I was told to read by my teacher, and it was one of the first books she herself had read. At the time she felt that the philosophies in the book might help to change my perspective a bit, which would help me deal with some of the emotional problems I was having at the time.

The book worked, but it provided so much more for me over time. It’s a fictional work, and although there are some different events, the vast majority of the book consists of conversations between a fictionalization of the Author, barn stormer Richard Bach, and his spiritual mentor Donald Shimoda, an auto mechanic turned messiah who eventually quit being a messiah because it wasn’t making him happy.

On the surface its a nice book (New Age with a heavy New Thought emphasis BTW). If you dig a little deeper its filled with secrets of the universe and wonderful philosophies. Deeper still and you’ll find a nearly complete beginner’s handbook to psionic and manifestation magic.

3. The Kybalion by the Three Initiates – This book is Hermetics, which gives me my three disciplines. Hermetics is the study of the works of Hermes Trismegistus, the Emerald Tablet and the Corpus Hermeticum. Hermetics can be seen as the Newtonian Laws of magical work, it forms the basic foundation upon which just about all magical and spiritual theory is built. The theories of Hermetics form the core beliefs of Ceremonial Magic, which in turn develops into Paganism and Chaos Magick. Its an influence on many of the other forms of western ritual magick too. There’s even such a thing as Hermetic Kabalism, which joins together the teaching of Trismegistus with Kabalistic beliefs. It’s also a major influence on the New Thought Movement, which in turn influences the New Age Movement. The vast majority of western magic is based in Hermetics. And since Hermetics attempts to discuss the basic theories upon which the universe operates, it can be applied to almost any spiritual practice, even those which are not Western in origin.

Needless to say, I think understanding Hermetics is essential to understanding magic. I chose the Kybalion because its a good overview of the basic theories, thoughts, and ideas of Hermetics. I also think its a fairly easy read considering the complexity of the subject matter (although it could be better). At the very least its not a long book.

4. Have an Out of Body Experience in 30 Days by Harary & Weintraub – I’ve done lots of theory, so now I want to get into practical work. Astral projection is important. Astral projection is fun. Astral projection can give pretty quick results for a lot of people, and a lot of people will notice that they start to have more psychic gifts and a better magical understanding after projecting a few times.

There are, of course, some things I don’t like about this book. I also think astral projection is a subject where you need to find the right book or method that works for you, so this may not be the right book for everyone. But there are a lot of reasons why I like this book.

This isn’t really a book of accounts of astral projection or theories about it or any other bullshit. This is a book full of exercises, exercises which are meant to get a person from a state of having no experience with astral projection to successfully astrally projecting. And it tries to do that in thirty days, with different exercises for each day. I like the practical approach. The book, with clear instructions on what to do and on which days, provides a very structured environment full of practice which is conductive to learning.

5. Initiation into to Hermetics by Bardon – Bardon’s book actually has a lot more to do with Ceremonial Magic than it has to do with Hermetics. This book constitutes my Ceremonial Magick pick. It’s also the first book on my list to really look at the how-tos of ritual magic. I picked this book for several reasons.

First off, Bardon’s book is an introduction to the subject meant for the beginner, which is good for a list like this. Secondly Bardon’s style is very easy to read and modern with the goal of helping the student learn the subject, which is in stark contrast to the Golden Dawn Boys and many of their contemporaries. Lastly Bardon spends a good deal of time on techniques which are meant to develop psionic ability, which I believe is an essential skill in successful ritual magic.

6. Kundalini and the Chakras by Paulson – The book I want to put here is one that goes over the basics of energy manipulation with the goal of helping a novice get to the point where they can successfully manipulate energy. So far I haven’t found a book that is even close to doing that. If I do find that book, it’ll probably replace this as my number six.

The reason why I chose this book is because I like it, and it exhibits some of the things I want from book number six. It deals largely with working and balancing the energy within oneself, and doesn’t, in my opinion, focus enough on manipulating and working with energy externally. I’m in no way saying it’s a bad book though. Hopefully combining this information with the techniques from #5 and #4 along with the information in #2 is enough to compensate for not having the book I really need right here.

7. Buckland’s Complete Book Of Witchcraft by Buckland – Due to the popularity of Paganism and Wicca in the community, I felt I had to include one introductory Wiccan book. And out of all the Wiccan books out there, Buckland’s is actually my favorite.

Whether or not your Wiccan, there’s a lot you can get out of this book in terms of magic and how it works. The book is styled as a series of lessons for the beginning student. I actually really like the questions at the end of each lesson. Rather than just asking a person to look up information in the lesson or see how well they memorized what they just read (like some high school textbooks), the questions ask the reader to explore their personal beliefs, thoughts, and magical experiences which helps them develop and explore their own beliefs and spiritual path.

8. Witchcraft for All by Heubner – This is not a Wiccan book (in fact it’s anti-Wiccan). Heubner is a Traditional Witch which is a completely different set of beliefs.

Heubner explains her theories on magic and provides a good sampling of various spells. Heubner herself is an experienced and gifted practitioner and her book is full of interesting ideas on how to use magic.

9. The Necronomicon by Simon – Usually known as the Simon Necronomicon or the Avon Necronomicon, this book is really the first published grimoire of the modern era. The Necronomicon consists of a complete system of spiritual attainment which was channeled by the magician Simon.

I’ve included this book for a few reasons. First off being a relatively new book full of mostly original information, it’s a good example of what can be achieved and developed. Secondly it’s the best selling modern Ceremonial Magic book with over 800,000 copies sold. It’s one of the those books you should buy, if for no other reason, than that everyone else practicing magic already has it. Thirdly it’s something a bit dark, and every magician should have something dark in their library and practice, if for no other reason to have some experience with that sort of stuff and to prove that they can handle working with it, even if they prefer not to. Plus it isn’t all that dark of a book, so it’s good for a beginner.

And lastly, it’s just a very good book as far as magical books go. The book is well written and the system is known to consistently achieve results. Part of the reason why the book has been so popular not just among the masses but also among experienced practitioners, even while other books looking to cash in on the Necronomicon name have failed in both areas, is that it isn’t completely fake and the system does achieve results.

10. Principia Discordia by Malaclypse the Younger – When I started this list, I knew this would be the last book on it. It’s a religious work divinely inspired from the Greek goddess of discord Eris. It’s full of some theory, lots of dogma, and no practical work. It’s also a fun read, and I figure the last book should be a fun read. Plus I feel it helps to put everything else, the other nine books, into their proper prospective so they can be viewed accordingly.

Okay, so now I get to talk about my book choices. First off, there is no book dealing specifically with tarot or Kabalah, despite the fact that I like these subjects a lot. Part of the reason is that either of those choices would take up a lot of my slots. The other reason why they are not present is the same reason why I’ve excluded Taoism and the Chaldean Oracles. All of these things are beautiful and wonderful pools of knowledge full of theoretical and practical information for the seasoned practitioner. But for the beginning practitioner, someone who has no practical experience, all of this is not only just useless theory, it’s useless theory they can’t even begin to comprehend. A person can not begin to really understand a subject like Kabalah or the Chaldean Oracles until they have some first hand experience with how the universe is made up and how magic operates. Until then all these things are is knowledge, good knowledge for sure, but ultimately without any real value.

Secondly I’ve limited myself to books that were published in the 20th century, which was done intentionally. The oldest book on my list is the Kybalion from 1908, and this book is really an exception to my rule, allowed in partially because the writing is not all that complicated (although I’d rate it the hardest book on my list). I’ve also stayed away from Golden Dawn members and their successors. I wanted my list to consist of books that were easy to read. I want books that focus on the information and teaching that information to the reader, not on books where the reader is going to be distracted by difficult language which makes basic comprehension of the text hard. I also want the reading to be easy so the reader can get excited while focused on all the new magical techniques and spells and what not they’re about to read about, and not feel as if reading the book is some sort of boring chore that they have to do in order to get to the creamy magic center. And I wanted to show that really good books are not necessarily old books. In fact newer books are more relatable to modern times and the modern reader. For example, quite a few of the spells from the old grimoires aren’t all that useful since treasure hunting isn’t the booming profession that it once was.

So what kind of magician was I trying to build? I was trying to build a well-rounded eclectic magician. For centuries the magical community has tended to move towards eclecticism anyways. Meanwhile the strongest and most versatile magicians are going to be the ones that take what they like from any given system to use in their own personal practice. I’ve never felt a need to label myself as a Ceremonial Magician or a Pagan or anything else. In fact I find the terms rather limiting. I didn’t see a need to label my theoretical game magician student either. Instead of trying to build them up into some kind of system, I just tried to teach them how to do magic.

Books of Magic, Teachers, Systems, and Personal Magic

[Warning: Rant]

For some reason, magicians of all types have been tied to books. When we think of magicians, we usually associate them with images of books of magic, spell books, libraries, ancient tomes, and the like. And a lot of magicians seem to be applying this label to themselves. I’ve seen a magician called a liar because he claimed his book collection had been in storage for the past year (because no real magician could bare to be without his precious books). I’ve seen magicians claim they can’t cast a spell because they don’t have the proper book with them. I’ve seen magicians who have claimed to be powerful because they happen to own or have access to an extensive library of books. In fact, one of the signs of a weak magician is that he or she will brag about the books they own or the books they read as if it means anything magically.

I’m not going to say I’m innocent of this either. I have lots of books. I’ve read lots more. If I had the money, I’d have a very extensive occult library to reference and read at my leisure. This is a trait that many magicians share. But then I also have a very strong background in literature so my obsession with books isn’t surprising or limited to metaphysical topics.

But I don’t need my books (well my magical ones, I need my fiction, poetry, and comic books). They are in no way a representation of my power, and if I lost them all tomorrow, I’d be fine. Likewise I can develop spells from scratch without any reference material and I would be just fine leaving my books in storage for a long period of time if I felt I had to for some reason. To be honest, I’ve gotten very little out of most of the books I read. They’re nice as a reference and sometimes I find an idea or two I really like, but that’s about it.

I’ve said this before, and most people agree, magical power and understanding comes from practical work. No amount of book reading or knowledge of theory can substitute for it. But practical work can be a substitute for book reading and knowledge of theory.

I’ve also known magicians who will act like some literary detective reading older texts (such as the old grimoires or the Book of the Law). They spend countless hours looking for some minute secret that may or may not have been hidden in the text somewhere. It’s a huge waste of time. If they had spent the same amount of time developing their own magic they would have discovered much bigger secrets than anything written in the grimoire.

And if you cannot develop your own magic, you are a weak magician. A strong magician may be weak in a particular area (such as writing spells), but they are able to develop their own magic. In fact, a strong magician’s weak points are typically areas of magic they rarely or never practice, meaning its not really a part of their personal practice. The magic they practice they can make up, on their own, as they need it.

This is one of the reasons why magicians don’t need books. A magician can develop the magic they need as they need it. They can discover any secret they want by looking for it in the universe.

The other reason is that magicians have a wide variety of sources for information. Here is a short list of some of the sources available to magicians:

Divine Communion
Evocation and Spirit Communication
Channeling/Visions/Remote Viewing
Mental Planes Access/HGA Merging/Light Channeling
Spirit Guides and Spirit Animals
Practical Experience
Intuition
Past Life Regression
Teachers
Magical Groups
Books

The list isn’t in any kind of order, but books are by far the worst source of information on the list. Magical groups and teachers aren’t much higher. Yet a lot of so called magicians cannot access most of the things on this list, and so books and teachers and magical groups become so important to them because it’s one of the few areas of information they can access.

Teachers are an issue to, and not a subject I want to go too in depth about in this article, but a lot of people, teachers included, don’t understand what a teacher is or what their role is. In the worst cases students may be taken advantage of financially or sexually or somehow abused because of the relationship. Most of the time though I just see a very poor relationship that isn’t very helpful to the student.

A lot of students come into the student-teacher relationship for the wrong reasons. Some are there for no other reason than to gain the lineage of being a teacher’s student. Some believe that a teacher will give them access to power. Some may need the structure of the relationship or be seeking approval of some kind. In any case, it is the teacher’s responsibility to tell the student no.

A teacher’s job, their entire job, is to guide a student through the current obstacles they are facing that they cannot get past on their own so that they can reach the next level of their spiritual attainment.

That is all a teacher does, and done right it usually doesn’t take very long. But I’ve seen students who have been students of a teacher for years. There’s no excuse for this. By that point either the student has achieved a level of competence where they should be set free from the relationship so they can pursue their personal spirituality, or the teacher is not able to help them get to that level.

I’ve also seen lots of students who are completely dependent on their teachers for their magic. In extreme cases the student may not be able to successfully perform even simple magics or rituals without their teacher’s help (typically this is due to a lack of psionic ability or not understanding how to raise energy). Many though simply need to consult their teacher constantly and need their teacher to develop their magic for them. For instance they can’t figure out the qualities of a specific wood or plant on their own and need to ask their teacher what it is, or they can’t write a spell and need to get spells from their teacher as needed. Many also use their teachers as a constant guide to answer questions and to tell them what is right and wrong rather than find the answer to these questions themselves.

And all of this leads right into systems. Their are systems that come with certain groups (such as the Golden Dawn and OTO systems of spiritual attainment). There are systems that come with certain magical religions. Some people get their systems directly from their teachers. Other people get their systems from books. It doesn’t matter where you get it from. If you are using someone elses methods of magic, you are a weak magician that is not reaching their full potential.

Magic is not like science. You cannot recreate an experiment under the same conditions and expect the same results. Magic is like an art, and like an artist a magician needs to infuse their magic with themselves.

Of course we all have our strengths and weaknesses. Many people mistakenly believe infusing themselves into their magic means concentrating on their strengths while compensating for their weaknesses, and this is where the power comes from. Actually its a lot more than just that.

In addition to our strengths and weaknesses, we also have personalities. We have likes and dislikes. We have anxieties and fears and insecurities. We have wants and needs and desires. All of this needs to be incorporated into our magic and our spirituality. When we incorporate all of ourself into our magic, our magic becomes much stronger and much more successful.

And the only way you can do this is if you are able to develop your own magic. You need to be able to come up with your own spells, and techniques, and rituals, and spiritual paths. These things need to be designed with your specific personality in mind, not someone elses, so that they are true to who you are.

It’s unfortunate, but a lot of the magic being done out there is nothing more than mimicry. It’s students doing exactly what their teachers taught them, and in many cases exactly what their teachers do. It’s people copying rituals and spells from books. It’s people following the laid out spiritual paths of systems under the belief that they’ll come to some eventual attainment.