Obsession and BS

Obsession is a term that gets thrown around a lot in the magical community. It’s used a lot by Ceremonial Magicians and Pagans, and is often times the reason for not working with spirits or using extreme caution when doing so. So it’s surprising that the theory of Obsession was developed completely outside of the Ceremonial and Pagan communities.

Obsession has its origins in Spiritism. If you didn’t know, Spiritism is a fairly modern belief system developed in France that is very similar to the American and British developed Spiritualism. Spiritualism predates Spiritism, but not by much, and the two belief systems have a huge cross-influence. So much so that there are only a few minor distinguishing differences between them.

Although cross-influences are common throughout the metaphysical community, the fact that obsession has gained such high regard in Western ritual magic systems is, at the very least, confusing. The idea of obsession runs counter to the practices of the founders of modern Ceremonial Magic who were active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it runs counter to the practices of the Pagan founders who were active in the 50s and 60s, and it runs counter to the practices of the Medieval European magicians that these systems are largely based in.

There’s also a lot of confusion about what the definition of obsession is. Very few magicians can give you a clear definition that would help determine the difference between an obsessed individual and your normal practicing magician. However when the term first appeared in Spiritism, it was adequately defined.

Obsession simply means that your actions or personality have to some extent been influenced by a spirit. On the surface this may seem like a bad thing, but the definition is actually overly broad, and note that nowhere does it mention manipulation or control.

If, for instance, a spirit came to you and told you that in the next week you would be in a horrible car accident, and because of that warning you started wearing a seatbelt, you suffer from obsession. If a spirit comes to you and tells you there’s a great sushi restaurant down the street that you didn’t know about, and you go to eat there, you suffer from obsession. In both instances your actions have been influenced by a spirit.

The idea of obsession was developed by early Spiritists because they saw it as a real danger. A good deal of Spiritists and Spiritualists are not magicians themselves, but use magicians, in there case mediums, to facilitate their magic. The average adherent lacks the methods of protection and spiritual attack which are available to a person with a background in ritual magic. It’s also less likely that the average adherent will have taken time to develop skills in self-awareness, mental focus, and energy manipulation, all of which help prevent spiritual manipulation.

Meanwhile Western ritual magicians have always worked with spirits. We constantly communicate with spirits for information, we summon them forth, we revere and worship them, we fight with them, and we use them to achieve our goals. We have always surrounded ourselves with the spirits and allowed them access to our lives. And yes, you can practice a form of Ceremonial Magic or Paganism that doesn’t directly utilize spirits, but even so the act of doing magic will draw spirits towards you, so eventually you’ll get to a point in your practice where you have to deal with them.

As you can see, the idea of obsession as it was originally defined when viewed through the perspective of a ritual magician is absurd. Some people do hold true to this definition though. By associating with, talking to, and working with spirits they believe a person risks seriously harming themselves through obsession.

Because they don’t know the true definition of the term or its origins, many ritual magicians try to determine what the term actually means, which leads to all sorts of fanciful ideas. It doesn’t help that besides the Spiritist definition, there has never been a clear definition of what obsession is. All that is ever given are aspects of what obsession is. It involves working with spirits and becoming obsessed with them.

An idea has emerged that working with a particular spirit or spirits in general causes one to eventually become obsessed. This has nothing to do with the nature or type of spirit being worked with, it is simply a byproduct of working with spirits. There is also never a clear indication in the definition of when or under what circumstances a magician will cease to work with spirits in a healthy and productive way and become obsessed. There is never even much of an explanation as to why this would occur. It seems to be nothing more than a fanciful idea without any reason or evidence attached to it.

Certain spirits can be manipulative in their nature. There are too many stories to deny that this happens. Manipulation can be something as simple as a lie or as mystical as a thought suggestion or even outright possession. Whether or not a person is manipulated, and how badly they are manipulated, is going to be dependent both on the nature and power of the spirit and on the magician. It’s a danger, it happens. However it won’t inevitably happen just because someone works with spirits.

Sometimes we also see personality changes. These can be a lot harder to pinpoint as spiritual manipulation though. Anyone who is actively exploring their spirituality, such as through seances and evocations, would be experiencing personal growth, and this in turn can lead to changes in their personality. Connecting into spirits and becoming possessed by them can also modify a person’s personality, sometimes permanently. Often times magicians willingly allow spirits to do this to them in order to help them grow spiritually. Some spirits may also do this with the best of intentions, wanting to help the magician, but without permission. In either case there are a lot of pros and cons that must be weighed before we can even determine if what happened was a good thing or a bad thing.

These personality changes are also not as drastic as many like to believe. Often times spirits just work to nudge a person into a particular direction they were already swaying towards, or pull some aspect of their personality to the surface that they usually repress, or simply offer them a temptation that makes them do something they wouldn’t have done for free.

Lastly some people do have obsessive problems with magic in general. Most of us who have profound and surreal spiritual experiences will go through a phase where we give up on reality and immerse ourselves in our spiritual life. For most of us though that is just a phase, and we eventually come to some realizations and ultimately find a balance between the spiritual and mundane aspects of our life. There is a small number of people who never even try to achieve that balance, and instead just immerse themselves more and more into the spiritual aspect of their life as the rest of their life is left to deteriorate.

Although spirit contact may be involved, this has nothing to do with spirits. It has to do with practicing magic. Many of the people who fall into this trap have serious mental problems to begin with, everything from severe depression to schizophrenia, and instead of helping with their mental issues their spiritual path just exasperates them.

We also have to note that when we practice magic and allow spirits into our lives, they’re going to effect us in some way. If you joined some new club next week, started hanging out with the people in the club, making friends, seeing them all the time, it would have some sort of effect on your life. Your world views would change a bit. You might find yourself trying new activities. You would have new people in your life who would be calling you up because they need rides to the airport or someone to help them move. When you work with spirits you’re letting something new into your life, and your life is going to change because of it, and yes sometimes they’re going to do things to your life, and it won’t always be pleasant things.

So yes there are dangers when working with spirits. They aren’t really as big or common as the idea of obsession makes them out to be. It’s really similar to the dangers you experience whenever you work with magic. And the best defense is actually to practice magic. The more practical experience you have working with magic and dealing with spirits, and the more you grow spiritually, the stronger you will be and the less dangerous magic will be. On the other hand stronger magicians tend to pull stronger spritis and bigger problems towards themselves, so you never actually get to be safe.

The idea of obsession meanwhile is largely bullshit. It’s based largely off anecdotal evidence of a handful of people who had very bad experiences working with spirits. It’s being perpetuated by people who are, for the most part, novice practitioners and armchair magicians. These are not people who know about obsession because they have experience working with spirits and have been obsessed. These are the people who have never worked with spirits or only work with spirits while following strict guidelines for protection because they believe it is dangerous. That’s why the information on obsession is largely unclear, indefinite, and doesn’t follow logical reasoning. It is derived entirely from speculation and secondary sources, not from the practical experience of people who have actually worked with spirits.

Being Born With Magical Ability

It’s a popular sentiment within the entire magical community, and even within the purely speculative mundane world, that magical ability or mystical power is something that certain people are at least partially born with, and without this innate power you have no chance of ever becoming a magician or psychic. And there are three groups which have a vested interest in maintaining this idea.

The first group are the people who are selling their ability. The obvious example are psychics. Most go out of their way to explain how they’ve had this ‘gift’ since a young age. Very few are willing to say that if you would just learn to trust your intuition and work towards developing some precognitive ability, you’d find that you had access to this same ‘gift’ they charge $30 an hour for.

You also see this in other groups though. Go take a look at the New Thought community. I’d estimate that at least 80% of the major systems and authors claim to get their information through channeling. Yet despite the wealth of valuable information they’ve gained, I’ve yet to see a New Thought author who teaches channeling. But then why would you continue to buy their channeled works when you can channel your own? If you teach a man to fish, he’s not going to buy fish from you anymore.

This trend is even extending into the Pagan community. There are certain individuals who are pushing for a Pagan priesthood. The idea is that certain members of the Pagan community are more powerful than others, and that by completely dedicating themselves to magical work, as a career, they will become even more powerful. These individuals can then serve the community in a spiritual capacity which the community cannot serve itself, and likewise they should be compensated and encouraged to continue this work.

The idea of supporting Pagan elders through charity is an extension of this idea. The idea is that these elders are somehow able to spiritually do things for the community that normal Pagans cannot do for themselves.

And this of course leads into other bad ideas. There is this idea that most magic is too dangerous to be used at all by the uninitiated. That a person needs to be born right and have years of training and learning and dedication in order to ever safely work magic. This is no different than when, because of corporate pressure, the government sets up regulations on an industry which are strict and expensive under the guise of protecting the general public, when in reality these regulations are meant to deter small businesses and individual entrepreneurs from encroaching on the market share of major corporations. Why should a teen witch support a Pagan priesthood or elder when they can perform all of the rituals for themselves?

The second group that likes to promote the idea of innate powers at birth are secret societies. This isn’t a new idea. It’s inherent in Gnosticism, a religion that is often times used in secret societies. Secret societies aren’t new either. They’re in the historical record going back thousands of years. Just about every major civilization in every culture has had secret societies in it.

And it comes back to little boys and their clubhouses. Having clubs is something that is built into the minds of most little boys, just like rough housing and thinking little girls are icky but secretly thinking they’re pure awesome. People with secret societies are just men who haven’t yet grown out of this phase. A secret society, mystical or otherwise, is just a group of middle aged men sitting in a treehouse.

And as with any club, it isn’t fun if you let just anyone in. Only the cool kids are allowed into the club. And so when someone from a secret society tells you that you can’t join their club because you weren’t born with magical talent, it’s the same as a little boy that tells you that you can’t come into their treehouse because you were born the wrong race, or the wrong gender, or you’re too short, or you’re a member of the chess club.

In childhood there are also the terminally uncool kids that can’t get into any club, and so they start their own club of rejects which lets anyone join, because that is the fair thing to do. In the magical community we call these people Pagans :) I’m kidding of course.

The third kind of person who wants you to think that some people are born special is the person who needs to feel special. These are people who, when you take a closer look at their lives, are decidedly unspecial. They tend to be below average in every category.

Despite needing to be special, they tend to have a few other qualities that are counter-productive to this. They tend not to like hard work, or even understand the concept of having to work hard to achieve something. This can mean focusing on their career so they make a lot of money, focusing on their appearance so they can attract more attractive people, or having the discipline and investing the time to increase their magical ability. They also have a sense of entitlement. They think they deserve things, that they deserve to be special, without ever doing anything to earn this. Frater Barrabbas has several articles on his blog about his former teacher, a perfect example of one of these individuals.

And so of course these people aren’t special because of something they earned. They’re special because they were born special. The idea that great individuals, even ones who were born with a great deal of innate talent, still needed training, hard work, and discipline to accomplish their achievements is completely foreign to them. And their specialness is not something that can ever be measured or objectively proven. It is not based on material success, accomplishments, or earned degrees.

Saying someone is magically gifted is like saying someone is a smart person. We all know the person who believes they’re smart, whose parents are always going on about how smart they are, but who is of course an underachiever that never gets good grades, never graduates from a college, and never gets anywhere in their career field. They never solve any great problems or win any prizes for their intelligence. They never do anything in their life that proves they’re smart. Yet they believe they’re smart. It’s the same with these special people who are born with magical ‘gifts’.

Because of this emphasis on being born right, a lot of people will go on about their family lineage, because after all magic must be genetic. Usually they’ll mention a grandparent or great-grandparent that was a practitioner who is now dead. In fact every Wiccan I’ve ever met has a dead grandparent who was a Traditional Witch, except for a new breed of Wiccans who believe that Traditional Witchcraft doesn’t exist and that Gerald Gardener invented Witchcraft.

I know quite a bit about Traditional Witchcraft. It was already in a serious decline by the turn of the 20th century. It had a brief and modest spike in popularity in the 50s after Britain repealed the Witchcraft laws, but it was soon dwarfed and pretty much destroyed by the emergence of Wicca which was hugely popular for a minority magical religion, has grown considerably since, and has more than likely still not reached its peak. There are only a handful of Traditional Witches left today, almost all of them with a family lineage of Traditional Witchcraft.

You also have to take into account that with any magical group, Traditional Witches included, the majority of descendants of a practitioner will not become adult practitioners themselves. I’d say that in most cases, fifty years after a practitioner’s death they would be lucky to have one or two living adult practitioners who are blood relatives.

So if every Wiccan who said they were descended from a Traditional Witch really was, it would mean that about fifty or sixty years ago there was a huge number of Traditional Witches, which is disputed by the historical record, family lineages, and people who were alive during that time. The obvious conclusion, most of these people are liars.

If you really want to test someone, ask them what magical tool they have that belonged to their dead relative. I can guarantee that they inherited at least one tool or book, if not many tools and books. Everyone I ever met with a real lineage has at least one thing, and it’s always something they cherish and take good care of.

Most of the people I’ve met in life I wouldn’t consider magicians, and I doubt most people would. Yet I’ve never met a person with no magical ability. The idea of intuition is something that is universally understood and not tied into any spirituality. Yet it is a basic magical ability. True intuition, feeling that something is correct despite having no evidence, is a combination of precognition and sensing energy. That is a magical act.

In fact if you start to look at magical theory and how and why magic works, a lot of it is dependent on people having some magical ability, even if they don’t notice it. Everybody manipulates energy in some way. Everybody senses energy to some degree. Everybody forms links and connects into everything else in the universe.

There’s also the fallacy that magic is a single ability. Of course some people are going to be born with innate talents. This leads people to believe that because they aren’t naturally gifted at a certain magical ability that they are not gifted at magic. If, for instance, they’ve never had a precognitive experience they must not be a magical person or a psychic.

However magic is not a single ability or discipline. Magic is composed of many different disciplines and skills. And every magician will be strong in certain areas and weak in others.

It’s like science. Science is not one thing, it is a general term that consists of many different disciplines and various skills and understanding. A genius in one field of science is not interchangeable with another. For instance Darwin was a genius in the field of biology. He revolutionized the field with the theory of evolution. Do you think if we popped Darwin into Einstein’s life he would’ve instead revolutionized physics and contributed to inventing the atomic bomb and putting a man on the moon? Do you think if we put Einstein into Freud’s life he would’ve revolutionized Psychiatry? No, these people are non-interchangeable. They were made up of specific talents and abilities that allowed them to unnaturally excel in their specific scientific fields.

You may not have strong precognitive abilities. Of course you can still develop them, but you might always struggle with precognition and it may never come easily to you. You may always be weak in that discipline. That doesn’t mean you’re a weak magician though. That just means your strengths lie elsewhere. I guarantee you have some strong magical abilities, you just have to figure out what those strengths are.

A lot of magical ability is also training. Even if you have a strong innate ability, and this is true of everything not just magic, you still need training and discipline in order to mold that ability into something exceptional. Innate ability only gives you an edge over the competition, it isn’t a substitute for hard work. However hard work is, often times, a substitute for innate ability.

For instance I’m very good at channeling. It comes very easily and naturally to me. I often times accidentally pop into channels. I’ve met very few people who can channel as well as I can. But this isn’t something I was born with. I was not able to channel at all when I was younger. Granted there is nothing about me that makes it especially difficult for me to channel, but there is nothing special about me, physically or spiritually, that makes me better at channeling than most people.

What happened is my first real exposure to magic and spiritual training came from my first teacher. She did have a strong innate ability to channel, and to her it was a spiritually fundamental ability. The training she gave me had a specific emphasis on building me into a magician who could channel well. And that training is at the foundation of my magical practice and my solitary magical training.

The only reason why I am good at channeling is because I have a strong magical background in channeling and I’ve invested a good deal of time in properly training that ability.

Another good example is my knowledge and ability with spellwork and ritual magic. If you read my posts during the first year of this blog you’ll notice there is a lot of theory and no ritual. If you read my posts over the last year you’ll notice that there is not only some ritual magic, but a lot of the theory over the last year has gone into explicit detail about how and why ritual magic works. This is because I was still in the process of developing my knowledge of spellwork and ritual magic during the blog’s first year.

Once again this goes back to my first teacher. She was not fond of ritual magic. She considered it to be largely unnecessary and a weaker form of magic. She had not taken the time to learn much about ritual magic, and as such she hadn’t taught it to me.

When I first approached spellwork and ritual it was a very big subject I had no experience with and it overwhelmed me. I didn’t even know where to begin to understand it. I often times wished I had a background in a ritual system like Wicca or Ceremonial Magic, because at least then I would have a foundation of ritual magic and a starting point to work from. It wasn’t that I wasn’t born right, it’s just that I had no training or experience in the subject.

Ultimately I spent about a year and a half focused on teaching myself ritual magic. This involved reading books, convincing other magicians to let me watch them and study their methods, studying and breaking apart spells, and experimenting on my own with ritual magic. After a year and a half of training myself followed by four years of practicing it in my spiritual work, I now feel that I have a strong grasp on the theory ritual magic and that I’ve become very good at practicing it.

My initial inability to use ritual magic had nothing to do with my innate talents. My eventual success with it proves that I wasn’t born without the ability to understand it. If anything I may have had some innate ability to learn and work with ritual magic, however I couldn’t even begin to realize that ability until I had invested some time in learning about ritual magic and training myself in it.

Another thing to remember is that once a magician merges with their HGA they become immensely more powerful than they were before they merged with their HGA. In fact the most magically incapable person on this planet, if they merged with their HGA, would be vastly more powerful than the most skilled, well disciplined, and innately talented magician who hadn’t. Less than 1% of the world has merged with their HGA. I’d say that sadly less than 1% of the magical community has managed to do it. So once you manage to merge with your HGA, you’ll immediately  be elevated to the top percentile of powerful magicians.

Once you merge you will most likely start producing larger amounts of energy and, so there is going to be a lot more raw power there right away. You’ll also start to notice that you suddenly just know how to do things that you didn’t know how to do before. This is going to be different for different people. Maybe you’ll suddenly know how to channel, or you’ll have precognitive visions, or you’ll understand spellwork a lot better. You’ll have access to all of the knowledge and power of your mental body.

You’ll also gain access to the mental planes. And there is a lot of information there. It will also make you a bit more intelligent and give you a broader perspective on things. So not only will you be able to find information, but you’ll be able to understand it when you do.

Yes there is an initial boost. In fact it’s such a drastic boost in power, ability, and knowledge that it will probably take you months of exploration to fully realize what you know and what you can do. But merging with your HGA isn’t just about that initial boost of power. All of this extra power and knowledge and ability also creates limitless opportunity. Spiritual progression and understanding becomes hundreds of times easier. If you spent twenty years dedicating yourself to magical practice and spiritual progression prior to merging with your HGA, your overall progress would still not be a fraction of what you would accomplish in your first year after merging with your HGA, even if you only casually practiced magic and made no effort to develop yourself.

On a final note, when someone tells you that you cannot do the things they can do because you’re not talented enough, you weren’t born right, you aren’t made of the right stuff, or because you haven’t gone the proper route or paid your dues as they have, in every field and in every instance that person is insecure of their own abilities and typically mediocre at best. People who are truly talented and successful at anything always have a positive attitude and encourage others to attempt to do what they have done. It is partially because they know they are good enough and they don’t fear more talented individuals proving their inferiority, and it is partially because they have a pure love of the field and they want others to do things that are truly amazing and exceed even their own abilities.

Tools: Sigils, Pentacles, and Jewelry

This is the fifth and final part of the series dealing with elemental tools. Earth, like water, is a feminine and thus passive elemental. Even worse though Earth doesn’t have an active form (although water does). When I talked about water element tools I talked about how they were rarely used in ritual because they were passive tools. Earth tools get used a bit more often though, and there’s two main reasons for it. First off, and most importantly, they act as a bridge to the physical world. Secondly we can do things to Earth element tools.

What Are the Earth Element Tools

There is some confusion over what constitutes Earth element tools. We know the classic tools are Sword, Wand, Chalice, Lantern (or Lamp) and something else to represent Earth. I’ve noticed a lot of magicians have just stuck something in there so that they have a fifth tool (to represent the fifth element).

Actually every single physical tool you use has an Earth association. Your wand, your sword, your chalice, your lantern, all of these are technically Earth associated tools. In the case of your wand, for instance, it is fire associative, but it is also a physical object and thus has an Earth association.

Some magic is entirely spiritual in nature, but the point of a lot of magic is to somehow affect physical reality. Spells meant to bring you money, to bring love into your life, to help you find a book, and to strike your enemies dead are all meant to ultimately affect the physical world. The point of all this magic is to take something entirely spiritual, like an idea or energy or spirit, and somehow transform that into a physical force. Our tools aid us in that endeavor by acting as a bridge between the spiritual world and the physical world. Your wand represents the element of fire, an element which is a spiritual force. Your wand however is something that is physical (and Earth associative), and so it acts as a conduit to turn this spiritual thing into a physical thing.

Earth element tools are really the exact opposite of Spirit element tools. If you remember the actual spirit element tool isn’t the lantern or the candle, it’s the flame. And that flame, like our tools, acts as a bridge between the spiritual world and the physical world. It’s a bridge that goes the other way though. If we burn a candle, or a piece of paper, or some kind of offering, the point is to take something that is physical and turn it into something purely spiritual. Our other tools however take something that is purely spiritual and give it some sort of physicality.

Rather then go on and on about every type of physical tool imaginable, I’m going to look at three tools which are usually considered Earth element tools and a few different ways they can be used. Namely sigils, pentacles, and jewelry.

Sigils

There are a few different ways to make sigils. You can copy them from a book. You can channel them. You can derive them from magical squares. And you can even create and then empower your own. Peter Carol created a method to do just that for his system of Chaos Magick that is very popular.

All a sigil is is just a symbol drawn on to some sort of physical object (like a piece of paper). Small children scribble on paper all the time. These scribbles rarely bring them great wealth or open the gates to hell or whatever else people usually do with magic. So what makes the symbols that make a sigil powerful?

The symbols of a sigil (however they’re made, so long as they are made correctly) connect to something. This may be an energy, or spirit, or idea, or place, or magician. It can really be anything. But the whole point of the sigil is that it forms a connection between something and that piece of paper, and quite possibly anyone who works with or even looks at the symbol on that piece of paper.

Suppose you have a spirit you’ve evoked. You want this spirit to do something for you, like bring you treasure or make somebody fall in love with you, it really doesn’t matter what. Some spirits may be very powerful. They may be powerful enough to manifest on their own and do your bidding or whatever. Other spirits though aren’t going to be that powerful. These spirits are entirely spiritual beings, and how the hell is a spiritual being going to drag treasure to your house? It’s like a ghost that moves around and you can see and even talk to, but it isn’t going to be able to pick stuff up and throw it at you.

So you take a symbol that this spirit is somehow connected to and write it on a piece of paper. You’ve now given the spirit a connection to that piece of paper. It can now utilize that piece of paper as a tool, and utilize some of that paper’s qualities, mainly that the piece of paper physically exists in this world and is allowed to physically effect this world. Now the spirit is capable of acting in this world.

Of course a piece of paper is a weak and flimsy thing. Paper isn’t well known for being forceful or powerful. Just like some spirits can manifest on their own some can do an awful lot with just a piece of paper. Others not so much. You could of course put your sigil on to other things though, like for instance you can carve a sigil into wood, or a metal like iron, or even into gold. And in any of these cases the spirit will be able to make use of the qualities of whatever you carve its symbol into. And wood and iron and gold all have a much greater physical mass, are much more durable, and much more powerful than paper.

Pentacles

I’m only including this one to clear up some confusion. A pentacle is not the same thing as a pentagram. These are two different words and, as such, they mean two different things. Some of the confusion stems from the fact that on several popular tarots (including the Rider-Waite) the pentacles depicted on the cards are of pentagrams.

A pentacle refers to a talisman of some sort. It is basically something with a symbol on it, like a piece of paper or a piece of metal. It sounds a lot like what I just said a sigil was. The main difference is that technically sigil refers to the symbol itself, where as pentacle refers to the entirety of the tool, both the symbol and the material it is drawn on. And yes sometimes that symbol may be a pentagram, but that isn’t always (or even mostly) the case.

Jewelry

I think we all know what jewelry is. It’s rings, necklaces, bracelets, talismans, amulets, tiaras, piercings, and just about anything else made of metal or a gemstone that can be worn on your person. We aren’t counting plastic jewelry, mainly due to the limited metaphysical properties of plastic as talked about in a previous article. That article also discusses the properties of metal and gemstones, which we’ll be making use of with magic jewelry.

When making magical jewelry we have four basic methods of enchanting jewelry.

1. Add specific energy to the piece – This is the most basic type of jewelry enchantment. Of course jewelry enchanted this way can be used as a simple battery or reserve of energy. It can also be used as a very simple type of spell. Basically the jewelry will push off large amounts of a specific energy into the surrounding area, and this energy will in turn have some effect on people in the surrounding area. It’s the same sort of an idea as a projection. A lot of the glamour rings (rings that make people more attracted to you/fall in love with you) I’ve seen, well the ones that aren’t entirely scams, use this type of magic to work.

2. Place a spell in the piece – This method is a bit more complicated and a bit more fancy, but far more versatile. To do this we find a spell or ritual, any spell or ritual at all. We then break down its physical components so it is entirely psionic. And lastly we place it into the object with the intent that the object will cast the spell on its own. There are a few different ways to go about doing this. The method that has always seemed easiest to me is to actually perform the entire spell and while doing this to pull the energy and ritual aspects from each part as the spell is being performed and place it into the object. Doing this means the spell you’re casting won’t do anything at all (because you yanked everything into the object), but then all of those acts and energies will be placed in the object and can be activated just by charging the object.

3. Connecting the object to a spirit – Another method to enchant an object is to connect the object to a particular spirit. This can be a demon, a ghost, an angel, whatever. Likewise the spirit may live inside or even be trapped inside the object. Alternatively the object may simply connect to a particular spirit that resides outside the object (in this case the object is sort of like a telephone that calls the spirit). In this case any energy put into the object is meant only to either empower the spirit or make a connection with the spirit. Whatever the object is meant to do is actually done by the spirit which resides in the object.

4. Making the object sentient – Finally you can make an object sentient. This is a lot like connecting it to a spirit. The difference is that instead of taking an already existing spirit and connecting it to the object, we make a new spirit which is the object. In other words we are making this object intelligent and giving it a soul.

Each of these four methods has various advantages and disadvantages. Method #1 is by far the easiest method, but it is also very limited and wastes a lot of energy. Method #2 is a bit more complicated but at the same time a lot more versatile in what it can do. Method #3 might not even require an energy source and you may be working with a very powerful spirit, but on the downside you need to find a willing outside spirit to connect into the jewelry and you also have to deal with that spirit. Method #4 requires you to know specific skills (how to make sentient objects), but eliminates the need to find an outside spirit and allows you to design the intelligence of the object to specifically fit you needs. On the downside the power of the object will be somewhat limited by your own power (unlike when using an outside spirit) and you will still have to deal with a sentient being (granted one you specifically designed though.

Sources of Energy

However you decide to make your jewelry you’ll still have to have an energy source for it. In order for the object to do anything it needs to expend energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. Given time even an inanimate object will replenish the energy it expends. Gemstones are actually really good at replenishing energy, but this is still a slow process. Also these inanimate objects tend to naturally hold very small amounts of energy, and when they replenish themselves they will only replenish this very small amount. Usually that won’t be enough to do the sort of magic you want. There are several different ways to empower an enchanted object.

1. Take it from the wearer – This is by far the easiest and most common method. A piece of jewelry is designed so that it will draw energy off the person wearing it. There are of course several disadvantages to this method. First off you have to expend energy to use the object. Depending on how much energy the object needs it may exhaust you. And how effective the object is is going to be directly tied into how powerful the person wearing it is. A piece of jewelry that may work great for an adept may completely drain an inexperienced magician without having any effect.

2. Draw it from an infinite source – Basically the object is going to be tied into some source of infinite or near infinite energy. Usually an object like this is tied into a particular god who empowers it. The object may also be tied into a very powerful spirit. Another common thing to tie these objects into is the Earth. Alternatively a specific infinite place may be used, such as tying the object to one of the Sepiroth. The main disadvantage of this method is that the energy is going to be specific to what it’s being drawn off of, and that you’re going to need permission to take the energy from a god or spirit.

3. Tie the object into an energy cycle – You can also tie the object into a cycle or frequent occurrence and creates large amounts of excess energy in its wake. The most common cycle to tie an object into is the cycle of the moon. Once a month, when the cycle completes, the object will be completely charged. I personally like tying objects into lightning storms (there is a lot of excess energy floating around from the lightning during these storms). So every time a lightning storm happens these objects recharge. The main disadvantage of this method is that you can’t instantly recharge your objects and you may have to wait for some particular event to occur in order to use them.

4. Steal energy from the surrounding area – This type of object essentially operates like a psionic vampire. It looks around the area for anything besides the wearer that may have energy and drains it so that it can operate. The disadvantage to this method is that it is immoral and just as unethical as being a psionic vampire, and most magicians will regard this as a direct attack.

5. Receive energy from a sentient source – Finally you can get energy from a sentient source. This means that you either made the object sentient or you tied a spirit into the object. Both a spirit and a sentient object are going to have souls and they are going to naturally replenish energy. The sentient object or spirit may be powerful enough to completely empower the object.

How to Make Candle Oils (Cheap and Easy)

This is going to be a quick guide on how to easily and affordably make your own candle oil blends from herbs.

If you’re familiar with candle magic and your familiar with herbalism, no doubt you can see the possibilities of combining the two in your spellwork. Unfortunately most of the commercially available oils are rather limited. Making your own oil is not only cheaper, but it also lets you experiment with a wider variety of herbs and even lets you create your own blend.

Imagine being able to make an oil out of lavender, rose, and jasmine the next time you want to do a love spell? You can even throw in a dab of dragon’s blood to strengthen it. The next time you’re lighting a candle to do scrying, or any other type of divination, try an oil blend of mugwort and nutmeg. You can also add eyebright or even marijuana (if it’s legal where you live), and of course dragon’s blood will make the oil more powerful.

Unfortunately many people have not been trained in how to brew their own oils at home. These same people go on the Internet and chat about how you need thousands of dollars worth of equipment to make your own oil. Most of us don’t have that kind of money to spend on the equipment. Fortunately all you really need is about $20 plus the herbs and you can make your own oils. And people will be in awe when you tell them you have the equipment to make your own oils as needed.

I’m not going to teach you how to make commercial quality oil. This isn’t going to be something you can sell in a store, and I don’t recommend putting it on your skin. This oil is meant to be put on your candles and burned, and this oil will be perfect for that job and you’ll only need $20 worth of equipment. This isn’t a new technique either. Someone taught this to me a while back and magicians have been doing this for a very long time. Unfortunately it isn’t getting taught enough and a lot of people believe they need to spend a lot of money to make their own oils.

Steps:

1. First off, get your stuff together. Figure out the exact type of blend you want to make. Then you need to get three things, your herbs, a mortar & pestle, and a base oil.

I. Your Herbs – How much the herbs cost are going to vary quite a bit based on quantity, quality, type, and where you shop. Never, ever buy herbs from a magic shop unless you absolutely have to. The best place to get herbs from is a New Age Herbal shop. I literally have  a New Age Herbal shop and a magic store right next to each other near my home. The New Age Herbal shop has fresher herbs, they’re better taken care of, they literally cost about ten times less, and the shop is staffed only with hot girls in their early twenties (which doesn’t effect the quality of the herbs, but enriches my shopping experience). The only downside to an Herbal store is there are certain herbs they usually don’t carry (like Osiris Root and Dragon’s Blood). I would say order online before you order from a magic shop. Magic shops give you low quality herbs at super high prices.

WARNING: Before burning any herbs, even in an oil, you should have educated yourself on what those herbs do. Many herbs, even those sold for consumption in herbal shops, can be poisonous and potentially fatal. You should also be aware of what effect the herbs may have on you, since a severe allergy to an herb that you’ve burned can also be fatal. It’s best to only burn candles with oils in well ventilated areas when you are awake until you are sure about what affect the herbs will have on you.

II. Mortar & Pestle – These can be found in magic shops, herbal stores, and pharmacies. The price will vary based on quality and size (probably between $10-$80). I have a very large high quality Mortar & Pestle. I don’t suggest buying one like I did. It is so heavy I can’t put in on a table or shelf because it will warp the wood. It’s a pain to clean. And I’ve never had to grind so many herbs at once that I needed a Mortar and Pestle that big. Generally one that costs between $15-$25 will be adequate for candle oils. Remember that you’re more than likely going to pay an inflated price if you buy it from a magic shop.

III. Base Oil – This is the last thing you need and you have a few different options. The best and cheapest way to go is to use cooking oil. Use either corn oil or olive oil as your base oil. For a couple of dollars you can get a big bottle of the stuff, and that will last you a very long time so long as you aren’t also using it to cook with. If you want to be really fancy, you can buy a half ounce bottle of an appropriately scented fragrant oil for about $5. Expect to use at least half the bottle if not more. This can start to get pretty expensive, and personally I’ve never felt like this added all that much to the spell.

2. Place your herbs in the Mortar & Pestle. This is an easy part. Take the different herbs you want for your blend. Place them in the proper quantities inside of the bowl part of the Mortar and Pestle.

3. Grind. Now take the stick part of the Mortar and Pestle, and grind the herbs in the bowl. To do this just push down hard and move the stick around. You want to keep doing this until you have the herbs ground down into a fine powder.

4. Once you have a powder, add some oil into the Mortar and Pestle. How much oil you add really depends on how many herbs you’ve used. You want the oil to be full of herb powder, and I’d say that you always want the mixture to be at least 50% herb powder. I’d say not to add any more oil than you have to (remember the oil is just the base so we can apply the herbs to the candle, it’s the herbs that have the magical qualities).

5. Grind again. Grind the powder into the oil to get it good and mixed up.

6. At this point you’re finished. The only thing left to do is apply the oil to the candle with a cloth. I don’t suggest saving the oil (especially since it is so easy to make more) and recommend washing any excess oil out of the Mortar & Pestle after the spell.