Starhawk says, “Any viable religion developing today will inevitably be concerned with some form of magic, defined as “the art of changing consciousness at will.” magick has always been an element of WitchCraft, but in the Craft its techniques were practiced with a context of community and connection. They were means of ecstatic union with the Goddess Self - not ends in themselves. Fascination with the psychic - or the psychological - can be a dangerous sidetrack on any spiritual path. When inner visions become a way of escaping contact with others, we are better off simply watching television. When “expanded consciousness” does not deepen our bonds with people and with life, it is worse than useless: It is spiritual self-destruction.
If Goddess religion is not to become mindless idiocy, we must win clear of the tendency of magic to become superstition. Magic - and among its branches I include psychology as it purports to describe and change consciousness - is an art. Like other arts, its efficacy depends far more on who is practicing it than on what theory they base their practice. Egyptian tomb painting is organized on quite different structural principles that twentieth-century Surrealism - yet both schools produced powerful paintings. Balinese music has a different scale and rhythmic structure from Western music, but it is no less beautiful. The concepts of Freud, Jung, Melanie Klein, and Siberian shamanism cal all aid healing or perpetuate sickness, depending on how they are applied.
Magickal systems are highly elaborate metaphors, not truths. When we say “There are twelve signs in the Zodiac,” what we really mean is “we will view the infinite variety of human characteristics through this mental screen, because with it we can gain insights”; just as when we say” there are eight notes in the musical scale,” we mean that out of all the possible range and variations of sounds, we will focus on those that fall into these particular relationship, because by doing so we can make music. But when we forget that the signs are arbitrary groupings of stars, and start believing that there are large lions, scorpions, and crabs up in the sky, we are in trouble. The value of magic metaphors is that through them we identify ourselves and connect with larger forces; we partake of the elements, the cosmic process, the movements of the stars. But if we use them for glib explanations and cheap categorizations, they narrow the mind instead of expanding it and reduce experience to a set of formulas that separate us from each other and our own power. “ ( The Spiral Dance, Starhawk, p 192,, Harper & Row: New York, NY, 1979)
Amber K uses the words of many to define the subject. “Stewart Farrar puts it this way: “The stage-by-stage development of the entire human being is the whole aim of magic.” According to Weinstein, magick can help “get your entire life in harmony - mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and psychically…. And what is the ultimate purpose of the work? To fulfill the self on an even higher level. To transform, uplift, and so fully develop the self that the whole Universe may benefit thereby.”
William G. Gray, another will-known occultist, says: “Magic is for growing up as Children of the Light. Sane, sound, healthy, and happy souls, living naturally and normally on levels of inner Life where we can be REAL people as contrasted with the poor shadow-selves we project at one another on Earth.”
Thus magick exists to expedite, guide and enhance change. wiccans might say it is the work of the God within: “Everything She touches, changes…”” In her book True Magick, Amber addresses the subject from a unique perspective. She sees all life and our endeavors as related to reclaiming a consciousness of our greater selves - the all-connected life form which we comprise as a whole. Only humans can make this journey. Perhaps because other life forms so effortlessly inhabit the whole without confusion, or perhaps because we, of all the creatures on Earth, have the capacity to analyze our selves. We have the capacity to change our thought processes, our behaviors and to make permanent change within and without our selves.
“We are part of All That Is. With magick we can experience existence from the perspective of the other parts, and know that we are One…Such a quest requires us to change, and magick is an effective tool for defining new goals and reaching for unknown limits and bring ourselves into new territory.
“Magick requires daring. It brings the “little death” [giving up oneself] which is part of rebirth. Not to change is to stagnate and die; but to willingly offer up the life we know, is to find a greater Life. To the conscious mind unaware of the immortal Spirit within, this kind of sacrifice, the loss of the isolated, little person-self. Seems terrifying indeed. Yet through it one regains the lost wholeness of the Greater Self, which is all of us, which is The God/dess.” (True Magick, Amber K, Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN 1990.)
Raymond Buckland is emphatic that magick in the wiccan religion is secondary to the practice of wicca as a religion. However, magick is a large part of the religion and the practice of WitchCraft. “In itself, magick is a practice. If all you want to do is work magick, then you don't need to become a Witch to do it. Anyone can do magick, or, at least can attempt to do it. such a person is a magician. ….. But what exactly, is “Magick”?… Aleister Crowley defined magick as “the art or science of causing change to occur in conformity with will”. In other words, making something happen that you want to happen. How do we make these things happen? By using the “power” (for want of a better word) that each of us has within. Sometimes we must supplement that power by calling on the gods, but for most things we can produce all that we need ourselves.” (Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, Raymond Buckland, Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN 1989)
Books You Might Enjoy:
Will Herberg - The Writings Of Martin Buber
Israel Regardie - The Art And Meaning Of Magic
Aleister Crowley - Intro Magick
Benjamin Rowe - The Essential Skills Of Magick
Melita Denning - The Foundations Of High Magick
