by Nathaniel

The Essentials of Magick. A Complete Guide to Common Elements of All

Magical Systems Copyright (c) 2013 by Nathaniel
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles and reviews,
no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written
permission from the author.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 978-83-935633-3-3
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Email: [email protected]
Wegierska Gorka, 2013
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Acknowledgement
I'd like to acknowledge Agnieszka Cupak, Tomek Mankin and Pawel
Gajewski, for great help with general ideas of magick they offered me.
My gratitude to Arkadiusz Lisiecki for sharing his knowledge of Reiki,
Buddhism and Taoism concepts.
I had many teachers, lesser and greater, some of them on-line, some of them
off-line. Thank you all!
Finally, my gratitude to all my students and people interested in magick, who
asked question, to which I provided answers. Their curious minds hungry for
magical knowledge helped me decide what should be included in this book.
Disclaimer
The information presented in this book has been carefully researched and
passed on to my best knowledge and conscience. Despite this fact, neither the
author or the publisher assume any type of liability for presumed or actual
damages of any kind that might result from the direct or indirect application
or use of the statements in this book.
The information in this book is solely intended for interested readers and
educational purposes and should in no way be understood as diagnostic or
therapeutic instructions in the medical or psychological sense.
Magick is neither simple nor safe – it's an art that requires patience, inner
strength and emotional stability.
As author, I do not even pretend to write a universal book about magick – I
even believe it is impossible to do so. In this work, I have explained the
commons of most magical and spiritual traditions. The basics: the existence
of spirits, the need for magical cleansing, grounding, the basics of magical
self-defense and similar elements, are common for all systems. The theory of
magick, energies and such is general, and I understand that some people will
not agree with my words. Still, I hope that those who are beginners, will find
the techniques and knowledge from this book useful and that this knowledge
will keep them safe on the first steps of their journey until they find more
effective techniques by themselves.
In this book, you'll find quite few references to Reiki, mainly in footnotes.
This is so because I practice and teach Reiki, and this school of spiritual
thought is close to my heart.
Preface
For the past ten years I explored different schools of magick1 and spiritual
work. I've seen schools of Chaos Magick, Wicca, New Age and mysterious
arts of the Far East; schools of modern Huna2 and ancient African magick;
paths of healing Reiki3 and destructive arts of black magick. By gaining
knowledge and experience over time, I've realized that these different schools
of magical thought have many elements in common. Elements that are
essential for successful and safe practice. And yet, at the same time I was
never able to find a proper book that would introduce me to the very basics of
all magical practices – these basics that are common for Chaos Magick,
Wicca, Reiki, Huna and hundreds of other systems.
What I could find was a large set of books entitled "introduction to magick",
yet what these books represented was all but the essentials. All of these books
were circling around the Western arts of ceremonial magick, mixed with
Wiccan witchcraft, and rarely any of these books managed to go deeper into
the subject of correlations between different schools from different areas of
the world. Thus, I had to learn everything by myself. Which I eventually did,
after battling countless numbers of personal demons of my mind, and quite
physical (energetically) malicious spirits that thought of me as of pray that
can be fed upon.
Thus, I've learned a lot in the past nine years, and because of this, I decided to
write down what I know in this book, and to share my knowledge with those
who make their first steps on the path of magick – magick of different
schools. Because it doesn't matter if you practice Huna, Reiki, Wicca or
classic European ceremonial magick. The basics, the essentials, are still the
same.
Some people believe that magick experiences are subjective, and personal,
that they have no objective elements and that everything can be explained
only from a subjective perspective. In the result, in the eyes of many people
there is no such thing as the set-in-stone collection of basics for magical arts.
But the truth is that whether you curse someone with Christian magick,
Wicca ritual or ceremonial technique, the effect will be the same; and
whether you make a Norse god, or forest spirit, or Buddhist demon angry,
you will get a punch into your "third eye".
Some people do not wish to admit it, but there are some common basics for
every magical system in the world, basics which you need to learn if you do
not wish to get possessed and your life destroyed. This book is not sweet, nor
colored with rainbow – I show you things as they are. And you should
definitely learn about them if you wish to remain safe in the world of magick
or esoteric arts of different sorts. Because in esoteric arts, whether you call
number #1 "one", "jeden", "uno" or "un", it's still number 1, and 1+1 equals
2, no matter how do you pronounce it.
So, this book is not sugar-coated, not at all.
In every tradition, there are some similar effects – because the world of
magick and the way in which magick works is always the same – the terms
and practices might be different, though. This book has been written in such
way that after reading it, you can figure out practices related to your own
schools of thoughts, and understand which paths that you walk miss some
important, almost mandatory practices.
This work is not a guidebook to any specific esoteric path. Rather, it is a
guidebook that explains the basic commons of every tradition, from Wicca to
Buddhism. I'm going to explain the archetypes of energies and entities – from
ghosts to gods. Then, you're going to learn about the tools of the trade –
incenses, candles and more. All of this will be supported by examples and
stories from my own practice, and practice of people I have met – as friends
and teachers.
Although I understand that this book won't suit everyone, I hope that most
readers will benefit from it; thus that they'll be able to understand what
they're missing in their practice, and why some practices that they've learned
are important for their safety and success.
Who Is This Book For?
The word "magick" in this book's title might be misleading, so I wish to
explain who is this book for. Not only practitioners of European magick will
benefit from this work – actually, anyone who is interested in modern
magick, occult or spiritual work, like the one promoted by New Age
movement, should read this book. It is because everyone who is dealing with
things like energy healing; law of attraction; manifestation; rituals;
summoning; spirit communication; channeling; divination and even spiritual
development, deals with energies and entities, as well. And because of this,
one must know the basics that are common for every magical or spiritual
schools.
Thus, this book is for:
Practitioners of ceremonial magick – whether it's Enochian system,
modern Chaos Magick, "Golden Dawn" based systems and so on.
Pagan practitioners – those who follow practical pagan and neo-pagan
paths. By practical we understand those paths, that include magical
practice and rituals, and the practitioner chose a solitude path.4
Witches and shamans – those who walk the path of witchcraft as
solitude practice and as part of Wiccan religion (or other system of
witchcraft, for example those based on "Aradia, or the Gospel of the
Witches"); and shamans5, guided by spirits who would like to learn a bit
more about essentials of magical practice.6
Psychics – those who have awakened their extra-sensory perception and
are using their skills on a daily basis, for example, to offer psychic
readings, psychometry or psychic healing.
New Age followers7 - those who use the Law of Attraction, or
participate in New Age workshops, or practice different schools of self-
growth and spiritual development.
Card readers and fortune tellers – those who practice divination with
Tarot, runes or angel cards, or use any other method of divination and
fortune telling.
Healers – those who are Reiki healers, or Pranic healers, or those who
use other forms of energy for the purpose of healing.

If you feel you belong to one of these categories or similar, then this book is
definitely meant for you.
Seek Your Own Answers, Yet Know the Essentials
The most important thing, which I want to teach you, is to seek your own
answers. If you have become interested in the art of magick or spiritual
development, then it means that you seek a way to change your life, one way
or another. This is why people get to practice things – they want to become
richer, or they want to find true love, or they want to help others. Or they
want to seek power to control others, too because there are different
intentions that people have – some are positive, and some are negative. I hope
that this book will help you realize that negative intentions are dangerous,
and it's far better seeking "power" through positive growth, rather than
through manipulation and black magick.
But, ethics aside for now, if you truly wish to change your life through
magick, then you must read and learn a lot. Through reading and learning –
from books, people and your own experiences – you gain knowledge and you
grow. Thus, you learn how to achieve your goals more effectively, and yet
how to remain safe at the same time. This book is a guidebook – it guides you
on your path. But it doesn't provide you with definite answers, which you
require. But we'll deal with this later. When you're done with this book, think
about what you have learned, and look for more books that can give you the
answers. Because I do not provide you with recipes for success.
I provide you with knowledge about energies and intentions; entities that
exists and will come in contact with you as soon as you begin your magical
work; collection of safety rules, which you should keep in mind in order to
remain safe. These are the essentials – to understand how the "world beyond"
works and what you can find there is the key for successful and safe practice
of magick. And this is what you truly need, when you're still a beginner – the
understanding of basics. Without this, you won't be successful on your
magical path, simple as that.
Introduction Endnotes
1 The term "Magick", with the letter "k" at the end, has been introduced on
the beginning of XX century by Aleister Crowley. It was meant to distinct
practical, occult magick from growing movement of stage magic - based on
illusion and tricks.
2 Modern Huna isn't as traditional as some people would like to believe. It is
based on reconstruction of Polynesian beliefs and practices, yet it has been
created in XX century by Max Freedom Long. Still, it is based on some
traditional beliefs and practices, and one has to admit, it's very effective
practice when used properly.
3 Reiki is a form of energy medicine, and even if it's considered being more
of a spiritual healing, it is based on the principles of Magick, as I shall
explain soon.
4 Those who are members of larger groups of practitioners understand that
there is always someone skilled in magical work, a form of a "priest", and it
is he who teach about practical aspects of his craft; if you're a student of such
teacher, this book will serve as a reference work, only.
5 Although the name "Shaman" originates from waste regions of Siberia,
today this name is used to describe those people, who have been chosen by
spirits, and have passed initiation by these spirits, and finally, who are guided
by the spirits; and it's all based on more animistic approach to magick and
spirituality. Shamanic practices include rituals, and "ecstatic" trance states, in
which shaman performs healing, or travels to higher or lower worlds (planes
of existence). It is worth mentioning, especially for those who walk the path
of New Age that one cannot become a true shaman if he won't be chosen or
initiated by spirits. No workshop nor any diploma will make you a shaman,
and a true shaman does not require workshops or diplomas since he is guided
by spirits.
6 It is essential to know that a true shaman is guided by spirits, and these
spirits will teach him or her everything that the shaman has to know. Also, it
is worth knowing that if you suspect you've been chosen by spirits to become
a shaman (whatever this "position" is called in your culture), you should
become a fan of reading, and definitely seek someone to explain you what's
going on (for example, other shamans).
7 By the word "followers" we understand those who practice schools
associated with New Age ideology and movement. It does not suggest any
religious connotations.
 The Book of Theory
Everything starts with theory. You can never begin your practice if you won't
learn the theoretical aspects of it – it is the order of things. The essential
theory of magick can be limited to two primary things. First, definition of
terms, which helps understand what we understand as magick. Second, the
understanding of intentions (your Will) – the primary force that governs all
magical activity. Let us waste no time, and start with the definition.
The Definition of Magick
Before we explain the essential elements of different schools of magick and
spiritual work, we must define the term "magick" itself, first. The best way to
do so is base ourselves upon an encyclopedic definition. We can read in a
great work of John Michael Greer, "The New Encyclopedia of the Occult":8
(…) Originally, the word – in Greek, mageia; in Latin, magia – meant
the knowledge or art of the magoi or magi, a hereditary caste of Persian
holy man.
Later on, we can read the definition of Eliphas Levi:9
(…) Levi defined magic as the art of manipulating the Astral10 Light, the
mysterious substance-energy that in his view lay behind all magical
activities.
And finally, few words later:
(…) Aleister Crowley (…) proclaimed that magic – or as he spelled it,
"magick" – is "the science and art of causing change in conformity with
will".
From the essential point of view, magick is all these three things. First, it's an
art, and knowledge. Then, it's knowledge of using and manipulating energies
– that exists all around us. And finally, it's an art of manipulating these
energies in order to cause change according to our will. Whether you use
Reiki, Huna, Wicca or ceremonial magick, you still do the same thing – use
the knowledge to manipulate energies in order to achieve a change in the
physical world.
Let me give you some examples so you can understand magick better.
In ceremonial magick, you have a goal. In order to achieve this goal,
you perform a ritual. A ritual is a form of activity, that based on
knowledge, focuses your will upon your goal. Thus, this leads to
manipulation of energies in order to achieve the goal – the change of
reality.
In Huna, you have a goal. Therefore, you collect energies from your
environment in order to fuel your subconscious mind, which then uses
its power of shaping the reality to change the world, and achieve the
goal – the change of reality.
 In Reiki, you have a goal of healing something – by healing you
understand the process of returning something back – a person or idea –
into a state of perfect harmony. Thus, you open yourself, and you allow
the energy of Reiki to flow from the source into the person or idea and
heal it. With time, this subtle energy of Reiki brings harmony back, and
the goal is achieved – the change of reality.

Similar process can be noticed in many schools – modern Law of Attraction

practices, Wiccan rituals, Pranic healing, Buddhist meditations, or shamanic
(animistic) practices. The life of the practitioner and the goals might be
different, yet the principles are the same. Still, the change of reality is just
one of many goals of practical magick. There are at least two primary schools
of thought when it comes to magical practices.
Some people try to influence the world around them via magical means,
by performing rituals, casting spells and working with energies and
entities. These are exoteric practices – acting on the outside. This is what
people often calls the actual magick.
Some people use meditation11, mantras12 and rituals in order to change
their own mind as they believe that the mind is what creates the reality.
These are esoteric practices – acting on the inside. This is what most
people understand as spiritual development.

Finally, there is a third school of thought, in which a person doesn't try to

change the reality, but seeks final enlightenment through spiritual practices.
This "third path" requires some basic knowledge, as well, so you should keep
reading this book even if you seek enlightenment, not a change in the world.
What is this change that we talk about, and what are the other goals?
Why do People Practice Magick, and the Types of
Magical Effects
There are many reasons, and thus many different effects of practical magick.
One who practices magick might wish to change things, or to bless things, or
to thank for things, or finally, to see things. And it's just the basic division.
To Make Changes in Reality
What is this "change of reality"? To use simple words, one might wish to
improve his financial condition. Or, one might wish to heal his illness, or
illness of someone else. One might wish to improve the way his company
works. Or one might wish to find true love. In order to do so, people perform
rituals or use talismans. Sometimes, they use healing upon themselves, or
learn magical techniques that can help them focus their will upon the ability
to change their life.
This is the most popular goal of magick for many people. In this case, the
energy and intention that is created during magical work is directed so it can
influence, one way or another, the reality of a person.
To Bless; to Thank
Some rituals and activities are not meant to make a change of reality, of
course. Sometimes, rituals and magical activities are meant to bless and to
give thanks. Sometimes, the energy is meant to help someone in achieving
his goals. For example, my friends might wish to move to a new flat, and as I
collect a large amount of energy during my meditation, I can send this energy
to them with the intention of helping them make their wish come true – such
blessing is a form of white magick as long as I send the energy to support
their goals, and I do not try to force them to approve my vision of the world.
And sometimes, magical work is used as a form of thanksgiving, when the
energy is sent to someone in a form of blessing because you're thankful for
the person's help. Or sometimes, the energy is sent to spirits or Mother
Nature, as a thanksgiving for the harvest, as a simple example.
To Protect
Quite often, magical work is used in order to protect the person or a place.
This is when rituals and magical work are used to create shields around
someone, or to cleanse a person or a place. This form of magical activity
includes the use of amulets, special objects that are meant to protect a person.
This form of magick includes offensive magick techniques, as well, when it
is essential to take actions against someone who is attacking us magically.
For example, when an entity attacks us, we take offensive actions for
example by surrounding the entity with bright, spiritual light meant to force
the entity to hold its attack.13 When a room or a person is cleansed of
negative energies, and then shielded with energy shields or magical symbols,
this is also a form of magical work, meant to protect the person or a room.
To Understand and See
And there is another reason and result of magick – it falls into the category of
divination. There are many ways and techniques of divination, some of which
are very popular these days, like runes or Tarot14 cards, to name the few.
These ways are meant to help the person see the causes and results of
different actions, and help the person understand the best ways of dealing
with specific problems.15 Yet quite often, different systems of divination are
used to support spiritual growth – through proper work, they can be used to
point the person who performs the reading for himself to this person's own
problems and things, which must be healed and worked out in order to push
the person's spiritual development further.
These are the reasons why people practice magick – they want understanding
and tips for solving their problems, or they wish to change the reality to
improve their life; or they wish to thank for something or help others; and
finally, they want to protect themselves and their families. From a more
practical perspective, a psychic might use magick to perform psychic
readings, but at the same time he might use magick to shield himself and the
room in which he rests from negative energies and magical attacks. Or a
Reiki practitioner might use magical work to shield the room, so later on he
can channel healing energy to another person. A Joe Doe might spend few
months working out his financial beliefs in order to change his financial
situation for better. And a pagan circle might perform a ritual to gather
strong, healing energies that they wish to use in order to support the healing
process of Earth. All of these are forms of magical work.
So, now that we are far more knowledgeable, what is magick, one more time?
The Simplest Definition of Magick
The simplest definition of magick would be "the process of causing change
in conformity with will". While most schools use additional tools and
techniques like meditation, prayer, rituals and ceremonials, a lot of magical
activity is based simple upon your desire – "through", "will" or "intention".
The nature of the mind is fascinating, but it can be defined by using three
words, and three words only: thoughts create things. Your mind shapes the
Universe; your minds create the world around you. And finally, your mind
creates your life.
It is interesting to see if you have an opportunity to talk with people who
have practiced magick for 20, 30 or even 60 years that as time passes, each
decade it's easier and easier to perform magical work. It is a result of
expanding popularity of magical practices under different names –
Buddhism, Taoism, Wicca, New Age... Hundreds of years ago, one had to
study many years in order to achieve his magical goals. Today, things can be
accomplish within months, and sometimes within weeks.
While many schools of magical or spiritual thought teach many additional
techniques of focus (meditation, prayer), these are merely tools that help you
clear your mind of unwanted thoughts, and focus yourself upon your goal.
That's why magical arts work for everyone, no matter what is your faith,
magical path or set of beliefs. That is how everyone on this planet shapes his
or hers own life – magick works all the time.16
Whether you wish to change the reality, or to heal yourself; to bless
something or to thank for something; to protect yourself against unpleasant
spiritual forces, or to learn about the future, in all these magical activities,
you deal with intention, goals and energies. As you do, you come in touch
with unwanted energies and entities, and finally, with intentions and goals of
other people. Thus, you need to know how things work, what might go
wrong, and how to protect yourself against unwanted energies or contact with
entities. These elements are common to all magical and spiritual schools. All
the basics will be described in this book.
In any way, based on the definitions above, you should not understand
magick simple as a term to describe ceremonial, European practices, as many
books these days do. Magick is the term that defines the art of manipulating
energies in order to achieve a change in the world in conformity with our
will. That's the basic definition. Now, the change in the world in conformity
with our will – it sounds like a powerful and dark thing, isn't it? But in
reality, this activity can be achieved in conformity with our will and in
conformity with the highest good of all living beings at the same time. Many
people do this these days, especially those in modern New Age circles,
interested in Huna or The Law of Attraction.
Thus, here we come to change our perspective upon magick – it's not the
magick itself that carries dark "feelings" with itself. It's the way we use
magick, and the result which we want to achieve. If your practices and goals
aren't hurting anyone, then your magick is considered to be white magick.
The Definition of Black Magick
We've defined what magick truly is, and we've said that because magick
works in a specific way, everyone is using magick all the time, and it works
all the time. Unfortunately, this means that people can do bad stuff with
magick, as well. And in most cases, they're not aware of the fact that they're
practicing black magick in its darkest form. What is so called "black
magick"? Black magick is the "process of causing change in conformity
with our will, against the will of others; or against a specific person's
will." Black magick, for example, happens when:
A ritual is performed in order to harm someone physically, emotionally
or spiritually.
A magical act is performed with "over everyone's dead bodies" approach
– when you wish to achieve your goal no matter the consequences.

These things are obvious, and I will not discuss them further. But some things
aren't as obvious as one might think. Black magick is the most popular form
of magick in the entire world – and in most cases it is done not by those
skilled in magick, but by normal people. Black magick occurs, when:
You're a psychic healer, and you want to heal someone – but this person
does not wish to be healed. Forcing healing upon the other person is
considered to be a magical attack, and there are no excuses for "healers"
actions.
Any form of "healing", when performed in conformity with your own
will, and not with the highest good of the other person in mind, is often a
form of black magick, especially if your own intentions towards this
person are not clean and positive. This happens often in case of those
healers, who wish to heal someone, but the only way to heal this person,
which they know, is based upon their own false or misleading beliefs.
And form of persuasion – when you want someone to do something in
conformity with your own intention or "plan", is a form of black magick.
People make their own decisions, and they should never be forced to do
anything. This form of black magick happens in case of many forms of
advertising or marketing campaigns.

Caring thoughts aren't as "white" as people would like to believe, and this
deserves few more paragraphs. And this is the most awful and most popular,
at the same time, form of black magick. Parents "caring" about their kids, for
example. They "care" for their daughter not to be raped by her boyfriend. Yet
magical acts follow intentions. When parents focus on raping of theirs
daughter normally, it hurts her energy field and her very being. If they focus
on raping of theirs daughter strong enough then it works like a curse – theirs
daughter will be raped, eventually – and if not, then something else, still
terrible, will happen to her.
Another example is quite popular, as well. Imagine your parents who
constantly worry about your budget. They keep thinking "oh my God, oh
my God, what will happen to poor Timmy, he's so inexperienced, so
poor, what will he do for money, he won't be able to survive, oh my
God!" - it's a terrible for of black magick, because it attacks you.17
Another example – you want to create a business. You have a great
business plan, money for investment and great business contacts. Yet
people around you think constantly "this won't work" or "he doesn't
have the skills to make it work" or "I'm sure it won't work because I
tried it myself and it didn't work." This is black magick, as well.
Another example – you've met the man of your dreams, and you've
fallen in love completely. Both of you are sure that you're meant for
each other. Yet, just wait for your parents to start thinking "this guy is
terrible. I hope it won't work out for them", and if your parent's will is
strong enough while yours and your boyfriend's will are weak, then your
parent's thoughts will be black magick in its finest...
Quite often, people cast love spells or charms – either by themselves, or
with the help of skilled occult practitioner. Forcing someone into a love
relationship is black magick, as well. Such spell or charm will never
cause positive effects – yes, sometimes it will work. If a woman wants a
man to fall in love with her, and she uses a spell, it might work. She will
have the man. As a form of bonus, she will have a man who beats her,
drinks alcohol, torture her mentally. If she's really lucky, after 10 years
of a toxic relationship that will destroy her life, she will finally get the
divorce, but the consequences of her actions will hunt her for the next 30
years. If she isn't lucky, a car will kill her on the street. Do you really
want to cast love spells? Any form of love spell or love charm, a form of
black magick, creates a toxic relationship – sometimes, the person who
 cast the spell will be a victim, and sometimes, a person upon which the
spell has been cast, will become a victim. Now you know what love
spells are, please, do not cast them – destroying someone's life isn't
ethical.
And finally, when you pray with the intention of converting someone to
your religion, this is a form of dangerous black magick. It's about asking
your God or your Egregore to look at this particular person and force it
to convert. It's using magical means (with the help of entities) to make a
change in person's like against this person will. This is a pure magical
attack – very ugly I have to say, and very aggressive, especially when
someone tells you "I will pray for your soul" right into your face.
Unfortunately, it happens all the time, mainly in monotheistic religions
like Christianity, especially in the Catholic school of thought. If you
know someone who is praying in such manner, ask this person to stop.
No one has the right to choose your faith or path.

People use black magick all the time,18 because they do not learn anything
about true spiritual development. Sometimes, this black magick is strong, and
sometimes, it's weak. It all depends on the strength of a person – if your inner
strength is great, then the negative thoughts and wishes won't harm you. That
is why a part of magical and spiritual development is the process of
improving your self-confidence, self-assessment and self-esteem, and of
course, your personal feeling of safety. If you're not easy to manipulate, then
you are far safer in the magical world than people who can be easily
manipulated.
While for some the path of black magick might appear easier, the truth is that,
in the end, the difficult "white" path brings wonderful fruits, and the "black"
path leads to suffering – there's no exception – especially when there's always
the cause-and-effect magical law working in the background – but we'll
discuss it later. Choose your path wisely.
The Basics You Need - Thinking
There is a lot to know and to learn for anyone who wish to follow a path of
spiritual development, or pagan paths, Wiccan way or European magical
traditions. With New Age movement all around us and books being published
with little responsibility in mind, there is a great need for a book such as this
one. A book that covers the basics, easily understandable for everyone, no
matter what your tradition is. And the very basics of basics lie not in energy
arts, but in your head. If you wish to deal with magick, there is a specific way
that you must think.
Think and Stay Responsible
Magick isn't mainly about doing, but about thinking. There are many thinks
you need to think over if you really want to deal with magick. One of the
basic rules requires for the practice of magick is the rule of thinking. It says:
think, think, think or just think before you do. To understand this better, we
need few examples of magical practices and the things you need to think
over.
You're about to perform a psychic healing – there are many think you
need to consider: does the person requires psychic healing, or maybe a
psychotherapist will be enough? Do you have enough knowledge, and
are your skills advanced enough to help the person? What kind of result
do you want to achieve? Does the person truly agrees for healing?19 Can
there be some unforeseen results or consequences of your action? Do
you have enough energy to perform healing? Or do you have enough
skills to channel the healing energy, if you act as a channel? If so, do
you truly understand the source of the healing energy?20 Have you
shielded yourself and the room? Is your patient truly safe on the spiritual
level? Have you grounded yourself? Do you know how to cut the
connection with your patient after the healing session? Do you have
clear intentions? Are you sure you do not want to harm the person you're
about to heal?
You're about to perform a magical ritual that is meant to attract
you money – here, as well, we have many questions: do you really need
to perform a ritual? Maybe you should look for a better job, just like
that? Or maybe, instead of magical ritual, you should work out your
laziness? If you really want to perform a ritual: do you really know what
 you're doing? Are you truly shielded against unwanted spiritual
influence? What kind of ritual do you wish to perform? Do you consider
that it's an exchange based ritual? This might happen if you ask a spirit
or a deity to help you with your money – if so, ask yourself, what kind
of price you will have to pay for getting some more money? What kind
of consequences your ritual might cause?
You're about to perform a magical ritual that is meant to attract
love of a specific person – do you consider that if you would be meant
for each other, you wouldn't have to perform a ritual? Are you aware
that forcing someone to love is black magick and your negative
intentions will come back to you, sooner or later?
You're about to learn a new magical technique – do you really need
to learn it? What kind of energies does it utilize? Can you include this
technique into your daily practice? Later on, you will learn that mixing
traditions and energies isn't such a good idea. Can you learn the
technique without becoming a worshiper of specific deities or spirits?
You're about to begin practice of specific tradition – do you really
want to walk this particular path? Will this new path require you to
break the connection with previous practices? Or, will it require you to
end your relationship with some people?

As you can see, there are many questions asked above, in such few examples
– imagine how many questions you have to ask yourself in real life. Magick
is like real life – you need to be responsible for your own actions, and this
requires you to ask yourself each and every time many questions, that may
safe your life and mental stability. Because you have to be responsible. In
magick, you're responsible for:
Yourself – your life, your mental stability, your dreams, your health,
your work and everything that is related to your life.
People you love – especially people you love, you should keep them in
mind when practicing magick. Think if your actions influence them, or
harm them. Imagine that quite often, you might become a subject of a
magical attack, and if the attack can't get to you, it might strike the
person you love.21
People you might influence – for example those who seek your psychic
 services or healing services, or those who might become subjects of
your magical ritual – make sure you won't harm them.
The reputation of your school of thought – you're responsible for the
school of thought through you practice – in other words, you are
responsible for your tradition. If you're an Asatru follower, and your
actions are aggressive and full of hate, this will influence your entire
movement.

You cannot simple practice something and care not about these things
mentioned above. Stay responsible, because your actions bring results – do
good stuff, and good stuff will happen to you. Do bad stuff, and bad stuff will
happen to you and to people you care about.
Mental Stability in the Practice of Magick
In the old days, people who wanted to learn the art of the occult (the secret
knowledge) had to spend many years learning and training themselves in the
art of mental discipline. Even near the end of XIX century, the occult orders
kept this approach. Later on, in the XX century, the New Age movement was
born, and the secret knowledge became secret no more. Some people say that
these teachings should be available to everyone, and they should be free. I
cannot agree – these teachings can do more harm than good. It's because
there is an important factor to all spiritual and magical practices – it's the
mental stability. These days, many "spiritual" workers gathered around the
New Age movement have no stability at all – thus they suffer from
possessions, they fall into the trap of channelings and their own fears and
beliefs. Because of this, New Age movement do more harm to humanity than
good.
Mental stability is important. How to define such stability? Basically, you're
unstable when:
You are controlled by fears – fear of losing your lover; fear of loosing
your job or money; fear of being attacked; fear of being manipulated by
others; fear of conspiracy theories22 and so on.
You are easily manipulated – when you don't have your own will;
when you easily take orders and do things others want instead of doing
things you want.
You have low self-assessment and self-esteem – when you believe
you're unworthy, or you're afraid what others might say or think of you;
when you're afraid of taking actions or speaking your mind.
You blame others for your troubles – when you hate someone; or you
become aggressive towards someone; or you try to manipulate others for
your own gain.
You are controlled by your own false beliefs – if you think you have
no power, and you're unworthy of practicing magick or achieving
success; when you think that only bad people achieve success; when you
think in all these bad things that your parents and teachers taught you,
then you have a problem.
All these are signs that you aren't mentally stable, and before you begin
advanced magical practice, you should work some things out. But we'll deal
with such practices later. For now, let's continue with the stability issues. A
good way to define if you're ready to practice magick or not, is to honestly
analyze your intentions towards magick – or, why do you want to learn
magick?
Your magical practices should not be dictated by your fears – for
example if you're afraid you're might lose your lover or job it's not a
good intention as it's a sign that you are controlled by your own fears.
And if you are controlled by fears, then you need to deal with these
fears, first before you begin magical practices. Love spells are often
being cast out of fear that the person might end up lonely for the rest of
person's life – such spell is dictated by fear.
Your magical practice should not be dictated by hate or aggression
– quite often I encounter people who wish to cast a curse upon someone
because they don't like this person. Sometimes, people want to use
magick to have their revenge. Sometimes, people wish to use magick in
order to control someone, to manipulate the person to do things the
person doesn't want to do. Sometimes, people want to use magick in
order to force a person to go to bed with them. This, too, is caused by
fears, or, on the other hand, by uncontrolled lust. Sometimes, these are
simple uncontrolled energies of hate or aggression. But your magick
practice should not be controlled by these energies.
Magick should not be dictated by lust – neither should be your
practice. Lust for forced love is a sign that a person is unable to open
itself for true, romantic love. Lust for money is a sign that a person
doesn't believe in its own capability of making a decent income. Lust for
material goods is a sign that a person can be easily manipulated by
advertisement into buying things that the person doesn't need. If you
believe you're controlled by lust, it means you're not ready to begin
magical practice.
Your practice should not be dictated by your low self-assessment –
sometimes, people want to practice magick because they believe it will
make them special – so mystical, so magical and occult – and "cool".
Sometimes, they practice magick simple to become accepted within the
community of other magical workers. Sometimes, they become psychic
 healers, not because they want to help others, but because helping others
makes them feel good, worthy, needed and generally "cool".23 Often,
young people start learning and practicing magick – in their case, it's a
way to find their own place on Earth, a symbol of their youthful
rebellion. Again, in all these cases we can see problems with self-
assessment, which should be empowered before the person begins
serious magical practice.

All of these are called "negative intentions"24 - and all of them are signs that
you are not ready to begin serious magical practice, but instead you should
start with basic practices that are meant to enforce mind discipline. Mind
discipline is not an ability to control your negative thoughts – it's the ability
not to be controlled by negative thoughts. Here is where we can see another
problem of New Age – many New Age schools try to get rid of negative
emotions entirely. But this is impossible because by running away from
negative emotions, you do not heal them – they will catch you, eventually.
One must learn to live with negative emotions and allow them to flow – when
they flow, and you observe them, they do not build up in your body; thus they
do not create anchor points for unpleasant entities to attach, and you're no
longer a slave of these negative emotions. Dealing with negative emotions
and intentions is not about destroying them – but about healing them in such
way, that when something unpleasant happens to you, you won't feel negative
emotions, and you won't be influenced by these unpleasant events any more.
Why is mental stability so important? There's a quite simple reason for this –
when a person isn't mentally stable, he or she becomes an easy target for
unpleasant entities who can use the person to feed upon. Such person will
become dangerous for himself or herself, but also, the person will become
dangerous for people around him or her. Negative intentions create "holes" in
your energy body, through which entities can attach themselves, feed upon
you, and with time, control you, so you can do more bad stuff; thus generate
more energy the entities can feed upon. And of course, with negative
intentions acting as reasons for your magical practices, you cause harm to
others – and it's simple unethical.
Magick was never about power – it was about understanding the Universe,
coming in contact with God, and making the life of the entire community
better. Whether you practice pagan magick, or Taoist techniques, or spiritual
teachings of Huna, the good of the entire community should be kept in mind.
And these days, the whole World is one, big community.
Do You Really Need Magick?
To some people, magick is the ultimate answer to all problems of the world.
But in reality, a lot of problems can be solved without the use of magick. For
example by talking – communication is the key to many problems. As you
already know, the first rule of magic says "think, think, think". Thus,
whenever you encounter a problem in your life, think how can you solve it
without the use of magick. Perhaps you can ask someone for help, maybe you
can negotiate, or maybe you can consult a spiritual worker or
psychotherapist. This might sound trivial to you, but trust me when I say that
it's important to mention this – many problems can be solved without magick.
And you should remember about this because too often people fall into the
trap of using magick everywhere they can. You don't have to use magick all
the time, so don't try to do this. It has a lot to do with grounding and this topic
will be discussed later.
In order to be good at magick work, you must devote your entire life to this –
but is it really something you want? You can't practice magick as a hobby,
after work hours – magick has to be your work. And that's why peoples
skilled in magick exists – it's their job to serve others through magick. You
can always consult some shaman or witch or psychic, instead of becoming
one yourself.
How to Improve Your Mental Stability?
In the old days, problems that I've described earlier like fears or unethical
goals were healed by priests, community leaders or the heads of family.
Today, a lot of people that practice magick want to heal these problems, by
becoming spiritual workers themselves. But know this – "priests" and people
capable of helping you are still out there. Besides such magical workers out
there, there are psychologists and psychotherapists available, as well. And
they can really help you. If you have a choice – visit a psychotherapist or
learn magick, choose the first option.
Still, there are some basic practices for every school of spiritual thought.
Improving your mental discipline and going through the basics of mental
stability is a complex process that takes years. You must heal your fears, false
beliefs, lust and improve your self-assessment. There are many ways to do so.
The school of Huna teaches about affirmations25 - phrases that, when written
in proper way, are meant to reprogram your beliefs. Most eastern schools
teach different forms of meditation, and a lot of modern New Age schools
explain the importance of forgiveness – forgiving others and forgiving
yourself is what I consider being the most important element of improving
your mental discipline.
If you walk the path of Wicca or Norse Magick, or Reiki, or Huna, or any
specific pagan or European tradition, you should know this – as a beginner it
is all right to ask those who are more experienced than you. Read as many
books about your tradition as possible. Go to on-line discussion boards run by
groups in your tradition and ask for basic practices and books. Find someone
in your tradition who could provide you with a list of basic books and
practices. And most important, understand that even if these basics might
look pointless, the truth is they are very, very important and there is a reason
to practice them.26
If you do not follow a specific tradition, but you explore the world of New
Age ideologies, then it's difficult to find a book covering the basics of mental
discipline. You may wish to use affirmations and forgiveness techniques as
mentioned earlier. You might want to learn the technique of healing Core
Images1, as well, which is useful to healing your intentions. You can learn
Zazen meditation that originates from the Zen school of Buddhism, as well –
Zazen is a wonderful form of meditation that teaches mental discipline. A
simple version of Zazen for beginners has been explained in my other book,
Psychic Development Simplified.27
Generally, look for practices that:
Help you clear your mind of chaotic thoughts;
Help you deal with unpleasant memories from your past;
Help you redefine your beliefs, from negative to positive;
Help you heal your negative intentions by understanding why do you
have negative intentions towards yourself and others;

There are plenty of such techniques, some of which reflecting the ideology of
New Age, others reflecting the pagan or magical ideologies. You can use
these techniques to improve your mental discipline. Then, you will be ready
to begin more advanced magical practices.
Learn and Read a Lot
Magick is difficult – you cannot fall into a trap of a "enlightenment over
single weekend workshops", because the path of magick and spiritual
development is a long one.28 While you can participate in workshops and
courses of a different sort, as they are very useful, you have to understand
that while you can benefit from participation, the workshops themselves
won't turn you into an enlightened Buddha or a powerful magus. Workshops,
courses and lectures are great if they are being managed in a professional
way. While lectures can be host almost anywhere, the workshops, which are
based on practice, have to keep the safety issues in mind.
Once, I participated in a workshop, in which the teacher came straight from a
bus with her luggage right by her side, and she immediately started the class.
Quite soon, she started doing something within people's auras – without
cleansing herself first, transferring all the negative energies she had upon her
own aura to others. All of this occurred in a room that wasn't cleansed and
wasn't shielded against unwanted spiritual influence. I was quite terrified as I
was able to perceive, clairvoyantly, two unpleasant entities – one crawling
between the participants and the other one standing in the corner, with a scary
grin. These entities were looking for prey, and this particular workshop
provided them with some. More than that, the teacher didn't cut herself from
the participants, creating the links and attachments, through which she draw
their life force back to her – I call it "psychic vampirism" - it will be
discussed later. And finally, let's say it – the teacher, she was hot, and it was
clearly visible that the male participants weren't in control of their sexual
desires during this class.
Thus, there are some things that are essential for your safety on the path of
learning:
The person that runs the workshop should know what he or she is
doing – the teacher should cleanse himself or herself, especially if he or
she wants to work within people's auras and their energy system. You
cannot get into someone's energy body – the aura and inner energetics –
if you won't cleanse yourself, first. That's the basic safety issue of
spiritual work with others.
The place should be cleansed and shielded against unwanted
spiritual influence – there are beings that are psychic vampires, astral
parasites that feed upon life force of people. Especially those who
cannot protect themselves, or are inexperienced enough to notice these
 parasites. The place, in which the workshop takes place, should be
shielded against such entities. The place is filled with unpleasant
energies, as well – and it should be cleansed of these energies.
Otherwise, these energies fill influence the participants in a negative
way.
You must be careful when you open yourself – in the example above,
the participants were willing to open themselves for the teacher's
magical doing – but they weren't aware what she was doing. I don't
know it either as I wasn't risking an attachment from the nasty grin
entity in the corner. But it's not the point. The point is that if you do not
know that the other person is doing, then do not open yourself unless
you trust the person completely. Once someone is within your aura, he
or she can do wonderful things, but also, he or she can do terrible things
– trust and knowledge are essential here.
The teacher should cut his attachments and links, and he should
teach it to the class – every single time you do something within a
person's aura, or you work with entities or even objects, you create links
with these objects. Links, through which energy and intentions can flow
from source to source. These links should be cut, and the teacher should
know it. More than that, if the participants work one with another, the
teacher should instruct how to cut the links. If he doesn't do this, then it's
a serious safety issue flaw.
The group's energetics – in the example above, the group's energetics
problem was related to the teacher's hotness, and the inability of the
male participants to control their sexual desires. Such uncontrolled
energies can destabilize the entire workshop, and these energies might
make the workshop ineffective and even dangerous. The energy keeps
flowing from person to person, especially if people open themselves for
everything. And it can do serious damages to the person's psyche and
spirit. The teacher should know how to control these energies.

All of these elements I discuss in this book, so don't worry – you will learn
about them sooner or later. Don't be afraid to ask the teacher if he remembers
about the above essential steps. If he doesn't, don't worry about your money
or time – just walk away. Because it's much better to lose money and time,
but remain safe, than to lose money and time, and get yourself a nasty astral
attachment that will require some serious magical work to get rid of. So while
you can truly participate in workshops and classes as you can benefit greatly
from these, remember that there are safety issues to keep in mind.
In addition, you should read a lot of books. This is essential knowledge
regarding studies of magick, as well. Different books say different things
about the same subject. Some books are written in a New Age style. Other
books are meant to inspire and share experiences, not to teach. Other books
are based on a scientific basis. To help you understand it better, let me give
you some examples. In case of Reiki, there are many types of books. Some
are quite New Age – they talk about peace, love, wonderful energies, angels,
channelings and basically, they are based upon New Age understanding of
the author. While they can provide you with some additional knowledge, they
are pointless, generally. But there are other books – manuals that are pure and
simple, they teach the essentials, acting like guidebooks or even text books
for students of the Reiki path. These books are worth reading, but they will
not provide you with too many personal opinions. Then, there are books
about personal experiences of Reiki practitioners. These books are meant to
inspire and share experiences. You can learn about the author's perspective
from such books, but you shouldn't think about them as the source of ultimate
truth – as modern New Age followers do. Finally, there are more professional
books, like The Big Book of Reiki Symbols by Walter Lubeck and Mark
Hosak, which are based on literature, scientific books and detailed research –
these books are meant to expand your knowledge about Reiki in a far more
complex way than the previous books. If you truly want to learn about Reiki,
you should read all these types of books – then practice by yourself. In the
end, the experiences of others will help you with your own practice. The
guidebooks will tell you how to practice, and the scientific books will help
you take your practice seriously. But in the end, the amount of knowledge is
just a foundation for your practice.
Let me give you another example, this time about shamanism. There are
many types of books about shamanism. Some are quite New Age – they talk
about becoming a shaman over a weekend, or they talk that shamans are
healers of the New Age and everyone can become a shaman. This isn't true,
of course. Then, there are more personal books, written by true shamans (or
medicine mans, or healers), books which are written as a form of biography.
And they are good because quite often they contain a lot of useful teachings.
Then, there are more scientific books that discuss shamanism from
anthropological and scientific perspective, and they are worth reading if you
truly want to know what shamanism really is. If you have been appointed by
spirits to be a shaman, then you should read personal books and scientific
books. But in the end, your practice and the guidance of spirits is the most
important element of your work.
What I want you to know is that there are many books about magick arts
available – some are great, and some are worth of your time, and some are
full of fluff, and you shouldn't even look at them. But, in the end if you truly
want to learn magick, then you have to read almost everything that is related
to your path, and draw conclusions on your own. You have to gain your own
experience and figure out which books are useful, and which aren't. Theory is
important, and the more theory you collect in your head, the safer and more
effective your magical work is.
The Process of Initiation
An "initiation" is a concept that exists in every tradition of the world. One
can be initiated into childhood, adulthood, elderly, into being a man or
woman, or into magical or spiritual practice. The processes that occur in
initiation are often psychological, and they are always present when someone
walks the path of magick or spirituality. That is why it's essential to learn
about such processes and learn what you might expect in initiation.
There are three forms of initiation – one form is a complex psychological
process. The second one is a ritual interconnected with the culture and
society. In this book, we're more interested in this first form of initiation – the
definition would be: a psychological process related to spiritual changes that
occur because of magical or spiritual practice. In other words, something
spiritual or magical influence you, and acts like a trigger, which triggers the
psychological change. This process of change from one state to another,
stronger and more spiritual state, is what we call an initiation.
While rituals and cultural activities are one-time event and they can last few
minutes or few hours, the magical initiation should be understood as a
process that may last for many weeks, months or even years. For example, in
shamanic traditions, the initiation process may last up to 20 years before the
person is truly ready to become a shaman. In Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki
practice, while the attunement requires an hour to be complete, the initiation
process continues for 5 to 10 years. Once again, during this time, the process
of psychological change occurs. In most initiations, in the coming months or
years, the old habits, patterns, beliefs, traumas and desires will be change if
needed, so the person is ready to play a new role. In shamanism, the person
chosen by spirits must change his or hers beliefs, learn new things, heal the
old wounds, and rebuild the character, so he or she is ready to walk between
the physical and spiritual realm. In magick or spirituality, whatever the path
or tradition is, the initiation prepares the person to be: a magician, a healer, a
spiritual leader, a healing energy channeler and so on. No magical path is free
of this process.
But, while every tradition has a concept of such psychological initiation, not
everyone will experience this process. Some people are simple meant to live
a simple life, some people will experience only a small form of initiation.
Generally, the bigger the life role is the more difficult the initiation becomes.
Initiation on the path of magick is a process of magical "coming of age". One
must prove he is worth the path.
Initiation often begins with a personal crisis, when the personal values of a
person becomes worthless in the face of changing reality, or when a person –
due to any reasons – is forced to look beyond the comfort zone and look for
new ways to live. An end to a relationship, a tragedy in family, death or
deadly illness, or even a mystical experience, which leads to change, all of
this may become a start for initiation. It doesn't have to, of course, so do not
expect that every personal crisis is a beginning of initiation into a powerful
spiritual worker. Sometimes, it's just yet another life experience. Still, quite
often a crisis, an illness or tragedy is a reason why a person begins the search
- for new ways to live, for new practices and so on. Sometimes, what the
person finds is just a new hobby. And sometimes, the person finds magick or
spiritual path to walk. And this is often a reason why people fall into interest
of magick and spirituality.
Sometimes, initiation begins in case of people who never heard of magick.
And sometimes, initiation begins to a skilled spiritual worker who spent years
on learning and practicing. In such case, initiation often marks a point when
the person begins to walk a path to something greater – destiny, or spiritual
ability, or new level of understanding.
During the initiation process, you may experience your personal crisis; the
night of the soul or senses; illness; or you may simple live your life. It's an
individual process, always. One day you're up and one day you're down, and
the wheel of fortune keep on turning. And quite often, the initiation requires
you to move aside, go into a wild or at least limit your contact with the world,
even if it's an evening alone with your cellphone turned off. Because often,
initiation requires you to face yourself, like looking into a mirror and facing
your light and darkness at the same time.
What may trigger the initiation? There are many possibilities – most of which
are related to a specific path and beliefs.
Spirits – this occurs mainly in case of shamans, when spirits choose the
person to become a shaman. Then, the process of initiation begins, it is
triggered on a spiritual level by spirits. Spirits, as spiritual beings, will
be discussed later on.
Karma and past life events – some people believe in reincarnation, and
 because of this, they also believe that the process of initiation might be
triggered by past life karma. You've done something – good or bad, and
this is why a psychological change in you begins.
Destiny – if one believe in destiny, one may believe that some people
are destined to become healers, mediums and so on. And if they are
destined to become someone else, then at some point the process of
change – and preparation – must begin.
Personal decision – some people decide to achieve a specific goal. Such
thing occurs in case of Reiki practice, for example. They choose to
become attuned, and because of this, the initiation is triggered. This
often occurs in other magical or spiritual schools.
Magical practice – and finally, magical or spiritual practice may trigger
the process of initiation. That is, of course if someone is meant to
become initiated into something.

One may ask, when does the process of initiation ends? The simplest answer
is this: when it ends, you will know it. Until this time, live your life and let
things be.
An Initiation That Gives The Skills
There is one more form of initiation – an initiation into practice. It's a ritual,
but not based on cultural aspects of the society, yet based on a magical work
that gives you a specific ability. While some psychological changes,
understood as initiation, may be required for a person to begin a new form of
practice, this specific type of initiation is a one-time event. It's often present
in Buddhist practices, or in European magical tradition, when a master or
teacher performs some magical doing on a person, changing this person's
energies, or mind patterns or aura, so the person in question can learn a new
ability and use it right away. Sometimes, the ability can be used right away,
and sometimes, an initiation into practice triggers more psychological
changes as described earlier.
An initiation into practice might be performed by:
A teacher or master – which can perform a simple or a complex ritual
upon you. This is often present in European or pagan traditions, and in
Buddhist teachings.
Spirits and entities – once again, the spirits or deities perform some
 magical doing so you can use a new skill.
Past-life triggers – this is a common concept in Buddhism. It is
believed that a person might be initiated into a practice in this life
automatically if the person has been initiated into practice in the past
life.
Self-initiation – one may be self-initiated into practice after many years
of studies and learning.

The look, the feel and the process of such initiation ritual depends on the path
and tradition of your choosing. This type of initiation rituals are performed,
because. without them, one would be unable to practice a technique or skill.
At some point, a person was initiated into a practice – either by spirits or a
teacher or by himself after years of learning and practicing – and the person
decided to pass the initiation to others. This is how it works in quite many
magical and spiritual paths.
In some magical systems, the initiation rites include making changes in the
energy system of a person. For example, in Reiki practice, the energy system
is attuned to specific vibrations so that the person in question can work with
Reiki energy. Other paths may include placing specific symbols called
"seals" within the person's body – these seals have various purposes. Some of
them are meant to give the person a new magical ability, but other seals are
meant to block the person from the spiritual realms. Unfortunately, that
second thing often occurs in modern religions, in which the practitioner is
blocked to anything but a single deity or ideology. Often, this leads to a
problem that organized religions are blocking the path towards enlightenment
or magical growth. Of course, if the seals can be placed within the body, they
can also be removed. If someone is skilled in such magical work, he or she is
able to deal with seals, just like he or she is capable of dealing with curses,
charms or other energetic manipulations. I will discuss energy manipulation
in one of the further chapters. Anyway, the seals which often block: magical
sensitivity, perception, clairvoyance or even the Will to explore other magical
systems are a serious stuff, which is a reason that:
No one should be forced to take the initiation rites with seals without
conscious agreement.
And everyone should carefully think if he or she really wishes to take
such initiation rites if they mean becoming someone of a limited
 "freedom".

As you can see, the processes of initiation are quite complex. What you
should understand as an essential piece of knowledge is this: initiation is a
process of change. It may be fast, one-time event, or it may last for many
years to come. It is present in every tradition, and you should not be surprised
if your magical or spiritual practice will cause changes in your personality
and life in general, starting with work and hobby, ending on relationship and
life beliefs. And in most cases, the process of change is difficult and
emotionally painful, but if you wish to benefit from spirituality and magick,
then you must be ready that change may occur.
The Initiation and the Journey
There is something else that should be mentioned in this book – the initiation
journey. In the context of magick, it is quite a common reason to begin
magical practice: a quest for finding yourself. My first interest in magick
turned into such initiatory journey when I left my friends, home, family and
nearly everything else and traveled to a big city far away from home. There, I
started my quest for finding myself. A quest that took me four years. Four
years to understand the lessons, to learn new things, find the inner power,
become a man and return to the old ground as a completely new person.
During my personal journey, I turned from a boy into a man – there was a lot
of pain, a lot of situations that needed me to face my inner fears, and to find
the power and manhood that was hidden within me. I conquered my inner
demons, and I have found out my own truths – and then, I was ready to move
on. Or should I say, to return home.
All of this begun with my interest of magick. It's not like magick guided me
or forced me to this journey. It's more like there is a deep interconnection
between magick or spirituality and basic mechanisms of life. In the old days,
during the nomad tribes era, boys and girls were living their homes and
heading into the wild to seek their inner power, so later on, they could
become man and woman. This process of the inner journey into the wild, the
initiation into an adult life and personal nature, is a natural element of our
life. Everyone should take such a journey to find himself or herself. This
way, one can find his dreams and goals and personal destiny, and one can
learn himself or herself, find the inner power and inner, natural abilities,
which will define a person's place in the world. It is so natural, yet so
unknown to the people of the West. But know this – the wild changed, and
now your journey might lead you to a big city where, still, you can learn your
own independence. Things might look different than 5 or 6 thousand years
ago, but the basic principles remain the same. The practice of magick or
spirituality – an integral element of human life – might start your own
journey, and you must be ready that no matter what your tradition or path is,
you will have to walk it, and you will have to face yourself. Because, without
the journey as a quest of finding yourself, you will not be successful in the
world of spirituality.
Your "Psychic" Intuition
No matter if you walk the path of European Magick, traditional Asatru,
oriental Buddhism or modern Reiki, there are some things all people have in
common – one of these things is your psychic intuition. While the word
"psychic" might seem to be a bit too "new age", the truth is that every person
has something we call "intuition". This intuition of yours is a very important
tool in magick and spiritual development because it's your guide, your inner
voice that keeps you save and helps you achieve your goals – sometimes,
even without true magick. Some people say that intuition is your sixth sense.
Others believe it's your higher self, a part of a universal "God-mind" that
speaks to you. Others believe it's your spirit guide, and some people believe
that intuition is a word of spirits that give you advises. The truth is – we do
not know what intuition is for sure. But we know it exists, it happens, and it
works.
What is intuition? It's your ability to "sense and know things" based on your
"heart", not "logic". You just know something is better, or something is
wrong. You know that you forgot about something, or you know that some
practice isn't the right practice for you. You go for a spiritual workshop, and
you know that this particular teacher is right for you, or no. And there is no
logical way to help you understand why is it that you know these things. And
you should trust these inner feelings.
You feel them all the time – the point is to listen to them, and act according
to your intuitive feelings. If you feel that something is right for you – do it. If
you feel something isn't right for you, do not do it. It's that simple. Of course,
sometimes you feel that something is wrong about a person or a workshop for
a reason – because you have fears or traumas from the past experiences. How
to distinguish your intuition from your fears? Simple, by your logical
thinking. If you feel something, try to find logical reasons why you feel this
way, or why you "know" something is or isn't right. If there are logical
reasons – your memories, beliefs or fears, then it's not the intuition, it's your
logical mind. But if there are no logical reasons behind your feelings and
"knowing", then it's intuition. And intuition is meant to be trusted.
There are few universal ways that might help you develop your intuition – an
ability that is quite useful because it helps you decide: whether this spirit or
teacher is trustworthy; whether this book is worth reading; whether this
practice is safe; whether you are ready to begin a new path and such. For
example, you may start a notebook, and whatever you do, perform the
following exercise: ask your intuition what should you do, and await intuitive
answers, which may come as: a vision, a memory-like sight, an inner sound
or music, or just an inner voice. Or you may feel something in your heart, or
you may simple know things. Then write down your feelings in the notebook
and make a decision. Write down the decision – note if it's based on the
feelings, or it's based on your logical thinking. After some time – hours, days,
weeks – the results of your decision will be clear to you. The results might be
positive, neutral or negative. Now go back to your notebook and read over
your notes regarding this particular decision. Analyze your feelings and your
decision, because based on this, over time you will learn which feelings are
generated by your intuition, a which feelings are generated by your fears and
logical mind. Generally, positive results driven by intuitive feelings are a
lesson that you've heard your intuition. Next time, you will be more
experienced, and you will know what to seek in your feelings – over time,
you'll be able to distinct between intuition and your logical mind. This will
help you in the future.
Generally, the practice of meditation that is focused on clearing the mind and
creating a state of peace, such practice is a gateway to intuition. If the mind is
silent and at peace, it is governed by no fears or troubles. This way, your
intuitive feelings and information have a clear way to your conscious mind.
In a meditative state of mind, it's much easier to communicate with your
intuition. Basically, each and every magical and spiritual tradition has some
form of meditation. Because meditation is a state of mind, not a specific
Hindu-related pose. Thus, you should learn what are the techniques of
clearing your mind and putting it at peace, and the practice of such
techniques will help you develop your intuition.
Whenever you try something new, or you think about buying a new book, or
trying some new workshop, ask yourself if it's right for you, and await
intuitive answers. They will guide you, and they will make sure that whatever
you do, is right and good for you. And with these words, we can finally move
to another chapter of this book and discuss the fascinating nature of our
reality and multiple layers of existence.
Chapter Endnotes
8 Magic, Greer, p. 287
9 It is believed that the modern idea of energy in Western Magick is
evolution of the concept of astral light, created by Eliphas Levi.
10 Astral Realm - is a common term that is associated with the spiritual
realm of dreams, thoughtforms, emotions and ideas. As such, energy that is
present in this realm, which mix itself with our physical realm is called astral
energy.
11 Meditation - is a form of spiritual practice, in which a person's goal is to
clear his or hers mind of any thoughts, seeing through the nature of the mind
and thus, the nature of the Universe. There are many schools of meditation.
For those who begin their magical practice, it's worth mentioning that
meditation is often mistaken with trance practices and contemplation. Trance
is a form of altered state of consciousness, when you visit parts of your mind
that you cannot access on a daily basis, or when you visit places beyond the
material realm. In case of meditation, you seek peace, serenity, awareness
and understanding. Contemplation, on the other hand, is a form of meditation
(but meditation is not a form of contemplation) - in this form, you dedicate
your meditation practice towards thinking about a specific issue - thus, you
contemplate something.
12 Mantras - by this name we recognize phrases that originate from Hindu
religious tradition, to put it simple. In reality, mantras are far more ancient
phrases that later on evolved into complex practices and were implemented
into Buddhism tradition. Mantras operate on different levels - for example, on
the energy level and on the mind level; thus they influence the person who
practice them. The practice is based on constant repetition of mantras, and
since they carry specific energy charge and meanings, through repetition this
charge and meanings are "activated", changing the person in proper -
according to the effect of the mantra - way. There are different mantras.
Some are meant to develop psychic abilities, others are used for healing,
others are used to support spiritual development and search for
enlightenment.
13 This is just an example, please do not use this technique just yet.
14 As I teach Reiki, I've learned and proven to myself and others that Tarot
cards are connected, not to higher planes of existence, but to lower energies
and entities. I mention this because you must be aware of the fact that using
Tarot cards isn't as safe as some people think. In reality, Tarot cards are very
difficult and dangerous tools, and one must be very skilled in order to use
them properly. I know many Tarot cards readers, who admit that it's a
difficult art of divination. If you wish to use Tarot cards, you must learn an
exceptional amount of magical self-defense techniques and a lot of safety
rules. On the other hand, if you are a Tarot reader already, and you wish to
follow some more spiritual path, like Reiki, you should keep in mind that, at
some point of your journey, you will have to give up the cards for good.
15 I would like to point out that any form of divination connects the divinator
with a person for which the divination is performed. This means that the
divinator is always at risk of collecting negative energies from his clients.
16 Well, basically – you shouldn't fall into a trap of paranoia and see magick
everywhere. Just because you have cut your finger while making breakfast,
doesn't mean that someone cast a curse upon you. You might just be clumsy.
17 Worrying about someone is a form of black magick, as well – but I call it
the weakest form of black magick. When you worry about someone, you
send this person negative energies, yes, but they're not that strong. So you
should't be afraid or angry at yourself when you worry about someone
because sometimes we can't help it. Even so, try to realize that worrying
about someone is pointless, and you should hope for all the best for the
person in question.
18 Of course, positive thoughts are far more powerful than negative thoughts;
with clearing your intentions, strengthening your will and practicing white
magick in its finest, none of the negative intentions and magical practices of
others will harm you.
19 As I practice Reiki, I notice this problem from time to time – people don't
wish to be healed. I mean while most people are open for healing, yes, there
is a group of those who are closed for healing. Closed, meaning they do not
wish to be healed – why so? There are many reasons. Sometimes, they don't
want to be healed because they don't believe in spiritual healing, truly. And
sometimes, people don't want to be healed because they like being ill –
everyone cares about them, and everyone pays attention to them – for some
people, it's more important than healing and responsibility for their own life.
Make sure that your patient truly wants to be healed.
20 Once again, in case of Reiki, the source of the energy isn't truly
understood. While pure Reiki (traditional Japanese Reiki, or classic Western
Reiki from the Usui-Takata lineage) is clear on this matter, there are many
modern schools of Reiki that do not work with real Reiki energy, even if they
use the term "Reiki" in the name of the school. Some schools, created by
inexperienced healers or people with problematic ego, often plug their
students to egregores, and this is quite near to black magick. There are many
schools of Reiki, or even other schools of spiritual healing that use egregores,
so be sure to truly understand what you're getting into – another aspect of
thinking. On the other hand, there are many schools of spiritual healing that
truly attune the person to the "Source" or positive entities, like Bodhisattvas
in Buddhism.
21 This doesn't happen often, especially if the other person isn't working with
magick – in such case, people have a tendency to have a far greater spiritual
protection than those who intentionally work with magick.
22 A person who believes in conspiracy theories easily becomes paranoid.
Such person should NEVER practice magick, at least not until the fear of
"conspiracies all around me" is dealt with. Blind belief in conspiracy theories
is a sign that the person in question doesn't feel safe in the world and suffers
from constant emotional pain of fear.
23 I observe this among Reiki practitioners, who practice and teach Reiki so
they can feel good about themselves. And Reiki practice is never about you,
it's about the person you're helping – either by sending this person's Reiki, or
teaching this person how to use Reiki.
24 In the end, you might think that magick is all about making your life and
the entire world a better place – with all these positive intentions in mind.
And you'd be right.
25 Nathaniel., Affirmations 101, What Do You Need To Know About Using
Them For Inner Growth. On: A State of Mind. On-line access:
<http://astateofmind.eu/2011/03/18/affirmations-101/>
26 On the beginning of your journey, it's difficult to learn the basics – there
are so many chaotic books out there. I hope this book will help you out, truly.
Yet, I advise to think – wouldn't it be better to follow one specific tradition,
instead of trying to create a safe mixture of different practices, just like New
Age does? The more advanced you are, the easier it becomes to choose your
own path. For example, I teach Reiki, this is the primary energy I work with
– in addition, I work with my own energy, Chi. I also implement Taoist and
Buddhist spiritual teachings into my life, and I follow the psychological code
of Huna. Finally, I've been taught the basics of magick by a European shaman
– all of this helped me remain safe on my own path. But if you're just a
beginner, try not to mix so many things at the same time.
27 Nathaniel, Psychic Development Simplified. A State of Mind 2011.
28 At the moment of writing this book, I work with magick and spiritual
development for 9 years – and I cannot call myself "master", still.
 The Book of the Worlds
As we proceed through the essentials of magick, it is time to explain the
nature of the world. This knowledge will be very important later on. What
you see with your physical eyes is not the only world that exists here and
now. This is what every magical and spiritual tradition in the world considers
being a fact. We're talking about multiple layers of existence here, parallel
universes as some people may call it. As you walk the path of magick, you
will keep these different "worlds" in mind, and you will interact with them in
different ways.
The Different Layers of the World
There are many traditions that clearly states that our physical world is not the
only world, in which we exist, and it's not the only world, in which life exists.
And we're not talking about alien planets here, but about other, different
layers of the reality. We call them realities, realms or planes of existence, and
there are many of these. To better understand that we're talking about, and
why the knowledge of these planes is important for your magical practice, we
need to use examples – once again. It all begins thousands of years ago, in
time when the man was technologically primitive, yet socialized enough to
form tribes.
The Trees of Life
This is the dawn of animistic culture, when some people were chosen by
spirits to become shamans – those who walk between the worlds. Thousands
of years ago, the shamans were the first people to walk between realities, by
utilizing altered states of consciousness and something we call magical
practices these days. Shamans perceived the world as made of three layers,
represented by an image of a tree.
Shamans, normally existing in the realm of man, when needed, traveled to the
lower worlds – worlds of angry and hungry spirits, and the world of
ancestors, and to the higher worlds – worlds of spiritual beings, deities and
gods. They were talking with spirits, fighting with them and negotiating; thus
leading people to better hunting grounds, and healing those people who
suffered from spirits causing illness. It was the time of harmony between man
and the Mother Nature. This general concept of the physical world, the world
of spirits and the world of gods is one of the basic models of the reality – a
reality that is made of parallel planes of existence, a reality that in its very
nature is spiritual.
In modern times, the closest thing to the animistic image of the world tree is
probably the Yggdrasil, from the Norse Mythology, these days closely related
to the Asatru and Heathen movements. In this concept, there are many worlds
– worlds of Elves, the worlds of Giants, the Underworld, the worlds of Gods
and the worlds of Man. When needed, the person skilled in magick was able
to travel between some of these worlds using practices we consider magical
these days.
 Yggdrassil, Norse Tree of Life (Source: personal collection of the author)
One may say that the Tree of Life from the Kabbalah29 path is also a way to
picture the many layers of reality, some of which are inhabited by Man,
others by spirits and gods.
In animistic traditions, a man who walked between the paths, used different
tools and rituals to move between the worlds and interact with spirits – to
learn and to heal, and sometimes to do harm. Within centuries, the knowledge
reserved for shamans, was slowly gained by others – people who were to
become priests of more complex ideologies, and then – religions.
The Time of Religion
When man was part of nature, things were simple, and spiritual practice was
pure. Then, with the "invention" of civilization and writing, the time has
come to create more complicated theories and write down sacred texts. This
is when old beliefs were written down, and when spiritual knowledge began
to turn into a tool for gaining power by priests and organized religions. In the
Era of Religion, the cosmic cartography was written down and improved, at
least from the theoretical perspective as the practical aspects remained the
same.
In Tibetian traditions, there are numbers of worlds, called "Bardos" (singular:
Bardo), most of which are the spiritual worlds beyond the veil of death,
through which the soul travel between incarnations. These Bardos are closely
related to the karmic state of the soul and the great cycle of Samsara, the
wheel of continuous living and dying.
The Theosophy that is a base for modern New Age magical concepts of
reality takes its concepts from Hindu traditions mixed with Christian culture.
In the end, in Theosophy there are the following layers of reality. The
physical reality which we live in. There's also etherical reality (energetic),
which is based on energy (life force), and there's the astral reality, which is
the reality made of our dreams, worries, concerns – and basically, everything
there is an illusion. There's also a mental reality, and spiritual reality, and a
couple of more realities. Each one placed higher than the previous realities.
In modern Huna, we rarely talk about different layers of the world, but the
concept is similar – this time, there are three layers of the mind. The lower
self is the subconscious mind. The middle self is the conscious mind, and the
higher self is the hyper conscious mind. These three layers are parts of the
greater net of connected minds. Lower self creates the global
unconsciousness. The middle self creates the global community. And the
higher self creates the global net of higher minds that in Huna are called
"God". This concept – even if it looks more psychological than magical – is
the same thing as the concept of different words or New Age planes of
existence.
The oldest and most complex ideologies like Buddhism have a very complex
cartography of the spiritual realms while modern magical paths are mainly
based upon a two-worlds basis. Shamanism is based on three-worlds basis, on
the other hand, but some of the shamanic traditions might be more complex
than this. Basically, what you should understand as the essential principle is
that there is our physical world, and there is another world, which is unseen.
And this is common – essential – for all spiritual and magical paths. And in
the unseen world, there are spirits that dwell there.
It defines a simple fact – when you do magick, you interact with the spiritual
realms. The different layers of the worlds define the nature of the spirits that
you can work with, and the nature of energies that you can work with. These
layers define the nature of death and the great cycle of life, as well. In the
end, the many layers are the important element that influence the practices
upon any magical path.
All of this may raise a question – if all these traditions of the world have all
these different concepts of the multiverse, what kind of concept is used by
modern New Age movement? Well, basically, this concept is based on the
Theosophical teachings mixed with animistic (shamanistic) traditions.
Despite the fact I dislike this New Age thing as social phenomena, I really
like its concept of the multiverse. Because it's simple. Generally, it's quite
simple, like this:
There is a physical realm.
There is also an energetic realm, in which energies exists and interact
between the physical and the spiritual world.
And finally, there is a spiritual realm, in which ghosts, spirits, Angels
and other beings exists.

And that's all – by using magick, you use the energies to create an interaction
between the spiritual and physical realm. This is what most New Age
ideologies talk about. And I like this concept because it's the most basic
concept that you should be aware of. By keeping this simplest concept in
mind, you are aware, that each and every tradition must have:
The concept of physical reality.
The concept of spiritual reality.
And the concept of the reality, in which energies flow and interact
between the realms.

This helps you in the following way: whenever you wish to learn about new
tradition from either theoretical or practical perspective you know what to
look for: these three concepts of reality – the physical plane, the spiritual
plane and the plane of interaction. One way or another, under one name or
another, you will find such concepts. And understanding them will help you
understand how the particular system of magick works. Because by
understanding the nature of the world according to your magical tradition,
you will learn what kind of spirits you can meet, how to deal with the things
you may encounter, what kind of visualization to perform and how does the
rituals in your traditions work. As you can see, this knowledge is essential.
Practicing magick is like learning to speak and walk. But then, you have to
learn about your environment (spiritual realms) – home, streets, parks, people
and animals, and such. Without this knowledge, it's like walking blind
through the spiritual realms.
There's also another issue – the many layers of the world define the many
layers of your own human nature. With these layers you're going to work on
your spiritual or magical path, so it's another essential element that is related
to the knowledge about the nature of the world.
Different Worlds, Different Layers of You
Just as there are different layers of the world, there are different layers of you.
Most magical and spiritual traditions are clear on the matter that we all have
at least two halves – the physical body and the soul (spiritual body). This is
the basic understanding common for almost all paths. Whatever your magical
path is, this is what you should look for when it comes to the essential
understanding: how does your path define that which is greater than the
physical body? How many layers are there?
For example, in shamanic traditions, there is a physical body, the spirit body
and soul. The physical body returns to Mother Nature when the person dies.
The spirit goes to the world of Ancestors. And the soul goes to the Higher
Planes.
The Theosophy says that there is a physical body, the energy body, the astral
body, the mental body, the spiritual body and few other layers. The energy
body is the body through which the energy flows. The astral body is the
reflection of the subconscious mind, in which mind patterns, memories,
habits, fears and expectations are stored in the form of energy. The mental
body is the higher body responsible for intelligence and consciousness. The
spiritual body is the first of many bodies that are considered to be a part of
God.
Most schools of the spiritual path consider this: there is a physical body, the
soul (that can reincarnate itself into a new body), and there is an energy body
made of energy centers and energy channels. For example in Hindu beliefs,
the centers are called "chakras", and the channels are called "Nadi". In
Taoism, the centers are called "Tan T'iens" and the channels are called
"meridians". Through these channels, the life force and spiritual energies
flow – but this is a subject that we will discuss later.
These three systems – Theosophy, Hindu beliefs and Taoism – shape the
essential understanding of the layers of human being common for most New
Age ideologies. Although sometimes the energy channels, layers and centers
are mixed without giving it too much thought, the way New Age presents our
human nature is something that can be called "the basic understanding" -
there is a human, physical body; there is an energy body through which the
energy flows and in which magical doing takes effect; and there are a soul, a
spiritual body, a spark of consciousness. And this is how we basically
perceive the many layers of the human being.
Understanding how your path perceives the nature of our existence is
important, not just for religious beliefs, but for the matter of magical doing.
As above, so below – this rule explains the basic mechanism of magick. The
spark of consciousness has a Will – so it uses the energy body to manipulate
energies and send out intentions. These energies and intentions interact with
the specific energetic layer of the world, and manifest results in the physical
realm. But it works the other way around, too. Person spark of consciousness
has a will and use the energy body to influence you. The person's intentions
and energies interact with your own energy body, which later on reflects
results on both the spark of consciousness and the physical body. With this
simple mechanism, things like spiritual healing or manifestation and
attraction of things in the physical realm are much easier to understand.
I should give you some examples.
In shamanic practices: shamans says that in order to heal a person, they
have to deal with the spirit of the illness. This can be done through
combat or negotiations. Some shamans believe that they deal with real,
independent spirits which interact, in a negative way, with the ill
person's energy body, which then reflects the illness on the physical
body. But some other shamans believe that the spirits are just
manifestations of the person's fear and worries which create disharmony
on the energy body, and thus, the illness is reflected on the physical
body. Which explanation is correct, it doesn't matter – it's a basic
example how magick works in case of shamanism.
In Chinese traditional medicine, which is based on the Taoist concept of
life force called Chi and the meridians (energy channels), it is said that
the illness is caused by the blockages on the meridians. These blockages
make the flow of life energy chaotic or even impossible. Thus, it is the
task of the healer to perform a magical work that removes the blockages.
These blockages are created by a person's worries and fears. So again,
the spark of consciousness reflects upon the energy body, and the energy
body reflects the illness upon the physical body.
In Huna, things work a bit different, but the essential understanding is
still there. The conscious mind, the spark of consciousness, sets a goal,
and thus it sends the message to the spiritual mind, called the higher self.
This message goes through the energy body – the subconscious mind,
 sometimes filled with blockages like fears and worries. The
subconscious mind pass the message on to the higher self along with
energy – life force, or mana – and then, the higher self sends the energy
into the Universe with proper intention that will make the goal achieved.

The many layers of a human being always interact with each other, creating a
holistic whole. One cannot exists without another.
A Matter of Ancestors
There is an interesting idea, which I wish to share with you. It is said by
shamans and animistic practitioners that the problems of this life are caused
by the spirits of the ancestors, to which we paid no homage, and no respect.
These spirits of the ancestors cause problems, because we ignored them.
Those who respect and remember their ancestors and work with them by
paying a homage live a happy life. But there are many people who live a
happy life, yet they care not about their ancestors and their spirits. At first, it
seems like this whole talk of ancestors is pointless, but when you think about
it, you may notice that those happy people who ignore their ancestors, they
do something. They work with their Karma according to New Age beliefs –
they heal bad memories, they forgive and let go, they meditate and deal with
thoughts, fears and traumas of the past. In some way, they do pay respect to
their ancestors, or Karma – they simple use different terms and practices to
achieve the same goal.
It is quite interesting because it's another situation in which we seem to be
talking about the same thing, but we simple describe things differently. It is a
reason why, no matter what is your path and tradition, you should remember
that in the end, the spiritual world is real and the same. It is just our
perception of this spiritual world that change. The thing is that some people
can see the spirit of the ancestor, angry and ignored – but others can see a
blockage on the chakra – and both the spirit and the chakra will speak of the
same thing. Because in the end, as I've noticed and experienced, it is our
perception based on what we have learned, read and on what we believe, that
shapes the things we perceive spiritually and magically. In the end, two
things are sure – the physical reality, and the Will along with Intention that
shapes the reality.
The Clairvoyant Visions
Those who are clairvoyant can perceive different layers of a human being –
the outer energy field (aura), the energetics, the energy centers, and when
they go deeper, they can see the soul. Of course, the clairvoyant perception is
a subject to perception patterns, beliefs and mental programs, so it's an
individual matter. In other words, every person perceives the energy body
different.30 But the thing is that clairvoyant vision is a proof that we can say
for sure the following: every person, every living organism on Earth has one
physical body and one spiritual body, made of some kind of spiritual
energies, even if the magical traditions of the world perceives them
differently.
Search for these spiritual bodies and layers of yourself in your tradition, as
this knowledge will be very important further on your path.
The fact that all magical traditions perceive the spiritual bodies means that
there is something extraordinary, something spiritual and sacred in each and
everyone of us. But even more, there is something spiritual and sacred in
everything that is alive – and that's how we come back to the primal element
of animism and the theory of Gaia. But before we pursue this subject further,
there are few things that must be explained.
Esoteric and Exoteric Practices
As you have learned already, magick is the art of causing change in
conformity with the Will. In order to cause the change, people use many
different practices. These practices can be categorized into two primary
categories: esoteric practices and exoteric practices. Exoteric practices focus
on causing change in the world, by manipulating the world outside person's
mind. For example, the process of sending the energy to another person in
order to heal that person is an exoteric practice. Esoteric practices, on the
other hand, focus on causing change in the world by changing the way the
practitioner thinks. These practices focus upon the person's mind, and, for
example, meditation of forgiveness is such esoteric practice.
The Emerald Tablet31 clearly states that as above, so below; as within, so
outside. According to the magical thoughts of, for example, Hermetism,
Huna, Taoism or Buddhism, it is your own mind that shapes the world around
you, and eventually, your life. Carry negative beliefs, fears and hatred with
you, and this is what you're going to manifest in your life. But change these
beliefs and subconscious thoughts through esoteric practices, so you can
carry peace, love and happiness with you, and this is what you're going to
manifest in your life, as well. Upon this knowledge, many magical schools
and spiritual paths are based: modern Law of Attraction, Buddhism, Huna
and more.
I mention this because here's another lesson essential to your magical practice
– your actions make changes to the spiritual realms, and changes on the
spiritual realms create changes in the physical world. Two things happen:
The state of your spiritual bodies – closely related to the layers of the
world – is reflected in your daily life. What lies within you, in your
mind and in your many layers of existence, is what manifest itself in
your daily life. Be full of negative thoughts and dreams, and this is what
will manifest in your life. But be full of positive thoughts and dreams,
and this is what will manifest in your life.
It works the other way around – the current state of the spiritual
realms reflect upon your spiritual bodies; thus it influence your very life.
It's like weather, if it's cloudy with heavy rain and low atmospheric
pressure, your mood will be terrible (assuming that you dislike such
weather). And sometimes, you have to recognize the current state of the
 spiritual realms to shield yourself against specific energies or events –
this requires the knowledge of the spiritual cartography according to
your magical path or tradition. Recognizing the state of the spiritual
realms can be done with magical tools of a different sort, and your
tradition should have at least few such tools.

The microcosmos is the reflection of the macrocosms, and the macrocosms is

the reflection of the microcosmos. Thus, the knowledge of the spiritual
cartography is essential for successful practice, because this way, you can
find out and understand what's going on within you and around you. Then,
you will be able to take action and do something about the things going on –
if things "go on" within you, you will use esoteric practices that turn your
attention towards you. If things "go on" somewhere else, you will use
exoteric practices that turn the attention away from you to the source of the
problem that lies outside your self.
And this is common for all magical traditions – with different tools and
different ideas about the nature of the world, the fact that our inner self is the
reflection of the outer world and vice versa is the basic concept in every
school of magick. Just sometimes it's served and taught with different
words...
Remember:
Whatever is going on, first look deep inside yourself – your inner self
reflect the problem, and thus the source of it can be found and dealt
with.
Remember that all your actions cause reactions – what you do will
influence the spiritual world, and then it will come back and influence
the physical world next. This goes for good and bad things.
You are a part of a multidimensional realm – you can't get out of it,
you can only change the way you call these dimensions by changing the
magical path.

All of the above is just a basic understanding – you can gain more knowledge
by consulting books and practitioners of your chosen path. But now, you
know the things you should look for in your tradition. Now, we can go back
to the roots of mankind, where the ancient tradition meets with modern
concepts.
Animism and the Theory of Gaia
One of the things characteristic for New Age movement is that New Age is a
meeting place between the old tradition of animism and the modern concept,
or theory, of Gaia – the Living Planet. It is something worth mentioning,
because:
It shapes the basic and universal concept present in almost every
tradition of the world.
Animism and "Gaia Theory" are often the reasons why people seek the
paths of magick. They seek that which is sacred in this world. And the
Mother Nature is probably the most sacred thing.

Animism ideology is an important one to mention, because from this

ideology every magical and spiritual school originates. In other words, at the
roots of any modern spiritual or magick practice, there is animism. Animism
is not a religion – it's a type of basic belief that there is a spiritual force
behind everything that exists and that everything that exists has its spirit. The
rock in your backyard, the mountain spring, a single tree and the entire forest;
the house you live in, and the great Sahara desert; your car and computer are
no exception. There is a spirit in everything. Some spirits are very small and
weak, and we ignore them. Some are quite conscious, and we respect them.
Some are dangerous, and we fear them. And some are powerful, and we work
with them as equal to equal. We are no exception, as well – we are part
physical beings, part spiritual beings. And because of this, because we
believe that there is a spirit in everything, we accept the idea that there is
something sacred in everything. The true sacrum, that people seek these days,
can be found, not in the church, but in reality all around us. And this is the
basic idea of animism.
Of course, a lot of spiritual and magical traditions seek the sacrum, the
sacredness – it is not the purpose of this book to promote the concept of
animism, especially if I seek sacredness in the practices of Buddhism,
personally. But the idea of animism is quite important for understanding the
essentials of magick. But let's explain the theory of Gaia.
The best concept of Gaia that was ever shown in popular culture is the
concept of Pandora in the James Cameron's movie "Avatar".32 In the movie,
every single living being has a physical body part that can be used to connect
with other living beings – it's like cable and a socket. Though this, every
single living being on the planet of Pandora can connect with each other, and
through this, all organisms living on this planet create a single, huge living
being – the planet itself. By talking to people and reading books and
practicing Huna, Buddhism, Reiki and animistic traditions, I have understood
this: that we do not need cables and sockets because we are already a part of
the Gaia, a part of the living planet Earth.
Mother Nature, the concept of Gaia, is common for many traditions. Most of
them are animistic in nature, yes. And this concept became fresh with the
coming of New Age ideology. A lot of people these days believe that we are
all connected to each other – simple because we are all spiritual beings and
that everything that exists has some form of spirit. We are connected with
everything that surrounds us through our spiritual nature, simple as that. I
mention this because this explains few things.
First, you must understand that what most magical and spiritual traditions
these days says is that everything on this planet is connected to each other.
Carl Gustav Jung created a theory of a global unconsciousness – he
speculated that there the minds of people are connected to each other on the
subconscious level and that people create nets of some sort. Local nets for
families, and then for small communities. Then bigger nets for nations,
continents and finally, a great net for the entire human population on Earth.
Within this great subconscious mind of humanity, lies fears, worries, dreams,
expectations, thoughts and archetypes of a different sort. Everyone is
connected. Animism and modern New Age concepts go beyond – it's not just
the mankind that creates one global net. But the entire planet creates a great
organism, in which actions of one person can influence the entire nation, and
fears and dreams of a single nation can influence the dreams and fears of a
single man.
Second, at some point of your journey, you will notice that the events on our
planet influence you in some way. Great tragedies might cause a wave of fear
and pain that moves through the spiritual planes and influence people all over
the planet. Local tragedies cast a shadow on local communities, and those
who are magical workers might notice how the energies flow around. But at
the same time, a single strong person can influence the entire nation because
his energies travel through the great net to other people and influence them
through spiritual means. This creates hopes, as well as dangers – because
some people are good, and some people are evil.
I've noticed this connection and influence on a personal level. As a Reiki
practitioner, I have noticed that, with time, people close to me begun to
change, simple because I was around. The energies projected by me were
influencing them, and since they were willing to change their lives for better,
the energies filled them with strength and inspirations for change. It went
even further – the spirits in the building I used to live became far more
friendly, and people living in the building begun to change their behavior to
more peaceful, as well. All of this because the spiritual healing energy was
constantly present around them. Similar effects can be found in the places of
power when it comes to healing energies, but the way the energy influence us
is far more complex than this.
In the end, know this – your actions cause changes in the reality. And if
you're not strong enough, the reality might cause changes in you. And this is
another essential principle of magick, no matter what your tradition and the
path is.
With the basic understanding of the multiverse and many layers of the human
being, which should help you navigate in any magical tradition you might be
interested in, we can now dwell into the concept of energies and learn some
more practical techniques, essential for the practice of magic, not just for
beginners, but also for more advanced practitioners, as well.
Chapter Endnotes
29 Kabbalah – is a complex and old system of magick and inner growth, that
originates from the Hebrew culture. Over time, it has become an essential
part of the European magical systems that lack the old elements of traditional
pagan and animistic ideologies.
30 Nathaniel, Are Chakras and Auras Real? What Can You Actually See
Through Clairvoyance? On: A State of Mind. On-line access:
<http://astateofmind.eu/2012/11/30/are-chakras-and-auras-real/>
31 The Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Tablet, Tabula
Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes. It is an important alchemical text for
European magical tradition, supposedly written by Hermes Trismegistus,
who is suggested to be Greek god Hermes and, at the same time, Egyptian
god Thoth himself.
32 Avatar. Directed by James Cameron, 2009.
 The Book of Energies
New Age ideology stands in position that everything is energy. Quite often,
people who follow New Age path say that quantum physics support their "all
is energy" theory. Further on, people say that there is only one energy, but
there are different states of this energy - meaning, different "vibrations".
Some of them are quite solid; thus creating physical matter. Others are more
subtle, like sunlight or electricity. Others are far more subtle; thus creating
subtle vibrations of magical and spiritual energies - these are subtle energies.
I will use the terms "subtle energy" and "subtle vibrations" alternately in this
book. Of course, the whole idea of subtle energies is very complex, but since
this book is about the essentials, then such basic understanding is all you
need to know when you begin your magical path. In this part of the book,
there are some essential practical skills which you must learn if you ever
want to be successful in your spiritual or magical practice, so skipping this
chapter is not a wise decision.
The World of Energies
In magick, we work with energies. Basically, the magical "energy" is a force,
a fuel thanks to which magical results are possible. Every tradition and the
path have its own explanations. Many traditions state that people can
perceive energies through the ability of clairvoyance, or simple by something
we call "magical senses". Understanding the concept of energies is important,
and while the basic explanations are simple, there are traditions which will
not use the word "energies" or that will even deny the possibility that magick
has anything to do with energies. In the end, it's all about terms and
definitions.
Basically, a person who does magick draws energy from the source, charge it
with intention, and sends it away to accomplish a goal. There can be different
sources – the person itself, elemental energies of fire from candles, or of
water from a mountain spring. There can be different intentions: "shape a
ball" or "create a protective field of energy" or "attract love". Finally, there
can be different forms of "sending the energy" - it might be placed in an
object, creating an amulet or talisman; it can stick to the person or place, or it
can travel over great distances to reach its destination – another person or a
different place. This is the basic mechanism of energies in magick. All of this
is based on intention, or person's Will – I will explain it better when we reach
one of the laws of magick that says: energy follow thoughts.
Vibrations of Energy
Some people say that there are many types of energies. With many types,
there are many sources of energy– in the end, we can simplify things and say
that magick needs energy that is drawn from the source and used with proper
intention to achieve a goal. But what is quite interesting is the concept of
vibrations – different vibrations of the same energy. This is a popular concept
in the modern days and even if it's still a theory, or even a pure speculation,
somehow it's a good model to explain the nature of the energies around us.
This is a great piece of essential knowledge.
Everything is energy – let's start with this New Age statement. Now, there are
different vibrations of this energy. Some vibrations are very "dense", and
they form the physical matter. Some energies have low vibrations – these are
the energies of chaos. Further on, we see energies of death, aggression, hate,
pain, fear. Here, we can see not just the "negative energies" that either cause
or are results of fear, pain, suffering and bad emotions, but also we can spot
negative entities – astral critters, parasites and evil entities. "Evil" from our
own perspective, of course. Further up the scale, we see more positive
energies: laugh, peace, positive thinking and elemental spirits of nature.
Moving further, there's friendship, love. Up the scale, there is harmony,
spiritual love and light beings like Angels or Bodhisattvas. At the end of the
scale, opposite to chaos, there is spiritual harmony, pure essence of the
Universe – God.

Example scale of the energies

Somewhere around, we can perceive places of specific "feel" - evil places,
sacred sites and so on. They, too, are a subject to the different vibrations of
energies.
Of course, it's just a modern concept popularized by New Age – but it's a
good model for the essential understanding of magick. Some energies "feel
good", and they bring positive emotions and results. Other energies "feed
bad" and the bring negative emotions and results. We simple call them
positive and negative energies. It's a huge simplification of things from both
practical and philosophical perspective, but it will be enough for us to explain
more basic concepts of magick and safety rules, which must be followed if
you wish your practice to be safe and successful.
Now, if we know that there are positive and negative energies, we can discuss
another two subjects: the life energies and elemental energies.
The Life Force
One of the most essential and most common elements in the world of magick
and energies is the concept of the Life Force – or life energies. Hebrew
traditions speak of "Ruach". Hindu people speak of "Prana", which is quite
famous thanks to New Age movement. Rumors says that, in Hawaii, the term
for life force was "Mana" - and "mana" is used in some modern magick
circles. The Japanese people speak of "Ki", and finally, the most complex
system was created by Chinese people and the energy here is called "Chi".
And these are just few terms that are present on Earth that describe the Life
Force.
In all these different traditions of the world, the life force concept speak of a
force, or energy, that drives and fuels everything that is alive. Life energy is a
fuel that travels through the subtle energy channels within the body. This life
force is said to be collected from food, air and nature. Healthy food, longs
walks through mountains and forests, proper breathing and spiritual practices
draw the energy, which is later on transformed into life energy, thanks to
which we live: we have the motivation for work, sex, social relations, hobby
and such.
As mentioned earlier, this energy flows through so called "energy channels" -
it is not a new concept. In reality, it is quite old. Most systems of the energy
channels, veins for spiritual power, originate from the Eastern culture of
China (meridians), India (Nadi') or regions of Tibet. Because, in every
tradition, we observe the primary principle of "as above, so below", if there
are physical veins for blood, then it's logical to assume that there are
energetic veins for spiritual power to flow through them, as well.
Many schools of magick mention, as well, the concepts of energy centers
within the body, in which the Life Force is managed so it can reach and affect
the entire body. The most popular concept in the Western world is the
concept of seven primary chakras and thousands of minor chakras, located
within the body. This concept originates from the Hindu tantric tradition of
Shaktism, the cult of Mother Goddess. It has been transferred to the West
through the Theosophical movement and similar organizations at the end of
the XIX century. Later on, the concept developed further into the seven
primary chakras which we know today.33 Each of the chakras is supposed to
govern a part of our psyche and character. The chakras are connected with the
Nadi through the primary channels – the Ida, Pingala and Shushumna.
In the Chinese traditions, the energy centers are called Tan T'iens34 and there
are three of them. The energy flows into the entire body from the first Tan
T'ien responsible for health and physical strength. The middle Tan T'ien is
responsible for healthy emotions, and the upper Tan T'ien is responsible for
the spiritual aspects of the human being. These three centers are connected to
each other with two primary channels – the back primary channel and the
front primary channel. The centers and primary channels create the
Microcosmic Orbit.
Even the European magick has a concept of energy centers – at least the
modern schools based on Kabbalah. In these schools, the centers are often a
reflection of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life upon the human body. To give you
an example of the use of the Tree of Life, in the modern tradition of the Order
of the Golden Dawn, the Middle Pillar Ritual is said to operate upon energy
centers of a human being and purify the soul of the magus, and these centers
are nothing else but the elements of the Tree of Life.
Perhaps even your tradition and magical path has a concept of energy centers
and channels, important for your own practice. Not all systems of magick
consider the importance of the centers and channels, though. But even still,
almost every magical system considers the importance of the life energies.
Life Force is an important concept – we use it as fuel. The Taoist teachings
say that we need life energy to stay positive, be happy, remain motivated to
work, self-development, and even to relax. But with improper magical work,
we can spend our life force for magical doing and at some point, we may
have not enough life force for our own purposes; thus our magical work can
lead to illnesses, emotional problems and depression. Finally, even death.
The use of your own life energy happens quite often in modern traditions, or
in the modern practices of psychic healing, in which it is our own life energy
that is used to heal another person. Simple practices as the use of Huna, Law
of Attraction, psychic readings, psychometry or even some forms of
divination use the fuel of life energy. Knowing that you may be using your
own life energy makes you think twice before learning and practicing a new
magical technique.
Some people have little natural life force within them while others have a
greater deposits of energy for magical use. With practice and time, the
amount of energy grows steadily – over time, you have more of your own
energy to spend for magical purposes. If you burn the fuel, you must visit the
nearest "gas station" – most schools of magick agree that life force is
replenished by:
Food – not just any food, but by the food that is healthy and "real". A lot
of modern food purchased in stores is depleted of life energy according
to psychics and sensitive people. Eat and drink healthy, and you will
replenish your life energy.
Breathing – breathing is an important element of keeping your life
energy levels high. At least, this is the case according to the schools of
Taoism, Yoga and Huna. Deep breaths with your diaphragm bring a lot
of life energy into your energy centers.
Spending time outside – the trees, the Sun, the spring, the mountains,
the Mother Nature is a great source of life energy. If you lack motivation
and inner strength, staying within city walls is the last thing you want.

These are the basics of replenishing the life energy. Some schools of magick
have their own techniques of magical work which is meant to collect life
energies, so you may want to learn if your tradition has such techniques.
There is more to all of this – life force is often drained by negative entities,
such as astral critters, magical parasites, egregores35 or psychic vampires.
Entities and psychic vampires like to attach to you – by creating "energetic
links", "cords" or "attachments". Through such cords, the life energy flows
out of you, towards the entity or vampire. From our perspective, it's evil –
from the perspective of some entities, it's just another way to stay alive. We
can't really say that a lion is evil because it eats other animals, right? The
same thing applies to some lesser entities of the spiritual realms. Others can
feed upon people because they can and they have their own goals and reasons
in doing so. But in the end, it harms you – so you have to learn how to defend
against such energetic parasites. I will explain the essentials in the chapter
about magical self-defense.
As you can see, the concept of Life Force is important to understand few
things about magick, such as some safety rules or principles of magical
techniques. The nature of this "force" is unsure, yet it is present in many
traditions and cultures; thus it's one of the essentials elements of magical and
spiritual practice.
Elemental Energies of Air, Fire, Water and Earth
Another type of interesting "vibration", or the concept, are the elemental
energies. Many magical traditions in the world developed the concept of
elemental energies. The European tradition created the concept of the
energies of earth, fire, water, air and spirit. The Chinese culture created the
concept of earth, fire, water, air and metal. The Chinese culture went further,
and it developed a school of cooking based on the five elements, and the
school of traditional Chinese medicine, in which a lot of healing methods are
based on the five elements. In a similar way, the Tibetan medicine is based
on the harmony of five elements.
Elemental energies can be understood as:
The sources of fuel for magical work – energies which can be
gathered, to name a few, from stones (element of earth), candles
(element of fire), mountain spring (element of water) and similar and the
energy, once gathered is manipulated into forms and set with tasks and
goals to be achieved.
An important element for our good health – the harmony of the
elements within our body is crucial. If the elements create no real
harmony, the illness strikes. Thus, some illnesses can be healed with the
element of fire, which we either lack or we need it to destroy the
overload of some other elemental energies. A lot of magical healing
systems is based on this concept.

But in general, concept of elemental energies is more like association of tools

which we use for our magical work. Some rituals require the element of
water, so we bless the water. Other techniques require the element of fire, so
we light a candle in the room. Some schools work with herbs, so they say
they work with the element of earth. Whether it's just a concept, an
association or a real "different types of energies", it doesn't really matter from
a theoretical standpoint, and the practical point of view is a matter of what
school or magical path you walk.
We could speculate that the elemental energies are the results of the basic
understanding – people looked for different ways to solve their problems,
from illnesses to material problems, so they experimented with different
resources. They noticed that herbs and roots are effective to change one
thing, but were ineffective with other things, for which they used very
effective fire and heat. This could be the source of the elemental energies of
earth and fire. Other theories say that spirits told shamans that herbs can be
used to do "this", fire can be used to do "this", and water should be used to do
"this". In any way, over time the ideas developed into the concept of
elemental energies.
Today, we still use the elemental energies – when we decide to use candles,
herbs, water or spiritual healing to solve illnesses, or when we use specific
items during magical rituals to accomplish a goal. Some people do this
continuously, being aware they use the concept of elemental energies. Others
use it without this awareness, and they do so simple because they need
candles and incenses, and not "elements of fire and air".
Let's summarize. We can say that we have positive energies, negative
energies, life energies and elemental energies. Once again, it's a
simplification of things, but it's enough to understand the essentials of
magick.
Manipulation and Programming of Energies
The definitions of magick say that magick is the manipulation of energies
towards achieving a specific goal. While "energy manipulation" is a modern
term, the entire concept is quite old. If we deal with energies, then any form
of magical work is a manipulation of these energies. The basic idea is that
energies can be shaped into specific shapes, and programmed to perform
specific tasks. They can be shaped into tools that can be used for magical
self-defense or for magical healing. Energies can be shaped into balls and
balloons to create magical shields. They can be shaped into fancy styles and
programmed to cleanse every person that walks into the room.
The process of shaping energies is called "manipulation", and the process of
assigning tasks and intentions is called "programming". Through this simple
art, in many schools of magick, the practitioner can gather the energy from a
source, shape it and send it on its way. This can be explained with an idea of
an energy ball, often called "psiball" by modern beginners. The magus
gathers the elemental energy of fire and using his will (intention), he shapes it
into a small ball, a size of a baseball ball. With it, he can use his will
(intention) to program it to perform a specific task, for example:
The energy ball can be expanded around the magus to form a shield that
is meant to protect the magus against unwanted magical influence or
magical attacks.
The ball can be send to attach to someone and use it to track the person.
The ball can be hanged in a room to attack anyone who has negative
intention towards the magus present in this room.
The ball can be programmed to follow the magus and provides him with
extra energy if the magus has no access to other sources of the magical
energy.
The ball can be programmed to attach itself to a physical object; thus
creating a talisman and with proper programming, it can send an
intention of attracting money to a magus.
The ball can be programmed to scare unwanted entities away from the
room, in which the ball has been placed.
The ball can be programmed with many programs, with time creating a
servitor, a semi-aware entity to serve the magus. Although it's possible
 to perform such a task, it's advisable not to since servitors can become
self-aware and turn against their creator.

The above examples should give you a basic idea as to what programming is
used for. It can be performed during a ritual or a simple magical work.
During a ritual, the magus prepares his state of mind and the entire room in
order to gather the energy, program it and send it on its way. But sometimes,
the energy can be manipulated and programmed within few minutes while
riding a bus. This requires experience, skills and knowledge, of course.
Often, when we do energy manipulation, we use symbols to do so – we
visualize signs such as pentagram, Om, or a cross; tools such as a hammer or
scissors; weapons such as knife, sword or battle axe. All these are metaphors,
symbols that have a specific meaning to us. When we use a visualized
scissor, we assume that it's something that cut stuff – and thus, when you use
visualized, energetic scissors in magick, you will use them to cut energetic
cords of a different sort. When you use a visualized energetic sword, you use
it to stab something – for example, malicious spirits that try to attack you.
When you cast a spell, it is a collection of different symbols that have a
meaning. By putting together symbols and metaphors, you create a program
for the energy, and thus, the spell actually works. At least, in theory, as the
practice is a bit more complex.
And the meaning of the symbols that you use in your magical practice is
either related to your individual, personal understanding of symbols; or the
general understanding of the symbol associated with the school of thought.
The visualized metaphor of energetic pentagram may work either because
you understand the symbol as protective, or because the magical tradition you
walk understands it as protective and this tradition taught you about this
through books or teachers.
You should benefit from few additional examples.
When a psychic performs a psychic healing, he might perceive a
blockage within another person's energy body. Thus, he use his own
energies and shape them (manipulate them) into an energetic tool with
an intention of removing these blockages. Then, he manipulates the tool
(energy) and controls it with intentions until the blockage is removed,
and the healing is done.
 When a magus constructs a talisman, he might gather an elemental
energy from a source nearby, for example, a burning candle. He then
manipulates the energy to fill the previously prepared physical item, and
programs it with intention – for example, an intention of attracting
money towards the magus in question. After few minutes of focusing on
intention on the program, the programming is complete, and the object
becomes a magical talisman.
When a beginner creates a first defense shield against unwanted spiritual
influence, he may collect elemental energy from Earth. He then
manipulates it to shape a bubble around himself, and while doing so, he
focus on the intention – thus he programs the shield, for example to
protect against unwanted energetic influence from any possible sources.
After few minutes, the programming is complete, and the magical shield
works.

These examples should help you figure out how all of these things work in
magick.
Of course, some schools of magick use the technique of manipulating and
programming energies intentionally. Other schools of magick do this
"unconsciously" - what's the difference? In case of conscious manipulation,
the practitioner knows that he is manipulating energies and programming
them with intentions. In case of unconscious practices, the practitioner works
with intention only, and he does not perceive or even consider the energies.
Which are still "there", of course. Because of this, not every book or teacher
or school of thought will teach you directly about manipulation of energies.
But even so, the intention is everything that matters, so whether the schools is
based on conscious or unconscious use of energies, it does not interfere with
the results of the practice.
From a different perspective, when a Buddhist monk performs an offering
ritual to a specific deity, he places the offering on the altar, but he is not
manipulating the energy. Yet, with his intentions, he offers the energy within
the physical offering, to a deity. The energy, because it follows the intention,
reaches the deity. While this is not a direct manipulation of energy, it's a
passive way to manipulate it – thus, it's a form of unconscious energy
manipulation.
Whether you're a psychic, Asatru, Wiccan or spiritual worker, whenever you
wish to protect yourself or a room; or you wish to send healing energy to
someone, or you wish to offer an offering – in most aspects of magick, even
if you're not focusing on exploring your own mind, you're manipulating and
programming energies. While there are many names for these two tasks, and
some schools of thought do not recognize them in theory, but they use it in
practice, manipulation and programming of magical energies is a good,
theoretical model that explains this crucial, essential and elemental part of
magical activity.
In all cases, we come back to a simple rule of magick – energy follow your
intention – and thoughts.
Energy Follow Thoughts – The Universal Law of
Magick
One of the essential and universal laws of magick says that energy follow
thoughts. Thoughts, or "Will" or "Intention", you name it. This universal law
of magick affects magick in few ways:
Performing rituals – when you perform a ritual, you focus your
thoughts on this event and the goal. This way, energy follows the
intentions: of cleansing the place, protecting it, and achieving a specific
result of the ritual.
Creating magical objects – when you focus upon turning an object into
protective amulet, or useful talisman, your thoughts control the energy,
and with this mixture, the intention follows. Thus, creation of magical
object is possible.
Attracting things – when you focus upon things, you attract them to
your life. It's not really about attracting money, but about attracting
positive and negative events and entities to your life. If you practice
black magick, black things you attract – simple.

What's interesting is that if your mind is clear, then the energy within you and
around you, becomes harmonious and peaceful – it simple "exists", and this
often occurs during meditation. In any way, your thoughts and intentions
direct magical energies – it applies to any school of magical or spiritual
thought. No matter what theory stands behind the school of thought, and what
books and teachers talk about, the basics of all magical activity are simple:
thoughts and intentions. Now these elements have few layers:
Subconscious thoughts – fears, blocked emotions, negative beliefs.
These thoughts may hinder your magical efforts to experience results of
your practice. They sometimes re-emerge from your subconscious,
creating "chaos of thoughts" within your mind.
Subconscious intentions – subconsciously, we may have different
intentions. Some are good – we might intend to be rich and attract
abundance, and this will attract abundance to our life. But we may have
negative intentions, as well – we may intend to harm someone, or get rid
of someone. This will manifest in our life as well until the intention is
 healed.

It's worth mentioning that a lot of schools of magick focus a lot of attention
on dreams. Dreams are said to be a mean of communication for our
subconscious mind. Some dreams are meant to provide us with information
that there are things within ourselves that require healing. Interpretation of
these dreams can help you in healing your inner self – this will make your
magical work more effective, and your life a lot happier. I will discuss
dreams at the end of this book.
Emotions – while they're not really "thoughts", then a lot of them –
conscious or unconscious - control energies. They might hinder your
magical practice, but they may also attract things, either positive or
negative.
Conscious thoughts – this is so obvious that it doesn't require any
explanation. These are your conscious thoughts.
Focused intentions – this is something that is really important in
magick. These are your conscious thoughts that are focused. A focused
thought of wanting something to happen is your intention. And
intentions control your magical work.

In any way, subconscious fears, negative emotions and negative intentions

must be healed. Otherwise, they will hinder your spiritual growth and
magical doing. A clear mind that is free of emotions must be achieved if you
begin a ritual or magical doing. Then, your focused intentions have the
greatest power, and you can practice magick with great effectiveness. Energy
will follow thoughts, and if there are no additional obstacles, your magical
doing will give you results.
Energies That Surrounds You
Energy follow thoughts – thus if you sit in a room, and you perform a lot of
magical work there, the room will be filled with energies similar to your
intentions, thoughts and emotions. If you meditate in a room, or perform
psychic healing, or work with positive energies, the room will be filled with
spiritual, healing energies. If you work with black magick and negative
intentions in the room, it will be filled with negative energies in a similar
way. The very same thing applies to filling the room with emotions – be
happy and peaceful in a room, and this is what the room will feel like. But
become angry in it, and feel hate, and the room will represent these emotions,
too. This is why cleansing the room and taking care of the energies in your
place is important – but we will discuss this later on.
Yet it works the other way around. You may notice that the energies "in the
air" around you change from time to time, and this influence your magical
work, your state of mind. This means that your magical work can be
influenced in either positive or negative way by:
Energies of the place – if the room is filled with energies proper for
your magical tradition, your magical work will be stronger and more
effective, and you will feel better in this room. But if it will be filled
with negative energies, or energies from a different tradition, then you
may not be able to perform any kind of magical work there.
World's energetics – our world has its own energetics, as well. Currents
and waves of positive and negative energies flow through our Mother
Earth. Sometimes, we feel bad, and sometimes we feel good. The
currents and waves can deplete us of energies, or fill us with power.
They can make us ill or healthy. They may protect us from unwanted
spiritual influence, or they may cause our natural magical defenses to
weaken. As you develop your sensitivity to magick, you will be able to
perceive these "currents" and "waves", and you will be able to learn how
to exist between these energetic events.
Moon phase – even the phases of the moon may influence your
practice. There's no rule here: some people prefer new moon while
others prefer full moon. Some people react with tiredness, others with
aggression, others with motivation. But it's a good idea to note down
your behavior and frame of mind during specific moon states in a period
of at least two years – this should give you a great source of knowledge,
to help you recognize the cycles of your own body. A lot of magical
schools consider moon phases as an important element of magick –
based on these phases they schedule specific rituals, celebrations, times
of personal insights and other magical doing.

Right now, you should already be aware of the fact that – as a human – you
are a subject to energies. You can be influenced by them, and you can
manipulate them, and control them. Once again, you know more about
magick. But energies like to focus themselves – thus, they may create places
of power.
To illustrate it better, one may say that all these energies have been described
by famous movies by George Lucas. One can say "the force is strong in you"
or "this place is strong in the force", or "this place is the nexus of the light
side" or "I sense the dark side in here". George Lucas created nothing new –
he simple took the traditions of the world and mixed them together, creating
the concept of the force – a concept which nicely illustrates what we're
dealing with in here. But let's head to the subject of the places of power.
Places of Power; Places of Despair
One of the elements of the world around us is something we call the places of
power and places of focused energies. While I've mentioned few words about
currents and waves of energies, the "places of power" are geographical areas
– small as a single square meter, and big as few square kilometers – of
focused magical energy. This energy may have different vibrations. It might
be positive or negative; healing or destructive; it can emanate with Buddhist
"feel", or with Norse Runes "feel"; it can support some practices, and hinder
others.
While most authors explain that places of power are areas of healing, pleasant
energy, I consider this a simplification of things. For the purpose of
explaining the essentials of magick, we can say that places of power can be
categorized in the following way:
Positive and negative places.
Pleasant and unpleasant places.

Now, positive and negative places you should already understand. Some
places are filled with energies that feel positive, and others are filled with
energies that feels negative. That second categorization needs more
explanation. Some places will feel good to person A, but the same places will
feel bad to person B. The person A might be a Buddhist, and the person B
might be a runic practitioner. While it's not a rule, sometimes a person
dealing with runes will consider meditative Buddhist energies unpleasant and
discomforting. And it works the other way around.
If you deal with specific types of energies in a specific magical tradition, you
might become permeated by these energies. This may cause:
That others can sense what you're dealing with – and they might either
like it, dislike it, or simple tolerate it.
You may feel good in areas with the same types of energy, but you may
feel bad in areas with different energies.

Because you're a subject to magical energies, and your sensitivity (which I

will describe later) increases over time, you must be ready that some times
you won't be able to spend too much time in a specific area if the energies in
that place do not suit you. The best thing to do right now is to give some
examples.
What Being a Subject to Energies Means
All of this doesn't mean that Buddhism is good, and Runes are evil. In my
own practice, I work a lot with Reiki – I do healing sessions, I initiate into
practice, I meditate. I know a lot of pagans, Asatru and shamans who tolerate
this energy because even if it's different from what they work with, they still
recognize it as useful and harmless to them. But what's interesting is that
sometimes when a New Age follower approaches me, he says he can sense
some "evil" or negative energies from me. This is quite normal – because
healing energy might feels negative to a person who pretends to be spiritual,
but in reality is filled with hate, anger and negativity. It's quite funny, but
there's not much I can do about it unless the person seeks help. Sometimes, I
create a Reiki curtain above the entrance to my home (energy manipulated to
hang there with proper intention – a program), which is programmed to
cleanse a person's aura and repel people with negative intentions towards me.
And because of this, some people can't even walk into my home, saying that
it's filled with negative energies, and I should call an exorcist.
Another example is related to a new-age-like vegan restaurant in Poland, in
which me and my friends used to organize esoteric discussion meetings.
While the food and drinks are great there, the energies of the place cause
headaches to all of my sensitive friends, including me. It's because the area is
filled with a mixture of different energies. People that deal with pagan deities,
Reiki, Yoga, Buddhism, Tantra and New Age visit the place to give lectures
and run workshops. But the place is not cleansed on a regular basis, so the
mixture of different energies grows. At some point, the chaos created a
vortex36, a gate between the worlds, and a nexus37 – these two elements
attract and allow unpleasant entities to arrive and attack people, seeking pray.
These entities are like psychic vampires – I will discuss this phenomena later.
Generally, in that specific restaurant most people feel bad because the area is
filled with unpleasant mixture of energies.
My friend and a white shaman38 takes great care of her own home. In a living
room, there's an altar. In this room, all shamanic work is performed, and it's
room in which she initiates into Reiki practice, as well. Thus, the room is
filled with positive energies related to Reiki and upper worlds. In this room, I
feel great – relaxed and at peace. This is how most people feel there. This is
an example of a situation in which people who deal with specific energies,
react positively to similar energies in other places.
The way people react to all these different places is very individual matter.
Some places are positive, and everyone can feel it. Some are negative, and
everyone can feel it. But in reality, such places are rare. More popular are the
areas in which the energy has been shaped by months, years or decades of
practice, and that are simple unpleasant to people representing other magical
paths.
Basically, we can distinct the following places.
Places that empower meditation – some places are filled with energies
that support meditation, insights and inner spiritual development of a
person that regularly spends time in such place. Such areas are often
created in temples.
Places that empower magical practice – if a place is filled with
energies related to a specific magical practice, then this practice, if
performed in place, will be strengthen. Some magical traditions
emphasize the need of creating sacred space, for example, a room, in
which magical work is performed all the time, and this is the sole
purpose of the room. This way, the energies focus in the room; thus
making the magical practice stronger and more effective with time.
Places that heal – some areas focus healing energies that can heal a
person – both spiritually and physically. Spending some time in such
place can have healing effects. If water stream has a beginning in such
place, or there's a spring flowing through such place, the water itself can
have healing effects.
Places that cause illness – some places are filled with negative energies
that once inside you might cause worse mood, lack of motivation,
depression and illness.
Places with chaotic energies – often caused by unsafe magical practice,
or traumatic events such as death, such places can create vortexes –
gateways between worlds – and spending time in such place makes you
vulnerable for magical attacks, attachments and dangerous magical
encounters.
Places that disallow human trespassers – some places are occupied by
spirits and entities that dislike human presence. Thus, they might repel
 any human who wish to dwell into such place.

You can find such places all over the world – the best way to find them is to
ask local magical experts, or if there is none, analyze local legends and
sayings, as well as old chronicles and books. Some places are marked with
stone circles, or knowledge of them is simple passed from person to person.
Temples of a different sort, when are used in a proper way, create areas of
focused energies especially useful for healing or spiritual growth. One can
even recognize what kind of energies fill the place by learning about the
practices performed there. This knowledge is useful also because one can
create a place of power on his own.
What Causes the Area to Become a Place of Power
There are many things that cause the place to become a place of power. Some
areas are places of power naturally – because the currents and waves of
energies flow there all the time. Perhaps it is the reason why ancient people
used to build stone circles in such places. But this is just a theory. Right now
we just acknowledge that some areas can be places of power naturally. Other
areas are turned into places of power by:
Spiritual practice – like meditation, or spiritual healing and dealing
with spirits of the upper worlds. Over time, the place can support and
strengthen such spiritual practices, and even become a place of power
that cause healing.
Magical practice – as in many traditions where it's emphasized to create
sacred spaces, rooms with altars that are dedicated to the magical
practice.
Regular cleansing – regular cleansing of the place, usually a room or
whole house, can cause harmonious and peaceful energies to focus on
such place. It's always a good idea to take care of the energies inside
your home – if they are pleasant and positive, then they will fill you with
motivation and health, helping you drive your life towards happiness.
Traumatic events – death, murder, rape and strong, negative energies
can turn an area into a negative place of power. With time, more
negative energies can focus on that place; thus causing the negative
place to strengthen its unpleasant effects.
Chaos – this often happens in areas that are used for New Age
 workshops and lectures. People emanate with their own various
energies, and various energies are used during such workshops. If you,
for example, own a business and you rent a room for such spiritual or
magical workshops, it is mandatory for you to cleanse the place
thoroughly, so the area will be "sterile" all the time.

All these events and their derivatives can cause an area to become a place of
power. Depending on the type of energy, its intensity and passing time, the
place can be small or great in power. But knowledge goes even further – for
example, it's much easier to perform Buddhist meditation in Tibet than it is to
perform meditation in New York. Thousands of years of practice have made
areas of the world filled with specific "vibrations" - different places have
different feels to them, and this makes some techniques work better than
others. It changes over time, and it's much simple to perform specific things
in the Western world today than it was a hundred years ago.
But basically, right now you know that different areas are filled with different
energies, which might empower or hinder your spiritual and magical practice.
Once again, use this knowledge wisely – choose carefully what you do,
where you do it, and how long do you intend to spend there. This knowledge
can save your life.
There is another way to recognize the places of power, and energies in
general – it's the magical sensitivity and the ability to perceive energies and
spiritual forces. An ability which we all have, but we have to awake it, first.
The Clair Vision and Sensitivity in Magick
There are two things that seem to be quite natural for every person – and it
doesn't matter what magical tradition you follow, these abilities can be
learned and used like any other skill you can learn in your life. These things,
these abilities, are the ability of clairvoyance and the ability of sensitivity,
and I want to mention both because they are some of the most essential skills
in magick and spirituality.
Clairvoyance
Clairvoyance is the ability to perceive that which is greater than the physical
reality. This ability, popularized by New Age and psychics of the modern
days, is a natural ability of human kind. With a bit of teaching, everyone can
learn this simple yet useful ability. Shamans can see spirits, psychics perceive
energies, healers can see the problems, witches can see energies as well,
spiritual masters can perceive mental and emotional blockages – these are
only few examples. The process of developing clairvoyance is a patient one
and I described it in a practical way in my other book, "The Art of Seeing".39
I know a lot of people who can "see" spirits and energies, and they come
from different traditions and paths – animism, New Age, shamanism, Wicca,
Asatru, Buddhism.
Based on my own experience I'm sure that everyone can learn this natural
ability – actually, everyone has this ability, but sometimes people are
blocked, or blinded by opinions and skepticism of the society.
Clairvoyance can be divided into two primary categories: physical
clairvoyance, through which we can see spirits and energies like any other
physical object or event; and inner clairvoyance, which is most popular. This
second type requires an example to understand: close your eyes, and then
visualize an orange, think about orange, imagine it, do this right now. You
should now see an orange with your inner sight. And this is how most
energies and spirits can be perceived through clairvoyance. Everything else is
just a matter of practice – over time one can learn how to distinct real spirits
from subjective imagination; how to see without too much analyzing.
Sometimes, this ability is awakened already, and sometimes, it awakens over
time and magical practice. When it awakes, you should begin the process of
improving your own clairvoyance. With this ability, you will be able to
perceive energies and spirits, which will further improve the results of your
magical practice. This is quite logical – you get better effects if you can
actually see what you're doing.
But some people do not develop the ability of clairvoyance. Because when
we think about it, clairvoyance is just a form of this natural ability of the
sixth sense, a way our intuition serves us information. Most people are
clairvoyant - that's why I speak of clairvoyance as of natural ability. But
sometimes, clairvoyance is replaced by something else – like clairaudience,
the ability to hear spirits; or by the ability to "know things". This might
sounds like modern psychic stuff, but we're talking about natural, ancient
abilities of mankind, abilities used by shamans, witches, saints and mages of
a different sort. Whatever your ability is – whatever is the way you perceive
the spiritual world – know this, that it's real. Know that one way or another
you can perceive that which goes beyond the physical realm. And know that,
with time, these skills will become essential for your magical practice.
This goes even further – it goes into the concept of sensitivity.
Sensitivity
There is a concept of "sensitivity" - sensitivity to spiritual and magical
energies. Some people are sensitive, meaning that they can sense the energies
around them and define them – tell if they are positive or negative, are they
the energies of love or death, are they the healing energies or destructive
energies. This sensitivity can be inborn, or it can be developed over time
through specific practices of magical and spiritual development. While this is
a useful skill in terms of magick, the development of sensitivity should not be
the goal on its own. In other words, you should practice magick in order to
achieve a goal, but you should consider the sensitivity as a tool. It's OK to
dream of a hammer, but it's far better idea to use the hammer to build a
house.
Sensitivity is an ability to sense energies. Once again, it's a natural ability,
meaning that everyone can develop it, but sometimes it has to be awaken
first. A lot of people can sense energies physically – they can sense energies
as heat, cold, tingling, pressure and similar feelings. Others might not be able
to sense energies physically, but they have the ability to "know" what kind of
energies they face. This ability come in handy quite often. With it:
You can tell what kind of energies you work with – during a ritual
you can tell if you work with the energies you intended to work. You
 can tell if there's some light being approaching you, or on the contrary, if
there's a nasty bad spirit trying to attack you. You can tell if you just
catch a nasty attachment from a psychic vampire, or if someone is
sending you positive, healing energy.
You can tell what kind of energies you face in a room or place – this
way you can tell if the place is safe for magical work, or if it's filled with
negative energies, which need to be cleansed first. You can recognize
the places of power, and you can recognize the places in which you
should not dwell, because, for example, the local spirits might dislike
humans. You can tell if your altar is cleansed or dirty, or you can tell if
your friend's house needs some spiritual touch.
You can tell if the magical work brings result – for example, when
you have performed a cleansing ritual, you can simple sense if the area
or person has been cleansed. If you reach the Source for a dose of Reiki
energy, you can tell if Reiki flows and performs the healing. If you have
charged a talisman with energies and intention, you can tell if you've
been successful.

As you can see with these simple examples, the natural ability of sensitivity
to magical energies is quite useful. A lot of people who begin their magical
practice walk blindly on their individual path. They don't see things, neither
sense things, and because of this, they often believe it's all about intention
and psychology. But it's not, there's also the energetic factor in magick.
Without your magical senses, you are blind. But over time, with practice,
experience and guidance, these senses develop, and you begin to see and
sense, and this leads to a new level of magical work. So, there is the bright
side to your magical senses. But there's also the dark side.
Over time, because of the magical practice, your sensitivity might develop
further, and this might lead to a form of energetic "allergy". In simple terms,
you might experience discomfort when facing specific types or amounts of
energies. Think about it – if you would improve your hearing just by 15%,
things would get louder. Improve it by another 15% and you will experience
discomfort. Do the same with your sight, and things will be far brighter. Sure,
you will hear better and see better, but if there will be too much noise – too
much stimulation for your senses – and it will overwhelm you. The same
thing applies to magical sensitivity. Too much energy can overwhelm you.
This is why some of the most essential abilities of magick are the ability to
create protective shields, and the ability to ground yourself. The grounding
will be explained soon, and the shields will be explained near the end of this
book.
Your Magical Senses
All of this – clairvoyance, the sixth sense, sensitivity, shapes your psychic-
self, your magical senses – your toolset of magical perception. This is
common for psychics, Wiccans, Asatru, Buddhists, European mages,
shamans etc. With these "psychic" elements, your magical senses, you can:
Perceive energies – energies which flow around or are being focused in
a single place; energies that flow within the energy channels of any
living being; energies, which flow towards you and outwards. With a bit
of experience, you can recognize the energies and say "I see Reiki" or "I
sense Norse runes" or "I feel a Buddhist spirit".
Perceive spirits and entities – you can also see spiritual entities, and
recognize if you're dealing with a particular deity, light being or a
demon. You can see where these entities are, what they do, how do they
behave and such.
Receive intuitive messages – through the development of magical
senses, new intuitive messages, visions, suggestions and warnings might
come to you, so you will be able to recognize them and learn from them.
Read information from objects and places – you can take a talisman
to your hand and "know" exactly what is it supposed to do. You can
walk into a room and tell if there was some kind of tragedy in this place.
You can look at an item and say "this mirror is cursed" or "this mala40 is
sacred". This is often called "psychometry" these days.

As you can see, magick isn't simple about belief and blind work. In reality,
it's about real perception. You can see energies, you can see spirits, you can
hear them and know what they want from you. You can see your actions and
results clearly. This is the essential and fundamental ability in any school of
magick or on any spiritual path. The basics of the development of such
"psychic abilities" has been described in my other book, Psychic
Development Simplified.
Being Open, Being Closed
It is time to learn a safety rule – it's not advisable to remain open to energies
and messages all the time. With practice and experience, your sensitivity and
magical senses will improve, and this will make you far more sensitive to
subtle feelings and messages. To perceive – to sense, feel, see, hear, means to
be open to the world of spirits and energies. And this will be a time when you
will have to learn how to close yourself, too. Let's define again – being open
means that you're ready to receive intuitive messages, and you're aware of the
energies around you. Now, being closed means that you do not receive
intuitive messages, and you do not sense energies around you. This is
important – because you should be open only during magical work, and
remain closed all the time you're not doing anything magical.
This is a safety rule – because when you're open, then entities and unpleasant,
negative energies have an easy access to you. This may lead to attachments,
magical attacks and gathering of negative energies within you. I know it's
quite common to feel excitement when you can receive messages and read
energies and auras and see spirits and such, but the excitement in such form is
not a good idea when it comes to magick. Thus, you should learn how to be
closed – first, so you won't become overwhelmed by energies as mentioned
earlier, and second, because it will be your first line of defense.
Later on, you will learn how to create shields, and also, how to cut the
connections. Every single time you look at spirits, people and objects, you
create energetic cords that must be cut after the magical work is done. I will
explain it later. Right now you should know that it's all about intention. Try
to remain grounded all the time, and don't go out with the intention of
perceiving everything through "psychic" means. Remain grounded, don't
think about magick, don't intend to perceive anything – on the contrary,
intend to close yourself. Intend to remain closed for all magical feelings and
intuitive messages. That's the essential way to remain closed. And this will
make you a bit more safer on the path of magick.
Becoming Sensitive
As Isadora Duncan said once,"What one has not experienced, one will never
understand in print."
Thus, if you're not clairvoyant nor sensitive person, then I understand it might
be quite difficult for you to understand what I'm writing about here. But
know that clairvoyance, the "sixth sense" and sensitivity to energies is a
natural ability, very useful, or should I say – very important – for the practice
of magick. These skills will awake with time and practice. And with time and
practice, they will develop further. Your school of magick, your tradition,
should have exercises that help you improve your magical senses, but
remember – develop these abilities gently and patiently, and don't jump into
more advanced magical practices before developing the magical senses.At
some point, they're simple needed.41
Clairvoyant Perception
Let's go back to clairvoyance one more time because we're going to need the
following knowledge later. Clairvoyance is a subject to our own, individual
interpretation, which is dictated by our knowledge and beliefs. In short,
people do not see chakras because they're there but because people have read
about chakras in some books.
There is something "out there" - something of spiritual or magical nature that
can be perceived through magical senses. When this "something" is
perceived, in needs to be translated by the brain so our conscious mind can
understand what it perceives. Because of this, the brain seeks information,
symbols and patterns that fit the thing the brain perceives. Then, it merge the
symbols, patterns and knowledge into reasonable vision that you perceive
through clairvoyance. What you see might look very different in reality,
actually.
We may say that what we perceive through magical senses is not the real
thing – it's just a reflection of the spiritual realm fogged by our own
interpretation. This interpretation is based on what we know. We read books,
and we listen to people. Through the process of learning, we accumulate
knowledge of symbols and terms. If we learn about seven chakras according
to modern New Age teachings, then with a bit of practice this is what we're
going to see through clairvoyance.
A friend of mine, a shaman, explained it in a simple way:
I do not know if chakras are real. But I know there's something out
there. I don't know if those are the chakras, but I see something in a
person's body. I'm a shaman. When I see an illness in another person, I
see it as a spirit of this illness – standing right to the ill person, or hiding
in the room. You (addressed to me) do not see the spirit of illness, but
you see an ugly energetic structure on a person's meridians. I believe it's
the same thing. We just understand and perceive it differently.
That's exactly the point – people of different traditions can see different
things, but the reason they see it is the same. Because of this, they can
interpret their vision in similar ways and be just as effective as any other
spiritual or magical practitioner. All of this leads to the following thoughts:
Read a lot and learn a lot – you need to learn about many different
energies, phenomena, entities and things you may perceive or
experience. Only then you will be able to recognize these things when
you experience them.
You won't be able to recognize what you see each time – sometimes,
you may encounter energies and entities which you simple do not know,
and you haven't read about. Thus, your brain won't be able to assign
"normal" symbols and terms to your vision. And you won't be able to
recognize what you see. That's why gaining experience and knowledge
is important.

The above is very important – but we will discuss it further when we head
towards the section about spirits and entities.
The Practical Skills of Grounding and Centering
I mentioned about grounding earlier this book, and it's time to discuss this
subject further as it's one of the most important things in magical and spiritual
practice, no matter of your chosen school of thought or the path you walk.
Grounding is an essential element of your magick practice – to put it simple
grounding is an ability to remain mentally and emotionally stable while
walking the path between the physical and spiritual world. Think of it as of
lightning rod placed on buildings – such rod is placed to direct any lightning
into the ground; thus making sure the building won't be damaged by such
lighting. If there wouldn't be any grounding rod, the lightning would do
serious damages to the building. The same principle works in case of working
with energies – if you're not well grounded through specific practices, then
the amount of energies that you work with may cause damages over time –
damages to your physical, mental and spiritual bodies.
In modern magical and spiritual practice, people love to say that they are
spiritual beings – this is true, but they forget that they are physical beings at
the same time, as well. You cannot separate yourself from your physical body
in any other way than death. This leads to falling into a trap of "spiritual
trips" – people fascinated with New Age and magick focus solely on their
magical practice – they read about it all the time, and they spend many hours
practicing, and if they can't read or practice, they think about magick – all the
time. Over time, this may lead to mental illness – a situation, in which you're
so focused on the spiritual realm that you are losing your connection with
earth and with your daily life – your hobbies, family, friends and work. This
is not a form of spiritual progress. On the contrary, this is a form of craziness
– without proper connection with the physical world, you won't be able to
control yourself, and you won't achieve any results in real magick. Therefore,
you have to learn how to ground yourself, and how to remain grounded.
There are two elements of grounding. First one is the process of grounding
yourself here and now because the situation requires you to do so. The
second one is the process of living by finding balance between material and
spiritual world. Let's discuss both elements, with both theory and practical
techniques.
"Here and Now" Grounding
The first type of grounding requires an explanation of something that occurs
as you work with magical energies. As you meditate; do a ritual; work with
energy; heal or create a talisman or communicate with spirits, your energies
change, and along with them, your state of mind change. You become more
open to spiritual forces, and you can't focus on the physical world. This may
lead to uncontrolled channeling and mediumship, or to dangerous magical
attacks, or to losing control over your own energies, causing harm to others.
With time, this may lead to losing control over your own mind and your
emotional and mental stability may suffer. Something like this occurs, also,
when you experience a period of dealing with your own fears, needs and
aspirations, and when you have to heal them through affirmations,
forgiveness or many other techniques.
In order to remain safe, you have to retake control over your own energies –
in other words, you have to ground yourself – here and now. Such quick
grounding can be performed within few seconds, or few minutes at max. A
lot of magical and spiritual systems teach the grounding techniques – ask
your teacher or more experienced friends about grounding techniques. If you
can't find any, I can give you few ideas.
The most basic technique is based on visualization of your own
energies. You can visualize your own energy within your body, and
after few seconds, visualize roots, made of energy that expand from your
feet into the ground - deep into the ground. Then, after a minute or two
of visualization, intend the exceeded amount of energy to leave your
body and flow into the ground. At the same time, try to feel the Earth
below you – even if you stand of a floor couple of meters above ground
level in a big building. Continue to do so for the next five minutes, and
after that, visualize the roots returning to your feet. That's how you can
ground yourself.
Another method of grounding is eating something sweet. Chocolate
works best here, but candies and other sweet things, like honey will
work, as well. Sweet taste in our mouth grounds us quite well – by
focusing on the taste and the process of eating, you retake control over
your energies, and you become grounded.
Another quick way is smoking. Of course, if you don't smoke, you
shouldn't start doing so. Cigarettes aren't healthy. And they don't ground
as good as a pipe does. A good pipe and good tobacco are a great way to
ground yourself, put your mind in a relaxed state and bring balance to
 your inner energies. Still, not everyone enjoys smoking, even if it's
tobacco, so not everyone will benefit from this technique.
Centering. Another way to ground yourself, or at least to bring harmony
to your inner energies back, is the process of centering. Just sit down
and analyze your environment: think to yourself what you sit on, what is
the color of the walls, what are the objects around you, what is the
temperature. Feel the chair, feel the physicality of the environment
around you. This technique will bring you "here and now", and it will
help you regain control over yourself.

Above, I've described few simple techniques that will help you ground
yourself when it is needed. But when should you ground yourself in such
manner?
After each session of meditation
After each session of spiritual healing
Before and after any magical ritual
After psychic readings and clairvoyant work
After communicating with spirits or entities
Before and after any form of energy work
In each situation, in which you begin to think about magick, but when
the time isn't right for such activity.

Or, or simpler words, you should ground yourself every time when you feel
you're losing focus or control over your own energies or mental/emotional
stability. But grounding here and now isn't the only thing that you should be
aware of.
Daily Grounding
The second type of grounding – an essential ability in magical and spiritual
practice is the ability to find balance between material and spiritual realm. To
explain it better, you should learn what do we consider material or spiritual
realm:
The material realm: eating food, playing games, enjoying your hobby,
working in the garden, washing the silverware, washing your clothes,
shopping, playing with kids, having sex, writing and drawing, cleaning
 the house, helping your mom, meeting with friends, making money,
spending money, listening to music, walking out the dog and so on…
The spiritual realm: meditation, breathing techniques, healing
memories and unpleasant emotions, performing rituals, working with
spiritual energies, praying, making offerings, communicating with
spirits, doing psychic readings, contemplating upon human nature and so
on…

Some of the activities above interact with each other and they cannot be
defined as only physical or only spiritual – for example there's a lot of
spirituality in making money or having sex, and there's a lot of physicality in
meditation or working with your inner life force.
But you should have the basic idea of what is physical and what is spiritual –
what belongs to which of these two realms. The balance between these
realms is all about finding balance between the amount of spiritual practice
and the amount of your physical activity. In other words, if you wish to
develop spiritually in a proper and healthy way, or if you wish to improve
your magick skills, then beside magical practice, meditations and prayers,
you have to enjoy your physical life – find a hobby, enjoy your food, have
sex, work in the garden, spend some time with your family – and do all of
this like it's something normal, something that is not related to anything
magical or spiritual. This is the path of balance.
Personally, I enjoy amateur astronomy and computer strategic games. A
friend of mine who is an initiated shaman play RPG games in forests and
castle ruins. Another shaman which I know personally, is a mother and the
motherhood, along with her work as a trainer in a big corporation, is enough
to keep her grounded. Every healthy magus and spiritual worker, which I
personally know, does have a hobby or some kind of activity that keeps him
or her grounded – it's either a work, a hobby, a family or elements of daily
life.
Both types of grounding, explained above, are a part of "energy maintenance"
– along with regular magical cleansing, grounding makes sure that your
mental health is safe and that your aura is strong enough to provide you with
basic magical defense against unwanted magical influence.
Practical Techniques of Cleansing and Dealing
With Unwanted Energies
A lot of authors, when it comes to teachings ways of defending yourself
against unwanted spiritual influences, embrace the practice of shielding or
using amulets, visualized symbols or recited spells. Yet rarely the reader can
find a book that mentions about the most important element of every spiritual
practice – spiritual cleansing (known also as magical cleansing). Sometimes,
it seems like the author of a book figured out that taking a bath isn't magical
enough, so he can skip it and move to the "essentials". Yet the practice of
spiritual cleansing is the essential, because of few reasons:
First of all, if you won't cleanse yourself, then in many cases your
magical work won't be successful, and it shall bring no results. Thus,
you'll simple waste your time.
Second of all, if you won't cleanse yourself, you risk contaminating the
other person, for example, someone who asked you to perform healing
on him or her. Not only that you won't be successful in your healing
work, but you might make the condition of the other person worse.
Third of all, if you won't cleanse yourself, then even the most powerful
prayers and techniques of magical protection won't give you any good –
just like that if your own energies are dirty, it creates holes, and if there
are holes, then nothing will stop psychic or magical attack.

Thus, it's essential – or even mandatory – for every spiritual or magical

worker to learn and practice techniques of spiritual cleansing.
As you walk the path of magick, you might wish to perform rituals and
ceremonials, cast spells, perform healing or divination. But before each of
such activities, you will have to cleanse yourself and the room, in which you
are about to perform your magical doing. Spiritual cleansing is meant to
cleanse your aura42 - your personal energy field - of unwanted energies that
might disrupt your magical work. Now there is an important thing that must
be explained here. You see, spiritual cleansing is meant not just to cleanse
you of negative energies as many people in New Age communities would
like you to believe. It is meant to cleanse you of all energies that aren't your
own. This makes spiritual cleansing important in magical practice for two
reasons.
First, spiritual cleansing cleanse your aura of negative energies -
energies which weaker you, making you vulnerable for unwanted
spiritual influence - like black magick, magical attacks or negative
thoughts of others, like worries as mentioned at the beginning of this
book.
Second, spiritual cleansing makes sure that you're not carrying energies
which might disrupt the ritual you're about to perform - like energies
from other practices. This is especially important today, when people
practice so many things at the same time.

Now, let's discuss these two elements in details.

Negative Energies and Your Aura
When I first wrote that regular spiritual cleansing is mandatory for successful
magical work, not everyone was happy about it.43 But the truth is that it
really is - because all the time there are negative energies gathering upon
your aura. By negative energies, we understand energies of unpleasant
emotions like fear, stress, anger, but also, within this category there are
energies from magical attacks, like curses, but also from hate and aggression
towards you. To understand this better, let's see some examples of situations,
in which negative energies collect upon your aura.
You drive a car, and for some reason you have to press the brake - then,
someone driving behind you curse upon your action, speaking impolite
words in anger. These emotions of anger will reach you because as you
should know already, energy follow thoughts. Thus, the negative
emotions of anger will collect themselves upon your aura.
In another situation, you drive in a public bus, and there's that religious
lady who looks like you and speaks to herself: "this young man has long
hair and a tattoo, he's probably Satan worshiper, oh Lord, make him
suffer!" and here, you got a nice curse upon you, and a huge collection
of unpleasant energies.
You're entering some kind of public office where people are stressed
because of the paperwork and bureaucrats seeking explanations for
missing two dollars on their tax return. Automatically, because you've
entered the room filled with such negative energies, you will collect
 some of these energies upon your aura.
You're standing in the queue in a supermarket - and someone, in front of
you, gets angry, because the queue ain't moving any faster. This person
will project negative energies all around him, and these energies will
collect themselves upon your aura.
Someone in the family became angry at you and you start arguing. Both
of you will generate unpleasant energies, and these energies will collect
themselves upon each other's aura.

These are simple examples - whenever someone gets angry at you, or

whenever you enter a place filled with energies of anger, aggression, sadness
or stress, or whenever someone worries about you, or whenever someone
dislikes you because of the way you look - in all such situations, your aura
gets filled with negative energies. But how does these energies influence
you?
The aura filled with negative energies weakens your psychic senses -
in many traditions, the ability to sense and perceive the spiritual world is
very important for successful practice. But the more negative energies
you have upon yourself, the harder it gets to perceive the world of
unseen.
You become weaker - negative energies upon your aura drains your
life force - you become weaker on both physical, emotional and spiritual
level. Illness might struck, you become tired and stressed, negative
emotions become stronger, reinforced by negative energies upon your
aura. Your motivation for work and manifestation of dreams gets
weaker, as well.
Your defensive capabilities weaken - on the spiritual level, your aura
and your inner energy become weaker; thus making it harder to defend
yourself against unwanted spiritual influence, like magical attacks, or
negative spiritual entities trying to attack you. You become an easier
target for energy vampires, not to mention an easier prey for stronger
entities.

These are the general negative effects of dirty aura, which is not regularly
cleansed. In addition, an aura filled with negative energies makes your
magical capabilities weaker, and your magical doing might bring no results,
or the results won't be satisfactory. If you work with people, as a healer or
psychic reader etc., you might harm these people because your negative
energies will be transferred to those people you work with. In the end,
spiritual cleansing is very important to remain safe and effective on your path
of magical doing.
When I first learned about spiritual cleansing, I thought it was just another
waste-of-time practice with no real purpose. Even so, I began regular
cleansing. Within few weeks, I've noticed that I have become far calmer and
at peace, with greater focus and stronger inner energy which I was able to
harvest for magical doing. At the same time, I've noticed that a lot of psychic
attacks, which I was suffering from, stopped. Just like that, because my
energy field - once regularly cleansed - was far stronger than it used to be in
the past. Greater magical safety, peace of mind and greater focused allowed
me to pursue my spiritual practices and magical work far beyond what I
understood as my personal limits. This experience taught me not just about
the importance of spiritual cleansing. It taught me, as well, about the
important of all basic practices, which to beginners might seem to be
pointless and a waste of time, but in reality, are the essentials of safe and
successful magical practice. Something might look pointless, boring and
completely unexciting44, but without it, you won't be able to achieve success
in magical doing.
Spiritual cleansing is the "magical" counterpart of physical hygiene - just as
you wash your teeth and have shower every day, waking in clean clothes, in
the very same way it is essential to cleanse yourself regularly. Not simple to
make yourself a safe and successful magical worker, but in order to remain
healthy, happy and be able to live the life you want. A lot of magical paths
have their own techniques of cleansing – baths, sacred springs, incenses in
the temples and so on. In this, book, I will teach you similar, yet universal
methods.
Now, there's another aspect of regular cleansing.
Energies of Other Traditions
While negative energies are quite easy to understand from the cleansing
purpose, the subject of cleaning other energies is a bit more complex. Let us
start with the basic thing: when you practice Buddhist meditation, you collect
energies of Buddhist vibrations upon your aura - this is, of course, a very
simple and general explanation, but it's all you need to know right now. Now,
if you focus solely on practicing Buddhism, then everything is all right. But if
you would like to go ahead and on the next day practice some European
magick traditions, then your Buddhist vibrations will be standing in the way.
This is a very simple example, of course, but I believe it gives you the basic
idea of what's going on. If you practice different things at the same time, and
you follow different traditions, then the energies from different practices
might cause problems of a different sort, for example:
If you practice dark arts of black magick, then the energy that gathers
because of your practice will make it impossible to work with higher
spiritual beings like Angels or Bodhisattvas from Buddhism tradition.
If you practice deep, spiritual Buddhist meditation, and on the next day
you wish to attract some Norse deity, this deity might not like the energy
of your Buddhist meditation, which might cause the deity to refuse your
prayers.45
If you practice Wiccan rituals, and few hours later you perform pranic
healing, the two types of energies might create an exploding mixture
that will destabilize your energetic body, causing harm to your physical
and emotional health.
If you practice black magick, it might result in your inability to perform
any form of spiritual healing, like Reiki.
If you're filled with energies from modern Catholic Mass, full of
suffering and worthlessness in its expression, then it will cause your
practices of Huna or New Thought46 totally pointless. The negative
energies will make it impossible to achieve positive results.

These are few examples. To summarize, some energies do not like other
energies. Some might cause deities to get angry; some energy might negate
the effects of other magical practices; some energies when mixed with other
energies might create unpleasant mixtures; thus causing physical and
emotional problems to your health. Thus, if you do practice different
traditions, it is wise to perform regular spiritual cleansing. This applies also
in situations, in which you're going, for example, to pay a visit to your friend
or family, who follow different spiritual traditions than yours. Just like it's
polite not to bring dirt into your friend's house, the same applies to energies -
watch what kind of energies you bring into the place of others. For example,
if you're a practicing Wiccan, consider spiritual cleansing ritual before paying
a visit to your Buddhist friend's house.
Both of these two aspects of cleansing clearly points out to the need of
cleansing of both people and places. Every person should perform spiritual
cleansing on a regular basis, and every room, in which people live, work and
have fun, should be cleansed on a regular basis, as well. Especially the place,
in which you perform your magical activity, should be cleansed regularly.
Such actions will strengthen the energy of you or room, and they will make
sure that no unwanted energies float around. Remember - unwanted energies
might disrupt your magical work, and sometimes, they might be hazardous
for your body, mind and spirit.
Cleansing should be of two kinds - one which is regular, as an element of
spiritual hygiene, and second that is performed directly before your magical
doing. Any techniques which I will describe later on, can be used to cleanse
yourself regularly, or each time before magical work.
Do Not Mix Too Much
But before I explain how to perform spiritual cleansing with basic techniques,
I must warn you not to mix too many practices and traditions together as this
is an element of your magical safety. A lot of people, who start their magical
practice, do a dangerous mixture. They take a piece from here, piece from
there, and they mix it together. I've seen people who, for example:
Practice Wiccan ritual, but by doing so, they try to worship Germanic
deities because they thought the deities don't really care.
Reiki practitioners who prayed for support to Hindu gods and spirits
because they believed Reiki was Hindu in origin.
New Age followers without a specific path, with Buddha, Holy Mary
and Celtic gods placed upon their altars, meditating in the morning,
listening to Celtic music in the afternoon, practicing mantras few
minutes later, and performing shamanic morning ceremony, asking
Odin47 and Celtic spirits to participate in peace. Well, good luck with
that...

Now, there's nothing wrong in respecting all spirits and deities, there's
nothing wrong with respecting all religions and faiths. Also, there's nothing
wrong with following New Age ideals like ecology, new sacred economy,
peace in the world and tolerance. There's nothing wrong with enjoying
different types of music and studying other cultures, and to some point, it's
OK to mix different traditions when it comes to architecture or furniture or
paintings. But – there is a line, which is drawn clear and one shall not step
over it. This line – this rule – says that one should not mix too many different
energies together.
Did you know, for example, that Celtic deities do not like the Germanic
deities and vice versa? Did you know that you should not mix Tai Chi Chuan
and Qi Gong together because you will experience an energetic shock? Did
you know that Christian spirits do not like any other spirits from any other
tradition? There are many "did you know?" questions when it comes to
magick – the thing is different traditions have different spirits associated with
them, and they operate upon different types of magical energies. And with
different types of magical energies, it's like with alcohol. You can drink beer
and wine and whiskey separately, and you will be fine. But try mixing these
three types of alcohol together at a single round, and it's guarantee that you
will get sick.
There are two problems here – first, the matter of energies. Some energies,
when they mix together, create an explosive mixture – separately, they're
quite safe to work with, but when they come in contact with each other, it's a
spiritual explosive mixture. Those who come in contact with these energies
will get hurt, and the energies will influence their physical, mental, emotional
and spiritual self in a negative way.
Then, there's a problem of the spirits – gods, deities and such. While there is
a theory that all spirits, gods and deities are manifestations of a single force
of nature, called the archetypes, the majority of magical practitioners say that
it's not true and that there are many different entities out there. It is quite
logical if the spiritual realm is an equivalent of the material realm – if there
are so many physical beings living on Earth, there must be quite a lot of
entities living on the spiritual planes. I represent the opinion that there are
different entities, and they are not the same for every magical path – Thor
isn't the same entity as Zeus.48 And because they're not the same entity, they
don't have to like each other, really. But when you try to worship both
entities, then in some way, it's like trying to have sex with two different girls
– you might think it's OK, but the girls will disagree with you, and they can
make you suffer a lot. And if you try to create a harem with dozens of girls
(entities), then it's even more problematic.
Understand this – most spirits have their ego up and operational. And even if
you enjoy the ideal of tolerance and peace among every religion, the gods
and deities might not appreciate it, and they may dislike the fact that you're
trying to worship entities from different traditions. If they won't strike you,
they might strike each other, and a small war between these entities will
affect you, too.
What is problematic in both issues, is that beginners are rarely sensitive
enough to notice how the energies and spirits affect them in a negative way.
A beginner might not notice anything right away, but negative influence will
be visible in the results after few days, weeks or even months. Therefore, it's
important for you to understand that even if you don't feel anything, the
mixture of energies and entities might be influencing you in a negative way.
So, as a precaution, and as a safety issue, do not mix traditions with each
other and do not worship too many entities at once.
There's an issue of understanding why do people mix different traditions, so
you won't make the same mistakes:
People mix, because they think it's all right – and they think it's all
right because most modern books says it's all right. But most modern
books are written by people who don't know it's all right because they've
been taught it's all right without experiencing anything first hand. And
this is how the circle is complete. Not everything that books say, is
really true – so you shouldn't trust every word books say, even if this is
this book that we're talking about.
People lack experience and sensitivity – magick is not just about
theory - it's about practice. And practice requires some feedback from
the spiritual world. This means you have to improve your sensitivity to
the spiritual realms. But improving this sensitivity takes time. Over time,
you receive more and more feedback from the spiritual realm; thus you
can receive messages and information regarding your practice. At the
beginning, it's like flying blind – you do something, but you can see or
sense if it works. Later on, you will learn to see and sense. Then, you
will be able to expand your practice and move to another level. But at
first, you should carefully follow simple books and simple practices
without mixing anything. This is the safety issue. The more you know,
the more you can do. The less you know, the less you should do.
If you lack knowledge, experience and skills, don't mix – it's quite simple.
But, is dangerous mixing of different magical paths always the case? Is there
any situation in which traditions can be mixed together? Actually, there are
exceptions.
As a Reiki practitioner, I have no problem with mixing my Reiki
practice with animistic path. This happens because Reiki is not a "deity-
based" system of energy work. The energy itself is neutral, and most
nature spirits enjoy it. It goes further than this. Reiki originates from
Japan and its roots are based in both Buddhist and Shinto tradition. Core
of Japanese Buddhism is based upon working with the mind, not with
deities. And Shinto is an animistic tradition. In Japan, both traditions
became mixed together because Buddhism allows it. Thus, based on my
historical and traditional knowledge, I knew that I can mix Reiki with
animistic beliefs, and it won't do me any harm. But of course, I am
aware, not every spirit enjoys Reiki, and I know there are situations in
which Reiki cannot be used in animistic practice.
What I said about different deities not liking each other is true, and you
should keep this in mind. But it's not always the case, so while you
should remain vigilant, you shouldn't get paranoid, either. You might
meet entities who tolerate each other, or even like – it's quite normal.
And because of this and few other factors, people who worship different
deities and spirits can often live under one roof, or at least be good
friends. Because, in the end, it's all about respect – respect people, and
respect spirits, and you will be quite fine. Among my friends, there are
people who work with different entities, and there are people who
worship different entities – because walking a specific magical path
doesn't necessary mean that you have to worship a deity. You may be
simple respecting it and working with it. So I see with my own eyes that
respect is everything.

While it's all about respect, some traditions allow mixing – which traditions?
That's a subject for another book, for now you should stick to the rule: if you
do not know if it's OK to mix or not, don't mix and consult with a more
experienced magical practitioner, first.
One last thought – sometimes, magical mixtures do work. For example, some
modern systems of runic magick merge mythology and ceremonial practices
together. While they're not really traditional, they still work. One of such
systems, which I personally practiced and wrote about in the past, has been
developed by Edred Thorsson in the second half of the XX century.
Thorsson's system of runic magick mix ceremonial practices with historical
data and divination techniques, creating a unique, effective, yet little
traditional system of magical practice. In the past, I've experienced positive
results of this system, yet with time, my understanding of magick and
symbology changed – today, I no longer work with runes, since my focus
shifted towards other schools of thought, yet I understand that, with proper
safety rules in mind, Thorsson's system is a working one. Still, I wonder –
what do Norse Gods have to say about it...
And now, that you know the above, you can learn how to perform spiritual
cleansing.
How To Perform Cleansing
There are many ways to perform cleansing, and each magical tradition has its
own set of practices and rituals. In most cases, they are based on the elements
- the element of water, fire, air or earth. Quite often, incenses are used for
cleansing purposes. For example, during Catholic Mass, there's a procession
with an incense, and the incense smoke is meant to cleanse the faithful, yet it
is my believe that such ritual isn't really effective as there is too little smoke,
too little understanding and awareness, and too many people during such
ritual. Thus, even if you participate in a Mass regularly, you should practice
spiritual cleansing yourself in your home. Ritualistic burying in the ground
can be performed, but in most cases, regular "home-based" cleansing is based
on candles, incenses and water. You should consult your teacher or spiritual
guide49 about cleansing rituals and practices in your tradition, but if there are
none, or you have no one to talk to about it, you can use one of the following
techniques.50
Cleansing With Incenses
Incenses are an important element of many different magical and spiritual
traditions. While I will provide you with far more information about incenses
later on, right now I will simple explain how to use incenses for cleansing
practices.
Cleansing yourself with incenses is quite simple. Use white sage or other
incense and fumigate yourself with it – either by waving the smoke upon
yourself, or by standing above a burning incense. If you wish to cleanse the
room, simple light the incense, and allow the smoke to fill the room. Here's
something interesting - observe the smoke. If it drags on and crawls on the
floor of the room, it means the place is filled with negative energies. In such
case, let the incense burn for 20 to 30 minutes, then air the room. Then, light
the incense again for another 5 to 15 minutes, and then the smoke should fill
the entire room with no problems, and the place will be cleansed.
Probably the most popular herb used for cleaning after made into incenses, is
sage – it comes in various forms, from European sagebrush, to well known
white sage. Similar forms of this herb exist all around the world, and they are
used in many rituals and practices, not just for cleansing.
Cleansing With Fire
Fire is one of the elements used in magick, that can be used to burn negative
energies.51 In many traditions, for thousands of years, the great power of fire
and flames was considered to be sacred. Fire acted as a tool of purification
that scared away negative entities, and provided heat for positive spirits. Fire
should be constantly present when you practice any form of magical work,
whether it's a complex ritual, or a simple meditation. Fire simple burns
negative energies - just like it burns everything else. Thus, at least a single
candle is almost mandatory during any magical practice.52 Lighting a candle
in a room is one of the steps leading to cleansing it of unwanted negative
energies.
If you wish, you can light a candle in the room, and use it for energetic
cleansing technique. First, light a candle, then stand in front of it. Then, focus
and intend to grab the negative energies on your aura with your hands.
Simple intention will be enough. Then, use your hands to collect the negative
energies from your aura – but do this gently. Imagine that there is mud on
your skin, and you're collecting it with your hands. First, collect the energy
from your legs; then from your abdomen; then from your stomach and chest
area. Then from both of your hands. Then from your backs. And finally, from
the back of your head and from the front of your head. Each time you collect
the energy from any part of your body, cast it into the flame, and mark an X
sign in the air, with the intention of cutting yourself from these negative
energies. Cast the energy gently so you won't put the candle down. When
you're done, mark an X sign with an intention of breaking the link with the
energy again, and the cleansing is done. Remember – if there is no fire hazard
possible, then allow the candle to burn out on its own. And if you can't leave
the candle burning, make sure it has about 5 to 10 minutes to burn the
energies.
Cleansing With Water
Water is another element which can be used for cleansing practice.
If you have a shower, just keep an intention in your mind, an intention of
water cleansing your aura of negative energies. And when you wash your
body, visualize and intend as the water cleanses your body and your aura of
negative energies. You can use this technique in smaller scale – any time you
wash your hands – morning, evening, before every dish, and so on, intend the
water to cleanse the negative energies from your hands, too. You can also use
a cleansing bath, just as described below by adding some salt to the bathtub
full of water. If you have access to a decoction from a thistle herb53, add two
or three glasses of such decoction to the bath, and wash yourself with such
water.
Cleansing With Salt
Salt might become one of your most popular friends when it comes to
magical tools of the trade. Many traditions use it for cleansing purposes, as
well for the task of magical protection. Because its wide use for cleansing and
protection all around the World, salt received its magical capabilities.
You can also use the salt for bath or shower. If you have a bath, add a bit of
salt to the water. A bit, meaning a fist. Normal, kitchen salt that you use to
improve your food will be enough. Then, get inside the bathtub and spend
about 10 to 15 minutes there. You can wash yourself normally, but only with
the salt water – no cosmetics, please. If you do not have a bathtub, use a
shower. Wet salt turns into a form of "gel", so you can rub it into your entire
body – not too strong because you might scratch yourself. Use the salt gently,
and rub it into your feet, legs, abdomen, back, chest, hands and so on.
In order to cleanse a room with salt, grab some salt with your fingers, and
sprinkle it to all four corners of the room with an intention of cleansing it,
and protecting it against unwanted spiritual energies, as the same time.
Cleansing Through Visualization
Another way of cleansing is based purely upon your own mind and
visualization. A lot of magical work is done with visualization. For example,
you can stand or sit while visualizing a pure white light coming down from
the sky above you, washing you from all unwanted energies. Think of it like
of a waterfall. Actually, you can visualize a waterfall cleansing you of all
unwanted spiritual energies. In both cases, continue the process of
visualization for about five minutes. This is the most basic and most effective
way to cleanse yourself through visualization.
Cleansing should be performed regularly, at least once a day in the evening.
But if you work as a magical worker on a daily basis (for example, you're a
Reiki healer) or you regularly practice magical rituals, then you should
cleanse yourself before every meditation, ritual or healing work. If your
magical path does not have such cleansing practices, implement the
techniques from this book into your own practice. If there are cleansing
practices in your tradition, but in addition, you would like to use the
techniques from this book, please consult your spiritual guide or an expert
about mixing these techniques with your own tradition. But remember that
cleansing is important no matter what type of magick you focus upon; thus
some kind of cleansing must be performed by you on a regular basis.
While regular cleansing is a part of spiritual hygiene, the cleansing practice
before other activities is a part of more complex ritual or task at hand In such
situations, as soon as you're cleansed, and the room is cleansed as well, you
have to protect it against unwanted influences. But we'll deal with that later
on.
Common Energetic Problems in Magick
Since we're close to finishing this chapter of the book, I wish to mention few
popular energetic problems common in the practice of magick or spiritual
path. These problems can hinder your magical practice, and they may cause
serious damages to your physical and mental health. Thus, it's important to be
able to recognize these issues and address them properly.
Energy exhaustion – it occurs when the practitioner works too hard.
Too many talismans, too many rituals, too many healing sessions, too
many <put a name of your practice>. While some practices are based on
channeling energy, other techniques are based on classic manipulation
of energies. In that second case, whether you use your own energies or
elemental energies, your own energies are spent – because they are your
fuel.54 If you run out of fuel, you become tired. If you do not care about
this, then with time you become ill, and in the end, you die. Because of
this, you must remember to take it easy – do not overdo it. Start slowly,
and make your way to the top one step at the time. Whenever you feel
weak after magical or spiritual practice, take few days off. Eat healthy
food, go for a walk to the park and sleep well. And remember about
these things during normal practice, as well, because you need to
recharge your magical batteries all the time.
Overload – your physical body need to get used to the larger amounts of
energies. The overload occurs when you work with too many energies
which influence you one way or another. For example, if you collect
elemental energies to charge your magical batteries, you may become
overloaded. This often happens in case of beginners that try to draw
elemental energies as a source for their magical work. Whenever you are
overloaded, you may feel dizzy, "shocked", you may experience shivers,
not to mention headaches and pain in your joints. When you feel this
way, stop what you are magically doing, and begin to ground yourself.
And continue grounding yourself for next few days, take a rest. Let your
body get used to the larger amounts of energies.
Dirty aura – this has been already described. With time, we collect
negative energies upon our aura, and we need to cleanse them, and we
have to do so on a regular basis. You've learned how to do so already, so
don't forget about it, please.
As you can see, these are few simple issues, but keeping them in mind helps
you become a better magick practitioner. And definitely far more safe
magical practitioner.
The Real Law of Attraction in Magick
Most people will understand the famous "Law of Attraction" as a New Age
belief "what you think about, you attract" and that "like attracts like". A law
famous because of the works of Wallace Wattles or Rhonda Byrne, there is
more to it than modern teachings share. In reality, the law of attraction is one
of the laws of magick. A law which cannot be ignored – simple because it
works. The law of attraction states that what you focus upon, you attract. In
these simple words, the following meanings can be found:
If you focus on something by thinking about it, you will attract it – one
way or another it will manifest in your life. This works in many
ways.For example, if you think about getting rich, you attract money.55
But if you focus on a specific goal during a magical ritual, you attract
the manifestation of this goal.
If you focus on specific energies, the similar energies will be attracted to
you. If you focus on the energies of money all the time, then if there
aren't any blockages, the energies of money are attracted to you. On the
other hand, if you focus on the energies of peace, more peaceful
situations are attracted to you. And final example, if you focus on the
energies of hate, you attract more hate to your life.

This is how the law of attraction applies in case of magick. Its effects can be
found in your focus and in your intention (your Will), and this is an universal
law – it applies to all systems of magick and spirituality, all around the world.
You should learn at least two things right now.
First, because of the law of attraction which is universal, you know that any
form of ritual or magical doing requires your Will. By focusing your
intentions, you attract the results – right now it doesn't matter if the results are
caused by spirits or some spiritual energies. The means doesn't matter here,
but the basic mechanism does – and the law of attraction is such basic
mechanism. If you wish to attract love, you focus your Will on attracting love
– whether you do this during meditation, prayer or magical ritual, it doesn't
matter. If you wish to perform spiritual healing, you focus your Will on this
goal, whether you're a Reiki practitioner or a shaman negotiating with the
spirits.
Second, you must know that your actions will attract similar energies. For
example, if you're a healer, and you perform a successful healing session, you
may attract two types of energies: the positive energies of gratitude, some
"good karma" because you've done something kind for another person, and
you may also attract the energies of illness, because for some time you were
focused on the illness' energies. Now, depending on your skills and
experience: if you're a beginner and you don't know how to cleanse yourself
or shield yourself, you may become ill yourself.56 But if you're more
experienced, and you know how to protect yourself against unwanted
energies, then you may not become ill, but still, you may attract these
unpleasant energies in a form of more ill people seeking your help. As you
can see, this is quite complex – magick is difficult and requires skills.
But there's another issue, far more important. You see, the more good things
you do, like healing and helping people, spirits and other living beings, the
more positive things you attract to your life. This is quite normal. But it
works the other way around: if you cast curses or perform targeted magical
spells to force someone to love; if you work with negative energies and
intentions; if you cast blood sacrifices and you perform dark rituals, then this
is what you're going to attract. You're going to attract negative spirits and
negative events to your life that will slowly destroy you. Because this is how
the magical law of attraction works. This is why practice of Black Magick is
something I do not recommend, because in the long run, it always ends badly.
This is what you should know about the law of attraction and magick
practices. Whatever you do, consider this law and think about things you may
attract. This should be a guide sign which should help you figure out if you're
ready for the particular practice. Contemplation on the possible effects of
your magical doing in a form of attracted things, entities and energies, should
guide you: if you know what you may expect, you can prepare yourself for
this by learning more useful skills and techniques. In the end, even your Will
to improve your magical and spiritual skills is the subject for the law of
attraction at work.
Finally, we've reached the end of the chapter about energies. As you can see,
energies and intentions are a wide subject in terms of magick and spirituality.
Energies flow around us and can be used, manipulated and programmed.
They also build our energy body. And they build energy bodies of other
beings, as well. Some beings do not even have physical shells, and they exist
merely as spiritual beings. Learning about these is another part of learning the
essentials of magick. Thus, the next chapter will discuss entities, which you
may encounter.
Chapter Endnotes
33 Some sources say that it wasn't until 1960s for the chakras to receive the
color update – in the past, the seven chakras were supposed to be a
representation of the archetypal deities and their effects within the human
psyche. The colors were to be added by the spiritual community in Findhorn,
Scotland, in the 1960s. Other sources say that we can actually find an ancient
Hindu paintings with seven chakras and their colors. This proves one thing
for sure – that figuring out the history and reality behind modern spiritual
concepts and popular knowledge is quite difficult.
34 Or Tantiens, or Dandiens, as the name depends on the dialect.
35 An Egregore is an entity created from thoughts, expectations and fears – it
feeds with life energies. It will be discussed later on this book.
36 A Vortex is a term that describes a "gate between the worlds" - it is said
that through this gate, entities from the other side – spiritual entities – can
pass into our world.
37 A Nexus is a term that describes area of focused energies.
38 Basically, "white shamans" deal with the upper worlds and spirits, and
"black shamans" deal with lower worlds and spirits. Still, there are modern
terms which may not be used by actual shamans themselves.
39 Nathaniel, The Art of Seeing. A State of Mind, 2012.
40 Mala – a prayer strand of beads made of 108 beads, used in the traditions
of Buddhism.
41 If your magical path does not teach about improvement of your magical
senses, read over "Psychic Development Simplified" which will help you
awake and develop these senses.
42 Aura is a common term that describes a person's energy field. It is not
related to any specific tradition, although the term "aura" is often associated
with New Age ideologies. In reality, every person has his or hers own energy
field that expands few centimeters beyond the physical body, and this energy
field is visible to those skilled in clairvoyance. Commonly, this energy field
is called aura, mainly for convenience - this way everyone knows what we're
talking about.
43 Nathaniel, Why is it Mandatory for You to Learn and Practice Spiritual
Cleansing on Daily Basis (And How to Do This). On: A State of Mind, on-
line access <http://astateofmind.eu/2012/05/18/why-is-it-mandatory-for-you-
to-learn-and-practice-spiritual-cleansing-on-daily-basis-and-how-to-do-
this/>.
44 To be honest, magick is never exciting - at least not like the movies show,
with flashy special effects and clearly visible results. The results of magick
are subtle, and magick itself is a hard, patient work of self-mastering.
45 Sometimes, you might met with people who work with runes, and yet call
themselves modern Celts, practicing Celtic traditions. But did you know that
Celtic deities do not like Norse deities and vice versa?
46 At this moment of this book, we understand New Thought as the modern
approach to manifestation of a good life, known mostly as famous The Law
of Attraction.
47 Odin – the one-eye god from Germanic traditions, the leader of the As
family of gods, and the primary deity in the Germanic/Norse pantheon of
deities.
48 Thor – a god of thunder in Germanic tradition; Zeus – a god of thunder in
Greek tradition.
49 A spiritual guide in this case is not an entity, but a human. Not a spiritual
leader, but a priest, or shaman, or witch, someone knowledgeable and skilled
in magical arts.
50 Most of these techniques has been described for the first time in my article
"Why is it Mandatory for You to Learn and Practice Spiritual Cleansing on
Daily Basis (And How to Do This)".
51 Not every magical system includes knowledge regarding elements like
fire, water or metal. Elements are present in many magical traditions, like
European magick, Tibetan Buddhism or Chinese Taoism. Many of these
traditions mention that proper harmony between elements is essential for a
healthy body, mind and spirit. I cannot say that it's true, but I've noticed that I
feel a lot better when there's some kind of fire burning near me. While we
often have access to the pure forms of metal, water, earth and the air, we
rarely have access to pure fire element like a candle, campfire or a fireplace.
Yet this is a far more complex subject, if you wish to know more, please refer
to books about Tibetan medicine or Chinese knowledge of the elements.
52 You might have noticed that whether you're dealing with New Age
workshops, or a psychic reader, or a Reiki healer, there's always a candle
present (or at least, it should be).
53 Thistle herb, also known as Cirsium. See: Cirsium
54 Your own energy must be used in order to control elemental energies.
55 Of course, the attraction of money is far more complex subject – the entire
books has been written about it, so you should know that the process of
attracting money is a complex form of magick.
56 I know only one art of healing that doesn't work like this – Reiki. Reiki
shields you from receiving the energies o illness and other energies from the
other person. You still come in contact with the person's aura, so you have to
perform spiritual cleansing anyway, but it's still much safer than other
methods of healing. There might be more of such spiritual healing methods,
but this is the only one I am familiar with.
 The Book of Spirits
We are not the only sentient species in this Galaxy as one may say. Perhaps
we are the only physical sentient beings, but one thing is certain: if you wish
to enter the world of magick, then you must acknowledge the fact that there
are spiritual beings living next to us. They can be found in trees, rivers,
mountains. They walk among us on the street. Sometimes they guide us,
sometimes they help us, sometimes they attack us. But they're real, and
sometimes they show themselves to us.
To add some trivia, sometimes the encounters with aliens from UFOs are
nothing else but encounters with spiritual entities in visions. But since people
do not consider these visions to be related to spirituality, and they're under
the influence of various books and TV shows, they think they have been
kidnapped by aliens.
Meeting with spiritual entities of various sort is something that might become
a part of your life. But before we discuss actual meeting entities, we need to
start with the basics.
The Traditions of the World and Their Spirits
Every single tradition in the world, starting from Animism through
Christianity to Buddhism, has its own pantheon of spirits. In Animism, there
is a wide range of nature spirits, for example. In Christianity, beside the
primary deity, "God", there is Jesus, Holy Mary and a lot of Saints. These are
all spirits. In Buddhism, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas form the core pantheon of
spirits. European mythologies, from Slavic tradition to Norse, Greek and
Roman mythologies, are filled with different deities and minor spirits. In
reality, there is no way to walk away from this concept.
And the concept is simple – there are spiritual beings that are real. Beings
that contact us, and beings we can contact, as well. Beings that sometimes are
altruistic, or sometimes have their ego and their own agendas. Some beings
are powerful, and some are minor spirits while some are small and weak.
Some are sentient, and some are similar to animals and insects.
Later on we're going to categorize the basic types of spiritual entities, which
you may encounter, but for now remember: one of the steps on your magical
path should be to learn about spirits which are associated with your chosen
path. Because if the path contains practices related to spirits, then these spirits
– minor and major – will approach you one way or another. And many paths
are closely focused on working with spirits. In Wicca, the practitioner
contacts with the Goddess. In modern Asatru and Norse magick, deities from
the Norse pantheon are asked for help or protection. In Buddhism, close
contact with Bodhisattva occurs on a daily basis. European magical tradition
often works closely with Angels.
But even if your magical tradition has no specific set of spirits, then these
entities will become a part of your life because there are many independent
spiritual beings that walk through this World and are often attracted by
magical or spiritual practice. One should learn how to react to such
encounters, and how to deal with spirits. But first, you need to learn what
we're going to deal with.
Categorizing and Perceiving the World of Spirits
Just as there is a simple model for different vibrations of energies – negative
or positive – there is a simple model for different types of entities, as well.
The basic categorization would be delivered from the animistic tradition and
the Tree of Life. Thus, we have:
Spirits of the upper worlds – Bodhisattvas, Buddhas, Angels, Gods
and entities, which are often good, positive. They guide us, they help us,
yet they're not always altruistic.
Spirits of the middle worlds – this is our world, in which our spirits
and souls dwell.
Spirits of the lower worlds – this is the world of ancestors, ghosts of
those who passed on, of elemental spirits and nature's powers. It's also a
world of astral critters and spiritual parasites.

This is the simplest way to categories spirits. As you might have noticed, I
did not categorize the entities as positive, neutral and negative; or good and
evil. I did so because it's very rare for magical and spiritual radiations to
distinct if someone is truly evil or truly good. In most schools of thought,
there's a lot of gray between white and black. A Bodhisattva can do harm to
people if he knows it will result in highest good – because such things
happen. An Angel can show you the great darkness within you that brings
pain and suffering, but the Angel do so in order to help you. The nature
spirits can be nice when approached with respect, but can seriously harm you
if you harm them. Some deities can protect you, but if you do not respect
them, they may harm you. A real demon can ignore you because you do not
interfere with his agenda. Evil and Good cannot be truly defined, and thus,
entities cannot be categorized as Evil or Good. Therefore, using the animistic
model of the Tree of Life is the best thing to do.
Perhaps this is the proper model for general energies, as well – but it's just an
interesting notice, and we will not discuss it further.
Now, that I have given you the basic way to categorize entities but before
categorizing them further, there's an issue related to perception of spirits.
Thus, we need to go back to the subject of clairvoyance.
Perceiving the Spirits
Remember what I said about clairvoyance in one of the previous chapters?
That it's a subject to our own interpretation based on books we've read and
knowledge we've gained? It applies to perceiving entities, too. As you
practice magick, you will attract spirit's attention. Some will be interested in
what's going on, like a crowd on the street. Some will be interested in
communicating with you. Other spirits will try to guide you, and some spirits
will try to manipulate, attack and use you. In order to survive in a world, in
which the living are not the only creatures you need to live with, you need to
develop clairvoyance and sensitivity – generally, you need to develop your
magical senses. It's nothing new as you see.
You can see spirits – if you know them, you will be able to see the details
that make the entity Thor, or Archangel Michael, or any other spirit. If you
don't know the spirit you perceive, you may simple see general elements, or
even an energetic "blur" that points out to the fact that there is some entity
standing here. If you're not clairvoyant, then your other senses and sensitivity
will provide you with enough information that will help you recognize what
kind of spirit you're facing. All of this develops with time. And the more
books you read and the more knowledge you gain, the more familiar you are
with different spirits, and you will be recognize them by specific details
provided to you by your magical senses.
This goes further – often, it's quite easy to be able to recognize the ghosts of
those who passed away. They were humans, and after death, according to all
traditions of this World, the way they look remains the same. Thus, our brain
is able to recognize what it seeks, and assign specific details to such magical
perception. If you were familiar the still-alive person that you see, you might
be able to recognize the ghost easily. If you do not know the person, you may
be able to describe what you see in details, and someone might recognize the
ghost.
With growing sensitivity, another thing develops – in modern psychic circles
it is called "extra-sensory perception". Messages can reach your mind,
messages from spirits – you may actually hear the words inside your mind
(clairaudience), or just "know" what the spirit is communicating to you. But
we will discuss the communication with spirits later. Right now, know this –
all these magical senses elements makes you able to recognize the entities
and learn their intention. At least to some point. Because there is something
we call "projection".
Spirits project themselves to your senses. Projection is a way the spirits make
themselves appear to you. At least this is how we understand this phenomena.
If a spirit wishes to be recognized by you, it will project intentions and
"visions" that are related to your knowledge; thus your brain will have it
easier to understand what it perceives, and you will be able to recognize the
spirit. This happens to a lot of spirits. Those spirits that have a clear intention
(clear doesn't necessary mean good) will project their real, easy-to-recognize
form. But the spirits that have unclear or negative intentions may falsify their
projection and change their appearance. This if often used by spirits who seek
prey – sources of life force to feed upon. And this phenomena of false
projection often occurs in modern Channeling, closely related to New Age, in
which inexperienced magick practitioners become victims of their own ego
without even realizing it. Remember – spirits can deceive you. It is a well-
known occult truth. It's another reason why it's important to read, learn,
experience and keep the safety rules in mind.
Know this - if you do not know the entity that you're facing, you may not
recognize it as a famous deity from a famous "mythology" - just like you may
not be able to understand a word in a foreign language without learning this
language first. But even more, if you do not know the spirit closely, then you
may believe you're facing an Archangel, but in reality, you will be facing a
minor parasite spirit which wants to gain access to you.
So, build a large "database" of symbols, terms and images of spirits from
different traditions. This way, you will be able to recognize the spirits easier.
Spirits from Different Traditions in a Foreign Countries
In the past, the spirits of the specific region of the world could be found only
in that specific region. But with time, followers of different paths traveled the
world, and once exotic practices can now be found in the Western world, and
vice versa. This way, the spirits from Hindu tradition can be met in Western
Europe, and the Christian deities walk the Australian land. This often proves
to be a problem for those skilled in exorcisms, but also for other magick
practitioners. This happens for two reasons.
First, most entities react to the symbols of the specific region. If the symbol –
a specific tool or phase – was used to banish that specific spirit, the entity
will react to the energies of that symbol and will turn away. But if the entity
doesn't recognize the symbol, it will stay. The exorcism might not work if the
improper tools has been used. Second, the same thing applies to magical
protection. For example, if you go to a meeting of Wiccans or pagans, it's
wise to use a classic pentagram symbol for protection. But if you head to
Yoga class and you're worried you may encounter some nasty entities, then
wear the Om symbol.

It is not a problem to meet or communicate with an entity from once-exotic

tradition if you live in United States or the Western Europe. From what I can
tell, and I speak from experience, only the Nature Spirits do not travel. All
other entities follow those who worship them, or those who need their help.
Therefore, today the practitioner of magick must read books about other
traditions and magical or spiritual paths just to stay "up to date" with the
entities, types of energies or spiritual events that he may experience.
Different Types of Spirits
Actually, what kind of spirits you may encounter as a practitioner of magick?
Well, I should rather say "as a human" – because spirits often interact even
with those people that do not deal with magick or spirituality. That is why
people do not deal with anything spiritual or magical can be guided by
Angels or influenced in a negative way by parasite spirits.
The following categorization is based mainly on books and personal
experiences – my own and those of my friends. It works well for most
schools of magick and spiritual growth, so the following pages should give
you the basic ideas as to the population of the spiritual realms.
Gods and Deities
One of the types of entities which you may encounter on the path of magick
are gods and deities of a different sort. Now, these entities should not be
mistaken with the concept of God. In reality, rarely any school of magick or
spiritual growth has a specific concept of the primary deity under the name of
God or similar. Native Americans might speak of Wakatanka, and the
Buddhist may call it an "Absolute" while Huna says that God is the society of
higher minds, which creates a universal network. But all these concepts are
very abstract, and they are more related to the spiritual understanding than
practical application of magick.
On the path of magick, we deal with gods and deities – strong and old spirits,
some of them very ancient. From the perspective of magick, beings like
buddhist's Avalokitesvara57 is a deity; Norse mythology mentions Odin,
Thor, Freia and others; Egyptian mythology speaks of Ra, Ptah, Bast and
other.58 There are other mythologies – for example Slavic or Hindu. And
many traditions, from North America to Australia. Every tradition in the
world developed a concept of gods and deities. What are these beings? There
is no definitive answer to this question. Rather, we should say that every
tradition has its own preferable explanation and understanding. Here, I would
like to present some basic, general theories as to the nature of gods and
deities.
1. Some theories say that, under different names, we can find the very
same entity. This entity is described through archetypes or specific
attributes of the character, but even under a different name and with
 different appearance, it is the very same being.
2. Some theories say that we truly deal with different spirits, which have
decided to take over specific areas of interest in different parts of the
world - for what purpose, I cannot say because I do not know the answer
to such question. Because of these areas of interest that influence their
appearance and personality, they are being described through specific
attributes of the character.
3. Some theories say that gods and deities are nothing more than egregores
– beings created out of people's desires, emotions and beliefs. This
would be truth, but the thing is that an egregore dies if he stops receiving
life force. And this happens when the amount of believers drops below a
certain level. And yet, today the same entities with ancient knowledge
and experience still walk the Earth even if the numbers of believers
dropped to a couple of people at one or another moment of history.
4. Some people believe that deities and gods are nothing more than just a
visualization of the archetypes and that in reality, they exists only within
our own mind, and there are no actual spirits included. Actually,
according to some people, this rule applies to all spirits, from deities to
household guardians.

The tradition, which you follow, may have other explanation for the existence
and purpose of these strong spirits. But in the general idea, gods and deities
do exist and due to some practices, they can be encountered face to face –
and as I said earlier, it doesn't matter if the deity is not related to your
tradition, or that the deity is not "local" for the specific area of the world.
There are no limits when it comes to the magical realms, and it's normal for
practitioners of Asatru to face Egyptian deities, or for the Native American to
meet with Buddhist Bodhisattva.
Today, the practices of worship of these entities – gods and deities – becomes
alive once more, due to the "pagan" revival that is not only related to the
European pagans, but also to the mythologies of Egypt, Greece and other
countries of the world. Why these entities exist, what do they do and why do
people work – these are all good questions. Yet as mentioned earlier, every
magical tradition has its own explanation for this.
Most schools of magick consider gods and deities to be yet another type of
beings to exist in the world, just like that. Some schools of thought perceive
working with gods and deities as useless entities that cause more trouble than
good. Other schools consider these beings as rules of the world, and other
schools consider gods and deities as "partners" that can do one thing in
exchange for another. Thus, working with gods and deities is often based on
the law of exchange, which I will explain a little bit later. Finally, some
schools of magick consider these strong spirits as something that can be
bound and used for magus's own purposes. These are very general points of
view from different magical paths. Which one is yours, this should be
consulted with proper books or experienced teachers.
There is one thing common for this type of spirits – at some point of history
these spirits have been considered gods or deities, and thus they have been
included in the "mythologies" of a different sort. Besides that, we may say
that here we talk simple about specific, strong spirits which are neither good
nor bad – they have their own ego, their own goals and their own perception
of the world, which makes them entities that are far from the real concept of
God. Yet, they are merely one type of entities which may be encountered in
your magical practice.
Ghosts and Earthbound Spirits
While we've discussed some strong spirits of the upper realms, here we are
discussing another type of entities, which dwell in the middle realms. Ghosts
and earthbound spirits – which are stuck in the realm of man. At the time of
writing these words, ghost hunting is still very popular – people run through
old houses with digital cameras and voice recorders, seeking spirits of those
who have passed away. While, in reality, it is not such an exciting hobby, and
it's definitely not a safe one, ghosts and spirits of people who have passed
away is one of the most common types of entities which you may encounter
on your path. Some people call them spirits of the ancestors – yet I believe
these spirits dwell in the lower realms, and they are something different.
What we distinct here is a type of beings which are often communicated with
by psychics and mediums. One can find a lot of books and TV shows, in
which a psychic share his or hers stories of meeting with ghosts.
Now, in reality, ghosts are problematic. First of all, what are they? Ghosts, or
as some people call them "earthbound spirits" are what remains of a person
that passed away. As you should know, there are many layers of the world –
and there are many layers of a human being, as well. Most schools of magick
agree that something we call "soul" goes to Heaven, or the realm of
ancestors, or the Source or to the next incarnation. But there is something
else, an energetic shell, an astral body which should "decompose" after death,
but for some reasons, it cannot do so. Thus, the astral shell – full of emotions
and memories – remains trapped between the worlds. This often happens if
the person had unresolved issues, or strong emotions or trauma during the
time of dying, or when the person doesn't want to leave his friends or family,
or even because the person does not realize he or she is dead. In such case,
the soul moves on, but the ghostly shell remains with a slight level of
consciousness.
Often, these earthbound spirits communicate with the living, explaining the
nature of the afterlife, passing knowledge from the other side and
participating in channelings that born new New Age books. But these spirits
have been deceived by their own emotions and expectations. This is why the
reports of the afterlife vary so much one from another. It's because based on
our own expectations, experiences, dreams, emotions and beliefs the astral
world is shaped around the ghost, and thus that which remains after our soul
moves on perceives a specific world around itself. This world is not real –
neither is the knowledge of the ghost which knows only things that he have
learned as an alive person. This is why channelings are so dangerous and
problematic, and why it's important not to trust ghosts beyond a specific
limit.
With time, the ghost becomes corrupt because, in order for the energetic shell
to remain in this world, the ghost needs to draw energy – life force. And it
does that by draining the life force out of living people, usually family
members or people the ghost sticks to. The more of such energy is drained
the less of the original person remains, and the ghost's positive emotions
become corrupt and turn into negative emotions. Then, the path leads the
entity towards psychic vampirism, and this is dangerous for people.
Such ghosts often try to manipulate the living based on the ghost's emotions
and beliefs that work like operating software inside a computer – it's just a
program, not a conscious decision. And thus, ghosts force family members to
do the ghostly bidding. They manipulate, and they force decisions and often
destroy life. Imagine a ghost of a parent who hated the relationship of his
daughter. The ghost will do everything in its power to destroy the
relationship, and it will be easier for the spirit because most people don't even
consider such possibility, and they may even believe that the parent was right
and the relationship was destructive while, in reality, the relationship is OK,
but the ghost of the parent is hindering it.
This type of spirits causes hauntings, sleepless nights, weird dreams and
negative events. Even if everything is all right at first, with time the ghost
becomes corrupted, and things turn to the worse. This doesn't mean that
experiences of people who passed away coming back to say "goodbye" to
their family etc., are not real. They might be – because most schools of
thought agree that, for few days up to few weeks, the soul remains in this
world – but eventually, it moves on, and only the ghostly shell may remain in
the middle realms.
If someone passed away in your family or among friends; or if you moved
into a new place in which someone passed away; or if you're spiritually
sensitive (in which case ghosts can sense it), then in such situations you may
encounter earthbound spirits and you may have to deal with them. Sending
spirits to the light is what can be done in order to deal with that problem.
Psychics, and different magick practitioners, based on their magical tradition,
perform rituals that are meant to release the spirit – return the ghostly shell to
the Source, or Mother Nature, or the Universe, or a place that is meant for
such entities according to the specific tradition.
Some people explain to the spirit that it is dead, and now he should forgive
himself as his earthly life has come to an end. So he should look around
himself, and seek the bright white doors that "lead on". Some compassionate
people who have clear intentions can actually use their intention and
understanding of such gateway to the other side and visualize the gate; thus
opening it. Some people, on the other hand, call in Archangels to help guide
the ghost into the light. And finally, some people simple call in the ghost's
spiritual guardian to lead the entity into the light.
Boddhisattvas and Other Light Beings
Another type of entities is called "Light Beings" - these are often positive,
helpful and strong altruistic spirits which often help people in their earthly
endeavors. Some of them take care of Mother Earth and things that live on
this planet, from plants to animals. Other of such Light Beings help people in
their spiritual growth. Bodhisattvas are on of such Light Beings, and Angels
are another. Angels point out to an interesting aspect of magick – which I will
discuss later.
Do not be mislead, though. Light Beings are not always nice and pleasant.
Sometimes, they do things that from our perspective can be negative,
aggressive or painful. Angels may cast us to the deepest and most painful
layers of our memory, and Boddhisattvas may cause tragic accidents – yet in
the end, these bad things that are caused by Light Beings are caused for the
purpose of the highest good. Highest good, which is impossible to
comprehend by living people.
These spirits often come when we ask them for help – depending on the
magical path of your choosing, different spirits may come. If you call an
Archangel Michael for help, he will come. If you call Bodhisattva
Avalokitesvara, the Avalokitesvara will come. They may protect you, help
you deal with inner pain, teach about spiritual practices, or show the right
path towards the light.
This entire "light" and "positive" and "good" thing is essential here – these
entities rarely have ego. Their purpose is to bring light to the World, and
harmony along with it. There is little law of exchange here, little negative
side, and little earthly problems and pains. They are often encountered by
people who wish to grow spiritually, or to heal, or to bring peace and
harmony to the world. While these entities teach about harmony between the
light and the darkness, they are leading towards light.
One experience taught me a lot about our perception of spirits, and the way
the filters of knowledge and experience are used by our brain to serve us
images. At some point of my life, I began the practice of ten thousand
repetitions of the famous mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum. I was aware that
this mantra is associated with the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, yet I never had
the opportunity nor Will to look at the images of representations of this
particular Bodhisattva. There are thousands of paintings and sculptures, yet I
have seen none at the time.
I begun the practice, and after some time, when I passed through the three
thousand repetitions of the mantra, I experienced something that was new to
me. I stopped my practice for a moment, and there it was, a white-and-orange
force approaching me – it was no spirit, as far as I could say at the time.
There were no hands, no feet, no real body parts like I used to see in case of
angels and other spirits. This "force" was soaring through time and space, and
there it was, approaching me. From it, the great compassion emanated, and I
could feel it with my entire body – my clairvoyant sight was able to see
nothing but a "force of compassion" of white and orange light soaring in the
air around me. After a while, the force soared away, and it was gone.
Later on, when I associated the fact that I felt great compassion emanating
from this "force" and that I knew what kind of spirit is associated with this
particular practice, I did some research. And I have learned that quite often,
Avalokitesvara is associated with white and orange colors, and of course, he
is the Bodhisattva of compassion.
This experience taught me – if you read about a spirit, then the brain will
associate your knowledge with what the magical senses tell you, and you will
see the spirit just like you expect it to look like. But if you do not have the
knowledge of the spirit, and you have never read about it nor seen its
sculptures or paintings, then your brain will not be able to associate the
"earthly" image, but nonetheless, it will try to associate something. Thus, you
may perceive the spirit it its "closest-to-reality" form – with no filters, no
expectations, you may see the spirit as it really is on the spiritual plane.
"Winged Light Beings"
There is a group of light beings which are often perceived as winged
creatures – in European tradition, they are called Angels, and this term – even
if it implies some Christian associations, sticked to the modern esoteric and
magical paths. There is some level of universalism in the world of spirits.
Some entities are closely associated with specific magical tradition. But some
spirits are universal – and within this universal category, we can distinct
Light Beings, Dark Beings and Nature Spirits. Their tasks and purpose goes
far beyond traditions, regions of the world and religions. Based on experience
and discussion with people, I consider Angels to be such universal Light
Beings. Because I live in Europe, and even if I'm an animist, I was educated
in the Christian faith. Thus, the term "Angel" is quite familiar to me. Because
a lot of people is familiar with this concept, when they see a strong, winged
spirit, they associate it with Angels.
In different traditions and in different regions of the world, these universal
winged spirits carry different names and different spirits, but in the end,
they're the same entities with a specific hierarchy. That is why Archangels
like Michael, Raphael or Gabriel are known under different names and looks
but they work in the entire world and they help those who ask for help,
without enforcing Christian faith, which is a proof that we talk about
universal spirits that stand above religion and human concepts of spiritual
borders. In your practice, you may encounter a lot of such universal spirits,
and you may even experience a moment, in which you and a friend will
perceive the very same entity, but you will name it differently, and you will
visually perceive it differently. But it will still be the very same entity.
A thought - while we can speak of universal spirits and our perception filters,
there's no way to go too far. In other words, we can't discuss everything from
the universal perspective. In order to talk about some of the spirits – how to
work with them, where do they come from and so on – we have to discuss
them from a perspective of a specific magical path or tradition. Wicca have a
different perception, and Asatru have a different perception.
Different traditions speak of different ways the world was created, or how the
gods and spirits were made. This can be found in mythologies – which are
full of archetypes, which is another reason why we believe there is some
amount of commons in magick.
Dark Beings and Evil Entities
Logically saying, if there are Light Beings, there must be Dark Beings, as
well. With their own agenda to bring chaos into order and cast darkness
where should be light, they operate just like Light Beings do – in order to
bring harmony to the world in accordance with the Highest Good. But Dark
Beings are a very difficult subject to discuss because there is a little
knowledge about them. Most books mistake Dark Beings with smaller astral
critters and parasites, and they do not discuss these entities in details.
Therefore, without knowledge and experience, I will discuss the evil entities,
instead of Dark Beings, really. Evil entities cannot be defined as "purely
evil", but as "evil from our perspective". These are the astral critters,
parasites, smaller spiritual predators. Spirits that attack people in order to
seek life force. Sometimes, they come, attracted by magical or spiritual
practice, and they seek prey. That is why it is very important to protect
yourself and the room in which you practice magick – because these entities
can attach to you, and drain your life force, your very life energy.
Robert Bruce wrote:
Accepting the existence of negative spirit beings – Negs –
understandably can be difficult for many people. One way around this is
to consider Negs as nothing more than dense patterns of negative
energy. Another is to consider them as manifestations of one's own
subconscious mind or the minds of others; or you can consider them to
 be independent, sentient thought-forms. (…) However, regardless of
what they are, if they exist at all, they must be dealt with (…).59
Some of these unpleasant entities are weak and easy to deal with, and other
entities are strong and difficult to get rid of or protect against. At the
beginning of your practice, you may easily attract these beings without even
knowing about it – especially when you don't practice regular spiritual
cleansing and when you don't protect yourself through magical means.
Some entities of this type have greater agendas known only to themselves,
and some seek only life force to feed upon. In the end, they cause pain,
depression, illness, and even death – thus, we call them evil entities because
they do us harm.
Don't trust such spirits, nor anything they do. For example, one of the types
of negative spirits is the Incubus/Succubus. While there are two different
terms, it appears that this is the very same entity. Sometimes this entity
project itself as a male, and other as a female. It comes at night, in visions
and dreams, in which they use your sexual desires and feed you with sexual
visions, feelings and experiences, leading to a physical orgasm. This allows
these beings to feed upon your life force that is released along with your
sexual energy. This may be pleasurable, but if you allow these beings to feed
once, they will keep coming unless you are dry – then, you die. Physically.
Other entities may cause great fear in order to generate strong emotions to
feed upon. They come at night to scare people by punching their greatest
subconscious fears.
Elemental Spirits and Nature Spirits
Finally, there is a neutral type of entities which we call Elementals, or
Elemental Spirits, and Nature Spirits. Almost every tradition of the world
mentions the existence of smaller spirits that dwell in homes and buildings,
taking care of such estates. Even city flats have their own spirits. Kobolds,
brownies, domovik, and similar entities dwell in places of a different sort.
Some can be found in mines, some can be found in a forest or river, and some
can be found in houses in which we live.
Every tree, every stone, every mountain and every river has its spirit. Some
are lesser, some are greater. There might be a hierarchy among such spirits.
Even each flat, house and the building has its own spirits, which evolved
when a man begun to build shelters. These spirits take care of our shelters,
and thus, they should be rewarded and supported by us. On the British Isles,
nature spirits are known as Fairies, and this word is commonly used in
modern books.
These elemental and nature spirits in general are not evil nor good – they're
similar to us, humans. They have their ego – if they are angry, they can do us
harm. If they are happy with us, they can offer us something in return. For
example, if we cut a tree without offering anything in return, the spirit may
become angry, and before it passes on to "Source", it may cause mayhem in
our life as a revenge. But if we care about, for example, our garden, the
spirits, which dwell them, may try to support our life even by providing us
with more life energy.
Elemental spirits are directly related to one of the four primary elements: fire,
air, earth and water. The most popular categorization of the elemental spirits
is:
Fire - Salamanders
Water - Undines
Air - Sylphs
Earth - Gnomes

These terms originate from the European magical tradition, and today they're
applied to most New Age and magical literature.
These spirits can be encountered when working with the elements. For
example, when you work with candles, you may notice that there is a spirit of
a salamander around the candle. When cleansing magical objects within the
mountain streams, undines can be encountered. Strong winds come with
legions of Sylphs.
You can offer your local spirits, and to nature spirits – not just those that
dwell in your house, which are often called "household spirits", but to those
that visit you, too, offerings such as small money coins, or food, by placing
these on the altar. You will learn about offerings and altars later on. You
should also pay respect to Mother Nature, houses of others and everything
that surrounds you – it's better be nice to spirits than to be unpleasant to them.
Some magical traditions work with these spirits, but more often, some of the
spirits are simple attracted by spiritual, "light" practices.
I do have a story about household spirits, one that I personally experienced. A
story that teaches to offer your household spirits gifts, as they will offer
things in return. Once, on a rented flat, a handle broke in one of the doors. I
was unable to fix it as I lack the necessary skills. I didn't think about asking
the household spirits to help, yet I was making offerings to them on a regular
basis, as a part of my normal animistic practice. After offering wine and some
candies, few days passed and surprisingly, I have noticed that the handle
worked perfectly again. As I looked upon my household spirits, they have
confirmed that they fixed it. So I offered them my thanks. This story shows
that, among some more serious aspects of magick, there are moments when
the practitioner can relax and observe how "grounded" some spirits can be.
And there are moments, experiences and events that one can hardly associate
with magick, and the work of spirits. Yet, this is what one can experience
from time to time.
Egregores and Servitors
There is one last type of spirits which I have to mention and describe – the
egregores and servitores. Both are artificial spirits – it means that these spirits
have been created by people through either conscious or unconscious magical
practices.
Egregor. (…) Artificial group soul brought into being by any working
magical or spiritual group – or, for that matter, any group of people
united by emotional ties of any sort.60
Egregores are created with thoughts. One of the things that occur in all
magical systems is the creation of thoughtforms. A thoughtform is a magical
construct made of energies of our emotions. If we focus enough on
something, we create a thoughtform – similar to already mentioned psiballs
or other forms of programmed energy. But often, a thoughtform is created
unconsciously, through our worries or concerns. These thoughtforms are like
energetic manifestations of our fears, worries or problems.
With time, if you put more energies into a thoughtform, it may gain
consciousness – thus, it turns into an Egregore. An Egreogre is a magical
creature that was born from our thoughts and emotions, usually the negative
ones. Egregores of fear of losing money exists; egregores of fear of spiders
exists; egregores of our own illness exists. The more we worry, or fear, or
simple feel the specific emotion, the more energy we send to the egregore.
Egregores feed upon the life force. With time, they grow, and they become
stronger. Strong to a point, that they may even seek new donors; thus they
may influence people in order to create cults of a different sort. They often
participate in channeling phenomena, which is an easy way today to seek new
donors and cultists.
A problem with egregores is that if you're not sensitive nor experienced
enough, you may think you work with a powerful light being, but you may be
deceived, and you may work with an egregore, nothing more. Clever and
dangerous egregores can replace gods or deities even in major religions. And
they're simple dangerous – because just like psychic vampires, they feed
upon your life force. And the less life force you have, the more depressed, ill
and weak you are. Thus, if some magical practice leaves you depleted of
energies, even if you take great care about magical protection and
replenishment of energies, then you should consult some more experienced
magical practitioner about the possibility of being attached to an egregore.
Now, a servitor is something similar to an egregore – it is a magical creature
created by magus in order to perform specific tasks. But sometimes, the
creature gains consciousness if it is wrongly programmed and fed with
energies, and then it becomes an egregore. Your own magical creation can
turn against you and against other people. This is why unexperienced magick
practitioners should not dwell into the creation of servitors or similar
creatures. Lack of experience on the paths of magick and spirituality results
in general problems of creating egregores. Without a proper level of
developed magical sensitivity, people can turn their fears into thoughtforms,
which then gain consciousness, and then manipulate their creator to mislead
him or her in order to feed upon life force. This happen on the magical paths,
and in the paths of spiritual growth, and this is quite common for New Age
paths, too.
Without enough knowledge and experience you, too, may become a victim of
an egregore – the creature may deceive you, appear as a light being, ascended
master, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mikao Usui, or any other famous and "wise
spiritual teacher or entity". And the manipulation goes further – using your
own fears and worries, the spirit – both an egregore and other spirits in
general – can try to persuade you that you're a messiah that you have a
mission, that you are very special and that you should create a group of
followers. In the end, the cult serves only the egregore itself. Believe it –
magick practitioners with a weak mind often fall victims of their expectations
and beliefs – be a Christian, and worry about not been good enough, and a
spirit might appear to you posing as a Jesus Christ himself. But it's just
manipulation, which you should watch out for. Be careful and responsible.
Even big organisations can be taken over by an egregore; thus leading to the
fall of the organization. That is why your own personal development, self-
confidence and self-assessment are important elements on the path of magick.
How to Deal with Spirits
So, you encounter a spirit – what should you do? How to deal with entities
and spirits? It all depends on what kind of entity you're facing. In reality, it's
just like passing by people on the street. Most of them just walk their own
path and pass you by, without paying too much attention to you. Some will
look at you, but they won't show any interest in your person. Some might ask
you to show them a way to the nearest museum, and some might ask you for
help because their friend has a heart attack. Some might be a policeman, and
some can be delivery boys. Some can be friendly people with a "free hugs"
sing, and some might be young thugs waiting to rob you. Some can be
muscular thugs just waiting to punch a knife right to your heart.
You will behave differently towards all of these people. The very same thing
applies to the world of spirits. Some are neutral, and some are aggressive.
Some will only protect themselves against your attacks, and some will be
higher spiritual beings that can show you the way to enlightenment. But let's
start with the basics.
If you don't want the spirit to dwell around you, simple tell the spirit to leave.
Use a strong and firm voice, and really mean it in your heart. To many spirits
such type of "order" will be enough, and they will leave. If you deal with
powerful negative entity, you can ask even a stronger being which you trust
for help. If you have a good relationship with a specific deity or god, you ask
these spirits for help. Or you can ask Angels to help you. If you deal with an
earthbound spirit, you can ask for a psychic to help you send the spirit to the
light.
If a spirit:
Persuades you that you're a messiah, or you have a special mission of
salvation for humanity, then it may try to deceive you. Be careful,
though, because it's not always the case – sometimes spirits wishes you
to do something. These might be nature spirits in need of help, or more
powerful spirits, which decided that you will become a shaman.
Ask you to create a group of followers, then it may be trying to create a
cult to feed upon life energies. I have never encountered or hear about a
light being or positive spirit that ask for cult creation.
Ask you to give him life force or special offerings, it may suggest that's
 it's a negative entity like an egregore, and you should watch out.
Offers you something and ask nothing in return, then you should be
especially careful – if it's a light being then it's all right. But it may be a
misleading spirit which seek a way to attach to you and manipulate you,
as well.
Appears to you looking like a famous entity from your spiritual tradition
– like Buddha, Jesus Christ and such – then you should be extra careful.
While such experiences do occur, it's tricky – such appearances are one
of the most popular ways of negative spirit to manipulate people of the
weak mind. And don't even think that you're stronger, nor that your
experience is definitely real – if you think this way and you're not
skeptical, then you're even more susceptible for the manipulation.

These are the basic safety rules to keep in mind.

Everyone has access to spirits. Some religions say even if a follower can pray
to a deity, this deity will not respond as rarely anyone is worthy. Magick and
pagan paths have a different point of view. They state clearly that everyone is
worthy, and spirits, from minor ones to gods and deities, come when needed
or asked to. This also refers to light beings such as Angels or Bodhisattvas.
And these beings can be present in different places of the world at the same
time - this is called bilocation, although "bi" refers to two places at once
while spirits can be present in thousands of places at once.
This occurs because on the path of magick, in the spiritual realm, time and
space are abstract concepts, and they do not apply. I remember when I have
learned it as a Reiki practitioner. I was able to send energies over the oceans,
and send them into my past and my future, and apply this technique for
others. At some point of life, I recall I felt an intense peace after great
emotional trauma, only to recall this when few years later I was sending Reiki
to that particular event. Time and space hold no boundaries in the realm of
spirituality. Thus, spirits can travel long distances in a blink of an eye, and
they can be present in many places at the same time, and discuss different
things with different people.
Thus, everyone can contact gods, deities, or Angels whenever he or she
wants, as long as your intentions and motives are clear, and the safety rules
are applied.
Some spirits can physically interact with the physical world. The phenomena
of poltergeist, a noisy ghost, is a well-known example of such happening.
Why and how this interaction happens, it is unknown, but physical
manifestation and manipulation of the physical world is possible through
magical and spiritual means. This is another thing to keep in mind and watch
out for – you don't want a ravaging spirit to throw something physical at you.
But what if you want the spirit to stay - and what if you really want to talk
with the entity? Communication with entities is based on magical sensitivity
– just like you receive messages through your subtle senses, you can send
messages out through your subtle senses. I will explain communication later
on. For now, keep in mind – that if you wish the spirit to stay, then you have
to trust him, recognize him and be sure that this is the spirit you think it is.
Then, everything depends on your path – what is it that your tradition do with
spirits – how does this tradition work with them, worship them, ask them for
help, or help them.
Ask yourself – "do I really know what may happen if I allow the spirit to
stay?" Things may happen – and one of these things is the need of exchange.
The Universal Law of Exchange
There is another magical law which you should learn about – it's the law of
exchange. It's quite simple: if you give, then you must also take. If you take,
then you must also give. In case of magick, this law operates on few levels.
First of all, it tells you that sometimes you have to pay a price for your
magical activities. This may require a lot of sacrifices – you may need to
sacrifice your hobby, friends, family or just money. On another level, this law
says that if you want something from the spirit, then this spirit may want
something from you.
Making a deal with a spirit: "You give me one thing, and I give you another
in return" is more like signing up a contract with your own blood. If you don't
keep up your end of the bargain, the spirit may take on his revenge, and it
may take what he earned. This is something you need to keep in mind, no
matter what kind of spirit you deal with – even the Light Beings may wish
you to offer something in return, for example, they may wish you to pass on
the knowledge, or help other people. But especially, you need to be careful
when dealing with gods and deities and similar entities.
The folk tale of Rumplestiltskin is a clever and accurate descriptions of the
law of exchange. If you make a deal with magical forces, then you will have
to pay for it. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
While some part of magical work is based on manipulation of energies, some
other part is based on work with spirits. In the first case, we control the
energies. In that second case, we ask spirits to perform a task for us. Very
few spirits do this for free, and most spirits consider it as a form of exchange,
and they want something in return. This is something that you must
remember if you deal with magick. Don't trust every single spirit you meet.
Remember that your intuition is your greatest ally. If you believe something
is not all right when it comes to the spirit, then be careful. Whenever a spirit
offers you something, think about what you may have to offer in return.
Sometimes the price is not worth it.
Look into mythologies of the world – these stories are full of malicious
spirits. These beings are everywhere. This should persuade you to be a bit
more careful when dealing with magick. Don't get paranoid, but don't think
that the world of spirits is nice and pleasant.
The law of exchange is not really the law of Karma because Karma is a
complex Hindu concept – on the other hand, the law of return is common for
many magical traditions. Still, the law of exchange works in every part of the
world and in almost all magical traditions. When you take, you may be
required to give back.
Respect the Spirits
It is wise to know that some entities do not like human, and there are some
places - mainly mountains, woods or caves - in which human presence is
prohibited. It is important to understand that we, as humans, are not the rulers
of this World, we just live here. This planet doesn't belong to us, and there
are some places to which we have no claim if we have a claim to any land at
all. You should avoid such places. There might be holy mountains or sacred
woods, there might be taboo grounds, rivers and caves, all inhabited by
spirits, deities and entities of a different sort. It is polite and honorable not to
visit such places if you're not allowed to do so. Some places are holy, and
they can be visited by people who are holy. Some places are meant only for
practitioners of specific paths. Some places are meant for those under spirit
protection. Some places are meant for no human at all. Respect this - respect
the spirits, and the deities, and finally, practitioners of some traditions.
It reminds me about a great place of power, the Mount Sleza in Lower Silesia
district, Poland, near Wroclaw city. In the old days, Mount Sleza was a place
of Celtic and Slavic cults, and later on it was dominated by Christian culture
when a church was build on the top of the mountain. Today, the top of Mount
Sleza is ruled by a large communication tower with numbers of antennas.
Yet, the old spirits still live there. Today, Mount Sleza is perceived as a holy
place by many people, and the representants of many spiritual communities -
mainly pagan, but also by practitioners of different New Age paths. It is also
liked by some Reiki practitioners, who practice meditations and initiations
there. This is where another New Age problem is present - those New Age
followers and Reiki practitioners failed to consult local experts like shamans
or witches - because the truth is that Mount Sleza spirits do not like neither
Reiki nor New Age "vibrations of peace and love" - thus, these spirits can
cause troubles to people who work with these energies on the top of the
mountain.
You might learn about such places from local tales and gossips, or a member
of specific spiritual community might inform you about such place.
This is another advice for you - wherever you live, consult those who are
more experienced than you about places of power or sacred sites, which
might be off-limits for you. And if you travel a lot in order to seek spiritual or
magical teachings, consult local experts, as well. In many cases, it will save
you a lot of magical troubles in the future.
Communication With Spirits
Just like you can use your magical senses to perceive energies and entities, in
the similar manner you can use these senses to communicate with entities.
When it comes to communication with spirits, there are few ways to keep in
mind – things related to communication, summoning, self-defense and
channelings. Let's start with that first thing.
How to Communicate with Spirits
How to communicate with spirits? The entire communication with the world
beyond is based on magical senses – clairaudience, clairvoyance, or simple
"knowing things" are the gates of communication. When I communicate with
entities – whether they're my spirit guardians, or angels, or nature spirits, I do
all of this in my mind. My senses are attuned to the communication – I intend
to communicate with the specific spirit. And just like I sense energies and
perceive entities through clairvoyance, I know what the spirits tell me.
This is it – instead of allowing the spirit to speak through you, which is quite
dangerous, you simple intend to hear the messages from spirits. And when
you're sensitive enough, and this develops as you practice magick – you're
capable of hearing the messages (clairaudience), or simple knowing them.
The best advice, which can be given here, is that you should not use your
analytic mind to receive the messages, but rather, you should listen to your
heart. The very first message that comes to your mind after asking a question
or intending to receive advice is the message from an intended spirit.
Often, the communication with entities is similar to normal conversation –
you ask a question, and you receive the answer; or the spirit may ask a
question, and you should answer it. Don't be afraid to run such normal
conversation.
Summoning Spirits – Things To Watch Out For
One of the things that you should not try is the summoning of spirits.
Summoning is often called "evocation" in case of magick. Summoning of
ghosts is a fun way to spend time by kids, teenagers and adults. Yet rarely
anyone considers it something more than a way to have fun. But in reality,
summoning is a dangerous magical ritual which is quite real.
The biggest problem is that in most cases, something really is summoned.
Just it's not really the ghost people intend to summon. Spirits can deceive
you, and they can pretend to be someone or something else. Once again, most
of these entities seek easy prey, and those people who play with summoning
are such easy prey to feed upon or to become puppets in some greater agenda
of the entity. Know something that has been said to me by an experienced
magus – the world beyond the veil (the realm of spirits) is full of entities that
want a way back to the realm of man. And they may use the summoning rites
to enter someone's body.
Organizing seances or "Ouija evenings" is nothing more than a magical ritual,
which – if performed by amateurs or weak magick practitioners, might
quickly turn to be the most terrorizing night of your life. Remember – energy
follow thoughts, and magick is based on intention. A simple game of Ouija
might turn to be a serious work with real magical effects.
But even if the summoning rite is not performed, summoning can be
accomplished on another level. Speaking the name of the entity attracts it –
it's a general law of magick that applies to all schools. As you should
understand by now, it's because of intention and the fact that thoughts control
energies and energies follow thoughts. Generally, names of the spirits attract
them, and charm or spell formulas really work – that is why when it is not
needed, then such "words of power" are not used. If you don't need to, do not
speak the name of the spirit, or you may end up summoning it.
Another level of summoning is based on the emotions – work with positive
practices and energies, and you may attract positive light beings or nature
spirits. But work with black magick or dark practices, and you may attract
negative, dangerous entities.
Because of all of this, magical self-defense is important. In the final chapter
of this book, you will learn about magical self-defense in a wide degree. For
now, remember – regular magical cleansing, grounding and patience, are
your best friends on the path of magick.
Another issue related to summoning is the aspect of consciously inviting the
entity. Never, ever invite the spirit in. A destructive spirit once invited will be
difficult to get rid of. A serious magical work might be required to free you
from the spirit's influence. Old legends often says that you should be careful
about inviting people into your home because evil spirits might be disguised
as people in need. Once a spirit is invited, it can cause mayhem. If an entity
approach you, do not agree to anything if you're not sure about it. And never
invite the entity to remain in your life.
The Danger of Invocation
When it comes to inviting spirits in, there is a subject of invocation which
must be explained a bit further. An invocation is a form of summoning spirits
to channel messages. While evocation is a process of summoning spirits to
stand in front of you, the invocation is a process of summoning spirits and
inviting them to enter your body – to take over your body in order to pass
their messages or to perform other tasks that require physicality. This
experience is common for the practice of shamans, and it is present in many
worship practices around the world. But the popularity of this practice does
not mean it is safe.
On the contrary – once the spirit is invited in, it's difficult to get rid of.
Shamans and experienced practitioners know which spirits can be allowed to
enter, and which cannot be allowed to do so. And more than that, experienced
magick practitioners know how to get rid of the spirits that are not willing to
leave the body. Beginners lack these skills. This is why, if you're a beginner,
you should not practice any form of invocation – leave it for those who are
experienced enough to do so.
And this matter goes further into the problem of modern channelings.
The Dangers of Channelings
Channeling is the process of using magical abilities to channel messages –
from spirits and entities to people. This process is quite popular among New
Age followers, but in reality, it's a very dangerous process, and if you're on
the beginning of your path, you should stay away from channelings. Right
now, I'm about to explain why because this is an essential element of your
safety on the path of magick. But we have to start with explaining why
people are so interested in channelings. There are at least two reasons:
First, some people lack high self-assessment. If they deal with magick,
entities perceive these people as an easy prey – these people can be
easily manipulated into believing that they are so special that this
particular entity decided to communicate with them and share its
wisdom with them.
Second, a lot of people believe that every single spiritual entity is wiser
than people. But it's not always the case. A lot of entities aren't wiser,
just smart. Smart enough to tell people what they want to hear. Thus,
any kind of spiritual fairy tale can be channeled so people will listen.
In the end – people listen to spiritual wisdom that is rarely original or wise at
all. What most entities really want is food – life force, upon which the entities
feed. The more followers of the person who performs the channelings, the
more listeners to the entity there are. When people open themselves for this
channeled messages, the channel is ready – for the life force of the listeners
to flow to the entity and make it stronger. It's all about food, from our
perspective, really.
What I've learned in the past years of spiritual development is that true
spiritual entities that are wise and good almost never wish to pass a message
to the entire human kind. They often have messages and spiritual tips for you
and you only but never for all mankind. If an entity wish to channel a
message for the benefit of all people, you should stay on alert.
There is nothing original in modern channeling – nothing new, and nothing
that you can't find in ancient texts or medieval books on magick. There's no
point in risking becoming a life force donor.
Entities might be more interested in you and your life force with time – the
more you work with magick, the more energy you have, you're just stronger.
And such parasite entities look for strong donors who can provide them with
more amounts of energy. But in New Age circles, it's a bit different – entities
look for people who have the best chance in becoming a popular author or
speaker, who can gather the bigger number of followers. Thus, whether you
walk the path of magick or spirituality, you must be careful when it comes to
communication with spirits. They can create illusions; they can tempt you;
they can tell you things you want to hear – and all of this so you open
yourself more to them until it's too late.
Never, ever invite the entity inside your house or inside yourself if you lack
skills, knowledge, experience and intuition. Not everything is what it seems
to be when it comes to magick and spiritual entities, and you must be careful.
Once the invitation is on, it's difficult to get rid of the entity.
We have reached the end of the Book of Spirits. You have learned about
basic types of spirits, and about basic aspects of communication and safety
rules. Now, it is time to learn more about the tools of the trade that might
come in handy on your magical path.
Chapter Endnotes
57 Avalokitesvara – a Bodhisattva from Buddhist tradition. He is a
Boddhisattva of compassion.
58 Know that depending on the source the pronunciation and names
themselves may vary. Other books may speak of the same gods and deities by
under slightly different names. The most accurate names would be those
found in the scientific works.
59 Bruce, p. 5
60 Greer, p. 145
 The Book of Tools
I'm sure that you're familiar that there are many magical and spiritual schools
in the world – you've seen photos, movies, you've read books and such.
Probably the most common thing you've seen or read about are the physical
objects of a different sort – burning candles, magical books, the smoke of the
incense filling the room, wicked items hanging on the necks of a witch. These
are the things that Hollywood and book' authors fill our mind with. I might
have forgotten about a black cat, but besides that, all of the things that pop-
culture feeds us with is quite normal for all schools of magick. Cursed
objects, sacred objects; items filled with powerful magick; talismans and
amulets; candles and sources of an open flame; aromatic herbs filling the
room with mystic smoke – in reality, all these objects have real magical
effects – why and how, each tradition and the path have its own explanations.
But there are some essential objects of magical effect, which are used in
every tradition. These objects require some explanation as they shape the
essentials of magick.
In this chapter, the basic tools of the magical trade will be explained. And we
will start with the element of air, and the spirits of the smoke. Incenses and
smoke – those are popular elements of many magical traditions.
Incenses - the Practical Use of Air Element and
Sacred Smoke
As promised earlier, in one of the previous chapters, I would like to provide
you with more information about incenses. Information, which might be very
useful in your magical practice. Probably every magical tradition in the world
has some uses for smoke, or the element of air. Most of these traditions
utilize incenses as an important tool for magical work. Incenses are used for
cleansing practices to cleanse the place or a person of negative or unwanted
energies. Incenses are used to support magical practices by putting the mind
to a proper state, too. Often, some sacred plants61 emits smoke that help
entering the altered states of consciousness.62 Finally, incenses are used as
offerings to spirits and deities in different traditions. As you begin your
practice of magick, one way or another, at some point of your life, you're
going to work with incenses. For example, during Catholic Mass there is a
procession with an incense. When you enter New Age stores or cafes, quite
often there are incenses burning. When you visit a Buddhist temple, there are
incenses burning. Well known incense, a White Sage, is often used for
cleansing of unwanted energies. As you can see, it's important to learn a bit
more about incenses in the modern world.
Natural VS Artificial Incenses
There are many different types of incenses to chose from, but the basic way
to categorize them would be to say that there are two primary types of
incenses: natural and artificial. I call the second type "plastic incenses" since
there are so many chemical compounds in them. This second type is useful
when you want to refresh the air, or make a nice smell. But when it comes to
magical work, then you should use natural incenses, and natural incenses
only. What's the difference between one and another and how to recognize
them? The best way to describe the difference is to give you a following task:
imagine that you're about to see your beloved one after many months of
separation. What are you going to give her? Perhaps a flower - now, what
kind of flower? A beautiful, natural and healthy rose, or a piece of plastic that
looks like a flower? Natural incenses are prepared in such a way that they are
cared for, and thus, they carry a lot of energy which can be used for magical
work. Also, getting natural incenses is a bit more difficult than grabbing a
simple air fresheners. Finally, there's a lot of tradition behind natural
incenses; thus - on the spiritual plane - magick is directly connected with
these incenses. If you have taken great care and effort in getting a tool for
magical practice, then this tool will work a lot better than something you can
buy in the first store you visit. When it comes to magick, keep this in mind.
How to recognize if the incense is natural or not? First, the price - natural
incenses are more expensive. Second, artificial incenses can be purchased
almost everywhere, but natural incenses can be purchased in special stores:
New Age stores, Buddhist or oriental stores and so on. Third, most of the
artificial incenses are stick incenses - and they are very thin. Natural stick
incenses are thicker, nearly 0.5 cm in diameter. Then, there are almost no
artificial powder incenses any powder incense is natural almost for sure.
Finally, most of the resin incenses is natural, as well. Remember - when in
doubt, read or ask an expert.
Incenses are made mostly out of dried herbs which are later on grounded to
make a powder. Then, the incense is ready. Or, it can be mixed with resin and
wood powder to create incense sticks. You can purchase natural incenses, or
you can make your own.
Making Your Own Incenses
If you feel like gathering stuff, you might want to make your own incenses,
rather than buying them. The very first thing is to know that you can collect
herbs and natural resin from trees. These two things will make good incenses
for magical practice. Basically, this is all that I can tell you - because there
are different trees and different herbs in different areas of the world. This is
when, once again, you should consult other books or local experts. Most
often, you might want to learn what types of herbs or resin were in use in old
religious practices in your region. For example, in Poland for hundreds of
years people were using the spruce tree and pine tree resin for spiritual
cleansing purposes. For the same reason, thistle herb was collected. In North
America, White Sage was in use as a sacred plant. Other regions of the World
have other herbs and trees - pay a visit to your local library, or consult local
religious or spiritual practitioners, or even mages, because they might know
what types of herbs you should collect.63
Then, when herbs are collected, they need to be dried – preferable in the attic.
When dry, herbs needs to be grounded by hand in a mortar. Only then, they
can be burned and act as incenses. Resin can be cleaned, but if it doesn't
contain dead insects or dirt, it can be used right after it's collected. I do not
instruct how to create your own incense sticks because it's far more complex
process.
How To Burn Incenses
When you have herbs or purchased incenses, you need to burn them. Using
incense sticks is quite easy, you stick it somewhere, for example, in a special
rack, you light it and it works quite well. In case of powder incenses and
resin, you need to prepare more tools. For powder incense, you need a piece
of special coal. You can purchase a coal for powder incenses in New Age
stores, or you can look around for a charcoal for water pipes (shishas). You
need a censer, as well – so you can place the coal inside, then sprinkle the
powder. When you have a censer, which can be purchased in many places,
you need to add some sand at the bottom so the censer won't be damage by
the temperature. Then, you place the burning coal on the sand inside the
censer, and finally, you use your fingers or a teaspoon to sprinkle the powder
or natural resin pieces upon the coal. This is how you burn incenses.
The smoke will act according to your basic intention. For example, if you're
using the incense as an offering, prepare all the tools (censer, coal etc.) and
burn the incense with the intention of offering. If you burn the incense for the
purpose of cleansing the room, prepare the tools and burn the incense with
this intention of cleansing the room - and so on, so on. This is how you use
incenses - at least from basic understanding. Of course, other schools of
magical thought might use incenses in other ways, or there might be more
complex rituals related to burning incenses.
Candles, Your Very Best Friend
Another important element of the magical practice is a flame of a candle. The
elemental energy of fire is known to burn negative energies, or any energies
which we cast into the flame. Big bonfires are used in cleansing rituals or the
rites of passage while smaller sources of an open flame are used for a
different sort of rituals and magical work. In modern magick practice, candles
are very popular element. A couple of them should always burn:
At every magical ritual from any possible tradition.
During psychic or spiritual healing session.
As a support during meditation session.
On the main altar of the house, to help cleanse the building of
unpleasant energies.

Generally, you should keep a candle burning whenever you do magick. First,
it cleanse unwanted energies. Second, it can be used to burn any energies that
you cast into the flame. This is useful during psychic healing, or during
emotional healing when you visualize unwanted emotions being burn by the
candle flame. Third, candles, due to their cleansing capabilities, act as a first
line of magical defense.
When the candle is no longer needed you can put down the candle flame. To
do so, remember not to blow up the candle – this will make its energies
dissipate all around, and some people believe it will also harm the candle
spirit (which, as you should know already, belongs to the family of elemental
spirits). You should allow the candle to burn itself out naturally. But if you
cannot afford it, for example, due to fire hazard, you should use your wet
fingers or special extinguisher cap.
The shape, color or size of the candle doesn't matter in general – but specific
magical traditions may require special candles for specific rituals. One of the
modern magical techniques called Candle Magick says that specific shapes,
sizes and colors of the candle while burn, can help you achieve specific
results. You may wish to analyze if your magical tradition pays attention to
special candles. If it does not, then any candle will do.
Candle is your friend – pay attention to its flame. If the candle flame is
straight and it burns peacefully, it means that everything is all right, and the
energy around it is free of negative, low-vibrational energies. But if the flame
begins to "dance", moving in all directions, emitting intense smoke, it means
that it begun to burn negative energies. Such negative energies might appear
when you perform some form of healing, and the energy comes from the
person that is being healed, or if there's some bad entity around the flame.
Talismans and Amulets: Practical Creation, Use,
Cleansing and Destruction
One of the most popular magical objects which you should learn to make are
talismans and amulets. While some people believe these are the same thing,
the truth is that talismans and amulets are two different types of magical
items. A talisman is an item which is meant to support you in achieving a
goal and to attract things you want – for example, love, money and such. An
amulet, on the other hand, is a magical item which is meant to protect you
against something: illness, accidents, but mainly against magical attacks by
other people and entities.
Every magical tradition in the world has a collection of talismans and amulets
and has created specific techniques for the creation of such magical items.
Generally, a creation of talismans and amulets is based more on an intention
than on a specific symbol, but yes, many symbols carry a specific magical
power within their curves.
Every magical path has its own explanations as to the way such magical
objects work. Some schools of thought say that talismans and amulets work
simple because people believe in them. Other schools say that these objects
work because the symbol carry an energetic charge. Other theories say that
the object works because it has been charged with special energies.
Personally, I believe that the talisman or amulet work because we believe that
it works, and we believe it this way because we have charged the object with
proper magical intention and energy during the ritual of creation.
Creation of Talismans and Amulets
There are many ways to create a talisman or amulet. Every magical or
spiritual path has its own set of rules regarding this process. In most cases,
you take your time and slowly you create an object – it may be a necklace, or
a bracelet, or a Mala, or a piece of wood on a leather strap. Sometimes, you
may purchase a nice object, and then perform a ritual that will charge the
item with an intention and energy.
One theory says that the more time you spend making the magical item, the
more effective the item will be. An amulet that is bought might not work at
all, and the amulet that cost you a lot of effort to make will be very strong. A
talisman that is bought might not work, but a talisman you've spent weeks
trying to find the right materials will be very strong. On the other hand, I
know amulets that are powerful, and all the magus did was buying the item,
and charging it with protective intention.
Still, I suggest not to purchase ready-for-use talismans (nor any other magical
object), but either create them on your own, or ask someone to create the
object for you. It's a matter of safety. I've seen many times situations, in
which a person purchased a good amulet, only to realize soon that it was
cursed with a demonic attachment, which then attacked the purchaser. This is
a common occurrence, and when you walk the path of magick, you must be
really careful.
Also, I advise not to purchase talismans and amulets available in New Age
stores and consider them to be effective magical items. As long as they're not
programmed to perform magical work, they will not be effective at all.
Of course, you can use objects that are purchased, but haven't been made with
the purpose of serving as magical objects. For example, you might have
purchased a piece of jewelry in the past, but at some point of your life you
decided to charge it with special intentions; thus turning it into a talisman or
amulet.
I also advice using natural resources and materials – wood, stone, crystals,
metal, leather and natural dyes are best. Plastic or other artificial materials
that do not exist in nature should not be used. Then, when the item is
prepared with care and effort, you can perform a ritual to charge it with the
intention. What occurs now is dictated by your school of magical thought.
Basically, after the room is cleansed and shielded, you focus your mind on
the purpose of creating the amulet or talisman. Then, you take the object into
your hands, and begin sending it the energy – for example, through
visualization. This is the step of energy manipulation. Along with the energy,
you send your thoughts into the object, your intention of a specific task – of
attracting something, or deflecting attacks, or redirecting attacks towards
itself. This is the step of energy programming. After a while – 5 to 50
minutes, depending on your skills, patience and Will, the object can be
charged further on. It can be charged so its batteries will be sufficient for the
object to work. You can charge the object in a stream of a mountain river,
charging it with elemental energies of water. Or you can charge the object
with incense's smoke, charging it with the elemental energy of air. Or you can
charge the object above candles, charging it with the elemental energy of fire.
You can bury it in the ground for the night, charging it with the elemental
energy of the earth. Finally, if you have an altar in your home, you can place
the object on the altar with the burning candles, and if the altar is properly
used, it will charge the magical item, as well.
Then, the creation process is complete, and the talisman or amulet can be put
to use. This is the general way to create talismans and amulets – you prepare
the physical object, and then you set an intention for it, and then you charge it
with energies (fuel). Then, you're done.
Some amulets are created in a more complex way - they are attached to a
spirit, with which the magick practitioner made a deal. If the person is
attacked, the attack is redirected to the amulet; thus it let know the spirit
about the attack - then, the spirit respond to the attack with force. This way of
creating amulets is reserved for experienced and skillful magick practitioners
who know what a deal with a spirit means.
Using Amulets and Talismans
Personally, I do not use talismans – so far, they have not proven themselves
to me. If I wish to attract things, I use the magick of Huna. But amulets are
often used by me. In both cases – talismans and amulets – these objects take a
piece of your awareness and perform a specific task. A talisman can be
programmed to attract love, and it will continue to do so as long as it has
energy, and you don't have to constantly think about attract love yourself.
The talisman will deal with that. Amulets work in a similar fashion – they
take a piece of our awareness and they can deflect magical attacks, or redirect
the attack towards themselves as long as they have energy. Thus, they protect
you, and you don't have to consciously watch out for magical attacks.
Amulets are very useful for magical protection. They come in handy
especially if you're not doing anything magical. When you perform magical
doing, it's quite normal to shield the room, shield yourself, create many layers
of magical defenses and such. But when you go shopping or you meet with
friends in a restaurant, you do not draw a protective circle with pentagrams,
right? And yet, at the same time, magical attacks might occur – this is when
the amulet can protect you without you knowing about it. This element of
your magical protection is a very useful, and very gentle tool – don't be afraid
to use it.
The following is the normal use of objects like talismans or amulets: you
simple carry them with you whenever it's needed – or should I say, whenever
you leave the safe area of your magically protected home. And when you
return home, you place the objects on the altar, and they will be cleansed and
charged with fresh energy, so their longevity and life span is expanded.
Observe your amulets closely – they might be your first sign that something
bad is going on. Amulets that are depleted of energy, because they spent it on
defending you might get broken or damaged, if the attack continues, but the
amulet is no longer able to protect you. This is a sign that you're under attack
by powerful energy – an entity or curse. In such case, ask your favourite
spirits for protection, or seek additional magick practitioners to get help. If a
talisman breaks, it means its energy levels were depleted, and it couldn't
attract things you wanted any more.
Cleansing and Recharging Amulets and Talismans
When used, talismans and amulets need to be cleansed and recharged.
Cleansed, because they collect unpleasant and unwanted energies, and
charged, because, through use, they deplete their magical energies. If you
have an altar in your home, then you can use it to charge and cleanse magical
objects by placing them on the altar. I will discuss the importance of the altar
later on. If you do not have an altar, then you can use the same ways as you
used during the object's creation to cleanse and recharge them – stream of
water, candle flames, incense smoke or earth can both cleanse and recharge.
If you do not have access to a mountain stream or small area of the earth, you
can improvise – a water from your home's faucet will be sufficient, and you
can bury the talisman or amulet deep in kitchen salt to cleanse and recharge
the object.
Destroying Amulets and Talismans
Magical objects should be destroyed in a proper way, too. They cannot be
simple throw into a trash can. They should be returned to Mother Earth with
proper intention. Most talismans and amulets can be burned – offer the
leather or wood to the spirits of the flame, and ask the spirits to safely destroy
the magical object. If the item cannot be burned, for example, if it's a stone or
piece of metal, then go to the wilderness, and bury the item in the ground –
allow your intuition to guide you to the right place, and ask the local spirits of
that place to safely take care of the item.
This is how you deal with talismans and amulets, from creation to
destruction. Some schools of thought don't support the use of such items
while other magical paths embrace the use of these magick tools. If you do
not walk any specific path of magick or spirituality, then I suggest using the
amulets no matter what – amulets are very useful objects.
Drums, Gongs and Wind Chimes, or the Power of
Sound
Another category of magical tools is those that make noise – drums, gongs or
wind chimes. These objects are often used for the purpose of reaching altered
states of consciousness. Almost any magical tradition includes the use of
instruments of a different sort.
It is said, "In the beginning there was the Word" - a sacred sound. Some
believe that the world is made of sounds, or at least that there is a basic set of
sounds that have magical power – some sounds create, some destroy. One of
my teachers, Arkadiusz Lisiecki, used to say that it all begun when humans
became sentient – they started to make sounds, and they have noticed that
some sounds made them feel good. From this, chanting evolved, and then, the
use of instruments. My teacher used to simplify things when it wasn't
necessary to get into all the details, but he has the point – people noticed that
some sounds make them feel good, and some types of chanting have an effect
– a magical effect – upon their life and the environment.
We may say that each sound has its own, specific frequency, vibrations –
which is a scientific fact. These vibrations are said to influence our physical
and spiritual bodies, causing the results on the spiritual plane. Thus, they help
us reach altered states of consciousness, remove blockages that cause illness
and such.
Since the prehistoric times, shamans often use drums and other musical
instruments to enter altered states of consciousness so they can work with
spirits. They play on these instruments with specific rhythm to achieve
specific results. Some loud noises are said to scare away lesser negative
spirits so they can be used as tools of magical protection. Wind Chimes work
quite nicely when it comes to this – in different traditions of the world we can
notice the use of sound as a repellent for evil spirits.
Different instruments are often used in spiritual healing – the way they sound
sometimes cause the problems, fears and emotions to re-emerge from the
subconscious mind in order to be healed. Tibetian bowls are often used for
this purpose, but also different types of rattles can be utilized for healing.
When some magical seals were removed from my spiritual body, the shaman
performing the ritual used rattles that made a lot of noise to release the
magical "mud" that left within me after seals removal. It was a part of
shamanic healing upon me.
Tibetian bowls are used for healing, as well. A friend told me a story as she
tried such bowl once only to feel dizzy right after making the first noise. A
more experienced practitioner told her to keep on playing the sound as the
emotional pain was released through dizziness and stomach sickness. After
few minutes, the physical effects disappeared, and the emotional pain was
released, causing healing in my friend.
Songs and sacred mantras – the use of the most natural instrument that we
have, our own voice – are present in every corner of the World. There are
songs that summon spirits, and there are songs that are used to heal. There are
mantras that help in spiritual growth, and there are mantras used to magical
protection. Even a spoken spell, which is a formula created to achieve
specific magical results, is a use of our voice – our natural instrument – for
magical purposes.
Wiccans speak the spells; Native Americans sing healing songs; Buddhists
chant their mantras; shamans use drums and rattles – although I simplify
things here, I want you to know that sound is used in wide degree in all
magical traditions and although there is no need to learn how to use the sound
for magical doing from this book, you should be aware that your magical
path or tradition may utilize the use of the human voice or instrument.
Some may say that an instrument is a symbol – there is an intention attached
to it, attached on the deep, spiritual level. Because of this intention recorded
within the realm of spirits, everyone who uses the specific symbol, in this
case the instrument, connects his mind to the intention. This idea is often
used to explain why healing songs or mantras of Buddhism work for whoever
use these tools.
One could wonder – is it the sound of the instrument that affects our mind, or
is it the power of the practitioner, who considers the sound and the instrument
as a symbol that allows him to focus and generate specific energies, and
influence others – heal them, help them reach altered states of consciousness
and such. There is no definite answer to this question, but since I mentioned
the word "symbol", I believe it's worth discussing further.
The Power of Symbols
Symbols are present in our culture since the very beginning of consciousness
as it seems. We see them all the time – they're on the street, in a coffee shop,
on a TV show, and, of course, in religion, spirituality and on the path of
magick. It seems that symbols shape another approach to magick. While, in
this book, I discuss magick as an art of working with energies, some people
consider magick as an art of working with symbols, which form intentions
and there is no energy present. Yet no matter what kind of magick we
approach, symbols have strong applications in both ways of thinking – while
some theories says that symbols are the stand-alone reason that magick
works, the energy theory, given in this book, prefers to say that symbols can
be used to manipulate energies – through thoughts, as always.
Carl Gustav Jung, whose research about symbols are well known, said that a
symbol is meant to help us conceptualize something that is otherwise too
difficult to put in words. Imagine it – you learn a symbol, and they you recall
it when needed, and the very fact that you do recognize the symbol is enough
to use your subconscious thoughts to control and manipulate energies for
magical doing.
Before we move further, we need to discuss the meaning of terms. What is a
symbol? A symbol, according to Wikipedia, is an object, character, or other
representation of ideas, concepts, objects or abstractions. With this term,
symbolism is interconnected. Symbolism is a use of symbols to represent
ideas and emotions.
Exploring through my personal library, I found an old book, a small
dictionary of Polish language, published by PWN publishing company, which
focuses on high quality, scientific publications. The book, nearly 50 years
old, defines the symbol as follows:
Symbol, an equivalent of an idea, that can be perceived through physical
senses; a person, an animal representing an idea; an activity, an event
that is a personalization of some attributes.64
In short, a symbol is a representant of an idea, attribute, intention, emotion,
person, animal or some abstract idea. Symbols, which are personal, have a
meaning to you and you only. Other symbols are more general, and they
carry a meaning for a greater number of people. From the point of view of
magick, a symbol is something that has a meaning that results in magical
effect. For example, an image may be a symbol of a specific deity, and when
you look at the symbol, you immediately associate the image with a deity,
and with a bit of focus on the image, you may be able to attract the deity
itself.
Or, as an example close to my heart – Reiki – when using Reiki symbols,
which are Chinese, and Buddhist characters, you associate them wish specific
set of intentions and spiritual effects – instead of defining the entire collection
of intentions and programs, you just draw and activate the symbol, and
subconsciously, you cast the symbol, achieving a spiritual effect. In some
way, symbols are a time saver.
Some objects might act as symbols of correspondence - in different magical
traditions, correspondences exists. One thing corresponds to a specific
technique or a spirit. A herb may correspond to a deity; a particular crystal
may correspond to a specific practice; a phase of the moon may correspond to
a specific type of ritual work. All these are symbols in some way.
In some ways, spells are also symbols – they carry a set of intentions, using
these symbols (spells) is meant to achieve a specific result. So, we can
generalize, that:
Symbols can help you focus – for example, instead of thinking about
specific deity and its attributes, personality, image and so, you simple
focus on a symbol that is associated with the spirit in question. This
helps you focus. An image may represent a spirit on its own, or a set of
symbols – as correspondences – collection of herbs, stones and such –
may help you focus on the task ahead.
Symbols have their own energy – programmed within the global
unconsciousness, mankind may recognize the symbol for its meaning,
effects and such. In this way, a lot of modern magical symbols work. As
explained earlier, there is a theory that symbols are written down within
the realm of spirits, and whether we like it or not, they are directly
connected to intentions and magical effects, and even to spirits
themselves – all of this because thousands of people believe in the
symbol. Thus, this symbol emanate with specific energies and cause
specific energies. According to this theory, amulets and talismans made
of popular symbols work in an effective way.
Symbols can carry a subconscious meaning – like in case of Reiki
 signs, the meaning, sets of intentions and programs, are programmed
within the practitioner's mind, and the simple use of the symbol with
basic intention starts an entire complex spiritual process within the
person's mind, that results in specific spiritual effect. Like this, symbols
are used in spells, rituals nad magical work in general. They represent
spells, programs, intentions, and entire effects.

You can create your own symbols that will have a meaning only to you – by
doing so you create your personal collection of symbols: anchors that once
used, can support the process of doing magick. To help you understand it
further, let's imagine a possible story. Let us imagine that you create a spell –
a set of intentions meant to achieve a specific result, for example, to attract a
10 thousand dollars. You create this spell, and then you close it within a
symbol that you create. This symbol you create out of few lines, circles and
such, creating a seal, like the one below, posted as examples.

Examples of Magick Seals (Source: personal collection of the author)

You focus on the seal – because you've programmed it as a representation of
the entire spell, your subconscious recognize the symbol, and on the
subconscious level, you cast the spell, leading to its manifestation. And then,
whenever you wish to attract another 10 thousand dollars, all you have to do
will be to focus on the symbol again. This way, you create your personal
symbol. But the story goes further.
Imagine that you teach this symbol and its meaning to 10 people, and they
teach it to another 10 people per each of your students. Quickly, we may have
thousands of people that recognize your personal seal a symbol that attracts
10 thousand dollars. Now, the meaning of the symbol is being written on the
level of global unconsciousness. No one has to understand what the symbol
represents, but by focusing on this symbol, the magical effect will take place.
This is how a global symbol is born.
Of course, this is a great simplification of things, but as a model, the story is
perfect as it explains the nature of a large group of symbols – someone
created them, and people recognize them, so the symbols work. Especially in
magick. Because symbols work, magick is far easier to be used by people,
but also, it creates some problems. Problems, which need to be explained.
Safety Rules Regarding the Use of Symbols
There are some important aspects of safety regarding the use of magical
symbols – it's another essential element of learning magick. Because symbols
work, they need to be used with great caution. The first aspect is simple – be
careful what you wish for.
There is a modern practice of creating sigils – it's a process of creating
symbols made of letters that represent an idea. The practice itself is
associated with Chaos Magick these days, but it is far older than that. In any
case, it's a great example of the danger of using symbols. Chaos Magick is
popular among young practitioners, who, unexperienced, often use it for
strange purposes. To make a controversial example, some teenage kids create
sigils that look like this:
I want to have sex with that girl, Amy, who lives next door.

Then, they turn it into a sigil and program it within their mind. Controversial?
Maybe, but often real. The teenager programs it, and may not achieve the
results he wants. But he may live for many years and one day he may find a
wonderful woman. Then, he may fall in love, get married and have kids. But
the sigil will remain with the man's mind – and it will try to achieve the goal
he was created to achieve. And let's say that our kid, now an adult man,
moves with his family into a new neighbourhood. And there is another Amy
living next door. One way or another, the sigil will force the guy to have sex
with that Amy – at any cost because this was the Will of the kid in the past. It
may destroy his life and the life of his family.
Thus, be careful – writing down a symbol within your mind is easy. But
getting it out of your mind may be tricky. If you do not know what you're
doing, do not pursuit it. It's a rule that applies to magick in general, because
the example I describe above is not that rare, unfortunately.
Another issue is turning magical symbols into tattoos. I've done it once, so I
am aware of the consequences. At some point of my life, I've made myself a
magical tattoo – it was an Aegishjalmur from Norse magical tradition. It was
a quite big mistake which I've made – later on the tattoo was removed. But
this experience – along with teachings of others – taught me that making a
magical tattoo is not a wise thing. On the contrary – it's quite childish in most
cases.
People don't learn what the symbols really means, or they don't really wish to
walk the specific tradition – they just want to have something that looks cool
on their skin. But magical tattoos can be dangerous – as magical symbols
they project energies, and they influence the person who owns them. They're
no different than normal talismans or amulets - the difference is that you can't
take them off.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't make yourself a magical tattoo related to
your tradition – you can. What I want to tell you is that you should think hard
before doing so. Don't make rush decisions. Learn your tradition, learn your
path, and spend years following this path – if you are sure that you really
know what the symbol, which you wish to make into a tattoo, means, and you
are sure that you will continue to walk your current tradition to the end of
your life, only then you should make a magical tattoo. Otherwise, at some
point of your life, you may learn that:
The symbol has a different meaning, one which make you fear the
symbol.
Or you may learn that you no longer wish to walk the tradition which
you have chosen in the past and that your tattoo is no longer serving you
as it should be.

Tattoos will remain parts of you until your body turns into dust. Keep this in
mind. This leads us to another issue: the lack of understanding of specific
symbols.
Quite often, young people use the symbol of Aegishyalmur, closely related
with Germanic deities, and Asatru movement. But they use this symbol
thinking it's a symbol of protection as modern books about runes mention.
Without reading Sagas65 and learning about old ways of Germanic tribes,
people are mislead by New Age books. In the old days, the Aegishyalmur
was being placed on the warriors forehead, not for protection, but for the
purpose of making the enemy fall into an abyss of panic and fear so the
enemy could be easily slain. This symbol works for this day in a similar way,
harming people, and even attracting negative entities, who perceive this
symbol as a form of a challenge, so these entities can face the carrier of the
symbol and see if he or she is really that powerful.
Learn what a symbol that you want to use truly means – in all its aspects.
With this knowledge, you can prepare yourself for any eventuality. And
without this knowledge, you may find yourself face to face with a huge
problem, for which to deal with you are not prepared.
New Age Problems As Seen in Runes
In New Age movement, there is a popular system of divination, called
"runes". It is based on the Elder Futhark, a Germanic alphabet made of 24
runic symbols. It is an interesting and quite effective divination system,
although, in reality, there is no proof that it was ever used for divination from
a traditional and historical point of view. It doesn't matter, though as
thousands of people use runes and cast them for the purpose of fortune
telling. Little do they know that runes work as anchors, to which strings are
attached. Strings that connect these symbols with Germanic gods, spirits and
entities. As you use runes, you attract the attention of One Eyed God66 and he
might not be happy that you use the runic symbols.
On the other hand, you might attract other entities who are somehow
connected to runes, entities who might not have friendly feelings towards
you. But beyond that, there is far greater danger to the runes. A lot of
guidebooks discuss the matter of runic magick, when you use the symbols of
the Elder Futhark for the purpose of creating talismans and amulets – so
called bindrunes or runic scripts, or runic formulas. But one who cannot read
the runes truly, shall not use them for magick. It's because runes are not, as
New Age would like you to believe, safe and always positive. When used
improperly, they can fire back at you, and at the person you wanted to help.
Rarely anyone can read runes these days, because in most cases, in order to
do so one should be initiated by spirits into the art of runic work, so called
Seidr magick. Without it, rarely anyone can read runes in a proper way; thus
causing harm to himself and people around him.
Runes are real magical tools, and what seems to be a simple runic formula,
can be in reality a powerful, yet very dangerous curse. As such, runes are a
perfect example of what New Age has done to the ancient teachings – the
wider and more popular the knowledge is the more dangerous practices are
performed each and every day.
Still, while it's obvious to some degree that the misuse of a symbol is
dangerous, runes are also an example of how complex the matter of symbols
is. Because runes are, as mentioned, used for mantic purposes and to foretell
the future, and as such – as a tool to connect with your intuition – they are
quite effective. What I can say here is that one needs a great experience and
great skills to be able to use runes as symbols for mantic purposes, and not as
magical tools. Which also proves that there is much to learn for everyone
who wish to explore magick.
The Altar & Your Sacred Space
Another two elements important for the practice of magick are the sacred
space and the altar. A sacred space is an area dedicated for spiritual and
magical work. It can be an entire forest, or a small room in your house. An
altar is a place of strong magical power that is used as a gateway between the
world of man and the world of spirits. Yet it is not a gateway through which
beings walk into our world. It is more a terminal for communication, through
which this communication between worlds occurs.
My friend has turned her living room into a sacred space, actually – mainly
because it's where her altar is placed, and where she performs her shamanic
work and Reiki initiations. In such way, she has created a place of power,
actually. To understand the purpose of both the sacred space and the altar
means that one can utilize these tools to improve his magical practice.
The Altar – Creation and Uses
Altars are being placed in sacred spaces – these two interact with each other.
An altar often makes the space sacred. From Buddhism to modern Wicca,
altars and sacred spaces are important elements of magical practice. In
animistic traditions, tribes set up an altar to offer gifts to gods and spirits, and
similar tradition exists among shamans and magick practitioners. In
Buddhism, altars are build to make offerings to deities, and receive blessings
from these deities in return. Home altars serve a similar purpose of
worshipping deities and spirits, in order to exchange energy between the
material world and spiritual realm.
In many different traditions altars are the essential element of the overall
practice. In the old days of European culture, it was quite common to build in
a niche in the wall of the house for the purpose of creating an altar there. The
oldest niches of this sort are consecrated to the Christian deities and spirits,
but the tradition definitely reach the time when pagan spirits were
worshipped.
Whether you're a pagan, Wiccan, Buddhist or a follower of any different
path, you should create yourself an altar. It doesn't have to be complex – it
can be as simple as a bedside table with a candle on it. The altar, which I
personally use, is a table space on a low bookshelf. Upon it, I have a censer
for incenses, few candles, a picture of five Reiki principles1. My friend,
mentioned earlier, also place some of her shamanic tools on her altar.
It's quite simple as you can see. How does an altar work? Basically, it's the
most sacred part of the entire flat or house, or entire building when we speak
of a temple. It acts as a communication terminal with the spiritual realm. On
it, we can put offerings to spirits, both local and greater spirits of a different
sort; here we can benefit from purifying energies that can cleanse and
recharge magical objects. And here we can experience the blessing that can
influence all inhabitants. The amount of spiritual energies that collects upon
the altar projects on the entire building – these energies fill people with life
force, which is used for manifestation of a great life, by giving them strength
to be happy, achieve their goals and face their inner selves.
Not just that – by placing your talismans, amulets and sacred tools of the
spiritual trade, you cleanse them – the altar is able to cleanse such magical
objects. Allow those who came to you from far away to rest their magical
objects on the altar, so they can take them cleansed and charged few hours
later, benefiting from the objects ready for magical work once again. The
spiritual force upon the aura will cleanse and charge the sacred items, and the
burning candles will deal with any unwanted energies that might be stored in
such objects.
Offerings and the Altars
As I've mentioned in the Book of Spirits, you can give offerings to spirits of a
different sort. I decided to discuss it in this part of the book because
whenever you're going to give an offering to spirits or deities, you're going to
do this on the altar. In your home, you do have an altar – or at least, you
should have one. In temples, altars are set and ready, usually. But let's say
you will go into the forest, to some remote location. In such case, you will
have to create the altar. It's not difficult, for example, you can find a stump of
a chopped tree, or a nice stone or rock, which you feel will be right for the
purpose of the altar and offerings. Sometimes, you will simple use such
stump or stone to place your offerings there, sometimes you might wish to
add additional elements to the natural objects – but this depends on your
traditions. Essentially what you should know is that if you're about to give an
offering, you're not going to throw it onto the ground, but you will mindfully
place it in a gentle way in a special place – even if the special place means a
lone rock in the wood. Remember – altar is a space which you consider
sacred, and which is purposed for sacred work – it doesn't have to be flashy –
it's magick, not a Hollywood movie.
What is it that you can offer spirits and deities? Once again, I have to repeat
myself – it all depends on the tradition which you follow. But many magical
workers from different traditions have noticed some essential things – spirits
like incenses, money coins, tobacco and alcohol, and sweet things, as well.
These are the things that I offer to spirits because the appreciate it.
Sometimes, the offering can come in a form of work. Quite often, spirits
appreciate if you clean the neglected temple, or take some trash from the
forest. There are different types of spirits, and if you're sensitive and able to
communicate, try to learn from the spirits what is it that they would
appreciate. Some household spirits simple appreciate if you meditate
properly, and some house and nature spirits appreciate if you send them Reiki
or some other form of highly spiritual energy.
There is a rule which you should keep in mind – it doesn't really matter how
much you offer – of course, the more expensive the offering is, the more
energy it pass to spirits. But by "expensive" I mean something that is
expensive to to obtained – you can either buy something for a lot of money
because you can't do it yourself, or you can create something with hard work,
but for little money. Of course, do not jump into a belief that you can't
purchase a bottle of wine for the spirits for $15 dollars – you can. Remember,
it's intention that matters. Also, remember that spirits go first. If you have
bought yourself a bottle of wine – for yourself, not for the spirits, and you
still wish to offer some wine to spirits, do this first – and drink yourself later.
Once again, it's intention that matters.
Some traditions say that once the offering is complete, and the spirits have
fed with the energy of offering, the material goods can be eaten and drink by
the believers. Other traditions say that you shouldn't eat or drink the offering,
but simple disposes it in a natural way – but not through your digestion
system, because this way, you take the energy away from spirits. Learn what
does your tradition say, but if you're unsure, let's just say that what belongs to
spirits, belongs to spirits and Mother Nature.
Offerings are like tokens of appreciations for some – you may offer them to
local household spirits as a token of appreciation for taking care of your
house. Or you can make offerings to greater spirits seeking their approval or
support or blessing, for example, in financial or health matters. In some
traditions, offerings are made simple in honor of specific deities and spirits, a
sign that people of this world remember about spirits. It all depends on the
tradition.
Mixing Traditions and Neglecting Your Altar
There is a safety rule important not just to working with the altar, but to the
entire magical practice. You shouldn't mix too many traditions on your altar.
I have a story regarding this. Once, I participated in a lecture on the subject of
Tibetan school of Buddhism - Bon. Although the lecture was interesting, the
room in which it took place was not. There was an altar on one of the walls,
filled with icons of different deities, from Buddhist Bodhisattvas to Holy
Mary from the Christian tradition. There were holy mantras written in
Sanskrit, hanging on the walls, and other elements from different traditions
were adding a wicked feeling to the entire room. The crew of the bookstore &
restaurant, in which this room was located, was clearly fascinated with New
Age, yet they lacked knowledge. With this original mixture of different
magical objects, the energies of the place were making it impossible for a
sensitive person like me to relax. It took me awhile to cleanse myself
spiritually from the unpleasant energies which hanged in that specific place.
At the same time, it was clear to me that someone with lack of skills and
knowledge offered this entire "temple" as the crew of the restaurant call it, to
a specific deity of unknown origin. This deity considered the place as under
its own influence, and disliked the presence of unfaithful people in its temple,
talking about Bon Buddhism. What's worse is that this particular restaurant,
or "New Age cafe" organize a lot of different workshops and lectures related
to magick and spirituality, making participants an easy target for wrath of a
deity. Be careful of the places, in which you participate in a spiritual
workshop, and remember not to mix too many elements on your altar or
sacred space, and especially - do not offer your altar or sacred space to a
specific deity if you're unsure if you're going to walk the specific spiritual
path for many, many years, or if the sacred space is going to be a public
meeting place.
I advise you to stick to a limited number of traditions on your altar.
Personally, besides essential candles and incenses, I place only the symbols
and objects related either to Reiki or Buddhism upon my own altar – simple
because these are the traditions I follow in my life. In the past 50 years, the
New Age movement promoted the worship of multiple deities from different
traditions. Therefore, we were able to see altars, upon which figures of
Buddha, Holy Mary and images of Hindu deities were sitting side by side. It's
not the best idea. What I've noticed is that the altar created by a pagan
practitioner easily cleanse Buddhist amulets, and vice versa – yes. But it
doesn't mean that pagan deities should be sitting on the altar side by side with
the Buddha figure. You can respect multiple traditions – but you should stick
to a limited number of these when it comes to creating your home altar.
Another important issue is that you shouldn't neglect your altar, nor
disrespect it. It's more related to the energetics, than to the spirits of the altar,
but still. How can you disrespect the altar? For example, by placing anything
that doesn't belong there. Offerings, candles, incenses and sacred objects of
magical doing are all right. But glasses with tea, plates that do not contain
food for offerings, cellphones, cosmetics and similar – anything that is related
to the sphere of profane, not sacrum.1 Such things should not find themselves
on your altar, or on any other altar. Especially if the altar is recognized by
spirits, once it is disrespect, the spirits may take their revenge on the person
that showed the disrespect.
Sacred Space – Creation and Uses
Around the altar, a sacred space evolves over time – an area dedicated to the
spiritual or magical practice, where mundane activities do not take place, but
healing and sacredness are experienced. Such sacred spaces vary from small
rooms in the house, to large temples dedicated for specific worship or
practice. You should create such sacred space because, over time, it emanates
with the energies related to specific practice of your tradition or magical path
– and this supports your magical or spiritual work further.
Over time, doing magick in such place might be easier, or if you practice
particular spiritual techniques, the sacred space may turn into a place of
power with healing capabilities, or a place that supports enlightenment. This
place can be filled with proper items related to your tradition. An altar may
be placed in a living room for one, but another altar can be placed in your
sacred space. The entire room might be filled with magical items related to
your traditions, sacred paintings or symbols – all of which, that are not mixed
with other traditions, and that which have a meaning to you and your magical
path.
Mundane activities should not take place in such sacred space, nor people
with negative intentions should be allowed to walk into your sacred space.
Generally, your sacred space should be dedicated for your presence and your
presence only. Of course, if your friends follow the exactly same path, then
they may find this sacred space useful, as well.
Temples are just a bigger version of small, household sacred spaces. Do not
disrespect such places, as spirits of the temple may take their revenge upon
you. Yet if you can, and if the temple suits your tradition, practice within the
temple's walls, and this will benefit your magical practice.
Sacred Objects, Cursed Objects
What about magick wands? Well – they are being used today, as well.
Shamans use the sticks for rituals of a different sort. And prayer beads? They,
too, are related to spiritual practice and, in some way, to magick. The world is
filled with objects of magical properties – the basic way to categorize them is
to say that we deal with items that are either sacred or cursed.
Sacred Objects, Cursed Objects
On the path of magick and spirituality, you may find different types of
magical objects – some fill the homes of practitioners, some fill the temples
and sacred spaces. Just like there are positive and negative energies, or
positive and negative spirits, there are sacred objects and cursed objects, as
well. The world is a mixture of black and white with a lot of other colors in
between as you should have already known, and this is well known fact for
all schools of magick and spirituality.
Such magical objects work in different ways:
Some need to be touched – and when they are, they can bless or curse;
cause illness or help you achieve your goals.
Sometimes, staying close to such objects, for example, by sitting next to
them, gives effects. The objects can radiate with positive or negative
energies.

Some of these objects are created through clear intention while other objects
are created unconsciously.
Traumatic events or negative emotions can turn the object into a cursed
item, but...
… if the item is owned by a holy person that grows spiritually, and the
item is carried by this person all the time, then it may become a holy,
sacred magick item.
In similar way, if an evil person carries an item all the time, then this
object might become negative and cursed.

Sometimes, an object that is cursed has a spirit attached to it – thus, buying

the object and bringing it to your home acts as an invitation for a spirit that
should will have to be exorcised. Trust your intuition, and when you feel that
you shouldn't buy something or accept something as a gift, then follow your
intuition. Cleanse each and every object that you bring to your home as
physical items are covered with energies of a different sort, and just as fruits
need to be washed after purchase, so any other object must be magically
cleansed. You can cleanse them just like you cleanse talismans and amulets.
And if you suspect that a spirit came to you along with the object, refer to the
next chapter.
I have a story to share, a story of how treacherous some simple objects can
be. Once, my friend received a book from a person on a street - for free. The
person, who was the book's author, said that he's a writer, and he shares his
knowledge with others. On the back of the book, he described himself as a
member of the Indigo generation - the generation of "new" kids that was
popularized by Nancy Ann Tappe in her book "Understanding Your Life
Through Color".
Basically, the man was popularizing his New Age ideas. And yet, something
was not right when I touched the book. Often, when you touch the item, and
it is charged with some kind of magical energy, you get to sense it's magical
impression - you are hit with images, feelings, messages or knowledge. It is
natural for people that are sensitive to magical energies, and it applies to
coming in contact with objects, and with people, as well. Sometimes,
proximity is enough, and you don't have to touch the item or a person to get
the magical impression.
Back to the story. Quickly I became aware of a magical program within the
book my friend has received. She is a Reiki practitioner; thus she has strong
energies, yet little experience in other fields of magick; thus sometimes she is
susceptible to magical attacks. What I read within the book was that it was
meant to create a connection, an energetic cord between my friend and the
book's author - or a spirit that was using the man to find a prey to feed upon.
What I was dealing with was an energetic vampire, possible a spirit of some
sort, an intelligent spirit. It is well known fact that if you offer a gift to
someone, this person's subconscious believes that something must be given
back - this belief is an anchor that can be used to connect an energetic cord
and drain the life force. It works both ways, so when you accept a gift, you
may feel, deep inside you, that you should give something back. In such case,
it's wise to return the gift – give something else to that person, or to someone
else, and make sure that the energy exchange is complete. Otherwise, if
someone has negative intentions towards you, a cord might be created.
Something like this happened to my friend. She asked the Archangel Michael
for help as she trust this particular spirit, and he cut the cord while I asked her
to perform a strong cleansing practice. In addition, she throw the book away,
and recited, directing her thoughts towards the book's author: "what have you
gave to me, so shall it return to you" - reflecting intentions towards the
attacker often works quite well as a mean of magical self-defense. As we had
no way to burn the book at the time, so Mother Earth will have to deal with it,
and deal with it Mother Earth can. Normally, if I would have an access to a
fire place, the book would burn in the sacred fire.
Still, it's a good example of how some items can work as carriers for magical
intentions and can serve as magical items. Be careful when accepting gifts
from those skilled in magick.
Over time, some magical objects become so personal and sacred that
touching them by other people may spoil them in some way. Almost none of
my friends like when others touch their amulets, talismans and other magical
tools. Some believe it makes the items corrupted while others believe that
touching the object by the third party destroy the magical power of the object.
Do not touch the amulets, talismans and other magical items of other magick
practitioners without asking them first.
All types of magical objects are created in a similar way – by creating the
physical carrier, adding energies and programming intentions, then charging
the object with energies. All types of magical objects are used in a similar
way – they are either carried with or they remain set in a room. All types of
magical objects are cleansed and destroyed in a similar way. All of this had
been described earlier when I discussed talismans and amulets. And often,
these objects are created for a purpose – to carry out a specific task, to act as
a battery for energies, to support the magick practitioners, or to support the
magical doing in general.
Different traditions have different objects used for magick – that which is
physical interact with that, which is spiritual, and intentions are carried by
physical objects just as good as they are carried by the conscious mind. Thus,
do not be surprised that your tradition use a lot of tools to support the magical
doing. Sometimes, these items are very useful.
The Tools of Divination and Mantic
Divination and mantic are one of the most common elements in most schools
of magick. It's quite truth that you cannot dwell into the realm of magical
literature and never heard the words like runes, Tarot cards, I Ching or
similar. These three systems of mantic are the most popular these days. While
they were vulgarized to a simple mean of fun fortune telling, in reality the
process of divination and mantic might become quite useful on your path of
magick.
Divination and mantic are not really a fortune telling, or a way to predict the
future. It is rather a way to use symbols and the reader's intuition to guide the
practitioner of magick into the depths of his own mind, his subconscious self.
By practicing or consulting the tools of mantic, we dwell into ourselves. We
learn about our own nature, fears and dreams, goals and destiny, pros and
cons of our personality. We learn about things that offer us the greatest
chance, and about things that stand as our greatest threat. Through this, we
learn what should we embrace, and what should we heal; what should we
support, and what should we watch out for. All of this leads us on the path of
self-improvement.
The self-growth, or self-improvement, is important on the path of magick. It
clears your mind and helps you achieve your goals. By showing your true
genius and talents and skills to you, divination helps you find a way of living
that is pure, happy and meaningful. By helping you realize your fears, you
can heal them, and thus, become less potent to manipulation by other people
or unwanted magical influence that comes from spirits.
Greer's encyclopedia defines divination as follows:
Divination. The art and science of obtaining information by occult
means.67
Later on, Greer explains that there are four types of divination:
Omen divination – the ability to read signs.
Pattern divination – reading from patterns, like tea leaves, or pouring
hot wax into cold water and interpreting the outcome
Symbol divination – the use of symbols like runes or Tarot cards
Trance divination – a method of obtaining information in altered states
 of consciousness.

Every method of divination falls into one of these four categories.

Now, we may say that obtaining information through trance states is
something that we can associate with psychic readings, or magical sensitivity,
clairvoyance or simple knowing things. All of this has been explained in this
book already. The symbol divination will be explained later, but now, let's
focus on the aspect of omen divination. The word "omen" mean "sign" in a
simple translation. The ability to read signs is an important one in the life of a
magick practitioner. It is so because messages that are important to us rarely
come in an open way. Sometimes, we must observe the world and interpret it.
Signs come in many forms – a song in a radio, a bird on the tree branch, a
word spoken by a person on the street. All of this may be a sign meant for us
– an answer to our prayers, or a warning of some sort. What you – as a
magick practitioner – needs to do is to learn to perceive these signs and
interpret them. Pay attention to them – whenever you notice something, ask
yourself "what if it's a sign – if so, what can it mean" and follow your
thoughts and intuition. If the experience is a sign, it will become clear to you.
And remember that signs meant for you will always have a meaning to you
because they are based on the symbols you personally recognize and
understand.
For the purpose of explaining the symbol divination, you may have noticed
that I use two different words – mantic and divination separately. While the
difference between the two is quite clear in Polish language, I am not sure if
English-based readers understand this difference, so for the purpose of
explaining the essentials of magick, both terms must be explained:
Mantic – is a process of using symbols (carved on stones, or painted on
cards) to contact person's subconscious mind to seek answers which help
the person's self-growth and magical development.
Divination – is a process of using symbols to gain access to intuitive
knowledge which is not individual but global, called "Akashic
Records"68 in the modern spiritual circles, or to contact deities and
spirits in order to receive information or guidance.

It's a matter of interpretation that, as it appears to me, is not present in

English language.
As you can see, in both cases we use symbols to gain insight into our own
nature, and the nature of the world – this is the purpose of both techniques, to
gain insights into the mechanism of events that surround our life. But, in the
first case, we gain insight by exploring our subconscious mind and listening
to our own intuition while, in the second case, we use the divine forces –
spirits, "Akashic Records" and even something we call God.
It is a huge difference:
When reading Akashic records, or accessing the global unconsciousness,
you have to reach beyond your mind and beyond your body. This means
you have to implement a lot more safety techniques to keep yourself
safe on your magical journey. And a magical journey it truly is.
When asking spirits to help in divination, you need to consider that they
may wish to receive something in return. And even if they don't, you
may need to cut the energetic cord you create with these spirits by
communicating with them.

In case of mantic, an intuitive "divination", you contact yourself, your

subconscious mind and intuition, the parts of you that already know the
answer – and less safety precautions must be taken. Understanding the subtle
difference between mantic and divination, and recognizing what you're
actually doing, keeps you safe on the path of magick. Know this – Norse
Runes are associated to Gods, and it's more a tool of divination. But if you
wish, you may state clearly "I now use these symbols to communicate with
my own subconscious and intuition", and this should shield you from using
these symbols to communicate with spirits. The Tarot and the I Ching, on the
other hand, is primary a method of communicating with your subconscious,
but you may still shield the room and yourself if a spirit wishes to use the
opportunity.
There are few popular methods of divination/mantic these days. Those are:
Norse Runes – originating from Norse mythology and germanic
tradition, while originally they were magical tools, in the dawn of New
Age they've been made into mantic symbols.
Tarot Cards – originally used as a mantic tool, they're nearly 500 years
old. They are, however, connected (via the magical realms) to some
lower energies and spirits; thus the use of Tarot cards require
 experience, skills, knowledge and the application of safety rules.
I Ching – a deep and complex method of mantic and exploration of your
inner mind, the I Ching, known also as the Book of Changes, originate
from China.
Classic cards, other cards - today, different types of cards are used for
divination purposes – they carry images and names of angels, fairies,
gods and deities from different traditions and to be honest, rarely do they
represent a fair value in themselves. As they are promoted to be tools of
direct communication with spirits, tools that provide us with direct
guidance and protection of the spirits in question, these cards rarely
serve as anything else but a mere, simple tool of contacting with our
own subconscious mind and intuition.

The Tarot cards were often used in European magical traditions by members
of multiple occult orders. As such, the Tarot was used to analyze the process
of magical development of the order's member. For example, a card known as
"The Tower" was often symbolizing the fact that the practitioner has failed to
learn the essential basics, and due to lack of proper foundations, allowing him
to practice more advanced techniques might prove dangerous for him and
other people around him.
This example explains why divination and mantic are used on the path of
magick – it's not really about figuring out the lottery numbers. It's about
learning your limits, skills and abilities; learning about the right time to do so,
and learning about issues you must deal with in order to become a better
person and overcome life difficulties. This works on the path of magick
because it guides you through the labyrinth of magical books, techniques,
schools and teachers. Thus, you may wish to learn the method of divination,
and then use it:
To ask if a specific technique or practice is good for you.
To ask if a specific teacher is good for you.
To learn what hinders your magical and spiritual practice.
To seek advice how to deal with life problems.
To find out the best time to learn or perform a ritual.
And so on...
The tools of mantic and divination help you learn answers to your questions,
whatever your questions are. That is wise it's a good idea to learn how to use
these tools, and choose the right method for you. Of course, it's not
mandatory, but optional – yet often, if you do not have clear access to your
intuition and feelings, the additional tools like Tarot cards or hot wax may be
very useful
Always choose the method of mantic/divination that suits you, and that does
not interfere with your other practices. A Reiki practitioner might notice that
Tarot cards are not the friends of Reiki, and Buddhist may not feel
comfortable with using Runes. And as always, do not mix too much – stick to
one divination or mantic system. Because quantity doesn't matter – quality of
your skills does.
Astrology is yet another element of obtaining information through magical
means – while it is not really a method of mantic or divination, it is a way to
learn things – about yourself, mainly. My teachers used to say that astrology
teach us that there is a huge stamp that is nailed on our forehead the moment
we are born, and it defines who we are for the rest of our life. Personally, I
would not say that it defines who we are, but it defines our pros and cons, our
skills and problematic areas of our life. By learning about our astrology chart
– whether we use Chinese astrology or Western school of thought, or any
other, we learn about ourselves – we learn our strengths and weaknesses, and
it helps us in our life.
In the Tao Te Ching we read:
He Who Knows Others Is Wise. He Who Knows Himself Is Enlightened.
Of course, astrological charts must be prepared by an expert, and not by a
fortune teller online. And if I mentioned a fortune tellers already, I should
explore it further. One can offer divination or mantic practices for others. But
one must remember that you're not foretelling the future – you help others
learn about their inner self. And when you do, do it wisely – remember about
safety rules, cleansing, shielding and cutting the energetic cord you create
with people you read for. And remember - in every system of mantic and
divination, the oracle speaks once – it cannot be asked the same question
twice.
You have learned a lot about tools of magical doing – from talismans and
amulets to incenses, candles and objects that are cursed. Now, it is time to
read through the last chapter of this book that focuses on the subject of
magical safety – the last essential element of magical practice.
Chapter Endnotes
61 In animistic and shamanic traditions, it is a common practice to use
"sacred plants", or "power plants" - Ayahuaska is a well known plant of this
sacred kind. They are cooked, burned, smoked and used in many different
ways to produce altered states of consciousness. From a more animistic point
of view, each of these plants has its own spirit, and its the spirit that helps the
practitioner enter the altered state of consciousness for further magical work.
When using sacred plants, consider two things: first, if the plant is legal in
your country (some are banned as drugs), and second, if you really know
what you're doing. Without proper shaman, or occult expert, and a medical
help standing by, I would suggest not to play with sacred plants.
62 In many traditions, you might encounter the term of "altered states of
consciousness". For example, shamans often work with sacred plants, drums
or other tools in order to enter spirit realms. Although I do not agree with the
following, some people believe that the practice of meditation puts the mind
in an altered state of consciousness. The simplest definition of the ASC
would be to say that ASC is a state of mind different than your normal state
of mind. From the scientific point of view, the ASC operate on different
brainwave lengths while your normal brainwaves operate on the Beta
frequency. Almost any magical practice will require you to change your state
of consciousness into a deeper state of relaxation and focus that operates on
Alpha brainwaves. More complex and "trance-like" practices will utilize even
deeper states of consciousness.
63 If you are not skilled in gathering herbs, do not collect them - some plants
might be poisonous, and in case of other plants, the smoke might be toxic.
Thus, you really have to know what you're doing. This requires a lot of
reading and learning.
64 Auderska, Łempicka, Skorupka, p. 761.
65 Sagas - stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, often
related to Norse and Germanic mythology. They are an essential reading for
those interested in Norse Runes, germanic magick or Asatru ideology.
66 It is a custom not to speak the name of a god or entity, nor to speak the
spell or rite when it is not needed. Simple because spells and rites do work,
and the names of entities attract these entities. Thus, when you don't intend to
perform magical work, do not use so called "words of power".
67 Greer, p. 134
68 Akashic records – is a modern extension of a concept that everything that
is, was and ever will be, is already stored as information in a great, universal
matrix.
 The Book of Safety
Magick and spirituality are not the paths free of dangers and traps. If you
wish to learn and practice magick, you have to learn how to protect yourself,
as well. For this purpose, the last part of this entire book is focused on
teaching you about magical self-defense, that will be useful for most people
who deal with spirituality and magick.
Some methods of protection have been described in this book already, such
as amulets or simple magical cleansing of your own aura. But there are many
other way to stay safe on the path of magick – safety rules and codes of
conduct which one must understand and apply will be described in this final
chapter of the Essentials of Magick.
No matter what kind of magical or spiritual path, you have to accept the
simple fact - magical attacks happen – they can be conducted by spirits or by
other people – consciously or unconsciously. A person can fall victim of
attack conducted by people all the time, but spirits rarely attack normal
people. More often, evil spirits attack those who are skilled in the ways of
magick or spirituality, or simple those who treat them or trespass their
territory, and finally simple dishonor them. There are many reasons for
magical attacks, some of which will be explained in just few moments. Then,
after a bit of theory, I will explain practical means of self-defense that anyone
can use.
Types and Reasons for Magical Attacks
Before we get to the practical techniques of protecting yourself against
magical attacks, we need to discuss the types of the attacks – or at least, some
basic categories of such attacks. Every attack is different, yet it falls into one
of the following categories.
Psychic Influence – this occurs when someone wishes to influence your
actions, beliefs and thoughts through magical means. For example,
someone sends spirits to cause fear in you in order to make a bad
decision. Or someone directs his strong Will towards you, using this
Will to force you to do something you wouldn't do otherwise. Or this
occurs when someone intensively prays for your conversion specific
religion.
Overload – this is a type of attack, in which someone sends you huge
amounts of magical energy, so huge that you cannot handle them. Thus,
it leads to an energetic overload, in which you lose focus, get headache,
lose coordination, and in the end, you become weak and unable to take
action.
Drain – a drain attack is an opposite of an overload. In this case,
someone create an energetic cord and drain energy from you. This leads
to your body getting weaker and weaker. It may cause headaches,
sadness, general fatigue, depression and different types of illnesses. This
is often performed by psychic vampires.
Curse – a curse is a powerful magical attack, in which complex sets of
intentions are written upon you like energetic or magical programs.
They are meant to cause you harm – attack harmful energies, intentions,
people, events and spirits.
Physical manipulation – mind-over-matter, although I have never faced
it in person, some sources say that spirits can manipulate physical matter
to cause mayhem. Such objects can do you harm.

Both people and spirits can conduct such attacks. But why do spirits attack?
And why do people attack? There are many reasons – mainly, some beings
attack because of ego, and some attack because of self-defense. Spirits and
people may attack because:
 They seek life force – astral parasites, earthbound spirits, psychic
vampires of a different sort need life force in order to survive. Therefore,
they will seek prey in order to sustain themselves. They may attack in
many ways to weaken the prey (for example, cause great fear or recall
hidden, traumatic memories), and then they create energetic cords,
through which the energy is being drained.
They seek a physical shell to touch the physical world – for this
reason obsession and possession happen, and of course, this reasons
refer only to spirits. My friend said that the Other Side is full of spirits
that wish to walk the Earth once more. Thus, spirits may try to take over
your physical body in order to walk among the living and feel the
physical realm without the need for reincarnation.
Vengeance and curses – people may feel harmed, and in need of
revenge, they will cast curses or even perform other forms of magical
attacks – simple in order to take revenge. Now, spirits may attack in
many ways if they have been bound to a curse and ordered to carry on
the curse.
People may perform attacks when feeling threatened – but not
because you attack them. Mainly because you seem to be a competition
in business for them, or they consider you a bad neighbor, or they simple
dislike you.
In self-defense – this may happen if a magick practitioner of one school
of thought approach a person that catch a spirit from some other
tradition, or when that spirit in question feels threaten by the magus.
Some spirits may feel dishonored if you do not pay attention to them
(especially if you're a follower of a specific path then you should honor
your spirits). Trespassing through a sacred ground or a Taboo ground
may cause anger in spirits, as well.
To manipulate you – convert you to their religion, or force you to do
things you do not want to do, for whatever reasons this may occur.

These are the most common reasons for magical attacks. To defend yourself,
in short, you should avoid trespassing sacred ground, as well as you should
avoid dishonoring spirits. You can't make everyone to like you, so try to
make as many friends as possible and as few enemies as possible. But know
that probably you won't be able to befriend everyone. And do not attack
others – you never know if the being you attack has sharper teeth than yours.
The Problems of "Cursed" Objects
Sometimes, an evil spirit may be attached to a second-hand item you have
bought – in a passive way, it's a reason the spirit attacks – it's attached; thus
in some way, the spirit is trapped within the object. When you come to a
possession of such object, the attacks will begin. One way of dealing with the
problem is to keep in mind that all objects – new or second-hand – must be
cleansed after purchase. Some objects are cursed – they have negative
intentions written within them – it's another reason why you should be careful
with things you buy. Especially, you should be careful with purchasing
magical items that were already used in magical work.
Once, I wished to purchase a censer to burn incenses in. But the censer had a
bad feeling all around it – after consulting with few people, we agreed that
the censer had blood upon it – it was an object that witnessed great
bloodshed, and perhaps it may have been an item that was used to murder
someone. It would be very difficult to cleanse the object, and while it had no
spirit attached nor a curse written upon itself, the amount of negative energies
within that censer was enough to drive me away from the purchase.
If you believe that you're dealing with a cursed object, or that a spirit came to
you along with the object, you may do the following:
Burn the item – allow the elemental spirits of fire consume the object.
This should do the trick.
Call an experienced magical practitioner – if everything else fails,
only those who are far more skilled than you are, will be able to help
you.

I don't say "cut the cord" because if you're not experienced enough, then
cutting the cord might not be possible, or it may not be enough. Still, you can
also bury the object in the ground, somewhere where no one will be able to
find it. If you do so, then you can cut the cord between you and the object.
After all, it's often possible to create unconsciously a cord as a purchaser.
If the attacks don't stop, and cutting the attachment seems to bring no effects,
then either consult some more experienced magus, or get rid fo the object just
like you get rid of any other magical objects in your practice. In just few
moments, I will teach you what are cords and how to deal with them.
Obsession and Possession
Another two commons phenomena when it comes to magical attacks are
obsessions and possession. While the first type may occur, the second type –
possession – is not that common. In most cases, possession happens only on
the paths that recognize possession as a real possibility – this is common to
major faiths like Christianity. On other paths, those of pagan or Buddhism,
possession is not that common – if possible at all. This signals that possession
may only happen if the person accept the possibility of possession.
Although, one must be careful about invocation – the invocation is a process,
in which the magick practitioner invites the entity to his or hers body for
some specific purpose. This originate in the art of animistic and shamanistic
practices, when the shaman allowed spirits to control his body for some
purpose. Later on, the practice evolved on "then future" paths, and it remains
alive for this day. Practicing invocation, when little in experience, may be
enough to become possessed – especially if you lack experience, knowledge
and skills. But still, some people believe that in order to become possessed,
one has to accept the possibility that possession may happen to him.
What is "obsession" and what is "possession"? Obsession is a form of
magical attack, in which a spirit dominates the consciousness and mind of a
human being or animal. Yes, obsession – just like possession – happens to
animals, too. The spirit pushes the person's thoughts in a specific direction. It
can be recognized by periods of presence of intrusive thoughts, feelings and
patterns of behavior.
In case of possession, the consciousness and personality of the victim is
replaced or suppressed by the entity that conducts the attack, and the spirit
controls the physical body. There might be many reasons for both obsession
and possession. Mainly, the spirit wishes to use the victim as a controlled
puppet for a reason known only to the spirit is question. As for any other type
of attacks, fun, vengeance or pure instinct may be a reason enough for such
attack.
Obsessions and possession are powerful attacks – defending against them
takes two forms: like with any other type of defense, we can categorize
passive methods of defense and active methods of defense. The passive
methods are: regular spiritual cleansing; shielding yourself and your home;
cutting all possible attachments (energetic cords); improving your mental and
emotional discipline. The active methods are called with the famous word
"exorcism". An exorcism is a technique that banishes spirits. Different world
traditions have different ways to perform exorcism, and I will not describe
these techniques here, for two reasons. First of all, I do not know all the
means to banish a spirit. Second of all, no technique will be enough if you do
not have enough knowledge and experience. Leave exorcisms to
professionals – shamans, powerful magick workers etc.
If you notice time gaps, or intrusive thoughts, contact a more experienced
magick practitioner to seek help. On your own, beside asking friendly and
trusted spirits for help, there might be little you can do on your own. But
while you seek help, cleanse yourself often and intensively.
A word of advice – or even two words. First, sometimes intrusive thoughts
may not be related to obsession and magical attacks, but they might be
caused by spirits that either chose you to become a shaman, or chose you
because you have karmic connection to them from the past lives. Watch these
thoughts carefully – if they're not aggressive, nor gory, and if they do not tell
you to do harm to yourself and others, they there might be nothing to be
afraid of – and the spirits may try to guide you to answers you seek,
especially if you're about to become a shaman. Read more about shamanism
in one of the appendixes to this book, before the bibliography section.
Second, always consult your doctor and psychologist – not everything weird
that is going on is a sign of spiritual activity – you must be aware that
sometimes, something wrong may be going on with your mental health – this
isn't rare in the world full of stress and toxic environment. Still, you must be
very careful – recognizing what is going on in the world of malicious and
manipulative spirits may be very difficult. Consult more experienced magick
workers if you can.
Curses
Curses are another wide subject related to magical attacks. A curse is a
dangerous form of magical attack, in which – simple speaking – the attacker
attach a set of intentions to your spiritual body. This set of intentions –
programs, thoughts and energies – is meant to cause you harm, or even to
attract negative spirits that will cause you harm. Depending on the skills of
the attacker, the curse may be weak or very powerful. Some curses simple
drain your energy and do damage to your spiritual and emotional layers,
which influence your life in a negative way. Other curses can be carried on
by spirits which are enslaved by the attacker and the spirits perform constant
attacks upon you.
Curses may pass from generation to generation, and from incarnation to
incarnation (see the appendix B for details about reincarnation concept). They
may be cast upon a single person, an entire family or even upon the entire
nation. Basically, think of a curse like about an excrements, on which you
stepped. They attach to your shoes, and unless you clean it up, the awful
smell will stick to you wherever you go. Curses may destroy your health, ruin
your career and relationship. That's why when things start to go bad in your
life, you should check a more experienced magick practitioner and see if
there is a curse upon you or even on your family.
With the help of amulets, shields and some offensive actions, one can defend
himself against a curse – of course, it all depends on your skills and the skills
of the attacker. Your spirit guardian may be helpful when it comes to
defending you against curses, and you can also ask spirits you trust to help
you out. But once the curse is cast, it must be taken off – this can be done by
experienced magick workers with proper rituals and techniques.
Some people believe that a spirit cannot be truly bound to a curse – he can be
only blinded and tricked into believing that it has no other choice but to obey
the master and carry on the curse. Thus, people convince the spirits that
conduct attacks that in reality, they are free, and the chains are merely an
illusion and they do not have to be slaves to the curse master. Still, I wouldn't
try to convince the spirit about it if you're not experienced enough.
Be careful – sometimes, bad luck in your life may be simple your karma, and
not a curse, and sometimes, you may persuade yourself that you have a curse
upon yourself, and by such simple belief, you may cause bad luck to yourself
without any curse involved. And do not cast curses on others – because, as
some people attacking me learned as a painful lesson – a curse that is
defended against by the victim, has a tendency to return to the sender...
Recognizing Magical Attacks
You have learned the types of magical attacks and reasons why such attacks
happen – it is time to learn a bit more about ways to recognize magical
attacks. You can recognize the attack through:
Noises – these are often caused by spirits. Cracking wood, weird noises
behind the window, footsteps and other things closely associated with
haunted homes may occur when an attack by the spirit is near.
Unpleasant dreams – they may be caused by stress of a different sort,
but they may be also warnings from your spirit guardian, or they may be
caused by negative spirits, meant to scare you.
Unpleasant sensations – they may occur all the time, day and night,
and they're just that – weird sensations that come out of nowhere.
Pain or physical feelings – your physical body may react to negative or
aggressive magical energies, and thus it may send you physical
sensations within itself.
Emotional feelings – weird thoughts, "warning" and intuitive messages
may be a sign that there's something going on.

Of course, every single time you notice one of the above, they're mainly
guidelines, and they are not set is stone. When you notice something weird,
look around, consult with your spirits, or with your own intuition, set up a
shield and simple be careful – maybe it's nothing. But sometimes, your very
own spirit guardian (and everyone have such a guardian spirit) may cause the
thoughts, emotions and physical feelings to you only to have your attention.
You should be aware of your own body – it communicates with you all the
time. Sometimes, when a nasty entity approach you or there are dangerous
energies attacking you, your body will react with physical feelings – like a
headache, pressure in the forehead, unpleasant tingling, sick stomach and
similar. When it does, you should drop what you're doing, and look around –
through your magical senses. Look around and search for any entities or
energies that might be trying to harm you. Sometimes, your physical feelings
will be caused by bad diet or an illness. Or should I say, in most cases these
will be the reasons of unpleasant feelings. But sometimes, the feelings will be
caused by entities and energies. And when you spot them, it will be the time
to take defensive actions. Physical stress, headaches and aggressive or
unpleasant emotions often signal magical attacks.
With time, you will learn to recognize things you feel – with time, you gain
experience. You learn to recognize that your feeling "A" signals a huge
amount of healing energies, but the feeling "B" signals an aggressive spirit
approaching you. Pay attention to your feelings, and with time, you will learn
how to understand the things you sense.
Use a decoction from a thistle herb to recognize curses. First, take a shower
or a normal bath and clean yourself. Then, make a decoction from a thistle
herb (half a litre will be enough) and pour it into a clean bathtub. Add some
more water, and get inside the bathtub for the next 15 minutes. After 15
minutes, get out of the bathtub, and make yourself some tea – just to relax for
the next 30 minutes. While you enjoy your time, leave the water in the
bathtub to "rest". And after half an hour, take a look at the water – if it
became denser, filled with strange things that cannot be associated with
normal uncleanliness of our human body, then it is possible that there is a
curse upon you, and you must consult a more experienced practitioner to take
it off if you cannot do so on your own.
Different types of attack cause different symptoms, which are often
individual for the practitioner – different magick workers may feel the same
type of attack in different ways. An attack by incubus or succubus will not be
unpleasant – on the contrary, it will be a sexual vision or even an entire
intercourse with physical orgasm – but nonetheless, it's a dangerous type of
magical attack by a spirit. Some types of spirits feed upon fear – and they
cause visions, dreams or feelings that cause great fear in result. Sensing great
fear or aggression or unpleasant emotions for no apparent reasons might be a
sign that someone or something is attacking you.
Without good magical sensitivity or clairvoyant abilities, the above
symptoms can only suggest an attack – you cannot be sure unless you're
skilled and experienced enough. When you simple suspect an attack, take
defensive actions, anyway. But before we deal with more practical means of
magical self-defense, there is an important practice that must be performed on
a regular basis.
Linking and Attachments, How to Deal With Them
A friend of mine told me a story of a Reiki healers, whose class was visited
by a psychic, skilled in clairvoyance. And there he was looking at them,
asking "why do you have so many holes in your aura?" As it turned out, these
Reiki healers in question were not cutting the connection, so called links or
cords, between themselves and their patients. This was creating wounds in
their personal energy fields. And such wounds are dangerous. Through them,
you lose your own life force, and you create gateways for psychic attacks by
other people and different types of entities. Yet, in these days, rarely anyone
learns about links, attachments and some basic sets of safety rules.
Where thought goes, the energy follows. And as it follows, it creates
energetic links between the sender and the receiver. A link, through which
the energy flows back and forth. You must understand and accept the fact
that, in most cases of magical work, you create links with other people,
objects and entities. Sometimes, such connections are beneficial, but in most
cases, once they've served their purpose, they're no longer needed, and must
be removed. It is said that you "cut" or "break" the link. Sometimes, when the
link has been created by an entity or another person who practice black
magick, the link is called "attachment" - another person or entity attach itself
to you against your own will. Such attachments can serve evil purposes, and
they must be removed through special magical work and then some spiritual
healing.
Since energy can carry different things, through such links you can:
Through such links, it is possible to send healing or destructive energies;
Through such links, you may send and receive thoughts and programs –
often negative;
Through such links, you connect with another person to perceive this
person's aura or inner energies;
Through such links, you send healing energy to another person;
Through such links, telepathic messages are being sent;
Through such links, you can send and receive empathic information, or
negative beliefs of others. Or, you can send them, consciously or
unconsciously, your own negative beliefs and fears;
 Finally, what is very important, is that through such links you can send
and receive life energy. This means you can drain the life force of others
for your own purposes, and others can drain your own energy for their
own purposes;

Such links are created, to name the most popular situations:

Between a healer and a healee.
Between an entity and a targeted person.
Between a magical worker and a spirit.
Between an energy worker and the person which is targeted for a spell.
Between a divinator (a person that performs divination) and a person for
which a reading is made.

Now, it's worth mentioning that energy exchange is natural. If you have too
much energy, and someone else have too little energy, then your energy will
automatically flow into the person who needs to fuel herself – at least to
some degree, your own energy won't be drained too far, unless the other
person is a psychic vampire, also known as energy vampire.
Besides the fact that, through uncut attachments, you create wounds, through
which you lose life force, there's also another reason to cut such energetic
cords.
Magical attacks often happen because people have access points within
themselves – your fears, worries, concerns, negative beliefs and negative
intentions are such holes, points of access for magical attack. They are clearly
visible to spirits, especially the greater spirits. That is why one of the most
important aspects of magical protection is the healing of your mind. Through
it, you learn discipline, and you heal your fears or worries; thus you eliminate
access points for attacks. And these access points are where the attachments –
cords – are often created. This is why a disciplined, meditative mind is
required in the practice o magick or on the path of spiritual growth. The more
healed your mind is thanks to spiritual practice, the more difficult it is for
spirits and other people to attach to you.
While spirits and people often form energetic cords, you create them too.
And you should cut these cords yourself whenever it's needed. The rule is
quite simple – if something is not YOU, then you should cut yourself from
that something, whether's is a magical object you've created, or a person you
have healed through psychic means, or a spirit you have communicated with.
This rule applies to all schools of magick and spirituality. Now, how to
actually get rid of such attachments?
How to Cut the Attachments
Some energetic cords are weak, and other are strong – it depends on few
factors: for example, how strong is the entity that maintain the attachment,
and how willing to allow the attachment the person is. Depending on your
skills level, you may be or may not be able to cut the cord and release the
attachment. If you don't feel capable or strong enough to cut the cord, ask the
spirits or people you trust to help you.
But basically, you can cut the connection in the following ways, if these
cords have been created by someone else – a psychic vampire, unskilled
healer or evil spirit.
Through centering – focus on your "inner core", whatever you feel it
is. Become aware of your mind, body, the air you breathe with, and the
room in which you are. This simple process will cause the lesser
attachments to be broken on their own.
If you trust your spirit guardian – you can simple ask your guardian
to cut the attachment. Your guardian should be able to do so. All he
needs is your permission.
If the attachment is stronger – you need to be able to perceive the
energetic cord; thus your magical senses must be developed. Either you
should feel the attachment or see it through clairvoyance. Then, you
need to create special energetic tools, through energy manipulation and
programming. With intend, visualize a knife, sword or big scissors, and
visualize as these tools cut the attachment. When you feel the attachment
is cut, you should seal the wound. This is an element of energy healing.
You can visualize a needle with thread and saw the wound like a
surgeon do so in the operating room. When you're done, don't forget to
cut the energetic cord which you have created as you have sealed the
wound.
If the attachment is even stronger, ask some experienced spirit or
person to help you out. Sometimes, strong attachment can be
reattached if the creator of these cords is strong enough. In such case,
 more stronger magical help is needed to get rid of the cord.

In all the above cases, you need to know that you should ask the person if that
person wants the cord to be cut. Person's agreement is essential for your
magical doing to be effective. In the above ways, you can cut the attachments
that connect yourself to other people or beings, as well.
If you're a healer or magical practitioner and you're the one who creates links
for the purpose of your work, at the end of your magical doing, you should
cut the energetic cord. You can do this in the following ways:
Through intend – after magical work is complete, simple intend to cut
the connection.
Through energetic tools – but you can also perceive the energetic cord,
and visualize a tool such as a sword or scissors, and visualize these tools
as they cut the energetic link between you and the other person.

Remember to cut the links whenever you create them, or whenever you
notice them – this is important for safety reasons. Just remember – if you
perform a psychic healing, or psychic reading, or you perceive something
through clairvoyance, or when you charge people or objects with your own
energies, and in similar situations, you create energetic cords that must be
cut.
Psychic Vampirism
As we discussed the subject of linking and attachment, it's logical to say few
words about a common, dangerous phenomena in the world of magick –
psychic vampirism, known as energy vampirism, as well. Psychic vampirism
occurs when some person or spirit drain life force from other living beings –
usually humans. There are two types of psychic vampirism – conscious and
unconscious. In all cases, psychic vampires create energetic cords, through
which the life force is drained. Whenever you notice such attachment, cut it.
When a spirit is a psychic vampire, then we consider it a type of astral
predator and an evil spirit – it drains our life out of us, literally. And it's
usually conscious. But people can be conscious psychic vampires, as well.
This is often common for practitioners of the black arts of magick. Conscious
psychic vampires can be difficult to deal with. They may be persistent and
often, you might have to apply a lot of protection techniques to get rid of
psychic vampires – shielding the room, energy shields, amulets, and the
protection of trustworthy spirits or spirit guardians might be essential. If you
deal with a spirit predator, then kicking its ass might be required to get rid of
– powerful spirits can do this, as well as powerful magick practitioners. If
you deal with a human psychic vampire, then patience should be your choice.
It's quite possible that your attacker will not be patient, and if he can't get
access to you through your magical defenses, he will give up on you and
move on. But if you find yourself under attack by a patient psychic vampire,
then once again – kicking its ass is the best thing to do. Again, powerful
spirits or magick practitioners can do so.
Know this – if you, yourself, are a psychic vampire and you attack other
people, keep in mind that you may end up facing a more powerful opponent
than you are. Think before you do – an important principle of magick it is. It
may be fun to attack someone through magical means, but it will turn grim
when you will face an armed Angel of Doom in front of you, or a mad Thor
will decide to pay you a visit because you dared attack an Asatru follower. To
some, it may be pleasant to believe that Angels are cute and peaceful, but if
you ever have an opportunity to see a pissed off Archangel Michael, you will
think twice before dealing with the black arts.
Anyway, the more problematic in some way is the issue of unconscious
psychic vampires. They can be found all around us. Coworkers at your
workplace or members of your family, or people you meet on the street –
some of them are unconscious psychic vampires. For some reasons, they
drain the life force of others. A psychic vampire – conscious or unconscious
– can be recognized by the fact that after spending some time with them, you
feel weak, drained of energies, demotivated, or even depressed and that with
time, you even become ill. But on the same time, whenever you distant
yourself from the person in question, you regain your vitality and happiness.
The most common phenomena of unconscious psychic vampires occur
between family members, when someone in the family is a vampire that
drains energies of other members by generating strong, usually negative
emotions in those other members. We call them unconscious psychic
vampires because they do not perform the draining consciously through
magical means – they do this unconsciously, automatically, and they're not
even aware of the things they're doing.
The best way to protect yourself against unconscious psychic vampires is:
Change the job if your coworker is a psychic vampire.
 Heal the relationship, if you deal with vampirism among family
members.

Of course, keep using energy shields and amulets and similar method to keep
yourself protected. But in addition, you should heal the relationship. This can
be done through various spiritual techniques such as affirmations or
forgiveness, or through psychotherapy. Keep cutting the cords between you
and the vampire, as well. And finally, whenever the recognized vampire is
trying to force you into strong, negative emotions, don't give up to these
emotions. Learn to relax and to behave peacefully. If the vampire cannot
cause you to give him or her the life energy, then unconsciously, over time,
he or she will stop attacking you, perceiving you as difficult target. The same
rule of not giving up to strong emotions applies whenever you encounter any
psychic vampire.
Interesting it is that psychic vampires can be often found in the Internet. They
are known as trolls – they cause mayhem by placing offensive or aggressive
comments, and it is not limited to occult websites. Trolls operate in the entire
Web – they post comments, images and articles that are meant to cause
strong negative emotions in people. When readers direct negative emotions
towards the author – troll – they unconsciously direct their life force towards
the troll, who is a psychic vampire that feeds upon life force of others.
Therefore, do not give up to the activities of the trolls, and whenever you
wish to comment a troll's action, take a walk or a cold shower first, and put
your mind at peace, first. Then, you won't feed the Internet troll.
Final thing - whenever a human psychic vampire drains life force, in addition
he or she drains his victim's problems, traumas, negative beliefs and so on.
Filtrating these energies and emotions is very difficult. Still, a lot of psychic
vampires who are unexperienced and consider black magick to be fun, drain
energies in order to feel stronger, more powerful and so on. The more
energies one drains from other people, the more problems he drains along
with the energy – this should be enough to keep you from thinking about
becoming a psychic vampire. There are many more useful and healthy ways
to recharge your life force batteries.
Psychic vampires are a serious issue these days as a lot of people have forgot
about the essentials of magical self-defense, and many people gave up their
spiritual life, deciding to live a more grounded, skeptical and logical life
without magick.
The Problems of The Magus
As you walk the path of magick or spiritual growth, there are problems which
you might encounter – and such problems are found in almost every magical
tradition of the world. To be able to recognize and deal with these problems
is an element of your spiritual safety. That is why I include this knowledge in
this particular part of the book. The problems are: the false enlightenment;
the Night of the Soul and Senses; and the Ego.
Learn about these problems, and watch yourself carefully, so you won't fall
into the trap.
The Night of the Senses
I'm mentioning this issue because if you're not aware of this phenomena, you
might get scared, and you may lose control over your own mind. The Night
of the Senses occurs, when too many negative emotions from your past
resurface on the sea of consciousness. At some point - generally after one
year since you begin your magical practice, this period of time might occur,
and a large number of problems which you forgot to heal, resurface and you
become aware of them. This creates great chaos in your mind - you are
bombarded with negative emotions, bad memories and traumas of your past.
If you're not ready, this Night of the Senses might lead you to
Insanity - if there are too many problems and you do not ground
yourself, and you do not work towards healing your emotions, you
might end up insane, taking drugs that will destroy your life.
Unsuccessful life - you might also give up magical work without
healing your emotions, and even if you won't get insane, you will walk
through your life with all these negative emotions. And once the
emotions resurface, they become a lot stronger than previously.

You can become ready by learning the basics - grounding and cleansing, but
also different methods of dealing with your mind and emotions: affirmations,
meditations, forgiveness and similar. After the Night of the Senses occurs,
you need to take your memories, beliefs and emotions and heal them one by
one. You hold your normal magical or spiritual practice, and you focus
entirely on healing everything that needs to be healed. After weeks or even
months, after regaining mental and emotional stability, you can return to your
normal practice. Emotions and memories will keep resurfacing, and you will
have to heal them, but the great time of chaos shouldn't return with such great
strength anymore.
It's not a rule that this Night of the Senses occurs in each and every case.
Some people won't experience this problem, and others will experience it in
great strength. If you think you might be unable to deal with this emotional
crisis, make sure you have your friends aware that such a thing might occur.
The Dark Night of the Soul
The Night of the Soul occurs, when you're unable to sense and perceive
energies, when your magical work brings no fruits, and when your interest in
magick or spiritual growth disappears. At some point of your practice, you
might become tired or disappointed with no visible results. This is the time
when you should redefine your goals - why do you want to learn magick, or
why do you want to pursuit your own spiritual development?
The Night of the Soul is like magical depression – and during this experience,
all the benefits of your magical work, which you have gained in the past,
might disappear, and you might be tempted to return to the normal life.
You might become lazy and disappointed because you have achieved no
results in your practice. But know this, that most results of magick are subtle.
Sometimes, they require a lot of time to manifest and become real. This Night
of the Soul is here to test your motivation, patience and inner strength, to see
if you're worthy of truly reaching for your inner power. Define your goals,
and if they seem worth of achieving, find motivation, and keep pushing
forward. If the path of magick is meant for you and if you're really worthy of
becoming a strong man or woman, then the Night of the Soul will pass, and
you will return on the path of magical or spiritual practice stronger than in the
past.
Know that such crisis might occur - don't give up, don't walk around and tell
people that magick and spirituality don't work, because what you experience
is a great test of your inner strength.
False Enlightenment
The Night of the Senses is here to test you. The Night of the Soul is here to
heal you. Both are dangerous, but a true danger is the False Enlightenment.
This phenomena is what the words state - a person suffering of false
enlightenment believe that he or she is enlightened already - in either
Buddhist sense, or in magical sense. Such person may believe that he reached
the state of enlightenment and he doesn't have to learn and practice anything
else, and he is ready to teach others. This is dangerous phenomena, common
within New Age circles - people with the syndrome of false enlightenment
often teach through public lectures and books, but they have fallen into a trap
themselves.
Buddha69 himself said that if you wish to test the person's enlightenment, try
to make this person angry. Because the person who gets angry is never
enlightened. Making monks angry is a common test within the walls of
Buddhist temples. Keep this in mind and realize that as long as you can get
angry, even within your own mind and without expressing your anger, this is
a sign that you haven't experienced enlightenment, and you still have to learn
a lot.
If you fall into the trap of False Enlightenment, you might stop learning and
listening to people around you. You might perceive others as those who need
your help but at the same time you might think of people as of someone
unworthy of your presence. This is when Ego gets bigger and bigger, and you
might not realize it.
The Syndrome of a Powerful Magus
Another example of false enlightenment can be spotted among magical
practitioners - after a couple of years of practice (not to mention a couple of
months or even weeks) they believe they are powerful mages, and they don't
have to learn anything else - so they summon demons and they look for
students. But the truth is that they haven't learned anything yet. One may find
such "powerful practitioners of magick" everywhere, so one must be careful
not to become a student of such false magus, but more than that, one must be
careful not to fall into this trap by himself.
If you believe you're a powerful magical worker already, try to put your
belief aside for a while and analyze if you really are who you think you are. If
you are - OK. If you're not, then go back to learning, and one day, you will
become a successful magical worker.
The Syndrome of a Mission
Finally, another problem that you can experience is related to the Syndrome
of a Mission. If you don't control yourself and you lack mental stability, you
may fall into this trap. To say it simple, you may believe that once you've
learned something, you have to teach it - not by writing books or giving
lectures, but by forcing others to learn everything you have learned. This
"teaching" is based on a belief that you've learned the ultimate truth, and
others around you do not know this truth - thus, you're a Messiah and your
mission is to enlighten the simple folk.
This, of course, is a false belief - you don't have a mission, and especially you
don't have to force others to your own point of view if they don't want to
learn. Such "magical evangelism" is a mental problem, of which many
magick practitioners suffer.
Walking the path of magick is full of psychological and sociological traps –
your own self-worth, intuition and trustworthy friends and community can
save you from a lot of trouble. Be careful, so you don't fall into a trap of the
illusions of the mind and the ego.
Practical Self-Defense Against Unwanted Spiritual
Influence
On the following few pages, I will teach you general but useful techniques of
magical self-defense against unwanted magical and spiritual influence, from
using salt to shields, from "illuminating" spirits to using rituals. Some of
these techniques originate from animistic practices and are neutral – thus,
they can be used by practitioners of every path. Different magical traditions
have different means of defending against magical attacks – what I describe
here are the most general and most universal techniques which you can use.
We can say that there are two ways to defend yourself: passive methods of
defense and active methods of defense. The passive methods can be
understand as amulets, shieldings of yourself or your home, regular
magical/spiritual cleansing and such. You use these methods all the time, as a
precaution. And there are active methods of magical self-defense, which you
can use when you're under attack: your own spells, prayers, magical symbols
with offensive capabilities, surrounding spirits with light and so on
Remember – regular magical cleansing, cutting attachments and grounding
yourself is essential for any self-defense technique to work. Such magical
hygiene is important – without it, rarely any additional technique will work,
except asking other spirits that you trust to help you out. On the physical
layer, you take care of your physical hygiene – this makes you less
susceptible for bacterias and viruses. The similar thing applies to spiritual
realms. When you take care of your spiritual hygiene, you're less susceptible
to magical attacks and negative energies.
The Universal Tips for Magical Self-Defense
Quite often, your very spirit guardian can protect you against unwanted
spiritual influences, nasty attachments and psychic attacks. In many systems
of magick, it's the spirit that protect the living. Whether you believe it or not,
you do have a spirit guardian – it's not necessary an angelic being, but a spirit
that protects you in your life. But your contact with spirit guardian must be
clean and healed, this is problematic for those who gave up on Christian
religion, or are against Christian religion as a "spirit guardian" is often
associated with a guardian angel by those people. Still, spirit guardians are
universal and neutral.
Use amulets, as well – either create them yourself, or ask someone you trust
to create an amulet for you. Remember to cleanse and recharge amulets on a
regular basis to keep them strong and effective. Use them, because this will
keep you safe to some degree, even if you're not paying attention to the
spiritual world around you. And normally, you won't – no real magical
worker walks open to the spiritual realms all the time, or it would cause
mental illness. A responsible magical worker knows when to "open" himself,
and when to remain ignorant to the world of spirits.
Do not allow spirits to frighten you – peace of mind and calm are important
elements of defending yourself against magical attack. This refers both to
attack by people and by spirits. If you're calm and peaceful, and you stand
your ground, the spirit or the human attacker have a far more difficult task
with performing the attack. On the other hand, when you're afraid of the spirit
or the human attacker, it's like actually inviting the attack and making it
easier for the attacker for perform the attack. Have no fear, and your natural
magical barriers will be far more difficult to break under the attack.
Whenever you can, and you know there's an unwanted entity around you,
order it to leave you alone. A strong intention in a form of order works well
for many spirits – not all of them, and certainly, not for the stronger spirits,
but quite often what you may encounter is a lesser spirit or astral critter.
Scaring it away will work.
You should know that you already have some level of basic magical
protection – some people say that it's because of your aura, but aura – while
is an interesting concept – it is not a concept recognized by all magical
schools. Thus, there is no point of figuring out why do we have this basic
protection. But the fact is – we have it. And quite often, it's all we need. But
the more we deal with magick and spirituality, the more protection we need.
Some people believe that once they begin magical practices, everything else
does not matter, and they're the only people on Earth, or even in the whole
Universe, I mean – the only people that matter. This egoistical pattern of
thinking can be seen throughout history, when human kind didn't care about
other beings – trees, plants or animals. Most people don't care about their
environment for this day. And yet, they are surrounded by plants, trees,
insects and animals all over the time. If it wouldn't be for our concrete and
steel shelters, we would be out there, in the wildness, facing predators and
dangers of everyday fight for survival.
But let me tell you this – as you read this book, you're in the wilderness,
facing countless numbers of predators. Predators, which cannot be seen by
most people; you face energetic storms rarely anyone can sense. And yet,
these things are there, on the astral planes. Because as the Emerald Tablet
states clearly: as above, so below; as below, so above. Our world is a
reflection of the astral, spiritual worlds. Just as our world is inhabited by
countless numbers of beings, so is the astral-spiritual plane. And often, you
will have to face its inhabitants and energetic chaos – you cannot run from it.
Everyone is affected by this what's going on on astral planes. The difference
is that those who practice magick are aware of ways of protecting themselves
– ways of creating their astral shelters, just as engineers create shelters out of
steel and concrete. Be peaceful to the world around you, and you will not
only attack fewer predators, but at the same time, by respecting the spirits
around you, you will make a bit more friends than foes.
Some entities – like Succubus or Incubus may try to have sex with you –
literally. If they do, do not agree for this. Deny it, call your spirit guardian for
help or even punch the spirit with your imagination and visualization.
Some spirits, like Incubus and Succubus, may cause a paralysis to occur.
Night paralysis is common phenomena that is caused by the body still asleep
while the mind is already awake. But sometimes, this phenomena is caused
by evil spirits. When this happens, and you can't do much about it, try to
move the bigger toe in your foot – best the dominant foot. This toe is the
easiest one to move, and moving it will free you from the paralysis.
Other negative spirits may seek access to you by causing fear. They may
show you visions through dreams, or through hypnagogic imaginery.70
Visions that are scary – images of monsters, tragedies, pain caused to people
you love and care about. Do not let these visions overcome you – they're
nothing more than images, even if the spirit tells you otherwise. It's a way to
scare you. If you see a vision, a scary image, use your imagination – add
some details, for example, a clown nose, or a pink dress, or something else
that is funny and hilarious. Changing that which is scary into that which is
funny and hilarious is a great defense, as it renders the spirit almost entirely
powerless.
Never believe that the spirit has the power to harm those you love – if he
would be able to do so, he would already do it, instead of being a pain in
*your* ass. In most cases, people you love, when they don't deal with
magick, have their protection strong enough.
Another tip regards reading about negative magical stuff. Try to limit
yourself with reading books about black magick, demons and negative stuff,
especially if you're just a beginner. Reading such things creates anchors
within your mind, anchors to which a negative entities and spirits may attach
themselves, causing you harm. What you focus upon, you attract – and if you
have little experience in magick, it's better to focus on the positive stuff for
the first few years. When you gain experience, knowledge and skills, you
may wish to learn more about the dark side of magick for the purpose of
improving your means of defending yourself.
Revoke permission if you have ever given one to the spirit – if the permission
dwells within your subconscious mind, it may be difficult to use any other
methods of magical defense. Identify the spirit, or the permission itself, and
revoke it by stating the intention of revoking the permission.
Generally, the first steps to deal with a magical attack are: cut all possible
energetic cords; then shield yourself, and next, shield the room in which you
are. If the attack doesn't stop, place an amulet upon yourself, and try to locate
the energy attacking you - then follow it back to the sender. If it's a spirit, try
to surround it with bright white light, or use symbolic defense magick upon
the spirit. The same goes for the person. You may wish to create, by
visualizing it, a shield of purple light standing between you and the attacker.
If the attack still doesn't stop, and the more offensive actions bring no results,
it is time to call in a more experienced practitioner, or ask your friendly
spirits to help you out.
Protecting the Room with Circles and "Squares"
Later on, I will explain that a circle made of salt is an effective way to protect
yourself. But any magical circle will do. Some magical traditions teach about
creation of magical circles through visualization. For example, you can
visualize a circle made of bright, white, spiritual light that cannot be passed
through by any negative spirit. Other traditions teach about protecting the
four cardinal points – North, South, West and East. On the other hand, some
traditions teach about protecting the four directions of the room (it is called
"calling the quaters" by some people). In any case – the circle, cardinal points
or room directions – what we do is a process of shielding the room.
Every room and place need to be shielded, especially when you live and work
in such place. Sometimes, the rituals of shielding and protection aren't
performed, because the place is already protected by specific spirits and
deities. For example, with enough magical work, a temple offered to a deity
"A", if it gets attention and acceptance from this deity, will become protected
by this deity and spirits serving the deity in question. Thus, it might not
require any more additional protection, as long as the temple serves its
purpose like prayers, offerings and magical work.
A lot of problems with protection these days happen because people and
magical workers these days serve no specific deity nor spirit, and because of
this lack of spiritual entities around, people lack magical protection, as well.
There is a simple way of protecting the room. Just sit down, relax and use
visualization to visualize a square cross on each of the walls, the floor and the
ceiling. Visualize one cross per surface for few minutes, and then move to
another surface. Remember to cut the attachment you make with each of the
walls (or actually, the magical symbols you create). A square cross is often
used in many traditions as a way of creating an impenetrable barrier. It's quite
common in middle Asia and in the European magical tradition. Other magical
symbols can be placed on the walls, either with paint, or as hand-made
amulets, or through intense magical visualization. For example, Om or
pentagrams or even pentacles can be placed as a mean of shielding places. As
always, everything depends on the tradition and the magical path you walk.
Some schools of thought may know ways of creating additional objects of
protection that can be used as personal amulets, or that can be placed in the
house to protect it the people who live in the building. But often, energetic
constructs and shields are simple visualized – magical incantations and entire
phrases are being written into the walls to protect the building. Clairvoyant
people can see these symbols written through energetic means into the walls.
Know this - when it comes to magical self-defense in general, the more
techniques you use, the stronger your defense is. Of course, be reasonable –
do not mix too many tools from too many traditions, or you will risk creating
an energetic chaos. Stick to more natural elements like those based on
elemental energies (salt, fire) or forces of nature (sound), and if you use
specific magical techniques to protect yourself or the room, stick to a single
tradition only. For example, personally I connect elemental energies with
Reiki – and I use fire, salt and Reiki to protect myself and places in which I
dwell.
Some Traditional Methods
Local knowledge and folk traditions are full of methods of dealing with
unwanted spirits and unwanted spiritual and magical influence. Never, ever
ignore the folk knowledge. It's especially useful when it comes to dealing
with local spirits and magical phenomena. General European folk tradition
speaks of some useful techniques that work well against unwanted spirits of
the European traditions – iron, charcoal, garlic and holy water. These can be
used as natural amulets – or simple repellents.
Garlic can be applied as a way to repel lesser spirits. It may sound trivial, but
films and modern pop-culture are not that far away from the truth, as garlic,
just as salt, has some ancient magical power. In different areas of the world,
different herbs and vegetables or even fruits were used to repel unwanted
spirits. Just place the garlic in the room, and less powerful spirits won't
approach the place. Other similar things can be used – of course, these are
very simple ways that won't work for more powerful spirits.
Iron – natural iron is a traditional European way to repel unwanted
spirits. Charcoal can be used with the similar effect. Just keep them
close to you, or place them in the room which you want to protect.
Holy Water – or simple blessed water, while it's associated with
Christian tradition, in reality water has been in magical use for
thousands of years. It's associated with cleansing capabilities, and once
it is blessed with sacred magical practices, it becomes a powerful
magical tool with many faces.

Similar techniques to defensive herbs or minerals can be applied on other

paths – sacred stones or plants can be associated with defensive purposes, and
again, it depends on the path and local tradition. Once again, I want you to
remember that you should refer to the sources of your tradition, and to the
sources about your local folk beliefs if you wish to operate in the specific
region of the world.
White Light That Comes From Higher Spiritual Planes
Those who walk a strong "light" path may have access to something we call
the White Light. In many regions of the world, the White Light is a term that
describes a powerful, higher spiritual energy that comes from the Source –
God, the Great Spirit or whatever its name is. To the spirits of from of the
"dark side", the While Light is a burning force that may be enough to even
destroy them. Accessing the White Light is not easy – it requires years of
practices, trust in "Great Spirit" and true belief that this White Light exists.
It can be used as a beam to attack negative spirits that attack you. Or it can be
used to wrap around unpleasant spirits and trap them, making them
powerless. If it won't render the spirit powerless, it will at least weaken the
attack, which may be enough to call for help or use other methods of magical
defense. A practitioner use visualization to call in the White Light force and
then it controls it to some degree. Simple relax and visualize the bright white
light that comes from the "Source" and direct it with your intentions.
Still, you may try to visualize a great, white spiritual light wrapping around
an attacking spirit, or countering a different energy that attacks you – to some
degree, depending on your skills and experience, this kind of magical action
can be effective against spirits and other types of attack. The White Light can
be used to create protective shields, too.
Magical Shields, or Energy Shields
By some people considered being a modern concept, the creation of an
energy shield made of spiritual light or different forms of energies is quite an
old idea in the world of magick. For ages, magical practitioners were using
intention to create spiritual protection around themselves without any use of
symbols or magical items. For this very day, energy shields – thought-forms
– are considered to be a basic form of magical self-defense. Although they
won't be successful against every kind of magical attack, they are the first
thing to learn by a beginner magus.
These energy shields have various uses. Magical shields can protect you
against magical attacks, unwanted spiritual influence, or energetic
discomfort, for example, if you spend your time in a place with energies that
make you feel uncomfortable. They are being created through energy
manipulation and energy programming – two elements of magical work that
you already know. Some of them consist of pure energy that is visualized as
impenetrable wall, or as strong metal bubbles. Other shields are visualized
with magical symbols and incantations upon them to strengthen their effect.
All you have to do to create a shield is the intention and visualization. Close
your eyes, and visualize an energy forming around you. This energy should
form itself into a bubble around you, and then you can set more intentions –
visualize the energy to be a White Light that protects you against magical
attacks. Or visualize the energy to become a brick wall, impenetrable to any
unwanted energies. Or if you know them, use symbols of magical defense
and place them upon the visualized shield. Such visualization takes from 5 to
15 minutes, and once it is done, it will work for about 24 hours – again, it all
depends on your skills. As you can see, it's all about visualization and
intention.
You should visualize the dispersion of the shield before going to bed to sleep
because if you're just a beginner, you may block yourself to vital life energies
that your body draws while it sleeps.
There are few basic types of shields:
Light Shields – made of bright, spiritual light that disperse all negative
energies. This is the basic type of magical shield.
Bubble Shields – a simple visualized shield that looks like a transparent
bubble, through which unwanted energies cannot pass.
Mirror shields – this type of shield is meant to reflect the attack, yet I
mention it to warn you - it is advisable not to use mirror shields when
you program this basic self-defense tool. While they can be effective,
yes, you do not have control over the direction, in which the energy
attack is reflected. In some way, you may harm those you love.

Other shields – with visualized symbols, or shields made of different spiritual

light and color, can be found across magical traditions of the world. Using
them won't harm you, and it's a good way of defending yourself even if
you're an experienced magical worker. The thing is that the only difference
between the shield of a beginner and the shield of an experienced magus is
the strength and complexity of the shield.
Using Noise and Sound
It is said that loud noises – from something as simple as radio, to something
more magical like drums and gongs. They are often used in magical rituals as
a mean of protection against unwanted spiritual influence. Something as
simple as wind chimes is often used to scare small unpleasant spirits away
from the house, or the room – just hang few wind chimes inside your house
and outside it, and lesser evil spirits will keep their distance.
Using Salt for Magical Defense and Protection
For thousands of years, salt was considered to be a powerful tool of
protection against magick. For this very day, we use salt in magical self-
defense. You should not be afraid of using it, as well. Kitchen salt will be
sufficient as a basic protection tool to use in magical doing – and how to use
it? By now you should already know that you can cleanse yourself by using
salt under the shower or in a cleansing bath. In addition, you can shield the
room with salt. There are few ways to do so.
You can sprinkle salt in every four corners of the room, or in every four
cardinal direction – North, South, West and East. This is the basic way
to shield and protect the room.
Or, you can draw a line of salt under every window and door on the
inside. Shielding such entrances is very traditional in some parts of the
world.

But there is another method of shielding with salt – you can draw a circle
with salt. First, draw a circle by standing outside it. This is important – do not
draw a circle around yourself, because if you're under attack from an entity,
you may trap it within the circle with you. The best way to draw the circle is
to draw if from the outside, and then walk inside it. It is a well known truth
that literally nothing will pass through the circle made of salt. If you're in a
need of strong magical defense, try this method. The circle can be as small as
half a meter in diameter, or as big as few meters in diameter.
You can carry salt in a small bag with you, and it will repel lesser spirits. In
the rooms, you can place salt lamps, as well – they don't simple look nice, but
they're also healthy, and the bigger they are, the stronger they are, and they
can repel and protect the room against lesser and greater evil spirits.
Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
The Ritual of the Pentagram is an effective technique which can be used for
magical defense when other techniques fail to deal with the problem. There
are few types of this ritual, which originate from European magical traditions,
especially from the practices of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The
version of the ritual which interests you is the ritual of the Earth pentagram.
To understand why we call it an Earth pentagram, you should look at the
image below – it explains which elements are assigned to which point of the
pentagram.
 Earth Pentagram
Anyone can use this ritual, it works no matter of your faith or magical path of
your choice – although the Essentials of Magick is a neutral and universal
book, the following ritual is associated with Hebrew tradition – it also utilizes
names of Archangels, which are higher spiritual beings, and in such way, it
may be classified as universal.
A word of warning - the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Earth Pentagram will
block you for all kinds of energies for about 48 hours, whether positive or
negative. Thus, if you're, for example, a psychic healer, then for 48 hours,
give or take, you will be unable to perform healing. Even so, do not be afraid
of using this ritual, because it works, and it's a powerful defensive measure.
Those who are not sure about the Hebrew connections should not use the
following rituals – trust your own heart. But if everything else fails, at your
own risk, use the banishing ritual as follow:
1. Take a steel dagger in the right hand (or if you can't find the ritual
dagger, simple use the index finger).
2. Face EAST.
3. Perform the Kabbalistic Cross as follows:
1. Imagine, at the first word intoned, a brilliant white light descend
from above.
2. Touch the forehead and vibrate ATEH (thou art).
3. Imagine that same brilliant white light form a 6 inch diameter
sphere just above the crown of your head.
 4. Touch the middle of the solar plexus and vibrate MALKUTH
(Kingdom).
5. Imagine a shaft of light descending from the Crown Sphere and
descend to the feet where another 6 inch sphere expands just under
your feet.
6. Touch the right shoulder and vibrate VE-GEVURAH (and Power).
7. Imagine a 6 inch sphere of brilliant white light appear just next to
the right shoulder.
8. Touch the left shoulder and vibrate VE-GEDULAH (and Glory).
9. Imagine a shaft of light emerge from the right Sphere and cross
your breast to expand and form another Sphere at your left
shoulder.
10. Clasp the hands before you and vibrate LE-OLAHM (for ever).
11. At this point imagine clearly the cross of light as it extends through
your body.
12. Hands as before, with the dagger between fingers, point up, vibrate
AMEN.
4. Draw in the air facing EAST a banishing Pentagram (Earth Pentagram
as in the illustration earlier) and bringing the point of the dagger (or the
finger) to the center of the Pentagram, vibrate the Name Y H V H
(pronounced YAHD HEY VAU HEY - the name of God).
5. Imagine that your voice carries forward to the LIMITS of the
UNIVERSE.
6. Without moving the dagger in any other direction, trace a semicircle
before you as you turn toward the SOUTH. Again trace the earth
Pentagram, bring the dagger to the center of it, and vibrate the Name
ADNI (pronounced AH-DOH-NEYE).
7. Again, trace the semicircle with the dagger to the WEST, trace the
Pentagram, bringing the dagger to the center, and vibrate the Name
AHIH (pronounced EH-YEH).
8. Then, turn towards the NORTH, while tracing the circle, trace the
Pentagram, bring the point of the dagger to the center and vibrate
theName AGLA (pronounced either AH-GAH-LAH or ATAH GIBOR
LE- OLAHM ADONAI).
 9. Return to the EAST, completing tracing the circle of brilliant white
Light, bringing the dagger point to the center of the EAST Pentagram.
10. Extend the arms in the form of a cross, say: BEFORE ME (then vibrate)
RAPHAEL (pronounced RAH-PHYE-EHL).
11. Imagine a scintillating brilliant white Archangel in front of you and
facing you. In his/her right hand is a magical Sword held with the point
upright. The background is a pale, pure, bright yellow. Cherubs can be
imagined near the Archangel. Imagine a gentle, refreshing breeze,
cleansing and purifying the air.
12. Then, say: BEHIND ME (then vibrate) GABRIEL (pronounced GAH-
BREE- EHL).
13. Imagine a scintillating brilliant white Archangel behind you and facing
you, holding in their right hand an exquisite silver Chalice. He/she is
standing on a Cerulean-blue ocean and dolphins or mermaids are nearby.
Imagine feeling the mist and cool spray of the ocean breeze.
14. Then, say: AT MY RIGHT HAND (then vibrate) MICHAEL
(pronounced MEE-CHYE-EHL).
15. Imagine a scintillating brilliant white Archangel at your right, facing
you, and holding in their right hand a transparent scarlet red Wand with
a scintillate pure diamond top. Waves of scarlet, red-orange and orange
fire in the background. Small black salamanders can be seen moving
among the flames. Imagine you feel the heat and power emanating from
the SOUTH.
16. Then, say: AT MY LEFT HAND (then vibrate) AURIEL (pronounced
AWE-REE-EHL).
17. Imagine a scintillating brilliant white Archangel at your left, facing
you,and holding between their hands a Disk with a scintillating white
Pentagram in the center. The ground is russet-brown, the leaves of the
trees are olive-green, there are black shadows from the trees in a number
of places, and the light is citrine (light yellow-green). Feel the solidity of
the Earth, and imagine the odor of the leaves and muskiness of the
ground.
18. Now, say: ABOUT ME FLAMES THE PENTAGRAMS, AND IN THE
COLUMN SHINES THE SIX-RAYED STAR.
19. Imagine the complete circle of brilliant white light at whose quadrants
are the 4 Pentagrams. At the center is the Kabbalistic Cross of Light
extended through one's body.

That completes the rite.

Asking Archangel Michael, and Getting Support From Other Spirits
If everything else fails, there's always another option – to call Archangel
Michael for help – or any other powerful entity you trust. Now, this requires
some explanation. Personally, I trust the winged higher entity that I recognize
as Michael, but not everyone will do so. I have described these issues in the
Book of Spirits. Thus, you should know that depending on your tradition and
magical path, there might be spirits which you can call for help if you get
yourself into magical troubles, and they're not necessary Angels. Some
entities are very altruistic, and other entities require regular offerings or
devotion to practicing, acting in accordance of the Law of Exchange.
Know your tradition well, and know which spirit you may call for help when
attacked by dangerous entities. And when you do ask other spirits for help,
know how to thank them, how to make offerings, or how to repay them –
either directly, or by being altruistic yourself in case of some Light Beings.
Prayer
Finally, never forget to pray – prayer is nothing else but a speech directed to
higher spiritual power – God, the Great Spirit, the Source and so on. Pray for
protection, and if your heart is pure, then you may be surprised that your
prayer brings effects. If you pray honestly, the help will come.
Trick or Treat?
It happened few years ago, when my clairvoyance abilities awaken. I looked
through the window at the world beyond on Halloween night. What I could
see was at least a little bit scary. Hundreds if not thousands of dark shadows
flying around, like birds of prey looking for victims. This didn't scare me,
though – I already knew what I will see. What scared me at that time was the
lack of awareness of all these kids who walk from door to door with a smile
on their face, and a phrase in their mind: "trick or treat?"71 Although I enjoy
this very special week and final night of the year, and I do carve lanterns
made of pumpkins, I do recognize what's really going on that night, and there
is no way that I could actually leave my safe home on Halloween's night.
In some way, one can see how the New Age is creating new hazards for
magical workers of different schools. They walk from door to door, they
enjoy Halloween, and they don't care about things that fly behind the
window. And yet, everything is there, in the sources – remembered by
tradition, it is clearly said what is going on on Halloween's night. But some
parts of New Age simple care not about tradition. If you're not a big fan of
traditions then even if you do not follow any specific tradition yet, respect it
and learn from it, at least.
I share this story for another reason – the world is full of unpleasant and
dangerous spirits. Just like the physical realm is full of predators, so is the
realm of magick and spirituality. Never forget it – always remember that
you're not alone. But just like there are magical predators out there, there are
also beings that will help you whenever you need help.
The Codex of a Beginner Magus
If you wish to achieve success in the field of magick, you have to follow the
codex of a beginner.
1. Think
Don't rush things and analyze every single moment of your life. Think about
the consequences and requirements. Think if you really need magick. Think
if you can learn and practice things on your own. Often, magick is not an
individual path as the modern books would like us to believe. Often, it's a
part of greater spiritual life of the community that is associated with a
specific religion, ideology and spirits. We cannot deny that.
2. Be patient
Never rush into action, because you may realize that you haven't learned
something in the past, something that is needed *now*. Take your time, as
learning magick is a difficult and long process that will take many, many
years. If you're not patient, you may get yourself into trouble.
3. Learn
Do not limit yourself to magical or New Age books only. Read scientific
works, read about anthropology, sociology and psychology. Explore your
area of interest in details. Learn the sources, learn the history of your magical
or spiritual path. Do your homework and do your research. Do not try to learn
everything on your own – don't be afraid to ask, seek teachers and more
experienced practitioners who can teach you, help you, explain things to you.
4. Cleanse yourself on regular basis
Perform magical cleansing from time to time – at least once a week, and
every single time before and after performing magical work. But the best
thing to do is to cleanse yourself each and every single day of your life.
5. Don't forget to cut the cords
You always create cords, for example, with objects you charge with energies;
people you read through magical abilities; spirits you communicate with. The
basic rule says that if something isn't *you*, then you should use the
intention and visualization to cut the cord from that something.
6. Trust your intuition
Trust your feelings, your heart, because your intuition guides you to safety,
whether you believe it or not. If you can't hear your intuition, or if you do not
trust it yet, then forget about magick for now, and focus on learning how to
listen to your intuition. This is the proper course of action.
7. Be extra careful when dealing with spirits
Always keep in mind that the world is full of malicious spirits. Don't trust
them right away, learn about the beings you communicate with, and do not
allow them to enter your life or give you something as they may require you
to give something back. And you never know the price until it's too late.
8. There is a price to pay - think before you do
And quite often, there may be a great price to pay. If you wish to learn
magick and walk the spiritual path, there will be always a price to pay – an
offering to spirit, or a great and painful change if your life. But there is
ALWAYS a price to pay.
Chapter Endnotes
69 Siddhartha Gautama, or Historical Buddha, circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE,
from whom the school of Buddhism originates.
70 Hypnagogic imaginary – images and visions that we see in our mind
while falling asleep. A normal, common psychological phenomena.
71 Modern Halloween traditions are slowly being transferred from United
States to European countries, and my country, Poland, is no exception. More
and more people each year celebrate Halloween here in Poland. On one hand,
it is caused by weakening strength of religion of Christianity; on the other
hand, it's connected to growing awareness of globalization; and finally, it is
related to growing and expanding movement of Pagan revival.
 The Summary of the Book
You have reached the end of The Essentials of Magick. In this book, I helped
you understand the essentials of magick. Perhaps in the past, you have
practiced a lot of things that broke some safety rules I have mentioned in this
book. You should consider it to be a life lesson – learn something from such
past experiences, but now it is time to move on. It is time to implement the
basic safety rules in your practice. We all make mistakes, but more than that,
we all have to learn things – with this book, you have learned a lot.
There are many magical and spiritual traditions in the world. They have many
different techniques and practices. And each of these traditions has a set of
different terms, words and explanations, which shape the understanding of
the Universe for this particular group of people. Which of these theories is
real? Which is correct? The truth is – we do not know. But the more we know
about each other, the clearer it is to us, that in the end, we all practice and
believe the same thing. We just use different terms and techniques. We all
walk towards the same goal – we just use the different paths. We seem to
walk through the world of archetypes.
What is an archetype? Greer's encyclopedia states.
Archetype. In Jungian psychology, a "psychic dominant," a center of
psychological energy that tends to surface in human consciousness
through similar forms and images around the world and throughout time.
(…) Archetypes are inner, psychological expressions of the fundamental
human instincts. They correspond precisely to the gods, goddesses, and
other mythic figures.72
And perhaps our journey towards understanding, and our perception of life
with all its spirits, energies and magical techniques is just our inner
expression of fundamental human instincts. But no matter if this is true or
not, what we know for sure is that magick works.
The mechanisms described in this book are essentials for the practice of each
and every magical and spiritual schools. But I'm sure that sometimes,
building a bridge between this book' terms or descriptions and your own
terms and descriptions will be difficult. But if you do enough digging, you
will know that the exactly same things are present on your own path – as long
as it's valid, but they can be found under different terms, under different
descriptions, and under different explanations. Again, as long as the path is
valid – and the path is valid, when all of its elements fit together, and there is
nothing missing.
At some point, you may think that all of the above is closer to role playing
games and films than to real magick. But the fun thing is that role playing
games and films have utilized a lot of magical knowledge and tradition to
impress our minds and senses – in that order, not the other way around. At
the beginning, there was a Word – an intention. Over time, it evolved and
was blurred through interpretation and the human mind. But even so, the
essence remains the same – we just perceive it differently. And even if we see
things like in a computer game, as long as the intention of magical doing
remains, so is the magick working.
And at another point, you may recognize that magick is an essential, yet
complementary element of spiritual development and community building on
the sacred world of Mother Earth. Remember – magick that is learned for fun
or to feel better or to feel more powerful is no magick at all. Magick is a part
of our spiritual heritage – we cannot run away from this fact. What we
understand as magick is a tool that help us remember our spirit, and touch
that which is sacred. Seeking contact with the sacrum is a part of our human
existence. This contact that make us happy and wealthy – it completes us.
Without it, we're not really living. Seek magical paths as a way to find
yourself – with this intention, you will reach towards greatest benefits of
spirituality.
Walk your own path.
Once, I had a vision. Among misty mountains and great temples, in the land
of China, an old master asked me:
- Who do you serve?
- Right now, I do not know, - I replied.
- Who do you want to serve? - asked the master.
- I do not know.
- Therefore, serve yourself – he said.
- But what should I do? - I kept asking.
- Whose path do you walk?
- Right now, I do not know.
- Whose path do you want to walk?
- I do not know.
- Therefore, walk your own path – replied the master.
In this vision, I have learned an important truth – you are free, and you
should live your own life, and not the life of others.
We walk different paths – some of us are Christians, others are Buddhists,
and more and more people revive the pagan path. More and more shamans
are being called to life by spirits, and they do not belong to any specific
traditions, yet they care of Mother Earth and communities. In the end, goal is
to achieve harmony with the world once again. If we look closer, all the
magical paths and understanding leads to healing of the planet and people
that live on Earth. Magick alone cannot achieve it, but with mental,
psychological, emotional and economic changes, modern spirituality – if safe
and with strong roots – is complementary and supportive for healing of the
world.
This book provides essential knowledge that from a practical point of view is
mean to help people practice magick safely, and most important, this
knowledge is meant to help people find their own truth within themselves,
free of unwanted spiritual and magical influence of spirits, gurus and "sacred"
books.
By learning from different people and by meeting different people –
shamans, Buddhists, Taoists, Reiki masters, Elders, Asatru, pagans, animists
and others, I have learned much, but the most important lesson was that when
we respect each other and focus on building communities and peace, then all
of us can live in the same world, even if we walk different paths, even if we
practice different techniques, and even if we honor different spirits.
The path of magick or spiritual growth is not simple. It's a dangerous path
that requires patience, skills and responsibility. This book has provided you
with essential information and practices related to magick and spirituality.
With this knowledge, you should know what to look for in your own
tradition, and if you can't find it, then this book will serve you as a practical
manual to some of the essential techniques.
As you enter the gateway that leads to magical life, you leave "normal"
behind you. But you can never leave your patience nor your ability to read,
learn and gain new experiences, because from knowledge and experience
your life develops. Magick and spirituality require sacrifices and great effort,
but the result is worth it – as long as you're really ready to become a magus or
spiritual worker.
With this fresh knowledge in your head, you can now head to your magical
practice with a new approach.
- END -
Chapter Endnotes
72 Greer, p. 31
Appendixes
Appendix A: A Template for the Ritual
The time has come to explain the basic template for the ritual – or should I
say, for any form of magical work. In this small chapter, by the word "ritual",
we understand any form of magical doing – whether it's invocation,
evocation, psychic healing or meditation or something similar. Whether
you're a Wiccan witch, or a Reiki healer, or a New Age spiritual worker,
there are some basic elements that you should stick with if you wish your
ritual or magical work to be successful and safe. All the elements which you
have learned to be essentials must be now put into practice.
Cleanse Yourself
The very first step is to cleanse yourself because you want your aura to
remain strong, so it can protect you against unwanted spiritual influence from
the outside world. A clean aura will be strong, and it won't be easy to be
penetrated by any unwanted energies – for example spirits or emotions. Thus,
perform a spiritual cleansing first.
Cleanse the Room
Because you do not wish any unwanted energies which are present in the
room to interfere with your magical or spiritual work, you have to shield it –
but no shield will be good enough if you forget to cleanse the room, first.
Besides that, there might be unwanted energies in the room that might
interfere with your magical doing. Cleanse the room so you can get rid of any
unwanted energies.
Shield and Protect The Room
Because you do not want any unwanted entity or spiritual influence to
interrupt your magical or spiritual work, you should now shield the room.
Use any means you are familiar with to shield the place. Place shields,
magical symbols, sprinkle some salt or place a salt lamp around. You can
even perform more complex rite or spell to protect the area.
Shield and Protect Yourself
Because you do not wish any entity to attach to you while you're open and
drain your life energy, you should shield and protect yourself. Again, use
magical shields, or magical symbols and amulets. But use the tools of defense
that will not interfere with the coming magical work.
Get to Work
Now you can get to the primary magical work – whatever it is. After
cleansing and protecting yourself and the room you're in, you can perform
psychic readings, divination, healing work, communication with spirits,
meditation, magical rituals of a different sort.
Cleanse the Room
When you're done, you should do some more cleaning. Later on, you will
cleanse the place before the next magical work, but even so, cleaning the
room after the job done is a good thing to do. Cleanse the energies as you
usually do, but also, remove any magical symbols, whether physical or
energetic from the walls, floors and ceilings. Do this if the room you've been
working it does not belong to you and it's not your natural place of magical
work. Some other people might come to this room later to do their own
things.
Cleanse Yourself
Finally, perform a spiritual cleansing upon yourself. Also, check up on
yourself and cut any cords or attachments that might have become part of
your energetic experience. Cut the connection with all the items, spirits or
people that you may have created yourself.
You're done.
Appendix B: Additional Concepts in Magick
There are few more ideas and concepts, which I wish to share with you.
Dreams, reincarnation and shamanism. Mainly because one way or another,
they are present in modern New Age and magical circles, and understanding
them may be essential to some of my readers.
Dreams on the Path of Magick
While the knowledge of the dream phenomena is not essential for
understanding and practice of magick, a lot of systems of magick and
spirituality agrees that dreams are an important element of our life with a
magical, and spiritual significance. For this day, psychological and scientific
understanding of dreams reminds us a child in a mist. While, from these two
perspectives, we do not know what dreams really are and why do we dream,
then from magical and spiritual perspective, dreams were always important,
in almost any tradition. Dreams are said to carry a great importance for those
who experience them.
Most people dream – but a lot of people do not remember their dreams.
Personally, I believe that if you do not remember your dreams, then perhaps
there's no need for you to remember them. But when you do remember your
dreams, then you should pay attention to them as there might be a reason why
you do remember them.
There are at least two types of dreams:
1. Dreams of a release – each day we collect new experiences. Sensory
data fills our brains with tons of information, of which many are never
going to reach the conscious mind. Some information does reach our
consciousness, creating some kinds of emotions. Those who practice
meditation know that meditating in the evening help put these emotions,
then thoughts, and finally unnecessary sensory data to peace. But if one
does not practice meditation, then our brain tries to bring order to chaos
through dreams. Thus, we dream of various things: sometimes, we
dream about events from that particular day, and sometimes our dreams
illustrate emotions and sensory data that need to be "released" and let
go. The bring change them into a dream, which we experience, and then
the life goes on, and we don't have to worry about these dreams any
more.
 2. Dreams as messages – but often, dreams are messages that should be
interpreted, understood and used.

Now, that first point is simple, but the second point – dreams as messages –
requires some more explanation.
Spirits can communicate with us through dreams. This includes
positive spirits that want to help us grow spiritually or get healed; spirit
guardians that wish to help us; but it also includes evil spirits, to which
dreams are a way to influence, manipulate or scare us.
Your subconscious might communicate through dreams – dreams
can carry messages from your own subconscious. It may show you the
things that dwell deep inside you, that cause emotional pain, illness or
negative manifestation in your life. These things require healing – only
with the healing of the subconscious pain, positive life can be created,
and self-defense against magical attacks can be strengthen. In addition,
dreams can warn you against bad choices in your life.
Dreams can show you the glimpse of the future – prophetic dreams
are as old as the entire mankind. How do dreams work and why such
dreams happen it's difficult to say. And in a lot of cases, you may realize
that the dream was prophetic only after it comes true in the real life.

But dreams rarely come in an easy-to-understand way. In most situations, we

have to take great effort in interpretation of our own dreams. That is why a lot
of modern schools of magical thought explain the importance of keeping a
dream journal. In the old days, magick practitioners were consulted in order
to explain the nature of dreams. Back then, the ability to interpret dreams was
considered to be a magical ability. Today it's far more psychological than
magical, but still, it's worth the effort.
If you wish to interpret your own dreams, then – unfortunately for some
authors and book stores – dream dictionaries won't be useful for you. If you
have read this book carefully, you should remember what I said about
clairvoyance – what you see is based on your knowledge of symbols,
meanings, terms and your own experiences and understanding. The same
applies to dreams. Whatever you dream about, it is based on your own
definitions, terms, understanding, experiences, memories, symbols and
correspondences between all of this.
In other words, anything you dream about, will be understandable and
available to interpretation only to you. Others can only point you to proper
direction of interpretation – the better others know you, the better this
guidance will be. Whatever you dream about, anything you see in your dream
visions, is a subject to individual question, which you must ask yourself:
"what THIS means to ME?" Ask such question, and then wait for answers
which will come to you through your thoughts, emotions and mechanics of
your mind.
Everything that we experience has a meaning, but your understanding of
symbols is very personal and individual. Thus, dream dictionaries are no use
for you as they present far more general concepts and understanding of
symbols which will very rarely refer to the dreams you experience.
Dreams seem to be a gateway to our subconscious – if your magical path
possess tools to work with dreams, and it emphasize the importance of
dreams, then explore this subject further. And for some people and some
spiritual paths, dream will show no significance as some schools of thought
possess other techniques. I remember when I begun working with Buddhist
meditation, mantras and with Reiki techniques as I healed a lot of my
personal issues and consciously explored my subconscious, at that time I
simple stopped dreaming. And when I'm not dreaming, then I understand that
my mind is at peace.
Reincarnation, Incarnated Angels and Otherkins
Among magick practitioners today, concepts of reincarnation are widely
popular. The idea of reincarnation is simple: it says that there is an immortal
soul that is born into a new body every time the old body dies. While the
most popular concepts of reincarnation originate from Hindu and Buddhism
tradition, it appears that all traditions of the world, big and small, have some
concept of a spirit incarnating over and over again. A lot of traditions of the
world accept this idea – with minor differences. Modern teachings speak of
an evolving soul – a soul born into a human body once cannot incarnate in a
lower being any more. Other traditions, like Buddhism, believe that to born a
human is a very rare event and most of the time we live as plants, animals or
insects. In case of Buddhism, reincarnation is strongly connected to the
concept of Karma which decides what is it that you're going to be in the next
life. Even Christianity believed in reincarnation up to the V century (give or
take) until the Fathers of the Church decided otherwise.
You can read over many books that describe memories of previous
incarnations – not the ones that state the author was a Pharaoh, Marilyn
Monroe or a Pope, only to sell their book. There are many real statements and
histories from all around the world that, if they do not prove reincarnation,
make us ask wonder what if reincarnation is real.
From the concept of reincarnation, another concepts evolve:
Karma – or experiences that lie within the subconscious mind and are
passed from incarnation to incarnation. When these experiences,
programs, are positive, then in accordance with the law of attraction, the
manifest positive life. When they're negative, they manifest negative
life. What you do in this life, will bring results in the future life.
Being called to serve – often, when somebody served a spirit, for
example, a deity, in the past life, then in the new incarnation, this deity
may call the person to serve it again. This may lead to some form of
initiation, and the development of an interest in the occult, or it may lead
to awakening of magical abilities such as clairvoyance that allows the
person to communicate with the deity, in order to reawaken the
knowledge and skills again.
Evolution of the soul – this concept says that the soul evolves over
time, and it exists as a part of greater plant spirit, then the animal spirit,
and then it gains its own individuality and incarnates as a human, and
then further.

But why do I mention about reincarnation in the book about magick? Well,
reincarnation idea leads to another concept. Have you ever wondered why are
you interested in magick, or why do you have natural psychic abilities like
clairvoyance or developed sensitivity? There are few answers – few
possibilities. You may have been practicing magick in the past life – you may
have been a simple magick practitioner, or a priest, or a Druid.. The skills,
interests and abilities, as well as the level of energy you have, passes from
life to life as it seems. As it has been explained, and somehow proven by a lot
of magick practitioners. Of course, being interested in magick doesn't mean
you've been a magus in the past life – in this life, too, there are reasons why
people fall into interest of magick.
But more, there is also a concept that some spirits, from demons to nature
spirits to angels, can literally incarnate themselves into human bodies. They
do not steal the body from a poor human soul, yet they simple choose to
incarnate, and they find a child that is ready to be born, and in accordance of
some spiritual rules, they incarnate into a physical realm. This happens
because soul – the spirit – has to evolve, as everything in the world is a
subject to evolution, it seems. Such incarnated spiritual beings still have some
level of magical abilities, and quite often, they're interested in magical paths
and in spirituality. Different texts from different parts of the world often
speak of spirits who came down to Earth to live among man.
Many times, I have seen, through clairvoyance, people who were somehow
different – they had wings, or other elements that never truly fit the idea of a
human energy body. They turned out to be incarnated spirits – some of then
angels, other nature spirits (fairies). Those who are clairvoyant or have their
magical senses developed, can distinct a normal human spirit from other
spirits, and there is a term to describe such people – they are so called
Otherkins. Some people may believe they're human until they experience
their "Awakening". The "Awakening" is a term that describes a moment, in
which the person realizes that his or hers soul is far from human.
Being an Otherkin doesn't mean that one is better or worse than humans73 –
all of us are souls, spirits, which travel across time and space, growing and
evolving, as it seems in order to reach the Source again, from which we call
originate. Otherkins – just like human souls, have their lives, their problems,
their strengths and weaknesses – it's normal. Being incarnated means that a
lot of what you are is lost on the way to Earth – angels may prove to be a
serious pain in the back because one way or another, their life is shaped by
the world they live in. And it may take many incarnations to ascend into
"angelship" again. Don't force yourself to see wings on your back – everyone
can learn magick, and everyone can walk the spiritual path – you do not have
to be an incarnated angel. But if someone notices, through magical senses,
that you have wings or something non-human, then don't be surprised.
Personally, I know quite few incarnated angels and a single incarnated Faery
spirit.
From this, we move further as there is a concept that animals and insects do
not have a soul – nor an individual spirit, yet all animals create one great
spirit of the animal kingdom. If the animal spends too much time among
humans, this animal's part of the great spirit becomes an individual and has
no other option but to incarnate into a human body and grow; thus evolve
spiritually. This is the animistic point of view. This is the already mentioned
evolution of the soul.
You do not have to believe in reincarnation – it's not mandatory. I always
believed that we should focus on "here and now", and do not truly worry
about things that might have been or may be. If you worry about your past
life – don't be. Whatever it is that must be healed, it will come to you when
you're ready. And if you worry about your next life – don't be. Just be a good
person in this life. Finally, do not seek fortune tellers and psychics so you can
get excited by knowing your past lives – in reality, there is no point of
knowing such things. As I said, if there is something important you have to
know, then it will come to you on its own when you're ready.
Shamanism, Initiation and Call to Serve the Spirits
More and more people are initiated into shamanism – as the idea of being a
shaman is quite popular these days, and more than that, it is often
misunderstood, I want to explain the concept in greater detail in this book.
What is shamanism? How does one become a shaman? And what is the
purpose of shamans?
The word "shaman" originate from wast spaces of Syberia, but over time, it
was accepted as a common term to describe a person that acts like a mediator
between the world of man and the world of spirits. Over time, with New Age
books, the term evolved further to describe a person that is close to nature.
Thus, modern shamanism is often understood as a pagan path on which the
shaman work with nature spirits, hug trees and play on a drum. This is far
from reality, really. What most people understand as shamanism is in reality
neoshamanism – a completely different path.
Neoshamanism is egalitarian – it means everyone can follow this path.
Everyone can hug trees, respect Mother Nature, honor the spirits. Everyone
can take part in a sweat lodge74 rituals, play drums and use the powerful
magical plants. But these are all rituals – quite often without any other
meaning – unless they are run by a true shaman.
A true shaman is a person that mediates between the world of man and the
world of spirits. One cannot decide to become a shaman – one has to be
chosen by spirits, this is the ultimate truth. There are few things that define
the true shaman:
He has been chosen by spirits – literally, spirits came and chose the
 person to be a shaman. Later on, they will initiate him and teach him in
the art of shaman "art".
He has passed through shaman's illness and completed the initiation
– he had fallen ill, yet he managed to use the knowledge passed by his
spirits to heal himself. He changed his life and his personality; thus he
completed the initiation process.
He has a tribe which he serves – without people to serve and help there
is no true shaman.

Shamanism is not egalitarian – not everyone can become a shaman because a

shaman is chosen by spirits, not by individual decision. And it is a difficult
path – if you wish to know more, you should refer yourself to anthropological
sources written by scientists – interviews with tribal societies' shamans can
explain a lot about the nature of true shamanism. But shamans are being
initiated all the time – even today. While a lot of books talk about shamanism
as a spiritual path, in reality they are talking about neoshamanism. You
should not consider yourself a shaman if you haven't been chosen by spirits –
if you do, and you walk this path incorrectly, then spirits may become
interested in you – and they may show you your mistake, and it won't be
pleasant – considering yourself a shaman if you're not a shaman is a
disrespect for spirits. But something worse may happen – spirits may decide
to choose you to be a shaman – and it's a very painful, very difficult and very
responsible path, to which not everyone is ready. A lot of those who were not
able to pass the initiation process ended up with mental illness – a real mental
illness.
In some regions of the world, where the shamanic tradition was lost over
time, they might be no more traditional practice left. But spirits remember,
and they still initiate, and they teach the modern shamans everything that
must be known. In North America, Syberia, Sout America, Africa and similar
regions, the traditions, practices and knowledge survived – if not entirely,
then in some part, at least. In most parts of Europe, these traditions were
nearly entirely destroyed. For example, to be a bit personal, while Slavic
tradition has been destroyed in 90% within the last 1500 years, the Polish
tradition, our gods, "shamans", practices and rituals, were destroyed in 99%.
In some regions of the world, those who are chosen by spirits have to create
their practice and tradition from scratch, often literally.
What is interesting is that more and more people are initiated for shamans in
Europe – even more than in countries that are well known for their tribal past
and modern shamans. As I discussed this with friends, it appears that there is
a reason for this – while North and South America or Africa never lost their
shamans and their animistic wisdom, the Europe was not so lucky – and
perhaps this is why more shamans are initiated each year in Europe – perhaps
the spirits wants the people of Europe and "Western countries" to regain their
spiritual heritage. Because regaining this heritage might save Mother Nature
and the society in general.
Believe it or not, but modern shamans are not that different from ordinary
people. They have homes and families. They go to work, and they raise their
children. They cook and enjoy daily life, and there's nothing extraordinary
about it.
Perhaps you've been chosen to be a shaman, too, and the spirits lead you to
this part of the book so you can understood what you're going through. Or
maybe you're already a shaman, and you know it, and you simple wish to
learn more about magick. In any way, one may ask "how do I know I have
been chosen by spirits?" - the answer is simple: you will know. This is quite
simple – if you have doubts, the spirits will guide you, and you will have
your answer.
Sometimes, another shaman finds the person that has been chosen by spirits,
and begin to teach that person. If this is not the case, then, in the end, the
spirits will teach the future shaman all he or she needs to know. This book do
not teach about being a shaman – I'm no shaman so I can't really teach about
it from the practical perspective.
I mention this issue because a lot of people are initiated for shamans these
days – if this happens to you, know that there is no way to turn away from the
spirits. If you do, they may cause great harm to you. But if you've been
chosen for this "job", then know that you're the right person to do this job,
and you can manage – it takes time, responsibility, patience and inner
strength, but the spirits choose wisely – and their have their reasons. Shamans
help local communities; they heal, communicate with spirits, solve problems.
They are the spiritual leaders of communities – a difficult work, but a
beneficial one – and an important work it is, too. Shamans often work with
altered states of consciousness, traveling to different planes of existence – the
lower worlds and the upper worlds. Sometimes they fight with spirits –
sometimes they win and sometimes they lose. So it's not a path in which
there's only the bright side.
Know this – there is a difference between shamanism and neoshamanism. If
you want to be a shaman, don't – if the spirits decide to initiate you, then you
may become a shaman. Otherwise, choose a different path for yourself. And
when spirits choose you – then you will know it.
Appendix C: How to Begin the Practice of Magick
The most obvious question that may come to your mind is: with all the
knowledge about the essentials of magick, how do I begin the practice of
magick, anyway? Well, this is a common question, and right now, I will try
to do my best with providing you with the answer.
The very first step is to answer yourself do you need to learn magick, and
why do you want to learn magick. Your reasons should be related to the
process of improving yourself and connecting to that, which is sacred, which
is a natural need of human beings. Negative intentions are a sign that you're
not ready to deal with magick, but to seek a healer, first. If your heart is pure,
then you have to decide which path do you want to follow.
The most obvious decision would be to choose the path related to your
geographical and cultural region. This is what most people do. But since
everyone is free, you can choose any path you want. But you should choose
only one path, at stick to it as long as possible. A lot of people change their
magical path few times a year because they cannot see the results of their
practice. But the truth is that the results will come, but only after years of
practice. Magick is not a fast path towards success.
After choosing the path which you want to walk for the next few years, you
should start learning. Grab as many books about your chosen path as
possible. Do not seek knowledge only in the Internet, but read the books – the
more you read the better. Seek anthropological and historical resources about
your path, as well. If you know people who can teach you about your path,
seek their help and teachings, too. The path of magick is the path of learning.
You should learn the basic techniques of magick: magical cleansing of
yourself and the places you live in; the techniques of divination; the
techniques of focusing and clearing your mind; the techniques of grounding,
too. You can use the basic teachings from this book, but whenever you can,
use the techniques that are originally a part of tradition or the path which you
have chosen to be yours. These techniques will be the most effective for you.
Learning these techniques is possible from books, but if you have an
opportunity, learn from a real teacher face to face. Basically, you should
learn:
How to deal with unwanted and unpleasant energies in the room and
 upon yourself.
How to listen to your intuition and seek the guidance of your own higher
mind.
How to focus your mind, how to bring peace to chaotic thoughts and
how to develop the mental discipline.
How to ground yourself, relax, and deal with overwhelming amounts of
magical energies.

Then, you should learn what kind of spirits are related to the path you walk –
these spirits may be met on your path sooner or later. But also, you should
learn what kind of spirits dwell in your local regions because you may
encounter them, as well. With this, you should learn how to behave in the
presence of these spirits.
From that, you should learn how to defend yourself on the path of magick, so
you should learn the techniques of magical self-defense. You can use the
techniques from this book, but your magical path will have a collection of
similar defensive techniques.
As you continue learning, you have to learn to seek knowledge, be
responsible, think, study, and listen to your intuition, as well to those more
experienced magical workers. You have to develop your intuition and mental
discipline.
After that, and I'm sure the above will take many months to learn, you will be
ready to learn more specific techniques that can help you achieve the specific
goals you had in mind when you decided to start learning magick. This will
be the time to learn energy manipulation, programming and the basic
communication with spirits. Within the first year, learn how to create
amulets, or even talismans if you wish. Within the next 2 years, you may
learn how to perform individual rituals, and how to design your own rituals.
And this will be the best way to start learning magick. In the end, there is no
universal guide to beginning magical work. Because everything starts with
the question "why do you want to learn magick". From there, and only from
there, we can move on with teachings and advises on an individual basis.
Chapter Endnotes
73 Some movements of incarnated beings – as they form their circles and
communities – think they're better than others simple because they have
energetic wings. Well, my comment is simple – if they believe they're better,
then their ego shows everything you have to see.
74 Many cultures in the world developed the idea of sweat lodges – this
tradition is present in North and Sout America, Africa and Europe, and in
other parts of the world. While some believe that it's simple a North America
tradition made popular, this is far from reality as other spiritual traditions in
the world used sweat lodge for spiritual purposes.
About the author
Nathaniel lives in Poland where he runs his publishing company and Reiki
practice. He's a Reiki master teacher from two lineages. A psychic and
clairvoyant, he has been taught in the ways of European esoteric teachings by
multiple teachers. He's an author of multiple books on spiritual subjects such
as Psychic Development Simplified or The Art of Seeing.
In the past, he practiced elemental magick, Chaos Magick and Taoist
energetic arts.
If you have questions related to magick or spirituality, to which you cannot
find answer, contact Nathaniel:
[email protected]
You can also become a fan or friend with Nathaniel on Goodreads, a website
for book lovers: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3436123.Nathaniel
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More Books by Nathaniel
 Table of Contents
The Book of Theory
The Definition of Magick
Why do People Practice Magick, and the Types of Magical Effects
The Definition of Black Magick
The Basics You Need - Thinking
Mental Stability in the Practice of Magick
The Process of Initiation
Your "Psychic" Intuition
The Book of the Worlds
The Different Layers of the World
Different Worlds, Different Layers of You
Esoteric and Exoteric Practices
Animism and the Theory of Gaia
The Book of Energies
The World of Energies
The Life Force
Elemental Energies of Air, Fire, Water and Earth
Manipulation and Programming of Energies
Energy Follow Thoughts – The Universal Law of Magick
Places of Power; Places of Despair
The Clair Vision and Sensitivity in Magick
The Practical Skills of Grounding and Centering
Practical Techniques of Cleansing and Dealing With Unwanted Energies
Common Energetic Problems in Magick
The Real Law of Attraction in Magick
The Book of Spirits
Categorizing and Perceiving the World of Spirits
Different Types of Spirits
 How to Deal with Spirits
Communication With Spirits
The Book of Tools
Incenses - the Practical Use of Air Element and Sacred Smoke
Candles, Your Very Best Friend
Talismans and Amulets: Practical Creation, Use, Cleansing and
Destruction
Drums, Gongs and Wind Chimes, or the Power of Sound
The Power of Symbols
The Altar & Your Sacred Space
Sacred Objects, Cursed Objects
The Tools of Divination and Mantic
The Book of Safety
Types and Reasons for Magical Attacks
Recognizing Magical Attacks
Linking and Attachments, How to Deal With Them
The Problems of The Magus
Practical Self-Defense Against Unwanted Spiritual Influence
The Codex of a Beginner Magus
The Summary of the Book
Appendixes
Appendix A: A Template for the Ritual
Appendix B: Additional Concepts in Magick
Appendix C: How to Begin the Practice of Magick
Bibliography