{"id":6664,"date":"2017-07-02T05:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-07-02T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=6664"},"modified":"2017-07-01T09:22:28","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T15:22:28","slug":"magic-amateurs-vs-professionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2017\/07\/magic-amateurs-vs-professionals.html","title":{"rendered":"Magic: Amateurs vs. Professionals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Several times over the past few months I\u2019ve made the statement \u201cthe best way to believe in magic is to work magic.\u201d Magic is not powered by faith and it\u2019s not hampered by unbelief. If you do the spell right, you\u2019ll get results whether you expect them or not. This is likely one source of the old warning \u201cbe careful what you wish for \u2013 you just might get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll get the greatest results, or even the results you want. Belief is irrelevant but skill is not. And as with any other skill, magic is improved with good practice. One of the few things I remember from high school gym class was a quote from Vince Lombardi: \u201cpractice doesn\u2019t make perfect \u2013 perfect practice makes perfect.\u201d If you practice the wrong way or the ineffective way, you\u2019ll get very good at wrong or ineffective things.<\/p>\n

$\"06$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s shoot for more than that<\/h1>\n
Jason Miller of StrategicSorcery.net<\/a> is a professional magician. I\u2019ve never taken one of his classes, but I\u2019ve heard him speak at a couple of Pagan conferences and what he says usually makes good sense. Last week he had a blog post titled \u201cWhatever Works\u201d should not equal \u201cWhatever\u2019s Easiest\u201d<\/a>. It\u2019s a very short post if you want to go read it now. Here\u2019s a key quote:<\/p>\n
If you do magic, any magic, chances are\u00a0something<\/em>\u00a0will happen. You will get some result \u2026<\/p>\n
Lets all shoot for more than that, yea?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not measure success by whether we feel a spirit or get a message or not. Let\u2019s measure it in terms of depth of experience. Did it actually change you by being in its presence? Did it actually tell you something you didn\u2019t already know? Did it challenge you in any way or did it just affirm you? Is what it said useful?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When we\u2019re just starting out \u2013 whether with magic or with the religious experience of Gods and spirits \u2013 any result is a good result. Even a weak result gives us first-hand evidence that this is real and that it\u2019s worth investing time and energy into learning how to do it effectively. Even a trivial result motivates us to dive deeper.<\/p>\n
But then we have to make that deep dive and start getting better. We have to study, to draw on the experience of those who\u2019ve gone before us. We have to practice, so we build our skills. We have to review our results, so we can be sure our magic is bringing what we expect it to bring. And we have to make adjustments, since we rarely get things perfect the first time.<\/p>\n
Perfect practice makes perfect<\/h1>\n
Getting really good takes years, but how long you\u2019ve been practicing isn\u2019t always relevant. I used to have a boss who would ask \u201cdo you have ten years\u2019 experience or do you have one year\u2019s experience ten times over?\u201d That\u2019s as true in magic as it is in business.<\/p>\n
When we do the right things consistently, we put ourselves on the path to becoming professional magicians.<\/p>\n
Here I use \u201cprofessional\u201d not to mean someone who gets paid or someone who does it full time. Rather, I\u2019m using \u201cprofessional\u201d to mean someone who\u2019s put the necessary work into learning their craft and is really good at it.<\/p>\n
$\"04$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Every now and then I come across someone who calls themselves a \u201cnatural witch.\u201d Like everything else in life, the capacity for magic isn\u2019t evenly distributed across the population. I have little natural talent for baseball (and I really wanted to be a baseball player) but more than adequate natural talent for engineering, so I became an engineer. Magic comes easy for some and very hard for others.<\/p>\n
Natural witches will get better than average initial results. If they work at developing their craft, they can reach some truly amazing levels of magic. If they don\u2019t work at it, they\u2019ll soon be passed by ordinary folks who are practicing more diligently.<\/p>\n
The time to practice is before you have a need<\/h1>\n
For most of my Pagan life, I\u2019ve worked magic on an as-needed basis. If life is going well, why bother with magic? Ordinary actions are more reliable and often they\u2019re easier \u2013 done right, magic is a lot of work. It\u2019s when ordinary actions aren\u2019t yielding satisfactory results \u2013 or when the need is beyond the reach of ordinary actions \u2013 that most of us turn to magic. And then we discover that our skills aren\u2019t up to the task, because we didn\u2019t practice (or didn\u2019t practice enough) during ordinary times.<\/p>\n
In The Chaos Protocols<\/a><\/em>, Gordon White recommends monthly sigil magic: create and charge five to ten sigils for specific goals every month. The purpose is straightforward \u2013 to manifest those five to ten things in your life sooner rather than later. I started doing this shortly after I read the book last year, and I can tell you that it has the additional benefit of being very good magical practice. While I\u2019m far from an expert, now I can create sigils faster and easier. More importantly, my results are getting better.<\/p>\n
Even in societies where magic was a part of everyday reality, ordinary people weren\u2019t magicians. They would pray and make offerings, and they\u2019d pay attention to signs and omens. But if they needed serious magic they went to the local witch, or in some cases the local priest. They went to the professional magician.<\/p>\n
So either become a professional magician and get really good at it\u2026 in which case you should expect people to start coming to you for magical help. Or support your local witch, so the witch has the time and resources to dedicate to getting really good at magic.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be professional magicians<\/h1>\n
Getting results from magic is, well, magical. All your life you\u2019ve been told magic is fantasy, it\u2019s fiction, it\u2019s self delusion. And yet here it is, working for you. It feels amazing.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s not be satisfied with feeling magical. Let\u2019s not be satisfied with being amateur magicians. Let\u2019s do the work necessary to become professional magicians.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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