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\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of my magical teachers and longtime friends once said to me that magic is about making a connection, and he\u2019s absolutely right. People who get into the \u201cNothing is at rest, everything vibrates\u201d principle will also argue that it\u2019s about vibrating at the same frequency of whatever you\u2019re trying to attract or reach out to. Heck, sounds a lot like some of the Law of Attraction folk so I\u2019ll stick that perspective in there too.<\/p>\n
So what does that mean? What is creating a connection or a link all about in magic? My perspective of it is this: it\u2019s about speaking the right language as to be understood, and programming your ritual in such a way that you\u2019re able to communicate with whatever force or intelligence exists on the other end.<\/p>\n
Ceremonial magicians can go on for hours about correspondences; Crowley\u2019s 777 is evidence of that alone and that\u2019s one of a few texts purely on that subject. You pick what makes sense, and you leave out what doesn\u2019t, and the end result is a coherent recipe upon which to lay your ritual foundations and even the timing of the ritual itself.<\/p>\n
Which makes people\u2019s objections in the pagan and polytheist communities about \u201cplug and play\u201d with deities of different cultural backgrounds into a ritual that had nothing to do with their culture make all that much more sense. I\u2019m not going to use a Hellenic ritual to make an offering to Papa Legba, and it makes no sense to call on Apollo in an Irish Druidic rite\u2013even more so if these were deities and daemons I\u2019ve not had any or much contact with, and hence have no established personal connections to already. If I wanted to phone the French ambassador, I am not going to address him in Japanese or call him by names other than his preferred given name and titles.<\/p>\n
In short, it\u2019s not just a matter of being understood; it\u2019s also a matter of respect.<\/p>\n
The Chaldean Oracles warn not to \u201cchange the foreign words of evocation\u201d for they contain within them a sacred power, and that those names are also sacred. While I\u2019ve heard all sorts of reasoning ranging from respecting the original culture and maintaining purity to merely\u00a0\u201cwords have power\u201d, I\u2019ll also argue the more practical \u201cThis is the best way to establish a connection or link to the entity or force you are calling upon\u201d.<\/p>\n
The ritual or magical act itself for me is part communication, part computer program, or perhaps more accurately \u201ca program which allows me to communicate with whatever force or entity is involved in this operation\u201d. On the whole, I think of magic as my ongoing connection and communication with an underlying part of reality which can talk back and respond to my ideas and desires.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a respectful, meaningful dialogue. In comparison with what I am communicating I am clearly on the level of a two year old, still struggling with basic sentence structures and not really getting a whole lot yet while trying to figure out this weird thing called \u201creality\u201d. I may never get there, and my attempts at doing so may boil down to me poking at it with a stick, but if I find that certain types of pokes get certain results, then that\u2019s progress I can repeat.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Magic is more than just intent and will, it’s about effectively communicating with the world around you. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3146,"featured_media":84,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[22,12,6,19,21,18,8],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magic-and-witchcraft","tag-ceremonial-magic","tag-magic","tag-magick","tag-ritual-magic","tag-rituals","tag-spirit-work","tag-witchcraft"],"yoast_head":"\n