Wiccan Treatise #2: Magick

This is the second in my Wiccan Treatise series: Magick. Obviously, that encompasses a lot of things, so this'll be broken up into sections.

Anyways, here I go:

Warning: SEVERE metaphysical discussion ahead!



Magick

Section 1: Energy

"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."
-Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Star Wars"

"Luminous beings are we!"
*pinches Luke's arm*
"Not this crude matter!"
-Master Yoda, "The Empire Strikes Back"

I think those two quotes above pretty much define how I feel about the nature of magick. Let me explain a bit further though.

To understand my view of magick, you have to understand my view of the world, and that is this: I believe that, within every naturally occuring thing on earth, be it plant, animal, human, metal, even in the water and air around us, there is energy. Underneath all the chemical compounds, all the systems that make up a living being, underneath all the stuff that scientists try to explain to within a millimeter of its life, there is energy. For non-living things, like the aforementioned metals, the energy merely sits there, but for living beings, from plants to animals to humans, it's what animates us, what TRULY makes us alive, what TRULY makes us all more than the sum of our parts. Living things constantly regenerate this energy within themselves simply by being alive.

This idea, if I remember correctly, was actually a valid scientific theory during the Middle Ages. It was called "Quintessence," or "The Fifth Essence" (or, as the title of a Bruce Willis movie put it, "The Fifth Element.")

Every living thing has this energy within it to animate it, to make it truly alive. For humans, this energy is far stronger, taking the form of what most people would call a "soul." It's (at least) part of what gives us our higher intelligence that sets us above the rest of the animal kingdom. However, even animals and plants possess this energy within them, though to a lesser extent - sufficiently lesser that they don't have the higher intelligence humans have. As for naturally occuring metals and other such materials, I guess the energy is more akin to natural energies, since they can't really be considered "alive" in any sense.

For those that think the last paragraph didn't make much sense, let me borrow a bit of Eastern philosophy to try to explain it: in some parts of the East (maybe all; I'm not entirely sure), they believe that every human being has two souls: the hun, or higher soul, is responsible for the higher thinking that humans have. The p'o is the more instinctive, bestial soul. In my way of thinking, humans have both this hun and p'o life energy (or some equivalent), but animals and plants only have the p'o. So, at least for me, the p'o isn't really a "soul" as such, at least not in the way most people think of it, but rather it's a form of life energy that serves to animate the animals and plants. The Hun, however, is what most people would think of as a "soul." Get it? Got it? Good. :)

Anyways, everything naturally occuring in this world carries energy in it simply by existing. And since nothing artificial can occur without something natural, I believe that most objects have a bit of life energy within it, though in a severely diluted form. How is this possible, you ask? Well, think about it: the plastics that some materials are made out of didn't just get conjured out of thin air by some scientists in a lab, did they? No - they were made by combining many natural materials together to form this plastic. Hence, to some degree, plastic (for example) can be considered natural and therefore have some form of energy (though, like I said above, since the materials it's made from can't really be considered "alive" in any sense, it's more like nature's energies than the stuff that living things produce).

Ok, just one more note before I head to the next section: there's another source of energy that's produced by humans: emotion. Think about it: have you ever been in a situation (say, a dance club that was really hopping or a comedy show that had the whole crowd in stitches) where you could almost feel the buzz? Or, for a more somber example, have you ever been to a funeral and could feel the sense of sadness coming off of everyone, even if you didn't really know the person that well? That's another source of energy. Emotions from human beings generate this energy, and from there it permeates the air around us. In this way, a city could be as energy-rich as, say, a forest. Peace is an emotion too, however, meaning that there could be as much energy in a Buddhist temple during meditation time as in a rock concert. There's many possibilities for this energy to be released. Even (and this is going to probably sound REAL blasphemous to some, but...) a Church can be a tremendous source of energy, since all of the emotion poured out from parishoners is absorbed into the surrounding environs.

So what is magick? Read on.

Section 2: What is Magick?

Magick is, quite simply, the art of directing energy (drawn from whatever source, be it natural elements, oneself, emotion or whatever) and shaping it into a desired effect.

Think of energy as clay, and the person using magick as a potter. The caster has to mold this raw energy into a desired effect (through spells, rituals, etc). That, at its core, is what magick is.

Of course, that raises the question: what is acceptable to draw energy from? If you draw energy from a living thing, are you sucking its life force out or something? The answer to that is: in a sense, yes. Even though life energy is constantly regenerated simply by a living thing being alive, drawing from it does sort of mean sucking the life out of it. I don't think this means that someone could physically die from too much drawing of energy (unless the amount was EXTREMELY high), but I heard a story once where a Wiccan's energy was accidentally drained from her by her also-Wiccan roomate, and she suffered symptoms like dizziness, fainting, etc (the former girl found out after the fainting spells and stuff that the latter girl was using an amulet that was mistakenly left attuned to the former girl, so while the latter was using it, she was unwittingly drawing off the energy from the former instead of herself). This is why, whenever I do magick, I draw this energy from either myself, my own emotions, or the natural elements around me (something that's hardly lacking even in an urban setting, since the very air around can be used, not to mention the earth beneath my feet). I've never drawn energy from a living animal, let alone a human other than myself, to do a spell. The reprecussions brought on by the Rule of Three from such an action would be, I'm sure, very unpleasant. Of course, if you're, say, doing a spell in concert with someone else (or several someone elses) and they all freely lend their energy to your effort, then that's not really bad, since they consented to it.

Section 3: How is magick done?

*After Yoda lifts Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp*
Luke: "I...I don't believe it!"
Yoda (sadly): "That...is why you fail."
-"The Empire Strikes Back"

"Don't think you are, know you are."
-Morpheus to Neo, "The Matrix"

Every Wiccan has their own way of doing magick, I'm sure. The details will doubtlessly vary from person to person, but here's my approach. Oh, and Subrosa: if some of this sounds familiar, it is - I got some of the ideas from your writings :)

To start out most of my castings, I first try to put myself in a meditative trance. I've been practicing at this for the past few months, and depending on how I'm feeling at the time, it can be easy or very difficult to do. It takes a lot of concentration, and you need to filter out the mental "background noise" to have much success at it.

Usually, when I do the meditation, I try to concentrate on my breathing. However, there are times when I've used a spoken phrase to lull my mind into trance-mode. They're chosen more for how they flow than my belief in them. Here's a couple that I've used:

"Azarath Metreon Zinthos"
-Raven, "Teen Titans"
I used this one when I started casting spells because I just didn't know any other good ones. It worked a few times.

"There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is The Force."
-The Jedi Code, "Star Wars
I like this one a lot. I don't normally believe in the "no emotion" part, but when trying to settle down and focus my mind, that sort of thing is what I need. It flows really well too, which helps get me into trance-mode.

Once I get into the trance, I envision myself drawing energy from around me. From the air, from the earth, from my body, from my emotions. I envision it all flowing within me, being redirected to the crotch area (get your minds outta the gutter! I'll explain it right now! ;) Why the crotch area? Because from what I remember, that's where the chakras begin.

Now, I've probably got the ideas of the chakras all wrong on this, but it works for me, so...anyways, the chakras are various areas placed along the body's centerline, from the crotch to the head. There's five of them. I've heard that these are supposed to be reservoirs of energy, and each one is supposed to guide some different energy or something. For me, though, they're all linked together. For me, they're more like the focusing coils on a laser - a direct path for energy to travel along and be focused on.

Once the energy hits the head chakra, it exits through the top of my head (the end of the barrel, to continue the laser analogy), where it's focused into a huge ball of energy, waiting to be used for a specific purpose.

At this point, I start imagining what I want this spell to do. What do I want the end result to be? What do I really want out of this? I try to concentrate on that, and then I make my incantation.

The incantation part of the spell is where I speak, out loud, my intentions for this spell. The stereotype that you get from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and such makes the incantations sound either really poetic or spoken in a cool-sounding language. The truth is, I suck at both poetry AND foreign languages, so my incantations don't sound as cool, but they work for me :)

How an incantation begins is a sign of how important the request is to me. Obviously, I wouldn't be doing magick if something wasn't important, but there's varying degrees. For something relatively minor, I use an incantation that makes it clear that I'm using only my own focused energy for this. Typically, it'll go like this:

"By the power of my will..."

If I'm performing a spell for something that's particularly suited for the bailiwick of a god that I feel close to, like Hachiman, it'll go something like this:

"In the name of Hachiman the protector, and by the power of my will..."

For REALLY important stuff, I call on a god to help me with the spell, asking it to lend its own energy to the spell to bolster my own. Such a spell might begin like this:

"Hachiman the protector, I beseech thee
Join me and help me [here I list the desired effect]"

After the beginning, I say what I want the spell's effect to be, and try to concentrate on the end result that I'm envisioning at the same time.

After the listing of my intentions, there comes the incantation's ending. It's always the same for me:

"Let my will be done,
So mote it be!"

There's a reason that there's an exclamation point beside the end of that: I try to make my will as strong as possible while speaking the incantation. The caster's will IS what shapes the energy into the desired result, after all.

Once the spell's done, I try to...decompress, I guess is the best word. Subrosa wrote something about returning the excess energy to the earth or something, and that's pretty much what I do, except I just release it, and wherever it goes, it goes.

Section 4: What magick have I done?

Kiy was curious about this at the end of my last treatise, so I'll spill a bit of info on this.

I've done some spells in my time both dabbling in this and since I decided to become a Wiccan. Mostly, they've been minor spells to help me with something, usually giving me the emotional strength to get through a tough time or something like that. I've done some spells for others, however; I remember around Winter Break, when I was really worried about my friends' safety at CMU, I did a protection spell to keep them safe from a group of rapists that was said to be in the Mt. Pleasant area. I've also sent people some positive energy (drawn from myself) when it seems like they've needed it.

Recently, I did a spell where I beseeched Hecate, the goddess of luck, to help me find a newspaper job close enough to Mt. Pleasant that I could live in Mt. P. That same day, I found the job listing for a Clare newspaper on the Michigan Press Association website that I have a good chance of getting (I mailed my resume and stuff out the next day). I'd say that spell worked pretty well :) Now I'm hoping that the spells I'm doing to reinforce it so that I DO get the job work equally as well :)

One thing I should make clear to all those that are worried about the "black magick" and stuff like that: I've NEVER done any spell where the intention was to harm anyone. First off, it's wrong. Secondly, the reprecussions from the Rule of Three would be really bloody tremendous. And three, I think I have something of a natural check against me doing something like that: when I'm angry, it's nearly impossible to focus the concentration needed to get into the trance-mode that's the start of the spell-casting. So yeah, I've never done anything like that.

Well, here endeth the lesson, I suppose. Good thing too; that was a LONG one!