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Underground > Temple >

"for kids", yup

05:42 / 02.03.03

the idea comes from another thread, which has become rather messy, so I'm putting my questions here separately.

So, how old should someone be when they are introduced to magick? How old is too young and how old is too old, if someone can ever be too old for magick? A person who was introduced to magick at an early age is more likely to have a greater grasp of it than someone who knew more of that "real life" whereof you speak when they were initiated? How old were you when you first heard of or became interested in magick yourselves?

I can see an upside in youthful imagination and open-mindness and such for magickal practice, but not sure if it outweighs the concurrent immaturity, which might make the whole thing rather risky. Also, someone whose beliefs have not been completely sedimented by the years might have less conflicts accepting magick... anyways, what are your thoughts on these? Does anybody have any particular example or story demonstrating the relation between magick and age?

14:45 / 02.03.03

In my case magick was something I always hovered around when I was a teenager - ie: I read stuff about Crowley, witchcraft etc., but never did anything about it. I started reading the Invisibles when it came out, when I was seventeen, but I didn't really start practising magick seriously until I was twenty (I'm twenty five now). So, if this story is in any way typical, I think people with an affinity to, or an interest in, magick have always been in some connection to it through their childhood, but that taking the first step towards serious practice is entirely a matter of when you feel ready for it yourself. In other words, I don't think it's possible to be too young or too old - it's just a question of when it feels right.

Tryphena Absent

15:35 / 02.03.03

To rot this thread just a little I really think we've done children a complete disservice by assuming them to be naive, innocent little creatures. They don't live in the adult world but they have as much capacity for capability and responsibility as adults do in some cases, where magick is concerned, I'd suggest they have more. Children tend to be in tune with certain things that we find more difficult, ask a kid to visualise and they get it ten times faster then any advanced adult practitioner, we need to recognise that however dubious we may be about allowing them to practice.

My second point here is that most people aren't introduced to magick. They find it on their own when it's right for them to do so. I think I had a handle on witchcraft from a very early age. I remember sitting in junior school in assembly and considering god and how it was a bit weird that there was this one male governing religion and how I would support a goddess. I didn't start practising until I was a bit older... I was in secondary school by that time.

I started along the Wiccan route but rejected it very quickly because I found it didn't cover what I felt was obviously inherent in magick. It did teach me to ground and center and to visualise what I was doing. I did a bit of work in a circle and that really consolidated my view that most teenagers shouldn't practice in groups because they don't have the experience for it- part of me wishes I'd had a teacher and the other part is glad that I didn't.

I hasten to add that throughout my teens magick taught me a discipline and I think that it's a great starting point for a child. Basically I've come to believe that the ideas are the initiation and that the practice should grow organically and individually from them.

little big bang

05:42 / 04.03.03

for me magic is part and parcel of coming to realize that you have control of the world around you (to some extent...)

I agree with truman's idea that most who end up deciding to practice have dabbled in it since a young age... I remember playing with barbies (yes, barbies) and reading books on celtic gods and wiccan practices in sixth grade. in fact, when i was tennish, i got a book on enochian magic that my sister returned to the store because she was afraid (and rightly so) that I might actually try some of the out-of-body work.

i find it is all a matter of if you want it and when you're ready. it's really something we all do. magic by any other name...

and for the record, there's not really a specific time when magic is actually introduced to us, for the most part--we're told (or perhaps I was told) all our lives that 'you can be anything you want to be', 'you can do anything you set your mind to', and we just look at these people like we smell bad cheese. the point when we are initiated into magic is the point at which we start believing those words...

10:56 / 04.03.03

It can also be the other way round. Magick may come to your life with you haven't even desired it or wondered about it. This is a tough thing most of the occasions, and you either end a psychotic or you start building a good frame work to back up your experiences.

I insist in the later, because if your notion of reality is as sophisticated as Runce's in the So...Magick? For kids?-no offense, please, I still am pretty hard-brained myself- you are definitely going to be in a difficult position to deal with anything out-of-that-reality that comes into your own -even if it comes from the reality of your first grade teachers. So, its not for me a matter of age, but a matter of frame and growing while the frame grows. Even if you start as a kid, or magick comes to you when you where a kid, you will still have to keep updating and developing your frame in order to "walk" through your particular reality, and also to keep it in touch with other realities, especially your mommy's and daddy's realities, or your employer's, and also with those other realities mommy and daddy may not be experiencing nor even literally dreaming about.

The Natural Way

11:58 / 04.03.03

My Dad and his friends used to test shit out on me as a kid. They'd read about some ritual/spell/meditative technique, teach me the details/provide the necessary pens and pencils and away I'd go...... Afterwards I'd go back to them and report the results.

Don't think it's done me any harm, really. But, then again, it was usually tarot initiations and stuff - nothing really heavy. It might be a good idea to keep the kids away from the wrathful guardians of the Tibetan pantheon, fr example..... Although Mahakala did always leave me feeling kinda safe....

The Natural Way

13:27 / 04.03.03

And I was always taught to visualise the Shekinah if I got fraidy. She helped.

22:53 / 04.03.03

I think the question is not so much "if" as "which" magick kids would be better exposed to. For example, heavy math oriented stuff or complex and abstract ideas may be better for a more mature mind that can better grasp them. However, kids are naturally adept at things like psi, servitor use, and wishes (which are just a form of sigel casting).

I think the best thing would be to impress them with the idea that the rules of the universe are an opened ended system with much possibility beyond what we know. Keeping the sense of wonder for what may be possible is enough. They'll find the magick they like from there.

The Natural Way

15:48 / 10.03.03

On reflection, I think there's such a lack of concensus here about what magick actually is, that it makes this question soooo hard to answer.

The "magick" I grew up around was largely of a religious bent (lots of Sufi stuff, Buddhist meditation etc) and, as you might expect, was largely concerned with illumination, contacting the godhead, blah... As far as I can see, this kind of stuff pretty much only did the children who lived around it good. Most of the kids I knew growing up would fly on the kind of stuff their parents were harnessing. So....great. But if yr into summoning up Cthulhu in order to get to know yr mollusc-mind...well...leave the kids out of it.

Just a matter of common-sense, methinks.

17:04 / 10.03.03

How were you taught to visualize the Shekinah?

The Natural Way

17:23 / 10.03.03

Well....actually, my memory went a bit hazy there - it was Gabriel, not ol' Shekhy. He was green, featureless (a universal principle) and carrying a hefty flaming sword. I'd just stick him between the eyes and he'd keep the garden safe....

The Natural Way

17:37 / 10.03.03

Should have read: "(being a universal principle)".

The Natural Way

19:13 / 10.03.03

And thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I mean Michael. Aaargh - my head is a mess. Bugger.