Recently I've been looking heavily at the notion (put forth by people such as Burroughs and Morrison) of doing magic through the use of writing. I basically see myself as a writer, above everything else, and that writing should be the way that I get my most effective magic to work. For example, I look back now on stories or short books I wrote for fun years ago and it still surprises me as to how many of those things I wrote about manifested in real life... sometimes years later. Maybe this was because I always put myself into my stories, sometimes using my real name for that character. I dunno.
For example, when I was a senior in high school my parents still kept us from watching R-rated movies. This annoyed me as everyone else I knew my age could watch such films. At the time I really wanted to see "Pulp Fiction". So I got the screenplay and read that, and then had characters in the story I was writing at the time comment on how they had seen the film "Pulp Fiction" and how much they had liked it, etc. And, 3 months after I finished that story, my parents finally let us watch R-rated movies and I got to see Pulp Fiction. Or, again in the twelth grade, I wrote a story where a character modeled after myself (despite the fact this character was female) realized she was gay and she was also suicidal, when I had no gay thoughts at all at the time and was quite happy. Years later I realized that I was gay and, quite recently, have been suicidal. Which is why only good things happen to characters modeled after me from now on (I don't see being gay as a bad thing at all btw, but the suicidal thing definetly is!)
Then I remembered that there was an out-of-print vinyl album I really wanted to complete a collection for a particular band. However, this album had never been released as a CD and was quite rare. So, I would often write down the name of the songs on that album and include them with the list of songs I already had with that band. After months of obsession I got into contact with someone who had a CD version of the album and we traded (so much for lust of result being bad!) Of course in retrospect I could just have used Soulseek or something, but I didn't know of that at the time.
Why does this happen? My theory is that paper has some kind of power or something. It comes from trees, and trees help keep things alive, so maybe by writing desires down on it the magical power of the trees/paper manifests those desires into physical form. I'm not sure. Maybe the paper mixed with the ink. GM's theories on magic influenced me greatly, so when he writes "the ink brings things to life" I feel he may be on to something.
Where am I going with this? I like rituals. The only problem is, I don't have much space to do them: The half of a bedroom I share with one of my brothers doesn't give me much mobility. Secondly, lack of privacy: I live with my parents and 3 younger brothers, which means the really weird noisy chaotic rituals I usually have to reserve till I'm all alone, which is rare at my house as people are always around (more so now that its summer). Plus I usually like to be naked during such things, often times because it seems more magical and helps put me in the mind frame. As a result I haven't been doing much magic lately, or not as much magic as I would like to do.
So, either I wait till I get my own place (which ain't happening anytime soon) or I come up with an alternate way of doing rituals in the meantime. I've decided to do the latter. IMO a good magician should be self-aware, confident, and creative. So, I have to make good with what I have. And what I can do is write. So, for now, the majority of my rituals will be done on paper.
I know this sounds both lazy and intellectually masturbating, but I firmly believe I'll get better results from this then anything I could do in real life (hey, if astral and electronic temples work so well, why not paper ones). Here, I am limited only by my imagination. The big reason most of my rituals in real life failed was due to lack of confidence. But here my confidence will be 100% because I'm the writer so I can make anything I want to happen. Failure is not an option. If I want a spell to succeed it will.
My first experiment in this regards will be held on Monday, because Monday corresponds with the moon and the ritual in question revolves around helping an on-line friend through his ghastly insomina struggles. I'll be placing myself as a magician and I'll be writing out a textual ritual in which I evoke Hypnos to help heal my friend. I've been researching Hypnos a lot these days to make sure I have a good grip on what he's like, have made daily offerings to him at night, etc. I'll post the full details and the ritual itself upon its completion. I'm positive this will work, and generally when I'm positive about a ritual it happens, whereas when I'm not (like when I used an on-line friend's rain spell to summon rain) it usually fails.
Hey, if GM found he could make magic happen through comic scripts, then I can't see why the same thing can't apply in this instance. This method is conveniant in a number of ways. For example, say you can't speak latin but a spell requires latin phrases, you can just write them down, no need for proper pronounciation. Or say you need herbs you can't find in your area, or need elaborate costumes/scenery, etc... Just write it into the story! The genius of this technique is that with mere imagination anything can happen, unlike real life there's almost no limits at all... And when I write for awhile I fall into a trance state where the text obsesses to a point that all else is blotted out, so I'll still be in a sort of trance state.
And best of all, no need for a magic journal, the results are already written out as to exactly what happened! I'm very descriptive so all the details will be present.
Of course, I will try this out and, if the results are favorable, continue using such methods. Already I'm planning on what my dream temple will look like.
"Magick is more art then science". The pen will be my wand and sword. The text will be my Will.
Should any negative psychic forces manifest themselves on the page, I'll merely banish them with magical white-out. |
