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A beginners request

12:34 / 24.12.03

Hello, this being my first request, let me say I am glad I've found this place amongst the dribble known as forums elsewhere on the net. Good to see there are intelligent people still alive. This being said, I've recently decided to decide for myself if magick truly exists, and as I'm sure you know the only way to find out is to try. I've read some books on the subject - Crowley mainly - and I was wondering if anyone had a good starting point as far as practicality is concerned. I've dabbled in many occult topics, most prominently the out of body experience, which I've had success in inducing to a slight degree. Would anyone be so kind as to point this child in a good direction?

I apologize for the redundancy this post probably is creating, I'm sure there are plenty threads like this that come and go. But I decided what better way to break the ice than this. Thanks in advance for any advice you could give.

18:59 / 24.12.03

Well, that all depends, Enki. What are you interested in? Magic is a biiiiig topic. Any particular approaches catch your fancy? Any goals for what you want to accomplish or experience with it?

20:13 / 24.12.03

I've recently decided to decide for myself if magick truly exists
Make it easy, decide that it exists. Then have a look around and decide what style you want to practice and what techniques attract you.
Most books on magic will have exercises-they're a good practical start.
As cusm say, be more specific and you'll get better advice (PS please add a topic abstract).

23:34 / 24.12.03

I have another suggestion, which also might be the reason for your request. Don't go there alone. Find a good someone who can explore together with you - maybe even teach.

15:05 / 26.12.03

First off, abandon all sanity.

If you tear down a lot of your accumulated impressions of how the universe functions it'll make getting into magic a lot easier. Because, see, if you go into magic knowing you know what you know, then you'll forever be asking "I want to do this -- is it possible?" or "I think this happened -- is that possible?" Start instead with the point of view that everything is possible and rule things out from there. Most people do it the other way around -- they believe nothing is possible, with exceptions. That's why most people never notice that magic surrounds them constantly.

Personally, I experimented with magic for a few years before I started to undergo any radical paradigm realignments. I was taking the nothing-is-possible view the whole time, waiting for a simple set of rules to fall together from the results that other people could "verify" to be meaningful.

I'm not looking for a set of rules anymore because I'm no longer convinced one exists. And my first and single most important judge of what is meaningful or significant or possible to me is me, because my personal experience is the one I trust the most.

My point of view at the moment is that regardless of technique or intent or belief, if you're honestly willing to play with the universe, then it's happy to play too.

15:30 / 28.12.03

Thanks for your responses. I am currently of the mind that anything is possible and keep an open mind due to events of my life - suddenly losing my mother at a young age - and not to mention my ongoing experimentation with OBE. What I am looking for (at first) is just something to tell me hey, this is real and its here for you to play with. I want to be in touch with and perhaps influence the current of things around me, instead of being thrown randomly into the waters. I'm sick of feeling like a puppet to chance.

For me Quantum, I can believe it exists but that is a far cry from knowing.

I think exercises would help, since writing my initial post I've found a webpage on "pop magick" and the casting of sigils...interesting stuff, but its still a little unclear to me.

Let me get a little specific - when creating a symbol, you are supposed to write your request on a piece of paper, remove the vowels and rearrange the remaining letters into a symbol. So you are supposed to redraw the sentance on another piece of paper? Forgive my ignorance but the writing of the website was kind of ambiguous, or perhaps I am being a bit obtuse...any help is very much appreciated!

17:15 / 28.12.03

Alrighty then, lets save you some trouble:

this is real and its here for you to play with

Now that that's out of the way, you're missing the important point on why sigel magick is important. Its not in how you arrange the vowles, how you write the sentence, or what you do with the paper. Its about translating your will into a form that clicks in your head as magick to you. There's really no forumlae to it, just guidelines. You're creating a symbol that represents the entirety of your intent as one thing. To do that, you keep screwing about with it until you know its just right, then go from there.

Its all subjective. The tools and techniques are only tricks you are playing on yourself to unlock your own inherent ability to alter reality through will. You've just got to do it until it makes sense or drives you bleeding mad.

15:49 / 29.12.03

Ok, that clears up quite a bit. What method do you find is best for you to cast it out? I can meditate pretty well, but I don't know if I can quite acheive that singular consciousness on my own with any regularity...would using the orgasm be the most practical method?

19:29 / 29.12.03

Yup, the wank method (as Grant Morrison calls it) is the easiest and most effective. But you can also charge sigils by spinning around in circles really fast for 5 minutes or other intense physical exercise -- there are many ways to do it. Have the sigil image (using colors in your sigils is sometimes fun, too - you can use colors you feel communicate/symbolize the intent of the sigil) right near you so you can stare at it wide-eyed at the moment of orgasm or the moment where you feel your head spinning and your mind empty. Then just look at it intensely, focus on it completely, and send it out into the universe. You can anoint it with your fluids if you so desire (if you're using the wank method) and then either dispose of it or keep it somewhere. If you dispose of it, some recommend the method of disposal could also be part of the ritual (flushing down the toilet to invoke the water element, or ripping it up, burning it, etc.). If you keep it, keep it somewhere safe and sacred - in your journal, maybe. Or put it up on your wall so you see it subconsciously every day. So many methods! Let us know how it goes. And after you charge it, try your best to either forget about it or feel like you don't have to put any more effort in because it's already a foregone conclusion that it will come true.

07:35 / 30.12.03

Another method that can be used to "charge" it is the passive method, which works fairly well for persons experienced in meditation, (as you stated that you were), and visualization. You can focus on your breathing and still your mind, then visualize the sigil, contemplating it until it becomes part of you. This has the added benefit of stripping it of it's meaning, for when you contemplate something long enough, you see it in it's "isness". When doing this, I've found that it is helpful to allow the experience to define itself. Don't try to repress anything. Energy rushes can occur, visions, and other things. Just let it happen. This can become rather strange, and more than a little spooky, as it is disturbing for the ego to relinquish control. Still, it has worked quite well for me. I settled on it because I had meditated for quite some time, and found it easier to enter that form of gnosis than some of the others.

13:12 / 30.12.03

Thanks for all the responses, good stuff. I am in the same boat (sort of) as enki and just wnat to learn a bit more.

Thanks again.

trouser the trouserian

14:20 / 30.12.03

Here's a dead simple method of sigilisation that works for me. I scribble a sigil on a post-it note and stick it on the side of my computer monitor, so it's kind of in the periphery of my vision. I gaze at it during times when I am bored/knackered - in that "no-mind" state which comes when y'r too tired to think. When the post-it note drops off the monitor, I deem the sigil 'cast', screw up the note at it can join the wilderness of cables, dead (computer) mice water bottle-tops underneath my desk. Oh yeah, and I create the sigil very quickly and usually when I'm very busy or doodling sigil whilst waiting to be connected to Dell customer support.

15:39 / 30.12.03

Thanks for the advice everyone, you've all been extremely helpful. I am probably going to try the meditation technique and of course the wank method (hey, why not?!) and see how it works out. I'll definetly come back here and post about it.

Again thanks for taking the time, if anyone else has some more methods/advice I would be very much obliged!

17:54 / 30.12.03

Gravitas, that's a fantastic method! Thanks for chiming in with it.

19:28 / 30.12.03

Hey there, never really dabbled in anything further than sigil charging, so the discussion's been pretty cool. Just like to point out though, that, as my experience goes, some amount of effort needs to be invested for the desire effect to happen. The simplest example is Morrison pointing out that you can't sigil winning the lottery w/o actually buying a lottery ticket. I've always seen powering the sigil as part of the ritual, with conceptualization as the beginning, and one's actions following that tend to either assist the whole process, or not.

14:26 / 02.01.04

i think it was morrison who said that "sigils always>/b> work".
this has been quite an important idea for me.
after trying my first few sigils I definitely was of the opinion that i must have done something wrong/not thorough enough since some goals had appeared to be unresolved or distant.
these days i also am convinced that sigil rituals always work.there is much we can learn to understand the laws of the universe behind this concept...i definitely won't try to put it in words right now

14:29 / 02.01.04

sorry for all my boldness....
speaking of the laws of the universe...it appears i yet have to familiarize myself with the laws of barbelith text encoding b4 i start tackling the natural laws ;(

14:53 / 02.01.04

Well, I have been contemplating what exactly I will do with my first sigil, and for some reason I am drawing a blank...I suppose I like things the way they are a lot more than I think. But of course my surmounting debt comes into mind. Now I have to ask the ignorant question here - what about all the folklore about money spells, spells to harm others, spells for power gain, etc... coming back to you 3x or 10x when you die. I suppose thats all heretical nonsense, no?

I suppose the question here is...are there ramifications to using magick for the purpose of personal gain?

10:32 / 03.01.04

are there ramifications to using magick for the purpose of personal gain?

I think others have touched on this already. You must 'open pathways' to allow the magic to do its stuff (Shazam!)
Eg. Grant Morrisons Lottery ticket.

The example I have read about is casting a sigil to provide you with copious cash money. The following week all your relatives are killed and you recieve a healthy payout. This would not be deemed a success. So, carefull how you go, and try to see the sigil magic as the first step on the path.

Start off with simple requests like inspiration or to meet a particular person, then think about how you can open pathways to this success. There's no point using magic to get a job if you havent applied for any!