12 PRACTICES FOR INCREASING THE MAGIC IN YOUR LIFE

As discussed in Eros and the Magical Path Part One and Two, a magical life is an erotic life.

It’s a life that cherishes alive intimacy and connection with people, nature, spirit, soul, and art above any kind of closed possession or finality.

To put it in the helpful terms of the philosopher James P. Carse, a magical life is one that plays an infinite game rather than a finite game. It’s play for play’s sake.

To live a magical life, the following practices are helpful:

1. Keep an altar.

Think of it as an externalization of your psyche. Whatever you place on your altar will multiply.

So fill it with with invocations of and offerings to your ancestors, to local spirits, and to patron deities.

Use pictures, sigils, statues and other sacred objects to invoke their spiritual presence.

Offer food, drink, water, flowers, fruit, candles, incense. When you do this, you foster your sense of spiritual connection to the unseen forces all around you.

2. Practice a form of sexual energy cultivation.

I recommend Orgasmic Meditation. There are also a wide range of other practices that deliberately cultivate sexual energy, including various forms of yoga and massage.

3. Tithe and give gifts.

Tithing and gifting are both erotic activities that create and nourish connections.

4. Engage in inquiry and inventory work.

Inquiry practices like The Work of Byron Katie and inventory practices like the 4th & 5th step of 12-step recovery groups and the Fear Inventory practice of the Orgasmic Meditation movement are intensely useful for becoming aware of alienating, Thanatos-oriented fears and resentments and for consciously challenging and releasing these.

5. Cast spells every day and record your methods and results.

Spells are conscious participations in synchronicity.

In the words of Alan Chapman, you simply decide that “the experience of one thing means another.”

So you may decide that the experience of drawing and meditating on a sigil means that “I will get a beautiful new place to live soon.”

So then you draw and meditate on a sigil. And then you’ve had an experience that means “I will get a beautiful new place to live soon.”

Since you’ve had that experience, you’ve thus made it true and you’ve created a ripple in space-time that summons that meaning forth.

 

(sigils by Dr. Quandary at netlabelism.com)

6. Regularly cleanse your energy body.

Taking baths with Epsom salts and smudging yourself with sage are both well-known and well-respected methods of clearing your energy body of harmful, draining influences and restoring yourself to equilibrium.

7. Engage in sitting meditation.

Sitting meditation helps to cultivate an awareness of thoughts and feelings as not-self. In this way it helps to end dualistic identification.

8. Exercise.

Whether it’s dance, walking, or yoga – it’s helpful to practice moving, stretching, and relaxing the body.

(Goodtimes on a Friday night, from the Museum of Witchcraft at Cornwall)

9. Make your relationships your first priority in your life.

Notice what fears motivate you to disconnect, shut down, or become overly clinging and attached. Write inventory and inquiry on these fears.

10. Practice the Brahmaviharas.

The brahmaviharas are a form of contemplation in which you wish well for yourself and other beings. They’re an excellent means of attuning yourself to the underlying Eros of the universe, which is towards this well-being.

11. Participate in a sangha / coven / group

of others who are similarly dedicated to evolving through magic and eros.

12. Perform regular invocations of your patron deity.

Invocations, known in Vajrayana Buddhism as Deity Yoga, are acts of imaginatively dissolving your conventional self and re-appearing in the form of the deity (for example, Tara, Buddha, Jesus, Aphrodite).

You practice imagining that you literally are the deity, and in doing so you gradually gain access to the deity’s knowledge and skills.

Merken