Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. With certain exceptions, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note:  Any question or comment received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. (I've been getting an increasing number of people trying to post after these are closed, so will have to draw a harder line than before.) If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. 

The picture? A magical altar. In the traditions of the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose, this can be any flat surface large enough to hold the four working tools of the elements, the four elemental candles, and the two pillars. In ritual, it represents the world -- meaning here both the microcosm of yourself and the macrocosm of the universe. A ritual itself forms a mesocosm that mediates between those two extremes and is capable, within the limits of magic, of making changes in either or both.

As the image above suggests, an altar can be very, very simple.  A lot of mages I know, in and out of the traditions John Gilbert taught, have used the kind of little folding table I grew up calling "TV trays" as altars -- they're convenient to put up and take down, and can be stored folded up for the many times when you're not doing ritual. Throw a colored cloth over it and you're good to go. Black is standard in most Golden Dawn-derived traditions, representing the opaque world of matter, but you can use other colors for specific symbolic purposes.

Of course you can get much fancier than the simple FHR approach; the image on the right shows a Golden Dawn altar kitted up for a ritual, and the one below shows a Martinist altar similarly bedecked. In magic, as in most things in life, you can get as simple or as fancy as your heart desires.

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With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed -- as in, NO MORE COMMENTS WILL BE PUT THROUGH. See you next week!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hello ArchDruid

I am having a bit of a crisis of faith. Like all of us here (probably all of us) I have the pleasure/unpleasure of living the world of western civilization (Europe to be exact).


I've been practicing magic for 2-3 years, mostly without some sort of ongoing training. I undertook such only about a year ago.
I've generally dabbled in natural magic, sat a bit in witchcraft practices based on Gemma's books or Chumbley's traditions or just folk practices, without bragging with pretty good results.

However, I have a problem. It is known, working full time, living with other people, just a normal life, trivial you could say. Recently, I have been wondering about the sense of magic practice (I do not want to abandon it, Gods forbid, I love magic with all my being). But...I can cure someone's illness with a spell, that is, I have achieved the power of...paracetamol. I can talk to spirits but so what if it mostly has no physical direct effects. Magic is very subtle which makes me wonder what the end goal is? What can be done using it that a modern person would call "practical". As much as I love spiritual pondering and learning about the nature of the world, these practices will not put bread on my family's table and there are only so many hours in the day.

So tl;dr I wonder what are the real possibilities of magic to influence the world, maybe what cultural sources best show them? Without magic like from Harry Potter but what is real.

Practical magic

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,
I have been practicing magic for 9 years now and have mostly worked on improving myself, cleaning off negative characteristics and adding good characteristics. My family is very pleased with the results.

I have also done some magic to increase my pleasure and success in painting and that worked very well. I have used magic to help me learn to play a musical instrument.

I dare say, you could use magic to earn more money by honest means and you can use magic to help yourself become more frugal. For that sort of magic, I recommend reading a copy of, "Your Money or Your Life," by Jo Dominguez and Vicky Robinson.

Being a happier, more grateful, more resilient person is something I think magic may be able to help you with.
Maxine

Re: Practical magic

[tunesmyth]

Hi Maxine, off topic and I'm not even sure I'll reach you now-- but I'm trying to track you down to make sure you saw my comment last month about your sister. I really felt the moment meaningful in retrospect. Whatever she has been through, I think she is doing fine now and likely has been so for some time.

[ecosophia]

This is a common question, and it has a very simple answer. If you want to do practical things in the material world, you're better off picking up practical skills relevant to the material world. If you want to become rich, for example, become a stockbroker, not a mage!

Magic is an art; like most arts, it's very demanding and the payoff in strictly material terms is generally not very high. The effects of magic are subtle, and they're at their strongest when used to change yourself; you can become a wiser, stronger, happier, and more successful person using magic -- but you have to approach it with that in mind, and with a willingness to let go both of unhelpful habits and of the notion that you should change the world instead of changing yourself.