Introduction

Real magick scares people as much as it fascinates them. Where does the power come from? Is it real? Is it safe? What are the limits? Can I learn to perform magick myself?

Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) answers all these questions and every other question you may have about how to perform your very own magick.

Let’s get started by answering some of the most common questions regarding magick, this book, and myself as your guide through the world of magick and the occult.

Questions About Magick

What is magick?

Magick is the science and art of using the subconscious mind to effect change in the material world. In more specific terms, magick is using conscious stimulation (i.e., rituals, symbols, gestures, chanting, lighting, incense, sex, etc.) to harness latent powers within the subconscious mind (i.e., gods, genii, intelligences, angels, daemons, etc.) to make changes in our bodies, our minds, and the world around us.

What is Hermeticism?

There are many schools of magick, under a variety of terms, but Western magick finds its roots most strongly situated in Hermeticism, the religion and philosophy of the Hellenistic culture. This term frequently comes up in this book because Hermeticism has strongly influenced modern magick both directly and through the many authors and magicians it has inspired, including John Dee and Aleister Crowley, both influential magicians we will soon be learning more of.

Does magick really work?

The magick in this book most certainly works. I present you with only the very best concepts and techniques gleaned from my twenty-two years of magickal practice and study.

The meditations and rituals in this book are drawn from the most respected sources in magick, including Hermeticism, the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Wicca, and various schools of shamanism. Combine these teachings with a modern view of psychology and the human mind, and you have the key to unlocking magickal results like never before.

Why use magick?

Everyone has problems and everyone wants answers, so why turn to magick to make lasting life changes? For starters, magick is rooted in humanity’s ancient past. Magick includes concepts, teachings, and symbols that resonate to the deepest core of our subconscious minds. This is wisdom clearly articulated by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, which was then filtered and built upon by generations of mankind’s greatest thinkers both in the East and West.

Magick works because it is the most up-to-date psychology that exists—and it does so by drawing on the traditions of our ancient past, not by denigrating them.

I am a great friend of science; however, it disappoints in its narrowness of scope and its inability to produce lasting harmony or growth in humanity. Science is the blundering missionary bringing antibiotics to the local villages. While that is certainly useful, it is no replacement for the wise and beneficent tribe shaman who takes care of the emotional and spiritual needs of the villagers, curing psychological aliments as well as physical ones. Magick is the epitome of effectiveness when it comes to changing people’s lives and making them happy.

Magick is about taking charge of your spirituality now and putting it to good use in your life where you can see, taste, and feel the changes it produces. Magick is more than a religion or philosophy as it takes from all philosophies and all religions—whatever works the best. That is the spirit of magick and the spirit of Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask).

Who is magick for?

Magick is for everyone. It is for the butcher, the athlete, the painter, the musician, and the banker. It is for the lawyer, the doctor, and the mountain man. Magick is about taking your life, your art, your love, and your career to the next level, all the while increasing your joy and satisfaction with who you are and what you spend your time doing.

How can magick help me?

In concrete terms, the benefits of learning magick are too numerous to list, but here are a few advantages of using magick:

How does magick work?

The subconscious mind has access to everything we are not aware of consciously and is therefore in a better position to manifest our goals than our conscious mind, which is generally ego-ridden, anxious, and short-sighted.

Magick works by giving more control to the subconscious mind. Bypassing the constant chitter-chatter of our conscious mind, magick plants seeds deep into our psyche where they can grow unhindered by bad attitudes and negative thinking.

In other words, by giving the subconscious mind a clear intent through a magick ritual, we are then able to let go of our desire and allow it to manifest. While we are keeping busy “in the moment,” the subconscious mind will be leading us towards our desired goal without interference from the conscious mind.

Is learning magick difficult?

Not when you start at the beginning and learn the essentials step by step, just as I will teach you in the following pages. This book assumes no prior knowledge of magick. All that is required of you is to read the chapters and follow the exercises and rituals as best as you are able.

My hope is that by the end of the book you will not only be able to understand any other literature on magick but that you will be able to create your own effective magick rituals for any area of your life that you feel is lacking.

What is the difference between a spell and a ritual?

There really isn’t a clear distinction. Certain occultists might favor one term over the other. In my mind, spells tend to be shorter and simpler than rituals, and are almost always for a practical purpose, but the difference between the terms is more in connotation than denotation. For example, you could call a ceremony to attract romance a “love spell,” but you would most likely not call something like the Christian Mass a “spell” (though indeed it is).

What if I’m rational and just don’t believe in magick?

I’ve been there myself. Jump to Chapter 8 where I discuss the seeming paradox of the god of magick, Thoth, also being the god of science and rational thought.

Is magick dangerous or evil?

No. If you follow the instructions in this book you can only have beneficial results for yourself and those around you.

How long does magick take to work?

It really depends on what you are trying to get and what sort of mental/emotional blocks you might have set up against getting it. Results could take days, weeks, or months. Magick is not necessarily a quick-fix solution—though oftentimes it is. What I am presenting here is a lifelong skill for getting what you want in all aspects of your life.

While this book is geared to help with the mundane problems of life, as you progress upon your path of magick, you will find that most problems take care of themselves—or didn’t matter much anyway.

Questions About the Author

What is your background in magick?

I have been studying, practicing, and teaching magick for more than twenty-two years. You might even say I have done so ravenously. I have studied high magick, Wicca, Eastern religions, Hermeticism, and just about every other form of occultism or religion. I have worked with Enochian magickal groups, Thelemic and Golden Dawn orders, and private sex magick groups. To this day I am a student of all things magickal, and I am always hungry for new methods and ideas to further improve the efficacy of my magick and those I teach online and through private instruction and classes.

How did you get into magick?

The how starts with the why, and the why was quite simple: I really wanted a girlfriend.

Ever since middle school and up through my first two years of high school what I wanted more than anything was a nice girlfriend. It was just not happening—not at all.

In my junior year of high school, however, I had a conversation that changed my life. A friend mentioned that she had once practiced spells she learned from a book. Real spells. This was a revelation to me. Having been somewhat sheltered from such things by my strict Christian upbringing, I had never realized that there were legitimate books on magick, the occult, spells, witchcraft, and the like.

Within a week, I had shown up on the doorstep of my very first occult bookstore. I still remember the smell of incense, the tinkling of wind chimes, and rows upon rows of books in categories entirely exotic to me: Buddhism, astrology, witchcraft, shamanism, and the like. I was especially drawn to the high magick section, where I bought Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig (Llewellyn, 1988) and began practicing immediately.

Involving myself in magick was challenging as I had to hide my practices from the rest of my family for fear my mom would find out. However, I persevered, studied ravenously, and, on the surface, continued my life as a regular kid.

My first two spells—love talismans made out of seashells—were both successful. One talisman brought the first and only girl to ever seduce me with flowers. The second talisman brought the first true love of my life.

I continued studying and practicing magick throughout college. In Albuquerque, I worked with a large Wiccan coven and a Thelemic/Enochian high magick group. Both magickal congregations were very different in focus and scope, but I’ve always felt a need to understand diverse magickal philosophies and harmonize them into something whole and practical.

Things were not always roses, however. Magick doesn’t remove challenges from one’s life, but rather makes us more able to rise to the occasion of dealing with them. After receiving my degree in English at the University of New Mexico, I was at a loss as to what to do next with my life. I was sick of writing and sick of Albuquerque. I wanted to live—to experience.

Once again I turned to magick. I began working in earnest with the Goetia, a book of 72 spirits, the most famous “grimoire” of them all. I worked with Bune for wealth, Uvall for love, and Seere, a spirit used to speed up any magickal process.

After the working, my life bottomed out. I was depressed so I traveled to Phoenix, Arizona to stay with a friend. This is where the magick kicked in and things worked themselves out. I learned to count cards at blackjack and would make regular trips to Las Vegas, which is how I supported myself for the next year. Once I became bored with that, I spent a year writing a novel, which detailed my magickal experiences of the previous few years couched in a dark-fantasy milieu, but I was still not ready to write a non-fiction instructional book of magick, though in the back of my mind I already wanted to do so.

At this point, I was out of love and money so I worked again with the Goetia, and within a month I had an answer to both problems in the form of a girl I met online. This was in 1999 at the beginning of the dot-com boom. With me as her web designer, we started up a website, which was such a big success I was able to move to Los Angeles and do nothing but work with this lovely girl who was my business partner and girlfriend. This cemented my absolute belief in the efficacy of magick.

Life was good. I continued to study magick, write, and enjoy SoCal, which is where I had always wanted to live since I was about fifteen years old. Eventually, however, I felt a need for something more—I wanted to take my magick to the next level. My relationship had ended and my work had grown less satisfying. I began experimenting with the legal entheogen Salvia divinorum, and my magick instantly took a shamanistic turn. It was also around this time in 2005 that I became active in online occult communities, including writing my short, but influential, e-book entitled, So You Want to Be a Goetic Shaman?

More detail of this time period is contained in Chapter 8, but the gist is that this was a major turning point for me. After a three-month magickal working I did in the summer of 2005, I met a woman who would not only become my wife, but my magickal soulmate. This ties directly into my extensive work with demonology, which is discussed in Chapter 8.

By this point I had been teaching online and privately for several years, and I was ready to write my own book on magick. So, continuing through the ups and downs of my first magickal marriage, I was able to write the book you now hold in your hands.

Why did you write this book?

There are many reasons to write any book, but the two most practical concerns were that, one, I always wanted a book with all the information I regularly use for rituals in one place. And two, I’m regularly asked for help with magick and book recommendations, and I’ve always had to suggest books that weren’t quite what someone needed. Now finally, with Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) the essentials are presented in such a way that a beginner can quickly get up to speed with magick.

More than all that, I hope to impress upon my readers that magick is not something you do; it’s something you are. This world has so many problems, but all of them can be cured by understanding the connection between art, magick, creativity, and our deepest desires—not just those implanted by peers or mass media. I hope that my book helps rejuvenate the psyche of not just individuals but that of our troubled Earth as a whole.

Who are your sources?

Magick and Hermeticism have always been syncretic, and I follow in this tradition. The benefit of my twenty-two years as a magician is granted to my readers by cutting out the dross. I present only the gold of magick and Hermeticism. My teachings are based on the very best sources in magick and Hermetic literature including, but not limited to:

The grand theme of magick and Hermeticism is to sift through the wisdom of the past and to consistently bring the most psychologically up-to-date methodology to bear on increasing the quality of life for all humanity. Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) brings modern sensibility to an underlying Hermetic philosophy that has worked for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Questions About This Book

Who is this book for?

Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) is for anyone who has been interested in real magick but has been confused, scared, or overwhelmed by other books on the subject. Beyond that, this book includes subtexts and layers of advanced magickal thought that will appeal to intermediate and advanced students as well.

To illustrate the wildly varied experiences one can take from this book, I present two happy endings, but with completely different means to that end.

The first example is from a former student by the name of Emily. Emily was in the midst of severe money problems, legal problems related to her animal activism, and going through a mid-life crisis all at once. Emily did not grow up religious, did not pray, or have a religion or spirituality of any sort. She had a fear of most things “dark” or occult, but liked “good magick.” Emily was only able to work with basic meditations and the simplest of rituals in the book; however, they were enough to turn her attitude and life around. Now she is working at a job in her new profession, and her first film is now in production in Hollywood.

Another student by the name of Natasha illustrates a more gung-ho plunge into magick. A bright, but uneducated girl, she grew up in a religious household, but had no real connection to her original religion. She was fascinated by all aspects of magick as presented in Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask), including charging talismans and plunging directly into work with daemons and astral entities. She found a “familiar” spirit who encouraged her to quit drugs and alcohol and inspired and guided her to turn her life around on all levels. This spirit is currently helping Natasha make her way through college.

While both students had completely different goals and levels of interest in magick, both were able to take what they needed from Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) to rectify their spiritual and material problems and thereby resume enjoyment of their lives.

What subjects does this book cover?

This book teaches the underlying concepts of magick, i.e., the actual principles involved in creating a ritual for the purpose of having positive results in our life.

This book correlates and puts into perspective a diverse range of magickal and occult topics such as angels, spirit guides, Wicca, Paganism, witchcraft, Goetia, Thelema, Golden Dawn, Qabalah, alchemy, astrology, chaos magick, sex magick, and Hermeticism.

Here are some of the magickal topics you will learn by studying and practicing the rituals and exercises in this book:

The content and structure of Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) serves up a solid magickal meal, presenting theory and practice sandwiched together in the most appetizing fashion.

Some of the other types of questions you will be able to answer by the end of the book include:

How will this book teach me magick?

Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) provides straightforward answers to the most common questions related to practicing magick. It teaches with plainspoken language (no occult mumbo jumbo) and modern views of psychology and the subconscious mind.

Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) also includes historical references for context and authenticity, and when needed, gives straightforward and modern explanations of how and why magick works. However, the focus of this book is tangible results and its salient features reflect this, including:

I treat magick with utmost sincerity and seriousness, but always with a light-hearted touch. This is a fun book, not a dreary grimoire.

Do I have to believe in God or the occult for this book to work?

Everything You Want to Know About Magick (But Were Afraid to Ask) is technique driven, not belief driven. This book neither assumes nor demands that you have any specific spiritual or occult belief. Magick works regardless. This means you can hold whatever beliefs about the universe you like and incorporate the rituals and meditations as you wish. Atheist, Buddhist, Wiccan, or Christian alike can utilize the rituals and see what works best for them.

Is this magick “dumbed down”?

While there are simple and clear rituals and meditations to change every aspect of one’s life, there is no dumbing down. Have I simplified and trimmed magick down to the essentials? Absolutely, but the core techniques and ideas are those passed down from Ancient Greece, filtered through a variety of occult geniuses, changed a little by me based on modern sensibilities, and then presented to you, the reader, in an easy-to-follow instruction book. Complex parts are broken down into small and manageable bite sizes, but nothing is lost. Clarity is paramount, but never at the expense of potency or nuance.

How is this book organized?

This book is organized in such a way to teach you the simple building blocks of magick in the first chapters, and how to arrange and create with those blocks by the final chapter. The book is also arranged in a more subtle and nuanced way based upon the Tree of Life, which you learn about in the following chapters.

How should I use this book?

Read it through and practice as many exercises and rituals as you can. Some parts of the book may seem confusing the first time through, and that is to be expected. By the end of the book, you will have completed your first circuit of a spiral leading ever upward into the highest, and deepest, vaults of occult knowledge and wisdom.

How do I start?

Take a moment to think about what you really want from life. Think about whatever it is that popped into your head as you read this. Yes, that. Magick can even help you get that. Continue on to Chapter 1 to start the path that will teach you how.

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