Time to take on the great Nick Farrell! Much of this article is written as a response to Nick Farrell’s article Signs that you might not be a real magician. Like a lot of this blog, I comment on the mindsets of being a magician.
Mr Farrell and I are social media friends and that’s about the limit of it, but I respect him. He probably does not know I exist, other than the odd Facebook message here and there. A couple of friends of mine have been initiated by him, into his re-creation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which he cleverly named “The Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea”, (Aurora Aurea being Latin for Golden Dawn). For the most part, those friends have had a good experience and by their comments I gather that they were successfully initiated. I have known him to fall out with certain people who spoke about the rift openly, but frankly, over time, I have come to conclude that those people deserved it. So, for the most part, I think of Nick Farrell as a respected magician, in fact, I even include his blog in my links and I hope to make references to his books as I explore the HOGD tradition in future posts. He took a highly complicated magical system, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and worked with it long enough to compile a thorough, practical understanding. His understanding includes internal elements, which the original group did not record.
Nick Farrell is not all-knowing, even when it comes to the HOGD. When asked direct questions about certain aspects of the HOGD ritual, Nick Farrell openly admitted he did not know. My friend who does not run a HOGD-based group had a very good answer for the same question, that has stood the test of time. So Mr Farrell is not all-knowing, even when it comes to his own system. Perhaps we could say instead that either he felt that was a secret worth keeping or he did not want to spend the time elucidating randoms with what might be a complicated topic. But, in the worst-case scenario, maybe he just doesn’t know. That being the case, we should certainly award him points for being humble enough to admit when he does not know something, where others feel the need to pretend and make things up, cough cough Crowley cough cough Alex Sanders cough cough me (yes, I did in the past, and I hope not to do so in the future). It must however be concluded that his knowledge is vast and his experience relatively complete, but that he is working with a system that partially died for many years and only fragments continued and it takes a lifetime to bring all those pieces back together.
Why do I feel the need to attack this article, Signs that you might not be a real magician? Well, for the most part, I agree with the spirit with which it was written, but I disagree with reasons 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 12, so that’s most of the article, isn’t it? Well, actually it is not. I feel that Nick Farrell’s idea of what makes a magician is actually accurate. But it is related primarily to the magic performed in the HOGD. I think it is accurate for certain people practising that sort of magic and I think that it actually reflects someone earlier on the path rather than later on the path. I think that if he ever ventures to my humble blog, he will agree in spirit with what I am saying and understand that even if he disagrees that I still respect him and I hope that, then he will respect my work, particularly on HOGD topics like the LBRP. His article could be considered to imply that I am not a real magician. In fact, amusingly, it actually would indicate I was a real magician in the past, but now, having done lots of magic to change my life, ironically, I might no longer be a magician according to his signs. So I feel compelled to respond if only to stand up for the validity of my own lifestyle.
I agree in spirit… but what is that spirit?
Magic is horrible. I love it, but she is an abuser in many ways. Magic demands so much time and research. Its initiations seem to always coincide with tragedies in one’s life and they throw you into crisis after crisis. Yes, you grow through these events, but watch out she’s waiting to give you your next one. You try to do a ritual, but it makes reference to 3 or 4 things that you do not know or just need to check your sources, so before you continue you spend forever studying those things and finally do the ritual. Then comes along a person who didn’t bother to research, only did the bits they liked and then boasts about how it only took them a day while you spent weeks on it. Sometimes you’re working from fragments and thee is no answer no matter how much you study so you need to assume and jump to conclusions. You refine your astral senses and practice daily with all the devotion of a full martial art until you can make tidal waves of power and then you go to meet your magical idol hoping to increase your skill and discover they can barely make an astral dribble despite having written 5 or 6 books.
A true magician is always surrounded by fakers. One of the phrases a friend of mine coined, that applies to many things on the magical path reads as thus: “it is easier to convince yourself that you achieved it than to actually achieve it”. (I link to his blog Blue Magick Flame in my links.) Therefore, there are many self-proclaimed magicians rolling around who haven’t the foggiest clue, in even the most basic practices of our art, but they are able to convince themselves they are magicians. After all they did the dedication at the beginning of the a Llewellyn primer right? When a true magician comes along, he quickly sees through these pretenders, but then realise that he is surrounded by so many pretenders that they outnumber him. Then the pretenders will say, actually I agree with that other pretender and the true magician is left isolated and outvoted by the very truth of his own practice. Well, it’s about time people who are pretenders knew what they were. They need to wake up and stop interfering with people who are on a harder, but more genuine and valid path.
Magic is hard work. The two go hand-in-hand. If Noah was putting Magic on the Ark, he would have paired it with hard work.
People don’t like hard work. So they often are put off trying to achieve things, when they discover hard work is involved. When approaching magic, they take shortcuts. People tend to the easy route just like the flowing of water. I love the above meme for explaining how people approach the practice of magic. The meme features men pushing large, seemingly heavy cubes. One guy is pushing a sphere and is ahead of everyone. Behind him are a pile of wood shavings and a knife. We are expected to assume that he whittled down his cube into a sphere, so it was easier to push and now was finding his job much easier. The meme is entitled “Don’t Work Hard. Work Intelligent”.
Now, we can all easily get on board with this message. Why make a job harder than it needs to be? Why NOT take the easy route? Well, with Magic we do not often know the full purpose behind a certain action, symbol or layout. Often so much of the ritual is kept hidden from us until we reach a higher degree of initiation or study. Frequently, we are left with rituals, but we do not know the mindset that encouraged them or the theory on which, they were based. The same is true of this meme.
We do not know the purpose for which they are pushing blocks. Now, if they are intending to build something with these blocks then it would be much more stable to build on a block than a sphere. In fact, that sphere might no longer meet the purpose at all because turning it back into a block for building, might result in it being too small. He might arrive and find that all his effort was entirely in vain, he has wasted material and time. What if the purpose of pushing the cubes was to use the heat from the friction of them rubbing against the ground? We don’t know! Just like we don’t know with magic. The same is true of Magic and many so-called Magicians thinks they know better, so they take the shortcut. However, they do not know if they missed something when they took that shortcut. When you do magic you need to accept it’s going to be hard work and still be happy to do it. Failure to do so means you not only might miss something, but also you will not know that you missed something.
There are many people out there who want to skip the “wax on”, “wax off”, “painting house” and “painting fence” part of Magic because they do not yet see the point. They want to jump ahead of Mr. Miyagi’s first teachings, which developed the muscles needed to use the moves in combat. What did I say before? It’s easier to convince yourself that you have done something than to do it. It is easier to convince yourself you are a Magician than to be one. Some of these Magicians need to wake up and either be Magicians or stop calling themselves Magicians. The spirit of Nick Farrell’s article is similar in mindset.
Magic is elitist. There’s no avoiding that. You cannot be a Magician and be lazy or be content in being incapable. It involves training that takes years and a ridiculous amount of effort to master. Magic depends on knowledge that requires someone who is very literate and willing to read materials written in other languages and/or old English. Not all knowledge of magic has been successfully codified in English and is financially accessible.
Instead of reading through advice and history, assumptions based on feelings are frequently preferred by the masses who are too lazy to do the research. These feelings are more often guided by Star Wars and fantasy novels rather than the “intuition” as which, these feelings masquerade.
I believe I am dyslexic and I actually struggle with meeting magic’s reading requirements. However, luckily my work on meditation has taught me how to trigger my brain’s neuro-atypical chemistry to release dopamine and allow me to overcome my reading and writing difficulties. You cannot expect magic to lower itself to your level, you must find a way to reach to its level. If someone was sight-impaired they might need to use a screen reader or other tool, but they cannot sit and wait for everything to be made into an audio book or podcasts because they will only get popular second-hand information compiled by someone who was probably lazy and took one of those shortcuts I mentioned. You need to reach to magic, not expect magic to reach to you!
In the past, I have had difficulties communicating with Ghob and Auriel, who both felt I was unworthy of their words. I had to earn their respect before I could be allowed access to certain planes of existence and knowledge of certain mysteries. I had to work on myself to be allowed access, access did not come down to my level. Similarly, one of my trainees, without me having suggested that they might experience such a thing, had the same issue with Djin the elemental king of fire.
I think Nick Farrell will agree with this. That there are magicians and “magicians”. There are so many uncomfortable facts about magic such as its elitism, which we want to disregard because it does not fit nicely within the ideal world we are all trying to build together: a world where everything is accessible to everyone and everyone is valid. While that’s the aim we strive for it is not the present. It is important we are able to distinguish between the accomplished magician and the person who calls themself a magician.
Nick Farrell’s article implies I might not be a Magician
Primarily, I am a magician. I cannot help, but be a magician. I feel a sense of duty to uncover the history and secrets of our art and preserve them for the next generation. I am always in books and trying things. I have probably, practiced continually for many years. It is rare I have a day where I do not do magic. However, I go about it in a very different way to Nick Farrell. I am a person with many hobbies and an active social life. I try my best to keep my house clean and tidy and to do well in my career. Not sounding like a Magician now, am I?
Let’s go back many years. I was mostly jobless, living at mum and dad’s. On the rare occasions, when I did have a job, I spent all my money on takeout and occult books. I would run out about 2 weeks into the month. I was massively overweight and unfit. My house and bedroom were always a mess. My bedroom stunk of stale washing, and there was an evergrowing pile overflowing from two large washing baskets. The sink was overflowing with washing up and let’s be honest there was probably something growing in there. I had a huge pile of books beside my bed each with a bookmark at the end of chapter one or two. There were shelves everywhere of books that I hadn’t read yet, begging me to read them. Too many of them were published by Llewellyn and were a sad excuse for primers. Every day was spent doing hours of visualisation, meditation, astral projection and energy work, even on the rare days when I had work to attend. I had no friends and had never had many friends. I was extremely depressed about my life and magic was my main escape. When I wasn’t doing magic, I played video games to further my escape. I did not exercise or have any hobbies.
The biggest change came from the combination of two very different techniques into one. At some point, I had been trying to work from Konstantino’s Summoning Spirits and someone pointed out that it was basically a re-writing of Franz Bardon’s Magical Practice of Evocation. I quickly acquired this and discovered it was supposed to be preceded by Initiation into Hermetics. So I began to work with that. One of the first teachings in Franz Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics was the Magic Mirror. In the Magic Mirror teaching, you attempt to alter your personality to reflect the elements in perfect balance. I began to work hard to practice this and it became a major practice for about the next 15 years. I still do it today to a lesser degree. I discovered every interaction was an opportunity for spiritual growth. I soon began to see elemental energy in every physical thing I did. I frequently used pentagram rituals to alter them and to affect life, even if it was just visually in my head.
Every social interaction one-on-one was a chance to manipulate my water energy so I could be more receptive to what they were saying, practice empathy and balance out some of my neuro-atypical tendencies. Group activities were a chance to manipulate fire to inspire people and excite energy. If I wanted to study, I could use meditation techniques and air invocation to get my brain able to overcome my undiagnosed dyslexia. Invocations of earth taught me the feelings needed to be nurturing and stable when other people needed it. Fire invocation or tummo breathing could make me feel warmer when it was freezing. Water invocation could cool down a room in the summer.
Before long I had taken up many hobbies and each one was the opportunity to practice magic. Performing martial arts made me more aware of my body and its energy currents. It taught me how to use energy to strengthen my body and increase my energy capacity and it allowed me to push myself beyond what I would normally be able. I do not want to go into my attempts to invoke the HGA in this article, but suffice it to say, if it was not for using my meditation techniques to enable me to read better, I would not have had the experience to focus fully on the ritual. If it was not for yoga practice, I would not have been able to sit still for long enough to listen to the HGA. If it was not for the elemental control learned in interaction with others, study, exercise, work, etc, then I would not have had the astral power to conjure at that level. If it was not for the reading, I would not have had the Qabalistic knowledge to merge flesh, with breath, with soul and achieve a unique oneness that made me an acceptable candidate for the HGA’s wisdom.
Soon after some of the HGA’s revelations and the various crises that triggered, most of my magic practices fell aside and I took a break for a months before I got back to it. I had it in my head that was going to be the end of my magic practice, but instead it opened a whole new avenue to explore and awoke me to many issues.
At my thirtieth birthday, I had more people attend than I could fit in my poor mum’s house. I didn’t even live there any more, but her lounge accommodated around 30 where as my own was closer to 5. Unfortunately over 50 people turned up… woops. Many were drunkenly lovebombing me and it was lovely to be surrounded by so many people, having been so lonely in the past. Soon after this, I found my week was naturally full with meditation in the evenings, astral projection or lucid dreaming just before bed, summoning on Monday nights, D&D on Tuesdays, Kung fu on Wednesdays and Saturday mornings, business work on Thursdays, socialising on Friday nights, which was a mixture of board games and going out drinking in London and that still left Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday to book things in or work on my own side project. I have maintained some of that, but a few activities died off during the pandemic and never really came back with the prior zeal. But when I walk the dog on the daily, I set up a large ritual space in the park and usually summon things I want to interact with. Before I go to sleep I attempt to astral project and try to continue to interact with the entities I am focused on.
My life is more balanced. Magic is still high in my priorities, but it is no longer an escapism with unreasonable promises. Instead of being separate from my life, it is interwoven through my life. One day I will take a friend for a walk in the park, another day I will summon a spirit that I want to see and they will join me instead. While I perform, I invoke energies and express them.
Nick Farrell’s 10 criteria
- You might not be a Magician if you wear all black with a visible pentagram: For some people Magick is the same as their religion. They believe their religious practice is just as valid, if not more valid, than any other religion. They hope to have a world where their religion is just as accepted as Christianity and one of the easiest ways to make that change is to act like it already is. I don’t know about wearing all black but wearing a pentagram where others wear a cross is one method of doing this. Also it is a sign to other people that you are part of the magic-practitioner-tribe so it enables you to identify others with whom you might belong. I 100% agree with Nick Farrell that doing so is dressing up for people who don’t care and do not believe in it. I don’t feel the need to make Magic valid. It is valid and doesn’t need anyone’s approval. Because of skepticism it is unlikely to be outlawed any time soon, but with recently political events I would not completely rule it out. I don’t feel the need to present myself as a magician to people who do not care or believe in it. For people that do care, well I hate listening to their comments when I realise the 100s of shortcuts they took.
- You might not be a Magician if you don’t do 30mins practical work a day: Okay some there’s plenty to be said for practical knowledge and I mostly agree with this. I often think that I can end up being a bit of an Armchair Occultist, if it weren’t for trying to maintain my energy body, doing ritual in the park and astral projecting before bed. Many magic practitioners do not do magic that is dependent of the energy body, so they do not need to practice daily to build up capacity. Their practice could be valid. However, if they are doing ritual based on HOGD, which often they are, they ought be practicing daily. Many who try to recreate practices such as Cunning folk, where you do spells when they were needed, but you might not have a daily practice because it wouldn’t be seen as a religious devotion, but instead as a type of healing science. You do not take medicine when you’re not ill. I know a large number of Witches who only work sabbaths, but to be honest, I think if they knew the origins of their craft, they would realise they’re supposed to be benefitting from a daily practice. Frankly, I think sometimes people who focus too much on practical will often get lost chasing what Eliphas Levi would call refraction and reflections of divine light, rather than divine light itself. It is common to get lost in the Yesodic planes and people often end up not making much sense any more. I remember trying to listen to someone talk about Aracnomancers and they spewed loads of UPG as if I ought to know what they were talking about. Many people feel the same about most of the stuff Kenneth Grant has written, but I cannot comment on that having only skimmed a couple of his books at this point.
- You might not be a Magician if your life is the same: So I will be completely honest and admit magic’s intertwining with my life has caused and encouraged many massive shifts. Most initiations seem to coincide with many crises in our lives. But I know many people who have shown incredible growth in their life who do not practice magic. I wonder if it is possible that my life might have had those crises and evolution if it weren’t for the magic. I believe it is unlikely and I think that magic caused them, but I am unable to prove that. Now if all magic was stripped from my life I would live just the same as I do now. Instead of astral project I might fantasize and watch porn, instead of doing ritual in the park, I would just walk the dog and listen to music. I would do martial arts, but without the energy work and I would just read other subjects instead, but mostly to someone on the outside it would look nearly identical. I mean there would be less waving my arms about at things that are not there in the park, but it would look the same, for the most part.
- You might not be a magician unless you have lost one relationship to magic: We lose relationships. Magic or not, we lose relationships. If your obsession was Star Trek you might still lose a relationship to someone who would rather watch Dr Who and Star Wars. Whether it is magic or not, it is very easy to blame the loss on magic. I remember trying to read a book on Chinese Internal Alchemy by Chang Po-Tuang and my boyfriend at the time kept interrupting me to show me Youtube videos of dogs doing funny things. I began the page again and I was interrupted a paragraph later. One more time and I was getting angry. The book used confusing terms like Wooden Lady, Golden Elixir and Crescent Moon furnace so it was impossible to read with the interruption. I decided to dump him to pursue magic. But did magic cost me the relationship? No. The relationship was already not what I wanted and I was often frustrated, manipulated and embarrassed by him. Finally, it was a last straw, the dumping I had been putting off was needed immediately for me to continue my learning. If it was my learning for work it would be the same. If something is more important than your current relationship, it will take priority. Magic isn’t unique in this.
- You might not be a magician if you have a shed load of gear: I don’t think this is quite right. Often if you’re committed to Magic work you end up making things left, right and centre, one grimoire at a time. Over time, you end up having to throw things out because you don’t do that type of magic any more, or don’t quite have the connection with the spirits that work was related to. The main thing to be clear is that the stuff you use, is not stuff you buy from a stall. The stuff from a stall is so often wrong symbolically, made from the wrong stuff and made at the wrong time, without the care for ritual purity. For example, the Abramelin suggests working with a wand made of almond wood, find that in the Witch shops!!! Good luck! So I disagree with Nick Farrell on this, but I agree that one’s daily practice usual uses few ritual implements. I think it’s important to remember that waving around the cutlery is rarely the majority of magic. That is the rare big ritual.
- You might not be a magician if you talk about occultism more than you do it: I completely agree with this statement. I mean it depends on the depth with which you talk about it and sometimes, you do a quick rite and then think about it and diarize it for far longer than you did the rite! But mostly no-one is listening to your spirituality so there’s little need to talk about it. They are interested in their own and will only listen to the bits that inform their practice.
- You might not be a magician if you have loads of hobbies: I completely disagree. If magic can be interwoven with your life and hobbies they will add to your magic practice instead of taking away. This is similar to what Mr Farrell writes: “some hobbies work with a magical life, such as art, computing, reading, historical research, but others don’t and you probably will not have time to do them.” I don’t know if you have ever read Terry Pratchett, but his books sometimes feature the Procrastinators who steal time from people who aren’t very productive with their time and give it to other people who are. This is an amusing commentary on the experience that is all too common. I find that the more you try to fit into your time, the more time you have. It’s a bit strange, but when you’re not very busy you sometimes sit in front of the tv and time just vanishes… but when you pack it with things to do suddenly you seem to have done 101 things and you still have 2 hours before bed to use. I mean time is a limited and as you get older it is easier to get tired or burnt out doing too much, but you would be surprised what you can fit into your life and then you’re even more efficient with the time you have left. I look at this in a later section.
- You might not be a magician, if you have an active social life: Sorry just like the one above. Same story! Also the more you do hobbies the more you have people to socialise with who might be different to you. This challenges you to be elementally balanced in your interactions. It helps meet your human needs for belonging and love so reduces your distractions from magic. Also, it gives you support to deal with life more smoothly and prevents interruption in your practice.
- You might not be a magician, if you think something else is important: Magic let’s you see through the facade of life. It all seems unimportant and fake for a bit. You realise everything is transient and temporary. Everything important seems to be an illusion. But its like playing a video game. You know it’s not real, but when a Draugr jumps out at you in an underground cave, you jump! You end up caring about the points and levelling up. The same is true for life. Even when you see through it, if you engage with life, you end up caring about it again and frankly, I think you’re meant to. I don’t think we are meant to be spending every moment on earth trying to leave it. I think when you become a seasoned magician then you end up with a more balanced, slightly less obsessed approach to magic. It becomes one of the means through, which you self-actuate what I call the apex. It’s important, but it’s not everything. I’ll explain this in a sec.
- You might not be a magician, if you do what your told: Rolls eyes! Many magicians break the rules. In fact a lot of Magic is from a grimoires written in Christian society and written with a Christian perspective, but then Christianity bans Magic. So to be a practitioner you need to break some rules. But it is often the attitude of being too free to break rules that leads so-called Magicians to take shortcuts, to assume they know what they’re doing when they’ve never stuck to the script before.
- You might not be a magician if you think that things in Magic are physical and literal: I did not realise this needed to be said, I forgot about people who have issues with this. I mean sometimes the spiritual seems to affect the physical, but 99% of the time magic is entirely in subtle reality or some part of the astral plane. Sometimes the astral plane and physical reality seem to come very close together, but I thought it was obvious that they are separate. On one occasion while working with a couple of copies of the Lemegeton called the Goetia of Aleister Crowley and The Goetia of Dr Rudd by Stepehen Skinner and David Rankine, me and my friend who were working together seemed to get a weird effect in triangle of manifestation, which looked like heat rising off the floor that was very physically visible, but this was one time in over 80 invocations. Nearly everything is entirely on the astral plane, which has a very subtle effect on the physical, if any effect at all.
- You might not be a magician if you think magic is about what you can get: This really depends on what type of magic you are doing. Some magic is frankly all about what you can get. This is not the case with Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn magic which is the main practice of Nick Farrell. He’s correct about HOGD magic! If you’re working from grimoires well some of them are entirely love charms, treasure charms and cursing people, it’s about what you can get and that’s still magic, but different.
What do I mean by the Apex?
A lot of people have a very unbalanced approach to magic. They need to ask themselves why they’re doing it. If you learned magic and suddenly you could unlock doors with the word “alohomora” and fly it would make sense to approach it with such a consuming obsession. It would pay you back in no time. Look at the great magicians of the day and ask yourself what achievements did they actually have? Crowley thought he could go invisible. Dion Fortune thought she could talk to famous “ascended masters” and that she was frequently under attack by psychics and cats. Maxine and Alex Sanders claimed to conjure apparitions in the kitchen. Rosicrucians were suggested to heal people, glow and sometimes make gold. Chinese alchemists cultivated practices to achieve immortality. However can we prove any of these things? Can we show its worth sacrificing our life to achieve them? I want you to ask this question of yourself very carefully. What has magic actually brought to your life so far? Did you need to do other things to encourage it? Can you do it all through magic alone or does there need to be a more balance magic-life balance to do stuff?
I like to look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when I think about this stuff. Where would you put magic on the triangle below? Does magic fulfill all your physical needs? Can you conure a cheese topped jacket potato, a roof over your head and clothes to wear? Does magic guarantee your future income and health? Does magic bring you love? Does it help you fill your self-esteem and your desire to be the best you can be? It’s only those last two isn’t it? Esteem and Self-actualization.
Maslow indicated that if anyone of these was missing, one cannot build the other points above. This is representative of a mental state that accurately reflects reality. When people practice magic, it allows them to participate in an astral reality, which does not always reflect the physical reality we share. If something like Physiological needs, Safety needs or Love and Belonging vanishes we might be tempted to participate more in astral reality, where we can visualise that it is already resolved and it will encourage us to stop participating in the scary and painful physical reality, where we don’t have our ducks in order. This encourages the initiate to continue along the path of self-delusion which prevents them actually solving the issue in their life. The more we try to avoid truth and physical reality the more we are attracted to false truth in the astral plane. Also we begin to lose the ability to be honest with ourself about our results because we become attached to being successful in magic. When are are unsuccessful we can’t admit it to ourselves. It is only when we work on the physical plane again that we are able to resolve the missing the block. I believe that this process is substantially helped by combining our physical efforts with magical efforts, however this cannot be done with magical work alone. In fact by focusing on the astral plane alone you often shift the target of your very magic, so the more effort you put in magically, the more it builds the delusion and not the reality. So the ideal is both, failing that, to work on the physical plane alone.
Magic is the apex of this triangle and people obsess over it like it’s the whole triangle. It isn’t. If you can summon a mansion, a roast dinner, heal yourself of diseases and protect yourself from home invasion and violence using magic then maybe its the whole triangle, but in all my years in the community, I don’t think that a reasonable goal. Maybe you are telling yourself you just need to pursue magic with more vigor and devotion than any magician that has ever come before, but ask yourself are you likely to be able to do that??? Even if you did, is it guaranteed to protect you and provide all these things?
Our first thought should always be our physical safety and health. Unless you have mastered the ability to throw fireballs with your hands, you should have means of defending yourself from the potential violent crimes that might occur in your area. If you cannot, you’re not safe and that will distract from magic. You should be able to provide yourself with somewhere to live that meets your needs and is a suitable place for you to practice magic. If you cannot then you need to work on that. You need air, water and food. In order to maintain all these things in our society, you usually need an income. Maybe you can find a way to do it without an income, but good luck because I am sure a tax man or council is waiting to prove you otherwise! Then you need your physical health sorted. In the UK this is a little easier with the state funded NHS, but you still need to take care of your health with good balanced meals, regular exercise, good sleep and whatever else your doctor recommends. If any of this is not sorted it’s going to effect your mental health and your ability to focus on magic. Finally your physical needs are starting to be taken care of, but you’re still not ready to practice magic.
Secondly you need to take care of your mental needs. We live in a time of poor mental health epidemics. Everyone seems to have anxiety issues and emotional issues. You don’t need to be perfect mentally, but you need have tools and practice using them. If you do not then your internal planes are not going to be safe space to be practicing magic from. Also, you will not be able to honest with yourself about your results! I participated in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in a group session and one-to-one in 2012 and I still use the techniques today 10 years later. I also learned more about the techniques from books and added depth to my practices since then. While this is not a daily practice some time should be put aside each week to ensure good mental health and honesty can be achieved. An important part of mental health is treating yourself with things you enjoy from time to time. If you were your own manager would make yourself work continually without allowing time for things you enjoy? No you would just end up not listening to that manager and if you tried to do it to yourself you will just stop listening to the voice of discipline in your head.
Thirdly you should seek out some form of love and/or belonging. These are basic human needs. Some people are aromantic and/or asexual, but they still need some form of belonging, support and care. Without it, their mental health can begin to be affected. Also with the right social life you have the support you need to deal with the vicissitudes of life. You can meet people through hobbies, going out to events or your work life. Choose the people you spend time with wisely. Many people are only interested in themselves and will take time without fulfilling your needs. If you surround yourself with people with good habits their habits will wear off on you.
Finally, when everything else is sorted it is time to work on the apex of the triangle. You can interweve magic through your solutions of the other layers, but this is where you truly have the freedom to do whatever magic you feel. It’s your space to self-actuate and do stuff that builds your self-esteem. This is the place where if you fail then you can be honest because you have the time and space to do more.
You should also have other hobbies. If magic is the only thing you’re doing with your life outside of work, then it is very hard to be honest with yourself if you fail to achieve any results. Accepting failure might result in you questioning your life and plummet you into depression. If you have other hobbies then they provide escape, esteem and self-actualization when magic is not working out. They can also help us structure our personal time better, give us life coaches and us how to achieve the level of devotion required to practice magic.
A Healthy Magic Time Table
If you were a new initiate then you’re still in that headspace where you think every piece of work that you’re working is going to be the thing that unlocks all the mysteries and the heavens will pour down its light and alchemical gold on you, if only you obsessed about it more. If however, you’re a more seasoned magician you know that all those things can still be approached, but a healthier approach to magic requires that we take care of physical and mental needs first. You can still take a planned sabbatical, which you have prepared and provided for, so you can do a specific intense ritual working like the Abramelin. You can still spend a weekend trying a full Enochian apocalypse from time to time, but you need to eat, sleep and work first.
Most people to have their physical safety, rent, food, heat and water sorted by their job. They also need to maintain some of that stuff through cleaning, tidying, washing and doing laundry. I allocate 35 hours for work, which might be more collected on weekdays or whatever your timetable is. You might need to add more for people who work 40-hour weeks and have longer commute times. 7 hours per week needs to be for cleaning, washing etc. 7 hours per week eating. 7 hours should be used for sleep per day or 49 hours. Then there is health maintenance for which I allocate an hour each day. This can be 30mins of walking which might just be to and from work and 30 mins of exercise or going to doctors, doing their advice. Some of these can be collected together for a gym visit twice a week or a class of a sport or dance. Then you need to spend time working on your mental health. This is not always doing CBT or diary entries, actually a lot of the time it’s just doing something fun or something you find restful and/or pleasurable. It might even be watching TV. I am going to say one thing however, I do not believe video games or social media is good for your mental health. Both have been shown to substantially tax the brain’s dopamine and increase anxiety disorders. Both of my current house mates tell me that video games is how they relax. However, both of them are medicated for anxiety disorders and one of them cannot do a job, so suffice it to say, I do not take them at their word. 3.5 hours per week should be spent interacting with people that make you feel like you belong. This can be used for going out on a weekend, but I recommend at least 2 opportunities per week to socialise, this can be less in the time table of someone who cohabits with people they feel very comfortable truly being their self with. People who make them feel like they belong and they are unjudged. Laying all that out you literally end up with 7.5 hours on average each day to split between magic, other hobbies and many more socialising or going out you want to fit in. Let’s have a look at these figures.
So even on the tightest week days there’s still going to be 3 or 4 hours to practice magic or 5 in my case. This can be 45 mins reading 15 mins making notes and an hour practical and then 1-2 hours watching Netflix or sewing or martial arts or salsa or a different one of these each day.
Let’s be serious here. Working with your timetable is like budgeting. If you’re too strict and do not allow for enough pleasure you will rebel against it. If you don’t allow enough freedom you will rebell against it.
I conclude: you have time for magic, you have time for other hobbies AND you have time for socialising. You also are capable to approach these things in a healthy balance and this DOES reflect a true magician. Just one magician with experience.
Other hobbies and an active social life are key to magic
Finally, I am going to finish with saying that other hobbies and an active social life are key. In fact, if I were to take on a new initiate, the one thing that makes me think this person will be balanced and calm about their approach to magic is if they have another hobby, especially one that demands time and which they have done for a long time. Guys that play instruments, do martial arts or train regularly for physical sports will know how to fit in the time for something that requires effort and devotion.
Finally without another hobby we become entirely dependant on magic. It becomes the only source of our self-actualization and we become incapable of being honest with ourselves if our practice is failing. Even if we can be honest with ourself, then we can reasonably become deeply depressed if years of effort is not demonstrating any results.
A social life is needed to help us through the vicissitudes of life (the ups and downs). Without one we have little support and with little support our emotions have the capacity to de-rail us. Maintaining a regular magical practice is much harder without social support.
Conclusion
I really appreciate why Nick Farrell wrote this article. I am often stuck listening to people tell me I don’t need to do pranayama exercise because I can do energy work and I don’t need to bother with dhyana, if I took up their mindfulness approach. I need many of these people to wake up to who they really are and stop trying to encourage me to take the shortcuts they did when they don’t know the full territory. I want people to question why they are doing magic if they need to present it to everyone in everyday life. I thank Nick Farrell for writing his article.
However, I conclude that Magic is the apex of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and we must resolve everything below it first. If we fail to do so we will not have stable approach to magic. Our magic could lean to self-delusion, a regular practice would be difficult to maintain and our inner planes would be affected by our concerns with our needs or imbalanced mental state.
Magic is not the be all and end all. It provides a momentary glimps of truth that lets us escape our limited perspective of reality, but as soon as we continue to engage with life again, we are drawn back into it. See the video from I Heart Huckabees below that explores this idea. Somewhere in the middle they touch on something. We are meant to be drawn into life and its dramas. Magic provides that release, but it is not natural to maintain a continual disconnect all aspects of our physical reality.
Finally hobbies and a social life are a key part of a healthy magic-life balance that actually promotes success in magic rather than being an indicator of not being a magician.
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