The Source of Your Power

It's not a Power Trip. It's just Power Observation.

I once said something about having how you can have complete conscious control over everything in your life through the Power of Magic. After a while, I modified that a bit and said there's nothing in existence that is beyond your ability to influence through the Power of Magic.

These days I reside somewhere in between the original statement and the modified stance. I've seen every aspect of my life fall under complete conscious control and manifest exactly as I communicated to the spirits in a concert of conjuration. Every aspect! Relationship, health issues, finances, automobile failure, social interactions, professional intrigues, parenting, learning and teaching, everything I do, everything I am, and every circumstance I go through in any given day has been directly changed according to my stated direction through magical rites.

But at the same time, it happened under stress. When everything culminated at once in a crescendo of stress, I called on everything and everyone I knew from a position of ... authority is too authoritarian of a word for it, it was more like I just accepted that I am the steward of all aspects of my Sphere of Influence, and started communicating my plan to the forces at my disposal. It took the heat of the moment to motivate me, to push me to the level where I was not only able, but also fully conscious enough to actually do the Directing. I had to rise above the circumstances and have them pushed into more comfortable positions. I couldn't do that without the stress of that moment. Life wasn't hard enough for me to require that kind of response up until then.

It's kind of interesting, when I hit that moment, I felt alone. I wasn't alone, I felt and heard and communed with the spirits through Word and Symbol, the familiar presence of my Supernatural Assistant was with me, and I could hear the Still Small Voice of the Father clearly enough. But I also felt completely alone. Not the scared and cut off alone, but that good feeling of being alone you get when you have your first apartment or house you're paying for with your own money earned at your own job, and you're not depending on anyone else directly, even though everything everyone who has ever taught you, cared for you, and supported you is still there with you.

Holy crap, I'm ... growing up?

Yeah, right.

Regardless of my debatable maturation, I'm still hesitant to say everything is completely under our direct conscious control as magicians because I'm not at that point of awareness all the time, and even a couple days after that experience, I don't see any reason to even try to control everything. I want to see how my direction manifests, and enjoy the process.

I also have work to do to make some of it manifest. There's a time to experience conscious control of everything that manifests, and a time to go/be/do as the "observing experiencer." A time for acting Above and a time for acting Below. There are things I'm not in direct conscious control of in my life, and I think that's a good thing. I want to see how it unfolds as a part of the process, not just as the director. If life were a movie, I'd aim to be the director who stars in his own film, and wins the Oscar for Best Actor and Best Director for the result.

Of course, if life were a movie I'd find the damned monkey that keeps stealing the script and nail his feet to the ground.

And you know what? That's how I think we all got here in the first place. God designed it all, and then wanted to experience it as it unfolded, so he manifested Mankind to be able to do that, an eternal spirit with access to the powers of Creation, yet existing within a mortal suit capable of forgetting all about that part of their essence. He created little amnesiac vessels out of himself, and then poured himself into them. He teaches us how to access our divine birth right and our immortal heritage, but he lets us also step into the process as it unfolds to experience it in all its richness of layered flavors, choreographed routines, and blessed ignorance of outcome. Because it's him, and it's all about him.

Just like it's us, and it's all about us, from our perspective.

And that's it, really. The Source of our Power. The Father, the One, the Good, the Source. Eheieh. That moment of power I had, when it crackled through me and into this world was there because I was being what I am meant to be. I accepted my role as the Steward, I took on the responsibility of my world, and I took ownership of what is mine to have, to hold, to shape and to mold. Felt good, too, being what I am. All this magic stuff is remembering, reminding, reclaiming what we forgot. The conjurations establish the relationships and provide access to the ones who teach us the skills required to be ourselves in fullness. We learn Who we are, Why we're here, and How to do what we're here to do.

And we get to experience it all on top of that. Gravy!

Writers who Review

I like to read book reviews by readers of books who read because they like to. I get insight from their disappointments and criticisms that I can weigh against my own preferences as a reader. I enjoy reading encouraging reviews by readers who were impacted positively by the book, whether it's a how-to, an esoteric exposition, or a work of fiction or literary art. It's neat. I'd say a good 90% of reviews by readers are useful in some way.

But I have become wary when I'm reading a review by a published author, or a would-be published author. Writers can be mean about things that don't matter to most readers, like grammar and editing (I'm guilty of that). We read from the perspective of a fellow craftsman, not just as an audience. We think about how we would have said something, and if the author we're reviewing has said it worse than we would, we feel cheated, "I could have written that better, and here this a-hole is getting published for it!" Or if they write it better than we could, it rankles.

The worst, in my opinion, is when I read something in the exact style, format, level of diction, and artistic license with the grammatical guidelines that I would have used if I had written it. DuQuette does that to me a lot, writes the same way I do, thinks about things the same way, and says things that I would say. He finds the same things fascinating that I do, and the insights he shares are exactly the ones I would share too. Gets right on my nerves.

Some writers give too much praise for what they've read because they understand how fucking hard it is to get something out, and give the author credit for even being able to get as much across on a dense subject as they manage to, even if it's weak. Other times writers will go off on barely related tangents about what they would have written instead, things they think are missing that they would have included, and basically review a book that exists in their own mind only, that's only distantly related to the actual book they are supposed to be reviewing. To these types, I say write your own book if that's what you want to do, but in the review, fucking review the book you're talking about, not the book you would have written. Don't waste my time, eh?

I've been really enjoying Jow's reviews lately. His reviews are from the perspective of a seeker, and he shares what he got out of the book, as well as a summary. Jason's a writer who can review a book honestly as well*. There's another blogger, Karmaghna, who has been reviewing Jesus the Magician, and I'm enjoying that a great deal. It's like the Cliff's Notes version of the book, and I'm learning a lot in small chunks, delivered neatly to my Google Reader in easily digested chunks. I like that project a lot. It's a different style of review, almost more of a summary, but it's interesting and entertaining as well. Like a Book Report, but by and for grown-ups. I think those are my favorite kinds of review. The Book Reports.

I don't review books much these days because the last few times I tried, I couldn't stop being a writer enough to be able to really focus on the important thing, the experience of reading the book and how it affected me. Also, I haven't had time to read shit. When I read, it's emails and blog posts mostly, news articles on occasion, or something work-related. The magical stuff I read is almost all Agrippa these days, with some Trithemius or Corpus Hermeticum as needed. Maybe I'll start reporting on those things more often. Maybe not, I don't know.

* Have you updated your RSS feed and links to point to Jason real blog site? Hurry up and do so, he's posting videos!

The Power of Magic

Ok, so I forgot. Shit happens, and you just get distracted. Even when you're seeing it regularly like I have been in my clients' lives, you can still forget, and I'll bet real money I'm not the only magician helping others who has momentarily forgotten.

I forgot the power of magic.

When my house got all burnt down from the demons, I withdrew from magic a bit. I still did ascension-type theurgical stuff, and I'd do some neat tricks with the stuff I've been learning in the Eighth Sphere here and there to get ahead at work, to cut through traffic, and to remain invisible to cops and robbers (I was delivering pizzas in the 'hood for a while), but I kind of shied away from doing magic to help myself much.

Last week when my loved one wound up in the hospital, I did an uncrossing rite one night, you know, just in case I'd picked up something without realizing it. The hospital was only one part of a three-pronged attack, and the other two prongs were equally painful and stressful. As soon as I did the rite, each of the prongs was addressed. Made me want to write a blog post about how when magic creates issues in your life, you can tell when you've fixed the source of the problem when the issues caused by the crossed condition seem to resolve as magically and mysteriously as they appeared. Might still get to it, but if not, there it is in one sentence.

Not long after that, I was driving home and dealing with some remaining loose ends related to the issues brought on by the crossed condition, and I had one of those RO moments. Just got sick of all the bullshit and called on everything I know to fix my life up, addressing each of the issues individually and in specific detail, while leaving enough wiggle room for the spirits to do their work on my behalf. I called into being a new reality, and set all the forces under my direction towards building that reality in my life, ASAP.

And it worked like magic. I mean, truly miracles and wonders, extreme coincidences and powerful manifestation of things I said I wanted to happen. And yeah, I had to put some work into making it happen, I had to take the opportunities that presented themselves, and I had to, you know, DO the Work, and it wasn't any easier than usual, but it totally paid off huge. Every seed I planted grew into a huge harvest, and it was overnight. Literally for some things, and figuratively for the longer-term plans. Overnight.

And I've been doing Work for my clients all this time, and they've had strange coincidences that could only make sense in the context of the magic I'd done on their behalf. They got what they wanted in spades too. One lady even had a guy pop into her life whose last name was one of the choirs of Angels after we did some angel magic. Subtle? Nah.

But magic for myself? Practical, get rich and make my life easier because I deserve it magic? I just didn't think about it much. When it did cross my mind, it got swept under the rug as I took care of other people's problems and desires.

Well, fuck that shit, man! Seize the booty, says I, with a pirate wink and a swashbuckler's smile. If you're doing a bunch of magic for others, or you've been focusing on Ascension when you do have time for magic, take some time for your self, some ceremonial ritual time and conjure up your Supernatural Assistant, your Genii Loci friends, your Elemental Familiars, the Seven Archangels of the Planets, the Seven Winds, the Seven Flames before the Throne of God, and put in your requests, submit your invoice for services rendered, get those budget charge codes for the upcoming scheduled tasks in your project, get that girl/boy companionship you need, put in your room service order, and soak in the jacuzzi for a bit while they go about making things happen for you.

Those piles of gold aren't going to conjure themselves, yo.

For Writers of Blogs, Books, and Other Publications

Perhaps the most useful guide to writing I have ever had was the government's Plain Language guidelines. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton issued a memo stating that people should write things better in the government because no one could understand what was being said between agencies. Inside the agencies, specialized vocabularies had developed that no one outside understood.

I've recently started to review these guidelines, and man, I was in desperate need of review. Clients have been asking me WTF I meant in my responses to them, when I thought it was a clear as day. Come to find out, I haven't been COMMUNICATING. The thing I think I do the best. Heh. Woopsie!

Anyway, if you write anything, the ideas in this manual are excellent. The things I do that you like about my writing are within the guidelines. The things that don't make sense are the places where I've gone outside the guidelines. If your goal is to convey information to people, this book helps a lot.

And it's free. Can't beat FREE.

The Normal Shit

I spent the last week in the hospital caring for a loved one, and had a little realization that's probably not new or original or particularly unique: in the midst of stressful times, it's the normal shit that makes everything better.

I called a good friend and just listened to him talk about his job and stuff, and talked about what was going on with me, and then about magic and healing, and it was the kind of conversation he and I usually have. It was so normal, and it gave me a little bubble of sanity when everything else in my life seemed upside down.

It was a spontaneous thing, not preplanned to turn out that way. It was almost instinct to reach out and touch someone, it's only in hindsight that I understand what I was doing. I don't know if that kind of thing can be engineered. Personally, even knowing a moment of normalcy will help won't convince me to take that moment when I'm stressed to the gills. It had to be a nearly-unconscious act for it to have diverted my attention from the issues at hand long enough to recharge.

I'm the kind of person that only looks for solutions to the problems when problems are occurring, I have a stress-relief machine I operate in a crisis, and I don't stop to think about taking care of the machine. I just use it to eliminate the stress, to solve the problems. In this case, the machine is me, my thoughts, awareness, as well as my flesh suit I walk around in. Mind of Me and all that resembles it.

But that moment of normalcy with a friend was like giving the machine preventive maintenance, and gave me the boost I needed (without knowing I needed it) to stay the course and get through it in victory.

Uh, so yeah, the point of the post is "it's good to have friends." Friends to do normal shit with.