What Is Magick?

Put simply, Magick is the RESULT of hard work and dedicated mastery of the energies around us. Although the contemporary term would imply differently, one does not "DO" Magick. Magick is wrought, ergo it is the result of other works, not those works themselves.

Through the use of mental disciplines, herbolatry, geomancy, candlemancy, and many other means, one achieves "Magick." Magick is the manifestation of those techniques and disciplines, not the disciplines themselves.

When the word "Magickal" is used, most often it is used out of context, or inappropriately. A place is "Magickal" when the High Magicks are known to have been manifested in that place. A quiet glenn is, by itself, probably NOT a Magickal place. It may be ripe to BE a Magickal Place, but unless the Fae or other Magickal Beings have walked there, or physical manifestation of the powers associated with "Magick" are present, it is merely a nice spot to BECOME your Magickal Place.

Some places ARE Magickal. Stonehenge, Glastonbury Tor, Tijuanico[et al], the Faerie Mounds of Donnelaith Scotland [for example] are all Magickal Places. High Magicks were wrought in these locales over centuries, thereby creating the proper energies which, in turn, have found their way into the ground itself. The stones, earth, and topography all have the Magickal Charge within them. Some say Stonehenge is now dead, but those Druids who worship and celebrate there every Mid-Summer's Day, could effectively redirect those Ley Lines back to this ancient place of Magick and thereby revive it. Who knows? We could even discover through this revival, what this venerable place was used for.

Magick is not the feeling one gets when a spirit is nearby. Magick is not the rite, ritual, or spell you are working on. Magick is the culmination of all elements of Rite, Ritual, or Spell, made manifest in the physical. Magick is the RESULT, not the road you take to get that result.

This marks the end of this article. All that is below is an Elswetorial. Thank you.

I was taught as a Child that Magick was the stuff of fantasy and movies; that the type of Magick performed by the dueling wizard and witch in the Wizard Disneyamous's Sword In The Stone could really happen. When I was older, after My Dragon Companion had already made Himself known to Me, I was told that Magick was the manipulation of energies to affect a change; that it was just like when the Christians pray.

When I was older still, I was taught that Magick was evil and of the Devil, but My mother, rest her, made sure that I understood that the devil was a Christian god, so I knew that the "Magick belonging to the devil" thing was a lie.

I had already experienced the euphoric states of Magick. I had already felt the Quickening.

I remember elegiacally My mother spending the entire week after Lammas outside, under the plum trees, over a roaring fire; the child's wading pool (MY wading pool *lol*) full of water, fresh fruit and vegetables floating around while I scrubbed them with a small brush. I remember cleaning, shucking, cooking, blanching, scouring, peeling and preparing the first of our small garden's fruit and vegetable harvest. We pickled, canned, jellied, stewed, sliced, spiced and blanched for freezing everything a southern Alabama vegetable garden (and an impressive complement of fruit trees) could offer.

My grandfather would officiate as My mother and Grandmother set up the outside altar beneath the 30-year-old Bartlett pear trees; our bare feet on the lush carpet of St. Augustine grass, just 3 feet from the cooking fires over which My mom and I worked all day. I would hold the long wand (the one made just for this purpose) while My Grandmother laid over it long sections of treated twine. My grandpa and I would start the process of making the long dips into the huge vat of wax which was heated over the remnants of the canning fires, letting that cool and then dipping again. When the wand became too heavy for Me to handle, My mother and grandpa would continue the process until we had enough candles made to last us through Imbolc.

I remember the feeling of Family, warmth and love as My mother, an ordained High Priestess with the Dianic Temple in New Orleans, called down the Goddess for us to give thanks to Her for the harvest of our little garden.

Was any of this...Magick? It sure felt like it. But then again...What is Magick?

When I was fifteen, I began studying Magickal paths in earnest; taking what I learned as a child, observing My mother and her parents, and was taught in convent school, and slowly, carefully molding it and taking it into Myself.

In My years of study and practice, I have come to develop My own path; that of the Eclectic [Ecclectic, it's spelled both ways]. I have learned that Magick is Magick, regardless of what it is called; prayer, offering, spellwork, entreaty, rite, ritual, etc. Religion itself represents the relationship between Us and Our Gods. Magick is the manifest of that relationship, whether that manifest is on the Ethereal, Psychic or Primordial Plane. Some Magick Users may never manifest on the Primordial Plane. Making things happen on this plane, visible to the physical eye and detectable to anything more than your baser instincts for most people is just not possible.

Many blame this condition of Magickal deterioration on the Christian domination of European and Western World religion. They feel that centuries of a lack of believers, followers and priests of the Old Ways and petitioners to the old Gods has dampened Magick's abilities to manifest here so greatly that to create physical manifestation is nigh impossible.

The next school of thought concerning high Magick states that Mankind and our "progress" is the lone cause; the sole catalyst. Pollution, nuclear and other toxic wastes, oceanic dumping, whaling and hunting many species to extinction's brink and beyond have all done more than set the Earth's energies askew. These people believe that high Magick will never again be possible because of the damage and pain wrought against our Great Mother.

My theory concerning High Magicks combines all the previous mentioned theories, which I find both plausible and likely, along with My own realizations of the other, almost imperceptible changes made to the Earth.

The Earth rotates a fraction of a degree differently each year, thereby causing the Ley Lines of energy to shift. Over the eons, these Ley Lines are redirected inch by inch, foot by foot, away from the ancient places of Magick. Tsunamis, oceanic earthquakes, and the like have caused the Earth to shift by whole DEGREES, in the past. It is My belief that these Ley Lines, while still present and active, are themselves, diminishing; having been spread too thin across the Earth.

It is for these reasons; global warming, dumping, pollution, lack of practice, the thinning of the Ley Lines, that any energies raised should be sent back into the Earth as healing energies when your spell or rite has ended!! Heal Her and She will rise again. Resurrect the Ley Lines and move them back to those Places of Power!

But, as usual, I digress.

Corn Alert

What is Magick?

I can give you the clinical definition of Magick, the literary definition of Magick or the aesthetic. But you have heard all these a thousand times before so I won't bore you any more than I already have.

For Me, Magick was the feeling created by My mother's tender kiss on My forehead as she whispered a sweet "goodnight." It is the look in My husband's eyes as he holds Me in his arms and proves to Me every day that a better way of life isn't just a fairy tale.

Magick is what you make of it, as it is with all things and all aspects of your life.

You can ONLY get out of it what you are willing to put into it.

Magick is created by the steadfast belief [faith, if you will] that there is something better and greater than ourselves...out there...and what happens when you do believe.