Beginner's Magic
Beginner's Magic |
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I was a little reluctant to write this page at first, but my utilitarian side overruled my common sense once again. This is a subject that has apparently been in high demand. Here, I will outline five basic techniques that should be fundamental to every magician and a beginner's practice to go with each. These techniques will go hand in hand with all of the magic theory presented on the rest of this site. Again, these are basic techniques; things that a magician should be ashamed to not know. Although once the techniques have been learned and the accompanying skills attained, the exercises serve little purpose. So now, on with it. I have never seen an occult practice that did not start with breath control. It has been called the most basic form of relaxed concentration and here I will present the technique that I learned when beginning my training. This is nothing glorious or glamourous, but it will prepare the practicioner for later instances that will require similar types of relaxation and concentration (such as some of the other exercises). The whole goal of this exercise is the relaxed concentration. Keep that in mind. Sit down in a comfortable chair (laying down works just as well) and relax (loosen all of the muscles in your body). Clear your mind as much as possible and focus on your breathing. Inhale for a count of 8, hold for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 8, and hold for another count of 4. Repeat this as long as you feel comfortable, but at least 10 minutes or so. As you progress, your counting should follow your heart beat for beat. As you move deeper and deeper into relaxation, your heart continues to slow, and your breath will follow. This is an important starting point and unfortunately an effective trap. Visualization aids in devloping many skills that a magician needs. However, one must NOT delude themself into thinking visualizing something is inciting change! I began visualization practices very early on and as I developed, I began to realize that I was no longer visualizing anything, rather I was willing something into being and percieving the outcome. Thus what I willed to happen was not always what I percieved. Do not expect that change to take place quickly or on a grand scale. It is a long path riddled with stones and the occassional boulder. But with sufficient objectivity and determination, it is a prospirous one. I give this same exercise to anyone that I instruct (along with a more lengthy disclaimer). The point of this practice is to hone your ability to focus upon exactly what you want to do and how you will do it, as well as your ability to interpret your surroundings. Sit in any given room and take a look around for a moment. Then close your eyes and relax for a moment. Mentally recreate the entire room in which you are sitting. This doesn't sound too difficult to begin with, but it gets better. Can you read the spines of any books on any shelves? All of them? At once? Can you see every detail of all of the wallpaper? Can you read your own shirt? What about pictures on the walls? Can you see all of this at the same time? Do this for at least a few minutes at a time, several times a day. This is a very basic skill that is a step up from the breathing exercise mentioned above. It is meant to hone you ability to focus your entire mind on a single objective. This doesn't need quite as much of a disclaimer as the last, so we'll just go right into it. Sit quietly in a room alone. The light shouldn't be too bright or too dim. You dont want outside distractions. Incorporating the breath control technique described above may be a good idea here for relaxation. Close your eyes and focus on any one idea or object. This is not contemplation, it is simply focus. Do so for at least a few minutes to begin with. After you progress a bit, you should be able to do this for a least 15 to 20 minutes. Also, after you progress, you can forget about the lights, the quiet room, and even sitting down. Advanced meditation can last for several hours at a time in the most distracting of conditions, as well as involve up to 5 or 6 different individual focuses that must be maintained. This is something that I feel is not often enough differentiated from meditation. It is intended to be a parallel practice to meditation, but that does not necessarily mean they should be practiced at the same time. This is another one of the exercises I took early on. It is identical to meditation in every aspect but one: the focus. "Entering The Silence" is not a focus or multifocus exercise, but a lack of focus. The ability to focus on absolutely nothing does not come quite so easy as one would think. Although, it is not chaos or random thought. It is the ability to quiet the mind. Follow the same instructions for this as described for meditation, just substitute "lack of thought." This is undoubtably a controversial topic, especially considering my definition of essence. The goal here is to either create, draw in, or apply what is commonly refered to as "essence." The reliable creation of essence involves a lot of trial and error that we will not go into here (hey, I'm not your personal trainer). However, gathering and applying essence is simple enough. To gather essence, one must concentrate on it. Normally, this is most easily done by first finding it and then drawing it to you (involving direct manipulation, see visualization above). Finding it can only be done with experience (the skills developed through the visualization technique aid here as well). The easiest way to control an essence, is to normalize yourself with it. This is something that you do at your own risk. As any experienced black magician or necromancer will tell you, there can be definite adverse effects. Once this is done the essence becomes, to you, much more fluid. To apply the essence to something, is to simply normalize it with the essence you are using. Thus your target takes on the properties of that particular essence. I suggest you do this sparingly for health's sake. As you can see, there is a lot of "just do it" and "with experience" involved here. However, these skills are still considered basic. There is plenty of room for advancement all around, no matter how good you can become. Objectivity and determination are the keys to success in the world of magic. Fortuna bona. |
