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    #16
    Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

    To be frankly honest with you, you aren't going to find what you are looking for in books (well not the kind of books you buy in a store at least ) nor are you going to find them on websites. Proficient Practitioners are not randomly posting their craft on webpages. And then it's important to look at it from another angle. These Advanced Practitioners...where did they start?! Where did they get their skills from?!
    1 they started out small just as you are right now (so don't be discouraged so easily, you'll get there eventually!!)
    2 the spells that they have, that you are searching for most likely came from somewhere noone can access but the person creating it. it's within you. That's where the "power" really lies. You need to yes of course do research, BUT about the correct things IMO. Read read read about all the different properties of plants, stones and semi precious stones, colors, scents, the elements, different deities. Come in contact with nature. Feel these things, then live them and then speak them.
    As you can see I do not believe in rambling down someone else's words, I believe in creating your own!

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      #17
      Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

      Before you look for any spell book or anything, you need to start by believing in the power of our energy. There is no book or any spell which will work for ou if you luck self belief. Once you learn that, even just words or through meditation you can cast a spell without using any magic tool or ingredients.
      No sig for you.

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        #18
        Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

        My religious background you mean? I was an Hellenic polytheist, and now am a Naturalistic Polytheist/Nature-worshipper. No background with magick. I would appreciate any reading list you can recommend, thank you.
        Bit of a late reply, but here goes:

        The Kybalion - not a practical guide, but it explores many of the underlying mechanics of magic, which not only helps you understand the 'how' and to adjust your workings, but in my experience makes them immeasurably more effective.

        Initiation Into Hermetics - Very heavy duty book for serious development, but if that's not your thing even taking up the early exercises casually should be enormously beneficial.

        11 Lesson in Modern Magick - More ritual based, which might not be your thing, but it's a good book and covers a diverse selection of topics, as well as a lot of basic techniques, well worth a read.

        The Inner Temple of Witchcraft - This one is from a Wiccan context, but one of the few Wiccan books which actually gives decent advice for practical magic, although most of it is probably made redundant by the first two.

        Basic Sigil Magick - I haven't read this one completely, but it came highly recommended and what I saw looked decent.

        The Sorcerer's Secrets - A bit cheesy and lightweight, but contains decent advice for practical spellwork and what not.

        Israel Regardie's One Year Manual - another development system based on the Golden Dawn system. Pretty lightweight and probably not your style, but can't hurt to check it out.

        And finally anything by Scott Cunningham - he doesn't, from what I remember, give any real developmental advice, but his books have a whole selection of spells for different things, mostly using natural ingredients and low key settings.

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          #19
          Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

          Remember that magic is mostly autosuggestion, and almost everything else (the chants, rituals, items and so forth) are only there to help you strengthen your visualization. With that in mind, a trained and strong mage can pull out a spell practically out of thin air: I've seen people freestyle some really powerful stuff. A good reading would be... well, just about anything from Scott Cunningham. I personally loved his book on stone and crystal magic, as well as the one on food magic.

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            #20
            Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

            Originally posted by Lilium of the Valley View Post
            To be frankly honest with you, you aren't going to find what you are looking for in books (well not the kind of books you buy in a store at least ) nor are you going to find them on websites. Proficient Practitioners are not randomly posting their craft on webpages. And then it's important to look at it from another angle. These Advanced Practitioners...where did they start?! Where did they get their skills from?!
            1 they started out small just as you are right now (so don't be discouraged so easily, you'll get there eventually!!)
            2 the spells that they have, that you are searching for most likely came from somewhere noone can access but the person creating it. it's within you. That's where the "power" really lies. You need to yes of course do research, BUT about the correct things IMO. Read read read about all the different properties of plants, stones and semi precious stones, colors, scents, the elements, different deities. Come in contact with nature. Feel these things, then live them and then speak them.
            As you can see I do not believe in rambling down someone else's words, I believe in creating your own!
            Lilium's got some good advice. I have been a witch for about two and a half years now, and I started by looking around at many different sources, but in the end I ended up making my own decisions about things. You can feel free to read any of the books people have listed here, and feel free to Google any spellcraft you want to, but keep in mind that many people have many different opinions and ways of doing things. Some of it probably won't work for you. Some of it might. Like Lilium said, magic is within you. You're not going to have as much luck with a spell you got off of a website than you will with one you created all on your own.

            I would suggest looking into many different sources to get a feel for what kind of magic you want to do. You need to know what you want before you try anything. To get inspired, instead of asking other people, ask yourself. Do meditation, pray, do whatever you feel like doing to get inspired. It's all up to you. Taking a hike through the forest might work. It often works for me, and since you're a Naturalist it might work for you too. Just remember that in the end, it all revolves around what you feel comfortable doing, and what forces inspire you to work spells. Good luck in your quest, and good luck casting!

            - - - Updated - - -

            Originally posted by wildcat View Post
            I'm interested in learning about the different properties of items that one uses (candles, herbs, incenses, symbols, etc), and information on how people use them to form spells, charms, rituals, etc.
            As far as the candles go, there are many places you can go to find color correspondence charts. Here are two of them which might help you out:

            http://www.themagickalcat.com/Articles.asp?ID=241

            http://www.witchipedia.com/table:color-correspondences

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              #21
              Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

              Originally posted by codesharp View Post
              Remember that magic is mostly autosuggestion
              Must disagree. Auto suggestion is psychology. Magic is the willful manipulation of the natural world around you. Agree with you about the theatrics being mostly unnecessary, but those things comfort people more than anything else.
              I often wish that I had done drugs in the '70s. At least there'd be a reason for the flashbacks. - Rick the Runesinger

              Blood and CountryTribe of my Tribe
              Clan of my Clan
              Kin of my Kin
              Blood of my Blood



              For the Yule was upon them, the Yule; and they quaffed from the skulls of the slain,
              And shouted loud oaths in hoarse wit, and long quaffing swore laughing again.

              Comment


                #22
                Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                If you are interested in " interested in learning about the different properties of items that one uses (candles, herbs, incenses, symbols, etc)", then you are looking for information on correspondences. Its pretty easy to find tables of correspondences online. My favorite book of correspondences is Eileen Holland's Grimoire of Magical Correspondences.

                From there, its just a matter of which correspondences to choose and how to use them...and that, that is entirely personal (with a wee bit of pragmatism thrown in--ie, don't ingest poisonous things, etc). A good place to start is this article. But really, you can use correspondences to do magic anywhere--in cooking dinner, in making your bed, in taking a shower. And, if you don't want to use correspondences to do magic, and you don't know where to start, Mrs. Penry has a really great little book called Magic on the Breath.
                Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                sigpic

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                  #23
                  Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                  Originally posted by Rick View Post
                  Must disagree. Auto suggestion is psychology. Magic is the willful manipulation of the natural world around you. Agree with you about the theatrics being mostly unnecessary, but those things comfort people more than anything else.
                  You do manipulate the natural world around you, subconsciously, after you first manipulate yourself into doing that. At least, that's what I've come to believe, based on my studies, research, and experience. In your opinion, how does one manipulate the world around herself?

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                    Originally posted by codesharp View Post
                    You do manipulate the natural world around you, subconsciously, after you first manipulate yourself into doing that. At least, that's what I've come to believe, based on my studies, research, and experience. In your opinion, how does one manipulate the world around herself?
                    I wouldn't know anything about doing anything around herself. But I do manipulate the world around me consciously on a regular basis, and I don't "auto suggest" myself into doing it. I do it with willful intent, based on study, research, experience and my need at the moment.
                    I often wish that I had done drugs in the '70s. At least there'd be a reason for the flashbacks. - Rick the Runesinger

                    Blood and CountryTribe of my Tribe
                    Clan of my Clan
                    Kin of my Kin
                    Blood of my Blood



                    For the Yule was upon them, the Yule; and they quaffed from the skulls of the slain,
                    And shouted loud oaths in hoarse wit, and long quaffing swore laughing again.

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                      Gonna agree with Rick. There is an element of autosuggestion and other forms of psychological manipulation in some forms of magic, but my (paraphrased) definition of magic is the creation of change through the application of spiritual forces and laws. Pure autosuggestion can be effective (if limited in application) but under that definition it isn't, strictly speaking, magic, and it certainly isn't the full extent of magic. I know the psychological theory of magic is rather trendy these days, but imo it's a huge cop out and falls well short of explaining the full extent of what magic can achieve.

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                        #26
                        Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                        Originally posted by Rick View Post
                        I wouldn't know anything about doing anything around herself. But I do manipulate the world around me consciously on a regular basis, and I don't "auto suggest" myself into doing it. I do it with willful intent, based on study, research, experience and my need at the moment.
                        This.

                        Any serious practioner of magic (witchcraft or otherwise) does so consciously and with full intet. Otherwise, they are a piss poor practitioner.
                        Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                        sigpic

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                          Having just rewatched The Matrix last night -- the back and forth about autosuggestion reminded me of the spoon-bending child advising Neo, "Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no spoon. Then you will realize that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."

                          "No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical." -- Niels Bohr

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                            #28
                            Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                            Originally posted by nbdy View Post
                            Having just rewatched The Matrix last night -- the back and forth about autosuggestion reminded me of the spoon-bending child advising Neo, "Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no spoon. Then you will realize that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
                            There's certainly an element of that. The thing is that a lot of magic (though not all, depending on definitions) works through the mental > energetic relationship, which tends to convey not only what you're actively intending to cause, but your related hopes, dreams, fears, doubts etc. which dwell in the subconscious, in my experience (it's been suggested that the subconscious has more influence than the conscious does). If your conscious mind is trying to make X happen, but your subconscious is saying X is impossible, then the two cancel eachother out and you just end up spinning your wheels and going nowhere, so to speak.

                            That's why altered mental states are so often utilized in certain forms of magic, they allow people to overcome their preconceived notions of what they are and aren't capable of doing.

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                              Originally posted by Aeran View Post
                              Gonna agree with Rick. There is an element of autosuggestion and other forms of psychological manipulation in some forms of magic, but my (paraphrased) definition of magic is the creation of change through the application of spiritual forces and laws. Pure autosuggestion can be effective (if limited in application) but under that definition it isn't, strictly speaking, magic, and it certainly isn't the full extent of magic. I know the psychological theory of magic is rather trendy these days, but imo it's a huge cop out and falls well short of explaining the full extent of what magic can achieve.
                              Can you give me an illustration of this? Something like a scenario where autosuggestion is being used, then the same scenario but where magic is being used if applicable?

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                                #30
                                Re: Help on intro to spellcraft?

                                Sure, although it's a blurry line as, as I said, autosuggestion is limited in application, and so any magical operation which is aimed at the same goals as could be achieved by autosuggestion, could easily be achieved through psychological mechanisms instead of spiritual ones itself. This is where spells for things like luck, confidence, etc. exist, in that blurred zone between the mental and the magical, and this is the reason the psychological theory of magic has emerged (in part), because a lot of people get stuck in that area of manifesting small manipulations of life circumstance which could easily fall under either definition and come to assume that that is all that magic is.

                                For an example, the earlier stages of the system of hermetic magic I work with primarily revolves around personal, internal development, balancing the mental, energetic and physical bodies and the psychological transmutations of negative traits into positive traits. Autosuggestion is one common method of doing so, with another being conscious breathing/eating/drinking, where you charge the air/food/water you consume with the desired trait on the astral/energetic level, with this charge being absorbed into the body and subsumed in the process of breathing/eating/drinking. But, as I said, it could easily be claimed that the latter techniques are reliant on autosuggestion themselves to function, especially by someone who hasn't had the chance to progress to later stages of practice and ascertain the reality of energetic/astral phenomenon themselves. Indeed, even when that reality has been established, it is possible that these activities still function potentially, or entirely, through psychological mechanisms, which is difficult to prove or disprove either way. But what matters is that they do work, ultimately.

                                The same problem occurs in a lot of the small kinds of 'spells' which are found in books in witchcraft and the like. How do you know that an amulet enchanted to provide courage is actually providing courage through an energetic influence, as opposed to just providing a psychosomatic boost to the individual?

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