So I wanna hear from you guys, how did your journey into magick start? What happened to lead you all here?
For me it was getting into new age stuff, then beginning to delve deeper into the darker side, the side with less pomp and fluff around it. Looking for the gods and spirits of my German heritage is what drew me to the craft.
Honestly even though I started seriously studying the occult within the year (February-April depending on what you consider to be occultism) I can’t think of a single moment where I wasn’t attracted to magic or the idea of joining a religion that practices magic. It just seemed impossible to me until I met a Wiccan. I considered joining Wicca but I ended up not wanting to do that, especially after said person broke ties with me in the rudest way they could. I decided then to look up Satanism one day (I don’t know why I thought to look that up specifically really) and after reading the Satanic Bible on Valentine’s Day it just sprawled out from there. To this day, LaVey inspires me. I agree with Michael Kelly when he typed in a book recommendation list, the Satanic Bible is “still worth it’s weight in gold,” even if it’s market value is $10-12.
I’ll give the cliff notes version 
else we’ll be here all day.
early in life I went through the whole church thing (confirmation and all that). I stopped caring about it after not having certain deeper questions answered and started looking else where. First all I could find were books on wicca, a useful start but I felt no connection to it, quickly moved on to learning hermetics and some of the golden dawn rituals, but felt that too was over complicating things. I saw the similiarities between the hermetic teachings and the more eastern wisdom traditions, I was initiated into kriya yoga and stayed in that path more or less for a good 6 years (still using tarot and candle magick, have to give wicca that much at least ) Hit a brick wall and started looking into the left hand path about 6 years ago and stumbled upon koettings work in '13. And that pretty much brings me here 
been practicing koetting’s works and the draconian path ever since.
First dominoe for me was When I Was a kid i poked at the crawling chaos and went TeAcH mE tO bE aS tHe oLd oNeSs! 
and here i am not about 20 year later lol
I started when a friend sent me a link the Joy of Satan as a joke, at the time I was very skeptical and thought it was funny that people actually take things like this seriously. However I kept coming back to the website, reading more than I expected I would. I thought that maybe they weren’t just making stuff up for attention and that there might be something to it to get such a large following. The more I read the more I believed. I don’t have much experience with evocations or communicating with spirits but through meditation I have similar experiences to what I’ve read reinforcing my belief that this could be real. Then through further research of the occult I’ve com across E.A. Koetting and learned the Joy of Satan’s magical exercises are useful but their beliefs seem kind of dogmatic and have a lot of national socialism in-bedded into them.
Went into occult stuff because I loved someone and I was desperate 
When i was 7, i realized from my father that magick was indeed real. When i was 14, i began studying absolutely everything i could get my hands on (mostly runes), mainly due to a free period at school with relatively free internet access. When i was about 21, i cast my first spell, did my very first active energy work. Now I’m 28 and I feel like ive come so far and yet not nearly far enough. Its actually really creepy how easily my journey divides into 7s right now. This is the end of another chapter too, and the beginning of a new one.
The gods called me into what i do now. 
A break up
Did it help? What were you trying to accomplish with it?
desperation, the same as many others…
just finished trade school but was unable to get a job in the area i was trained in because there are barely any job opportunities for electricians in Baltimore. so i gave up all hope of living, started a VERY unhealthy marijuana habit, and dove into the esoteric deep as hell and fully committed to the path.
I don’t have an exact turning point, growing up with religion makes the occult not a far leap, just a switching of sides or adding to the story.
It wasn’t until this year when I FINALLY (jesusfuckingchrist) broke free of all RHP dogma was I shown real information on the LHP. I suppose, looking back, I was given clues and hints (how about a demon stalker/friend for 11 years??) but rejected them (him) so the rest was hidden from me.
The other side came to me when I was a child. I was born like this. And when my children were born they could see them too so I decided that I needed to study and learn as much as I could to help my daughter. She was a toddler and reacting to things that others could not see. My first spell came involuntarily out of my mouth in another language that I did not know and almost killed my “dad.” So it really is the case that I didn’t choose the life. The life chose me.
yup, just getting at peace
I went dove into magic because of infidelity, and I got into a huge fight with my lover. I’m sure without magic I wouldn’t be with my lover today .
Same here, really. Also curiosity because magick held a sense of mystery to me.And being that it was something considered taboo and a forbidden fruit in my upbringing and social milieu just eventually made it all that more appealing. It almost seemed against the law. Going darker over time has just seemed a natural progression.
It really did. It’s kinda surprising how so many of us were raised christian, sometimes strictly so, but then we turned to demons and magick. It wasn’t even rebellion either, it just felt right.
Basically; same song and dance like everyone here. Grew up in a Christian family and was as blind as the rest of them. Despite the fact that my sister and I think but not to sure, my mother use to practice Wiccan but I didn’t because I had no interest in magic but that all changed almost five years ago now. I ended up having an awakening, (which given all I’ve learned now up to this point was actually; a realistic Kundalini awakening), and according to Aseanath Mason, a calling of Lilith. It happened when I found a group of blogs about some guys saying that they are in relationships with Lilith’s daughters, the Succubi and I doubted it at first but started reading more and more and eventually; awoke something in me and called Lilith. Long story short, I’m now in a pact with Lilith and am having success with energy work and other things. I’m also working with the Qliphoth as Lilith invited me to it and will be doing my second invocation of Naamah tonight from Invocations and Evocations.
religious society + teenage rebellion = hail satan.
hail satan + wiccan mother= black magic
Funny thing I was going to start a thread like this a wile ago, but something came up so I couldn’t. Lol
But lets get to topic.
I guess you could say I have always been attracted magic (and Dragons). At a young age it started out as a fascination with your typical stage “magic”. Even after learning all it really was, was slight of hand, something in me still felt that not all magic was fake(parlor tricks).
As I grew older I still had a happy fondness for stage magic (Really who doesn’t like a good “magic” show?). At that time I was becoming more and more ostracized by my pears (Was a very dark time for me, that wouldn’t see its end till I was on my oun.)
During all those dark, but thanks to my yonger brother not lonely years. I would tend to stay to myself, often finding myself in the school Library. I would often be in the fiction section, but after a few years perusing that section and learning to read a hell of a lot closer to my grade level. I eventually found myself in a section of Library, tucked away in a corner, simply called “other”. This area seemed to be filled with very old, out dated books and as I was soon to discover with books about the past that most would have like left forgotten. Books like that on the Salem Which Trials. Also around that time I met a girl, I can’t remember what her and her family practiced, it was neither Wican or Pagan and I didn’t get to see it first hand. We dated for a bit (I was still in the closet). She ended up being the first person I came out to, she was very supportive. But finding those book and her, where what started my taste and research of “real world magic”.
Unfortunately I quickly found out that my persut would have to wait till many years later, after buying a vile of Dragons Blood oil for that girl as a gift. My mother had found it before I could give it to her and I can bet you all know where that went. Luckly I was abile to steal it away from my mother one day while she was out and gave it to thw girl.
I knew after that incident thoe, that I would have to wait till I was out on my oun to really delve into research. After a good hand full of years on the RHP I stumbled on to E.A.s Youtube and decided it was time to take a look at the other side of the coin.
So here I have been for the last 2 years learning what I can, new ways of looking at things, getting a few answers on things that have eluded me and makeing new friends.
Unfortunately I have to keep my activity here secret because of the people I live with, but it is an inconvenience I can live with.
So that is how I ended up here.