How Magick Works | Emotation > Meditation

General Discussion
, ,
1

So, this will be perhaps somewhat of a controversial point of view posted by myself, but recently I’ve felt inspired to do this. Most folks who have been part of this community for a while will be well aware that the one instruction that is most often stated as a “must do” for folks to get good with magick, especially around here, is to learn how to meditate. Why? Well the argument often goes that through meditation, one can better get into the necessary trance state (what EA coined as the Theta-Gamma Sync) because without this trance state, one cannot perform magick.

Really?

I’ve been somewhat at odds with this narrative, especially as of late…but what tipped me over the edge was this recent video by EA where he basically came out and said that none of this meditative stillness stuff is necessary for magick to work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_aNbc0_xE&t=417s&ab_channel=E.A.Koetting

He states that being in total stillness is just one pathway to getting into what he better describes as ecstasy. But there are many paths to getting your magick to work, and most of the magickal traditions out there don’t require the stillness of a meditative trance. In my opinion…the linchpin that is absolutely necessary to get magick working is not about being good at meditation…its about about being good at Emotation. To my dismay, this is a word that doesn’t actually exist, but you can think of it as a derivative of the word emotive which is the ability to express emotions. I define the word emotation as the ability to conjure emotions spontaneously without external stimuli. Why I say emotation is more important than meditation is because the main driving force that makes magick work at the end of the day is emotion. You can get everything else wrong, but if the ritual is filled with genuine emotion, it may still work.

Meditation (and by extension, the theta-gamma sync) is more important, I believe, for those of you trying to accomplish evocation of a spirit to physical appearance. Without the use of certain drugs or sleep deprivation, deep meditation is one of the only ways to get to the brain waves necessary for one to perceive what’s going on at a subtle level. For these purposes, meditation is king as I believe there is real scientific support behind dropping the brainwaves to Theta which triggers the gamma waves that allows the brain to perceive the unperceivable. But for simply getting results with your magick (which does not require you to see the spirit), meditation really isn’t a requirement.

I was recently reminded of an incident that happened to me a long time ago, before I even practiced magick. I was in high school and I got rejected “again” by a girl I was deeply infatuated with. This time though, I did not take it well. I went into my car at the parking lot and I started crying. This was at a time in my life when I use to pray to Yaweh as a Christian. This time though, I was mad. I started beating the car wheel with tears in my eyes asking him “what in the hell is wrong with me?” “why can’t I get this girl to like me.” It was genuine anger and sadness that filled me in that moment.

So I end up going home that day and my father (who is a devout Christian with spiritual abilities) randomly came into my room while I was eating dinner and started talking to me about girls. Now, if you know anything about my relationship with him, you would know that I never talk to him about girls ever, as i find having this subject with him to be uncomfortable. I never brought up to him what happened, nor was I visibly upset at that time. I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I’ve had a conversation about women and dating with him…but he chose today of all days to randomly start this convo with me. He told me that I shouldn’t worry about getting girls now because I have very little to offer as a young kid. “Wait until you’ve established yourself a bit then go back out there and you’ll be able to have your pick of the litter.” I believe he even told me something about how the angels would help me with this if I ever needed them. He randomly told me all this, even though i told him nothing about what happened earlier that day, nor did I ever bring up the fact that I was having issues picking up women at the time.

I’ve never had a prayer of mine answered so resolutely like this my entire time being a Christian. The clear reason why that prayer worked so well was because in that moment, all i had was pure, unadulterated emotion…and I infused it with my earnest request for answers. No meditation, no ritual circle, no double-edged dagger, no nothing. The girl I later found out had come from a wealthy family and was a bit of a gold-diggerish type, so I never stood a chance…making the advice I was sent by yahweh all the more apt. My point here is this…no matter your skill level in magick, if you find yourself stuck…think about becoming a better emotator over becoming a better meditator. If I had the ability to conjure the emotions I felt in that car spontaneously, without needing some external stimulus/incident to get me there, I think that would catapult my magick exponentially more than becoming a better meditator would. Understand…this post was not made to shit on meditation as a practice. As I said earlier, it is a viable path to getting you to that state of ecstasy EA was talking about. The purpose of this post however is to dispel the idea that its the only path, or even the most desirable path to get magick to work for you. Emotion is the diesel fuel that drives your Magick to the destination you desire. Everything else is secondary.

16 Likes
2

I tend to agree on the meditation part. I also think that the better you get, the less excessive emotion you need to make it work.

I’ve been considering the meditative state as similar to a banishing for the mind, rather than the gateway to magic.

Thank a for posting.

5 Likes
3

Getting Master Works of Chaos Magick vibes from this post. :+1:

2 Likes
4

3 Likes
5

I agree with you accept I view emotion as energy. Just another type of it. I had an early concept of this and alchemy prior to coming to a magical practice due to being active in the FFA and other organizations in high-school.

I was made fun of, ignored, overlooked etc for my entire 18 years… except when I was giving speeches, greeting people for the state office I was running for etc.

Something in me recognized after the first speech, that I could use the fear, the utterly feeling petrified, to my advantage. I just had to change it to a fuel. Let it be the drive behind me firm hand shake and unwavering voice. Let it be the tone that interested and impressed those in front of me with my message.

Magic’s the same the way I see it, at least in some ways. I task spirits like everyone else but if I want to make a payment, get quick movement or do the work myself without spirits- emotions are the energy I find most easily transmuted and driven at a goal.

If idc how the result comes and I just need fast, it’s pretty easy etc- tasking a spirit and spending an extra minute pushing the energy of feeling thankful at them is the way to go. (Or pretty much any modern grimoire with a list of spirits and what they can do).

If it’s complicated, involves the mind, emotions or field of influence of others- I should take time to push energy, usually in the form of emotion, at my goal. I often find it doesn’t take as much as I assumed it would. Maybe I planned on pushing energy for two hours like I did when I started and only spend a legit twenty minutes on it- and still garner results. Sometimes, it takes even less.

I’m slowly learning to comprehend that what I think is major isn’t always as major as it seems, energy/emotions are a stronger force when appropriately directed than I ever imagined and wtf at no one talks about how to direct energy yourself, rather than relying on some spirit that can choose, change their mind, or otherwise disappoint.

Simple things like claiming something as mine, my domain, my right as a person- simply in declaration before a working, also seems to have a positive impact- but that is for another post, on another day when I have time to address what I’ve learned about so called protected targets and how to gain results when nothing seems to be working.

Yes all that ramble was to say I agree with you, but this and that too. :woman_facepalming:t3:

4 Likes
6

I’ve been building this into my intent for a while now. Thing fires itself off when enough energy is given for the deaired time frame. It’s surprising how early some fire off.

3 Likes
7

Now that is something I can get behind without verifying first for myself.

I swear I don’t understand how we do often miss that intent is 9/10ths of the law with this magical bullshit and…

Perception is hands down the other 1/10th of the same law- most of the time.

1 Like
8

Except when it’s not :joy:

2 Likes
9

Couldn’t we argue, that when it’s not, it’s most commonly a flawed purview which affects in some way, shape form or manner, the intent?

Example: We desire love, our intent is to find the perfect mate or we think we have found the perfect mate. No matter what we do we make zero headway.

The entire time we put on a show and speech, mostly for ourselves about how it’s great, then only thing we can live with etc… all the while asking ourselves what did we wrong, should we have used a different spirit, one more working won’t hurt, I did nothing wrong, they did nothing wrong, somehow I’ll make them see…

Don’t we sometimes fck up our own intent, with nothing more than our fcked up thought processes, thst often we deny exist so hard, we- ourselves don’t realize they do?

Like if I didn’t intend for results to come in the way they did… I think that’s my flaw for not being more specific on my intent and just tossing it out there way too loosely

:laughing::woman_facepalming:t3: Dammit. Guaranteed to be inebriated if I get all philosophical on ya like that…

1 Like
10

I’m thinking more along the lines of the fact that some rituals are pure “plug and play,” where your intention does not matter for shit.

People have this idea in their head that intent always rules, but that is not necessarily true in every instance. I know most people here are not ceremonial magicians, but a Lesser Invoking Ritual is a good example where your intent will not override the mechanics of the ritual.

As Jason Miller points out in his excellent book The Elements of Spellcrafting, if your intention is to invoke the Sun, and everything in the ritual is tailored for invoking the Sun, but you are actually drawing the invoking pentagrams for Saturn, it is the energies of Saturn you will get, despite what you intended.

5 Likes
11

But on the flip side of the curiosity coin, people can use the wrong names, wrong sigils, and somehow still connect with the right spirit. Not that we can easily verify that as fact as an outsider, but I’ve read ir enough to believe that it is pretty likely to at least sometimes happen that way.

Sorry for Just splitting hairs, I consider most things debatable and if something works for someone and not me, thst does not mean it’s invalid by default, but interesting and debatable because the discussion can lead to ahah! I get it now.

I just like to say intent is important, because for me and my works it seems to really matter. If stuff works without thst… I’d love to understand it better :laughing::woman_shrugging:t3:

12

:clap: :clap: :clap:

2 Likes
13

I think so too. Emotions are like an energy, and that energy can empower magick.

I think meditation is useful for achieving certain states, like you mentioned. If your mind keeps wondering off, it’s difficult to focus on the presence of a spirit. But I do think that this doesn’t matter when it comes to manifesting results. If you want something to happen, I don’t think you need to feel the spirit, just summon it and make your request and feel the energy of the emotions.

Ritual magick also can help with sensing and concentrating on spiritual presence in my experience. I’ve done magick while having a meditation practice and without, and while there are skills you can cultivate with meditation, if your focus is on magick then that’s ok too.

It doesn’t always happen in ritual, but I do think that magick alone can bring you these states of intense ecstasy, and other extreme emotional or energetic states. If you’ve done magick enough you probably don’t need me to tell you this. I’ve felt waves of demonic power cascading through me in a possession state, and I’ve felt massive sexual pleasure rumble and radiate off of my body and spirit and off of other spirits. Meditation isn’t something to be thrown away, but magick is what brings these experiences.

1 Like
14

I agree with everything here, and I’ve often performed magick with these principles in mind. My only dissent from this is that to be more detailed and more efficient and hence wield more power, it’s invaluable to be able to communicate with spirits- and communication is a two way street that I need to be able to walk on.

I can’t hear or see spirits if I’m only using emotion as the primary communication tool. The TGS gives me the power see, feel, and listen, which means I can alter my course with more insight and finesse.

But to simply make contact and push a request through- no TGS/ meditation necessary, and if everything else is in place, it stands a chance.

Me, personally- I need to get tranced up and in a TGS to see and hear

2 Likes
15

This reminds me some of something I read about in conjunction with chaos magick. There are commonly thought to be two ways to fire a sigil, with one much less talked about third method. Though, first I need to go into what chaos magick defines as gnosis.

Gnosis is essentially meditation or the theta-gamma sync or whatever ea calls it. It is bringing your mind to a point of single focus. The most common way to do this is meditation, the issue though is people think meditation is all stillness. Chaos magick actually defines it as more of a dichotomy. Inhibitory meditation, and excititory meditation. The problem is, most people only know of meditation in the inhibitory sense, where you slow your mind and body down to a point of single-minded focus. The opposite is equally valid, where stimulus is raised to the highest point possible, which also creates a single-minded focus.

I think what you describe as emotation, is a form of excititory meditation. You are raising the stimulus of your mind and body to such a height that only one focus remains; which brings us to the two (or three) ways to fire a sigil. The first is an inhibitory meditation, where you still yourself and your surroundings until all you focus on is the sigil. The second is the emotative method, or the excititory method, whereby stimulus is raised to such a high degree all you can focus on is your sigil. In this case though, emotion is the stimulus which is raised within your body.

I bring this up because I think people are too rigid in their idea of meditation. Anything and everything can be meditation if you get your mind in the correct place, and in truth some of my most brilliant thoughts have been in the middle of 9-5 shifts where my body is completely distracted. In that case my menial work was in itself meditation, just of the excititory sense.

I practice both forms of meditation and use both in my spellcraft. A powerful excititory meditation (for me) is to pace back and forth, while speaking glossolalia, and tossing my golden apple in between my hands. I usually also have music or a video playing also.

The third suggested method to firing a sigil I bring up only because I find it interesting. It has been said that if you can put yourself in a position where you literally dont care at all about the goal of your sigil, and the outcome is completely meaningless to you, that that can be very powerful. Your disinterest and lack of care completely removes your natural “psychic censor” and any other roadblocks you might have hiding inside of you. Because you dont care you will find no resistance to your manifestation.

1 Like
16

Yes, i think this is a good point to make. Being super focused can happen at times when your brain waves are at their highest…like an intense workout or running a marathon. I guess you could say my complaint stems from the rigid definition of what occultists tend to view as “meditation”

2 Likes
17

Excellent post, @Verdo.

The thing is, in my view, that in order to be able to conjure emotions at will - to be an “emotator”, one has to have the ability to dominate his mind so that he/she can concentrate on the objective. Meditation is a effective way to help people master this skill.

The GoM, I think, has cracked this code with the “emotional alchemy technique”, when you have to concentrate on the unwanted situation and let the respective emotions arise to, THEN, concentrate on the wanted situation and let the respective emotions arise too.

In Angels of Wrath, G. Winterfield even come to state that:

“If you have worked with magick before you will know that shifting your own emotions, through acts of will and imagination, is both a source of energy and an act of fine-tuning. It is a way of communicating and empowering the magick. This is not a step that can be omitted. It is through your emotions, and their change within the ritual, that the angels are guided to reorder reality for you.”

Obs.: if this kind of quotation is forbidden, please, let me know so that I can delete it.

3 Likes
18

So i dunno if any traditions have terms for it but some traditions like yoruba drummers, and various eastern traditions have qigong and yoga forms that are active in motion practices that can evoke the same trance states that meditations and prepatory (lbrp,middle piller ect) rituals can in ceremonial magick.

Hell in my own case i have ended up falling into ritual trance in the middle of my staff work and ended up connecting with various norse,vedic and persian gods,goddesses ect. And even ended up at time wrapping up what was intended to be a work out with improvised rune or sigil work while i am in that state and still highly charged.

In the case of shifting energies to specific elements,planets, divinities ect there are alot of mudras, Qigong forms,yoga asanas that can directly channel the energy through the body.

2 Likes
19

This is just my personal interpretation but meditation comes in many forms. Each are different in practice and in usefulness.

A simple one from when I was a kid was playing a “hit the button as it pops up on screen” game, Shenmue if y’all know it, lots of good lessons for positive affirmation through martial arts there, but I digress.
Essentially, the longer the game went on the less I was thinking about it, even tho the difficulty was constantly being ramped up. One of the goals of meditation is to leave the body behind so that the mind can focus. After I’d done this many times I realised I wasn’t focusing on the game, I was thinking about things happening in my life and actually coming up with better answers for them than I normally would. This is because I had my body purely in an autopilot state, it wasn’t acting with my mind, it was just doing what it knew and thusly my mind was free to wander. The same kind of meditation is expressed through repetitive thai chi movements, or any kata.

Focused meditation, as in when you intend to astral project can’t be done in this way in my experience, unless you’re Really fucking good at QTE lol. But both have their merits.