Is really necessary to read a bazillion books to do Magic?

Hi everyone. I am not really a practitioner, i just started reading abt different systems a few months ago.

I live in South America and there is people here that doesn’t even know how to read but they sacrifice a chicken and you are fucked for life. How do they learn? Entities teach them? Are they born with it?

In the other hand here i am jerking off to sigils with very poor to no results before reading everything i can find abt it.

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Welcome to the forum! :waving_hand:

A bazillion - noooope: quality over quantity.

However, the subject is vast, with magickal traditions in every culture worldwide - you have to learn the landscape to know what a) quality is, and b) fits you and your temperament. You can’t study what you don’t know exists. A good library is ideal.. and very satifying.

Aural traditions - they apprentice or disciple to a teacher and are taught in person.

So… you don’t know how to actually use sigils, cos jizzing on them is not it. :joy: Jizz can be an offering after you get contact though. :thinking: Compare what you are doing with this and then come back with specific questions if you have any…

Please do let us have your Introduction HERE [ ← click me! ], which we need per the forum rules and see our posting guidelines in the FAQ.

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Like has been said, no you don’t need to read a bazillion books. It is, however, a common side effect that the interest and motivation of finding a new “hobby” brings

Tribal people not only in South America, but all over the world learn from traditions passed down from generation to generation. Those people had and the still remaining tribes have a tight connection to their environment and nature in general. They learn from simply being subject to the many natural cycles, from living among and watching the plants and animals around them, those that are capable to do so learn from the plant and animal spirits. Most of it was also trial and error before the things that stuck became tradition. That deep connection to the environment, the cycles and the energies behind it makes for some powerful possibilities. On the downside it also makes some of the tribes hold on to some abhorrent customs just out of sheer tradition, but that serve no actual purpose (anymore).

We urbanites lost that connection and our ability to listen and really hear. So we lost some of our most potent potential, which is really difficult to relearn. But… we do have an influx of information so we can read about several systems and traditions and can choose whatever works for us.

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Not at all. But I understand where the question comes from.

Ironically, when I got more serious in the occult, I started picking up the first ritual I saw that was recommended to beginners (sigils), did one without expecting or believing at all that it will work since I was skeptical back then. Turns out it worked and I had never really read anything before that. Simple as that, and no need to read dozens or hundreds of books, though after that I did read a lot of books on occultism.

I would say it’s not necessary BUT it is useful to read a fair amount to get the general idea of what are the available traditions, what they do, how is magic conceptualized, how they differ from one another, hell you can even snatch up and try a few rituals from books if you feel like it. It’s also interesting to see the recurrences, what they all coincide upon and where they diverge, and overall it gives you a better theoretical understanding of the concepts, types of practices, what is invocation vs evocation, that sort of thing.

But reading will never replace practice. Better not to read and practice than to simply read and never practice; but ideally, do both, haha. Nothing can replace personal experience and trial and error. You can spend years learning how to craft a sword in metalworking, but if you simply don’t get to it and try to make one, you’ll never really know how to really craft a sword other than in idea. Assuming someone never learns how to make one but is determined to try to do it again and again, he will have much higher chances to succeed than the one who never tries.

And it often happens that practice is so widely different than theory. I have done methods that gave me results where it was not recommended or labelled useful to do so, and vice versa, I discarded things judged essential that essentially still work perfectly well without (i.e in general ceremonial magic of wearing robes and the like).

Reading books tell you what paths there are, but they will not walk it for you, therefore you should walk it, by practicing, doing magic, even if you’re not 100% sure of all that exists. You could even just hammer down your own path by taking inspiration from others, who knows. Besides if you can’t get your hands on books this forum exists and can be very instructive if you search well enough.

Your imagination and intent of action is the limit.

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