Hi everyone. As someone who’s new to magick, all I know and all I have working from are the teachings of EA, his videos and writings. I’m not kissing his ass or anything but, sincerely, from what I’ve seen in the books and from you here in the forum, pretty much anything you could ever want, well most mundane desires at least, like money,success,love,sex,admiration and so forth, could be manifested by means of evocation, or simple candle and sigil magick.
A few years ago when I first started researching into the occult, all this stuff seemed extremely over complicated. People would recommend extensive knowledge of the occult and recommend like hundreds of books, from authors like Crowley, Franz Bardon, Waite, and the like. And the books themselves were kinda tricky to fully grasp cos many aren’t like practical stuff but seemed to teach lots of history, literature and not something you could apply right away like I’ve been able to do right now. And so far, that’s exactly why I’m really satified with BALG because of the “dogma free” kinda thing, so you can start changing your life pretty much instantly if you’re really serious.
So finally my point is, in your oppinion, for beggining magicians such as myself, to what extent such general understanding and knowledge of the occult could be helpful and must be acknowledged?
My opinion is that most of the stuff I’ve seen here - and bear this in mind: I haven’t done any of the courses nor read all the books, “moderator” doesn’t mean expert in the material! - is oriented round methods, as you said cutting the dogma, etc.
I think a useful addition would be to acquire one spirit - god, demon, angel, whatever - who’s willing to be your personal ally and co-conspirator an attaining your overall goals.
There’s material in Evoking Eternity and WoD to contact spirits, so that givesa you the gateway and the methods, and to my mind having at least one spirit you can go to and rely upon, is the boundary between “I do magick” and “I AM a magician.”
That pact doesn’t have to be just one spirit forever and ever, like monogamy - it can be a major groundbreaking pact and then you go on to work with others, but IMO having that partnership is the key.
Have I understood your question correctly there?
Obviously, reading the other authors you mentioned is good, and the stuff will make more sense once you have some experience (in fact all that stuff makes sense on different levels with every year of experience, because you read it with a new level of understanding) so that’s also good. If there’s one book I’d recommend above all others, it’s The Kybalion - the closest you get to a “physics textbook” of magick IMO.
Study everything you can get your hands on. This will not only give you are varied education on the occult but will eventually help you find the types of magick, books, authors, and tools you love the best. Experiment with anything you think you can handle on your current beginning level too, that will help you find out what types of magick and divination you are best at.
The general knowledge will be much more helpful once you have experience, because you’ll see what appear to be contradictions and conflict with many systems. Getting results is most important, and EA has put together a solid system and cut out a lot of the blinds and fluff, which literally saves you months or years of trial and error.
So once you have some experience, you’ll be able to ‘see through’ the writing in some of the more obscure books and have a better understanding of what is going on.
One thing I found beneficial is to find the authors unspoken intent with a text. To ask, ‘What would be different in my life if I successfully could do everything in this book?’ Sometimes you’ll find insights or underlying motives that are never mentioned, by reflecting on things in this or some other manner.
You probably have. In fact, I was thinking more specifically about what topics, systems, and books I could benefit from. I didn’t think much about a pact and learn directly from a spirit or just being guided by him. Wonderful idea though, I’ll definitely search more about pacts. Thanks everyone! I’ll continue my pathworking through WoD (which is going very well actually, I might share some experiences here some time) and keep expanding my practices.
Understand the idea that you create your universe. If something sucks in your external world, it’s because something sucks internally. Learn to understand your own internal programming, and how to “hack” it.
that is because many of those occultists were pulling false facts out of their ass. sorry to break it to you, but truth is truth. a lot of published and generally available so-called magickal information is hogwash.
SKIP reading most of the magickal books. reading 18th and 19th century books on hypnotism and mesmerism will shed a ton of light on many of the things that confuse you about western magick.
there is a ramp-up time because some things are not clearly explained, but i gave you a great hint above on how to fill in the few gaps that remain.
skip all of that fuckery and go learn self-hypnotism from a really good certified trainer. there are plenty of them out there - google is your friend.
- is oriented round methods, as you said cutting the dogma, etc.