'Real' Magic

I have been browsing through ATS for some time now btu have never come accross an article based on magic.. 'witchcraft' to be precise or 'Wicca' as i think it is known.

As I have no real knowledge in this field I would like to ask members if this 'wicca' is actually a real working entity where magic can be performed.. and works.

I really feel this is one subject which people seem to evade.. I would just like to learn more about it from people in the no?

I think you'll find that asking if people believe in wicca will get you an equal amount of yes and nos. Here are some more recent threads you may want to check out on wicca etc.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here's an external that has a lot of info (mostly hermetic and ritual) esoteric studies:

www.hermetics.org...

Mostly hermetic but it's a very good jumping off point and I'll think you find that most "magickal systems" tend to blend and blur into each other at some point.

Happy reading.

Spiderj



[edit on 3/28/2006 by Spiderj]

Hey Knights,

If you have any esoteric questions regarding Paganism, or Wicca, I'd be happy to do my best to answer. I grew up within 20 miles of Salem and many friends of mine including me at one time practice or practiced "Witch" religions.

My Thanks,

-ADHDsux4me

Originally posted by Knights
I have been browsing through ATS for some time now btu have never come accross an article based on magic.. 'witchcraft' to be precise or 'Wicca' as i think it is known.

Just to get the definitions straight. Wicca is a religion that sometimes uses Magick But not the only one.

As I have no real knowledge in this field I would like to ask members if this 'wicca' is actually a real working entity where magic can be performed.. and works.

If you are asking if magick users can change someone into a frog... nope, that is for fairy tales. Oversimplifying, magick can do two things. 1. Change* "things" into what you want and 2. Unite yourself with "God" however you see it. Basically Magick is sorta like western Yoga.

*When I say change I don't mean "POOF" you now have a pot of gold (using a "spell" for money for example), it's more like you get a raise at work, of find a twenty in the pocket of a jacket you haven't worn in a while.

Witchcraft is OLD!!! and Wicca isn't. Two different practices...witchcraft vs modern (neo) witchcraft (also called Wicca)

magic(k) isn't really evaded on these boards. It's just that not many are actively involved with it. This results in several people doing shallow wicca practices and basically have very misinformed ideas about magick. Those who study it seriously rarely speak of it, simply because those with shallow knowledge always think they know best making discussions pointless.

If you got some specific questions I'm sure Cug or I can answer them. For now I'll give you the following to get started.

Discussion Boards
Occultforums.com
Sacred Magick
Magic Catastrophe

Online Libraries
Hermetics.org
Kheper.net
Occultpedia
Sacred Magick
Hermetic.com
FraterMD
Sacred Texts
OccultForums Library
Occult Forums essays, articles, books concerning witches and wiccans

[edit on 29-3-2006 by Enyalius]

[Edit to address the original poster first before the others]
Any and all magic works if you believe it works. cast a love spell, meet someone, have a relationship, believe the spell had something to do with it, wah-la! magic works.
Cast a money spell, your mom dies, you get insurance money, shazaam, magic works.
Or maybe its coincedence? Thats entirely up to you to decide or doubt, its your magic.

I think that one of the main misconceptions of magic is that it has to "work".
Magic is the work, it is steps in making a concentrated effort toward a goal.
Here's an example, you want go change your life, you meditate on the changes you want, you do this thinkng while you are carving candles, looking for the right kind of pre-written out of the box spell, looking up the appropriate ancient dieites, you cast your magic circle as you've practiced time after time before, you do your chant, you wave your wands and athame, etc etc and onward, now that you've gone this far toward your goal, all the other hassles involved in the change you desire seem very much just mundane stuff, and with your belief that supernatural forces are at work in your favor you go with the flow and take the necessary "everyday" steps to get where you want to be.

Hope that makes sense, I used to have a gift for talking about this stuff and making it clear, but i've kind of been in a cave for a decade when it comes to these topics.

Originally posted by Enyalius
It's just that not many are actively involved with it.

That would be hard to determine and thus the second part that follows is more correct.

Originally posted by Enyalius
This results in several people doing shallow wicca practices and basically have very misinformed ideas about magick. Those who study it seriously rarely speak of it, simply because those with shallow knowledge always think they know best making discussions pointless.

I'm not sure what the origin of the Hermetic Quaternary is but it goes like this:
To Know, To Will, To Dare, To Keep Silent.
Note the "keep silent" part. I questioned this in my youth but then after some meditation understood it.
When you open your big mouth about your practices and beliefs you invite others to pollute the purity of your thoughts, your path if you will, with their influence, their voice, their opinion, their ignorance, their dogma. It is often better to keep many things to yourself until these experiences have taken you far enough along the trail that you realise what you believed yesterday was only a half or quarter truth and simply a step toward a further goal, and then you can laugh the at folly of your youth (in mind), and share it with others without it becoming less important when it shouldn't.



I hope that made sense.
Of course in the past "keep silent" also was followed with "or be burned alive, drawn and quartered, drowned, or hanged by religious fanactics".

Originally posted by Enyalius
If you got some specific questions I'm sure Cug or I can answer them. For now I'll give you the following to get started.

Discussion Boards
Occultforums.com
Sacred Magick
Magic Catastrophe

Online Libraries
Hermetics.org
Kheper.net
Occultpedia
Sacred Magick
Hermetic.com
FraterMD
Sacred Texts
OccultForums Library
Occult Forums essays, articles, books concerning witches and wiccans

[edit on 29-3-2006 by Enyalius]

Nice set of links there!

----
Also to the poster about Salem, WTF does that have anything at all to do with Wicca?
I've heard this over and over from witch-wannabees "oh I go to salem", in your case, living 20 miles away.
20 Miles or 200,000 miles makes no difference.

There is nothing important about Salem in terms of witchcraft, magick, or wicca other than
the fact that innocent people were imprisoned and murdered there by ergot infected religious fanatics calling these innocent people "witches", when in fact they were not witches at all.
Was a four year old child a witch or a bed ridden old woman, how about an infant?

Now the people of Salem, including the witches who live and work there exploit that tragedy,
often for personal profit. Profit is exactly the reason of the Inquistion and European witch hunts and most likely the Salem witch trials in the first place, ie, the accuser got 1/3 of the land, the church got 1/3 of the land, and the judge got 1/3 of the land of the accused "witch".

Its disgusting, really.


Just needed to clear that up, since this ridiculous connection keeps rearing its ugly head and ticking me off.





[edit on 29-3-2006 by Legalizer]

[edit on 29-3-2006 by Legalizer]

[edit on 29-3-2006 by Legalizer]

[edit on 29-3-2006 by Legalizer]

The vow of silence isn't that of secrecy, however it is part of it, but it is also to teach you the value of silence. Not everyone is open to hear what you have to say so it is also for personal protection untill you learned to find the balance in everything.

As for the statement about Salem. Indeed it has nothing to do with being a witch or not. It has become a memorial location and nothing more. Just being near it doesn't make you a witch nor is it a Mekka that you have to visit at least once in your life time.

Many witches and wiccans put themselves in the role of victem and are usually people that joined wicca to rebel against their christian faith. Ignorant and misguided people who have no cleu about the true history of both life paths. Just like the awfull author SilverRavenWolf that bashes christianity and jumps into the role of victem every chance she gets. Instead of giving proper information she jumps on a bandwagon and lets her personal feelings get in the way to often.

Most "witches" that were burned weren't witches to begin with. They were just daily people like everyone else. Christian followers just went overboard and prosecuted everyone they could the second the "criminal" did something the christians didn't agree with. They killed random people not witches. They only rationalized a reason in order to justify their murdering of innocents.

As for exploitation...there are people everywhere that do it. Look at how the new-age has been commercialized, look at what a fed the occult has become () and more. However the people that are a part of commercialisation and exploitation usually are people who give to much value to mundane aspects of life and it shows me they don't know what they are on about. Making profit isn't a bad thing by all means, but the way it is done is just

Books that will show a proper side of the story are:
Jeffrey Burton. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages
Martin, Ruth. Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550-1650.
Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 2d. ed.

Another interesting link.
Wicca for us
A young woman shares her view on the wicca. In the link provided she takes the author RavenWolf apart and I love it

Originally posted by Legalizer
Any and all magic works if you believe it works. cast a love spell, meet someone, have a relationship, believe the spell had something to do with it, wah-la! magic works.
Cast a money spell, your mom dies, you get insurance money, shazaam, magic works.
Or maybe its coincedence? Thats entirely up to you to decide or doubt, its your magic.

Really you don't even have to believe it works. If one just pretends they invoked Forneus to visible appearance and charged him to help you win a small claims court case, you will win. By doing certain things certain results will follow. and that in a nutshell is Magick.

Oh and Knights something else you might want to know. Magick takes on many forms, Right now it looks like there are 3 magical practitioners in this thread and I'd be willing to bet we have vastly different ideas on the various subjects that Magick includes. Hell I'll bet we could get a pretty good argument going on just the spelling of the word Magick

Of course in the past "keep silent" also was followed with "or be burned alive, drawn and quartered, drowned, or hanged by religious fanactics".

Well that's still a good idea. but replace "or be burned alive, drawn and quartered, drowned, or hanged" with fired, harassed, mocked, lose parental rights, and you can pretty much forget about running for public office, etc.."

[edit on 3/30/2006 by Cug]

Let's start the debate about Magic(K)

*cough*

The word magick is a old-english custom. Simply because in old english people regularly placed a K at the end of various words. Due to modernization this became Magic without the K. For about 200 or so years it stayed that way.

Then there came stage-magicians and illusionists which used the word magic. A few occultists found that the word magic was polluted and had a certain image to it...that of illusion and stage magicians. This Crowley, among others, introduced the word Magick into the occult stream. Except saying he did it for old-english sake he said that he had found nummerological foundation to do so. The letter K is the 11th letter of some alphabet with magical properties to it.

Thus magic refers to stage magicians and illusionists while Magick refers to the occult practices of it which is seen as the REAL magick. This makes it easier to understand what everyone within the occult community is talking about when they use a C or CK at the end.

I personally don't care how you write it as long as you know what you're talking about. However I prefer to see magicians then magickians...the second writing doesn't feel right to me, but that is personal preference.

Personal Preference is also why not 1 magickians has the same idea about what and how the ideal way is. This is because there are so many different systems to work with which contain their own symbolism, archetypes etc.

Ha, let the debate begin..i'm reading ith interest.. Would much rather learn frist hand thean read endless scriptures.

Hey Folks,

Lighten up a little, This is hardly the place for derisive and dividing comments. We all practice, and the last thing we all need is to show someone who is curious about our craft, the little spats about your magick is better than my magick.

This is why I often hesitate, to even broach this subject. I've been to many magick panels and open forums, and it always comes down to flag waving about whose ancestors were more persecuted, did better magick, and were more powerfull.

I just wanted to help the Original poster.

It makes no difference where we are all from, I concede that being from the Salem area doesn't make me any better, or more deserving. I didn't suggest that since I was from there that I knew any more than anyone else. I was trying to give knights a refernce point, a buzz word if you will.

So with that, the group of links posted were greatly informative, and should serve to educate well.

Blessed Be,

-ADHDsux4me

Don't juggle sharp knives, you'll hurt yourself...and in doing so, the people around you.

Please clarify your viewpoint. Who or what is juggling with sharp knives? Are you writing from a Christian viewpoint into this matter?? and what harm are you talking about?

Originally posted by Knights
Please clarify your viewpoint. Who or what is juggling with sharp knives?

Those who think they can control Magik.

Originally posted by Knights
Are you writing from a Christian viewpoint into this matter??

No, these experiences occurred before Christianity and continued throughout.

Originally posted by Knights
and what harm are you talking about?

Entrapment. Look up the username Vash and read a bit of the stuff this person is going through. Vash has opened a gate and is having a hard time shutting it.

Ok will do. Would just like to say I have no intention of practising.. but i do not see any fault in learning about what many people overlook. I think ATS is a good site in learning from people who have more knowledge on such things and can often guide poeple from personal experiences.
As the motto for this website is 'deny ignorance' I think learning about such things and then making my mind up on such matters will be best. Learning from informed views (such as yourself) helps my learning greatly!

Will look into it now.. cheers!

Originally posted by Knights
Ok will do. Would just like to say I have no intention of practising..

Awesome. This helps me feel at ease.

Originally posted by Knights
but i do not see any fault in learning about what many people overlook. I think ATS is a good site in learning from people who have more knowledge on such things and can often guide poeple from personal experiences.
As the motto for this website is 'deny ignorance' I think learning about such things and then making my mind up on such matters will be best. Learning from informed views (such as yourself) helps my learning greatly!

Will look into it now.. cheers!

Knowledge can be attractive...especially when it's sold as something that it really isn't:

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it."

They were misinformed... they did die and did not become like God. It's important to check the source of our "information" to know first off if it's true.



[edit on 31-3-2006 by saint4God]

Originally posted by saint4GodKnowledge can be attractive...especially when it's sold as something that it really isn't:

Nice twisting of the story
We're here to deny ignorance not promote it

The entire Vash story is nothing to give attention to and is anything but re-presentitive to magic(k). Why do only the "bad" things catch the eyes? It's only 1 in several million. Just with anything in life there are both "good" and "bad" aspects of each action you take and each decision you make. If the issues that Vash is dealing with is truly that of magick (which I seriously doubt) then I can safely say that she had no idea what she was doing.

Someone who truly studies magick, and not the shallow teachings and trying to be cool or having the lazy approach, will spend years doing mostly theory and very basic excercises. Excercises which are more then starting with the Qaballistic Cross ritual and moving your way up. It also means teachings of understanding the 5 global religions, the human psyche, esoteric teachings, buddhistic meditations, tantra meditations, yogic excercises and much much more. By the time a magickian will be "opening gates" and evoking/invoking an angel or a daemon they would have years of practice and training and would've gained enough understanding, willpower and experience to deal with anything "bad" that can happen. In fact all preperations for safety would have already been taken so that there would be no risk to begin with.

Only amatures and wanna-be's or people who have no clue what they are talking about talk negatively about magick and THAT is showing your ignorance about the subject. Similar to people who study alchemy just to find gold...nothing but fools and they call the torment upon themselves by lack of dedication to their practice.

So I suggest that giving advice is given by those who actually follow the path for a respective time instead of someone who only judges from the outside what is good or bad and has no idea what a certain path in life truly means and contains.

[edit on 31-3-2006 by Enyalius]

mod edit: shortened quote



[edit on 31-3-2006 by sanctum]

There is much greater danger here... Danger of becoming a Christian.

Yep that was more than a bit snarky. Can Magick be dangerous? Sure! if you don't take the time to learn first. Just like driving a car is dangerous if you never learn how to do it.

But it's not dangerous because someones big bad boogieman is gona get you.. please.

Oh it looks like Enyalius has beaten me to it.

Cug just and off-topic question here.

Since you are active with the Thelemetic route of magick you probably studied the hermetics as well. Would you happen to have studied the Kybalion? and if so could you tell me what you think of it?

Originally posted by Enyalius
Cug just and off-topic question here.

Since you are active with the Thelemetic route of magick you probably studied the hermetics as well. Would you happen to have studied the Kybalion? and if so could you tell me what you think of it?

Not offtopic, The Kybalion is "real" Magick.

I have read it but I can't say I have studied it. It came across to me like a hummmm I'm not sure how to describe it. a early 1900's version of the new age movement? naa that's not quite right. a fluffier version of Corpus Hermetica? Naa that's not quite it eather.

I guess it might just be the style of writing that I don't care for. (Seems to me like a PFC work.. I don't like reading his stuff either)

LOL that probably wasn't very helpful