What is Magic?
In books of fantasy that include “magic”, the structure of this power can vary. It can often have a cost, draining the magic user, the source of magic. Magic can come from your strength, some inner well of power. Or, conversely, you can draw upon a source of magic, like a philosopher’s stone, but it can have natural limits to its use, yet it is an advantage over others. Or, in other series, magic can have no cost at all, the natural strength of that power is inborn and its limits are based on your inborn natural ability.
Let’s think of the various skill levels and abilities of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley. Hermione is born, of all of them, the most magically gifted, though she has no “magical blood”. Ron is from a long line of wizards, but lacks much in the way of natural talent. Ron and Hermione’s varying magical talents challenges the assumptions of Voldemort’s followers that magical talent is tied to genetics. Meanwhile, Harry is fairly mediocre at magic, his real talent comes from his connection to Lord Voldemort and the intentional practice he puts into certain spells, as when he worked with Professor Lupin to perfect the Patronis spell. The distribution of magical power across these three characters is much like our conversations on talent and whether it is inborn (nature) or developed throughout life (nurture). Are people gifted with natural talent (nature) or do they develop their talent through hard work (nurture)?
These frameworks of magic systems–magic coming at a personal cost, or vampirically sucked out of some well of magic you’ve managed to acquire, or magic as a divine blessing–mirror how we think about creativity and success.
In the USA the American Dream is said to be that anyone from anywhere can make a good life, if they work hard. Thomas Edison said “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Raw talent cannot take the place of training, roughly 10,000 hours of practice are said to be needed to become an expert–roughly three hours a day for ten years. This is magic that comes at a personal cost of time and effort.
Then there is the idea that success comes with having privilege, a magic source you can tap into to increase your power. Birth is a lottery, and we are born into a class, nation, race, sex, sexual orientation and so on. Some are born in a better position, with access to wealth and capital, with less barriers to making a mark upon the world–they have access to a magic ring or stone, while others find them through luck or cleverness. Coming upon the chance to acquire one at all is a twist of luck, as those who own them grasp them tightly.
Gollum…Gollum…cough..cough…
Lastly there is the idea that one is simply born with or without natural gifts. Studies have shown that creativity, while influenced by your family, is a skill we all inherently have and one that can be encouraged, grown and taught. Our playful natures, our curiosity, love of exploration and challenges, our games and invented stories we create to make objects come alive–this is our the universality of talent that we can all seize, given the right conditions. When we say that these gifts only belong to the few, that only those lucky to be born with ‘it’ a few have the ability to do “really good work,” to make an impact, we impose an oligarchy of talent on ourselves.
As Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear: “If you’re alive, you’re a creative person.”
What we need is the Theory of Magick
The term Magick is an Early Modern English spelling for magic. Aleister Crowley, so-called “wickedest man in the west,” chose the spelling Magick to differentiate his practices from stage and performance magic, and the term has since been re-popularized.
Crowley defines Magick as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will” including both “mundane” acts of will as well as ritual magic. In fact, Crowley says that “every intentional act is a Magickal Act.”
Magick is the art of making change.
He clarifies, “ANY required change may be effected by the application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner, through the proper medium to the proper object” and therefore “it is theoretically possible to cause in any object any change of which that object is capable by nature.”
At its most broad, Magick can be seen as any willed action leading to intended change.
This is not about positive thinking, that perceiving oneself as a billionaire will make it so. Rather, Magick is about consciously directing your thinking (perception), feelings (emotion), and willpower toward a goal. Magickal practice and “mundane” living are inseparable, everything we experience is recorded by and through the subconscious mind. How we interact with and perceive the people and events in our lives determines how they in turn relate to and affect us. It is a matter of patterns and focus. Patterns are created by how we choose to focus on an event, they take shape slowly over time, to positive or negative effect. Our chosen focus sets up these patterns, creates expectations that filter the way we view the world.
The Theory of Magick has real power to dispel our hang ups about our personal feelings of inadequacy and failure. It is our playful natures sharpened, grown up and made critical and intentional.
Crowley wrote: “Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one’s conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.”
Similar to Crowley’s Magick, Octavia Butler’s Earthseed religion, recorded in her science fiction books Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, focus on the malleability of reality and ourselves. Based on the idea that the only constant in life is change and therefore “God is change;” us mere mortals however are able to direct God’s malleability, to “shape God” as well as ourselves in order to save ourselves.
In both belief systems, it requires conscious and intentional effort to both shape change to your benefit and also avoid being its victim.
Intentionally changing your life is a Magickal act and it takes Craft.
I will write more about Craft in a future post.
