Sample chapters
What is Magic?
Introduction
When I was a child, in the early sixties, I was classed as retarded. My skull damaged by Forceps at birth so I spent most of my first five years sitting in a corner. I’m told I wasn’t a pretty sight to behold. Without warning I’d scream I delight or terror. Now and then I’d strike up a chant in unintelligible gibberish. And if anyone interrupted my little songs I could raise very, very nasty rages. As I explain in my autobiography; ‘A Blessing and a Curse,’ I was an ugly, little gnomish creature; straight out of a traditional Irish faerie story. Mother often referred to me as the Changeling.
Even after I began to speak I was extremely antisocial and withdrawn. I was clumsy and uncoordinated. The more I was forced to conform, the less I co-operated. In the eyes of most people who encountered me I was obviously handicapped. Yet I asked questions that upset almost everyone; questions like, How did I get here?; What is this place? and Why won’t you let me go home? My father never really spoke to me again after I asked him what he’d done in his last life. I was seven at the time. He was a straight-laced conservative who’d probably never heard the word reincarnation before. I must have really spooked him. My rages grew steadily worse. I was classed as an uncontrollable child. The doctors said I’d never be taught how to behave properly. I was put on a waiting list for the state mental hospital.
Now I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m complaining about my childhood. To quote an old Monty Python song; it’s sweet to be an idiot. When you’re retarded no one has any expectations of you. In my opinion the problems with my damaged head turned out to be a blessing that released me from many of the constraints and expectations that were placed on my peers.
When I was seven a new label got stuck to me. Autistic. In those days it wasn’t a very common diagnosis. Perhaps one in every sixty thousand children were branded with it. That label turned out to be a great gift because it gave me complete freedom to interpret and explore the Mundane World on my own terms. As soon as I was branded autistic my parents must have finally realised I’d never fit in.
I find social situations incredibly difficult to interpret, even today after a lifetime of experience dealing with the cultures and ways of so-called neuro-typical, normal people. From the outset I had to work hard to decipher what everyone else was on about. With the help of my very efficient memory I began collecting social signals for later reference. I learned social etiquette by rote in the same way I learned alphabet. As an obsessive person I meticulously filed away situations and scenarios in my head as they arose. All this information helped me navigate through the world without getting in too much trouble.
By the time I was ten I’d branched out into observing and committing to memory odd coincidences and anomalies in people’s behaviour patterns. I became obsessed with the lies people told and the assumptions they made about one another. I was fascinated that it was so difficult to get a straight answer from anyone about anything.
I soon gave up asking when I realised it was my good fortune to be mostly ignored. This meant no one explained much about anything to me. Even my schoolteachers passed me by. I soon came to the conclusion that I’d have to work everything out for myself. I was lucky because, on the whole, I was allowed to pursue my own interests without interruption.
I didn’t realise it at the time but I was freed from expectations at quite an early age. In my understanding that’s the only real difference between me and you. You’ve had a lifetime of being told what you can and can’t do. You’ve been moulded into shape by parents, peers and social expectations. You’ve been burdened with assumptions.
Most people I know have had mountains of useless, boring information shoved down their throats by uninspiring teachers. As children they were weighted down with rules and strictures until they simply had to switch off, swallow it all and pray to be released from all the pressure.
Chances are you’ve been led to believe you can’t be who you want to be in life or do what you want to do. I missed out on all that because, for the most part, no one even bothered explaining to me that I was retarded or what it meant. As a result I wasn’t as limited in my thinking and approach to life as you were probably trained to be. So I’ve always tended to think outside of the box.
Sometimes my unusual, seemingly irrational approach to life can upset self-professed rational people but it’s also how my lifelong autistic obsessions with languages, music, magic and stories came about. By the time I was nine or ten, as a result of being fed a steady diet of traditional Irish faerie-tales as well as stories of the Holy Grail, I’d rather optimistically dedicated myself to the study of magic.
I’ve been trying to work out what magic is ever since. And my unusual quest has taken me to the four corners of the Earth. I’ve sat at the feet of spirit-healers, saddhus, medicine-keepers, gurus, spiritual masters, frauds, conjurers, religious freaks, miracleworkers, shamans and storytellers of all kinds. Along the way I’ve learned a thing or two about myself and this material realm; sometimes known as Reality, which I refer to as the Mundane World. In some respects I’m still trying to work out what magic is; but one thing I can say for certain is that it most definitely works.
In the following pages I’ll present some of the almost forgotten practices of magic, once known to many. Sadly, in our time these simple principles have come to be branded as heresy of the highest order. Persecution has driven many true magicians underground. Now there are only a few masters of the imagination who openly practice their craft.
The word imagination comes from the same root as the word magic. They’re both related to a Sanskrit term which you may be familiar with; Maya. Maya has several meanings. At its simplest it refers to the force that creates, maintains and rules this Mundane World of illusion. That seems to me to be confirmation that ancient peoples understood the creative power of the imagination. My experience has led me to believe that the imagination is an inbuilt technology we humans are programmed with from birth. And, contrary to what you may have been told, magic doesn’t necessarily involve dressing up in velvet robes, brandishing wands or reciting obscure Latin phrases from ancient, dusty, leather-bound manuscripts. Magic certainly doesn’t demand blood-curdling rituals in a graveyard at dead of night.
You don’t have to be a pagan to practice magic. In fact the less concerned you are with dogma, hierarchy and bowing to authority figures like gods or goddesses the more successful you’ll probably be. Magic doesn’t take years of study at a specialist academy for the mystically gifted. You don’t need to own or read from a Grimoire that’s been written by some legendary sorcerer who lived in the fourteenth century. And you won’t ever be required to sell your soul to any apparently dæmonic entity or alleged representative of evil-incarnate.
After more than thirty years of study and experimentation with these techniques I am convinced that magic is available to anyone who decides to take it up. You’re probably practicing it right at this moment without even being aware of it. In this book you’ll read about the basic principles and concepts of magic in the Mundane World as I understand and practice them. I include some of my own ideas about divination, meditation and the use of magical tools; such as Sigils.
I’ll also share some approaches that have taken me a lifetime to develop and refine. I call these magical technologies Creative Trance and Dreamcraft. They are the basis for my workshops. While the techniques I’m going to share with you work well for me, you’re going to have to develop your own understanding of magic if you want it to work for you. At the end of this book you’ll have to draw your own conclusions. I’m not a master or a guru or anything like that. I don’t have all the answers.
For example I can’t possibly know what obstacles you’ve put in place to stop yourself getting what you want out of life. I’ve got no idea what expectations weigh you down or what assumptions might be holding you back. It’s your job to find strategies to deal with all that personal baggage. I can only offer you a few pointers. If you’re sceptical about magic; I’m pleased. It’s a good place to start and it’s only to be expected. Under the influence of conservative Christianity and it’s successor, fundamentalist Science, the concept of magic has been so demeaned that it’s difficult to use the word these days without attracting wide-ranging criticism or even ridicule.
I’m certainly not going to ask you to accept my claims without trying these concepts for yourself. So this is a practical work-book. The only way to discover whether you can use magic effectively in your life is to test my theories. Learn how to master these techniques. Practice them and cultivate your own approach.
Above all, don’t just take my word for it that you can create whatever your heart desires; try it for yourself. Magic works. And, as I see it, every person living on the Earth today practices magic in every moment of their lives; whether they know it or not.
In medieval times sorcerers compiled elaborate Grimoires for their students and patrons. A Grimoire is a collection of spells, incantations, charms and rituals that purport to be magical. This, on the other hand, is a basic guide-book for adventurers who wish to explore the wide-ranging influence of the imagination in day to day life.
I hope you’ll embrace this new era of exploration and help map the vast uncharted expanses of the Dreaming Place. Make notes. Keep a journal of your experiences just as the alchemists and magicians of old once did. Develop your own variations on my ideas. Feel free to discard what doesn’t work for you. Adapt the techniques to your own circumstances and, above all, enjoy the journey.
At the back of the book there are note pages where you can record ideas, thoughts and inspirations. They’ll come in handy for some of the practical exercises. There’s also a comprehensive listing of sources and resources that may help you continue your researches on the magical path.
If you take up this book with the intent of harming no one then I wish you well. You’ll certainly have an interesting time ahead of you. If, on the other hand, you’re after power, personal prestige or some sort of alternative religion you’d best stop reading now. If you’re not concerned about losing your soul perhaps you should study politics or the financial markets. You will not learn anything about black magic from this book.
