I would like to explain something I discovered while mapping the occult. Particularly regarding the placebo’s of Wiccan Magick. Initially on my path to enlightenment, I had stumbled upon a successful Wiccan. He was not successful in the sense that he had a job or a business that was doing good. He was successful in the sense that; his Magick spells worked in front of people regardless of their belief or disbelief of it. That itself is a anomalous phenomenon, generally the disbelief of onlookers, or their belief in Magick failure, is enough to cancel the effects of the magician… except not with this person. Whether it was because his audience was mostly jocks who did not actually think about things beyond football, or ‘his magick powers’ were simply powerful enough to nullify the beliefs of others, doesn’t really matter, but it is very interesting.
So I picked his brain and learnt his craft. I still was very new to everything occult and magickal, so I was open to everything, especially since he could produce occult phenomenon that I couldn’t explain. He was doing a traditional Wiccan style of magick with his knife inscribed with ‘AGLA’ I believe, doing pentagram rituals and summoning what appeared to be white lit smoke within a circle, between the couch full of jocks and the television full of a football game. When his magick spell invoked the white lit smoke, everyone watching the football game was so shocked and afraid that they jumped back together and managed to cause the couch to fall over backwards.
I had previously had some unique moments with the Universe, there was a Movie released back then, I believe it was called ‘White Noise’ or something, it was somewhat of a horror movie dealing with the static of analogue televisions without reception and linking it to ghosts or something. Now I think the movie is a bunch of “poppycock” but it did inspire me to think a bunch about the ‘White Noise’ in relation to our thoughts. I basically thought there would be a fair chance of possibility for one to cause patterns to form within the white noise with thought alone. Ironically as I was contemplating this idea I had walked past a speaker that was off but seemed to be listening to my thoughts and replied with a small static noise that seemed to affirm that I was on ‘the right path’ of thought.
Ok so this was all taking place around the year 2005. I had stumbled upon a Wiccan Mage who was ready to reveal to me all of his understanding. The first spell we collectively had studied was an easy one that he has played with many times in the past. It was the Wiccan Spell that allows you to change the colour of your eyes to whatever colour you choose. I thought it was a perfect starting point because it did not entail summoning things or even a pentagram ritual to protect us from things. It only required ‘Magick words’, a candle that must be the colour you wish your eyes to turn into, and I am pretty sure that is it.
So he brought over his “Book of Shadows” as they call it, which is literally a Book of Spells. There is this dark theme throughout the Wiccan religion, that really is not evil, more ‘hokey‘ or ‘hippy dippy‘ than anything sinister, and all the result of being more in line with the Moon rather than the overt materialism excersized by the Christians Sun Worship (Son Worship).
The words of the Spell were a really weak poem, it honestly seemed to be written by a child. At a glance it was obvious that there was nothing Magickal about these words, in fact I felt embarrassed even considering the words to be anything Occult, but to my Wiccan teacher, they had worked and were held by him in high regard. This is when I realized that things were not as they seemed.
Second, there was the coloured candle needed for the Spell to know which colour to change I suppose. Also nothing Magick about it. All of this ‘Magick Equipment’ thought made me think about Moses parting the Red Sea. I kept thinking, “I cannot imagine a real mage needing some ridiculous poem and specific colour candles to allow for the spell to work” and I kept approaching my Wiccan friend with this line of thought. He never really thought about how it worked, what caused it to work, and I couldn’t help believe that these requirements for his Magick was anymore than placebos for his beliefs. Basically I proposed that the real force driving the success of his Magick was simply his Will for it to happen.
Surprisingly he agreed for the most part. He didn’t know, but he didn’t disbelieve my theory. So he did the spell, changed the colour of his eyes to red, and we all questioned whether or not some sort of ‘mass hallucination’ had taken place. Regardless of the true cause of the phenomenon, it was my turn to do the spell. But instead of the cheesy poem, and the use of the candle, I simply went into the bathroom and ‘Willed’ by eyes to change colour, and to ensure that I could tell that something was working, I chose to change the colour of my eyes to white, so that it would result in no pupil and confirm that something happened. Well within moments of attempting a mily white substance seemed to pour into my eye covering the pupil without distorting my vision. This actually scared me pretty badly, sure it confirmed to me personally that it was ‘Will Alone’ that was causing the phenomenon but now my Will was freaking out trying to undo what was happening because I feared the unknown. For some reason despite me having no visual distortions I feared I would cause myself blindness or something, I rubbed my eyes going “no no no” mentally just freaking right out. My Wiccan friend was surprised by the results and the rest of the night was spent talking about this new discovery.
It did not take a long time of searching before I came across a field of Magick known as ‘Chaos Magick’ which was completely in line with what I had discovered. The best way to describe chaos magick is “Just do it”. These Chaos Mages were also known for using static ‘white noise’ television sets as crystal balls for scrying. Until then, I had only known of ‘Wiccan mages’ and ‘Sacred mages’ (Basically a Karmic mage, which if Moses existed, probably fell into this category, his belief in himself ‘doing what is right‘ allowed for his Will to do amazing things).
This revelation about the Will caused many ideas to arise. Aliester Crowley once said that the unconscious act of breathing was caused by our ‘Will to live’ once, and now it began resurfacing as a new paradigm to how everything actually comes to manifest within the universe. Especially if you suspect that the entire universe is more of an Illusion for you than a collective. Suddenly everything anyone said whether intelligent or ignorant now had much more importance, since it was directly tailored to my life experience, it was as if every event was a clue to the purpose of the Matrix. But enough of that we are supposed to focus on placebo and belief.
So because of my life experience and curiosity; I had now realized that the WILL is the cause of ‘Magick’ phenomenon (Magic without the K on the end being the art of tricks and illusion, while the definition of Magick given to us from Mr.Crowley is: ‘the ability to cause change with Will alone’) and the components of A Wiccan spell, the poem and candle in this case being a mere placebo for the Will to act. This suddenly made a lot of my knowledge about spiritual phenomenon ‘unify’ under this new paradigm. It revealed that people like John Chang who used Chi to heal people and could start a newspapers on fire with his Will alone were relying on their placebos to achieve their abilities. John Chang when asked how he was able to do this replied; “Meditation Everyday”. To this i respond, “Hey whatever works!”
All these ‘Ancient Masters’ who taught people like him the technique would have to have discovered it themselves originally. I personally would rather be the discoverer of such a technique than a student so things like Ray-Key, that require you to pay money in order for their Masters to ‘Tune’ you to be able to do it (sometimes 1000’s of dollars) well I sure hope that payment acts as a true placebo for you so that your Will acts accordingly and you are not ripped off.
So quickly trying to summarize. Magick it would seem is caused simply by the Will and your belief in the ability. Wiccans require the moon to be in a certain state, candles and poems to aid their belief in their power but I can attest that personally they are no more than placebos. This line of thought extends beyond magick, you could have already noticed how ‘confidence’ is like magick in it’s nature. As a Wiccan doing their magick with the Moon in the proper state would aid their confidence in their Wills ability to achieve the appropriate result. With this understanding one could imagine a ‘thinking cap’ and put it on, and as long as they believe it will work, and have a confidence in their imagination, and ‘know what it does’, they could amplify their knowledge and understanding simply by Willing it so.
I use magick personally on a dialy basis, but it isn’t a traditional movie style magick. Just my knowledge in the workings of the universe allows for me to believe in myself, the ability of my will, so I use it to wake people from bed when I need them, summon wanted phone calls and sometimes but rarely; ask for money and items. I do have this fear that I can ruin my abilities by being greedy and since whatever I believe guides my probability of success, it does matter, and I have to adhere to it to continue to succeed or I may damage my confidence. Both success and failure can do wonders for confidence, but if you were to succeed in some magickal phenomenon while asking for help with it from Jesus or something, and then it works. Well you probably would have wrote this essay with Jesus being the reason magick works, not that Jesus was the placebo for your magick to work.
Although messy and all over the place, I think the point of this post has been touched upon, which now realigns the mystic with the idea that culturing belief in oneself can bypass ‘meditation everyday’ and whatever else these ‘Ancient Masters’ are selling as placebos.
d74g0n's Notes 