I admit to getting started with Witchcraft because casting spells sounded like a great way to get a handle on my life. Magick, whether flying on a broom, changing my luck, or making it rain, is mystical and interesting—not to mention the light touch of dangerous appeal that it has. Who wouldn’t want to do all that, if they could?
The truth, as I learned fifteen years ago, is deeper and far more satisfying. Magick, real magick, is more than a hat trick or even telling the future. It is an act of nature through a human being—it is the ultimate plugging-in to the energy that drives the Universe. Magick is the result of being so in tune, so in touch with the lifeforce of the world—that which IS—that you become a Creatrix. You can manifest change in the world. You don’t have to manipulate energy because, at the core of a magickal work, there is no division between that energy and you. If you wanted to pick up a ball, you would not manipulate yourself to do so. You would simply bend over, reach out, and pick up the ball. So it is with magick, when done properly.
It is probably most fair to say that there are many kinds of magick, and not all kinds are spiritual (or effective, but more on that in a minute). Folk magick, for example, is driven almost entirely by the practitioner’s will. Say, for example, you use a poppet to curse your ex-boyfriend, who suddenly becomes ill. The key here is that he becomes ill both because you had so much hatred and anger inside you that you were able to focus your willpower on a single, simple goal (inflicting illness on your ex-boyfriend) AND because he believed in your power to make it happen. If you only halfheartedly wished him ill or really still loved him, your curse would probably be more effective as a venting session than a spell. Likewise, if he did not truly believe in your power to curse him (or if he was not convinced that you were out there somewhere, hating his guts), he would most likely keep living his life as usual, irritatingly oblivious to your pain.
There’s also the magick that utilizes the energies intrinsic to natural objects, such as crystals and herbs. A skilled practitioner, or for that matter anyone with enough desire to make it happen, can tap into and use the power of natural objects to cause a specific event to take place. Gris-gris bags, charms, incenses, herbal remedies, the laying-on of crystals…all these things make use of the natural energies of the ingredients, plus a healthy does of willpower, to complete a spell. But, these kinds of magickal workings are often far more general—a bag to attract love, wealth, or good luck for example. The effects wrought here are more immediate, but also more short-lived and subtle.
But the greatest magick of all is a higher magick. Some people use the term “high magick” to refer to ceremonial rituals, but I like to think of high magick as being the spiritual kind, the kind that seeks to connect with and attune to the Universe. Walking though Astoria Park on a beautiful weekend in June reminds me of the gentle power and pervasiveness of this kind of magick:
First, as I make my way into the park, I spot a grove of tall, sturdy trees. I sit down against the eldest, a great and gnarled oak tree that I can’t even fit my arms around, it is so thick. Sitting here, despite the hum of car from the Triborough bridge above and to my left, I am still soothed by the rustle of the leaves when the wind blows. A crashing noise above me refocuses my attention upwards, where six squirrels chase each other across branches no thicker than my fingers. They scurry, chitter, and leap from tree to tree. I look beyond the trees to the field of sunbathers, picnickers, and readers and think, “the squirrels were doing this before the park was even built—they will still be doing it after we are gone.” The earth is amazing. Life perpetuates, despite our best efforts to stifle it. And we are drawn to the natural world, even in small doses, despite our best efforts to destroy it. Even so-called “cityfolk” will flock to our parks and waterfronts as soon as the weather permits.
This is the purest magick, I think. It’s the connection between all living things, the endless circle and cycle of life. Maybe the loud woman and her equally loud children behind me don’t realize the trees are what call them here—but, when she looked outside this morning and saw the sunshine and blue sky, she didn’t think, “Let’s go to the mall.” She thought, “I must get outside in that sun. Let’s go to the park!”
Astoria Park teaches me another lesson. There is a promenade that runs the length of the park between the Triborough bridge and the Hell’s Gate bridge, alongside the East River. Below the sidewalk, the river crashes upon the rocks and debris. As you walk, you can hear the swoosh of the water rushing in, over, and then flowing back out again. When I look down at the shoreline, I see the thousands of tiny pieces of broken glass that are now just colored pebbles beaten by the waves. My first instinct is to feel sad at the carelessness of people. But then I hear it—a tinkling sound, coming from the water. In fact, it is like wind chimes every time the water crashes to shore and then recedes. It is the sound of the water washing through all those bits of broken glass, and it is beautiful.
As I stop to appreciate the sound, I am reminded that magick does in fact, like all things natural, have both a passive and active side. The connection, the perpetuation of life, the permeation of the Divine all around us and the feelings that flow from recognizing and cultivating that connection (by tapping into it regularly)…this is the passive side, the yin of magick. Rituals are the metaphor for this. We “open” a circle—a portal between the worlds where we seek to connect to the Divine, the elements, and the cycle of life (through the sabbats)—thus becoming whole. But the active side is that sound—something beautiful and stirring arising from something ugly and neglectful. Transformation. The key to the yang, the active side, the kind of magick that we work spells to achieve, is transformation. This is reflected by our tradition of Spellwork, our particular method of working to transform ourselves and our environment.
I think this is very important to our work as Witches. It’s a part of the circle, which is both a mystery and an attainable truth as the metaphor for Witchcraft. Magick is like that circle: it is all things and no thing. It is concrete reality and the inexplicable. The sound of tinkling glass stirred by waves and the draw of a warm sunny day.
As a religion and a movement we think too much (an unfortunate residual effect of Western culture, versus the Eastern cultures that emphasize being). Real magick, despite all the talk, must be experienced in order to be truly understood. I can talk about it because I’ve experienced it (both active and passive types). If you never have, all the talking in the world, even the most coherent discussion and description, won’t make sense to you.
The good news is that people experience magick all the time. They may not put that name to it, but all those people lying in the field at the park felt it when they looked outside that morning. That’s why they were there. That’s why people can read books on magick and Wicca for the first time and understand—because for whatever reason, consciously or unconsciously, they have opened themselves up and let the Divine in. Even once. And, reading about it, they recognize and understand intuitively what magick and Wicca are all about. They get it. This is the basis for the almost universal experience that Witches talk about when they first find out about the Craft—the coming home, the recognition, the illumination.
In the end, this phenomenon is magick, too. It may even be the most important and vital magick that there is. It’s the strengthening, affirming, and building of the connection through which our community grows. It’s what fuels the active—our spells—and vice versa. It’s what we open up to through the passive—our rituals—and also what we give back out. Use it or lose it. We work because we can and because we have to, or we risk letting the arteries of the Universe (and thus the Divine) become clogged again. It’s the rechargeable battery that Witches run on, and what others need to learn to avoid being “burnt out.” Maybe it’s love…because love is, after all, what makes the world go round, isn’t it?