by nagasiva yronwode

Nagasiva yronwode (writing as "nagasiva" and under many other handles including tyaginator, xiwangmu, blackman99, and nocTifer) was one of the most prolific voices on alt.pagan.magick and alt.magick.chaos throughout the early 2000s. A practitioner steeped in both Western ceremonial tradition and hoodoo folk magic, he was known for long, careful, highly referenced posts that took newcomers seriously.

This post, written in January 2004, responds to a fifteen-year-old asking how to get started doing magic. Rather than offering a reading list or a beginner ritual, nagasiva steps back to survey the landscape: the many types of magic across cultures and time, the typical motivations that draw people to it, and the critical first discipline of knowing clearly what you want before you pursue it. The board game analogy at the end is characteristic of his style — grounded, lateral, and quietly subversive of magical pretension.

The best advice in general I can offer is found at ref.lrnonln.9804, but supplemental URLs to check out would be magi and faqs.html

Your request tells me it is genuine, and that it may be based on any number of ideas about magic, from a very wide set of possibilities. At the outset I'd like to make some very basic distinctions that you may already know, but will help you to keep from wasting your time.

While sleight of hand (like palming coins) and stage performances manipulating perception of an audience (as practiced by such notables as Harry Blackstone Jr. or Harry Houdini) are sometimes identified as magic, and indeed as they even sometimes form part of activities engaged by students of occult arts, I will not be addressing these refined skills here. They may be learned from others specializing in them.

There are hundreds of different types of magic from as many different cultures and time periods. Most of those who presume to instruct the subject have little exposure to more than 1 or 2 versions that they have concluded was the best or most effective style or tradition. Often they will believe fantasies that serve to support the authority of that which they've learned, which they maintain as truth despite the existence of clear evidence to the contrary that they may prefer to overlook.

Why People Come to Magic

Most of those who start a study of magic do so in order to enhance or somehow increase their power, their ability to affect the world through means unavailable to the average person. Those with the greatest incentive to use magic and learn it for this purpose are those who, for one reason or another, feel a sense of their own powerlessness in the world. This includes the young, who are subject to the direction of parents or have yet to explore the many social avenues available to them based on their aptitudes and skills, and seek some kind of advantage that will make things easier or enable a better position than their peers.

Others drawn to a study of magic for power include those of economic or social disadvantage, whether born into poverty and hardship or somehow finding themselves in situations of difficulty and strife. These hope to improve their condition or somehow strike out at those whom they've identified as responsible for their straits.

A third category of those who seek power are of a more noble intent as they associate magical ability with spiritual progress. They have reason to believe that power may be obtained as a byproduct of diligent study, mystical practice, and an entry or initiation to an essential role in unseen or hidden organizations governing the universe (for example, the celestial kingdom of the God of the Universe). The orientation and direction of this Adventure is often a lure to those who feel rudderless or lost, and the possibility of cosmic promotion and greater number of options resembles in some ways the seekers after magical power noted above.

You mention a feeling that you have power, and so you seem to associate magic with an innate ability (that might be comparable to what is found in stories like those told by Rowling about "muggles" and those born with some kind of magical aptitude: wizards) rather than which may be entirely learned. This is very common in magical culture, and yet I would caution that it is not something which all mages believe.

You have also mentioned an ability to prophesy or prognosticate. This is important to a good many mystics, witches and mages throughout the world, whether that be associated with dreaming it (as I have experienced it myself and know others to whom it has occurred), through trance, dream, or direct insight. The ability to foresee is neither necessary to a study of magic nor a hindrance, from what I can tell, and it does feature rather importantly in modern Hermetic magical paths with which I am familiar (especially as they intersect with Spiritualism).

Knowing What You Want

Here is the first fork in your road. Be as specific as you are able as to what you have dreamed and write it down. Get a clear reflection of what you've got in mind, because you're likely to run into a good number of alternatives that don't suit your interests, and it is liable to be confusing unless you have a clear notion of where you want to go. Hold out for what you have dreamed is the activity of magic, and I think you are likely to find something suitable despite the fact that you may encounter others who will tell you plainly that you're going to be disappointed. It all depends on how important the dreams you're talking about are to you.

The Board Game Analogy

I would like to use an analogy in order to describe what you've inquired about. It will be in a metaphor — I know nothing about you and we may not share common interests. Nonetheless, I'll try.

Imagine for a moment that we say we want to play a game. Let's say we know very little about the game other than that it is played on a board of some kind, and that there are probably playing pieces to be moved around. Beyond this, we may be dealing with anything from modern Chess (in which there are no elements of the game left to chance because each move is selected by the moving player) to Snakes and Ladders (in which all elements of the game depend upon chance because one rolls the die and moves the determined number of spaces, following the resulting slide or climb to its endpoint).

The first order of business is to determine how much of these parameters we may affect, seek a means to influence and control as much of the game as we can, at first merely by learning of it. It is "taking a lay of the land" before acting.

Then set off on your marvellous journey.

Colophon

Written by nagasiva yronwode (tyaginator). Posted to alt.magick.tyagi, alt.magick, alt.pagan.magick, alt.witchcraft, alt.magick.folk, and alt.occult.methods, January 2004. Original Message-ID: SXRJb.6505$[email protected]

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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