Most practitioners I know have a strong or consistent practice that appeals to them. It seems to fit their personality or their preferred applications of magic. Think of a kitchen witch or an herbalist. Those practices are typically rooted (ha!) in a combination of daily life and preferred application of magic. It gets a little harder for some others, such as necromancy of certains types. But we all fall into practices that we get comfortable with.
And we need ot fall out with them if we’re going to actually get good instead of using the same practices for the same sorts of results. We don’t grow as magicians by only doing the same things over and over again. Or from simple variations of them. Some may disagree, but I would look at their practices first. Call on entities for similar things in similar ways isn’t going to get you continued growth. And maybe you don’t care about that, which is you decision. And your loss when you need something outside your comfortable toolbox.
This is happening to me right now. And it isn’t the first time. I was comfortable turning away from magic and the Occult and Hecate pulled me out of it and made me learn evocation and invocation in several different styles and with different mechanisms. Wasn’t fun and if I hadn’t been scared of her, I may have just turned my back and went about my own business as I had for 20+ years – dealing with things here and there, but very much not actively looking to use or expand anything but being “spiritual” and my intuition.
Then, I went from the not really comfortable with evocation to working with Pele and Shadow People in the style of the Shadownomicon. Again, using skills I had, but veering my practice in several distinct ways. Not just Natural energies via Pele work, but the unnatural energetic skills needed for dealing more/most effectively with shadows.
After these adventures that lasted about a year, I was told to pivot and do the Ceremonial Magic style Helios Unbound (Hecate largely directs my studies). I didn’t like a lot of it, but it did get me used to doing Ceremonial Magic enough to see the results and that I didn’t need that rigidity to get the same or better results. This was valuable and I’ve largely seen those methods as crutches to be overcome as I strive to become and act more like the Gods in my practice.
This pivot is more about not using spirits much at all. Over the past few days, I’ve been casting campaign-style, but only with my own steam. I’m also being led to calling energies from entities without calling those entities – something I’ve done a lot of, but over time and not in a deep dive sort of way. Most of my personal gates (not my Etsy stuff) are done this way.
Why did I call this a pivot, if I’ve done similar stuff? In all cases of pivoting, I’ve had to use skills I developed in the past to get the most out of them. In this case, I typically don’t do campaigns without using spirits to direct my work. Here, I’m being asked to work with larger and larger amounts of energies to deepen skills with what I call (spell) bombs. While this is happening, I’m looking to expand my knowledge of Fu talismans and these will involve a combination of calling on spirits or their authority (this is done traditionally) and combining that with my own energy generation, saturation directed at a Fu to be then cast to manifest in the world upon burning. I’ve done a similar thing with my hybrid rituals in my Pele work, but this isn’t quite the same. We’ll be writing the result we want as the Fu itself.
This will is also be seen in some of my Etsy stuff, where I will be creating servitors using the Fu-style ritual and then sending it for training with spirits I have relationships with. I expect this will start to be seen in the next few weeks, minus next week, since I will be away from my ritual space.
But WHY are these changes happening (on my end)? Because I keep my primary goal in mind – making this my last go around unless I choose otherwise. I can help from the other side just as ancestors and prior magicians do. I have to learn to act more like them, the Gods, and something tells me someone like Zeus doesn’t need to sprinkle some sea salt in a circle for protection while balancing the four directions/elements with an athame. I need to make these changes to become more like that which I want to emulate. That requires learning about different forms of power, used in different ways, which grows our actual ability.
It’s easy to get comfortable and want to stay in our little holes in the wall. But I would encourage you to branch out and further develop yourself in meaningful, non-fluff ways proactively. It’s better to have it and not need it than to get in a bind and have to go looking for help or get bound up in something preventable.
