Let’s take a moment to talk about three concepts that are thrown around a lot in spiritual discourse but tend to mean different things to different people: Meditation, prayer, and magic.
I’m not here to give you the definitive word, but I would like to explain how I view them so you’ll have a sense of where I’m coming from, and perhaps it will spark off thoughts of how they fit together, or don’t, in your own practice. In mine, they don’t really have definitions so much as characteristics, and those characteristics are…pretty fuzzy around the edges.
Meditation
In my practice there are two basic kinds of meditation:
- Plain old sitting, which may be breathwork or what I refer to in my head as The Drift. I plug into the current of the Universe and just let that current move through me, like docking with the Mother Ship.
- Visualization or “guided” meditation, which I put in quotes because most of the time I’m guiding myself. In these meditations my mind is more active, following a path. I often use this kind of meditation to relax at the beginning of a session by visualizing energy flowing either up or down through my body one part at a time; I also use visualizations such as a path through the forest in order to commune with Deity.
The defining trait of both of these is that they are receptive in nature. I meditation am the radio, not the microphone.
Prayer
Prayer is the other end of the communication spectrum; in prayer I am reaching out to God/Goddess. I express something, whether gratitude, a plea for help, and so forth. As Anne Lamott says, the three most essential prayers are “Help!” “Thanks!” and “Wow!”
Prayer can happen at any time, and in a lot of forms. I might be sitting on my bed going over the things I’m glad of, or sitting in my car at a stop light panting after someone nearly t-bones me. I might have walked outside for the first time in days, felt the sun on my skin, smelled jasmine in the air, and just had to say “Oh heck yeah!” to the Universe. I might be drawing or painting or dancing. What matters is I am expressing an emotion or need, whether I hope for a reply or not.
(It is my learned opinion (as in learned the hard way) that all prayers are answered, just not necessarily with a “Yes,” and not necessarily right away, or in English. Sometimes the conversation of prayer is two-way. Sometimes it still feels like shouting into a void – but I do it anyway, because if nothing else, it makes me feel better.)
Magic
The definition most people give for magic(k) is that old Crowleyan one that goes something like “the art of causing change in accordance with the will.”
What does that mean? Well, in my own practice, magic is the creative art of tapping into the energy of probability in order to influence events.
Okay, well what the heck does that mean?
If you’re not familiar with the magical arts you might have this idea that we’re out here believing we’re Harry Potter or some shit, but it’s important to know that actual magic is NOT the same as fantasy sorcery. It’s not about waving a wand and POOF! your desire appears; magic in the real world works with probability and within the realm of actual physics (which admittedly is rather magical). Splendid alterations of natural law have been known to happen but in general we expect something a bit more…subtle.
Magic won’t make you instantly rich (usually), which is the judgment people often hurl at magic workers: “Oh yeah, if it’s real, why aren’t you rich?” Well, what I’m doing in a spell is increasing the odds in favor of my desired outcome, not producing an outcome out of nowhere. How well it works depends on how much probability is pushing back against me.
For example, let’s say I want a particular tangerine-tinted buffoon to be eaten by wolves and shat out over a cliff. No matter how much oomph I put into a spell for this, there is way more stacked up against that happening. He’d have to be somewhere wolves are found, left unattended by his sitters; the wolves would have to want to eat him, and then do so without being fatally poisoned. I’d also be working against the will of a lot of very silly people who for some reason don’t want him to be eaten by wolves and shat out over a cliff. There’s a lot in the way.
Also, magic works best when it doesn’t work alone. If you do a spell to get a job but then don’t apply for any jobs, the probability of you actually landing a job is pretty damn low. Sure, an offer could come out of the blue, but you’d be far more likely to get an offer if you polished your resume, researched the market, sent out applications, worked on improving any rusty skills involved, and did a job spell. Magic is a tool to achieve change, and as an added edge can make all the difference – it pushes on the boulder, but if the boulder isn’t already aimed downhill, it probably won’t roll as far as you’d like.
The takeaway is that in my practice meditation, prayer, and magic often work interdependently:
I may meditate on the question of what it is I need in my life, trying to nail down what’s underneath my desire for a million-dollar book contract; I might pray for guidance (which includes reading Tarot on the subject, more on that later as well) or find that the meditation/prayer combo gives me the insight I need to not even feel magic is necessary this time. If I then do a spell for my desire, I might meditate afterward to allow any wisdom on the matter to come into my mind or out of my subconscious.
Like I said, the boundaries are fuzzy. I think they’re pretty fuzzy for a lot of people. In practice, I don’t usually think of them as separate actions, but just part of my spiritual work as a whole.
There are a lot of nuances to unpack in the concept of magic and spellwork, which I’ll do in a post coming up very soon.
