Magic for Magickians and Magick for Magicians
By Christopher Gould
Introduction:
At the Crossroad (fell down on my knees).
I started
my interests in the metaphysical many, many years ago. As a teenager you would
find me studying The Golden Dawn and the Kabbalah. Somehow - life got in the
way and I drifted more to the material plane (job, mortgage, family - you know). Later in life I became interested
in a very different sort of magic; performance magic. After a few years of
mind-reading and card trickery, I found this experience to be somewhat hollow
and began to miss the sustenance provided by my former esoteric studies. Oddly
I found the same was true of many other fellow performers. So now I find myself
opening all those strange old books (and some new ones too!).
This
strange journey has been worthwhile and has opened my eyes in many ways. I
realise now that I was just going further and further down a rabbit-hole of
confusion and incomprehension in my magickal studies. I was being entertained,
but I was not actually achieving anything. Strangely perhaps it was performance
magic that opened my eyes to the fact that magic was not only a practical art
that worked, but that it’s structure was
inherently very simple. It was performing magicians who opened my eyes to
magick!
Now I see
the performance of magic without a magical context as being largely pointless.
I also see much of the metaphysical studies I had engaged in being superfluous
to the central and simple truth of
magic.
So now I
find myself at a strange, but very interesting intersection of the two roads.
Alchemy Moon is very much an expression of this crossroads.
Standing
at the crossroads gives one a unique view.
Magic for
Magickians.
An
understanding of stage performance has a great deal to offer in the context of
metaphysical workings. I think the first eye opener that magic gave to me was
when (as a card magician) I walked around a Mind, Body and Spirit festival. I
was astonished at the amount of cards sleights and out-and-out deception was
going on under the hands of the 'psychics' giving readings. I really should not
have been surprised. These professionals were out their to earn a living and
that living depended upon their ability to 'deliver'. Someone without an
understanding of such techniques would have been quite ignorant of them and
attributed the readers with quite supernatural power. Someone with an
understanding of card magic would have branded them as 'charlatans' rather than
as working professionals.. So there is some degree of wisdom and knowledge to
be gained.
But there
are also far more important ant practical applications of stage magic to a
metaphysical setting.
The first
one is what can be learnt about the dynamics of performance, essentially all
readers are performers, yet few realise this. I will not talk about this aspect
here, as I intend to cover this in a future article.
Structure.
A magical 'effect', trick or performance relies upon structure. There is a
clear beginning, middle and end and their is a mechanism
in this structure. Understanding this from my training in magical performance
has really opened my eyes to how a lack of structure and mechanism in genuine
magical work leads to failure. I now look at my occult researches with a more
analytical eye. I look for what works and what is unnecessary 'window
dressing'. I look for the mechanism. I look for the structure. This allows me
to refine and make the work more pure; more effective.
Bringing
Magic to the world. Magick for me was always a solitary pursuit, it involved me
getting lost in the labyrinth of my own mind. It left me misplaced and
wandering; directionless and alone. Performing magic to audiences led me to a
fundamental realisation. The performance of magic gave people and experience of something that was beyond their
mundane reality. It opened the gates to possibilities. Whatever your
background, you will probably agree with me that we live in a world devoid of
magic. One of our first experiences of leaving childhood is to have magic taken
from us. Without magic the world is not only a greyer place but a more
dysfunctional one. Cutting the umbilical chord to a 'greater reality' is the
cause of much of what is wrong with our greedy, materialistic and war-torn
world. This statement may be more contentious, but no less true.
As
magicians of any description, it is our task to restore magic to a world where
it is denied. We may do this with a card trick, or a creative visualisation of
other realities. No matter what the tools, we are exercising our 'calling'.
Many traditional magicians will have jumped ship by now. This does not concern
me, as they do not have to swim too far to shore. Also, some of you who have a background in 'real' magick,
will find the ideas presented here difficult to assimilate, or at least
confusing. I would argue that the work is worth the result, and I say this from
personal experience.
From the
magician Dedi performing the 'cups and balls' trick as genuine magic in the courts of ancient Egypt, through to the
mechanical devises found at the Delphic oracles, Scots 'exposure' of conjuring
in Elizabethan Europe - right up to modern day 'debunking' of psychics using
electronic equipment - Magick and Magic have always held hands throughout
history.
For one
simple reason; magic is unpredictable. It is unpredictable both in terms of
timescale and effect. Magic cannot be simply 'turned on' at command and it's
results are rarely exactly what the magician intended (but were intended for the magician). So when the
revered ancient Shaman performed to his expectant audience, believe me, he had
'a back up plan'. Not because he (or indeed she) was a charlatan, but because
it was his job to make the magical
universe apparent to those who did not have the luxury of time or education to
experience these things first hand. A shaman who turned to his 'audience' and
said "Something may happen at some point
in the future, but I cannot tell you the exact nature of it..' would
simply have been 'booed off the stage'. I think to loose this mechanism of
bringing real magic into the lives of those deprived of it is not a good thing.
We should not let our beliefs erect a wall of sincerity and stop us in our task
of bringing magic into other's lives. This never bothered Crowley, and it is my
opinion that it should not bother you, particularly in the exploration of
magick in a social setting. I am not presenting this as a 'fact' but as my
opinion. However, I think it an opinion worthy of consideration.
Let us
look at this for a moment from the perspective of the person you are
'performing magic' for. I am performing magic to a small group of people
sitting around a table in a bar. The shrine and the altar are some way away and
I am out on the street opening portals of imagination with 'everyday' people. I
am a seasoned performer, so I am not presenting the magic as a trick, or a
puzzle. I am showing them magic! I am telling them that this magic is real - because from the perspective of their experience; it
is. Why should I deny them this experience of a more magical dimension?
Many would disagree, and this is their right, but I would see this as some
perverse form of cruelty.
The
audiences eyes widen, their mouths open and they are speechless (well, on a
good night anyhow). They have had a experience that has been dormant since
their childhood; an experience of magic. They
do not ask me how it was done as it is
not a trick, but a genuine experience. I
leave it this way, they go, a seed of possibility has been planted. If I have
done my work well, this seed will grow into a fully fledged paradigm shift; I
have been a magician!
Some
magicians will unwittingly deny themselves of this experience; 'and for my next trick', some magicians will
deny the existence of magic, which only leads you to the question of why are
they then performing it. Some magicians who are sincere in their belief in a
magical reality, will shun such work as dishonest and somewhat despicable. Both
group will be denying the shared legacy of magical history.
Somewhere
in the middle ground exists the more anarchistic magician, the child of the
trickster gods of antiquity. Someone who is free
to explore a range of techniques to re-establish magic. I know of several of
these people, and I am inviting you to open your mind and spend a little time
in their company.
Bring magic into the world and use what ever tools
you need to achieve it. The task is too important for you to fail at it.
Magick for Magicians.
This is the other
side of the coin, and thankfully, it is easier to discuss.
It is my view that
magician should perform magic. Those of you who have read anything I have
written before are free to go home and have an early tea at this point. What I
mean by this is that the most hollow and useless
thing a magician can do is perform a 'trick'. To a good proportion of the
audience it is annoying, and to another percentage it is dull. Annoying because
you are belittling the audience, setting them a puzzle that they cannot solve
(and nor could you before you bought the trick), you are parading your ego and
claiming some transitory superiority that your polite audience will not thank
you for. Dull, because we perform in an age of 3d Films, virtual reality
computer games, entire libraries and entertainment systems that we carry around
in the palm of our hands. All of these readily available toys thrown up by our
culture can perform far better tricks than the most accomplished magician. Yet
these transitory novelties leave us empty; wanting more. They do not bring us
magic.
I am going to shout
from my soapbox at this point and say that if you are a magician who denies the
existence of magic, you have no right calling yourself by that title; leave it
to those who do.
So for the magician,
a grounding in the esoteric is essential, as this is where true magic is to be found.
There is a big
difference performing magic from the point of view of a reductive and
rationalist view of the universe and from a metaphysical understanding of
(true) reality. *
*by this I mean the reality behind material illusion -
it is all energy waves!
Which do you think
is the best foundation for performing magic; magic that is a transcendental
experience for the audience? Surely, magic by its very definition should transcend. If we keep pinning it down
to materialism ('it is just a trick') we are hearing but the faintest echo of
our calling.
What does a magician do?
Conclusion
The discipline of Magical performance has a great
deal to teach the metaphysician in the structuring and mechanics of his or her
work. Magical performance (in my view) should be seen as a useful tool for the
working magician to have a social context, to use whatever method is necessary
to awaken magic in the slumbering mind
and go someway to redressing balance in our materialistic society.
The occult knowledge
of magick is necessary to transform the amateur magician into a binger of
wonder, mystery and true magic. I
believe that magical performance is a means to an end and that end should be
made conscious.
Both performing
magicians and esoteric workers derive their art from the same root; an
inheritance that did not make the distinctions that we make today.
There is a largely
unexplored field of potential that exists between these two poles; a place to
meet and exchange ideas, a place to forge a new magic that can transform us and those we meet.
