I, of course, hope that you will enjoy this small collection of my memories, but I know that I can’t possibly satisfy the taste and expectation of every reader. Perhaps this book will not be what you expected. Perhaps you will be disappointed that I haven’t written yet another textbook or a more scholarly elucidation upon some great magical system or philosophical doctrine. If so, I hope you overlook my lack of apology, because I believe with this little book I am offering you something that can be far more powerful and enlightening—a gift of stories. I hope you accept them for what they are, and find your particular truth within them. For as the Zuni sages tell us, “There is no truth, only stories.”
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First Let’s Talk About Fear
Speak of the Devil and he appears.
Italian Proverb
For a magician, it is better to be possessed by the demon than ignored by him.
Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford
It is a sad fact (at least from my perspective) that not everyone who picks up this book and thumbs through it will end up buying it. It is also true that not everyone who buys it and takes it home will read it from cover to cover. So, just in case these opening remarks are the only words you will ever read from this book, I’m going to immediately exploit this fleeting moment we have together and impart to you in large uppercase letters the most important secret of magick—and of life:
DO NOT BE AFRAID!
Now! If you’re short on time, please feel free to close the book and fearlessly get on with your life.
Do not get me wrong. It’s good to be cautious. It’s good to be wise. It’s good to be measured and thoughtful in all your actions and behavior, but fear is poison to your magical practice and poison to your life. Please know that I am not preaching this gospel of fearlessness from the marble pulpit of righteousness and courage. On the contrary, I’m shouting it from the pasteboard megaphone of my own ignoble and cowardly character.
When I began my life as a practicing magician, it seemed like I was afraid of everything. When I rehearsed my first Pentagram and Hexagram rituals, I superstitiously monitored everything from my heartbeat to my horniness. I fantasized seeing things out of the corner of my eye, and recorded the most outlandish speculations in my diary.
I realize now that most of my fears of things that go bump in the night arose from the deepest stratum of my childhood religious programming. In less evasive words, I was still consciously and unconsciously brainwashed by my Christian upbringing—still trapped in a hostile universe that reverberated with the thundering curses of a wrathful God who frightens little children into acceptable behavior (so that they grow into obedient God-fearing adult little children). I was programmed by films and literature based upon that unwholesome doctrine of fear and self-loathing. Today, as I review my old diaries, it all seems pretty silly and melodramatic:
Performed Greater Invoking Pentagram Ritual of Fire for the first time. Later in the day broke a shoelace and had acid reflux.
or,
Slept with Mars talisman under my pillow—dreamed my father’s corpse was eaten by seahorses—woke up with an erection.
I thank the gods that I had in those early years a knowledgeable, experienced, and competent magical mentor1 who (when not projecting her own fears of low magick upon me)2 mercilessly ridiculed my childish fears and helped me develop an attitude akin to that of a motivated research scientist who is driven by intense curiosity and a sense of scientific wonder. Remember Laura Dern’s character in the film Jurassic Park, rolling up her sleeves and plunging her arm into a huge pile of dinosaur poop for a clue to the poor animal’s tummy ache? Well, sometimes a magician is faced with even more disturbing psychological and spirit-world challenges, and the key to meeting those challenges is that same detached attitude of fearlessness, determination, and an unshakeable passion for enlightenment.
I recently received a letter from a magician who believed that her mood swings and other health issues were the result of her magical workings. Here’s a portion of my letter back to her. I hope you find it encouraging.
Dear (name withheld),
Concerning mood swings and health issues vis-à-vis your magical practices, it’s usually best to ascribe them to the normal demons of body chemistry and the stress of twenty-first century urban life. More often than not, a head cold or the flu isn’t caused by backlash for a magical operation. Even if it were a negative reaction to your magical workings, your doubts and fears over the matter only serve to give the entities you fear permission and encouragement to keep feeding on your insecurities (and perhaps much more). By becoming preoccupied as to whether this pain or that fever might be a demon messing with you, you voluntarily give the demon power to give you this pain or that fever—in a very real sense, the demon has evoked you!
Try to remain mindful that you’ll probably live through all your magical workings (except perhaps the last one), and that nothing neutralizes the power of a pesky demon more than having its scariness ignored. Remember what it says in Liber Librae: “Humble thyself before thy Self, yet fear neither man not spirit. Fear is failure, and the forerunner of failure: and courage is the beginning of virtue.”3
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11 For my first few years of magical apprenticeship, I was privileged to study formally under Phyllis Seckler McMurtry (1917–2004), also known as Soror Meral, IX° OTO.
2 See chapter 1.
3 Aleister Crowley, Liber Libræ Sub Figura XXX, The Book of the Balance and Magick, Liber ABA, Book Four. Second revised edition, ed. Hymenaeus Beta (York Beach, ME: Weiser Books, Inc., 1997),
