A Slacker’s Guide to Magick

All Religion is Magick

Let’s start with a crazy assertion: all religion is magick. In fact all ideology is magick. We all practice magick. We just most practice it really badly, and mostly without understanding what we are doing. Yes. I am serious. Explain to me how prayer isn’t magick. Explain to me how letting the spirit move you isn’t magick. Explain to me how the eucharist isn’t magick. Saints Days? Magick. Most Christians didn’t attend church last week. But they do still believe in their magick, even if they don’t understand it properly if at all. And it isn’t just Christianity. Obviously any religions that include any attempts to influence the world through other than materialist mechanisms are magick.

But it goes beyond that. Capitalism? Magick. What else would you call the belief in the invisible hand of the market? Your own local nationalist jingoism with its now mythical founding fathers and founding myth? Magick. Now this may stretch what you consider magick, but that’s okay. It’s important to stretch. If you are imposing mythic ideas upon materialist reality, you are practicing magick. If you are trying to manipulate reality, or at least your perception of materialist reality, through other than material means, you are practicing magick.

This is obviously controversial, especially given that most people don’t like to think of their religion or ideology as magick. But what do you call psychically asking a supernatural agent to intercede supernaturally on your behalf? That sounds exactly like magick to me. If you strip out the terminology that religions add to differentiate their faith from other people’s superstition, you will find something indistinguishable from magick..

What Magick Is

Thus far we have talked about how all religion is magick. We’ve talked about how pretty much anything involving humans and ideology is also magick. But what then is magick? According to comic writer and magician Grant Morrison: “Everyone does magic all the time in different ways. ‘Life’ plus ‘significance’ = magic.” Their fellow writer and magician (and some time rival) Alan Moore said, “I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic.”

So what is magick? Magick is the use of the human mind to transform the world in which that mind lives.

This is the foundation upon which everything else will be built. This is the foundation of the whole of this book. And many readers may be balking at this. Many of you may be saying: “No! We want real magick!” In response, I will point out that real is a useless term. A better question would not be: is it real? A better question would be: does it produce results? This is what we want. This is why people do anything, because they want specific results. And Craft Brew Magick is built on the odd, but predictable, functioning of the human mind. And so, done properly, this program will generate results. It may or may not be real. It may or may not be a delusion, but it is a useful delusion. So now you have a choice. Would you rather pursue a pointless reality, or a useful delusion?

The choice is up to you.

Your Magick Sucks

So everything is magick. Your religion is magick. Your politics are magick. Your fandoms are magick. Everything you engage in is magick. You can’t avoid this. We live in a world of story. We live in a world of magick. You are practicing magick all the time. And nine times out of ten, you are badly practicing that magick.

Most Christians don’t go to church and haven’t read the bible. Most Jewish people don’t keep kosher. Most Libertarians accept social services from a government they claim to oppose. Most Conservatives favor small government except when it benefits them. We are hypocrites about our magick. We break rules. We practice badly.

If you want to get results, you need to practice your magick better. Whatever that magick is, you need to practice it better. This sound more challenging than it is. So let’s stop for a moment and make something clear. I am not saying that they must be perfect. We are not all saints and ascetics. We are not all dedicated Shaolin Monks. I am not saying that you must be perfect. I am not saying you must transform yourself into a joyless being who does nothing but their magick practice. You need to do enough. You do not need to do more than enough. You can mediocre your way to success.

You need to show up. I mentioned that most Christians didn’t go to church last week. You don’t have to do the equivalent of joining the clergy to get results. But you do need to do the do the equivalent of going to church each week. You need to show up. And ideally you need to show up every day. You can do the bare minimum. But the bare minimum adds up.

I have bipolar manic depressive disorder. I go through what I term productive cycles, and recuperation cycles, or high and low cycles. On high cycles I am tremendously productive. I push through fatigue and get so much stuff done on whatever I am focusing on at the time. But the longer and harder I go during a high cycle, the longer and lower the low cycle inevitably is when it arrives. To combat this, I focus on doing just enough. I can do just enough on several things, and that adds up. But I don’t overdue things as often when I aim for just enough. Now, you are not likely to be bipolar. But it is still easy to get obsessed with a new endeavor. It is still easy to overdue it when you take up a new sport, a new game, a new hobby, a new religion. And I am recommending that you don’t. Be the tortoise and not the hare. You need to show up. You don’t need to put on the whole show by yourself.

When you get to the second part of the book, we will go through the practices that you will learn. And it will be tempting for you to try and master all of them all at once. Please don’t. Try to become competent at them one at a time. You don’t have to rush. They will be there tomorrow. And each one will give you improved results. When you get to the third section we will talk about how to put everything into practice. Until then, take it easy.

Find Your Way

“It is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything that is called a Way. Therefore, it is inconsistent to hear something of the Way of Confucius or the Way of the Buddha, and say that this is the Way of the Samurai. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all Ways and be more and more in accord with his own.”

Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Now I have said that you shouldn’t try to be perfect. I have told you to mediocre your way to success. Now I am going to tell you something that may, at first, seem to contradict this. You must commit yourself to your goals. I recommend having a single overarching goal, some master plan to which you can commit yourself. I recommend that you have a central end goal from which all your other goals are offshoots, spin offs and side projects.

Commitment brings happiness and satisfaction. Commitment brings results. If you wish a fulfilling life find a thing to which you can fully commit yourself and then do not look left or right from that path. Now let me temper that statement. Be committed to the end goal, but stay flexible on the means and methods. You must be willing to detour and take side roads, even back track. You must be willing to adapt and adjust your plan as the world changes the landscape in front of you. But you must commit yourself to those things you wish to achieve.
This is absolutely necessary for magick. If you become a dilettante, you will never achieve much. This is why I recommend an overarching goal, a central path. I recommend choosing an unachievable long term goal. If you choose a goal which can never be reached, then you can aim at it forever. You can pass it on to children or apprentices or disciples.

You can study and examine many paths and many ways. But if you do not have an underlying path to which you are committed, then you will wander. Without a path to which you are committed you are a tree without roots to anchor you against the windstorm. You will be uprooted. You will be blown far afield and may be lost.

The purpose of childhood is to find and commit oneself to a chosen way. A adult without a way or a purpose is a broken thing. And the Hungry Empire loves to make broken things and put them to work. This is the other danger. If you lack a path, you will be set to work helping the empire walk their path. And when you have burned yourself out and worn yourself out serving the empire, they will discard you without a second thought. Have your own goal. Have your own path. Walk that path.

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning