If magick is real, why is it so obscure?

[Nickel77]

Hi! I've been in these spaces for a few months now, working with a few angels, demons, and sigils with some quite amazing results and some failures (sorta 50/50). I've had plenty of very revealing and supernatural tarot readings, channeled messages and general synchronicities. However, sometimes, especially when I'm having some failures, I still have some doubts and the biggest one is probably the title. Yes, I understand the nature of the occult is that it's occult. Yes, I am familiar with "To Know, To Will, To Dare, To Keep Silent" (love it). Yes, I am familiar with the fact that many religious and superstitious rituals are a form of magick. However, to believe and invest in the idea that I have this supernatural power that most people do not know of or use and that the people I meet in the forums like these are the only people who have really understood and refined this power feels hard to believe. Obviously, I am not trying to criticize any of you or your beliefs as I am one of you and probably share many of your beliefs, but this question still bothers me. I am hoping for some perspectives on this. would be really appreciated.
love
nickel77

 

[Fr. Maximagus]

I think a vast majority of those who are most skilled in the magickal art aren’t on forums like these. They are probably members of generational royal/elite bloodlines who’ve been honing and passing down their practices for hundreds/thousands of years.
It isnt called “The Royal Arte” for nothing!
Until the dawn of the internet, they were really some of the only people with access to REAL occult knowledge and information. Them and occult orders or secret societies (which in the past especially were notoriously elitist).

Unfortunately back then and still today, there is a mountain of bad information out there for us “small folk” trying to learn the art. Much of it is likely bad info put out on purpose to throw seekers off. Then you have people claiming to be masters teaching absolute nonsense.

In other words, it’s a MESS! And one most people are not able to wade thru sufficiently in order to get proficient at magick. So many give up, being demoralized by the dizzying amount of information and not knowing what’s true.

 

[HoldAll]

It's probably because magic is so unpredictable and unreliable, costs an inordinate amount of study and practice, is built on a chaotic multitude of contradictory theoretical systems which are barely comprehensible to you once you start out. Most people don't like that. They're used to clear, streamlined and logical structures, they want a light switch to work every time and not three times out of ten, and without having to jump through numerous hoops first. Add to this its reputation of being superstitious nonsense, and hardly anybody will think it worth the bother when chances of success seem so infinitesimally small to laypeople. You'll have to convince yourself that it works first, and prospects of success won't look so good if you strongly doubt its efficacy to begin with.

 

[StarOfSitra]

That question, in fact, shows that you are still a beginner who has started to practice rituals without having a strong foundation of knowledge. Why do I say that? Because thinking of darkness as something bad or wrong is a dualistic conception imposed on us by monotheistic religious societies (light = good and holy, darkness = bad and evil).

Both darkness and light can be good or bad; both are parts of the whole, and both are sacred—just like Yin and Yang. If you feel an internal conflict with darkness, you need to work on your concepts and learn to accept darkness as a part of yourself and of the sacred whole. I love the obscure.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

It's a combination of things, but really it can be explained simply as: You know what you're ready to know. If Magic is obscure to you, that means your level of being isn't developed enough to comprehend it. It takes extreme self-cultivation and discipline in order to grasp a lot of higher truths that really make magic a lived, coherent, and real thing. Most of all, you yourself are more of an enigma than you realize, it is as they say that the microcosom mirrors the macrocosm, by going within lucidly and comprehensively, you will also understand the greater order of things, and the other way around. Magic isn't obscure, it's just subtle, and you need to learn how to look more closely, more deeply, and with more focus to see it. It's all already around you, the truth is out there

You won't find the most profound truths in books or courses, you will only find them through developing your awareness / presence, and then getting a better understanding of how the world works around you.

It's great that you've found success, now use these successes to reinforce your practice and motivation, build off each success and the results with be exponentially more profound, which will then feed your flame further.

 

[Mystic_friend]

cuz of the kali yuga and stuff

 

[diana_i_gusarova]

Paul Foster Case said that all books on alchemy fall into three categories:
1. Books written by Adepts, Masters who fully know the subject. These books are very rare, they are written in an obscure language and are intended for those who are already familiar with the subject of the book or have a teacher.
2. Books written by students who know something, but not everything, and who have supplemented what they know with their assumptions, whether correct or not.
3. Books are fakes written by charlatans.

I think the same can be said about books on magic. Most of them belong to the second category.

 

[Clear]

In the West it was due to the Inquisition etc that totally stripped this form of consciousness from the collective. In the East its remarkably commonplace and accepted as such ranging from the pavement mystic that will read and correct your future up to the more esoteric aspects like dealing with entities etc..

The irony being that the people who demonized this knowledge use it all day long as its super obvious in all forms of big business ranging from product release timing, why MS and Apple both skipped 9, as well as the various occult forms of logo designs as hypersigils etc..

 

[Morell]

In the West it was due to the Inquisition etc that totally stripped this form of consciousness from the collective. In the East its remarkably commonplace and accepted as such ranging from the pavement mystic that will read and correct your future up to the more esoteric aspects like dealing with entities etc..

The irony being that the people who demonized this knowledge use it all day long as its super obvious in all forms of big business ranging from product release timing, why MS and Apple both skipped 9, as well as the various occult forms of logo designs as hypersigils etc..

In Europe Inquisition was scary, but it was raise of exact sciences, materialism and atheism, that began mockery of magic that pushed it to the dark corners way more effective. Even usage of herbs was mocked and had to be rediscovered because of that. People shifting to science still remained egoists believing that they are right. Telling people that magic is useless was way more effective to change their minds than telling them that it is dangerous, which also meant effective.

 

[FireBorn]

I think it depends, are you trying to learn magick, or are you trying to learn a system? They are not they same thing (haha not an intentional forum grenade). Systems have been beaten to death, literally 100s of books on where to stand, how to hold your mouth etc. Magick? Yeah that's different.

What are looking for in magick? What is your framework? What is your background? What is spirit to you? What are your fears? What constitutes success as compared to failure in ritual to you? Is ritual mechanical to you? Do you require tools for ritual? Is ritual fear based? Ego based? Control based? Hope based? Feel based? I could go on and on, but the point I am driving at is that the answers to each of the aforementioned are wildly different from practitioner to practitioner, so while we may be experiencing similar things, we will come from vastly different perspectives with them.

To the same end, even in religion their God is wildly different for each person that worships. Its just how we as humans differ from each other. We are trying to learn and experience a subjective, even ineffable, then wrestle it into language to convey it to others who are trying to understand it from their perspective (good luck! lol) And most of the time, we suck at that part.

Ritual is nothing more than a vehicle to get you to spirit, spirits are nothing more than vehicles to get you to the current. The current is where the magick is. Full stop. Maybe if we stop worshipping the dashboard and just drive the damned vehicle we would get further down the road.

I might be a complete madman at this point. That or I just need to eat lunch.

 

[MorganBlack]

This is a fraught topic

Anglo-Latino Texican here. My aunt was a currandera, a Latina indigenous healer.

"Magic" is only obscure in areas colonized by the post-Scientific Enlightenment ideas, spread by Anglo-Saxon school system. Lotta good stuff there, but on the magic front it was a disaster For 80% of the rest of people on the planet, for the rest of us, "magic" is just the default worldview.

Not recruiting here, but For English speaker, or those taking cues from English speaking magic systems, to find "magic" in this mostly Catholic hemisphere, you have to expand a little from the practices of white people. Look for what is called "miracles" over here, then you'll learn to recognize it more.

 

[Midnite_Angel_]

It's a combination of things, but really it can be explained simply as: You know what you're ready to know. If Magic is obscure to you, that means your level of being isn't developed enough to comprehend it. It takes extreme self-cultivation and discipline in order to grasp a lot of higher truths that really make magic a lived, coherent, and real thing. Most of all, you yourself are more of an enigma than you realize, it is as they say that the microcosom mirrors the macrocosm, by going within lucidly and comprehensively, you will also understand the greater order of things, and the other way around. Magic isn't obscure, it's just subtle, and you need to learn how to look more closely, more deeply, and with more focus to see it. It's all already around you, the truth is out there

You won't find the most profound truths in books or courses, you will only find them through developing your awareness / presence, and then getting a better understanding of how the world works around you.

It's great that you've found success, now use these successes to reinforce your practice and motivation, build off each success and the results with be exponentially more profound, which will then feed your flame further.

dear kindred spirit IllusiveOwl: yes, yes and YES! To know thyself is the basis of all magic. We ARE magic!

To the OP Nickel77: Do strengthen your relationship with yourself, to grow in trust of yourself, to embrace your authentic self in all its colors, shades, shapes and sizes. And you will surely embody more of what you wish to create.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

To know thyself is the basis of all magic. We ARE magic

I agree that to "Know Thyself" is the ground of the work, it's the pushing through to the other side, like being born, however just like being born you come out a stupid little fetus. Knowing yourself is far from the end of it, that's only the "Opening of the Eye", after that is when the work can honestly begin. To think that the idea of just being aware and conscious is the basis of all magic is silly, it's like saying "the basis of building a skyscraper is looking at the empty patch of land", magic comes from Will, learning how to use that will is the basis of magic, though you can only honestly understand what Will is when there is something consistent to do the willing. And to be frank most people just understand this intellectually and bumble around in delusion thinking themselves enlightened and holding the key, while at the same time accomplishing nothing. I see this from most new-agers who regurgitate short little aphorisms they heard online with fervor and think they're operating from a higher dimension. Delusion.

The phrase "We ARE magic" is also a little too simple and new-agey for me to agree with entirely. We are dynamic and formless, however the overwhelming majority of us are static shells, as unconscious and dynamic as rocks being bounced around along a strong river's current. For a shell to believe itself to be magic is just as useless as a rock that believes itself to be liquid. It would be more accurate to say "We are intangible" or "We are made of magic", that addresses the dynamic hidden substance, but also leaves room for the recognition that said magic is currently functioning through strict, rigid routine and completely unconscious habituation. To see this is good, but to stop there and do nothing with it is useless.