[Opinion] Magic for Working Out: discuss

[pixel_fortune]

I think there's three major strands here:

1. Magic to make your workouts more effective
2. Magic to make you more disciplined about actually working out regularly (less sexy but more important)
3. Using working out as a devotional or to generate power for magic

I've done the first two via invoking Angrboda, the giantess mother of monsters from the Norse wilds who I imagine to be super buff. (Initial ritual in such I created a sigil; draw sigil on arm when I get to the gym). The idea for pt 1. is for my astral body to temporarily take on the form of Angrboda, triggering my anabolic processes to be like "fuck gotta catch up". Giving body a different set point. Of course it can't work any faster than my physiology is capable, but I do build muscle surprisingly fast for a lady with small bones.

I've never done 3, exercise as an offering, because it's never felt honest to me. You know damn well I'm exercising for myself! It's like when people run a marathon to raise awareness (not money) for cancer. Like come on, you just wanted to run a marathon, you don't get to claim it's an act of altruism. I'm not saying it's impossible (exercise as devotion) but I don't have the mindset for it

Share your own methods pls

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

The issue you're having with #3 is that you're offering to the wrong target. Offer your exercise to yourself (higher self), and see what happens.

 

[HoldAll]

No. 3 is a pretty tricky one.

• The most obvious idea would be to use exertion for charging a sigil but not as part of a regular workout, I'd say, also because of the dangers (dropping a barbell or pulling a muscle, for example). I have this idea of assuming the plank position (instead of the classic 'death posture') and gazing at a sigil until I reach the point of muscle failure. That would have to be a separate operation, however, that has got nothing to do with building fitness, so that's out.
• Working out as a devotional practice could be construed as a sort of religious service (like in the phrase "He works out religiously"). After all, true believers attending such services are well aware that they are doing it for themselves but they are also convinced that by going to church, mosque or whatever they're glorifying god. So your pumping iron could be both understood as an act of venerating Angrboda as well as trying to become like her.
• Hero worship: similar principle as in the previous item but more like the ancient Greek custom where hero worship (Heracles, etc.) was different from venerating the gods. So working out could be understood as worshipping Queen Boadicea, the Amazons, Wonder Woman or whomever, even a contemporary star athlete. The advantage here is that you're venerating actual mortals (whether they became demigods or not) instead of perfect divine beings whose powers will be always outside your reach. For me personally, however, trying to emulate such (human) idols has always felt oppressive because I found their abilities were so overpowering when compared to puny clumsy me's efforts, but it may be different for you.
• Being fit is empowering, also for the mind (one author, I forget who, even prescribes Pilates as part of his magical training program!), so I'd say your magical powers increase in tandem with you physical ones anyway.
• Dedicating a specific workout to one of these entities (or to your Higher Self) as @Anziel_Merkaba suggested would be another possibility, not so much as the act itself but the enjoyment of lifting weights or whatever, or the contentment you feel afterwards, like making a toast to someone - you enjoy your drink but also think of the subject of your toast. Try to think "This one was for you, Angrboda" while you drive home, for example. Something like that.

One of these days I'm going to write an essay here how using scientific terms outside the context of science as analogies (some scholars call this 'New Age scientism') seduce us to think about occult phenomena as if they behaved strictly in line with the laws of physics, for example (don't even talk to me about 'frequencies' or 'vibrations'). So do you really 'generate power' during a workout? You're actually becoming more and more fatigued, your (physical) strength only increases during the recuperation phase, so another analogy would be more appropriate, one that has little to do with 'energy' or 'power' as defined by physics. I cannot think of a workout as 'recharging my batteries' for the life of me, and I even don't feel an analogy is even necessary here - I get stronger and fitter in the long run, that's all.

 

[pixel_fortune]

The issue you're having with #3 is that you're offering to the wrong target.

(I'm not having an issue. I just opened a thread about exercise and magic and wanted to make the conversation inclusive of people who want to discuss exercise-as-devotion, even though it's not part of my practice.)

Glad it prompted @HoldAll's thoughts on it though!

Post automatically merged: Mar 29, 2024

Forgot the golden rule of forums: if you want to discuss a topic, post something you disagree on.

I uh... disagree that you can use magic to increase muscle growth . It can't be done . Prove me wrong by sharing what's worked for you

 

[stratamaster78]

I've actually never even thought about using Magick to enhance physical exercise benefits but it does make sense that it could.

I have used Magick in the past to improve my Guitar playing and to my surprise it did work.

Now did it work because I sort of hacked my Mind in some way or did it work on a physical level or both? I don't know but it worked.

So yeah I can definitely see it also working for Lifting weights.

I guess I've always thought about this backwards though.

I mean to say I do Yoga to improve my physical health to a certain degree to improve my Magick... But I didn't think about say using Magick to motivate me to go for a run....or to Motivate to take up Martial Arts again or Lift weights etc.

It's an interesting premise.

 

[Xenophon]

Personally #3 is my favorite. I use exercise time and focus for mantra-recitation. If one can sit and meditate whilst focusing on mantras, why not cover ground doing the same? I recall Osman Spare recommends something similar, and some O9A papers hint at the same.

Post automatically merged: Mar 30, 2024

(I'm not having an issue. I just opened a thread about exercise and magic and wanted to make the conversation inclusive of people who want to discuss exercise-as-devotion, even though it's not part of my practice.)

Glad it prompted @HoldAll's thoughts on it though!

Post automatically merged: Mar 29, 2024

Forgot the golden rule of forums: if you want to discuss a topic, post something you disagree on.

I uh... disagree that you can use magic to increase muscle growth . It can't be done . Prove me wrong by sharing what's worked for you

I thought proof of anything magickal was "am strengsten verboten" on Planet Pixel

 

[pixel_fortune]

I thought proof of anything magickal was "am strengsten verboten" on Planet Pixel

You'll have to take it up with me on the other thread if you want a response to that!

Post automatically merged: Mar 30, 2024

Personally #3 is my favorite. I use exercise time and focus for mantra-recitation. If one can sit and meditate whilst focusing on mantras, why not cover ground doing the same?

That makes sense to me, but I think then the mantra is the offering and the exercise a way to focus - rather than saying the exercise itself is an offering (when, in my case, it would really be for me own benefit and I've had done it anyway)

Saying that, it makes me think that self-care of any kind is a logical offering to a patron deity or like... Hygeia or Asclepias or something

Post automatically merged: Mar 30, 2024

But I didn't think about say using Magick to motivate me to go for a run....or to Motivate to take up Martial Arts again or Lift weights etc.

In part ot probably works because I want my magic to work

That is: if I say that, as soon as I draw the Angrboda sigil on my arm, I have to get up and get my stuff and head to the gym, then if I DON'T do it, that means my ritual didn't work. And "knowing my magic is effective" is sometimes a stronger motive in the moment than "be a tiny increment healthier"

 

[Xenophon]

You'll have to take it up with me on the other thread if you want a response to that!

Post automatically merged: Mar 30, 2024

That makes sense to me, but I think then the mantra is the offering and the exercise a way to focus - rather than saying the exercise itself is an offering (when, in my case, it would really be for me own benefit and I've had done it anyway)

Saying that, it makes me think that self-care of any kind is a logical offering to a patron deity or like... Hygeia or Asclepias or something

Post automatically merged: Mar 30, 2024

In part ot probably works because I want my magic to work

That is: if I say that, as soon as I draw the Angrboda sigil on my arm, I have to get up and get my stuff and head to the gym, then if I DON'T do it, that means my ritual didn't work. And "knowing my magic is effective" is sometimes a stronger motive in the moment than "be a tiny increment healthier"

Ok, yeah. I didn't plan of offering sweat or anything. It's more like some magickal workings involve dances. Rhythmic movement and all.

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

(I'm not having an issue. I just opened a thread about exercise and magic and wanted to make the conversation inclusive of people who want to discuss exercise-as-devotion, even though it's not part of my practice.)

Glad it prompted @HoldAll's thoughts on it though!

Post automatically merged: Mar 29, 2024

Forgot the golden rule of forums: if you want to discuss a topic, post something you disagree on.

I uh... disagree that you can use magic to increase muscle growth . It can't be done . Prove me wrong by sharing what's worked for you

I wasn't specifically saying you were having an issue, but you did say this:

I've never done 3, exercise as an offering, because it's never felt honest to me.

And that was reason enough for me to say what I did.

In any case, I used to do some low-level 'energywork' type thing where I concentrated the 'energy' of opposing elements in my muscles to clash and increase the 'muscle use' of my exercises. Basically ended up making each rep more effective but also more fatiguing. Didn't actually do anything except make the exercise take less time for the same result.

Now though I don't even have to do that, I just direct my will into the result I want and my exercise naturally leads to that result in a sort of "image of myself" sort of way. Basically taking a theurgical approach to things instead of a thaumaturgical approach towards it.