Psychological model: you believe that magick works by unlocking hidden parts of your (sub)consciousness. For instance, in the Goetia, you believe that all the demons are just metaphors for hidden parts of your own mind/psyche that the old authors were simply incapable of comprehending, but now with advancements in modern psychology, we've come to understand that they are actually within ourselves, and things like rituals, seals, evocation etc are just methods of unlocking those parts of your mind, and the results of your magick are caused by those parts of your own mind being unlocked and put to work to achieve your goals. This is popular with mostly modern occultists, even Crowley etc. You believe the power is within you.
Spirit model: popular with folk, shamanistic, and mixed tradition occult practices such as ATRs. You believe that magick comes from spirits, and the practitioner is nothing but an ambassador to the spirits, whose job it is to convince and appease the spirits so that they do the work you/the community requires. You believe the power is in the spirits.
Which one do you identify with, and if you identify as both depending on the practices, which practices do you ascribe to each model?
I don’t really split the world into “psychological model vs. spirit model,” because that division only exists on paper. Once you’ve done enough work (real work, not meme‑level theory) the line between “inner” and “outer” stops behaving the way people think it does.
From a Jungian angle, the psyche isn’t a closed box. It’s porous. It’s mythic. It’s built to interface with forces that feel both internal
and external depending on how you approach them. Jung called them archetypes, but he never meant “just in your head.” He meant autonomous psychic intelligences with their own gravity. Anyone who’s done invocation or ordeal work knows exactly what that feels like.
So here’s where I land:
When I’m doing psychological work, it behaves like the psychological model.
When I’m doing spirit work, it behaves like the spirit model. The operator’s stance determines the interface.
If I approach an entity as an archetype, it responds like an archetype.
If I approach it as a spirit, it responds like a spirit.
Neither cancels the other out.
Jung would say the psyche presents itself in whatever symbolic language you bring to it. ATR practitioners, folk magicians, chaos magicians, ceremonialists are all interacting with the same deep structures through different masks.
And honestly, the more experience you get, the more you realize the
models are just maps, not the territory.
Invocation works beautifully through the psychological model.
Evocation often behaves like the spirit model.
Ordeal collapses the distinction entirely.
Dreamwork doesn’t care which model you prefer.
Identity work is pure psychology wearing mythic armor.
Crossroads work feels like spirit contact even when you know the mechanics.
So which model do I “identify with”?
Neither. Or both. Depends on the operation.
The psyche is mythic. The world is symbolic.
And magic is the art of navigating the place where those two meet.
Or, to borrow Lon Milo DuQuette’s line (fits this perfectly):
“It’s All in Your Head - you just don’t know how big your head is.”
