What kind of wizard are you?

[Viktor]

I understand that most of you likely don't practice or study just one type magick, therefore the following list of choices is non-exhaustive, feel free to add your type of wizardry that defines you in your reply if not listed here.

If there are multiple choices applicable to you, select one that is your primary (feel free to share secondary as well), also please tell us more about how you approach it, e.g is it:

• study focused
• practice focused
• commercial or advertising focused etc.

And most importantly, what do you like about it, why do you consider it more relevant to you than other types.
Tell us also about your ambitions and your end goals if you have any.

Here goes the list

• Necromancy
• Chaos magick
• Elemental magick
• Green magick (herbalism)
• Divination
• Witchcraft
• Folk magick
• High magick
• Blood magic
• Shadow magick
• Sex magick
• Enchantment magick

To answer first (and to be honest), I'm not much into any particular one however I'm serious about studying herbalism.
I'm aiming at establishing my own pharmacy for personal use one day, a hobby of sort.

I'm consider it more relevant than other because I'm able to interact with physical things (herbs) that have physical effect.
My secondary that I'm currently willing to study more about is elemental magick.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I am mostly a theoretical magician (like theoretical physicist). My approach to practical magic is closest to chaos magick. My ambition is to unravel the basis of magic, which I consider to have a scientific explanation that has not yet been uncovered.

This is not popular with either scientists or magicians.

 

[cherryaqua]

Right now Im looking in a few different directions. I really like qaballah, tarot, high magick, astrology, and alchemy. But I also like some of the ideas from chaos magick, damon brand/gallery of magick, and aleister crowley.

There's so much more I could add to the list, I like Buddhist meditations like vipassana and metta, the gateway tape guided meditations/exercises, studying the 5 books of mystery from john dee and how enochian came to be, jason louv(although Im skeptical of his overall viewpoints, I think hes very smart and a good scholar).


I'm glad you asked the question, because to be honest my mind is pretty scattered at the moment and I'm casting a wide net and reading many books at once, and looking into many different philosophies lately. I get pretty passionate about hobbies and don't like to half-ass them. But I should probably prioritize and focus on one thing at a time haha. BOTA does keep me grounded in this way at least as I take their correspondence course and take it very seriously.

To answer why I chose the things I did in magick, my favorite two things in life are science and art. I get the art from gallery of magick, chaos magick, lon milo duquette, aleister crowley, tarot. And then I get the science and academic part of brain working when studying aggripa, paul foster case, etc.

 

[Yazata]

Practice focused, mostly Witchcraft and Angel Magick. Always trying to find new ways to approach things.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

A little fish born in a pond knows nothing of the outside world. If it was plucked out and put in a bowl, then brought onto an airplane, it wouldn't have any idea what the hell was going, everything would be beyond it's comprehension. That's a metaphor for us, we feel so confident that we know what's up in our little pond of understanding. To get to the point, I am primarily Initiation-focused, I wish to evolve my understanding into the expanses of the unknown, from that of a little fish into something broader and more in harmony with the full scope of reality.

Initiation is earned through direct experience, you can only enter into those experiences through practice. Practice is inspired by study, but knowledge is meant to be let go and replaced with an understanding of what is and what works. For the most part we're ignorant deluded little creatures, everything written by a human needs to be taken with skepticism, myself included.

I would classify what I do as a combination of Shamanism and Chaos Magic, though I've been finding success in Draconian Magic as well. I haven't had much reason to employ Divination, but the few times I have the results were potent. Overall I would package what I do as standard Left Hand Path Practice.

My ambition is freedom, and that can only be won through Self Sovereignty, which can only be gained through greater understanding and Self-Mastery, which is accomplished through practice.

 

[Morell]

Damn, this is challenging question.

I'm both study and practice focused. Used to study way more, now I rather practice.

My primal path is path of the vampire, so vampiric practice. And by the gods I do love it, it feels right.
Beyond that I'm not intensively into anything, just a piece here and there, what works and what I find interesting and useful. I'm that controversial type that enjoys borrowing stuff from pop culture for use in magic practice.

I desire liberation or freedom. I won't say more on that.

 

[Taudefindi]

I study many paths but practice very few, mostly due to lack of time.
I like the cultural and historical aspect of it all.
Of the ones I practice it's mostly Alchemy, Taoism/Daoism and Psychism(psychic phenomena).

 

[dema354]

Mostly study focused. If it's something I can feasible do i.e. doesn't require materials that are really difficult to obtain for practical purposes then I might practice some of them. As for a list of what I've gone through...

1. Theurgy
2. Tarot
3. Chaos Magick - technically more of an approach than it is of a magick
4. Necromancy - not of the divination variant
5. Renaissance Elizabethan Magick - It's one of the types of Goetia or rather it includes Goetic rituals
6. PGM
7. Alchemy - It's for making some of the ingredients used in various rituals and not for ingesting the substance itself.
8. Benediction - Catholic version
9. Malediction
10*. MicroPK - Whenever I get the chance to use a true rng... I don't like using pseudo rngs not because they can't be altered but more so because any result that goes significantly against chance can be surmised as gaming the system when it comes to prng. Even if you don't know the seed or algorithm a prng uses, that fact that it is determined means you can engineer your results, i.e. it's very easily to obtain false positives with prngs. True rngs however rely on a source of entropy, chaos. They are not determined which by definition means they are not rigged hence you cannot cheat your way and thus the chances of getting a false positive are reduced.
11*. retroPK - Same reasoning as MicroPk although given how retroPK experiments work, I wonder if there might be a better term for this.
Elemental Magick - Franz Bardon's system

These are areas I’ve studied or explored to varying degrees—some more theoretically than practically, and a few just out of curiosity without deep engagement. Interestingly I've found I've had more success (just based off of data collection and statistics) with psionics than with regular thaumaturgy and theurgy is too subtle to notice anything anyways. My guess is that this has something to do with psi not requiring the user to kill their mind so to speak or thus treat their thoughts as the enemy along with being able to test it out in a clinical, lab-like setting with clear parameters as to what constitutes as a success unlike most schools of magick which seem to really detest any form of comprehensive thinking which given how I approach the anomalous could explain why psionics came easier to me along with other reasons... To be clear, here I am using psionics in reference to applied psi, that is the application of psi and not radionics.

*Some consider magick and psi to be different for various reasons, one of them being that magick is highly spiritual and abstract in nature whereas psi has a higher chance of being studied and experimented upon in the lab. One usually requires changing yourself while the other does not (well except maybe in the case of helping to make the phenomena manifest more often).

I am mostly a theoretical magician (like theoretical physicist). My approach to practical magic is closest to chaos magick. My ambition is to unravel the basis of magic, which I consider to have a scientific explanation that has not yet been uncovered.

This is not popular with either scientists or magicians.

Unless they are a parapsychologist in which case your chances are probably better with them. This of course would also be dependent on the type of parapsychologist they are.

 

[MacLu69]

• study focused +
• 
  
• Elemental magick +
• High magick +
• Shadow magick +

• practice focused +
• 
  
• Natural magic. White magic. Theurgic Or golden magic...

wizard​

w - The magic of the wise on the smartest on the wisest...​

i - Irrational magic, magic of Irrational worlds...The magic of your higher self i​

z - Magic of travel. At places of power or Travel along magical Route or places of Ancient pilgrims...​

a - Ancient Arabic magic...​

r - Old Slavic, or Ancient Northern Russian magic...​

d - Magic is the wondrous magic of the devas, wondrous creatures or demigods...​

​

 

[beardedeldridge]

I’m a more practically-minded Traditional-Solomonic-Grimoirist who appreciates Chaote techniques with an Animist’s outlook who operates and understands all that is and isn’t ultimately thru a Monotheist structural model.

-Eld

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

I understand that most of you likely don't practice or study just one type magick, therefore the following list of choices is non-exhaustive, feel free to add your type of wizardry that defines you in your reply if not listed here.

If there are multiple choices applicable to you, select one that is your primary (feel free to share secondary as well), also please tell us more about how you approach it, e.g is it:

• study focused
• practice focused
• commercial or advertising focused etc.

And most importantly, what do you like about it, why do you consider it more relevant to you than other types.
Tell us also about your ambitions and your end goals if you have any.

Here goes the list

• Necromancy
• Chaos magick
• Elemental magick
• Green magick (herbalism)
• Divination
• Witchcraft
• Folk magick
• High magick
• Blood magic
• Shadow magick
• Sex magick
• Enchantment magick

To answer first (and to be honest), I'm not much into any particular one however I'm serious about studying herbalism.
I'm aiming at establishing my own pharmacy for personal use one day, a hobby of sort.

I'm consider it more relevant than other because I'm able to interact with physical things (herbs) that have physical effect.
My secondary that I'm currently willing to study more about is elemental magick.

I place a lot of importance on studying primary sources, but study means absolutely nothing if you dont use it to practice. I dont really advertise or seek clients but I have a private practice because people ask me to do stuff for them and my time is worth money.

My goals is apotheosis, while having fun with practical magic along the way. I enjoy my incarnation.

Astrological magic isn't on your list but thats my primary mode. But I lean heavily into letterism/jewish kabbalah as well. Theurgy/high magic/initiation grants me my abilities. And then my favorite practical magic is enchanted items/talismans.

 

[Viktor]

Astrological magic isn't on your list but thats my primary mode.

Isn't astrology a subcategory of divination?

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

Isn't astrology a subcategory of divination?

Astrological magicians use the position of the stars to conjure spirits and place them in objects. Usually talismans, lamps, or crystals. We use a type of astrology called electional astrology that instead of seeking to interpret questions or future events unlocks pathways for magical/spiritual forces to manifest on earth. Like a celestial aqueduct.

 

[dema354]

Astrological magicians use the position of the stars to conjure spirits and place them in objects. Usually talismans, lamps, or crystals. We use a type of astrology called electional astrology that instead of seeking to interpret questions or future events unlocks pathways for magical/spiritual forces to manifest on earth. Like a celestial aqueduct.

To be fair, divination is a major part of astrology though like you've mentioned it's not the only use for it. Of course nowadays we would call what you're doing planetary magick though if we're being specific then we would declare electional astrology most likely of the Vedic variant as opposed to Tropical... which brings me to my question of what are you doing in-between them? Between the times most opportune, what are you doing?

For those of you who are unaware, electional astrology is highly time specific. You can't simply perform any spell on any day or at any hour (which aren't even regular 24 hours). Procedures must be timed. There is more to this but for now this will suffice for the simplified version. So if all a magician does is electional astrology this would also mean that most of the time they are simply waiting around for the proper time... which to an onlooker could very well look like the traits of a an armchair magician unless they are doing another form of magick in addition to electional astrology.

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

To be fair, divination is a major part of astrology though like you've mentioned it's not the only use for it. Of course nowadays we would call what you're doing planetary magick though if we're being specific then we would declare electional astrology most likely of the Vedic variant as opposed to Tropical... which brings me to my question of what are you doing in-between them? Between the times most opportune, what are you doing?

For those of you who are unaware, electional astrology is highly time specific. You can't simply perform any spell on any day or at any hour (which aren't even regular 24 hours). Procedures must be timed. There is more to this but for now this will suffice for the simplified version. So if all a magician does is electional astrology this would also mean that most of the time they are simply waiting around for the proper time... which to an onlooker could very well look like the traits of a an armchair magician unless they are doing another form of magick in addition to electional astrology.

So i tend to segregate planetary magic from astrological magic, planetary magic utilizes planetary days and hours and descends from the grimoric tradition. The mileu I operate out of is medieval arabic/Islamic and their astrology descends mostly from the hellenes and babylonians. Where a planetary magician would do a spell on a Thursday in Jupiters hour for money I would time Jupiter in conjunction with Mercury while the moon is in cancer. The difference between these methods is the planetary magician is leaning on a system of correspondences and the astrological magicians utilizes something known as "stellar rays" which are networks of celestial influences that both bind and manipulate celestial spirits.

As for the timing thing there are multiple elections you can choose for the same result and how many times a year do you need to do practical magic? For example, I can find maybe 4 optimal wealth elections for the remainder of the year, do I need to do all 4? Probably not. One will suffice.

As for waiting there in lies the power of astrological magic. Its a practice about weilding time and timing. In ceremonial magic you spend months crafting and consecrating tools, designing rituals, prayers, invocations to pull off a spell. Astrological magicians do the same thing. We have ingredients to collect, rituals to design, prayers, devotionals, and meditations to perform before our election. What we practice is not like chaos magic in where you just think it and do it. Astrological magic is disciplined, patient, meticulous, calculated, and the time we spend in between practical magic spells is the time we spend connecting to the stars, integrating our souls with them and their spirits, and experiencing the planets movements.

 

[Faria]

When I was younger, I was the "nail a voodoo doll to train tracks and watch you die a week later" kind of Wizard. I worked exclusively adjunct to crime and evil.

Having seen the crime thing heading ways I did not favor going, I moved way far out into a postcard village hidden from the world and spent ten years doing pretty much nothing but demon conjuring. I spent every waking moment bent on it or things related to my demon-conjured goals and projects.

Finally I refined my approach and am now the "hang out with my cat" kind of wizard. I dont have enemies to curse, my ambitions are either fulfilled or forgotten, and Tommy Vo no longer needs to know who stole his rocket launcher, so I dont have any major demand for demons in my life.

This position I find both liberating and unsettling at the same time. Maybe I should demand more, or attempt to be constructive and gather people toward some goal, but my inner Agamemnon is tired and can be motivated only by the choicest of prizes.

 

[dema354]

Where a planetary magician would do a spell on a Thursday in Jupiters hour for money I would time Jupiter in conjunction with Mercury while the moon is in cancer. The difference between these methods is the planetary magician is leaning on a system of correspondences and the astrological magicians utilizes something known as "stellar rays" which are networks of celestial influences that both bind and manipulate celestial spirits.

I mean, they sort of do the same thing, it's just that one of them is broad and may include timing the procedure to that specific of an extent while the other does. Excuse my use of an RPG analogy but if I were to compare it, it's sort of like saying planetary magicians are the base class while astrological magicians are an advanced class option for planetary magicians... of course, that’s just a shorthand analogy — in reality the two overlap a lot historically, especially in Renaissance practice, but the modern usage tends to separate them this way. One of them is general and may include utilizing stellar rays while the other is specific and does utilize those rays.

In ceremonial magic you spend months crafting and consecrating tools, designing rituals, prayers, invocations to pull off a spell.

If we're including Goetia as a type of ceremonial magic that can be adjusted to some extent, by which I mean not all Goetic rituals require months of preparation though from what I understand you typically want at least one week of preparation and according to the Folger Manuscript I use, at least 3 days of clear weather at the minimum in most cases.

What we practice is not like chaos magic in where you just think it and do it.

To be fair, given how certain magicians depict chaos magic I can see where this ideal comes from. Yes it's true to a chaos magician belief is a tool, and that's exactly what it is. A tool, not a requirement. It may involve the magician's own belief or it might not. Let us also not forget that belief isn't the only parameter of a chaos magician. They are also highly results driven and adaptability is one of their core strengths. Perhaps some spells can be done at any time with little to no prep. Other times a chaos magician may find that certain rituals or spells really do work as well as they are traditionally described with a minimal need for stripping down the excess. Like I mentioned earlier, chaos magick is more of a methodology, a pragmatic approach to magick than it is to an actual practice. A chaos magician isn't necessarily adverse to long durations of preparation, discipline and meticulous calculations. They might do so however they won't do it simply because it's traditional but if the results favour that method, that is to say, if the methods as described happen to be the bare minimum in which any more subtractions or alterations destabilizes the spell/ritual then so be it. And of course there's nothing preventing them from altering those methods if they are looking to cast a different spell than is as described.

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

I mean, they sort of do the same thing, it's just that one of them is broad and may include timing the procedure to that specific of an extent while the other does. Excuse my use of an RPG analogy but if I were to compare it, it's sort of like saying planetary magicians are the base class while astrological magicians are an advanced class option for planetary magicians... of course, that’s just a shorthand analogy — in reality the two overlap a lot historically, especially in Renaissance practice, but the modern usage tends to separate them this way. One of them is general and may include utilizing stellar rays while the other is specific and does utilize those rays.

I wouldn't say base class and advanced class. One is highly eurocentric and based around grimoiric spirit conjuration and the other is hermetic. European methodology is built around dominator hierarchies of angels and demons. Astrological magic is a practice that works off of classical hermetism in which the basic operative principle is there is a holonic and fractal nature to the universe that the magician can time when to jump in. So while the planetary magician calls upon spirits by descending down a hierarchy of archangels, angels, planetary intelligences/angels, and finally the spirit the astrological magician is calling upon a spirit that is made up of a relationship between stars and the spirits definition lies within the mathematics associated with the position. The eurocentric traditions lean on a post-byzantine judeo-christian understanding of spiritual heirarchies. Astrological magic is a near-eastern practice from antiquity descending from Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia and reaching its peak when it was occulted in the Abassid Caliphate during the Medieval period.

I particularly look at the Rennaissance period as where Astrological Magic was broken and planetary magic was born, with Agrippa being ground zero for the adoption of near eastern astrological magic as he maladaptively took bits and pieces of it and place it into a Judeo-Christian dominator heirarchy. For example all the planetary spirit names you see post-Agrippa can not be found within medieval or classical astrological literature. They are only found in Jewish and Christian literature. And the names of the astrological spirits you see in pre-agrippa literature that are descended from Babylon, Anatolia, Arabia, and Persia disappear from the historical record in the Rennaissance, completely replaced by Agrippas Judeo-Christian spirits.

I see no problem with planetary magic or planetary magicians however they practice a European heirarchical conjuration schema; astrological magicians are more concerned with space-time, mathematics, language, and how those all synchronously work together which is why we are particular about elections. The names we use in conjuration are not angels but linguistic conjugations and daisy-chains of stars. While a planetary magician may call upon Tzadkiel for effect an astrological magician calls upon DHMYZ 'TZ with each letter representing a matrices in space time building into a numeric-linguistic image of the moment in time. When we pay attention to time and timing the entire universe calls in upon itself at every level. In the stars, in our language, in the math. Its hard for modern magicians to wrap their head around as the influence of the European Grimoiric tradition has instilled an Aristotlean hierarchical "cause and effect" philosophy on operative magic. The classical hermetic and near eastern magical arts are expressed through a certain time relativity, acausal synchronicity, and a desire to participate in the cosmic structure fluidly.

 

[dema354]

I wouldn't say base class and advanced class. One is highly eurocentric and based around grimoiric spirit conjuration and the other is hermetic. European methodology is built around dominator hierarchies of angels and demons. Astrological magic is a practice that works off of classical hermetism in which the basic operative principle is there is a holonic and fractal nature to the universe that the magician can time when to jump in. So while the planetary magician calls upon spirits by descending down a hierarchy of archangels, angels, planetary intelligences/angels, and finally the spirit the astrological magician is calling upon a spirit that is made up of a relationship between stars and the spirits definition lies within the mathematics associated with the position. The eurocentric traditions lean on a post-byzantine judeo-christian understanding of spiritual heirarchies. Astrological magic is a near-eastern practice from antiquity descending from Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia and reaching its peak when it was occulted in the Abassid Caliphate during the Medieval period.

I particularly look at the Rennaissance period as where Astrological Magic was broken and planetary magic was born, with Agrippa being ground zero for the adoption of near eastern astrological magic as he maladaptively took bits and pieces of it and place it into a Judeo-Christian dominator heirarchy. For example all the planetary spirit names you see post-Agrippa can not be found within medieval or classical astrological literature. They are only found in Jewish and Christian literature. And the names of the astrological spirits you see in pre-agrippa literature that are descended from Babylon, Anatolia, Arabia, and Persia disappear from the historical record in the Rennaissance, completely replaced by Agrippas Judeo-Christian spirits.

I see no problem with planetary magic or planetary magicians however they practice a European heirarchical conjuration schema; astrological magicians are more concerned with space-time, mathematics, language, and how those all synchronously work together which is why we are particular about elections. The names we use in conjuration are not angels but linguistic conjugations and daisy-chains of stars. While a planetary magician may call upon Tzadkiel for effect an astrological magician calls upon DHMYZ 'TZ with each letter representing a matrices in space time building into a numeric-linguistic image of the moment in time. When we pay attention to time and timing the entire universe calls in upon itself at every level. In the stars, in our language, in the math. Its hard for modern magicians to wrap their head around as the influence of the European Grimoiric tradition has instilled an Aristotlean hierarchical "cause and effect" philosophy on operative magic. The classical hermetic and near eastern magical arts are expressed through a certain time relativity, acausal synchronicity, and a desire to participate in the cosmic structure fluidly.

Ah, so that's where you're coming from

as he maladaptively took bits and pieces of it

That's an interesting way to put it. Personally I like to view this under the lens of what happens or rather may happen when it comes to the process of adoption. Since you described astrological magic as near-eastern I will presume you would also know that means it's not purely originating from Eastern traditions (though I will admit there is a heavy emphasis on it). It's somewhat of a mixed bag. As customs, ideologies, practices and methods are spread, they adapt into their environments from which they are adopted into which for better or for worse may cause certain factors to be lost in translation so to be speak (and no. I don't mean that in the literal sense though occasionally some things do literally get lost in translation). Perhaps in an attempt to streamline the process or maybe under a different reinterpretation some things will change. It's sort of like the process of localization. When you're localizing something you can't just translate word for word. You have to also consider the context by which it appears along with your audience and how they might conceptualize it to understand it. Ideally you would try to keep the spirit of the message alive as much as possible if both its literal and symbolic meaning cannot be expressed. In the best case scenario, if for whatever reason some things just can't make their way through, then the core of the message remains intact such that it's effectively an equivalent. Of course some localizers may have their own agendas which may result in certain things being bastardized.

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

That's an interesting way to put it. Personally I like to view this under the lens of what happens or rather may happen when it comes to the process of adoption. Since you described astrological magic as near-eastern I will presume you would also know that means it's not purely originating from Eastern traditions (though I will admit there is a heavy emphasis on it). It's somewhat of a mixed bag. As customs, ideologies, practices and methods are spread, they adapt into their environments from which they are adopted into which for better or for worse may cause certain factors to be lost in translation so to be speak (and no. I don't mean that in the literal sense though occasionally some things do literally get lost in translation).

Yes so Agrippas magic squares for example are deeply flawed as he transliterated Hebrew and didnt actually speak or understand semetic languages he just transliterated them. So for example when Agrippa plugs in an 11 he uses Yud + Aleph which is 10 + 1 = Ya. When he plugs in 12 he uses Yud + Beth which is 10 + 2 = Yub. When he plugs in 13 he does 10 + 3 = Ygh. This may make sense to a European mind that doesnt speak or read semetic languages but these are pseudo-syllables.

In Kabbalistic and Abjad squares, from the Semitic esoteric traditions themselves that developed them they have an important recursive algorithm they use to fill in the squares. It is incremental and the lowest digit is placed first. So for example 12 is not Yub/yab but is instead 3+9 = Get/geth. You can see how this becomes highly problematic when assembling the mathematic, linguistic, and numerological associations behind the kabbalah/abjad of the magic squares. Agrippas squares are names and names alone that dont reference the algorithm, the gematria/abjad, or actual linguistic meaning in semetic languages. They just sound biblical because he did very simple transliteration with a language he didnt speak or understand. Its like those Chinese shirts where they just slap together a bunch of random English because it sounds "american" but the syntax makes no sense.