Drawing Down the Moon (28 page)

Bonewits calls magic “a combination of an art and a science that is designed to enable people to make effective use of their psychic talents. These techniques have been developed for centuries all over the globe.”
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While “paranormal” events are extremely difficult to chart, or to repeat under laboratory conditions, much recent research has shown that the chances these events will occur increase dramatically during altered states of consciousness—in dreams, hypnosis, drugged states, sensory deprivation, deep meditation, and highly emotional experiences. Those who do magic are those who work with techniques that alter consciousness in order to facilitate psychic activity.

In
Real Magic,
one of the most intelligent explorations of this topic, Bonewits writes that the only real difference between magic and science is that magic is an art and a science that “deals with a body of knowledge that, for one reason or another, has not yet been fully investigated or confirmed by the other arts and sciences.” He adds:

Bonewits also points out that all the traditional definitions of magic have been well in accord with natural philosophy. The popular belief that magic comes from a source alien and outside the natural contradicts the opinions of all the practitioners of the art throughout history. Bonewits gives copious examples, including S. L. Magreggor Mathers, one of the founders of the Order off the Golden Dawn, who wrote that magic is “the science of the control of the secret forces of nature,” and Aleister Crowley, who called it “the Art and Science of causing changes to occur in conformity with Will.” In fact, almost all definitions of magic seem to use the word in connection with “will,” “concentration,” and “attention.” The English Witch Doreen Valiente said that magic resides in “the power of the mind itself,” and that “the mind, then, is the greatest instrument of magic.”
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And the noted scholar of religions Jacob Needleman wrote that “attention is the key to magic, both as deception and as real power.” Needleman observed that most people's entire lives are characterized by misdirection and suggestibility, the very traits that are manipulated so successully by the stage magician. This passivity of attention, said Needleman, may be the most important human failing. In contrast, almost all who study real magic work vigorously to strengthen their attention.
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Some occultists say that there is really no need to talk about any “sixth sense,” that the truly awakened use of the five senses by themselves produces what we think of as “paranormal” activity. Colin Wilson implies this in his lengthy study
The Occult.
Wilson talks about “Faculty X,” which is not a “sixth sense” nor an “occult” faculty, but an ordinary potentiality of consciousness. “It is the power to grasp reality, and it unites the two halves of man's mind, conscious and subconscious.” “Faculty X” is latent within everyone; it is the key to all poetic and mystical experience. It is “that latent power that human beings possess
to reach beyond the present.
”
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Doreen Valiente states a similar idea in
Natural Magic:
“By using our five senses rightly, the inner sixth sense is added to them.”
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A training manual put out by the Dianic Covenstead of Morrigana in Dallas says:

This definition equates magic with those techniques that lead to an awakened, attentive, attuned sense of being.
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Seen in this light, the various fads for meditative disciplines, the weekend courses in “Mind Control,” “Mind Dynamics,” and other brand-name growth programs are, quite simply, brief magical-training courses that attempt (with more or less success and with a greater or lesser use of unnecessary and even harmful dogmas) to reawaken imaginative faculties, to increase concentration, attention, and self-confidence, and to facilitate a student's ability to enter altered states of consciousness at will. The wide interest in these programs can be explained as part of the contemporary search for self-mastery, initiation, growth, and change. The regenerative aspects of such programs should be applauded while the dogmas that grow out of them should be opposed.

Just as Neo-Pagans and Witches define magic in a pragmatic way, the trappings surrounding Witchcraft and other magical systems can also be understood without mystification. Chants, spells, dancing around a fire, burning candles, the smoke and smell of incense, are all means to awaken the “deep mind”—to arouse high emotions, enforce concentration, and facilitate entry into an altered state. Again, Bonewits has said some of the most sensible words on this subject, observing that “mandalas,” “sigils,” “pentacles,” and “yantras” are all pictures to stimulate the sense of sight; “mudras” or “gestures” stimulate the kinesthetic sense; “mantras” or “incantations” stimulate the sense of hearing. The use of props, costumes, and scenery can also be seen as a method of stimulating the senses. In addition, drugs, alcohol, breathing exercises, and sexual techniques can serve to alter one's state of consciousness. According to Bonewits, these techniques function in the same way for a Witch or a ceremonial magician as for a Native American shaman or a Catholic priest. To say that these methods never cause psychic and psychological changes in the people involved is as absurd as other common attitudes—that certain religions have a monopoly on these experiences and that certain religions worship “God” while others worship “demons.” These techniques have existed for thousands of years and were developed by human beings for the purpose of widening their perceptions of reality and changing their relationship to the world. They can be used creatively or destructively, for the enhancement of self or the destruction of self.
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Often our conceptions of psychic reality and the magical techniques we might use are simply a function of the particular culture we live in. Robert Wilson humorously observes:

Many people mistakenly identify magic with its opposite—religious dogma, or what some have called “failed magic.” The concept of “failed magic” is often expressed by both scholars and Neo-Pagans. Jane Ellen Harrison, in her monumental
Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion,
writes that the dancer who plays a god in a sacred rite “cannot be said to worship his god, he lives him, experiences him.” Only later, when the god is
separated
from the worshipper and magic is seen to fail, is religion born, and later, doctrine and dogma.
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Robert Wilson expresses it this way:

Or, to echo Sharon Devlin, religion was the opiate of the people, not magic.

Another way of looking at magic and at psychic reality would be to use the image of the ceremonial magician's circle with its “demon” as a metaphor. The circle is the microcosm of the universe, a place apart from the world and protected. It is a positive environment in which the serpents of one's own psyche can reveal themselves creatively. Within the circle the psychic barriers we erect to survive in the world can be eased down and those parts of ourselves that we seldom confront in daily life can be brought to the surface—here we face Graves's azoological creatures who “come to be questioned, not to alarm.” Traditional warnings against the use of magic and occultism suddenly seem similar to warnings against the use of psychedelic drugs. Certain strengths are necessary before using both—a knowledge of oneself, a correct environment—so that these new perceptions can come to us in a manner that encourages our growth rather than our harm.

While it is generally and rightly stressed that rituals in the Craft and other Neo-Pagan religions are quite different from those of ceremonial magic, some of the same ideas apply. A Witch's circle generally serves as a reservoir to hold group energy, which is then directed. No “demons” or “angels” or other thought forms from a Judeo-Christian context are used. But psychic barriers do fall, energy is “felt” and exchanged, and azoological creatures do occasionally appear.

A beautiful description of psychic reality appeared in NROOGD's journal,
The Witches' Trine.
The art of divination, one writer observed, is “a process by which the conscious and unconscious minds of a particular person . . . cooperate to draw relevant information out of chaos, in answer to a question posed.” The author describes this experience as “allowing one's mind to float upon the stream of the Tao, and observe the patterns of the current and the shapes they form.” He then describes psychic reality:

If one conceives of reality in this fashion, “magic” becomes the development of techniques that allow communication with hidden portions of the self, and with hidden portions of all other islands in this “psychic sea.”

Bonewits, Aidan Kelly, and Wilson each approach magic from very different perspectives. Bonewits is a magician and Druid priest, Aidan's approach has been in terms of poetry and the Craft, and Wilson seems to combine his own iconoclasm with the theories of Timothy Leary and Aleister Crowley. Despite this, they all seem to agree that Neo-Pagan magical systems are “maps” for learning about what appears to be an objective reality but often defies analysis. This reality lies within the unconscious mind, although, Aidan observes, “Actually, it's not unconscious at all; it is you and I who are unconscious of it, but it is definitely real.”
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