Magick not working?

I have noticed a lot of people who used to practice occultism are now against it, saying it doesn't work and it's all in our heads. I have already written an article about the psychology paradigm and its pitfalls so I would like to link you there. For the rest of this article I am going to write a set of conditions you should follow for your practice to have fruits.

Also, if your operation goes awry, write it to your journal as well, for example if you mispronounce some name, if you forget some move or simply when you are just not feeling it, write it all down. That way you will get doubts out of your head and later when checking results you can say: "Ok, I didn't do A and B and the operation failed" or: "I forgot to do A and I did B instead of C, yet the operation worked, so A and B might not be as important".

Keep a journal
I have written this over million times now, yet some people still don't get the hint. Journal helps you to remember things better, track your progress, track your results for later analysis AND it gives you important stimuli for times when you are in doubt. A journal is a must for every occultist.

Steady practice
People who quit Magick tend to have very intense, but shortlived practices. Hours of meditations for practiced for 1 month at most. It is better to meditate daily 5 minutes for a full year than meditate 2+ hours for 2 weeks. Steady practice is really important as you cannot boil water if you keep putting it off the stove.

Steady practice also allows to create a habit of doing Magick, that is also very important for the change of perspective I have mentioned in article "Defeating theory, part III". Also if you practice isn't steady, you shouldn't consider that everyone has the same problems you do.

Have fun
What I have noticed a lot in those who over-practice is they hate their practices. They hate doing the daily routine they chose for themselves. Your practice should be enjoyable, have fun. If your practice starts boring you, change it a bit, experiment with new things and always make sure to track it.

Integrate
People also claim they do not have time for steady practice. Of course you do have time, a normal person sleeps for about 7 to 9 hours, that still gives us 17 to 15 hours of waking time. Not only that, but also a lot of practices can be integrated into the mundane life. For example in the "Sex and Magick" article I have mentioned a practice you can do every time you sit. Similarly you can take a 5 minutes of your lunch time for meditation. During lunch you can also practice conscious eating and drinking (mentioned in Magickal Curriculum). During boring meetings you can practice telekinesis on your cup of coffee. The point is that Magick should become the integral part of your life, not something you add to your already existing schedule.

Avoid unneeded reductionism
I have heard that a lot from quitters. "I don't need to do the death posture, just focusing on the sigil does the work for me". Or "I don't need to draw sigils, I will just focus on my wish and via Law of Attraction the universe manifest my desires". They also tend to argue with others about using "pointless" rituals. Later such person quits and says that Magick doesn't work. Well, are you sure Magick doesn't work when you never tried it?

I am not saying that modification and reduction aren't needed, I am chaote, after all. But this method of working should be done AFTER you already had some visible and verifiable results, AFTER you got your feet wet in the rivers of Magick. I have it hard to look at, when someone claims about how many things are not needed in Magick, not much because of them, but because of their readers. These people tend to find followers quite quickly. People who believe them and believe in their words. Imagine the betrayal when such a person, person viewed as the spark of light in the moments of darkness, turns out to be quitter and claims that Magick doesn't work.

To explain this a little better I will return to my original "boiling water" example. Normal and educated reductionism says you do not need to salt the water and you can still boil it. Or you can omit the lid of the pot and still boil the water, it will take longer time and more water will vaporize and get lost, but you will boil it. Uneducated and inexperieced point of view usually leads to "you don't need the pot or the stove to boil the water", so in one case a cold water will keep sitting in the pot doing nothing and in the other you will pour water right on the stove, effectively putting of the flame.

Keep an open mind
Belief is one of the most important aspects. The belief in success of your operation is vital for your Magick to work. And such a believe must be limitless. Now, I am not saying you should believe whatever you want and don't have any doubts at all. All I say is everything has its time. Don't be negative before and during the operation. But during the analysis of results be a little skeptical, it's actually needed to avoid the comfirmation bias (the very same comfirmation bias that reductionists suffer during their early stages).

Sex and Magick

Sex in Magick and Magick in sex
Sex and Magick runs together for a really long time. There was always something mystical about sexual intercourse and the fact that we can actually make our own human descendants. Also considering some recent news (Kanye's debt for example), I think breeding should be something you have to deserve first.

Anyway, the use of sex in Magick was destined to come sooner or later. First of all, orgasm itself is a perfect mind-state for the operation, there is this tiny window where all thought processes get numb and you suddenly become concentrated at just one point, with no feeling of time. At that one point you exist just in the presence. Another asset is the physical exhaustion which gives the feeling that some energy was spent somewhere. This feeling allows you to believe some work was done towards the desired goal and more importantly that some potent energy was released toward the desired outcome.

Another great thing about Sex Magick is that most adults have sex (or masturbate), which means we do already have some opportunity to perform our Magick, we just have to use it properly. Who would say we could actually mix work with pleasure and even call it multitasking, right?

The scope of this article
I am going to try to be as general as possible so this article is useful for both men and women. Unfortunately I am just a man and my experience comes mainly from the male standpoint so I can e.g. describe the male retention practice but I don't know much about its female counterpart, sorry for that.

Something I do know about were e.g. Crowley's countless attempts to create hommunculi (artificial humans or humans with artificial souls) but I personally find this thing disturbing and I am not going to describe any of that. If you wish to know about it, it can be found in Liber Agape and I am pretty sure that K. Grant also wrote something on the topic as he inherited a lot of  A. Crowley's possessions.

The retention
The retention of sperm is originally a tantric practice (so called western tantra, maybe). The retention means that you are not allowed to ejaculate as it was believed the sperm contains vital fluids that would be lost otherwise. There were many methods how to avoid this loss including eating the white goo to let the energy re-enter the system. Well, I don't want to underestimate the drive of my male readers but just in case I will share another working method with you (despite celibacy).

It is possible for a man to have orgasm without the ejaculation thanks to the little muscles on the bridge between your genitals and your a-hole (or simply behind the balls to be more exact). It is the same muscle that allows you to interrupt the stream while you pee (this works for women, too, more about it later). If you press this muscle during orgasm you will stop your semen on the way out, meaning it will not exit your body, that's the simple way of doing this.

The harder way for the retention is to actually train the muscles. You should be able to stop your pee and the very same way to stop the stream is also the way how to train the muscle, just flex it and hold it as long as you can (not while peeing). Few weeks of training should be enough to strengthen the grip and allow you to stop the semen from exiting simply by locking it there. It is also needless to say that women have these muscles too, they are not very helpful for retention, but if a woman has trained these muscles, she will enjoy sex way more (or so I was told).

Another benefit of this practice is that it is nearly invisible, whenever you are sitting or standing in line you can simply lock in the muscles and hold, no one is going to notice (unless you stand really weird, in that case you look like you need to pee). Anyway, this allows you to practice anytime you want.

Using the sexual energy
This article wouldn't really be complete if I didn't add any way how to use this harnessed energy. The most simple way, of course, is masturbation. The prepared sigil of any kind is presented to the unconscious mind during the orgasm/ejaculation to embed desire into it. Of course how the sigil is presented depends on its type. Visual sigils are hold before the eyes, words of power are called out loud (or at least silenced), gestures are kept at the eye's level (don't try making the gesture with the same hand you are masturbating with, that would be weird).

Regarding visual sigils, some people recommend to let the load go right on it, I would rather say to keep them in the front of your eyes or visualize them and let the goo go somewhere safe. Only reason why you would want to stain the sigil would be a servitor or amulet creation, but for general work? Rather try to be tidy and reasonable :).

Working with the partner
Things I have mentioned above work with a partner, as well. It doesn't really depend whether during a traditional sex or what method of stimulation you use. You can also hide the fact about what you are doing, but frankly it is better your partner knows and you both focus on the same goal (sigils placed around the room can do the trick without exposing much).

I would also like to share one method of servitor creation for which you need a man and a woman (finally some occult reason to get social). A. Crowley has believed that a mixture of semen and women's secrets form a strong fluidum, a philosopher's fluidic condenser to be exact. Crowley also mentioned certain parameters a sex should have to make this condenser stronger. To name a few:
-long foreplay
-sexual intercourse should take 1 hour at minimum
-after all "work" is done, penis should be kept in vagina for about 15 minutes so keep the condenser in to make sure it's "baked" properly.

After that all is done you simply let it out on the prepared servitor's sigil to charge it or into a jar to store it for later use (here the knowledge of creation of fluidic condensers come in real handy).

Importance of dreams in Magick

There are still people who underestimate the importance of dreams in Magick so I am going to explain why are dreams really important and how to atually work with them.

Consciousness versus unconsciousness
There are many ways how to define this but let's just say that your personal reality is split into what you are conscious about and what you are not conscious about. The amount of influence of your conscious and unconscious parts on your life is about 50:50, and of course consciousness also affects your unconsciousness and vice versa.

Unconsciousness does a sort of a compensation work for your daily life, it's a very cleverly designed process, but sometimes the fragment of our psyche (usually traumatic one) gets supressed from the conscious and so transfers into your un-c where it becomes more or less autonomous. This then turns into neurosis and affects your conscious life (sorry I am simplifying so much).

Another work of unconsciousness is to gather and analyze details we are not normally aware of, it can be the most subtle mixture of various physical senses up to the metaphysical perception (e.g. telepathy). This allows our consciousness to be much less occupied with seemingly unimportant details but it can also inform us back if one or more of these "unimportant" details sum up to some important event or a piece of information, but for that to happen, it also needs a communication channel, a link between conscious and unconscious.

What are dreams
Dreams are the most direct communication channel between consciousness and unconsciousness. With their help un-c can actually give us its experience of our waking lives but from its perspective. Due to the nature of dreams we split them into following categories:
-compensating
-reducting
-prospective
-reactive

A compensating dream tries to inform us of something we are omitting even while it is important, it shows us what we should be focused on or what we are forgetting.

A reducting dream is a sort of a healing mechanism. It repeats a bad experience over and over again in a symbolic form till we get used to it and it doesn't appear as horrifying anymore.

Prospective dream can give us insight into the future. It is not a prophetic dream as in a prophetic dream all details would have to match with the real future event but it can still give us enough details to spawn a lot of curiosity.

Reactive dream is like a reductive dream, except in the case of reductive dream understanding the symbology and interpretation of the dream automatically stops the repetition. In case of reactive dreams there is no symbology af these are a direct copy of past traumatic experiences. Reactive dreams usually appear as the result of a traumatic experience from war, etc.

There are more categories and subcategories but I am going to simplify it on these four for now.

Why are dreams important
The health isn't just physical or psychological, both aspects are part of the sum and both aspects also influence the sum, so a psychological problem can influence our physical state just like a physiological problem can influence our mental state. Dreams as the direct output from the unfiltered unconsciousness give us a decent overview of both the mental and physical state and as such dreams are a very helpful aid for the introspection (practice of self-discovery). Introspection was heavily propagated by F. Bardon in his work but even nowadays many occultists do not care about its benefits.

How to interpret dreams
In case of dreams we have a double symbology, one is shared for all of us despite of our race or culture and one is individual for us and it's based on our personal lifes, experiences and character traits.

This could lead to the idea that by understanding just the symbology we can easily interpret our dreams, which would be false and gave us a very general meanings at best. Even the best dream interpreter in the world will give a wrong definition if he asks a wrong question.

The right question in dream analysis isn't what does the dream mean, but why did I have this dream and where should it lead me to. If you ask yourself these questions while analyzing your dreams, you will start to understand where I am going. The dreams try to either warn us, inform us or prepare us for something, that's why it's not important what does the symbology in the dream mean (well, it is sorta important but do not overestimate it), but why we had the dream to begin with.

Wax dolls

What is a wax doll
Wax doll is a small figure made out of wax, made in the shape of a human or animal you wish to affect. Wax dolls are a great asset for Magick. These figures have a bad reputation as in movies and certain cultures they are used mainly for maleficient purposes when in fact they are just focal points, they can be used for variety of tasks including blessings, telepathy suggestions, healing and of course, curses.

Why wax
Wax is naturally oily and a little bit moist on touch, these are the properties that a suitable volt materials should have. Speaking of that, any object containing fat, grease, oil, wax or other materials with similar qualities can be used for the creation of the volt, one famous volt creation counts with a dead frog baptised with the name of the victim of this powerful curse.

How to model your own wax doll
It is ideal to have some modelling wax handy as that one is very soft and can be easily shaped by your hands, in case we do not have such a wax handy, here is another solution.

For this method you will need some candles (tea lights are the best option). You will also need some paper, scissors and a cookie cutter of the desired shape.

Light the candles to liquify the wax. Tea lights naturally have their own containers and it's easy to pour the wax from them but if you don't have any, just toss some candles on a pan and liquify the wax there.

As the next part make an outline of your cookie cutter form on the paper and cut it out. This will give us the base for the form so the wax doesn't stick to the surface below. Another benefit is that the paper also holds the wax together during the removal from the cookie cutter and then can also be stripped and used again.

Now place the form on the paper outline and pour the liquified wax in. It doesn't spread as easily as water so make sure to fill the cookie cutter evenly, then let the wax rest and solidify, this takes quite some time. You can figure out when wax is solid by color and also by touch (slightly pushing the wax won't leave there any fingerprints).

Now take the form with solidified wax and gently twist it, this will allow the wax to be separated from the form. Then gently and evenly push the wax doll out of the cookie cutter form. As the last part remove the paper base and your wax figure is finished.

Using the doll
Famous method of using the wax doll is to embed it with something from your "victim", a tooth, hair, fingernails... These can be added into the doll during pouring of the wax. The thing is you don't really need any such item as a visualization and desire are good enough to create the link. Attaching the photo or sigil that symbolises the target also helps greatly.

In case you are going to use needles, make sure to heat their tips first (e.g. in the flame of a candle). This allows the wax doll to sustain more "punishment" as wax is rather melted by the needle instead of broken apart. The wax that is liquified this way also turns black and leaks out of the hole just like blood, making a great visualization aid.

Mind-Body Intervention

New article about Mind-Body Intervention available here:
http://forums.vsociety.net/index.php/topic,23557.msg224462.html#msg224462

Visualization explained

What is visualization
I think that not once somebody has questioned the importance of "imagining" in the occult, but as you will soon find out, visualization and day-dreaming are two different things. Specifically speaking the visualization is something that aids in your focus while day-dreaming shatters it. And yes, you can do Magick without visualization, just like you can fry eggs without pan and write on paper without hands.

To make a little bit better distinction, we could say that imagining is something that draw the attention away from your real perception while visualization actively participates within. Or to be less mysterious we could say that if you imagine apple, you can see it falling from the tree, if you visualize an apple, you can see it right before your very eyes.

More here: http://forums.vsociety.net/index.php/topic,23553.0.html

Defeating theory, part III

Third part of the Defeating Theory series is now available at http://forums.vsociety.net/index.php/topic,23552.0.html

Downfall of the psychology paradigm

What is the psychology paradigm
It is a concept in Magick that basically says everything in the occult is done via your own unconsciousness, but I have also met with other things like "telepathic fields" etc.

The psychology paradigm is generally dependent on the collective unconsciousness which is some mass form of unconsciousness independent of any individual mind. Users of this concept then believe that you can tap into the collective unconsciousness and via this action cause a change in the external reality. The thing is that such a modification is limited, you either unconsciously change your own behavior or a behavior of another person.

In this paradigm it is also possible to tap into the common behavioral patterns called archetypes (and forget anything you know about Jung's archetypes because this is simply a crazy way to say egregore).

Advantages of the psychology paradigm
This paradigm is great in explaining some simple concepts like how to limit your bad habits, what is a self-fulfilling prophecy or what are desires. Thanks to that the psychology paradigm is an amazing way how to explain what you do to a person not versed in the occult. You will be perceived as a weirdo, but not a complete nutjob...

Disadvantages
There are also disadvantages that become obvious once you try to explain things like telepathy for example. So, there is this independent collective unconsciousness we can tap into and therefore we can relay a message from one individual unconsciousness to another. That's sounds logical, reasonable and scientific, right? Except the thing that it doesn't actually explain anything.

Let me explain on the telepathy example. For us to be able to pass some information from point A to point B, we need a "route", in case of the psychology paradigm it should be the collective unconsciousness which would require us to have another route, route from us to the collective unconsciousness. Of course you could argue that our individual unconsciousnesses are already parts of the collective one, but I will explain why that is an unneeded overcomplication in a minute.

Back to the tradition
As we said, we need another routes between us and the collective unconsciousness (CU from now on) to work. What are these routes you ask? Well, let's take a look at the more traditional approach, Astral plane. Astral is our route from person A to person B, but how does the route work? Simply both person A and person B exist on both the physical (empirical) and astral (transempirical) planes. This gives us the ability to communicate on the astral plane while being physically distant to each other. Of course you could define CU in a similar manner which would then mean the same thing. But why to use a different version of definition of CU, therefore making a doubled meaning of the definition and troubles in communication when we can use a time-proven terminology we all know and understand?

CU also has another problem, unliving objects. In the case of Astral everything has its Astral representation and we can manipulate with it, but CU doesn't have such a thing as it requires a living organisms to communicate, therefore CU doesn't really explain the talismanic magick or weather control to give some examples.

Nothing is true
There is a million of different opinions about how Magick actually works, some better, some worse, but if you nitpick for a long enough, you will find some loophole. I think my long time readers already know that I am a big fan of the meta paradigm. The thing is that you can follow anything you want as long as you get results. What works for you, works for you. If you are okay with the psychology paradigm and sending "spells" to the CU, be my guest. What I see as a problem is when someone becomes a fanatic and starts pushing his way of thinking as the only possible truth. "Dude, psychology model is the real one, it makes so much sense". Well, if it makes sense to you and it works for you, I am happy for that, just keep in mind we are individuals and what works for one won't necessary work for another. That being said, keep it mind it is always better to inform other of various ways and let them choose what's best suited for them instead of trying to push your own ideal on them.

When it comes to the individual practice this includes the psychology model same as the meta model and just like any other thing you can imagine, including hermetic laws, including spirit work, including ancestor veneration. If it works for you, be happy, just don't get angry if someone questions you, it is only a natural outcome of being a bit too pushy. Just like you don't like when someone steps on your foot, others hate when you stomp on theirs.

About death curses

Let's speak about inflicting death with curses and all the bad decisions behind it.

What is a death curse?
A death curse is a type of a spell that inflicts death to its victim. This can be anything from a car accident to instant heart failure, it can be also as bad as a cancer. There are few infamous death curses like Pulsa diNura.

Pulsa diNura is a very strong Jewish curse in which angels of death (if I remember correctly) are called to prevent any God's forgiveness to reach the target, the target then dies because of his/her own sins. If curses were considered weapons, Pulsa diNura would be a nuke. It could also be considered an act of terrorism because it is usually abused against political figures, often for different ideologies.

Why people choose to use death curses?
People who tend to use death curses are usually insecure and emotionally unstable, thinking they can kill people remotely gives them some inner security and sense of power, that's why death curses are often chosen by "satanic" emotional teenagers, generally speaking majority of so called LHP groups are children and real and experienced practitioners are actually in minority (and they wouldn't curse so lightly).

Why death curses often don't work?
A death curse is a very serious thing that requires a killing intent, you must hate someone so much that when he would be near you right now you would kill him with bare hands. Thankfully most people are unable of such hate, else this would be a very sad place to live. Anyway, this also means death curses are used where you really want to kill some person that cannot be reached normally (living far away, well secured political figure, unknown rapist in the neighborhood, etc). It certainly cannot be used on a classmate sitting right next to you just because he broke your pencil and laughed at you that you dress like a bat.

Correct alternatives
Death curses usually have a reason, whether someone bullies you, make fun of you, or anything else. Question is why you want to go through the trouble to curse the person when a simple spell can be used to nullify just what you don't like, e.g for a bully to stop picking on you, your boss to stop making you work overtime, your political nemesis to stop thinking through his wallet, etc. This way you will also more likely get the desired result as it stems from your need and no killing intention is needed (in other words, this approach is good for non-psychopathic people).

Death curse between Magicians
I think you have heard stories of duels of Magicians and how a stronger will can beat the weaker will, about shielding and waiting for a right moment to hit to incapacitate the other guy. This all is more or less true regarding thaumaturgists, but when it comes to a theurgy, this is a completely different story. We are more or less a property of spirits we work with on a regular basis (the rapport works both ways), and the spirit, as any owner, gets angry if you try to damage its property. Spirits are also conscious and they talk to each other. I know I don't speak about this much, but I actually stopped doing any client work as my spirits forbid me to do few exorcisms, I was told to care about my own family and don't poke into problems of others.

So, what does happen when one theurgist try to curse another theurgist? Seemingly nothing, spirits make a deal and maybe let a lighter curse to pass through to make a point, if that teaches you not to mess with others, fine with that. But if you try some stronger curse, or even a death curse, spirits get really angry at you for trying to push them into some tacky spirit war and they might punish you, as well. Worst thing that can happen is that you ignore any warnings and if nothing seemingly happened, you try again. Spirits then might abandon you for your ignorance and then you suddenly find yourself without any protection and open for a counter-attack that can hit you in a full scale.

It is true that a stronger spirit might screw with lesser spirits, but don't also forget that each spirit has its own "homeland", so locally they can be strong but remotely there are some problems. For example if you tried to use a Voodoo lwa on me, you are likely to fail as voodoo spirits are very far from home here, on the other side my spirits are locals here, so they are way more accustomed to this environment and protection here.

Summary
So, we have learned that death curses are not really so bright idea to begin with, there are also alternatives: bully can stop mocking you, rapist can be arrested... or castrated, etc. We have also learned that spirits like their comfort zone and hate messing with other spirits and can punish you if you try to mess with other spirits or their "property".

Very simple meditation

Sometimes simple is better, this meditation will take you only a couple of minutes and there is no way you could forget any of the steps.

1. Sit in a comfortable position, relax a little.
2. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath.
3. Visualize that with each of your inhale an energy is drawn into your body and stays there, this energy says: "I possess Magick abilities", say that in your mind during each inhale and feel as your body is getting filled with this statement.
4. Repeat step 3 for a couple of minutes or till you feel full with the statement.

This is a very simple exercise, in the long term it allows you to unlock new mystical abilities, in short term it helps you to reinforce your belief in Magick and as we already know, a belief is a very important asset in Magick.

Tarot: The Celtic Cross spread

This is the little excerpt from the book about Tarot I am currently working on, enjoy :).

The Celtic Cross

The most famous of all spreads, unfortunately also the most overused one. The Celtic Cross is a common-use spread, if you don't know what spread to use for the reading, use this one. This spread has qualities of many aforementioned spreads, plus it shows many tendencies we want to use or avoid. Unfortunately it also contains a great deal of relations between different card positions which normally isn't well taught. That's why I will teach you this spread traditionally, as I was taught.

For this spread you need to select   10 cards. Meanings of these cards are as follows:

Card 1: That's it

Card 2: That crosses it

Card 3: That's the crown of it

Card 4: That's the base of it

Card 5: That was before it

Card 6: That comes after it

Card 7: That's the querrent

Card 8: That's where it takes place

Card 9: Those are hopes and doubts.

Card 10: This is the result, This is where it leads to.

This explanation might look a bit confusing, but it's the one I started with and it's also probably the only one that shows the basic relations of cards to the card 1 (hence the bold it word). But let's give some a bit more extensive explanation now.

Card 1 shows the current situation, Card 2 shows either positive or negative influences that cross the situation (sometimes the universe is on your side, and sometimes it pushes obstacles in your way).

Card number 3 shows what consciously drives us into this situation, why we want to achieve what we want to achieve. Card number 4 shows what drives us unconsciously (that's the base of it). Fourth card is why we really are in such situation but it isn't apparent at the moment.

Card number 5 shows what preceeded this situation (the past) and card 6 shows what comes after (the future). From this sense cards 5,1,6 are The Three Cards spread and have the same relations as in that spread.

Card number 7 shows the querent's take on the situation. How he behaves and how he feels about the situation. It can happen that the situation will be good according to the reading just this card will show bad signs, that means the querent is too pessimistic about the whole thing to see things as they really are (opposite can happen too).

Card number 8 shows the surroundings of the querent, where it happens. This card can show the external influence regarding the situation and/or the querent (if you use The Celtic Cross instead of the Relationship spread, then this card represents querent's partner).

Card number 9 shows hopes and doubts. Positive cards are hopes and negative one are doubts (or fears). This card shows the the querent hopes for or what he is scared of.

Card 10 is the final result. We can say that card 6 is the near future and card 10 is the distant one. Once again we can do a Three Card spread comparison of cards 5,1,10 as we originally did 5,1,6. The difference between 6 and 10 is also important, as it shows the development of the situation in the future, so use these two as a Two Cards Of The Day spread.

Now, the reading of the spread has a bit different order. First cards you reveal are card number 5 and card number 9. You want to see these two first to find out what happened and what are expectations of the querent. The difference between these two should also give you some information about the current situation.

Next card you reveal is card number 1, the current state of the situation. Then card number 2, what is crossing the current situation. Then cards 3 and 4 to check the background of the situation, then followed by cards 7 (querent) and 8 (surroundings). While revealing each of the cards you are checking all the relationship between the cards and you are trying to sort of guess what will happen next.

Cards number 6 and 10, future related cards, are revealed as the last one. After you check all relationships between the cards you then should try to see the whole picture, to read the spread as the whole.

Eye of the moon: awakening

So, originally I didn't want to reveal this practice but I ran my mouth on the forum and people got interested. It's one of the few things I discovered early when working in my past orathory. A technique very similar to the evil eye but a bit more conventional.
But be warned, misuse of the eye of the moon leads to insanity and split personalities, so I do not hold any responsibility for you, but still, if you have any troubles, feel free to contact me any time, sooner the better.
What is evil eye
Evil eye is a spiritual ability manifested by a great amount of hatred and greed. It's part of the folklore. It usually happens when you envy your neighbour soo much that you can literally kill his farm animals just by staring at them. Evil eye usually manifests only randomly and there is no conscious control of the process.
The eye of the moon is different in that it is easily manifested consciously and has rather hypnotic than destructive effects. It also bears some sort of clairvoyant ability, but about that one later.
How to awaken the eye of the moon
For the awakening you will need a mirror big enough to see at least a reflection of your head and very clean, without any impurities. You will also need a bowl of ice freezing water. It is said that water is the gate between Astral and physical and colder the better, about the temperature of 4 degrees Celsium is good enough, hence why to add some ice. If you have a sink under the mirror in your bathroom, that,s suitable enough.
It is also a good idea to have any experience with focal meditation as it is what we will do.
Before we start we should also choose the dominant and submissive eye. Extend your arms and use your hands to form a diamond and look at some distant object through the diamond. Close one eye, if you still see the object directly, this is your dominant eye, if you see your hand or some different angle than with both of your eyes open, this is your submissive eye.
Now to the procedure
Mirror should be placed on the wall right in front of your eyes, distance of your head from the mirror should be about 1 feet (experiment with it).
Place your hands into the bowl of ice cold water and hold them there during the whole procedure.
Gaze at the submissive eye of your reflection, but not the the mirror surface, imagine the mirror is the window to the other side and you are gazing to the eye of another person, feel the plasticity of the image.
Your breathing should be slow and deep, with pauses before and after inhale, inhale and exhale should take the same amount of time and so should take the pause.
During first 20 minutes your whole field of vision should go fully white so you won't see anything at all, but keep at it, then you will see edges of your face and white will slowly vanish in the eye of the reflection. Then you will notice the eye looks very different now, pupil of your submissive eye will be as small as the tip of the needle, with very big and blurry iris, sometimes a black or golden corona appears around the eye. This is the eye of the moon, this state usually keeps up for about an hour after awakening.
Effects of the eye of moon
This eye is highly suggestive, anyone looking into it can be easily manipulated by verbal suggestions. It also holds a strange version of clairvoyance. If you look above objects or people you will see strands of energy leaving the object. If I understood it correctly, this is the spiritual version of decay and aging of materials. Same strands of energy you will also be able to see during evocations, flowing from the summoning triangle.

Magick is meant to be used

Many people nowadays take Magick as something abstract, mystical, thinking you can reach higher wisdom and mystical experiences by reading about it.

If you want a good read, go for The Discworld. If you want to improve your life or even get yourself out of the dump, do Magick.

Magick is a tool, created for some purpose, and as a tool, it wants to be used for that one purpose. Consider a knife, the tool created for cutting. It wants to cut and it doesn't matter whether you use it to slice bread, carve into wood or use it for the self-defense, that's its purpose. But you won't make the knife to sing, it doesn't sing. Grab the knife into the hand and feel its resonance, try to hear what it wants you to do, feel your hand trembling, slowly waving the knife, letting it's blade taste the air moving around it, trying to fulfill its destiny, its purpose.

It's the same with Magick. Magick is a tool and has a purpose. Many New Age practitioners tried to use Magick for something else and failed. Many RHP practitioners were tricked by the "dark side" to taste the power. There isn't really any "dark side", just Magick wanted to serve its purpose. You won't teach the knife how to sing and you won't slice breads with headphones.

Practice is what makes Magick powerful, practice is what makes it real and undoubtful, practice is what makes results. Reading about Magick is like reading about craftsmanship, it won't improve your ability to actuallt make amazing pieces of art, it just might give you a technique or two to make it look better, but hands-on is the thing that improves the art.

Few fundamental mistakes in Magick

Only my tradition is the real one
Nope. People of different traditions and practices can easily achieve same results. It's not even true that some traditions are better for something and worse for something else. If you find some tradition that really suits you, you will be able to do anything with it.

Only chasing enlightenment is the right path
Well, reaching enlightenment is possible only through selfless and devoted practice, I am sorry but that's not really possible if you are consciously chasing the enlightenment because that's selfish, practicing to gain the ascension is a selfish act. Not helping others because you are saving energy for you enlightenment is even more selfish. Rather than that do stuff for yourself, it will have better results in means of enlightenment than this.

Magick is based on the subconsciousness
Simply no. All worlds, whether physical, mental, emotional, astral or spiritual, are merged together. Is Magick part of the subconsciousness? Yes, same as of everything else.

Casting a circle is for the means of protection
He he, no. The circle is casted because its energy shines with a very bright light and is visible in great distances like a lighthouse.
Point of the circle is to drag attention, to say to nearby spirits and forces: "Hey, something's happening over there, come closer".
Also, the circle lifts its energy up in a tornado like manner, that can effectively destroy anything above it. Cups and dishes falling from the shelves, glass is cracking, smaller objects "disappearing". One fellow Magician e.g. reported that his favorite chinese tea cups were broken when they fell from the middle of the table while he was performing a ritual in the floor just below the table.

If you want a protection, then banish, then enclose yourself within a Magickal chain, or bubble, or whatever.

Banish before every ritual
Congratulations, you have just effectively made your ritual useless, banishing equals to no energies around, which means no spare energies for the ritual.
It's important to banish time by time to get rid of negs or whatever you call these, but banishing once or twice per month is good enough.

Banish after every ritual
Take a following scenario, your friend kidnaps you from your home, threathens you to do his bidding and then tells you to piss off his house before he grabs his shotgun. That's what banishing after the ritual looks like.

To do it right, use a license to depart, where you give an allowance to leave to the nearby spirits, you also remind you of the bidding and request them not to bring any harm to you and your family. Also, don't be scared if they don't leave right away, sometimes they like to stay around for an hour or two before leaving. Use the banishing just only when the sh*t hits the fan.

I can use any practice of any tradition without the knowledge of its background
Just no, same as you cannot and should not pilot a plane without a proper training and tests, you shouldn't borrow practices from traditions you know nothing about. Same goes with the mixing, you can analyze and take the core of some practice and create new method based on the core that you will put into your custom system, but don't mix different practices from different traditions unless you want your life to become a misery.

Everything in grimoires must be done exactly as it is written
He he. Grab your grimoire and check the language it is written in and it was translated from. Chances are that these two are completely different, which means someone had to translate it for you, and trust me he could had translated it in hundres different ways, each and every sentence.

Words of power that should be kept in its original manner should be kept in the original language, which means that everything that WAS translated can be considered as "do something like this, say something like that" instead of "do this, say that".

Modifying procedures to suit your needs is also fundamental to the healthy occult practices, it helps you to develop intuition, reasoning and also understanding of the matter. But really, take grimoires only as a inspiration, not as the only possible strict procedure.