First off, I feel I should ask a question. What do you suspect mind magick is friends? This is not bait. It’s actually relevant to the topic.
Very good. All those answers are good and I feel I can clarify what it’s all about. Mind magick has two parts.
- Magick performed to affect the mind.
- Magick performed for another purpose and how it affects the mind to do this.
So first, magick performed on the mind. Some people when they hear that phrase think only of hostile actions, psychic violence, manipulation, but magick has been performed on the mind for a very long time. A mantra often contains sacred words and religious/spiritual phrasing, but they were used to either purify the mind or empower it.
Generally, you can’t do both in one session. You clear the mind or enliven it. If you enliven it when it needs cleared, you will just make whatever clutter that much more intense, but it isn’t just about mantras. Color and scent were often used quite deliberately for their psychic effects, like the traditional saffron of a Buddhist monks robe. It has the red quality which enlivens the mind, but softened by a mix of a golden hue which leaves the mind open and free to shift.
Aroma is used in mind magic, though some aromas were not conducive to clarity of mind so they didn’t all have a mind based focus. Some scents were considered stimulating, but were meant to overpower the one smelling them. Break down your resistance so either you could commune more easily with specific spirits, or so that you could drop your guard and let the spirit overshadow you. This isn’t really mind magick. The ways of the spirits are more in keeping with the behaviour of the prima materia or primal spirit/energy patterns than they are of the way of the mind. The human mind often can’t encompass many of those things without giving itself over to that way entirely.
So when we use tools and props we are in a sense using magick to affect the mind, is that correct? Yes, that’s correct. Tools and props serve as focuses for the mind, or can. They can have other properties, but these don’t relate to mind magic, like the metaphysical virtues of some metals, or the residual life force in some animal bi-products. Is it getting clearer what’s mind magick and what’s not?
The simpler symbols that the subconscious can relate to more readily then? Scents, colors and sounds perhaps? Yes, sounds too. Especially drumming, usually atonal patterns. Tones tend to be emotive, and move you away from mind into spirit. Flat chants and oms strengthen mind magic. Arias open you to spirit.
I can see how magic would use energy to effect without requiring any minds at all. So magic with the mind involved would be distinct. It indeed would. For some people, mind magick would be more of a stumbling block than a stepping stone. For some, for a variety of personal reasons, they just really need to get their mind out of the way. For others, the mind is their portal and a way through spirit all by itself.
Having covered mind magick performed on the self, let’s move to mind magick performed to involve and effect others. The way of the mind is very broad. It could be said to run fully parallel to the way of the spirit, just as deep potentially, just as diverse. But sort of like your heart beat for some people, they just don’t naturally move with it. The spirit is vital and primary, but it’s sort of “involuntary.”
The mind is a reel of total volition, total will, and free will. The reason magick can seem to circumvent peoples will is because they are not themselves aware of or in control of their will for the most part, thus the principles of hypnosis. If you voluntarily surrender control of your mental processes, the hypnotist can lead you to states of mind you don’t normally discover on your own. If you never found your will or got centered enough to coordinate/control it, then an act of magick can create an effect that will move you and seem to be “against” your will.
I won’t go too heavily into this, because this part is not anything I intend to teach. But the same process I described has a flip side. With an understanding of mind magick, you cannot only marshal the power of your own mind, but by the shared language and symbolism you can move other minds to join you. As they volunteer their will knowingly and freely to the working, seeing the rite you perform moves them at the same time it moves you, be it a dance or chant or symbolic gestures. Martial arts classes are an example of that collective focus effect. Everyone present intends to move through the presented form, and each persons intent strengthens the awareness and intent of all the others gathered there.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~