Cave of
The Three
Brothers,
France,
14,000
BCEsubstance that can exist as solid, liquid and gas all
within 100°C.
Gestalt: Gestalt is a German word meaning “shape” or
“form.” This word is used to describe integrated
patterns of mental concepts that produce a syner-
gistic new paradigm. New ideas are pretty much
always the result of gestalt thinking.
Epiphany: An epiphany is a sudden revelation, when
all the pieces come together into a gestalt, and you
see something in a way you’d never thought of
before. In ancient Greece, this word was used to
describe the appearance or manifestation of a god,
and people still tend to say, “Omigod!” when they
have an epiphany.Lesson 4: The Origin of Magick
Magick began with the taming of Fire. When we
first learned how to actually make Fire, we took a quan-
tum leap in our mastery of the world that separated us
from all other creatures, and set us on the path of
Humanity. We became the very first living creatures
that could intentionally create something out of noth-
ing — something very powerful, which would do our
bidding. Fire kept the cave bears, dire wolves, and
saber-tooth tigers away from our caves and camps.
Fire drove game animals into our traps and ambushes;
even the mighty mammoth quailed before the torches
of our hunters (you would too if you were covered in
long flammable hair!). These same torches illuminated
for us the secret passages of caves that no other see-
ing creature could explore, and allowed us to paint on
cave walls magickal pictures of animals, stars, people,
symbols—and images of Shamans, the first Wizards.
These paintings were probably among the earliest
spells ever cast.
Fire lit the darkest nights and kept us warm dur-
ing ten-thousand-year-long winters. Fire roasted our
meat, cooked our vegetables, melted ice, boiled water,
dried salmon, tanned hides, hardened our wooden
spear-points, and baked our first clay pottery. Gath-
ered around our hearths and campfires, we sang our
first songs, chanted our first
chants, made our first music,
danced our first dances, told our
first stories, and performed our
first plays. All our magick—and
all our culture—came first from
the Fire. And Fire made us both
human and powerful.Lesson 5:
What is Magick?
Over the years, just about every
magickal practitioner and writer
has taken a shot at defining andexplaining what magick is. Most agree that magick
involves the manipulation of reality towards a desired
end by methods that cannot be explained by the cur-
rent scientific paradigm. Some consider psychic phe-
nomena as the basis of magick. Here are a few of the
most popular and interesting definitions:Magick is...
“...the Highest, most Absolute, and most Divine
knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its
works and wonderful operations by a right understand-
ing of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that
true Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange
and admirable effects will thereby be produced.”
—The Lemegeton of King Solomon (1500 CE)“...a science and an art comprising a system of con-
cepts and methods for the build-up of human emo-
tion, altering the electrochemical balance of the me-
tabolism, using associative techniques and devices
to concentrate and focus this emotional energy, thus
modulating the energy broadcast by the human body,
usually to affect other energy patters, whether ani-
mate or inanimate, but occasionally to affect the per-
sonal energy patterns.” —Isaac Bonewits“...the science and art of causing change to occur in
conformity with Will.” —Aleister Crowley“...the conscious application of imagination and fo-
cused attention to bring about a desired goal through
visualization” —Ellen Evert Hopman“...coincidence control.” —Oberon Ravenheart“...probability enhancement.” —Anodea JudithLesson 6: Magick as Probability
EnhancementWhile all of these definitions are true, and each helps
to a fuller understanding, my personal favorite is
Anodea’s. It offers us a real key as to what we’re
doing when we practice magick. We are shifting the
probabilities (or “odds”) from one outcome to an-
other. All events that have not yet come to pass have
some degree of probability that they may or may not
occur. We can express such probabilities in terms of
percentages, as when we say, “There’s a 50% chance
of rain tomorrow,” or “The odds against that happen-
ing are ten to one.” In such a statement, there are two
factors: the probability and the improbability. If the
odds are ten to one against, the probability is one
and the improbability is ten. But the thing is, in such
a case, if you do it ten times, then the improbabilityCourse One: Wizardry 19
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