The Christmas long weekend and New Years break always brings with it a long period of apathy and lethargy. Especially as here in the summer hemisphere, we go through some of the hottest days of the year and by the time the new year has begun, my brain has melted far beyond intelligent thought.
Following a violent wave of motivation, such as the one on which I rode to make this blog and begin my Qabalah course, I tend to go through a long period where magic is the last thing on my mind. I didn’t touch my magic books in the last month. Instead, I finished reading Andrew’s Motion’s biography of John Keats as I eagerly await a film in-the-making by Jane Campion called Bright Star, which will be particularly focussed on Keats’ relationship with Fanny Brawne. I have been an admirer of Keats since I was about 12-13 and read Ode to a Nightingale. I hope the film will help alert modern readers to his existence and we may see more of his poetry and biographies in print following the (hopeful) success of the movie.
Of course, I didn’t hijack my magical journal to talk about poetry. My interest in magic can hardly be considered waned. Knowing my tendency to become too demotivated to do anything in summer, I continued enrolling in courses at the Firefly Academy to prompt me to keep my magical practice in the back of my mind. One of the courses I am taking is designed to introduce new practitioners of Wicca to the tool of the Book of Shadows. The Book of Shadows is a Wiccan successor to the magical records or journals that some more well-known magicians kept. It traditionally includes the lores and tenets of their coven as well as Wicca copied out from their coven’s official Book of Shadows by hand. It can also include recipes for incense, oil blends and foods to celebrate the Sabbats and Esbats (full moons), and the step-by-step instructions of rituals and spells.
As a result of this course, it got me thinking about the format of a binder and loose leaf pages as a record of my magical practice. It is an idea I came across frequently when I was a practising Pagan but never had the chance to take on board. However, I have found this new project quite useful. Inspiration struck and I began formulating an invocation ritual where the magician can create and assimilate a Guardian self who works to protect the magician from the malicious actions of others, such as slander, theft and exploitation. It’s not that I have found a particular need for this magic, rather oddly, it was Isaac Bonewit’s preface in his book Real Magic that gave me the idea that it may be useful for all magicians to create for themselves this Guardian as a kind of insurance. I probably won’t need to explain to the readers the kind of motivations rampant in the occult and Pagan communities where greed for profit as well as fame and glory is quite common. I also quite regularly hear of ideas, especially when they are experimental and innovative, to be stolen and claimed as passed down by the culprit’s ancestors, not to mention quite regularly see the ideas of others being distributed (sometimes incorrectly) on the Internet without the permission of its author(s).
Invoking a Guardian empowers the magician to protect them and their knowledge from being misappropriated and misused. A kind of magical self-destruct for the ideas that fall into the wrong hands. I will work out the kinks some more and relay the information when I can.
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