Almost every one here, both the ones who whrites and the ones who just reads, is working or searching in magic. And very many of of has specific paths (like Hoodo, Christianity, Wiccan, Halabolula aso).

My question is how you guys ended up doing magical work? You family showed you how to do? Today it's hard enough to find real stuff and we got Internet now. We got libraries with sacred books that don't goes around any more. All for a sum of money of course (which can be difficult when you can't pay over Internet as many can't). How did it start out for you?

Myself hasn't doing it for so long. I'm from a family who has chosen the path of technology ans science. Whats physically impossible is impossible for them. For me, any thing is possible. I always have been interested in the laws of physics. When I was a kid I used to trow objects into the air and just for a moment before it falls down, it just hangs there. It levitates, but just for less than a second. I always tried to bend the laws of physics and make it stay longer in the air. Tried to make it levitate there. Of course I never manage to do it. But I didn't stop, I guess I was seeking for a purpose for me to exist. In my family I wasn't enough for anything others do, so I figured I wanted to do something no one else can. It didn't work And I fall ill from exhaustion. Screwed up my school (they didn't want me anyways, I proved the teachers wrong too many times).

When I got internet (around 2 years ago) I found this satanic church in USA. "The Church of Satan"! Lavey created it and ruled it. I was very interested in what they said and for a time I almost felt to be one of them. I soon saw that all that was in the satanic bible was a Lie and that they worked with magic far more deeper then they told in the book. Actually LaVey more or less denied magic as such. He even denied Satan, Haha! Anyway I reed trough a lot of crap until I finally found some books for download. I could feel that this was different from all others I reed so far. It turned out to be real deal. I even found this forum through one of the books and I'm grateful for that.

Well...Thats is how I got in to it. I'm the first in my family as far as I know that crafted magic. I haven't done it for long though. Lets say a Year! But for my age and background thats a long time. It has made me to a totally new person.

How about you?

Well Des, that’s a very good question....For me it started a long, long time ago in the late 1970's. I just had gotten to the U.S. My mother-in-law introduced me to the root worker she was seeing who lived up the road from us. I guess she took interest in that ‘foreign’ girl and she taught me until she passed. It is kind of funny that you posted your thread because on Hallow’s Eve my husband and I got to talking and we where just wondering how much info I didn’t get. It is a shame that it is all lost because the root workers in those days didn’t put anything on paper. Heck they wouldn’t even begin to know how to use the computer or internet. Everything was passed down by mouth and memory.

Yes Des, a very good question.

I was very lucky really. When I was a kid, I was very ill, and during that illness we moved to a much smaller town. Being unable to take part in a lot of the usual kid's stuff I used to read a lot, and quickly exhausted the children's section in the town's library.

Fortunately, the library was so small that unlike the previous town, where they were on separate floors,I could wander the adult sections. I spotted a book on witchcraft and was allowed to borrow it.

And this is where the luck came in. The 1960's had just ended, and there were a few years following where many books, on a great many paths were quickly published. I devoured them all, and soon realised that, while different paths had widely different theories as to what was going on,* the PRACTICAL elements were very similar AND had some overlap with the burgeoning "science" of manipulating the unconscious mind.

I soon learned that the theory you worked with scoped the results you got, even when the practical techniques were the same. This theme was taken up in the mid to late 1970's by the originators of Chaos Magic (i.e. "focus on the practical elements and formulate your theories based on the results you get", an approach which changed over the years to "adopt the beliefs you need for the time being to achieve what you want to achieve your goal".

So, my path is, I suppose, my own, as it is a combination of attitudes, flexible beliefs, and practical methods that work for me.

I have published what I believe to be the core knowledge behind all practical (as opposed to magic serving a spiritual path) magic here

www.castrealspells.com

, although I'm sure that the future will show my thoughts to be inadequate**


*i.e. "It's all spirits," "It's focussing the energy of God through the spheres on the tree of life," "It's all depth psychology," and so on.

** There's a lot of stuff being published at the moment by younger people on information patterning and the use of language which looks extremely promising for the future, for example.

I've been mulling this around in my mind.
Just how did I get here? What events conspired to show me this path?

I was raised independant fundamental Baptist, so there was absolutely NO family connection in this. It seemed to grow out of questioning the dogma that they kept trying to feed me. I had questions like... How do we know there isn't life on other planets? How can anyone from another planet go to heaven if they never heard about Jesus? Where did the husbands and wives of Adam and Eve's children come from? Why is meditation bad when it seems so much like prayer? This is just a small sample of the questions ( I think I gave my Sunday school teachers really bad headaches)

As the years passed and life continued I set out on a search. Originally I thought it was to try to find a way to help my now ex-husband with his closed head injury and the pain that he was in. It just so happened that the book I picked up to research out herbs was a beginners book on Wicca. This set off a whole new set of questions that just would not leave me alone. I had to try to find the answers. So I started studying, which led to more questions, which led to trying to find answers.

Well over a decade later I still have questions and just enough knowledge to understand that there is no one who can answer them for me. I have to do it for myself. Basic Wicca and religion has led me to being a religionless person. I am one of those who claims to be spritual. For me all religions are valid if they bring the believer comfort and hope. Magic has become part of the natural order of the universe.

The exploration of "inner space" and the potential of what we can accomplish, what we may become is what drives me now. How do we let go of all preconceived notions and begin to interact with the real universe? In truth, where do I end and the universe begins? What happens at that intersection? Can I do away with that division? Do I want to?

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