Part of the substance of Wicca is the working of magick. Magick, in fact, is the Craft in Witchcraft. It is a very real force, and is used to bring about changes in the world around us. Just like anything else, it can be used for good or ill; but the Witch must take the consequences, always remembering the Three-Fold Law.

Successful magick is dependent upon three things - knowledge, will, and word.

Before you can do magick to make something happen, you must know what you want. Visualize it, and all the circumstances around it. Although one can ask the Deities for something pretty nebulous (i.e., give me lots of money) this is more a wish or a prayer than magick. Magick, by its very nature, is specific (i.e., Give me enough money to buy the contact lenses that I need to have).

You also must have the will to make it happen, and that means both the desire and the power. You have to be very sure that this is, in fact, what you want. You cannot fool your Twilight Self, who is doing the work, into thinking that you are sure, when actually you think this would be nice, sort of, maybe, you hope.

The third ingredient is the word. This is your word. You must believe, to the depths of your soul, that this will happen because you say that it will. This means being able to trust yourself. You have to know that you tell the truth; that things you say are so, are so. That "And So Mote It Be" that ends most spells must carry the force of law.

Before you begin any magick, it is very important that you be grounded and centered. By grounding and centering, we mean that your personal energy flow becomes balanced so that it begins in the Earth, flows through you, and returns to the Earth. This keeps it from being blocked somewhere in your body, where it will stagnate. It also means that you are not using up your own vital energy to perform the work.

With practice, it becomes easy to feel when you are grounded and centered. It is easy to tell when you haven't been, even without practice. If you are exhilarated just after performing magick, but by the next day feel cranky, stiff, and exhausted, with a mild to severe headache, then you need to work on your grounding. If you feel all the aftereffects right away, without the exhilaration, then you need to work on your grounding and your centering.

There are several exercises that can help you to do this. All these exercises should be practiced in a quiet, private place; where you will not be disturbed, and where you can go into a light trance without having your purse ripped off, or your boss going into conniptions. They can be done alone; with a partner, taking turns to read the words; or with a group, with one person reading, and all the others doing the exercise.

Begin by sitting or standing erect, in a comfortable position, and breathing deeply and rhythmically.

Now imagine that your spine is the trunk of a tree...and from its base, roots extend deep into the Earth...into the center of the Earth Herself.

And you can draw up power from the Earth with each breath... feel the energy rising...like sap rising through a tree trunk...

Feel the power rise up your spine... feel yourself becoming more alive... with each breath...

And from the crown of your head, you have branches, that sweep up and back down to touch the Earth... and feel the power burst from the crown of your head... and feel it sweep through the branches until it touches the Earth again... making a circle... making a circuit... returning to its source...

(in a group) And, breathing deeply, feel how all our branches intertwine... and the power weaves through them... and dances among the, like the wind... feel it moving...

(to end the exercise) Now take a deep breath, and suck in the power, as if you were sucking through a straw. Feel it travel down your spine, and flow into the Earth. Feel all of it flowing back into the Earth, where it came from. Now relax.

This exercise is especially useful if you have been a focus of power, or if you are having trouble grounding well.

Sink to the ground, and relax. Place your palms flat on the ground, or lie down flat. Let the power sink through you into the Earth (even if you are in an apartment at the top of a tall building, visualize the energy flowing down to the actual ground). Relax, and let the power flow through you... let it flow deep, deep into the Earth... where it will be cleansed and renewed... Relax, and let yourself drift peacefully.

Visualize a cord or pole extending from the base of your spine into the center of the Earth. Center yourself by aligning your body along its center of gravity. Breathe from your center - from your diaphragm and abdomen. Feel energy flow up from the Earth and fill you, then flow out the top of your head and deep down into the Earth again.

Once you know how to ground and center, you can begin to practice visualization. Visualization is the ability to see, hear, feel, touch, and taste with the inner senses. These inner senses work quite vividly for most people when they are dreaming. Visualization means being able to use them vividly while awake.

This does not mean that you will be able to see the object quite clearly with your physical eyes, so that you cannot see other physical things through it (although this may, indeed, happen) but that you will be able to examine it closely in your mind's eye; handling it, moving it to look at it from other angles, and know what it looks like, smells like, feel like, etc.

To some people this comes easily, while for others it is very difficult. But most people find that this ability, like anything else, improves with practice.

Visualization is important, because this is how we communicate with the Twilight Self. When your inner senses are fully awake, you may see visions of extraordinary beauty, smell the roses from the Summerland, taste ambrosia, and hear the songs of the Gods.

Ground and Center.

Close your eyes, and imagine that you are looking at a blank wall or screen. Now imagine that it has a simple geometric form on it; a line, a dot, a circle, a triangle, an ellipse, and so on.

When you can see the forms clearly, visualize the screen in color: red, yellow, blue, orange, green, violet, and black in turn. It may help to look at a colored object with your eyes open first, then close them and mentally see the color.

Now visualize the geometric forms in various colors. Change the colors and forms until you can mentally picture them at will.

When you have become quite competent with that, imagine that the forms have been drawn on the screen with magic marker. Smell the marker, and hear the squeak as it is drawn across the screen. Once again, it may help to have a marker close by to sniff if you can't remember what they smell like.

Once you have both the sight and the smell, reach out with your mental hand, and feel the screen. Is it smooth? Rough? Did they draw it on construction paper?

Don't be discouraged, it will come in time; and don't expect to become proficient with all the senses in one session, no matter how long it is.

Stop before you are exhausted.

Visualize an apple. Hold it in your hands; feel it. Feel the shape, the size, the weight, the texture. Notice the color, the reflection of light on its skin. Bring it up to your nose and smell it. Bite into it, taste it; hear the crunch as your teeth sink in, feel the juice around your lips and tongue. Eat the apple; feel it slide down your throat. See it grow smaller. When you have eaten it down to the core, let it disappear.

Repeat with other foods. Ice cream cones are also excellent subjects.

Picture yourself holding a closed box, preferable one that you really have. Don't see yourself from the outside, but from the point of view that you always see yourself when you have no mirror. See your hands clearly as you hold the box. Turn it in your hands and examine it on all sides. Smell it, feel the texture.

Now open the box. Inside is a piece of your favorite jewelry. Look at it lying inside the box. See the sun glinting off it, and see the reflections on the inside of the box.

Reach into the box and take it out. Feel the weight of it in your hands. Examine it closely. Find every familiar detail. Know it.

When you are finished, put it back into the box. Close the lid, and let it disappear.

This exercise can have practical applications in several ways.

It is good practice to be able to form complete mental images of things that are familiar to you. Among other things, if you lose something about your house, you can frequently find it just by visualizing it clearly, and then, holding a picture of it in your mind, going to where it is and picking it up. You will find that if you hold your mind open, and empty except for the image of the thing you want, that you can do this.

The second way to use this exercise is to visualize the box, but let your subconscious, Twilight Self choose what is inside it. This is especially good when you have nebulous feelings and desires, or when something is troubling you, but you don't know what. Your Twilight Self knows, and will often use this method to tell you. Be very sure that you are grounded and centered before you do this, though.

Once you have gotten proficient visualizing familiar things with these exercises, go on to the following ones, which are a bit more than exercises, and are used in the working of magick.

Visualize a line of flickering blue flame, lake a gas flame from a Bunsen burner. Now mentally draw a pentacle, a five-pointed start with one point up, in the invoking direction; starting at the top and moving down to the left.

Watch if form out of the blue flame. Hold the image in your mind for a few moments.

Now retrace the pentagram in the banishing direction, starting at the lower left-hand corner and moving up. As you do so, watch it disappear.

Practice until it comes to you easily.

This visualization is part of casting a Circle.

Visualize yourself tying a knot - any knot you can tie easily in reality. Try not to see a mental picture of yourself from the outside; instead, put yourself in the picture. See your hands moving, and feel the string. Feel every movement you would make, then draw the knot closed, and feel the string pull taut.

This visualization is used to bind spells.

In order for you to bring your knowledge, will, and word to bear on something, you must be able to hold that thing steady in your mind. In other words, you must develop your powers of concentration.

Once again, there are several ways to do this. Here are two exercises, although you can also practice concentrating by bringing your complete attention to bear on almost anything, and trying to keep it there for several minutes. Once you have mastered this, you will find that it is also good for stopping the hiccups!

In a quiet, darkened room, light a candle. Ground and Center, and gaze quietly at the candle. Breathe deeply, and let yourself feel warmed by the light of the candle. Let its peaceful radiance fill you completely. As thoughts surface in your mind, experience them as if they came from outside. Do not let the flame split into a double image; keep your eyes focused. Remain for at least five or ten minutes, then relax.

Again, light a candle in a dim quiet room. Ground and Center. Gaze at the candle, and visualize a diamond in the center of your forehead, between and just above your eyebrows. The diamond reflects the light of the candle, and the candle reflects the light of the diamond. Feel the reverberation of energy. Hold for at least five or ten minutes, then relax.

Ground and Center. In a mirror, gaze into your own eyes. Focus your attention on the space between them. Repeat your own name to yourself, over and over. Again, as thoughts surface, experience them as if they were outside you. After five or ten minutes, relax.

Ground and Center. Close your eyes and visualize a bright diamond off in the distance, glowing so that you can see it clearly. Move toward it slowly, keeping your attention wholly on it. As thoughts intrude, they fly up a fountain over your head and disappear. They do not mean anything to you.

After five or ten minutes, relax.

Tere are only a couple more things that you should do before you begin practicing magick.

The first, and one that cannot be stressed too highly, is to keep your physical body in good shape. Even though you will be drawing power from the Earth, you own vitality is important, too. It is very hard to do good work if you are sick or exhausted.

This means getting plenty of physical exercise in the fresh air. Wicca is a nature religion, and it is of vital importance for us to be out in the sunshine at least for a little while every day. So get out there! Do some sort of physical exercise (keeping a garden growing is excellent), and enjoy it.

It also means watching what you eat. Just as we try to keep our Mother the Earth from becoming polluted, do not pollute your body with things that you know are bad for you.

Count on your health to make your magick work, and not vice-versa, and you should be fine.

The second thing that is highly recommended is to spend part of each day in some sort of meditation.

This can be simply thinking about some part of the Godhead that has become important to you, or something that you have seen in a dream; any of the exercises written here; or more formal meditations taught in a class or found in a book. The important thing is to spend time communicating with your Twilight Self.

Before you start any exercise that might put you into a light trance, Ground and Center, and tell yourself that you will be aware of any situation that might endanger you, and will be able to be completely awake at any point if you wish it. Also remind yourself that you will be completely alert, relaxed, and refreshed when you finish, and that you will be able to remember all that happened to you.

These exercises might help you to get started.

Ground and Center

Visualize yourself standing at the top of a spiral staircase. As always, do not see a picture of yourself, but be there. Below you, the stairs wind away with all the colors of the rainbow.

Put your foot on the red stair, and feel the color flowing up your leg. Taste the color.

Now step onto the orange stair, and feel the red change to orange. Taste the color. Smell it, and know what its texture is.

Continue this way until you have reached the bottom of the staircase.

There, beyond the purple stair, is a doorway. Go through the doorway and feel it seal itself behind you. You are deep within yourself now, in a very quiet and safe place.

The room you are in is perfectly round, like a sphere, like a pearl, like the inside of an eggshell.

Sit on the floor, and call your Younger Self. Use a pet name that they called you when you were a chile, one that you liked.

Turn around now.

Your Younger Self will be sitting there.

Talk to hir, or just sit with hir. Do not force anything, it will come in time. Listen to what s/he has to tell you. Take hir in your arms, and tell hir that you love hir.

When you are ready, kiss hir goodbye, and leave the room by the door you came in. Walk back up the spiral stairs, experiencing them as vividly as you did going down. When you get to the top, open your eyes. You will feel refreshed, happy, and alive; and you will remember all that happened.

This is an exercise that is particularly useful when you are under stress, or when you are upset for some reason. It doesn't hurt to do it every day if life is getting just too much for you.

Go to a quiet room, where you will not be disturbed. (If your stress is caused partly because there is no such place, try the bathroom very early in the morning.) Take your Chalice, filled with spring water, some salt, and your Athame, and sit down quietly with your feet on the floor in front of you.

With the tip of your Athame, take three measures of salt, and place them in your Chalice, stirring deosil.

Hold the Chalice close to your body, and visualize all the ugly emotions and negative energy and other things you want to be free of as flowing into the Chalice in a black, thick, gooey stream.

Now visualize the positive magick of the pure stream water and the purifying salt changing that negative energy, etc., and making it the positive equivalent. For sorrow, visualize it turning to joy; for despair, hope; for hate, love; for anger, laughter; etc. Visualize the black turning to gray, then to white, then to pure light so brilliant that it is hard to bear. When you see the light shining through your Chalice, life it to your lips, and take a sip of the water, taking all the changed, charged, positive energy back into yourself.

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