The Four Stages Of Magick

Although there are many different kinds of magick, in practice all spells and more formal magical
rituals tend to follow four stages, though informal spells may combine one or more steps.

The Focus
This defines the purpose of the ritual or spell and is generally represented either by a symbol or a
declaration of intent. These could take the form of a candle etched with the name or zodiacal glyph of
a desired lover, a little silver key charm or an actual key in a spell to find a new home, a picture of an
ideal holiday location, and so on.

In a sense, this part of the spell begins before the actual rite and involves verbalising the purpose. As
you define it in a few words or a symbol, you may realise that what you are really seeking lies beyond
the immediate external purpose. Spending time at this stage is quite vital as it is said we tend to get
what we ask for, so we should take care to ask for what would truly fulfil our potential, rather than
what we think we need immediately.

If you are working alone, hold the symbol while speaking words that summarise the purpose of the
magick. You may be surprised to discover that it is your wise psyche speaking, guiding the intention
towards what you truly need or desire – and afterwards you realise it could have been no other way.

If you are working in a group, a declaration of intent, created by the group collectively before the
ritual, is a good way of focusing the energies. After the initial circle is cast, the symbol can be handed
round while the person leading the ritual speaks the intention. Alternatively, each person can add his
or her special interpretation while holding the symbol and so the declaration is worked as part of the
ritual. As others are holding the symbol, visualise it within your own hands; this provides the
transition to the next stage of the ritual.

Concentration is the key to this first stage.

The Action
This is the stage where you use actions to endow the symbol with magical energies. This is part of the
continuous process of translating your magical thoughts and words from the first stage, the inner plan,
to manifestation as the impetus for success or fulfilment in the everyday world. These energies
amplify your own. For example, passing incense, representing the Air element, over the symbol
activates the innate power of rushing winds that cut through inertia and bring welcome change,
harnessing the energies of wide skies in which there are no limits, soaring like eagles, carrying your
wishes to the Sun. You can unite other elemental forces by using the appropriate tools and substances.

Similarly, you might begin a chant, a medley of goddess names or a mantra of power linked with the
theme, or a slow spiral dance around the circle. You could try drumming or tying knots either on
individual cords or in a group, creating a pattern with the longer cords of fellow witches, perhaps
looped around a tree.

The action of the magick is limited only by the environment and your imagination. You may find that
improvisation enters quite spontaneously as the energies unfold and spiral.

Movement is the key to this stage.

Raising The Power
This is the most powerful part of the magick, as the magical energies are amplified and the power of
the ritual carries you along joyously. Ecstasy forms a major part of shamanic ceremony and the old
mystery religions; it is akin to the exhilaration you experience riding on a carousel or running barefoot
along a sandy shore with the wind lifting your hair.

You might repeat a chant of power, dance faster, drum with greater intensity, bind your cords in ever
more intricate patterns or add more knots if working alone, visualising a cone of spiralling, coloured
light, rising and increasing in size and intensity as this stage progresses.

Stretch your arms and hands vertically as high as possible to absorb power from the cosmos. If you
are in a group and have been linking hands, as the power increases to a great intensity, this is the time
to loose them.

As the power builds, you will create what is known as a cone of power. The cone-shaped hats
traditionally associated with witches and bishops’ mitres reflect the concentration of spiritual potency.
The purpose of the cone, like the sacred pyramid, is to concentrate energy in a narrowing shape so that
it reaches a pinnacle of power, which can then be released at the end of the ritual to carry your wishes
or desires into the cosmos. In order to create a cone of power in magick, you can visualise these
energies as coloured light or as gold.

Alternatively, you can visualise different rainbow colours to create a cone of every colour that merges
to brilliant white at the apex. In healing work, some people see this as silver blue light that becomes
brilliant.

Whether working alone or in a group, as you build up the power, breathe in pure white light and
exhale and project your chosen colour, seeing it become ever more vibrant and faster-moving as the
intensity increases. After you have been practising magick for a while, you will notice that the cone of
colour builds up quite spontaneously, with no apparent effort. It has also been described as a cloud of
energy. At the point when the climax is reached, comes the release of power.

Note that for some people the cone concept interferes with their own natural magical abilities – some
of the most skilled witches and healers see circles of light, shimmering golden beams or rainbows
with their psychic eye. Some see nothing at all, but instead feel power pushing their feet almost off the
ground.

Growth is the key to this stage.

Release Of Power
When you release the power in the final stage, you may see the cone exploding and cascading as
coloured stars or light beams, which surge away into the cosmos and break into brilliant rainbow
colours.

If you wish, you can direct the energy after the final release of power by pointing with your hands, or
a wand or knife, so that the energies cascade horizontally and downwards, for example into herbs on
the altar that you are empowering to make into herb sachets. Or you can direct the cascading energies
in a specific direction, perhaps towards a person who is ill or in need of magical strength.

Release is the key at this stage.

This release may take the form of a final shout, a leap, or words. As you extinguish your candle of
need, you may shout:

 
It is free, the power is mine!

Or, at the point of release, you may throw your extended hands wide in an arc above your head. If the
ceremony is formal and you are using an athame, you can at this moment bring it in front of you to
mark the invisible cutting of the knot holding the power. Pull your visualised or actual knots tight, cut
them, leap into the air, shouting:

The Power is free! or It is done! Sometimes there is just a sudden stillness, as the power leaves.

Afterwards, you need to ground the energies by sitting or lying on the ground and letting excess
energies fade away into the Earth as you press down with your hands and feet

A Practical Guide to Witchcraft and Magic Spells
By Cassandra Eason

The Purposes Of White Magick

There are three distinct and yet related types of magick, all of which can be used informally, in spells,
or formally, in ceremonial rituals.

Personal Magick
As I have already said, it is quite permissible to use magick to empower your personal needs, though
this does not bring lottery wins or the object of your romantic fantasies delivered gift-wrapped to your
door. Magick has traditionally encompassed material needs, and spirituality is very difficult to achieve
at a time when there is a crisis of physical need or emotional shortfall in your life. For example, in
days when having sufficient food and heating was an ongoing concern, abundance for the coming
winter months was a prime focus of Mabon, the harvest festival at the autumn equinox. Many kitchen
witches would carry out private spells using the equinox energies, to empower talismans and cast
spells to ensure their own family would survive the inhospitable months of winter.

In the modern world, concerns are different, but no less urgent, and for many of us still centre on the
home, family and employment. We need money to fulfil obligations, help for a child who is studying
for exams or perhaps suffering bullying, a partner to share joys and sorrows, better health for
ourselves and our loved ones. There are subjects for spells for yourself, your partner or lover, your
children, close relatives and friends. They are usually the strongest in terms of emotion and so can be
very simply carried out at home, in the garden or on the balcony, often with everyday items.

Magick For Others
You may, however, wish to carry out rituals for people or groups with whom you are less intimately
involved, who are vulnerable or to whom you relate in a caring, social or a professional capacity.
These might include the people in your workplace, a sick neighbour, or a colleague you know is
unhappy or worried; or perhaps it could be an animal park or environmental project that is under
threat or needs help financially, legally or practically or even a local disaster.

As you send out loving or healing energies, so you will receive them in return, often in unexpected
ways or perhaps at some future time when you yourself are vulnerable. This is part of the cosmic
banking system and in practice there is considerable overlap between this and personal spells.

Magick To Increase Positivity
These are the least focused kind of spells. They are used to send out energies to whoever needs them,
for example of love, happiness, health or abundance. They may be for an endangered species, a wartorn
land, a country in need of water or the planet itself. If a large number of people do send positive
energies either to a large-scale project or into the cosmos, followed where possible by practical help
or support, then this can really make a difference. Again, by sending out healing you will receive in
return threefold healing in indirect but powerful ways.

 A Practical Guide to Witchcraft and Magic Spells
By Cassandra Eason

Different Kinds Of Magick

What is certain is that whether folk customs or more formal ceremonies are used, the underlying
principles of all types of white magick are the same throughout the world, and can be categorised
under the following headings.

Sympathetic Magick
This involves performing a ritual that imitates what you would desire in the outer world, so bringing
on to the material plane a desire or need or wish from the inner or thought plane. This is done using
appropriate tools and symbols. So in a spell for the gradual increase of money, for example, you might
grow a pot of basil seedlings (a herb of prosperity) and light a green candle.

Contagious Magick
This involves transferring and absorbing power directly from a creature or an object, such as an
animal, a bird, a crystal, a metal, the wax of an empowered candle or even the Earth itself. This
principle is central to the potency of talismans and amulets; for example, traditionally, hunters might
wear the pelt of a lion to bring them the beast’s courage and ferocity. So, by the same token, if you
wished to become pregnant, you might make love in a newly ripening cornfield (near the edge so as
not to damage the crops); alternatively, you might try one of the ancient power sites of Earth, close to
the phallus of the chalk Cerne Abbas fertility giant that is carved in the hillside at Cerne in Dorset.

Attracting Magick
This type of magick embraces both sympathetic and contagious magick to bring you something you
desire. For example, you could scatter pins across a map between the places you and a lover live and
with a magnet collect them, while reciting:

Come love, come to me, love to me come, if it is right to be.

You would then place your pins in a silk, heart-shaped pincushion or a piece of pink silk, also in the
shape of a heart, and leave it on the window ledge on the night of the full moon, surrounded by a
circle of rose petals.

Banishing And Protective Magick
This involves driving away negative feelings, fears and influences by casting away or burying a focus
of the negativity. For example, you might scratch on a stone a word or symbol representing some bad
memories you wished to shed, and cast the stone into fast-flowing water. Alternatively, you could
bury it, together with quick-growing seeds or seedlings to transform the redundant into new life.

Binding Magick
Binding magick has two functions, one to bind a person in love or fidelity and the other to bind
another from doing harm. This may be done in various ways, using knots in a symbolic thread, or by
creating an image of the object or person and wrapping it tightly. But all binding can be problematic
in terms of white magick, for whatever method you use, you are very definitely interfering with the
person’s karma, or path of fate.

However, it is tempting to think that if someone is hurting animals, children, the sick or elderly, you
may be justified in binding them. And what if your partner has deserted you on the whim of passion,
taking all the money and leaving you and your children penniless? These are very real dilemmas; in
dealing with them, I have always performed such rituals adding the proviso”… if it is right to do so.
‘

I believe that it is essential to include that phrase in all binding magic rituals.

My friend Lilian, a white witch and healer, used to wrap the perpetrators of crimes in a mantle of pink
and visualise them in a sea of tranquillity so that they might be diverted from a destructive course of
action. However, I usually cast a protective barrier around the victims and I think this is the best
answer to a very difficult problem. We must harm none, not even the evil, hard though it is, and we
should leave the punishment to natural justice.

In my own experience, few who find happiness at the expense of others achieve more than temporary,
superficial pleasure, and in time they do seem to end badly. We should never use magick in order to
act as judge and jury. After all, some who do act badly do so only out of unhappiness or ignorance.
 

A Practical Guide to Witchcraft and Magic Spells
By Cassandra Eason

Folk Magick And Ritual Magick

Whether you are casting a simple spell, using items from your kitchen cupboard, or performing a
complicated group ceremony, the source of the power behind it is the same. Every spell or ritual
involves channelling the life force that runs through all forms of existence and transforming it into
higher spiritual energies. These spiritual powers include our own evolved self, which some say is
formed through many lifetimes, and the higher divine cosmic energies, such as a supreme god or
goddess, or, more abstractly, some sort of divine light, spirit and goodness.

Magick for healing, it must be said, is not so far removed from the prayers of conventional religions,
whose positive influence is well documented. The same effect can be created whatever the focus or
faith, and I know from personal experience that positive results can be achieved when a Wiccan coven
sends healing light to a sick member or a friend.

For hundreds of years, angels have been invoked in magick, just as in religion, both for protection and
to act as vehicles for healing or positive energies. Practitioners of white magick may focus on
particular aspects of a god or goddess figure, or benign power, personified through different deities
from many age and cultures.

When I began practising magick ten years ago, I found it very artificial to invoke a goddess who
belonged to another time and culture. However, I have since found that such symbols do hold a great
deal of power and therefore can concentrate specific energies. I have listed in Chapter 4 a number of
deities that seem to be especially potent in ritual or as a focus for meditation. But if you do not find
them helpful, there is no need to use them.

In past time, the well-being of the planet was considered to be the responsibility of peasant as well as
king through paying tributes and enacting age-old ceremonies to invoke the necessary energies for the
Wheel of the Year to turn. So individual prosperity or fertility was attained both through private spells
and charms and by sending positive energies to the Earth and the cosmos and, in a sense, receiving
bounty as those beams were amplified and returned to the sender.

Folk or domestic magick was an important part of people’s everyday lives right up until the nineteenth
century. In rural areas, the implements used in and around the home and garden could be easily
adapted for use in magick; and for town-dwellers, flowers and herbs could be gathered on a day in the
country or grown on allotments or in urban back gardens.

In the days before central heating systems, the focus of the home was the family hearth. Focus is Latin
for ‘hearth’ and from Ancient Rome to China, the household deities have always had their place, being
offered morsels of food, nectar and flowers and consulted on family happenings.

It was believed that the ancestors as well as the living gathered around the family hearth, and so it
became a natural focus for magick. The witches’ cauldron started off as the iron cooking pot that hung
over the fire (such pots are still used in country regions of Europe – I saw one for sale quite recently in
the market in Rouen in France).

Herbal brews were not only created to cure coughs and colds but also, with magical words spoken
over them, transformed into potions to bring a desired lover, employment or an unexpected helping
hand in times of sorrow. A grandmother would put any small coins she could spare into a money pot
and warm it near the fire to ‘incubate’ the money into sufficient to mend the roof or buy new coats for
the winter.

A young wife eager to be pregnant would secretly prick a fertilised hen’s egg with a needle on the
night of the full moon immediately before making love. Such actions were quite a normal part of life,
a way of tapping into the same energies that made the cattle fertile and the corn set seed.

Farmers would leave milk for the faeries that they might bring good fortune, young girls recited love
charms while planting herbs in soil embedded with a would-be lover’s footprint. On Hallowe’en,
housewives opened their windows and placed garlic on the window ledge so that only the good family
dead might enter and take shelter from the cold.

This simple folk magick, rather than ceremonial magick, forms the basis for the majority of spells. As
above, so below’, the words of the semi-divine father of magick, Hermes Trismegistos, may originally
have evolved from popular magick that is practised in many different cultures around the world to this
day. They are certainly as applicable today as they ever were.

Whatever the aim of your magick may be, if you look around your home, garden, workshop or even
office, you have the necessary tools for the spells you require. What is more, rooted as they are in
domesticity and the daily world, these implements could not be safer: fruit, vegetables, salt, sand,
seeds, flowers, coins, pots and jars, together with your crystals, candles, incense and oils, and perhaps
a few coloured scarves or ribbons to tie knots. Whether your spell is small and personal, or vast and
universal, whether you are working to attract love, harmony in the home, prosperity or fertility for
yourself or loved ones, for people in the wider environment or the planet, these are all you need.
 

A Practical Guide to Witchcraft and Magic Spells
By Cassandra Eason