The Magickal Personality

(Dragon Magick)

Every magician begins building her/his magickal personality as soon as she/he begins to seriously work with ritual. The magickal personality is the subconscious way the magician perceives her/himself as magician. We create these types of images all the time by the way we think of ourselves; shy, too thin, fat, not pretty enough, whatever. What we image ourselves to be, and tell ourselves mentally we are, eventually comes to pass.

Others, to whom we give power over us, can do the same thing. This programming can be quite open, with others or ourselves constantly harping on our appearance, our behavior, or our beliefs. Most people, however, are adept at the art of subliminal programming. This is a very insidious thing to do, either to ourselves or to others. It is like drops of water constantly wearing away at a stone. The single drop seems like nothing of importance, but with time the water wears a groove in the rock so that it becomes a different shape.

A magician needs to learn to choose friends and acquaintances with great care. Life is tough enough without surrounding yourself with people who belittle what you believe and do. Oftentimes it becomes necessary not to share your practices and ideas with family and friends. If they are not in agreement with your goals, they can consciously or subconsciously undermine all your efforts.

If you find yourself being self-critical too often, it is a signal that you need some inner work. Everyone has received negative or derogatory programming at some point in their life. Success comes when one can recognize it for what it is and work at weeding it out of the subconscious mind. Unfortunately, there are no instant solutions to this problem. A conscientious magician soon learns that inner work is an on-going task. It is never really finished. However, the biggest advance is made when the magician catches those programmed thoughts as they surface, recognizes them, and rejects them.

If you desire to work in the magickal field, you need to have a long talk with your inner self, not only at the beginning of your career, but at various times throughout your life. Your inner self needs to be firmly convinced that you have the right to practice magick, that it is not wrong or evil unless you have negative intentions. Even more than this, you need to feel that you can do magick. If you believe you can’t do magick, or you believe you can, you’re right! Whatever you believe, you become.

One way to convince your inner self, and your subconscious mind, that you are a magician is to assume what is called the magickal personality each time you enter your ritual area. This is first accomplished by firmly believing that you can do magick and that you have the right to do magick. You reinforce your image of your magickal self by laying aside ordinary life and donning a special robe for the ceremony. Your jewelry and ritual tools, the casting of the circle, the actual working of the ritual, all strengthen the image you build of yourself as a magician. Last, but by no means least in importance is the choosing and assuming of a magickal name.

Your magickal name is an important part of your tools and your magickal personality. The use of this name within your ritual area is a signal both to your subconscious mind and to any entities with which you work that you are prepare to switch from the everyday mode of thinking to magickal workings. The name may come to you during meditation or dreams or simply be one that appeals to you and perhaps describes your desires, attitudes, or aspirations. As with any of your magickal tools, this name can be changed at a later date if you decide you have outgrown it.

Since this special name is a key to your magickal self, share it only with those you can trust. Sharing it indiscriminately with people may place power in the wrong hands, you could find yourself under psychic attack, either to limit your magickal manifestations or to control your life. This type of attack does not necessarily have to be by another magician. Orthodox religionists are experts at using what they call prayer to control and manipulate others.

Your magickal name can be anything you want. It does not have to be the name of a deity or even belong to the history of a particular culture. The name can be made up of syllables whose sounds appeal to you and only has meaning to you alone. The Magical Name by Ted Andrews is a book published by Llewellyn (1991) that goes into a number of ways to choose a magickal name.

If you are already into the practice of magick, you very likely have such a name. You might continue to use it, or decide that you need a special one for working with dragons. Dragon magick names might be: Firebright, Flame Dancer, Wind Rider, Storm Walker, Golden Eyes, Cloud Shadow, or anything else that reminds you in some way of dragons and their attributes and activities.

Some people like to use the study of numerology to choose a name. They use either the number of their birth date or their common name to select a magickal name with the same numerical value.

To determine the numerical value of your birth date, add the numbers of the month, the day, and the year together. For example, February 10, 1961, would have a final value of 11. Some numerologists would break this down further, giving it a value of 2, but I was taught that the numbers 11 and 22 should be left ass they are.

In determining the numerical value of your name or a chosen magickal name, add together the values of all the letters. This gives you the final number or numbers as the case of 11 and 22. You must use your entire name to come up with the correct value.

1 — A person with great individuality, but can become a dictator if not careful. This person seldom if ever follows the dictates of the crowd. More often they are trend-sitters, for good or bad. Works best alones.

2 — A cooperative, sympathetic person who delights in group projects and solving problems. The diplomat who must beware becoming static through not making decisions for fear of hurting someone.

3 — Inspiration and optimism are expressions of this type of person. Also has creative and artistic abilities in some form. Beware of talking too much and doing nothing.

4 — The slow but steady builder of a career, business, relationships, whatever. Works best in a capacity of serving others. Penny-pinching and nitpicking are the extremes of this number.

5 — This person thrives on change and new things. This person can become such an advocate of new ideas that they become a pain in the neck to everyone else.

6 — Home, family, truth, and justice are very important to number 6 people. They will do whatever is necessary to have a stable life. However, they sometimes tend to be worry-warts.

7 — These people often get off to a rock start in life with many trials and tests, especially in learning to see deception. The reward for working their way through these messes is great understanding and sympathy, tempered by high spiritual ideals.

8 — This number person has the strength and talent to be an effective business and financial organizer. Although they like to acquire money and position, they should also involve themselves with charitable events.

9 — If this person disregards the responsibilities of her/his life, a career of disappointments can result. Compassion, love, and service must be their keywords. Works best where human understanding and kindness are needed.

11 — These people are happiest when they are pursuing a life or career which expresses their religious ideals in some way. A few of them choose to withdraw from the world and pursue their goals inwardly, but most of them work in areas where they can directly help others.

22 — These are the innovators on an international, community, or national scale. They are efficient organizers and communicators. Watch out for too much pride in ability.

Having a so-called numerically correct name is not necessary to magick. What you choice of name means to you inwardly is more important. Your magickal name is a vital part of the maigickal personality that you create, the image that you become when you enter your ritual area. This magickal personality is the one to which the dragons respond. As astral beings this is the real you as far as dragons are concerned.

However, the very first creature you must convince that this magickal personality exists is yourself. When you have chosen your magickal name, prepare your altar with lighted black and white candles, perhaps a sweet-smelling incense, and your dragon mirror. Dress in your robes and jewelry as if you were going to do a full dragon ritual. As with regular dragon ritual, it is important that you not be interrupted or disturbed during this time. Instead of the usual ritual proceedings, sit comfortably on a chair or stool so you can look directly into the mirror. Look straight into your reflection and say: “I am (your magickal name). I am a magician and friend of dragons.”

How did you feel as you faced yourself and spoke your name? Did the name itself make you feel uncomfortable, or was the uncomfortableness just the normal reaction of speaking to your reflection? If the name itself truly does not seem to fit, seriously consider choosing another one.

In the beginning, most magicians have to do a lot of work on themselves so that they feel at ease when putting on their magickal personality. They learn that time and ritual practice makes it easier to think of themselves as actual magicians with power.

Weed out any negative past programming that arises from the subconscious mind to tell you you are unworthy, that you cannot do magick, that magick is not real, that magick is evil. Every time a negative thought such as these arises, look straight at your reflection in the mirror and answer it out loud. Take as long as necessary to squash these negatives. You may find yourself having a one-sided conversation with a person who has put you down in one way or another throughout your life. If yelling at that person while looking into your mirror works, then yell! The important thing is to get a clear picture of the negatives hiding within you, those subtle little and not so little pieces of programming that make you doubt yourself in more than just the field of magick.

The ultimate goal is to reach a point in your mirror talk where you can tell yourself that you can, and will, rise above this type of control placed upon you by others. Rise above it, and release it. You may find that your immediate most damaging enemy is yourself. Like Pogo said, “We have met the enemy, and they is us.” Stop setting personal goals which are based on comparing yourself with someone else. You are a unique individual with your special needs, desires, goals and dreams.

When you are comfortable with your personal mirror work and speaking your magickal name, it is time to present yourself as that magickal personality to your dragons. When your ritual area is prepared, when you are dressed in your robes and stand at the center of your circle, call out your name to your dragon co-magicians as you greet them. By trusting your dragon allies with this secret name, you are strengthening the trust you hope to build with them. As you share with them, so they will share with you. Dancing with dragons is an experience of friendship built on trust and caring.

“Dancing With Dragons”

D. J. Conway