Do You Believe in Magic?

Oh, and finding money on the pavement!

(unless you are agreeing w.my defn in a roundabout way: ie he did a thing which caused everyone to love him, but what it was no one can quite say)

now THAT'S gotta be magic! ^_^

Maybe it's because it's two in the morning and I'm *still* sat in front of a computer, but that made me so sad and so happy.

Felicity: felicitous moment #1: Magicbane works best when enchanted to +2. That yields the optimal combination of stun, purge and probe attacks and +2 hit damage.

Radcliffe and Maconie start their show with it!

but it's still good

I recently found this amazing book "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin The Mage":

http://www.sacred-texts.com/grim/abr/index.htm

It's written by a 16th century Jewish mystic named Abraham who tells of his travels in Europe, Arabia, and Africa in search of The Sacred Magic which is Cabbalic and the one true magic system. He find a magician named Abramelin in Arabia and ends up with a book of 30 spells and detailed instructions on how to prepare for and execute all kind of magic. 2/3 of the book is the magic system itself as described by this guy.

Basically you prepare by living piously, by fasting, etc basically keeping yourself and your magic area pure and holy. He stresses over and over that it will not work unless you are 100% firm in your faith and devotion to God, whatever religious system you were brought up in. On the day of the operation you take all your stuff from this altar you have built, and this magic circle, and perform all kinds of rituals. Praising God, prayer, writing of Symbols, lighting of incense, consecration of magic artifacts such as a wand, etc. You are visited by your Guardian Angel, who gives further detailed instructions on the secrets of this Sacred Magic that are left out of this book and probably are specific to each person and each person's angel.

The next day you summon the four Superior Spirits, who are LUCIFER, LEVIATAN, SATAN, and BELIAL, and command them to submit unto you and perform the tasks that you require. This is where your devotion to the One True God comes in, for they have fallen and they will try and bring you down if your faith is not strong enough. There are a number of ways they do this, it says, from literally questioning you to appearing in forms so hideous and demonic and terrifying that it instantly drives you insane. If the Superior Spirits asks you for a sacrifice, you are supposed to say "The only sacrifices are for the One True God", etc.

Because your magic area is protected you must stay inside the magic circle at all times while convoking and confronting these Spirits. The book says that once a magician accidentally stepped outside of the circle and was instantly killed by what appeared to be sparks of electricity.

Once you dominate the Chief Spirits you go down the hierarchy of The Eight Sub-Princes and then lists of angels and demonic beings, some of which are well-known names from Cabbalicism, some of which are Spirits you discover while doing these magical operations. Infinite in number, hundreds of these Servitors of the Superior Spirits are detailed in a huge and wonderful list in this book with the linguistic origin of their names. For instance, SARAPH, from Hebrew, which means "to burn, or devour with fire", or TACHAN, also from Hebrew, for "grinding to powder". Certain Spirits can help you with certain magical operations so it is important to know which ones to convoke, and write them down in a sort of magical casting call.

I'm still only half-way through the book, but the 30 magical operations are seem pretty amazing. Each one comes with a series of variations on the spell, all with different Symbols (diagrams of the letters) of these Spirits that you are supposed to convoke. They sort of look like crossword puzzels! For instance, the chapter about flying has different Symbols for flying through the air in 1) a black cloud 2) a white cloud 3) in the form of an Eagle 4) in the form of a crow or raven 5) in the form of a vulture and 6) in the form of a crane. There is a spell that produces a vision of a Unicorn or a Dragon. There is a spell to walk upon the water. There are 20+ love spells.

The 22nd Chapter is 'Only for Evil', and includes one spell with the only description being that it "should never be made use of".

My friend and I got real into that book in middle school! We were super bummed when we found out you have to, like, spend years apprenticed to a master magician in the desert to effectively perform the ceremonies. Or something like that.

It's sooooo much more straight-forward than anything I've read by Crowley! It's actually a really easy read too.

I think it says you have to start preparing for six months before the operation. Interestingly, he also sets an age limit, the ideal magician being older than 25 and less than 50 or 55.

"He stresses over and over that it will not work unless you are 100% firm in your faith and devotion to God, whatever religious system you were brought up in."

This pissed us off cause it meant we had to be Christians again.

Magic is when you piss in the wind and it goes into the face of Michelle Bachman

Yeah Abraham stresses practicing in the religion you were raised in, regardless of what you currently believe. There is a footnote from the author/translator disagreeing with him tho.

Magic is always reducable to magical thinking rather than magical actions. My favorite form of magic is the common one of clouding the minds of the weak with a spell of glamor, making the weaver of the spell appear desirable to the recipient of the spell. Pick up any magazine and you can see it in action.