Stories and Magic

Would you like to hear a secret about magic?

Well I mean, it's not really a secret because I've kind of mentioned this before. But just to reiterate: magic is about story, and stories are sometimes the most powerful acts of magic out there.

As a culture, we do not have nearly enough respect for stories and the powerful magic they bring. Nor do we really respect the role of story in the magic we create. Some people stick to the tried and true pre-generated stories of grimoire rituals. Other people make their own magic and lean into teleology, or "the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise".

In short, we create correspondence lists and talk about how "this does that" and never the *why*. We create long explanations about how materia magica exists on various levels and the rays of energy they have rather than considering the possibility that they too at some point had origins stories and perhaps even horoscopes in the same way we do. We see our spells and rituals as an ingredients list and recipe rather than a theatrical production with setting, cast, and props.

For most people, this serves as a handy shorthand - after all, it can be pretty exhausting to think about your crystals and whatnot having horoscopes, moreover the scope for sliding into ridiculousness there is pretty large.

If my amber is solar, does that make it a Leo? What about its rising sign and moon sign? Would the Leo daily horoscope apply to my amber necklace then too?

See? All of that sounds quite ridiculous. But to be quite honest, it can get quite ridiculous when it gets to people as well.

So the shortcuts aren't necessarily bad, but when we move away from the idea of origins stories (however they may look) and move into teleology, we divest everyone and everything we work with of both agency and story.

 But just what are you doing when you create a spell?

You're essentially looking for a way to change story. It doesn't matter whether it's your story or someone else's story, it's all story. You're trying to change a narrative by means of some form of outside help.

So when it comes to your magic, the ability to visualize the story you wish to create in a clear, realistic, and concise manner is essential.  How can you work for what you cannot see or imagine? How can you create story if you cannot even envision the story moving on or even realize that that's what you're really doing? How can you move that story on without feeling like you have the permission to do so in the first place?

And yet I think that's where a lot of people find themselves nowadays (both magically and politically).

Unfortunately, I'm yet to see any discussion of these 'story-related' issues among magic workers - not even within the context of shadow work. And that's quite weird when you think about it, because the ability to imagine better in a way that won't take forever, or that isn't just completely impossible without some significant actions on your part is pretty key.

This is also where the shadow gets us here too. Because if you cannot imagine better, you probably have some shadows that need to be worked with rather than being left to grow bigger and affect your life by feeding off of every self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

In closing, I'd like to leave you with a tweet that Conner Habib put out in 2017. It pertains to politics, but the sentiment is just as relevant to the stories we tell with our magic.

“Resistance is not enough. Create new dimensions, ways to think, possibility. Otherwise what we’re resisting will be what gives us our meaning.”