Compiled from many sources and written by Andromeda

What is Natural Magick

Magick is altering the landscape of our reality, what makes manifests change in our lives. It is a powerful force dwawn on for thousands of years in the Craft, helping to shape our lives for the better. It offers positive focus for our thoughts as we work toward our goals, permitting us to recognize that we have control over ourselves and our realities. We all have access to magick, whether witch or not. Reclaiming it as a positive, active force in our lives is possibly one of the reasons Paganism is as fast-growing as it is in these modern times. They want to take back the personal atuthority stripped from us over the centuries, better their lives, heal, comfort, and feel hope in the face of dispair. Natural Magick assists in these things.

Magick is not evil. It does not draw on the devil or anti-God as a catalyst for its success, and it does not thwart the natural laws of the Universe. No part of Wicca does, in fact. Magick is natural, driven by one's inborn willpower. Aleister Crowley, an infamous ceremonial magician of the late 19th century, defined magick as "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity to will." As Edain McCoy explains in her book Making Magick: What it is and How it Works, Crowley's use of the word science is "telling."
"The natural laws of the universe are fixed. They can not be defied even through magick. Therefore all magickal energy has to conform to these laws. The first natural law fo the universe taught to students of physics is one you probably heard in junior hight school, that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but may only change form. Throught magick we attempt to reshape energies that already exist by feeding them new energies of our choosing in order that they might grow into that which we desire. Never can we create something from nothing. The natural laws of the universe will not allow it."

Natural magick is generally defined as being that of the common people, a building process using the witch's own energy and items from nature as catalysts for change. Magick is not in these catalysts themselves, rather in the the one who draws the magick from them. The word "magick" came into English from the Greek magikos meaning "power of the magi (magicians)." The Greeks took it from an older Persian term meaning "to contro the elements." Modern witches think more in terms of "joining with" the elements to create new realities, merging with or drawing from those powers rather than dominating them.

The methods used to make Natural Magick are basically the same as the ones used thousands of years ago. Unlike the ceremonial magicians, witches rely more on the energies of the elemental world that with the inhabitants of many unseen realms to help fuel our spellwork. Ceremonial magick seeks, in principle if not in fact, to unite the magician with the divine rather than focusing on worldly goals. Our principal magickal goals have remained the same for many generations as well, goals such as manifesting love, health, protection, knowledge, and fertility. There are ways in which magick can help the Earth as well, such as working magick for goals on a larger scale like world peace, harmony, and unity.


The Role of the Elements in Natural Magick

Catalysts used during spell workings are often difficult to decide upon for a new witch as everything has an affinity and magickal correspondance with one of the four elements. Learning about eacy type of magick and magickal catalyst takes time and thought. Think of your magickal studies as you would music lessons, practice aids in proficiency, and eventually, it becomes instinctual what finger goes where to make the tune. It is the same with magick.

Pay attention to the elements of earth, air, fire and water. These elements were once thought to be the source materials fo all things that existed. For witches this is still a basic tenet of our belief. Everything in creation--all objects, ideas, creatures and plants--are primarily governed by one of these elements. When we understand the elements and their associations and affinities, we can learn to translate them into our magick.

As one begins magickal study it is a good idea to set aside some time each day to look around your environment, making a mental list of which items you feel fall under the rulership of which element. Go with your first reaction, it is often correct. Later on you can compare your feelings to popular lists, like those by Scott Cunningham, among others. No affinity is right in a sense, and it is always better to work with what you feel in your magickal workings. Some things share a dual elemental rulership, others are not really fond of any element, it seems. Record your findings in your Book of Shadows for future reference. The sooner you start making these intuitive connections between objects and events and their ruling element, the sooner you will be making successful magickal descisions.


Prerequisites of Successful Magick (by Edain McCoy)

There are generally recognized steps Witches are taught to use to create successful spells. Most long-time Witches put their own spin on them but, underneath, the steps remain basically the same from Witch to Witch, tradition to tradition, and from past to present. This magickal link with out ancient past is one of the few things we can be reasonably sure had remained constant in our ever-changing religion.

Natural magick required six basic components for sucess. This is sometimes seen as a four-part process using "to will, to dare, to know, and to keep silent" as its basis. This old formula breaks into the following six parts:
Six Steps for Successful Magick

1. Desire and need
2. Emotional involvement
3. Knowledge and realistic expectations
4. Belief
5. The ability to keep silent
6. Willingness to back up magick in the physical world

Desire and Need

One needs these to construct a plausible spell. It creates links to the wished-for outcome both on the physical and otherworldly planes. It is this otherworld, or astral plane, where spells must first take shape before they can be drawn down into physical manifestation. When you truly need and desire what you are working toward, your thought forms are powerful enough to record themselves in the astral, making them easier fo you to build on. Put very simply, they grow so "real" that they become too dense for the astral world, so they have no other choice but to manifest in the physical realm.

Emotional Involvement

Emotional involvement fuels desire and need, tightening those physical/astral links. it also creates a personal investment in the outcome intense eonlugh to all ow you to see the spell through to its end.

Knowledge and Realistic Expectations

A Witch must have enough magickal knowledge to be able to construct and appropriate spell. This includes choosing the proper words of power, having the ability to visualize corectly, and having the knowledge to select the tools and catalysts that are most compatable with the energies of the spell. Magickal timing is also important. If the astrological timing is not going to work out, a Witch has to know how to adjust the spell accordingly to take advantage of the existing astrological conditions.

Knowledge means wisdom. This means we must each know when magick is really needed and when it is best to tackle a problem by conventional means. Performing spells for every little thing will only scatter your energies, and you may find that you are unable to focus on one problem long enough to solve it. Magick works best with a clear head, a clear focus, and when life is--if not perfect--at least under some semblance of control. A witch must also be rational enough to know which magickal goals are realisitcally attainable and which are not. Any spell whose goal is in violation of the natural laws of the universe is doomed to fail from the start.

Belief

Successful Witches must believe in the outcome of their spells and have confidence in their ability to bring it into being. Magick involves a change of consciousness; it is an operation that takes place largely in the mind. This does not make the result any less real, but it does lay a myriad of obstacles in our way, all of them generated by ourselves. Because we are dealing with a mental operation, any lingering doubts floating around in that same mind will only hinder our work.

The popular Wiccan tag to end spells or rituals, "so mote it be," is another affirmation of belief in our efforts. This obsolete English phrase means "so must it be," and has for many centuries been used at the end of spells to assert their reality in the here and now. This tag line has other incarnations as well and the variation matters less than the intent behind it--that your magick must happen, and must now be a fact, because you will it so. Self-confidence is built through practice.

The Ability to Keep Silent

Keeping silent is a time-honored magickal custom that helps protect the energy we have put into our spells. There is an old occult adage that teaches "power shared is power lost." Keeping our magickal goas to ourselves allows us to focus our energy and attention on them and not on bragging about our hoped for success. Talking about your magick, even casually, to the wrong person can hamper your work if that person has a vested interest in your failure. Random negative energy cna do as much harm to your spell as could an experiences Witch deliberately whammying you with a counterspell.

Willingness to Back Up Magick in the Physical World

Magick is not an instantaneous process. The language that has evolved around it over the centuries underscores that it is a step-by-step process. We speak of spinning, weaving, casting, working, crafting, and creating to describe our spellwork. Like many of our old Goddesses who are portrayed as spinning and weaving things into creation, we as Witches also craft our magick in this painstaking, piecework way.

To sum up, magick works for only one reason: because it is the will of the Witch that it should. Successful Witches:
- Have a need they are emotionally involved with
- Have the knowledge to create the spell and the belief in themselves to see it through
- Know how to visualize the spell, creating thought forms in the unseen, or astral, world that they know only they can draw into the physical world through will and the continued feeding of energy into the effort
- Back up their magickal efforts on the physical plane
- Keep quiet about their goals
- Seek outside assistance when necessary, knowing their limits
- Keep studying their Craft and living their faith, knowing that a Witch's education is a never-ending process

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