Nathaniel - 27 May

by Nathaniel

The Essentials of Magick. A Complete Guide to Common Elements of All Magical Systems Copyright (c) 2013 by Nathaniel
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the author.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 978-83-935633-3-3
Self-published under the A State of Mind brand, an official website of the author.
A State of Mind (http://astateofmind.eu )
Email: nathan@astateofmind.eu
Wegierska Gorka, 2013
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Additional Credit:
Primary font for title and A State of Mind's Logo: Fertigo, by Exljbri. Additional font: OptimusPrinceps, by Manfred Klein. Gentium font: http://scripts.sil.org/gentium

Acknowledgement

I'd like to acknowledge Agnieszka Cupak, Tomek Mankin and Pawel Gajewski, for great help with general ideas of magick they offered me.

My gratitude to Arkadiusz Lisiecki for sharing his knowledge of Reiki, Buddhism and Taoism concepts.

I had many teachers, lesser and greater, some of them on-line, some of them off-line. Thank you all!

Finally, my gratitude to all my students and people interested in magick, who asked question, to which I provided answers. Their curious minds hungry for magical knowledge helped me decide what should be included in this book.

Disclaimer

The information presented in this book has been carefully researched and passed on to my best knowledge and conscience. Despite this fact, neither the author or the publisher assume any type of liability for presumed or actual damages of any kind that might result from the direct or indirect application or use of the statements in this book.

The information in this book is solely intended for interested readers and educational purposes and should in no way be understood as diagnostic or therapeutic instructions in the medical or psychological sense.

Magick is neither simple nor safe it's an art that requires patience, inner strength and emotional stability.

As author, I do not even pretend to write a universal book about magick I even believe it is impossible to do so. In this work, I have explained the commons of most magical and spiritual traditions. The basics: the existence of spirits, the need for magical cleansing, grounding, the basics of magical self-defense and similar elements, are common for all systems. The theory of magick, energies and such is general, and I understand that some people will not agree with my words. Still, I hope that those who are beginners, will find the techniques and knowledge from this book useful and that this knowledge will keep them safe on the first steps of their journey until they find more effective techniques by themselves.

In this book, you'll find quite few references to Reiki, mainly in footnotes. This is so because I practice and teach Reiki, and this school of spiritual thought is close to my heart.

Preface

For the past ten years I explored different schools of magick and destructive arts of black magick. By gaining knowledge and experience over time, I've realized that these different schools of magical thought have many elements in common. Elements that are essential for successful and safe practice. And yet, at the same time I was never able to find a proper book that would introduce me to the very basics of all magical practices these basics that are common for Chaos Magick, Wicca, Reiki, Huna and hundreds of other systems.

What I could find was a large set of books entitled "introduction to magick", yet what these books represented was all but the essentials. All of these books were circling around the Western arts of ceremonial magick, mixed with Wiccan witchcraft, and rarely any of these books managed to go deeper into the subject of correlations between different schools from different areas of the world. Thus, I had to learn everything by myself. Which I eventually did, after battling countless numbers of personal demons of my mind, and quite physical (energetically) malicious spirits that thought of me as of pray that can be fed upon.

Thus, I've learned a lot in the past nine years, and because of this, I decided to write down what I know in this book, and to share my knowledge with those who make their first steps on the path of magick magick of different schools. Because it doesn't matter if you practice Huna, Reiki, Wicca or classic European ceremonial magick. The basics, the essentials, are still the same.

Some people believe that magick experiences are subjective, and personal, that they have no objective elements and that everything can be explained only from a subjective perspective. In the result, in the eyes of many people there is no such thing as the set-in-stone collection of basics for magical arts. But the truth is that whether you curse someone with Christian magick, Wicca ritual or ceremonial technique, the effect will be the same; and whether you make a Norse god, or forest spirit, or Buddhist demon angry, you will get a punch into your "third eye".

Some people do not wish to admit it, but there are some common basics for every magical system in the world, basics which you need to learn if you do not wish to get possessed and your life destroyed. This book is not sweet, nor colored with rainbow I show you things as they are. And you should definitely learn about them if you wish to remain safe in the world of magick or esoteric arts of different sorts. Because in esoteric arts, whether you call number #1 "one", "jeden", "uno" or "un", it's still number 1, and 1+1 equals 2, no matter how do you pronounce it.

So, this book is not sugar-coated, not at all.

In every tradition, there are some similar effects because the world of magick and the way in which magick works is always the same the terms and practices might be different, though. This book has been written in such way that after reading it, you can figure out practices related to your own schools of thoughts, and understand which paths that you walk miss some important, almost mandatory practices.

This work is not a guidebook to any specific esoteric path. Rather, it is a guidebook that explains the basic commons of every tradition, from Wicca to Buddhism. I'm going to explain the archetypes of energies and entities from ghosts to gods. Then, you're going to learn about the tools of the trade incenses, candles and more. All of this will be supported by examples and stories from my own practice, and practice of people I have met as friends and teachers.

Although I understand that this book won't suit everyone, I hope that most readers will benefit from it; thus that they'll be able to understand what they're missing in their practice, and why some practices that they've learned are important for their safety and success.

Who Is This Book For?

The word "magick" in this book's title might be misleading, so I wish to explain who is this book for. Not only practitioners of European magick will benefit from this work actually, anyone who is interested in modern magick, occult or spiritual work, like the one promoted by New Age movement, should read this book. It is because everyone who is dealing with things like energy healing; law of attraction; manifestation; rituals; summoning; spirit communication; channeling; divination and even spiritual development, deals with energies and entities, as well. And because of this, one must know the basics that are common for every magical or spiritual schools.

Thus, this book is for: