Sarah Lyons - How to Study Magic: A Guide to History, Lore, and Building Your Own Practice

I REMEMBER SO CLEARLY THE DAY I FIRST LEARNED MAGIC WAS REAL.

I was being driven home by my parents when an NPR story on witches in America came on the radio. They talked about something called Wicca and people who cast spells and worshipped ancient gods. As someone who had always wished those things were real but was told they werent, I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

As soon as we got home, I ran up to our familys computer (this was back in the days when you only had one, if any at all), got online, and began to google everything I could about Wicca, witchcraft, and magic.

Its now more than a decade later and I havent stopped searching and studying, but I have learned a thing or two. Ive also had the privilege to watch the magical world changefirst from afar, then in the thick of itover the last several years. How I studied magic when I was younger isnt how people study it today, and in a lot of ways Im jealous of the wealth of information young witches now have.

However, even with all this information in our pockets, I dont think studying magic has become any less confusing. In fact, in some ways it has become even more so. So many videos, tiktoks, blog posts, books, articles, and tweets get made every second that it can be overwhelming for newcomers and difficult to parse out the good information from the not so good.

Occult means hidden, and while nothing seems to be hidden these days, the occult has managed to stay a hard topic to grasp. Ive seen a lot of magical novices either get so overwhelmed that they back away entirely or get sidetracked down a path that maybe isnt right for them. While your studies of magic and the occult are never really done, I just dont think it has to be so difficult to start.

The idea for this book came when I was trying to answer the question I probably get asked the most: How do you start doing this stuff? Its a question that makes me madlike, get out of my seat, rip off my microphone, and walk off the stage mad. But its not because its a bad question, but instead a very good one that doesnt really have an answer. What am I supposed to say? Go read about ten thousand books, do some psychedelics, and maybe live in the woods for a few years? That doesnt seem like a satisfying or practical answer for most people. There are so many amazing resources out there on magic, and some great introductory books on specific paths and ideas, but there are very few good books for beginners that look at magic as a whole, because magic is such an individual undertaking.

Theres no one way to practice magic, but there are better and worse ways to study it. Basic knowledge of history and context goes a long way in helping you decode the teachings of others as you decide what you want your own practice to look like. I like to think of magic as a way of actively engaging in conversation with the spiritual reality of the cosmos, but its hard to have a conversation when you cant speak the language. Basically, I want this book to help you understand what the hell youre looking at next time you walk into an occult bookstore.

This isnt like most books on magic, and it isnt like most books on history either. Part of practicing magic is knowing what youre doing and why youre doing it, and part of knowing what youre doing is actually practicing it. You (perhaps ironically considering the book in your hands) cant study magic by just readingyou have to try things out. Thats why each of the main chapters in this book ends with an activity to try and journal prompts to help you reflect on the things youve just learned. Its also why well go over some basic magical techniques before we get into the main sections on the different branches of magic. I want this to be a book you can actively engage with, because thats how magic is best learned.

Were living in a very strange time, one in which were awash in a sea of information, but often have been given very poor tools to navigate it and weather the occasional storm. This wont be the last book on magic you readand it might not even be your firstbut if you are new to this world, my hope is that this book provides you a compass to use as you find your way.

S o why do you want to study magic anyway?

This might seem like an obvious question, but in my opinion its a very important one to ask yourself, not just once, but fairly often, as a way to check in with yourself. Its a question Ill bring up again and again as we go through this book. Why study magic? What do you want to get out of a magical practice? What is your life lacking right now that you think magic can give you?

The reason these questions are important is because they will help clarify what you should study and concentrate on. If you need a job fast or have a landlord you need to placate, witchcraft might be a better fit than ceremonial magic. On the other hand, if you are looking for a deep, spiritual, devotional practice, practical spells might not leave you satisfied.

Its also likely that your answer to this question will change over time. When I was a kid, I wanted to do magic because I wanted to gain control over my life, but as I studied and grew, I realized I also wanted a way to understand the world and an ideology that could help me navigate through life.

Its also very possible that you dont know the answer to this question yet. Maybe you just feel a calling to magic. Thats great too! Maybe this is the witch in me speaking, but I think of magic as the weeds poking through modernitys concrete. We can try to pave over this disorderly stuff as much as we want, but it will keep popping upand you might be one of the places its coming through.

Another question I get asked a lot (almost as much as how do I study this stuff?) is, why is magic so popular now? Usually, I get the feeling that people want me to give them some answer about how magic is a reaction to a world we dont understand or have control over and that in times of crisis people are drawn to magic. Theres an argument to be made there, I suppose, but in this question I also sense an underlying assumption that sees magic as only a societal reaction, merely a fantasy that emerges when things get dark. Perhaps we should tell the people who built the pyramids or discovered gravity that they didnt understand anything about the world either and were just reacting to chaos. The truth is, magic is about knowing that reality is a two-way street, and I wouldnt always call that a comforting, or reactionary, thought.