Magic for the Resistance
Page 9
The NRA turned against the kids, denying their sincerity, questioning their maturity, calling them naive and misguided, and suggesting they were pawns of radical socialists and fanatics who wanted to repeal the Second Amendment and disarm all citizens. Encouraged by decades of the NRA’s fear- and conspiracy-mongering and aided by the sewer-dwellers of 4chan and other online propaganda mills, the young activists were tarred as “crisis actors” and the deaths of seventeen young people deemed a hoax.
I had reached my breaking point. After years of advocating for gun control and contributing to groups fighting the NRA, I swore I would do what was necessary to prevent one more drop of innocent blood from being shed in the name of gun manufacturers’ lust for profits. I wasn’t alone. Many people sensed that this was more than just another school shooting that would be mollified with the usual conservative “thoughts and prayers” before fading from public consciousness. Those like me who had finally had enough were drawing a line.
But the NRA seemed impossible to defeat, entrenched as it was in the halls of power in Washington, DC, and in statehouses across the country. For years, organizations had lobbied for improved background checks, banning of assault-styled semiautomatic rifles, and raising the age to purchase guns—only to be soundly defeated, again and again, by the NRA and the lawmakers it buys with blood money.
While thoughts and prayers do not bring back the dead or stop future massacres, hexes, I believe—especially when cast by large numbers of committed people—can drive a stake through the heart of a wicked organization. At the very least, I felt we had to try.
As previously stated, I’m averse to cursing and hexing, as I believe magic is best employed as a tool for healing and creating positive change. But I’m also averse to watching the needless slaughter of innocent children because the NRA has bought our government with its piles of industry money and spends millions to silence all opposition. Hexes and curses are a magician or witch’s last resort, when you’ve tried everything else and bad shit keeps happening.
I’m not willing to watch the NRA take one more life.
So don’t hex until you’ve exhausted all other options. But when all other options fail and the cost of failure is measured in innocent lives, don’t be afraid to do what you need to do.
Protection and Defense
Resistance has never been safe or easy. Regressive and reactionary forces do not like challenges to their authority. Entrenched power resists all attempts to undermine or dethrone it. And those who wield power often control the military, the police, the criminal justice system, and the media. The more authoritarian the government, the more brutality it unleashes on its critics.
Yet resistance movements, whose primary weapons are nonviolence, truth, justice, and morality, have beaten back and overthrown tyrannical regimes time and time again.
Nonetheless, it is prudent to take precautions to ensure your personal safety as well as the safety of your fellow activists and your community. We all know basic safety common sense—securing our homes, using caution in unfamiliar places, and avoiding direct provocation of violent people. But magical protection is largely unknown outside of covens, shamanic traditions, and occultism.
It’s time we changed that.
Protection magic includes a number of practices, tools, and techniques, such as prayer and blessings, magically shielded space, wards and guardians, amulets and talismans, and banishings and bindings. Let’s look at each of them.
Prayer and Blessings
Calling upon the assistance of deity is a time-honored means of protection, and the old saying about the lack of atheists in foxholes has an element of truth. Even if you’re an atheist or agnostic, however, the act of prayer can have positive effects—so just aim your prayer at the universe at large.
If you do believe in God or gods, your choice of which of them to work with is enormous. If you’re polytheistic, look for gods that are aligned with the subject of your activism. If you feel like your task is daunting, you may want to request the assistance of a road-opener like Ganesha or Papa Legba. If you’re doing LGBTQ+ activism, you may want to petition Aphrodite, Dionysus, Sappho, Erzulie Dantor, or Pan.
Research gods and other spiritual entities (such as angels, saints, and elementals) to find an appropriate deity, or go with those your tradition suggests. But I always advise prayer, especially when doing spells involving binding or hexing, as a bit of a safeguard against potential unintended consequences or negative stickiness.
You can also petition your ancestors or the spirits of activists who have gone before us. Many African American spiritual activists call upon Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and other slain civil rights leaders to lend a hand in their works for racial equality and justice.
I also like to anoint myself with protective oil while invoking the blessing of deity. Use Hyssop Oil or my favorite Power Oil (see pages 143–144).
Resistance magic is often difficult and potentially hazardous. Call upon all forms of assistance and go deep into the roster.
Magically Shielded Space
Magical energy can be used to shield a space from harmful entities or activity, and many Western traditions cast circles and spheres before all spellcasting or rituals. Although I find circle casting and banishing largely unnecessary in most magical work (an admittedly heterodox belief), there are times when it is prudent or necessary to erect an energetic barrier against malign influences and intrusions.
The Hermetic Seal (page 166) was created for those occasions. Practice it so you have the ritual memorized if you ever need it on short notice. It is useful in these cases:
• Magical attack
• When you feel physically unsafe
• When doing strong binding or hexing
• If you want to shield someone sensitive (like children) from the energies of your workings
• When you are experiencing unusual or troubling psychic phenomena
• When you need a magical “retreat” and want to unplug and ground
So use the Hermetic Seal when you need privacy, physical or emotional safety, secrecy, to contain your energy from affecting the surrounding environment, or as a means to disengage and unplug so you can rest and recuperate.
Now a few words about magical attacks.
Although I have been a practicing magician for over thirty years and have a large number of friends in a wide variety of traditions, ranging from indigenous shamanic practices to ceremonial magic, I have only rarely encountered anyone who was the subject of a targeted magical attack. In the vast majority of cases, the individuals who believed they were cursed, hexed, jinxed, or subject to negative magic have been mistaken. Unfortunately, simple belief that one is under attack will begin to generate troubling symptoms, and despite being a self-fulfilling delusion, the consequences can be dramatic.
However, if we are to believe that our magic is effective, the corollary is that magic can be used by others against us. And despite their numbers being marginal in the larger community, right-wing and white supremacist magicians, witches, and organized occult groups do exist, and their growing numbers mirror the rise of such reactionary currents in nonmagical society. As the number of resistance magicians and witches grows, they will work aggressively, with all of their energy and focus, to stop us.
So why do I suggest not worrying?
First, we are aligned with evolutionary social currents and progressive values, healing, and justice. Although I’ve met plenty of magical people who would disagree, I’m quite certain the universe (and the majority of goddesses and gods) wishes to see us mature and evolve. And despite our ongoing failings as a species and regressive currents that continue to set us back, we are moving in the right direction. Women in most of the world have more rights and equality than ever before, legal slavery has been largely abolished, LGBTQ+ acceptance is spreading across the globe, and wars are de
clining in number and casualties while violence in general is also in decline. More people than ever are aware of our role as stewards of our mother earth and are working to lessen our impact upon her and heal the damage we have done.
Now before I am accused of being a Pollyanna, I do realize we are witnessing unprecedented biological extinction, a global rise in nationalism, racism, political division, religious fundamentalism, and xenophobia; a mind-boggling hijacking of wealth and resources by a tiny fraction of the world’s population; and the potential collapse of civilization due to catastrophic climate change.
The survival of our species is now in our hands, and the clock is ticking. No pressure, right?
Here’s the good news: the goddesses and gods, angels, elementals, and ancestors are on our side. After all, they are part of our spiritual ecosystem and their fates are tightly interwoven with ours. To paraphrase the oft-quoted aphorism, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice … and it’s rooting for us to fight for our survival.
Our magic is stronger. Don’t waste your time worrying about theirs.
Wards and Guardians
Wards and guardians (the names can be used interchangeably) are the magical equivalent of your home’s alarm system and a ferocious barking dog. You can empower objects and place them around your home or other area (a school, protected land, someone’s room) or enlist objects or living beings already present (rocks, trees) into service.
You should probably begin by creating wards for your own home. The best objects to use are sculptures of animals and mythical creatures, as they are most receptive to empowerment. There is a reason people place statues of lions and other fierce creatures at their front doors and fashion them into door knockers, even if those doing so are unaware of their magical significance.
When you’ve found (or made) appropriate “container” figurines, statues, or carvings for your spiritual wards, consecrate and animate them with this spell:
Have the four elements represented on your altar along with your incense censer. Use copal or frankincense (loose incense is best, but sticks and cones are fine).
Arrange three small white candles (tea lights are fine for this) in the center of your altar in an upward-pointing triangle. Light the candles to begin the ritual.
Stand or sit before your altar and perform the Centering Ritual (see page 152).
Light your incense.
Hold your object guardian object and say,
Bless this guardian, powers of earth (touch object to your earth symbol), water (touch water to your extended index and middle fingers and wet the object with them), fire (hold over your fire symbol), and air (hold in rising incense smoke or touch to feather); spirits of the heavens (lift toward sky) and of the underworld (lower toward altar or ground).
Then hold the object in both hands in front of you. Say,
Consecrate this ward so that it may protect (intended location or target, e.g., “My home” or “the wildlife preserve”) and all inhabitants within from unwanted intrusions, dangers, and harm.
Lift the object and blow into it. Feel your personal energy, the breath of life, moving into it and awakening it. Say,
Awaken, guardian, and let us work together in service.
Place the guardian object in the center of the triangle of candles. Place your palms over it. As you inhale slowly, feel and visualize energy pouring down from the cosmos and into the top of your head, then down to your heart (the center of your chest). At the same time, feel and visualize energy coming up from the earth, entering your feet, and meeting in your heart, where it mixes with the cosmic energy and glows brightly.
As you breathe in, feel the energy pouring from above and below into your center, and as you exhale, feel those energies from the heavens and the earth mingling and glowing ever brighter.
Then, when it feels like the energy has reached a peak, inhale deeply.
As you exhale, see that powerful energy running down your arms, through your hands, and into the guardian object.
Let the energy flowing from your palms subside with your exhalation. Slowly bring your hands together in a prayer position over your heart. Feel and visualize the heart energy contracting, and then clap your hands three times. The third clap ends the ritual.
Shake your hands, as if flinging off water. Stomp your feet and shake your body to ground yourself.
Leave the object inside the triangle of candles for a few minutes or longer, exiting the room if possible (and if safe to do so with candles burning) to let its energy settle into its new form. When it is ready, carry your ward to its permanent location. Show it its new home and explain its job. Talk to it as a living being because it is a living being. Thank it again for being of service, and (especially if it is your home) ask it to alert you if it detects any harmful intrusions. If it is meant to serve for a limited time (perhaps until a bill passes to protect a piece of land), tell it when it may end its service.
If you set wards around your home or a location you frequently visit, be sure to regularly offer them a libation (pour out some water), a flower, a crystal, or at minimum a few words or a silent prayer of thanks. Just as with human guards in your employ, the better you treat your guardians the harder and more conscientiously they will work with you.
Biological Alarm System
If you don’t mind talking to plants (and you shouldn’t), another way to increase your security is to enlist the beings already in place. Chances are your home or apartment is already surrounded by beings that you may want to recruit to keep an eye on your home—a biological alarm system of sorts.
Take some time to develop relationships with the trees, shrubs, flowers, and rocks around your living space. Talk to them and ask them if they’ll stay alert to unusual or harmful activity (they already do, most likely) and to let you know when things are out of sorts. As with any entity you ask for a favor, do something nice for them. A libation, a crystal, some fertilizer, or picking off their dead leaves are all good options, but be sure to ask what they would like as well.
This also goes for other locations—schools, your business location, office, a favorite park, etc.
And keep up the relationship if you want them to keep being of service. No one likes to be ignored, especially when asked for a favor.
Amulets and Talismans
Amulets and talismans are some of the oldest known tools of magic. Although technically talismans draw energies while amulets repel them, I use the terms interchangeably because one can (and should) create practical power objects that do both.
You can create protective amulets from scratch or charge items you already own (like a ring). I recommend creating your own, as the energy you put into assembling the materials deepens its connection to you and strengthens its potency.
In the early days of my practice, I spent a good bit of money and scores of hours creating elaborate talismans based on instructions from grimoires and texts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. When I left heavy Kabbalistic magic behind and started studying indigenous and folk traditions, I began to wish I could get some of those hours and dollars back.
Pro-tip: the simplest magic is frequently the most effective. I learned that the hard way, so I hope I can save you from repeating my mistakes by dropping a little secret that will piss off many writers, retailers, and workshop promoters: your energy and intention are the real keys to effective spellcasting, not the hard-to-find herbs, pricey metals, crystals, oils, fancy robes, wands, and other gewgaws. That’s not to say certain herbs, crystals, oils, and tools won’t enhance your rituals. But any book or teacher who claims you need to engrave astrological and alchemical symbols onto precious metal disks for your spell to be effective is, to put it bluntly, full of shit. And he or she is probably going to sell you those precious metal disks at a substantial markup.
People across the planet use whatever they have o
n hand to work their magic. Enslaved Africans brought to the Americas lost access to their favorite plants, animal allies, minerals, and medicines, but they didn’t give up their ways—they adapted to their new environment. They used the law of similarity and their intuition to discover New World plants, minerals, and animals with similar energies and learned the lore of friendly Native Americans. Similarly, if an ancient text says you need a rare, expensive herb (found only on a few barren hills in Ethiopia) to appease Hekate, chances are you can find a workable substitute. I use the analogy of giving a gift of a handmade scarf to a friend—she might not find it to her taste, but she’ll still appreciate your sincere generosity.
End of rant. Let’s get to business. You can find all sorts of books and websites about talisman and amulet creation (see the resources section), but we’ll concentrate on one of the easiest and most universal.
Mojo Bags
You might know of mojo or medicine bags (also called hands, conjure bags, nation sacks, gris-gris, wanga, and tobies) from Native American traditions and as popularized by New Orleans-style Voodoo, but the idea of carrying protective items extends deep into antiquity. Even the Abrahamic faiths embraced the carrying of sacred apotropaic (protective) items, usually sections of the Torah, the Christian Bible, and Qur’an. The ancient Egyptians, Jews, Coptic Christians, and Muslims all wore sacred texts rolled or folded into containers around their necks, and this practice spread with them through Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
The African Kongolese wore nkisi pouches made of animal skin and hung from cord around their necks, so enslaved Africans carried the tradition to the Americas. They undoubtedly noted the similarity of Native American medicine bags. It seems reasonable to assume that the similarity in this practice, arising independently around the world, is due to its practical effectiveness.