What I'm intending it to be is a record of my studies in the art and science of magic. I've spent a good few years reading a whole bunch of different stuff on the subject, and here and there performing a few basic exercises and simple spells. Now I am feeling like the time has come to make a serious go of it. I want to adopt a regular regimen of practice, begin to build up my illumination and empowerment, and start affecting change in accordance with my will.
I have never been much good at keeping diaries, either mundane or magical. I'm hoping that having readers (hopefully I will eventually have some readers) and working in the online format will make it less of a chore to record my progress. I would also love to begin communicating with other magicians and people of Spirit; right now I don't have a whole lot of contacts in the field.
At the moment I have two primary influences on my approach to magic. One is Jason Miller, aka Inominandum (www.inominandum.com). I've read his book The Sorcerer's Secrets and I am currently working through some of the (very early-stage) material in his Strategic Sorcery course. Jason has worked with too many different systems and traditions for me to name here without it getting tiresome, and he's done a fantastic job of distilling out the practical methods that give success in the art. I dig his very down-to-earth perspective on magic, ethics, personal responsibility, and Getting Your Shit Together. Plus he's really funny.
In this blogger's humble opinion, the dude is pretty fuckin' cool.
My other big influence is Rufus Opus (www.headforred.blogspot.com), who works magic within a Hermetic Christian system that he's hashed together from various neo-platonic texts (especially Agrippa, Trithemius, and Hermes Trismegistus). He presents a system that is elegant in its internal coherence, and refreshingly straightforward. It involves direct initiation and empowerment from the spirits, with no human guru necessary. This is a big selling point for me, since I don't personally know anyone with more than dabbler status who I could learn from (where my Vermont magi at? Give me a shout!). R. O. also manages to be a devout Christian without being a humorless prick, which shouldn't be such a big deal but kind of is. He's actually more or less single-handedly inspired me to reconnect with the Christian faith I was raised in, and helped me to see it as a viable framework for magical practice.
Like Jason, he is also very, very funny. I like funny people. It's been my experience that stupid people are rarely funny, except unintentionally. And as a rule, the magicians whose works I like to read are not too fearful or pompous to laugh at themselves and the Universe. It was a great relief to me to learn that you can do magic and still be funny. I don't want to be a part of anything that doesn't make me laugh at least occasionally.
So after a few years of simmering on the back burner in a stew of various metaphysical books and blogs, I am ready to turn the heat up and get Working. Feel free to read along.
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