{"id":93,"date":"2011-09-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/2011\/09\/19\/magic-is-a-sacrifice"},"modified":"2011-09-19T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T14:00:00","slug":"magic-is-a-sacrifice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/19\/magic-is-a-sacrifice\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic is a Sacrifice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Frater SEA posited a question: what have you sacrificed for magic?<\/a>\u00a0 It\u2019s an important question for one to ask oneself, particularly for me as I begin escalating my practice with some thoughts of going semi-pro.\u00a0 As such, I\u2019ve spent a lot of the last ten days contemplating it.<\/p>\n

My initial reaction was somewhat pithy: I\u2019ve given up the ability to relate intimately with people who don\u2019t practice \u2013 or at very least believe in \u2013 magic.\u00a0 And there is definitely some truth to this.\u00a0 So much of my life revolves around my ritual devotion and magical work.\u00a0 All my hobbies take a back seat to it, where they don\u2019t feed into it.\u00a0 I plan social engagements around the Sabats and Esbats.\u00a0 I chose my major, in part, to make me a better servant of my gods and my community.\u00a0 The reasons I do things frequently revolve around psychic impressions, and I will inevitably be subjected to any number ritual taboos \u2013 only Apollo has demanded such of me so far, but others will in time.\u00a0 But these things are only true up to a point.\u00a0 If I were better at the admonition to Keep Silent, I could dissemble about my obligations and motivations.\u00a0 If I were more willing to shield myself tightly, I would be less vulnerable to psychic storms and sickly auras.\u00a0 And yet, even as I pose these arguments, what I hear is \u201cIf only I weren\u2019t so obviously queer, straight people would like me better.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are other obvious answers: I\u2019ve sacrificed a great deal of money on books and ritual supplies; a great deal of time, energy, and money on moving those books and ritual supplies from one location to another.\u00a0 A bit of blood, a lot of sleep, my self-image more times than I can count.<\/p>\n

But as I contemplate it, what seems to me like the thing which people treasure most that magical practice forces you to give up is <\/font>the ability to pretend that actions don\u2019t have consequences<\/font>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not talking in the dangerous, white-light, The Secret, think-positive-or-all-your-suffering-is-your-own-damn-fault kind of actions:consequences relationship.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about interconnectivity \u2013 the idea\/reality that everything is fundamentally connected, that nothing can act (or not act, or even exist) without influencing things around it.\u00a0 The idea that you can be involved in tainted rituals<\/a> (Jack Faust again, because he makes the point so elegantly) without yourself becoming tainted is absurd.\u00a0 In feminism and other leftist intellectual outposts, this idea is called intersectionality, but I learned it first in magic.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t pretend that invoking sexist tropes doesn\u2019t reinforce sexist ideas in both my own mind and in the world around me.\u00a0 I can\u2019t pretend that attending a ritual celebration (a dance, for instance, or a frat party) of something I oppose doesn\u2019t make that thing stronger by lending it a seeming of credibility.\u00a0 If I break an oath, my oath is less valuable \u2013 in this world or the Other.<\/p>\n

I also can\u2019t pretend that I\u2019ll always be able to see the chain of events that link actions and consequences.\u00a0 I can\u2019t know the results of a kindness or a cruelty, a favor or a snub or even a mere absence, three or four exchanges down the line.\u00a0 I can\u2019t pretend that I\u2019m the beginning or the end of a chain.\u00a0 I can only work to improve myself and the world around me and hope it spreads, and returns.<\/p>\n

Everyting is connected.\u00a0 Actions have consequences.\u00a0 I can\u2019t pretend otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Frater SEA posited a question: what have you sacrificed for magic?\u00a0 It\u2019s an important question for one to ask oneself, particularly for me as I begin escalating my practice with some thoughts of going semi-pro.\u00a0 As such, I\u2019ve spent a lot of the last ten days contemplating it. My initial reaction was … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-1v","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}