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This is an experience of my youth, and it has profoundly impacted my magical interest and the direction it has followed since..

I grew up in New York city (though had been raised by a southern grandmother for much of my childhood so I’m not purely a Yankee city kid), and had easy access to ‘The Warlock Shoppe’, a famous occult supplies store that existed in the 70s and 80s. The shop was run by Wiccans and was colored by their doctrine, or so it seemed to me as child. I was precocious as a child, as my father before me, and was reading Aleister Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, Drum and Candle by David St. Claire (on Brazilian flavors of the Yoruba religious influence) and Alephis Levi’s ‘Transcendental Magic’. The two books that had the most profound impact on me at that time however, were the  grimiore Geotia- with introduction by Crowley, and The Satanic Bible, by Anton Szandor laVey.

What Crowley’s comments on the Goetia and LaVey’s approach to Satanism had in common, was that they interpreted magic as a psychological phenomena, and this made all the difference for me – it gave me a way to take magic seriously while being conditioned to believe all is science or superstition.

As a very young child I had exhibited powers of esp, I would know things I had no reasonable way to know – as long as they related to me. The family talk of synchronicity that involved me occured to me as evidence I should be magical and become a magician. Same as getting approval for my early artwork convinced me I was an artist and should work at that too.

I grew up practising a kind of wishing magic which kind of worked, but also trying to do things like get a carpet to levitate, that met with failure.

By the time I was in Junior High school, I’d given up on ‘wishing’ and levitating (though I would use remote viewing to cheat at the battleship game with success until opponents figured out to put flotsam on their board and I’d hit that instead). But this was when I’d gotten around to reading the Goetia and Satanic Bible as well.

Being small, smart and a little weird I was targeted for abuse by bullies and was generally unpopular in Junior High (In High School I went to a specialized Science and Math honours school where it was very common to have been picked on and unpopular in Junior High). It affected me negatively, I was depressed and didn’t do school work and it was likely I’d have to repeat the seventh grade. In this circumstance I did really my first spell, using guidelines from the Satanic Bible.

The spell worked, the very next day of school I was taken aside by a popular Science teacher that explained to me he used his reputation to get me promoted and that I’d better not screw up (continuing to the Honours math science High School I’m sure vindicated his decision).

At this same time I’d been routinely harassed by a bully that would sneak up behind me and put me in a dangerous ‘sleeper’ hold to knock me out (similar to a choke, but you’re cutting off blood flow to brain instead of air to lungs). In retrospect, I did unconsciously use magical intention to target this bully. But very simply it was a Monday the bully was meant to jump me and had told everyone he was going to jump me – that he didn’t show up. Asked about this, since it was well established that I read weird books anyway, I joked – “I cast a spell on him”.  But after that I was never targeted by a bully again. Two days later I found out why. The bully  boy with the sleeper holds had been permanently removed from the school, he now attended a special school for the emotionally disturbed, and the other bullies game me all the credit.

This snowballed into my  being a schoolmate you could go to for magical favours. Since I did not like any of the people asking me for favours, since days or weeks before they’d beat me and humiliate me, I had no intention of helping them. Asked for a magic potion to get them laid, I concocted a nasty mixture of salt, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, mayonnaise and baking soda – filled gelatine capsules with it – and presented it to folks as my magic potion.

The potion WORKED! The people that used it wanted more and the school rumour mills went wild. I discovered I was believed to teleport from home to school and back, it was believed I used magic to get into the Science High school (I really wanted to go to a special program for Artists, I didn’t even want to go to a Science High School – but my Dad wouldn’t allow me to even apply to an Artist High school).

The rumours relating to my magic powers followed me to the Science High School (Stuyvesant High School fyi) – which is hard core ’cause if there’s a place dominated by ‘Science or Superstition’ this was it. They didn’t last long though, and I got involved with art, comics and Discordianism in my high school years.

In cat yronwode’s book on Hoodoo, she rightly complains of hoodoo material distributors that don’t sell the correct herb – they figure it’s belief that makes the magic work, and any green herb is therefore as good as any other green herb.

But clearly, faith alone DOES WORK!
And also, the miracles of the Holy Bible – with my experience it occurs as very reasonable how such grandiose tales can through the telling be originally far more modest stories.

This is also why it’s less interesting to me to be a conjurer marketing services, and more interesting to market the knowledge.

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