Requirements Needed To Have Success In Occult Arts, Aye Options

Ever since i have been acquinted with the occult arts I KNEW THIS. I knew that the occult arts are not for everyone; just like not everyone can be a highly paid lawyer, or a marathon runner, or a singer in a heavy metal band, a mathematician or have a phd. The list goes on and on. Now i think Bym touched upon this too in one of his recent posts so kudos to him.

So i've been thinking lately, what are the requirements in order to succeed in the occult world DESPITE how diligent you approach the magickal systems? What i mean by that is no matter how diligent ( and how hard) a man with low intelligence tries to comprehend a magikal philosophy he probably won't fully absorb it as well as an astute student of the arts.
So again, what ARE the requirements?

1) Gift/natural talent. What i mean by this is that magick is not a science, it is an art. Having said that, ( now i think Darmage talked about this too prior to this post) you need some form of talent in order to achieve success in the occult arts. Just as chess or soccer or computer engineering, you need to have a natural desposition for the art in order to be good at it so to speak. It needs to be your destiny.

2) Intelligence. You NEED to have ATLEAST an average intelligence to be competent enough to absorb all those thousands of books and theories on complex matters with complicated language, metaphors and hidden meanings.

3) A strong memory. Without a strong memory how could you possibly remember ( and digest) all those facts and theories and statements written by those who have written books on occult related subjects? Not just that, but how will you be able to build on your vocabulary ( which is quite important I think since it will help the magickian tremendously when it comes to studying books ) without a strong memory? Not just that, but a strong memory will undoubtedly help the magickian memorize the conjurations/rituals etc as well.

Make a post below showing whether you have all of these ( or not) and how it has impacted your magickal lifestyle.

Comments , criticism welcome.

BYM: in response to your believing you need to be sorry for a lecturing tone, and that has anything to do with age: I don’t agree.

In a forum, discourse is often better in a lecturing tone. Complete thoughts are better then one line responses.

As to the topic at hand. I don’t think it has really been touched. Everyone has said what their experience tells them is necessary, based either on themselves or those they choose to surround themselves with.

I am one of those people who truly believe magick is done by most everyone most every day. Call it a fluffy bunny sentiment if you must, but I really can not be much further from that.

I think the only requirement to be successful in the occult arts is the will to have more awareness and control in magick. Many other things help, but that is all that is “necessary”. It does not even take strong will.

I would love to say all the positive attributes I think I possess. But the most measurable results in magic I have ever personally witnessed, was performed by an semi-idiotic 60 year old woman in poor health, who was illiterate, and not really caring of others, including her pets. She cleared 600 acres of organic corn infested with Corn Earworms in an afternoon stroll and some hand fulls of powder thrown into the wind.

The powder contained sulphur, lime (mineral not fruit), and some bone meal, chemically it would be sulphur, lime and phosphorus along with carbon. The sulpher and lime would both be pesticides but we are talking a 1000th of the dosage needed for 100 acres.

She walked chanted and threw the powder, laughed at me for not believing this would work, walked more chanted threw powder, asked me questions….she asked me to call the wind twice (surprised me, the first time as that was not something I advertised and everything I said would have been the equivalent of a skeptic in Magick period).

Now she was a person who had a family gift, defiantly had the sight. But she like many of her ilk in the area where magickal mercenaries who you did not want in your home, and whose families didn’t even like. They where usually bitter. Their gift was as much a curse to them as anything else. They did not like other magickal people, except the young.

She said the worms would be gone after two nights, and they where. She also had a few other comments she made where strangely prophetic.

These are the people I think of first when someone says witch, there is no rede for these people. Except in extreme cases, they will do most anything for money.

One can say that this was just the show they displayed to others, not really, I had a very intimate relationship with another who was much more well known of and much better classically and magically educated, but the coldness to others in general was the same. Although she did take better care of her pets.

Other aspects like independent thought, are subjective. If they are taught magick as happenstance, as the most normal thing in the world…they take it on as if learning to dust and mop properly.