What Do You Use Magic For? Options

Magic: the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature

In it's definition magic has endless possibilities....

does it?

For some strange reason. when i am thinking up "Incantation" or "various other techniques" I have trouble thinking up what to do.

"what exactly is the problem i'm facing now? How do i solve it?" are questions i ask,

but magic doesn't seem to come up as an answer often.

and when it does, i use my trusty tarrot deck and i get BAD RESULTS
BAD BAD BAD RESULTS

so the magic i do always ends up being pure white magic since everything else seems it would go bad.

that's pretty limited if you ask me.

I myself have never tried astral projection.
But I think I was slipping into that state once, by accident.

I use magic primarily for knowledge and answers to questions as well. There is at other times a use for magic towards the ends of protection, healing, and experimentation with consciousness, dreaming, cause and effect, and so on.

It sounds like your primary divination system is tarot cards. I am curious what your perspective is on the cards and how they answer questions. I originally read tarot cards from a context of "This will happen, this will happen..." etc., in a kind of oracular fashion, and I found that my readings were often muddled, inaccurate for the most part, with perhaps a detail here or there that came to pass but in a way that often could have been interpreted from any other combination of cards as well.

Eventually I transitioned into reading them very differently, less of an oracle and more of a wise old teacher who sees the whole picture but doesn't really give anything away. I guess it came out of the idea that just knowing the future is enough to change it. So I started reading them in terms of "Here is the archetypal nature of your situation, and the archetypal elements involved at the moment - here are the aspects you need to consider to get what you want out of this situation, and here is what to consider to understand what you want." This kind of interpretation takes practice, and of course experience seeing the cards 'in action' as it were, but changes the cards from and oracle to a teacher who wants to guide you in the right direction. The difference is that on the one hand and oracle tells you what the future holds, and in response you wait for that future to happen or change your decisions based on that information, in either case immediately invalidating that future. On the other hand a teacher draws your attention to the elements they see which you are ready to handle, and those which you need to learn more about, and those which are going to be a problem for you - they help you figure yourself and your world out.

This also means that the tarot change from being a question and answer tool, to a tactical tool - instead of "will this work out for me" you have to ask, "How can I make this work out for me?" It also is a transition from asking permission to asking for assistance doing what you are already determined to do, which in all cases is enacting your will (whether that's the greater or lesser will).

And of course, it's good that magic doesn't come up as an answer often in response to "how do i solve it?" Magic isn't just about solving your problems, except to the extent that all problems are solved ultimately through self-transformation of one kind or another. Magic is about transmutation - of situations, thoughts, emotions, energy, character, reality, etc. And when we want to employ magic effectively, transmutation is a point to consider - "What part of this situation can I change (transmute) to turn it towards my own interests/benefit?" Asking the right question (of yourself or of a tarot deck) can often make the difference between getting a useful answer and getting the kind of vague uncertainty that comes from asking a vague question.

And if you're working with a tarot deck to find these answers, don't assume it is telling you how magic will change the situation, or how to change the situation with magic - look for what element can/needs to change, and then decide whether magic is necessary. Sometimes the focal point is internal, and sometimes it's external. Magic works best when applied one of two ways, and mixing them usually creates a paradox of interests - either very general (I want good luck) or very specific (to make my boss agree to a raise when I ask him on monday at 5:30pm.) I don't typically advocate using magic directly on an individual, as the human element of any situation is in my opinion one composed of entirely too many psychological and emotional variables, but when magic is used for knowledge (to grant me the right words at the right time to convince my boss to give me a raise) you can almost never go wrong - knowledge is power and almost all of our problems can be solved if only we have the right knowledge to solve it.

peace