How Has Magick Changed Your Life? Options

Please give me stories about how magick changed your life and I will give you mine.

Magick has given me health, love/marriage, wealth and a very inspiring job. It's not that it didn't require hard work, but it felt that higher powers
laid the path for me with 'coincidences' and 'opportunities' showing up at the right place and at the right time. Aside from that, magick made me
come in contact with God, which made me believe in the divine and the afterlife. I also developed a more non-selfish nature, trying to do more for
others than for myself.

Sometimes (with a couple of years interval), the life path can start to go a bit in the wrong direction. Could be problems at work, problems with health or
problems with love. Then life needs a bit of magickal "correction" and after that, everything runs smoothly again.

So far though, it seems that life has been a success since I found magick.

Is this your experience too? Will there be a backlash?

Not new to magic, newish to practicing seriously. It supplements my personal love of psychology, politics, and religion. Magic is a tool that most people don't have, so it gives me an 'upper hand' in situations. Specifically astrology. Alchemy goes along with my passion for psych. And I am working on Bardons set path to have direct influence over my (hopefully) future career in politics. I am a much better person for magic but none the wealthier. Actually I might be a little lighter because of the books I buy but if it doesn't pay off in cash, which it should, it has already paid off in helping me be a better, much more developed person. I consider my religion about the same things as this other occult stuff, only more important. I'm not bringing this up to annoy people but since I lump it all together, I have been profoundly changed for it with great results. Other than that I am working on astral travel, which is very difficult but is paying off. All of it is. Ask me in a couple of years and maybe I could tell ya more. Good luck with your work!

Magick was how I began my Path and I still hold it dear.
As I grew up In a cult I was desperate for a view of Divinity that was not negative [as in probably going to kill me and everyone I was friends with, lol] and more than that I Needed to experience it my self.
One day I acquired two books, One on meditation, and the Other by W,E.Butler which was a compilation of his books. So I began Meditating and practising LBRP and Middle Pillar, and any Magic i could find.

What can I say? These two disciplines totally changed my life. Now 20 years later I have been through Kundalini awakening, conversed with cosmic beings, burnt my fingers with Goetia, cursed enemys, healed people, seen other dimensions, been two places at once, experienced bliss for years at a time, and finally come to a place where The world is a Vital Living array of felt Impressions, easily communed with, where I regularly enter communion with the One and am never truly fully separated from it.
And really I feel like I am at just the beginning of my path.
Was It worth it? Absolutely in every way.
I believe having all these kind of experiences makes you question and think, and wonder.
And over time they make you a 'Good' person and especially, an Interesting person. lol the world needs more of those.

If I have any regrets, It was not finding a good teacher in the Western Tradition. At the same time I am more than happy with my path so far, as It has filled me out in so many ways, but I still feel like I would like to progress up through a [good] structured tradition, with its massive base of wisdom in place.

Seth.

Great thread

I "got into" magick very young, age 13, but didn't start actually practicing until I was 15.
Magick has given me more than I ever thought possible...
My parents didn't raise me religiously, although my dad is a Greek Orthodox Christian and tried for years to convert me. Trips to Greece where literally just about every person is a Greek Orthodox Christian didn't help, and my family (not immediate) thought I was some kind of "devil worshiper."
It's very interesting how they Hate anything non-christian, yet my yaya (grandma) is over there reading coffee cups- pretty sure that's geomancy
Anyways, the first book I bought was Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig
After experimenting a little with the LBRP I thought I was ready to cast some spells - typical childish thinking
I cast a spell to reconcile my relationship with my ex gf (I'd rather not go into it due to guilt) - I would have to say here that this was the biggest mistake of my entire life, EASILY
The spell worked but not in the way I had imagined(didn't do any divination beforehand)- basically I really F***** myself up- HARD
I felt like a worthless piece of crap for a very long time, it was unimaginable that I would actually even think of magickally influencing someone I loved
After a very hard period (considered suicide) where I stopped practicing magick, I slowly started coming back
I saw a commercial on tv from TryVeg.org that had a huge impact on me. I went vegetarian, then fully vegan. This was a huge turning point.
I learned how to love the Earth, and all its inhabitants. I started feeling a connection to nature (which thankfully isn't hard in Vermont, USA)
Only after this turning point did I fully understand the error of my ways

I think the most important thing a student can learn about magick is to never, ever do what I did- use magick in a destructive way. If this qualifies as black magick then Aleister Crowley was (of course) 100% right. It is exactly the same as trying to escape a cave filled with gas by lighting a match

I know this doesn't have to do with actual magickal workings but Magick was at the center of everything, and I would not have had those experiences if it wasn't for magick. I am now going back to square one and doing the LBRP and trying to learn astral projection

Overall magick taught me Love (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by Musky Tusk: Apr 11 2011, 08:20 PM

I have started from the background of Yoga - learned the truths that are hidden from most in the west following traditional religions- reincarnation, karma and other laws of the universe. I had a great teacher who had weekly, guided meditations and discussions on Yoga. Unfortunately we had a fall-out and I was banned from his class after three years. From there I have started getting into Magic as a venue of practical use of what he had taught me (he was a closet magician/hermetic sage). I aspire to get what I can out of magic. It certainly did not make me rich but I have enough, I have a family and a job (plus a business). I never expected magic to make me rich because in my opinion as soon as you start going down that road you are moving towards the "dark side". It is a path I did not want to go down on... I think if you are serious about this your needs will always be met, not your wants or desires. You must curb them a little.
I practice my craft in a casino (I only work part time now). I am around money and observing "luck" as you would have it. First thing I have learned that "lady luck is a fickle bitch and her name is Karma". Most people lose because of their mindset and win because of their mindset. There is no luck.

This post has been edited by Hermes56: Jul 4 2012, 08:33 AM

Magick gave me my best friend, and also the love of my life. It also scores me money every once in a while (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) So about my love, we met when I made a glamour spell to get a better job. It initially worked against me because the man who interviewed me had his wife working in the same building...and he got a little too flirtatious. On the other hand, when I went into work later that day, my now love was there and asked me out because and I quote "he found me irresistible". Oh...did I mention he is pagan as well? We've been together 3 years, and I am still mad for the guy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/001.gif)

Practicing on and off dabbling in a bit of everything has giving me a profound sense of the world i live in and how i perceive it each day. It has drove me to desire and crave intelligence instead of being numb and dumb like most are today. Really live my life as an experiment each day just practicing and doing different things to see how they effect my life. It is interesting to watch the things that happen.

It has also driven me to desire to make something of myself. Given me an outlook on science and understanding more of the world and different practices and beliefs. Many different things that have improved not only from practicing just studying.

as someone who aspires to 'the great work' (and not without a bit of progress), and who calls a Dakini "beloved". i think the real question is "how HASN'T magick affected my life?"

nothing in the way of material gains...
but i am evolving in the ways that matter to me.