Bending Reality, Magick, & Stories on New Year’s Eve 2020!

Looks like I am going to be spending New Year’s Eve alone this year. My wife is going to her sister’s for a NYE party which I am sure will be lots of fun. Unfortunately, I am avoiding full blown flu by staying home with a bottle of cold/flu/cough medicine to ring in the New Year. Probably going to pretend I am in New York so I can get to bed early with the three hour time zone difference.

Really, I am a pretty ambivalent about New Years. The whole celebration is pretty arbitrary calendar-wise. The winter solstice on the other hand I would stay up for to mark the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year. Must be the witch in me.

Speaking of witchcraft and all things magical I had an interesting idea today. In a word. Story.

Casting Spells or Telling Stories?

After weeks of free writing I finally cleared enough clutter and cruft from my mind to finally get it. The human propensity for story is being worked with far more directly in witchcraft, magick, conscious intention, or whatever you want to call it than I have recognized. I say recognized because I think stories are present all over the place.

Reading Lisa Cron’s books on how humans are wired for story was certainly an influence. The way she broke down how a good story captured human attention triggered lots of ideas. Ideas began having sex with each other and before I knew it my head was full of thoughts about magick and reality I just had to put to paper.

Reality,The Universe, and Everything

As I was thinking about the structure of Reality I got to thinking about our part in reality. Humans are at least physically part of the Universe. I mean we are made of stardust! We are the Universe and so are our brains and bodies. If that is the case then just like the Univese is built up from whatever it is it is built up from so are humans.

For background here is the structure I was thinking about (roughly and non-scientifically):

Field of Consciousness –> Information –> Physical Universe –> Us

The Us part is of course us humans. Humans use stories to communicate important stuff with each other and across generations. Everything is information. Information arises from the Field of Consciousness. Stories structure and communicate information. Maybe we can approach workings like spells and other forms of magick as energized stories?

On my bookshelf I can find any number of books related to witchcraft and magick. In each book there are spells or workings which are stories. My theory is proficient sorcerers, magus, witches (insert your preferred title here) mix good stories, will, intention, and energy to get things done.

Structuring a Story for Magick

Story creation has been on my mind for months now. At first I wanted to get better at telling stories with data from work projects. One thing led to another though and soon I was reading the comics of Grant Morrison. Specifically, I started reading his series The Invisibles.

Wow.

“The Invisibles” is a story about magick. Granted I am still on Volume I but he is definitely telling a story about magick. More than a story the comic is an actual sigil of sorts. I think Mr. Morrison called them hypersigils.

In interviews like the one in the video above Mr. Morrison reveals how his personal life changed in congruence with changes the characters in the comic experienced. When he noticed what was happening he began to intentional change the story. As the characters changed with the changing story so did his life.

Magick

The comic worked as a sigil by symbolizing intended changes in the world. Just add energy and those changes caused reality to rearrange around the intentions contained in the story.

The power of story mixed with magick caused reality to bend.

Where does story get so much power in the first place. Turns out humans are biologically wired to respond to story. Not just any story we respond to stories that have a certain structure to them.

Magick Story Theory: Engaging our brain fully with a good story tunes in our multidimensional, higher power, reality influencing transmitter.

Spells & Ritual, Writing Stories

Do you have a favorite spell or ritual? Something which works well for you over and over?

Here are some questions to think about when you consider your favorite spells or rituals. Does the spell or ritual:

• grab your attention and keep it right from the start?
• tell a new story about a change in reality?
• engage you on a feeling level in a new reality?
• bring up a sense of drama or theater in casting the spell or performing the ritual?
• transport you in multiple senses into this new reality?

I don’t have a lot of advice to offer at this point. Today has been more about questions than anything. Somehow though it feels right that stories and magick rituals share many characteristics.

What has been your experience with ritual and magick? Do you see elements of story in your workings? Please comment below!