Whether you call yourself a shaman, a witch, a sorcerer, or whatever it may be, the act of performing magick is universally the same. Remember that we defined magick as the ability to alter the fabric of reality in conformity and proportion to our imagination and will.

There are certain universal principles that govern our reality. Once we understand those principles and learn to apply them effectively, we can virtually assure the results of our efforts every time we apply ourselves to that knowledge and understanding. This page is the result of decades of careful study and application of the principles that govern the mortal individual's ability to literally change reality.

The application of these principles in our everyday lives is so innate to our nature and thinking that we virtually apply them every day without any clear recognition that we are even doing so. For most people, the negative application of these principles in their lives has led to unnecessary pain and suffering world-wide. A simple understanding of these principles and their correct application can have equally astounding positive results.

The principles are clear, easy to understand and require no financial investment on your part. That only requirement in the application of these five principles is that you follow each step precisely and completely. Do not move to the next step until you are completely satisfied with the results of the last step. You have nothing to loose.

On previous pages, we have discussed The Reality of Illusion versus The Illusion of Reality. I don't desire to take the time and space to repeat that again here, but some mention does need to be made.

In every society and culture, there exists a universal acceptance of what reality can and can not be. This is called Consensus Reality. From earliest childhood and subsequent experience, we are indoctrinated by social interaction as to what the consensus reality is, and thusly, what our illusion of reality may and may not be. This consensus reality is extremely powerful and all inclusive. Anyone who wanders outside of consensus reality will very quickly discover how powerful the influence and effects of consensus reality really are.

For example, when I say David Koresh and Waco, Heaven's Gate, Jim Jones, or Salem, Massachusetts, around 1690, we all have an instant recollection of those who have wandered beyond the norms of consensus reality. Within each of their own individual realities, their conditions and actions were perfectly understandable and justified.

So we come to consensus reality vs. individual reality. Like the hundredth monkey theory, consensus reality is a long process in which everyone within a group, society, or culture agree and adapt a mass identification, complete with all the beliefs and taboos. Within this group exists all the individuals who are part of this mass identification, each with their own individual illusion of reality.

In our present industrial consensus reality, anything that is not empirically oriented is subject to scepticism and denial. Anything that can be reasonably be termed occult, is feared and avoided. Thus, anyone involved in the paranormal, and especially the occult is shunned, feared, and usually threatened or punished back into conformity.

For more information on consensus reality and the challenge of going beyond the consensus identity, I strongly recommend the paperback book written some years ago by Dr. W. Brugh Joy, called 'Joy's Way'.

That's pretty simple. We all know what desire is. Everyone of us at this very moment, if asked, could name a desire and probably several. Desire is a longing or a need which someone wishes to satisfy.

Desires usually range from wishful thinking (with no real expectation of it ever really coming to pass) to deep, burning, life consuming desire. For an act of magick to occur, there must first be a want or need that requires satisfaction. And secondly, that desire must have a force of emotion behind it.

It must be a burning desire. Any thought sufficiently empowered by intense emotion will begin to draw to it the object of that thought, either good or ill. Thus the old adage; whatever you desire the most, or fear the most, you will draw to you.

One of the most important factors in bringing empowered desire into physical reality is a clear and specific blueprint of exactly what you desire, or your expected outcome. This is not a vague or fuzzy guess, or in the case of a friend who run a business out of his home, who has 8 different house pictures, 3 different yacht pictures, 3 new automobile pictures and at least as many vacation packages, all on one refrigerator door. What is your clearly defined desire and the exact blueprint for your specified solution or outcome?

Ever try to assemble one of your children's more complex Christmas toys without using the instructions? Magick, and life in general, function the same way. Garbage in, garbage out. You must have a detailed, specific idea, plan or blueprint in mind of exactly what it is you desire to manifest, while being flexible enough to allow the Universe to bring to you the manifest result in the highest and best way.

Please remember, when you are working on your intent as it relates to another human being, i.e. love spells, binding spells, etc., it is never acceptable to impose your force of will on another by Magick or otherwise. I cannot advise strongly enough that you avoid any Magickal practice that will knowing and deliberately harm or restrict the free agency of another. Be very careful what you send out as it will come back to you.

When you look in the mirror, how many people do you see? According to the ancient teachings of Huna and others, we are actually three people; the Higher Self or spirit, Talking Self or mental, logical self, and Younger Self, the lower, physical self.

Each has a critical role to play in our ability to exist and function in this time and place, and in our ability to grow and evolve from our experiences while we are here. But each also has an agenda to satisfy. Younger Self is concerned with physical survival and sexuality, and generally associated with base wants and desires. Talking Self is concerned with your conscious thought processes and logic. And Higher Self is connected to Younger Self and to the Universal Consciousness, the seat of creation. From this standpoint, every decision, every act must originate with one or more aspects of our being and agree with or override the others.

Here is where we encounter internal conflict, which can be sudden death to acts of magick. The purest act of magick will manifest with the greatest expectation of success when there is no internal conflict within yourself, between yourselves. Any internal conflict is bound to have a proportionately negative effect on you chances of success.

For instance, if you desire to quit smoking, all three selves must be in alignment if you are to be totally successful. If Higher Self says that it is important to quit smoking, and Talking Self agrees that it would be good to stop smoking, but Younger Self enjoys smoking and does not want to quit, no matter how often you perform a ritual or 'spell' to stop smoking, no matter how fervently you say you desire to stop smoking, you will never be completely successful until all three Selves are in agreement.

The following quote sums up pretty much all there is to be said about alignment and magick in general, 'If you have done everything correctly, and there is no greater force opposing you, you have every right to expect the desired outcome'.

There are, of course other considerations concerning conflict and magick. The compatibility of your friends and associates while you are working (if you are working in a group), and the compatibility of your external surroundings are all important, but any Shaman, Witch or Medicine Man worth his or her salt must practice to overcome all blocks and challenges and be ready, willing and able to work when work is required. To me, this separates casual magick from the true practitioner.

The next step in the co-creative process is ritual. In all of my experience, this is probably the most over-emphasized and least understood aspect of magick. It seems that the New Age shelves are full of books on ritual, candle magic, love spells, elixirs, potions and more. All address ritual from a purely mechanical, physical level, without adequately addressing the deeper aspects of true ritual.

So, what is ritual? In its simplest form, ritual is the effort of mortal man to reach beyond himself to that which is Timeless and attempt to evoke a favourable response. In ancient times, the more often a ritual evoked a favourable response, the more powerful the ritual was thought to be. People would attempt to copy the powerful rituals, hoping to experience the same success, without understanding that there are very powerful hidden mechanisms working within a successful ritual that enhance or nearly guarantee that favourable response.

To understand ritual, you must understand metaphor and the associative functions of the human mind. Our minds work by association. We think in relative terms, we remember by association with other items already stored in our memory.

A metaphor is a pattern of thought in which the meaning ordinarily associated with one thing is applied to another. Have you ever heard someone say that they feel like they have been hit by a train or that they feel good enough to walk on water? These are metaphoric statements. We use metaphors constantly in our lives because the mind has a powerful capacity to relate through association of thoughts and concepts.

We now return to the three selves and the act of getting all three to agree and work together. This is the actual function of ritual. Ritual is the physical enactment of a clearly understood metaphor that works on all three levels of self to draw the selves into more perfect alignment, each self participating in the ritual at the level of its own function.

The Younger Self, through the physical body, is drawn into the actual physical enactment of the metaphor, Talking Self clearly understands the associations of the metaphor and the logic of the ritual in relation to the desired outcome, and Higher Self, connected to Younger Self and to the Eternal, can associate with the metaphor and then transmit the power of Younger Self generated in the ritual to propel the desire toward manifestation. The enactment of the metaphor on the physical plane is designed to align the selves and create sufficient power within the etheric substance of creation so as to alter physical reality according to the desired outcome.