High Magick: A Guide to the Spiritual Practices That Saved My Life on Death Row - Damien Echols 2018
Personalizing Your Practice and Getting Started
Preliminaries
You have just a few more pages before we really get started. The last thing I want you to know is that each instruction I offer in this book — every exercise, visualization, meditation, and ritual — is just a primer or set of initial guidelines. They’re meant to lay the foundation for your practice, but magick is unique to every individual. The point is to experiment and find out what works for you.
For example, in part III you will engage in a fourfold breathing practice. For some people, it’s hard to do every step to the count of four (i.e., breathing in, holding, exhaling, holding), so they modify their practice accordingly. Maybe they breathe in and out to the count of four, but holding for that long is too much, so they go through those intermediate holds to the count of two. That’s fine. These instructions aren’t carved in stone.
Magick isn’t about blindly adhering to a belief or system.
What I mean by this is that you should always personalize your practice according to your needs and makeup. Everyone’s energy system is different, and what works for one person will fall flat or have negative effects for someone else. Do whatever makes the practice more powerful for you, and don’t let anyone tell you any different. Like I’ve said before, magick isn’t about blindly adhering to a belief or system. If it works, it’s magick. If it doesn’t, try something else. Your entire journey with magick will require finding out what works for yourself.
Magick is a never-ending process. There’s no end to the path and no end to your exploration. The most important aspect here is your intention. Remember: where your attention goes, your energy flows. If you want magick to work for you, engage it wholeheartedly, experiment, and modify the practices according to your experience.
After a while, you’ll realize that performing high magick is deceptively simple. At the beginning, it might seem complex, but eventually you’ll find that it doesn’t take much effort at all. Trust me: you’ll get there. With consistent practice, magick becomes second nature. All you’re really doing is a more refined version of what you’ve done every day of your life. It’s just that now you’ll be doing it more deliberately and with a lot more power. All you need is to have the patience and determination to continue through the roadblocks, especially in the early stages when it might feel like you’re floundering around.
Here are some final tips to get you started:
•For some people, it helps to close their eyes when visualizing. Try it out for yourself. If closing your eyes enables you to block out external stimuli more and focus on your internal state, great. But keep in mind that it isn’t a requirement. Some people get more distracted if they close their eyes, so find out what works for you.
•Eyes closed or not, it’s important not to do these practices while you’re driving or in some other situation that demands your full attention. The power of attention also refers to knowing when to take care of yourself. Don’t do these practices in any scenario in which you need to be alert to your external environment.
•When you want to do one of these magickal practices, find a time and place where you won’t be interrupted or disturbed. Turn your phone off. There’s nothing quite as irritating as being in the middle of the Lesser Banishing Ritual, for example, and having someone knock on the door to see what you’re doing. If someone is around, let them know you’ll be busy for a while. Once you’ve begun the process of one of these practices, it’s important to complete what you’re doing.
•Take notes on your experiences, open your heart and mind, enjoy yourself, and see what happens!