Low Magick: It's All In Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is - Lon Milo DuQuette 2010

Prologue

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to recognize and thank the following individuals, whose encouragement and support over the years he shall always treasure: Constance Jean DuQuette, Jean-Paul DuQuette, Marc E. DuQuette, Judith Hawkins-Tillirson, Rick Potter, Donald Weiser, Betty Lundsted, Kat Sanborn, Patricia Baker, Chance Gardner, Vanese Mc Neil, David P. Wilson, Jonathan Taylor, Dr. Art Rosengarten, George Noory, Poke Runyon, James Wasserman, Rodney Orpheus, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Larson, Brenda Knight, Sharon Sanders, Michael Miller, Michael Kerber, Jan Johnson, Brad Olsen, Janet Berres, Charles D. Harris, Michael Strader, Phyllis Seckler, Grady McMurtry, Israel Regardie, Helen Parsons Smith, Alan R. Miller, Ph.D., Clive Harper, William Breeze, John Bonner, Stephen King, and a very special thanks goes to Elysia Gallo and the wonderful team at Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd., for making this project such an enjoyable experience.

Prologue

STORIES

I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories.

WASHINGTON IRVING

Next to silence, stories are the most divine form of communication. Stories are alive. Stories are holy. Stories are gods that create universes and the creatures and characters that populate them. Stories bring to life all the triumphs and tragedies imagination and experience can summon to the mind. Stories speak directly to our souls.

Stories are magick.

As I begin the seventh decade of my life, I find myself more inclined to listen to a story than to study a text or reflect on an argument—more inclined to tell a story than to presume to teach a lesson or offer advice. Perhaps it is because as we grow older we have more stories to tell, and experience and wisdom conspire to add dimension, texture, and perspective to the lengthening register of our memories.

For whatever reason, I find myself at this season of my life unable to approach the subject of this book from any direction other than relating my personal experiences. This is not to say that I haven’t integrated a great deal of theory and technical information within my nonchronological narratives. Indeed, I believe there is more than enough magical “how-to-ness” nestled within these pages to keep a motivated magician busy for some time. But it is the story that informs—the story that teaches—the story that reveals the magical “how-why-ness” (and in some instances, the “how-why not-ness”) of the magician’s life.

However, storytelling has certain disadvantages—foremost being the fact that memory is a fragile and subjective thing. Pain, regret, embarrassment, shame, wishful thinking, fantasy, and old-fashioned self-delusion constantly threaten the accuracy of our recollections of the past. Absolute objectivity is impossible. But unlike other mortals who lead less examined lives, the magician is obliged to keep a diary, and may refer to specific events recorded in his or her magical journals. I’ve relied heavily on my scribblings in the preparation of this book—a painfully embarrassing ordeal, I assure you.

Also, in the course of telling a magical story, one must consider the sensitivities and the privacy of other individuals, living or dead, who may be part of the action. Over the years I have been blessed to meet and work with some very wonderful and colorful characters, most of whom would not be recognizable personalities in our magical subculture, but a few of them I dare say might. So, I confess here and now that in certain places in this book I’ve changed names or made other literary adjustments to allow certain individuals to remain blissfully incognito.

I, of course, hope that you will enjoy this small collection of my memories, but I know that I can’t possibly satisfy the taste and expectation of every reader. Perhaps this book will not be what you expected. Perhaps you will be disappointed that I haven’t written yet another textbook or a more scholarly elucidation upon some great magical system or philosophical doctrine. If so, I hope you overlook my lack of apology, because I believe with this little book I am offering you something that can be far more powerful and enlightening—a gift of stories. I hope you accept them for what they are, and find your particular truth within them. For as the Zuni sages tell us, “There is no truth, only stories.”