DIY in magic is overrated.
You have heard it many times: there is magic in the act of creation. You hear it a lot because it’s true. Lovingly crafting a tool, an image, an invocation, is a magical act that changes the creator as much as it does the base materials he is creating with. A long time ago a teacher told me that the value of making something yourself cannot be over-stated. Therein lies the problem, I think it can be over-stated, and often is.
“Nothing will ever have the power of a tool that you make yourself”.
“Tradition is fine, but never as good as your own beliefs and rituals”.
“Write your invocations, they will always be more potent than anything you read in a book”.
It is these absolutes that are the problem. They fail to take anything other than the power of creation into account. There are other considerations.
THE POWER OF TRADITION
Recently a student wanted to start doing Cyrian work. I asked what prayers they would be using and said that they wanted to write their own because it would be more powerful and personal that way. The problem is that they had never done work with Cyprian before and had only heard about him recently because of all the press he has been getting in the blog-o-sphere. Why wouldn’t you avail yourself of the many prayers and novenas that already exist? By all means, I think there is power in writing one of your own, I even put one together myself, but why wouldn’t you try one or more of the traditional approaches out first, so that you could at least get to know what they are about? It’s kind of like writing a sonnet about someone that you have never met.
Furthermore when you think about it, its a little disrespectful. I think of traditional methods as similar to established approaches to contacting people. If someone completely ignores any and all protocols I have set up for contacting me, I tend not to react well if they show up at my kids birthday party wanting to talk about magic. Some spirits take this view as well. Before writing any rites to Hekate, Padmasambhava, Cyprian, Jupiter, or any other being I work with I try to avail myself of methods that have already been established. Its only polite.
And you know what? Even after I write my own stuff, I STILL use those other methods quite often. There is a power in creation, but there is a power in tradition as well.
THE POWER OF CRAFTSMANSHIP
It is impossible to be good at everything, so you should definitely not expect to be great at everything. When someone like Fra Ashen creates a tool, it is a masterful and beautiful thing to behold. His work inspires faith and awe because he is not only a first rate magician, but an expert craftsman.
Now one could argue that anyone can become a master craftsman with effort and just a little talent, and that may be true, but if that is not your calling you probably won’t want to invest that time. DIY purists will insist that any attempt, even one that winds up looking like my 4 year olds made it, will be better than something someone else has done. I say POPPYCOCK! Craftsmanship value as much or more than doing it yourself. I have old tools that I made in high school, but I never use them because they look like shit. I would rather buy something nice and consecrate it to the work. In this case the consecration is my contribution to the creation.
It is important to keep in mind the difference between competence, mastery, and perfection in a skill and the fact that it is quite desirable to strive for different levels in different things. Most CEO’s are not masters of every aspect of their companies business, but they are competent enough at them to manage those who are.
LEARNING FROM SOMETHING DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO KEEP DOING IT
When I was young I learned the basics of making oils, and baths, and powders from a few gracious teachers. When I took cat yronwode’s Hoodoo Course (I am graduate #99) I learned even more. When i first was learning Alchemy I had some time on my hands and extracted Sal Salis from wood. Some things I learned can ONLY be learned by making it myself. Some things can only be learned by devising a formula from scratch. The value of these lessons is not to be under-stated.
But here’s the thing: I don’t enjoy fannying about with herbs and oils. I love anointing with oils in magic, but I hate mixing them and getting excessively involved in the creation of things that can be done just as, or more, effectively by others. In fact, I pretty much avoid as much arts and crafts as possible so that I have time to actually DO the magic.
In short: I learned how to do it. I do it when I have to. I don’t when I don’t and far from suffering, my magic is often more effective by relying upon people who are masters of their craft.
IF EVERYTHING REFLECTS WHO AND WHAT YOU ALREADY ARE, THERE IS NO GROWTH
These days people sometimes start out by rejecting anything that does not reflect themselves. They create their own traditions of Witchcraft and magic because no tradition out there will “reflect my beliefs like one I make myself”. Traditions don’t exist to reflect what you already believe. They exist to give you a framework to grow within, and to give many people who all have slightly different beliefs, to come together in.
This is true of Rituals as well. I HATE some of William Gray’s overly alliterative writing style, but I do it when I meet with my Sodality because it is something that we can all use, and has become a tradition with its own potency. It is an opportunity to grow within a tradition and have a common ground for work with peers, rather than something that must reflect my style and preferences.
The act of creation is an important and potent magical act, but when you feel like you must create everything to be a reflection of your own beliefs and style you are building yourself a cage out of mirror that you can get trapped in forever. What begins as self-exploration can quickly devolve into solipsism if gone unchecked.
THE PLACE OF D.I.Y. MAGIC
There are a few questions I keep in mind when it comes to DIY magic.
- Is there something to learn here by doing it myself? For example, I have internalized lessons from drawing the Heptameron Circle on the ground that I think could not be gotten any other way.
- Once I have learned that lesson, do I have to keep doing it myself? I did it, and now I have the circle drawn in paint on a drop cloth. I can fill the names in with other pieces of cloth as the season changes. I don’t feel like I need to keep doing it myself every time.
- Is it a lesson I need to learn? We don’t have time to learn every individual lesson. There are mysteries involved in the creation of dud-tsi pills that I will probably never know because those mysteries are primarily for people that are called to that work. That doesn’t stop me from using the pills as part of my Tantric work.
- Is this something I love to do and have the time and desire to master? I love writing and experimenting with ritual and I devote the time to doing it. I love to work with wood and have made many wands, but no longer have the time to devote to it, so I don’t anymore. I have never liked mixing oils, and while I learned how to do it reasonably well, I still tend to avoid it
- Is there someone else who makes it better than I can? If someone else made a really nice version of the circle, maybe with organic paints that have fluid consensors mixed in, I would not hesitate to buy it and use it. My Hazel wand recently broke and I am probably going to buy one from Jake Stratton Kent for some upcoming work with the Verum, rather than make another one myself. I will re-consecrate it of course, but I trust that he cut them at the right time and place.
