The Laws: Inherent, Enforced, and Personal.

If you jump off a building, you will fall to the ground. That’s gravity: it’s a natural law. Doesn’t matter who you are or where you are. Gravity is applicable to everyone, everywhere, all of the time. It doesn’t matter if you believe with your whole being that you can fly like Superman, if you jump off the building you will go splat.

If you believe that you are overweight and decide to try intermittent fasting for a month, that is a personal law or rule. The only person holding you to it is you. What you believe matters and what you choose to do in response to that matters, but if you choose a different belief you will choose different actions. These are personal to you.

Apart from natural and personal forces, there are also powers and forces that are societal, organizational, or enforced. If you buy a gun in New Jersey without a permit you will get arrested. Here in Vermont not so much. Different states, countries, and organizations have different rules and laws that come with consequences if you get caught breaking them. They aren’t natural laws that are inherent to reality like gravity, but you also don’t get to personally decide what you obey and what you don’t. It doesn’t matter whether you like them or not, if you break the rule there are penalties.

All of this is obvious.

But what about the rules and laws of magic? Magic is real but can’t be measured in concrete ways so its a little harder to parse out which practices and protocols are based upon Natural laws like gravity; Laws that govern specific systems, traditions, and organizations; and personal rules that you are free to choose or reject personally.

I have told this story before, but years ago a friend was intending to practice a Solar Invoking ritual every morning but wound up feeling heavier and more depressed. I watched him do his morning routine and while he was speaking Solar invocations, and his intent was to invoke the sun, he was drawing Saturn invoking Hexagrams as is ritual action. So what happened? What was ruling this operation?

Clearly the power of the ritual is not merely a matter of personal belief, or his intent would be all that mattered.

So, does that mean that there is something naturally inherent in those Hexagrams, like gravity? Are we to believe that no matter who is drawing them or what their intent is, the powers invoked will follow those rules based on how they are drawn? Some would say yes, but I can’t get behind that.

The answer for me is that the ritual is system specific. The system has rules and whether you know them or not if you are engaging that system, you are subject to its rules. If you are not engaging that system, you are not subject to those rules.

I treat the planetary days and hours like this. I do not believe that Sunrise on Thursday is somehow inherently more Jupiterian than other hours. Its not personal either. I also don’t think that you can just decide to believe that noon on Sunday is the most Jupiterian time because you want to. Instead, I treat the planetary days and hours like an organization I belong to or system that I am engaging.

The idea of magical currents is on the mark here. When you are standing in a river, you are subject to its currents. Whether you go with their flow, or fight against them, the current is what it is as long as you are in that river. If however you are on the sidewalk, or in field, or another river, that current doesn’t mean much.

Magic has never been one thing. Parts of it are indeed inherent and apply everywhere, to everyone, all the time. Other parts are purely personal, your beliefs and values determine your parameters and protocols. More of it though, most of it, is some level of system specific protocol.

The task for each of us is to figure out what parts of our practices and traditions are natural laws that apply to everyone, everywhere, all of the time. Which ones are purely personal, created by ourselves for our own personal work and understanding. And which ones are part of a system that was created and set in motion by people and spirits and other powers.

Apotropaic Iron?
Triangular Spirit Traps?
Electional Astrology?
Names of Gods?
Anything.

Ask yourself: Is this real inherently, only because of my personal belief, or because of collective investment and enforcement?