Whole Magic: Burnt Finger Experimenting or Full Training Before Magic
This week’s Whole magic has been unknowingly brought to you by Jake Stratton Kent and Aaron Leitch. Well, their facebook feeds anyway. Aaron wrote a post about how it would be crazy for electricians to start working without proper training. He noted that if you just get up and grab whatever tools you have and start wiring a building you will probably get electrocuted. If this is true for Electricians, it is probably true for Magicians as well.
On the other hand, Jake pointed out “If you wait until you’re ready before starting, you never will. If you wait until you know everything before starting, you never will. Also, I don’t give a flying fuck what X said, make your own mistakes, not theirs or mine.”
So who’s right?
This is a “Whole Magic” series post, so I am sure you already guessing I am telling you to embrace the dichotomy. You would be right. Going into magic blindly ignorant of available training is silly, but in a world that produces more books and training courses faster than you can take them, it is possible to paralyze your growth by studying forever and never getting down to work. Like the strings on a guitar, we must tune ourselves harmoniously between the extremes of tight (training and apprenticeship before any magic) and loose (jump in just do it!)
Embrace the dichotomy: your career in magic should be a never ending cycle of learning and experimenting. Even teaching is, in a way, part of my own training, as it forces me to set down what I have learned in a way that fills in holes and is understandable for others, who will then throw it back to you in ways you did not expect. So embrace the dichotomy!
Except… Jake’s right.
In Praise of Burnt Fingers
Look, I sell training courses in magic for a living. I believe that the right training can make all the difference in your success in magic, but the idea that you should WAIT until you are finished training to do magic is wrong. In fact, I recommend the opposite. If this is your first day reading about magic and you are looking for advice on what to do: my advice is find a simple spell, or even a handy spell-kit, and DO IT. Get that taste for what it’s about. Most people have extreme beginners luck with their first couple attempts at magic, so this will firm up your suspicions that Sorcery does indeed work.
When I first started playing guitar, my friend taught me two chords: G and A. I learned to hold down those strings and in a few hours I could play and sing Jane Says. I played it on stage at an open mic that week. After I got that taste of what I was after there was no stopping me. It was the same with magic. The first spells I tried worked and produced undeniable results, and that was it: I found the thing that hooked me for life.
Did I burn my fingers? Yup. One overstep produced a result that I am still dealing with 30 years later. I learned how to fix some messes, and I learned that some messes can’t be fixed. Those early dives into the deep end not only introduced me to magic, they made me WANT the training. They made me NEED the training so that I could get better and better. I still train. I still learn.
Like I said: I sell training courses. I do it because I want people to get better at magic, which in all likelihood they are already doing.
Also, I know a few electricians. Most of them shocked their fingers or blew a few circuits messing with electricity before they went to school to become an electrician. They took some common sense precautions (turn the breakers off), used available materials (Hardware store wire nuts and wire strippers) and did a few simple things. These projects are what usually sparks the idea to get the training. It is the same with magic.
