In a video last weekend, I talked about the rub that exists between philosophy, which seeks truth through reason, and mysticism, which seeks irrational ecstatic communion with the divine. As it turns out, I have more that I want to say on the matter. Specifically, I want to talk about the survival of the soul […]
Read more "Philosophy and Mysticism: Malkuth, Yesod, and the Underworld"I’m a philosopher, a mystic, and a magician–but those things don’t fit together as neatly as you might expect. In this video, I talk through a fundamental incompatibility between philosophy’s demands for rigorous reasoning and mysticism’s need to suspend reason in favor of direct ecstatic experience of the divine. And just to top it all […]
Read more "Video: Philosophy, Mysticism, and Magic"New on YouTube. When people talk about “magic,” they mean a lot of different things. In this video, I talk through what I see as a fundamental cleavage in magical practices: Between models of magic that rely on intercessory spirits and those that rely on sympathetic or symbolic connections.
Read more "Video: Spirit-Based and Sympathetic Magic"This week, I had the privilege of joining Tess Whitehurst and Natasha Levinger on the Magic Monday podcast, to talk about Hermetic Qabalah, the Tree of Life, and how to make an often impenetrable subject accessible and relevant for magical practitioners outside of the Golden Dawn paradigm. (And, of course, to promote my book, which […]
Read more "My Appearance on the Magic Monday Podcast"In all the conversations people have about Wicca, it seems they’re often not working from a shared definition of what Wicca actually is–and that can be a source of confusion and problems. In this video, I talk through what I consider to be the six basic defining features of Wicca: -It’s a form of witchcraft […]
Read more "Video: What is Wicca?"I like to believe I’m a smart person. I think critically. I have a master’s degree in philosophy and I’m working on my Ph.D, and contrary to popular belief, academic philosophy is not, in fact, a free-for-all of sloppy thinking and vague bullshit. My discipline is overwhelmingly, exhaustingly oriented toward rigorously defined concepts and motivated […]
Read more "Ten Doubts About Magic"It’s longstanding wisdom in Western occultism that there are multiple planes of existence above the material. Thanks in large part to the influence of Mme Blavatsky and the Theosophical society, the number of planes that gets discussed most often is seven: One physical plane, and then “upper” and “lower” planes corresponding to the astral, mental, […]
Read more "The Astral is Enough"Have you ever heard of “SMART” goals? It’s a trite human-resources motivational speaking aphorism that gets bumped around in certain middle management corporate retreat sorts of environments. “SMART” is an acronym. SMART goals are said to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Sensitive. S-M-A-R-T. Trite though it is, it’s damn good advice. When setting goals […]
Read more "Getting SMART About Witchcraft & Magic"This is going to be a Wicca post. If that turns you off, I completely understand, seeing as how this is actually not a Wicca blog, and I promise my next post will be 100% Tarot.* For anyone who’s relatively new to my blog and doesn’t know this about me, I am a onetime atheist […]
Read more "Magic and Mental Causation"The idea of using Tarot in magic(k) is not exactly new. The Aeclectic Tarot Forum has a whole constellation of discussions on this topic, and Kelly-Ann Maddox at the Four Queens did a video on it not too long ago. Here, I want to take a bit of a different tack and talk about how […]
Read more "Tarot and Timing Spellwork"
Jack Chanek 