A Call for Blogs of Magic

Posted by on . 24 comments.

Yesterday I invited you to follow my Twitter stream. I like to tweet at least two great articles per day relating to art or magic.

But the reality is that I tweet almost exclusively about art.

Why? Magic is an amazing art, and it should make for equally amazing blogs, journals, and essays. You’d think there’d be a million top-notch magic blogs out there. But honestly? There’s not.

Most magic blogs suffer from one of three failures:

1:/ They suck.

2:/ The design sucks. Pixilated pentagram gifs and a layout that screams Geocities circa 1999 somehow fail to impress.

3:/ They are deeply embedded in a neopagan worldview and have limited appeal for those of us who aren’t pagans.

That’s not to say there aren’t exceptions. I’m a fan of the Sassy Sibyl. It’s not technically a magic blog, but as a tarot reader her articles are relevant and she has a penchant for writing inspiring stuff. I also enjoy dispatches from Jason Miller over at Strategic Sorcery. He definitely knows how to craft a spell. And you’ll find some well researched pieces at New World Witchery.

But other than that I’ve had a tough time finding quality blogs or websites about magic.

Do you know of a magic blog that’s worth reading? Don’t be a stranger. Please, leave a comment and clue me in.

Tweet or share this post to help me cast a wider net.

Comments

  1. FaeNathara says:
    February 18, 2012 at 09:38

    Hallo! I agree, it can be very tough finding decent blogs on magic. My blog may suffer from issue #3 but I would like to offer it up for your perusal: http://www.faenathara.com/blog

    Also, there is a year long blog project underway and you can find the participants at http://www.paganblogproject.com

    Happy hunting!

    Reply
    • altmagic says:
      February 18, 2012 at 10:29

      Fae, your blog is beautiful! I’ve added it to my Feedly and will be perusing over coffee.

      I’ll have to look in more detail at the individual participants of the year long blog project to see if any of them are focused mainly on magic. Thank you for sharing these!

      Reply
      • FaeNathara says:
        February 18, 2012 at 11:10

        Thank you so much for the nice compliment, Drew! I know it’s a lot of links to look at and some are more religion focused than others, but there are definitely some gems in there (and others I’ve yet to find, myself!).

        Reply
        • altmagic says:
          February 18, 2012 at 11:53

          Oh I’m making a field day out of the list… I dug through over 100 well-ranked art blogs to build my art sources, I’m happy to do the same for magic blogs. It’s like opening a bunch of presents.

          Reply
        • altmagic says:
          February 22, 2012 at 14:39

          It’s like a candy store…

          Reply
  2. Sunfell says:
    February 18, 2012 at 12:51

    http://runesoup.com/ (Rune Soup) is a pretty good (Chaos) magic blog. And my own blog, “Light-Headed Thoughts” is more a practical blog than a magical one, because I’m one of those rather rare secular/skeptical (female) Mages.

    http://sunfell.wordpress.com/

    (I need to update it more often.)

    Reply
  3. Sunfell says:
    February 18, 2012 at 13:04

    Here’s an entry that does a pretty good job of explaining where I come from magically:

    http://sunfell.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/my-metaphysical-journey-so-far/#more-43

    Reply
  4. Arden says:
    February 18, 2012 at 14:15

    http://www.neuromagick.com <- I think you will like this guy's approach. His system and ideas are more inspired by the Western Ceremonial Magick than anything traditional, which may mean it's not quite what you're looking for, but he's doing fascinating new things with it; he's a Ph.D in Psychology from UCLA, and he's incorporating science into magick in a completely legitimate way that doesn't by any means go New Age Quantum Mojo on you.

    http://pomomagic.wordpress.com/ <- also quite good, also more Ceremonial-y. But it reliably provides rich, thoughtful, subtle musings on magic. Awesome on the philosophical end.

    Reply
  5. Cory says:
    February 21, 2012 at 13:00

    Thank you so much for mentioning our blog. We put a lot of heart into our research, though I am always learning more and finding out that something I’ve written on has new layers to explore. Our design was actually done by Sarah Lawless (of The Witch of Forest Grove blog), so you may want to check out her other work, too.

    Thanks again, and I’m really enjoying reading some of your projects as well!

    Reply
    • altmagic says:
      February 22, 2012 at 14:48

      Thank you Cory! Yours was one of the first ones mentioned to me when I started asking around, and I’m glad it was. Keep up the great work. I’m taking a look at Sarah as we speak.

      Reply
  6. Melissa says:
    February 21, 2012 at 22:32

    I have a penchant! Sadly, the most magic I can make happen involves butter, four, salt and full-fat milk (and tastes divine with a dab of apricot preserves).

    Also Drew – you should send me an email (because I cannot find your email here). I have a bit of a vision to share with you. Dude, put up a contact form.

    Reply
    • altmagic says:
      February 22, 2012 at 14:49

      D’oh! Contact form. Okay, yes, you’re totally right and that is long overdue. For now: drew@roguepriest.net. I really look forward to hearing from you.

      By the way, baking is an awesome art. Magic is cool and all but if I had to spend my whole life with either cakes or talismans, gooooodbye grimoire.

      Reply
  7. Valentina Kaquatosh says:
    February 22, 2012 at 00:08

    Now I feel the pressure’s on! My Witchy blog here on WordPress is a melting cauldron of art, memoir, and ruminations, but I want to especially share more magic-related memories, adventures, and a spell or two: http://valentinathewitch.wordpress.com/ You know I’m an old friend with lots of ideas. This is the first time I have started a blog where I want to tie it around my life as a Witch.
    There are other blogs I have discovered that I follow as well. I’ll get back to you on that. I am busy writing and going through drafts at the moment, anxious to write about all the things I’ve been dying to get out of my mind!

    Magic is my passion and such a large part of my life! I hope to make many more friends through sharing. Good luck with altmagic, friends!!! I am over zealous and sending you LOTS of love! Yay!

    Reply
    • altmagic says:
      February 22, 2012 at 14:50

      Thanks Val. I appreciate the link to your blog and if you do get around to passing on the others you mentioned that would be great!

      Reply
  8. Justn Patrick Moore says:
    February 27, 2012 at 13:04

    Here are a few of the magic blogs I like:

    Taylor Ellwood’s Magical Experiments:
    http://www.magicalexperiments.com/

    And Robert Moss’s blog… Robert Moss is a teacher of Active Dreaming, a unique synthesis of ancient/shamanic and contemporary dreamwork:
    http://mossdreams.blogspot.com/

    I’m trying to find a groove on my own blog at http://sothismedias.com I have podcasts of my radio show mixed in with dreams, fiction, magic, art, musick, a bit of everything. So it’s really a grab bag.

    And while John Michael Greer’s blog thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com isn’t specifically about magic, he did a great series of posts throughout 2011 on Magic and its practical uses in a collapsing empire and in a post-industrial world.

    I’ll be adding this here blog to my feed as well… newly discovered from your other hangout spot on Rogue Priest…

    Reply
    • altmagic says:
      February 27, 2012 at 17:13

      Thanks Justin! I’m checking these out, yours included.

      I was actually not enthused by Greer’s post-apocalyptic writings. I had hoped he kept a blog because I find his published writing on magic to be high quality. But when I found it and read that, it struck a wrong chord with me. Just not my kind of tea, I suppose.

      However I’d be interested to hear what made it valuable to you.

      Reply
  9. Justn Patrick Moore says:
    February 28, 2012 at 08:33

    One of the things I admire about John Michael Greer is that he is one of the few magicians looking at the implications of peak oil and energy descent. I don’t find his writings post-apocalyptic at all: in fact he is doing a series on his blog now called “End of the World of the Week” from his book “Apocalypse Not” where he debunks people who rant and rave about “the end of the world”. While he does write about how the absence of cheap abundant energy will change the way of life experienced by those, esp. in first world industrialized countries, he makes it clear that these things won’t happen all at once, and it won’t be the end of the human race.

    While the main project of his blog is not necessarily magic, he devoted a series of post to magic, which will be collected in his forthcoming book from Scarlet Imprint (they also have a great blog) called “Blood of the Earth: An Essay on Peak Oil and Magic”. I’ll be interviewing JMG on my radio show in early April about this book, and posting it as a podcast.

    I feel magicians need to address the limits imposed on us by ecology -whether or nor we are of a pagan world view.

    Thanks for checking out my own blog and looking at my recommendations. Happy scroll making!

    Reply
    • altmagic says:
      March 1, 2012 at 19:12

      Thanks Justin. That actually helps a lot in understanding where Mr. Greer is coming from. I agree those are important issues, and look forward to hearing the radio show when it comes up – please let me know!

      Reply
  10. Lisa Loewen says:
    August 29, 2012 at 12:48

    Hi

    I just came across your blog for the first time today. Looking forward to reading more! I started a blog a couple of months ago on dream symbols and dream interpretation if you’re interested (sort of a latent interest of mine that I’ve just come back in touch with). http://imagesindreams.blogspot.ca
    Thanks for posting recommendations to other blogs too. There are definitely some I will be following.
    Lisa

    Reply
    • altmagic says:
      August 29, 2012 at 12:51

      Thanks for the kind words Lisa, and welcome to altmagic. I’m checking out your blog right now… I haven’t done much with dreams before. Where or how do you suggest someone start?

      Reply
      • Lisa Loewen says:
        August 29, 2012 at 13:03

        I guess I’d start with making a practice of keeping a dream journal of sorts. That way you can see if there are common themes or symbols. Some people have precognitive dreams so it would be cool to have them recorded somewhere to check back. Some people have trouble remembering their dreams. One way I do it is by trying to focus on three symbols from the dream (right as I’m waking up). For example: forest, mushroom, Kim Kardashian (this is from a dream I actually had). The symbols seem to trigger the memory of the full dream.
        Justin mentioned Robert Moss’s blog http://mossdreams.blogspot.com which I also follow. He is really smart and experienced. I went to one of his workshops this summer and I’ve read most of his books on dreaming. I’m not so sure about the practice of “Active Dreaming” where he advocates inviting others to join you in your dreams – I find that a bit scary and invasive.

        Reply
        • altmagic says:
          August 29, 2012 at 13:47

          I find that I remember my dreams very clearly when I sleep sitting upright.

          I’m not so sure about the practice of “Active Dreaming” where he advocates inviting others to join you in your dreams – I find that a bit scary and invasive.

          I suppose it depends. I doubt I would find it restful, so wouldn’t include it in normal sleep, but might do it as a practice (similar to astral projection).

          Reply

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