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.

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1:/ To share pictures of meals or cats, or random personal facts. I don’t use Twitter this way.

2:/ To make personal contact with authors, celebrities, professors, and other people you might not get to talk to otherwise. I make limited use of Twitter in this capacity.

3:/ As a seventh sense. (Feel free to renumber as befits your preferred catalogue of senses.) This is how I use Twitter.

I make a point of following about 100 of the most interesting people I can find. Their own ideas might be interesting, or maybe they read and retweet great sources I’d never find. Articles, blog posts, studies, new artwork – I grab them all from my twitter stream.

I routinely unfollow old sources and add new ones. I like to keep things fresh.

Then I filter these tweets, passing along the ones that are most interesting.

Recently I started a twitter account especially for altmagic. It’s – gasp – @altmagic. The goal is to make it a source of killer content relating to art and magic. Twice a day or more, @altmagic tweets out the coolest articles I’ve found.

If you like art +/- magic, consider following.

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People always want a reading list. Which books are worth reading? I never answer that question.

The truth is I’m not a fan of most of the magic books on the market. But that didn’t stop me from learning from them. I can’t even remember where my first spell came from, because I had a stack of books that I pulled things out of.

Learning magic is like learning any other art. The more techniques you practice the more tools you have at your disposal. Imagine learning to paint by asking one painter which paintings he recommended. Looking at paintings can be a great source of inspiration, but walk through a whole museum. Or focus on one master at a time, and get to know them really well.

Magic really is an art. When the ritual starts it’s a performance. Your books and teachers disappear and it’s you, the one who dares to change the world, alone in the spotlight. It’s you facing the spirits or the aether or whatever you want to call that crackling feeling of glimpsing something bigger.

So how do you learn to do it? Here’s how I learned:

+   Rip through as many books as you can. Be voracious. Skim, skip chapters, pick up and drop the books as you see fit. After two or three you’ll notice the introductory chapters are pretty much the same, but you’ll find some interesting and unique techniques along the way.

+   Avoid anything that boils down to, “Do whatever feels right.” This is the author’s way of avoiding actual instruction. You’ll learn more trying out actual techniques.

+   Ignore scare tactics. A lot of magicians hate it when I say this. But books are rife with them. Demons, curses, backfires, silver cords, things following you… look, if a $9.95 book caused people to lose part of their souls you’d know about it. You’re the magician, you’re the one in charge. Grab the universe and shake it.

This approach can work for you, too. I know because I started with no knowledge and no faith and made it work regardless. Jump in. Consume and try as many different magical techniques as you can find.

Magic is the art of assembling symbols to trick your mind into doing something you couldn’t consciously do. There’s a fair amount of creativity involved. When it’s working you’ll feel it – strongly. It will grab your attention and speak to you, and you’ll know what it means to hold magic in your hands.

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Not everyone liked that declaration.

I had people ask me why I practice magic if I don’t know whether it works. I’ve also been asked why I would come out and say that when my business is selling magical scrolls.

My recent posts are my answer, and exist as a source of information for any reader on whether “it really works.” Let’s look at what we know about magic in the 21st century.

First off every magician ever tested by skeptics has failed to provide results. But the kind of magic that’s been tested is a set of tricks used to entertain or defraud audiences. It’s different from traditional systems of magic. Very few traditional magical techniques have been investigated by science, but of those, several have been proven to work. However, those techniques don’t seem to work for the reasons the magicians say they do.

The magic that works is not supernatural. If you define magic as a supernatural agency, it probably doesn’t exist. On the other hand if you define it as using rituals to obtain results, then the rituals seem to work for a variety of reasons: because of our unconscious control over our bodies, because of the power of psychology and belief, and because of the materials used in some of the rituals.

The traditional ceremonies and charms that I use likely work on the same principles.

//

I’m comfortable not knowing. I’m a priest who’s not sure if the gods are real; an adventurer who isn’t convinced there’s an afterlife. I’ve used my magic spells for 16 years. I’ve cast love spells and seen people fall deeply in love. I’ve removed curses and seen people turn their lives around. And I earned a degree that taught me that none of those experiences prove anything.

Some people hate not knowing. It’s more comforting to believe an invisible force will come to your aid; more gratifying to be so smart you see through the act. But I believe in science, and science supports neither of those views.

I’ve made my peace with uncertainty. Magic is a beautiful set of ceremonies. When I perform these ceremonies my heart sings. When I give people my scrolls it fills them with determination and the resolve to change their lives. If that’s all that’s going on, I feel okay with that.

And if a choir of spirits gathers at my side? Bonus.

This is the atelier where spells are made. Welcome aboard. 

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I had projected that the first lot of scrolls would be ready by February 14. It’s going to be a little longer – getting all the materials here in Mexico has been tough! But we’re on track now… lots of late nights with red wine and potions lie ahead.

This is the draft for a custom ordered scroll. This one will be enchanted for a peaceful family.

The mated pair of swans touch beaks as their children sleep nestled under their wings.

This is a draft in oil pastel. The final will be on handmade paper in specially prepared gouache, pen and ink.

Here you can see two sheets of the handmade paper. I’ve trimmed the edges in two different styles.

On the left is a “natural” edge. I created it by folding and stressing the paper. It makes for a very straight, but still organic edge.

On the right is the treasure map edge. This is made by carefully tearing the paper by hand. It’s wilder and more fringed.

If you want to help spread the excitement about magic scrolls, please tweet or share this post.

Which style edge do you like better?

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In some cases, yes.

Science has investigated a handful of traditional magical techniques, and found that some produce results. I’ve chosen three examples that have particularly clear evidence. There’s scientific consensus that these rituals do work – but not always how they work.

1:/ Tumo

I’ve mentioned tumo before, but it deserves a more detailed explanation. Tumo is a practice used by Himalayan mystics to conjure heat. It allows them to go outdoors in freezing conditions with only a thin cotton garment.

In 1982, with the cooperation of the Dalai Lama, researchers from the Harvard Medical School tested tumo practitioners for the first time. They recorded body temperature changes of up to 17 degrees. Later, they made video documentation of monks using their body heat to dry ice cold wet sheets, and staying outdoors all night in temperatures that reached zero. The monks slept comfortably with no shivering, no shelter, no huddling, and no protective clothing or blankets.

Meditation mastery is a prerequisite for practicing tumo. Learning the technique involves ritual preparation, physical movements, complex visualizations and specific breathing techniques. If we define magic as the use of ritual or ceremony to cause real effects in the world, it would be hard not to call tumo magic.

Science has an explanation for how tumo works: biofeedback. Our bodies routinely use environmental feedback to adjust how they operate. On a hot day, the body produces less heat; on a cold day, it works to produce more. In this view, tumo represents a method of highjacking the normal biofeedback system and forcing the body to produce more heat.

If you use a cheap thermistor and focus on making your skin temperature go up, you can probably raise it a few degrees yourself.

But that’s one of the most important lessons: only a few degrees. Other than the ritual practices of tumo, there is no documented case producing such dramatic results. Western medicine offers an excellent explanation for how tumo works, but has yet to develop any tool for doing it as effectively as mystical ritual.

2:/ Zombies

Vodou, a religion of Haiti and west Africa, is known for its strong magical tradition. It’s where we get the idea of the zombie. But actual zombies created by sorcerers are different than what you see in movies.

Vodou tradition has long held that sorcerers have the ability to curse people with a death-like trance. The victim’s family thinks they’re dead, holds a funeral and buries them. Later the magician digs them up and resuscitates them, but not as their normal self – rather, in a state of total submission. This is the zombie, who can be used as a servant or for physical labor by the magician.

Scientists assumed this was superstition because all the reports of actual zombies were hearsay. Then came the case of Clairvius Narcisse. Clairvius was declared dead by two attending physicians at a modern clinic in Haiti. 16 years later he returned to his family very much alive.

That Clairvius is the real Clairvius is beyond question. He was subjected to a barrage of tests, answered questions only the real Clairvius could answer, and was recognized by multiple friends and family members.

Clairvius describes his time as a zombie as a state of delirium. He was one of several zombies forced to labor on a farm. They were fed a hallucinogenic plant, datura, with their meals to keep them in a foggy, obedient state. Eventually one of the zombies killed their overseer and they were able to escape.

What remains controversial is how exactly Clairvius was put into a death-like condition that fooled Western doctors, slowed his metabolism to a crawl, yet was still reversible later.

Canadian botanist Wade Davis went to Haiti to answer that question. He was convinced the Haitian sorcerers must use a drug of some kind. After procuring a number of different versions of zombie powder – a magic powder sprinkled on the victim or left in their clothing or shoes – he famously declared that the active ingredient is tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin found in fish.

However, Davis’ claim is controversial. Tetrodotoxin is indeed able to induce a death-like coma, but the idea of someone recovering from it without brain damage is incredulous. More to the point, researchers have never successfully reproduced the zombie condition with tetrodotoxin.

Does this mean that zombification is actually supernatural? No, not at all. It might mean that some other ingredient is what does it.

But it is another case where traditional magical ceremonies, however they might be explained, succeed in their intended effect.

3:/ Death Curse

One of the earliest types of spells to be verified by science is the use of curses to murder people. The most widely studied cases come from Australia. Aboriginal tribes there believe that if a magical executioner – a kurdaitcha – points a ritually prepared bone at someone, the person will die within days.

As early as the 1940s anthropologists noted cases where the victim actually did die.

Verifying this was difficult, again because many cases were hearsay and also because alternate causes of death were hard to rule out. However, verifiable examples exist and the phenomenon is now generally accepted by scientists. Science explains the efficacy of the death rituals in terms of belief: if you believe the ritual will kill you, it very well might.

How this works is not as well understood. There is a debate whether people can literally die out of fear (they are so scared of the curse that their mind kills their body), or if their belief that they are going to die leads to risky behavior (refusing food and water) that kills them.

(Note: I don’t offer curses, sorry.)

Conclusions

If you believe there is some supernatural, invisible force in the world, these examples don’t help you at all. Everyone one of them is best explained in terms of natural, material mechanisms. In tumo it’s the body’s unconscious self-regulation; in zombification it may be poisons and drugs; and in death rituals it’s the victim’s own psychology.

But is that a reason to dismiss magic?

If I can use your psychology to cause you to fall in love, isn’t that a powerful spell? If I can slow my metabolism to last long periods without oxygen, isn’t that worth learning?

I view magic ritual as a technology. It was developed to produce results, and it’s often damn good at doing so. Sometimes science has developed alternate tools of delivering the same results, and sometimes it hasn’t. But if the ritual does what it’s supposed to do, it’s a useful tool no matter how it works.

It’s important not to over-generalize. Just because the ceremony to make a zombie works doesn’t mean the ceremony to cure cancer works. Just because pointing a cursed bone in someone’s face kills them, doesn’t mean it would kill them from a thousand miles away. But these examples show that magical ceremonies can have profound, real, measurable effects.

When someone says magic has been disproven, they’re factually wrong.

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Here is some disappointing news that most magic types do not want you to know:

Every single one of these tests has shown that magic does not work. There isn’t even one exception.

Many believers don’t want to accept this. Often, they would rather reject science than face these facts. It’s a sad state of affairs.

But wait – isn’t my job to make magic scrolls for you? Why the heck am I telling you this?

Knowledge is important. The skeptics’ tests of magicians have given us vital information. But those tests only tell half the story.

//

Of Shamans and Showmen

As I immersed myself in skeptical literature from 2004 – 2010, I noticed something odd. Every one of the tests and studies I encountered focused on individuals best described as entertainers. Typically, the “magicians” being tested were from first-world Western countries, with little or no connection to any longstanding magical tradition, and made their living by impressing audiences or customers.

It’s not surprising that these showmen (and women) were all talk.

I wondered if I was missing something. I sent an email to a number of my skeptic friends, asking if they knew of any studies that tested traditional, tribal or ceremonial magical systems. Highlights from the responses:

Almost everything the Skeptical community does is based around de-bunking show-people… and obvious flim-flammers. They typically are not going after the Dalai Lama or some Inuit shaman.

and:

Studies of this kind are not done very often, and when they are they are almost always targeted at charlatans… or at practices that could put people at risk.

We were unable to turn up even one skeptic test involving a tribal magician or anyone else who is part of a long magical lineage.

This is a major oversight. Traditional systems of magic require intensive training. They’re handed down across generations, in a community or culture that relies on them for results. As with any other traditional art, each generation of magicians hones the techniques, removing those that clearly don’t work.

If a school of magic survives this kind of system for centuries, I would expect it to be at least as effective as other bodies of nonscientific learning handed down: a mixed bag of things that really do work, and things that were retained only because of tradition or doctrine. Systems of traditional herbal medicine are good examples of this.

But that’s just theory. Do any of these magical ceremonies actually have the power to change the world around them?

It turns out they do.

Although the skeptic community has not tested any traditional tribal techniques, scientists have investigated several. Tomorrow I’ll look at a few of these techniques – and some surprising results.

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Magicians have stock responses for this. They’re actually pretty disappointing. The ones I hear most often are:

1:/ Well, I believe it works.

2:/ I’ve never had any complaints/never a disappointed customer.

3:/ Let me tell you my theory on why it must work.

You can probably see the problem with these answers. They dodge the question.

Other magicians insist their art works. This is a better answer, because at least it is an answer. And usually these magicians are sincere: they really believe in this power. But if you ask them about any kind of proof they get upset. They say things like, “magic isn’t something you can prove,” or “science can’t test everything.”

Seriously?

//

My Answer

I’ve said before that I’m very interested in the scientific study of magic. Recently I talked about one example of a traditional technique that has been proven to work. In the next few posts I’ll look at the skeptic tests of magicians, and a more in-depth look at traditional techniques.

But the most important thing I can say about magic is this:

I have no idea if magic works.

A lot of believers – and even potential customers – will be angry that I said this. But let’s be honest. Do you have even one piece of proof that your magic spells work?

I do believe magic can be tested. And the kind of magic I do has not been tested. In the absence of scientific proof, I have nothing to offer you. I could talk at length about my personal experiences, but if I told you a fantastic story about feeling energies would it really mean anything?

I believe in integrity. So I speak honestly. I practice an art that provokes powerful feelings in people, and is traditionally believed to have a real effect on the world. I do a damn good job at it. It’s a beautiful art, and I hope you’ll like the scrolls I make.

But I’m not going to lie to you and say a mysterious power exists when I have no idea. And honestly, neither does anyone else.

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If you read today’s books on magic, it seems like little more than wishful thinking. Concentrate really hard on what you want… make sure you have the right incense.

Positive thinking has a certain degree of usefulness, but it’s a far cry from magic.

Magic can be neatly defined as the use of ritual and ceremony to effect changes in the world around you.

This is different from religion. Religion also uses ritual and ceremony, but only in certain ways. A religious ritual might ask the gods for something – a dramatized version of prayer – but magical ceremony makes it happen.

How exactly this works is one of the best questions people ask.

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The Force is a Lie

When people think of magic, they think of something supernatural. An unknowable, invisible force that can’t even be studied. Strictly speaking, “supernatural” means something that breaks or defies the laws of physics.

This is a very Hollywood idea of magic.

Traditional theories of magic often suggest natural explanations – explanations that rely on the laws of physics and can be studied. A good example is the Tibetan technique known as tumo. According to tradition, tumo is a way of conjuring heat. Tumo masters can walk around in the snowy Himalayas without any protective clothing. Heat radiates off of them.

And how exactly do Tibetan magicians explain this? Do they think their gods give them this power, or that the Buddha is protecting them?

Not exactly. They explain tumo in terms of their medical theory. In traditional Tibetan medicine, there are pathways of wind throughout the body. When you breathe in and out you force air through these pathways. Fresh air had been observed to fan flames, making a fire hotter; thus, they reasoned that if you focused these winds you could fan the flames of your own inner fire, producing more heat.

This explanation is complete bullshit, and totally wrong. However, it’s important to notice: it’s factually wrong, but it attempted to give a scientific, material explanation for how the magic works.

When scientists from the Harvard Medical School tested tumo practitioners, they discovered it works.

//

A Realistic Approach

In my opinion, these are the very best systems. Can a magical ceremony have a tangible effect? Of course it can. Magic can change lives, unite or part lovers, provoke or end periods of success, even kill people. Magic is a force capable of forcing dramatic change. But it does this through material, explainable means.

My school of magic is pragmatic. Take the best that tradition has to offer, hone it as a personal art, and don’t believe in horseshit. It’s amazing how much you can do when you focus on your art and stop trying to dazzle people with grand theories.

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I wanted to use my creative talents and my magical training on my own terms, in a way that no one else has.

People told me it was too expensive, too risky.

But last month, three friends and I challenged ourselves. We’re each starting an entire business, from beginning to end, in just 30 days. On a shoestring budget. We lovingly refer to it as #MinBizMo, or Minimalist Business Month.

This is how altmagic was born:

Do you ever dream of starting your own business?

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