Magick without contact with entities?

[wanderingmagus]

Hi, I'm new to magick and unfamiliar with its laws and methods. I notice that, in the majority of books, guides, and teachings, communication with or calling on some sort of spiritual entity, god, demon, faerie, or power is necessary to obtain power or manipulate energies. so, I would like to ask if it is possible to use magick or magickal energies without making deals with, insulting, praising, submitting to, or otherwise interacting with entities? Is it possible to use magick as a pure, unadulturated energy or force without need for politics or "gifts", whatever form those gifts be?

[Rikoshi]

Certainly it is possible- there are some particular magick models that cater to this rather well. Qui Gung is a form of chi based energy manipulation that is capable of healing, increased personal energy, and a variety of other magical feats.

In addition, you may want to check out the Psi and astral stuff on this site as it is more about the power of the mind than of any outside entity.

[Sarosong]

There are plenty of ways to do magick without the aid of a spirit. One of these ways is sigil magick, which is making a symbol and putting your energy into it for a desired result. There are many websites that explain sigils, so I won't go into detail here since I'm kind of tired. They're easy to make and it's good practical magick. Practical magick may also be something you could look into. I also have a spell written in the Spell Sharing section called Dear Subconscious Mind, which is a fun and entity-less spell that you can use for a lot of small things. Chaos magick also does a lot of magick without the aid of entities, and there's a whole forum here you can look at for help. I suggest reading the book Condensed Chaos for more on that.

Hope this helps.

[wanderingmagus]

Thank you for the information and suggestions, all!

[Pyarun]

Fact is, most magic has nothing to do with external entities. It's just that evocation magic was very popular in the middle ages, apparently, so now we have a lot of "Grimiores" lying around.
Also to address you question about power and entities granting it. Leaving aside the cases of asking entities for favours, talking purely about the fact when an entity seems to grant some kind of power to a human. What happens in most cases with this kind of thing is simply this: The entity speeds up your own development, it simply awakens a certain potential in you, or even teaches you to use something that you already had but didnt know how to utilise. And by awaken something latent i mean awaken something that would've awakened on it's own after a certain amount of practice/work. The cases of entities granting something that you would never have been able to achieve on your own are very rare.

[Venefica]

My favorite form of magick is direct Energy manipulation. Allot of magick do not involve Gods, Spirits and Entities of any kind. Some occultists holds to there being five models of magick. The Spirit model, which is the most common, but is by no means the only one, concerns itself with Spirits and external Entities, the Energy model, the second most common, is about manipulating Energy, the Mental model is about using the mind alone to do magick and the Information model is about using information, like for example creating magick by rewriting the information in reality much like you would do with a computer. These models can off course be combined, you can have a system where you use the mental model to plant subconscious ideas in your head, and then the Energy model in that your subconscious then manipulates vital energy which in turn causes magick to happen for example. The last model of magick is the meta model where the practitioner do not hold onto one model but uses whatever model most practical and powerful for any given working.

[Guelios]

Venefica - you mentioned an energy model of magic. I was wondering where I can read more about this or if you knew of any major schools of thought using this model.

[kyb3lion]

Yes, it's possible, but it depends on your (or whoever is interested in this') reasons for doing it. I have a friends that mostly doesn't want to do magic with entities because he believes it wouldn't be him doing it, and thus he won't evolve, only get trivial/passing things. And he's good at what he does, both mental and energy versions of magic. On the other hand, I have my own stubborness about not mixing psychology with magic, I have a greater satisfaction (and belief that it's real and that I did it through magic) if I just stay around, perfectly quiet, as the observer, and an event that I willed or put energy into comes into effect without any physical or psychological interference from me. Of course, they're both limitations for no real good reason. So if you don't want to deal with entities because you had a bad experience once, I suggest you hop over your fears, find a god/spirit/demon/w/e that's good for you (or more, but if it's a phobia, just start with one) and stick with him/her/them. If you just can't (it doesn't work), there are other ways of doing magic.