I like getting my hands dirty. Whether I am helping build something, doing gardening, or getting into the finer details of a project in the physical world- I like to get as visceral and tactile as possible. For me, this crosses over to magick. While I love grimoires, candles, sigils, and many of the physical trappings of magickal work, I always say them as means to an end- tools to focus the will and imagination, but just tools at the end of the day. Tools act on something, and they are created to shape or manipulate (or make those processes easier) something. What is that “something” in magick?

Energy.

The teachings of so many spiritual schools teach that the Universe is multilayered. These layers are all interconnected and what changes on one layer affects the others. We can label these levels of reality, all interdependent on each other, as follows:

• Physical- The concrete, visible world that is observable and subject to “standard” laws of conventional physics.
• Energetic- This is the mysterious world of ethereal energy that often mirrors the physical and binds it to the immaterial.
• Mental- The realm of consciousness, archetypes, and thought.
• Spiritual- The “Source” of all things; since everything comes from the same source- everything is connected.

Knowledge is power. Knowing that the world is so multifaceted and interconnected, we can further extrapolate that what affects one layer can affect the others. Magick directly affects the energetic level more so than any other, and understanding how energy works can only make magickal practice more effective. Magickal energy is all around us, and the ritualistic actions we do are ways to manipulate that. After taking a more post-modern take on the hundreds of years of occult teachings that have come before me, I realized I wanted to put away the intermediaries, and work on handling magickal energy directly. I did not come to this conclusion overnight. Before I did a deep delve into the occult, I did a lot of work with energy healing, chakra work, and Reiki. After helping a client deal with the energetic effects of a baneful working against them, I was able to make the logical connection between magickal cause and energetic effect.

I wrote Energy Magick to liberate people to a different paradigm. While my book does much to do magick without the usage of tools standard to much modern magick, I like to think it helps create more understanding and accessibility to the Art and looking at things through the lens of energetic experience can create a way to reinforce, strengthen and reawaken the spirit.

To give an example, I do a lot of work with invocation magick. It is one of the most misunderstood, but spiritually gratifying aspects of modern occultism and magick. I grew up Catholic and for me God was always somewhere far away and abstract. The only way I felt close to anything I would call Divine was by trying to love and help people to emulate a certain famous, bearded Jewish prophet. When I became Pagan, and I was in my first coven, we did a lot of fun stuff. We celebrated holidays, did spells together, and generally had a lot of fun (until things fell apart, but that is a different article). One of the things that still touches me through the mists of memory, to this very day, is how my high priestess could invoke the Goddess. She would do a full body possession. Her voice, posture, mannerisms, and even knowledge would change. Gone were the days of some deity in outer space somewhere- here was Divinity touched down to Earth. There was no need for faith, I had proof that the gods were real and that they could be interacted with on a real level. In the candlelight temple space of our coven, the Goddess was real and was there for us. In fact, to this day, some of my old coven mates and myself will swear that our high priestesses’ face changed depending on how you looked at her or how the candles flickered: changing between various aspects of the Divine feminine and even looking like different races and ages. It was a very moving experience.

Invocation work can be tricky and there are several aspects to it. By looking at the energetic changes in invocation, I have found that it is easier to accomplish and teach to others. I look at invocation in four distinct levels: inspiration, visioning, oracling, channeling, and possession.

• Inspiration- This is where you invoke the deity just above you, or barely into your crown chakra, going no further than your third eye. This is useful if you need literal inspiration for a project- like invoking the goddess Brigid when you need help writing a poem or need guidance on love from Aphrodite. It is possible to do divination while under the spiritual guidance that comes from this stage of invocation. I would caution that the inspiration you receive will be influenced by who or what you invoke. While I would ask Thor for inspiration on when to plant crops and what the best time for something related to weather would be, I would ask Hermes for business advice on a reading concerning investments.
• Oracaling- Here the energy of the deity is coming down through the head to the throat chakra. At this point the crown, third eye, and throat chakra are all involved. To be an oracle of a deity is to be their mouthpiece. Being an oracle is all about letting the truths and wisdom of the deity come through. Since this is not a whole bodied possession, sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between what your truth is versus the truth of the deity. To counteract that, it is important to be as ego-less as possible.
• Channeling- You are about 50% still in control of your body, give or take. In oracling, the chakra energy stays at the throat chakra level; here it will rest at least at the 3rd chakra and from there flow into your energetic body. Channeling contrasts with being an oracle, in that the deity has more room to operate on. It is as if I am carrying the deity in my body more so that it is coming through me. Channeling is a fantastic way to contact deities when you need to not only communicate, but also handle physical objects. A deity may charge a talisman, give advice, or even do automatic writing.
• Possession- At this point, the deity has come all the way through, is in your body all the way, and has about 90%-95% control. I say 90% to 95% since 100% is rare. The energy of the deity is fully descended into the body. I have found that there is still a spark of control within someone even at the deepest levels. It is best to communicate with the deity what your boundaries are and what you will not do no matter the situation. Having clear and direct boundaries with them is important in any relationship, and even more so where the deity is having control over you.

I go into more of the methods and exercises in my book, but the point I would like to emphasize is that something as potentially complex as invocation work can be brought into greater clarity through understanding the energetic changes the body goes through when doing magick. In each of the levels of invocation, feeling energy of the deity coming through you at various levels causes different effects, and understanding that these various levels of invocation correlate to how deep the energy penetrates the subject helps make these processes easier to understand and accomplish.

Energy and magick are everywhere, and the more you feel the more you can accomplish. May your magick be fruitful, and may the gods bless you. Always.

Mark NeCamp Jr is a tarot reader, healer, writer, teacher, spiritual alchemist, modern day practitioner and forever student of the Art, and a devoted family man. He teaches classes using magic as a tool for personal growth. He is passionate for how, through the alchemical process, we can turn our spiritual lead into gold as individuals and as a global tribe. He has led many community groups in the Midwest and taught at major Pagan events and festivals around the United States and Canada. He lives in Muskegon, MI.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/mark-necamp