Black Magic: Had Yours Today?

Daily Doses of Dark Magic?

 

Each of us assumes we’d never ever go over to the Dark Side, not even to get out of debt, or even to win on American Idol, so it usually comes as a bus wreck to our egos to discover that we spend one hell of a lot of time (and I use that phrase consciously) performing nothing less than dark magic.  Most of us in Western culture do it almost all day every day.

 

“Whaddya mean?” you say. “Couldn’t be!”  “Not me! Not me!”  Or “I.”  Or whatever.

 

Okay, let’s examine a few basic human tendencies.  Indulge me for a minute.

 

Do you ever have little psychodramas or arguments with someone who’s, how shall we put this, not even there?  Like the clown who dinged your new Prius?  Or the lame-o husband who fixed your toilet SO well last night that it leaked and collapsed the kitchen ceiling two days before everyone’s due over for Thanksgiving?  Ever replay in your mind experiences that were hurtful or distressing?  Maybe you change them around so that you come out “the winner?”  Maybe you keep them going even further, harder, to punish yourself by reminding yourself what a loser you really are?  Ever keep thinking over and over (as you’re on your way to Brangelina’s pool party) how much you really really, really HATE your butt?

 

(I feel like I’ve been slimed just writing this stuff.)

 

Now, if we explore, let’s say, that hackneyed old Hollywood idea of what “doing black magic” would be like, it would involve wizardly things like focusing the mind, altering the breathing, grounding and centering the physical body, and ultimately sending a stream of energy or malevolent intent at whatever the target might be.

Right?  When you’re having an internal argument, or even one out loud with that absent spouse who just won’t understand, or that invisible coworker who just keeps screwing everything up and never gets even a wrist slap − someone who’s not even there − all those wizardly things are happening.  Think about it.

 

You are REALLY there.  And your intent is REALLY focused.  Your emotions are REALLY channeled.  And you send energy bursting out like a supernova, just to keep it from building up any further and developing into a migraine.  If you put that much intensity and focus into positive prayer, moment by moment, you’d practically be able to levitate.  (Actually, as it happens, learning to put that much intensity and focus into knowing and sending the LIGHT is what a Wizard does to keep the world spinning, moment by moment.)

 

So if any of that does in fact seem just a tad familiar and your life, not to mention your world, doesn’t seem to be going the way you’d like it to, don’t you think it might be useful to do things differently? 

 

First, you need to become conscious of what you’re doing.  As you begin to catch yourself going into one of those moments of your own personal dark magic, recognize what you’re up to and make yourself take a moment to pull back, to shift your perspective, to acknowledge that it would be much more useful to change the energy you’ve been sending into something uplifting, even healing. 

 

This process is sort of like doing judo on your own dark side.  You  can take that torrent of negative energy − which is really what it is − and, because you’re more fully aware of what you’re doing, take responsibility for what you put out into the universe, make a different choice and humbly but firmly flip it so that you will send positive, hopeful, healing essence into the world.  Sandra Ingerman, the brilliant shamanic teacher and practitioner, has written beautifully and powerfully about that in her books, Welcome Home and How to Heal Toxic Thoughts.

 

Then, as you stay conscious more and more, you will get into the habit of becoming as consumed with sending LIGHT as you have been, all unawares, with sending, um, merde.  And you will find how satisfying it is to put just as much power behind the good stuff as you used to do with the bad.  This is real!  You will understand that you are either polluting the universe − and yourself − with what you are putting out, or you are lifting and healing it all.  That will make your life and our world much more wonderful for you and for all those you care about.

 

Start now.

 

Bright blessings!

 

 

© 2008 Stephen Neal Szpatura