The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws. ~ Alan Moore
We are wrongly told magick is the ancestor of technology. Not so but the brilliant and skillful use of technology can be in itself very close to magick. Magick is not a predecessor of technology but rather kin to art, a manipulation of the elements around us to enhance the likelihood of an effect. In the same way fine art requires a precise touch, so too does magick. This is different from cause and effect, and more akin to chaos theory. The timing, the inflection and our intent mix together to potentially influence a series of chaotic probabilities which may, or may not, result in a precise point of synchronicity.
The proximity of art and magick cannot be overstated. Failing to see the family resemblance allows advertising agencies and politicians far too much free range I would rather leave to musicians.
We have to resist the temptation to fall into superstition, to propagate popular notions of magick. It is incumbent upon the pagan community to quietly save magick from our fictions at least for the sake of our own understandings.
Want to be invisible? Don’t think like Harry Potter. Think like an owl. The creatures of the forest don’t try to be invisible. Rather, they seek to increase the probability they will not be seen. They hold still, make no noise, silence their breath as you pass. They participate with their surroundings to increase the likelihood they will remain unnoticed.
I am certain you see fewer owls than have seen you.
Magick is not so much a practice but a way of being in the world, a way of living to provide space for synchronicity to proliferate around us. In such a context, everything is connected, there are no coincidences. We don’t “do” magick, we breathe it, move through it and experience everything as part of a unified whole.