Name: MalikLucius
Location: Everywhere and Nowhere
Last Seen: Wed, 20 Sep 2017
Membership: Contributor
Personal Bio
I have been Malik for a long time, though I was not born by that name.
I speak with those who dwell in trees and stones, and I listen to the voices which carry on the Wind.
I walk paths by darkness which some avoid by daylight, clad by mist and starshine.
I strike at the hearts of those who would threaten balance, that they should dare the path of the storm.
With a few exceptions, I am here to help.
And on occasion, I am given to fits of Melodrama.
Ahem.
About Me:
I am a practitioner of some 15 years counting. By that I mean I have viewed my path as being officially and identifiably magickal in that period of time. Though my family are on the broadly monotheistic spectrum, my upbringing was more vaguely spiritual. God was mentioned only on Sundays, and in the sort of simple terms a child's mind can easily carry off in a pleasing shape.
I spent my childhood wandering the mountains and forests near my grandparents' home, growing familiar with the energies and presences of the area for miles. We took hikes, camped, and sang, and I found my own gods in the strength of the land and the love of other people.
I would collect pretty stones and colourful leaves with the intent of bringing the "feeling" of the woods back to my room. I buried "trades" of food bits or candy in the ground when I wanted to make a wish, because it wouldn't be fair to expect something for nothing. These things just struck me as sensible- they didn't have any special meaning, beyond being a part of what I thought I needed.
It wasn't until my teenage years, around the time my parents converted to a stricter form of Christianity, that I felt a need for definition. After all, I couldn't very well say "I just do whatever comes to me at the time, you know?" and expect to be taken seriously.
I found friends with similar leanings, and we traded around what small selection of occult and pagan books were available to us at the time.
Time passed, while I devoured books and scattered religious readings. It didn't take any time at all to find that my beliefs were more a practice than an established religious tradition. At the time, I decided for myself that magickal practice and spiritual belief were integral to one another, and slid between traditions sampling techniques.
Those clumsy attempts at structured spellcasting were both less effective and less satisfying than the simple energy work I'd fallen into intuitively as a child. Of course, as a young and overeager scholar, I assumed things needed to be more complicated and began the pursuit of Ceremonial Magick.
(Autobio still in progress)
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Concerning Mail
-If your mail is titled only with a greeting, I will respond in kind. Please be concise about who you are and what you want.
-I am happy to answer questions and help with problems in whatever way I can. I will not, however, solve your problems for you.
-I do not do readings of any sort on anyone else's behalf- Neither Runes nor Tarot, Board nor Bones. If you need information on yourself, ask for yourself.
-I do not work my craft on simple request- most problems for which people turn to magick are simpler to solve by mundane means. It's silly to waste unnecessary energy on taking the harder path without reason.
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Areas of Practice
First, let me make clear that in my experience, Energy Work is at the foundation of every practice. There are no "basics" more fundamental than this. Understanding Energy Work front to back makes the following as straightforward as tying one's shoes.
-Sending, whether for good or ill
-Shielding
-Grounding
-Healing
-Channeling
-Invocation
-Sympathetic Magick
-Sigil Magick
I could bore you with a long ordered list of what I've studied over the years, but in my experience those studies contain an unnecessary deal of overlap.
Knowing how Energy interacts with and contributes to these things is like knowing what makes a good knot. Being familiar with one's tools and their limits means knowing how to do more with less.
Put simply, Magick is a Craft. Like Blacksmithing or Carpentry, an expert produces marvelous results with only the most basic tools. The problem is imagining that there is some division between the Mundane and the Magickal which makes them somehow fundamentally different, when they are not. Perhaps I'll write an article on the subject.
What catches more of my attention is the creation, purposeful or inadvertent, of Magickal Objects. Primarily because they behave in ways which sometimes contradict both the behaviours we assign to objects, and those we assign to energies. When the crude and the subtle combine, the rules change, and that makes for a delightful challenge.
I will always insist that tools are not required for ritual work, but they certainly do seem to have a magick of their own. The same can be said for any item crafted with intent, whether it's a sweater with love stitched so plainly into every line that it may as well be embroidered on the front, or handmade furniture which remains sturdy for so long that multiple generations of descendants are able to enjoy it.
I take a simple pleasure in getting to know these objects, their histories and quirks, and giving them back the care they endlessly put off into the world.
It makes a fine counterpoint to those objects I have to hunt down, imbued with so much negative will that walking past their display case induces nausea.
