Like anything we encounter, it will depend on the specific situation. If someone is trying to harm you standing your ground and "shielding" is probably not a good option (if one assumes shielding even has any reality to it). But if you're hiding from someone maybe calling spirits to misdirect them or make you "invisible" is a reasonable way to bolster your efforts to hide. Calling on a martial spirit as you begin to investigate car troubles might make sense. Bewitching an abuser mid-abuse may require a presence of mind the would be too difficult in such a moment. Reality. Magic is real, and like all other tools our use of it should be based on the reality of our capabilities and the reality of the situation.
Skipping magic as a solution because it doesn't feel real, or using magic in an untenable situation because of fantasy ideas or just because you like the good feels are similarly problematic. Both undercut your ability to function as a magician.
These thoughts came up regarding a recent situation that popped up for me.
Two weeks ago I was at work and got a call from my sister. At first I ignored it, I mean who takes calls from their baby sister when they can be planning huge financial movements for clients (or just chatting with work bros about NSFW stuff, that is way more likely). But then I realized my sister doesn't usually call, so it could be an emergency. Sure enough I checked my phone to find a text message "Mom cut her fingers on the electric hedgetrimmers, I'm taking her to the emergency room." I quickly called my sister for more info but she didn't know anymore.
My mother is already pretty dependent on me and has a handful of problems we're already managing. The potential loss of a finger, infection, keeping the finger but with nerve damage or loss of the finger tip, the emotional toll, all of these things swirl in my head, along with thoughts of medical costs and the near impossible task of trying to keep my mom from compounding her injury with house work. So while at my desk at work, I let out a sigh, drew the seal of the Sun from the Heptameron, and wrote Raphael in Hebrew on the back of my business card then conjured Raphael.
About and hour and a half later my sister was at my office with my mom, they were on their way to get an antibiotic. It should have taken my sister about twenty minutes to get to my mom, twenty minutes to the doctor and thirty to me, so she got seen pretty much right away and was treated fast. Ended up not needing an emergency room. Doctor said she was lucky she didn't lose the final digits on her index and middle fingers, she also managed to avoid nerve damage and avoided cutting the tendons. They gave her a shot, prescribed and antibiotic and she was on her way. By the end of the day she could move her fingers again and she had the feeling back in her fingers but without much pain. Two weeks out she's basically better, since she normally heals slowly, and since she grabbed the blades as the trimmer turned on, all in all her lack of injury and swift recovery is pretty impressive. I was fearing major medical bills and on going treatment and problems, but in the end all it cost me $50 for an antibiotic and a sprinkling of red sandal and Abramelin incense that I burned in thanks to Raphael.
Maybe Raphael had no impact and she would have been fine either way, but we can never know what would have been if we didn't do something. Either way I'm glad, both for my mother's well being and for my own lack of stress that my first thought was "Ok, well I know an angel I can ask for help."
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