Sometimes, my
friend likes to look at reviews of my books. Living Spirits: A Guide to Magic in a World of Spirits has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 on Amazon, I feel pretty
good about that. There are a lot of reviews I'm pretty proud of. I watched
closely when the book first came out because it was new and I really wanted to
see what people thought. I try to check still sometimes, I appreciate the
reviews and would love if more people who liked my books reviewed them. A lot
of the time now it's my friend who brings them up. He's been popping over to
scope them out off and on for the last two years. He's not a magician, but he
finds the reviews interesting and will comment on ones that seem odd. Last
night, he brought up one that I don't think I'd noticed before.
" I haven't finished the book
yet. I am only on chapter 7 but already feel like some of the information is a
tad bit hard to retain because it's so detailed. This is definitely not a book
you can just pick up and read straight through. I do think the author has alot
of knowledge on the subject and I like that there are rituals listed"
He felt like
the review, which gave the book 4 stars, basically downgraded it for not being
a beginner book. 4 stars isn't bad. In a world of actual ratings, 4 out of 5 isn't
bad, in a world of algorithms and statistics, yeah, everyone wants as many
fives as possible. I like the content of the review though. Having rituals is
good, author has lots of knowledge, and it's very detailed. The draw back, it's
not really an easy read for someone beginning to explore this and you have to
take your time reading it. That, can still a good thing depending upon the goal
of the book.
I kind of like
the idea of Living Spirits as a semi-intermediate book. It grew from a series
of posts introducing concepts and approaches to spirit work. It formed into a
book as I expanded, reassembled and added to them in order to create an
explanation of a worldview, and approach to that worldview, and serve as a kind
of magical field guide to several types of spirits and spirit-work. It kind of
presumes some magical practice and is intended to build a deeper layer for that
practice even if it could be approached without that background.
Luminarium: A Grimoire of Cunning Conjuration was written with kind of the opposite
intention. Someone who has no magical experience, or who has magical experience
but no experience with conjuration or spirit magic could take Luminarium and
hit the ground running within a week or so. If someone reading it has magical
experience or conjuration experience it tweaks and arranges some stuff in new
ways, and short-cuts some things which should hopefully present new ideas to
experiment with. It's written more for a beginner with the intention of being
used as a handbook or working manual rather than an instructive text, but with
the goal of also being useful for an experienced magician.
I think a lot
of magic books feel like they need to be written with the intention of being an
accessible how to book that can be picked up by anyone. It makes sense, the
market for magic books isn't large, so it's easier to have an audience if every
book works for every reader. It's still probably good to have an idea of an
experience level in mind, and it's probably good to sometimes have the intention
of writing with the expectation that the reader should have some experience.
Jason Miller's new book Consorting With Spirits, openly talks about expecting
the reader to have experience. I would still feel very comfortable handing it
to a beginner and it is a book I'd happily recommend if a friend asked me for
books to start with. It's very accessible and it presents ideas that make a
good foundation for thinking about spirit interactions.
My friend's
comments that the review sounded like the only issue was that my book isn't a
beginner book lead to me talking with him a bit about how "so what do we
recommend as intermediate or advanced material?" is a question that gets
asked every few months on the magical internet.
More and more
these days people seem to shy away from actual answers. Learning from spirits,
or all books are beginner books have become more popular answers. In reality,
learning from spirits can also be a beginner activity, and all books don't have
to be beginner books.
I think part
of the issue is, as I mentioned, that it's easier to write something accessible
for beginners. Partially, because of the audience, partially because we can
feel more confident that we're writing something meaningful to that audience.
We also don't have to strain our depths as knowledge holders or researchers if
we're writing for beginners. Keeping language simple, direct, readable and
clear could be something that some people find easier with beginner material,
or it could be something some people struggle with regardless of the level of
the material. It should probably be a goal even in intermediate and advanced
material though.
I think
another element of the issue is "what constitutes beginner, intermediate,
or advanced?" There isn't a set firm answer for that. We don't have set
curricula for all of magic. As we progress, things that seem advanced to others
seem like simple beginner info to us. I was once part of a group where we were
doing series of 101 and 201 classes in a local store. We frequently got
feedback that the 101 material was much more advanced than people expected in a
101. We thought we were keeping things super basic. Beginner, intermediate, and
advanced can be very subjective things. I think this is true in lots of
disciplines, not just magic. People want to know what material is really
advanced, when often the answer is there is no advanced material, there are
advanced approaches to material.
When I was
first getting serious as a fencing coach, or really, a little before I got serious,
I put together a curriculum which I thought was basic foil. I told some
foilists I could work with them but I could only teach basics in foil since my
background was sabre. Later, those experienced foilists pointed out that I was
explaining stuff they thought was intermediate or advanced. The curriculum I
put together really constituted the bulk of anything anyone would learn while
training as a foilist and was sufficient for taking people from beginner to
what would be considered an "elite" athlete by some measures.
I would still
say my foil curriculum covers beginner and intermediate material, not advanced
material, because there isn't advanced material. Advanced is instruction
modifies approach and perspective. Either way, it kind of illustrates how
beginner, intermediate and advanced are based on your own self-assessment. I
assumed my background in foil was less extensive than it was so I limited my
self-assessment to being capable of work with beginners.
Breaking down
my current assessment of beginner, intermediate, and advanced in fencing is
pretty simple. Beginners learn to move, they learn basic footwork, they learn
the essential concepts and rules of the sport, and they learn simple
fundamentals that give them a few basic actions. They have enough to move
around and try the sport and fence some bouts.
Intermediate
training is a much bigger range and can have intermediate-beginner,
intermediate, and advanced intermediate as subheadings if that's helpful to
you. Intermediate students start learning
how to more or less correctly execute and use those fundamentals. They learn
some contextual ideas that form basic tactics. They learn a wider range of
techniques and that wider range of techniques is what lets you break down those
subheadings. Eventually, your wider range of techniques starts to become more
about details and variations and more tactical elements of application.
An advanced
student has learned essentially all the techniques. So lessons for an advanced
student will often just be very demanding very detailed execution of
fundamentals. Advanced students perfect the things they will rely on. They work
on determining what techniques to lean into and begin to specialize those and
learn to create opportunities to make those specializations more useful. They
deepen their tactical and ideological understanding and how to apply that
understanding. They might work on filling specific gaps or wholes, but usually
with new ways of applying or correcting existing knowledge. Advanced isn't
about new techniques or secret moves, it's about going deeper and becoming more
perfect with what you already know.
Magic can be
the same in a lot of ways, but it also has some differences in how we might
look at concepts of beginner, intermediate and advanced.
The A.'.A.'.
curriculum, and those curricula which led to it and which stem from it are
based on this kind of structure. The magician initially learns some basic
rituals and meditations, and a lot of basic ideas as a beginner. The
intermediate magician puts those techniques and ideas together and
contextualizes them in more involved systems of techniques that involve more
powerful and effective approaches. The advanced student has learned all the
techniques of the system and pulls it all together into a complete
understanding of the system and the magical universe which contextualizes it.
They express this understanding and let that lead them to a space in which they
more deeply engage that magical universe as a context for understanding their
work and their existence.
We don't have
to look at the A.'.A.'. or other ceremonial magic systems for that approach to
make sense. A beginner in witchcraft or sorcery learns some basic ideas and
basic skills. Frequently they learn a few spells or rituals to try out. They
get enough of a sense of things to try it out, see that it works, and realize
that they want to explore more. They might not even really know what direction
they want to take that exploration.
The
intermediate beginner starts exploring different systems and experimenting with
them. They try different techniques and ideas and experiment with what suits
them. An actual intermediate student might pick a system or two to really study
and explore and experiment with and start really diving into or identifying
with it. An advanced intermediate student gains real traction and success with
that system, and maybe has some fair understanding of a few other systems.
An advanced
student might dive in deep with specific aspects of a system they're working
with. They might explore more deeply the development of ideas and practices and
what that reveals about how we engage and use them, what they mean, and how to
expand them or get more out of work with them. They might be proficient in a
few disciplines and begin looking at how those disciplines inform an
understanding of each other and how one can innovate and develop better
approaches without compromising, harming or misappropriating the systems
they're being drawn from. They gain a level of mastery over their system which
lets them explore, compare, innovate and create ways in which to engage, use,
and teach their system of working.
When we
approach concepts of beginner, intermediate and advanced this way, it remains
that there are materials and teachings out there which are good for beginners
and good for intermediate students of all levels. Spirits can teach at all of
those levels, but so can books and teachers. Throughout the course of beginner
through the range of intermediacies there are new techniques, knowledge,
interpretations and approaches to learn. As we move into being legitimately
advanced, there are still materials which will help, but I would argue that the
materials might not be advanced so much as our relationship to how we explore
and use them. I suppose some materials might be legitimately advanced on their
own though, but would be more inclined to assume certain experiences, lessons
from spirits, and maybe lessons from embodied teachers would approach the space
of advanced material.
We can all
recognize the types of books that are beginner books. Intermediate beginner
books might still kind of look and feel like beginner books to people with more
experience. They still go deeper in their knowledge. They present more complex
ideas or methods or a more thorough explanation. They might give a firmer basis
on which to build ideas and practices. As we get to more legitimately
intermediate work then we might start to see more specialization on particular
aspects of traditions. There might be more particular information that gets
missed elsewhere, more attention to correcting errors and assumptions, or
techniques that have more impact or require more experience or attention to
explore.
As we move to
advanced intermediate and advanced material we start to move outside of texts
that are written for magicians. Academic books, history, anthropology,
philosophy, botany, biology, medicine, and more might be things that inform a
deeper exploration of more refined technique and refined thinking about the systems
and approaches we're using. Some of these sorts of materials might also be
useful for an intermediate student. There might also be some practical texts
that are useful at these stages because of how specialized they are, or because
of how much depth of experience the author communicates within the particular
fine tuned area of the subject or system.
Where
particular materials fit in isn't necessarily a hard and fast delineated thing
because there aren't set curricula and the way we engage these systems and this
information will vary from person to person as well. We might also find books
that seem really specialized but are still kind of intermediate-beginner
because the author's depth of knowledge or skill just doesn't let it go beyond
that point. Thinking about materials from this kind of perspective can also
help us evaluate materials. Does something seem like it should be focused and
taking a deeper approach and should therefore be more of an intermediate or
advanced intermediate work, but the material it provides is still basic stuff
you'd find in beginner books, riddled with errors, or just ungrounded
speculations? Is it just material that isn't useful because it's the author
expressing an aesthetic or an enjoyment of the feelings that something provides
rather than practical lived experience with ideas or methods which can have
practical impact? Then maybe those books really are beginner books even if they
seem more specialized, or maybe they're just not good. Looking at where work
fits can help us evaluate it.
Because there
are so many different approaches to magic this model of how we engage
information isn't the only way to consider when classifying something as
beginner, intermediate, or advanced. One system might be viewed as more
advanced than another. Sometimes that is warranted and sometimes it is a
misapprehension. Since I came up through the A.'.A.'. system I had an
impression that Abramelin and grimoire work were more intermediate or advanced
material that needed to be approached once you did the grade work. Now I
realize there are more spirit driven approaches which could place this work
much earlier in someone's magical development. Some people might say devotional
work with spirits is for beginners, where conjuration is more intermediate and
things like trance possession are more advanced, whereas other people might
have different views because of how their systems approach those things.
Differences in point of view and in systems of training can make these
classifications harder.
We might also
need to consider the aptitude of the student. Some people are well suited to
the most basic and mild systems of magic. Everything they ever explore and
encounter might seem like beginner material to other people. This doesn't mean
that there isn't some gradation for them as far as the material is concerned.
Some of this gradation is a false structuring. For example, it has become
popular in the eclectic Wicca community to treat working with deities as an
advanced idea that beginners should avoid and should be cautious in
approaching. There isn't a good reason for this if you have good material
explaining that kind of work. It should probably be one of the first things
being explored. It's viewed as advanced because people are told it is, not
because they need to work to understand it. In that context, learning a system
of divination might be more intermediate because the student needs to expand
their grasp of beginner material to understand how divination works, and then
they need to learn all the features of the divination system. The need to
explore and increase understanding and assimilate a broader range of material
might make that a more intermediate study for some people. Many of us might
dismiss that as still being a beginner element of work. Maybe for those people
who approach it as intermediate, things will click, they'll expand further and
their frame of reference will change. It might still be good for us to be
patient with other levels of ability and understanding and recognize that there
are many framings for these hierarchies of complexity, or more appropriately
phases of development.
All in all, I
think modeling beginner, intermediate, and advanced with the type of nuance
referenced above where works might fall into different categories dependent on
how they're approached or what purpose they're serving is going to give us the
most mileage. Acknowledging that particular systems, tasks, or techniques might
be contextualized as beginner, intermediate or advanced depending on the student
is important too. There is also simple space for saying something like _Wicca:
A Guide for a Solitary Practitioner_ is a beginner book, but maybe _Obeah: A
Sorcerous Ossuary_ is an intermediate book (although a beginner book for that
particular system), and the entire Brill catalogue could be taken as advanced
books. Ultimately, the answer isn't that there is no intermediate or advanced
material because no one writes it. The answer isn't that all material is really
beginner material - some material would be ridiculous for a beginner, some
material could be used by a beginner but applied more reasonably by an advanced
or intermediate practitioner. The answer isn't, books are for beginners and
spirits will teach intermediate and advanced material. The answer comes down to
framing those terms and understanding what they mean. From there we can
understand what to look for as we move ourselves, or help move others through
those phases of development.
As authors and
teachers we can think about what it looks like when we create beginner
material, intermediate, or advanced material. If we have a clear framing we can
get closer to effectively building those materials. If we just say "this
subject is more intermediate" then, we'll have people who find the subject
to still be a beginner subject and others who think its advanced. If we can say
"how do I handle this material and who is my audience and what should they
get out of it? how should they be able to approach it? who will be able to
approach it?" Armed with questions like that we can approach building
material that more effectively addresses those developmental phases.
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