Essentials Principles to the Art of Spellcraft
Dedication
When beginning the Art of Spellcraft, before you purchase a single candle or incense or a single medallion or ring, you must dedicate yourself to your craft. When one undergoes this phase of Occultist one is usually considered a Dedicant, meaning one who is not Initiated into a tradition but is still expressing a strong desire to become part of a tradition or practice, and is willing to undergo any initiatory rituals or training to hone themselves to the task at hand.
Without dedication there is nothing, if you do not dedicate yourself to this practice, not even one tradition which only purists will say is completely necessary, but just the very practice and art itself, then do not bother purchasing any colored candles or incense as it will not work. The dedication and focus of one who is bent on learning, building, and perfecting their skill in the Occult is what will lead to success, not the worth of the materials in the implements purchased and intended to be used for their art. The mind of the Occultist is his/her greatest tool in their arsenal, it is the difference between success and failure, between mastery and mundanity.
Creativity
A less spoken of part of the Occult is creativity, particularly in Spellcraft. Understand your correspondances, understand your tools, and most importantly understand yourself, for the greater your understanding of these things, the more flexible you can be with how they are brought together for your purposes.
Every spell or ritual is a machine, like an electrical circuit, it is a living, breathing, roaring, and electrified current of power harnessed or unleased for the sole purpose of fulfilling your wishes. When a current is unleased, however, one must take utter care not to overestimate one's ability to domesticate and harness these forces by your will alone, remember that an electrician who assumes immediate control over a live wire, and for this hubris touches the wire assuming it will not harm it, becomes electrified himself (or herself) and in doing so is scorched from the inside out until nothing is left but a charred corpse lying on the ground. Know your tools, understand them, and protect yourself whenever possible, especially in dealing with raw forces.
Creativity itself is how you will master the different possibilities that surround us all, for anything is possible so long as the one who wishes to fulfill it has the proper level of discipline, dedication, and creativity to explore every avenue and not stop until their desire is fulfilled.
Discipline
This can be defined very simply as the ability to do something because it is required of you either by another or by yourself so that progress can be attained and protection ensured. This can also be defined as the ability to control oneself and to hone one's own personal actions and energies because of the knowledge that proficiency in this skill will lead to being more able to do what must be done. Thus it can be said that Magick without discipline is a fool's errand, nothing but a child spraying made up words and haphazard configurations into the Aethyr and assuming that a result will emerge from it. Hone your skills or be condemned to the life of the novice, for amateur work will only produce amateur results.
Deliberation
One must be considerate of every opportunity to encorporate correspondance into a spell, or ritual. This means that the way in which something is done from preparation to closure of a spell or ritual can have meaning simply by it being given by the operator. For example, if you were cleaning your room to perform a working, then that could become a sort of purification of the ritual space which could be contributed to the spell. From this scenario, washing rogue laundry could be the purification of water, perhaps even wash what you will be wearing for the spell so that it can be consecrated with intent, the drying of the clothes in the drier could be related to air and fire; the folding of the laundry and organization of the other clothes could be purification of Earth (much like how a crystal has an organized structure that gives it power); and sweeping your room could be to banish residual negative emotional energy or atrophied and stale energies from past workings so that they do not interfere with your working; etc.
Admonition of the Magus
To attain the SANCTUM REGNUM, in other words, the knowledge and power of the Magi, there are four indispensable conditions--an intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity which nothing can check, a will which cannot be broken, and a prudence which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate. TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP SILENCE--such are the four words of the Magus, inscribed upon the four symbolical forms of the sphinx. (from "Transcendental Magic" by Eliphas Levi)
The quote above from Eliphas Lvi is the complete quote from which the "Admonition of the Magus" as it is often called by Occultists familiar with the Western Esoteric System, and is often shortened to "To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent", is another primer of essential principles which can be used by any rising Occultist or practitioner.
Here is a breakdown of these principles taken from the quote above:
To know with "an intelligence illuminated by study"
As stated before, know and understand your tools, know and understand the components of your spell or ritual, know and understand the beings with which you wish to interact or conjure, and most importantly of all, know yourself. A part of this principle is to also know and understand the limits of your tools, components, spirits, and once again, yourself; if you do not know how far the aspects of your spell or ritual can go, then you risk overworking them or yourself, or underutilizing them.
To dare with "an intrepidity which nothing can check"
Act with certainty, a part of any spell is making sure that is something you can follow through with, and the reason is for this very principle; once you have determined that you can follow through with a spell or ritual, follow through with it or do not begin it at all, and that means moving with certainty that it will be done, and that the results will take place.
To will with "a will which cannot be broken"
Let nothing rob you of your desire to make your will become reality, let nothing dissuade you, let nothing rob you of your power and your right to use it for what you believe in. If you have taken the necessary actions, precautions, and considerations, then you have no reason to turn away from what you have set into motion, and nothing to turn away your desire so long as you are certain that it is your will and that it is truly dedicated to what you want it to be.
To keep silence with "a prudence which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate"
Be deliberate in who you talk about when it comes to your path, your spells, your rituals, and your capabilities. Let no one force you to divulge anything that is against your will set into place with the utmost consideration. Your mind should be a steel trap where only with your informed consent should anything be spoken of, and nothing more. This path is yours, the truth is your truth, and this Paradigm of reality is your Paradigm, honor it, protect it, and only share it with those who can appreciate and discuss it with an open mind, even if they do not believe it themselves you should never feel forced to speak about your practice with someone who would only denigrate you for what you believe in your heart to be truth so long as that truth is founded in genuine understanding.
