Taylor Ellwood is the author of Pop Culture Magick, Space/Time Magic, Inner Alchemy, Multi-Media Magic and Kink Magic (co-written with Lupa). Taylor is also the managing non-fiction editor for Immanion Press and a Teacher of experimental magic at the Growing Edge Institute. For more information about Taylor, please visit The Green Wolf or Magical Experiments

The Evolution of Magic

When I get the occasional interview from a podcast or magazine, one misperception I often need to correct is the association people make with my work and chaos magic. I suppose because chaos magic used to be the latest current of magic and one that seemingly represented avant garde magic, people find it easier to lump my work into chaos magic. Admittedly, at one time I briefly identified as a chaote, but in the last five or so years, I came to recognize that Chaos Magic wasn’t quite the apt descriptor of what I do. While some of the practices I utilize are derived from Chaos Magic, I also draw much more extensively on Ceremonial and Hermetic practices as well as Far Eastern techniques. Even more importantly, much of my magical practice is now derived from disciplines that have little if any overt connection to magic, such as semiotics, literacy, linguistics, social practice, cultural studies, psychology, neuroscience, and physics.

While it is somewhat fashionable in certain Chaos Magic circles to utilize physics (Peter Carroll comes to mind) in magical practice, for the most part these other disciplines haven’t really been integrated into magical practices, beyond the occasional magical alphabet that springs up. Patrick Dunn, Wes Unruh, Edward Wilson, and to a lesser extent Bill Whitcomb have written about semiotics, memetics, and magic. Phil Farber has written a work about blending NLP, neuroscience, and magic together. Then there is my own writing, which has also focused on blending non-occult disciplines into occult practices. Beyond that there isn’t much literature that shows how to integrate practices from other disciplines into magical work.

Some might argue that drawing on disciplines outside of traditional occultism is not relevant to what they do. They could even be right, but I think such an attitude signals something of the stagnation I’ve long felt is part of the occulture. For all that we might view ourselves as a radical counter-culture (with the associated meaning of experiments and progress), the question that I find myself asking is, “What is the relevance of counter culture to magical practices?” The answer is that any relevance is arbitrary. The counter culture status of occultism is really just a cherished image some hold on to show how cool and radical they are. However such an image doesn’t guarantee any real progress in occult thinking or experimentation and this is fairly evident by the lack of genuine progress in the occult literature we have available to us. The majority of books currently published are mostly focused on rehashing what has already been written. We see this in the profusion of 101 books that range from Wicca to Ceremonial Magic to energy work, to Neoshamanism to Chaos Magic. Where is the innovation, experimentation, or evolution of magic in merely rehashing what has already been written? For that matter where is the experimentation in replicating what someone else has done?

I usually identify my approach to magic as Experimental Magic. My approach doesn’t draw on Chaos Magic beyond particular sigil and entity techniques (and even those have been modified extensively), and the use of paradigmal piracy in my pop culture workings. I don’t perceive my blending of non-occult disciplines as paradigmal piracy, because a lot more is involved than just swapping different religious beliefs for each day of the week. Experimental Magic is the rigorous creation and application of new and modernized systems of magic that also utilize principles and practices from other disciplines. The experimentation aspect arises out of the creation of new systems of magical practice, with little being derived from traditional occult correspondences and practices beyond the bare bones of techniques which can be adapted to these new systems. Instead of relying on traditional deities, rituals, or meditations, the magician seeks to create new practices based on concepts from multi-media, semiotics, linguistics, neuroscience, and other disciplines. The magician then tests these new practices to determine if they can work or if they need refinement.

In chaos magic, the focus is primarily on obtaining results, and it is sometimes argued that we don’t need to know how magic works, so long as it does work. In experimental magic the emphasis is not on obtaining results. Instead the focus is on developing, understanding, and refining the process by which a result occurs. Results are considered to be signs which indicate if you are going in the right direction or if you need to go back to the drawing board.

Experimental Magic is the next step in the evolution of magic. The focus has moved away from ceremony and ritual, and from an open-handed approach to magical practice and instead focuses on looking at how magical practice can be defined and refined as a process. However spirituality and working with deities and demons is not left out of that equation, nor are the practices of the past denied. Working with deities and demons and spirituality in general is an influence that is readily acknowledged in experimental magic, as opposed to being written off as a psychological phenomenon as occurs in chaos magic. The traditions and practices of the past are acknowledged as influences that can help refine the process by how magic is worked. Indeed, sometimes the most innovative practice of magic is found by experimenting with what others did and improving upon it. But just as importantly, experimental magic emphasizes using the techniques derived in other disciplines as a way of further refining and understanding how magic works.

For magic to continue to be a viable discipline, it must continue to evolve with the times and situations that inform its use. It must also continue to evolve as the other disciplines in the humanities, arts, and sciences continue to evolve. The practice of magic should not be static, because magic is not a religious practice, even if it is sometimes affiliated with religions (Religions can change, but they tend to change much more slowly due to dogma). Indeed, when practitioners find themselves relying overly much on how magic was defined in the past, they should be wary of such reliance, for it signals a dogmatic adherence to the past, and can lead to less questioning and experimentation.

The Experimental Magician does not believe in the efficacy of dogma. Even when a magical process seems to have been refined as far as it can be taken, we are still left with the questions, “How could I experiment with this process further?”, and “Is there another method I can use to obtain this result?” For the Experimental Magician, the question is the answer, because the question generates the demand to experiment, to test, and to refine how magic is worked. The evolution of magic stops when there are no more questions to be asked, and no more answers to be found.

Experimental Magic, as a current all its own, is concerned ultimately with how to evolve the practice of magic through fostering a better understanding of how magic works as well as how the processes of magic can be melded with the contemporary practices of other disciplines. As such, I would like to announce the formation of the Guild of Experimental Magicians, which is focused primarily on defining and experimenting with the processes of magic. Interested parties should contact me at taylor@spiralnature.com for more information.