Further Thoughts About Crystal Magic

I discussed the art of Crystal Magic in a previous blog article, but I didn’t really focus on it as an important part of the energy model of magic and I would like to address those ideas here. Crystals of various kinds have been an integral part of the magic that I work for many years, but I haven’t emphasized in print their importance to me, what I do with them magically, and the role that they play in the workings that I perform. Anyone who would carefully examine my personal magical temple would find a number of crystals placed at strategic locations. These are not used as New Age props nor do they function as interesting but useless esthetic “eye candy.” They have an important functional use in the magic that I work, but that importance is only made possible because of the way that I have developed the energy model of magic.

I started using crystals in my magical workings back in the early 70's. This was way before crystals became a big fad in the New Age community some years later. The way that I discovered crystal magic is an interesting tale all by itself. So, I should tell this tale since it does deviate considerably from how crystals came to be used by adherents of the New Age.

What was my source of inspiration? I blush to reveal that what inspired me was a daffy movie I loved and celebrated which came out during that time (1974). It was the movie “Zardoz” (believe it or not), and I the first time I saw it I was quite stoned. (A few of my friends have also told me this tale about seeing the movie while stoned, so maybe it’s part of the movie cult.)

The use of crystals in that movie were quite futuristic, or perhaps even based on pure fantasy, since the AI computer system (called the Tabernacle) that empowered the “Eternals” living in their isolated vortex was centrally stored in a large crystal diamond, and each “Eternal” had a smaller version of that crystal planted in their foreheads to facilitate a conscious link to that computer system. They also had a crystal ring that functioned as a kind of AI interface. The Tabernacle became the repository of all their knowledge and even their memories and personalities, and when one of them died, they were brought back to life with all their memories intact. They also remained in a state of perpetual youth, a kind of haunting image of pretty young lithe “ambisexual” adults living with the eyes and jaded sensibilities of a people hundreds of years old. 

I was quite fascinated by the various astonishing ideas and visions depicted in that movie, but I didn’t make the connection between crystals and magic until I went through a period of taking LSD while performing magical experiments not long afterwards. The whole premise of crystal magic that I use today was based on what I saw when playing with multifaceted man-made crystals along with small ultra-bright flashlights, strobe and black lights. I saw the lines of force being stored in the crystal, and I could not only enter into the crystal, but could replay certain ritual workings collected in it. It was revelatory, and the insights that I gleaned from these experience became the basis to the methodology that I developed for my version of crystal magic. I can say that having learned to see into crystals in this manner, I have retained that visual ability. Needless to say, it was quite different than what the New Age passed off as “crystal work.”

Anyway, for me to state that the basis of my techniques of crystal magic were based on some very fascinating hallucinations induced by several acid trips is probably not something that anyone would declare as the source of magical ideas or insights. However, this is the truth of the matter, and sometimes strange experiments done in the spectrum of the highly irrational can produce amazingly great results. I don’t recommend either myself or anyone else using this approach to magical experiments at the present time, since I am now of an age that such experiments would represent a potential mental or physical health hazard. Still, my magical system was founded on the enthusiasm of youthful experiments, when such actions are acceptable risks in the delusional mental background of immortality and invincibility that haunts the young. There was a bit of the Zardoz “Eternal” in what I was doing back then. Thankfully, I am more cautious today about engaging in such crazy exploits, but I am no less curious or optimistic - that part of me hasn’t changed.  

Let us start by examining the basic elements of crystal magic that I wrote up six years ago (found here) so we can then examine the attributes of a “strong” energy model of magic and how it works. I am taking the portion of text from this article that specifically deals with crystal magic, since it was well written and helped to define what crystal magic is and how it should work. I associate the crystal in magic as representing the element of spirit, as far as the elemental tools are concerned. I think that this association is intriguing and gives considerable creative flexibility for the use of crystals in the practice of magic. (Note: I have made some edits on the following text to improve its readability and deepen what is presented.)

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Spirit - Crystal or Stone - The quality of Spirit has some particular correspondences associated with it, and these are determined by the definition that Spirit is the unique joining of the previous four elements, producing a synthesis which is also their source. The crystal is uniquely qualified to fill this position, and has many useful and important magical properties. 

Crystals come in many different sizes, shapes, either naturally occurring or man-made; they have the variable qualities of hardness, cleavage, optical properties (clear, opaque, translucent, colored) and electrical conductivity. Some crystals have quite unique electrical qualities, such as quartz, which demonstrates piezoelectric phenomena (where mechanical stress produces electricity). Other crystals, such as germanium or silicon carbide, are used as semiconducting rectifiers, such as what has been used in the various layers of a computer chip. Crystals also exhibit the qualities of resonance and oscillation when a small current of electricity is passed through them (an anti piezoelectric effect). Thus, from a purely metaphysical perspective, crystals receive and store, unleash and vibrate or oscillate; these qualities make them uniquely useful in a magical context.

The basic magical premise of crystal magick is that a crystal can capture and contain the etheric or “fusion-like” energy that is produced in a magical ritual. This is particularly true when the ritual magician bases all of her workings on the prismatic ritual structure of the magnetic spiral vortex. Vibrating patterns of magical energy trace patterns within the crystal, and it can hold that energy indefinitely. That same energy can be retrieved or tapped by the will of the magician so that it can be replicated and projected into a magic circle for reuse. A crystal can accumulate the etheric energy tracings of many ritual workings so that over time it will house a representation of all of the workings that are performed in its presence.

So a crystal can act as a kind of magical memory receptacle, holding the energy until it’s needed or discharged by the magician. From a magickal perspective, crystals can be natural (hopefully, ethically harvested) or man-made. Each crystal has a unique magical effect depending on its shape, size, clarity, color, facet characteristics and whether it is natural, manufactured, or made from molded and polished, lead crystal glass. All of these crystal types are useful in ritual magick, and the only factor is the esthetic sensibilities and tastes of the magician. Cleaning a crystal in salt water will clear it of all influences, yet anointing it with oil or a liquid sacrament does just the opposite - empowering and emphasizing a certain event.

Crystals have the following qualities:

Collectors of magical power - not only do they collect the light frequencies of discrete magical workings, they can store them almost indefinitely, allowing the magician to retrieve either part or the full energy signature of a specific spell performed in its midst. (This can be done multiple times with the same specific energy signature. This would indicate that retrieval doesn’t necessarily discharge what is stored in the crystal.)

Emitters of magical power - crystals not only collect magical power, but they also can transmit that power as well. What is transmitted appears to be more similar to the “information” attribute of a magical power instead of actual magical energy. The energy signature is what is emitted from the crystal, and this seems to become an actual energy field when projected into a consecrated magical circle.

Processors of magical power - multiple magical workings stored in a crystal can be condensed averaged, summed and even multiplied. A magician can retrieve certain aspects or a ritual working to examine independently from the rest of the stored signature. 

Crystal magic as I employ it uses three crystals strategically placed in the magical temple, and these are used in a specific functional manner. These are:

1. Base Crystal or Collector - This is a large crystal, usually natural and consisting of many terminated points. Can be clear, smokey quartz, or of any color, as long as it retains some clarity, allowing light to pass through it. The collector crystal is kept either on or at the foot of the main altar. The collector is used as a kind of recording system for any and all magical rituals performed in the temple. It can recall any part of any ritual performed, recall a series of rituals in a working, or process the magical power collected to extract the overall meaning of a single or multiple workings.

2. Controller or Transformation Crystal - This is a small crystal that is worn around the magician’s neck on a necklace. The controller is a crystal that records the impression and energies associated with the individual magician. The controller can automatically or on command draw and direct power from the collector into itself for the magician to use at any given moment, regardless of the actual physical distance between them. The controller can be worn underneath a shirt or blouse when the magician is in the mundane world, allowing him/her to access and project magical power from the temple complex while far outside of its normal influence. When used during an evocation using both the energy and spirit models, it is called the “crystal of transformation,” since it assists the wearer to fully experience the domain of the spirit that is invoked. It helps to process the phenomenon of evocation so that it is instantly intelligible and meaningful to the magician.

3. Transmutar - this is a wand or stave that has a small crystal affixed to its tip. The transmutar wand is a specialized hybrid tool used in energy magic. It is the curious amalgamation of a wand and dagger, thus it can function as either one or both simultaneously. The transmutar wand can draw power into itself or send it out using either the controller or collector crystals. There is a strong connection between these three crystals and they function as a single unit when a magician wields them in a magic circle. The transmutar wand is used to project energy and information to a given target, make lines of force, invoke or evoke spirits, or even defend the magician from any hazards (just like the wand and the dagger).

The transmutar wand is also a powerful emitter, drawing magical power into itself and amplifying it into the temple confines or to a specific target. Because of its obvious nature, a transmutar wand is usually used in a temple or a grove, but it can be hidden on the person of the magician and used in the mundane world, like the controller crystal necklace. The transmutar wand is the instrument that is used by the magician to access the base crystal, recall previous energy structures, and re-emit them into the magick circle, condense them with other structures or even erase them.

How I achieve this interaction with crystals is through a process of employing sensitive touch and focused visualization projected into the crystal. Sometimes it helps to have a very bright LED with a very narrow focus or a LASER light source to aid this process. Strobe lights and black lights can also be used to access the contents of a crystal, if you have the ability to creatively visualize. Once a magician is able to readily sense, touch and visualize the magical energies stored in a crystal, it then becomes a natural part of his or her regimen.

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Crystals and the Energy Model

The use of crystals in magic relies heavily on various premises established in the energy model of magic. Without a strong definition of the energy model then the whole basis of these techniques becomes meaningless. The media that is captured, refracted, processed and emitted from crystals is magical energy. The definition of magical energy has many different frames of reference, whether it is an actual energy unknown as of yet to science or representing something of a metaphor for a process that resides wholly and independently in consciousness. What seems to determine the amplitude of magical energy is more driven by the magician’s emotions and feelings than by anything that might be capable of being measured or controlled, such as capacitors, resistors and the like.

Since crystals also seem to store the information or the essence (signature) of a thing or process, one could also say that the information model of magic is also used by this powerful magical tool. Crystals are unique because as a tool, they straddle more than one magical model. The energy and information models are used, but then so is the psychology model, since one must use the “As If’ formula to actually make a crystal perform as required. If the crystal is a smooth ball or an oblong shape it becomes a window (or even a repository) into the Spirit World, thus additionally harnessing the spirit model of magic. The fact that crystals can bridge all of these models of magic individually or simultaneously makes them uniquely suited as the most excellent magical tool . 

While the belief in a collective magical energy field has been around since the beginning of human consciousness, being variously called Mana, Chi, Vital force, Life-Force, among others, the belief in individual based energy (or energy generated from a person’s body) is more recent. Added to the metaphorical layers of the meaning of magical energy or power are many of the characteristics of electromagnetism, even though such a borrowing is not accepted as fact by science. My opinion is that both individual and collective definitions of magical energy or power are useful and important, as well as the other aggregated metaphors that we use to describe something that is tangible to the senses but not empirical in the laboratory. One of the more mysterious attributes of magical power is that it seems to extend lines of force that connects everyone and everything into a holistic union. I saw this phenomenon early on when I was working magic as a youth, so it was for me not some Neoplatonic pipe dream but a real characteristic of magical power and magic in general. This would indicate to me that what I am experiencing and perceiving is more of a “collective” energy model, since it readily extends far beyond myself.

We are all part of the web of magical energy, and that allows for a certain interaction between individuals and even inanimate objects. I can still see these lines of force today, although it helps me greatly if the lighting is dim (indoors) or spectrally illuminated by moonlight or firelight (outdoors). Whenever I would connect with one of these lines of force I immediately felt a kind of link between myself and to whomever or whatever the line was connected. These lines of force also led to me realize that behind the individuality of everything there was a point where all lines converged. I realized then that in this interconnected web was a unified source, which I emotionally experienced as ecstasy or ultimate power. At that time I had never read any Plato and I was probably not up to reading anything so intellectual or complex. It was a natural experience for me, and one that I always associated with my energy model of magic.

Magical power is never static. It is always in movement. Even when I peer into my crystals to see the lines of force they are in constant movement. The prismatic energy fields that I experience when working energy based forms of magic are also moving, fluctuating, vibrating, pulsating and seemingly forever forming new connections and lattice structures or disappearing or dissolving old connections. When I concentrate magical power in my body, focusing it in my hands or feet, it causes them to feel the vibrations and pulsations of that energy. My hands shiver and shake, and my body moves, sometimes causing me to briefly dance so as to express the energy that I am feeling. Utilizing this model to directly “feel” and “experience” magical power in the body as an individual is even more heightened and amazing when working forms of sexual magic with a partner. This kind of energy based magic powerfully impacts the body, and it is there that the most fundamental of magical changes can be made.

I have already written quite a number of articles about the energy model of magic in my blog, and you can find an index for all 14 of them following this link.

Lines of force, geometric prismatic energy shapes, vortices, pylons, pyramids, gateways - these are some of the many magical energy patterns that I have developed and use with the energy model of magic. All of these qualities are perceived, recorded, processed and emitted through the use of crystals in a form of crystal magic. Crystals are just another magical tool, but they are associated with the element of spirit, and this makes them capable of working and channeling all four elements, including the union of the elements known as Spirit. Crystals are the quintessential element in the magician’s repertoire of magical tools. I have performed some of my workings using only a transmutar wand, dispensing with wooden wands, daggers, swords, and staffs. The crystal has an earth based attribute, particularly if it a natural crystal, and it also seems to be like a liquid frozen into solidity, thus emulated the earth and water elements. Dipping a crystal into a chalice of sacramental wine or touching a sacramental host assists it to capture the signature of that magical sacrament. This use causes the crystal to function as another tool type, and that is a magical reliquary - another topic we should discuss in the future.

As you can see, crystals are eminently useful to a magician, and they are a key instrument employed in my extended version of the energy model of magic.

Frater Barrabbas

Strange Phenomena of Magick

Many of the books and articles that I have read about magic presuppose that magic functions in a linear fashion. It starts with the preparations, culminates with a ritual performance of some kind, and ends (hopefully) with the desired effect. Magic would seem to be about influencing the natural cause and effect mechanisms that appear to operate in the world. A magically influenced event must therefore be triggered by a magical action. It seems so simple, but actually it’s this definition that is overly simplistic and not the process of magic itself. In fact, anyone who has experienced magic over a long period of time would likely tell you that magical processes are highly complex despite the mechanism employed by the magician.

There doesn’t appear to be a clean and simple representation of magic. It is never an associative process of “do these things and this desired event will occur,” since if magic was that simple it would be used as such by everyone and be a part of everyone’s repertoire of life-based actions. Being successful in life, however that might be defined, often involves many factors that are not tangible to the one who is striving. There is such a thing as “good luck” and “bad luck” when dealing with chance occurrences and probabilities, with which even the most hard headed and practical individual must cope.

As a beginning magician or sorcerer often discovers, magical effects and predicting the results of magical actions is slightly better (or worse) than chance. Perhaps that slight advantage can make all the difference, but the whole cause and effect perspective about magical performance might be too simplistic to deal with the actual reality of how magic works and what it really does. It is also possible that our collective sense and perspective on causality might not be particularly well informed or nuanced to notice that when magic is involved in a given situation, many strange and bizarre things can occur.

In the many years that I have performed magical workings and operations, I have found that the phenomena associated with magic is peculiar, quixotic and even downright strange at times. For many years I have adopted the opinion, or should I say that it has been forced on me by circumstances, that magical effects, operations and workings seem to represent a view of reality that is anything but straightforward, linear, sequential, or predictive in a cause and effect manner. I know that my opinion in this matter is not very popular because it argues that the generalization and modeling of magical practices and effects is misleading and probably far too restrictive.

If one were to classify the kind of magic that I work using the available models then I could be said to be using a highly extended and expanded energy model. I also incorporate the spirit model, or spirit plus, because the foundation of this magic is based on my use of a projected godhead as my higher self intermediary. I also use the information model, since I make complex declarations in my ritual workings as a part of my overall magical exegesis, not to mention the complex sigil systems that I employ to construct magical links. 

The psychology model is also well represented in my work since the rites that I employ are written in such a fashion that they can be used by nearly anyone. I also extensively employ the “As If” magical tool to build my own personal mythology with deep psychological imprints to push the envelope in my own self-definition and expand the world that I live in. Perhaps because I am intensely using all of these models of magic, particularly the energy model (by employing vortices, pyramids, spirals, pylons, and geometric prismatic energy structures), I have found that the phenomena of magic is startlingly peculiar. Allow me to explain what I mean by this declaration.

Over the years I have experienced some very odd phenomena when performing magical operations and focusing magical effects into my life process. While these are particularly subjective experiences they are not limited to what I have experienced. I have performed these kinds of rites with other people on a number of occasions and everyone who participated had similar experiences. So, I have eliminated the possibility that I have just hallucinated these strange occurrences. Here is my list of weird happenings.

• Magical results for a particular working begin to happen before the rite is even performed. I refer to this phenomenon as a causality collapse, and I have experienced other situations where the perception of time has been slowed down or startlingly increased. Time dilation and causality distortion seem to be a part of the typically overlooked attributes of magical phenomenon.

• Magical effects can occur without any ritual being performed, or any intention of a ritual to be performed at a future date. It would seem that just being immersed in magic and its regular practice can cause phenomena to occur unbidden.

• Performing the same ritual over time can produce wildly differing results for the same person or different persons. Sometimes the experiences are analogous, but other times they are completely and radically different. The opposite can also happen, where a single ritual can produce very similar results when performed by different people at different times. It would seem that the effect of a magical operation cannot be cleanly or clearly predicted with any accuracy.

• Sometimes magical effects operate as if they are somehow “sentient” and able to either subtly interact with the operator or even anticipate his or her objective. I don’t know how many times I have either said or heard someone say that when working magic you don’t always get what you want, but more often, you get what you need (or deserve).

• Performing magical operations often produce far more effects than are intended by the operator. Sometimes these additional effects are more engaging, interesting and desirable than the original objective. Magical effects can appear to permeate one’s conscious perspective of reality itself and can reveal things in dreams, fantasy, and even in mundane occurrences. The impact of synchronicity has often been downplayed or omitted when talking about the effects of a magical operation, but I have found that it often occurs. Magical operations can have residual effects, and these can be experienced days, months or even years later.

• Magical operations that are performed in a given space (temple) or focused in specific area (shrine or temporary working area) seem to accumulate a kind of residual field that has the capability to produce magical effects without any directive from the operator. (I have found that this is particularly true when working with a vortex in a temple environment. Even after it is sealed, the vortex continues to operate as a latent field because it cannot be banished.)

Perhaps the most interesting question that any magician could ask is whether or not magic as a phenomena can exist distinctly and separately from the magician who is generating it. Does magic begin and stop with the magician who is utilizing it, or is magic a kind of sentient and energized field that somehow resides in consciousness? If spirits can be said to exist distinctly (as psychic objects) and outside of our focused awareness or personalized perspectives then perhaps magic can also be said to be a very subtle and distinct unified field pervading consciousness. Maybe magicians only tap into something that is already there, and cause it to be consciously realized and activated for a specific objective. Perhaps magic is itself an egregore.

My experiences with magic are such that it seems to be a sentient process with which we interact for various reasons. Everyone and anyone can interact with it, but the mechanism might be prayer, pious offerings or personal sacrifice, grief and despair momentarily acquitted by hope, joy and insight instead of magical rituals. Magic might be a lot more common than we think, but far more complex, mysterious and subtle. This is because it has an inherent “beingness” that interacts with people on many different levels, but never functions as a mindless phenomenon prodded into action through the use of tools and occult artifices.

Those who work magic consistently for over a period of years develop an odd kind of magical aura around them that I call the “Process.” While I believe that magic itself is a sentient being that interacts with magicians, I have also observed what seems to be an aspect or attribute of the self functioning as the personal magical field of a magician. Sometime I can sense this emanating from another magician, and sometimes I have even visually perceived it as an entity that is bound to them and operates through them, but also acts like a localized field of magic. What I am attempting to describe is a kind of sentient energy field or egregore that appears to be attached to a magician. It not only produces minor magical phenomena, but it also seems to interact with the magician in order to guide and protect them.

I have declared that the magical Process can guide the magician to his or her ultimate goal (assisted with the Higher Self as personal godhead), but only if he or she will listen and be attentive to what is being communicated. The Process doesn’t talk to the magician because it operates on a very deep and subtle level of his or her being, so the art of listening to one’s Process is neither easy nor direct. Of course, my conjectures here could be readily dismissed as subjective nonsense, but what I trying to communicate is that magical processes are more complex, sentient and interactive than we understand them to be. There seems to be much more going on than what is typically written in books and articles about magic, and that magic is an odd, quixotic and sometimes, even chaotic phenomenon.

I have written other articles about the weird and strange phenomena regarding magical operations and magical effect, and you can find them here, and here. Many magicians find my ideas to be distasteful and troubling because I am proposing that magic is not straightforward nor is it something that will ever be able to be measured or described by science. It is one of the many mysterious elements of the overall phenomena of consciousness itself, and I am doubtful that science will ever successfully define what consciousness is due to the fact that human awareness, from the perspective of science, must be materially determined as a function of neurology. If that were so then spirits (or gods) couldn’t have an objective existence and magical energy would only be the product of a curious neurological phenomenon. We haven’t even gotten into a discussion of the meaningfulness of magical processes from a visual and linguistic perspective, and that would indeed seem to contradict, for now, the edits of science regarding neurology.

For this reason I am completely happy and content to observe magical occurrences from a subjective standpoint and to discuss what I and others have experienced. We will try to make sense of it all and attempt to teach and share methodologies that are less idiosyncratic and more overall objective, neat, orderly and seemingly factual. However, magic itself is actually very difficult (if not impossible) to quantify, measure and predict in a rational and scientific manner. What we long-time practitioners end up doing is sharing our own methodologies and experiences and allow others to help us determine what is real from a subjective perspective and what is our own personal, hubristic fantasy.

Frater Barrabbas