Intent:

1) Meditation or Concentration. This in practice means forming a mental image of what is desired, and forcing yourself to see that it is fulfilled, with the fierce belief and knowledge that it can and will be fulfilled, and that you will go on willing till you force it to be fulfilled. Called for short, “Intent”.

– from Gardner’s Book of Shadows

Magick is the Art and Science of causing change in conformity with Will.

– Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice

“Intent” is the Wellspring of All Magick.

I find that many people believe that they know what this means and how to do it, but in practice, forming clear and precise Intent, and willing it to happen, is not nearly as simple as it sounds. It takes training and effort and work! In order for your Intent to be effective, quite a few things must come together at once:

• You must be able to visualize, clearly and concisely, what you want, as if it has already happened;

• You must have sufficient focus to keep this clearly in your mind while performing the act of ritual that announces your Intent to the Universe; the elements we traditionally call “casting a spell”;

• You need to be able to induce just enough of an altered state of consciousness that your magickal act is happening on the astral plane as well as the physical one;

• You must have enough desire to see this fulfilled that you invest your Intent with passion and direction;

• You must have a clear enough idea of what you want that you will not get something else instead, or something related to what you were really after (harder than it sounds!);

• You must know yourself well enough to be able to trust your own motivations, so that you don’t end up accumulating “karmic debt” with the Threefold Law;

• You must trust that the Universe will fulfill your desire and not leave it an “opt out” option (more on this later);

• You must circumvent, or rewrite, any negative programming in your behavior or beliefs that might cause you to undermine your own work;

• You must do the real world work to help give your Intent an opportunity to manifest itself.

Not as basic as it initially seemed, is it? Most Witches practice and study for years to eventually achieve a state by which their Wills are effectively manifested. But, I am here to tell you that if you persist, eventually you will achieve a state where you are capable of simply wanting something with the power of Intent and it will come to you, and no spells, rituals or charms will be needed! Just be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it!

Awareness and Perception

The ability to clearly visualize what you want is the most basic skill I can think of to be able to utilize magick. It’s also probably the most difficult to learn, especially in our instant-gratification society of 15 second commercials, video games, and high-speed internet. Our brains are constantly being bombarded with distractions and noises clamoring for our attention. Is it any wonder that we have no attention span anymore?

We practice the skills to enable us to process a great deal of information, hold it in our minds for a few seconds so that we can use it, and spit it out the other side once we’re done with it. We have to, or we would not be able to understand the world around us. But we lose the ability to completely focus on one thing, let it fill our thoughts, understand every aspect of it, fill ourselves with its essence, and hold it forever. Most people believe that our memory fails us as we get older. I don’t believe so; it’s just that we don’t practice long-term memory, so we lose the power to have it!

Course Credits:

Music for the promo video - Magick by Gypsy (Get it at Spotify!)

Music for video opening sequences - Magic by Wendy Rule (Support her on Patreon!)

Suggested Reading:

The Witch's Eight Paths of Power by Lady Sable Aradia

Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain

Magick in Theory and Practice by Aleister Crowley