How to work with magical stories

This short essay outlines for magicians why we work with stories, what we can draw from them, and how best to approach working with magical stories to extract visions and ritual from the story itself.

The Book of Death

The Book of Death is story where we follow a character through the last few days of her life, and we walk through with her into death and beyond. The story touches on the powers, places and beings the character encounters in the various stages of the death process as well as introducing the reader to the landscape of death and beyond.

This story, once absorbed simply as a story, can then be worked with to extract a visionary pathway through which the magician can step into the realm of death in vision in order to work magically.

the Book of Death - das buch des todes by Josephine McCarthy

Aus dem Englischen ins Deutsche übersetzt von Julia McLaren
Translated into German by Julia McLaren. Quareia would like to thank Julia for the amazing work she did on this translation.

Beaghmore – Secrets of the Stones

Beaghmore is a story about a person’s interactions with a stone circle complex in Northern Ireland. Beyond the actual story and embedded within it, are signposts and keys to working with stone circles. It also touches upon the experiences of the ‘sight’ – the inner seeing with the mind’s eye and what a quiet voice it can be: the key to developing the sight is to pay attention.  The story also outlines the deep underlying relationship between the land, the Underworld and the stars, a constant ‘ladder’ of power and communion that a person can tap into to work in service to the land: the human acts as a bridge or axis between the dynamics. The story also looks at working with storms at a deep level in vision, not to alter the weather, but to join in communion with the vast powers of weather systems; where the consciousness of the storm and the human become one.

Tale of the Watcher

This story is set in the Ukok Plateau of Altai Siberia and centres around an Iron age Pazyryk burial of a young woman. The story explores the Shamanic theme of ritual death and ‘sleeping’ in the land. This concept is one whereby the spirit of the dead intentionally and by choice, stayed in the land and acted as an interface between nature and the nomadic tribes that lived on the Ukok Plateau. The story also casts a light upon the often unintended consequences triggered by extraction of a ritually buried body from the earth for archaeological study.