I have a friend who was born to perform Magick. She’s rarely followed a formal school or system, but her magick works fast and gets good results. But she worries that she’s not sensitive to psychic or supernatural events. She’s never seen an angel or demon manifest visually or physically, and she knows that I tend to see everything in glorious colour.
I’ve always enjoyed the visual spectacle of magick, where you see an angel, for example. I know this doesn’t happen for everybody, but I was fortunate, and I loved seeing magick happen before my eyes. In the early days, I’d perform a mini ritual without any form of banishing, and then I’d hear knocking noises all through the house. It frightened me but made me pleased because the magick was clearly doing something.
But in over forty years of magickal work, I’ve never found that the big visuals make a difference to the results. At one point I was working with a system that was fast and basic, and the evocation produced no sense of the spirit even being present. That system worked well, and often it worked fast.
I was outside my friend’s house one time, waiting for her to finish a ritual. I’d told her about my results from earlier in the day – I’d seen a huge sphere of sunlight, and my voice had changed as though being possessed. The presence of the spirit was as clear as if somebody had walked into the room. When she tried the same ritual, she felt nothing, no connection, saw nothing, even though she went for about twenty-five minutes longer than me. But even though she saw nothing, her magick worked.
She once created a servitor when I was in the house, and from two rooms away, I felt the moment of its birth and saw it appear, huge, glowing, the size of a room. She saw nothing and felt only a tingle of presence. The only reason this matters is that it makes her doubt, from time to time. There is no need to doubt.
She still worries that she’s not sensitive enough, but for me, it’s the results that count. I love the visual and sensory experience of magick when it happens, but I’d prefer a dull ritual with a strong result rather than powerful sensations with no result. If you never sense a spirit or see anything happen, it doesn’t matter if you see the result.
– Damon Brand
