Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years, events around the world have built into world changing fate processes, and the energetic storms that accompany such a change in world history can directly influence, smack or completely floor a magician who is sensitive to energetic tides. Magicians who work with visionary magic are far more susceptible to such energetic shifts, even apprentice magicians depending on their innate energetic sensitivity. Can get badly affected.
One of the down sides of such magical sensitivity is that when fate is moving world chess pieces around, your energy gets caught up or co-opted into ‘service’ – the energetic side of you joins with others around the world to create a working army of human energy that shifts the delicate fibres of fate patterns to where they need to be. It is not a conscious thing, it is not something you can choose to do as it is the deepest side of you that is working, not your conscious personality in life. And we have no say or even inkling into what that energy is doing – we become the Fed-Ex of the inner worlds – Here, hold this, deliver this energy to there, thanks, now go away. Such can be difficult for modern humans as we are used to control, to be able to choose a side, or to work within an agenda. But fate is far far more complex and longer lived than our puny and fleeting lives, and doesn’t operate in agendas, only patterns.
A physical side effect of being a part of that mass of energetic workers is that it leaves less energy for your body and mind to run the day-to-day tasks of being a modern human. You can feel your energy go out from you like a vast tide that vanishes over the horizon, and you are left feeling like a lump of tired, painful, and sometimes downhearted living flesh that refuses to do anything. And one of the consequences of that is the individual self discipline vanishes down the back of the sofa, never to be found again.
Or so it feels like that. Unless of course you are one of those annoying people who are blessed with inbuilt self discipline that works no matter what. The rest of we mere mortals must work at it, often in phases of two minutes of self discipline followed by weeks of laying on the sofa wishing the world would just fuck off.
Of course in magic, self discipline is one of the main pillars necessary for long term successful and safe magic, so when that goes, everything else also vanishes down the back of the sofa regardless of whether you have a sofa or not. For magicians in training, it is the most frustrating thing of all, because without that discipline your training grinds to halt and becomes this far distant mountain that you have to climb. And of course, you have to climb it still in your dressing gown and fluffy slippers.
Trying to pull on your big girl/boy knickers and giving yourself a talking to, fails either straight away or within a couple of days. Writing out a schedule for yourself, sticking affirmations on your fridge, or tempting yourself with rewards also fails, and you end up back on the sofa, eating the rewards and writing foul mouthed graffiti over the affirmation posters.
So how do you do it? There are methods.
First, it has to be the right time – If your energy is far out there, it is not going to come back in just because you want it to. So while you are in the depths of the sofa, groaning from pain and lack of the will to live, place a ‘hook ‘on the wall of your mind and rope to it the thought that you cannot stay with this forever, and that climbing back out has to happen at some point. That is enough for that time.
Second – know yourself. Has the tide past but you are enjoying wallowing? Or maybe you hadn’t noticed that the flop over has become the norm for you? Don’t look at yourself and get into self loathing or blame as that is pointless and does nothing. Rather look at the current situation – are you still too blasted? Or have things eased a little bit but not enough to shift you? If they have eased in the smallest of ways, that is the indication to attempt a climb back in the smallest of ways.
The smallest of ways
Never try to dive back into magic (or extreme sports, or extreme dating or extreme anything).
First sort the ground zero in small steps of everyday life. Look at the small things – do you leave something out to put it away later when you would in the past have dealt with it straight away often without even thinking about it? Pick that coat up and hang it up. There, your self discipline just got it’s first building block towards the shimmering tower of self mastery.
Surrounded by coffee cups and socks? Put the cups by the sink and put the socks in the wash basket or washer. Now you are exhausted and need to lie down….. two more bricks towards your building. Worry about washing up later, just putting things where they need to go is what you are focusing on.
Day by day, inch in these small steps. Not quite that bad for you? The pick a few bigger ‘small steps’ for yourself and don’t worry about anything else. Keep that going for a week or two, and when you feel like you have a bit of you left over, add in more small steps without losing the ones you have established.
It is the ability to take that one more step when you feel you can’t walk any more that starts to build the tower.
And for those of you magicians reading this who are on top of everything and think this is silly… well, that can be a hard fall from a dizzying height that can maybe come one day.
By establishing a small series of disciplined acts, the self discipline needed for magic starts to grow slowly but steadily – your discipline in magic comes from your discipline in life.
The key is to not get over enthusiastic and go mad, only to find yourself back on the sofa drooling. My mantra is; small steps – fuck you.
I can have very strong self discipline for long periods of time, for which I thank ballet training in my teens. But I also have a low energy side and when the energy goes very low, the discipline vanishes. When you add in magical energetic tides and inner energetic work to that mix, I end up as a crumpled heap on the floor.
As menopause barrelled in at high speed, passed by, and then exited the door while shouting obscenities at me, it just added insult to injury. I got the hook of discipline nailed to the wall and hauled myself back up, as a battered wrinkled big nosed old lady… and yes, your nose grows when you are old, so I end up looking (sideways on) like one of those people in Van Gough’s “Potato Eaters” painting. Sigh. Anyway… digression….
There are no masters
Just in case you think I am writing this from a high point of offering scraps of advice to the peasants, here is a slice of my latest round of ‘nail the hook to the wall, loop a rope on it and hang on’ times.
Over the last few years, the energy in my country as been pretty rough as the clouds of destruction gathered. One only has to look at the mind-boggling acts of self harm the nation has done to itself over the last few years to get an indication of the invisible battle for the soul of the nation that has been raging. And such battles are still going on in nations around the world. Needless to say ,the inner energy as been pretty horrible for a long time.
During the last twelve months it really built to a peak of nasty and I have spent a lot of time between my jobs just laying down and moaning pathetically. Some of it is age, some of it is the genetic syndrome I have which makes you tired and everything hurts, and a lot of it is the inner energy of what is going on (though thankfully, after far too long, it has shifted recently).
The discipline vanished and was replaced by ‘fuck it’, ‘it will be fine’ and ‘just this once’…. this became my most recent norm which recently culminated in an unplanned visit to Glastonbury. My partner and I went to visit a friend on her farm which is not far from Glastonbury, but I avoid that place like the plague (think the worst of the New Age and throw in a few Messiahs and Merlins for good luck) so we drove around and out of the way of it to get to the farm.
Unfortunately due to bad traffic and road works, my partner and I had to return home via Glastonbury as it was the only route available. We were hungry and decided to brace ourselves and stop for something to eat. Omg. It was 3pm so all eateries were not serving food – the English have never discovered that if you serve food all day in a high traffic tourist spot, you earn money. So we went to the health food store (the only food store in the town centre) and bought snacks, high grade chocolate and all the things you shouldn’t eat at our age.
I was munching on the forbidden foods as I walked down the high street and I looked at all the broken and unravelled people who populated the sidewalks… too many drugs, not enough of the right drugs, and too much fantasy that had unravelled delicate minds.
We drove off and finally got home where I ‘dropped my coat on the floor’. I munched on the remains of the forbidden foods, crashed out on the bed and slept, fully clothed for thirteen hours.
I finally woke, feeling like absolute shit and crashed straight into a day of heaving heavy boxes around. I felt ill, I felt dirty (from Glastonbury) and for the first time in a long time, I realised all of my self discipline was gone. I had noticed it before and thought, fuck it, too much is going on right now.
But now, I had no more excuses left.
For the first time in a while I took one small and very focused magical step of discipline, and one small step of physical discipline.
The following morning, I woke feeling tired, but something magical had shifted – that one small act of magical discipline had brought me back online in a small way, and my body was shouting at me to pull my shit together.
I took my blood sugar before I ate anything that morning, just out of curiosity. I had always prided myself on no diabetes, no heart issues, no blood pressure issues.
That morning the voice of the blood sugar machine, in its strange Chinese to English accent said,
“ Are you really trying to fuck yourself up completely?”….
actually it was far more polite but that is what it meant.
No breakfast necessary for me that morning. Sometimes it is the small stuff that scream the wake-up call to you, and that morning the machine screamed, and I finally heard.
So if your self discipline and your magical practice is lost somewhere down the back of the sofa, join me in small steps, as we create single bricks that together we can build a tower of mastery with – but remember, there are no masters, only workers.
PS – this is the process known in Egyptian magic as the raising of the Djed. No, it is not about men’s dicks, it is about gaining back your inner strength and discipline.
There is no try, either do or don’t do – Yoda.
Josephine McCarthy 
You are absolutely right. I’ve been sensing this energetic shift for 4 years and currently my body, particlarly my stomach is undergoing some sort of mysterious aches. I was looking for the answer to my aches as I thought at first they were just physical ailments (yet they turned up for no medical reason) when your blogpost showed up in my inbox and I immediately got the idea. Thanks for shedding some light of your knowledge on me.
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Yes, often magical energetic shifts and burdens filter through into the physical body.. and you did the right thing by always assuming first that it is a physical condition and get a doctor to check you over. When that is all clear, then turn your attention to your magic, and then the energy flowing around in the crazy outer world… and there is enough shifts and changes happening for it to affect many sensitive people in physical ways.
People don’t realise that magic and inner energy is processed through the physical body and as such it is bloody hard work being a magician… especially in turbulent times. And the digestive system is usually the first to be hit.
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You remind me of the time Coronavirus time during which the whole city where I am currently living was shut down for 4 months. In the first two months it was my stomach that kept torturing me with its pain almost every and after the lockdown all the pains immediately dissipated as if they’d never been there.
Speaking of Glastonbury as you mentioned in your blog, there has been a strange feeling that urges me to move there for several months recently. I always feel I have a strong connection to that land, However, in these months that connection seems to have grown stronger inside me. Just like you, I’m not interested in all stuff of the New Age but if Glastonbury (“the holiest erthe in Englande” described by Dion Fortune) is plagued with all this nonesense why does fate want to drag me there? Maybe in your wisdom you can help me find the answer to that. Many thanks.
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This is the most helpful, compassionate, and practical essay about self discipline I have ever read. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
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Oh goodness, I am so glad it helps…. it really is hard work and gets harder as you get older…. and I think magicians have to be truthful about this and stop pretending like they are all perfect and shining…. nope…. if you survive your ‘tests’ covered in horse shit, bumps, bruises and swearwords, you are doing just great.. and if you are struggling, then be truthful so that others can learn.
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It is comforting to know that even accomplished adepts—and even ancient Egyptians adepts!—have or had their moments of struggling with self-discipline. I’m going to look up raising the Djed—in its true sense, lol… Thanks Josephine, this was exactly what I needed to read today!
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Raising the Djed was a test of the king and was a part of his Sed tests (a bit like a performance review after 30 years/saturn return)… it was a test of strength, discipline, upstandingness and knowledge in the face of the gods.
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Well, this let me take off the hair shirt and get on with it.
Thank you for your well-timed mirror and light on a path ahead.
It’s finally sinking in that all the ambitious calendars, diaries, and whatnot never take the place of … putting the laundry away, getting rid of the rubbish, doing the work. I’ve been a type to get caught up in the excitement of “now I’ll really get it figured out and make a plan and stick to it and I’ve stopped for two days and the plan is ruined and now I am a pancake and sad about it.”
I appreciate the acknowledgement that there have been other energetic aspects at play, for these past four years in particular, that can have impacted our ability to stand up and get it done.
Thank you for the encouragement – the small steps, the single bricks all count and are necessary for building the self discipline, the bone structure that enables us to move ahead.
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I could have written this: you describe it perfectly. Yes, JM, grateful for the gentle boot to the rear. There is no perfect time, there is Now, however.
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“now I’ll really get it figured out and make a plan and stick to it and I’ve stopped for two days and the plan is ruined and now I am a pancake and sad about it.”
Haha very relatable lately, thank you for sharing!
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J.M.
As usual I thoroughly enjoy what you have to share.
If you will entertain me, I am curious if from your experiences if there is not a way to anchor oneself to a “center”?
What I mean by that, and I’m no adept, but within my own practice I noticed that there seems to be a center. When I am attuned to this center it’s as if chaos can be around me and instead of getting swept away by it I tend to be grounded (albeit usually I am clinging on for dear life to it). It rests maybe an inch or so above the solar plexus and resonates when I engage in certain practices (directional ritual from core skills fires it up).
I tested this in the hellscape of my own life (today would have marked 12 years married and I am only about a month from when the divorce was finalized) and the mind is serene. Knowing my prior state of mind ahead of that drama I should be undone by now, but there’s a center I can anchor the mind to.
I’m still battered and bruised, as this center does not prevent harm, but I’ve noticed it offers vitality, serenity, groundedness and courage. It requires discipline and there are times I must hoist my will to remain attuned to it. But curiously it reinforces the discipline to keep with it as sort of “abiding” from this place helps me remain balanced and aware.
And this has been reliable enough to share it. I do not have a working theory as to what it may be, but its yielded such good results through my own dark hour its worth discussing. It helps in times like these.
Thoughts?
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What you are describing is the magician’s fulcrum, and that is brought into the magical training (In Quareia) in the early days. What I am talking about is not the loss of the fulcrum, but the sheer amount of physical energy it can take to hold up that fulcrum in a prolonged and vicious storm.
If you haven’t experienced that yet, there is still time… and every day trials like marriage and divorce is not the sort of bad weather I am talking about.
Good luck with your new life path!
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I’m appreciative that you write so directly about the effect the ageing process has on all of our doings. And from a purely physical perspective, women’s bodies use energy differently from men’s, due to all the extra processes that we have going on, even post-menopause. And as women, we are socialised and ‘wired’ – hormonally and neuroanatomically – for relationship.
And even with the best inner focus, I find that much more of my energy is taken up in a web of relationship and care than that of the males I know (I’m not saying this is bad, it just is). I mention this because male energy levels are the societal benchmark from which productivity are derived, when they have the most time available (not saying that Josephine is doing that, but am intending to add the points she is making about energy availability, useage, and discipline) so that I don’t feel bad about how little I can do in a day sometimes.
This post came at an excellent moment; just when I needed it, and fortifies me to take a step, however small, when all I feel like doing is – Josephine are you a mind reader lol – disappearing down the back of the sofa after a nasty bout of covid which appearered, as if by magic! just when I was about to start Quareia (shakes fist at the forces of weevils and laughs in their face)…
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ahhhh Covid, yeah, that can wipe out energy for quite a while….. small steps when you feel ready… and if the sofa is necessary, so be it..
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So timely, Ma’am. On point on all the things including the crumpled heap of it all. Ickle steps it is then. Thank you for the nudging on.
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The tides of this world are indeed fraught at the present time… and likely to remain so as we witness the slow motion crumbling of empires…. but… there is hope of course… I try to remember that this tiny life is only a miniscule but valuable part of the huge wheel…it helps. There must be something air, I got up off the sofa last week 🙂
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HI JoannaKate, yes, the slow crumble… but we just go about our lives in the best way we can… small steps… and glad for the rising from the sofa!… Be well!
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It’s always a humbling moment when a magician has a “it’s not about you” moment. One thing I’ve loved working through your course is that it’s seemingly built to make sure one doesn’t get too full of themselves. People, even magicians, can get swept up in the zeitgeist far too easily.
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And here I thought it was just the menopause!!!
Thanks for this— it helps.
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Thank you so much for sharing this article, really love your humor as always.
As nhatranmd, I felt weak for the last 4 years and since December energies and digestion were catastrophic. Body decided to become irritated to all food all of a sudden. Medical system is free at the cost of being very slow where I live. Since January nothing has been found.
Hope was there early on. After many months of minimal daily practices before wisely choosing to invest time laying on the floor while feeling sorry for myself and where every solutions lead to a dead end, hope faded. At least rare random days of almost total recovery were teasing along the way.
Yesterday I asked for help, calling all the inner phone numbers I knew. Felt broken and unable to Serve and accomplish responsibilities given. Help definitely came, no idea what they did exactly.
Sensed lots of truth in what you shared and even opened a special box before blowing the dust on its cards to confirm. Seems I’m working with a bright / balanced human soul in my dreams / visions with dead ends at the center of a powerful or destructive storm. Will investigate more using a layout with a dream position.
Will still continue to search for physical remedies just in case.
Again thank you so much, the article gave me hope that body might not be broken and Service might be happening unconsciously. So be it, amen <2
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Thank you. I relate to all you say. Sometimes the physical challenges are brutal. Love your one-step-at-a-time attitude… broken but not beaten perhaps ❤
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Thank you, wish you anything necessary for your evolution and heart. If you really consider starting Quareia, maybe just sticking with the first lesson everyday could prove a powerful small step to lift the Djed.
Sometimes heavy winds shifts direction as fast as they arrived, especially if we stop to acknowledge / offer help to the coming storms.
I have no idea how the next few years will look like. If wind doesn’t stop, hopefully we’ll learn how to ride the storms, in service!
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Thank you so much for this article, Josephine – you know very well how much I’ve needed it! Strangely, the day before I read this, I meditated for the first time in too long. It provided a huge bump in emotional energy, which translated over into being able to face the day. I hope this magical shift persists. I suspect we could all use it. 💜
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When living for service, particularly in such a visible way as you are, it’s so important to have a globally welcoming aura about you. We are as we are, which is as it should be, but there are choices we can make that benefit ourselves and others more. Time spent in thoughts of judgment against others require energy that could be put to better use, and detract from energy and life flow in general. Remember that judgment towards magicians has caused lifetimes of tragedy and hiding in the shadows. It’s not about tough love, or turning away those who aren’t ready, it’s about the wisdom of remembrance that we are all on an eternal path, and the ways in which we seek to go further number the stars.
Much respect for you and the work you do. Thank you for your many sacrfices.
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