Open Hand Magick should be understood as an experimental field of magico-psychic development — rather than a specific discipline of occult practice — wherein the innate abilities and agency of the psychist are trained to the extent that they may be exerted without the aid of physical tools and paraphernalia external to her own body and mind. Achieving repeatable and communicable results with whatever techniques the psychist adopts or discovers should remain a primary aspiration alongside the attainment of insight into the ontological nature of reality.
Y’all people need to
meditate more. Meditating for 6 hours a day already? MOOOOAAAAAARRRREEEEE. No
but seriously, if you’re not doing this kind of meditation regularly, and your
spells aren’t working the way you want them to, then you might want to start. If
your spells are working, then this will supercharge them. Do you really want
your spells to be affected by your meandering thoughts? No? Then learn to stem
those thoughts girl.
It’ll also allow you
to be witchy on the fly. Walking down the street and want to cast a mini spell
for exam success? Done! Want to get people out of your way at the bar so you
can be served? Done!
Anyway, let’s get onto the
how-to:
1 Begin by
learning to meditate for 10 minutes per day.
The goal of this step is to acquire the
skill of being motionless and thoughtless in anticipation of beginning your
spell/visualisation. Focus on your breathing. You may well receive some
interesting visions at this stage when you get used to being in a thoughtless,
open state so keep a journal next to you to write in afterwards. Ideally you
want to be able to extend this time to 30 minutes however personally I believe
10 minutes can be enough to significantly improve your witchin’.
2 Distract your
mind.
The above step might take a while to fully master so if you’ve
got here, then go you! You’re doing pretty well. For this step you need to
learn to focus on an irrelevant object, without meandering thoughts or blurred
vision. When casting spells, this will come in useful, as it keeps your mind
away from the matter at hand (your mind can interfere by persuading you it won’t
work or generally causing shit) so that your will and desire can take the front
stage and make shit happen.
3 XTREME
Visualisation
Ok now you’re getting
the hang of what makes your magick boom, we’re going to start XTREME
visualisation. Kinda. Some witches might have this skill anyway so if you can
visualise clearly an object in front of you, then skip this step, you’re too
good 😉.
Begin by getting into the closed eye meditative state from step one, then visualise
something simple like a 2D shape to focus on for the duration of your
meditation. Focus on it clearly, suppress your thoughts, and don’t let the image
blur.
4 Project the
image onto a wall.
Open your eyes, find a blank wall and
repeat the meditation from step 3 but mapping the image onto the wall in front
of you.
5 Begin to make
your visualisations more detailed
i.e. a rose.
6 CAST YO SPELLS.
This should be enough to significantly increase
the effectiveness of your magick. Meditate for 5/10 minutes before your spell,
focusing on something relevant to your spell. Meditate again for 10/20 minutes
after your spell, focusing on something completely irrelevant to your spell
like a 2D triangle or that dust bunny on your book shelf.
This was Spare’s first published book, issued when he was eighteen years old and studying at the Royal College of Art in London.The title of the third image shown above is “Portrait of hisself aged 17″.
Self-published by Spare through the Co-Operative Printing Society, copies of Earth Inferno were purchased by Sylvia Pankhurst (a prominent Suffragette) and other friends from the college.
The title and structure of this short work references Dante’s Inferno, including the famous first lines of that poem.
The first image is the “clavis” (”key”), to the work, and can be seen as a representation of Samsara, the repeating cycle of birth, life and death (reincarnation) as well as one’s actions and consequences in the past, present, and future.
At the “still point of the turning world” in the center of the wheel is the dominion of Zos and Kia. In the later “Book of Pleasure” (1913) there is an image with the text “The Body Considered as a Whole I Call ZOS”.
Spare was a member of Aleister Crowley’s A∴A∴ from its founding in 1907, leaving it five years later in 1912. Zos has certain similarities to the Thelemite entity Hadit. In turn, his concept of Kia (represented by a vulture in the center of the circle and in some of the other plates) can be seen as an analog of the Egyptian star-goddess Nuit.
In some late texts of the “Book of Coming Forth by Day”, the vulture goddess Nekhbet is referred to as Father of Fathers, Mother of Mothers, who hath existed from the Beginning, and is Creatrix of this World.
“The Kia which can be vaguely expressed in words is the Neither-Neither, the unmodified “I” in the sensation of omnipresence, the illumination symbolically transcribed in the sacred alphabet, and of which I am about to write.
…
Know the sub-consciousness to be an epitome of all experience and wisdom, past incarnations as men, animals, birds, vegetable life, etc., etc., everything that exists, has and ever will exist.
…
My formula and Sigils for sub-conscious activity are the means of inspiration, capacity or genius, and the means of accelerating evolution. An economy of energy and method of learning by enjoyment. A bat first grew wings and of the proper kind, by its desire being organic enough to reach the sub-consciousness.
…
Sigils are the means of guiding and uniting the partially free belief with an organic desire, its carriage and retention till its purpose served in the sub-conscious self, and its means of reincarnation in the Ego.
All thought can be expressed by form in true relation. Sigils are monograms of thought, for the government of energy (all heraldry, crests, monograms, are
Sigils and the Karmas they govern), relating to Karma.
They are a
mathematical means of symbolising desire and giving it form that has the virtue of preventing any thought and association on that particular desire (at the magical time), escaping the detection of the Ego, so that it does not restrain or attach such desire to its own transitory images, memories and worries, but allows it free passage to the sub-consciousness.”
All images and text by Austin Osman Spare. A print version of “The Book of Pleasure” is available from Jerusalem Press in London.
“Abstract or concrete: if you suggest a wish to the thing you desire, in its own manner, there will be a response. So, if I ask my mind in an appropriate manner for a definition of ‘consciousness’ I shall receive a true answer, although I may not be able to translate it: semantics are either remiss or insufficient to render the sequence of phonograms, but, without understanding, I would receive an emotional impact as from a significant passage of music (e.g, Bach or Mozart) thus inspiring a kind of semantic rendering as true as possible.”
— Austin Osman Spare, Zos Speaks!: Encounters With Austin Osman Spare, p. 168
“Know all ritual, ceremony, conditions, as arbitrary (you have yourself to please), a hindrance and confusion; their origin was for amusement, later for the purpose of deceiving other from knowing the truth and inducing ignorance; and as always happens their high priests were the more deceived themselves. He who deceives another deceives himself much more. Therefore know the Charlatans by their love of rich robes, ceremony, ritual, magical retirements, absurd conditions, and other stupidity, too numerous to relate. Their entire doctrine a boastful display, a cowardice hungering for notoriety; their standard everything unnecessary, their certain failure assured. Hence it is that those with some natural ability quickly lose it by their teaching. They can only dogmatise, implant and multiply that which is entirely superficial. Were I a teacher I should not act as master, as knowing more, the pupil could lay no claim to discipleship. Assimilating slowly, he would not be conscious of his learning, he would not repeat the vital mistake; without fear he would accomplish with ease. The only teaching possible is to show a man how to learn from his own wisdom, and to utilise his ignorance and mistakes. Not by obscuring his vision and intention by righteousness.”
“Believing without associating ye are spurious and know not the way of virtue. There is no virtue in truth, nor truth in righteousness. Law becomes of desire’s necessity. Corrupt is the teacher, for they who speak have only spent words to give.”
Occult Aspects 