What drives people towards magic?

[Kalyani Srijoi]

Pretty self-explanatory question. What is it about magic practices such as witchcraft that appeals to people? If you use magic, why did you decide to do so? What is it that made you start believing that it worked? And once you did start to believe, what about it made you decide to start practicing?

There's something about that shift from not using magic to using it that always sort of confuses me. What motivates you magic-types?  

[maenad nuri]

I'm just beginning to "re-discover" magic and witchcraft. What is driving me is a bit of personal self-interest. I want to see what I can learn and do. I want to see what my own will can influence. Or, if I work with the gods, I can learn my limits, and see what we can accomplish together. I am certainly not on the same level, nor anywhere close, as them, but I can influence myself.  

[Kalyani Srijoi]

Nuri

I'm just beginning to "re-discover" magic and witchcraft. What is driving me is a bit of personal self-interest. I want to see what I can learn and do. I want to see what my own will can influence. Or, if I work with the gods, I can learn my limits, and see what we can accomplish together. I am certainly not on the same level, nor anywhere close, as them, but I can influence myself.

I guess what always confused me is that it just seems like such a strange way to do things. I mean, what is it that made you decide, "Screw conventional methods, I'm going to do something with magic!"

For me, I only really ever try out new methods if the old ones aren't working. I'm very much a "not broken, don't fix it" sort of person.

Are conventional methods not getting what you what? Or do you just want to see if this will work better, or what?  

[Pelta]

I think a big motivational point that pushes people towards magic is the prospect of power. It's cool. People want it.  

[Annalixa]

Pelta

I think a big motivational point that pushes people towards magic is the prospect of power. It's cool. People want it.

3nodding  

[ShadowSharrow]

Sometimes it is the power to protect themselves and others.
Sometimes it is to understand what it is they have been instinctively doing anyway.  

[maenad nuri]

Kalyani Srijoi

Are conventional methods not getting what you what? Or do you just want to see if this will work better, or what?

Yes, both.

I am a firm believe in doing things mundanely, or with prayer. I want to see what else I can do. Inasmuch as I can avoid hubris of course.  

[Kalyani Srijoi]

Nuri

Kalyani Srijoi

Are conventional methods not getting what you what? Or do you just want to see if this will work better, or what?

Yes, both.

I am a firm believe in doing things mundanely, or with prayer. I want to see what else I can do. Inasmuch as I can avoid hubris of course.

Ah, I see.

This stuff fascinates me so much. I think it's because I'm very, very much into instant gratification. The idea of a more subtle way of influencing things just seems so... I dunno. Foreign.  

[Kalyani Srijoi]

ShadowSharrow

Sometimes it is the power to protect themselves and others.
Sometimes it is to understand what it is they have been instinctively doing anyway.

Is that the way it was for you?  

[Starlock]

Most of the 'magic' that I do relates directly to a religious or spiritual aim; I don't do it for the sake of doing it (save to learn how to do it for spiritual purposes). It isn't so much about it 'working' or 'not working' for me because of that. I don't do much spellwork for mundane aims, but when I have, it's tended to work, so I suppose experience of it working is important.

The exception would come when I was very young and was dabbling in it without really knowing what it was I was doing. The only way I knew how to describe it at the time was 'magic' and as it turns out, in hindsight I was doing what most of us would classify as basic energy work.

I think having that really early childhood experience with magical energies really sold me on it. There are some claims and aspects I remain skeptical on and I always acknowledge alternative explanations. So there wasn't really any 'shift' from using it to not using it for me.  

[patch99329]

I am much like nuri and try to rely on mundane methods and praying as much as I can.

I only really do magic to do with my spiritual path anyways wink
But for mundane things...I guess I use it to help me along a little ad make things just that bit easier. Or if something seems 'out of my hands' I'd use magic.  

[TheDisreputableDog]

I'm pretty much a null when it comes to magic. I don't even know how to shield, which nearly everyone will tell you is the first step. I read tarot cards with moderate success, but that's not really the same thing. I pray, which also isn't the same.

Well...that's not exactly true, I guess. I forget because I start thinking within the "Ground, center, shield, then start" framework which hasn't really been accuate for me. What magic I do is tied to music and poetry. It's just something I do--it's more like I woke up one morning and realized it was magic, rather than waking up one morning and deciding I was going to start doing magic.

Sometimes it's hard to really classify the distinction between "mundane methods" and "magic." Like, what's the line? Using the tools and trappings of practices that have been identified as magic in the past? Pelta has always been a fan of getting rid of such "crutches"--is she not doing magic? Is magic just a metaphor? Is magic doing things that "normal" people wouldn't expect? It confuses me sometimes.  

[Henry Dorsett Case]

I don't even know if what I do would count as magic, though I suppose it might. It's mostly conceptual, binding concepts as thoughtform-servitors and asking Those Who Watch to deal with/route the energies involved to cause the servitors to follow my commands.

I got drawn to it mostly by what I could describe only as theistic psychodrama; literally, my gods told me what to do, and they give me rituals as needed.  

[Pelta]

Starlock

The only way I knew how to describe it at the time was 'magic' and as it turns out, in hindsight I was doing what most of us would classify as basic energy work.

There's a distinction? eek

This thread is very soon going to get into the sticky territory of "what exactly is magic?"

Nobody seems to know the answer to that question, so I suppose asking why we're drawn to it is even more nebulous.

Each person is probably going to have a different answer, if only because each person will usually have a slightly different definition of what magic is.  

[Deoridhe]

Runes were my gateway drug.

I started using them for self expression, art, and note taking that others couldn't read. Soon, I was using certain ones in mental twists to keep me going when I was struggling. Shortly thereafter, I attempted my first bindrune. It's been downhill from there.