Table Of ContentA A
BOUT THE UTHOR
Philip H. Farber (New York’s Hudson Valley) is a respected author and
magician
who teaches at Maybe Logic Academy. A certified hypnotist, hypnotist
instructor, and licensed NLP trainer, Farber has written three books on
magick.
Visit him online at Meta-Magick.com.
Llewellyn Publications
Woodbury, Minnesota
Copyright Information
Brain Magick: Exercises in Meta-Magick and Invocation © 2011 by Philip
H. Farber.
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First e-book edition © 2011
E-book ISBN: 9780738729770
Book design by Bob Gaul
Cover art © Neuron: iStockphoto.com/Sebastian Kaulitzki,
Ancient Script: iStockphoto.com/Christian Misje
Cover design by Ellen Lawson
Editing by Ed Day
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To Atem: We give you attention, language, passion,
fitting, trance, and making.
You give us the gods.
C
ONTENTS
Introduction
1. States of Consciousness
2. Form and Content
3. Invocation and Evocation
4. Mirror Realities
5. Tingling and Sparkling
6. Stepping In
7. Elementary Ritual
8. The Mastery Technique
9. The Time Axis
10. Shaping the Cloud
11. Permanent Woohoo
12. The Group Mind
13. Speculation
14. The Way of Woohoo
Appendix One: Sex
Appendix Two: Drugs
Appendix Three: Rock and Roll
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
I
NTRODUCTION
The Way of Woohoo
Consider the possibility of a full-sensory story, something like a motion picture,
only more so, or like virtual reality, only even richer in information. The story is
created from real perception—things that you can see, hear, touch, taste, and
smell. Perceptions and states of consciousness flow into a kind of narrative, not
necessarily in a straight line, more a sort of cloud or swarm, vaguely organized—
though not always—along an axis of time. Even in that disorganization, the flow
of attention, the part of the plot we follow through the swarm, may zig and zag
from any perception to almost any other, the entirety of the story only becoming
clear after we have partaken of thousands and thousands of memories, feelings,
and experiences.
It’s the ultimate medium: a palette of every color, sound, feeling, scent, and
flavor. It can be populated with multitudes of characters—family, friends, lovers,
teachers, neighbors, strangers, good guys, bad guys, heroes, schmucks, and
everyone else. It can be beautifully simple or complex beyond the rendering of
any supercomputer. If you were the author of this amazing, full-sensory story,
think about the kinds of choices you could make. When the plot arc, the scope of
the tale, finally rises into view, just what kind of story do you hope it will be?
There are billions of people with access to this exciting medium—but only some
of them even realize that they are the authors, the directors, and the producers of
their own full-sensory story. Shakespeare told us that we are but players; what he
failed to mention is that, like him, we can also turn the tale toward our own
aesthetic ends. Of the few humans who even think about their world enough to
realize their own artistic control, only a few have figured out the techniques. The
result is that many of the full-sensory stories out there—billions of them—really
suck. Or, for the most part, they are repetitive, predictable, and unremarkable
lives based around B-movie (or worse!) plots.
The question then becomes—how much do you want your own story to really
rock? How exquisite, grand, powerful, intriguing, seductive, exciting, or mythic
would you like your experience to be? What excites your neurons, strokes your
sense of aesthetics, fulfills your philosophy, applies significance to your
circumstance, or makes you scream and shout? Whatever it is that puts the sauce
on the omelet, the brushstroke to the Starry Night, the bubbles in the Jacuzzi, the
ecstasy in viewing a blue arc of summer sky, we shall refer to here as woohoo.
Woohoo is the subtle difference between ordinary and exciting, the factor that
makes just another stranger into your friend, your teacher, or your lover. Woohoo
is what turns an activity into a passion; it’s what changes noise into song, foot
movement into dance, travel into adventure, procreation into eros, and biological
processes into a life worth living. Woohoo is the measure of intensity. It’s what
continues to draw your attention, moment after moment. It’s what makes a feeling
worth having. Like the Tao, true woohoo has no definite form. Your personal way
of woohoo cannot be named; it is a flow of experience that changes from moment
to moment.
Woohoo can be thought of as more of a how than a what. A camera angle may
make the difference between a home video and awe-inspiring cinematography. A
nuance of pitch or timbre might separate a technically correct piano recital from a
heartfelt virtuoso performance. Duration and subtlety of movement might make
the difference between a goodnight kiss and an exciting erotic invitation. How we
perceive may determine the quality of woohoo as much as what we perceive the
content of that experience. The way that we process our sensory input includes,
somewhere along the way, the decision to put our inner artist to work, for our
brains to portray our experience with the right camera angle, the sweetest
emphasis of tone, or with erotic subtlety. That decision, to woohoo or not to
woohoo, usually happens outside of our conscious awareness. We can, however,
make it a conscious choice.
The pursuit of a woohoo-filled life story, whatever the details of that might be
for you, is the Way of Woohoo.
The Model of Meta-Magick
Magick, as we’re using the term here, refers to a means of first perfecting the self
so that the things that one may do will be done with power and effectiveness. This
has always been the aim of magick—to understand the relationship between
consciousness and the world in a way that allows us to re-create ourselves (and
our world) in hedonic, healthy, and practical ways. Our understanding and self-
perfection allow us to fit into the world so well that we can influence it in
accordance with our will.
Meta-Magick is a collection of opportunities to think about magick. Elements
from a variety of theories and models, ranging from neuroscience to voodoo, are
offered as clues to understand the phenomena we find in our magical experiments.
There are many different styles and practices of magick, in every culture, on
every continent. By identifying some of the common elements, we are better able
to separate out the magick itself, the techniques and practices that really work,
from the content of the rituals that relates to specific belief systems. In general,
many techniques of magick are the same everywhere, with their intent aimed at
different results and deities. This suggests that the rituals and practices derive from
the commonality of human experience; this is how our brains work when we do
magick.
Our focus will be on the magical operation of invocation. If you are already
familiar with magick and invocation techniques, you may be able to use the
