This is reprinted here with the author's permission. I thought it was very good:

I've talked about this subject before but truly no subject out there in the Metaphysical arts deserves more discussion than confidence does. Why? Look at the amount of questions that are posted to a group like this and not the ones by Novices either.

Confidence is something you must have if you wish to work with the Unseen Powers that exist out there. Even if you're one of those who doesn't believe in Spirits, Gods & Goddesses living independently of ourselves and believe it all happens in your own mind, you still have to look at how big & murky your own mind is.

In the Oath that a Novice takes (at least in the Gardnerian & Alexandrian traditions) there is the line about 'thrust yourself upon this blade' and with that, a parameter is set that should guide you for your Witchy career. That parameter is: You should have confidence or do not step onto the path.

That is pretty intense if you think about it and that's because it's more than a challenge from the Gods & Spirits, or more from your HPS & HP but also a personal challenge to yourself.

You need confidence. The problem is Joe & Mary Sixpack-Pagan Novices refuse to do the groundwork necessary to take them up each successive level. That means they want to run before they can even learn to walk & before they can walk they have to crawl & stumble a lot.

Therein lies the most difficult thing Novices have to deal with: Stumbling.

Somehow in McWiccan literature that proliferates the shelves of bookstores, there's this sentiment that Magic has to be done perfect or else the bogeyman will come out to get you. Bah! Trust me when I say it's Bah! because I have made my fair share (and then some!) of mistakes in my Magical career.

I have stumbled, burnt my fingers & even had a potion or two explode in my face (not literally but metaphorically) and yet I'm still here to talk about it.

How did I get where I got? Confidence. And I gained that confidence one step at a time.

There comes a time when you have to put the books down and START walking. Preparing yourself by reading, reading & more reading does not help as much as you think and in fact it can hinder your progress. How? Simple: Every author has their own opinion about what constitutes making Magic - color schemes, candle shapes, potion recipes, chants & even in the ethics/morality concepts.

When you read 10 authors from ll-EWE-llyn, you get 11 different theories & hypothesis. Then add the other authors out there and well it becomes a soupy mix of blech.

You need confidence folks, not knowledge. You need to step back & examine your own book of shadows. Is it complete? No! Hell it will NEVER be complete because it is a work in progress that entails your entire Magical career. Hello???

BUT you have to start somewhere so be like Nike, "Just Do It"!! Get off your lazy *** & stop using that old argument, "I don't wanna make a mistake" and DO SOMETHING.

You will never learn if you don't do something and try. Wisdom comes with experience and the only way you can get experience is to do something. So what if you make a mistake? Learn from it! Journal about it. Go back and figure out what went wrong. By doing so, you learn more about what not to do than anything else & thus you get confidence for the next project along the same lines.

You gain confidence by experiencing little successes. Most books are set up for you to get the basics down & then move progressively forwards. For example, tooting my own horn here, in one of my own books, I outline dozens of simple, basic Metaphysical practices (not limited to Witches) that you need to do in order to get that 'Eureka!' hitting you so when you do a Spell, Ritual or Ceremony, you already know what you have to do to get it to work.

Problem: Novices & Intermediate practitioners alike always skip over that stuff in favor of the deep, dark spells listed. Ooooooh....

Perfect example: Ginny loves Harry & wants him to love her in return. So she reads up and discovers a spell in a book but she is a complete & utter Novice. She doesn't know what she's doing. Well she does the love spell but it fails in some way. It may be that Harry fell for another girl; Harry could exhibit some strange behavior towards Ginny; perhaps Harry only wants Ginny for sex; or maybe nothing happened at all.

Why did it fail? No it's NOT because 'love spells are bad karma' which is the ignorant way of explaining everything that doesn't work, but rather it is because Ginny hasn't made the leap yet. She knows nothing of how to work Metaphysics & her confidence level is pathetically low. Oh yes she might tell herself she can do this but she's trying to lie her way through.

*Buzz!* Wrong!

You may try to lie & deceive yourself into being confident but you cannot because your subconscious knows where you are in your development. What you believe you can get away with most likely will not be enough.

Now had Ginny spent several months working at the Novice exercises, she would've not only had the knowledge of how to unlock the power of her Love Spell for Harry but more importantly she'd have the confidence that it would work.

Get it? Confidence, NOT knowledge, will get you somewhere in Magic & Sorcery. You cannot rely on anyone other than yourself to wake yourself up & get out there and do something.

It doesn't matter what author you start with (even the Sheeple authors of ll-EWE-llyn) but it does matter for you to start off with the basic exercises learn them and MOST IMPROTANTLY: PRACTICE THEM! I cannot emphasize that enough, folks. Nothing will help your confidence grow in the Magical & Metaphysical arts faster than practicing the basics.

In closing, I'd like to say that if you run into someone who claims to be a Sorcerer, Witch, Magician, Wizard, High Priestess or High Priest, and they don't do much in the way of Magic, I'm willing to place a wager they're the type who either doesn't put much stock in Magic OR they're the type who I've been bitching about here - the ones who refuse to do the basics (they're too mature & important to practice the basics!) so you should RUN from them as fast as your little legs can carry you.

The only way a genuine practitioner ever gets wisdom is from the practice of the Arts, not sitting and reading. Having a good reference library is important but in truth, there are too many beginner books out there that just plain suck & teach the same old, same old with nothing knew. It's the author's attempt to become a name without giving anything worthwhile.

Confidence will make you shine. Work on it. Develop it. Enjoy it.




Love & Light,

MOLOCH

'Real Sorcery 24/7'

http://www.molochsorcery.com

Very good

That is a name to remember for my fantasy writing. A Warlock by the name of Moloch!


Thank you for sharing the message Ruth.

I think there's a lot to be said for confidence. There can be no doubt about that. However, I had to laugh a bit when I got to Molock's web site.

He says: "The Definitive Site About SORCERY"

Yet in the OP he's quoted as saying "Preparing yourself by reading, reading & more reading does not help as much as you think and in fact it can hinder your progress. How? Simple: Every author has their own opinion about what constitutes making Magic - color schemes, candle shapes, potion recipes, chants & even in the ethics/morality concepts."

And then on his website he's selling BOOKS.

He's putting down the Llewellyn books in favor of his own.

I haven't read any of his books and I'm certainly not going to buy them.

I will agree that "doing" magic is far better than just reading about it. There can be no doubt about that. But just the same, even like Molock suggests, one must learn how to crawl, then walk, and then run. So without a live mentor, reading is a must.

Many covens won't even consider taking in a new witch who hasn't already been studying witchcraft for at least a year. There's just too many basics that need to be learned. I'm not even thinking about joining a coven and I still studied for an entire year before jumping into some serious witchcraft. I'm about to embark on my second year of 'study' this Yule. (I work from Yule to Samhain in my study programs)

This year I read all 6 of Penczaks Temple of Witchcraft series books, which are indeed published by Llewellyn. This coming year I'm going to go over them again in 'practice'. Of course I have several other books too, not even published by Llewllyn.

And yes, as Molock suggests, confidence is key. I'm now preparing to write my own Book of Shadows which will indeed be my "bible". But I could never do this correctly had I not studied for a year first.

It's wrong to suggest that people should just jump into doing spellwork and magick with 'confidence' before they've actually done a lot of reading and learning. Molock may very well be appealing to those people who are seeking instant gratification. It is true that a person can have very good luck with instant magick. I had cast a spell in the very early going myself and that spell worked very well. However, I wasn't prepared for the results of what I had wished for. Now that I've studied for a full year I'm far better prepared.

I am very thankful to Ruth for introducing me to the Penczak Temple of Witchcraft books.

There are six books in this series of lessons. Each book is supposed to be a year and a day "course". That could take six years to get through them all. However, I bought the first 3 books simultaneously, and studied all 3 of those in parallel for my first year. (I would suggest to others to include the 4 book if you do that)

I just now bought the last 3 books of the series and I've been reading them very intensely. The whole thing goes together very well as an overall course. I'm now prepared to embark on my second year of 'study' although in this second year owl be putting these lessons into 'practice' in a far more intense program.

I can't recommend Penczak's Temple of Witchcraft series books highly enough. Some people may feel that he's becoming 'overly popular' but I think the reason that he's so popular is because his books really are that good. Especially if a person is seeking a well-rounded view and is capable of picking and choosing what works best for them. If a person is seeking to be led hand and foot down a particular path, then Penczak's books may not be the ticket. Penczak throws everything at you including the kitchen sink. It's up to you to take what works for you and leave the rest. This is what I like about his books the most. He has empowered me to become a solitary eclectic witch. Now I can write my own Book of Shadows with confidence and not be concerned with following in the footsteps of others.

Now I can be a 'confident' solitary witch. Although I'm not even sure that I'm concerned about the title. I don't truly think of myself as a 'witch'. I'm just a person who has recognized that witchcraft and shamanism is the craft for me. I suppose that makes me a 'witch' by default whether I like it or not.

Everything has to be labeled I guess.

Or one can just call for Merlin. He is a great wizard with many powers used for good. That saves alot of work in becoming one.

If only life were that easy.

There's a whole religion based on putting their faith in Merlin. All they ever seem to do is constantly ask for 'prayer requests' and whine about how hard it is to 'keep the faith'.

So that doesn't appear to be working all that great.

If you want something done right, you need to become the wizard yourself.

It's not all that hard really. It's really just a matter of finding the right information in the first place. What most humans are truly suffering from is poor mentoring. And that just breeds more of the same. Poorly mentored people tend to grow up to become poor mentors themselves and it just ripples on forever. Even though they mean well, it's like the blind leading the blind.

Someone needs to become a seer or they'll all be led off the cliff like a bunch of lemmings.

Disclaimer: Moloch is an egomaniac. I probably should have started with that. I only know him from his posts on a group I'm in. I have been to his website and it's got some good information for free. I would not buy his books just because he is an egomaniac. However, he has posted some really good stuff and he is very experienced.

My main point was that "doing" magick is just as important as "learning and studying" magick. I got to where I am (which is not really far ) from actually doing spells. I learned at least as much, if not more, from actually doing the work than just reading about it. And, every time you have a success, you do get a major confidence boost that helps propel you forward.

My very first spell was a "find a lost item" spell. I needed to find an immunization record very quickly. We had just moved so it could have been anywhere in a hundred boxes. I did the spell. About 4 hours later a friend called asking for a book she needed for homeschooling her son. I knew the homeschooling books were in the storage unit we had rented for the move. The next morning I went to the storage unit and pulled out the box I needed. Lying right on top of the books were the immunization records I needed. I never would have guessed in a million years that that was where I had tossed them and I would have had no reason to go to the storage unitl again for several weeks.

I got a major boost of confidence.

Pretty much.

Well I certainly agree with that. So does Penczak. He preaches this constantly in all of his books. He actually demands quite a bit from his readers. If you actually DO what he says you'd be going magic all the time.

For me, the whole thing was so new to me that I felt a need to get an overview of what it's all about. I need to know where a path leads before I can head down it with confidence.

I guess I don't have much 'adventure' spirit.

Now that I see where the path leads and understand a lot more about it, I can start 'doing' magic on a daily basis and start getting some actual experience. Of course, it wasn't like I wasn't doing anything over the past year. I have done a lot of shamanic journeying in particular, and other types of psychic meditations. I've also been studying quite a bit of other stuff too that I seldom mention. I have shamanic journeying books by at least 3 other authors. I have the Faery Teachings which I'm into at least as much as studying penczak's works. I've been working with some of R. J. stewart's stuff, he does both Faery Teachings and the Qabalah. I've also been going through some courses by Deepak Chopra. And I've been doing Charkra studies with Anodea Judith. And cystal studies via a website on Crystal Healing.

So I've been all over the board.

Just the same, I like Penczak's basic outline. I think he breaks it down into categories the best. His first four temple books are basically Fire, Earth, Water, and Air. I didn't even realize that when I started out. I also recognize these four elements in a far deeper spiritual sense now. Now I'm referring to them as Atziluth, Assiah, Briah, and Yetzirah.

These were actually represented by the four Hewbrew letters YHWH which became transliterated into Yahweh or Jehovah which is the God of Abraham.

The more I read about the Qabalah the more I realize that the Abrahamic religions were actually based on these ancient pantheistic views. Modern Christianity that places Jesus as the Son of Yahweh really didn't come into it's current form until about 1600 when King James invented it. About that same time the Qabalah was tossed out of Christainity as representing "witchcraft".

So it's a real irony that Christianity was ultimately born out of witchcraft, grew from it, and then ultimately ended up rejecting it as the work of Satan.

So anyway, I'm just rambing now.

I'm still studying the qabalah on the web. I just found this interesting pdf file:

http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/Qabalah.pdf

But I'm going to quit studying it pretty soon. I just wanted to get a few more perspectives on it before moving on.