How To Learn (Satanic) Magick – A Step By Step Guide

There is lot of newbies coming into satanism wanting to learn magick and ask simple question – what to do? It’s hard to answer equally simply on that, because everyone is different and starts from different position, however I decided I can try to describe most typical procedure, without lengthy essays about nature or history of magick. Just simple step by step. Remember that below is only a simple guidance tool designed for persons who had no previous practice or contact with magick. And of course I am writing assuming that it is your intention to learn satanic magick specifically.

Most basic things you need to know first before you begin:

– The source of magick is your mind. That is why the learning of magick is equal with learning how to control yourself, your mind, your emotions, your reactions. If you are not patient and consequent enough to induce change in yourself, magick isn’t for you.

– If you want to learn magick, you need to learn that you are not the slave of conditions and you can react differently to them if you want to. You control yourself not conditions outside so forget about excuses like: someone hindered me, it’s other’s fault, I couldn’t react differently under this circumstances (they are to blame), I was born into this so I can’t reach this or that, etc.

– Although the prime source of a change (prime mover) is your mind as pointed above, because your mind reacts on the conditions outside as if they were part of a mind (and they are), changing those physical conditions deliberately can induce change in your mind, hence ritualistic elements of many magick types. In other words you can influence yourself from within (direct magick) or by changing outside conditions (ritual magick). Both techniques are equally valuable and powerful. Even if you prefer to make change from within, you still seeks results on physical plane, so you can’t divorce your mind from it. Your life is mirroring your mind.

– Strength of your belief matters! The more you believe that magick is real, the more you expect results and react stronger emotionally opening yourself in a proper way for the results of your magickal actions. There are various levels of beliefs. As a magick user you need to learn at least how to suspend your doubts (state of suspended disbelief) and/or certain convictions . Preferable state is to believe in the power of magick to such degree, that it no longer a belief but a certainty, a knowledge. But that comes with practice so I won’t encourage you to believe in it blindly, check it out for yourself.

– You need to be a good observer of yourself and your surroundings, preferably have affinity for psychology, because only then you will be able to understand how magick works and see patterns between psychical state and the physical result. However if you are not, you can have the same results with a pure belief in power of magick, but then it needs to be exceptionally unshakable. Those who question it, prefer to know all about it, where does it come from, how does it work in order to believe in it fully. Understanding how magick works is not necessary, however if you know that, you can be more flexible, creative and efficient.

– Because magick is dependable on mind, all our weaknesses and strengths are mirrored by magick. It means that if you have some troubles in certain areas of life, you may have some hardship to obtain magickally success as well (also despite being lame in one area, you can be masters in other). However it doesn’t mean that magick isn’t helpful, it can work as a bypass or a safety net so thanks to it you can reach your goal more easily then by ‘normal’ means. But because magick depends on your mind and it shares its strengths and weaknesses, it can’t be seen as a quick and easy fix of one’s problems. You need to be ready to put some work in order to reach your dream state.

– There is no limits to magick beside those in your mind (and those always exist).

– Magick doesn’t mean you are sitting and waiting for result. Magick shifts occurrences (that you would have no conscious influence over anyway) into your favor and impact subconsciously some of your decisions toward your goal but most likely you still must act (except situations when you can do nothing physically, magick works then as well) toward your goal.

– There are certain dangers involved with magick practice that you won’t see coming but that’s a topic for another article, just know that if you are balanced, stable and grounded personality (satanists rarely are…) you will be fine, otherwise some extra work needs to be done.

How to learn magick?

Below I present steps you need to follow in order to learn magick, however although order of those steps may suggest what you should begin with, in practice you will do parallel few things at once or focusing on one step and then after different one and again coming back to previous one and then trying something new. It all depends on your character whether you like to be consequent and orderly or you need to change focus in order to keep things differentiated and exciting. However remember, that learning magick is a long, tedious process so it’s not a study for impatient persons. It takes years of study and learning never ends but first results you can have in a few months or quicker, depending on your focus, motivation, belief in magick and discipline.

1. Learn meditation.

Meditation allows you to:

– learn how to relax your mind and body (even in stressful conditions or when your are emotionally excited)

– increase your focus span

– learn how to obtain and control various, alternative states of mind

– learn properly visualize

– increase your ability to learn and understand

– increase your overall control over yourself

– increase your ability to coping with stress improving your overall life quality

You need to learn various forms of meditation, because you will all need them: void meditation, focused meditation, visualizing. It’s not enough to know how to meditate, you need to practice it regularly, at least 3 times a week, preferably more often. You can read my article about Meditation.

2. Learn divination methods.

Choose at least two different, complementary ones, although three different or more would be even better, for example: I practice tarot but also know how to use pendulum.  Tarot is not suitable for looking lost objects/persons or hardly answers yes or no (it’s possible but it’s tricky and tarot is always adding more then just simple yes/no and thus could be unclear) but pendulum does, so it’s a great complementary technique. Another method that adds to your divination abilities is to learn some extrasensory or mediumistic ability like seeing aura, object reading, communication with ghost, spiritual entities, scrying in black mirror, crystal ball, bowl of water, etc. Like you see those methods extend your possibilities beyond what one method can do and increase your sensibility to subtle energies, increase your intuition and precognition skill. There are a lot of books in that department, choose some, read and practice. For examples from that area see Divination in Literature section.

3. Learn about hermeticism and hermetic magick

Hermeticism (also called hermetics) is an ancient knowledge that is the base for all types of western magic methods, so you have to know it.

Note that because of its popularity, hermeticism was often used within christian paradigm so for many it may be seen as christian type of magick but nothing can be further of truth, it predates christianity. Hermetics is also far more universal so it can be easily adjusted to any type of beliefs (including satanism) that avoid of strong dualistic world views (yes, some christians aren’t in line with the exact teachings of their faith so they marry their christian ideology with more ancient, lose approach as hermeticism).

Hermetic beliefs are at the core of every pantheistic belief or even at the beginning of most religions (you can see pantheistic traits there clearly, but they are explained in a different way nowadays).

There are few classical positions you should read:

Initiation Into Hermetics – Franz Bardon (some explanations or examples here are scientifically outdated, thus incorrect so watch out)

The Kybalion (Three Initiates)

The Philosophers Stone – Israel Regardie

Franz Bardon – Practice of Magical Evocation (hermeticism and ceremonial magick)

Hermes Trismegistus – The Corpus Hermetica

Hermes Trismegistus – Corpus Hermeticum (translated by G.R.S. Mead)

Hermes Trismegistus – The Emerald Tablet

4. Learn chaos magick

Chaos magick in itself is a modern, very potent and open for experiments paradigm that focuses more on efficiency then one type of magick. Because of that it is a great introduction to magick in general and offers a lot of possibilities with relatively little limitations on various areas. Chaos magick is highly eclectic but it has no focus within any system of belief. Choosing one is left for a magician/sorcerer. Not all methods or perspective mentioned in chaos magick books are suited for satanists. Too wide variety of resources (like for example using angels, Hindu gods, non personal energetic creations, etc.) without any solid focus, love or sanctum and sometimes a cynical approach strips magick from mystery and spirituality. Satanic magick  in opposition to chaos magick presents more concrete system, predestined symbolism and preferable magick techniques like theurgy (in our case it is magick with help of demons) which allows for full utilization of symbolism and emotional reactions that come from focused, highly preferable belief allowing for better efficiency. However because satanic magick itself is also eclectic as chaos magick they have lot in common.

Chaos magick offers some specific techniques like using of sigils (not to mistake with demonic or… angelic sigils that are used differently) and creating servitors. First one could be very useful but the latter one seems to be redundant because our access to  demons.

Short to say, chaos magick is a great base to build your magickal knowledge upon, to learn various techniques. It could be easily adapted for satanism. However this is only a starting point.

Where to begin an adventure through chaos magick? I recommend books and texts of Phil Hine because of his clear and accessible style. They are great for those who begin their magical journey. Then you can move (it’s not necessary) to other authors that Hine mentions (like P.J. Caroll, Austin Osman Spare, etc.)  and others you can find. You can start with:

Phil Hine – Oven-ready Chaos

Phil Hine – Prime Chaos

Peter J. Carroll – Liber Null & Psychonaut

5. Learn witchcraft

You need to know that the term witchcraft is understood as two different things. First is a type of practiced magick, second is the religious practice (or religion itself like Wicca or similar neo-pagan ones). In books about witchcraft those both approaches are often mixed together presenting witchcraft techniques and witchcraft beliefs.

Because witchcraft is more religiously oriented (mostly Wicca) it may be more in tune with theistic satanists paradigm and easy adaptable to satanic beliefs with some… MAJOR changes. Unfortunately  most of  discussed texts converse about white magick, balance in nature  and… morality. This fluffy and shallow, ridiculous, limiting approach may be irritating (or laughable at best) but still some texts could be useful.

In comparison to chaos magick where everything was allowed, in witchcraft you have clear moral/magickal/spiritual rules (like threefold law). Witchcraft writings being religiously attuned are simpler, less (or hardly ever) intellectual and less focused on sound explanations (if so, they are mystical, spiritual rather then psychological or scientific). But on the other hand they present focused, spiritual approach devoid of cynicism or distance that crawls all over chaos magick. So for many theistic satanists  some of witchcraft methods may be more attractive.

It’s hard to find any suitable book on that topic. Most publications are wicca light wishy washy craps that may give a beginner some simple ideas how to work with certain rituals and spells but mostly are annoying by its fluffy and simplistic approach. Those who want to learn satanic magick should begin with Mastering Witchcraft – Paul Huson. It’s a controversial book often seen as offensive to wiccan whitelighters, however there are also even more of those who love it and treat it as classical (before wicca took over) position on the subject. This is old school witchcraft with elements of satanism (anti-christian blasphemy rite – reciting prayers backwards is recommended as a beginning of magickal journey by breaking bonds with christian religion). Witchcraft do share historic roots with satanism whether wiccans like it or not. Mastering Witchcraft is about this specific type of magick and not about religion (refreshing! other books hardly take such perspective). Author presents both positive and negative workings with some warnings but leave the decision to readers. Of course this books is not without flaws, like discouraging from taking money for magick work, a part of an old mindset that as a satanist you should get rid of, there is nothing wrong with exchange of energy/money for service of any kind, there is nothing anti-spiritual in physical wealth and being rich. This book also definitely won’t tell you all about witchcrafts but you are here to learn satanic magick so you don’t need to know all. You may also want to check other books to find out that most of publication here present poor quality, wicca rainbowy stuff. Luckily there are always some better ones s0 it’s worth looking if you are more interested in this type of magick.

6. Get to know grimoires, basics of demonology and read demonolatry books about the work with demons (only for those interested in satanic magick!)

You need to remember that most of available grimoires are written from christian perspective and utilize old ceremonial magick practices (ridiculous ritual requirements) so they’re completely useless for satanists and for… everyone else. They have a fun value rather then a practical one. But those grimoires could be also a great source of symbolism, names, correspondences, drawings, character features of demons. In practice you don’t need to read them from cover to cover (unless you enjoy it) but just have them around and research it on a need to know basis. It can inspire you when creating your own invocation ritual.

Classic old grimoires are:

– Lesser Key of Salomon (in 5 parts, although only second one, ‘Goetia’ is the most important one – to download go here)

– Grimoirium Verum

– Grimoirium Imperium

– Grimoire Of Honorius

– Dictionnaire Infernal – Collin de Plancy

– Grimoire of Turiel

– The Black Pullett (about talismans rather then summoning demons)

– The Grand Grimoire (there are various versions available, for example: The Grand Grimoire (Original Italian), The Grand Grimoire (Trans. by Gretchen), The Grand Grimoire Dark Lodge version)

They all are available online as pdf’s and have no copyrights so don’t get fooled by expensive printed versions that some sell on auctions.

If you heard about The Red and Black Dragon Grimoire, read the discussion about it on occultforum.org here.

If you found online The Red Book Of Appin Translated By Scarabaeus know it’s a hoax and waste of time. There’s a nice article about it here. Spell & Ritual site is interesting place anyway, worth of taking a longer look, although the site owner has too strong sense of social morality for my taste.

Christopher S. Hyatt, S. Jason Black – Pacts With the Devil (quite interesting and worth reading book although the rituals here come from old christian ceremonial magick so there is no use for them nowadays, especially for satanists who operate from completely different paradigm, but till now you should be very familiarized with the art of adapting certain ideas to both modern and satanic approach)

There are also modern demonolatry, luciferian, satanic books and texts available to buy. They are much better source of basics for your satanic practice then above mentioned grimoires. I list here just few examples, more are to be found online:

– The Complete Book of Demonolatry – S. Connoly (very basic stuff good for complete newbies in magick or occult in general, for others an example how to fit their practice into more satanic, demonolatry style if you don’t mind poor editing and simplistic style)

– The Daemonolater’s Guide to Daemonic Magick by S. Connolly, Valerie Corban, B. Morlan and Nicholas “GoeticNick” Schneider (more practice oriented and extended material of the above)

7. Learn shamanism

Shamanism allows you for inner journey through primal, animistic techniques and will show you variety of simple yet creative and potent methods. It could give you an ability to see how the same magickal principles could be used in various ways depending of system of beliefs and culture. You will also see similarities between other magickal practices giving you better understanding of how magick works. How strongly you deep into this topic depends on you, it’s rather an additional area then a must read. I certainly haven’t studied it yet enough so it’s hard for me to recommend classical texts for newbies.

Books of Max Freedom Long about Huna were my first close up with this topic years ago and it inspired me a lot. Beware thou that author’s approach is idealized, naive and exaggerated but nevertheless his books are still a classical, often red and commented positions.

Urban Shaman by Serge Kahili King presents modern take on similar subject giving you something to ponder about. I have some personal issues with some Huna beliefs but the techniques are interesting and easy to use.

There are other publications about shamanism in general that seem to be of value:

– Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy – Mircea Eliade and others (more scholar survey on the topic then a practice textbook)

– Shamanism As a Spiritual Practice for Daily Life – Thomas Dale Cowan, Tom Cowan (a simpler and practical book)

There are also some interesting sites on the subject, for example:

Northern Tradition Shamanism (lot of various texts)

From what I remember from my past life, shamanism back then had more brutal, uncivilized character. Illnesses, accidents, negative emotions were taken as a evil spirits that one had to be wary of. The nature was both benevolent and dangerous so spirits where also both protective and dangerous. There were curses cast as well and shamans sometimes were taking advantage because of their position. It was nothing like nowadays new age fluffy perspective (full harmony, love and respect). But anyway, any books or links presented here are merely an inspirational tool and source of knowledge, not as unerring oracle. Read and make up your own mind.

8. Learn something about ceremonial magick (CM)

I rather keep away from strict CM textbooks, because CM is long outdated and have unnecessarily overloaded rituals, not to mention pro-christian symbolics used there. However in your studies you will find many texts which were written from this perspective so you should have some raw ideas what CM is about. Besides, lot of classical positions about magick belong here like:

The Book of Ceremonial Magic – Artur Edward Waite (in earlier editions also known as The Book of Black Magic and Ceremonial Magic)

– Aleister Crowley’s works (too many to mention them all, they are easily accessible online and there is lot of resources on his topic so I skip it here)

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Thelema – those are important pieces of western magickal history and they mostly were focusing on ceremonial magick.

Quite irritating phenomenon in that area is that lot of books claiming to be about black magick is in fact dealing with OLD christian ceremonial magick. So you meet with christian view about the evil spirits, how to protect yourself, how to control them… Sounds familiar? And then often spells contain ridiculous requirements just as in old grimoires… So basically such books are utterly useless and have no place in present day satanic practice. They just lure you with titles but the content is just a garbage. To be fair however, even such crap could inspire you to new applications of some old ideas so if you have the stamina to go through those… good luck to you.

9. Read certain new age books (and use common sense) about topics like:

– power of thoughts (often combined with quantum physics)

– positive thinking (affirmations, how to do efficient prayers)

– law of attraction (mind that The Secret is just a very superficial treatment of that topic, it’s the book for masses, good for the start but  the real knowledge is to find elsewhere, I recommend books and videos (found easily on you tube) of Esther and Jerry Hicks)

– mental and energetic healing methods (so many of them, study what feels interesting and useful at the moment)

– silva method and similar mental techniques

– Out of Body Experience (OOBE/OBE)

– life after death

– reincarnation

– books about spiritual development (often far from satanic perspective, yet one still can find it useful and adopt for satanic paradigm)

– books about channeling (presenting various perspectives, sometimes contradicting ones so it’s good to read lot in that department to develop own opinion about it and to find out which channeling message speaks to you mostly; interesting aspect of it is finding common grounds between those various perspectives and that is where the mystery is hidden)

– books about mediumism and extrasensory techniques (how to increase your intuition, precognition skills, etc.)

– getting reach (Robert Kyosaki, Donald Trump and similar ones) or generally books about business (they offer you knowledge from the same area as many new age books, yet in much more practical and detailed way, without fluffizm and basic “how to think positively”, “how to increase self esteem”, those things are treated as obvious, you need to be strong and focused in business – so in a nutshell many business books can show you ways of  getting rich or generally how to get what you want and that includes money and power, things that satanists admire, so such books should be within area of interest of many satanists; lately I red a brilliant position: First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently – Marcus Buckingham, Curt Coffman – you may think it’s only about managers, but the same rules apply to any productivity or consumer unit, like… your home; lot of important and wide applicable psychological conclusions could be found here;  magick like it or not is strongly bound to psychology in general so any valuable book on similar topics is important)

All such books (can be of various quality, many are poor but there are treasures as well) can show you a wide spectrum of mental influence over the reality however portrayed without calling it magick, but you will see that it all links together. Also it will show you that this power that you use to change the world is not of exotic origin but life essence, energy that every consciousness uses to influence its surroundings. Magickal energy doesn’t work only during ritual but all the time so an experienced mage can control it most of time, while focusing it more deliberately during special magickal acts.

As you can imagine, you can find little or rather none satanic perspective in those books, but no worries, you can take what you find useful and adapt it for your world view. Knowledge is power so don’t limit yourself to biases what satanism should look like. Read as much as you can on topics that interest you and enrich your satanic universe.

Are all those new ageish books necessary? Not at all, but they can expand your perspective. Also if you have issues with your self esteem (lot of people have) some self help books from that area can be helpful. You will also read lot of crap or books that you will find great but with time see them as naive and simplistic. This is all part of your spiritual growth so don’t be embarrassed if you like a book that some authoritatively talking persons find childish or primitive. For you at this level this book may be right one, illuminating so take your stand and be sure of it.

Ending

All that points seem like a lot of work (it is!) and you still don’t know how to start? Just pick a first point, go to google, type ‘meditation’ or ‘meditation exercises’ and start reading. Then search again for it and start reading again. Remember that you can find lot of books on Scribid so you can read them directly from there. When you have some basic information and can try it, do it! That is how you can begin your magical education, one step at a time. Learn meditations, read books and try various techniques, exercises and practice, practice, practice.

As to satanic magick itself, beside general magical knowledge you will also need to know some methods used in dark arts (point 6  and more – there are some books about black magick on the market, unfortunately they rarely are of high quality, but still could be helpful; additionally lot of other books about chaos magick or some about witchcraft can give you examples of many black magick techniques, there are also satanic books witch discuss that topic and of course your understanding of magick will allow you to invent your own preferable methods so in fact there is an abundance of such informations out there), believe in Satan and demons, be attracted by dark imagery, have a dark flame burning within, create your own satanic astral temple, be ready to creative usage of various methods and of course learn how to communicate, channel and work with demons. Just read my site. And that is only a beginning! Rest is your personal practice and things you can’t find in books… Enjoy the dark path!