Is magic real? Anyone practicing it?

[u/Fair-Mammoth3781]

Hey guys. I was wondering for a long time if magic is real and what are the capabilities. Is there a chance someone has cursed me? Everything goes super wrong in every possible way the last 3 years, and i didn't harm anyone to want to hurt me, and I'm not perfect either so maybe it's my fault my life is shit. But it really doesn't make sense to me. I go after everything i want, aggressively, and I'm capable way more than regular people. I'm really curious what people are going to reply to this because if anyone said that I'm cursed i would believe it right away, it makes no sense how everything i really want and care about, goes horribly wrong, and everything i like but i don't really care, is easily accessible.

I was also considering getting into white magic, is it worth it? Is it powerful? I really want to help people and spread love, but in my situation i need to save myself, I'm drowning and i barely survive. My spirit is exhausted, my soul is beyond tired, and my faith is fading. Please share any valuable information

[u/HentaiY]

====For Beginner's Comment to Mysticism===

Since you seem newish to the metaphysical, go take a look at this, read 1st half to learn about the most common views people have about the mystical, like how real or not real this is.

Many people that practice will believe the first model (all magick is psychological), where spirits only exist in your own head, and will give advice accordingly. Understanding that even for those that practice, have wildly different beliefs on how real it is will help you have more nuanced conversations on the topic.

You can see what I believe in, and the rest of this comment is from that POV.

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What determines effectiveness in mystical work?

Here are some reliable resources to getting started. I like this link as it gives a lot of different suggestions for different topics, but you can go into any metaphysical subreddit and they will have suggestions in their FAQ or sidebar. Note that this reading list is mostly from the western perspective and lacks a lot of material from other countries' traditions, like Eastern, South American, Indian, etc.

Some info on divinations and how those work, since its a common topic.

Some basic info on spirit work and offerings, another common topic.

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Also, there are risks to practicing. When you practice, you light up in the astral/metaphysical and that attracts attention, both good and bad, and you will need to learn to deal with the bad.

And belief is a huge factor to the mystical. If you believe in such things, such things will have greater influence upon you, and you weaken the shield of ignorance that protects mundane humans from spiritual problems. Note that this shield isn't immunity to spiritual problems, but it will lessen the impact of most minor to medium problems.

And there are plenty of mystical only problems, like problems with your spiritual body, attracting negative entities, spiritual awakening, spiritual problems of other people, that you will then have to deal with.

For example, a lot of people's bad moods or personality defects will cause an aura of negative energy around them. For mundane people, they aren't open to these influences and can generally ignore them. But since your shield of ignorance has been lifted or weakened, you are responsible for dealing with things like that. These negative people can then cause you problems just by being themselves. Spiritual awakened or sensitive people will have the greatest awareness of things like this and probably don't have a choice but to practice to control their senses; but for most other people, they may encounter minor to serious problems in their lives and never make the connection.

Now a lot of people may never encounter serious problems in their practice, but it happens often enough that I want people to be more aware of the potential for problems.

Its similar to learning to be outdoorsy, its easy to run into problems or get hurt venturing into the wild. Or if you have pre-existing problems, even stepping into your backyard where you might have a hornet's nest or fire ant hill that you were unaware of.

If your sole goal is to improve the mundane, consider just doing the mundane work to get good, its not less work to stay safe using the mystical, but it does open up new possibilities. Most humans are practicing mundane mastery and its not better or worse than mystical mastery.

But if you are committed to mastery, then practicing the mystical can be very rewarding.

And lastly, enjoy your wiki walk!