Now that I think about it some more, “witchcraft” is probably not even the right term to be using. “Folk magic” might be the better descriptive? What do you think?
Don’t forget– if it helps, turn the closed captioning on! =)
When I say “open tradition,” I mean a culture-specific practice of a magical system and set of doctrinal beliefs integrated into that practice that anyone at all can work with for themselves, that it’s free and open to the public.
When I say “closed tradition,” I mean a culture-specific practice of a magical system and set of doctrinal beliefs integrated into that practice that can only be honorably accessed if certain conditions are met, such as initiation, heredity, clan or ethnic group membership, or a formally established master-student bond.
Esoteric Taoist practices, broadly speaking, are openly accessible to anyone and all, but not anyone and not everyone who seeks it will find alignment with this Path. It’s for anyone, but it’s not for everyone.
But when we’re having this conversation about esoteric Taoist traditions here in the West, then to be clear, the conversation is probably more about cultural appropriation, spiritual gatekeeping, and how to engage respectfully with living traditions.
Taoism is, by the nature of the philosophy, even occult philosophy, is syncretic. It absorbs indigenous shamanic traditions, other established religious traditions, and in terms of the values that are the compass for how to navigate the syncretism, it’s nature. It’s the study and understanding of qi in nature.
It’s about nature, but humans are part of nature, and humans have minds that formulate ideas that become aggregated into establishments, you can’t ignore the establishments. So in reality, a human – the practitioner – will study how the many establishments engage with the qi in nature and then work with what works, for them. Since that’s Taoist mysticism in a nutshell, it’s an open practice.
Lineaged traditions, on the other hand, are unequivocally closed. Some are initiatory. Some are hereditary. Some are a combination of both. The premise is a group of people have cultivated an elite access to potent qi in nature through a highly-specialized methodology, and they aren’t about to share that methodology with just anyone. So there are very limited ways to access that specific methodology. Some form of ritualized transmission must take place to receive access.
But what about non-lineaged individuals crafting, say, Fu talismans, performing Taoist rituals, be that ones they’ve made up themselves or followed step by step from a canonical grimoire, or working with Taoist ritual tools? To be fair, that’s where it gets a bit more complicated, and political.
You’re going to encounter folks who say no, unless you’re lineaged, you cannot. That or it’s more of a warning that if you’re just chaotically doing it on your own, it’s way too easy and too high a risk of going off the rails and getting yourself into spiritual hot water. There’s a kernel of truth there, in my opinion, which is why I believe strongly in being religious and cultivating a strong moral compass and code of ethics first before dabbling with the occult. If there isn’t going to be a teacher there to rap your hands with a stick when you’ve been bad, then you’ve got to be disciplined enough to self-monitor.
Whereas I’ve always made my personal opinion clear. It’s open access with an asterisk. It won’t be me (and I don’t believe it should be another human) who puts up walls or locks the gate to keep you out. It’s gonna be the gods. It’s The Craft itself. The Esoteric Tao lets in who it lets in.
As for cultural appropriation, I’ve always taken the view that, you’ll know it when you see it. It’s hard to come up with a one-definition-applies-to-all-case-analyses metric for determining what’s okay and what’s not okay. Not to mention each person’s appetite for something possibly appropriative is gonna vary. Plus, overly-worrying about whether you yourself are culturally appropriating is more demonstrative of caring too much about yourself than actually caring about the cultural tradition you’re working with. If truly your heart is with the culture, you’ll naturally focus on its people, its communities, with an organic passion to learn as much as you can. I don’t have to tell you to be reverent; you just will. And if somebody has to remind you to be reverent, then buddy, I think you’re already in the wrong.
My third book, I Ching, The Oracle: A Practical Guide to the Book of Changes, published by North Atlantic Books, is forthcoming mid-2023. It’s my translation and annotations of the Oracle with cultural and historical references that honor the shamanic origins of the I Ching.
What it really is, though, is a magical grimoire. I began with an aspiration to write a grimoire on Taoist mysticism and magical practices, and then decided to do so through the framework of the I Ching. This is going to be a practical hands-on primer on East Asian modalities of witchcraft and folk magic. A deep-dive learning experience into the history and mythological references found in the Book of Changes is the bonus.
Leading up to the release of I Ching, The Oracle will be this series of videos where I lay the foundation for working with this third book. If this is of interest to you, stay tuned! ❤
I received a question by letter, which I wanted to answer privately, but didn’t have an e-mail address or even mailing address. So here’s to hoping this post is seen by who it’s intended for. ❤
The question presented:
Dear Benebell,
I am a Taoist witch, but my religious family thinks I am a Baptist Christian and therefore against non-Baptist religious practices.
Last night my dad and I were watching a Taiwanese movie and an ancestor veneration scene came up. My dad began a conversation about Taoist traditions and said, “When I die, please don’t venerate me like a Catholic or Taoist would.”
I am a strong believer in ancestor veneration and plan to venerate both of my parents when they pass away.
I do not want to go against my father’s personal wishes as I love and respect him, but I also do not want his spirit to go un-venerated because I love him dearly.
What, in your opinion, is the best way to go about this?
Learn a little more about this common ritual tool in traditional Asian folk magic. I’m inviting you to give the ba gua or eight trigrams mirror a try.
This video covers a few pointers on how to use a ba gua mirror to tell whether you’ve been hexed or cursed (a folksy practice that’s interesting to learn about, at the very elast), how a ba gua mirror can amplify your spell-crafting techniques, a simple intention-setting candle spell, how to make your own ba gua mirror if you can’t source one, and how to integrate this one tool and folk practice into what you’re already doing.
One of my favorite personal rewards from launching the Witchcraft Fundamentals course is the Google Group, where all of us are exchanging insights, asking tough questions, trying to answer tough questions, and getting to know each other. To give you a sampling of what that e-mail list-serv group is like, I’m sharing something I wrote on there in one of the threads started by a practitioner of both Eastern and Western metaphysics.
The question presented is, in short, how do you reconcile Eastern elemental-directional correspondences with Western elemental-directional correspondences?
By the way, scroll all the way down for the PDF downloads of this post, which you can then print out and tuck into whatever reference manual for your metaphysical studies you have going on.
IN THIS WESTERN WITCHCRAFT COURSE, you’ll learn fairly soon that there are different systems of elemental-directional correspondences even within the umbrella of Western occult philosophy, and we cover three of them in this course:
PLEASE NOTE: The following content only represents the downloadable handouts from an in-person live master class presented at the 2019 Masters of the Tarot Conference at the Omega Institute. No online equivalent to that master class is included here, and what’s accessible is just those supplemental handouts and a copy of the PowerPoint.
What are the Akashic Records? Are there special requisites before gaining access? What are its origins?
Four years ago I released for free digital download the first version of the Chinese Oracle Bone divination cards. Since then there have been 18,769 unique downloads, many have written in telling me the deck is eerily, spookily accurate, so I’m making the inference that there’s a use for this deck and it’s worth my while to edit them and offer an improved version 2.0. I’ve also revised and formatted the companion guidebook for paperback printing.
TL;DR
Here’s a checklist of all the free digital downloads in this post:
With the above, you’ll be able to craft and produce your own 33-card deck, any way you like. Customize to your heart’s delight, until it’s exactly what suits you.
But…
I’ve also prepared direct-click purchase options on third party external websites for those with no intentions of customizing and redesigning their own deck:
Most Eastern esoteric paths espouse that a practitioner of any esoteric art should proactively cultivate and strengthen the personal Qi, or life force, because when you do any form of intense metaphysical work, you’re drawing from that pool of personal Qi. If you’re not mindful of replenishing that Qi, then the constant weakening of your life force from the occult work that you do (this includes divination) can cause physical and mental health concerns. So to maintain optimal wellbeing–and that’s physical, mental, and psychic-spiritual wellbeing–cultivation practices are necessary.
Image source: pxhere.com
The Metaphysician’s Qi
Divination, ceremonial ritual, mediumship, channeling, pathworking, spell-crafting, astral journeying—these practices are believed to exhaust a lot of your personal life force, and so as a metaphysician, you want to establish a routine practice of cultivating and strengthening your Qi, or life force, to maintain your wellbeing. Otherwise, you can become more susceptible to illness, both of the physical and mental variety.
Taking measures to cultivate and strengthen personal Qi is a practice everyone and anyone can benefit from, much like how everyone and anyone should be mindful of nutrition and physical exercise. However, the nutritional needs of your everyday office worker is very different from the nutritional needs of an Olympic swimmer. So we can make the comparison here of an occultist to the Olympic swimmer, because it’s considered an out-of-the-ordinary lifestyle, and so your nutritional needs– in this case psychic-spiritual nutritional needs– will be different from the average person.
Let’s cover six ways a metaphysician can cultivate Qi:
This is the continuation of a six-part video series I’m doing on Taoist and Buddhist Mysticism as it has been practiced historically and culturally. We are now on to Video 4.
4. Taoist Metaphysics
This video lecture will be a beginner-level overview of Taoist metaphysics, which will begin with the Taoist mythology for the origins of the universe, cover Taoist expressions and esoteric thought on reality as it has been created by our minds and by physical matter. Concepts of magic and non-physical entities will also be addressed.
This is the continuation of a six-part video series I’m doing on Taoist and Buddhist Mysticism as it has been practiced historically and culturally. We are now on to Video 3.
3. Taoist Sorcery and Its Cultural Practice
What is the impact of Taoism on the everyday Chinese culture and the collective consciousness of its people? What are some of the guiding principles underscoring Taoist sorcery? This lecture will discuss some of the practical ways Buddhism and Taoism get syncretized in Chinese occultism.
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