Chapter 1:
Do You Have Magic Powers? Okay, admit it. There were times -- maybe lots of times -- that you wished you had some kind of magic powers. That you could make things happen just by thinking about them, that you could see into the future or travel back into the past.
You know you've thought about it. But you figured: dream on.
If you're like the rest of us, you probably thought magic powers were impossible, something you only see in the horror movies or TV adventure shows or interactive games. No actual, everyday, normal person has any kind of magic whatsoever.
Wrong.
Trust me on this one: everyone has magic power. Even you. Maybe especially you. You were born with it. Everyone was. But somehow, along the way, we forgot how to use it. We learned that it was silly, or childish, or "a sin," or unnatural or some such nonsense. If you were psychic when you were a little kid -- and lots of little kids are really psychic -- maybe someone made fun of you or was afraid of you. You "just knew" things, or you could tell when things were going to happen. Maybe that power even scared you, because you didn't know what it was or where it came from. So you learned not to say anything about magic. And you learned to ignore it or not believe in it anymore.
But you've still got it. Even if you don't remember it.
This book is going to show you how to get to your magic again, how to control it, how to use it in the right way, and how to have fun with it. You'll also learn the stuff not to do, and that's the part you don't want to skip.
But before you can start doing the spells in this book and make them work, you've got to learn to control your magic, and you have to learn how to be responsible with it. It isn't hard. But it's important. If you're tempted to turn to the "Spells" part of this book and just start doing magic, you're going to be very disappointed. You're also going to miss half the fun of being what the old Pagan people called a "wise woman" or "wise man."
Part of the fun of knowing magic is knowing how it works, where it comes from, and how to control it.
And who am I to tell you all about magic?
I'm a Witch.
You don't have to be a Witch to do magic, but I just happen to be one. I live in Salem, Massachusetts, a great place to live if you're a Witch. You might not know what Witches do either, so I might as well tell you now. Witches are not ugly old hags riding on brooms across the moon, although I'd love to be able to do that, especially at rush hour. Witches don't worship the devil either: we don't believe in the devil or satan or demons or evil spirits or anything like that. We don't do human or animal sacrifices. We don't eat babies like in Hansel and Gretel, or steal anybody's soul. And we don't hate kids, like you may have seen in that movie, The Witches. In fact, lots of us are married people, lots of us are parents, and some of us are kids. Not me -- it's been a long time since I was a kid, but you get the general idea. Witches are pretty much like anyone else. We have families and pets, we go to jobs or school every day, we dress and look like everyone else. Well, maybe we wear a little more jewelry, though.
But we know how to use magic, and that's the difference between us and everyone else. We'd never use it to hurt anyone, but we do use it to make ourselves happier, or to bring good things into our lives and make our lives better. We use it to make ourselves better people, and make our world a little lighter.
And so can you.
This book isn't about Witchcraft, but I'm writing it to tell you what I know and what I believe about magic.
What is Magic? Magic is the manipulation of natural law by the will in order to bring about change.
That's about as clear as mud.
What that means is that your mind, your will, is more powerful and more far-reaching than you know. With the power of your mind, you can control the things that usually happen by natural law. That is, the things that seem to happen all by themselves. And in this way, you can change your life.
Let's take that old idea of Witches flying across the full moon on brooms. Since magic works, would it be possible for a Witch to cast a spell that would let him or her actually fly from one place to another? No. Because magic obeys natural law, in this case, the law of gravity. But if a Witch wanted to get someplace fast, he might do a spell to get himself a free plane ticket. (By the way, there are male Witches, lots of them. And they're called Witches, not "warlocks," I don't care what you heard at the movies.)
You can use the power of your mind to make things happen. Not every time -- nothing works 100% of the time. But often enough so that it's not a coincidence or just chance.
For six years, I've been teaching people to use their psychic power. And the hardest thing for me to get them to believe is that they have these powers. Oh, they'll tell me that they have no problem believing that other people have magic power, and they truly believe that magic works, but they themselves couldn't have any power.
Sometimes, they're the ones with the strongest psychic abilities, and they have trouble making it work because they don't believe it can. But when they finally learn how to use magic, they love it!
