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Brain Magick: Exercises in Meta-Magick and Invocation
How powerful, seductive, or mythical would you like your life to be?
The ultimate goal of invocation is to infuse your life with more excitement, purpose, and passion. Recent discoveries in neuroscience suggest that the magical practices of evocation and invocation are based in natural brain functions—this book is the first to present a theory of magick based on the new research. Brain Magick is packed full of exercises (more than 70) that illustrate the principles of neuroscience and magick, and has everything you need to quickly develop skill in the art of invocation.
This easily practiced form of ritual technology is appropriate for complete novices and magical adepts alike. If you are familiar with any kind of magick—Wiccan, Thelemic, Golden Dawn, Goetic, Chaos, or Hermetic—this book will provide opportunities to consider your practice in a new light, and take your magical experiences to a new level. Even if you've never practiced any magick before, you'll be able to start immediately.
"Farber begins by asking, 'How much do you want your own story to rock?' then with an exuberant 'Woohoo' proceeds to hand us sane and practical tools and exercises to become a true superstar in the only world that really matters ... our own brain. Powerfully provocative and original."—Lon Milo DuQuette, author of Low Magick and My Life with the Spirits
"All real magick requires both dedication and skill, here Phil Farber delivers both. This is a guide to tapping into living magistery of the universe."—Dr. Richard Bandler, co-founder of NLP
The ultimate goal of invocation is to infuse your life with more excitement, purpose, and passion. Recent discoveries in neuroscience suggest that the magical practices of evocation and invocation are based in natural brain functions—this book is the first to present a theory of magick based on the new research. Brain Magick is packed full of exercises (more than 70) that illustrate the principles of neuroscience and magick, and has everything you need to quickly develop skill in the art of invocation.
This easily practiced form of ritual technology is appropriate for complete novices and magical adepts alike. If you are familiar with any kind of magick—Wiccan, Thelemic, Golden Dawn, Goetic, Chaos, or Hermetic—this book will provide opportunities to consider your practice in a new light, and take your magical experiences to a new level. Even if you've never practiced any magick before, you'll be able to start immediately.
"Farber begins by asking, 'How much do you want your own story to rock?' then with an exuberant 'Woohoo' proceeds to hand us sane and practical tools and exercises to become a true superstar in the only world that really matters ... our own brain. Powerfully provocative and original."—Lon Milo DuQuette, author of Low Magick and My Life with the Spirits
"All real magick requires both dedication and skill, here Phil Farber delivers both. This is a guide to tapping into living magistery of the universe."—Dr. Richard Bandler, co-founder of NLP
222 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2011
50 people are currently reading
287 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 5, 2013
In Brain Magick, Phil Farber presents a thorough approach to invocation that is a combination of neuroscience and NLP, and is by far one of the best cutting edge books on magic that's available. The author includes lots of exercises the reader can do to test his concepts, and at the same time makes all of his explanations easy to follow. Farber shows you how to bring some woohoo into your life!
October 24, 2015
Great book on learning how to use your mind to its fullest. Farber gives many useful exercises and techniques. As he states:
"many techniques of magick are the same everywhere, with their intent aimed at different results and deities. This suggests that the rituals and practices derive from the commonality of human experience; this is how our brains work when we do magick." p 13
A lot of his techniques revolve around energy flow, transforming negativity, the power of imagination, Neurogenesis and Neuroplasticity.
"One of the fun things about imagination is that it is like breathing. Normally, most of the functions of imagination—social predictions, dreams, fantasy, and model-making in general—are largely unconscious processes. Like drawing your next breath, the processes continue without much conscious input at all. However, if you choose to take conscious control over your breathing or your imagination, you can direct it in any number of ways." p 93
If that doesn't make you want to read this book I don't know what your problem is.
"many techniques of magick are the same everywhere, with their intent aimed at different results and deities. This suggests that the rituals and practices derive from the commonality of human experience; this is how our brains work when we do magick." p 13
A lot of his techniques revolve around energy flow, transforming negativity, the power of imagination, Neurogenesis and Neuroplasticity.
"One of the fun things about imagination is that it is like breathing. Normally, most of the functions of imagination—social predictions, dreams, fantasy, and model-making in general—are largely unconscious processes. Like drawing your next breath, the processes continue without much conscious input at all. However, if you choose to take conscious control over your breathing or your imagination, you can direct it in any number of ways." p 93
If that doesn't make you want to read this book I don't know what your problem is.
June 29, 2021
The ideas and exercises here are entirely helpful and beneficial. I hate to compare this to Farber’s previous work, but I found this to be much more practical and useful than The Book of Atem; the removal of everything relating to creating a memetic entity makes for a much more practical and easily understood system. Recommended.
November 6, 2016
Streamlined NLP and self-magick. Highly recommended.
May 20, 2020
This book puts forward a series of exercises based mainly in Neurolinguistic Programing, meditation, breathing and visualization exercise to alter the way that we perceive the world in a positive manner.
To support his perspective, the author describes some of the ways our brains store and encode experiences by employing a “tagging” system that he refers as submodalities.
Perceptual subtleties called submodalities are used by our minds to tag and categorize our memories and sored experiences. Sensory submodalities are the finer distinctions that we make within a sense. For instance, in the visual sense, submodalities might include brightness or color.
Studies have shown that when experimental subjects weren’t consciously doing anything, their brains powered up in an area named “cortical midline structures” and began to use more power and consumed nearly 30% more calories than “active” brains.
Researchers dubbed this collection of structures in the brain “the default network”.
Using a mechanism called tranderivational search, our brain tags memories using submodalities. Submodalities become the language by which the parts of the so called “default network” of the brain communicate among themselves.
This mechanism plays a central role in defining our “personality”, the way that we react to the world by “imprinting” certain behaviors in us.
Leary theorizes that imprinting is a permanent kind of learning that sets out basic self-concepts, our sexual preferences, our basic personality traits and our general strategies for learning and approaching the world.
Leary believed that imprints could be acquired not only at the biologically preordained moments, but at moments of extreme stress, shock, ecstasy, and so on. He proposed that some chemical agents such as LSD could induce states in the brain that would allow for re-imprinting.
Initiation is a way to make mayor rewrites to the personal narrative that defines the sense of self. Rite of passage that we find in our society tend to reinforce the cultural status quo of standardized narratives. A child’s first day at school is often a scary one, yet the child knows that this is a part of growing up and becoming an adult. The fear can be enough to induce extreme neuroplasticity, yet the lessons imprinted are rarely those about reading, writing, or arithmetic; they are about the child’s place among his peers, about the hierarchy and authority of the teachers, and societal roles in general.
Likewise, marriage rituals can induce neuroplasticity via fear, pomp and spectacle, exhaustion, group participation, and the liberal use of intoxicants. While these can be beautiful rituals and absolutely wonderful is consciously chosen and directed, in their usual form they reinforce standard societal concepts of family and sexual relationships whether they are appropriate for those involved or not.
The exercises presented in this book aim to consciously changes such imprinting to our advantage.
To support his perspective, the author describes some of the ways our brains store and encode experiences by employing a “tagging” system that he refers as submodalities.
Perceptual subtleties called submodalities are used by our minds to tag and categorize our memories and sored experiences. Sensory submodalities are the finer distinctions that we make within a sense. For instance, in the visual sense, submodalities might include brightness or color.
Studies have shown that when experimental subjects weren’t consciously doing anything, their brains powered up in an area named “cortical midline structures” and began to use more power and consumed nearly 30% more calories than “active” brains.
Researchers dubbed this collection of structures in the brain “the default network”.
Using a mechanism called tranderivational search, our brain tags memories using submodalities. Submodalities become the language by which the parts of the so called “default network” of the brain communicate among themselves.
This mechanism plays a central role in defining our “personality”, the way that we react to the world by “imprinting” certain behaviors in us.
Leary theorizes that imprinting is a permanent kind of learning that sets out basic self-concepts, our sexual preferences, our basic personality traits and our general strategies for learning and approaching the world.
Leary believed that imprints could be acquired not only at the biologically preordained moments, but at moments of extreme stress, shock, ecstasy, and so on. He proposed that some chemical agents such as LSD could induce states in the brain that would allow for re-imprinting.
Initiation is a way to make mayor rewrites to the personal narrative that defines the sense of self. Rite of passage that we find in our society tend to reinforce the cultural status quo of standardized narratives. A child’s first day at school is often a scary one, yet the child knows that this is a part of growing up and becoming an adult. The fear can be enough to induce extreme neuroplasticity, yet the lessons imprinted are rarely those about reading, writing, or arithmetic; they are about the child’s place among his peers, about the hierarchy and authority of the teachers, and societal roles in general.
Likewise, marriage rituals can induce neuroplasticity via fear, pomp and spectacle, exhaustion, group participation, and the liberal use of intoxicants. While these can be beautiful rituals and absolutely wonderful is consciously chosen and directed, in their usual form they reinforce standard societal concepts of family and sexual relationships whether they are appropriate for those involved or not.
The exercises presented in this book aim to consciously changes such imprinting to our advantage.
December 29, 2020
I took my time with this volume to give the author plenty of space to make a case. In the end I'm sad to relate there is no case to be made. Magick especially when spelled with a 'k' is not really moving you any closer to your dreams, wishes and goals. In its best aspect it is like Dorothy's ruby slippers, bringing you to where you never really left. Too often though, it is a road to madness.
November 7, 2017
Interesting. NLP applied to Magick. Definitely worth working through.
January 7, 2018
This is a great book. Provides lots of useful mental exercises and techniques.
Elements here are great to add to meditation, sleep prep, and other areas of life where you need to control your mental state.
Elements here are great to add to meditation, sleep prep, and other areas of life where you need to control your mental state.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews