A guide to magic as communication

• Introduces key ideas in linguistics and semiotics to reveal how magic works

• Reveals how to apply effective communication techniques to your magical practice

• Includes case studies of magical schools, such as Hermetic magic, sigil magic, Thelema, the Church of Satan, Chaos Magic, and the Temple of Set

In this illuminating and deeply informative guide, practicing magician Toby Chappell takes readers on a journey into the heart of what it means to transform reality by exploring what magic is. He explains that operative magic works because it is communication. The practitioner of magic is communicating with the unmanifest to align the outside world with their inner transformations, desires, and needs.

Drawing on linguistics and the analytical techniques of semiotics, the author explores how we perceive and affect the world by treating it like a partner in communication. He shows how this notion of magical communication appears in ancient practice, looking specifically at Hermetic magic and the spells of Greek magical papyri, sigil magic, Enochian magic, and runes. He explains the symbol-building necessary to effectively transform your inner and outer reality with magical speech, signs, and sigils. The author examines the languages of magic in modern New Thought practices, and he also looks at magical communication in several modern and postmodern schools of magic, including Thelema and the teachings of Aleister Crowley, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, the Church of Satan, Chaos Magic, and the Temple of Set.

Revealing how to apply techniques of effective communication to the magical realm, the author allows you to deepen your understanding of magical practice and, ultimately, perform magic with greater success.

Toby Chappell is a musician, writer, and lecturer on the intersection of language and magic. An independent researcher and practicing magician, his interests include runes, semiotics, weird tales, and the mysteries of Ancient Egypt. The author of Infernal Geometry and the Left-Hand Path, he lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

FOREWORD

THE ART OF METACOMMUNICATION
By Stephen E. Flowers, Ph.D.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PRELUDE
THE MAGIC IS IN THE COMMUNICATION

1 WHAT DO LANGUAGE AND SEMIOTICS
HAVE TO DO WITH MAGIC ?

2 A SURVEY OF DIFFERENT MODELS OF MAGIC

3 A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEMIOTICS

4 VIEWING MAGIC THROUGH LINGUISTICS AND
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

5 LANGUAGE, MYTH, AND MAGIC

INTERLUDE
THE METHODOLOGY FOR THE CASE STUDIES

6 CASE STUDY I
MEDITERRANEAN MAGIC IN ANTIQUITY

7 CASE STUDY I I
RUNES AND SEMIURGY

8 CASE STUDY I I I
MODERN APPROACHES TO SEMIURGY

CONCLUSION

AFTERWORD
THE WORDS AIM THE ARROW
By Don Webb

APPENDIX A
WHY DO MAGICIANS WRITE FICTION?
By Don Webb

APPENDIX B
MAGIA LOCI
By Brenda Yagmin

GLOSSARY

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX