Saturday 28 May 2016

What is English Magic?

These extracts come from the book that accompanies the English Magic Tarot:

English magic is a distinctive, local branch of natural magic. It has evolved through many iterations, from prehistoric times to the present day, and freely blends high and low magic. One constant is that it regards the cosmos as animate, and our place in the world as significant. It calls us to rediscover a magical connection with the land upon which we happen to live, whether that be England or elsewhere. It supposes that through practice and study (not least, of the tarot!) we can attain a greater understanding of the disparate parts of the self, and the magical connections that permeate the universe. Through English magic we can attain a state of gnosis and true knowledge of the world…

…natural magic assumes that the world is full of forces, or connections of cause and effect, that happen to be hidden or ‘occult’. In learning to manipulate those connections (for example, by making the right talisman or performing the appropriate ritual) the natural magician can send change coursing out through the world and so affect the way things unfold. Divination, through a system like the tarot, is seen as a particularly good way to discover these occult forces, with each reading serving as a kind of ‘snapshot’ of the divine energy as it manifests in the world…


…English magic is simply the English dialect of a language that’s shared by all human cultures. It is our particular, regional way of doing it. It stands to reason that if magic is natural, then it will be shaped by the land it belongs to and the language and culture of the people living there.

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