So it has been decided by my friends, they request two blogs a week. They also decided for me, well my husband decided, that Wednesday would be fans choice. What little "fans" i have decided that today's topic is "magic". Any of the readers that are not monotheistic know that this is one hell of a doozy, and that fitting that into a simple little blog is pretty much impossible. To accommodate the relatively condensed setting of a blog I decided to focus on my monotheistic readers. I guess the best place to start this is simple definitions. For starters monotheistic, this word simply means a religion that believes on one all powerful God. the most common of those are the ones that follow the bible, torah, and the like. Being raised catholic myself, I know very well what the bible and torah say about witchcraft. However, magic and witchcraft are not the same thing. The simplest definition for witchcraft that I can find, is a polytheistic religion that uses magic for religious intent and personal gain. Now, before anyone starts asking for heads to be rolled on one side of the isle or the other I want to take a moment to address the polytheistic readers. I personally fall into a category that is best described as a shamanistic catholic mystic. Basically that means I was raised catholic and pagan at the same time. My families book of shadows goes back fourteen generations. What that basically means is that on the subject of magic and new age topics, is that in my opinion I am a higher authority of knowledge then any new age book mongering mad extremist author. so yes, I know better then silver ravenwolf or scott cunningham. I am simply asking that you all remember that faith is like the center of a diamond that we are all trying to get to. Each facet represents a different religion. Each religion is it's own path to true faith, which most scholars consider to be spiritual enlightenment. What that simply means is all religions are right, and all religions are wrong. 

I digress a little to far though, we are talking on the subject of magic. The definition of magic is simple. Magic is using ones own energy to experience or manipulate the world around you. Almost any activity you can think of falls into this definition. The most powerful uses of magic by this definition for our monotheistic friends is a toss up between Sunday Mass, and prayer. I know all of you know that feeling when you are in church, when the choir starts going and the priest or pastor has just said something that hits your heart. You feel like something is pulling you up out of the pew. You swear you can feel the hearts of the people around you. You can feel the good being projected out of the building and into the world. When I was younger, that feeling was every service. As I get older, I get that feeling less and less often when I attend church. The strongest I get for that is when I avoid mass for a few months, and then go on a special occasion. That feeling right there, is magic in it's purest form. That web of energy that flows from one parishioner to the next, and then overflows the building. There are times where I could swear I could see that web. My Great Grandmother always taught me, that web was the reaction of all the auras of the parish becoming synchronized on the simple goal of pushing Gods love and work into the world. In the simplest term, I was catching a visual glimpse of the power of prayer. 

Ultimately the belief and acceptance is between you and your faith. Nowhere in the bible have I found a passage that I interpret to say that magic is the power of the devil. I have found several that I interpret to mean that magic is one of our greatest gifts from YHVH. What you do with that gift is up to you. you can strive for the positive, or have it corrupted by the negative. The only thing I know to be 300% true, is to ever feel that connection to the divine you must learn what it truly means to be a child. Even Jesus stated at one point, "We are all infants before the Lord." There are as many ways to interpret that as there are to look at it sideways. Me personally, I view that as one of the most important statements to faith and magic. In the end it comes down to the fact that magic is not anything like it is portrayed in a fantasy novel. Magic is the energy created from life. We all hold magic, we all project magic. Magic and life are the true gifts from YHVH, and that is all there is too it. Just beware the devil and don't let him corrupt your gift.