When we speak casually of magic today, for instance, ...[t]he numinous seems to be with us in the faces of the people we meet, in the very earth itself.

This enhanced perception of the world, this enchantment if you will, is something we human beings crave....

This is precisely what the Path of Sacred Magic can do. It can open us to the enchantment of the world that already exists....

Such magical perception is neither fantasy nor an illusion that we are creating in our heads. It is a genuine expansion of our perceptive ability, not a diminishment. We’re not closing off the world of reality. We are instead expanding our ability to perceive more than just physical reality....

For me, magic is sacred because its source is the Divine....

To the ancient Egyptians, the essential and primordial power of the Egyptian Goddesses and Gods was the power of magic. Through magic, the Universe comes into being. Through magic, all things live. Through magic, the Deities accomplish all that is Their will.

The Egyptian word that Egyptologists translate as “magic” is heka (HAY-kah). It is a very flexible word. It can mean the power of magic, an act of magic, magic words, magical formulae, a magician, or the God Magic....

They believed heka to be the essential, living energy that infuses and underlies all things, both spiritual and physical. Heka—magic—connects everything and allows the levels of Being to interpenetrate and affect each other. Magic is required to ascend to the realm of the Deities, which was every ancient Egyptian’s post mortem goal. By learning to come into harmony with the magic that is woven into all things, human beings can commune with the Deities, transform and be transformed, have increased effect in the world, and be spiritually renewed.

As Lady of Magic, the Great Goddess Isis is the patroness, embodiment, and most-potent wielder of this sacred, powerful, and living energy....

[O]ne of Isis’ strongest and most enduring connections is with what is often called “high magic” or spiritual magic....

Sacred magic then is a spiritual path for approaching the Divine....

While we cannot claim that the worship of Isis is an uninterrupted religious tradition, we can rightfully say that Isis never fully left human awareness. And neither did magic. Both merely went underground. But today, with our souls crying out for the re-enchantment of the world, our lives, and our spirits; with the eternal and deeply felt need for connection with our Divine Mother, Who IS a Sacred Magician, the Path of Mageia Hiera beckons to us. We can walk that sacred path. We can reawaken Magic and Mystery and let it flower within us once more.

But how?

For those of us attracted to Isis Great of Magic, we can begin by learning about Her religious traditions, including the sacred magical traditions. Tradition enables us to learn about Her and to discover ways to think about Her. If we know Who She was for those who went before us, perhaps we can learn Who She is for us. If we know more about the symbols traditionally associated with Her, the stories traditionally told about Her (at least the ones of which we have records), then we will find we can come into a sweet communion with that deep current of the Feminine Divine river that is Isis.

Tradition can provide the roots of our devotion. It can give us an anchor for our modern love of Isis as we walk the Path of Sacred Magic. It can give us a way to feel close to Her. We can learn and interpret anew Her ancient myths. We can give Her the offerings that were traditionally given to Her. If we are of a scholarly bent, we might learn a bit about hieroglyphs so that we can write Her name in the ancient ways. We may use excerpts from the Egyptian sacred texts in our rites or sing Her traditional epithets in chant. All these, and more, are the methods of sacred magic. They are “a religious tradition dealing with things divine.” They give us ways to approach the Great Goddess Isis.

Yet tradition should not constrain us. Ancient magic is not Her only magic. Tradition may provide the anchor and roots, but not necessarily the wind in the sails of our boat or the sunlight necessary for blossoming. (Isis is perhaps the quintessential Goddess for our dizzying, technological times; for if any Goddess can lay claim to the title of Technologia, it is Isis. But that, too, is a story for another day.)...

[W]hile our understanding of Isis may begin with the roots of tradition, it must continue with the flowering of our own experiences of Her. Now. And here.

When we first come to Isis, we often immediately perceive Her love, flowing out to us, enfolding us in Her sheltering wings. We are warmed in Her love. We rest in Her wings.

Her power reveals itself later.

First, there is Her metaphysical power. This is the power that blows my hair back, makes we want to “kiss the ground before Your beautiful face,” as the ancient texts put it. This power makes me gasp, thrills my body and makes me shiver. Before this power, I can say only, “yes, Goddess.” And rejoice. Sometimes there’s a stupid grin on my face in Her powerful Presence. Sometimes Her power kicks open all my doors, both physical and spiritual and I have no idea what sort of expression might be on my face. Isis often hides this metaphysical power behind Her famous veil, for without the shielding of the veil, Her full Presence could overwhelm us.

But there is another, more earthly, kind of power that She shows us as well. And this is the power of persistence. Plutarch, in his essay On Isis and Osiris, says that Isis serves as an example to those enduring suffering in life. And so She does. As Her myths instruct, each time the Goddess suffers a tragedy, She uses Her power to pick Herself up and go on; and ultimately, to succeed.

Perhaps this seems a boring power? I don’t think so. For human beings, I believe this power of the Goddess is one of the keys to living. We will all experience pain, failure, death; indeed, some will suffer more than others. But we can all look to the stories of our Goddess passing through these things Herself to find our own power. What’s more, in our times of trouble, we can borrow some of Her strength. She will lend it to us in abundance. She is the fount of power, both mystical and persistent, and She never, ever runs dry. When we are in pain, She will take our hands and She will make us stronger, filling us with Her holy power.

Midnight's Promise wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 6:22 pm Thank you for sharing this! I am relatively new to all of this, but I am strongly drawn to Isis and want to learn more; your posts give me good leads for books and websites! In fact, one of my favorite purchases from CH has been the custom conjuration of Isis. I just got done meditating for her day today and it's one of the most intense connections I've felt.