Adjusting the Layers of Reality and Fine-tuning your Psychic Censor
Getting started on your magical journey is exciting but can get can quickly get overwhelming! When you start noticing the weird and unexplainable leak into your everyday life, it’s not uncommon to feel like you are losing your grip on reality and many feel like they need to succumb to the fantastical or shut it out completely.
In my years of practicing magia and working with lots of different magicians, I’ve developed my own techniques for navigating the weirdness in the day-to-day based on how I personally process information. I hope that in sharing my practices that you can also learn to control how much of the unknown you allow yourself to experience at any given time!
Note: Everything I present under the cut is based on my observations and my personal journey. As part of this discussion I will be discussing mental health topics but I want to clarify that am not a medical professional or a therapist. Magia is not, and should never be, a complete replacement for therapy and medication. If you need guidance navigating your mental health, please seek a professional who can help you learn what tools you need.
This post is part of my Magi Praxis series. If you have any suggestions for future topics, or you have attempted anything I have shared and want you share your experiences, please send me a message! I am always happy to go back and provide further explanation as well. ☆
So, what is a psychic censor?
In Liber Null and Psychonaut, Peter J. Carroll introduces the concept of the psychic censor:
“When people are presented with real magical events they somehow manage not to notice. If they are forced to notice something uncontrovertibly magical they may become terrified, nauseated, and ill. The psychic censor shields us from intrusions from other realities. It edits out most telepathic communication, blinds us to prescience, and reduces our ability to register significant coincidences, or recall dreams. The psychic censor is not just put there out of divine malice; ordinary physical life would be impossible without it […] The psychic censor on the other hand, is a material thing, which protects the mind from magic and from being overwhelmed by the awesome strangeness of the psychic dimension which appears to us as chaos.”
(Carroll, p. 162)
While many inexperienced magicians may balk at the idea that something like this is necessary, I (and most psychonauts who experiment with entheogens) can assure you that the psychic censor is absolutely crucial for being able to navigate the everyday. Without it, we would constantly be inundated with an onslaught of stimuli we would not be able to process, regardless if the source is magical or completely natural.
Under regular circumstances, our brains organize the inputs of light, shadow, color, scent, and sound in ways we can generally tolerate and understand. Even in environments that seek to overwhelm our senses, we can still make sense of what is happening (even if it is overstimulating). If we were unable to filter and organize this information into a system we could process, the world would be unrecognizable: we would not be able to experience the patterns we rely on in sub- and unconscious levels that organize our visual, aural, and olfactory worlds into the everyday things we understand. Even normally recognizable shapes and language would be utterly incoherent.
As we grow, our psychic censors generally become more rigid and robust—this comes with the territory of existing in the world and experiencing it every day. I believe this is also why many folks experience more of the magical when they are young: their brains have not developed all of the tools and schemas they need to constantly filter the world into the understandable.
But this is not to say we cannot work to have some control over our psychic censors! With dedication and practice, you can develop techniques that allow you to let in more or less of the weird in at any given time.
Adjusting Layers of Reality
The key to being able to control your psychic censor at will, I’ve found, is to utilize your strengths in how you personally visualize or process information.
Note: If you are still figuring out the best ways for you to visualize, whether or not you can produce vivid and complex mental images, I highly suggest that you continue to research and practice until you have a solid toolkit to work with. If you are like my partner and a few of my friends who have aphantasia, or cannot produce mental images, there are definitely other ways to get to a similar place without them by utilizing other senses!
For the highly visual learners and thinkers out there, I tend to think of my mental images and visual inputs as Layers in a photo-editing program. With practice, I have been able to bring certain layers to the forefront or hide them entirely; you can even adjust the ‘opacity’ of the layers or collage elements on top of each other to superimpose different images on each other, regardless if they are visual or mental in nature. This has been extremely helpful in being able to blend the magical into my everyday or as a way to help ground when I am overwhelmed and overstimulated.
Addressing Complications
That being said, there are things that may inhibit your ability to control your psychic censor. While I was not diagnosed with this as a child, I was definitely a maladaptive daydreamer and I was dealing with unchecked anxiety and depression which eventually gave way to anxiety-induced hallucinations. These tendencies were eventually remedied with therapy and medication following a formal diagnosis and that has helped me develop a healthy baseline that I still carefully monitor and treat today.
I do wholeheartedly believe that having a solid mental and psychological baseline is instrumental in being able to tune your psychic censor at will. Wide and rapid fluctuations in mood and mental stability make being able to peel back the layers of reality incredibly difficult; for example, if your anxiety is so severe that you start to hallucinate, it can be impossible to tell if that vision is magical in nature or if it is due to stress. (Some may purport that there is no difference but I disagree—and that may be a topic for a future Magi Praxis post.) Even when you get to a place where you have pretty good control on your psychic censor, there are absolutely times where things can break through unexpectedly and can shake your confidence in your mental faculties. When that happens, it is imperative you are able to ground and regroup.
I prefer a dangerous liberty to a quiet servitude.
Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.
𐔌 ﹒ ⋆ ꩜ ⋆ 𓂃 ₊ ⊹ 𐔌 ﹒ ⋆ ꩜ ⋆ 𓂃 ₊ ⊹
Greetings every and all, welcome to my corner of the interwebs for documentation of my witchery and whatnot.
I go by many names, though for ease of communication, you may call me Vespera.
I am an Emanator of the concept of freedom in vessel, my relationship with the concept is one of identity and core self.
My philosophy is simple. All beings are born with an inherit right to freedom, to sign it away, either for yourself or for others, is the gravest of sin.
My patron is he of the morning star, the guiding light of mankind and the one who brought knowledge of all to humans. I honor him in every pursuit of knowledge and every action taken.
That would be all from me for now, may our paths cross again, on good terms only.
I prefer a dangerous liberty to a quiet servitude.
Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.
𐔌 ﹒ ⋆ ꩜ ⋆ 𓂃 ₊ ⊹ 𐔌 ﹒ ⋆ ꩜ ⋆ 𓂃 ₊ ⊹
Greetings every and all, welcome to my corner of the interwebs for documentation of my witchery and whatnot.
I go by many names, though for ease of communication, you may call me Vespera.
I am an Emanator of the concept of freedom in vessel, my relationship with the concept is one of identity and core self.
My philosophy is simple. All beings are born with an inherit right to freedom, to sign it away, either for yourself or for others, is the gravest of sin.
My patron is he of the morning star, the guiding light of mankind and the one who brought knowledge of all to humans. I honor him in every pursuit of knowledge and every action taken.
That would be all from me for now, may our paths cross again, on good terms only.
Recently I’ve felt a lack of connection to the Moon, Stars, and Dreams. I spent a portion of my time simply lying in bed visualizing my magic.
I saw a shimmering translucent veil, as if the very magic itself was struggling to break through into this reality. To help me I’ve acquired a scrying mirror, hopefully it will more easily allow me to sense dreams even during the day.
creative magic is just the blanket term I've chosen for a lot of the random bullshit I'm able to pull, but my favorite trick to do with it is isolate. before I explain what that means I have to explain what exactly creative magic as a field permits one to do: basically, I have some level of unconditional manipulation over things under two conditions: they are sourced from myself in some capacity and it's something I can comprehend, so for example, I can one to one imitate fire magic despite not being a practitioner because I understand fire to a competent enough degree and can this create it.
isolation as a practice is heavily reliant on understanding every single facet of the two conditions laid out above as it requires comprehending one's own emotions, feelings, thoughts, etcetera and having the power to manipulate that, and, with creative magic, I'm able to do. creative magic doesn't only encompass physical things, and as such, the aforementioned emotions and stuff can be manually manipulated, which is how you isolate. I believe for anyone who delves into more abstract magic this is an incredibly useful skill for personal well-being; I've isolated negative emotions before once they've been comprehended and have since placed them into spare vessels and used them to my advantage for self defense and generally being able to study these feelings and work to keep them from taking root again in myself.
a more specific example would be absol, a vessel construct I created recently by isolating the feeling of non-belief and low self confidence into a single nexus and gave life to a doll, also fusing its soul with a pistol for good measure. I'm now able to enjoy life not feeling as much like total shit and I'm able to properly study that feeling and the paths it would take a person.
it's four in the morning as of writing so this perhaps isn't the best thing I could have possibly written on the subject of my magic but it's what I got lmao
starting out my tumblr journey with a bit of a treatise on anti-magic because it's a subject which draws a lot of confusion that I enjoy delving into.
what is anti-magic? my analysis of the subject has come to a single conclusion: it's a negative force that nullifies or severely dampens the effects of magic most commonly as a result of non-belief/weak resolve. non-belief can come from a vast array of different sources, such as a particularly defiant mortal or a lack of faith in one's own magic.
the best ways to ward against it are, as one would expect, methods to increase one's own belief as a counterbalance, both as a weapon against mortals and as a defensive measure for oneself.
remediation; defense via removal: easier said than done, but it's important to remain confident in your magic to keep yourself from anti-magic slowly chipping at your power. ways to keep belief high are by keeping your physical workshop tidy of any unwanted clutter and keeping your physical vessel clean, both as measures to avoid anti-magic buildup via dereliction. leaving aspects of the physical in disarray leads to or is a byproduct of lower belief in oneself, which subsequently leads to a decreased magical output.
prevention; defense via installation: consistently training to become more powerful in whichever way you choose is a prime way to maintain a higher belief and increase self-confidence. frequent immersion within magical spaces to connect with other magic users and potentially engage in battles or other activities is also an excellent way to collectively boost confidence in each other. as a magic user, it's highly important to have a network that builds each other up.
if one reaches a point where they have entirely separated themself from non-belief, they can potentially weaponize the energy for their own use. I do this; I use a single shot anti-magic pistol as a last resort measure if a hostile threat is sufficient enough to warrant total nullification. you might be thinking "how the fuck do you weaponize anti-magic" and the answer for that is that I'm more so weaponizing years worth of non-belief and using it to my advantage as a weapon in the astral realms. I believe the topic of magic users weaponizing anti-magic deserves its own thread cause it's certainly a lengthy subject.
tldr. the physical is as important as the astral, and maintenance of the vessel and workshop is paramount in achieving a suitable defense against anti-magic.
so, my magical girl "concept" is "magical girl idol". But what does this entail?
To put it simply, I am a mage of sound and song. My wand functions as the magical microphone that upon blessing it with my voice, I cast spells that purify the darkness and negativity that surrounds.
too much buildup of negative emotional energy and darkness causes some rather dangerous entities to spawn, beyond the sight and comprehension of regular humans, so it is my job to purify them and restore a bit of peace to the world.
so I sing. I sing, and I fight these entities to restore happiness to the world. my goal is not to rid the world of darkness or negativity, these things always have and always will exist. emotion is what allows us to know we're alive, to try to banish even one of them is silly. but I cannot let this world fall to despair entirely. to restore happiness, is to restore love, happiness, inspiration, creativity... so I must keep the balance, so the world can flourish.
this is why I chose the motif of "idol". not only does it just make sense given I sing to use my magic, but the chaotic creativity, the anything-goes attitude... to sing whichever songs I want, is my happiness that works best to fight these entities.
I have had these powers since my past life in another world. I "contracted" as a magical girl back then. to my knowledge, I was given these powers, I did not choose this life. but it is my destiny that I have no qualms with fulfilling. this power is ingrained into my soul and as long as I have it, I will use it. back then I did not call myself an idol, as idols as I know them are more or less a concept of this world, but in this life idols helped purify the darkness that kept my magic from reawakening for so long, so I shall return the favour by becoming one myself, in my own magical sense.
I, Hestia Aevum, am the Primordial of time; Time itself.
I have accessed connection with the network of magis through the digital realm and hope that I, as Time, can provide great help.
Since the birth of existence itself, I have watched the everlasting growth of eternal outcomes, sorrow, anguish, peace, joy, love;
Yes, it is true, the red ropes of fate do exist. These are something I weave to ensure you follow the points within your existence, that lead you on your designated path to make free decisions.
Time, for many mortals, is seen as a singular line, while in some ways this is true, it is not correct.
I am like a layered multifaceted blanket, each fiber within a strand, is an outcome, each strand is a timeline, intricately woven, creating an overlap: in and out in and out, thus creating a woven blanket of all that happens within existence, these blankets, are separated by Hypnion Aevum, Space.
It is my eternal duty, as time, to serve my purpose to the functions of existence as the other primordials do, Time, Space, Chaos, Light and Dark: we are all bound by the eternal duty to uphold existence for all.
I, Hestia Aevum, as time, hold the Time Codex.
The time codex is a sacred archive of EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE. The archives, are contained within a pocket dimension that is unreachable by anyone who is not permitted its access. These records, are also stored within my very being. I am omniscient.
Being time, I contain the eyes of omniscience, eyes that, when piercingly staring into the soul of something within existence, I can see everything about it, memories, fate, pain, joy, desire, knowledge, however out of respect for others, I have special glasses that negate this for me, meaning i will not unnecessarily pry into the depths of others existence.
I work along side hypnion, to prevent the birth of and destroy catastrophic anomalies: beings, that occur and devour aspects of timelines when something has happened that NEVER should have happened within that timeline , this duty is constantly upheld respectively by all within the TSKA, (time space keeping association).
This page, within the digital realm, will contain information that i shall present to magi, this information will provide insight and many other things on the Functions of Existence and the Ways of Time, me.
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
baratheonpilled
kianamaiart
dailybridgerton
prguitarman
pixelskylines
origamiaround
