Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

Typically, for better or for worse, people use this power accidentally: the self-destruction of a relationship, an instance of good luck, a project undertaken with no initial resources except determination?for which all the essentials appear, one by one. These are all great and wondrous occurrences, though no greater than we should expect from this world! But a person spell-casting unconsciously is a baby vidth a machine gun?^look out. To make spell casting into a conscious process is not to be superstitious, but to do deliberately what one would othenvise do haphazardly.

speaking of making spell casting into a conscious process, it can be helpful to externalize the process in ritual. In rituals, faith and desire are projected into the external world, where they become tangible; in the process, they inevitably become more real. Similarly, it is empowering to develop a personal mythology based on one's own experiences. If the dominant mythos paralyzes us by making us believe ourselves to be trapped in the chains of certain causes and effects, then a necessary part of liberation is investing oneself in a dissident causality. Again, this does not mean replacing action with superstition, as in applying pins to dolls of politicians instead of throwing pies in their faces; rather, it means recognizing and respecting what so-called superstitions have to offer to action. The would-be pie assailant who has spent months visualizing and enacting her victory, and whose personal mythology gives her assurance that she is destined to succeed, has a better chance of doing what it takes to strike her target than the one who eschews all such frivolities, hands down.

Step i: Spells can only be cast in a magic world, hut take heart: we live in a magic world. In day-to-day life, we are bombarded with magic?^to be more precise, with the surprise intersections of people, feelings, and events sometimes called coincidences. We do not even notice the great majority of these, but Hfe is absolutely overflowing with them. Life is also full of patterns, symmetry, foreshadowing, symbolism, irony, dramatic lighting, indispensable props, crucial characters, and moments of truth. One can shrug all these off as accidents, but in so doing one loses all the benefits to be gained from investing them with meaning. Deciding to view the world through a frame that accounts for magical developments makes aspects of life visible that would otherwise "not exist," and prepares one to work in the medium they provide.

Step 2: Begin to take notice of magic occurrences. Here are a some small-scale but common examples to get you started: synesthesia, the crossing of the senses; feeling people

The Genius's Cuide to Spell Casting

spell Casting 503

in a house without seeing or hearing them; feeling that someone is watching you and turning to meet their gaze; spontaneous perceptions of distant events; sensing the location of lost objects; opening books to the exact passage sought; perceiving in a person undisclosed feelings, traits, or possibilities for development; sensing a numinous presence; seeing something familiar as if for the first time; feeling the presence of someone distant or dead; experiencing images of internal body structures; correctly intuiting someone's feelings or thoughts about you; saying something in unison with someone else; wnriting a friend with whom you have not communicated in years to find that they have just written you; sensing who is calling you on the phone; thinking of someone and then having them call; feeling united with your lover during sex; feeling the pains of a distant friend, then discovering they are injured; feeling what someone else is thinking; sensing the mood and intention of an animal; having the same dream a friend has; feeling great warmth on cold days; experiencing immense energy; remaining free of infection despite the presence of contagious diseases; experiencing a transfer of energy when touching another person; feeling energized from contact with the Earth; sensing danger; anticipating events before they happen; apprehending a situation or place as if you had You can short-circuit any electric or ^^^"^ ^^'^ ^^^°'^= apprehending a complex and original set of ideas spontaneously; re-electronic machine by introducing membering complex material perfectly; waking from sleep at a designated moment vvdth-saft water into it; once upon a time, out use of an alarm; spontaneously healing an injury or sickness; access to abnormal or vendinTrnthrsllatlngthemt ""^Tected strength or endurance; spontaneously adapting to great heat, cold, or other spit out free soda and change, adverse conditions; rising above thirst or hunger with no loss of strength; spontaneously

causing harmony or discord in communities; experiencing oneness with another being;