The Art Of Changing Consciousness At Will

Politically minded people often question the need for the symbol, for dragging the spiritual, the religious, into the political arena. Yet seeing the spiritual and the political as unrelated is itself a mark of estrangement. When "religion" is confined to patriarchal religions that remove the content from the world, then it is true that focus on the "spiritual" can undermine efforts for political and social change. But political movements that try to challenge patriarchal institutions without examining the consciousness that creates those structures often themselves get caught in estranged patterns. . . . Effective political action is aimed at changing consciousness and, thereby, causing change -- or to put it another way, political action is itself a form of magic, "the art of changing consciousness at will." Ignoring the spiritual aspects of political consciousness simply undermines its sources of power and benefits no one except those presently in the upper echelons of the hierarchies of patriarchal institutions.

"Magic" is a word that causes discomfort; it reeks of superstition, illusion, silliness. I use it deliberately because the words we are comfortable with, the words that sound acceptable, i.e., rational, scientific, intellectual are comfortable precisely because they are the language of estrangement. "Magic" shocks our sensibilities. It forces us out of the old patterns.

Simply, magic is the psychology, the understanding of mind and emotion, derived from the principles of immanence rather than estrangement. As a system, its underlying assumption is that human drives and needs contain their own regulatory principles. Rather than repressing and adjusting them to a society in conflict with them, we could better spend our energies creating a society that allow us to fulfill them freely.

Magic is based on patterns of energy and their interconnections, on syntheses more than analyses. In magic we are always making connections, linking ourselves with other forms of being, identifying with what is outside of us rather than separating from it. As "the art of changing consciousness at will," magic has two important aspects: art and will.

~From Consciousness, Politics, and Magic by Starhawk in The Politics of Women's Spirituality.