Magick & Mysticism

Rolling Free of the Physical Body 123 Floating Free of the Physical Body 124 Projecting in Your Sleep 127 Two Orbs 132 Making a Universal Fluid Condenser 137 Activating Your Clairsentience 138 Activating Your Clairaudience 147 Activating Your Clairvoyance 153 The God Sequence 172 The Goddess Sequence 175 A Yoga Sequence for Hallowmas 182 A Yoga Sequence for the Winter Solstice 183 A Yoga Sequence for Candlemas 186 A Yoga Sequence for the Spring Equinox 189 A Yoga Sequence for Beltane 191 A Yoga Sequence for the Summer Solstice 194 A Yoga Sequence for Lammas 198 A Yoga Sequence for the Autumnal Equinox 200 Sequence for Developing Personal Power 204 Sequence for Health & Healing 206 Sequence for Balance 208 Sequence for Inner Peace 210 Sequence for Confidence 212 Sequence for Longevity & Beauty 213

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER

Please consult a medical doctor before you begin any exercise program. While yoga is for everyone and provides amazing health benefits, only you know your own limitations. The techniques and suggestions in this book are not meant as a substitution for medical advice.

FOREWORD

Like a lot of Americans, my own introduction to yoga was as a component of physical fitness. It was an exercise—sort of a fancy way to stretch, and good for when you weren’t cut out for team sports. It was offered as an alternative to conventional gym classes at my (admittedly unusual) high school, and it’s still a popular way to satisfy the physical fitness requirement at a lot of colleges and universities. Even now, when the New Year rolls around and people start posting about their fitness and weight loss goals, yoga is often front and center. It’s touted as a cure-all: tone your body, exercise without strain or the risk of injury, feel sexy, build flexibility, and tune out the stresses of your busy daily life. Come December, my social media feed fills up with ads for local studios, practically always featuring extraordinarily slim, serene-looking models, almost always white, blonde, and fashionably coordinated. For years, I would think, “Good for them. But my body doesn’t do that.”

When I became seriously involved in witchcraft as a young adult, I was exposed to another yoga entirely. Yoga is everywhere in Pagan, New Age, and other kinds of magical communities, and though the focus isn’t usually on physical fitness, it was just as difficult for me to navigate. Wasn’t this an Indian tradition? Perhaps even a religion all by itself? I had friends who had grown up in churches that didn’t allow members to practice yoga because they saw it as another, conflicting spiritual practice. And here I was, suddenly meeting Pagans who incorporated yoga into their own meditation and ritual practices as though it was a matter of course. But wasn’t yoga something separate? Were we just appropriating something out of context?

How confusing! It’s a strange thing—yoga is both ubiquitous and mysterious. It’s everywhere—both in mundane and magical spaces—and yet it remains widely misunderstood.

I didn’t begin to seriously reconsider the practice of yoga from the perspective of witchcraft until I cast a wider net and started learning about the development of contemporary witchcraft—especially Wicca—through the work of Western occultists around the turn of the twentieth century and later. Yoga has a deep and expansive history within its original Hindu contexts, as anyone who explores it readily discovers. What many don’t realize, however, is that it also has a rich history among occultists and magicians, long before ever becoming a fitness craze. It is impossible to spend any time at all in occult communities without being exposed to ideas and traditions born in Asia, and then translated through American and European new religious movements, particularly Theosophy. Such traditions often go unsung in popular books, but their influence on contemporary witchcraft of practically any variety you can name cannot be overstated. Indeed, many concepts that we take for granted in Pagan, New Age, and witchcraft communities today—energy healing and balancing, the mind-body connection in matters of health, the emphasis on manifestation—come to us not from our ancient Pagan forebears, but from modern traditions like Theosophy and New Thought. We can thank them (and also critique them) for introducing many Westerners to yoga. We also see yoga when we study ceremonial magic, particularly the works of Aleister Crowley, that most influential of modern occult luminaries. Yoga is simply impossible to avoid, whatever flavor of magic calls to us.

In Magick from the Mat, Casey brings all of these worlds together, leading readers on a fascinating tour through history while also detailing how contemporary practitioners—of either yoga or witchcraft—can incorporate their practice of one into the other, thereby deepening them both. This is a massive undertaking, and he handles it with aplomb, doing justice to yoga’s rich history outside of Western contexts and advising witches in how they might approach a yoga practice with both respect and confidence. If your objective is to practice yoga for the first time, Casey serves as an experienced, knowledgeable guide who will help you build firm foundations. If you are already firmly rooted in a yoga practice of your own, Casey will teach you to harness what you’re already doing and direct it to enrich your life even further through

the practice of witchcraft. You don’t have to have a particular sort of body or a predetermined level of experience in either yoga or witchcraft to enjoy the wealth of information and encouragement here.

I came to yoga late in life and well into my practice as a witch. It’s helped me develop my psychic abilities, build a consistent and meaningful meditation practice, and create the kind of stillness in myself that intense ritual magic work often requires. Aside from all the benefits to my physical and emotional well-being, yoga’s allowed me to deepen my work as a magician and witch, in sometimes surprising ways. I now understand why so many recommended it to me when I was younger, and why it was a core element in the practices of so many witches and magicians I’ve admired throughout my life. On an intellectual level, it’s also augmented my understanding of the development of contemporary occultism, and its impact on witchcraft. If you’re at all interested in how East and West have overlapped in modern magic, the study of yoga will make those connections apparent, serving as an ideal case study. If your interest is practical, then here are the steps to get you started, from a variety of angles.

Wherever you are on your own path, you could ask for no better guide than Casey Giovinco. An adept and respected witch, as well as a yoga teacher with years of experience in multiple settings, Casey’s approach is both practical and profound, with a keen eye toward inclusivity, and the care that spiritual combination and exploration demands. I only wish that my own introduction to yoga had been so aided, but I am grateful to benefit from Casey’s work now. We are fortunate indeed.

Thorn Mooney