Practices

Practice: The Shape of Focus

Ref: M20 Ann,p 572

Practice means “to make” or “to do.” And so, a mage – guided by her beliefs – does her magick through a practice. As the name suggests, a practice is also practical, turning abstract ideas into useful activities.

When your character makes things happen, she employs a practice that serves her needs and beliefs. One mage might petition her gods, whereas another dons her business suit, applies subtle cosmetics, and goes off to work her Will at the shareholders’ meeting. In game terms, every mage has a practice; in story terms, that practice comes from that character’s culture, beliefs, and circumstances.

An appropriate practice can also spell the difference between coincidental magick and vulgar magick.

Alchemy

Name	Summary	Associated Paradigms	Associated Abilities	Common<Instruments
Alchemy	In all its forms, alchemy demands discipline. An alchemist studies principles, experiments with materials, deciphers codes, puzzles over symbols, works in his lab, creates useful goodies, and constantly challenges and refines himself. For him, the practical applications of alchemy – drugs, acids, and other chemical compounds; quick wits; foreign languages; and other techniques of transformation – take a back seat to the self-perfection at the core of this venerable Art	A Mechanistic Cosmos; Bring Back the Golden Age; Creation’s Divine and Alive; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything is Data; Might is Right; Tech Holds All Answers	Art, Crafts, Cryptography, Enigmas, Esoterica, Medicine, Pharmacopeia, Science (chemistry)	Books, brews and potions, designs, devices, drugs, formulas, laboratories

The Art of Desire/ Hypereconomics

Name	Summary	Associated Paradigms	Associated Abilities	Common<Instruments
The Art of Desire/ Hypereconomics	The Art of Desire focuses upon achieving your desires through finding out what other people desire and then using that knowledge to enact your Will. This discipline involves plenty of self-perfection: athletic exercise, meditation, mental gymnastics, self-reflection, etiquette, and other social graces. Fashionable clothes, subtle yet influential cosmetics, poise and grace, martial arts, seduction, intimidation, and the trappings of wealth and refinement provide essential tools for this practice. Essentially, Ars Cupiditae converts desire to reality. What you want, you make happen. ... An Art of value, this practice draws connections between people and places, reads emotions and influences thoughts, manipulates the physical and mental states of both the mage and her subjects, and directs probability and material toward a greater goal. As a result, this Art favors the Spheres of Correspondence, Entropy, Life, Matter, Mind, and Prime, using them as parts of a useful, interlocking whole.	A Mechanistic Cosmos; Bring Back the Golden Age; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything is Chaos; Everything is Data; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; Might is Right; One-Way Trip to Oblivion; Tech Holds All Answers	Academics (culture, philosophy, psychology), Athletics, Awareness, Carousing, Etiquette, Expression, Finance, Intimidation, Leadership, Martial Arts, Media, Politics, Seduction, Subterfuge	Cards and dice, cosmetics, (very refined) dance and gestures, eye contact, fashion, gadgets, mass media, money and wealth, sex, social domination, vehicles, voice, weapons

Chaos Magick

Name	Summary	Associated Paradigms	Associated Abilities	Common<Instruments
Chaos Magick	It’s not what you think it is. Although the term “chaos magic” tends to be associated with demons and evil, occultists understand chaos magick as a postmodern and often improvisational Art. Like other mystic practices, it emphasizes knowledge, reflection, and other forms of self-improvement. This revolutionary inversion of traditional mystic disciplines, however, depends upon personal intuition and interpretation; individual freedom; a deliberately iconoclastic approach; and an often subversive use of pop-culture symbols, social behaviors, and improvised designs. Chaos magick spits in the face of established dogma. Often regarded by outsiders as a Left-Hand Path, it’s a sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll sort of practice, raising and directing personal energy (that is, Quintessence) through extreme experiences. Playful yet serious, each chaos-magick practice draws from the individual practitioner’s experiences and desires. Depending upon the individual practitioner, it can integrate formalized ritual or involve spontaneous improvisation… or both, or neither. Flexibility and personal investment are innate elements of the practice as a whole, often connected to psychic thought forms called egregores: concepts given reality through extensive investment of psychic energy.	A Mechanistic Cosmos; A World of Gods and Monsters; Creation’s Divine and Alive; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything is Chaos; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; Might is Right; One-Way Trip to Oblivion	Art, Awareness, Carousing, Computer, Esoterica, Expression, Lucid Dreaming, Meditation, Pharmacopeia, Streetwise, Technology	Whatever works, so long as none of it becomes too stable or confining.

Craftwork

Name	Summary	Associated Paradigms	Associated Abilities	Common<Instruments
Craftwork	There are reasons that Hephaestus is a metalsmith, Jesus is a carpenter, and Ogun is said to be the iron “who always eats first.” It’s no accident that Freemasons remain one of the most respected yet feared societies around – a society responsible, in ways, for the foundation of the United States. Many myths peg humanity’s origins to deities who fashioned us out of clay and then breathed life into their creations. That’s because craftwork – the Art of making miracles out of raw materials – is among the first metaphysical practices. As a practice, craftsmanship combines the physical and mental skills involved in various crafts (carpentry, metalsmithing, glasswork, plastics, leatherworking, and so forth), then combines them with Pattern Arts in order to make those materials better than they’d been before. Matter presents the obvious Sphere for such disciplines, but Forces (to command fire, air, electricity, gravity, and the like), Prime (to energize and strengthen those creations), and often Life (to work living or organic tissue) and Entropy (to spot, add, or banish flaws) are more-or-less essential too. Old-school crafters employ Spirit to Awaken or placate the spirits within the materials – an important process in ancient craftwork, which depended upon the goodwill of gods and spirits in order to succeed. A typical crafter-mage seems rough around the edges compared to her more academic peers. Often physically strong and personally abrupt, she can be perceived as boorish and dull. That’s a common but mistaken view. In her chosen craft, this mage is every bit as sharp and knowledgeable as her book-bound contemporaries… most of whom would be lost without her expertise. And although common prejudices view such mages as members of the Technocracy (not without some truth), a crafter is just as likely to be a stonesmith Verbena, an ironworking Ngoma, an artisan Hermetic, or a VA computer tech. The Taftâni weavers earned that name from their physical skills as well as their mystical ones, and the Ngoma preserve the practical skills as well as the magical rites from their Egyptian/ Nubian origins. Even Akashayana employ craft Arts in their martial practices – see the film The Man With the Iron Fists for several examples. Though often forgotten in the catalogs of magic, craftwork is as old as humanity yet as fresh as the laptop at your fingertips.	A Mechanistic Cosmos; A World of Gods and Monsters; Bring Back the Golden Age; Creation’s Divine and Alive; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; It’s All Good – Have Faith; Might is Right; Tech Holds All Answers	Academics, Arts, Computers, Crafts, Energy Weapons, Esoterica (sacred geometry, quantum mathematics, elemental pacts, stone and metal lore), Hypertech, Research, Science, Technology	Artwork, blood, books, computers and IT gear, devices and machines, elements, gadgets, household and crafting tools, laboratories and workshops, symbols, weapons (hammers, blades, sickles, guns, etc.)

Crazy Wisdom

Name	Summary	Associated Paradigms	Associated Abilities	Common<Instruments
Crazy Wisdom	A mage who gets a little bit out of her head when performing magick might use what’s often called the crazy wisdom practice: deliberately irrational activities that supposedly grant wisdom by shattering established concepts of what is and is not possible and real. Another sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll approach to magick, crazy wisdom often involves psychoactive entheogens, tranceinducing music, vision quests, risky ordeals, sexual excess, gender inversions, social misrule, mass ecstatic rituals, and solitary isolation in which the practitioner turns her own personal reality inside out and then ponders what that means. Although it’s technically undisciplined by the standards of more rigid forms of magick, such behavior provides a potent tool for enlightenment… assuming it doesn’t kill you first! Although its obvious adherents come from the Cult of Ecstasy, crazy wisdom has a long and respected history as part of shamanism, voodoo, witchcraft, and even certain High Ritual practices. The Order of Hermes has its own variation – the Antinomian Praxis – in which a mage smashes taboos, violates her own standards, and breaks through constraints to find what lies beyond them. Drawing strength from its obvious contradictions, crazy wisdom is dangerous, disruptive, often scary, and potentially lethal. That’s kind of the point, though danger isn’t always involved. Mystic contraries and genderqueers, who deliberately invert social expectations about identity and gender, practice a form of crazy wisdom on a social scale, fucking with people’s preconceptions in order to show greater possibilities.This is the Trickster’s Path, breaking on through like Jim Morrison in a mosh pit with Patti Smith, Br’er Rabbit, the Cat in the Hat, and several buckets of paint.	A World of Gods and Monsters; Creation’s Divine and Alive; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything is Chaos; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; It’s All Good – Have Faith; One-Way Trip to Oblivion	Art, Athletics, Carousing, Esoterica, Lucid Dreaming, Meditation, Pharmacopeia, Survival	Blood and body fluids, bones and remains, brain/ computer interface, dance, drugs, music, ordeals, sex and sensuality, social domination, thought forms, toys, tricks and illusions, voice

Cybernetics

Name	Summary	Associated Paradigms	Associated Abilities	Common<Instruments
Cybernetics	Essentially, the cybernetic practice views Creation as a vast machine whose systems can be understood and manipulated with sufficient dedication. For many adherents – like the members of Iteration X – that dedication includes merging their bodies with mechanical components. Other practitioners, though, use cybernetics as a theoretical construct – a model through which calculations, psychology, symbols, and external devices and machines (as opposed to implanted ones) can bend probability (through Entropy), change minds (the Mind Sphere), transform materials (Life and Matter), channel energies (Forces and Prime), and redefine temporal physics… or, in plain English, reroute Time. Despite the dated overuse of “cyber” as an adjective, cybernetics remains a bleeding-edge discipline.	A Mechanistic Cosmos; Everything is Data; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; Might is Right; One-Way Trip to Oblivion; Tech Holds All Answers||Academics, Biotech, Computer, Crafts, Energy Weapons, Hypertech, Media, Politics, Science, Technology||Books, brain/ computer interface, computers and IT gear, devices and machines, gadgets, inventions, laboratories, languages, mass media, nanotech, numbers and numerology, weapons, writing and inscriptions

Dominion

Name	Summary	Associated Paradigms	Associated Abilities	Common<Instruments
Dominion	Social domination might just be the oldest form of magick. At its most basic levels, this practice directs animal instincts and human interactions toward the will (and Will) of the dominant party. Although other practices – notably Ars Cupiditae, shamanism, and High Ritual Magick – draw upon these techniques of domination, a raw assertion of command is the foundation of capital-A Authority… most notably among the New World Order. ...At its lowest form, it’s the art of the abuser, con-man, and pick-up artist. Its techniques come into play through office and sexual politics and often form part of any strong parent’s arsenal. On a metaphysical level, dominion taps into the primal need for leadership and parenting, then directs that need with a conscious eye toward overwhelming control. Through that control, in turn, you command Reality because you believe you do, and you make other folks believe you do as well. A serious practitioner of dominion (that is, a mage) goes beyond crude intimidation, studying the deeper applications of social domination and self-perfection. Like a devotee of desire, he learns how to maximize his personal strengths and minimize his social flaws while taking full advantage of another party’s weaknesses and appealing to their need to be protected and led. Like Ars Cupiditae concentrates upon desire, the discipline of dominion concentrates upon command. The techniques can seem rather arcane, especially when they’re combined with religious and/ or philosophical beliefs; it’s through technology, however, that dominion finds its greatest influence. Queen Victoria was a master of this Art… and though she used technological instruments to get her point across, she exerted such a charismatic mystique that we still use her name to define the age she ruled. Skilled dominion practitioners employ eye contact, body language, vocal tactics, peer pressure, social appeal, and resonant symbols (uniforms, weapons, parental behavior, religious iconography) in order to cow their herd. From there, these alphas enact their Will in both a mundane and Awakened sense. Lots of mages use social techniques, but a dominion master takes them to a metaphysical extent, wresting control of Reality itself through mass domination – an Art of Kings that has shaped past history and continues to do so today.	A Mechanistic Cosmos; A World of Gods and Monsters; Bring Back the Golden Age; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything is Chaos; Might is Right; One-Way Trip to Oblivion; Tech Holds All Answers	Academics (history, psychology), Art, Belief Systems, Empathy, Expression, Intimidation, Leadership, Media, Politics, Seduction, Technology	Art, brain/computer interface, eye contact, fashion, group rites, languages, mass media, music, social domination, symbols, thought forms, tricks and illusions, voice

Faith

Name	Summary	Associated Paradigms	Associated Abilities	Common<Instruments
Faith	Through faith, all things are possible. This saying underscores the essence of what might be the most common mystic practice in the world: devotion to a higher source. Drawn from the Latin wordfides– “loyalty, trust, belief” – faith provides the foundation for many other practices, yet it stands as a practice in its own right. For although witches, shamans, Voudoun practitioners, and even scientists might be faithful to their higher power, faith itself provides comfort and power for those who believe. Often regarded as the core of overtly religious sects like the Celestial Chorus and Ahl-i-Batin, faith can inspire and energize any mage. Even the demonic Nephandi maintain faith in their horrific Absolute or the Infernal entities they adore. Faith, you see, provides the believer with stability and purpose. And although magick is often seen as an egotistical practice, faith ideally removes the ego in favor of that greater Source. The faithful mage says “THY Will be done,” then acts as an instrument for that Divine Will. A faithful magus follows the tenets of her creed, maintains contact with her source through prayer, and acts – as often as possible – as an emissary of her creed’s ideals. “Keeping the faith” means pursuing virtues that supposedly please the higher power, and although the particulars depend upon the specific creed (a Franciscan Catholic, a Shi’a devotee, and an Odinist spá-kona all have very different ideas about virtue!), the mage’s adherence to that creed is essential. “Faith” does, after all, mean loyalty.	A World of Gods and Monsters; Bring Back the Golden Age; Creation’s Divine and Alive; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; It’s All Good – Have Faith!	Academics (tenets of faith), Awareness, Belief Systems, Cosmology, Empathy, Enigmas, Esoterica, Expression, Medicine	Blessings and curses, books (scriptures), cups and vessels, energy, food and drink, group rites, music, offerings and sacrifice, ordeals and exertions, prayers and invocations, sacred iconography, symbols, thought forms, voice, writings and inscriptions