What Is Magic? Intention, Manifestation & the Truth About How Magic Works

Hey, now all, I'm Joey C. Welcome back to another episode of Spirit Sherpa. This is the show that helps and encourages you on your journey to unlock your magic mojo. With me, as always, is the spirit doctor, Kelle Sparta. Hey, Kelle. Hey, Joey.

How you doing? I'm doing good. We are back, and the thing that we're going to talk about today is something that we've basically been going with this entire time. We've been talking about magic and everything to do with magic, but we've never really defined what it is. So the opening question I have for you today is, what is magic?

Well, that's a really good question. So magic is the way in which we, uh, impact the physical world with our intentions. That's really the simple answer. Okay. And people make it complex than that. And they make it much more complicated. But yes, that's, that's really all magic is, is, is the, the focused intention to bring about some sort of result.

Okay. And that's it. That's it. It's that simple. That simple. Wow. All right. Episode over then. That sounds just too simple to be true. How does that work? So, uh, and that's exactly the problem- ... right there. That, that question is exactly the problem. So there's a meme going around Facebook right now that's hysterical, and it's got three layers, and it says the, the beginner witch, "I need 15 candles and 12 crystals and the, the two aromatherapies, and what phase of the moon is it?"

And then the intermediate witch, which is, "Uh, I'm gonna grab something from my pocket and a, you know, random thing and say go away," 'cause you're doing banishing. I forgot to say it's a banishing. And then the, the advanced witch is, "Fuck off." You know? You know, uh, because that's really what it comes down to.

When we get started, we think we need 15 candles and, you know- Yeah ... 12 crystals and blah, blah, blah. And the fact is, you don't. You know, you really don't. All you really need is the ability to focus your intent and send your energy forth with the knowledge that it will work. And the knowledge that it will work is the hard part for the beginner, right?

Is that the, the part where we sort of remove our disbelief, we remove ourselves from the pre-ingrained mentalities that have been put inside of us- Yeah ... over the years? I, it's, it's interesting that you say that because Cathy, the, um, the shaman that I work with in my program, she actually says to people, "Look, when I started, I couldn't believe that it worked.

But what I did was suspend my disbelief." Mm-hmm. She said, "I just, I just decided that I was not going to disbelieve, and then I would just do that until I could believe." It's actually a fairly effective tool, right? That's like in The Matrix, uh, there is no spoon. And there is no spoon. Right. Exactly, there is no spoon.

Mm. We keep talking about intention. You've mentioned this before in how intention is, is the secret, right? It is. That's the, that's what it comes down to everything. We've established that it's easy. Mm-hmm. We've established that a big part of it is- Well ... intention. Well, it, it- I don't know that it's easy

the concept is easy. The concept is easy, yes. The concept is easy. That's what I mean. And a big part of it is intention and suspending your disbelief or- Yes ... or your preconceptions. Are there any additional sort of rules that are there? So here's the thing. The first thing you have to understand is that the only magic you'll ever be able to do is the magic that you're able to allow yourself to do, and what that means is that we, within ourselves, hold limiting beliefs.

The physical world is real is a limiting belief. Mm-hmm. Okay? That's, that's sort of the base level one. I deserve this, or I don't deserve that. That's a crippling one because if you don't feel like you deserve it or if you have a belief that says you have to work hard for it or whatever, then you won't allow it to come in.

You will sabotage the energetic of pulling it in. There's also issues around fears of your own power that will break down your ability to do something, or maybe you'll get it to work once and then you won't get it to work again because you scared yourself the first time. People who go to law of attraction classes have this problem all the time.

They go to a law of attraction class, they do something, it shows up, they freak out, shut down, and never manifest anything ever again. It's just like, it's like, "Oh my God, it worked. I'm powerful. Oh, shit, what does that mean for my life? Oh my God." And then in the beginning, you get really stuck in the, well, I can do no harm and it has to be okay for everybody, and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And the fact is that, you know, once you get further into your spiritual practice, you're gonna recognize that some of the things that harmed you the most are the things that grew you the most and did you the best good. And so later in your process, you start to think, "Well, who am I to say what's good and bad?"

Mm-hmm. Then it becomes a factor of who do you choose to be And is this magic in alignment with who you choose to be? You know, I personally don't do anything that is intended to harm another unless that person is trying to harm me. Right. And then it's self-defense, you know? Yep. You choose who you wanna be.

That's really what it comes down to magically. Mm-hmm. So the upshot is that magic is as complex or as simple as you internally are complex or simple. So when you have gone inside and cleared out all your stuff, and done all your work, and gotten all of these beliefs straightened out, then magic is no problem.

So that actually ties into, pretty well into another question that I wanted to ask you, and we've ... Now we've talked about your, your preconception, your belief systems that you need to straighten out. Is there anything else that gets in the way of a person actually using or doing magical things? There is one more thing.

Okay. Focus. Oh. And that's really hard today. Hmm. Uh, it's so much harder today to do magic than it was 20 years ago because we are trained to be distractable. We are trained out of our focus by our phones, by our computers, by our tablets, by our lives, right? Mm-hmm. And if you can't bring your focus down to a really tight point and send the energy out, then that will get in the way.

Are there techniques and things that people can practice to start to hone that skill? Meditation. Really? Yeah, meditation's, you know, stillness, bringing ... You know, staring at a candle and bringing all your attention to the candle and not thinking about anything else, just being with the candle. Mm-hmm. What I refer to it as is presence.

Okay. So you bring all of yourself into the present moment to be fully present with something else. Okay. The other piece that people get in the way with- Hmm ... is control. Hmm. We, we have this thing that we have to control it. And to a certain extent, it's valid to want to control what you're doing- Right

because be careful what you ask for, for you will surely get it, right? So you wanna be careful. You don't wanna ask for the magical house that we, we told that story, right? Right, the doors and the- The doors and the windows. Yeah. Yeah, be careful what you ask for. Uh, but on the other side of things is that- If you send something out and then yank it back, and send it out and yank it back, and send it out and yank it back because you wanna tweak it, tweak it, tweak it, tweak it, eventually the universe just goes, "Yeah, I don't believe you."

Right. Right. You're not invested here. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, when I say the universe, I mean you. Mm-hmm. Right? Because you don't believe you. You stop believing that you're actually gonna send it out. It's just another way of resisting receiving it. Mm-hmm. It's just something to keep in mind. Okay. What type of people typically would be able to use magic and sort of excel in that space?

There are very few people who cannot do magic at all. Okay. The biggest challenge for being very good at magic is how deep is your container. Mm-hmm. And we've had some conversation about the container before, but if your container is very shallow, you will hold less energy naturally than other people. The other piece of it, though, is y- you can, you can grow your capacity to channel energy without having to deepen your container.

So there's, there's two different pieces- Yeah ... to this, this puzzle, right? So i- you can have a shallow container but a wide, uh, channel. Okay. And so you could still do fairly decent magic with that. Uh, the, the deeper your container- The more naturally you're gonna hold more energy, and the more naturally you're gonna wield it.

And then when you grow your, your channel- Mm-hmm ... for that energy, then you, you can be quite formidable. Okay. Yeah. I- is one more important than the other, container or channel? Not for magic. Okay. Um, although with a caveat. All things with a caveat. So, so it depends on the type of magic you're doing. If you're just manifesting, then, then no, there's really not a, a difference.

Okay. Uh, but if you are in any situation where like s- you know, if somebody's throwing something at you and you have to defend yourself, you know, the whole Harry Potter Defense Against the Dark Arts, right? Yep. Um, then your container is super important. Okay. The strength of your container, not necessarily the depth, but the strength- Okay

of the container is super important. When we talked about containers before, what you had mentioned was that the growing of the container often comes from hardship and conflicts in your past- Yeah ... and, and healing them and growing beyond that. Is there any other way for a person to grow their container?

You mentioned you can grow your channel- Right ... but can you grow your container? I have never found anything that grows the container other than overcoming hardship. Wow. Okay. So for people who've led a, a pretty easy life, if you will, um- Go to boot camp. Go to boot camp. Go, go do something that causes you to have to, to develop your belief in yourself.

Yeah. It's, it's literally the things that we do that cause us to believe in our own strength. And, and in that case, we could also focus on, uh, growing our channel and the magic that comes with that. Yeah. And, and growing your channel is simply a matter of how much m- how much energy do you run on a regular basis and, and, you know, the more you run, the more you get used to running it, the more your channel's just gonna naturally stretch.

Okay. And it just gets bigger and bigger as you use more and more energy over time. But what I will say- Mm-hmm ... beware, Is that, uh, don't push it. If you start to shake If you start to feel wobbly, then you're pushing your channel, and you don't wanna do that. You wanna back off. Because if you push your channel too hard, you can split it, and then you're gonna be stuck for weeks until it repairs itself.

Oh, wow. So don't push it too hard. You know, go- go up to the limit of where you start to shake, and then back down some. Is this something like, I don't know, building muscle? Mm-hmm. And typically people can do that on their own, but they often get more value from doing that with a- A trainer ... with a coach or a trainer- Yeah

who has been through that and knows the proper ways to stretch those muscles, build them up. Is the same true with magic? Is, is there value in someone working with a magical trainer? Yeah, there is. Uh, you know, the reason that I'm mentioning this is because one of my students is just going through this right now.

Yeah. And so he's, he's like, "Well, I was shaking and, and I got a headache, and I, I did this." And I was like, "Okay, so you got an energy headache because you were shaking and you overdid it, and so your crown chakra shut down some, and therefore it wasn't working as well because that was your body's defense against you splitting the energy- Mm-hmm

because you were pushing too hard. And then having your crown chakra closed is what causes the energy headache." And so yeah, I mean, he would have no clue that that was what was going on if he wasn't working with me. Right. And so, you know, he'd probably just continue to do it and not know why he was having a headache.

Right. You know? And thinking that he was, he was just getting stronger, but really what he was doing was- Damaging himself ... damaging himself. Yeah. And you mentioned the crown chakra closing. I'm assuming that, that it acts as sort of like a vent for the energy to, to pass through and, and- Well, so your crown chakra, uh, your crown and root chakras are places where energy comes in from the outside.

Okay. So the crown chakra you get from the universe as a whole. It's, it's your connection to your guides. It's the whole nine yards there, right? And then the root chakra is where you ground. Mm-hmm. So it's where you get the earth energy. When we push ourselves too hard, we'll naturally close down both- Mm ... a little bit.

It's, it's a defensive mechanism to keep us from literally blowing ourselves up. And what happens, especially with people who have been in challenged childhood environments, you will also have the possibility of, or tendency to have your crown and root chakras shut down in general, which I refer to as the energetic fetal position.

It is the defensive posture- Mm-hmm ... in energetics. When you don't have your crown chakra open and you're doing energy work, you're gonna get an energy headache, because there's no place for the energy to go as it's cycling through your system. I don't know why it doesn't result in a problem- In the root chakra- Right

but it doesn't. Yeah. It just- That, that would be worse- Yeah ... I would think. Yeah. Just from position. But yeah, but it just works out that way. Yeah. So, uh, w- you know, one of the challenges, and this is again why you wanna take a look at your own field before you try and start doing magic, one of the challenges is that if you come out of those challenged childhood environments, and so you've got this great container, but you are in that energetic fetal position- Mm-hmm

you're not gonna have any energy to work with. And so when you go to do energy work, you're gonna deplete yourself, and you're gonna be exhausted. So your, your container in that case sort of becomes like shields up. Yeah. You- you're blocking everything from coming in. You're not, you're not, um, allowing that channel- Yeah

which would bring the energy in, which would allow you to do the work inside the container. Yeah. And it also puts you in a position where you have no energy coming in from the outside, so that's where energy vampires come from. Oh, okay. People who suck your energy are people who have crown and root chakras shut down from a defensive posture.

So in that case, when we talk about energy vampires, you're talking about actually other people who would- Steal your energy ... steal your energy. Yeah. Because they can't, they can't channel their own. Exactly. So we've talked about preparing your channel, your container, working with coaches, but ultimately, as we've learned through doing this, this show, I've learned enough from you to say- Someone's still gonna blow themselves up here, right?

I mean, what happens? Absolutely. What happens when that, when that comes about? Yeah. So, and, and sadly, it's often the beginner who blows themselves up, uh, because they tend to be overzealous. Okay. And so they wanna do it all yesterday, right? It's like, "Ooh, I wanna be Harry Potter right now," right? And, and, uh, you know, I actually had a student at one point who, who approached me and said, uh, "Will you teach me?"

And I said, "Well, what do you wanna learn?" He said, "I wanna learn how to cast Magic Missile." And- Which is a D&D- A D&D reference ... reference, right? And I said, "Sadly, by the time you can cast Magic Missile, it will be a stupid party trick that you can't be bothered to do." Right. And he said, "I'd still do it." And you know what?

He totally would have. Um, but there's a piece that, that happens with people where they, they really get super excited, and they, they wanna push themselves, and it's a, it's ... We go through a phase in our development where we have to prove to ourselves that it works, right? Mm-hmm. And, and that's what happens with newbies in this process, is that you come in, and you're super excited, or you have to prove your- yourself to yourself, or you have to prove to others that you're good enough.

I mean, I remember I was at a, I think it was Twilight Covening. Earth Spirit Community in Western Massachusetts runs a, an event called Twilight Covening. And, uh, they do a walking ritual at the end of the weekend that, that everybody goes through, and it's, it's October in the mountains, the Berkshire Mountains, and it's freaking cold.

Yeah. Right? And so we're sitting there, and we're the last group to go out. And so we're in this, this place where the fire in the fireplace is the only heat source, and they're letting the fire die because we're the last group to go out. So we're sitting there shivering because the fire's going out, and we're not moving, and we're waiting.

And I sat there shivering, and I was like, "What the hell am I doing shivering? I am the queen of running energy that gets me overheated. Here, let me just run some energy," right? And so I ran this energy, and I, I warmed myself up, and I went, "Oh, that's so lovely." And then I looked at my shivering friends and my, my clan and I was like, "Okay."

And I just put my hands out. Now, I had gloves on I had gloves and I had thermal underwear that went across my hands. Mm-hmm. And I put my hands out on either side of me, and people looked at me like, "What are you doing?" And then their eyes flew open as they realized that I was channeling e- energy and heat into them.

And I said, "Put your hands on the person next to you." And so we, we formed this chain, and I warmed everybody in the room, or everybody in my clan. It was like, I don't know, eight or 10 people. Mm-hmm. And everybody warmed up, and they were like, "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you." And I continued this even after they picked us up.

I just, I took the back spot in the line and had everybody stay touching as we walked out until we had to separate. And then I got extraordinarily sick. Okay? I was so sick for, like, a week and a half afterwards because I had blown up my energy channel. I, I just blew it up because I ran too much energy and my body was not prepared to do that, and I was running enough not just for me, but for eight or 10 other people.

Yeah. And what the hell was I thinking? That was really stupid. But I wanted to be the good one who took care of everyone, right? That's what happens when you're new. You wanna be the good one who takes care of it. "Look at me, I'm awesome. Look at me, I'm gonna take care of you," right? It's, it's ... We get into our egos about it, and then we blow ourselves up.

Yeah. And, you know, we get sick or we just fall down. You know? Sometimes you just fall down and you go, "Uh, pfft." You know, I, I actually had a very short podcast there for a while called Magical Muck-ups. Mm-hmm. Things that we screwed up, right? Um, cautionary tales. But I mean, everybody does it. Yeah. Everybody does it.

And, and you'll eventually recover. Right. You will. But it's, it's better to know- Yeah ... that this is the edge of where you hurt yourself, and, uh, and then, you know, to choose wisely. Now, you do as a newbie have to be careful who you mess with. Oh, okay. Okay? So I was running a Reiki class years ago, and we were out to lunch after having done our Reiki attunements, and some of my people were raw.

You know? Mm-hmm. They had, they had gone through an intense process. And, you know, we're sitting in the 99 Restaurant, you know, just having, having lunch, and there is this group of The Craft kids, you know, the, the kids who watch The Craft and think, "Well, I'm badass," right? Yeah. They were all 15 to 17 years old, and, uh, thought they were badass, and they were sending energy out to mess with my students.

And I'm like, "Yeah, that won't do." And so, you know, being a good adult in a magical village, I did what was appropriate but not punitive. I slapped a psychic helmet on them. Mm-hmm. And they suddenly couldn't see anything, and they were like, and yeah, I watched them freak out because they couldn't see anything.

And I'm just like, "No, I'm not ... No, children, you don't get to play with my people. That's not how that works." And, uh, I set it to dissolve when they hit the door because, you know, they're not my problem all around, and I wasn't trying to limit their abilities to do anything. I just- You were just protecting

wanted to stop them- Yeah ... from messing with people who weren't in a position to be messed with. Mm-hmm. And so when we got out into the parking lot, they were out in the parking lot ready for us because they realized that I had done it, and so they were all getting ready to do shit to me. And I'm like, "Oh, children."

So, you know, if somebody is smart enough to put something on you that damages you, do not come at their face. That is just not wise. So, so you know, they, they started to set something up, and I just slapped a shield around them, and it's one of the most elegant pieces of magic I've ever done. I slapped a shield around them that anything sent with negative intent would hit the shield and power the shield.

Anything sent with positive intent would go through. And so over time, they would be trained that the negative stuff doesn't work. So did you set that as a permanent shield? I set it as a permanent shield. Oh. If they were gonna do damage to me, they were gonna do damage to others. Yep. And if they stopped doing the negative stuff, the shield would fall, because it was only powered by what they were sending out.

Behavior modification magic style. Behavior modification magic style, exactly. And it was one of the most elegant pieces of magic I've ever done. I, I gave them a chance. Yep. Right? I gave them a chance to walk away, and they didn't take it. And so, you know, as a, as a, um, more advanced practitioner- You said it's, it was the most elegant piece of ma- and it, it really is because, A, it's not destructive to them.

Correct. It's, it's primarily focused around, uh, the energy or the magic that they're putting out. It comes out with positive intent. You can do powerful things with positive intent. Absolutely. It's all a difference in, in your intent, and we talked about that being the key- one of the key pieces here- Right

of doing magic. Yeah. And it's karmically neutral for me. Exactly. So, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't gonna get any blowback on it because I didn't do anything to damage them. Right. Right? If anything, you've, you've given them an ability to learn and a way to, um, to further themselves in a positive way. It sounds like they did have abilities, and they did...

They were removing those preconceptions. Yeah. They just needed to learn how to do it correctly. Well, they needed h- to learn how to do it constructively- Constructively ... instead of destructively. Yeah, exactly. And, and not even that destruction is a problem, because it's not, but you have to realize that what you sow is what you reap.

Mm-hmm. And so if you're sowing destruction, you will reap destruction. They were trying to do damage to me. If I had been somebody else, I could have permanently removed their ability to do anything. Right. I, I had that capability at that time to do that. I could have burned out their psychic abilities in a heartbeat.

And if I had been an angrier person or a more vengeful person, and they just, and they would eventually draw that person to them doing that kind of stuff- Mm-hmm ... then that would be the result that they would get, and that would be the nicest thing that person would do. Right. Right? So i- in actuality, I was protecting them- Mm-hmm

from themselves. So be careful who you mess with. Well, yeah. I mean, it's be careful... The, the energies that you work with or the energies that you align with, those energies will attract other energies of similar nature, and you're gonna get what you, what you give. And so I was trying to help them. I mean, we've all been 15 and stupid.

Yeah. You know? I mean, we've all thought we knew everything and then realized years later that we were not so bright. Well, and they were 15 and stupid with, uh- Okay ... very open minds, which is fantastic in one sense, but the way that they were proceeding with it was not so great. Exactly. When we say we're gonna blow ourselves up, is it actually...

This is a tough question. I don't know how you're gonna answer it. Is it productive to have gone through a magical blowup? I don't know that productive is the right word. I, I wasn't sure of the word there, so I was kinda putting it out there hoping that you would correct what I mean. Yeah. Um, no. No. No. I'm, I'm thinking back on the, the multiple times I've blown myself up over the years, and I didn't actually get anything out of it except the knowledge of when I was getting to the edge of blowing myself up.

Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, that I could have learned from somebody who was teaching me if I had had someone teaching me. So you know, I wouldn't have had to figure it out for myself. But that really, that was the only thing I ever got out of it. It, it slowed me down. It backed my process down. It, it made me a little gun-shy- Mm-hmm

uh, even though I'm a bit of a spiritual masochist, or I was at the time. Eh, I still am, if I'm truly honest. You know, it, yeah, there really isn't anything good to be said about blowing yourself up. Okay. So- So there's no, there's no lesson, you know, you learn it's hot by touching the hot pan kinda thing?

Sure. But you know, you could also learn it's hot by somebody saying, "It's hot. Don't touch it." Yeah. Exactly. You know? And then you don't have burns and scars on your hands to prove it, you know? Exactly. Yeah. What things can you give the listeners right now to maybe help them deepen their, their understanding of the stuff that we're talking about?

Be still Practice your focus, remove your disbelief, and practice. Just try it. Mm-hmm. You know, try something that ... Try something easy, something light, because, you know, we all try and do some major working to make some me- big change, and you have to understand the bigger the thing that you do or you try to do, the more resistance there's gonna be to it, because there are more things in place that hold it in place.

Mm-hmm. And so if you're gonna do something, if you're gonna practice, practice on small things. Practice on things that don't have a lot of connection points. Mm-hmm. Right? So practice manifesting things, right? Um, manifest the dresser or nightstand down the street from your house, right? Right. Or something like that.

But don't try and move big things that have a lot of connection points to other people and other places and whatever, because that makes it harder, right? Right. And what you're trying to do in the beginning is prove to yourself that it works. Yep. Not show yourself all the reasons why it doesn't. Right.

Especially that. Right. Yeah. Do you have any services or classes that you offer that would tie into this? Well, you know, the shamanic training program- Yeah ... that I run is basically Magic 101, uh, 102, 103, and 104. Um, you know, we've, we've already talked about Mastering Spiritual Evolution. Included in that program actually is Magic 101.

Oh. Because it's, it's everything that is the beginning structure of magic and elements. So we go over, you know, altars, and ritual, and energy, and how to maintain your own field, and wards, and shields, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mm-hmm. So, you know, there's, there's a huge amount of information included in that year of practice so that you can develop your energetic understanding as you under- as you develop your container.

Excellent. All right. And people can go and find that information at kellesparta.com? Indeed, they can. Excellent. All right, folks, that is all that we have for this week. Be sure to join us next time as Kelle adds yet another chapter into your beginner's guide to energy, magic, and the spirit world. I'm Joey C. here with Kelle Sparta, and you have been listening to Spirit Sherpa. Bye, guys. Bye, everyone. Spirit Sherpa is the sole property of Kelle Sparta Enterprises and is distributed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. For more information about this licensing, please go to creativecommons.org.

Any request for deviations to this licensing should be sent to kelle@kellesparta.com. That's kelle@kellesparta.com. I know I'm home. To sign up or to get more information on the programs, offerings, and services referenced in this episode, please go to kellesparta.com. This episode of Spirit Sherpa has been produced by Honu Voice Productions