What is humanistic magick?
Humanistic magick is the philosophy and art of affecting intended change through an unseen cause. We believe that the combination of humanistic counselling techniques, and holistic therapeutic approaches, with esoteric practises is the most powerful way to unlock inner peace and wellbeing, and create the space for personal growth and development to take place.
Humanistic magick is a specific strand of magickal practise that centres on the self as the primary catalyst for transformation. It is the understanding and recognition that each and every one of us has the power to shape our experiences and manifest our desired outcomes by learning how thoughts, emotions, and actions all fit together within some form of magickal expression.
In this regard we can think of humanistic magick as we might think of therapy, though humanistic magick has roots firmly in spiritual beliefs.
Humanistic counselling and its relationship to magick
Humanistic counselling is a therapeutic approach designed to empower individuals to work through their issues from a place of acceptance and growth, and was originally practiced and developed by psychologists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
Humanistic counselling and magick may seem unrelated, but upon closer examination, we could see how closely they aligned with each other.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a psychological theory that describes human motivation and behaviour, and humanistic magick works by tapping into our own power to align our thoughts and emotions with our actions by understanding our motivations and behaviour.
Carl Rogers developed his person centred approach because he believed that every individual has the ability to trust in themselves, and know their own path to fulfilment. Humanistic magick utilises this kind of personal power to manifest desired outcomes and goals through some form of magickal expression.
Aligning Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs with humanistic magick
Maslow’s Hierarchy is most often represented as a triangle or pyramid. The bottom level of the pyramid consists of the most basic needs that human beings must have met for survival, such as food and water. Maslow believed that once these needs are met, individuals begin to desire the next level of human need, and work to progress or move up to the highest level. At the top of the pyramid is self-actualisation, which involves reaching one’s full potential and achieving personal growth and fulfilment.
Humanistic magick is a practise that involves personal responsibility and self-awareness, as we must be aware of our thoughts, motivations and beliefs in order to create the changes we desire. This means we recognise that the changes that we may want can oftentimes be aligned with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs somewhere, for example specific needs might include developing a sense of grounding and self-protection or attracting more resources like money, or developing self confidence.
Aligning humanistic magick within Maslow’s framework includes creating closer connections to the people around us, building relationships, creating opportunities for abundance and attracting like minded people towards us. We can use magickally themed techniques like visualisation to see ourselves achieving our goals or receiving recognition for our accomplishments. Guided meditations and affirmations can also build our personal sense of recognition, work through issues connected to impostor syndrome or a fear of success.
Humanistic magickal rituals that centre on abundance, creating opportunities or success, that put ourselves firmly in charge through our thoughts, motivations and beliefs, can help us move towards these desired changes.
Aligning Person-Centred Counselling with humanistic magick
Carl Rogers was a visionary in the field of psychotherapy. He developed a client-centred approach that emphasises empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard in his book On Becoming a Person. Of course, integrating magick into more traditional counselling relationships requires a delicate balance between various therapeutic techniques and mystical elements, and must be client led. This is why it is often perfect for spiritually minded people who perhaps feel their problems are not severe enough for traditional, diagnostic or clinical, therapy.
Rogers was also keen that his clients were supported to work towards self actualisation, which he believed was core to the human condition and something driving every human. Humanistic magick works like many psychological practises when it comes to goal achievement, by using meditation and visualisation, and can be used to support the exploration of the self through tarot or lenormand cards.
Self-actualisation and humanistic magick
Maslow and Rogers both believed that becoming the best version of ourselves is deep rooted, either through some force that drives us or through our layering desires to achieve more. Humanistic magick is the practise of change, and achieving personal growth and fulfilment. It’s about finding peace in knowledge, accepting truth and finding forgiveness either from ourselves or by taking responsibility.
Both Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Rogers’ Person Centred Approach are perfect frameworks to overlay lots of the common principles of magick, though we call this humanistic magick because as a philosophy, it is the magickal practise that is used as a tool for personal growth and transformation.
By focusing on our thoughts, wants, needs, behaviours and working through our blocks we can progress to self-actualisation. We do this through magickal expression because as spiritually minded people, we enjoy techniques like visualisation, energy work, spell work or tarot because that gives a wonderful purpose to our personal growth.
References
Credit where credit is due, we aim to cite our sources because we value truthful content. 3 sources were referenced during research to write this content, but you are encouraged to follow our links as well.
- Wikipedia/Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Wikipedia/Carl Rogers Person Centred Therapy
- Rogers, C. R. (1995). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. United States: Houghton Mifflin.
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