by Courtney Goodrum
edited by J. Schleusner
At Dragon Con, Courtney sat down with author and spiritual practitioner Mark NeCamp Jr. to talk about magick, energy work, personal freedom and finding your own spiritual path.
NeCamp is a healer, spiritual alchemist, teacher, poet and author who has spent years studying Western magick and Eastern philosophy. His work includes energy healing and tarot, and he teaches that magick can be a tool for personal freedom.
His book, Energy Magick, is a guide for both beginning and experienced witches and pagans who want to explore practicing magick without tools by working directly with the energy around them.
Discovering Dragon Con
Courtney: I just want to thank you for taking the time to talk. Tell me about your first Dragon Con.
Mark NeCamp: My first Dragon Con was actually last year. As a precursor, I was doing some panels at a convention called Holocon, which is a smaller horror convention run by a really great group.
I was thinking that I’d love to branch out into more things outside my sphere of the magickal, occult and pagan community. I wanted to bring some of these teachings and ideas into something more mainstream.
Then the Dragon Con opportunity presented itself, and I thought, “Oh, this is great.”
I had great fun. I was able to partner with some great people on last year’s panels and have met so many amazing people, whether they’re into this stuff or not. It’s just been absolutely fantastic and a joy and pleasure, honestly.
Experimenting With Magick
Courtney: Dragon Con is unique and such a great time to meet new people and have amazing experiences. When you talk about your practice, you’ve described yourself as someone who experiments with magick rather than following conventional or traditional ways of practice. What is an experiment or something you’ve tried that completely surprised you and changed the way you practice?
Mark: I wrote a book called Energy Magick, which is literally about how to directly manipulate magick without the use of tools, per se.
A lot of that came from having some formal occult and magickal training. I’ve also read a lot of books, like everyone else, but I also have a background in Reiki and energy healing.
What was interesting was thinking, “Well, geez, the same energy that I’m working with in energy healing is the same energy in magick.”
Then I started experimenting with it. If this technique worked for healing, could I apply it to something else? I absolutely was able to do so.
I always try to figure things out. Not because I want to be a know-it-all, but because I have so much curiosity, wonder and awe about the universe.
My partner, Jay, and I went on a fossil dig. We did some research and spent a whole day doing it. We’ll talk about science. We’ll talk about spirituality. We both have this awe and wonder at the universe.
That has really shaped where I’ve gone. Does this work? What does this mean?
By looking at different magickal systems from different times, cultures and geographical locations, I kept asking myself: There has to be some sort of unifying force here. There has to be something that ties everything together.
Everything is connected.
Between my practice and really analyzing and breaking things down, I realized that connection was energy.
Eastern and Western Alchemy
Courtney: You’ve worked with both Western magick and Eastern concepts of energy and magick. Was there a particular moment that made you realize that, even though they are different traditions, they are actually very similar?
Mark: I would say studies in alchemy.
Eastern alchemy and Western alchemy are very different in some ways. The Western goal of alchemy, historically, has been the transmutation of forces and energies. Of course, everyone knows the idea of turning lead into gold.
In the East, it’s more about internal alchemy. It’s about circulating, refining and transforming energies for health, longevity and personal growth to some degree.
Looking at those as two sides of the same coin, they really work with each other.
Alchemy was also a precursor to chemistry. Alchemy was both a spiritual science and a physical science. The spiritual part was discarded or put aside through history, while the physical part became modern-day chemistry.
But there’s still that spiritual root.
When these people were studying alchemy and doing these experiments, they weren’t necessarily just trying to make lead into gold. Many were, of course. But the idea was also that you’re taking the lead of the self and transforming it into the gold of the highest, perfected and evolved self — living your potential and manifesting that in your everyday life.
Personal Freedom and Finding Your Own Path
Courtney: Your work puts a lot of emphasis on personal freedom. What is a belief about magick or your practice that you feel other practitioners may unknowingly allow to limit their freedom?
Mark: I’ll tell you a slight anecdote.
One of my mentors and I were talking, and I was doing a magickal technique. She exclaimed, “You shouldn’t be able to do that. There’s no way that you, with your experience and knowledge, can do that very advanced thing.”
But I was doing that very advanced thing.
When she told me I couldn’t, I internalized it because she was one of my mentors. It took me years to get back to that technique.
The Buddhist saying is, “If you see the Buddha on your path, kill the Buddha.” The idea isn’t that you’re committing murder against a spiritual figure! The idea is that the Buddha’s path is his path. Christ’s path is Christ’s path. An occultist’s path is their path.
You follow your own path.
With that, there’s freedom to mix things around a little bit.
I love cooking. My partner and I are huge foodies. I’ll see recipes, and sometimes I’ll follow them measure for measure and direction for direction. Sometimes I’ll put my own spin on one based on my experience, and I’ve made that recipe mine even though it was originally someone else’s.
There’s no problem with that.
At the same time, there has to be respect for what came before, including techniques and practices. There’s a balance between the safety of the past and the freedom of the future.
What He Would Tell His Younger Self
Courtney: If you could go back and talk to the version of yourself who was just starting to explore witchcraft and your studies, what would you tell yourself to focus on — or maybe not focus on?
Mark: That’s a very good question. I would probably say two things that are going to seem diametrically opposed.
I would tell myself to read, read, read some of the books that I thought were more challenging.
In occult culture, there are grimoires and books written in Latin and other languages. Some I’ve gone through and worked through, and others I haven’t. Some I found honestly fairly intimidating.
I would say: Don’t be intimidated by things. Just tackle them, even if you don’t think you can. Have a little more courage.
The other side is that I had some really amazing mentors, but I also realized they were coming from their own points of view. They had their own perceptions of reality.
For a long time, I thought there had to be some guru or wizard on the hill. There had to be a mystic in a cave or some wise person who could teach me the secrets of the universe.
That person doesn’t exist.
It was disheartening and humbling to come to that realization and to come to grips with the idea that the best authority on spirituality is myself.
There are all these different perspectives and things we can learn. That’s absolutely fantastic. It’s okay that someone else’s perception is different. That diversity enriches the way we look at the universe.
Courtney: Look at Dragon Con.
Mark: Oh, yes! There’s literally every walk of life you can imagine here.
How a Spiritual Practice Continues to Change
Courtney: Many practitioners feel they are forever students. Thinking about what you currently believe about magick and energy, what do you feel might completely change your mind or your practice five or ten years from now?
Mark: In some ways, probably deepening my practice.
To use college as a metaphor, someone might take general studies, then have a major and minor, and maybe go into graduate work. In that regard, I’m starting to specialize more.
I’m working with the departed and spirits more than I did in the past. I used to work more with healing, and I still do that to some degree.
I’m an orphan, and I still deal with grief. Working with the dead is part of my own therapeutic process. It helps me make my life more manageable.
I’m also looking into ancestral practices and folk magick from my families of origin as a way of connecting with my ancestors and seeing who I am.
At the same time, I have to avoid falling into the very real trap of looking at the world through one lens.
I have to remind myself: Don’t look at everything through folk magick. Don’t look at everything through working with spirits. Don’t look at everything through your personal experience.
Look at things through other people’s experiences. Be inspired by different things.
I love science fiction. I’m a huge Babylon 5, Firefly, Star Trek and Star Wars fan. I really subscribe to the idea that magick is just science we haven’t figured out yet — to butcher the Arthur C. Clarke quote.
My partner and I were at an astronomical event because we both love space. We were watching a presentation on the birth of suns and how, when one sun is destroyed, it can contribute to the birth of another.
There’s this continuous cycle of death and rebirth, and that’s absolutely beautiful.
It made me stop and think: Are stars alive? Stars are dying and reproducing almost like cells in a human body. What is our definition of life?
We started having this awesome existential conversation.
Mixing science with spirituality is cool. Looking at things that aren’t necessarily your wheelhouse lets you see the commonalities while also being enriched by the differences in cultures, ideas and points of view.
I think that helps us in our personal growth and, definitely, the growth of our species.
Mark’s Advice for New Witches
Courtney: I do have to ask you, as a baby witch — a young practitioner learning my journey and figuring out what works for me — do you have any quick tips or anything that might help somebody along in their journey?
Mark: Absolutely.
One of the things I would say is: Have some fun in nature.
I say this as someone who grew up in Chicago. Even there, we had forest preserves. In this concrete jungle, there were these little pocket oases.
Connect to nature.
Also, cultivate your sense of beauty, wonder and awe. I love going to art museums. My partner is an amazing artist, and I’ve found that beauty is one of the easiest ways to connect to the divine and spiritual.
The things that inspire us, inspire our emotions and make us feel that we’re part of something greater than ourselves — that’s really the province of magick.
Cultivate wonder, but also kindness, compassion, empathy and wisdom. Cultivating those things in your magickal and non-magickal life cannot be overstated.
Read whatever you want. Don’t limit yourself. Just read everything you can. Be greedy with knowledge. It’s okay. You’re not going to gain spiritual weight!
Enjoy yourself and enjoy the journey.
I’d also say to look at humor, love and grace. Practitioners don’t always have enough grace with themselves, with other practitioners or even with their communities.
We don’t have concrete answers to every spiritual question. We don’t know how reincarnation works. There’s no concrete proof that reincarnation is happening.
As much as I judge my own magickal practice by practical results, there’s no way I can test some of these spiritual ideas.
So I need to have grace with you. I need to have grace with everyone.
And lastly, you’re not a baby witch.
You’re a witch.
Just claim it. Take in that power and claim who you are.
About Energy Magick
Mark NeCamp Jr.’s Energy Magick: A Basic & Advanced Guide for Witches & Pagans explores practicing magick through direct work with energy rather than relying on traditional tools. Drawing from his experience with energy healing, occult studies and different magickal traditions, the book is designed for both beginning and experienced practitioners.
Learn more and purchase Energy Magick
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