"Ascend into the unity that is darkness, descend into the madness that is light." People have been telling me this since I was five, I've noticed a few things that clog the mind when trying to practice magic, the following.
-Emotions
-Sickness
-Religion
-Fear
-Family or Friends Judging you.
First, I was raised to have no emotions, and I see that emotions are not real, the reason we think they are real is that we a raised to think they are. When doing magic most people are distracted by the thoughts, "I'm so mad." "My life is so sad," and, "My boyfriend doesn't love me anymore," I also say that love isn't real, animals don't have love, they have no emotions, and we think of humans as superior, why? It seems to me that animals have something that we need, to be cold and stoic.
Second, sickness is never as bad as we think it is, we have a natural need for power, we make ourselves feel sick in order for us to make people do things for us, such as, "Can you make me soup?" "Can you pick up my shift?" Or "Can you drive me somewhere?" if we did not care about these trivial needs we would rid our bodies of the sickness very much faster then we do, but since we want people to do things they would not do when we are healthy, we lengthen our sickness.
Third, religion, most major religions look down on magic, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and others seem to think that magic, "Interferes with God's will," we need to understand that they want us to stop doing magic so they have power over us, if we listened to everything our religions tell us, we would be fully vunerably to any lies they try to force upon us, personally, I don't belive in God, and understanding that God doesn't exist just makes you think that it doesn't matter who's God is the real God, we're all going to Hell (or it's equivilent,) Any and all Gods don't care about us, they care about the planet, and the biggest sin is destroying the planet, so anyone that's ever been in a car, wrote on paper, ate meat, or turned on a light is a going to hell.
Finally, fear of family and friends judging you is a big hairball in the drain of good magic casting, if your mind is constantly thinking, "is the door locked?" "Is someone home?" Or "I hope nobody sees me doing magic," you will be too distracted to do magic correctly anyway, so you may as well not do magic at all, only perform magic if those around you know and don't mind.
Also, the quote at the top of the post is from the man that taught me that light is deadly, and darkness brings us together, as Gods are commonly depicted as having bright light around them, and darkness is always peaceful, constant, quite, and beautiful. Many people die because of God daily, most wars start with a religious argument. Think about it, what's more evil? Something that kills hundreds of thoudands of people, or something that wants us to be together, peacefully?
-Nikita V. Shlarzliya.
-Quote by Viktor T. Tilley.
-Proof read by Nick G. McCardy.