If you’re interested in (or a practitioner of) pretty much any Western occult tradition, you’ve heard about a distinction between low magick and high magick. The two terms are arguably opposites, but not necessarily contradictory (despite some people swearing differently). Practicing low magick doesn’t preclude practicing high magick and vice versa. Each practice has its purpose and its benefits, and they can be used in conjunction.
Low magick can blur into high magick, and high magick can blur into low magick. There is a spectrum rather than a discrete cut-over. Low magick benefits the magician in their mundane life, and high magick benefits the magician’s spiritual growth. It’s really hard to grow spiritually when you’re worried about rent, and it’s hard to worry about spiritual development when you can barely feed yourself. The line blurs when you need money to grow spiritually, or spiritual growth to live better.
These terms get more confusing when they get mixed in with ceremonial magick or Eastern practices. You start to get different dimensions and axes which don’t line up against the spectrum of low versus high without some creative interpretation. Let’s dive into what constitutes low magick and high magick first, address the difference, then look at how this fits in with ceremonial magick and Eastern practices.
What Is Low Magick?
Low magick is magick concerned with bringing material benefit to the practitioner. It is focused on the mundane rather than (direct) spiritual development and growth. Practitioners use it to improve their position in life rather than enhance their spiritual path.
Many spiritual works warn about low magick practice, but the warning is often misinterpreted. Low magick can provide material development which can intoxicate some and distract from spiritual pursuits with others. You need money to live, but it’s also easy to lose yourself in the journey for wealth. Balance is key.
Low magick is often seen as a lesser path because it can lead to temptation. It feels a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Low magick isn’t inherently bad as you need money to live (more now than ever) but it’s harder to mess up a journey for self-improvement.
You don’t get this distinction as much in Eastern practices such as esoteric Daoism, or other folk practices. Most books from China or Tibet I’ve read will reference low magick practices for money. It’s taken for granted that you have to be able to afford to live to focus on nobler pursuits after all.
Low magick is a Western affair. It’s an arbitrary distinction of magick focused on enriching the self. Left-hand paths, Goetic magick, and plenty of other frameworks have low magick in some form.
What Is High Magick?
High magick is focused on spiritual growth and development. Kabbalistic practices and many forms of ceremonial and ritual magick end up focusing almost exclusively on high magick. In the Western tradition, spiritual progress is considered the higher path.
High magick isn’t necessarily better for every person, but it is the way forward spiritually in the Western tradition. Some of this is a holdover from the influence of Abrahamic religions. Chritianity and the Church have shaped occult practices in Europe and the West in general, but Judaism and Islam have left their mark as well. Magick focused on the material world could be construed as Satanic or evil, while magick focused on spiritual progress was much harder to cast out.
Many grimoires in the West rely on Christian acceptance (even for other Abrahamic works). Most books which didn’t fit the framework of complete obedience were burned as heretical. Grimoires definitely show the mark of control as almost all of the surviving works build on a heavily Christian worldview.
Eastern traditions use low magick as the carrot towards high magick. You need money to exist like you need basic needs before you look for fulfillment on the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You need a baseline of material well-being to progress. Even Tibetan Buddhism includes practices to improve material well-being.
High magick focuses on spiritual matters. It’s much harder to condemn a practice which promises a bounty for doubling down on faith (which is why it flourished in the Western tradition). Works like the Ars Notoria relied on continuous prayers to the Christian God with esoteric practices which enhanced the effect. These works were largely ignored by the church because they only helped reinforce the fundamental ideal of obedience to God.
Which Is Better?
The simple answer to which practice is better is neither; each is a practice with different aims and goals. Low magick enhances your materialistic situation, while high magick focuses on spiritual progress. You’re comparing apples and oranges with the two; each has its own function and form.
You can read The True Black Magic and use it in conjunction with the loftiest parts of the Golden Dawn without there being a conflict. Low magick enables the magician to survive in modern times, high magick enables them to spiritually progress. The concepts occupy different dimensions, but have a linked effect. You can’t really focus on learning when you have to balance where you’ll stay.
Older, surviving works will prioritize the spiritual nature of occult practices. They treat high magick as Theurgy, and the only acceptable form of magick. The more pious the devotion to God, the less likely the work was destroyed. The magick gets lower as printing got easier and the church got less involved. One’s not necessarily better or worse than the other depending on why you need it or want it.
Modern living necessitates money. If magick can truly affect reality, it can impact one materialistically, for better and worse. Many traditions don’t really differentiate low and high magick in terms of their worth, but only in terms of their results. Some low magick bleeds over into higher magick in some practices, while the reverse is true as well. Low and high magick can be a spectrum (with some practices near the absolutes).
How Does Ceremonial Magick Fit In?
A hammer isn’t a force of good or evil; it’s a tool. Ceremonial magick, while typically associated with high magick, is a tool of magick. We won’t get into the pedantic delineations between ceremonial or ritual magick as discussed in some circles. There are ceremonies for low magick, and there are ceremonies for high magick as well. The difference is in the intent of the ceremony rather than the underlying methodology.
Eastern esoteric Daoism practices are ceremonial, but they apply to both low magick and high magick in a Western sense. Esoteric Buddhism can warm the body and the soul depending on why. Purpose defines the form of magick in Western occult practices, but other lineages don’t make the same differentiation.
Ceremonial magick or ritual magick are a form of practice rather than a system. The actual practice only impacts the method, not the intent or the purpose behind it. Low magick can have extremely complex ceremonies while high magick can have relatively simple ones. The difference is in the intent, not the packaging.
How Are Low and High Magick Applied in Eastern Traditions?
I’ve mentioned how in many Eastern traditions, low magick blends in with high magick. Your mileage may vary depending on tradition, but many of the more common religions or belief systems in the East don’t make a huge differentiation between needs and wants outside of their purpose. Money is a want to most, but a need for some. The high and low differentiation breaks down. There are going to be exceptions, but we’re painting with a wide brush for brevity’s sake.
Most occult traditions will prefer spiritual growth over materialistic pursuits, but most practices acknowledge some degree of materialism is required to survive. If the goal of magick is to spiritually flourish, why not allow the practitioner to live well as they advance? This dangling carrot may seem deceptive in many Western practices, but it is common in many Eastern religions. Western practices rely on Abrahamic values, but Eastern practices are free from this influence. Wealth is a reward depending on why rather than if.
Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, etc. all have esoteric and magical practices for wealth. Each group has its own deities and beings which influence wealth and material desires. Western traditions tend to see the mundane worldly desires as domains of demons (or daemons), but most Eastern traditions see them as compatible with spiritual processes. One does not preclude or affect the other.
You can find works in Tibetan Buddhism about entreating wealth gods as you can in Chinese Buddhism and Daosim. There are works in basically every major Eastern tradition about entreating wealth. Wealth can be a limitation or an enabler for spiritual growth and development. You can’t donate a fortune without having a fortune, and you can’t be tempted without temptation.
Conclusion
There are no explicit rejections of wealth in most traditions, just an implied rejection of the temptation wealth presents. It’s okay to be rich, it’s not okay to get there the wrong way. Some practices will try to reconcile this, other have more stringent rules. Eastern practices tend to (but not necessarily) view wealth as a reward as much as a punishment. It all depends on how you got it and what you do with it. A miser with money is more pathetic than a homeless man with brotherly love.
The Western tradition tends towards a split between low and high magick, but each has its place. Low magick brings forth your material desires, and high magick brings you spiritual growth. You can’t grow crops without rich soil, and rich soil is meaningless without seed. As long as you allow growth, it’s okay to pursue wealth in most traditions.
Low magick limits you to materialistic pursuits, while high magick limits you to spiritual ones. Each on its own is as much a limitation as it is an enabler. You need money to live, but you need spiritual meaning to thrive. Rich spiritual roots in material devoid soil wither as quickly as weak spiritual roots do in rich materialistic soil. There needs to be balance.
Neither tradition is the only answer to the world. You can practice both low magick and high magick without weakening one practice or the other. Magick is about growth, and to grow you need a solid foundation. Financial weakness is detrimental as spiritual pursuits. You need to be able to live in order to grow.
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