Devotional Magic as Daily Practice

Devotional Magic as Daily Practice

My devotional magic is just as vital as my ritual work.

I’ve been practicing for a decade now, but my spirit experiences began much earlier around the age of seventeen. Mediumship runs in my family: my aunt often saw spirits, and she was the only one who could get my grandmother to open her eyes in her final days of hospice care. When I was eighteen, a shadow figure entered my apartment. In fear, I prayed to every saint and angel I knew until it finally left. Afterward, I lined my windowsills with salt. From that day forward, blessings and protection prayers became a regular part of my practice.

In college, an ex introduced me to ceremonial magic. I loved the structure of timing rituals with planetary hours and angels. It gave me the same sense of sacred rhythm that church once had, but with empowerment at the center rather than obedience.

Now, years later, my focus has shifted. I’ve grown into devotional practice. Part of this comes with age, part with leaving behind the rigid patterns of school, and part with learning to feel safe enough to be open with my spirituality. In my early twenties, I worried people would dismiss me as just another “spacey art girl” who talked to ghosts. Now I see that devotional practice is less about proving anything to others, and more about deepening my own connection.

So what do I mean by devotional practice? To me, it is a small, repeated act of ritual that carries intention. It is rooted in curiosity and relationship rather than demand. When I first started ceremonial work, I often fumbled at the petition stage I didn’t know what to ask for, because what I really wanted was simply to know the spirits. Asking for favors felt rude. In truth, that desire to connect was itself a worthy intention.

Think about how we make new friends: we show up with consistency, with attention, with time. Devotion works the same way. For example, every morning my partner, who doesn’t even drink coffee, starts the coffee pot for me. That quiet act of love is a ritual in its own right. In my own practice, I light a candle in my office, trace a small circle with my finger, and invite the spirits to share their guidance for the day. These repetitions simple as they are create rhythm, structure, and meaning.

What makes devotion powerful is its individuality. Your devotional acts are yours alone shaped by your quirks, your pauses, your voice, your ancestral memory. They are an expression of your authentic spirit, a spark of divine selfhood no one else can replicate.

This, I believe, is what the church was always meant to nurture: unconditional love and the freedom to meet the divine in personal ways. But in my experience, organized religion often resists individuality, preferring rigid dogma to authentic expression. Devotional practice, however, allows us to reclaim that sacred freedom.

Of course, rituals still hold their place. Preparing the materials, planning the timing, and building up energy before the act is a powerful form of intentional focus. Joseph C. Lisiewski, in Ceremonial Magic, calls this process “subjective synthesis”, the mental weaving of belief and practice into a coherent system. That belief, combined with spirit and intention, fuels the transformation of herbs, words, and actions into tangible results.

But devotion carries that energy forward. Rituals may be the great meetings, the turning points; devotion is the steady conversation that keeps the relationship alive. Both are necessary. I cannot perform rituals every day, but I can weave devotion into my daily rhythm. And in that weaving, I keep my connection with the spirits alive, grounded, and real.