Charlatans, Magic & the End of the World

Awakening isn’t the end of the story—it’s the beginning of responsibility. As the scales tip toward Magic, our task is to remember the ancient ways—training, humility, and harmony with the Pattern.

Oct 20, 2025

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A Crash-Course in Magic

It’s been an interesting journey living on the leading edge of Magic for the past 22 years.

The early days looked a lot like scenes from the Karate Kid, practicing whatever was asked of me, however ridiculous it seemed.

There was a year of my life—when I was learning to understand the magic of doorways, gateways, and directions in the material world—that I spun in silly circles all the time. I was tasked with entering rooms in specific ways, opening my body toward or away from different circumstances, and I practiced it religiously. I was at university at the time, and I remember finding excuses to turn around in certain ways, so I wouldn’t just look like a whackadoo in front of an entire lecture hall.

There was a long while—when I was learning the magic of numbers—when I was tasked with counting everything. I ticked off numbers in my mind as I washed my hands… walked down the street… hummed a tune… learning to stop at precisely the right number for the moment.

At the time, it was hard to find people to talk to about that sort of thing.

I confided in my mom, who, in spite of her own magical background, thought I was being ridiculously rigorous.

“I’m just doing what I’m told,” I insisted.

My teacher got it. So did the magical older woman who “coincidentally” moved into the bunk house I was living in.

Marlene LaVonne remembered me instantly from a past life, called me Amelia, and told fabulous stories about traveling Europe and meeting soul friends and past-life lovers. She taught me how to ground into the Earth… how to clear men’s energy out of my body after sex… and she told fabulous stories about exploring Europe as a magical woman.

In those days, I never thought about where my training would take me. Everyone seemed to be chasing something… trying to get somewhere.

I simply liked the way magic felt in my body.

I liked that when I listened to my guides and trusted my intuition, I didn’t feel so alone in the world and Beauty showed up everywhere.

I remember telling my mom once that I thought enlightenment might simply mean that it would be easier to be kind.

Just that.

I wrote, of course, because writing has always called to me, but I never dreamed I’d be a writer… much less a teacher of Magic. These were simply things I loved. Things that felt important for reasons I couldn’t name.

The End (or Beginning) of the World

By 2012, I’d been training my Seeing for years. Those closest to me knew that Magic was central to my life.

When the whole woo-woo world was talking about the world ending in 2012, I Saw something very different—a Choice.

To me, 2012 appeared as a tipping point. A moment when our world would decide whether to move toward a Magical future or not. The decision lay upon the edge of knife, and I watched for months and years with bated breath, not knowing which way the scales would tip and hoping that humanity would choose Magic once again.

A friend of mine with a keen interest in magic had let his skepticism get the better of him for years. He longed to re-member the ancient magic more than anyone I’d ever met, but he couldn’t quite believe in it.

To me—he felt like the last straw. Somehow I knew that if Charles* chose to walk the Path of Magic, the world would too.

But it never occurred to me then that Magic might be the more dangerous choice.

The Winter Solstice 2012 passed uneventfully. As I bathed naked in a sacred hot spring under the moon at an informal gathering of women who also chose to spend the “end of the world” at that spot, I remember looking up at the stars and feeling so much hope.

We made our Choice.

The people of Earth chose to open to Magic once more, to embrace what is possible when we connect with this world and allow Her to work through us.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought we chose.

The invisible pressure of whether or not the world would choose magic quietly disappeared. My social media feeds became filled with previously marginalized spiritual language. Everyday folk started using terms like energy, trauma-awareness, ancestral healing.

It wasn’t long before my friend who had always resisted magic started seriously training with a traditional shaman.

What happened next should have told me everything, but I didn’t yet know how to read the signs.

… And hindsight is 20/20.

When Magic Goes Wrong

Charles was a well-meaning guy. A bit of a blunderer at times, and often too life-avoidant for my personal taste, but he had a good heart and wanted to do the right thing.

A year or more into his training, he had begun to dabble in energy magic, healing, and various other magical practices… but he was still a long way from mastering anything.

When a friend of his was diagnosed with cancer, he offered to help—to see if there was anything he could magically see or do to help heal her. When he looked at her abdomen—where the cancer was—he saw a huge mass there, and proceeded to energetically remove it.

Feeling satisfied with his work, he left.
She died two days later.

After her death, he learned that she had many magical friends who had offered their healing services—including one, who had placed a beautiful ball of healing light in her abdomen to protect her from the cancer. After that treatment, she had improved remarkably.

Charles had removed it.

To me, it was like hearing a story about a third-grader trying to fly an airplane and crashing to the ground in a ball of smoke and fire.

But Charles felt like it was an honest mistake that anyone could have made.

Playing with Magic

All those years I spent hoping the world would come back to magic, I had never considered the risk. I never once imagined a world where people would wake up and—not knowing how to train their powers—would begin flinging around magic like a child’s game!

I never dreamed that half-trained novices, inspired by newfound powers would dub themselves teachers on the internet and begin spreading methodologies without the training to hold space for different kinds of people, magic, trauma reactions, and more.

I never considered how many people—new to magic and so excited to be awake and alive—would not realize that there is a reason Mystery schools were kept secret. A reason that secret societies didn’t share their inner workings. A reason that so many magical trainings were so rigorous. A reason Initiates were tested, trained, and moved up the ranks…

Messy magic will f*ck you up, my friends!

And right now, it’s all around us!

It’s Not Rocket Surgery—It’s Much More Precise

I can only say—as my mentor said before me—mea maxima culpa. I worked and prayed for this. I dreamed and danced into the reality of a magical world where humans would once again find our place in the Great Pattern.

But I forgot that our world doesn’t have the structures in place to train masses of awakened humans! In that void, charlatans have risen up in the thousands.

Usually well-intentioned, these are usually novices without the breadth of knowledge, experiences, or resources to support people on the unpredictable Path of Awakening.

When not approached with caution…
magical training can cause trauma!

Raise your hand if you’ve experienced one or more of these:

Diving too fast and too hard into spiritual or healing work—burning yourself out or causing wounding
Trying to help someone magically and accidentally causing harm.
Merging, meshing, melding with others, taking people on and being unable to extricate yourself from their energy.
Protecting yourself by building walls, spikes, or otherwise littering your energetic space with medieval methods for staying “safe”.
Intense anxiety after awakening that modern methods can’t seem to address without medicating your sensitivity and gifts away.

All these issues and so many more can be avoided if we only take the time to train in the principles and practices of magic.

This isn’t rocket science or brain surgery. Magic is much more precise.

And it’s different for everyone. There are no hard-and-fast rules that you can simply read in the manual for Planet Earth.

What is your ancestors’ magic?

What past lives are influencing you here?

What childhood experiences have activated sacred gifts in this body?

Are you connected with off-world energies, Nature spirits, or the Otherworld?

All these questions and so so so many more make YOUR magic infinitudinally unique!

So for those of you who are really interested in Magic—find your teachers. Vet them. Test them with your mind and your heart and your gut. Trust yourself if anything feels off. Make sure they’re grounded. Verify them. Ask questions. Try on practices.

And for Earth’s sake… please practice, practice, practice before you run around flinging Magic everywhere!

There’s enough to clean up with the muggles running amok. I know you’ve got good intentions, but we can’t afford to have bulls running around this china shop.

Our world is too precious.

We need magical folk harmonizing with the Pattern, not adding more chaos to the pot.

It’s hard to come out and talk about this. I’ve always been gentle… strategically political even, when talking about magic, so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings.

But no one is talking about this. And I’m watching (and feeling) the fallout all around me as we play at magic like a child’s game.

How to Spot a Charlatan

Pretty much any spiritual teacher who tells you they’re right… that you should believe them… or that you should do anything that doesn’t feel right to you is probably dangerous.

Including me (if I ever do that)! Double… triple… quadruple check everything with your intuition, your heart, and your inner knowing.

Trustworthy teachers will tell you to trust yourself and look inside for your answers.

The best ones will help you learn how to find your own answers—actually teaching you how to fish instead of just making you fish n’chips.

If you’re looking for someone who can See your Magic, help you learn to listen to your own inner voice, and guide you to discover your spiritual gifts…

My gift is guiding magical humans toward practices that support your magical training and development. The magic of our ancestors is alive and well on Planet Earth.