The first rule of avoiding Junk Magic: You can’t care what it looks like.

You likely won’t know what is going to be most powerful and profound for you until you’re actually doing it.

When we say that someone is practicing magic, that really means they are just exploring. There is nothing wrong with practicing or exploring magic, although it may not be yet at its peak power. If you are learning magic and beginning different practices, you are a magic practitioner.

But once you begin to really work the magic, to step into your power, to use the rites and rituals of your chosen field of magic and to experience results from those rites, you are no longer a practitioner. You aren’t practicing anymore. At that point I would say you are working magic (doing magical workings) and you are a magician, not a practitioner.

There are a lot of practitioners out there who dabble at the magical and mystical arts. Some do so for very good reasons — they want to learn and aren’t sure what field will most attract them. They’re a solo practitioner, trying to learn the ropes without a mentor or egregore. They have multiple fields of interest and want to find out which will speak most powerfully to what they wish to do.

And then there are magicians, who in essence have found their way and are doing the work. Some of…