Magic vs. Magick

Although the title of this post may sound like a contest or a game of some kind to see who wins out, the two spellings here highlight a subtlety of difference in the same understanding.

To begin with, let us throw out the idea of stage magic, for I am not referring to this with either spelling.

Also, let me share the importance of my understanding and knowledge in this post as it relates to my practice, whether you use one or two spellings of magic, or even the word at all: when you are experiencing health and wholeness, and you come to taste and touch on what this means and may mean, you might say the magic of life meets you, gives you the freedom to feel who you really are and might be.

Magic, however you spell it, which I will get to in a moment--experiencing it becomes a marker on the road to being yourself and to reaching wholeness.

I have previously defined magick with the letter k, to distinguish it from stage magic.  For all intents and purposes right now, unless I indicate otherwise, I am talking about the same magick when I spell it without a k.  Magic and magick then, from this point on, are interchangeable and synonymous on this site, unless I purposely refer to stage magic, which would be a separate definition.

If magic and magick are the same in essence when I mention either, what is the subtle difference between them?

Consider magick a formal definition of the word, which I have used purposefully to reference those who practice it and how it may have been understood and referenced in times past, not to mention current practitioners' usage of it.

There is truly something magical about the word, and powerful.

To conjure my definition again for magick:

A shift in perspective of reality where mystery and symbols hold power and the key to providing answers and knowledge which can alter reality.

More recently, I have used the word magic without a k and essentially meant the same thing.

However, when I have said magic more recently, I have been referring to a less formalized feeling and expression and experience of what it means, as in the life around and about you providing you with moments that feel like magic, are made up of magic, contain magic, to the point that you really understand and do believe in magic and know what it means in those moments.

Again, it marks progress in life.

Now whether you wield it formally or not, and whether I myself have more to say on that--honestly, I would not have much to say right now due to lack of knowing, and this perhaps may never change.  I do believe in its practice though.

I consider the formally defined magick the same as the experience of magic in life, and to distinguish them further does not seem to be required at this point in my practice.

Being who we are, there becomes no greater magic than this.

This I truly believe and know.