OCCULT SWORDPLAY

by Fenwick Rysen

In a field lit only by moonlight and the distant glow of the city beyond
the horizon, Michael stood and faced his opponent, a master who calmly
regarded him as a hunter might regard his prey. The eyes in that face were
the same piercing color as the sword he bore at his side, an unforgiving
steel grey that pierced by gaze alone. Steel grey. Live steel. A real
sword, not the shinai or the bokken, the bamboo and wooden practice swords
he had trained with. A real sword. A real battle. His first battle. The
master gave a slight bow, which Michael returned. The drawing of blades
was silent as silk upon silk, marked only by the reflection of moonlight
from twin blades as the battle was enjoined.

The topic of occult swordplay is one that seems to fill our myths, legends,
and fantasies so much so that it has even given rise to the cliche of "sword
and sorcery" yet somehow has remained, for the most part, a region unexplored
by modern occultism. I have maintained a practice in swordplay almost as long
as I have in magick, and have spent years exploring it and learning it through
a combination of reasoned thought, informed guesses, developed intuition, and
plain old blind luck. I was lucky enough for one year to study under a
teacher of occult swordplay, though such teachers are exceedingly rare and
often unwilling to teach. More often I have sparred with others who shared my
curiosity and we have uncovered new ground together. Never have I come across
a single written source of factual occult swordplay, even though nearly one in
two occultists I have met have said that they would be immensely interested in
the art if it existed. Most of them conclude that the lack of literature
means that there is no viable tradition that combines the techniques of
western magick with the art of the sword. Yet this is not so.

My own training, coming as it does from many sources, is typical of the occult
swordsmen I have met in my journeys. Just as magick is a highly personal
path, so too is that of occult swordplay. The techniques can be taught and
the principles shown, but ultimately you must make it a part of yourself as a
personal expression of the art. No amount of book knowledge will ever
substitute for the innovation and insight of true practice. It has been my
goal for some time to write a primer for many of the techniques of occult
swordplay that I have been taught or uncovered, yet I never wrote because I
could not perfect them. One day I realized that they can never be perfected;
I will always be learning, there will always be more to do. I have
successfully taught them to others, so I must be doing something right. And
so I now write down my thoughts so that others might play with what I have
learned and uncover more for themselves. I will assume that that student of
occult swordplay has invested the time to master both arts independently and
instead devote my time to writing of occult swordplay itself. Those who have
not gained skill in magick should take up any form of that art that interests
them, and those who have not used a sword should either find a medieval
historical re-enactment group through a Renaissance Fair guild or the Society
for Creative Anachronism, or join a respected dojo that teaches Japanese Kendo
and Iaido. The techniques of occult swordplay are wonderful practice while
learning both arts, but cannot be mastered until you have achieved reasonable
levels of skill in each art independently.

====================
ENJOINING THE BATTLE
====================
 Those steel grey eyes. The eyes of his teacher, his mentor, his opponent.
It seemed impossible that he could have learned enough to defeat this man
who had taught him everything he knew. Yet that wasn't so; he had been
taught, yes, but taught to find his own path, his own techniques, his own
form of the art. He drew in the power of Mars and of Water simultaneously,
seemingly dissimilar forces that together in Michael evoked the fiercest
yet most fluid action. The invocation filled his being, shaping his body
in a deep-seated crab stance with his sword above his head, edge up with
point down and toward his opponent's knees, a stance which the master had
never seen, never taught. His own path. His own innovation. With wide
steps he circled to the right seeking an opening in which to strike, yet
something felt odd---his deeper intuition spoke as impressions as he
realized the master drew in a force he had not felt before, pressing it by
will alone into the blade until his intuition sensed that sword not as
steel, but as a glowing and crackling column of force. Grounding out
sudden panic in a single breath, Michael pulled back to parry as the swift
attacks descended, each one blocked perfectly, wide swift steps carrying
him backwards as he retreated under the onslaught of the glowing blade.
The echo of steel on steel filled the shallow valley of the silent field.

The fiction of occult swordplay is as far removed from reality as fictional

magick is from true occult tradition. Both are very rarely flashy or
impressive, and if you didn't know better you'd say nothing had happened at
all. Yet after studying it for some time, you begin to see where many of the
stories, myths, and legends draw their roots. The stories of intelligent
swords that show their owners how to use them from the tradition of awakened
blades, of swords that glow with force from the auras that a blade can cast
for many reasons, of swords that give vitality to their wielders or take it
away from a variety of vampiric enchantments, of men possessed by gods when
wielding a weapon from moving invocations. Most of the "sword and sorcery"
fiction that you read draws from the exaggeration of a true skill, or can be
stripped of its flash to hint at the possibility of a feasible new technique.
Likewise, many of the warnings you see in fiction are only exaggerations of
the true dangers to the art. With a little bit of common sense, respect for
the blade, and a touch of honor, all of the perils can be avoided.

When you start practicing occult swordplay, it's usually a good idea to let
your practice opponents know. Some people want an "honest fight" of physical
skill against physical skill, which is a valid desire. While most of the
techniques of occult swordplay are internal to the self or the sword, some of
them are based on the manipulation of the opponent through magick. Many
people have moral and philosophical objections to such acts, and it's wiser to
let someone know about it early instead of them figuring it out later and get
upset at you. Some people are also incapable of defending themselves
magickally against some of the invasive techniques, and unless you have
copious amounts of experience you can easily cause damage to other person that
they are not capable of fixing. For example, ordering a summoned demon
against the opponent while you press the attack works wonderfully against a
true foe, but might not be the brightest thing to do to a sparring partner who
lacks the skill to repair or repulse any damage that might be done. Even if
they do have the skill, they may not want to get themselves into the situation
where they have to use that skill. Using the more invasive, offensive, and
vicious techniques of occult swordplay does give you an edge in combat, but
it's also the quickest way to ensure that potential sparring partners refuse
to fight you at all. If you want to practice those types of tricks, find
other magicians who are also curious and practice using them on each other.
Remember that the primary purpose of occult swordplay is the swordplay; the
occult aspects are simply tools to give you an advantage in combat, they
aren't the be all and end all of the art. A sword will dispatch or defend you
more readily than magick will---your swordplay will direct how you use your
magick, not vice versa.

Most magick takes time. Even the simplest sigil-casting techniques of magick
require the time to create a sigil and empower it. With practice this can be
done in under a minute, but the speed of a combat situation will not allow you
the luxury of taking your time to create a magickal effect. You must instead
learn to speed up your magick, to make it nearly instantaneous. In order to
do this, you must already be intimately familiar with how to create a magickal
effect using the "slow" traditional means; you must know in great detail
exactly how it feels to cause a magickal effect, because it is this feel that
you will latch onto, discarding all of the props, and using the effect by
itself. The most useful way to speed up these magickal effects is to learn to
do them in a single breath. Because most occult swordplay techniques used in
combat deal with the moving of energy, you can simplify most effects to a
pushing away of energy that you combine with an outward breath, and a drawing
in of energy that you combine with an inward breath. Other methods can be
used (and will be discussed later), but the action of breathing seems to be a
quick, reliable, easily taught, and simple to use anchor for implementing
nearly any magickal effect in combat. Meditate on this.

==============================
THE BASICS OF OCCULT SWORDPLAY
==============================

And then he felt it---blade met flesh, and he was left with the slightest
of cuts on the thigh he had failed to defend. The control of the master
was exact; he could have taken an entire leg had the goal of the battle
been to kill. Almost no blood at all came from the wound, but already he
felt the energy the master had left behind by the strike; it worked into
the muscle, the feel of fatigue, bruise, and stiffness coming on already.
With a single breath he banished the energy, yet some remained, an anchor
the master could use for further magickal attacks. The master had
retreated to observe him, the goal of the first attack met.

Anyone with minor skill in both magick and swordplay can learn the simplest
techniques to this art. These are the most common techniques, the most
practical, as well as the most unimpressive. They tend to be subtle, simple
techniques whose sole purpose is to provide you with a slight edge in a
swordfight and to prevent others from using similar techniques against you.
They're non-invasive, usually affecting just yourself and not your opponent,
and because of this it's often very hard to tell when someone is using them at
all. You can watch an entire bout and not have any clue that the victor won
through the subtle use of applied magick; oftentimes even the opponent will
have been unaware of the use of magick unless it was specifically turned
against him. This camouflage is perhaps one of the greatest strengths of true
occult swordplay. Those of insecure nature tend to go around advertising the
fact that they know how to use magick with their sword, thus putting their
opponents on guard. The best occult swordsmen have learned the value of the
fourth line of the hermetic maxim, "to remain silent", and keep their bag of
tricks guarded so as to surprise the opponent in combat. Learn as many of
these as you can, master those you find most useful, and always keep the other
person guessing as to what you're capable of.

---------------
GROUND & CENTER

This is the simplest of all techniques of occult swordplay, and gives you such
an edge over those that cannot master it that it has become an integral part
of most sword arts even if they are devoid of any other magick. In the sword
arts it is seen as the inner peace, calm, and poise that a swordsman strives
towards in combat. From that peaceful place, he is able to control fear,
anger, worry, and all other emotions that might otherwise erode his skill in a
fight. Magicians often seek this same place through the techniques of
grounding and centering, bringing their minds to a calm position in the
present that feels fear, anger, worry, and other emotions as impressions that
do not alter his thoughts or his actions unless he chooses them to. The
occult arts and sword arts alike both familiarize the student with this state
through meditation. You should already know the exact mental state of which I
speak; if you don't, then you need to work on your magick some more or you'll
never have any hope of learning occult swordplay.

It's wise to ground and center before combat, though you may not always have
much time. It should be quick and instantaneous---banishing rituals and other
rubric used by magicians to achieve the state must be discarded. Banishing
rituals, meditation, and deep-breathing exercises will show you the state
towards which to strive, but you must be able to instantly enter it once
familiar with it; it should become reflex. If you find yourself panicked or
disoriented or wildly emotional in combat, you should be able to immediately
re-enter that state with a single thought and regain your composure. If you
have trouble in grounding and centering, simple breathing exercises can help.
As you breath, use your breath to push your energy into the ground, letting
any unwanted thoughts and emotions ground out with the act. Once you can
successfully do this with a single breath, or better yet with a single
thought, you will have mastered this technique. Even though it's simple, and
even if you're a good magician, don't be surprised if it takes a while to
master this one. You'll have plenty of opportunity to practice.

------------
THE ELEMENTS

The style of occult swordplay I was taught drew heavily from the structure of
ceremonial magick, and thus placed a great emphasis on the four elements:
Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. Each of the elements represents a different
style of combat, and though the forces used are the same, their manifestations
within each individual is different. You can get a good feel for the style of
each element by standing in a neutral position, ready for combat, and invoking
the element you wish, letting it control your posture. As you invoke it,
where do your hands feel like they should be? How should you hold the sword?
How do you stand? How deep is your stance? How much to you turn towards or
away from your opponent? How do you place your hips and shoulders? Where are
your arms? Once you have this posture, try practice strikes against imaginary
foes and see how that element feels. Block or evade imaginary attacks; get a
true feel for the motion of the element expressing itself through your
swordplay.

Once you have a feel for each element, combine them as primary and secondary.
If you like the feel of Fire, try invoking Air of Fire, Earth of Fire, Water
of Fire, and lastly Fire of Fire. These combinations create a total of
sixteen different styles of combat that work excellently for those who have a
fondness for elemental work. If you aren't as fond of elemental magick this
may not work for you but still remains an interesting exercise to undertake.
Invocation in combat is not quite the same as it is in a temple space---once
again, it is quick, instantaneous, reflexive. You should practice elemental
magick until you are familiar enough with these states to instantly enter them
in a swordfight. You should also remain flexible enough to change between
them instantly. When pressing a violent series of attacks as Fire of Fire, it
might be useful when the tide turns to switch to a more defensive Water of
Fire or perhaps Water of Earth.

If you watch anyone fighting (whether they are an occult swordsman or not),
you can easily classify the style of fighting they are using into one of these
sixteen forms, which can be useful information in deciding a form to use to
counter it. Fire tends to be quick, agile, and aggressive with several rapid
strikes coming in a flurry. It can change direction at a moment's notice, and
very rarely remains still. Fire is unpredictable, rash, and violent. Air is
more graceful, the strokes of the sword often seeming to drift from one stroke
to the next in fluid arcs. It can blow forward or back with equal ease, and
tends to either parry blows as you retreat or simply not be there when the
opponent's sword strikes. The footwork is almost like a dance. Air is
thoughtful, intellectual, and observant. Water can only be described as
fluid. It is heavy, flowing as it strikes, yet it does not flow as lightly as
Air, being heavier and more firm in its blows, like the crashing of waves. It
is pensive, calm, and compassionate. Earth is simply solid. It makes use of
force over finesse, often overpowering an opponent or meeting them with equal
force. It rarely retreats, but it also rarely advances, being firm-rooted and
heavily defensive. When it moves, it is with firm and calculated steps. Most
traditional sword-art schools (especially those of the West) teach "earthy"
techniques first. Earth is firm, defensive, and forceful.

All of these can be combined, so that while taking the heavily defensive
position of Earth you use Fire of Earth to deliver rapid, pummeling attacks to
keep the opponent at bay as opposed to the slower, stronger strokes that Earth
of Earth would use. Earth of Fire, on the other hand, tends to press an
attack relentlessly with strong, forceful blows that seek to overwhelm and
overpower the opponent. Fire of Air (my personal favorite) tends to dance
away from the opponent as he attacks, then presses inward without warning to
deliver several rapid attacks before retreating again. Water of Air and Air
of Water look almost like kata as the practitioner flows from motion to motion
without effort. All sixteen combinations are viable, and well worth
exploring. Elementalism in occult swordplay isn't so much an actual occult
technique as it is an occult mechanism that allows you to teach yourself a
diverse repertoire of offensive and defensive strategies, especially if you
can successfully invoke the forces to see how they work through you. You will
probably find that you tend to favor a handful of them, but familiarity with
the others will serve you well under changing battle conditions.

-----------------------------
THE BLADE AS BODILY EXTENSION

If you have progressed enough in your occult skills to at least sense if not
actually see auras, you may notice something odd when a person bears a sword
in their hands that they intend to use---the aura of that person actually
begins to extend up the blade. This is not as pronounced in those who do not
intend to or know how to use a sword, is more pronounced if the person is
bearing their own blade (regardless of whether it's just a bamboo shinai or
live steel), and is always stronger if the person is exceedingly well-skilled
in his occult or sword skills to a point approaching mastery. This phenomenon
gives rise to some interesting mechanics in occult swordplay, for with the
aura of the blade involved, the combat may take place not only on a physical
level but on an aethyric one as well. The aura of a blade in the hands of a
skilled magician forms the basis for most techniques of occult swordplay; when
your blade strikes the opponent's sword or the opponent himself, that contact
point can be used to initiate dozens of different magickal techniques. The
blade becomes an extension of the body and the cunning magician will realize
that he can utilize it as he would any other part of his body. Through
breathing exercises, force of will, and other occult techniques energy of any
sort can be run into a sword, drawn out of it, circulated through it,
transmitted from it, or forced into it.

Oftentimes in occult ritual, bodily contact with the person to be affected can
help the magician to be more effective in the achievement of his goals; for
example, a healing ritual consisting of "channeling energy" through themselves
and into another person, or of passing an invocation to another person by
having them breathe in the air that you breathe out. Everyone has a different
explanation for the mechanism that makes such contact useful in magick,
suffice it to say that it often does. This contact is often extended in
magick through the use of a ritual wand or staff, or other occult tools.
There is absolutely no reason why the sword cannot be used in the same manner
during combat.

This dynamic in occult swordplay forms the core around which most of the basic
techniques actually work. Careful thought on this will yield many possible
applications, the most practical of which is the ability to impress energy
into an opponent's aura when you strike him.

--------------------------------
IMPRESSING AND REMOVING A STRIKE

When you are struck with a sword, the strike occurs not only on a physical
level, but on an aethyric level as well. Because the sword is an extension of
your opponents body and of his will, a successful strike will transfer energy
from the sword into the wound. This foreign energy can cause greater
bruising, muscle fatigue, and other effects. This occurs even with people who
are untrained and unaware of the occult arts. The magician can amplify this
effect, "impressing" energy into his opponent with the strike to cause greater
pain, fatigue, bruising, etc. He may also remove this energy when struck
himself to prevent these effects.

Different occult arts teach different methods of manipulating or moving

"energies", so you should use whatever method you are familiar with to assist
in this technique. Once again, swordplay will not allow you the luxury of
time to prepare elaborate visualizations or power words, so combining the
intent with your breathing is one of the simplest and most effective methods
of both impressing and removing a strike. Whenever you strike with the sword,
it should be with an outward breath. With practice, you can use this outward
breath to push energy down your sword and into your opponent's aura. If you
have ever witnessed master martial artist use a Chi strike that seemed to have
little physical effect but left a person in great pain with massive bruising
and muscle damage, you have witnessed a similar effect to what we are aiming
to achieve with the sword. Once you are good enough, you can even use the
energy left behind as a sympathetic link to create further magickal effects,
though exactly what effects those are will be best left to your own skill
level and ingenuity.

The ability to remove a strike is the logical counterpart to the ability to

impress a strike---there's no point in knowing how to use a technique unless
you know how to reverse it. The magickal axiom of "Don't call up what you
can't put down" can be readily applied to this situation. Because you'll
probably be practicing with others and learning as you go, it would be nice to
remove a strike from yourself and from your friends so as to prevent the full
effect of an impressed strike, which can last for days or weeks when executed
properly. In combat, this can be done by pushing the energy away from you or
grounding it out with an exhale. Push your own energy back into the place
where the strike occurred, thus forcing the other energy out of the wound. If
combat has ended and you suffered any particularly hard blows, I have been
rather fond of energetic bodywork techniques to remove leftover energy. The
simplest of these is to sweep over the wound with your hand, "scooping up" or
"sweeping away" or "pulling out" the foreign energy as you inhale---transfer
the foreign energy from the wound to your hand---and with a violent exhale,
shake the energy off of your hand and away from you, as if you were trying to
flick off water. Repeat this as many times as you feel necessary.

You will find that even doing this to wounds that weren't purposely impressed
will cut down on the amount of bruising, muscle fatigue, and pain you receive
from blows with practice swords. If you have been unfortunate enough to
receive a blow with a real sword, it can speed the time it takes the wound to
heal.

------------
PAIN CONTROL

This technique is not so much an actual magickal skill as it is a trained

physical one, but the techniques of occult training can help in developing it.
Pain is an unavoidable aspect of swordplay, for no matter how good you are,
sooner or later you're going to get hit. Even if it's just with bamboo
practice swords, a solid hit to the knuckles or an accidental jab to the neck
really hurts.

Pain comes in two types---the initial sharp pain that lets you know you have
been hurt, and then the dull pain that continues to remind you that you are
hurt. It takes a great deal of practice to learn to overcome sharp pain, but
since it lasts only a moment the beginning occult swordsman can accept it for
now and move on towards overcoming the dull secondary pain, which is his true
enemy. A great majority of people have a hypochondriacal reaction to pain,
clutching the wounded area and making a bigger deal out of it than it really
is. Usually this is because of a trained psychological dysfunction that
acting wounded will gain attention from those around you, the degree to which
it is acted out depending upon the individual. Another reaction one often
sees is that when hurt someone will draw inward, shunning contact from others.
Neither of these reactions are appropriate during swordplay---giving in to
pain will give your opponent an advantage you don't need to give him. Your
reaction to pain needs to become one of acknowledgment and self-confidence:
admit to yourself that you have been hurt, but remind yourself that you are
strong enough to go on. There's not really that much you can do to stop the
pain at the moment anyway---there will be time to lick your wounds later, when
combat is over.

This can play to your advantage as psychological warfare during combat. An

opponent that strikes you and sees you react to great pain will gain
confidence and use any advantage he sees in your diminished reaction.
However, if he strikes you hard only to find that he apparently hasn't hurt
you, he may lose confidence and realize that he is fighting an opponent that
will be difficult to defeat. And truth be told, once you can develop this
reaction to pain, you *will* be harder to defeat.

Meditation on the nature of pain and taking careful note of your reaction to
it are the best ways to develop the proper metal attitude. As to actually
controlling pain itself, breathing is once again a very useful technique.
Using slow, firm, deep breaths will often cause pain to subside, even without
using occult techniques. By using the skills you are learning to move energy
through your body and sword, you can either breath the pain out or ground it
out. With more practice and greater skill, you can actually transmit that
pain to your opponent through contact between swords, through a successful
attack, through the use of servitors, or through force of will alone---but
we'll get to all of that soon enough.

------------------------------
GROUNDING THE OPPONENT'S SWORD

This is one of those tricks that is so subtle that most people don't realize
that it's being used, yet can be so efficient that used alone it can be the
deciding factor in the outcome of a battle. It does, however, require
slightly more skill on the part of the swordsman, as it is not a thing that
you simply do and then forget about it, but a task that must be continually
concentrated upon throughout the course of battle.

Remember when we mentioned that most people will project their aura up the
blade of a sword, and that this can be used as the basis of several
techniques? Most of those techniques involve transmitting energy through the
blade, though logically you should be able to do the opposite as well---enter
the ability to ground out your opponent's sword. Instead of projecting energy
into your sword, you draw energy into it from the contact point you have with
your opponent's blade. This will only work if your opponent fights at a range
and with a style that either allows constant or frequent contact between
swords. This might make it a little more difficult, because you will need to
be concentrating upon this technique at the same time that you are rapidly
attacking and parrying.

Most opponents will continue to send energy into their blade when it is being
drained off. If they continue to let this happen (and perhaps 75% of the
people you fight will) it will become tiresome after a while, and they will
slow down, losing reaction time, strength, and agility. His mind sometimes
begins to slow as well, and he makes more mistakes. This won't work on all
people---some people, either through intuition, high willpower, or magickal
training, seem to sense that their blade is being drained, and will not
continue to invest their energy in the blade. It also usually won't work if
the opponent knows you're trying to do it, even if they have no magickal
training. This technique works best when your opponent doesn't know your
doing anything at all.

When you do this, some people get the bright idea that they can become a
psychic vampire and use that energy for themselves. While I have seen this
done by a few skilled individuals, most people are so unskilled in psychic
vampirism that all they do is get a headache. I've also seen people unable to
process that energy after drawing it in pick up the mannerisms, speech
patterns, and habits of the person they drew from. Leave psychic vampirism to
those who've dedicated the time to it that it takes to master it---after all,
with this technique we're talking about drawing off the better portion of your
opponent's energy, not simply a small light psychic snack. It is usually
easier to just take the energy from the opponent and ground it out, as this
requires no real skill in energy manipulation on your part, lets you ground
out massive amounts of energy at little expenditure, and you never have to
worry about the earth becoming satiated and refusing to take the energy
because it has a full stomach.

Some people may object to the morals of this technique, and I leave it up to
the individual to decide any such ethics for themself. I certainly don't
think you should drain an unsuspecting practice partner dry, but that's partly
because drained sparring partners aren't much fun to practice with after
you've successfully completed this technique. I highly recommend learning the
techniques from the "Licking your Wounds" section (not yet completed) so that
you can patch up any damage to friends or self in practice with this one.
------------------------------------
PROJECTING INTO THE OPPONENT'S SWORD

Not only can you ground out the opponent's sword, you can also project energy
into it. This is a bit riskier, as you are giving the opponent energy of your
own, and may end up draining yourself unless you have a source to draw from
(walking invocations discussed later on work excellently for this). By
projecting your own energy into the opponent's sword, you can do several
things. The easiest of these to do is to cause your opponent to tense up,
which is often the first thing that will happen when you successfully are able
to project energy into his sword. because his aura interacts with his sword,
the energy you project into the sword almost always begins to interact with
his own aura. This foreign energy will often cause an opponent to tense up,
and a person who fights when tensed instead of relaxed tends to make more
mistakes, thus creating more openings in which you can successfully strike
him.

If you can continue to project massive amounts of energy into him, it will
sometimes confuse his senses. Practice opponents on which I have tried this
have reported a buzzing in the ears, a slight blurring of vision, distortion
in their hearing, slight disorientation, and an unpleasant tingling of the
skin. To achieve effects of this level, though, you must both be able to get
past any magickal defenses the person may have erected, and to project far
more energy that you yourself can muster---which means using it in concert
with energetic bodywork or walking invocations discussed elsewhere.

I have also witnessed a few people who have been able to project energy into
an opponent's sword in an attempt to control his sword through binding it to
their own. I am still uncertain as to the true effectiveness of this
technique, and as to how it works, but have witnessed its effectiveness in
those who have taken the time to practice it. Usually it's just enough of a
control over the other sword to slow it so that you can parry in time, or to
move it just the fraction of an inch needed to create an opening. This
technique seems to give sporadic results, depending on many factors including
the mental state and magickal skill of the two combatants, any magickal
defenses the opponent may have, whether or not the swords being used are
awakened swords (discussed later), the skill of the combatants both with the
sword and with magick, and plain old blind luck. Feel free to practice this
one, but I don't recommend that you rely on it.

------------------
MAGICKAL SHIELDING

The savvy occult swordsman will have realized at this point that though most
opponents will not be skilled in occult arts, it can still be useful to defend
oneself magickally. The masters of traditional swordplay will exhibit
magickal effects without consciously thinking of them, and even the skilled
neophyte of traditional sword arts can surprise you with his magickal skill
when he successfully executes an unconscious magickal attack of his own. The
importance of magickally shielding against other occult swordsmen need not
even be discussed.

How you choose to "shield" yourself will depend upon your personal preference
and the techniques of the tradition(s) of magick that you have chosen to
study. Most of these techniques are quite satisfactory, but when applied to
occult swordplay there are a few things that must be kept in mind.

Firstly, we must consider the goals of our magickal defense. Not only do we
wish to protect our physical and spiritual bodies, we must also give
consideration to our mental state, for many magickal attacks aim solely to
confuse the opponent's faculties. Therefore we will be defending ourselves on
three levels. Of the physical level, it is best to simply rely on your sword,
and on the ability to remove energy from a successful strike.

The spiritual level is the closest to the standard magickal shielding that you
will be familiar with: simply seek to protect yourself from harm by psychic
attack, malicious spirits, and similar nasties you've probably heard warnings
about when you were taught your occult skills. The only alteration that we
may wish to make is in what we define as the border of our shielding. Most
people in western cultures define or picture the "borders" of their magickal
shield as being anywhere between one to three feet out from their skin,
typically an egg or cocoon shape. Because swordplay requires this distance to
be crossed constantly, you may wish to retrain yourself to see, picture, or
project your shields much closer to the skin, like a tight-fitting suit of
armor. You can also use this to your advantage when you fight an opponent
whose magickal shield is extended from his body---use your sword as an
extension, and with it inside your opponent's shield you can bypass his
magickal defense to launch myriad magickal attacks.

Lastly, you must give consideration to your mental defenses. Because many
magickal attacks in occult swordplay are meant to confuse you, you may wish to
also erect a separate magickal shield around your mind alone, whose sole
purpose is to defend against things that would otherwise confuse, dull, or
slow your senses and thus your reaction time. Place this shield around the
part of your body you consider the seat of your mental faculties, which, for
most people of western culture, will be the brain.

Your best practice will be allow a sparring partner to execute a magickal

attack both when you have your shield "down" and then when you have them "up".
This will give you the advantage of knowing whether or not your shields are
effective at all, and if so to what level they help you. If you find them
unsatisfactory, try a different magickal technique and see if it works better.
If they still fall short, put more practice in---likely you have had little
use for magickal shielding, and simply need practice at it. You'll get plenty
of practice in occult swordplay.

------------------
MOVING INVOCATIONS

The ability to invoke the force of your choice while swordfighting is one of
the most useful, effective, and devastating abilities that the occult
swordsman can learn to utilize. As with all other magickal skills applied to
swordplay, you must spend enough time practicing invocation for it to become
habitual, something that you can execute in a single moment with a single
breath. This takes much practice, but once you can accomplish it consistently
and effectively, an entirely new world of possibilities opens up before you.
By using invocation, the occult swordsman is able to supplement his skills and
powers where they are lacking.

Those trained in ceremonial magick may find great use for the planetary
forces: I cannot count the number of Mars invocations I have witnessed,
closely followed by Solar, Lunar, Mercurial, and Saturnine invocations. Gods
can be quite useful, as they represent a philosophy of life as well as certain
courses of action. These invocations can act as a source of courage when
defeat seems imminent, a source of inspiration in the creation of new
techniques, and as a familiar ally in times of strife. Developing a
relationship with the god or gods of your choice in your everyday life often
means a stronger and more useful invocation during battle, hence the tendency
of many occult swordsmen to adopt some sort of patron deity such as Aries,
Thor, Cernunnos, Marduk, or something similarly martial that represents the
philosophies and courses-of-action that the swordsman holds dear.

One of its greatest uses of this skill is the invocation of a "raw force" that
you see as the source of power in the universe: Chaos, Order, Eternity, Void,
Lifeforce, etc. This can be a source of power to fuel magickal effects that
are normally beyond your ken. Your body can only provide so much energy by
itself; for certain magicks, you must open yourself as a conduit for these
energies, allowing them to flow through you as you shape them.

This skill will be most effective to you if you can learn to invoke multiple
forces simultaneously. We saw this earlier with the elemental model where you
invoke two elements with one more dominant with the other, and dual invocation
is not so great a step from this. In this way, you can have the benefit of
the power of an element, the courage (or other attribute) of a god, the
approach of a planet, and the sheer power of a raw force available to you
simultaneously. It also allows you to temper an invocation in a certain
direction. Invoking Water and Mars, for example, will yield a much less
violent but equally aggressive force as invoking Fire and Mars. Experiment to
find the best combinations for yourself.

---------
BANISHING

Banishing is so basic to magickal practice that not much need be said of it.
Its use in occult swordplay is the same as it is in magick: to cast away
unwanted influences in your environment. In occult swordplay, its most
prominent use is as an active defense against malicious entities sent your
direction. It can also be used to dissolve other magickal attacks whose aim
is to penetrate your magickal defenses in order to affect you.

Because very few occult swordsmen possess the skill to utilize such attacks at
a skill level that will threaten your normal defenses, banishing is often just
a supplementary skill that you will rarely need to use in combat. Its main
use often comes in after the fight has been finished: if there were any
magickal attacks that were triggered during combat, they may still be waiting
for an opening, and when you relax your magickal defenses after the fight they
often find the opening they needed. Just as with most magickal practices,
it's often a wise idea to habitually execute a simple banishing after a fight.

In order to utilize banishing during actual combat, you must learn to adapt it
to combat situations as you have other magickal skills. Any good magician
should have progressed far enough and be familiar enough with the feel of a
banishing to be able to discard the ritual trappings of and simply will it to
happen with a thought or a breath. If you haven't progressed that far in your
magick, now is the time to learn how. Chances are you won't need to banish
during combat often, but when you do need it, you'll be very glad that you
took the time to practice.

==============
MAGIC SWORD +1
==============

His body tiring, having made no successful attacks, and small cuts on his
arms and legs where the master had struck him, Michael turned to the raw
force he called the Primal Chaos and his master called the Lifeforce, its
 energy spilling into him. His sword began to sing, dedicated to the Primal
Chaos from the day he had stood over the forge with hammer and anvil,
breathing life into its steely being. "Slake your thirst upon the force of
Chaos," he whispered to it, and the sword aided his invocation, making it
easier to draw in that force and let it flow through him and into the
hungry sword. To his magickally attuned eyes, the runes he had etched into
the blade glowed red---blood red, the same scarlet brilliance with which he
had empowered them. The red glow spread to consume the blade, lanced
through with the blacks and whites and greys of the primal chaos. The
master, skilled against the relative fumblings of his student, suddenly
found himself retreating before the onslaught of the sword as it took over,
its aura spreading through Michael's body, filling him with newfound
strength, controlling his strikes and parries with almost inhuman skill.

From the vorpal sword that dispatched the Jaberwock with a snicker snak to the
legendary powers of the other-worldly Excalibur, our myths and legends are
filled with stories about magic swords and their wondrous abilities. So much
so has the concept of a magic sword enamored us that it penetrates our entire
fantasy genre from books to games to movies to children's action figures.
These swords make their wielders larger than life, able to fight against
incredible odds, the sword granting them powers beyond human reckoning.

Such stories are often dismissed as pure fancy, but behind them lies a certain
amount of truth. Most aspiring occult swordsmen will be able to cast minor
magicks upon their swords to aid them in combat, but rare is the magician who
can empower a sword to possess its wielder or to drain its foe of his
lifeforce. Magick swords are powerful because they grant powers normally
reserved for the most skilled and dedicated magician to anyone who can pick up
a sword and swing it around, much as a powerful talisman can cause magickal
effects for those who wear them, even if they do not understand or have the
capacity to create that talisman themselves. A magic sword is little more
that an elaborately constructed and meticulously enchanted talisman of combat.

Some of these techniques are more difficult to create than others, and all of
them possess an upper limit defined only by the ability of the magician
enchanting the blade. Creating a magick sword often requires copious amounts
of patience, skill, and luck. Not all magicians will be able to create a
powerful magickal artifact like Excalibur, but even the lowliest magician will
find that he is able to enhance a weapon to no small benefit.

As with any new magickal skill you aim to add to your repertoire, you will get
better at it with the more practice you have. Because swords can be
expensive, the aspiring enchanter of swords can practice with shinai or
bokken. While they are not quite as enamoring to work with, they do have the
benefit of being both readily available, and relatively cheap.

The powers and possibilities of enchanted swords truly push the limits of what
most people accept as achievable through magick, which means that while some
of the topics can be discussed in detail, their possible limits and
applications far exceed what most people would expect. Keep an open mind, and
dedicate much thought to those aspects of magick swords that you believe to be
impossible. You may surprise yourself.

----------------------
PERMANENT ENCHANTMENTS

This is one of the simplest techniques that a magician can use to create a
magick sword, and yields the widest variety of results, depending on the goal
of the magician. Essentially, a permanent enchantment is nothing more than
empowering the sword as you would a talisman or a magickal tool for use in a
specific task. Enchantments can be combined, adding them to the sword as time
goes on. Old enchantments can be renewed, granting them more strength over
time. Anything that can be done to a talisman can also be done to a sword.
Your own magickal training and your own experiences in creating talismans or
other magickal objects will determine your tastes, preferences, and limits in
this arena.

---------------
AWAKENED BLADES

Perhaps the most common stories of magic swords are those of a blade that
possesses an intelligence and cognizance of its own. Like a spirit bound to a
talisman, the magician can create an intelligence bound to his blade. This
intelligence can be a created spirit, a spirit that the magician captures and
binds to the sword, or in a more animistic vein the magician can simply talk
to his sword, imbuing it with the power to become intelligent, and "awaken" it
that way. Regardless of the method chosen, an awakened blade has many
benefits over a mundane sword.

It's hard to say exactly what any specific awakened blade will do. As you
awaken it or create it, you have full control over how smart it will be, how
it will communicate, what skills it has, and how it will influence its
wielder. An awakened blade will have an aura like any magickally charged
object, and the contact the magician has with the aura, especially during
combat as the two auras mingle, allows the sword to influence the magician as
much as the magician influences the sword. It's a two-way street.

Until you have worked with several awakened blades, it is hard to describe
just what benefits the sword will give you. The wielder of an awakened blade
typically seems to move faster and with greater skill than he does with a
regular sword. An awakened blade can also learn, and also seems to be able to
impart some of its "knowledge" of fighting to the person who uses it over
time. Perhaps most significantly, the most advanced awakened blades act as a
powerful spirit bound to the sword, capable of carrying out very complicated
magickal tasks at your command, or acting as a guardian spirit that warns you
of danger.

Your own views about spirits, aethyric intelligences, enchanted objects, and
your personal view of what an awakened blade "should" or "shouldn't" be will
all shape how you create and interact with one. The only way to truly learn
the benefits of awakened blades is to create one---and after you do, you will
probably never want to use a regular sword again.

Be warned here---if you practice solely with an enchanted blade (awakened or

not) you may begin to rely too much on it, and in that critical combat
situation when you lose your sword and must take up another blade that isn't
enchanted, you'll be in real trouble. By all means, practice with enchanted
blades, but don't make a habit of it. Reserve them for those situations where
you truly need them.

Always practice creating enchanted blades with your bokken or shinai. They
are relatively cheap and just as easy to awaken as a steel blade, allowing you
to practice at different techniques and ideas to see what does and doesn't
work before you attempt to awaken a blade you value. While the process of
awakening a blade can be reversed, it is neither easy nor fun. Sentient
creatures, physical or aethyric, will put up an incredible fight when their
life is threatened---that peaceful little bunny rabbit you thought would be so
easy to put down suddenly reveals that it, too, has a mean bite and rather
nasty claws.

-------------
POWER SYMBOLS

What each magician considers to be a "power symbol" will vary from person to
person. They can be all-encompassing symbols such as the pentagram or very
specific symbols such as the planetary glyphs. Magickal alphabets are another
great source of power symbols, as are sigils of various sorts. Just as a
magician would oftentimes use power symbols on a talisman that he has created,
so too can he use them to impart desired forces to his sword.

Historically, it was not uncommon for Vikings to have the entirety of the
runic alphabet engraved upon their blade, their belief being that a sword thus
marked was imbued with the powers of every rune, the totality of which
represented every force in the universe.

Marking a shinai is as simple as sanding off the slight varnish, marking the
bamboo with a felt-tip marker, and then pouring some varnish on a cotton rag
and wiping this over the sanded area once the symbol has dried. To
permanently mark a sword will require that you etch the metal with acid;
anyone so inclined would be well advised to read up on metal arts beforehand,
or to seek the advice of someone knowledgeable in such skills.

What symbols you choose (if you choose any at all) and how you utilize them
are personal choices that will reflect your individual magickal path. How
they work and what they do is left as a choice to the skilled magician who
enchants the blade.

------------
BLOOD MAGICK

That swords are tied to blood should be no surprise. This makes them a
wonderful item to use if you are fond of blood magick. How you choose to
combine blood magick with your swordplay or enchantments is, once again, only
a choice that you can make.

It is not uncommon to blood a newly forged blade (indeed, some stories tell of
powerful swords made by their final quenching being made not in water, but by
running them through the chest of a hapless slave.) It is also common to
blood a freshly enchanted blade, running the blood over the blade itself, or
over any new engravings or features. Some blades supposedly react to contact
with their enemies blood, drawing power from it to transfer to their wielder
(see the next section on Vampiric Blades).

While you can draw blood to enchant shinai or other blunt practice instruments
or weapons, it is probably best when enchanting a real sword to use the edge
of that blade itself.

Let your mind be the limit. There is much in the concept of blood magick to
explore and apply.

---------------
VAMPIRIC BLADES

A sword can also be enchanted so that it acts in a vampiric manner to draw off
energy from its victim. With the completion of a successful attack, the
blade, either through the use of its intelligence (if it has been awakened) or
through the use of permanent enchantments, can be made to use that wound as a
magickal link from which it draws power. Another type of vampiric enchantment
simply relies on contact with the aura of the victim (often using the aura of
the enemy blade as a contact point) to draw off energy, much as do human
psychic vampires.

What the sword then does with the energy leaves much choice. The energy can
be used to empower other magickal effects, to fuel power symbols or permanent
enchantments, and can even be used to give power to the wielder---though
unless the wielder knows how to process the incoming energy, it can cause
disorientation, nausea, and other sundry symptoms that will probably cost you
the fight, and may continue to haunt you for some time to come. Repairing
such damage to yourself is often harder than repairing the damage you've just
caused to the victim.

While the morals of this technique are debatable, it is definitely unwise to

use this for extended periods of time on friends and sparring partners that
you value, as like any other form of psychic vampirism it can cause permanent
or lengthy damage that manifests as depression, apathy, lack of will, and a
loss of strength.

Unless you have extended experience with the skills of psychic vampirism, or
are blessed to be the student of a teacher who can guide you through those
skills, it is best to leave psychic vampirism and vampiric blades alone.
There is a reason that the legends and myths of such swords are usually tragic
stories. A vampiric blade imbued with an exceptional intelligence and denied
"food" for some amount of time can become as dangerous to their wielder as to
their foe. Be careful.

------------
LIVING STEEL

Perhaps the most effective way of creating a magickal sword is to forge it

yourself. This is a very lengthy and complicated affair that will require
that you have access to the proper equipment.

Modern technology gives us the ability to take a piece of steel bar and
essentially carve out the shape we want, allowing much more flexibility on the
part of the swordsmith---these methods are faster, more accurate, and (most
important to the budding occult swordsmith) easier to learn. However...

It has been my experience that swords forged in the old style have an infinite
advantage over modern blades in many areas including strength, flexibility,
reliability, and even in their inherent magickal power. There may be a
biological reason for this, in that while steel is normally possesses a
microscopic crystalline structure, the act of pounding on it with the hammer
and anvil during forging realigns these smaller crystals into larger crystals.
This process of realigning the crystals makes the steel stronger and harder,
because the borders between the crystals that act as weak points are lessened
as the crystals get larger. Blades that have been forged properly begin to
approach the level of being a single crystal of steel, and anyone who has ever
held such a blade can tell you that there is something special about them.
Even those who are not gifted at magick can feel a sort of power humming
through such a blade. The metal of such a blade is called "living steel".
Many have theorized that the feeling of power they engender is caused by the
human biolelectrical system interacting with the single crystal of steel.

I know of only one forge in the world that produces swords of living steel,
and the price tag often exceeds that of a small economy car. They are very
labor intensive to make, requiring about a month over the forge. The only
feasible way that most occult swordsmen will ever possess one is to make it
themselves. But before you go to that much trouble, take full advantage of
modern methods to practice. You'll learn a lot about what magicks you can
work into a blade as you shape it from raw steel.

Advice for those who would make a living steel sword: Sulfur in the fuel of
your forge, in any amount, is your worst enemy, with even the most microscopic
amounts rapidly contributing to the brittleness of your steel; if you can
afford to use pharmaceutical grade charcoal, this will guarantee you the best
result. When heating the metal, use the carbon-rich portion of the flame;
over the entire process of forging, this will ensure a soft and flexible steel
at the center (so that the sword will not break) and a hard carbon steel on
the outside, which ensures a true edge. There are many other benefits to
hand-forged swords, but these two alone are enough to make it worth the effort
for the serious swordsman.

----------------------------------
HAPPINESS IS TWIN ENCHANTED BLADES

Another common concept of magick swords are those of twin blades, of two
swords somehow bound to each other. Whether this is because of their
similarities, or because they are diametrically opposed to each other, or
simply because the enchanting magician saw fit to work on two blades at once
doesn't matter. You can find many uses both in your enchantments as well as
in actual combat for twin swords.

I have found it quite useful to keep a pair of training shinai on hand for the
purposes of teaching basic swordplay to new students. One of the swords
imparts to its user the ability to observe, comprehend, and integrate the
defensive techniques he is taught, and its twin for the offensive techniques.
If the student needs more work with his defense, I have him practice with the
proper sword; if he begins to excel in it and needs more work on his offense,
I switch his sword. The student almost never realizes the blade is enchanted,
and seems to learn faster than with an identical shinai that has not been
enchanted.

Another advantage to twin blades is that by separating dualistic principles,

one can build up a charge, so to speak, between the two blades. This is where
the "good sword, evil sword" stories come into play. If I'm trying to make a
"good" sword, you will only be able to go so far as your limits and skills
allow you---but many magicians find that by creating a diametrically opposed
blade (in this example, and "evil" sword), they can push those limits,
creating a sword that is more "good" than they could have otherwise created.
Of course, one need not limit himself to good and evil; any binary force can
be used, such as the defensive/offensive training shinai that I use. Paired
swords are often stronger than counterparts made individually.

Another interesting technique I have experimented with is a Jacob's Ladder

effect when fighting with two swords. A real Jacob's Ladder is an electrical
device consisting of two metal rods across which an electrical current will
arc, traveling upward until it ends at the top and a new one forms at the
bottom. If you've watched any old mad scientist movies, you've seen them
before. The same effect can be achieved when fighting with two swords, using
them as rods between which you project an arc of energy. The usefulness of
this particular technique depends greatly upon your skill in magick. The
applications of it are best left to the imagination of the individual
magician.

------------------------------
POSSESSION IS A TWO-WAY STREET

Perhaps the last thing that should be mentioned are blades that possess their
owners. In your own practice, you will probably witness it to at least a
small and benign degree with awakened swords that impart abilities to their
wielders. It is not too great a step further for the skilled magician to bind
an intelligence to a blade whose purpose is to possess the owner, much as a
magician might conjure up a spirit and send it to possess his foe.

It has been my experience that most people, on the topic of possession, are
quick to judge it as bad, evil, or destructive, yet I have found possession to
be a two-way street. Just as you can imagine a possessing sword causing its
wielder to enter a blood rage where he attacks everything in sight, so too can
a sword possess its wielder and create a chivalrous paladin out of him. An
infinite array of factors enter into the act of sword-possession, not the
least of which include the skill and power of the magician who enchanted the
blade, the intelligence of the blade, the personality of the blade, the
character and willpower of the wielder, and the situation in which the sword
is employed. Often these factors mean that the possession is only partial; it
is very rare for anyone to become completely possessed by a blade.

The wise magician will realize the benefits that possession by a sword can
offer. The cunning magician will disguise possession in such a subtle way
that neither friend nor foe will suspect the sword responsible for certain
actions.

Those magicians who can make reliable blades of this sort are rare indeed.
Such swords are inevitably the greatest find in the occult swordsman's
career---or his worst curse.