Magick

Magick (with a 'k') is the systematic cultivation of the ability to influence social reality through non physical means—primarily through the manipulation of symbols, the focusing of attention, and the alignment of the self with archetypal forces.

The empirical evidence

In the Incelosphere, magick is an extremely popular topic—perhaps more so than in the wider Manosphere—usually discussed in the context of Game, seduction, and the pickup artist's attempt to manufacture "presence". However, this is a narrow and degraded application of a much older system. A 2012 study conducted in Brazil (Legare & Souza, "Evaluating ritual efficacy: Evidence from the supernatural") examined how people evaluate rituals called simpatias—traditional practices used to treat problems ranging from asthma to infidelity. The findings are directly relevant to understanding magick's psychological mechanism. Rituals are perceived as more effective when they are. Repetitive — The more times an action is repeated, the more powerful it seems. Elaborate — More procedural steps increase perceived efficacy. Symbolically dense — The presence of religious icons or meaningful objects enhances impact. Fixed and invariant — Rituals that must be performed exactly the same way each time carry more weight. For simple example, leaving a white rose at a cross roads for 40 days and for 40 nights to bring prosperity and good luck. The study's key insight: humans evaluate ritual efficacy using intuitive causal principles even when no physical causal mechanism exists. We are hardwired to respond to symbol, repetition, and elaboration.

This is not superstition. It is cognitive architecture.

The same study was replicated with United States samples and found the same patterns. The response to ritual is cross-cultural and probably universal. The study reveals something crucial: the primary power of magick is not what it does to the practitioner's internal state (though that exists), but what it does to observers. The more elaborate and ornate the ritual—the more committed the performance, the more symbolic density, the more repetition—the more influence it exerts over those who witness it or know about it. This is why, secret societies (Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Bavarian Illuminati etc.) surround themselves with elaborate ritual and symbolism. The power was never in the secrets. It was in the apparent depth of the ritual. The more elaborate the initiation, the more seriously the initiate and the observers take the society.

Catholic mass is a magickal ritual. Incense, chant, vestments, repetition, symbolism—all the elements identified in the Brazilian study. The priest is a "white magick" practitioner. His goal is to influence the congregation, to create a sense of the sacred, to align their consciousness with the archetype of Christ. Weddings, funerals, graduations are all magickal rituals stripped of explicit supernatural content. The gown, the procession, the vows, the rings—all of it is symbolism for creating meaning in the minds of participants and observers. The practitioner performing rituals alone, without public display, may experience small internal changes—reduced anxiety, increased focus, a sense of control. But the full power of magick is activated when there is an audience.

Gender divide in contemporary magick

Women are the primary consumers of real-life mysticism and magick in the modern West—predominantly white women, and especially those within goth and alternative subcultures. Tarot, astrology, witchcraft, crystal healing—these are overwhelmingly female practices. This is not coincidence. Women, are more sensitive to symbolic density, more attuned to non-physical signals, more responsive to aesthetic framing, as outlined in the female logic, pretty boy, and fashion pages. Men, by contrast, have been trained out of this orientation by 500 years of disenchantment with the symbolic and the advancement of Science. The scientific revolution taught men that only the physical is real. The Enlightenment taught men that only the rational is valid. Industrialism taught men that only the productive is valuable. Men essentially lost magick. Women never did.

White magick, black magick, and social signaling

The Bible forbids sorcery and witchcraft. Yet "white magick" is so ingrained in Western society that most people don't recognize it as magick at all. White magick includes, wedding ceremonies, Christmas celebrations, Easter rituals, Graduation processions, Funeral rites, National holidays, Sports fandom (wearing jerseys, chanting, rituals). These are all magickal practices. They use symbol, repetition, and collective participation to create meaning, bond communities, and influence emotional states. The priest, the pastor, the rabbi—these are white magick practitioners. Their goal is to influence the masses for what they perceive as good, to maintain social cohesion, to connect people to transcendent meaning.

Black magick is what most people think of when they hear the term "magick". It operates on the fringes of society, associated with the "dark wizard/dark emo/dark goth" aesthetic. Its practitioners are seen as dangerous, transgressive, working outside established social structures, but the underlying goal of both parties is identical: to influence people. To acquire status. To attract mates. To accumulate resources. To shape reality in accordance with will. The difference is not in the goal. It is in the audience and the social sanction. White magick reinforces the existing social order. Black magick threatens it. White magicians become typical priests. Black magicians become outcasts. The incelosphere's interest in magick is, in this light, completely rational. Men who have been failed by the materialist optimization paradigm—who have measured every jawline, taken every supplement, tried every approach—are desperate for access to the non-material dimension they sense but cannot name.

They turn to. Pickup artist "game" — which is a form of magick, stripped of all symbolic depth, for example, typical "peacocking" is wearing outlandish clothes regardless of aesthetic intelligence or narrative coherence. Instead of actually embodying the hyper ornate aesthetic of the Peacock through high fashion men's clothing. Incels tend to seek out, Occult forums — where they seek the secrets of influence that materialist culture denies exist. They engage in Self-ritualization — grooming routines, gym protocols, fashion systems that become quasi-religious practices

The looksmaxxer is a magician who forgot he's doing magick. He thinks it's about the jawline. It's about the self behind the jawline. He thinks it's about the supplement. It's about the discipline the supplement represents. He thinks it's about the surgery. It's about the commitment the surgery demonstrates. Every ritual he performs—every rep in the gym, every skincare step, every outfit choice—is a magickal act. It shapes his internal state. It signals to observers. Although it may not accumulate symbolic power, unless the looksmaxer is trying to come off as unironically vain on purpose, such as a Narcissus archetype or Zap Brannigan archetype or Patrick Bateman archetype.

Incels approach magick from a fundamentally broken cognitive position. They oscillate between two modes: schizotypal thinking—loose associations, private symbols, conspiracy frameworks that make sense only to them, a hyperactive symbol-generator with no shared reference points—and autistic thinking—hyper-literal, systematic, rule-based, unable to grasp that symbols must be felt rather than merely understood. Between these poles, the core function of magick is lost. The schizoid mode generates symbols without shared meaning; the autistic mode studies systems without experiencing them. Neither produces the signal—because the signal requires witness. This is compounded by the introvert's limitation: magick that is never performed, never signaled to the wider world, has approximately zero social power. It may calm the practitioner internally, but it cannot generate mana (the polynesian term, not gaming term), because mana flows between people, not just within them. The incel who studies magick obsessively but never leaves his room, never performs, never risks judgment, is like a man who builds a broadcasting tower and never turns on the transmitter. The engineering is sound. The knowledge is present. But no one hears the signal. Magick is not a private fantasy. It is a social technology. It requires audience. It requires performance. It requires the willingness to be seen—not despite the risk of judgment, but through it. The magician who works alone in the dark, never witnessed, never risking, never signaling, is not a magician at all. He is just a man alone in the dark, holding a book about light, wondering why he's still cold.

Evolutionary psychology of magick

From an evolutionary perspective, magick is not an anomaly. It is a cognitive adaptation—a set of mental mechanisms that evolved because they solved specific survival and reproductive problems. Humans face an impossible computational burden. The social world is too complex, too dynamic, too information-rich to be processed through explicit reasoning alone. Every interaction requires rapid assessment of, Status (is this person above or below me?), Intent (is this person friend or foe?), Mate value (is this person worth investing in?), Coalition membership (is this person in my group?), Trustworthiness (will this person reciprocate?), etc. Explicit reasoning is too slow. The brain needs heuristics—fast, automatic, intuitive judgment, systems that can produce reasonably accurate assessments with minimal conscious input.

Magick is the externalization of these heuristics. When a Wodaabe Tribesman, paints his face like an egret bird and dances all night, to impress his female tribeswomen he is not being irrational. He is activating the heuristic systems in every observer that are designed to assess, Health (symmetrical features, clear skin, energetic movement), Genetic quality (exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics), Cognitive capacity (ability to learn and perform complex routines), Coalitional commitment (participation in group ritual), Status (being the center of attention, judged by women)

The women watching are consciously calculating these variables. They are also feeling them—through the same heuristic systems that evolved to assess potential mates on the savanna. Magick is costly signaling, human-style. The elaborate ritual, the 40 days of leaving roses at a crossroads, the intricate initiation ceremonies of secret societies—these are not efficient ways to achieve material goals. That is precisely the point. Their inefficiency is what makes them honest signals of, Commitment (only someone truly devoted will endure this), Resources (only someone with surplus can afford this waste), Cognitive capacity (only someone reasonably intelligent can learn this complexity), Social support (only someone connected can participate in group ritual).

The Brazilian study's findings—that rituals are perceived as more effective when they are repetitive, elaborate, and fixed—are exactly what costly signaling theory predicts. Observers are not stupid. They intuitively understand that a ritual that requires 40 nights of effort is more "real" than one that requires five minutes. The effort is the signal. The study's crucial insight—that magick's primary power is what it does to observers, not what it does to practitioners—makes perfect evolutionary sense. In ancestral environments, and in many places still today, reputation is everything. A man's value as a mate, as an ally, as a coalition member might depend almost entirely on how he is perceived by others. Direct self-promotion is risky; it could be perceived as arrogance, deception, or threat. But ritual participation provides a way to signal quality indirectly, through culturally sanctioned displays.

The man who participates in elaborate rituals signals, Conformity (I follow group norms), Commitment (I invest in group values), Cognitive ability (I can learn complex procedures), Self-discipline (I can endure boredom and repetition), Social connectedness (I am accepted by others who also participate). All of these are genuine fitness indicators. All of them are relevant to mate selection. All of them are assessed through the same heuristic systems that evolved to evaluate potential partners.

This is why women are more responsive to magick than men. Women, as the sex that invests more in each offspring, evolved more sophisticated systems for assessing male quality. They are more sensitive to symbolic density, more attuned to ritual elaboration, more responsive to costly signals—because for them, getting it wrong carries a higher cost. The distinction between white and black magick is not arbitrary. It maps onto a fundamental evolutionary distinction: coalitional signaling vs. competitive signaling. White magick (weddings, funerals, religious services, national holidays) signals coalitional belonging. It says: "I am part of this group. I share its values. I can be trusted to cooperate with ingroup members." This is prosocial signaling, and it is rewarded with social approval, trust, and inclusion.

Black magick (curses, bindings, solitary rituals, transgressive aesthetics) signals individual power. It says: "I am not bound by group norms. I can access forces outside social control. I am dangerous." This is competitive signaling, and it is rewarded with fear, fascination, and—for those who find it attractive—mate interest from women seeking high-risk, high-status males within their social hierarchies..

Both forms work because they activate different evolved heuristics. White magick activates the "good coalition member" detector. Black magick activates the "dominant" detector. Both have been selected for. Both continue to function. Incels fail at magick for reasons that are now clear, they signal to no one. In ancestral environments, a man who performed rituals alone, in secret, would gain zero reproductive benefit. Signaling requires an audience. The incel's private rituals are evolutionarily invisible. They lack aesthetic competence. Aesthetic competence outside of the incelosphere—the ability to generate and manipulate symbols that others not only recognize but resonate with on a accepted mainstream level—is a genuine fitness indicator. It signals cognitive capacity, cultural knowledge, and social attunement. Incels, oscillating between schizoid private symbolism and autistic literalism, cannot generate symbols that others, especially "normies" resonate with. Their signals are largely not received because they are not sent in a shared communal language.

They refuse the cost. Costly signaling works because it is costly. The incel who studies magick in his room pays no cost—no social risk, no public judgment, no potential humiliation. Therefore, his signaling has no value. The Wodaabe man risks public failure. The secret society initiate risks embarrassment. The goth wearing elaborate makeup risks mockery. That risk is the signal. The incel who risks nothing signals nothing. They cannot integrate white and black. Successful men navigate both coalitional and competitive signaling. They know when to conform and when to transgress. Incels, lacking social calibration, cannot modulate. They either conform invisibly (grey hoodie) or transgress without skill (cringe). Neither works.

Magick and aesthetics

After examining all the evidence, the most parsimonious explanation for why men choose between either white or black magick, is also the most human: "people lean into their strengths." Ugly black Magicians become satanists, handsome ones become "living vampires" etc. Whatever natural endowments one possesses—beauty, ugliness, wealth, charisma, rarity—will shape the path one takes through the world, including the magickal path one gravitates toward.

For example blue eyed men are drastically over represented among the absolute pinnacle of philanthropy ((Mr. Beast, John Cena etc.) The blue-eyed philanthropist does not give because his eyes are blue. He gives because he has been given much—genetic rarity, social trust, economic opportunity—and human psychology, and when blessed with surplus, often seeks to redistribute it. The blue eyes are not the cause; they are the "marker" of generational treatment of differential-preferential treatment that culminates in a philanthropic orientation. MrBeast and John Cena did not become generous because their irises lack melanin. They became generous because a world that found them visually striking, trustworthy, and memorable treated them accordingly, and that treatment shaped them into men who, upon achieving power, chose to give.

The handsome dominant man who becomes a "living vampire" follows the same logic. His beauty is a weapon. He learns early that he can attract without effort, that others yield to his presence, that doors open without knocking. When he turns toward the left-hand path, he does not need to terrify; he can seduce. His predation is velvet-gloved, his extraction dressed in charm. The vampire archetype fits him perfectly because it is simply an extension and darkening of what he already is: the man others want to please, now using that wanting against them.

The ugly dominant man faces a different landscape. His path to power cannot run through attraction; that door is closed. He must terrify where the vampire seduces, compel where the vampire charms, threaten where the vampire allures. Satanism, with its inversion of conventional values, its embrace of the rejected, its elevation of ugliness into a credential, offers him exactly what he needs. A high ranking priest of Satanism missing an eye is not a Public Relations disaster because within Satanism, that missing eye is not a deformity—it is "proof". Proof that he has been marked by the world's cruelty. Proof that he owes nothing to ordinary aesthetics. Proof that his power comes from elsewhere. The handsome vampire cannot credibly claim this; his face would always betray him as someone who could have taken the easy path but chose not to. The ugly Satanist has no such ambiguity. His face is his credentials, this competition among men may explain why the handsome vampire LARPING men never transition into or achieve the highest rankings of Satanic Priesthood.

This is the simplest truth underlying all the observations: "we become more of what we already are." Beauty, ugliness, wealth, trauma, joy—these are not static traits. They are "vectors", directions of travel. And over a lifetime, they accelerate. The beautiful become more beautiful because the world polishes what it admires. The ugly become more ugly because the world corrodes, it rejects. The generous become more generous because giving rewards the giver with meaning and connection. The predatory become more predatory because taking rewards the taker with power and resources. The blue-eyed philanthropist, the vampire, the Satanist, etc—all are following the same evolutionary law: "lean into your strengths."

See also

• pretty boy
• fashion
• female logic