Spells and magic or magick, as the Crowleyans and some others prefer. 

 Every spiritual path that's spiritual has them.  A priest transforms bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, that's magick.  And for those who say that they don't do magick - then does a Baptist get nothing from being baptized except wet?

And so, what do you need to know to make your own magick effective?  What are some of the basic rules?  Are there lines not to cross?  Are there some basic points that will work for just about anyone working magick, whether they call it that, or if they insist that they are simply praying? 

In a Buddhist temple, a Synagogue, a church, a monastery or a covenstead, what might the common points be?

Before we get into the heavier stuff, let's look at this.

Scripture.  One of the words that can either raise smiles or hackles, depending on who is talking and who is listening.

What is scripture?  It depends on whom you ask.  But, in essence, scripture can be defined as written-down words which contain some of the basic precepts of a particular spiritual path.  And based on that, even some traditions who claim that they don't bother with scripture can be shown to have scripture.

Christians have their Bible, the Buddhists have their Sutras, the Hindu have their Gitas, Islam has the Koran, Judaism has the Torah, Asatru has the Havamal and some others, et cetera.  There's lots of scripture out there.  And most of it is not from the path that you follow!  What can you do with it?

To show what I'm trying to do, let's look at a particularly excellent piece of scripture from a spiritual path in which many followers shy away from claiming to have any scripture.  Let's see if there's something in it that anyone from any path can use. 

And what about the parts we don't agree with?  I'll touch on that a bit, too.

If you are on a particular spiritual path, it behooves you to know the scripture associated with that path.  If you are dealing with someone who is on a different path (especially if the "dealing" can be best defined as hostility, opposition, debate, or some other sort of negative, if your opponents are involing their religion on you, knowing their scripture can be helpful for you!

Regardless of your spiritual path, you deal with scripture - possibly your own, or perhaps some other person's that gets thrown into your face. 

If we've got to deal with it, we might as well think of how to deal with it.

Aidan recently visited a pow wow, a Native American gathering hosted by a nation which has some major significance for his wife.  More than a vacation, the pow wow proved to be a profound experience, loaded with learning!

What has that to do with you?  Part of your spiritual learning could very well include visits to other spiritual paths - not to stay, but to experience them and to see what they might have to teach.  This is nothing like so-called "cafeteria religion" in which someone takes only what they have an appetite for, and perhaps that might change from one day to the next - this is a quest to see what another path might be able to teach which might be hiding too subtly in your own path.  This is not the first such visit that Aidan has made, and he looks forward to more.

Of course, like visits to fellow mortals on the material plane, there is a right way to visit. 

Most such visits will include some learning, and included in that learning might be some basic truths.  That's discussed here, too.  Unfortunately, there are those who don't appear to know such basic truths - and then we all lose as a result.

But their is a way to visit another spiritual path - and come home to your own path with something very valuable.

Bread and wine.  To most of us, in a religious context, that brings to mind one particular type of ritual - and a Christian one.  But is there more to that?

What is the significance of bread and wine?  Do they figure in any other rituals?  Or are there other parallels?  And how many possible meanings can we find in bread and wine from a spiritual point of view?

Based on Aidan's basic premise that there's really little pretext for all the disputing between spiritual paths, is there something in common?

No answers, just questions.