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Magick with a 'K'

Magic or Magick? 

At Raventree, we typically refer to the arcane arts and practices as 'magic' with a 'k' addended. To clarify why we utilize this etymology, we have comprised a brief elucidation of our vision for the word. 

In most, if not all, academic and scholarly texts discussing magick and its history, magick will be spelled as simply 'magic'. However, in a plethora of recent texts written by practitioners of the arts, the reader will find magick with a 'k' at the end. The pronunciation remains the same, but the meaning is shifted. The broad idea is to inform the reader that the author is describing practical magick (or 'spiritual magick', as the Pluralism Project defines it), and not stage magic or entertainment forms. 

This grammatical subtlety originated with Aleister Crowley in the early 20th century, or at least, the intention behind the differentiated spellings. We find both spellings in early literary sources of magick, as well as myriad other forms of spelling -- spelling has been cohesive and regulated for a comparatively short period of written history. However, Crowley is (according to current research) said to have founded the idea of spelling magick in a different form to distinguish it from other less mystical forms of practice (eg the conjuring of white rabbits from tophats). 

At Raventree, we use magick with a 'k', even though the preponderance of sources and citations we utilize will utilize magic without a 'k' to describe the exact phenomena we are discussing at RTA. This may seem confusing! However, the idea at Raventree is to crib off of Crowley's language, but with our own flourishes. We agree that magick with a 'k' can be a useful term to distinguish between stage magic and 'spiritual' (or perhaps super/supra-natural) magick; however, we hope to reclaim this spelling for our community as a word which encompasses more than what Crowley had in mind. Magick at Raventree describes the mystical undercurrents of our world, all that is mysterious and beautiful and enchanted around us. For us, we use magick to delineate a new Renaissance of the form and practices associated, as we re-enchant the world. 

Magic will belong to the stage magicians and university scholars; magick belongs to the re-enchanted Academy, where scholasticism and practice, arte and idea, are blended in a crucible of learning and study. For us, it is entirely natural that many scholars and researchers will use magic to describe what they are discussing - they seek to analyze it from historical and sociological perspectives, regardless of their position as practitioners. When we speak of magick, we speak of the living, breathing entity -- the very spirit of the arte, if you will. We hope we have convinced you that Crowley may have been a catalyst for this grammatical glissade, but that we intend to move far beyond Crowley's distinctions. 

Citations

1  https://pluralism.org/magick

2  The Triumph of the Moon, Ronald Hutton, 2001 (pages 174-176)

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© 2026 by Raventree Academy

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