I first began experimenting with popular culture as a viable method practicing magick in 2000. One of the methods I devised for using popular culture in magickal workings was making a pop culture icon into a god form. A pop culture icon is a person, cartoon character, etc that is given a lot of attention in the media and by people. For instance Brittany Spears was a pop culture icon for a couple years. Her music was popular, as we her image. Her popularity was not accepted by mainstream culture, but instead appealed to teenage boys and preteen girls. In other words she had a specific target audience and that audience made her famous and popular. That audience gave her energy in the form of the belief that she was a good singer (whether in reality she was or not).

I invented this pop culture god form method with a friend and we first experimented with Miss Cleo. However, for the purpose of this article she's not very relevant because no one really focuses on her anymore. However any pop culture icon can be made into a god form as I will show with my example, Dr. Phil. I used Dr. Phil as a psychological god form, useful for analyzing and catching behavior that I felt would be detrimental to my success in school and work situations.

First, let's consider this notion of Deity in popular culture. What is a god/goddess form in popular culture? Popular culture has a lot of entities, which pop up for a time and are extremely popular in some manner or form. Dr. Phil is currently a well-known pop culture icon with his own show and three books published plus a loyal audience that fervently believes in his ideas. The media, in it's various forms (newspaper, news, etc) pays attention to him and consequently people pay attention to him. Most of the attention is positive and some of it is negative (Check out the tabloids to see what I mean). Regardless of how positive or negative the attention is, what Dr. Phil gets from all that attention is energy. This energy, for an accomplished mage, can be used to fuel his or her workings.

The first thing I noticed about Dr. Phil is the amount of attention that the media gives him. I also noticed how much his name comes up in conversations around me and I realized rather quickly that all of this conversation about Phil is energy going to Phil. Here is Dr. Phil on television getting lots of attention and no one has really thought to attempt to access all that energy heading his way. And remember that attention is energy.

The key to success with any kind of working like this is observation. You need to observe your target god or goddess very carefully, get an idea of his or her mannerisms and the kind of attributes you perceive he or she has. In the case of Dr. Phil, I read his books and watched him on Oprah and then later on his own show. I took careful notes on Dr. Phil and on the pros and cons of making Dr. Phil into a godform for my magickal workings. The pros and cons are worth doing, if only because it'll get you to fully think about why you want to work with a pop culture god form. As with any other kind of magick, this form of magick shouldn't be done casually. I next came up with a list of attributes that I felt my Dr. Phil god form should have. I considered him compassionate, empathic, a good listener, wise, knowledgeable, eager to help, business-like, subversive to mainstream ideas despite looking mainstream and willing to tell me bluntly if I was lying to myself about an issue or concern I was using him to work with. In no way did I ever consider Dr. Phil in terms of money or anything that negatively associated with him. The reason for that is simple.

Part of how you make a popular culture entity work for you as a god/goddess form is image. You aren't dealing with the real person, but instead you're working with the perception of that person. For me to consider Dr. Phil as anything other that the attributes I'd assigned his god form would be to diminish the magickal working I was doing with him. For instance some people might hype on the fact that he's making lots of money with his books and show or that he's blunt, rude and has no business telling other people how to figure out their problems in life. I don't factor that hype into my Dr. Phil god form. My Dr. Phil god form, after all, is my perception of Dr. Phil and specifically how the energy of Dr. Phil can help me. If I allow any negatives into that perception I'm weakening the god form and the potency of the magick I'm working. When actually working with the Dr. Phil god form I used the image of him from the covers of his books. The image suited my needs as it showed several aspects about him that contributed to my list of attributes. On the cover of 'Life Strategies', he is dressed in a three piece suit so he look's business like. He is smiling and his hand is extended which means he's friendly, compassionated, and interested in addressing my needs. I use this image of him as visual reinforcement of him as a god form and as a focus for the magickal workings I wish to do with the god form of him. Remember that visual reinforcement of the god form is useful in not only focusing your attention on the god form but also getting other people to notice and therefore give energy to the god form.

The night I did the ritual to Dr. Phil to make him into a god form that would aid me in my professional and scholastic development I had his book 'Self Matters' on hand. I'd determined I'd read the book and use the book as the medium for Dr Phil to channel his advice to me about the concerns I was addressing to him. I photocopied the image of him to a sheet of paper. I then write my statement of intent on the back of the paper. It went something like this: "Dr. Phil through the medium of your book act as a god form that will keep me focused on reading and doing the exercises in the book and following through on improving my business and scholastic relationships with people." I next drew a sigil (a rune that the magickian makes up and charges with energy) that represented Dr. Phil and my goals on the same sheet of paper.

I went outside with a lighter and the photocopied image of Phil with my writing and sigil on it. I lit the paper on fire and chanted as it burned; "Through the power of Phil I will focus myself on improving my professional and scholastic relationships!" I chanted this until the paper had turned into ash. Now the chant might seem funny, but by chanting I was adding energy to the focus of the spell. By burning the image with the writing I was essentially making a sacrifice, an offering to Dr. Phil. The medium of fire served as a medium of transformation. It signified how I would, with the help of the god form, transform myself. I recommend that when you work with popular culture god/goddess forms that you make up a chant and have an image of what that god or goddess should appear to you as. The image and chant serve to focus your belief, i.e., your energy toward the entity you are working with and create a link by which you can access whatever it is you need out of the god/goddess form.

After I burned the paper and chanted, I went inside, laid down and tranced out. This means I let go of my conscious mind and followed the energy I'd just released to the god form of Dr. Phil. While in the trance I felt the presence of Dr. Phil. He and I spoke for a time about my situations and he explained how he'd keep me focused on improving the situations. He advised invoking him once a day to remind myself of what I was doing. This invocation was the chant I had done earlier in the evening. Everyday for several months I invoked Dr. Phil in the morning. By doing so, even if I didn't read the book that day I still felt the presence of Dr. Phil. Whenever a situation applicable to what I was reading the book for occurred the Dr. Phil would give a bit of advice that allowed me to steer through the situation. I stopped invoking the Dr. Phil entity only after I'd finished reading the book. At the point he'd served his purpose and I was ready to address the situations by myself. Remember that any entity, pop culture or otherwise., should only be used as long as you need it. Once the need is gone it's time to move on. Otherwise the entity becomes a crutch and you are back where you started albeit with an entity that isn't helping you any longer.

One aspect of interest that I noted was the dynamic nature of the energy that I'd worked with. The energy of Dr. Phil felt very powerful, very alive. I surmise several reasons for this. One he is alive and in being alive in a physical sense has that much more power and effect as opposed to a god or goddess from the past. Two because people give him energy by paying attention to him and it a lot of people pay attention to him the energy that is being worked with is the result of tapping into the belief that people have toward him as a wise, knowledgeable psychologist that can solve problems. Three, I was just willing to believe in him more than I had with other gods or goddesses that I occasionally work with. I could be wrong about this, but consequent workings with other popular culture icons have yielded similar results.

You might wonder why I stopped working with Dr. Phil if this was the case. He is still quite popular in the media, in fact more so than when I'd initially worked with him. He has a lot more energy going into him because of the popularity given to him. Nonetheless he'd served his purpose. I didn't need to work with him any longer. I know that if and when I do need to work with him again that I can simply invoke him as a god from and then apply him toward the situation I need to address.

Belief is a very powerful tool, a powerful energy for the mage to work with. Belief is especially easy to tap into with popular culture entities because in this age the different forms of media spread the pop culture icons everywhere. Simply put, the availability of pop culture icons is what makes them into gods. People choose to believe in the reality of Dr. Phil (Who may or may not be the Dr. Phil on TV in everyday life) or for that matter Buffy the vampire slayer. If this weren't true the commercials and television shows that feature such icons wouldn't have the die-hard followings that they have. Even choosing to watch a commercial or show once gives the pop culture icon power over the viewer as the viewer has been imprinted with the character and what the character can do for the viewer. Power is even gained when people choose to complain about the pop culture icon. The reason is simple in that when you direct energy (positive or negative) toward something you are feeding that something energy. Power is gained because you chose to believe in that reality and complain about it someone.

So the lesson here is that if you want to work with pop culture icons, belief is the key to the temple. The level of belief that people put into an entity such as a pop culture entity determines it's power and in turn a mage can draw on that power if he or she is willing to believe in the entity and it's reality. In other words Dr. Phil worked so well for me precisely because I was willing to invest belief (energy) into the reality of the god form based off of Dr. Phil and in turn I was able to access the energy that everyone else was putting into him.

Let me give a quick example. Say you want to go on a diet, but you know under ordinary circumstances you'd have trouble keeping to the diet. You can use magick to help you with this matter and one way to do that is to use a pop culture entity in your workings. Who do you use? Were I to go on a diet I'd use the pop culture entity Jared, who represents Subway. You'll see him a lot on television and each time he's showing the benefits of a successful diet. So what you do is create a god form out of Jared. Observe the commercials, take notes on attributes you'd want your Jared god form to have and then on the first night of the diet and each night after you invoke the Jared god form to help you keep to the diet. Now on a humorous aside you may find yourself having an inexplicable craving for Subway subs, but so be it. As long as you are dieting and reaching your target weight it doesn't matter. What does matter is that you invest Jared with your belief that he will keep you dieting. Use chants, images, and whatever else as needed.

Bear in mind you can do this with any pop culture entity. The one peril to this practice is that you eventually may find yourself believing too much and that's always a risk. Speaking for myself, I worked with Dr. Phil while he was useful to me and then I moved on to other pop culture god forms such as Harry Potter. I didn't want to become too enmeshed or reliant in Dr. Phil's reality because I knew while it helped me in the short term, I'd ultimately need to address the situations myself and Dr. Phil served as a useful beginning tool to inspire me to do just that.

Endnotes

I refer to people who are in popular culture, such as Britney Spears as entities because we aren't dealing with the real person. Instead we are dealing with the perception people have of the pop stars as well as the image the pop star deliberately cultivates to continue getting energy. As such the entity of the pop star, a being created by both the image fostered by the pop star and by the perceptions/beliefs of the people who are into the pop star, is what we wish to focus on in magickal workings.

About the Author

Taylor Ellwood is currently pursuing his Ph.d in Literacy, Rhetoric, and Social Practice at Kent State University in Ohio. He has written several articles on the occult. He has been an active practitioner of magick for nine years. Taylor is nearly finished with 'Popular Culture Magick', which will feature his experiments with pop culture in full.