Every so often I like to make a post like this to remind people how to get the most out of their practical magick. This goes for however you work including my attunements, Gallery-esque rituals, manifestation, spells, mantras, full ceremonial rituals, or whatever. There are some basic things you need to consider if you are just starting or are having trouble getting results to manifest.
First, do you actually believe? You have to believe in magick in some way, because If you are constantly telling yourself that magick is fake and doesn’t really work, then it’s not going to work for you. To overcome this just keep reading the success stories online. If it works for them, it will work for you. Next, do you believe in the ritual or system you are using? If you don’t trust the system then it isn’t going to give you great results. I highly encourage people to find a system that they truly believe in and use it no matter what others may say or think about it. Finally, do you believe in yourself? You have to believe that you can perform the ritual and get the results to manifest. I see a lot of people who absolutely believe in magick and in the ritual but constantly show that they doubt their ability. They constantly worry that they did the ritual wrong, that they don’t have the right psychic abilities, or that they are too new or don’t come from a long line of powerful witches or whatever. Every single person on this planet is capable of performing magick. Magick is literally each and every person’s divine birthright.
Second, are you lusting for results? Lusting for results is not simply thinking about your desire, that’s normal. It’s when you are impatiently waiting for the magick to manifest your results. If you keep thinking about the magick you did and when or how it’s going to manifest you may be sabotaging your results. The fix for this is that every time you catch yourself thinking about the results stop and take a moment to feel grateful as though you already have what you asked for. Gratitude is key to magick, so this will actually reinforce your magick instead of hurting it. You can rid yourself of this bad habit by working with Kevashiel one of the 42 Shem Angels who is excellent at helping people permanently stop lusting for results.
Third, are you too desperate? This is similar to lusting for results, but you can be desperate without lusting for results. I was like this for a long time with money magick. Kevashiel took my lusting for results away, but I was still working out of a place of desperation and it killed my money magick. You cannot be desperate for your results. Think of how much of a turn-off desperation is when you are dating. Someone can be the perfect partner, but if they come across as too desperate no one wants anything to do with them. So you have to find a way to lose your desperation. You do this by convincing yourself that you are already beyond wealthy and successful already. This is why Damon Brand has you look at the beauty around you every day and take a moment to feel wealthy for all the beauty in your life. If you are desperate for love take a moment every day to see how loved you actually are. Even if you are truly alone you are loved by the divine, the universe, or by nature. There are of course rituals you can do to banish desperation. The first two rituals in Henry Archer’s “7 Occult Money Rituals” are brilliant for that and are what allowed my money magick to start flowing. One is a simple candle magick ritual and the other works with Metatron.
Fourth, do you believe you deserve what you are asking for? This is a hard one to figure out unless you do a lot of self-examination, but a lot of people kind of hate themself unconsciously or at least don’t think they deserve good things. You see this with people all the time. People who keep dating horrible people because they don’t think they deserve anyone better. Or people who are sick all the time because they don’t think they deserve to be healthy. People who sabotage their work-life because they don’t think they deserve money. Imagine someone that you really dislike. If I told you that you should give them an expensive gift would you do it? Probably not. It’s the same if you don’t like yourself. You aren’t going to allow the universe to give you the tremendous blessings that it wants to give you. So for this, you need to examine yourself and figure out why you hate yourself. Who convinced you that you weren’t worth anything? A lover? A parent? Society in general? Therapy may be needed for this. Inner work will help. Haniel or some other spirit of Venus will help. The mother goddesses.
Fifth, is there a way for the results to manifest? If you are asking for a lover, but not doing anything to meet people the magick isn’t going to work. If you don’t have a way for money to come to you it won’t come. If all you have is an hourly wage, then you are going to work more hours because that’s the only way you are giving the magick to manifest. Make your life enchantable. Start side hustles. Meet people. Make contacts. Do all the regular mundane things you need to do to make it real as though you didn’t do magick for it. There’s no point in doing magick to write the next best-selling novel if you aren’t actually writing. You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket. This leads us to the next point.
Six, are your requests realistic? A request needs to be something that is almost obtainable but is just out of reach. You should only be trying to nudge reality a bit to get what you want. Sure sometimes miracles happen, but it’s not a winning strategy to depend on miracles. Do magick for what you are already working for. Do a ritual for that next step, and then again for the step after that, and again for the step after that, and so on. Sure you can go ahead and ask for the end-goal, but if you only do a ritual for the final goal and don’t do anything for all the steps between you and it then you probably aren’t going to manifest that final reward you want. Oh, and the odds at winning the lottery are so astronomically high that even if a ritual successfully increases your odds to win, it’s still probably more likely that you will be struck by lightning while being attacked by a shark. You can use magick to help with gambling, but even with gambling, you should be strategic. Small lotteries with fewer numbers and lower jackpots are one way, but really if you want to use magick for gambling you should play blackjack or bet on craps, something where the odds aren’t stacked against you and that has enough real randomness, and not machine randomness, for the universe to work with.
Seven, are you being too specific about your request? What I mean is, are you trying to dictate to the spirits how the results should manifest? You see the more you try to tell the magick how it should work the harder it is for it to manifest. It’s best to just say what you want and don’t worry about telling the spirits how it will come. That means if you want your business to be more profitable, don’t say I want more customers to buy from my store. Just say I want my store to make more money and let it manifest how it manifests. Even better is just to say that you want such and such amount of money. It may not even come through the business. Remember, magick takes the path of least resistance, but we are very bad at actually knowing what that path really is so don’t try to guess. Just let it happen how it happens.
Finally, are you doing everything you can to receive your results? Receiving is a magical skill. It is almost an art in itself. Often our results don’t manifest how we expect them to so you need to use your intuition. Notice signs or omens. Don’t be afraid to follow the white rabbit if your gut tells you to. Once I was driving through Colorado with my wife in separate cars when I saw a sign for the site of the Sandcreek Massacre. My intuition whispered, “you need to go there, you’ll find what you are looking for there.” So I got on my CB and told my wife I was going to take a couple-hour detour and I’d meet her at the hotel later that evening. Being the best wife ever she didn’t question it and just said “ok, be careful.” I went but didn’t find what I was looking for. (I was making a Medicine Stick and was looking for a fallen branch, but this part of Colorado is very flat and barren.) However, in the distance, I saw a raven doing loops in the air over a stationary stop and she was making a laughing sound. So I hiked over to where the raven was more or less hovering and found the perfect stick half covered in snow. If I had listened to that part of myself that said “Listen to the raven” or if I had just said “No I’m tired” and didn’t drive the extra two hours I wouldn’t have the powerful magical tool that I now have. So trust your intuition and don’t be afraid to follow it into little adventures and side quests. But there’s a little more to the art of receiving. You need to act as though you know that the results are going to manifest. I don’t mean to go into debt because you know that money is coming, but you do need to act as though it is on the way. This can mean clearing out the garage to make room for the new car. Or clearing out part of your closet for the new lover to move in. Find ways to not only help the magick manifest, but that show that you have no doubt that it will manifest. Act as though it is already here or is coming and be grateful as though it has already manifested.
Oh, and the last thing you want to do is usually the first thing most beginners do which is worry that you didn’t do the ritual correctly. Performing the ritual is actually the easy part. As long as you do it confidently it will work. Remember that many people get better practical results with the “law of attraction” than many occultists do with a complex ritual and the “law of attraction” is a deeply flawed and incomplete system. But people make it work because they believe and they are confident in it and in their abilities with it. And they are following all of the above advice either knowingly or unknowingly. So don’t worry about if you did the ritual right, if you mispronounced the Hebrew, or if you didn’t feel anything. As long as you take the time to craft the right request, that’s for something that you are working for that is just out of reach and you aren’t trying to dictate how it manifests, that you believe in yourself and the system you are using, and do the ritual with confidence then you’ve done all you need to do. Now go make room to receive all the blessings that are coming to you, and don’t be afraid to follow that bird that’s acting weird because it may be trying to guide you to the pot of gold you asked for!
