There are a plethora of reasons why magick operations or rituals peter out after you perform them. It happens from time to time. It happens to me too. It feels like a form of magical erectile dysfunction: a loss of potency.

The key is not to quit. Giving up on your work will make it worse. Practice makes perfect.

In my experience, this has happened for the few reasons that follow. There is most likely to be others, but perhaps these will help you.

1. Focusing on the items of the ritual, and not the ritual itself

Unless you are super rich or somehow find gold and other needed trappings for ceremonial magicians, it would be wise to ease up on yourself in this area. The point is to do the magic itself. You can get the rest later. The magic itself is what is most important. The practice is what makes you good at it.

2. Doubting yourself or the magic

Taking meticulous notes comes into play in remedying this problem. You will need these records to see if you made progress. Sometimes you have to fake it until you make it because you need to see it start to happen before you can believe it.

Western society taught us a belief in strict materialism and taught that the only thing that is rational or even real is a materialistic mindset. It is helpful to have ‘become invincible’ helps but if you haven’t gotten there yet, you will know when you do, then it is necessary to start off with small experiments before moving to bigger ones.

So, when you are trying to get into magic, you have to break that mindset before you can do more powerful magic. Think of it as going to the gym, and trying to bench press 300 pounds without having ever worked out before. It might be possible for some, but for most people, it would not go well.

For a while, I was working through modern magic. I would do the LBRP every night. I noticed a lot of shifts around me. How people perceive me changed, people were in some cases frightened. These reactions were how I knew it was working. The whole idea is to banish negativity from around you and your space. To purify and then move to the next level. However, this type of magic may not be your cup of tea, and that’s okay. The point is just to keep trying until you perfect the operation itself.

3. Inability to stay impartial

Androids style lust is the mother of all things for successful magical workings. You want to be able to care enough about the result of the working, but you also don’t want to upset us over it. It would be a form of medical constipation. You need to let that shit go.

If you raise all this energy and let it go, and then think about it the thing you asked for consistently, you are not allowing it to do its thing. The overthinking, especially negatively, will turn the energy into a yo-yo and eventually fizzles out completely.

Journal about it for future reference, and then go about your day.

4. Lack of focus

Focusing has been my biggest issue for a bit. I can do it, and I just don’t try. I have to do everything quick and dirty. I also have a ton of distractions I have to work through. So that’s something that I have to remedy.

There are tons of apps that help you with this. You just need to find one and do it. It does not have to be for a long time either. If you want, you can work up to some long drawn out meditation process. But part of doing a ritual is to get yourself into a meditative state and mindset anyway.

I listened to Memory: How to Develop, Train and Use it by William Walker Atkinson on LibriVox recently. The whole idea is to be able to focus on something you do not like to do. That helps you focus on things you do like to do. You can do this using an affirmation and then train yourself to be able to focus. In the book, it was suggested to start memorizing things such as poems. It might be beneficial for the magical practitioner to remember correspondence tables. All of this will help you to be able to focus.

In conclusion, this is only my opinion and also what I have had to personally work through over the course of the past few years. I know that a lot of other people have to work with different things. Don’t see any of these things as permanent challenges or stops to your practice just keep going, work through it, and your skill will grow.