Rituals Gone Wild
Ritual bath. Check. Anointed forehead with the appropriate oil. Check. Robe on and candles everywhere. Check. There you are dressed, and ready embark on a magical endeavor. You start, but you never get that feeling in your core as you had before. You can’t seem to flow with the energy like you once did.
For me, this boils down to a few reasons.
Concentration and Confidence
Being able to focus is a critical skill that we should all cultivate. For instance, if you didn’t have a golden sword that was necessary for a specific type of ritual, you need be able to get over this fact enough to concentrate on the task at hand; change your world to conform with your will.
Concentration is a big issue at this time. Most people are buried so deep in the news or some other outside world tragedy (friend drama, etc.) that it makes it harder to focus. Meditation can help this, and yet seems too hard to accomplish. Luckily, there are a ton of tools out there that you can use to drop out for a few minutes.
Some meditation apps are headspace, Insight Timer, or you can find some on YouTube.
In the book Memory: How to Develop, Train and Use It by William Walker Atkinson, he stresses that to cultivate your memory, you must focus on a task that you do not particularly enjoy. He states that affirmations such as “I am focusing my will on this task” help to keep you glued to the most mundane tasks. He recommends memorizing poems, but correspondence tables work just as well.
With the development of your memory comes an increased ability to pay attention to tedious tasks. Try to memorize a few keywords for the tarot; tackle numerology head-on; or remember your rituals. Not only will this improve your memory, but you will find that it works well to be able to concentrate in general.
A lot of the time, we are asked to get all these objects for magical operations that may not be obtainable or are illegal. That stuff is super great to have for sure, but for me, it has always been about the mindset I have at the time. If I feel like I am powerful, and this will work for me, then it does. Confidence is the key to make these rituals manifest.
One thing you’ll notice is the ego size of many successful magicians. It can be on the annoying side, but if you were consistently successful, your ego would balloon to an almost explosive level.
We are taught to be humble but screw that. Be proud of yourself if you are good at something. The difference is when you start talking like you’re the only one that is the best doing what you do. Maybe you are, but you will alienate people that may help you in the long run.
The point is, be confident, but don’t be a piece of shit at the same time. It isn’t the size of your ego that makes you a magician, but the way you use it.
Belief in Magic
Belief is when taking meticulous notes is critical. If you write down what you were working towards, you can track your progress. Magic often comes to fruition in really unusual ways. Make sure that you don’t poo-poo away the results.
Acknowledge the magic when it manifests. For magic to continue to work, you must admit it when it works. You cannot say that it was a coincidence or some other sort of dismissive word taught to us to squash the belief in magic. If you want your rituals to work, you can’t act like it was just “luck” or “coincidence.”
Materialism teaches that the “real” world is what we can touch and rationalize, but this doesn’t work with magic. There’s the saying that “Seeing is believing,” but for magic, it is more like “Believing is seeing.” You have to believe it works before it will be profoundly in your face that you cannot deny the existence of such an abstract mind-bending concept.
My belief stems from a bunch of childhood experiences with spirits. The majority happened when we moved into the woods. The forest is their territory, and I suppose they wanted to know what kind of creature just arrived. A lot of bright lights at 3 am, sparkly orbs, and what other people call shadow people gave me a firm belief in otherworldly beings.
I had experiences with a spirit board predicting things happening that would not be known for many years after. I learned to discern what is spirit and what is just some sort of fluke. If you read any folktale, you quickly learn that spirits are on their side. Sound judgment is necessary when speaking with these creatures, and works with people too.
Being too Emotional
Over-attachment is another of those things that one must tackle to be successful. You want to be able to care enough about the result of the working, but you also don’t want to obsess over it.
Holding onto anything for too long can render you unable to rise to the occasion to perform the deed pleasingly. It is a form of magical constipation. You need to let that shit go.
If you raise all this energy & let it go, and then think about the thing you asked for always, you are not allowing it to do its job. The over-thinking, especially negativity, will turn the energy into a yo-yo and eventually fizzles out altogether.
Journal about it in your magic diary for future reference, then go about your day.
Set it and forget it ~ Ron Popeil
No one truly knows why magic works, but it does if you believe in it by bringing forward opportunities to correspond to your ritual. It does anyway, but it tends to be more potent with belief.
Do not give up on your work. Giving up will only make it worse. Practice makes functionally powerful changes in your life and confidence in your magic.
