Deciphering the Results
Day 2 of 31
TRANSIT TO TRACK Mercury Capricorn 1 sextile Saturn Pisces 1
“Did it work?” is one of the hardest questions to answer in magic. There are times where you’ll get a sudden and obvious reaction, the kind science teachers wow classes with when they’re trying to prove equations can be cool too. In 20-some years of active practice, I’ve only had a few moments like that. They’re rare and when it happens, it’s the sort of thing that you couldn’t explain if you tried. It’s almost always subtle. Magic in fiction takes the place of weaponry in most modern narratives, becoming the violence that validates the hero’s values. Magic can be a weapon but its forms are far greater than just that. That also makes it much harder to decipher whether or not it worked. In a fiction story, the spell is cast and the monster disappears. If there’s still some runtime left, the spell fails and we know that because the monster did not disappear.As is often the case, Reality is a little trickier.
Take the ritual from yesterday to kick all this off. Hopefully you felt the magic flow, but that’s difficult to “prove”. The spell itself wasn’t results focused anyway. You’re accepting a “help wanted” ad and getting a bit of magic upfront as payment for the work ahead, but there’s been no assignment so far. Or has there? “Did it work?” becomes a tricky question with things like this. Fortunately, there are three fairly basic steps you can take (that are conveniently included in that ritual!) to help you track results, craft better spells, and improve your understanding of magical working!
ANCHORING WITHIN TIME
Giving a working a particular time frame is Magic 101. Whether you’re reading tarot cards or undertaking some grand rite of initiation, time is a powerful ally in magic. Astrologers focus heavily on timing in the magical branches of that tradition, from elections chosen to alter the outcome of events to the crafting of talismans that require specific celestial alignments to manufacture. Our sense of “timing” is a little different here. While using those times is a fantastic option, there are many other cycles of time in the world to monitor than just the shifting of the Zodiac. Witches know that the Spiral has no shortage of magic in its churning cycles.
Day and night, the cycles of the Moon, the changing seasons, Earth’s orbit around the Sun – these are all timing devices we use in our daily life and are well recognized as significant across cultures. That collective consciousness of those moments and their significance is helpful in magic! There can be great power in secrets and obscure symbols, but the most powerful magics take what everyone knows and transform it ever so subtly into something else entirely. Stage magician or Divine, the basic premise is the same. I like to choose multiples of three for divination: 3 days, 6 weeks, 9 months – it just feels right but any time frame will work. Consistency in your practice will help your soul “memorize” the magic and streamline the process. My phrasing here sounds arbitrary because which way you go is ultimately unimportant but giving importance to your choice is key! I choose 3 because it’s the number of completion, the lowest Reality we can see and 6 is the one just above us. 4 is the number of Time itself and 5 is the number of Choice/Meaning so those could be good options if you’re struggling.
“Knowing the magic will exhaust itself when the clock strikes midnight means I can leave Cinderella to her business and get back to mine.”
The farther out you look, the less decided the future is. While the present is absolutely “where things are decided”, not everything plays out the moment it is decided. Many choices are made long before we physically push the button. Have you ever gone to vote without your decision already in mind? You perform the ritual and give the thought power that shapes reality when you go and submit the ballot, but the choice had been made long ago, a consequence of many consequences. Applying this same kind of phenomenology to magic, the immediate future has very few undecided elements while a few weeks or months out contains many question marks. If you’re trying to predict tomorrow’s events, you’re probably not going to have much wiggle room whatever the results. Trying to predict your life 30 years out is entirely worthless. Are you even over 30 and if so, did you 30 years ago have any way of understanding your life today? Even if you told them what you were doing, could they understand it? How much explaining would it take to make sense of 30 years of life?
For rituals and spells focused on effects, time frames vary wildly. Rituals should always have timing built in. I would almost go as far as to say it should be your first consideration: how long will this take? By defining phases of the ritual, giving it multiple elements, and repeatedly performing it, you can help focus the results and make sure they occur with the intended timing. Spells should be very immediate in their time frame and work it into the casting if you can: while the candle burns, for the cycle of the moon, whatever works. Because spells will always maintain a connection to your living soul, you’re technically always feeding the spell. It’s a bit like leaving your electronics plugged in while turned off. They’re always draining a tiny bit of magic, even after they’re “finished” from your perspective if the end condition isn’t clear. Timers help with that, especially if you’re forgetful like yours truly. Knowing the magic will exhaust itself when the clock strikes midnight means I can leave Cinderella to her business and get back to mine.
DEFINING YOUR TARGET
Another major mistake beginner practitioners of pretty much every tradition face is murky targets. In the beginning, when you’re primarily working with your own Will, soul, or spirits already on your side, you can get away with a very human perspective. I think this is why a lot of practitioners stick with human-like spirits. Even if it isn’t actually a human, elementals wearing those guises or presenting themselves in that way have long been the favorite of spiritualists and mediums. Even those human-adjacent entities still experience Reality entirely differently from us. Our Consciousness is NOT from our spirit. Our Consciousness originates within the Mind which is generated by the Body: it is first a property of the Material. This is why mortal consciousness is so much more influential here than spirits, gods, or anything else. Our Consciousness is one of the few to originate here entirely, to be born of the Stone and not the Skies. Unfortunately, that means the abstract-first view of spirits is almost entirely opposite the material-first view of humans.
Getting around that takes practice, collaboration, and a willingness to let your Consciousness bend and be bent in return. Fortunately, that’s good for you. Spirits perceive material reality similar to how we see spirits: where they see themselves as very much actively changing and undefined, we see “purer” conceptual entities. We see our wriggling bodies, the routine and mundane needs of maintaining it, the cruel cycles of time: they see none of that. Firstly, they see your soul. Some might perceive the body as well if they’re spirits of the material, but higher consciousnesses don’t usually experience material reality. They don’t see your aged body and weakened eyes – they see the decades of Knowledge accumulated in your flesh, the wisdom of Experience earned through the resolution of Possibility after Possibility. Depending on the spirit and your own soul, you may be entirely unrecognizable to a spirit that is very familiar to you. On the flipside, some spirits will know parts of you that you have already decided on but yet to carry out. The beauty of our dialogue is hard to understate.
To help reduce translation mistakes, a clearly defined target helps. Sigils are an easy way of doing this. Depending on the magic, a sigil can become a means of extending an enchantment, “rooting” a spirit’s sense of time and causality to help them understand what we want to occur, and helps your soul “remember” the magic, strengthening its effect. There are plenty of rules for constructing sigils and they’re all arbitrary in the same way rules about timing and divination are arbitrary. Choose whichever you’d like but make sure you follow those rules. Chaos Magic 101. Learning to pivot the center of your worldview is good for your paradigm and essential to modern magic!
A defined target can also be a defined outcome: what exactly is supposed to happen? In the ritual from Day 1, the outcome is intentionally vague because you’re actually doing the second step in a bigger ritual. I did step 1 which more specifically defines the ritual, its timeframes, and the conditions for participation. That’s all detailed in the post and the incantation references some of it. Over the course of the month, we will perform additional spells and rituals that extend the grand working, sharpening your target as the Event Horizon comes more clearly into view. For now, the target is opening the Way, taking a sip of the Witch King’s magic, and preparing to do something Good.
AIMING FOR IMPACT
Not unlike choosing the proper target, the third tip here involves the actual magic itself. Knowing what you’re shooting for is helpful, but you need to then trace the course of the arrow. Are you positioned right? Where do you need to move to get the aim you need? How can you alter the Circumstances of yourself and the target to make your shot simpler? Amateur magicians focus too much on envisioning the arrow’s impact on the target rather than looking for the simplest shot with the biggest impact. The more change necessary, the more friction generated within Reality. Our Will competes with the Flow and all the other Wills within it when we cast a spell. Magic works best when we take the simplest route, like electricity coursing to ground itself. Perhaps a lightning bolt could destroy the gate, but a tiny spark at the control panel would open it just as well. That’s what I mean when I say aim for impact.
We will spend a great deal of time on this concept in the coming weeks. The depth of rules and laws governing magic could span entire libraries. General rules for estimating the amount of friction your action will generate and therefore the amount of excess energy needed to create the change should be applied with an understanding that specific Circumstances always override general conditions.
If it has a soul, it will be hard to directly affect. If their soul is stronger than yours, you will need to overtake the difference somehow.
Directly affecting material reality is pricey. Look for opportunities to alter Circumstances or lean into natural cycles already at play.
Magics of Life and Death are prohibitively expensive. You’re better off not approaching them. A life for a life is a generous deal: it’s usually much more than that.
Like attracts like. The more similar something is, the less magic required to alter it.
SO HOW DO I KNOW IF IT WORKED?
Right, back to the original question: did you get a result? If not, do you have reason to expect one? Is the magic specific enough to endure or will your Will be dissolved by the maelstrom of Consciousnesses? Most of the time, magic won’t work right when you’re learning. You might be especially lucky or be working within a tradition where the steps are well-laid, but otherwise, you should expect plenty of failures and missteps. Change your approach and try again. How many things have you ever done right on the first attempt in life, even with great instruction and examples? Why would that suddenly change for magic?
For our ritual, you’ll want to keep an eye out for “Callings” – a synchronicity that aligns with the spell’s purpose. If you did exactly what I offered, you and I are elves in Santa’s army of Good. Otherwise, you’re working with another figure (or figures) but the gist is the same: there are wrongs afoot and someone needs to right them. “Fighting” doesn’t mean actually hurting anyone (sometimes). It’s the holiday season around the world and the opportunities to volunteer will be in no shortage. Put yourself out in the world, follow the symbols in your dreams, and if you see a rabbit, follow it. My little Bunny Prince lives on the Moon and knows the Way to Everywhere. Be sure to follow whatever rabbit hole he leads you down over the next few weeks.
Tomorrow we start to define the target for this ritual in particular: what is the challenge within the challenge here? What darkness inside can you expel by embracing the Darkness? Why are you fighting for Good when you could be fighting for yourself? What is the Light you want to shine that makes the fight worthwhile? Give it a ponder and hop back on tomorrow afternoon to get some extra direction on refining the spell and what to do if you find your opportunity!
Good luck and Good working!
