Opposite things may happen while a magickal operation is in progress

Previously, I have written about what to do when a magickal operation is in progress, and I tried to mention how to go about "forgetting" your work, not fretting about it, to hold your intention, etc. Now I want to talk about seemingly opposite things that may happen while a magickal operation is in progress.

When you put your magick into work, you have an intention to create change in the physical plane by using your forces in the astral plane. However, you can't always imagine the whole thing. Therefore, forces you use try to make it happen in several ways, including ways that pass through happenings that you don't actually intent to happen. Let's try to clarify that with a simplified example.

Suppose that there is someone you love at school and you are in your last year. You want to do something to keep in touch with him/her. You want to continue to see the person you love daily. You decide to practice magick with that intention. You put your operation into work and then you see that you have failed many exams and thus you have one more year at school so you can see your loved one daily for one more year.

I know the example is oversimplified. However this represents exactly what I want to explain. So, strange and unexpected things may happen during a magickal operation in progress. Most important reason to this is that you didn't imagine the whole process. If you would, less strange and unexpected things would happen.

An awful example to this can be found in the opposition to the famous "Secret". Some people claimed that using the Secret (the Secret is simply imagination) would cause unwanted changes in one's life. In the perspective I have described above, many unwanted, bad things can happen. The mechanism is this: You put an intention and you don't imagine many ways for it to happen. Then "the universe" or whatever you want to call it, tries to find ways to make it happen. Not all of those ways are compatible with your happiness.

So, the best practice would be to enhance your imagination to a point where you add a road map to your goal. If we talk about that using my oversimplified example, you should take into account that if you fail a couple of exams, you will continue to see your loved one and therefore, you should find another road map to achieve your goal. For instance, you can imagine him or her to be transfered to a school in your area.

Well, the example only takes the final outcome into account. There are also things that may happen while the magick is in progress. You may put your intention and "do" your magick and then you can observe things which are seemingly opposite to your imagined outcome. Be patient when that happens. Your magickal operation is in progress and that means it tries to find the best way to make it happen for you. Don't get stressed for what you see in a couple of days. Learn to become still and wait.

In some old schools, people work on a single magickal project for months. They wait for three waning moon periods or three dark moons. Three months in 2008 would look like a very long time for many people who want instant gratification with their magickal work however this is the truth.

I wish I could give more and more examples about this because this is a very important aspect of an ongoing magickal operation but there are many more things to post since I am just back from a vacation. I hope I can provide more examples on a third post about ongoing magickal practices.

What to do when a magickal operation is in progress

In one of my previous posts about sigil magick and thoughtforms, Ananael commented on how he 'forgets' about his magickal practice. He said that not obsessing about his magickal aim helps on the forgetting part. I decided to take this further and write notes as a post. He basically said this:

Not fretting about a magical operation in progress is my take on how the "forgetting" works as well. The time you spend obsessing about whether or not an ongoing magical operation will work really seems to diminish its effectiveness, though I'm not sure of the exact mechanism. It's almost like if you hold the form too tightly in your mind it can't get the work done that you charged it to do.

I agree with him and I want to add what fretting or obsessing about an ongoing magickal work just means that you don't believe in what you do. This is a shortcut to becoming unsuccessful in magickal practice because magick starts and ends in your mind. This holds true on every level of magical activity. When you do your work and then obsess about it afterwards, this is a clear sign of disbelief.

On first impression, not to obsess about your magickal work seems very difficult to some people. That's normal too and there are ways to overcome this. You can become pretty relaxed with practice and experience. One of the ways to get relaxed is meditation. You don't need to meditate deeply, just try to keep yourself calm.

Why does obsessing about your work affects your practice and why is this a bad thing? Well, you usually do magickal work to create physical change. It is usually something that you want badly (ok, not always but sometimes). Wanting something so much involves disbelief. You don't believe that it is going to happen or you don't believe that you are going to have what you want. Therefore, since your belief is a strong magickal force, your belief manifests the reality ending up with not having what you want. Because the request sent to a higher force (the universe, gods and goddesses, entities, your higher self or whatever you want to call it) contains just this information: that you don't believe in having a certain thing and in fact you don't want to have it. This is what magickal practice is all about.

There is another perspective tough. Steve Pavlina, who is a self-development guru and also a master on intention- manifestation process tells something different. In fact he doesn't disagree with what I tell here but he adds something called polarity. According to this polarity model, he thinks that it's okay to use your obsession as a force in manifesting what you want. His model can be shown in an example like this: Suppose that you want to attract or manifest money and you can't stop fretting about it. At this point, Pavlina says that one should stay in this fearful process and imagine what she wants in this emotional state. So, you will use your fear against not having what you want at the end while imagining what you want. Thus, you use your strongest energy at that moment.

In fact, this is nearly equal to high magick. Higher practices of magick and especially chaos magick involves using any and every kind of energy. However, if you are a beginner, I would always suggest keeping a high mood and transacting a positive energy for your magickal work.

Magickal Arts: Charging Crystals and Oils

This is four part video series from Rob Cutter, explaining how to use and charge crystals and oils. In previous post titled What does charging mean? How do you charge something?, I briefly explained the notion of charging. It is always good to have different perspectives, so here is it. I think that his explanations are more comprehensive than mine.

What does charging mean? How do you charge something?

Charging is an essential concept on almost all kinds of magick. While writing on tarot magick yesterday, I promised to post about the notion of charging and here it is.

Charging, generally, means directing your energy towards something and feeding it with your energy. When you draw a sigil, you can charge it by placing your hand over the drawing and thinking and concentrating about your intention. That's all you have to do for a classical charging.

You don't have to be physically connected to the thing you want to charge. You remotely charge things. The famous experiment on water crystals that Masaru Emoto conducted is a proof that you can charge things remotely.

Charging Crystals

Many people into Wicca and Witchcraft are using several crystals for several purposes. Usage of crystals is not limited to witchcraft. They are widely used for alternative methods of healing. For instance, amethyst is used for treating sleep disorders.

Most of the crystals are charged under the full moon (I am talking from a witchcraft perspective). Moreover, when you put an amethyst and a family of quark together, they can charge each other regardless of the position of the moon.

Next to this post, I am going to publish a video series of Rob Cutter, explaining charging oils and crystals.

Charging and Reiki

Reiki is a healing energy and the meaning of the phrase is roughly something like "Hi Energy!", or "Hello Energy!". See that this word is in fact a greeting and linguistically, it doesn't mean "universal energy" or "healing energy". It is simply a greeting phrase.

In reiki, in fact you don't charge anything. You just use energy to flow through your body and transits from your hands to the person's body where it hurts or where it is unhealthy.

However, you can charge other things with reiki. There are reiki boxes out there in which you can put your written intentions or any other thing that you want to heal (a broken radio for instance?) and then you charge that box with your energy.

My take on the subject

I think charging means showing and trying to transfer your intention to things. It can be done manually or just mentally. I think that although it is not necessary, we always look for something to symbolize our intentions. Voodoo is a typ of such symbolism. I don't think that you need a doll to harm anybody properly. Your thoughts and intention maybe sufficient for that.

So, that's what I think on the notion of charging when it is used with a symbol or with something to represent it. I believe in charging but I am just saying that you don't need any material in your hand to charge something.

You can also charge your tarot cards and anything you use for your magickal practices. I also believe that you don't need to be the source of energy when charging. I believe that you can create a servitor who will take it's energy from the sun or the moon, pretty much like any apparatus designed for that purpose in mind.