The L.O.A., Magick, and Love Magick: Part II

My previous post on this subject has kicked up a storm on the internet. I’ve received numerous emails and comments—often angry complaints—about what I wrote. Basically, they come down to this: how dare I suggest that a person change in order to attract a partner. It’s fake. It’s not being yourself.Kyle wrote (see comment #3 to my original post), “Many people would scream at this line and say, ‘but why should she change who she is to attract a man? Shouldn’t she just be herself?'” Indeed, several people have done just that.  Kyle responds to that saying that choosing to change could be “door opening.” While that’s a possibility, I think there’s more to it.

I agree, 100%, with the people who say that you shouldn’t change to attract a man or a woman. However, the original concept was not changing to attract a man, but rather, to attract a specific man. Note, too, that I wrote, “Your actions have to be congruent to your desire.” If you hate sports (for example), but want to attract a specific person who loves sports, chances are you’re going to need to start liking sports.

If you’re just looking to attract a partner, by all means, be yourself. If “being yourself” isn’t attracting partners, then you should consider changing. I would add, however, my final comment of the original post: “Only change within your limits.”

The purpose of magick is to bring change into your life. If you aren’t going to change in some way as a result of obtaining a magickal desire, why do the magick at all? If you always take a bus to get to destinations, then do magick to get a car but never use the car and continue as a bus rider, why bother? In fact, one occultist who used the name “Ophiel” (neé Edward C. Peach 1904–1988), wrote that if you can’t use something it is outside of your “Sphere of Availability” and your magick to obtain it won’t work (I write about this in the new edition of Modern Magick).

Not Looking For A Specific Partner?

If you’re not looking for a specific partner, you have no model to guide you to direct any changes in your interests and behaviors. In this case I would say, “Be yourself. Don’t change. Attract a person who will like you for the person you are.”

However, it’s not that simple. As a TV guy would say, “How’s that workin’ for ya?” If being just as you are is attracting the type of people you’d like for a partner and for friends, you certainly have no reason to change. But if you don’t like the type of person you’re attracting, if you’d like to have different friends, or if you’re not attracting anyone, it makes sense to change in order to attract the type of person you’d like as a partner. Again, I’d say you should “only change within your limits.” So how could you do this?

• Do you want someone interested in music? Go to concerts and study music.
• Do you want someone who is interested in fitness? Go to the gym.
• Do you want someone who is interested in the spiritual path you’re on? Go to meetings where such people are likely to attend. Maybe start a website on the subjects that interest you.
• Do you want someone with a college degree? Go to college. If you don’t want to attend as a student, go to events being held at a college.

Real change is not about becoming someone you are not. Rather, it is about becoming the person you really want to be. If, more than anything, you want to be a professional body builder, but you love eating, are overweight, and don’t like exercising, you either have to change your desire or you have to change by watching your diet and exercising even when you don’t want to do so. If you want to be a rock star but don’t play any instrument, you’re going to have to change by learning an instrument and practicing.

And if, more than anything, you want to have a specific person as a partner, you need to start doing things that will attract that partner. If you’re a guy and want a specific woman who loves six-pack abs (which you don’t have), it’s time to change your practices and start doing crunches.

To the right is a version of the famous Hanged Man card of the Tarot. Even though he is suspended and in a very uncomfortable position, he has a glow about his head. He is happy about what is happening to him. Some versions of this card show his possessions and money falling from his pockets and landing on the ground beneath him. The meaning is clear. He is giving up things he doesn’t need in order to achieve something better.

In the original question to me that started this, the woman who wrote to me was unhappy about the current situation and wanted something she felt was better. I gave her the advice of this card: abandon those things that are no longer needed or desired in order to obtain the things you really want. By the way, I refer to this as the “closet cleaning” card: if your closet is full of things you don’t need, you have to get rid of those unwanted things in order to make room for what you do want. You have to change.

Magick is 24/7

As I wrote, “Your actions have to be congruent to your desire.” This is also a key to magick. Magick takes place 24/7, not just when you do a ritual. If you spend 5 minutes doing a wealth spell and then spend hours during the week complaining about your poverty, your continued poverty is not due to the failure of your magick, but because of the success of your unwitting mental magick, your focus on poverty. Your actions and thoughts have to be congruent with your magickal goal.

A Well-Known Story

There is a story of a poor old man. He is not poor due to lack of earnings, but because of his choices. He has worked hard all of his life and earned millions, but except to keep a small home and have food, he has given all of his money to charity. His free time is spent working for charities. There is no man more humble or giving that the man of this story.

But now, in his 70s, he has normal aches and pains. Working is not as easy as it once was and he cannot dedicate as much time working at charities. He’d like to retire so he could direct all of his limited energy to working for charities, but he has no money saved. He’s given it all to the needy.

He’s done this because he believes that is what his faith decrees. So now he prays to his God, “You know I have been faithful all my life to good works. I ask just one thing: please, let me win the lottery so I don’t have to work and can spend the rest of my days giving to charity.”

But at the next lottery drawing, he doesn’t win. He prays again, “Please let me win the lottery. It’s not for me. It’s so I can help others. I’ve always helped others and I only want a very little for myself.” Again he loses. Now he prays, “What’s wrong? It’s not like I’m asking for a lot! It’s not like I’m a terrible person. What do I have to do in order to get this small thing?”

Suddenly his room fills with clouds and flashes of lightning. A voice from nowhere and everywhere says, “Buy a ticket.”

Congruence of Action

Your actions have to be congruent to your desire. If you want to win the lottery you have to change your actions and buy a ticket. If you want a new job that requires certain training or education, you have to change your actions and get that knowledge. If you perform a magick ritual to obtain a goal you have to change your actions to make sure that the things you do between the performance of the ritual and obtaining the goal are congruent with your magickal desire.

Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.

—Mahatma Gandhi