Why Magick Fails; A Website; MM news!
Actually, there are many reasons why magick fails. The primary cause of most magickal failures, however, is not understanding that magick is, in part, a science. Rituals, spells, and all forms of magick are basically scientific experiments. As you did (or do) in high school, you can simply repeat experiments from a text book and have a
fairly high degree of success. But not all experiments done in school successful. Why? Because you didn’t control all of the variables. According to scientific theory, if you repeat an experiment under the same conditions, the results should be the same. If you do magick, and it doesn’t work, the cause is most likely to be that you are not working under the same conditions; you’re not controlling the variables. The chance of failure increases when you try something that isn’t in the textbooks because you may be less aware of the variables. The solution is to keep a complete record of your rituals, including variables such as temperature, your attitudes and emotional state, the tools you used, etc. By modifying your variables through the understanding of correspondences, you will discover what is successful and what isn’t. This process of trial and error is why NLP practitioners like to say, “There is no failure, only feedback.” Learn from each of your failures and success is inevitable.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about!
One of the things that they don’t talk about in NLP is that feedback isn’t enough. You also must be able to understand the feedback. One of the typical examples of this is questions I receive about a certain type of magick that doesn’t work. Specifically, I’m talking about getting rid of something you already have.
Most of the time, when people talk about banishing rituals, they’re talking about keeping something unwanted away. However, some people want to do banishings to send away something they possess but is unwanted—banishing an illness, banishing poverty, banishing a boyfriend, etc. Very often these either fail or are only temporarily successful for a simple reason. This reason was first put forward by Aristotle (384 b.c.e.–322 b.c.e.) when he wrote “horror vacui,” usually translated as:
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Simply getting rid of something you have isn’t enough. It leaves an empty space and something has to fill it. Often, that something is simply what was there before. Banish a bad habit and it fades away—for awhile. But then it returns.
The solution becomes obvious. If you’re doing magick to banish something you currently have you must replace it with something else. Not in the future. Not in a second spell or ritual. As part of the magick you are doing.
- Don’t just do magick to banish a bad habit. Include what you want to do in place of that bad habit.
- Don’t just do magick to banish an illness. Include in your magick an influx of good health.
- Don’t just do magick to banish an unwanted boyfriend. Include in your magick that you will be happy, fulfilled, and content by yourself for a specific period.
A New Website
I would like to take this opportunity to announce a great new website. Mine. Even though I used to teach web design at U.S.C., I had previously limited my own websites to one for my novel The Resurrection Murders. Now I have a website sharing who I am and what I do. You can get to it in one of two ways: you can use my name, dmkraig.net, or you can use the title of my most popular book, ModernMagick.com.
On the website you’ll learn a bit about me, the workshops I give, where I’m appearing, and my writings. I’m also trying something I think is unique. I’m including seven blogs. The blogs are on different subjects so you can go to just what interests you rather than read my blather on other topics. One of the links will take you right to this blog that I do for Llewellyn.
I think you’ll like the site. It’s simple, fast, and has lots of information. So give it a look and let me know what you think.
Modern Magick News!
As you know, I’ve been working very hard on a new edition of Modern Magick. It has a new format (8.5″ x 11″), about 40% new material, and is completely re-written and expanded. It’s filled with new art (I show some of my original ideas for the art on my website), new stories, clearer descriptions, updated bibliographies, a new chapter, and much more. It will be available in just a few weeks. I’m getting more and more excited as the publication date approaches.
Now, I’m happy to announce that you can be one of the first persons in the world to get this new 3rd edition of Modern Magick! Llewellyn is now taking pre-orders. Click on this LINK and you can order right away. Here’s a low res version of what the new cover looks like. The real thing is even better!
“If you’re doing magick to banish something you currently have you must replace it with something else. Not in the future. Not in a second spell or ritual. As part of the magick you are doing.”
Doesn’t this cause problems in terms of timing? If I’m banishing something, I need to do it at the waning of the moon, correct? And if I’m trying to attract something, I need to do it at the waxing of the moon, right?
How can this be done simultaneously?
BTW, congrats on the website =)
Hi, Kyle.
That’s a good question.
The thing is, you’re considering the replacement as something other than what you’re doing. The replacement is part of the same ritual. So if you were just doing a ritual to bring something into your life, you’d be absolutely correct. But since they’re part of the same thing, it’s fine to do them together.
Let me give you an analogy. Suppose you had a deep wound that was infected. To treat it you’d clean the wound. But you wouldn’t wait hours or day to add an antibiotic ointment and perhaps stitch the wound close after you have “banished” the infection! The treatment (a metaphoric ritual) is all part of one thing, getting rid of the infection. In the same way, if there is something you don’t like, doing magick to get rid of the issue and replacing it with something you do want is also part of the same thing.
[…] Leave a comment Go to comments Donald Michael Kraig has a brief piece on his blog about why magic fails. Aside from the usual advice about keeping journals and whatnot, Kraig has an interesting […]