Banishing Your Lust For Result

What’s the one thing most likely to ruin your magick? Lust For Result. But look at this another way. What’s the one change you can make that will give all your magick more power? Banishing your Lust For Result. When you can rid yourself of Lust For Result, you will get more magickal outcomes than you ever thought possible.

Magick is about getting results, so how are you meant to avoid desire? There’s no point in doing magick for something you don’t want. By definition, that means you want the result. Is such desire considered to be lust? Thankfully, it isn’t. Desire is an essential part of magick. There’s little point in doing an eleven-day angelic working for something you’re only vaguely interested in obtaining. ‘Lust For Result’ is not about extreme desire, but about the times when your eagerness for a magickal result is more important than your actual desire.

For example, if you desperately want to sell your novel, you can still want that with all your heart. But if you’ve performed magick to get your novel published, you cannot sit around hoping that the magick has worked. You need to keep your focus on the feeling of your desire having come to pass, and take your focus off the magick you’ve completed.

There are some stars that you can only see out of the corner of your eyes. They are so dim that if you look at them, straight on, they vanish, because the center of the eye is not sensitive enough to see them. Look to one side and you can see the star again. Magick is like that. If you put your focus on the magick itself, the magick disappears. When you put the magick to one side, it becomes real.

Why does Lust For Result matter? Why can’t you do magick, long for your result and still get it? The simplest answer is to say that when you check up on the magick, test the magick or hope that it’s working, you are reinforcing your current state of doubt. Magick is about trying to change yourself and an external circumstance. You never just attract money. You change your willingness to attract money, and you attract money. That is the process of magick.

When you lust for a result and then focus on the magick you’ve performed, it means you aren’t really expecting change. You’re wishing for it. Although wishes might make us feel better, they don’t change the world. When you wish, you are sending out an energy that says, ‘I am lacking the magical result I desire.’ Given that magick reinforces your mental state, magick can amplify your feeling of lack. This is why so much of the magick that I believe in uses emotional transmutation. You change your emotions from a place of lack to a state of having, and in doing so, you side-step Lust For Result. When people tell me that magick isn’t working for them as well as they hoped, it often means that they’re putting all their focus on getting the words, chants and images right, rather than getting to grips with the emotional aspect required to charge up the magick.

For those who have no faith in the magick, or for people who find it difficult to believe, the solution is to keep your attention on the magick only when you are performing magick. After that, you keep your attention on your ordinary world.

I sometimes hear from people who are desperate to get magick working, and the best advice I can offer is as follows. When you are desperate, you are in great danger of ruining the magick. Your emotions are in the wrong place. But the good news is that you can do something about it. Firstly, you should focus on getting the emotional state right, as described in my books. Secondly, you should then carry on with your life as though the magick never occurred at all. When you are doing the magick, it is as though there is nothing other than magick. That should be your complete focus. The moment the magick is done, you forget about it, and carry on trying to solve your problems, without any expectation of result. It can take practice, but if you do this, magick can work even in desperate times.

Just last night, somebody asked me if the following suggestion was the right way to perform magick: “You state your intention, give your trust to magick, and let it take over. You don’t worry about when it will happen. You don’t doubt that it will happen. You just go on with your life knowing that it will happen at the most appropriate time.” To some extent this is true. If you can feel a genuine faith in the magick, then this sort of trust is ideal. Some people find it easy to create this feeling of faith from the outset. Others build it gradually as they see more results. Some find it impossible to feel trust in the magick. When that happens, what are the alternatives?

There are many ways to side-step lust. One solution is to perform a mass of continual rituals, for many different results, all of which matter to you, but none of which are overwhelmingly vital. By performing magick constantly, you won’t even be able to keep track of what you’ve requested. Although this is a hack that can trigger results, it’s not generally the best way to work, because it disconnects you from feeling gratitude when a result comes. You pay the spirits with your pleasure, so it’s important to enjoy your results. I prefer to focus my magick on the things I really want, but I also know this trick can work, so long as it doesn’t actually increase your sense of frustration.

Avoiding the feeling of Lust For Result does not mean you should avoid thinking about your result. If you are trying to get that first novel published, you need to think about your novel daily. You need to keep working on it, refining it, making contact with agents and publishers and negotiating the best deal you can. There is no way you can forget about your desire. It’s your desire that will see you through. Desire itself is fine, so long as it doesn’t lead to fear. The less you can focus on negative emotions associated with your desire, the easier it will be for magick to work. You can still dream of having your novel published, but daydream in a way that feels like certainty rather than hope. If you hope and wish, you choke the magick.

What you can do is let go of lust, by almost acting as though you never performed the magick. That means you continue to put in as much real world effort as you can. This is a tricky mental balancing act. On the one hand you are showing complete faith in the magick, trusting that it will work, but on the other you are acting as though the magick isn’t even required. Although this mental doublethink sounds difficult to achieve, it is quite easy when you make sure your focus is on the present moment. When doing magick, perform the magick as instructed, and be present, feeling the emotions as required. When the magick is over, be in the world, and act as though the magick never happened. This is not insulting to the spirits you work with, and is not a denial of the magick; it is your way of showing that you have truly handed over the problem to another power, and now you will do your part.

I have repeated this many times recently, but it is worth saying again. If you are genuinely willing to wait a year for results, the result can come in hours. If you need the result to come in hours, it might take years. If you can get to grips with this, and perform your magick as though it will genuinely change your world, but then immediately act as though you have never performed the magick, your real world effort will be rewarded. If you can’t do this, the solution is simple. Practice. You will get better at it.

It’s worth remembering that the reason you do magick, is that you are asking for help from another source. It’s vital that you accept that help. You can’t ask for help, and then keep checking to see if the help is coming. You have asked, so now get on with your life and let the results come when they come. As I point out in Magickal Riches, it’s best to avoid the phrase, ‘That ritual didn’t work’, because you don’t know whether it’s worked or not. Give it more time. If you say it hasn’t worked, you switch off the magick. Leave your magick open, and let the results come when they come.

One person wrote to me and said that he kept daydreaming about his result, imagining the immense satisfaction he would feel when his result came about. He hoped this wasn’t lusting for result. There is no harm in daydreaming about your result, but note two important points. Firstly, try to feel the emotions in the present tense. Feel as though it has already happened, and feel grateful that your dream has come to pass. Secondly, take the magick out of your daydreaming. Don’t daydream about the magick solving your problem; simply daydream about the feeling of having the problem solved.

Don’t be afraid of intrusive thoughts. Desire is a useful emotion that can motivate you, and feels entirely different to desperate lust, which is all about doubt, fear, checking up, hoping, counting the days and wondering what you did wrong with your magick. Remember that the magick is extremely simple, and that most of the details don’t matter too much, so long as you can find a way to feel as though the magick has worked. If you can do that, the reality you desire will come towards you faster than you can imagine.