If magick is real, shouldn’t it bring results every time? There are few things in life that work perfectly every time, so it’s unlikely that magick – which relies on so many subtle forces – could be expected to work like clockwork. Despite this, the aim of The Gallery of Magick is to reveal magick that works. How then, can it ever fail?
Most of the time, the magick works, and there are now thousands of positive testimonials confirming this. But a small number of readers are bitterly angry that magick has failed them. I can understand their bitterness.
After my initial success with magick I tried methods that just didn’t work. I blamed the rituals, the authors, the techniques. I blamed magick itself and became highly sceptical and disillusioned. I wanted my results, badly, and I was hurt by the lack of manifestation. Having believed in magick, the world seemed a little dull and disappointing when magick failed.
Even after all these years, I sometimes find myself bewildered by the fact that magick works at all. I was brought up to believe that the only way to solve problems was to work hard, negotiate and then work harder still. To discover that there are supernatural ways to change my reality is something I have never quite got over. Hard work is still required, but magick makes everything easier. This fact remains wondrous. But I also know that magick doesn’t always work.
What I learned is that a single failure, or even a string of failures, does not deny the reality of all magick. Magick works, but the likelihood of magickal success can be improved if you address the following areas.
Explore Natural Ability
Some people insist that magicians are born, not made. I have usually thought of this as a sort of elitism, designed to frighten off those who are not recognised by an established order. But is it possible that some people have more natural ability and a closer connection to the reality of magick?
There are some people who sense that magick is real, and they keep working with it no matter what, until they find methods that work. Because the truth is that the magick works, and sometimes it is a case of finding the magick works best for you. I don’t believe anybody is destined to discover magick, but there are some who have an urge to work magick that borders on a compulsion. It may be present from childhood, but for some it only comes later in life.
Quite a few people have sent messages that say they’ve been practicing the occult for over thirty years without good results, but now they’re getting good results from my books. The most astonishing thing about this is that they persisted for thirty years, when the results weren’t so good. And yet I do understand that. There were times when I worked with magickal systems that just didn’t get results for me, but I still knew on some level, that magick was a worth pursuing.
So I think this is the only natural ability you require: a deep belief that magick is real. This gives you the will to continue with magick even when it doesn’t work, because you know it will work again. And if you don’t have this belief naturally, you can create a willingness to act as though magick is real, as though the human will, when combined with supernatural forces, can change the course of reality.
Open The Pathways
Magick can help you attain things that are currently out of reach, but it can’t achieve the impossible. That is, if you want to get a role in a feature film, you have to learn how to act, audition, and deal with the industry, and then you need to get out there and make sure you are seen. If you do, magick will support you. If you do a ritual to be discovered and do nothing about it, nothing will happen, no matter how powerful the magick.
Magick can power the improbable into existence, but it works best when it supports your efforts to assert your true will in the real world.
While it is true that magick can bring results out of the blue – as with random money or changes to your personality – a great deal of magick requires you to work in the real world to pave the way, to give magick a way to manifest. When magick fails it is often because the desired result is too far from current reality, or something you want handed to you on a plate.
Thankfully, you can reach a place that currently seems impossible, but the best way to get there is in stages. Occultists who aim for something that is just out of reach, and advance in stages, get so much further in a year than those who do workings that are asking for too much change at once.
Make a Commitment
Most people follow the instructions well, but there are quite a few times where I hear from people who’ve skipped a day, not read the book properly or proceeded without truly understanding the instructions. The stunning thing about this magick is that it seems to work for a lot of people even with a sloppy approach. But if ever it’s not working, you might want to make sure you’ve really studied the text. For most readers this is not an issue, but if you’ve skimmed through the book to the ‘best bit’, you might be doing yourself a disservice.
Use Emotional Imagination
You don’t need a strong visual imagination. All you need is the ability to imagine different emotional states. If you struggle with this, you can use memories to generate emotions. Those who get magick to work find that only the tiniest moment of emotional energy is sufficient to power a ritual. But some people perform the magick by just going through the motions, and miss out the emotional components. In many rituals, this emotional work is as important as the ritual structure itself, so cannot be underestimated.
Find The Right Magick
For most occultists, a blend of different magickal styles is the best way to get consistent results. You may find occasionally, however, that a particular strand of magick does not work for you. When that’s the case, put it aside, but not forever. I have found that magick is often right at a particular time in your life. It’s worth revisiting magick when your abilities have developed, and when you are getting consistent results, to see if something that was relatively weak in the past has become more potent for you in the present.
Know Your Self
I have strained for magickal results, sometimes for years, only to discover that the result was not something I wanted after all. It’s all too easy to fool yourself about what you really want. Far too easy. If I’d spent more time working on my self, to understand my true needs, I would have saved a lot of time. Magick makes so much possible that you must confront your true desire. The sooner you do this in the process, the more easily results will come. The 72 Sigils of Power can help with this.
Remove Resistance
Magick will fail if you resist the results. Although the spirits will do the work to set up a new reality for you, you can resist this reality, due to fear, guilt or lust for result. I’ve written about this so extensively on this site that it does not need addressing in detail again, but I mention it because I believe it remains the number one reason that people don’t get results.
Earlier, I asked how can magick ever fail. Perhaps the real question should be, how can magick ever work? How can it work so often for so many people, even when they have no occult training? I should not be dismayed that a small number of people fail to get results. I should be dismayed that so many people are able to change their reality with simple magickal instruction. The beauty of magick is that it can be simplified without losing its practical application. That’s the real revolution of the past few decades: magick that works.
