Is magick a shortcut or a journey? It can be either, but we’ve found a way of mixing up your rituals that can get things to work in surprising ways.
Most people get into magick because there’s something desperate that needs fixing. Weird thing is, that first ritual might appear to fail, but you sense something, you know there’s something to this and so you keep going. And then later you find that first ‘failure’ actually worked; it just took longer than expected, or it wasn’t as good as you wanted, or maybe you just didn’t notice it at the time. Sometimes you find out you were lusting for result, and then you learn to get around that.
Reality shifts, and that is astounding. The results start coming to you, and then you see there’s more to life than just solving one problem.
When people first get hold of magick, there can be this rush of excitement. We often see this. You perform six rituals in two days and then on day three you wonder where your result is. Nothing happens in twenty-four hours so you feel conned and you hate magick forever. It’s not an exaggeration. Some people give up at this point, and that’s a real shame.
Easier Than Juggling
Magick is not as difficult as juggling, but it can require a certain knack, and it’s worth being cool about the rituals that don’t work. When a juggler drops a juggling ball, imagine if she gave up and walked away. Failed rituals are just one failure, not the end of magick.
If you see magick as a journey, a way of improving your life and finding out what you want and how to get it, then life becomes easier. For some it’s fast and for others it’s more gradual.
Magick works, most of the time. If it doesn’t there are often clear reasons, and all of that is explored in these pages. You can get better at it, and anybody who persists does get better.
Magick Gets Easier
The other side of this is that you can end up with so much magick, so many techniques, that you get magickal fatigue. The journey becomes tiresome because you don’t want to be doing rituals every day. That’s how I feel about people who use Law of Attraction visualization to find parking spaces. It’s just too much effort. Parking spaces already exist – all you have to do is drive around and find them. You don’t need any kind of visualization or magick. OK, I’m being a bit cynical, and I love working magick, but I want to be in charge. I don’t want to feel that I have to perform thirty-six rituals this month or else life will go to hell.
In the past few years we’ve published so much that we’ve heard people say, ‘Please, no more angel books.’ It’s weird for us, because we didn’t get it all at once. For us, finding magick, deciphering it, finding what worked, that was a long process. Decades! For you lot, it’s like a suitcase of knowledge is emptied out on your bed, and you’re supposed to deal with it. We know that it can be overwhelming. And that’s why people sometimes ask if there’s just one ritual that could solve everything.
The Ultimate Ritual
It’s tempting to ask for the One Ultimate Ritual that solves all problems, but it can’t really be done. I mean, in theory, you could create a really, really long ritual that calls on so many entities that your problem will be covered. But the easier solution is to take a few minutes, or even hours if you need to, to find the right magick for you and the problem. That gets it solved faster.
We positively encourage this sort of deep connection, where you become familiar with the various angels and rituals and what they can do – this means that when a complex problem arises, you know where to turn. Targeted and precise magick is way better than blunderbuss magick. Otherwise we’d write one ritual and go home, because that would mean magick was as simple as that. Magick is a journey that involves finding what works for you.
Combined Magick
But there is a way to bring an overall improvement to your life, that’s in line with your goals and dreams. Here’s one of the secrets that we’ve been hinting at for years, and that Gordon Winterfield recently made quite plain. There is a way of working magick that really opens up its potential, often producing unexpected and wide-ranging results. First of all, your requests should be genuine. That is, ask for what you really want, rather than something that just seems like it might be ok. Put some thought into it before you start. Then this is what you do:
Perform magick for results that are quite likely to happen, or just beyond ordinary possibility.
At the same time, perform magick for requests that are much less likely to happen.
And every now and then, put in a request that asks for something almost outrageous, something that seems quite impossible. (No, not a lottery win, but a genuine desire that seems quite far out of reach.)
If you do this, using any mix of magick, and if these three approaches are sincere, you create a force of change that can push reality a long way. And the beauty of this combined magick is that you might get many additional results that aren’t quite what you asked for, but that get you the feeling you were looking for.
We’ve often talked about not overdoing magick, not just throwing everything you can at a problem. That still holds true. Piling on magick to force a result does not help. But if you’re on the journey, if you’re looking for changes, then what I say above can be a good way to work. Gentle requests, speculative requests, and wild requests. Combined, sincerely, and with true patience, these can stir reality in the most exciting ways.
– Adam Blackthorne
Sigils of Power and Transformation gives you 111 sigils to work on health, luck, money and much more. There are no angels, demons or any spirits in this direct magick. It is proving to be our most well-loved book.
Not sure if this will be helpful but I decided to leave a thought about my experience with magick and mental health. Let me give you just a short background, i grew up in an alcoholic household and then spent many years in an emotionally abusive marriage. I work in the mental health field and although I have done everything possible to care for myself, counseling, getting out of that relationship, etc I still feel the repercussions of past abuse as many do. A few months ago I decided, after feeling drawn to it all my life to find out what magick was about. In my search I found the GOM books and website and since have devoured the material. I decided that change inside was an important as change on the outside so I’ve worked toward both. Some magick hasn’t panned out the way I hoped but a lot has worked in crazy and amazing ways. I’ve even found at times that just having the thought that I would like to have something can draw it into my life. I am seeing my life change in small and large ways, sometimes fast, sometimes slowly, but the fact remains that my entire life is improving. I have used various rituals dependent upon my feelings at the moment and what I feel drawn towards. I have worked on anxiety and depression, building self confidence, feeling more self respect and receiving guidance for example. At the same time I’ve worked on needs and desires on the outside and when it works it just seeks to enhance the fact that it can happen inside and out. The tough thing about doing magick work on the inside is that we can’t always see or feel an immediate change like we can when we obtain a physical item or job or something like that. What I’m starting to realize now is that, in my life, I’m feeling a slow but more permanent change. I feel like I’ve taken my time and targeted the areas where I have issues and now the effects are kicking in. My anxiety is there but less, I feel more confident in many situations and when faced with something I find that I am dealing with it differently. I feel that I am supported and cared for in a way that I’ve never felt before. I’m not completely healed and may never be but I do know that having patience and persistence with the magick has taken me farther than I’ve gone before. Thank you GOM, I do hope you realize that you are truly changing lives with your work!
Thank you for your insights, most helpful, cheers.
Hello Adam,
Firstly thanks to the GOM for all the work you’ve churned out for all the readers out there. You’ve done collectively, a very good job. I have some questions I hope you can answer (If not, it’s not a problem). I really want to get out of the UK, but I’m restricted because of a multitude of things. I cannot find a ritual to help you leave a country you’re not happy living in. In addition to that, I’ve had to battle with depression all my adult life. I have tried numerous rituals from numerous GOM books, but have found no real results regarding this matter. I’ve done everything my end to help eradicate this illness, reading countless self-help books, exercising, meditating, etc. But here I am, still having to battle with it. I have been through the NHS with this and found what they offer is drugs (Which I don’t react to very well) and ineffective therapies. I really need help with this and feel at times as I’m a dog chasing its tail. If you can’t respond to what I write, I won’t be offended. Keep bringing out those books!! Cheers.
Hello. I’m sure you’ve heard that some people found that depression lifted or eased with The Sword Banishing, and that the ritual to ease depression in Sigils of Power has worked for some, but we acknowledge upfront that this sort of magick is never a cure-all and works best on minor conditions. There can be surprises, and we hear some wonderful stories, but mostly magick works in stages on layers of a problem, and mental health issues are rarely simple – the complexity means that working magick against (or for?) them can be extremely difficult. It can become as frustrating as the endless cycle of drugs, therapies and so on. Which is my way of saying, I wish I could offer something more, but I can’t. I do know, and have known, many people with depression – those who use magick to get through and those who don’t. Those who do use magick have told me a couple of things. One, it’s good for band-aiding; improve the general outer conditions of your life, and all suffering is a little less harsh. Two, when things are bad, that first point doesn’t apply at all, and working on external ‘stuff’ does not help. Three, the reflective and contemplative style of magick now found in The Angels of Alchemy and The 72 Sigils of Power can help, but only in a gradual at-the-same-time-as-everything-else way. Sad to say, I’ve never seen a quick recovery in bad cases of depression, with magick or without, but I’ve seen that most people have recovered. It’s my legal duty to remind you that anything we say on here is speculation, and can’t substitute for medical advice, and that you should always seek professional help – but, yeah, I know the NHS approach can be very frustrating.
For leaving the country, there’s no single ritual because again it’s a massively complex issue, and it is so complicated that no one ritual could do it. But magick can definitely help, with paperwork being accepted, with decisions going in your favour and that sort of thing. And then it’s a case of knowing why you’re going, finding what you need to make that move and using magick to target each of those points. Then it can happen. It’s hard work, but it can be done, but focus on those restrictions you mentioned, and remove them with magick and then all you need is the decision.
Cheers, Adam
Cheers for that Adam, much appreciated.
sci65jd,
Hope you don’t mind I offer some advice. I’m an RN and battled depression my whole life, outside of magick, (Well me responding to this may be your magick working lol) I would say be a strong advocate for your wellbeing. Have your hormone levels checked. I did mine and found out my testosterone was nearly gone. I give myself injections now and Feel great. Also found out I have sleep apnea. Got tested and now I sleep with a bipap machine. That made me feel like a million bucks. Pretty much, if you snore, you have obstructive sleep apnea. Don’t let arrogant doctors bully you around. Ask for another opinion. Look into your diet. It sounds weird but it’s true. If you don’t eat a lot of foods that are high in antioxidants like blueberries and such, your body accumulates waste and will make you feel like crap. Sometimes our body just gets depleted of certain chemicals and we need medications. SSRI’s are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. What that means is that it keeps your brain from bringing the serotonin (A happy chemical) back to where it was released. It’s your bodies own recycling system. This drug allows more to be released to make you feel better. It doesn’t “give” you anything it jeeps the door open a little longer for you.
Thanks ever so much for taking your time out to write your response. I’ll follow up on some of the advice you’ve given. Like I said in my piece, I’ve tried everything and feel as if I’m going round and round in circles. Everyday, I have a heavy, heavy clouded feeling in my head. I will get my hormone levels checked out, and see if I’ve got sleep apnea too. Cheers.
Concerning moving out of the UK it’s possible to achieve that by magick. First make sure you have everything you need to leave the country. I.e a passport.
If you don’t have a passport/ can’t afford one I suggest using Magickal Cashbook with the intention of getting the money for the passport.
The we need to make your reality more malleable. The shift in reality your looking for is quite big. The 72 sigils have sigils for making reality less solid and more squishy.
In the Greater Words of Power there is a power that can open doors to new things and experiences.
There may not be a specific ritual, but if your smart you can utilise seemingly unrelated things and create huge changes.
I don’t know which books you have but really study what you have available.
The 72 Angels of Magick have Angels that have powers that are related to Depression and Grief and Strengthening ones emotional self. It may be off use.
72 sigils of power can also be useful for inner alchemy or the act of changing one’s inner world.
Also look to Magickal Protection to possibly ward of energetic attackers or influence that can emotionally drain you.
These may or may not help you.
I wish you luck.
Thank you so much for taking the time out to write that response greatly appreciated. Cheers.