Magick can work when you least expect it, when you don’t believe in it, and when you are full of doubts. Unlocking the secret of this puzzle leads to one tiny magickal adjustment that makes everything fall into place.
Something we say in all the books is that you don’t need to believe, you don’t need faith, and that just sounds weird. How the heck can you call to an angel if you don’t believe in angels? Well, you can, and the proof is in the pudding. You do the magick, get a result, and then you start to believe in something. You know something is going on that’s a bit more impressive than normal life.
A Curious Truth
If you doubt the magick, it can still work. We don’t mention this in the books too often, because doubt isn’t a good think, usually, and might even batter your magick into feeble nothingness. Calm confidence is better than doubt. But the truth is, people who doubt can get results. These stories that reveal something quite curious:
‘At first I was doubtful if something so easy to perform would really work, but I did the first ritual and it was amazing. I am free of pain.’
‘It works…..I was skeptical and unwilling at first, but as I dive into it – I notice it works.’
‘I used the money out of the blue sigil, and I got several small amounts within days of each other, but from from such unexpected sources that it convinced me that this is real.’
‘I was surprised at my result!’
‘To my big surprise results came in less then 12 hours.’
‘After reading this book from cover to cover, I had my doubts. It was simply too down to earth. Without going into too much detail, within a few days, BINGO!!!!’
Those are all taken from recent reviews. In each case there was some apparent doubt and then a surprise. How can some people perform their magick filled with doubt and then get results that really surprise them?
Sidestepping Fear
I think it’s the laid-back approach that goes with doubt. When somebody performs the magick and doubts it will work, they are able to let go. They aren’t overloading it with expectation and hope. They want it to work, but they aren’t mentally pestering the magick with fear that it won’t.
When you spend the days that follow a ritual checking and hoping and worrying about your result, you are performing a 24-hour-a-day ongoing ritual of semi-conscious self-sabotaging fear that is going to block your result from manifesting.
Impatience and fear freeze your reality right where it is.
When you fill magick with the feeling of waiting, it gives you exactly what you’re focussing on; more waiting. When you forget about the magick because you don’t think it’s even going to work, the magick wiggles into those little gaps of possibility, and bam, there’s your result.
Doubt is not the same as fear, anxiety or impatience. Doubt can be more like a gentle patience. People who perform magick without any great hope aren’t waiting for results. And that’s the secret. The gentle doubters aren’t cynics who were testing the magick. They aren’t sceptics who suspect that magick isn’t real. They are all open minded people, willing to give it a go and to see what happens, without demanding or even expecting a fast result.
Loosening the Grip
Why, you may wonder, does magick work better when we let go? I think that we are trying to stabilise the chaos of life, through ordinary effort, through wisdom, skill and through magick. When we are fearful, we tighten our grip, hoping for more control of the chaos. Our grip strangles reality so tightly that nothing can change. When we are calm and expectant, we loosen our grip on reality. Strangely enough, the more we loosen our grip, reality gets loose and changeable. When we stop trying to force things to happen, they happen.
This is why gentle doubt can work; it doesn’t hold reality in its grip. This means that things can change, and change is what you want.
Practical Magick
Let’s get practical. How can you use this to your advantage? Perform your magick with full emotion, commitment and intent, but then let it work or let it fail. Be absolutely cool with the idea that it might not work. Know that it might work, that it might fail and be ok with that. When you do this, the magick will usually work. If it doesn’t, you may be given signs and omens about a better path to take.
Damon Brand has said that when you demand results in seconds, you may have to wait years, but when you’re willing to wait a year for results, those results can happen in seconds. I want to add to that by saying that if you’re willing to let a ritual fail, if you’re genuinely cool with that, it’s almost guaranteed to work.
It’s a small effort of acceptance, but it can make all the difference. By chipping away at reality, gently and without a desperate need to get a big result, the small changes add up and the damn bursts. When you least expect it, a great big beautiful dream comes true.
– Adam Blackthorne
