Magically Directing Your Destiny

 

Do you throw salt over your shoulder, knock on wood, avoid walking under ladders, or cover your mouth when you yawn? Do you believe in luck or fate? Or do you believe in your own ability to direct your own destiny?

In today's society, when most of us are driven by our bosses, our families, our cell phones, or our responsibilities, most of us want to feel more powerful and more in control of our fate or destiny. Some of us work harder, others turn to superstition, and still others of us just sit back and hope for something better. So what is the key to directing our destiny?

Believing in your ability to direct your own destiny rather than fate or luck. When you believe in fate or luck, it keeps you on the level of the Law of Accident, in which random things happen to you just because you happen to be at the right place at the right time (or the wrong place at the wrong time). If, however, you begin to focus on your ability to direct and create your own life, then it moves you up to the Law of Attraction, where your attention begins to attract people and events into your life. Whatever you put your attention on begins to come to you.

But how can you move up to the level of the Law of Attraction if you've never been there? In a sense, you have to develop a relationship with the future, or with events that haven't occurred yet, but which you are drawing to you by your attention.

One of the best ways to get started developing this relationship with the future is with divination. Magically, divination is a method for accessing information (especially information of the future) that is not available to the five senses. Methods of divination include dowsing with pendulums, and using tarot decks, rune stones, palmistry, and scrying in chalices. Divination allows us to discover the influences, energies and probability lines that are active in our lives, and how they will probably manifest in our futures. It's one way to check whether we're "on track" with what we are attracting. Once we know this information, we can then take steps to more accurately and knowingly exert control in our own lives. Before you dive into divination, though, there are two things you must know and agree to:

• The Future is Not Set or Pre-Destined. If you believe in pre-destiny or a previously set future (from past lives or original sin, for instance), then divination won't help you. If you don't believe you can change the future, then having more knowledge won't help.

• Divinations of the Future Are Only Probabilities. Anything you read about the future is based on probabilities drawn from the present. If anything changes in the present, the future will also change. This is where you have you have the power to change the future - in the present.

Whichever method of divination you choose to use, knowing what is possibly awaiting you in the future puts you in the driver's seat of your own destiny. Don't like what you see as a possible future? Simply make a small change in the present to create a bigger change in the future. Just one of the ways divination magic can help you create what you want in your life.

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My Magic Spell Didn't Work -- Now What?

You did all the right things. You did divination before you launched your magic spell to see if it would produce the right results. You gathered the right symbols for the spell. You cleansed your space prior to the launch. Then you launched it ... and nothing's happening.

Now what?

Good question. There are quite a few reasons that magic spells don't work for people, and I've listed the three biggest reasons I see below. Check them out and see if they are true for your spell. If so, you might want to take down the existing one and start over.

1. You Are Trying to Accomplish Too Many Things
A lot of people believe that if they must go to the trouble to design, write, test, and launch a spell, they might as well put all their life's desire into the spell. Spellwork does take a lot of time and energy, so people don't want to waste it. Consequently, they pack it with everything they have ever wanted, from a dream trip to Europe to winning the lottery.

While I can certainly understand the motivation of not wanting to waste effort, I know that this is also the reason that a lot of spells don't work. A spell isn't like a menu, where you can pack in a bunch of different choices. The principle of a spell is more like the main principle followed by military snipers: "One shot. One kill." For a spell, the principle is "One spell. One aim."

If your spell didn't produce the intended results, look it over, especially your list of Directors and Limiters, and see if you packed your spell with too many demands. That might be the reason it isn't performing.

2. You Used Someone Else's Spell
There are a lot of books out there on spell work, and a lot of good spells that you can use to achieve some aim. If you just want to achieve something small, like a better mindset for studying or attracting a small chunk of money owed to you, using someone else's pre-written spell often works very well.

Where I see this approach fail is when people use a pre-written spell to try to create a major change in their lives. For instance, to transform yourself from a poor country mouse to an instant millionaire isn't going to happen if you use someone else's pre-written spell. It also probably won't work if you have someone else launch their pre-written spell for you. If you want to create this kind of change, plan on writing and designing your own spell.

3. You Haven't Waited Long Enough
This one is a biggie. We teach people to specify date ranges in their spells. This gives your spells some freedom in which to work. For instance, you might specify in your Directors and Limiters that you want to your magic spell to produce results between 3 and 6 months from the date of launch. This allows your spell to find that time of least resistance in which to create the desired change.

Having said that, I've seen big spells that don't work in the specified time period, but do eventually work. I launched a big one once to stop a bill from passing in Congress. The bill passed (which meant my spell didn't have the desired effect at that time) but was later over-ridden by another bill. Another example is a big spell my wife wrote to get a farm. She specified that the spell should produce a certain type of farm plus the needed income to buy the farm within one year. We didn't get the farm in one year. Instead, we ended up with a better farm three years later, with more income than was needed to buy the farm.

If you've launched a big spell, by which I mean a multiple-candle or Tarot-style spell, sometimes the results do not happen in the time period you specify, especially if the spell has to overcome a lot of resistance. Be patient. If you want to check whether you magic spell is still working, once your specified date range has passed, do Tarot readings to find out.

The Art and Craft of Spellwork
Spellwork is one of the high arts of magic, and it takes time, practice, and dedication to master, especially if you want to create change on a large scale. It does work. I've seen spells work over and over with good consistency.

Spellwork is also one of my favorite magical arts to teach because the people who are interested in this art are generally talented, interesting, and fabulous to work with. If this sounds like you, and if you are interested in learning the craft of spellwork, you may want to consider our online Basic Magic Course. Spellwork is covered in Level 3, but taking the first two levels gives you a solid magical foundation. If you are looking for a more simple solution to spellwork take a look at our Witchcraft Spell Book series on Kindle.



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How Divination is a Very Useful Magic Tool

Divination is a very important magic tool for magical practitioners and can be done in a variety of ways. First, what exactly is divination? Divination is obtaining information by magical or psychic means that you cannot get through the physical senses of the body. By using divination, a practitioner is able to "check in" with the Universe before performing a spell, a voodoo type ritual, or other magical technique to make sure that what he or she is doing is in sync with Rules of the Road, the right procedure for what he or she wants to accomplish, in accordance with magical self-defense rules, and being carried out correctly each step of the way.

Divination in magical practice is used to direct our "fates". That means that by using divination techniques we are able to discover the influences, energies and probability lines active in our lives. Having this information allows us to more accurately and knowingly exert control in our own lives. When delving into the future with divination there are two factors to understand:

1. The future is not set and can be changed any time before it happens.

2. Divination of future events are only the probabilities of what can happen based on assuming that current influences in our lives continue unchanged. Any change in the present will change the future.

Using Divination
If through divination you find a future event that you don't like or don't want, then you can find out what events lead up to it and change them. Making a small change in the present will lead to the future event being changed so that it either doesn't happen or happens differently than what you found in your divination. In terms of doing spellwork or another type of magical procedure, divination allows you to check yourself and make sure you are heading in the right direction to achieve the results you desire. If your divination shows you are not going in the right direction, then you can simply adjust your plan.

Here's an example of how divination can work in your life. Let's say you are going to take a road trip across country. You use divination to see if there are any problems that might occur on the trip and see yourself involved in a car wreck. You can now do some additional divination techniques to gather information such as what other car is involved in the accident or where along the route the accident occurs. Then when it comes time for your trip you can stop before getting to that place in the trip and wait a while or pull off the road and wait until you see the other car pass you by. By making a small change in the present you can change the results in the future and the outcome of your trip.

Firebowl Divination
Using the Firebowl for divination purposes is a simple way to start practicing magical divination techniques. If you don't already have a firebowl, you can find instructions on making one HERE. Divination can be done through direct or indirect methods and the Firebowl provides you with a direct method of divination in that it gives you a visual field that the mind can visually project the information you are seeking. Direct divination methods allow psychic or unconscious perceptions to manifest into the 5 senses so we can understand them. Firebowl divination is very useful for finding people, or objects that you don't know where they are or maybe a lost pet and for looking into the past or the future. Here's how to use the Firebowl for divination:

1. Find a quiet place where you will not be distracted or interrupted.

2. Sit in the South facing North with your Firebowl in front of you.

3. You will not charge the Firebowl for divination purposes like you do for other purposes and a water incense is the best medium to burn as the Water element is the psychic element.

4. Start your incense burning in the Firebowl and wait until you have a good column of smoke going. Add more incense onto the charcoal disk if you need to in order to get a good column of smoke.

5. Hold an image of a person or object if they are connected to the information you are seeking and/or get very curious about the topic, question, person or object.

6. You can ask questions to increase your feeling of curiosity such as "Where is...?", "Where was I in [name time period]?", or What is likely to happen if I...?".

7. Peer into the column of smoke and look for images or visual clues to form. Some people find it easier to close their eyes when looking into the smoke to keep visual distraction out.

8. If you get an image, but not in enough detail to make sense to you, keep asking questions until it becomes clearer or you can ask the image to zoom in or out, shift left or shift right so that you can see more details in the "picture".

Remember that the future is not set. Divinations into the future tell you what is likely to happen if everything stays the same in the present. That is one of the beauties of divination; being able to look ahead and make changes now if we don't like what we see. To learn more about divination and various divination techniques, take a look at our How To Do Voodoo ebook.

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Magick to the Rescue Part 6: Accept Where You Are

Earlier in this series Magick to the Rescue:
Part 1 
Part 2 
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Most of the time we humans tend to think that we are in control of our lives. And for the most part the Universe (substitute the name of the Higher Being closest to you) allows us to have that illusion of control. And then just when we think we have our lives just how we want them (or not), those pesky higher beings sweep in and change our lives, often quite drastically. The results can be devastating. Sometimes we end up with debt up to our ears because a law was passed in a country halfway around the world. Other times some sort of freedom is taken away from us, be it the bars of a jail or the loss of freedom of movement due to paralysis of the body. Yet other times a person we love is taken from us.

No matter what drastic event has occurred in your life, you are left high and dry in a very sudden way. The landscape looks bleak. You probably feel shell-shocked with no idea how to proceed, or even what to do when you get out of bed each day.

Magick to the Rescue: Accept Where You Are
Magick can help you get out of life's messes with amazing speed and miraculous results. But before you can move on, you first have to accept where you are. Using magick to change your life is very similar to looking at those giant map kiosks at the mall that show the location of each store and restaurant. But the map cannot help you in the slightest until you find the bright red arrow or dot that says, "You are here."

So whatever drastic or tragic life event has happened, find the place inside yourself that says, "I am here. This is what has happened to me, and I accept that, for now, my life is x, y, and z." Be as factual in your description of your current life situation as you can. Avoid using negative adjectives. For instance, if you have accumulated a lot of debt, instead of saying, "I have such an enormously shameful amount of debt," use a statement that is more factual, such as, "The current amount of debt to my name is $x." Thus you are not shaming, blaming, or complaining about the debt, but are simply stating that the debt associated with your name is x amount. Notice how the statement also did not say, "My debt is x, y, and z." While it is true that you are the one who will have to pay back the debt, you don't really want to claim it the way you claim your favorite little black dress or your best set of golf clubs. The goal is to accept the level of debt without adding greater personal attachment to it.

Magick to the Rescue: Create a Practical Plan and Test It!
When confronted with a drastic life change, the idea of creating a practical plan can seem ridiculous. After all, there is panicking to attend to, who has time to create a practical plan? You do. And you must. If you don't create a practical plan to hoist yourself out of hot water, who will?

Luckily, magick can also help you with the practical. The process is a simple combination of a number of rituals. Ready? Good. You will need a bright yellow candle, paper or wooden matches, a pen, and paper. Here's how you use your magick to create a practical plan to get you out of hot water, bit by bit:

1. Give you and your Spirit Guides a spiritual boost by charging a Sun Candle (this is a mini candle spell). Get a bright yellow candle (no orange overtones), preferably in glass for safety. Sit in the South facing North with your candle in front of you. Use your paper or wooden matches to light your candle. When the flame becomes tall and strong, cup your hands around the flame, and then say in a voice of command:

"Child of Wonder
Child of Flame
Nourish My Spirit
And Protect My Aim!"

2. Now set the candle to the side, send up a short prayer of thanks and request for help to the higher (if you like), and pick up your pen and paper. Think about your current life "problem or situation" and spend no more than five minutes writing a list of practical action steps that might improve your life situation. Write anything and everything that comes to mind, whether or not the idea seems useful, practical, distasteful, or impossible. Simply write. Don't think. Allow ideas to flow through the pen from higher beings onto paper. Consider your writing channeling rather than thinking. Allow the higher beings you invited into your sacred space with the Sun Candle and your request for help to flow their creativity and ideas through your pen and onto the paper.


3. Once you have completed your writing, you will now dowse your list to determine which items are meant for present use, which ideas will come in handy later, and which items you may never use. To begin, start with your non-dominant hand. Touch the tip of the index finger and thumb of that hand together so the fingers form an "O". Ensure that the other fingers are pointing slightly up so that they don't interfere with the space inside the "O" shape. Now put the index finger of your dominant hand in the center of the "O" formed by the fingers of your non-dominant hand. Say in a voice of command, "Show me Yes!" Then with force use the index finger of your dominant hand to try to break the bond of the fingers forming the "O" shape. If you are successful, then each time you are able to break the bond of the fingers forming the "O", the answer to the question you ask during dowsing is "Yes." Now repeat procedure this time saying, "Show me No!" The opposite action should occur. If the fingers parted for "Yes," they should hold together for "No." Practice this a few times so you are clear about the signals for "Yes" and "No."


Don't worry if you get conflicting signals at first. Simply practice the "Yes" and "No" a few times and use the most common results for "Yes" and "No." For instance, if the fingers part most of the time for "Yes," then this becomes your signal for the answer "Yes," and closed finger means "No." Don't spend a lot of time worrying about this step. Just get a feeling for the signal for each answer, and then move on to the next step.

4. In this step you will combine the list you wrote with finger-testing. For each item on the list, ask the following questions:

"Is this item likely to be useful in solving my life situation [describe your life situation in a few words] at all in the future?"

"Will this item be useful in solving my life situation [describe it using the same words] either in the present or in the near future, [state a time from such as "three to six months from today"]?"

"Will this item be useful in solving my life situation [describe it using the same words] in the far future, [state a logical time frame such as "six more months from today"]?"

Jot down the Yes/No answers for all three questions for each action item or possible solution you listed.


5. Rewrite your list into three separate lists, separated by whether the item on your list will be helpful in the present or near future, helpful in the far future, or not helpful at all.  Don't throw away the list of items that are ostensibly "not helpful at all" because the future is always changing. A decision or action you take now or in a few weeks could move an item from one list to another.

6. Now place just the list of items that your dowsing deemed useful for the present and near future. Using the same finger-testing method, ask yourself:

"Are there other ideas or solutions that would be helpful to me now or in the [state your time frame for "near future" here] that are not yet on this list?"

If the answer is "Yes," then ask an angel to help you complete your list. Say aloud or internally,

"I would like to request the help of an angel of Sun Yellow, Water Blue, Grass Green, and Sky Blue who specializes in [state the problem for which you want the angel's help]..." 

 [pause here for a few seconds to allow the angel to appear]...

"Angel of Sun Yellow, Water Blue, Grass Green, and Sky Blue who specializes in [state the problem for which you want the angel's help], I would like to request your help in completing this list of items that will help me in the present and near future so that I can move forward in my life and solve this particular problem. I thank you in advance for your help!"

Always thank higher beings in advance for their help. It is a show of good faith and is also a polite way to interact with higher beings. Then be prepared with pen and paper handy because chances are high that the angel will absolutely flood you with information, ideas, strategies, tactics, and insights that will amaze you! Once the flow of information has stopped, thank the angel again for the help--again, appreciation is valuable and much loved by higher beings, not to mention the only form of payment they require.


7. Finally, take your newly expanded list of ideas and actions that can help you tackle your sticky life problem in the present and near future. Arrange the list chronologically based on importance and timing. You can put some items concurrently if you feel that working on both items in parallel will help. Finally, if you want to double check your list, use finger testing to ask whether each item is in the correct order. If not, use finger testing to check whether the item should be moved up or down the list, and how far.

Once complete, you now have an action of plan for moving through, around, over, under, or simply beyond the curve ball that life has thrown into your life. You no longer need to feel stuck, helpless, hopeless, or angry about your life. Take comfort in the fact that even though your hands did the writing and finger testing, angels and higher beings were guiding your pen and your fingers every step of the way.

One final piece of advice: magickally, we say, "a small change in the present produces a larger change in the future." That means that acting on even one of the seemingly insignificant items on your list could result in a much bigger change in your future. The future is never fixed but is always dependent on the present. The moral of the story is to check your "present" and "future" and "never" lists frequently to see if items need to be added, removed, shifted in position, or moved to a different list. Your fingers will always steer you in the right magickal direction! To learn more about communicating with higher beings and using divination, check out our Psychic Development ebook.


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Discover the Meaning of Your Dreams

Dreams are funny things because they can either be messages of great importance or simply the conscious mind's way of dumping the trash. If you remember your dreams, you'll probably discover that your dreams can range from truly meaningful to highly absurd. But what can you do if you feel a dream is very meaningful but can't seem to decipher what it means?

You could, of course, look up the generic meaning of certain dream symbols in dream dictionaries. But we have discovered that a person's dreams, especially those that are meant to be messages from Spirit, are highly personal and not likely to be interpreted using the generic definitions offered in dream dictionaries.

What other magickal methods might be available? There are many. One of the more comprehensive ways to learn the meaning of your dreams is to use a cup of cold coffee. Yup, cold coffee.

Using Cold Coffee for Divination
What does cold coffee have to do with dreams and magick? Cold coffee possesses one main attribute that makes it an excellent receptor for divination: a flat dark surface. By looking at the surface of a cold cup of coffee, you will be able to "divine" the meaning of your dreams.

We used to like to sit in truck stop diners and use cold coffee to do divinations for ourselves or others. Once we learned to tune out the noise of the diner, we found that cold coffee made for excellent divination.

To divine the meaning of your dreams with cold coffee (this process is also called scrying), pour yourself a cup of cold coffee. Sit down at a table and place the cup of cold coffee in front of you. Wait until the surface is completely calm and quiet.

Now become very curious about the dream in question. Allow the images from the dream to play across the coffee's surface, much as they would if projected onto a screen. Do not think about this process, just do it. Thinking interferes with this process so keep your mind as quiet as possible. Allow the images to appear in whichever sequence that occurs. Become very curious about any and all images from that dream.

As you are observing the surface of the coffee and the images playing, ask this question in your mind: "What is the message for me in this dream?" Choose a similar question if you like. Allow this question to become a mantra in your mind as you watch the images float across the surface.

Once you have chanted the above mantra for a few minutes, you may see other images appearing on the scrying surface. Allow these images to appear as they may be images from life events (this life or others) that are related to the message in your dream. You may also receive information as a gut feeling or simply a "knowing." Once you receive a substantive message from your scrying, stop chanting the mantra. Allow the images playing across the coffee's surface to dwindle and dim, until all you see is the black surface.

Piecing Together the Meaning
Jot down any impressions, gut feelings, and information you received from this scrying session. Again, do not think. Simply write. Thinking interferes with recall so keep your mind as quiet as possible except for recall.

You may not immediately understand the meanings you gained from the scrying session. However, if you are thorough in your recall, you will eventually be able to piece together the message. The message may become more clear as your day unfolds. If you still want other information, consider calling on the Spirit of Owl for help, or using a Question Circle. You can also repeat your scrying session for a few days to see if more information becomes available. The good news is that you can do this type of scrying almost anywhere that coffee is available. To learn more about the fascinating magical topic of divination and other methods of divination, check out our Psychic Development ebook and learn many different ways to get all the information you want and need.


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 Image courtesy of  tiverylucky / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My Magic Spell Didn't Work -- Now What?

You did all the right things. You did divination before you launched your magic spell to see if it would produce the right results. You gathered the right symbols for the spell. You cleansed your space prior to the launch. Then you launched it ... and nothing's happening.

Now what?

Good question. There are quite a few reasons that magic spells don't work for people, and I've listed the three biggest reasons I see below. Check them out and see if they are true for your spell. If so, you might want to take down the existing one and start over.

1. You Are Trying to Accomplish Too Many Things
A lot of people believe that if they must go to the trouble to design, write, test, and launch a spell, they might as well put all their life's desire into the spell. Spellwork does take a lot of time and energy, so people don't want to waste it. Consequently, they pack it with everything they have ever wanted, from a dream trip to Europe to winning the lottery.

While I can certainly understand the motivation of not wanting to waste effort, I know that this is also the reason that a lot of spells don't work. A spell isn't like a menu, where you can pack in a bunch of different choices. The principle of a spell is more like the main principle followed by military snipers: "One shot. One kill." For a spell, the principle is "One spell. One aim."

If your spell didn't produce the intended results, look it over, especially your list of Directors and Limiters, and see if you packed your spell with too many demands. That might be the reason it isn't performing.

2. You Used Someone Else's Spell
There are a lot of books out there on spell work, and a lot of good spells that you can use to achieve some aim. If you just want to achieve something small, like a better mindset for studying or attracting a small chunk of money owed to you, using someone else's pre-written spell often works very well.

Where I see this approach fail is when people use a pre-written spell to try to create a major change in their lives. For instance, to transform yourself from a poor country mouse to an instant millionaire isn't going to happen if you use someone else's pre-written spell. It also probably won't work if you have someone else launch their pre-written spell for you. If you want to create this kind of change, plan on writing and designing your own spell.

3. You Haven't Waited Long Enough
This one is a biggie. We teach people to specify date ranges in their spells. This gives your spells some freedom in which to work. For instance, you might specify in your Directors and Limiters that you want to your magic spell to produce results between 3 and 6 months from the date of launch. This allows your spell to find that time of least resistance in which to create the desired change.

Having said that, I've seen big spells that don't work in the specified time period, but do eventually work. I launched a big one once to stop a bill from passing in Congress. The bill passed (which meant my spell didn't have the desired effect at that time) but was later over-ridden by another bill. Another example is a big spell my wife wrote to get a farm. She specified that the spell should produce a certain type of farm plus the needed income to buy the farm within one year. We didn't get the farm in one year. Instead, we ended up with a better farm three years later, with more income than was needed to buy the farm.

If you've launched a big spell, by which I mean a multiple-candle or Tarot-style spell, sometimes the results do not happen in the time period you specify, especially if the spell has to overcome a lot of resistance. Be patient. If you want to check whether you magic spell is still working, once your specified date range has passed, do Tarot readings to find out.

The Art and Craft of Spellwork
Spellwork is one of the high arts of magic, and it takes time, practice, and dedication to master, especially if you want to create change on a large scale. It does work. I've seen spells work over and over with good consistency.

Spellwork is also one of my favorite magical arts to teach because the people who are interested in this art are generally talented, interesting, and fabulous to work with. If this sounds like you, and if you are interested in learning the craft of spellwork, you may want to consider the online Basic Magic course. It will give you the deep knowledge to become a competent spell-caster in your own right.

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Tricks for Boosting Your Psychic Senses

We all have the ability to be psychic and receive information that doesn't come from our 5 senses. Some of us have a natural psychic ability and others need to practice to develop our psychic senses. Our Psychic Development ebook can help with exercises to practice that will help expand the psychic senses and develop the skills needed to awaken psychic abilities. One of the first things to do in awakening the extra senses used as psychic abilities is to get in touch with your inner silence so that you will be able to hear information the Universe sends you. One exercise to get you started on preparing your senses to receive information is through meditation.

Meditation
There are many ways and forms that meditation can take. For the purposes of developing psychic senses, meditation allows you to create enough quiet space and silence in your life so that you will be in a position to hear the messages sent by the Universe and from divination techniques. Meditate a little bit every day to start developing these skills. Here is an exercise you can use if you don't already have an active meditation practice.

• For at least 15 minutes, sit in a comfortable position with closed eyes, hands in your lap with right hand cradled in the left. 
• While you are aware of your thoughts, remain unattached from them. Be aware especially of your sensations. 
• If you have trouble relaxing, try having a lit candle to center your concentration, burn soothing incense or sit near a running fountain. 
• Now begin feeling your natural breathing as the breath moves in and out of your body. Don't force your breathing or change it any way, just feel and be aware of your body's own natural breaths. 
• As you become aware of thoughts popping up in your mind, let them pass through without focusing your attention on them. Think of this as sitting on a shoreline watching boats pass by. If you find your attention drawn to one in particular, simply return your focus to your breathing and let the thought pass by.

After at least 15 minutes of sitting in this manner you can get up and end your meditation time. Don't dwell on what happened during the meditation, or how successful you feel it was or if you had any revelations or not. The only importance is the consistency with which you do your meditation and the effort put towards doing it. Doing short meditations daily for instance will serve you better in the long run than doing longer meditations occasionally. Consistency is a key element. You will find over time that consistently doing this exercise will increase your ability to have inner silence and take it with you throughout everything you do. Your time spent in meditation should be an enjoyable time for you as it is time you are devoting to your inner development and the more you develop your inner life, the more benefits you will see in your outer life.

Reading Other People
Another set of exercises you'll find in our Psychic Development ebook is on the topic of reading other people or learning to gather information about others that you cannot get through the traditional 5 senses. Here is one of the exercises in this area that you can practice by broadening your view of someone. This helps you understand the other person's motivation for behaviors or attitudes they display and can give you insight into the best way to deal with them. 

Look up and down the other person's entire body and aura. Notice for example if their hands or feet are still or agitatedly moving. Notice if their breathing is fast, slow, shallow or wheezing. Look at the tongue and see if it is red which would mean too much fire energy, pale and wet which could mean a deficiency or internal coldness, if it is swollen and puffy and has teeth marks on the edges which would indicate a weak spleen and kidney yang, if it is stiff and wooden-like with a blunt front which would mean they are emotionally shut down or if it is quivering with a red tip which would indicate nervous anxiety in the neural system. Look at their eyes to see if they dart about, look at you, look through you or move up and left or down and right. What is their posture like? Is it erect, flexible, stiff, slumped or weak? As you notice all these type of conditions, begin to build up a vocabulary of relationships between body language and inner causes and conditions. Use your own states and meanings to consider what the types of things you notice mean. As you start training yourself to notice these types of behaviors in others and putting meanings to them, your mind will start working from your own Spirit perceptics or psychic senses and gather information from others. Once you have practiced this type of information gathering for a while, if there is something in particular you want to know about another, your psychic senses will kick in and get the answer for you.

With some practice in exercises such as these, you can start gathering information from the Universe, through divination techniques and through your own innate psychic senses. So don't worry if you haven't shown any psychic talents before. All it takes is waking up those senses that live inside your inner wisdom.

Image courtesy of   imagerymajestic  / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Get Your Magical Practice Back on Track with Basic Magic

Have you let your magical practice fall by the wayside and find yourself getting caught up in everyday life to the point that you don't really put in much time practicing magic? The saying goes, "What you pay into your practice pays you back." That's true. What's also true is that most magical practitioners allow their magical practice to become stale and mechanical at some point or other. So... if you feel like you need a little magical refresher, try our Basic Magic Online Courses. Dig in and get back to basics before the new year so you can start fresh! In Basic Magic you'll get back to seeing everything in relation to the 4 elements, remember how to use the elements in your everyday life and also get a refresher on topics like:

• using magical tools
• healing
• communication with higher powers and beings
• magical self defense and protection
• divination
• spellwork
• using simulacra magic
• Tarot

Just to whet your appetite, here is a sample of one of the techniques you'll learn in the Basic Magic Course.

Firebowl Divination
The Firebowl is one of your magical tools that you will learn to construct yourself. If you don't already have a firebowl, you can find instructions on making one HERE. Divination is a way of obtaining information by psychic or magical means that is not readily available to the 5 senses. By using divination, we are able to discover influences, energies and probability lines that are active in our lives so that we can make changes or adjustments and knowingly exert control over our lives. If you don't like what may be coming in the future you can make a small change in the present to change that possible future. Divination can be done through direct or indirect methods. The Firebowl can provide you with a direct method of divination in that it gives you a visual field that the mind can visually project the information you are seeking. Direct divination methods allow psychic or unconscious perceptions to manifest into the 5 senses so we can understand them. Firebowl divination is very useful for finding people, or objects that you don't know where they are or maybe a lost pet and for looking into the past or the future. To use the Firebowl for divination:

1. Find a quiet place where you will not be distracted or interrupted.

2. Sit in the South facing North with your Firebowl in front of you.

3. You will not charge the Firebowl for divination purposes like you do for other purposes and a water incense is the best medium to burn as the Water element is the psychic element.

4. Start your incense burning in the Firebowl and wait until you have a good column of smoke going. Add more incense onto the charcoal disk if you need to in order to get a good column of smoke.

5. Hold an image of a person or object if they are connected to the information you are seeking and/or get very curious about the topic, question, person or object.

6. You can ask questions to increase your feeling of curiosity such as "Where is...?", "Where was I in [name time period]?", or What is likely to happen if I...?".

7. Peer into the column of smoke and look for images or visual clues to form. Some people find it easier to close their eyes when looking into the smoke to keep visual distraction out.

8. If you get an image, but not in enough detail to make sense to you, keep asking questions until it becomes clearer or you can ask the image to zoom in or out, shift left or shift right so that you can see more details in the "picture".

Remember that the future is not set. Divinations into the future tell you what is likely to happen if everything stays the same in the present. That is one of the beauties of divination; being able to look ahead and make changes now if we don't like what we see.

This is just one of the many magical techniques you'll learn in our Basic Magic Course. Give the Firebowl divination a try and let it help you remember how magical life can be when you use your magic training every day. It doesn't matter how long it's been since you practiced magic. It's never too late to get back on board.

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Image courtesy of Mister GC / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How to Figure Out If Your Magic Spell Will Work

This may seem like a "Well, duh!" title but you would be surprised at the number of people who write and launch magic spells without first figuring out whether the spell will work. My question to those folks? Why go to all the trouble to do a spell when you don't even know if it will work? It seems like a waste of time and energy.

The good news is that a little divination is all you need to figure out whether your magic spell will be effective. The type of divination you use should depend on the size and complexity of the spell you want to launch. Here are three types of divination that you can use to predict the effectiveness of your spell, listed from simplest to most complex:

1. Pendulum
2. Question Circle
3. Tarot Reading

Pendulum
For simple magic spells, you can use your pendulum to do simple "Yes/No" testing on whether your spell will be effective. You can also use your pendulum with a 1-10 scale and ask it to tell you the level of effectiveness of your spell for solving your problem. To do this, you will need to swing your pendulum over a sheet of paper with 1-10 arranged in a circle. Be sure to be clear whether 10 means least effective or most effective. Ask your pendulum to rate the effectiveness of the spell and then decide whether the spell is worth your effort.

Question Circle
With a question circle you can ask the Winds of the four directions about the effectiveness of your spell. There are a lot of ways to do question circle, but here are the basic steps:

1. Cleanse the area by smudging or using some other method
2. Formulate the question you will ask each direction, such as, "How effective will this spell be and what can I do to make it more effective?"
3. Starting in the east, go to that direction and sit facing the direction. Ask the question out loud and have pen and paper ready to record the results.

Each direction will give you a different kind of answer. The east will give you thoughts, ideas, and ways to improve the lines of communication in your spell. The south will give you action steps and ways to increase the power of your spell. The west will tell you about feelings, emotions, and spiritual insight. The north will offer answers regarding the strength and perseverance of your magic spell. Using these answers you can improve your spell before launching it.

Tarot Reading
For the most complex spells a series of tarot readings always helps you determine the exact effect of your magic spell. Tarot readings, especially 12-card types, will show cause-effect flow lines. You will be able to determine exactly how the spell will work (i.e., which part of your situation will be most affected and how) and how effective it will be. If a cause-effect flow line in the reading shows very little change or a lot of resistance that cannot be overcome, you will need to change your spell to address these issues. Tarot readings are best for single and multiple candle spells that handle many complex issues. I also recommend that you do tarot readings on any symbols, chants, or litanies you are going to use in your spell.

For most spells simple divination will do the trick. A little extra planning and guidance before you launch your spell can save you the hassle of having to take down a good spell that has gone bad and prevent you from wasting your time on a spell that won't work. Good luck!