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!

Why Good Magic Spells Go Bad: The Role of Directors and Limiters

It happens all the time. You get a perfectly good spell and you cast it. The spell has been proven to work for other people. The spell has worked for your friends. It's a good magic spell and it seems to be working … and then it goes bad. Why do perfectly good magic spells sometimes go bad?

There is just one answer to that question: directors and limiters. Directors and limiters are specific instructions on what a spell should and should not do. Directors tell the spell what to do. Limiters tell the spell what not to do. Directors and limiters are often more important to a magic spell than any other ingredient.

If you want to launch of spell of any magnitude or power you had better write some directors and limiters to tell the spell exactly what to do. Most people think that the power in the spell is in the chant, the candles, or the herbs. Some power may be in those ingredients, but the guidance for the spell starts with directors and limiters. If you think of a magic spell as a rocket then the directors and limiters are the guidance system. When we teach students in Basic Magic to create and launch spells, always start them with practicing directors and limiters.

What could happen to your magic spell if you don't write directors and limiters for it? The spell might bring you exactly what you ask for but in a way that you might hate. One practitioner launched a generic job spell to get her a dream job. The spell worked like a charm. She got a great job with excellent benefits, amazing salary, and plenty of flex time to spend with her family. The only catch, which she discovered a few months into the job, was that she was working for a mob family. Not good.

This practitioner actually had half the equation right when she launched this spell. She had written a list of directors. She specified the exact parameters of the job she wanted. She told the spell what she wanted it to do. She forgot the limiters, the list that tells the spell not to bring jobs that fall outside the law, or cause death or loss of property. Limiters for magic spells sometimes contain the most significant details!

Luckily, the practitioner was able to write another spell, this time with full directors and limiters, to not only safely get her out of the job with the mob, but also get her another job, this time legal. Tip: no matter what kind of magic spell you use, if it has much power at all write directors and limiters for the spell as insurance!

Magical Kindergarten

In the pursuit of esoteric, magical or shamanic training, there is something that must be explained to all prospective and interested students. It's a condition created in our instant-gratification society by movies such as Harry Potter or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." In these movies the high arts of advanced sorcery, magick and wizardry are taught from the beginning. Harry Potter goes to school and is immediately taught alchemy, transforming objects from one form to another. He can fly on a broomstick right away. In "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," almost all the characters know some form of Kung-Fu, and can levitate and fight with a great degree of skill. While all of this makes for great movies, it seriously misrepresents the learning process for magical knowledge. These movies portray in two hours what can take decades to learn, if at all.

Having said all that, let's now talk about magical kindergarten. There is a kindergarten for magical learning just as there is a kindergarten for public school. In every form of learning, you must master the basics before you can move on to more advanced techniques. Many fantasy novels do a much better job of portraying the process of learning than current movies. For instance, in a fantasy series like "The Belgariad" by David Eddings or a novel like "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. LeGuin, the period of early learning and apprenticeship is spelled out in more detail. In both of these books, young magicians-to-be balk at having to learn the fundamentals of magick before being able to cast spells, shape-shift or levitate. But in all cases, the masters force their young apprentices to learn the fundamentals, sometimes for years at a time. In this early process, they are teaching their apprentices the skills of seeing, stalking, will and control. A person's knowledge can only be matched with his level of being, and all of these skills contribute to the level of being. You can have a person with a lot of magical knowledge and no being (a powerless magician), or a person with a very high level of being but no knowledge (a stupid saint). In either case, neither will be very effective in the worlds of magick and shamanism.

So if and when you embark on a journey to learn the arts of magick and shamanism, be patient with the process. Learn the fundamentals well because you'll need to know them instinctively later on. If you are going to do a banishment and you encounter a being who could be either a ghost or an archetype, you'll have to know immediately how to distinguish them because you won't have time to think! A ghost can be banished with a blast of electric blue, but an archetype will fight back and send 10 times the blast of electric blue back at you. It sometimes takes years before you understand the implications of the knowledge that you already have, and this is a rightful part of the magical journey. An author who does a great job describing this path is Tom Brown, Jr. His books include "This Vision," "The Tracker" and "The Journey." If you want to get a real sense of what magical kindergarten looks like, read his books, then add about 15 years to it, since he started when he was 8 and most of us don't start this journey until much later.

Does the thought of magical kindergarten sound boring and interminable? It is in some ways because we don't get to satisfy that need in us to do something really big and glorious in the magical realms. At the same time, though, remember that kindergarten was a lot of fun. In kindergarten, you get to play a lot, and you're not required to do much. As you take this journey, the path keeps getting narrower and narrower, so enjoy the path while it's big and wide. Kindergarten is kindergarten, whether you're 5 or 50. Enjoy!

A Real Book of Shadows – What Is It?

A lot of people wonder, "What is a book of shadows? Is it fact or fiction?" In fact, thousands of people type in the search term "real book of shadows" every month to try to find out. If you watch the TV show "Charmed" then you'll know that the Halliwell sisters have a giant book of spells written by their ancestors called a book of shadows. Others will take a hint from the title of the second "Blair Witch" movie, despite there being no actual book in the movie. Still others think a book of shadows is something of a personal journal for Wiccans, an idea popularized by Gerald Gardner, who brought Wiccan practices to public attention with his book "Witchcraft Today," published in 1954.

Obviously the definition of a real book of shadows varies widely in popular culture, and it does among magical and shamanic practitioners as well, depending on which tradition they practice. However, most practitioners agree on three common usages and purposes for a real book of shadows.

** 1. Record Spell Details **

A real book of shadows is used to record all the details of spells that have been cast, including the divinations used prior to casting the spell, the directors and limiters (or parameters) of the spell, the actual methods used in the spell, the results of divinations to check the progress of the spell, and any results of the spell. These details are crucial in case a spell ever goes wrong and has to be taken down. The way a practitioner takes down a spell that has already been cast depends on the way that the spell was cast. For instance, if a spell was cast using a carved candle then to take down the spell the practitioner could break the candle used in the spell and bury the remnants in the garden for a moon cycle.

** 2. Track Magical and Shamanic Research **

Magical and shamanic practitioners are often engaged in research. This research can be to discover facts about past lives, divine future events, try out new techniques, or travel to different planes. For instance, magical practitioners in our tradition will record the results of walks in the black mirror, which is a portal to other planes of existence, commonly called the half-worlds. When walking in the black mirror, the practitioner needs to use a litany or chant to direct the walk and keep from getting lost. After returning from such a walk, not only will the practitioner record the results of the walk in a real book of shadows, including any new facts or revelations, but will also record the effectiveness of the chant so that it can be used again or fine-tuned for future use.

** 3. Preserve Magic and Shamanism for the Future **

Of course, one of the most important purposes of a real book of shadows is to preserve magical and shamanic knowledge for future practitioners. Practitioners of most traditions "stand on the shoulders" of those giants who have come before. There's no real reason to keep re-inventing the wheel. A real book of shadows, which can contain the research and results of multiple generations of practitioners, is usually handed down through the generations. Each generation of practitioners (who are not necessarily related) adds their experience to the book. In fact, the material in a real book of shadows is often so voluminous that the "book" becomes a multi-volume set.

A real book of shadows is really a record of magical and shamanic experience that is preserved either for an individual's use or for future use. Some practitioners keep individual books of shadows and never hand them down, either because they have no one to hand them to or because they are secretive. In any event, if you are a practitioner of the magical arts, you should definitely start your own book of shadows. It will help you remember what you have done, track your magical experiments, and possibly create a magical asset for the future.

In Magic,
Alan

Tribal Roots of the Modern Holiday

For most of us, the holidays are about exchanging gifts, getting together with family, lighting candles, and generally making merry. It's fun, but it's not life and death. But did you know that the holiday season used to be a life or death situation?

Tribal people feared the loss of daylight in the winter, wondering whether the days would eventually become so short that they would live in perpetual darkness. When they discovered that the Winter Solstice marked the return of the sun, they celebrated with midwinter festivals.

Pagans later picked up this celebration by burning the Yule log at Winter Solstice to emulate and attract the sun. Here are some other great pre-Christian roots of our modern holidays:

Mistletoe: Druids valued this plant for its healing powers and as a symbol of peace. Enemies would stand under Mistletoe to make peace compacts, sealing them with a kiss.

Merry Making: Romans marked midwinter with Saturnalia, a seven day festival of gift giving, drinking, and feasting (typically around December 17). Saturn is the god of agriculture and plenty, and was celebrated after the fall crops had been sown. Gift giving symbolized the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor during the season of hardship.

Wreath: Originally the wreath was a pagan fire wheel made from greens that symbolized life. Some made great wheels, set them on fire, and rolled them down hills.

Tree: The tree was originally Yggdrasil, the World Tree that symbolized life. The roots and branches of the tree were thought the hold the universe together. Early people decorated the tree, which stood before the house of the gods, with small lamps that held bowls of fat and cedar wicks, much as we decorate our trees today.

While the Christian holiday traditions are far from the only traditions celebrated around winter solstice, they are very predominant in Western society. It's good to know where these traditions come from and what they originally meant. In all, these celebrations stood for peace, honoring, revival of life, and the return of the sun.

Let's celebrate!
Alan