Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
For many magicians, the magic work stops once they get the result they are seeking to manifest. This makes sense, especially with practical magic, where so much of the point is about getting specific results in order to change your life in some way that ideally improves it. You get the result and the magic work ends because you’ve obtained what you want.
Yet, I find that the focus on results is so limited. That may seem odd, especially if the point is to get a result. After all, if I get the result, isn’t that the point? Why is that so limiting? There’s a couple reasons its so limiting, and why we need to think beyond the obvious and work the magic beyond the result.
The first reason is that the achievement of a result inevitably brings with it consequences. There’s a ripple effect, because the result doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You get a result, and what you bring with it (which so many magicians fail to recognize) are the changes that occur because you got the result. You work magic to get a job and that job brings with it change. You work magic to get a lover, and you get the lover and everything that comes with that person. You work magic to change some aspect of your life and you get that result and the changes that spill out from that result.
We act as if a result is an isolated incident. But its not. A result happens in a dynamic environment and that environment will react and respond to that result and bring change with it. Should we really stop doing magic work because we got the result, or should we anticipate the changes that come with the result? I prefer the latter approach myself.
The second reason the focus on results is so limiting is because the magician often gets caught up in how the result will manifest, and doesn’t open themselves up to the full potentiality around the result. When we open ourselves to the full potentiality around a result, we discover there are many more possibilities and that those possibilities can be pulled into reality with the result, provided we don’t become so tunnel visioned that we only see the result. A result is a gateway to more results, to more realizations. It’s not necessarily the end…its part of the journey.
So how do we broaden our awareness when it comes to the magical work we do?
Consider the result to be a short term objective, and always ask yourself where you want to go with your magical work. This is a question I ask myself with every magical work I do, because if I can find a place to go with the work, beyond the result, then the result simply becomes a part of the magical work. Yes its still relevant, but I work it as another part of the process of magic, making it into something that allows me to experiment and discover what else is beyond that result. It’s powerful work, because it teaches you that there is always something more, beyond the obvious…and isn’t that part of the mystery of magic?
When I do a magical working to get a result, I use the manifestation of the result as a stepping stone to embrace and work the changes that come with the result. I ask myself how I might need to apply magic to those changes and I start working the result into the magical working, using it as a way to help streamline the consequent work. For example, if I do magic to enchant for a job and I get the job, why not then do a working to help me integrate into the company spirit and then make me sympathetic to all the people I work with so they help me advance in that job? The result is just the beginning of the real magical work you’ll do.
