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In results based magic, the result is king (or queen). The result you achieve dictates the success of your magical work or indicates you weren’t successful. It’s a simple principle, yet its effective because it establishes an obvious metric that can indicate whether your magic was successful or not. In fact, in my troubleshooting process, I use the result as the initial mechanism for troubleshooting, because whether your magic is successful or not, you always get a result. Even if that result is that you don’t achieve anything of what you hoped to achieve, that lack of a result is still an indicator of something and can help you uncover what the problem is in your magical working.
But I think something that is equally important in magical work, but often overlooked in the rush for results, is the actual experience that the magician has while doing the magical work. The experience itself is essential to magic, but it can be overlooked when we’re so fixated on the result that we don’t pay as much attention to the actual magical work. It can also be easy to take that work for granted, especially if we’ve done that work a few times. For instance, if I decide to work a spell I’ve done a couple times before, I might pay less attention to the experience because I’ve already done that work a couple times and I “know” what to expect.
The problem with knowing what to expect is that you take the work you’re doing, and the experience of that work for granted, and this can become its own form of sabotage. Your knowledge of that work and the experience becomes a liability that keeps you from fully engaging in the experience because you know what to expect. There are a couple ways to address this possible sabotage.
The first way is to adopt a specific principle: Challenge what you know by discovering what you can learn.
When you do a magical working, no matter how often you’ve done it, you fully engage in the spirit by on taking on the attitude of not knowing the working, and treating it as if it was the first time you did the working. That can seem like a big ask, but it’s really not, as long you’re willing to check what you know at the door.
The way I approach a working I’ve done multiple times is to remember that each time can be its own experience if I check my assumptions of what I know at the door. Yes I’ve said those words multiple times and made that gesture, but the experience of the moment I’m in IS new, and should be treated as such. Additionally, this time around I may discover something I didn’t experience previously.
By taking on such an attitude I keep myself flexible and open to the experience of the moment instead of getting wrapped up in what I know. And as a result, I’ve been able to keep myself open to the actual experience and many times I do discover something new. Even when I don’t I feel that the benefit I get out of the work is a deeper appreciation of what I’m doing because I’m choosing to discover instead of assume.
The second way is to experiment with the magical working and come up with your own derivations of that work.
When you experiment with a magical working that you’ve done before, you open yourself to innovating it and bringing some novelty into the work. For instance, I recently shared a new sigil magic technique I developed. I developed it because I wanted to try something new with sigil magic that was somewhat based off previous techniques I’ve created, but also has some specific differences. In this case, the new technique is based off my Comic Book Sigil technique that I developed in the early 2000’s. The main difference was that I took a non-linear approach to the sigil work, but by doing something different with the working, I made it into its own thing, which allowed me to engage in the experience because it was all new.
Experimenting with what you know can lead to new techniques and ideas and processes that you can use in your magical work. It also opens you to the accompanying experiences that come with doing anything new. The added benefit is that you enhance your understanding of magic because you test your limits with what you can do.
The experiences you have doing magical work are just as valuable as the result you get (or don’t get). Engaging those experiences fully can make a difference in the work and the result. What I’ve shared above may help you if you find yourself in a situation where you’re going through the motions, but not doing the actual work.
