spirits, Magic
Taylor Ellwood
The relationship between sacred kingship and ...

One of the books I’m reading lately is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette. It’s a fascinating book that explores the archetypes of the mature and sacred masculine. This is currently part of the spiritual work that I’m engaged in as I explore my own relationship with masculinity and heal the ancestoral and contemporary wounds that I’m becoming aware of as it relates to how masculinity is treated and perceived in modern times.

One of the aspects I’m exploring in particular is related to sacred kingship and the land. I am in the process of exploring the new city and surrounding areas that I live in. While I’ve lived here for a year, I didn’t have much opportunity until recently to really begin exploring the area and developing a relationship with the land. I find it fitting and useful that part of the process has also involved cultivating a relationship with the land, particularly on the basis of the relationship has with their home and how that relationship plays out in sacromagical work one does in connecting with the land.

how to troubleshoot your magic

Common problems with sigil magic

Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

With any type of magical working there can be challenges that occur which need to be addressed if you’re going to become proficient in that magical working. For this article I’m going to address issues that can occur with sigil magic that may cause your sigils to fail and suggest possible actions you can take to help you improve the efficacy of your sigil magic. Context: When I refer to sigil in this article I’m referring to the chaos magic method of sigil, as opposed to a spirit’s sigil.

I also want to note that with any type of magical working, it can be normal to encounter failures as you learn how to do a given magical working. As with any discipline you learn, it takes time, practice and experiences to develop the expertise and skillset that produces better results. with that said, let’s explore the common problems that can occur with a sigil.

1. You don’t have a well defined statement of desire. The basis of any sigil is the creation of a statement of desire. The statement of desire establishes the intent and defines the desired result, ideally in concrete terms. A well defined statement of desire not only defines the result but also ties up any loose ends. A poorly defined statement of desire leaves room for interpretation and in my experience when there is room for interpretation there is also room for results not manifesting exactly what you want.

For example the statement I want a job is a very broad statement. We can use that statement, but unless we’ve put some thought into the programming of it we are leaving a lot of room for interpretation and that room for interpretation can leave the door open for not getting the result you want or getting one that seems to fit the bill but has aspects you don’t care for.

I treat sigils as programs so when I create a statement of desire. The statement of desire should be the finalized expression of your thought process and include what you want, as well as excluding what you don’t want. When I create a sigil from the statement of desire I put all of that programming into the sigil, in order to define, focus and crystallize the sigil.

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Magical Experiments Podcast: Elemental Magic and Troubleshooting your Magic with Frater Barrabbas

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In this episode Frater Barrabbas and I discuss elemental magic and talismans and how they work and also discuss how to troubleshoot your magic and work through your failures.

Get Elemental Power for Witches.

Frater Barrabbas (Richmond, VA) is a practicing ritual magician who has studied magick and the occult for over forty years. He is the founder of a magical order called the Order of the Gnostic Star and he is an elder and lineage holder in the Alexandrian tradition of Witchcraft. Visit and learn more at www.FraterBarrabbas.com and fraterbarrabbas.blogspot.com

Why doesn't Magic always work?

Sometimes you do a magical working and the magic doesn’t seem to work. Why? You’ve gotten all the required resources, done all the steps, but despite doing all of that work the result you wanted didn’t manifest. I share some thoughts on why magic doesn’t always seem to work as well as how to troubleshoot your magical work.

Get How To Troubleshoot your Magic

Take the class on how to troubleshoot your magic

How Results and Experiences can go hand in hand in magic

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.