In the last few weeks, I’ve talked with friends, acquaintances, and readers about why they’re not getting the desired results from their spiritual and magickal work. There are some basic tips to help you strengthen your spells and get better results, and I will describe those below, but the subject is more complex. I can’t diagnose precisely why you’re not getting the outcomes you seek, but I will share the practices that help me achieve the spiritual and magickal results I’m looking for.
External solutions and our inner worlds
We live in a society that has taught us since (before) birth that something is wrong with us. If there’s something wrong with you, then there must be a product or service you can use to fix yourself. The more expensive, exclusive, and exotic, the more authentic and better it must be. Spirituality and Witchcraft are not immune to this.
I’m not talking about wounds and trauma. I’m talking about the magickal equivalents of buying a $500 face cream to prevent ageing. It’s that $300 rose quartz to retain the affection of a married man who cheated on his wife with you. It’s going to Krystle’s cacao ceremony in Bali. It’s taking yet another shaman course with Marke. It’s getting yet another initiation. It’s consulting with another tarot reader that tells you what your previous four tarot readers told you. These products and services may feel good for a while, but they will not fill the void and bring the desired results.
Orion Foxwood teaches that “you cannot curse the roots and bless the fruits”. All the crystals, consultations, and initiations in the world will not much help your external world if you do not tend to your inner one.
Spirit and spirits
What does it mean to tend to your inner world? For me, it means tending to my spirit. That is, practising self-compassion, which is surprisingly difficult, mindfulness, and self-reflection. It involves the painful processes of shadow work–trying to uncover the parts of myself that I repress, confronting what I don’t like, addressing my traumas, and trying to heal, integrate, and accept every part of myself. One of the biggest challenges of shadow work is accepting that I may never get there, at least not in this lifetime.
It’s also important that I tend to my spirits. My spiritual life centres on my relationship with my ancestors, other spirits, and gods. My practice is imperfect. I aim to pray and make offerings every day, and I don’t, but I do it most days, and that’s good enough. As the saying goes, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
The importance of commitment and depth
I’m lucky that I came of age as Witch in the 1990s, just before the explosion of online information and choices on the internet. You could find a teacher through a magazine or at a festival and learn via correspondence, but most people I know who are my age and older learned locally. We learned in classes in local shops, joined the covens in our neighbourhoods, and drove hours to meet others. I joined an eclectic coven that Georgian Wiccans founded, so I committed to learning that, and that’s the tradition I entered. Similarly, I joined local Lukumi houses.
The abundance of online resources is both an advantage and a source of apprehension and confusion. As a Sagittarius, I’m astrologically predisposed to wander and shoot my arrows in many directions. I’m hungry for knowledge and want to study everything, but I can’t, at least not all simultaneously, in any depth. I read a lot and enjoy workshops. I know a little about many things, but I’m committed to only a few subjects.
Obtaining good spiritual and magickal results requires commitment. You may get some positive effects from skimming the surface and jumping from one hot topic to the next, but the long-term payoffs come from sticking with something. They come with deep knowledge, understanding, practice, and integration.
Crafting a magickal life
It surprises some people to learn that I only occasionally perform spells. This could be a matter of semantics, but what I mean by a spell is something that looks like a magickal recipe with ingredients such as herbs, required or recommended conditions, such as an astrological correspondence, and a magickal formula such as a chant. This magickal recipe yields a result. It’s like baking, one of my regular analogies for spellcrafting.
I don’t craft many spells because I craft a magickal life. Witchcraft is not an activity I engage in occasionally. Being a Witch is essential to my identity and how I live my life. I am always involved with it through regular cleansings, purifications, meditation, divination, offerings, rituals, spirit work, study, and practice. So, a lot of things fall into place. I turn to my spirits for guidance when I don’t know what I need or how to achieve what I want.
Spellcrafting
When I want to cast a spell, I follow a typical process.
Before performing the spell, I set the goal, identify and gather my supplies, consider the appropriate astrological correspondences, and design my ritual. The ritual involves cleansing, purifying, grounding, centring, casting a circle, calling quarters, and working with deities or spirits. I perform the physical part of the spell, such as creating a charm bag or working with candles. I state what I want, feel it, and visualise the result. I raise energy if needed and then release it. Then, I give thanks and dismantle the circle in the usual way. And I trust that if I do the necessary work in the visible world, my spirits will do it in the invisible one. These forces come together to manifest my magick.
This basic formula for spellcrafting works for me, but this is just an outline. There are small principles that I follow.
When I set my goal, I should be as clear and specific as possible regarding the desired result. I always frame it positively and as if I’ve already achieved it.
The intention is not everything or even the most critical part of magick. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Good actions are more important than good intentions.
I’m cautious about substituting ingredients. The effort I make to find the suitable component is part of the work/energy I put into the spell. Back to my baking analogy, if I’m making an apple pie, I could safely substitute the type of flour or sweetener I use. However, I will get different results if I use avocadoes instead of apples, even though they’re both fruits.
Laying the foundation
This framework for spellcrafting is common and seems easy, but it still doesn’t work for many people, especially young practitioners. Effective spellcrafting requires a foundation that most seekers and beginners still need to lay. For example, how can you raise and direct energy if you can’t sense it?
Tend to your inner world and your spirits. Explore whatever you want–spirit work, divination, journeying, and so forth–but commit to something and give it time and a real chance. Would you expect to produce a great painting the first few times you pick up a brush? The same goes for most spiritual and magickal subjects and skills.
