On Specific Goals and Success

This is a post I’ve been waiting to write for a long time, and I’m glad I finally have the chance to do so.

For almost six years now, my dad has been a freelance metal worker, and unfortunately, he’s had a very hard time making enough money in order to pay the bills. I only got serious about magic in the past couple years, so for a long time, I was unable to really do anything about his employment situation. Last year, I attempted twice to conjure up steady work for him, but I failed. However, this past month, I decided to cast for him again. After all, what kind of son would I be if I didn’t try to help him out, and what the hell good is studying magic if I can’t produce results? I’m happy to say that this time was a success. The question is, why did I succeed this time when my previous attempts were failures?

It could be that my studies and practice have led me to become more powerful, but I don’t consider that to be the main reason. Rather, I posit that the foremost reason for the success of my magic was the setting of concrete goals. The first couple times, I made the weak goal of, “My dad will have a steady job.” There are two problems with that statement: there’s no window of time for the magic to work in, and it fails to rule out work with minimal pay. Working at a fast food restaurant doesn’t cut it when you have a family to support.

After careful consideration, I made a new statement of intent at the beginning of April: “My dad will have steady employment by the end of this month, and will be paid at least $15 per hour.” I will admit to having some apprehension about the work when I formulated this statement, as it would really show me whether I had any skill at all. No one likes to fail, after all, and my previous failures were in the forefront of my mind. Fortunately, I remembered that I had used magic in order to secure myself a job more than once, and my inner fires rose up. I would be damned if I let this magic fail, so I set to work.

Over a beer, I considered how I might craft a sigil to act a focal point for the month. I wanted something that would both empower my dad and also project his presence into the world. My final decision was to focus on the forces of Jupiter, as I’ve had good results with planetary magic in the past. Going to Jason Miller’s book Financial Sorcery, I picked out four glyphs to use: one for luck, one for finding a job, one for steady work, and one for overcoming competition. To these, I added one of my own, a glyph incorporating the power of Mars in order to give my dad courage; after years of struggling to get paid, he was lacking any real hope. To supplement the Jupiterian glyphs, I threw in the four suits of the playing cards: spades for courage and victory, hearts for emotional appeal, spades for powerful communication, and diamonds for material success.

In order to project my dad’s presence into the world, I went with my favorite ally, the spider. Around the center of empowerment, I created a web designed to carry the vibrations to the edge of the paper, supplemented by interlinked symbols of Mercury, the god of communication. I specifically went with 8 Mercurial symbols, as that is the number of the planet, but also packs the energy of the Chaostar. For good measure, I drew another Chaostar at the top, along with Ellis. I had a badass sigil in front of me, and I was ready to go.

Empowerments were carried out, and I made a point of focusing on the sigil throughout the month. The weeks rolled by, and nothing happened. Sure, there was a job offer from someone my dad knew, but it didn’t go anywhere. Again, I began to doubt myself a bit, but I reminded myself that the end of the month still had yet to come. So I waited, hoping that fortune would turn around and favor my father.

Just last week, my dad received a call from a place that he had applied for. As it turned out, the job was a position of authority, something I had been hoping for, but didn’t request on the chance that it might make the odds of success less. Filled with hope, I again carried out a rite to Jupiter, asking that He favor my dad. He went in for his interview on Friday, which went swimmingly, and I was told that he was one of 6 people being interviewed for the position. A second interview was scheduled for Monday (today), and I made plans to again appeal to Jupiter during His hour on Sunday. I did so, and got a profound feeling of joy and peace after the rite, and I knew that everything would be ok.

Naturally, my dad got the job. I made sure to give proper thanks to all the powers involved in the sigil, and sat back to enjoy my and his success.

Oh, and it turns out that my dad’s salary is starting at $19/hour. What is 19 but 15 + 4? And 4 can easily be the symbol of Jupiter…

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Moving Along

I’m slowly, but steadily, moving towards a more structured life once more. The catalyst for this change was none other than a very simple ritual performed during the witching hour two days ago. I cleansed my space with the Gnostic Chaosphere Rite found in The Book of Baphomet and called upon the Spider archetype in the form of Black Widow. Blessing a small amount of black salt, I called on the Widow to transmute my inertia and laziness into a usable form of energy. As I took the salt into my mouth, I imagined Her venom entering me, beginning the process of transformation. Interestingly enough, nearly immediately after the salt was swallowed, I began to feel slightly ill, as though truly poisoned.

As the magic began its work, a very basic sigil web was constructed, with ten rays symbolizing perfect order and harmony within my life. When I drew the spiral of the web through the rays, I could feel the change beginning to flow outwards into the physical world. With further contemplation on this sigil, combined with hypnotic techniques, I intend to accelerate the process.

Signs

For some time, and the last week in particular, I’ve been stuck in a rut. All aspects of my life have suffered from this; my productivity has dropped, and my spiritual life has been all but nonexistent. Worse yet, I’ve been well aware of how bad things were, but I made no effort to change. That is, until last night, when I had an unexpected guest: a small, brown spider.

As one might guess from the title of this blog, I am very fond of spiders, and as such, I was delighted when I saw the small creature working its way down one of my sketchbooks. When it paused mid-descent, I observed the markings upon its abdomen and saw a form suggestive of the sulfur cross. Naturally, I read this as an omen, and interpreted it to mean that I should bring divine fire back into my life and get my shit together. Sulfur further represents illumination, which is interesting, considering that I hold spiders in high esteem for bringing wisdom and magical power.

After leaving the room for a time, I returned and, inspired by the spider, began to work on a meditation mat/ritual space incorporating a web and spidery sigils. During the course of this labor, my guest again appeared, this time on the wall. From that angle, I was able to discern that the markings on the abdomen were not like the sulfur cross at all. Rather, they more strongly resembled a sigil I’ve used in magical depictions of spiders.

    

Very interesting indeed…