The Elements of Spellcrafting

by Jason Miller

  No, of course not. That's what the next key is all about.

  What I want you to remember for now is that very little in Magic is put there just to be “a focus.” If the spell for St. Cyprian calls for Holy Water from seven churches, there is a reason that you should go to seven different churches and collect holy water from them. If the Grimoire asks for a wand cut at sunrise on a Wednesday morning, and this seems like old-fashioned claptrap that you don't really need, you should at least know the reason for it. (Hint: It's a wand associated with Mercury for communication with spirits.)

  So the next time that you are at the Occult shop deciding whether you really need the green devil candle for the spell to collect debts, maybe go ahead and spring for it rather than just deciding that the white taper candle you already have is good enough, because you think intent is all that matters.

  The Take-Away

  In our comic, Harold used the wrong salt when summoning Salphegor, and now it looks like Sal is going to eat him. The problem that we are solving here is sloppiness. I have been involved in Magic and Witchcraft for nearly 30 years now, and there is a lot of sloppiness. I have been guilty of sloppiness myself, but nothing good ever came from it.

  The solution is to realize that everything matters. Every single thing you omit affects the result. Everything you replace affects the result. Does that mean we have to slavishly follow some rules? No! I did not become a Sorcerer to slavishly follow rules to the letter. Maybe our omissions or replacements will just change it slightly, making the work sweeter instead of aggressive (look at the next comic). Maybe our changes will even make it better. But we don't really know until we know what the thing we are tweaking originally did and have a good reason for making our change. The one thing we know is that everything matters.

  Key 5:

  “Matters” Does Not Mean Necessary

  In the last key, we made the case that everything matters. I stand by that, everything does matter, but that doesn't mean that everything is necessary. The spell with the green devil candle will be different than the same spell performed without it. That doesn't mean you cannot do a debt collection spell without that green devil candle though; it will just be different. A green skull candle may get into the target's head a bit more. A green taper with the targets name written on it may get them to act more upright, or maybe it will, in fact, pack less of a punch.

  Unfortunately, people are unable to grasp this nuanced teaching very easily. It is much easier to run to the extremes, and so most people fall into one of two camps: the ultra-traditional and orthodox, or the wildly (and often stupidly) eclectic.

  For the ultra-traditionalists, the fact that someone wrote it is reason that it not only matters (which I agree with) but that it is absolutely necessary and immutable (which I don't agree with). The older a text or tradition is, the more immutable and rigidly those instructions are taken. Any concession to time and place in which you are doing this Magic will, in their minds, sully the operation. Any concession to convenience is laziness. Any concession to innovation is betrayal and flakiness. Such is the orthodox view.

  If a tradition or text has been delivered by a spirit or God in the past, then it is absolute. If the spirit or God delivers a revelation to a mystic or Sorcerer in the present, then it's assumed to be delusion, especially if it calls for changes or modernization of ancient methods. Gods forbid we actually act like it is the century that we are living in.

  On the other side of the coin, we have the wild eclectics. For the wild eclectics, there is no higher authority than their own Gnosis. What passes for Gnosis can be anything from a mystical vision to a brain-fart. We will be talking about sane eclecticism later on, so I don't want to spend a lot of time on it now, but suffice to say that there is no part of a ritual or tradition that these folks think they cannot change or do without.

  Between these two extremes runs a middle road, one where we recognize that people did not establish traditions for no reason and that everything matters, but where we also recognize that changing, replacing, modernizing, and streamlining things all have their place. Before we change things though, first we need to know what we are talking about.

  Experience Before Change

  What are you changing or getting rid of? The color of a candle? An oil? An herb that is hard to get or is poisonous? I completely understand; I work with Hekate a lot, but you won't find me messing around with aconite too much because it's toxic to the touch.

  Maybe it's a whole section of a ceremony like purification or fasting that you have decided is antiquated or rooted in Christian thinking. Or perhaps it's forceful binding of spirits that you find too imperialistic. Maybe it's an offering that you object to or something that just seems like too much damn trouble. Whatever it is, you should make a decent attempt to understand what it is and what it does before you change it. That sounds obvious as I write it, but I cannot tell you how many times people have ditched or changed something without really understanding what they were changing. I can't tell you how many times I have done that myself, but that doesn't make it smart.

  Ideally, you should have the firsthand experience of doing something at least a few times the traditional or written way before substituting or omitting. If you haven't done it, you don't fully understand it. You may think you do, but experience may prove otherwise. In 1996, I completed the months-long ritual to gain Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Traditionally, this is followed by summoning the four Demon Princes and binding them—something that, at the time, I did not put any stock into or think necessary. My head was full of Aleister Crowley's Thelemic spin on Magic, and I thought the Holy Guardian Angel might be more like my “true will” than an actual being who would show up in the temple. This would make the demons similarly metaphorical, an allegory for our lower nature or base passions.

  Eventually, the angel showed up and the first thing it told me was to get to work summoning those demons. What I did not understand, but which the angel made clear, is that I was inserting myself into a chain of manifestation, and that without binding those demons, wrathful spirits would be attracted to the angel and cause problems. You live and you learn. In this case, the lesson was whatever your operating theory of Magic is, it might be wrong. So if your theory tells you to dismiss something as superstition, or too pious, or unnecessary, that might also be wrong.

  Of course, we cannot always take Magic and ritual for a spin. Sometimes the instructions call for something that is dangerous. Lots of people, including the famous traditional Witch Robert Cochrane, have died from wortcunning gone wrong. More than a couple Chinese emperors died of mercury poisoning from their alchemical longevity potions too. Other instructions may call for acts that we are morally opposed to. Animal sacrifice of chickens and farm animals is not really a big deal if you are used to killing animals for food anyway, but I hope no one reading this would justify drowning a cat as it instructs in a papyri spell that calls upon Hekate and Hermes.

  Sometimes we may simply be unwilling or unable to follow tradition. So be it. You may be exactly right about not needing something or being able to replace it with something else. You may be wrong and willing to live with that, too. I'm not here to be the instruction police. I just want you to know what something does before you ditch it or change it.

  Tweaking Your Thaumaturgy

  Once you do your due diligence and know, or at least have a decent idea of, what something does and why it's there, you are free to tweak and make changes. But you don't make changes expecting it to be the same. You make your change because you know it will be different.

  Let's say we are making an oil for influencing someone's mind and the ingredients call for calamus; if you replace it with licorice root you are still within the realm of influencing plants, but now it has a sweeter less aggressive touch. Or maybe you know that a spell calls for eggs to be offered to Hekate and you are a vegan, so you decide to offer dandelions instead—the spell may bring out a different aspect of Hek
ate based on the offering, one that is more necromantic because dandelions are associated with necromancy in some Greek sources.

  There will also be times that you need to streamline things because they are just too long or needlessly complex. There is a business principal called Parkinson's Law that states tasks tend to expand the time available for their completion. When dealing with rituals designed for monks or full-time ritualists, it often becomes apparent that there are elements that are not necessary but have expanded to fill the time available. This happened with Tantra in Buddhism. Originally practiced by householders or wandering yogis, it was more Magic and yoga, but when it became mixed with the monastic traditions, the practices became more ecclesiastic and ornate. The problem is that when homeowners and yogis want to do it, they get taught to do the practices that the monks do, rather than those tighter practices from ages past.

  There is nothing wrong with streamlining; often it can make a ritual better and more potent, as long as you know what you are doing and why. Disregarding or replacing elements of a ritual or spell because they require too much effort or because you don't think they matter is the mark of a dilettante. Knowing how to substitute or streamline to customize and optimize is the mark of a master.

  The Take-Away

  Whereas the problem the last key tried to address was sloppiness, this key addresses the problem of slavish repetition of the past and blind obedience. Taken together with the advice from the last key, we begin to see a middle road, one where we can clearly assess things from a position of knowledge and wisdom.

  Harold still can't get his hands on volcanic salt, so he used sugar. This sweetened things up a bit, so Sal is not going to eat him anymore. What he is going to do instead I will leave up to your imagination. The point, though, is that you can substitute and get a result. It's just not going to be the same result. Everything matters, but not everything is necessary.

  Key 6:

  Make Skillful Statements of Intent

  If simple religion is asking for the will of God and the spirits to be done, then a part of what differentiates Magic is surely in asking for something specific to occur. This key is crucial to your success in Sorcery. The statement of intent drives the entire spell. It defines the parameters within which it operates, as well as the metrics for its success. This is a huge part of what makes Magic, yet even those with decades of experience under their robes give surprisingly little attention to what they are asking for. Whether you are standing in front of a demon, chanting over blessed and dressed candles in the dead of night, or raising and directing energy and mind, you should frame your intent as clearly and as carefully as if you were in front of some cartoon genii. You never want your last words to be “Genii, make me a ham sandwich!”

  The Statement of Intent

  Simply put, statement of intent is what you want a spell, ceremony, operation, or Magical strategy to do. If you have ever said a prayer asking for a Saint to heal you or tried to make a bargain with God for a pregnancy test not to be positive, you have made a statement of intent. But Magic is not just intercessory prayer or distressed bargaining, and just like in asking things of people, there are ways to ask that are skillful and there are ways to ask that are not.

  Not long ago, a student of mine went through a lot of trouble to do an evocation of the spirit Bune from the Goetia of Solomon. This was an undertaking that was done as close to the book as possible and included a lot of time and effort. He asked for “increased income.” That's it. Three hours of ceremony, a fair amount of expense, and more prep and study time than he could calculate to execute a beautiful and traditional rite, and that was the big request. The result is that within a week he got a raise of about a dollar an hour. Bune did its job—it fulfilled the request—it just didn't do it in a way that made a significant difference in his life.

  It's easy to pick on others, but I have done this myself. All my early financial Magic was about “money drawing,” and draw money it did: the odd $20 found in the street, the opportunity to participate in focus groups that paid $50, a random gift from an aunt, or freebie furniture. I was excited that I did Magic and something happened, but when it came down to it, it was nothing that actually changing my life and sometimes wasn't even worth the effort.

  Let's take a good look at noob, amateur, adept, and master statements of intent for someone looking for money.

  Noob: Bring me money in a hurry!

  Amature: Bring a new job!

  Adept: Bring a career that offers steady and secure employment at no less than $X per year with the possibility of advancement.

  Master: Bring opportunity for steady income that leaves $X per month after all bills, expenses, emergencies, and investments are made.

  The noob statement leaves open the possibility of literally anything that gives just a little more than you had before. With the amateur statement, you leave open the possibility that you get a job that lasts for a couple hours one day clearing out some lady's yard. Probably not what you were hoping for, but technically correct. (Also, a real-life example from one of my students.)

  With the adept statement, you get the sense of a solid career, but leave open the possibility of increased expenses sapping away the increased income. This happens all the time—you get a boon with Magic, and suddenly the HVAC needs to be replaced, which eats up all the money you made.

  The master statement opens the door for all kinds of income streams and opportunities as well as a career, but clarifies steady flow rather than a one-time boon. You also frame the numbers in terms of what's left over rather than what you take in, which helps eliminate the potential for emergencies and new expenses tapping the new income.

  Future or Present Tense?

  There are a lot of people out there who advocate the practice of framing statements of intent to reflect whatever is desired in the present tense, as if it has already happened. An example would be “I have a fulfilling love life with a wonderful partner” as opposed to “Bring me a lover that will fulfill and excite me.” The idea is that by saying it has already happened, you sure it up in the mind and make it more concrete.

  This practice is widespread and I did it for decades myself, starting back in the 1980s when I read the Necronomicon Spellbook, in which Simon advised holding your goal as having already occurred in the mind. As far as I can tell, the practice made its way into Magical work from the New Thought movement, the same movement that eventually gave birth to “The Secret.” There is nothing wrong with this, and if you are doing a purely mental type of Magic, it makes perfect sense. Most Sorcery, however, is not purely mental, and you might be shocked how little your thoughts and beliefs have to do with it.

  As the concepts behind the Strategic Sorcery approach came into focus, I stopped forming declarations like this and now actively teach against forming statements in the present tense, or spending too much time visualizing things as if they already happened. There are a few reasons why I don't like this approach.

  I have found that the best approach to Sorcery relies upon figuring out the most cunning steps to achieve your goal, then enchanting each of those steps along the way. Using the example of a job spell, you may do one large spell at the beginning that uses a basic statement of intent to find work, such as the examples we gave previously. But that's not the end of your Magic. You will want to start networking and perhaps invoke Mercury or other powers to bring you in touch with the right people. You will want to enchant your resume so that it attracts attention. When you get a job interview, you will want to do some influencing and glamour Magic to make yourself memorable and ensure a good impression. You may also want to do some Magic so that everything is timed well at each stage. This will be explored more fully in Key 10.

  If we make a statement of intent that suggests we already have gotten the job, it doesn't leave room to focus on the rest of the strategy. In other words, focusing on the goal as being already achieved leaves open the chance that you will skimp or skip on other the steps needed
to get there.

  Telling yourself that you have already won your prize makes you feel good, but it does little to get you toward your goal. In fact, often people mistake this feeling of success with success itself. Recent research into the effects of positive thinking have affirmed my observations.1 One study showed that participants who were made to feel parched and who visualized themselves drinking a cool glass of water were less motivated to get up and quench their real thirst with real water. In study after study, research shows that visualizing yourself as having achieved something already makes you less motivated to go out and achieve it. On the one hand, it shows the power of the mind, but like all power, unless it is applied wisely, it becomes a source of trouble.

  Even in creative visualization and purely mental Magic, I prefer a contrasting technique that does involve visualizing a desired outcome, but follows it up with visualizations or affirmations of the path that will lead to it, obstacles that you may encounter, and what you will do when you hit those obstacles. You start at your goal and work backward to the present, then forward again in great detail. I learned this trick, oddly enough, not from a Magician but from an interview with Frank Lucas, the notorious drug kingpin who was the subject of the book and movie American Gangster. He would shut himself up for a week and do this careful visualization in great detail before embarking on a big venture.

  The other reason not to form statements in the present tense is that what you want to occur really hasn't happened yet, and you know that. Magic is a subtle art that defies and skirts what people consider real. Because of this, I try to engage in as little fantasy as possible around it and instead focus on the details of what needs to be done and how Sorcery can help you achieve it.