The notion that "magic" only works if you believe in it;
I just don't buy it personally. I may have held some form of "magical thinking" all my life, but there have been plenty of things I was not only skeptical about but outright refused to believe in which STILL manifested regardless of my belief. Astrology was one of those things. I never liked it. "Why" I reasoned "would inanimate hunks of rock and balls of gas millions of miles away, that people once imagined represented animals and gods, have any bearing at all on our lives here on earth?" until I understood it better. I learned just enough to realize there were in fact some similarities between the alleged influences of astrology and things that i observed in my life, usually unfortunate things. I didn't believe in astrology, but astrology, it seemed, believed in me, enough to spite me at least.
Same deal with rootwork and conjure I have demonstrated power over others through looks and words who vehemently opposed the legitimacy of magical workings of any kind. There were some who DID believe who suffered effects that I had never actually willed on them, but was no less plied to "remove" the offending hex which, I assured them, would be done. And so it was. Still, there is that $2 bill behind the baby picture tradition from my family. It was supposed to make it "so you'll never be broke" but I spent more time in my life broke than not. I read elsewhere that the $2 bill was supposed to have a corner torn of when one received it to combat the bad financial luck it would bring. I chalked it up to faulty memory on the part of my grandparents, or maybe it was intentional misinformation from someone way back when. Regardless, the results manifested in spite of a belief to the contrary. What was intended as good luck turned bad by way of bad action.
I have seen the same happen with others, clients who dabbled in rootwork and then wondered why they manifested poor results in spite of their best "intentions"
My first course of action was always to ask "what SPECIFICALLY did you do and how did you do it" and, without fail, there was always a poorly chosen component to their spell that, regardless of what they THOUGHT it would do, manifested precisely the kind of result i would have expected from the introduction of that component. Making a love sachet too "hot" for example by using cayenne, which can be malicious, along with other "hot love" ingredients like ginger and cinnamon. The result, flaring tempers and running out, kinda like what you would expect from a home wrecking or hot foot powder, which would contain cayenne.
Real rootwork and conjure is about more than just mixing stuff together. There are certain things which work well together and certain things which don't, sometimes backfiring with drastic consequences. This is knowledge gained by oral tradition, firsthand experience, and the worker's inherent relationship with the spiritual/energetic world from whence the powers REPRESENTED by the components originates. One has to receive that "mantel" rather than simply choosing to try it on. There is also the matter of "activation" wherein the appropriately ordained rootworker or conjurer uses those powers which are infused in his/her blood and bones (whether by birthright or divine intervention) to "wake up" the spiritual forces locked away in the physical object. The object itself may hold some power by virtue of what it is, but that power is enlivened and invigorated by the anointed worker, increasing that power exponentially. Think of it like taking a home remedy versus getting a prescription. They may be derived from the same substance, but one is much more concentrated than the other. In short, just because you "practice hoodoo" does not make you a hoodoo doctor.
Our work seems superstitious and nonsensical to modern sensibilities and most dismiss it out of hand. However, I can assure you that our work is based on the purest of sciences, observation, hypothesis, experimentation and theory. The classic scientific method. So we use things like "the doctrine of signatures" "the law of similarities" and "the law of contagion" which are dismissed by conventional science. The bottom line is that there are, in fact, governing principles to our work and that the results, though inconsistent at times, have been repeated by many people over the course of centuries. Results observed by multiple persons and derived from the same process is the foundation of theory. And for those who say "well it's just a theory" let me remind you that so is gravity, and how's that been working for ya? Do not confuse theory with hypothesis and do not confuse hypothesis with fancy. We make educated guess based on fundamental principles, test the hypothesis and arrive at a theory. That is how this works and that is why some things work out differently from what an individual may have "intended" or believed.
Magic is not entirely based upon intention. Intention and belief supply an energy to the work, yes, but there are also active forces at work which are separate and independent from your own will. Sorry kids, but Crowley only had half of the equation. Likewise, those who simply mix components get inconsistent results because they either neglected or simply lacked the inherent power to "activate" the spiritual powers in the components. If "believing" were the only thing of importance then everyone, everywhere could simply "believe" themselves into a better life and, likewise, could avoid any and all misfortunes by simply "believing" that bad things do not exist then :::poof::: away it goes. Some popular books out there may profess this kind of self-hypnosis as the "secret" to all but I assure you it is nothing more than mental programming. It may be comforting to some to imagine things are that easy and to see refuge in self delusion but that does not make the delusions true nor the practice psychologically healthy. It is happy, it is hopeful and it sells. That is the only reason such nonsense continues to get printed. Were I more business-minded I would write one of those books in my sleep, go on Oprah, and secure my family for the next 10 generations, but I have this nagging thing called "integrity" and its evangelical sister "ethics" leering through the window of my mind preventing me from going that rout. My goal, my mission, is to teach people that there is more to life and the universe than meets the eye, that we all have access to a well of power and potential beyond the physical and that humans can be so much more than they have become. To do that, I have to combat the delusions and distractions continually degenerate the intellectual capacities and numb the spirits of the populace.
If magic didn't work, people would not have continued to do it for all these years. If belief were the only way it could work, then it would have stopped working a long time ago. If everything that mystical types pursued were always ignored we would still believe we lived on a flat earth with the sun revolving around it... and would that make it true? As I say all the time, truth is independent of belief. The earth was always round, it has always revolved around the sun, the universe works in circles, is held together by energy, energy can be tapped into, harnessed and applied to technology, magic is a technology governed by scientific principles which have not been fully explored by "mainstream" science. You do not have to believe it, or understand it, for it to be true.
I just don't buy it personally. I may have held some form of "magical thinking" all my life, but there have been plenty of things I was not only skeptical about but outright refused to believe in which STILL manifested regardless of my belief. Astrology was one of those things. I never liked it. "Why" I reasoned "would inanimate hunks of rock and balls of gas millions of miles away, that people once imagined represented animals and gods, have any bearing at all on our lives here on earth?" until I understood it better. I learned just enough to realize there were in fact some similarities between the alleged influences of astrology and things that i observed in my life, usually unfortunate things. I didn't believe in astrology, but astrology, it seemed, believed in me, enough to spite me at least.
Same deal with rootwork and conjure I have demonstrated power over others through looks and words who vehemently opposed the legitimacy of magical workings of any kind. There were some who DID believe who suffered effects that I had never actually willed on them, but was no less plied to "remove" the offending hex which, I assured them, would be done. And so it was. Still, there is that $2 bill behind the baby picture tradition from my family. It was supposed to make it "so you'll never be broke" but I spent more time in my life broke than not. I read elsewhere that the $2 bill was supposed to have a corner torn of when one received it to combat the bad financial luck it would bring. I chalked it up to faulty memory on the part of my grandparents, or maybe it was intentional misinformation from someone way back when. Regardless, the results manifested in spite of a belief to the contrary. What was intended as good luck turned bad by way of bad action.
I have seen the same happen with others, clients who dabbled in rootwork and then wondered why they manifested poor results in spite of their best "intentions"
My first course of action was always to ask "what SPECIFICALLY did you do and how did you do it" and, without fail, there was always a poorly chosen component to their spell that, regardless of what they THOUGHT it would do, manifested precisely the kind of result i would have expected from the introduction of that component. Making a love sachet too "hot" for example by using cayenne, which can be malicious, along with other "hot love" ingredients like ginger and cinnamon. The result, flaring tempers and running out, kinda like what you would expect from a home wrecking or hot foot powder, which would contain cayenne.
Real rootwork and conjure is about more than just mixing stuff together. There are certain things which work well together and certain things which don't, sometimes backfiring with drastic consequences. This is knowledge gained by oral tradition, firsthand experience, and the worker's inherent relationship with the spiritual/energetic world from whence the powers REPRESENTED by the components originates. One has to receive that "mantel" rather than simply choosing to try it on. There is also the matter of "activation" wherein the appropriately ordained rootworker or conjurer uses those powers which are infused in his/her blood and bones (whether by birthright or divine intervention) to "wake up" the spiritual forces locked away in the physical object. The object itself may hold some power by virtue of what it is, but that power is enlivened and invigorated by the anointed worker, increasing that power exponentially. Think of it like taking a home remedy versus getting a prescription. They may be derived from the same substance, but one is much more concentrated than the other. In short, just because you "practice hoodoo" does not make you a hoodoo doctor.
Our work seems superstitious and nonsensical to modern sensibilities and most dismiss it out of hand. However, I can assure you that our work is based on the purest of sciences, observation, hypothesis, experimentation and theory. The classic scientific method. So we use things like "the doctrine of signatures" "the law of similarities" and "the law of contagion" which are dismissed by conventional science. The bottom line is that there are, in fact, governing principles to our work and that the results, though inconsistent at times, have been repeated by many people over the course of centuries. Results observed by multiple persons and derived from the same process is the foundation of theory. And for those who say "well it's just a theory" let me remind you that so is gravity, and how's that been working for ya? Do not confuse theory with hypothesis and do not confuse hypothesis with fancy. We make educated guess based on fundamental principles, test the hypothesis and arrive at a theory. That is how this works and that is why some things work out differently from what an individual may have "intended" or believed.
Magic is not entirely based upon intention. Intention and belief supply an energy to the work, yes, but there are also active forces at work which are separate and independent from your own will. Sorry kids, but Crowley only had half of the equation. Likewise, those who simply mix components get inconsistent results because they either neglected or simply lacked the inherent power to "activate" the spiritual powers in the components. If "believing" were the only thing of importance then everyone, everywhere could simply "believe" themselves into a better life and, likewise, could avoid any and all misfortunes by simply "believing" that bad things do not exist then :::poof::: away it goes. Some popular books out there may profess this kind of self-hypnosis as the "secret" to all but I assure you it is nothing more than mental programming. It may be comforting to some to imagine things are that easy and to see refuge in self delusion but that does not make the delusions true nor the practice psychologically healthy. It is happy, it is hopeful and it sells. That is the only reason such nonsense continues to get printed. Were I more business-minded I would write one of those books in my sleep, go on Oprah, and secure my family for the next 10 generations, but I have this nagging thing called "integrity" and its evangelical sister "ethics" leering through the window of my mind preventing me from going that rout. My goal, my mission, is to teach people that there is more to life and the universe than meets the eye, that we all have access to a well of power and potential beyond the physical and that humans can be so much more than they have become. To do that, I have to combat the delusions and distractions continually degenerate the intellectual capacities and numb the spirits of the populace.
If magic didn't work, people would not have continued to do it for all these years. If belief were the only way it could work, then it would have stopped working a long time ago. If everything that mystical types pursued were always ignored we would still believe we lived on a flat earth with the sun revolving around it... and would that make it true? As I say all the time, truth is independent of belief. The earth was always round, it has always revolved around the sun, the universe works in circles, is held together by energy, energy can be tapped into, harnessed and applied to technology, magic is a technology governed by scientific principles which have not been fully explored by "mainstream" science. You do not have to believe it, or understand it, for it to be true.
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