Full Frontal Magic: Extended Spellwork and Self-Compassion

So I have been doing magic, every day for two hours for 20 days.  Connecting to the same spirit in a powerful way, for a specific and large purpose. First, some of my readers may be surprised by this, if they have done ritual with me in person. Some of you know I hit the rituals hard with force. While (often) some operations involve changing your head, every once and while you are doing a working which has no easy internal transformation route.  Some enchantments require direct physical outcomes that just do not depend on what happens in one’s head, which makes the magic harder.

The actual magic is usually the easiest part. For ceremonies like this, you keep doing the same mechanical steps. I can teach you an enchantment in a couple hours. The physical set up, which herbs to use, even the mechanics. In a day or so of hard training or via the shapeshifting course with me, you would start to get the movement of energy and intention down. Within a week, you would have all the energetic and spiritual tools to do a longer scale enchantment. If you worked out of Hands On Chaos Magic or another book in a dedicated manner, maybe it would take a few months to a year. Rest assured, this is the easy part of magic in most longer operations. Here is an example:

Simple Money Draw Enchantment

1. Clear a space on a table or shelf.  Put down some green cloth with one green candle and a candle holder ( or use a 7 day candle).  Place some coins or other money around the candle.
2. As an optional step create a sigilized mantra or seal for your work as talked about in Hands On Chaos Magic.  This step helps with focus.
3. Dress a money candle with money draw oil and if you have a seal carve it into the candle.
4. Relax and let the stress go of your body.
5. Light the candle and focus on a whirlwind of money swirling around you.  If you have a mantra repeat it, if you have a seal continuously visualize it.
6. With all 5 senses, have money flow right to you from the spiraling whirlwind.  Because I have studied way too much ceremonial magic, I would spin the whirlwind clockwise.  Really feel the money hitting you, hear it whizzing by, even smell the whirlwind of fresh money.
7. As you focus put more coins down by the candle, or even better, have a family member or friend drop more coins in there when you are not around.
8. Repeat every day for 20-30 minutes.

More often than not, if you kept doing this for 30-60 days, you would see improvements in the money flowing in. Unless you were tracking the in and out of your money, most people would see a corresponding outflow of money and then conclude that the magic didn’t work.  Clearly this example is just pointing out, often the magical technology itself is not too complicated once you get the gist (although in some cases the setup to the technology is more complicated).

This ritual can be explained by psychological changes to the person casting the ritual, but it is not the only possible explanation. Generally, if you did this ritual long enough, something would happen that would seem to defy the psychological.  I have to state some of my assumptions up front. First, I know, not believe, know it is possible to have magical results that do not stem from internal psychological changes. This statement alone, while supported by my experience, is controversial. As an aside, I can give you lists and lists of results where it would be difficult to claim that is coming merely a psychological change.

One of the main problems of this style of work is desire of result which I gave side coverage to in an earlier blog.  Attaching to strongly to various results confuses your sub-conscious mind and thus locks the intention within you. The magic just has no place to go.  Second, doing rituals like this in this manner makes it hard for that sense of novelty and wonder, the awe of magic. For some people, the ritual just does not have enough excitement to cause an altered state of consciousness. The mechanics become boring, and that boring sensation gets attached to the magic which works against the magic. Through practice and focus, you can work through those issues.

Once you get past the desire of results and novelty issues, greater magical work works you. Even if you are going for a result that cannot be explained through psychological means, the magic works on you. The desire of result issue and natural human condition leads to questions like why hasn’t it worked yet? What am I doing wrong when it has not yet worked yet? Why did I need this series of works in the first place? The more you think about the situation and the work, the more you ask questions and often they are very difficult questions.

The work itself invites the self-critic in and the self-frustration for me. I do not think I am alone in this.  That frustration, self-criticism, and harshness is an opportunity for self-growth through self-compassion.  Self-compassion is not self-esteem. Self-compassion forces you to acknowledge the situation and accept it, reducing down or trying to release the judgement. It is a shifting to a mindset that says, it is ok I got into the situation and I can move forward. That forward will take time, one step in front of the other. I do not have to pressure myself to move forward faster.

The example extended working I gave above is a great example of a sore point for many people. I would ask all of these questions and more about why I can’t budget. Why I fail at money? I might even ask and say nastier things to myself. The physical skills of budgeting and saving money are important, but in this example the negative self-directed emotions prevents being successful at those skills or the magic.

It is easy to understand self-compassion from an intellectual point of view, but in practice one can really not talk themselves into it.   The frustration and harshness comes from the subconscious mind and has to be retrained through metaphor and energy.  If you are doing a much longer term working, let me give you a fast and easy exercise that can help you release it. If you are doing an extended series of working on a topic, add this 15-minute exercise. You will understand the difference in mindset. This exercise is a variant of the Pore Breathing exercise and more in line with the techniques I created in my Shapeshifting Course.

Self-Compassion through Pore Breathing

1. Sit in a comfortable chair with your feet flat on the ground.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Breathe as deeply.  Try to get into a rhythm with no pausing between inhale and exhale while getting the in and out breath to be at least 5-6 seconds or more.  Make sure the inhale and exhale is the same length of time.
4. Imagine with all of your five senses, what it would be like when you are showing compassion toward another thing in the universe. That may have a certain color or texture, a sound, even vibe.  You know what that sensation is.  Allow those sensations to surround you.    It should take about 5 minutes of focus and breathing to make this powerfully happen.
5. Take this a step further while imagining your friends and family show you great compassion.  You know that sensation when you feel fully supported and fully loved and in a place where mistakes are learning opportunities.  Let you be surrounded by those sensations you know as pure support and love.
6. Now instead of breathing through your mouth, imagine the breath comes into your skin through all of your body.  Just feel the breathe and energy coming in from all directions.
7. On inhale, pull the love and support surrounding you into your skin from all directions.  You might notice your skin tingles, but breath deeply and see, feel, hear yourself pulling that love and support, that compassion directly in.
8. On exhale, let go of any tension or negativity you have through your skin. Focus specifically on self-frustration and those feelings, thoughts, images, sounds, and even smells which link to self-frustration, self-criticism, or self-hatred.  Let all that go and flow out from you, out through your skin, and out in all directions.
9. As the negativity travels away from you, see, feel, hear, know that it is dissolved and alchemized by the support and love ( If you can not focus on all these steps, this is optional.  Just know there is a endless amount of love and support for these energies to dissolve into).
10. Repeat steps 7-9 continuously for at least 10 minutes but you can go longer.

This exercise takes only 15 minutes but does some very powerful things.  First, the breathing helps you internalize the love, support and compassion making it self-compassion.  Second, the releasing of the negativity is a huge purification which will quiet down negative self-talk while doing extended magic.  Three, this exercise will greatly improve your state of mind.

If this exercise is combined with the simple money draw spell doing both in the day, a certain alchemy would occur.  If a person could find the time to do the Pore Breathing while they are feeling frustrated, they could alchemize much deeper feelings.   That process of alchemy would help the other ritual succeed.  Now, I am not doing a greater ritual for a money draw, but the process works to free myself of the garbage that would prevent the greater ritual from working.  You can combine the second with any extended magical work you wish to do giving you some self-compassion so it is much easier to keep going in the great work you are doing.

May your magic be successful, and your spirit grow just a little when the advice works.

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