Why isn’t your magic working? Why does it take so long to manifest? Not all magical workers use their energy to create outcomes, but if you do or if you pay someone else to do so on your behalf, it can be frustrating when you do not get the results you want. Why are the abusive neighbors still there when your banishing spell was dialed in and felt powerful? Your ex didn’t come back…what? Why did you not get the job for which you were fully qualified?

There are many reasons why you spell work does not bring the results you want to see, but as a professional spell caster, I have found that it usually comes down to these six and those six can be best illustrated in the idea of force versus resistance.

Magical energy works like any other energy. It follows the path of least resistance and responds to any resistance it encounters. Resistance to magical energy takes many forms and the six reasons described below illustrate some of the most common obstacles to magical success.

1 – Insufficient energy load

When you have a goal that you address magically, the goal has a minimal energy requirement that you must meet to accomplish that goal. The minimal energy requirement is unknown and depends on many factors, all of which are directly related to force versus resistance.

If an outcome is already in the works, it will take little effort for our magical work to push it over the edge into fruition. Any amount of resistance to our effort causes the outcome to take longer and require more energy. Imagine that we have a light bulb that we want to illuminate, but we have no idea how much electricity is needed to make that happen. It might be a AAA battery, four AA, or even a car battery.

But how much is enough?

Some goals are like trying to run a refrigerator on one of those smaller batteries so that it is impossible to generate sufficient energy with the resources available to us. Want your ex to come back? If your ex is pining away from you and is hoping you will reach out, it might take one Come to Me candle to push the situation to resolve in your favor and you might then be together forever. You cheated on your ex and treated them like dirt for the whole relationship and now they are with someone who loves and respects them? Yeah… that’s going to take a bigger battery.

In this case, we keep throwing energy at the situation until we get what we want and the trick is, we never know when we will hit that minimum energy requirement and turn on the light bulb. Like Sisyphus, we might one day roll that stone to the top of the mountain and we never really know how close we are.

Which comes first? Realizing the goal or realizing you have put as much your resources into obtaining it as you are willing to invest. That’s the question.

2 – Lack of commitment

You’ve been enjoying time at home since your layoff and know you need to get another job to pay bills and operate as an independent, successful adult. But do you really want to get up early and punch a time clock, learn a new set of operating instructions, and try to fit into an existing work community? You feel lonely and sad that you’re not in a relationship, but you remember how painful your last two break ups were, so do you really want another romantic partnership?

Sometimes we want to want what we know we should want, but deep inside, we are not as committed to the process as we believe we are. When you work magic to get something, make sure it is something you want with every fiber of your being. Otherwise, we are back up at #1 and your energy investment is insufficient to activate the goal

3 – Lack of follow through

“As above, so below.” As much as we would love for it to be true, we usually do not light the candle, think the thoughts, draw the sigils, and then kick back on the couch and wait for the UPS truck to drive up to our front door and deliver the outcome to our magical endeavors. This sounds elementary, but I am frequently surprised by the people who believe that working magic to solve a problem absolves them from any mundane efforts.

Want to win the lottery? You’ve got to buy the ticket. Want to get a job? It helps to drop some applications. Want to meet the love of your life? You probably need to leave the house. Magic creates opportunity and fuels the efforts you make with additional energy, propelling you faster toward your goals.

Mind-Spirit-Body – The Holy Trinity

Mind-Spirit-Body. Each one of those must engage for effective outcomes. Mind: Think the thought and make the choice. Spirit: Work the magic. Body: Now do the thing.

Without mundane effort and personal investment beyond magical energy, we usually do not have enough force to reach the goal and light up that light bulb.

4 – Immutable points

Some people believe it and some do not, but my experience has worked hard to show me that there are some primary, immutable points in our lives that are non-negotiable. As magical practitioners, we want to believe that if we invest enough energy into an outcome, it is assured. Ego demands that we consider ourselves powerful enough to move every mountain.

The reality, however, is that as I used to tell my wonderfully willful daughter when she was little, “Sometimes, the answer is just ‘no.’” By all evidence, it appears there are appointments we have to make in life, places we have to be, and boxes we have to check and if our magical work would create conflict with those obligations, it won’t happen.

Getting out of your own way

I worked HUGE magic when my first marriage ended in 1996. HUGE. There was no way this guy was going to do this to me. The next decade or so of my life had a plan and damned if anyone was going to take it away from me. Despite all my best witch tricks, I still got dragged kicking and screaming and chanting to divorce court. Later that year, I met the love of my life and the next two decades blossomed in a way I could never have imagined possible. I had an appointment with fate to keep and my magic would have interfered with that big time. So it failed.

So mote it be.

We can’t always see why until it is in the rear-view mirror, but the Universe is efficient and sometimes, our perfectly worded petition gets handed back to us with “DENIED” stamped on it.

In this case, we often cannot generate enough force even with a mind-spirit-body full on assault to overcome the resistance created by that immutable point.

5 – Timing

Sometimes when our magic fails, the Universe is not saying, “No,” it is saying, “Not now.” So much of magical work is a game of “wait for it… wait for it… NOW.” I have watched people work magic for a specific outcome for months only to have such a long period of failure suddenly result in perfect success.

Maybe you are not finding that perfect love match just yet because your work is about to send you to a different state. Perhaps you are not getting the raise because the lesson you are supposed to learn is how to stand up for yourself and to know your worth. The house you fell in love with at first sight and knew was your forever home fell out of escrow? Fate might have saved you years of conflict with bad neighbors or a roof that should never have passed inspection.

Life is weird

Trust life more than your lying eyes. We only see part of the picture and our limited view can get in the way of our own success at times.

Timing is a force that will often push back against our magical efforts with sufficient resistance to overcome our own will and magical energy.

6 – Someone else’s free will

One of the strongest resistances to your magical effort is how much someone else doesn’t want what you want to happen. To successfully work magic to get your ex to come back, you must want your ex to come back more than your ex doesn’t want to come back. After that, you must continue to work magic to get them to stay back if they are not genuinely happy being there. Their moments of clarity will wreak havoc on your domestic bliss.

If you work magic to get a specific job in your company, you must want it more than anyone else does or want it more than anyone else doesn’t want you to have it. Whenever someone does not want you to have what you want or wants what you want more than you do, it creates free will resistance to your magical efforts.

Push me, pull you

This explains exactly why gambling magic rarely works. EVERYONE in the casino wants the jackpot as much as and possibly more than you do. All the people who buy a ticket wants to win the lottery. Everyone in the bingo hall wants to win the big prize. Their desire is your magical obstacle.

If you are not seeing the outcomes you want from your magical efforts, it likely is not a lacking on your part. Deconstruct your spell to see what you can rephrase or approach in a different way. Tap into why you want what you want and consider what creates resistance to that outcome. Most of all, be very aware of how much energy you want to give into an outcome before you make other choices. The trick is knowing the difference in a reasonable investment of energy versus giving up moments before success. Therein lies the gamble.