Last week I worked a Tarot spell to support a long-term magical working I’ve had in progress for several years. The end is getting close, but I’ve still got a ways to go. I need to make sure I finish strong, so I decided to give the long-term working an extra magical push.
I selected four cards – I picked them, I didn’t draw them at random. One to represent myself, one for my current situation, one for my goal, and one for what I’m doing to get from where I am to where I want to be. For the goal, I selected The World.
And as I did, I heard my inner cynic laughing.
“You don’t want much, do you?”
“Isn’t that kinda vague?”
To start with, we want what we want. If you want the whole world, go for it. But I chose The World because as the last card in the Major Arcana, it represents completion.
And also, I know the specifics of my goal, because I’ve articulated them many times. I don’t write about them on the internet, but some of you know some of them because I’ve discussed them in person. Mainly, I’ve articulated them to myself, in detail. The World represents completing all of them and living the life I want to live, the way I want to live it.
After I worked the spell, I decided to draw three cards for guidance on what I can do in the immediate future to move me closer to my goal. I shuffled the cards very well, cut them, picked the stack that called to me, and drew three cards (as opposed to selecting the cards, as I did in the spell).
The first card I got was The World.
Sometimes when a card comes up in a reading you have to remember all the details of the consensus meaning (the “book” meaning), study the artwork and think about its implications, and try to relate all of that to your question.
And other times, you see a card and instantly you know what it means in the current situation. This was one of those times.
In the spell, The World represented my ultimate goal. So in this reading, The World is saying “keep your goal in front of you every day.”
I thought about how I can best do that and I came up with these steps. I’ve done them before – I need to recommit to doing them again, for this.
This process has worked for me in the past. And if it works for me, it’s likely to work for you.
1. Set your goal
Some magic is small. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, it just means it’s simple. You need to find a lost object. You need to find a new job. You need to protect yourself from someone who intends to harm you. Achieving these goals may be hard, but it’s straightforward.
Longterm workings tend to be big and complicated. Finding a new job is one thing. Finding a new job you really want in a place you want to live in a field in which you have little or no experience is something totally different. It’s not just a case of finding an opening. It’s also a case of getting you to the place where you’re capable of doing the job and doing it well.
Either way, we want what we want. We need what we need. Make a decision and set a goal.
What if you don’t know what you want? Then your first goal is to figure that out. Once you do you can start a new long-term working to achieve it.
I’ve known one major part of my current goal for many years. The other part I figured out about five years ago. As I’ve progressed, it’s gotten more specific and more detailed – and the more specific your goal, the better your results will be.
2. Create a sigil
Turn your goal into a sigil. You can use chaos magic sigils (turning the letters of the target statement into a sigil) but I find that technique is better with smaller, more specific goals. For a big long-term working, I use Laura Tempest Zakroff’s Sigil Witchery method.
Choose an image to represent each segment of your goal, combine them and then turn that into a sigil. And instead of the chaos magic approach of “fire and forget” charge this sigil and keep it in front of you (that’s why Tempest puts some of her sigils on t-shirts).
This gives you one image that represents your goal that you can keep in front of you day in and day out. And that means you never forget about it, even on days when you’re really busy.
3. Create and maintain a hypersigil
A hypersigil isn’t graphic image – it’s more of an extended visualization. Hypersigils use the power of story and the power of the written word to amplify the power of visualization. The results can be amazing. As a teenager I used a rudimentary form of hypersigils to enable me to go away to college (as opposed to staying at home and commuting to a lesser school… and staying at home) even though I knew nothing about magic.
Essentially, you visualize yourself in the place you want to be, with the people you want to be with, doing the things you’ll be doing when your goal is achieved.
Just as I created a hypersigil without really knowing what I was doing, it’s also possible to create a hypersigil for something you don’t want, by envisioning an unwanted outcome over and over again. Be mindful about your thoughts, especially recurring thoughts.
The best book on hypersigils is Aidan Wachter’s Weaving Fate (2021). If you’re doing any sort of long-term magic, read it. And then start building your hypersigil.
4. Make a plan
Intention is good and necessary, but it’s only the first step. Intention without action is weak. Action without direction can take you to a place you don’t want to go.
Intention plus planning plus action will take you where you want to go.
Much of this work doesn’t look like magic. That’s OK. As Jason Miller of Strategic Sorcery says “make a plan that doesn’t require magic to work, then use magic to improve the odds that it will work.”
Here’s the hard part: you have to be honest with yourself about where you are right now. If you want to go to Chicago and you’re starting in St. Louis, that’s a much easier thing than if you’re starting in Dallas. Which in turn is much easier than if you’re starting in Budapest. If you want to be a chef and you’ve been cooking all your life, that’s a very different journey than if you struggle to make a turkey sandwich. You can make either trip, but they’re going to have very different steps and very different timelines.
Keep your goal in front of you. Keep your plan right beside the goal.
5. Support the plan with action
The fifth side of the Witches’ Pyramid (which was not part of Eliphas Levi’s original model, but is still very important) is “acting in accord.” Most successful workings combine magic and mundane action.
In this reading, The World reminds me to keep my goal in front of me, because if I see it regularly I’m more likely to do things that will move me toward that goal, either as a step on the plan or simply because if I see it my subconscious mind will “suggest” that I take some steps in that direction without my conscious mind realizing it.
When I keep my goal in front of me, I find myself asking “what can I do today to move this forward?” Maybe that’s a big thing – more likely it’s a little thing. But little things add up over time.
Your sigil and your hypersigil will bring opportunities and openings to you. What you do with those opportunities and openings is an act of will.
6. Enjoy life as if you were already there
This has always been hard for me. I felt like if I hadn’t fully achieved something, I hadn’t earned the right to enjoy any of the good parts of it. If I tried, I felt like a fake, like I was pretending to be something I wasn’t.
What I didn’t realize was that journeys are long and progress almost always comes gradually, not all at once. Yes, some things have gates you have to clear – especially when you’re very young and so much is age-restricted. What I missed was that small progress deserves to be celebrated as much as big progress. And perhaps more importantly, celebrating small progress reinforces the idea that you have changed and you are continuing to change.
Remember Crowley’s classic definition of magic: the science and art of creating change in conformity with will.
I can’t live exactly how – or where – I want to live in the not-too-distant future, at least not every day. But I can live like this some days, or parts of some days. That feels good, and when I realize it feels good it confirms that I’m on the right path and I’m not just chasing something I’ve been told I’m supposed to want.
7. Reinforce the magic on a regular basis
I do grounding, centering, and shielding every morning. I do cleansing as needed. I recharge the wards on my house a couple times a year.
A working that’s going to take months or years to complete is going to take more magical input than anyone can supply in one session. That means that from time to time, you raise more energy and direct it toward your goal. It means you reenvision yourself completing the goal on a regular basis – I recharge my hypersigils most weeks.
Big magic is not a “one and done” thing. Keep your goal in front of you, and recharge the magic on a regular basis.
This process has worked for me
Our mainstream society often complains about “magical solutions” – expecting quick results with little or no effort. Real magic doesn’t work that way, and it certainly doesn’t work that way for big, long-term projects.
What do you want?
What are you willing to plan for, work mundanely for, work magic for?
This method has helped me get to where I am. It has me in a “glide path” for where I want to go. It will take me the rest of the way, and beyond that… because I won’t stop learning and growing and changing until I take up permanent residence in the Otherworld (and maybe not then).
It’s not working because I’m a super special witch with off the charts magical skills. Best I can tell, I was born with an average magical aptitude. Maybe slightly above average. Definitely not way above average.
But I’ve spent my whole life setting goals, making plans, visualizing completing those plans, and putting tangible actions into the plans. Once I figured out magic is real, I started putting magic into all of these steps – and my success rate improved even more.
This process has worked for me. It is working for me.
It will work for you.
If you do it.
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