{"id":402,"date":"2010-06-08T16:58:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T16:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails\/"},"modified":"2010-06-08T16:58:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-08T16:58:00","slug":"when-magic-fails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails.html","title":{"rendered":"When Magic Fails"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If you\u2019ve spent any time in a Christian environment, you\u2019ve heard someone say \u201cGod answers all our prayers, but sometimes the answer is \u2018no\u2019.\u201d The implication is that what we asked for wasn\u2019t in our best interests, so our Divine Parent wouldn\u2019t let us ride our tricycle on the freeway. <\/p>\n

You see the same thing in magical environments. A spell or working fails and someone says \u201cit wasn\u2019t your karma to have that.\u201d As Phil Hind pointed out in Condensed Chaos<\/span><\/a>, that\u2019s a weak answer. How about \u201cyou didn\u2019t do the magic right\u201d instead?! Take responsibility for your results instead of blaming God or the Goddess or the Universe because you didn\u2019t get what you wanted.<\/p>\n

There are several reasons why magic can fail.<\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t do the working correctly<\/span>. As Isaac Bonewits<\/a> likes to say, fuzzy targets yield fuzzy results. If you don\u2019t specify exactly what you want, you can\u2019t be sure exactly what you\u2019re going to get. Or maybe your correspondences weren\u2019t aligned. If the symbols you used (colors, herbs, stones, tools, etc.) don\u2019t tie directly to your goals, they aren\u2019t likely to generate results. Or maybe you sleepwalked through the working and didn\u2019t raise enough energy to power it. In any case, this is the first thing to check if the results are disappointing.<\/p>\n

You aren\u2019t strong enough to do what you want to do<\/span>. If a hurricane is bearing down on your house, work protective magic \u2013 then evacuate. Do you really think you\u2019re doing to redirect the most powerful force on Earth? I imagine there was a lot of major league Voodoo directed at Katrina \u2013 it wasn\u2019t anywhere near enough to protect New Orleans. Practice magic for long enough and you develop a good sense of humility about where individuals stand in the grand scheme of power in the Universe.<\/p>\n

Someone is working against you<\/span>. True \u201cpsychic attacks\u201d are extremely rare \u2013 most of the people who are capable of magically attacking you have better things to do with their time. But if you\u2019re working for a cause or a political movement there probably are people who are working for opposite ends, even if they\u2019d be horrified if you called their work \u201cmagic.\u201d If you have big goals, you\u2019re going to need lots of help.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re working against yourself<\/span>. Maybe your true will isn\u2019t clear: you don\u2019t know what you really want. Or maybe you want the ends but not the means. Many of us would like to be rich, but few of us have the single-minded dedication to making money that requires.<\/p>\n

Or maybe you tried to get yourself to do something that goes against your nature. That\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing \u2013 maybe your nature is to be violent, to allow others to manipulate you, or to abuse drugs or alcohol. Changing that nature \u2013 breaking those patterns of thought and behavior \u2013 would be a very good thing. But it would not be easy, and your first efforts \u2013 both magical and mundane \u2013 would most likely fail. Only through consistent, persistent effort would you succeed.<\/p>\n

There are things in my life that are causing problems and distracting me from my spiritual journey. I feel like I should transcend them \u2013 I should \u201cnot let it bother me.\u201d But they do bother me. My nature, my pattern of thoughts and behaviors, is to work through them: sometimes skillfully, sometimes with brute force. Do I work magic to help me plow through these difficulties, or do I work magic to change my nature and learn to transcend them?<\/p>\n

In any case, we all need to learn from our failures, magical or otherwise. Sometimes the lesson is to try something different, and sometimes the lesson is to just keep working. The real challenge is to figure out which approach is ultimately best.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve spent any time in a Christian environment, you\u2019ve heard someone say \u201cGod answers all our prayers, but sometimes the answer is \u2018no\u2019.\u201d The implication is that what we asked for wasn\u2019t in our best interests, so our Divine Parent wouldn\u2019t let us ride our tricycle on the freeway. You see the same thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Magic Fails<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you\u2019ve spent any time in a Christian environment, you\u2019ve heard someone say \u201cGod answers all our prayers, but sometimes the answer is \u2018no\u2019.\u201d The\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Magic Fails\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you\u2019ve spent any time in a Christian environment, you\u2019ve heard someone say \u201cGod answers all our prayers, but sometimes the answer is \u2018no\u2019.\u201d The\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-08T16:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails.html\",\"name\":\"When Magic Fails\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-06-08T16:58:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-06-08T16:58:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"If you\u2019ve spent any time in a Christian environment, you\u2019ve heard someone say \u201cGod answers all our prayers, but sometimes the answer is \u2018no\u2019.\u201d The\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/06\/when-magic-fails.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"When Magic Fails\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. 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