The Elements of Spellcrafting

by Jason Miller

  Caveats and Modifiers

  Apart from stating what we want to happen, the statement of intent often includes what we don't want to happen. Unless you are a sociopath, I am sure that you don't want Aunt Ruth to kick the bucket just so you can get this month's rent together with her inheritance. This old nugget is an unlikely scenario but technically a possible one, and so we try to limit harm through caveats and modifiers.

  Like so many things in the world of people who practice Magic, it is hard to find anyone with a reasonable middle of the road position. Folks seem to either advocate doing whatever it takes to get what they want regardless of the consequences or are so deeply concerned that they may inadvertently inconvenience someone or unfairly advantage themselves that they never actually do any effective Magic. I am deeply saddened by the folks who find it acceptable to throw down serious curses at their ex or their boss, but there is little that I can say that will dissuade them. This section is for those who want to walk a sensible road where they get things done, while making reasonable steps to manage the impact of their Magic.

  By far, the most popular caveat to Magical statements of intent is “as long as it harms no one”—which seems, at first, to be a convenient and straightforward way to be nice and ethical. The only problem is that almost everything harms someone somehow. This isn't a feature of Magical action, it's a feature of action itself. That job you want? Someone else wants it to. If you get it, they don't. Same with the lover you want or the house you are trying to get. The court case you are trying to win will also generate a loser. That's the way the world works. This is why I often remind my students that “All Sorcery has a body count.” Maybe body count is a little strong, but it's a way to keep the repercussions of your actions in focus. You cannot exist, much less act, in this world without it affecting other people. This is why Victor Anderson, the founder of the Feri Tradition of Witchcraft, once said, “Poetry is white Magic. Black Magic is anything that works.”

  One of the first money spells I ever did resulted in me finding the near-exact amount in a wallet that fell out of someone's pocket under a roller coaster. The spell worked, but some other guy would have been out $50 if I had not returned the wallet, which I did. I have done protection spells that resulted in the person I was protecting someone from getting sick and being hospitalized. Although I don't do this kind of work, I have a student who is very good at targeted love Magic for clients, and has left behind of trail of broken hearts from competing suitors who did not have her Magic in their corner.

  Unfortunately, because Magic is not within the scope of what many people think of as ordinary action, people overthink it and place all kinds of caveats to prevent unintended harm. The problem is that by asking for zero harm, we are lowering our chances of success, not raising them. It is worse than doing nothing at all, because by doing a spell that prevents us from harming anyone else, you are almost guaranteed not to get that promotion!

  You get it? Your Magic is reaching into reality to tweak it, and if you state at the outset that no matter what the spell says, it should not harm anyone, you are likely to sabotage yourself in situations where your success means someone else's failure.

  So am I saying never use a caveat or modifier? No. I am just suggesting you be smart and reasonable. Realize that the more caveats you place on how something works, the more reduced are the avenues of influence you have at your disposal, causing your chance for success diminish correspondingly. As I said, unless you are a sociopath or simply do not believe that Magic is real, most issues you come across do not have a “by any means necessary” price tag on them, so asking that no one be killed or maimed is fine.

  Just try to use the caveats and modifiers with care, and keep in mind your actions affect others. Put this into perspective. A good rule of thumb is: If it's something you would feel okay about doing without Magic, it is probably something worth doing with Magic as well.

  The Take-Away

  The problem this key addresses, put bluntly, is people aiming great spells at stupid stuff. If we put as much care into our Statements of Intent as we do into our spells, this wouldn't happen. This key is related to Key 2: Stop Making Crappy Goals. To use a firearms analogy, the goal is your target and the spell is your cannon, the statement of intent then is your aim. Be a marksman. Be precise and clever and do your best to limit collateral damage while still hitting your target.

  In Key 2, Harold enchanted for wealth and was unhappy with his 10 bucks. He probably followed that up with a more specific spell to gain more money from his job, which of course resulted in more hours at work. This is a real-life example, and there are dozens of field reports in the Strategic Sorcery archives of people complaining like this when they get exactly what they asked for. Being more skillful is the key. Some of the later keys address this problem as well, so if you have ever found yourself overworked as the result of your requests for increased wealth, pay attention.

  Key 7:

  Emergency Magic Is Bad Magic

  Have you ever heard someone say something like “Magic should be a last resort, only to be used in dire emergencies?” Me too. It's one of the worst pieces of advice I have ever gotten, and dispelling this tired nugget of folly it is our 7th Key.

  Magic is a skill just like any other. It can certainly be helpful in an emergency, but if you only use it in emergencies, how skillful do you think your Magic will be? Not very. That's why, rather than reserve Sorcery for emergencies, I weave it into everything I do. My life plans include Sorcery from the get-go.

  I understand why teachers tell people that Magic should be reserved for emergencies. You don't want to give the impression that all of life's problems can be handled with spells instead of mundane efforts. I have seen the kinds of extreme Magical lengths people will go to in order to avoid a relatively simple solution that just requires a little non-Magical work. I get it, but it sets up a false dichotomy where there are mundane or “real world” solutions versus Magical solutions. If we understand the first key, that Magic is an influence, we will have no trouble understanding that mundane and Magical efforts work best together, and as such, there is no need to reserve Magic for emergencies.

  Some Witches and Magicians consider Magic a super-natural event, and therefore something that must be engaged in only occasionally. I disagree and consider Magic part of the natural world, one that is simply not fully understood by science yet.

  Others see Magic as an unfair advantage, or dangerously powerful. These are the people who will not use Magic to do well on a job interview or date, for fear of “over-riding someone else's free will.” Let me assure you that, though the occasional miracle or shocking result happens, and extreme modes of Magic exist, most Magic is simply an influence. Is it an unfair advantage? Maybe, but don't we all have different advantages? Is it fair that some people look like Jon Hamm or Halle Berry? Is it fair that some people have family connections?

  Look around at the Pagan and Occult communities. Do we seem like people who are dripping in unfair advantage? The world is not fair. Get over it and use what you have.

  The Power of Proactive Sorcery

  When I first coined the phrase “emergency Magic is bad Magic,” it got repeated a lot, and like most things that get repeated a lot, it was misunderstood. I don't mean that Magic is bad to use in emergencies—Magic can absolutely help you out in an emergency. I also don't mean that you are doing something wrong if you have an emergency; we all occasionally have emergencies from time to time.

  My reason for saying that “emergency Magic is bad Magic” is that proactive Magic helps keep emergencies at bay. Because we study Sorcery, Witchcraft, and Magic, those will be among the tools best able to help us. They give us an advantage, so why wouldn't we use them? By using Jupiterian powers to make sure our business grows at a steady pace, we avoid the frantic petitions to demons when we are about to go under. If we make offerings and sweetening spells to make sure that our work at our job is well received by our bosses, we never
have to use the binding spells on them to keep from getting fired. If we invoke to help us understand and grow closer to our partners, we may never have to use the court case Magic to make out well in the divorce settlement. If we use divination to help us avoid bad investments and ask Baphomet to help them grow, we may well avoid having to do the panicky money drawing that so often doesn't really help in the long run.

  Emergency Magic Is Often Too Late

  A few years ago, I was called in by a couple shop owners to help turn the downward slide of their store around. They had been floundering for over a year, and when I asked what kind of Magic they had done thus far, they replied they did not do anything because they were taught to only use Magic for dire emergencies, and now that they were officially in a dire emergency they contacted me.

  I did some readings that indicated Tzadkiel, the Archangel of Jupiter, would be a suitable power to provide the help they needed. I did a cleansing on the store, set up talismans for success, and invoked Tzadkiel to bless the operation and bring victory. The result was that the next morning, Tzadkiel appeared to one of the shop owners, not in a dream but in the blank television screen, and asked her to move the store to a different location—which they did. Business improved but only slightly, and there was still not enough money to rotate stock. Tzadkiel's efforts looked like a bust, until someone came into the shop and asked to buy it. This person owned a small regional chain and was looking to expand.

  Was the operation a failure? Certainly, we did not save the shop, and that was a letdown. We only marginally made it more successful—just enough to make it interesting to a buyer that would save my friends from going deep into debt from the venture. It was the best that could be arrived at given the circumstances. Had we done a similar spell earlier, we might have had a better result. Had Tzadkiel been invoked as patron of the business at the start, and Magic been incorporated into the launch and subsequent operation, things might have turned out different.

  The moral of the story is that by the time you are in an emergency, it is usually too late for a great outcome. Often the best that can be arrived at is minimizing harm. If you are waiting until the shit hits the fan before you break out the bell book and candle, don't expect rousing success.

  Sometimes a Good Emergency Is Just What We Need

  This is a tough lesson to learn, but sometimes what we perceive as an emergency is just what we need to grow. Early in my Magical career, someone very dear to me robbed a bank and was very likely going to prison. His family asked if I could do any Magic on the court case to stop this, but I refused. I refused because the reason this person robbed the bank was to repay drug dealers, and it was just an escalation of the staggeringly bad decisions he had been making for his entire adult life. While I am no fan of the American prison system and have little faith in its rehabilitative potential, I divined that this was in fact the best thing that could happen to him at this time.

  I was right. After prison, my friend went on to lead a productive life, get married, and be much loved by many people. He passed recently from cancer, surrounded by loved ones rather than getting killed through underworld mishaps. His emergency was necessary for better options to emerge.

  Recently, a regular client contacted me because he feared his partners were going to buy him out of his firm. I reminded him that he has been telling me every month how unhappy he is there, and how he wants to work on a different type of law if only he had the time to devote. Now he will, so it is likely a good thing, but it still feels like a disaster because it threatens his sense of comfort.

  We will deal with this concept more fully in the 18th Key, but some emergencies just need to happen. People value comfort above uncertainty, even when that comfort is holding them back from progress. But often when looking back on life, it was these rejections and disasters that cleared the way for a better life. The problem is that as wielders of spells, we can forestall these emergencies from happening. You may think the dangers of Magic lie in offended spirits and wrathful demons, but the greater danger by far is the ability to cast spells that trap us in the job we hate and married to the person we can't stand anymore. All in the name of comfort.

  The arms of Baphomet read “solve” and “coagula,” dissolution and rebuilding. This is a process that is rarely comfortable, but it is how progress is made and how Magicians are made great.

  The Take-Away

  In our comic for this key, Harold is in danger of losing his day job, the one he complained worked him too hard in the previous key. If he had done some Magic to improve his job, he wouldn't be in this mess. Losing the job is probably exactly what he needs though. We will explore this further in the 18th Key.

  The problem that this key seeks to address is the one of Sorcery only being applied to fix problems that arise rather than incorporated as part of our plans from the start. If Magic is so much a part of your life that you call yourself a Witch, a Magician, a Sorcerer, or Sorceress, why wouldn't you incorporate this into your plans? This is your passion, your interest, and hopefully your skillful advantage. Use it!

  Part 2:

  Execution

  Ensuring That Your Workings Work

  Key 8:

  Embrace the Power of Offerings

  If you asked my students what the single greatest game-changer for improving their Magic that they got from my teachings, most of them would say “offerings.” A lot of you reading this might already be well acquainted with offerings to spirits; some of you are surely initiated into Vodou, Candomble, or another African traditional religion where offerings play a huge role.

  That is where I first encountered them myself. The first offering I ever did was to Papa Legba shortly after moving to Philadelphia, in hopes that he would help me gather a group of Magicians to work with. The morning after one of the biggest snowstorms that decade, I went out to the corner of 6th and Pine, the corner where my apartment was located, and drew a very large veve of Legba that extended one-fourth of the way up each street on that block. I made an offering of a coconut filled with palm oil, and a candle, and asked for his help. I want to be clear here: This is not how proper Vodou is done. This was a much younger me, and what I knew of Vodou came from Milo Rigaud's book, some correspondence with Max Beauvoir, and Louis Martine's Tarot. Thankfully the Lwa sometimes smile on fools, and later that week, a friend contacted me and asked if I was interested in starting a Philadelphia OTO group. One month after that offering, the first meeting happened at my apartment. That group pulled me into contact with some of the best people I have ever worked with. Though I am no longer a member of the OTO, I still occasionally get asked to teach there, and am very proud that Thelesis Oasis, a small group that started in my living room, still exists 20 years later.

  Gumball Magic

  This type of Magic—making an offering to a specific spirit for a specific service, is common throughout the world. It is what my friend Persephone calls “gumball Magic”: Put a quarter in the machine, get a gumball out—that simple. If you know what a spirit likes, or what is traditionally offered, then you can make an offering and ask for a boon in return.

  The offerings not only honor and in some cases feed the spirit, but act as a foothold into the physical world and are yet another way of bridging that divide between the spiritual and the material.

  Sometimes the offering is part of the spell itself, and you do something like feed a spirit hot foods or herbs to “heat it up” and get it to act quickly. Other offerings can cool it down, helpful when cooler heads need to prevail.

  Whatever spirit you are working with, the offerings will require some research on your part. Both as individuals and as classes of spirits, there are different things that are appreciated, and others that are taboo. Tobacco may be appreciated by most of the spirits from the Diasporic religions of the Caribbean, but are repugnant to some Dharmapalas of Tibet, who legend says helped Padmasambhava remove the plant from the country in the 8th century. Burnt meat was appreciated by Jehovah as well as wrat
hful spirits the world over, but the Nagas are so repelled by the eating of animals that some of their Puja ceremonies require the person making the offering to abstain from meat and even eggs for 24 hours prior.

  If you want to make an offering to a specific spirit, start with the living tradition if one exists. Then go to the folklore and history for examples of what may be appropriate. Sometimes you will find offerings that you can make easily enough such as eggs, dandelions, and honey to Hekate. Other times you will come across offerings that are unmanageable or ethically questionable, such as 100 oxen to Hekate, which, while traditional, is hard to pull off in the backyard. After your research, you can use divination to fill in gaps and confirm your ideas. The final test will be whether the deity takes your offering and fulfills your request.

  Of course, there are other deeper approaches than the tit-for-tat gumball Magic where you make an offering in exchange for a service. A regular practice of offerings will help you build real relationships.

  Regular Offerings

  If you make offerings a part of your regular practice, then you will develop more powerful and long-term associations with the spirits than you can with simple contracts. One of my Haitian teachers stressed this as a difference between the Bokor (Sorcerer for hire) and Houngan or Mambo (Priest or Priestess of Vodou) in Haiti. When I began to study Tibetan Magic, offerings were again emphasized in an even more advanced and profound mode. In this case, offerings were not only done to spirits that we were working with through the tradition, but were made on a regular basis to large classes of beings that inhabit the whole world. This helped up my Sorcery success rate dramatically.