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Lupa
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Magical Fluidity
by Lupa©
When most of us first start delving into magic, we do so
with a specific outcome in mind. The stereotypical example is the spell for one
particular purpose—maybe enough money to pay this month’s bills, or a positive
job interview. And, of course, there’s the dreaded love spell used to get the
attention of one particular person.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a witchy
spell—it could also be a sigil or servitor, for example. Regardless of what
tools and rituals and trappings you use, the need is still the same—make that
person fall in love with me! Generally speaking, the love spell is the domain
of the underconfident, the person who feels that s/he has no chance of getting
the attention of the object of hir infatuation, or of fixing a broken
relationship. So in desperation s/he uses the love spells as a last-ditch
measure to bring so-and-so (back) into hir life. Supposedly if the spell is
followed to a T it’ll make the caster and target fall madly in love and live
happily ever after.
This pattern underlies a limiting factor common
within magic, especially among newer magic workers who are still stuck on rote
memorization and following of prefabricated spells and rituals, most of which
are also written for a very specific need. How many of us have, at one point or
another, been told that our purpose must be very carefully worded in order to
get what we want? For example, when working a money spell we have to add in
that
“harm none” clause—or we may find that a rich beloved relative dies in a
plane crash, leaving hir vast fortune to us at the price of hir life! (There
are variations on this warning, but this is the one that I’ve heard the most.)
One thing I have learned over the years is that
the spells and rituals, tools and trappings, all serve to teach us to recognize
magic. Magic exists whether we acknowledge it or not; it is a part of the flow
of Reality, the current of linear space/time that our world is immersed in. To
create magic we use tools to plug ourselves into that flow and align our
personal realities with the magical reality, thereby bringing about change in
our lives. (Granted, this is just how I see magic; you might readGeorge Leonard’s
The Silent Pulse to get a better idea
of what I’m talking about.)
The other thing I’ve learned is that magic, as a
force, is intelligent. Granted, its consciousness is widely different from our
own. However, I’ve never had any doubt, in the deepest part of a successful
ritual, that magic is alive, more than just in my head or simple electrons
bouncing around at my behest. It is a part of the fabric of reality that all
beings—people, animals, plants, rocks, deities, spirits, etc.—are also involved
in. Whether this consciousness is the sum total (and then some) of all the
consciousnesses in reality, or its own thing, I haven’t yet figured out.
What I have experienced, over and over again, is
that magic knows how to find the best possible situation for me within the
parameters I set. For example, I have found time and time again that whenever a
spell or ritual didn’t work, later on something happened that showed me it was
for the best. No matter how perfect my timing and intent, sometimes the magic
just didn’t give me that exact outcome I wanted. And I paid close attention.
So I started being less exact about my wants. In
job magic, for example, I stopped burning a candle before every interview.
Instead, I asked that the magic find me a good, enjoyable job that paid well
and was within reasonable distance from my home. I got better results from that
than any single-shot spell.
Some of it is because it allows for more
possibilities. The more specific the working, the less of a chance it has of
being successful. Granted, you don’t want to be too vague—for example, doing a
ritual for world peace is going to be less effective than one to make progress
in a particular localized conflict. There’s an art to figuring out the balance
of probability in magical results, and what’s most likely. Still, on a personal
level, it’s quite possible to get too specific—such as with our not-so-good
friend, the love spell.
Let’s look at a typical situation. Say you have
Person A, who is madly in love (lust/infatuation) with Person B. However, B has
absolutely no interest in A, who hasn’t spent an evening out of the house in
eight years, has marginal personal hygiene, and whose topics of conversation
are mainly limited to the properties of ear wax, statistical analyses of the
rates at which different brands of exterior paint dry, andPamela Anderson’s
boobs. B, on the other hand, is smart, witty, popular with the sex of hir
choice, and can converse intelligently for hours on a wide variety of subjects.
Now, suppose A manages to get a copy of Lady
Treehouse Shadow Glitterbutt’s book, “Spells For Everyone, Everything and Then
Some, All For $9.99!” On page 736 of this prodigious tome (useful for holding
up tables, stopping bullets, and balancing the national budget) is the Ultimate
Love Spell That Will Work For You! A immediately gathers the old newspapers,
pink candles, half a pound of mixed parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme –and a
picture of B that s/he pilfered from hir locker back in high school. Mix the
ingredients together, shaken not stirred, and drink it all in one gulp, and
supposedly that will make A irresistibly attractive to B.
The chances of something that specific working
are next to nil, even with all the effort put in. What’ll probably happen is,
while B is out that night with hir friends and admirers, A will be worshipping
at the porcelain altar while all that newspaper and herbage comes flooding back
out of A’s offended digestive system.
Now, what A should have been doing is an entirely
different type of magic. First off, you know that saying “In order to be loved,
be lovable?” It’s true. If you feel underconfident, unattractive and otherwise
unlovable, chances are that’s what you’re projecting. Before embarking on any
sort of love effort whatsoever, look at yourself, first. Are you happy with who
you are? And, controversially, what sort of image do you project to others?
Granted, your own happiness should come first, but one of the Geek Social
Fallacies is
that your friends (and lovers) should love you for who you are. What that
fallacy forgets is that those around us are also good at catching faults that
we might miss in our blind spots. For example, I trust my mate,Taylor, to let me know when I’m screwing something
up, without being an ass about it.
Now, back to the topic of specifics. Once A has
some positive changes under hir belt (undoing insecurities, improving hygiene,
getting out and seeing the world as it is instead of how it was in 1999), s/he
may still want to work that love spell. However, there’s a better way to do it.
Instead of “Let B fall in love with me,” the
magic should concentrate on “I open myself to the possibility of finding
someone who is compatible with me and a relationship that will be beneficial
for all people involved. Let me find the right person for who I am now, and who
I want to become”. A can even add in the disclaimer “With no harm to anyone” if
s/he so desires. This leaves the options much more open. Person B may not be
the answer, but maybe Person C will be as close to perfect as it gets. (For all
we know, B may be a serial killer with a really good P.R. agent. Probably
better that A didn’t get hooked up with hir.)
Leaving the magic more room to work with
increases the chances of better results. Granted, these results may take some
time to manifest; my husbandTaylor
spent six years in a series of workings to find his magical mate, refining the
process with each failure. But he finally found me, and here I am, and we
couldn’t be happier. Patience is key here, and the end result is almost always
worth the wait, if what you get is given proper value. People can be damned
ungrateful when they don’t attain perfection, forgetting that sometimes what we
end up with is an opportunity to improve a situation. The magic often gives us
what we need rather than what we think we want, and it behooves the magician to
respect that.
Lupa is a twenty-something pagan and experimental magician living in Seattle
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Lupa is the author of Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal
Magic, A Field Guide to Otherkin (March ’07) and Kink Magic: Sex Magic Beyond
Vanilla (withtaylor,
November ’07). Her website is http://www.thegreenwolf.com .
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