I’ve discussed in previous posts my own long and meandering exploration into magic. I’ve spent over a decade struggling with a simple question: what can be accomplished through magic? I’ve tried to consistently find ways to push the bounds of what I thought was possible. In doing so, I’ve repeatedly struggled with cases where magic doesn’t behave the way I thought it “should.”
Various fields have theories of trade-offs. In project management you have a triangle of qualities: work can be done fast, done cheaply, or done well. If you’re lucky you get to pick two of the three, but the third is always determined by the constraints on the other two. If you need work done fast and cheaply, expect a shoddy job; if you want it done fast and well, be prepared to pay exorbitant rates for it.
The field of computing has a similar idea in the CAP theorem. The explanation of the CAP theorem is beyond the scope of this post, but suffice it to say that there is a similar triangle of three qualities (consistency, availability, and partition tolerance) of which you can choose at most two. By guaranteeing two of the three, you make the third one impossible.
As I’ve delved more deeply into magic, I’ve formulated a similar triangular theory: magic can be easy, be miraculous, or deliver consistent results, but never all three.
A magical practice is easy if it has a low barrier to entry. It requires little time, minimal training, and eschews exotic materials and elaborate rituals. Magic that is easy is the kind of thing a beginner can pick up and work the same day they learn about it.
A magical practice that is miraculous feels like magic. It bends the rules of what we conceive to be reality. It generates coincidences that strain the bounds of credulity and feel like once-in-a-lifetime accidents.
A magical practice that is consistent is replicable. You can take the same sequence of steps again and again, and they generate change in a predictable way each time. You have a pretty good sense before you start what kind of outcome you’re going to get from your work.
So let’s look at how these categories intersect. First up, those magical practices that are both easy and consistent. A lot of foundational beginner exercises fall into this category. My first real encounter with a practice of this sort was the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. It’s a beginner ritual from the Golden Dawn materials, that involves some words, gestures, and visualizations. All told, it can be learned by heart in perhaps an hour, and run through in a couple of minutes. The goal of the ritual is to cleanse and strengthen the practitioner’s personal sphere, and bring it into alignment with the Golden Dawn current of magic. And it works. If you practice it regularly, you can feel the changes in your mind and body. But the changes are subtle. It’s not a ritual that’s going to revolutionize your life, even when performed consistently.
What about those practices that are easy and potentially miraculous? I’d put the various strains of manifestation and new thought into this bucket. It’s certainly accessible – as easy as closing your eyes, visualizing the outcome you want, and believing in its reality. And there are a number of people who credit manifestation with generating incredible coincidences in their lives. But it doesn’t seem to do that on a consistent basis. For every story you hear about someone manifesting their dream job or partner, there are probably a dozen more you never hear about where someone tries to manifest those same things unsuccessfully. It’s hit or miss.1
The final category is practices that generate miraculous results on a consistent basis. This is where I am personally most interested in spending my time, and it’s what has drawn me to Solomonic magic. Solomonic magic is anything but easy – it requires months of crafting and consecrating tools, memorizing ritual scripts, collecting obscure materia magica, or preparatory fasting and purification. Sometimes all of the above. But it also, more than any other tradition I have engaged with, generates miraculous coincidences on a predictable basis.
What’s interesting about these categories is that the lines are not always crisp. There is a great deal of magic that is easy, and consistently produces subtle results but every once in a while will generate a miraculous one instead. I’d put prayer in this category. It’s definitely accessible – there are thousands of published prayers, most of which are short and easy to recite. And a session of prayer does consistently produce effects, though generally not mind-blowing ones. I usually expect its impact to be similar to a good therapy session; it centers us and instills us with a new sense of direction or inspiration. But there is also a whole cannon of saints who – through their piety and prayers – were able to affect literal miracles. Not frequently. Not on demand. But the possibility is there.
Once we have a handle on this framework, we can choose where we want to focus our efforts. Magic is not a one size fits all proposition, different people need different things out of their practice. If you’re a new practitioner in need of a quick change of circumstances, maybe easy and potentially miraculous magic is just what you want. If you’re building a daily theurgic practice you plan on strictly adhering to, easy magic that produces consistent results is king. Just be intentional about what you’re trying to do.2
All magic systems have their strengths and weaknesses. Some are easy, some produce consistent results, and some wildly reshape the fabric of reality – but almost never all three together. Becoming a well-rounded practitioner is about being able to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of various systems, and navigate within them. Continue to explore these tradeoffs in your own practice, and find a set that works well for you. As your needs change your practice may evolve, and that’s fine. The more tools you have available in your toolbox, and the better you understand each of them, the more well-rounded you become.
- Someone uncharitable might say it generates once-in-a-lifetime coincidences at roughly once-in-a-lifetime rates. ↩︎
- I have a pet peeve about people dismissing historical magic out of hand. It usually looks something like “you don’t need all the preparation and ritual paraphernalia, I just meditate on the spirit’s seal and it works fine for me.” And that’s true, you don’t need to practice any ritual as written… unless you’re trying to get the results ascribed to the ritual. In which case you should assume that all of the elements of the ritual serve a purpose, even if you don’t know what it is. ↩︎
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