Abundance as a Key to Results Magic

Magic likes an atmosphere of luxury, or rather, a state of mind that encompasses abundance. Grasping for an outcome, for a result, with an attitude of greed and lust does not impress the warp and weft of wyrd. The Norns laugh at those who clutch in a spirit of desperation. This is not to demean those who find themselves in dire straits, but it is to say that the Norns find it hard to want to reward those who dwell in greed and doubt.

Greed and doubt are killjoys for sure. What deity, what spirit, what force of nature would reward magic cast in a spirit of meanness and faithlessness? There is nothing attractive about the bulging eyes, the sweaty palms, the clumsy gestures, the bloated, yet self-destructive, ego trip of greed and doubt.

As much as the chaos approach to magic emphasizes technique, attitude is the keystone of getting a result. All the technique in the world, indeed, all the ornate ritual pomp in the world, will fail if I cannot detach myself from my desire to achieve an effect. The problem isn’t the wanting – wanting something is powerful magic. The problem is the attachment to that desire, as though my own existence were at stake.

This desperate attitude, this misuse of desire, sends out a radiance of lack. And lack is not attractive to plenty. And plenty is what our magic is supposed to be attracting. The law of sympathy: like begets like. My magic spells need to be exercises in magnetism, or in other words, my desire is counterproductive if I do not harness it to the wagon of playfulness and non-attachment.

The emptiness of non-attachment is the vehicle of the attitude of plenty. This isn’t so much a paradox as a hand in a glove. If I fill my glove with attachment to lust for result then there will be no room for the fingers of my true will, let alone the palm of my highest destiny.

How to achieve non-attachment? Adopt a mentality of luxurious abundance. Oh look, we just traced a circle!

We live in a world that constantly tries to tell us that there is not enough. The scarcity mentality is a tool used by the tiny elites to keep the rest of us in line. It is fuel to the fire of every kind of bigotry, destructiveness, and stupidity. Ironically, it also triggers tremendous waste – witness the gratuitous squandering of modern corporations with their faith in the disposability of things and people alike.

Abundance mentality, therefore, is a kind of political subversion. Note, however, that abundance mentality is different to greed. Abundance by definition is non-attached because it does not assume any reason (e.g. scarcity) to adopt an attitude of desperation. With an abundance mindset there can be passionate desire for something, but it is free of fear of missing out. In other words, capitalism is predicated on scarcity, so abundance is inherently anti-capitalist.

Right, so anyway. An attitude of non-attachment and abundance – wrenched from the maw of this ridiculous consensus reality – makes all the difference between crap magic and wonderful magic. This is why, if you want to get good at magic, you can get a lot out of practicing by doing magic on behalf of others.

The other day my other half and I were having breakfast in our favorite restaurant. The place is amazing but rarely well patronized. Which is ridiculous! I decided to cast a little rune magic – just scrawled Isa, Fehu, and Wunjo in the window and whispered their names over and over with a self-satisfied smirk.

I hadn’t even finished the spell before a table of five walked in. In the space of 10 minutes four more tables filled up. Not bad given we were the only customers prior to casting my spell! It worked so fast that I almost didn’t realize my spell was the cause.

Now that’s a pretty trivial thing to cast a spell for, and not something I was particularly attached to, so an abundance attitude was easy. I am not sure I could so easily access an attitude of playful plenty in the midst of a personal financial crisis. But perhaps by practicing magic under low stress conditions we also begin to inoculate ourselves against scarcity mentality and make ourselves more attractive to abundance mentality.

I suspect that a master of Abundance Mind needs rituals and spells less and less (though they might like to keep doing them for the fun of it). Such practices are ultimately attempts to break the tide of scarcity and attachment and self-defeating lusts. With Abundance Mind, desire becomes unburdened by attachment, and perhaps every gesture, thought, and smile becomes an act of positive manifestation.

But don’t worry if you’re not such a master (who is?). Just set a symbolic intention to become such a being, then let it go. Does not matter, need not be…or…that or something better. Two mantras you can use to seal the deal of a magic spell…and to get closer to approximating the lightness of touch that grants the true power.