Over the
years I have heard people say that a test of a magician’s skill is making the
improbable happen. My point of view is that making the improbable happen is
usually pretty dangerous. In order to make an incredible event happen
immediately a lot of probable things have to happen at once. Therein lies the
danger.
In a
non-magickal life if a woman wants a well paying job the first thing she needs
is an education. Some positions do not require a formal education but they all
require knowledge of the work and a certain skill set. So the job seeker must
obtain some sort of formal training. Then she must apply for entry level jobs
that use those skills. After she lands a job and works hard she will obtain
experience and more skills. She plays the social game in the organization and
people like her. Gradually she will make more and more money. Eventually the
goal of obtaining a well paying job is reached.
You would
think big magick would skip that process. What sort of event would need to
happen to go from a mediocre job to a well-paying one instantly? The answer to
that is that even big magick does not work that way. Instead of one enormous leap a big ball of
magick sits on the astral and creates series of smaller events. Each event
would be easily possible and not all that exciting. The improbability is the
consistent string of occurrences moving towards a single larger goal.
Using the
case of our job seeker above the starting point is a position with little
likelihood of finding a job with a good salary. The next step for some is using
big magick. The result will be that the magick moves the soon to be well
salaried person to a place where the unlikely becomes the likely. Magickally
this is known as a current.
Think of that
just like you would a river current. If you are on a boat in a river and the
current is pushing you south towards the Gulf of Mexico. Since that is where
you want to go all you have to do is not capsize and not change your mind
regarding your destination. If you are on the Yellowstone moving southwest into
the desert you will have a problem reaching that same goal. Big magick picks up
your boat and drops it in the Mississippi.
As you improbably sail through the sky towards the Mississippi you may
fall out of the boat, freeze to death due to altitude or maybe you are impaled
by the bill of an oncoming duck! Whatever the case it is a dangerous way to
travel.
A
non-magickal person gets out of the boat, finds a way to make a buck to finance
travel back to the Mississippi, works some more to secure passage on a boat and
reaches his goal.
I used this
example because I did this big magick with this same goal. I was in a menial
temporary job with no prospects and no college education and decided that I was
going to magick myself into a permanent job. The problem was my wording. I
didn’t just do magick for a job. I did magick that would “keep me financially
comfortable for the rest of my life”. In short, I tried to go from nowhere to a
well paying job. Big Magick. I did not know that was big magick at the time.
I did the
magick on a Sunday night. Much to the shock of my roommate I received a call
from an employer the next day. I had applied with him a year previously but was
runner up to the owner’s son-in-law. I was asked to come in for an interview
and was hired. I was later told by all
three people that worked there that it was their idea to call me.
I had worked
there for about a year when I caught a falling forty pound falling box and
injured my back so severely that I had trouble walking for two years. As most
readers know I still suffer from chronic back pain. While I was laid up and
beginning to heal Ross Perot started his petition drive for president. I was
inspired to volunteer despite having never done such a thing before. The timing
was perfect. I was just healed enough to be able to work a few hours a day while
the Worker’s Compensation case was dragging on. My lawyer told me not to find
work yet as that would interfere with my settlement. Very quickly and improbably
I ended up running Fresno County’s petition drive. While working for Perot a mentor latched
onto me and began introducing me to people. When Perot took his dive out of the
race my mentor took me to work for the Clinton campaign. There I met an up and
coming politician that would become the Lieutenant Governor. When I interviewed
with my current employer 22 years ago that politician’s best friend was
chairing the panel.
I worked my
way up in that division. Eventually we came across a problem that no one had
the skills to fix. Our order tracking was abysmal. I took a few Access database
classes that were offered by my employer at the time. I put together a
functional database to resolved most of our problems.
In that job
I was a jack of all trades. I could do every job in my division except the
manager’s and could help out in the divisions around me. This meant that I
filled in for everyone’s vacations but no one could fill in for mine. I was
often denied vacation time due to projects that only I could do.
We then came
across a problem with my Access database that I did not know how to fix. I
obtained some one-on-one time with the instructor. As he taught me how to solve
the problem I told him that I had to find a new job. I wanted to be able to
take a vacation and be a bit more appreciated. He told me of my current
position, how to get there and that I would be good at it.
At this
point I am comfortable for life. My
salary is above the median income for my town and my retirement plan is unheard
of. Further financial opportunities are now opening up in amazing and unlikely
ways.
Please
notice that each event was possible. It was possible that someone would not
want to spend time interviewing for a new position and would remember me and
call. It was possible that I would become injured at work. It was possible to
volunteer somewhere. It was possible to be well-liked enough for someone to
take me under his wing. It was possible to meet someone important in politics
in that situation. It was possible for him to be on an interview panel. It was
possible to work hard and create my opportunity there. Big magick isn’t making
the impossible happen. It is about making the possible happen with regular
progression towards a goal.
That back injury
was the magick moving me from one current to another. In fact, that back injury
was the most improbable thing to happen. At that time I was a gym rat. I was a
big muscular guy and unlikely to injure myself. I could have wound up in the
same place or better without the injury had I done any other prep work. As it
was I was such a loner for most of my life and relatively unskilled so the only
way to get there was to rip me into the new social reality of politics via an
injury.
It is much
less dangerous to do small magicks to make probable things happen. Had I the
wisdom then I would have done magick in the following order:
1. Obtain any job
at all that was not dangerous just to keep me afloat
2. Reveal an innate
talent that I would enjoy developing and using
3. Engage socially
with people of that same disposition
4. Reveal a path to
employment using that talent
5. Exploit that
path into a job with a long term future and retirement plan
There is not
a single improbable step in that plan. That course would help me to walk the
path to the proper river and easily purchase passage on a boat. The only duck I
would see would be flying overhead about to impale some crazy man in a flying
row boat!
I did big
magick and the improbable happened. Does that make me a good magician? Perhaps.
It did reveal me to be an inexperienced and unwise magician at the time.
Figure out
what you want and make a plan. Do magick to make the next step in that plan
happen. Once that step is taken do magick for the next. Magick is not about
impressing people with the improbable. That is just your ego. Magick is about
reaching your goals. Most goals are best reached one step at a time.
