You ever feel like you put more effort into magic than you get back in terms of a result?
That’s the question at the heart of Low Effort Magic.
Recently I shared a statement about low effort on one of my substack notes. One person wrote back “Low effort provides “minimal” results?”
I can see why they wrote that question. We’ve been conditioned to believe that more is better and more effort produces better results. It is a capitalistic virtue signaling about effort that spills over in other areas of our lives and leaves us exerting more effort than may be required.
I’ve worked hard at different times in my life and I’ve worked smart as well.
Smart usually leads to less effort, at least down the line. Hard work, despite being touted as a virtue, is really just a grind that benefits the company or people you’re working for far more than it benefits you. If you think about it, its in their interest to get more effort from you, while putting less effort in on their end. They put in less effort and get more out of you, and you are left with the dregs.
Lately, I’ve been putting a lot of time into creating foundational systems that support magical experiments as a spiritual business. Some of this work has focused on technology, but some of it also focusing on connection and asking for help. What I’m discovering is that there may be some upfront investment of time and effort, but once I have the system in place, I’m putting less effort in overall and it’s freeing up more time for my creativity and experiments.
Less is more, when you understand how to apply it as a principle to your life and your doings.
I’m a believer in working less and enjoying life more and so it should be no surprise that even in regards to magic I’ve looked for different ways to work less and get more as a result.
Welcome to Magical Experiments
The community for occultists, pagans, magicians and psychics who want to explore the evolution of magic and get better results.
What direction do you want your magic to go in?
You have a choice with magic.
You can do the elaborate over the top rituals and put tons of effort into them. Or you can take an approach to magic that strips out the needless complexity and focuses on what is essential to make the magic happen. I prefer the latter approach.
Yet, at one time, in the early years of my magical practice, I did the elaborate magical rituals, complete with ceremonial robes, tools I crafted myself, and the hours of prep work put in to set the ritual up and execute it. Along the way I realized that most people don’t have the luxury of time and means to approach magic in that way. That’s what initially got me into chaos magic, because that particular system encouraged letting go of elaborate rituals for a more streamlined approach to magic.
When I took this approach magic became less about the performance of a ritual and more about the experience of the magic showing up in my life. I started appreciated how nuanced magic could be and how simple the practice of it could be. I could invite the complexity of magic into my life without making it complicated.
Take a moment and look at your own magical practice.
What’s working for you?
What isn’t working for you?
Write down your answers and be honest with yourself. This isn’t about how other people practice magic. This is about getting real about what works for you and what doesn’t, so you can claim your magic cleanly and clearly.
Often what isn’t working are the activities we do that we don’t fully grasp or understand. Set them aside. You can always return to them later and the experience you get in the meantime will undoubtedly inform what you discover and do as a result.
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And trying to figure out what isn’t working with your magic feels intimidating because there’s so much to track.
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Coming back to low effort
One of the books that has played a pivotal role in my life is Good to Great by Jim Collins. It’s a business book that explores what it takes to make a business great. I’ve drawn on it for inspiration magically because it shares a principle that I have recognized applies across multiple vectors of life.
That principle is the Flywheel principle.
If you push a flywheel the first few times it takes a lot of effort to push it, but at some point all that effort takes on a momentum of its own. You don’t have to exert a lot of effort at that point. You just need enough to keep the flywheel going.
The mistake I see many people make (and I’ve made it too) is putting a perceived valuation on the effort you put into making something happen.
More effort = good, whereas less effort = bad or not good enough.
Some effort is required with any endeavor, magical or otherwise, but more effort can be exhausting at a certain point and not necessarily yield a better result than what you would get if you were to use the least amount of effort to get the most amount of return.
The best way I can illustrate this is the myth of Sisyphus.
Here is a very smart man who has been punished by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill. Just as he gets close to the top, the boulder rolls down and he has to start all over again. The surface level lesson is that mortals shouldn’t try to trick the gods or they’ll be punished. The deeper lesson is that putting all your effort into making something happen can actually be an exercise in futility under the right circumstances.
Neither lesson is all that encouraging, is it?
One of the reasons I developed low effort magic is because I realized that feeling exhausted with magic, or anything else isn’t a virtue. It’s just exhausting. You can work hard, magic hard, and there can be a better way to do all of that, a way that demands less of you and brings in better results.
Effort produces byproduct. Heat is an example of byproduct. For that matter so is feces. Yet byproduct is an effort as well. Byproduct has its own value. Heat can warm us on a cold day. Feces remove the waste from our bodies, keeping us healthy in the process. So does effort produce byproduct or are we looking at byproduct and effort in the wrong way?
Low effort magic operates on the principle of using what is already happening as part of the magical operation. You can put more effort in if you want, but you could also work with what is already happening and make it part of the magical experience.
The lesson low effort magic teaches
If there’s a lesson to be taken away, it’s this: Your energy, and attention is finite. You don’t have to do a complicated ritual to get effective results.
Low effort magic encourages you to get creative about doing more with less, and to use the byproduct of your actions to fuel your magical work. When you take this approach, you’ll look for magic in the moment using what’s on hand. The benefit is you aren’t limited to a specific time of day or having the right materials. You work the magic with what you have on hand.
For example, your toothbrush can become a wand of purification. Each time you brush your teeth, you can turn it into a magical action. And chances are you brush your teeth multiple times of day. You’re using what you’re already doing as part of your spell work. It’s low effort and it works.
Add low effort magic to your toolkit
In the Low Effort Magic masterclass you’ll learn:
How to use every day actions and habits to empower your spells.
How let go of complex rituals in favor of working with what you have available to you.
How to get results by creating spells that work with the path of least resistance to create consistent outcomes.
I’ve taught this unique approach to hundreds of magicians and its changed the way they practice magic.
