I want you to take a moment and think about a magical working that you did where the result you achieved wasn’t quite what you wanted. You did the magic spell or ritual exactly as it was written, or maybe you pulled together a working of your own, but regardless of how you went about it, the outcome just didn’t quite land the way you hoped it would.
This happens more often than you might think. It’s happened to both of us and it’s happened to other experienced magicians as well. The question is…why does it happen?
One of the causes that we’ve discovered with results that don’t quite manifest the way you anticipated is because the intention for the magic isn’t well defined. When the intention isn’t clear it leads to unclear results.
For instance, if you have a statement of intention that is overly broad, it creates a situation where any result that fits within that intention is acceptable. However, getting any result that fits within the intention may not actually be what you want. Similarly, if you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner you know that anyone is not your ideal client. If you are asked who your ideal client is and you say anyone, you aren’t actually giving the person who asked a concrete answer. What you’ve provided is a fuzzy answer and no one can do anything with an answer like that, because it’s too broad!
The obvious solution is to get more specific about your intention. If you are more specific with your intention, that typically brings more clarity. But as we shared with our previous article, getting more specific doesn’t always lead to the result you want to create.
Still, there’s something significant about the initial choice to avoid getting specific. The tendency to avoid specificity in your intention can be a symptom of what really needs to be addressed, both in your magical work and your relationship with your desires.
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The community for occultists, pagans, magicians and psychics who want to explore the evolution of magic and get better results.
Getting what you want means getting witnessed by what you want
We want what we want. Your desire isn’t something that can be turned off. It can be repressed and pushed down and ignored, but at some point, your desire will make itself known.
When you are unclear with your intentions around a desire it can be a signal that there’s something worth exploring around the desire itself. Maybe you’re feeling conflicted about the desire or maybe there’s some part of you that says you shouldn’t want whatever it is you want. We certainly get enough contradictory messaging in our lives from the people around us and some of that imprints on us, until we deal with the messaging decisively.
The reason a lot of desires come out sideways is that your internal critic has tried to shut the desire down. It hasn’t worked, but your desire doesn’t try to face the critic head on, usually because the critic is mirrored externally by people in your life or situations where you’re trying to to fit in and be accepted and approved of. Your desire comes out side ways and one of the ways it can do that is through your magical work.
So, you have something you really want and you decide to cast a magical spell for it. But some part of you hesitates, and what you come up with is a broad intention. That can actually be your desire coming out sideways, because what you think you want isn’t actually what you want. The magic spell you cast will make it evident that something if off and the result you get will bring something of what you want, without giving you all of it.
For September’s Alchemy Lab, we are going into this directly.
Intention Alchemy Lab
How do I know if I have a clear intention?
Thursday, September 10th
6:30 PM PT / 9:30 PM ET
In this Lab, we are going to explore how to tell whether your intention is actually clear, or whether something underneath it needs attention first.
A clear intention sits at the meeting place of desire, body, shadow, choice, and action.
We’ll work with three short experiments.
Bring one intention you are currently working with, or one area of your magic, business, creativity, relationships, money, spirit work, or life that feels muddy. We will listen beneath the first answer and see what else is there.
Then we will work with the body as a truth-sensor. A split intention often has a somatic signature: fog, collapse, numbness, throat constriction, restlessness, over-explaining, or the sudden need to convince yourself. A clearer intention may still be intense, but it has more coherence. It feels like something the body can stand behind, even if your ego is sweating or throwing a tantrum.
Finally, we will map the interference. When an intention is not clear, something is usually mucking up the works. It may be a competing desire, an old vow, a shame pattern, a fear of consequence, a shadow desire, or a part of you that benefits from the spell never fully working.
The interference is not always the enemy. Sometimes, it is information we need to fully step into our power as sovereign magicians.
Become a member of the Magical Circle to join us in the Alchemy Lab
This also flows into our upcoming September Workshop.
This Alchemy Lab is the perfect lead-in to our upcoming Magical Experiments class:
Wanting Without Shame
Desire Play for Magicians and Magical Creators
In the Alchemy Lab, we focus on intention: how to clarify it, how to feel whether it is coherent, and how to notice what blocks it.
In Wanting Without Shame, we go deeper into desire itself.
Because before you can cast clearly, you have to want clearly.
We will explore desire as a magical current, shadow material, body wisdom, business fuel, and creative force. We will look at the old selves that distort what we think we want, the desires we have been trained to hide, and the difference between casting from truth and casting from shame, obligation, or spiritual politeness.
For those of you building magical businesses, creating offerings, writing, teaching, reading, healing, making art, or trying to bring your magic into the material world, this is especially potent. Your business desires matter. Your creative desires matter. Your money desires matter. Your visibility desires matter. Your pleasure, rest, power, devotion, hunger, and ambition all belong in the room.
Magic Circle members receive 25% off Wanting Without Shame!
So this is a beautiful time to jump in with us.
Join us first for our Intention Alchemy Lab on September 10th, where we workshop our intentions together and explore what gets in the way.
I want to join the Magic Circle
Then join us in Wanting Without Shame, where we go deeper into the desire beneath the intention and learn how to work with wanting as magical material (and save 25% if you’re a member of the Magic Circle!)
I want to join Wanting Without Shame!
