How do you do magic?

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In my mid-twenties I’d heard about a technique called Intention-Manifestation. The basic idea is that you form an intention, then release it out into the world for it to manifest. There are a number of little nuances that you need to observe. For example the ‘release’ part proves to be somewhat difficult for the layperson.

On the other hand, I had practiced Wiccan ritual as part of a coven for the better part of a year. I know exactly what ‘release’ means. It means you don’t hold on to an intention once you release it. In fact, I-M looked exactly like my old rituals did. Only with somewhat less ceremony and I suppose a tighter expected turnaround.

Does this stuff work? Yes, it does. When I wanted to do I-M, I kept a notebook with each of the things I wanted to bring into my life in a notebook, one per line. Each day I would spend perhaps ten minutes reviewing the items on the notebook. I’d spend a few seconds on each one thinking about the intention, raising energy, then releasing it out into the world to find a manifestation. Occasionally I would realize after a few days that an intention wasn’t formed well and I’d have to tweak it a bit.

When it manifested, I’d simply cross it off the list.

Why isn’t this technique more well-known, why do people who use it tend to not seem to have the sorts of results that would convince non-believers? Why didn’t I just write, “New BMW” or, “find a million dollars in my drawer” on the page and watch it show up next week?

It’s simple, there are rules to what intentions can manifest. One of the biggest has to do with the illusion of continuous reality that is the intention of God to be shared by everyone. Here is where you should read my previous answer about telekinesis: Vincent Guidry's answer to How does telekinesis work? Can our brainwaves move object?

From an intention standpoint, while God’s intentions matter more than ours, God can be accommodating up to a point. There’s a very good reason why my TK experiment started with something like stuck laptop keys rather than making fire shoot out of my fingertips or something silly like that. You’d think it’s because it’s something ephemeral and leaves no evidence would be important.

But it’s not. The real reason had to do with the practicality of magic. The real world is magical enough. We roast the liquified bones of ancient giant beasts by the shipload to cook our dinner. Just what are you trying to accomplish through the breaking of physical laws when operating by them gives you all the power you could ever hope to need?

So you see the weird two-step switcheroo that underlies the causality of magic. The world seems mundane for a particular reason, and that reason turns out to be wrong when you start exploring it, only to find another reason that only makes the world weirder and even more magical.

There’s a reason why the universe will fulfill my request to get another job while denying my request to come home to find a brand new BMW in my parking lot or a million big ones in my dresser drawer. It’s not because that isn’t something that God can do or that God would be opposed to doing it if that was really the best thing to do.

And it’s not because God wants us to think of ourselves as limited or not worth the effort. No. Far from it.

It’s because asking to control divine energy and power ultimately makes you less powerful. This is why God lets people dabble in magic in this material world. I spent a lot of time throughout my twenties learning new ways to apprehend and channel the divine. And I noticed this pattern every single time. Stopping the pretense of control made things happen faster.

Putting things in a notebook and waiting for them to manifest only served the practical purpose of slowing down the gifts I was receiving. It was useful only to show me what was already going on. The problem isn’t that you need more things to manifest. The problem is that God can only manifest for you something you’d believe.

Your life is co-created with God so that you can discover something you dearly love to do, something you can do for eternity. Coming home to find a BMW in my parking lot doesn’t really serve that purpose, and can in fact hurt it. Oh, God’s handing out BMWs? Let’s ask for two next week, I could use one for the weekends and one for evenings.

Basically, just communicating with God affects your beliefs, much less receiving flashy gifts. It’s powerful and should be used for powerful purposes. Discovering your own inner limitations and desires and purpose is far more powerful than any car. If you can find your perfect self here on Earth, you can buy all the cars your heart desires. And you won’t be limited to buying cars. You’ll be a channel for anything and everything God cares to run through you.

And so I focused my intentions less on fixing mundane problems and satisfying my random desires, and more on what I really wanted out of the world. Within three years after putting my I-M journal down, I was making high five figures as a software developer. Now I make six. I spent my twenties wanting to find out what the underlying meaning and purpose driving life was so that I could orient myself to it. I accomplished that goal.

So yes, I can do magic. When do I do it? When God hints to me that I should be thinking in that frame. For instance recently I really wanted to connect with an old friend. I had been calling her maybe once a year and she never picked up. God’s been poking me to be more asky, so I asked God to help me out and the next time I called her, she picked up and we reconnected.

Being willing to ask for stuff makes it so that it’s more interesting and fun, it highlights the gift and puts it on an alter for me to admire. Asking for too much stuff lessens this effect.

I also don’t normally do it because it would be jarring to whatever it is I’m currently working through, which typically involves many ‘freebie’ gifts from God. And I trust God to help manage the process of finding higher purposes and frames in which to place my goals and wishes. If I really needed it, I’d already have it. And I have plenty of cash money these days to buy stuff if I really want it, and God often encourages me to be more spendy than I’m used to.

Magic therefore is reserved for the few things that a) I don’t already have somehow, b) that money can’t buy for me, and c) God alerts me to the fact that I need to be wanting and asking for it. Big flashy things fail c). To me, true power lies deep inside, not in worthless trinkets.