Do you know
what’s good for you? My mother liked to
use a slightly more threatening version: you’ll want to avoid that ill-advised
thing if you know what’s good for you.
There’s a threat embedded in that, the implication that continuing on will
result in unpleasant consequences as a direct result of the activity and
possibly from the back of her hand.
Double whammy: it’s not just a stupid thing to do; it’s also a punishable offence. The expression was analogous to the current online catchphrase, fuck around and find out. Unfortunately, being a thick-headed stubborn boy, I always had to find out because I was always fucking around.
In short, I didn’t know what was good for me. But I always thought I knew. There were all sorts of things I thought would be good: a magnet the size of a dinner plate, a pet raptor, a jetpack, an adventure with Scooby-Doo, a magical tureen that filled with chocolate ice cream on command, a ring of invisibility. Sometimes, I thought pilfering forbidden peanut butter biscuits from the kitchen after mom was asleep or writing down random numbers on my math homework to make it look finished would be good for me.
Like most children, I learned, after “finding out” again and again, that a giant magnet probably wouldn’t fix all my problems, that eating peanut butter biscuits furtively in the dark wasn’t worth the inevitable beating, and that occasionally the math teacher did look at the numbers (Sister Magdalene, where are you now?). In that way, I learned. It was the hard way, but I was willful. I always had a plan. I always thought I knew better.
Many years
later, as an adult practitioner of magic and mysticism, I became a professional
sorcerer-for-hire. I could even do some
of the things my childhood self fantasized about.
After a lot of study and training, I learned to evaluate my plans with a
bit more adult wisdom (though I still wouldn’t say no to a jetpack) and I learned that not all miraculous things are mistakes worthy of severe punishment.
On the other hand, some irrational desires and childish wants are and will always be mistakes, eliciting reprisals if not from an established authority figure or watchdog, then simply from the cause-and-effect reactivity of the world—no new-age “karma,” no threefold blowback, just naturally occurring consequences of poorly thought out fuckery. In short, the “finding out” will continue until better decisions are made no matter how old and ostensibly mature you may be.
As a public sorcerer, I had full-grown adult clients come to me asking for some of the most horrible things you might imagine: for death curses on parents so the client might inherit sooner; for the disfigurement of exes and romantic competitors; for children of certain people to die violently in car accidents; for the enslavement of potential love interests, etc. Nearly all of these clients were unhappy women across a wide range of demographics: White, Hispanic, Black, Asian, straight, gay, bisexual, poor, rich, urban, and rural.
My answer to these ladies was always “no way,” and I even put a notice up on my
website, entitled: “Things I Won’t Do For Money.” But they asked for these things anyway and
sometimes offered me embarrassing sums. My
answer remained no. My ethics couldn't be
bought. And I sent many of them away. Others I worked with if their intentions
were not completely evil and they were willing to entertain kinder, gentler,
non-harmful methods.
I learned a lot about human nature in my ten years of work as a public sorcerer. And if I’d had any lingering illusions about
the supposed inherent decency of the opposite sex, my time as an online conjure
worker dispelled them with alacrity. In
that decade, I think I had around 15-20 male clients and around 100-150 recurring female clients. The male clients never
seemed interested in the truly evil, cruel things—with the sole exception of seduction
magic to get some unobtainable woman into bed, another thing I refused to do
because I saw it as a “magical roofie,” tantamount to rape. Believe it or not, there is hoodoo for this,
but just because the methods and techniques exist doesn’t make them right.
At one point, I had a waiting list of up to 30 people (because I could only
work for about 10 at a time without experiencing a drop in effectiveness and
putting my health at risk). And I turned
away more clients than I took, especially the crazies, the deeply unrealistic,
or the aforesaid cruel ones who wanted to make others suffer horribly for some wrong,
whether imagined or real. That much work
pushed my magical abilities to new levels.
And it made me a lot wiser about my own choices.
But after years of working 10-12 hour days (including formulatry; divinations; consultations;
duration work; setting lights; summoning from grimoires; referring disturbed
people to various social services and help centers; getting people off the
street; writing blog posts and promoting my business, going to people’s houses to
do cleansings or Reiki; meeting with kids in group homes and youth authority
detention; spending time with clients and their dying parents in hospice
centers; visiting spouses in prison to hand over talismans and amulets—and
much, much more), I burned out.
In order to make a sustainable long-term income, I would have had to take even more clients, even the horrible ones, and keep even crazier work hours. I eventually realized that the expenses plus the grind would eventually put me on the street. So I decided to only use magic for myself and loved ones going forward. I got a mundane job and put the professional world of conjure and rootwork behind me.
At the same time, I remembered the lessons I’d learned. One key lesson came from recalling the bad decisions I’d made as an impulsive child and realizing that many of the clients asking for cruel, horrible things were comparably impulsive and childish. They sought petty revenge because they hadn’t matured as adults. They were making choices from the dark aspects of their inner child, choices highly unlikely to produce any kind of happiness or satisfaction in the end. They had, for lack of a better term, rigidity of intent, thinking “Only if so-and-so’s daughter is horribly disfigured in an accident will I feel better for my own daughter being rejected from the cheer squad”; “Only if I force him to come back to me will I ever be happy”; “Only if I eliminate grandma and get her house will I ever feel whole.”
“Only
if” is the problem. It’s a rigid
fixation on a single intention, the belief that there is only one path to personal,
emotional satisfaction. This is always
wrong. For example, I can’t count the
number of times a jilted client came to me and said: “He broke up with me and
moved out, but I know we’re meant to be together.” I’d always ask how long ago he left. And she’d say something like, “Two years ago.” This meant she’s been in mourning for two
years, probably casting her own spells and suffering, thinking about him day
and night, all that time. That’s awful.
I’d always sympathize with these clients.
I understand that pain because I’ve experienced it firsthand (most of us
do, sooner or later). And I’d try to
convince them to work on themselves, on their own pain and confusion and obsessions first. But few ever wanted to look in
the mirror. If we got into the specifics
of the relationship, it usually became clear that they were at least part of
the reason their former partners left (it usually takes two people—no one is
ever completely to blame for a relationship ending).
This is how rigidity of intent can ruin your life. It wastes your time and allows you to avoid facing your own shadow areas, the places where you need self-work in order to grow and make better, happier decisions. When I worked with such clients, I tried to get at the emotional pain, at the inner-child problem they were experiencing, instead of dealing with the more superficial “only if” request. Sometimes it worked. Often, they merely insisted on unethical or ill-advised magical services I was unwilling to provide and we went our separate ways.
So perhaps consider a few basic rules of practical magic (i.e. rules that provide a “base” for building better things in life): it’s always better to change yourself than to change others; to find wholeness by turning inward than to demand that the world arrange itself as you please; to let people make their own choices without you trying to control them; and to be cautious when seeking revenge if what you really want is to be loved. Each of these rules is based on self-honesty and inner flexibility, not rigidity.
Avoiding “only
if” thinking will help you stay healthy enough to seek better, smarter outcomes for yourself. You will be ultimately happier. And your practical magic—magic to create tangible,
emotionally satisfying results in your life—will become much stronger.