I am a regular on a number of occult websites frequented by teenagers and young adults (and by some adults with the mentality of teenagers). When I did public conjure, people from these websites would contact me for work. Much of the time, they had legitimate issues and we’d collaborate to solve them—me from the magical side, them from the perspective of someone already immersed in the situation.
But sometimes, these people did not have legitimate problems
and were deranged, extremely immature, and / or stupid. I would turn them down as quickly and as
compassionately as I could. Still, it’s
important to be honest. In the occult,
it can be very easy to become deranged and stupid. And immaturity, obsessiveness, or some other lack
of self-development, is a big reason people often feel disempowered enough to
seek out a professional sorcerer.
Because I believe it’s important in so many ways for a spiritual
worker to have a day job and a healthy mundane life—to have friends and family,
to have community standing, and to be able to make an honest living such that he
or she is involved in everyday life like an average person—I’ve never charged
much, relatively speaking. I haven’t
needed to. I’ve usually only charged to
cover my time and the cost of materials for the work. I’ve also had a relatively long waiting list
for my services and have turned down many potential clients.
There were (and are) things I won’t do for money, things
that are unquestionably evil, idiotic, or harmful. Just because I can do something doesn’t mean I
will. There are also people who may want
something done for the wrong reasons or because they’re confused or hurting so
much that rationality is no longer a part of their decision making process. So part of my job as a sorcerer for hire is
to put clarity, decency, and good judgement back into play. And sometimes that means saying “no.”
Moreover, the client has to understand that he or she is
still responsible for the work even if I’m the one performing the ritual. She has to believe in it as much as I
do. She has to back it up on her side by
keeping a good attitude and sometimes even by taking spiritual actions along
with me. Belief is so important. And many people, infused with the
materialistic atheism of western scientism, may
think they believe in spiritual work, but deep down they may not. They may be coming to a sorcerer without
examining their beliefs deeply enough. Often
they may be subconsciously looking for a way to shirk responsibility, to avoid
owning up to their role in a painful situation, or to distract themselves.
For example, I once had a teenager come to me for a
curse. Ron stole Bobby’s
girlfriend. Bobby came to me and asked
me to “mess Ron up.” After a long
interview with Bobby, I said, “Let’s simplify this. You want me to magically kill Ron for getting
in-between you and your girlfriend. Now
Ron’s fucking her and you want revenge and for Ron to disappear.”
He said yes, even though me putting it like that clearly
made him uncomfortable. So I added, “You
can save a lot of money here. Instead of
hiring me, get a knife and stab Ron a couple times in the chest the next time
you see him.”
Bobby couldn’t believe what I’d said. He told me he couldn’t do that. When I asked him why not, he said, “Because
that’s murder.”
“Oh, so it’s okay to pay me $300 to do it magically but not
okay to get your own hands dirty. I
see. So you don’t really believe in what
you’re asking. You’re here because you
feel bad and this is a way to express those bad feelings. You also don’t understand or don’t believe
that if I ‘mess Ron up’ with magic, you’ll also bear the responsibility.”
That was all I had for Bobby. I’m sure he found someone to do the dirty
deed for him. Or he got a book of spells
and tried it himself (an even worse idea).
But my point remains: sorcery is the court of last resort. The people who come to me with serious
problems that can’t be fixed in any mundane way are the ones I want to
help. The Bobbys of the world need to
man up.
But there is something that everyone can do, the
Bobbys, the nutters, the grieving, and even the mature adults:
pray. When I do a magical working involving
spirits, I am usually invoking them.
Maybe I’m calling them to appear and make a contract with me for some
work. Maybe I’m just petitioning their
aid or drawing a little bit of their power to assist the client. But I am, on some level, communicating with
them. Learning the ways of communicating
with spirits doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s not something that you can learn from a book. You can start with books and teachers but, in
the end, you have to stand alone and call out to the dark. At the highest ceremonial levels, we may describe that as spiritual evocation or pathworking.
But when we simply pray, we do the same thing.
Most people have given up on prayer as something silly and
childish because “God” (the god of their fathers, maybe YHVH or some other
grand monotheistic expression) doesn’t seem to be there. Or if he is there, he doesn’t seem to be listening. So prayer seems little
more than vainly wishing upon a star for something to happen or not
happen. But this is a dumb way to think
about it. It’s far better to pray to an
anthropomorphic entity, one that is known as a messenger between the gods (or The
Big G) and man.
For example, Legba the Gatekeeper, is one of the most
powerful lwa and he holds all the keys to all the doors. A traditional prayer to him involves asking
him to introduce you to a different, otherwise hard to approach, god or goddess
or lwa. Hermes is another. Most Holy Death, Santa Muerte, is another,
who is always listening. Because death affects
everyone, animate or inanimate, incarnate or discarnate, god or man, she can
open the ways for you to contact a particular deity or spirit. Saint Cyprian can help with this. Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael have
these roles as well. There are many
others.
My point is praying to the Dao or IAO or YHVH or the Great
Spirit is all well and good, but those are expressions of a force so vast that
it’s hard to make a connection in human terms.
And you are probably praying for a human reason and result—protection or
loved ones or finances or romance or career.
The Great Spirit is too big to be overly interested in the ups and downs
of your petty life. But Thoth is waiting
to hear from you.
Further, it’s always good to pray to the divine messengers of the gods of your
fathers, of your bloodline, in addition to whomever else you may venerate. Many pagans and occultists have repudiated the
god(s) of their fathers because of bad childhood experiences. As Devin Hunter puts it in The Witch’s
Book of Mysteries:
[C]hances are you or someone you
know has suffered some form of neglect or abuse at the hands of an organized
religion or spiritual group. As a professional psychic and spiritual counselor,
I have worked with a lot of people who have stories that would shake you to
your core. Stories from little boys who grew up within Christian sex cults like
the Sons of God, stories from Catholics who were molested as children, and even
stories from pagans who were mentally, sexually, and physically abused at the
hands of their elders. No religion, religious order, or spiritual group that is
run by people with unchecked and unfettered power and access is exempt from
these types of atrocities. While these things go unchecked, many of us wear the
scars, and we carry them with us into other aspects of our lives.
Nevertheless, he adds: “Abrahamic faiths have dominated most
of the Middle East and West for over two thousand years and have had a
significant influence on culture and cultural egregores. For us to be
successful witches who remain in control of our energy and live without fear,
we must be able to exist within these cultures and at times even work with
their egregores to achieve our ends.” In
my opinion, this is very true and needs to be said, especially to new-age
western pagans, who think they can swap out the gods that make them uncomfortable
and substitute exotic deities who were not weaponized against them early on.
By all means, burn incense to Kannon and make a shrine to
Enepsigos. But don’t forget the power
that runs in your blood, that runs with your ancestral beliefs and baptisms. For example, one of the most powerful things
you can do if you were raised in Pentecostal Protestant Christianity is make
peace with that iteration of “God”—get past the personalities and structures
that victimized and upset you, and forge your own relationship with the Holy Spirit,
using the baptisms and ordinations written on your soul.
I did this as someone raised Roman Catholic and it was
really powerful. I do not consider
myself a Catholic just because I made peace with Jehovah (and I have Santa
Muerte, Most Holy Death, to thank for this).
But I no longer carry the spiritual wounds of growing up in an
oppressive and hypocritical Catholic household and I can even pray to IAO or
YHVH for illumination (“Dominus illuminatio mea”—something we would
want to ask a spirit of that magnitude).
So if you are like Bobby in our example above and you want
something but don’t know how to get it or whether it’s even right to want it at
all, pray. If you want enlightenment,
pray. If you want to see the unseen and
walk with the gods, pray. If you want to
speak with the dead, pray. If you want
to be forgiven for your crimes, pray.
And if you want to make the world a better place, pray. Don’t neglect contemplation and meditation,
either. All of these things are inward
forms of mysticism. They exist on the
Path of the Arrow, the straight path from the Kingdom of Earth to the Crown of
Heaven. And they are very quiet but
very, very powerful if you do them sincerely and direct them properly.
You cannot mess your life up with an ill-conceived
prayer. The worst that can happen is the
entity to whom you’re praying says “no.”
But you can royally mess your life up with sorcery. And there are public sorcerers who will
gladly take your money and let you twist in the wind without caring. Therefore, I recommend that everyone develop
the ability to pray, whether experienced in more sophisticated occult methods
or not. You have nothing to lose and
everything to gain thereby.