While writing the second draft of my romance novel, I’ve been drawing heavily on Aleister Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice.
In particular, there’s a section of magickal theorems and postulates (Hogwarts vibe, anyone?) that deal with how to use magick to get what you want.
Well, sort of.
For Crowley, magick isn’t so much about satisfying the whims of the ego.
It’s about aligning with the True Will, so you can become fully yourself, beneath all the roles, expectations, and habitual ways of being.
Or as Crowley puts it, magick enables a person to “discriminate between what he actually is, and what he has fondly imagined himself to be.”
This is the very same goal of Jung’s process of individuation, btw. (A topic for another time.)
When we don’t do this, and instead, we try to mimic someone else’s path to success, we run into trouble.
Here’s Crowley again:
“Every [person] has a course…Anyone who is forced from his own course, either through not understanding himself, or through external opposition, comes into conflict with the order of the Universe, and suffers accordingly.” (emphasis mine)
When we learn how to really embody our unique Self, life gets…perhaps not easier, but we’re able to influence our conditions–both inner and outer–far more effectively…
…creating, choice by choice, a deeply fulfilling life.
And we’re better able to puzzle out how to change course when things aren’t working as well as we’d like.
We don’t do this alone, either.
According to both Crowley and Jung, the universe–both inner and outer–conspires to help us.
In Crowley’s words:
“The [person] who is doing [their] True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist [them].”
Pretty sweet, huh?
Now, we could talk about this for years, because there’s so much fascinating stuff to unpack, but for this New Moon in Virgo, I want to focus on one aspect of goal setting in particular…
…and that is, how to magnetize the assistance of the Universe (yes, please) by putting your attention less on the outcome and more on the process.
When we set goals, we tend to be hyper fixated on where we’re trying to get to, right? I mean, the desired outcome is sorta the whole point.
Or is it?
Let’s take the goal of finding a satisfying romantic relationship.
Before we attain this goal, our desired outcome is meeting someone and falling in love.
We might daydream about what it’ll be like waking up next to this person, maybe we sign up for some dating apps, go on a bunch of dates–all in service of meeting that special someone.
But once we meet them, this outcome now becomes yet another stepping stone on our path. We don’t forever exist in a frozen pocket dimension now that we’ve met them. Life goes on, right?
Perhaps now the goal is to build a deeper connection with them, celebrating a happy first anniversary.
And then what? Another goal slides in to take its place once we achieve that milestone.
As long as we’re alive (and who knows? Maybe this continues beyond death), there will always be another outcome we’re reaching for.
And when you think about it, an outcome is simply a moment that we’ve decided to mark as more important than the rest.
Which, let me be clear, isn’t meant to detract from the specialness of achieving something.
If we finish a project or learn how to play our first song on the banjo or earn a degree, hell yes, let’s celebrate!
But what about all the moments before and after? Aren’t those worth savoring and experiencing to the fullest, too?
And if the “outcomes” are pretty fleeting relative to all the moments “in between”…
…how likely are we to cultivate happiness if we’re hyper fixated on outcomes, moving through our days as if life is on hold until we reach those goals?
We’re going to end on that rhetorical question for now, but tomorrow on the New Moon, we’ll look at what this has to do with magick…
…and how to apply this to experience more of what you want.
See you then.
