Second, Mind Your Language

Whatever your goal, state it in declarative and specific terms which have the power to evoke non-verbal images in your mind. 

When you work magic, you are speaking to the unconscious mind, your own or another's, and the unconscious mind is linguistically primitive. It may be confused by negatives, passive constructions, sentences with more than one clause, or generalizations. 

For example, in the case of the stolen wallet, to say that “the important documents that were in my wallet will be returned to me” will not work as well as, “I will get back my license, my Visa card … " listing the items and seeing them in your mind's eye as you speak.

It also appears that the English-speaker’s unconscious mind is Germanic, and that words of Latin or French origin generally have less psychological impact than ones which come from Old English; “get, stop, go back,” for example, are stronger for magical purposes than “receive, cease, return.” 

Also, be careful in stating your purpose and talking about the spell to choose words which are appropriate to your intentions. 

For example, if you mean to contain a trouble-maker in a mirror box in order to control the damage they can do, do not even jokingly refer to the box as a “coffin” if you have no intention to do bodily harm. In magic, as in dreams, the unconscious mind tends to use language very literally.

First, Define Your Goal:

Focus and meditate before you begin. Generally the more specific you can be about what you really want to achieve, the better your results are likely to be. 

Consider the possible implications of what you think you want—be careful what you ask for. What happens when you get it?  

Stick to one simply-stated goal per spell. Diffusion, generalization, and complexity will weaken and confuse the outcome. If, for example, your mother needs relief from depression, and you are working with someone whose mother is recovering from a hip replacement, and another person whose elderly mother is probably dying and needs whatever spiritual support she can be given, there you have three very different spells. Do not succumb to any temptation to save time and energy with one spell for everybody's mother.

Also, in order to focus your will to the extent needed to succeed in a spell, you have to care about the outcome. I was once with a group of people who were discussing the way to respond magically to a rapist, and the suggestion was made that one should focus on healing the rapist so that he would stop committing crimes. 

This is noble and generous, but probably of little efficacy for the simple reason that, in a case where someone you care about has been raped, the welfare of the rapist is probably low on your list of concerns. You probably care about stopping him somehow, and helping your friend recover from the trauma. That makes two spells--binding the rapist, and a spell of healing and empowerment for your friend--probably enough work for one night.

But it is also possible to inhibit the power of a spell by wanting something too much. This is why many witches can do more effective spells for others than they can for themselves. One possible explanation is that, when wanting something terribly, you inadvertently create mental images of the thing you fear--that it won’t come to pass, and these images may contribute the the failure of the spell.

In most cases, baneful magic is discarded when you really become specific about what you want--for example, you probably don’t care what happens to the person who took your wallet so much as you want to get the contents of the wallet back. 

Sometimes bargaining seems to work in magic--let go of the money that was in the wallet, but work to recover the documents in it, for example. 

Many Witches arrange with their cars not that they will never break down, but that any breakdowns will occur at times and places when the problem will be manageable.

How Do You Cast a Spell?

Spellcasting, as Witches practice it, is a creative and intuitive process. No two Witches work in exactly the same way, and rarely will a Witch use exactly the same procedure twice.

Often an effective Witch, like a good cook, is reluctant to share her recipes.

All Witches, however, put spells together from a supply of techniques which can be collected over time and honed with practice.

In the coming days, I will be discussing common elements of spells.