Big Bucks
Visualization has become a popular, even mainstream, way of obtaining one’s heart’s desire. There are teachers who claim that visualization is a fail-safe system, results guaranteed. Of course, teenage boys who spend intensive time visualizing union with their favorite centerfold, even doing a crude form of sex magic over it, might be skeptical of such claims. No matter how powerfully they imagine and visualize, that air-brushed girl doesn’t walk through the door to save them from an awkward adolescence.. Think of all the millions of people worldwide who have been praying for the deaths of Bush and Cheney for years, and consider the results. If you can’t knock over a man with a quadruple bypass with prayers and curses, how effective can visualization and affirmations be? And yet, many of us can point to a time when we did magic for a particular outcome with astonishing results. Anyone who promises reliable results is lying. The only guaranteed result is a flow of cash from your wallet to theirs. It’s the siren song of the three monkeys—put your hands over your ears and shut your eyes and open your purse, and the latest snake oil salesman will give you a formula that cures absolutely everything, guaranteed. And yet—those miracles. What about the miracles? And how can we get some?
There’s a saying in the world of magic; “Be careful what you wish for; you might get it.” More experienced shamans counsel younger ones to be very precise and thoughtful about how they word their affirmations, as sometimes the outcomes can be quite precise—and yet not at all what the one invoking those results had intended. My friend Michele told me a story about one of her associates at Nine Gates Mystery School who was hard at work creating more financial abundance in his life. His affirmation was simple; he kept chanting, “Send me the big bucks, send me the big bucks, send me the big bucks.” Then, one morning he walked out to his car, and standing right there beside his car were—you guessed it—two large stags. The big bucks had arrived, but they were not quite what he had expected. Of course, through most of human history, two stags showing up in response to your prayers and conjuring would be exactly the abundance the happy hunter had hoped for. The universe has a wicked sense of humor and will happily point out your own human absurdity again and again.
So being careful what you ask for is helpful. But sitting at home chanting, “I want $100,000 in unmarked bills delivered to my door Friday,” isn’t going to make it happen either. You can’t just wish for peaches in your own yard. You need to dig and fertilize the earth, plant the seed, weed and water if you want a peach tree. If you use visualization and affirmations as a way of avoiding your responsibilities in the physical world, your results will probably not be what you hoped.
Surrender is another component of successful magic. I had a friend who was heartbroken over the breakup of his marriage. He began to do a spell to call his beloved back to him. But as he was doing his spell, he stopped before asking that his ex should return to him, and instead asked that he be united with ‘his soul mate’ without mentioning her name. Two weeks later, he met another woman at a conference. They are still together thirty years later. He shudders to think how he would have missed his opportunity had he specified the woman he was convinced was his soul mate instead of letting the universe decide. Yes, sometimes being too specific is what gets in your way. It seems contradictory, but consider the tides. They flow in, and then they ebb. Breathing requires both in-breath and out-breath. There is an element of assertion, then surrendering to the highest good.
Magic is like wearing a seat belt. Wearing a seat belt increases your chances of surviving a car accident. It does not guarantee your survival. The best sailor in the world can be lost in a storm, the best skier in the world can plow into a tree. Our skills and our tools enhance our power to survive and to thrive. But there is no magic formula that works each and every time. This is where mystery comes in. Sometimes you do everything right and still are denied what you desire. As the Native American Chief in the film Little Big Man says; “Sometimes the magic works; sometimes it doesn’t.”
So you do your best, move with the flow, and if the flow doesn’t take you where you want to go, try to enjoy the ride. Life really is the journey, not the destination.
But I hope you make the big bucks. Or at least, get to meet them.