Last year we talked about what to do when your magic doesn’t seem to work. Today I’d like to give a few pointers addressing a few things that weren’t handled in that article. What’s below is excerpted from How to Pray the Rosary and Get Results; even though it deals specifically with prayer, it can apply to magical work just as easily. Here’s my take on the “difference” between prayer and magic if you’re interested.

We’ve done a lot of talking about origin, theory, and method. Now it’s time to talk about things that can go wrong.

My Prayer Wasn’t Answered

Sometimes, especially when you’re just starting out, you may think your prayers aren’t being answered. Most times, this isn’t the case so much as the proverbial dominoes aren’t in place for the desired result to occur.

Case in point, I remember a time after a brutal break-up when I wanted my girlfriend back. I used the Pompeii Novena to this effect and even got back on talking terms with her, but no reunion came to pass. However, three years later I met and became involved with a woman who looked like her and had pretty much the same personality. Let’s analyze this for a minute.

The first thing to ask is why I didn’t end up with my old girlfriend, even if I’d done everything right. It turns out I hadn’t done everything right, which is why it didn’t manifest.

For example, my reason for praying this (and I’m embarrassed to admit it) was a fear of loneliness and a feeling of possessiveness. These aren’t the qualities of a person who loves himself, and in fact they can indicate an imbalance that can interfere with love of self, the Second Key to Effective Prayer. Possessiveness is also not synonymous with love of her, which extends broadly into the category of Love of Neighbor, the Third Key.

Another issue was my Sphere of Availability. I’ve always been socially awkward, for example, and didn’t have anything in the way of “game.” In fact I still don’t, but at the time I was more attractive than I am now. She’d also started seeing someone else and – what I didn’t know at the time – had become pregnant with his child. I say this without commenting on the morality of the situation, but merely to report the events as they happened; what happened is that this combination of events, along with our prior relationship ending badly, moved her far out of my Sphere of Availability. The Sixth Key, in other words, was lacking.

Okay, so we can see what went wrong here. So what about the woman who showed up three years later? Let’s talk about her, since she represents something interesting.

Three years after the break-up, I was somewhat more secure as a person and had developed at least a little more social skills (I say “a little,” because anybody watching my YouTube videos can tell I’m still awkward). This new woman and I also had no previous history, leaving a greater openness to whatever sort of affinity. In other words, the issues with Keys Two and Three weren’t there, at least in this case, and my Sphere of Availability had expanded accordingly.

The other interesting point is the time. Why did it take three years? This demonstrates three things, first that prayers left at God’s throne can find themselves answered even if long-forgotten by the person praying them; second that a prayer may wait until the surrounding circumstances become more favorable; and third that prayers can find themselves answered more effortlessly if you stop wanting something so badly.

One final interesting thing in this connection is that it showed me why the prayer would’ve been better left unanswered. Let’s just say this new woman and I weren’t exactly a good match; the similarities in their personalities taught me that my and I wouldn’t have been a good match either. A few years later I was approached by an investigator working for a divorce lawyer; the lawyer was hired by the man by whom my ex had become pregnant (they had since married), and the man and I finally met face-to-face.

The stories I heard at that meeting (all of which were proven true) convinced me that any prayer I’d uttered regarding said ex-girlfriend was better off unheeded. I’ve come to believe this “blockage” of results can also be a function of our subconscious protecting us from something it knows is bad for us. The traditional explanation is that “God knows when something’s not good for us,” and I’ve come to believe we instinctively know when something’s not good for us, either.

Results Are Taking Too Long!

This depends on your definition of “too long.” Consider that the founder of Pandora was turned down by 300 investors before finding one who’d fund this startup. Or consider that James Dyson created 5,127 failed prototypes for a bagless vacuum cleaner.

We’re talking about a lot of let-down here, but what did they do? They kept trying.

After 300 rejections by investors, investor #301 said “Let’s make this happen.” After 5,127 failed prototypes, prototype #5,128 got the job done. The lesson from this is failure sucks, but instructs. The other lesson is that we need to keep on truckin’.

If you feel your results are taking too long, it could be that something is in the way of manifesting them. Usually this stems from whether you actually want what you’re asking, or (more often) because your Sphere of Availability isn’t where it needs to be just yet.

Take a moment to examine your situation as unemotionally and dispassionately as possible, and look to find out what skill set you might need to develop, or whether you need to more people’s eyeballs looking at any public part of what you’re doing. Find out what obstacles exist in the way of your intention and how best they can be overcome, and any areas where you’re Sphere is too contracted to manifest what you’re looking for right now. And most importantly, keep at it.

I think one example of this is David Bawden. Most people laugh at him, because he calls himself “Pope Michael I of the Roman Catholic Church;” the story behind this is long, but what happened is that his parents and four other people declared him Pope in 1990. Ever since the internet was invented he had a website and some sort of outreach, but very few people would accept him as their pontiff; as of 2010, all that changed and while his following is still small, he does have an actual following.

These words are true no matter who says them.

Now people might laugh at Bawden and everything he represents – I don’t exactly support him and am not writing to condemn – but he illustrates why perseverance is so important. He and his mother prayed hard to make something happen, and after 20 years of nothing, finally the dam burst and people started coming to him.

Part of what happened were advances in technology; it was hard to reach out from a small town in Kansas, until the internet, YouTube, and Facebook brought the world closer together. Even with the internet, competition for eyeballs is fierce, but other people with their own audiences started taking note of Bawden, first by writing about him in Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas and then with the Pope Michael documentary uploaded to Vimeo in 2010. In essence, his Sphere of Availability was too small and it took 20 years to expand it.

No matter what you think of Pope Michael, you can learn from him. You can learn the importance of sticking with it in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, and the importance of constantly seeking to expand your Sphere.

I’m Getting Side-Effects!

I remember one time I helped a friend. She’d asked me to help her friend find a romantic partner. I obliged, it worked, but for the next two months women were literally throwing themselves at me. This is something called a side-effect.

A side-effect happens when you put too much of yourself into your prayer, or your Sphere of Availability happens to be in the really right place for whatever it is you’re praying. Even so, it’s not always a good thing.

Case in point, the example of women throwing themselves at me. Being a straight guy and most of these women being attractive, I thought it was awesome. But what if one of those women were married to an overly jealous husband? She so much as says “hi” to me and I get my head blown off, would that be awesome? Even if we think the side-effects are good, we should always seek to avoid them.

The good news is that with time, you’ll learn to avoid side-effects the same way a beginning driver learns how to control his foot-pressure on the gas pedal. It takes practice, and in time you’ll get there.

Closing Thoughts

With time and practice, you’ll learn how to discern if a prayer’s being blocked, if your Sphere needs to expand, or if there’s a personality trait within yourself that’s hindering manifestation. You’ll learn to tell whether you really want what you’re asking, or if it’s better to pick up your marbles and go home. Don’t let yourself become disheartened at any step of the way.