[Help] But How Do You Know It Worked?

[SkeleCrew]

I'm sorry if this is too silly of a question or anything, but it's been in the back of my mind for a while. I know that the amount of time it takes for a spell to really kick in varies, and it can take months, but how exactly do you guys tell if it did anything, either positive (as in it working) or negative (as in it not working or backfiring somehow)?
I just don't want to attribute anything that even mildly sticks out as positive or a sign of it working and get an ego boost from it or something. Alternatively, I don't want to encounter some mild misfortune 15 minutes after doing a spell and jump right to "I can't do anything right! I should just give up I guess." Mundane over magical, yeah, but when can you realistically start saying that magic pulled some weight?

Basically, how do you determine the outcome of a spell?

 

[Xenophon]

That's why we have divination. We're like the klutzy kid in the old sitcom. Every time things went to hell, he'd stand there nonplussed. "Did I do that?" Ask the I Ching, Tarot, Runes, &c &c. My biggest case of magick having had an "effect" was dismissed by such oracles as I consulted. Humbling, but useful to know. Time to get out there and start tweaking, it was.

Also, ask yourself can you identify other influences on the even in question. I had someone whom I was "working for" whose health improved. The improvement coincided both with a rite I was working and with an herbal infusion she started taking. Since the same infusion has had no effect on another person I am not doing the rite for, I tend to think the herb is not the cause of the first person's improvement.

Read a bit of Carl Popper, though. In science no proposition can be "conclusively" falsified or confirmed. One simply piles up evidence for or against.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I'm sorry if this is too silly of a question or anything, but it's been in the back of my mind for a while. I know that the amount of time it takes for a spell to really kick in varies, and it can take months, but how exactly do you guys tell if it did anything, either positive (as in it working) or negative (as in it not working or backfiring somehow)?
I just don't want to attribute anything that even mildly sticks out as positive or a sign of it working and get an ego boost from it or something. Alternatively, I don't want to encounter some mild misfortune 15 minutes after doing a spell and jump right to "I can't do anything right! I should just give up I guess." Mundane over magical, yeah, but when can you realistically start saying that magic pulled some weight?

Basically, how do you determine the outcome of a spell?

I have noticed that a successful working will usually be accompanied by other coincidences, in time, subject matter, or some other connection with the working. Think of it as ripples from the stone you threw into the pond.

My biggest example was after the successful completion of a working, I discovered that Osama bin Laden had been caught and killed at the same time the working completed. (I did not cause that )

 

[Jackson]

If it kicks your ass you'll know.

 

[Xenophon]

I have noticed that a successful working will usually be accompanied by other coincidences, in time, subject matter, or some other connection with the working. Think of it as ripples from the stone you threw into the pond.

My biggest example was after the successful completion of a working, I discovered that Osama bin Laden had been caught and killed at the same time the working completed. (I did not cause that )

Could you tell us the connection? Like, had you just cast runes to see whether to buy stock in a company making 9mm ammo?

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Could you tell us the connection? Like, had you just cast runes to see whether to buy stock in a company making 9mm ammo?

The connection was purely that they happened at the same time. To quote Julian Carswell: "Well then, let's just call this 'coincidence'"

If it kicks your ass you'll know.

This is an utter and totally fair point

 

[Xenophon]

The connection was purely that they happened at the same time. To quote Julian Carswell: "Well then, let's just call this 'coincidence'"

This is an utter and totally fair point

Coincidence is shouldering quite a burden here, but that does not mean you are wrong. I had a pretty powerful coincidence a while back, but all the divination I did claimed there was no connection. So I was---and remain---at a bit of a loss as to what happened. But Jackson's "ass kicked" tends to suggest the oracles were wrong, since I was that.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Coincidence is shouldering quite a burden here, but that does not mean you are wrong. I had a pretty powerful coincidence a while back, but all the divination I did claimed there was no connection. So I was---and remain---at a bit of a loss as to what happened. But Jackson's "ass kicked" tends to suggest the oracles were wrong, since I was that.

I think we've had this conversation before, but yeah, let's go with Jackson's definition - it seems a deal easier to define

 

[Xenophon]

I think we've had this conversation before, but yeah, let's go with Jackson's definition - it seems a deal easier to define

You have a good point. Coincidence is a powerful indication that something is afoot. I have always considered Hume's critique of causation to be nothing short of perverse.