How do you know if a ritual you've done worked?

[OrdinaryTourist]

I've just completed a very simple ritual an hour or so ago, but I'm not sure if it was effective. Is there a certain feeling? A charge in the air? How do you know you've been successful?

 

[Mider2009]

Hmm. I didn't think to do that. Hopefully it doesn't want my soul

What sorts of things do they usually ask for?

Energy, food Sometimes? Acknowledgment in public, worship...which is energy

 

[OrdinaryTourist]

They’re souls themselves they don’t need/want your soul.

usually it’s honor: saying thanks to them on a public forum, could also be offerings of food alcohol incense.

just contact them and ask politely they won’t hide the ball from you.

respect them when you summon them: don’t threaten/bind them they can do a lot more than what’s written in the goetia books & they’ll be much more willing to play ball with you if you treat them with Well

it’s a two way street, you’re building a relationship here.

How do you go about contacting them and asking them what they want? Do you just ask and wait for an image to pop into your head? Am I waiting to hear a voice?

 

[Mider2009]

How do you go about contacting them and asking them what they want? Do you just ask and wait for an image to pop into your head? Am I waiting to hear a voice?

Tarot, any divination method

 

[Merlinscloak]

I've just completed a very simple ritual an hour or so ago, but I'm not sure if it was effective. Is there a certain feeling? A charge in the air? How do you know you've been successful?

I do esoteric rituals to achieve esoteric goals, so unless I slip up and a physical occurrence happens, I get loads of synchronicities as proof to me, so another way that I can tell is when I reach an esoteric goal and I get a vision or dream about it. Example: after decade of work currently I have achieved (gray mag, not a title information only), which puts me into a long awaited balance between order and chaos so I dreamed about it and I got big synchronicities relating to it. Example: in the sorcerers guild, sorcerer Tal announced that he is going to make a video about the groove/path between order and chaos", and my arcane legacy is Norse wyrd.

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"what is The Groove to you In relation to Chaos & Order is it the spin of wyrd or the path it takes"

 

[OrdinaryTourist]

I do esoteric rituals to achieve esoteric goals, so unless I slip up and a physical occurrence happens, (which are loaded with synchronicities as proof to me), then the way that I can tell is when I reach another esoteric goal. Example: after several decades of work currently I have achieved gray magi, which puts me into a long awaited balance between order and chaos. In the bigger esoteric goals synchronicities are also abundant, like E
example: in the sorcerers guild where sorcerer Tal is about to make a video about the grove/path between order and chaos "

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"what is The Groove to you In relation to Chaos & Order is it the spin of wyrd or the path it takes"

What's so special about balancing yourself between order and chaos? What are the benefits?

 

[Merlinscloak]

What's so special about balancing yourself between order and chaos? What are the benefits?

What's so special about balancing yourself between order and chaos?

What are the benefits?

Who said anything about my practice being so special, you said: "How do you know you've been successful?"
So, I was attempting to give you a real time example of how I know if I am successful by recognizing synchronicities as they show up. (also, I am terrible at posting Lol)

What are the benefits?

In my experience: energy gathering and mixing in the beginning parts of my magical practice is very time consuming. It is all about gathering the right kinds and amounts of energies mixing focusing and releasing with the correct timing. The benefit of balancing is more easily accessing chaos (earth energies) or order (esoteric energies), without having to stop to refocus one kind of energy and then the other.

 

[OrdinaryTourist]

(also, I am terrible at posting Lol)

Nah, you're fine.

In my experience: energy gathering and mixing in the beginning parts of magic is time consuming, and is all about gathering the right kinds and amounts of energies mixing focusing and releasing with the correct timing. The benefit of balancing is more easily accessing chaos (earth energies) or order (esoteric energies), without stopping to retool.

I see. You said this took you decades? Yeesh! That takes some commitment.

 

[OrdinaryTourist]

Tarot, any divination method

Oh, sorry I didn't see your reply. Alright thanks.

 

[Roma]

In meditation I am often called upon to do things and whenever it is successful I take a spontaneous deep breath - as if my energy system has changed.

I have seen that with other people too when we are working together in meditation.

 

[Diluculo_DelFuego]

I've just completed a very simple ritual an hour or so ago, but I'm not sure if it was effective. Is there a certain feeling? A charge in the air? How do you know you've been successful?

Lust for results, no passion, or self doubt will kill a fantastic ritual or even the most basic ritual.

 

[OrdinaryTourist]

Lust for results, no passion, or self doubt will kill a fantastic ritual or even the most basic ritual.

So, just fake it till you make it, huh? Have you seen any results with your rituals?

 

[Merlinscloak]

One of those errors that I mentioned in a earlier post, where I had worked extremely long (rituals) to gather magic energies to facilitate one of my attempts to gain my esoteric gray mage (balance).
I call it the Cashcow debacle Lol: To relax and give my concentration on the one esoteric thing that I am working a break, I like to read the posts in the forums that I belong to. So I was browsing the posts in the sorcerers guild (SG), until I came upon a Cashcow sigil, suddenly my attention locked onto the sigil and at that instant a big chunk of my hard earned magic energy took off. (the whole of this story with picture is somewhere in the SG postings) the short is: that the next day my garbage disposal was broken by a hand full of cash/change/quarters. I got a unexpected hundred and a fifty dollar checks in the mail. Replacing the garbage disposal cost me 150 dollars. The synchronicity's were abundant because posting about the incident started a short lived Cashcow sigil frenzy. At least the flavor of the magic achieved balance Lol.

 

[Silsebyl]

Lol, you're asking different people and you're getting a ton of different answers which in themselves stem from very different world views and experiences. Some people say, don't feel lust for result or it doesn't work. From my point of view (you see, another answer out of many) that is nonsense. Why should you even perform the magic, if you don't wish for a result? You can try to ignore your wish, but wouldn't this be like lying to yourself and to your magic? It is only true in the sense of that something might happen which you didn't expect at all, that your expectations might 'blind' you for the real result.

But yet, how should one start doing magic without any experience at all. You only have yourself, your feelings, believes, thoughts and so on. So I would work with what I have!

So my approach would be (and this doesn't necessarily mean it works for you): Ask yourself and try to answer honestly: which experience would give you the knowing, that your magical work worked? Do you feel there should happen something special while you do the magic, like having a specific feeling? You asked for protection and strength, how do you believe you could realize, whether there is protection and strength for you?

Actually, I tried some divination before the ritual to see how it would go. I usually do a little before attempting anything, just in case you know. Just some basic tarot. The results were weird, I could only really think of one thing it could mean and it didn't have anything to do with what I was attempting. I went ahead anyway. You're right though, I should go check again to see if anything's changed.

Well, if the results were weird, they just didn't give you the answer you expected. Maybe this one thing you only could think of it could mean, does have to do with your magical performance. You could think about it again and try to find a connection to what you've done so far. Thinking, feeling, associating, pondering, dreaming about it, these all are tools you can use. Try to rely more on yourself. Opinions and experiences of others can be an inspiration, they can help you clarify things for yourself, they can give you impulses what to contemplate about. But in the end magic is a very individual thing, so find out, what fits to you right now, to your believes, to your perspectives and so on (this might change over the years, if you decide to stick to magic for a while ) and mostly rely on what you do and experience.

 

[OrdinaryTourist]

Well, if the results were weird, they just didn't give you the answer you expected. Maybe this one thing you only could think of it could mean, does have to do with your magical performance. You could think about it again and try to find a connection to what you've done so far.

After thinking about it and doing a little more research, I think maybe it did have something to do with it. Thank you for your advice, you make a lot of good points.

 

[hungry_ghost]

A rules violation I made by mistake

You're pretty chill compared to the good old days. I'm using a different name now but I created the shit mider says thread back in the day. You had some of the funniest one liners on this forum. Anyways I'm happy to see you're doing well.

 

[OrdinaryTourist]

You're pretty chill compared to the good old days. I'm using a different name now but I created the shit mider says thread back in the day. You had some of the funniest one liners on this forum. Anyways I'm happy to see you're doing well.

Damn I missed some funny shit

 

[Mider2009]

You're pretty chill compared to the good old days. I'm using a different name now but I created the shit mider says thread back in the day. You had some of the funniest one liners on this forum. Anyways I'm happy to see you're doing well.

Ah, I guess new board new me...still a lot of markers I call out though

 

[Diluculo_DelFuego]

So, just fake it till you make it, huh? Have you seen any results with your rituals?

I have, very small rituals. And few at that. Contacts seems to be the major thing, or, find your own power source, or, blood sweat and tears. Trying anthropology magic type models can't hurt either. I literally had a monkey mask and a panda mask that I found at a dollar store, not sure what type of ritual would have suited imitative magic wearing them.

 

[Mider2009]

Ah, I guess new board new me...still a lot of markers I call out though

Larpers

 

[Diluculo_DelFuego]

Another approach is to try simple books that border on witchcraft, spells can still be made into a ritual easily.
Read the short book thoroughly to make sure you've caught all predatory immersion necessary. Get into trance after lighting candles and incense and get to work. Come out of trance, snuff candles and incense and close your ritual (typically a LRP or LRH for most).
See if it works. If it doesn't, get two blind experimenters to try it and see if it worked. If proof it worked occurs to one or two, the problem obviously lies not with them.
So, make sure you understand it. Do it. Record in journal. Make sure it was so specific in one sentence that it cannot be missed.