We are barreling toward the end of the calendar year, and it won’t be long before we start seeing ads for gym memberships and posts from folks who are excited about the New year, New me plans. I’m still enjoying this time of year; I always get a little bit down once the holidays are over because I feel like there’s kind of a dry spell between the New Year and Imbolc, but for now, I’m not going to think about that. I’m going to enjoy the next six weeks or so and just save those feelings for later.
But I have been thinking about the intentions I want to set for next year. Yes, it’s still a month or so away, but I like to keep these things at top of mind so that I’m not left scrambling to cobble some half-assed spell together at the last minute. I know that there isn’t a sabbat, or even an especially significant moon phase on this New Year’s Eve, but I believe that it is a good time to cast a spell that you will want to nurture for the next year anyway, and I’ll tell you why. When we cast spells, we usually have to rely on our own energies and intentions to provide the power for it. This is why, when we are trying to cast something that needs a little extra sauce, we may call on our covens if we have them, or we may use sex magick, which is really powerful, or we may even participate in collective online rituals.
Our own magick as witches is very potent, and when we sort of daisy chain our magick with other people’s, we can get even better results. And this is why I think it’s a little wasteful to not use New Year’s Eve to cast. So many people are out partying, dancing, playing music, raising energy, and then we all release it together when the clock strikes midnight wherever you are. People take to the streets, ringing bells, lighting fireworks, shouting, singing, laughing, kissing. It’s really powerful.
Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about today actually. Although, I guess sort of tangentially it is. I wanted to talk about Abundance Magick and manifestations. These two terms, abundance and manifestation, have really grown in usage as the New Age movement and Witchcraft have merged in recent years. Or, maybe merge isn’t the word I want, because there is still a lot of difference between the two, but they have definitely overlapped. It’s more of a Venn diagram than a merger. What we call manifestation now used to just be spellwork. You wouldn’t say I’m manifesting a better job, you would just say I cast a spell to find a better job.
I don’t really know exactly when the crossover took place, but it did, and now the term manifestation is ubiquitous in witchcraft. And that’s fine, I don’t really care, I just want to make it clear for the purposes of this episode that I will be using manifestation and spellwork interchangeably.
The term abundance is another one that comes to us from the New Age movement and popular psychology as well. And I’ll leave citations for all this in the show notes, by the way. It is a well-known psychological phenomenon that people who approach life with an abundance mindset will almost always have better outcomes and better overall mental and even physical health versus folks with a scarcity mindset. It’s quantifiable. And we can take it a step further when we associate it with the placebo effect. The placebo effect refers to the beneficial effects of a treatment that has nothing to do with the treatment itself and only comes about because of the patient’s belief in that treatment. And it never fails to blow my mind that doctors will literally dismiss a positive result based on the placebo effect without acknowledging that the patient’s mindset literally improved their own health.
It’s so remarkable to me that western medicine in particular hates to acknowledge that. And I understand why; you can’t charge a copay for a placebo. But what we call placebo is really just the mind creating its own reality. And that’s all that magick is when it comes right down to it. We can apply that concept to literally every aspect of witchcraft if we want to. We always say that the magick isn’t in the crystals or the herbs or the cauldron, or the moon phase; these things are inert without the power of the witch. And there is so much truth to that. I believe that the crystals, herbs, and rituals help to support the magick, but the witch makes the magick happen.
So let’s talk about supporting ourselves in our manifestations, our spellwork, by creating and cultivating an abundance mindset. First, we are going to identify the things that we already have that are going to help to call in what it is we are trying to manifest. So for example, if we want to manifest a better job, we can focus on all the qualities we have that are going to make us perfect for that new position. Instead of approaching it from a position of scarcity, where we are fixated on our fear of being unqualified for it, or maybe we are concerned we don’t have enough experience for it, or whatever, we can instead start focusing on, or visualizing, how great we are going to be at this new job once we get it. We have to be our own hype man and talk to ourselves about all the ways we are going to be brilliant at it.
When we align our thoughts that way, we are creating our own placebo effect, if you will. The mind begins to believe and to create the reality wherein we are perfect for this job, and of course we are going to get it. Or whatever the goal is.
This practice can also help us by making us see possibilities that we wouldn’t normally see. We all know about the The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, otherwise known as the frequency illusion or recency bias. Basically, this is when you see or learn something new, and then you suddenly start seeing it everywhere. The mind is really good at seeing what it wants to see. It’s also really good at ignoring what it doesn’t want to see. And this effect kind of correlates with why people who we think of as negative, or pessimistic, or glass half empty types, will bitch relentlessly about all the bad things going on in their lives and completely ignore all the good things in their lives. They are only seeing what they want to see.
Every inconvenience, no matter how big or small, just reinforces their belief that the world is out to get them and nothing ever goes their way. And it really doesn’t even matter if good things do happen, because they either don’t pay attention to it, or they only focus on the potentially negative aspects of it. Like if they do get a job opportunity, they won’t even take it because they are convinced it will probably just end up sucking anyway, or it’s too inconvenient to change jobs, or maybe like, the morning commute will be a bit longer. And they will turn that potential opportunity into yet another example of how nothing ever goes right for them. They’ll sincerely say things like, “See? Even when I finally get a job offer, it was even worse than my current job!” They all but create these conditions.
And because their minds are ignoring anything positive, their reality is such that they are constantly living in a state of scarcity. Even if there are in fact things that they can be grateful for, they are unable to recognize it; they only see the bad things. And those people are often really miserable to be around for the rest of us, because they don’t only see the negatives in their own lives, but in others as well. These people can be very critical towards others. And on the rare occasion when they do recognize that something good has happened to someone else, they are incapable of being happy for them. Because of the very nature of a scarcity mindset, it makes them feel that if something goes well for someone else, that now there’s even less for the rest of us.
Now. This is where I backtrack a whole bunch and explain that I am not saying that everything bad that happens to us is all our fault, or that we’ve invited the misfortunes that befall us. Because unfortunately, bad things happen to good people all the time, and it isn’t their fault. I am not victim blaming. Accidents and illness and shitty people can make victims of us all. What I am talking about has more to do with how we choose to interpret our circumstances.
But the good news is that we can use the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, which is something the brain always does anyway, to our advantage. What I mean by this is that when we program our minds, for lack of a better word, to look for ways to get the things we want, to look for opportunities, we are going to notice them more and more, and we are going to start seeing opportunities that we might miss if we weren’t being open and receptive to those opportunities.
So that all just kind of covers the theory of abundance magick and manifestation and why it works. I mean, that’s my theory at least, I don’t mean to imply that it’s some kind of universal truth. But understanding the why of isn’t a guaranteed fast track to understanding the how of it. Like anything else, it takes practice and patience.
Now, there is also the fact that once we cast a spell, we also have to just trust that our intentions are out there and the universe is listening and working on getting us what we’ve called in. And I’m not trying to undermine that, because as the saying goes, once you plant a seed, it doesn’t help if you dig it up everyday to check if it’s growing yet. That’s not what I’m suggesting here. What I’m saying is that when we do our spellwork, we need to be ready to see its results when they begin to appear to us.
So just as an example, I had cast a money spell maybe two years or so back, for a specific amount. And I put it out of my mind after that; I felt good about the spell, I was confident I’d get what I needed. And then within just a couple weeks, really, we got word that there was a class action lawsuit that we were part of if we chose to participate. It was up to us. And we actually dithered a little bit about whether we wanted to bother.
We were told that it could drag out for a while, we couldn’t be assured that in the end we’d even get much out of the lawsuit, based on how many others were involved in the class action, etc. But eventually we just went ahead and threw our names into the lawsuit, and wouldn’t you know it, the amount of money we’d be receiving was within $100 of what I’d worked the spell for. And it was such a great reminder that the results we want don’t always come in the packaging that we may be expecting.
So while it doesn’t help to dwell or ruminate on getting the results you want from your spellwork after you’ve cast it, it doesn’t help to be open to receiving the results in whichever manner they may come.
So. That’s enough theory and rote definition. I’d like to give you one of my favorite methods for calling in abundance as defined by money. Which is NOT the only definition of abundance, nor is it the most important. But the reality is that we are living in a material world, and we are all material girls, and boys, and others.
So for money magick, I like to carve a green candle with different symbols, dollar signs and wealth runes work well, sometimes I straight up carve the specific amount into the candle. I’ll then anoint the candle with money drawing oil, which you can purchase, but you can also make your own using ingredients you already have. I use olive oil usually, to which I will add basil, dried orange peel, cedar, chamomile, clove, comfrey, dill, ginger, mandrake, mint, nutmeg, pine, sesame. You can look online for other herbs that work for money spells, and you can leave anything out that you don’t have or don’t wish to use. Any time you make an infused oil, please use dried herbs. If the herbs are fresh, the oil will go rancid pretty quickly, and that is not good. I will also add a little allspice and dried rose petals for luck, depending on the situation. If I want this to work quickly, I may also add a little cinnamon.
I will also add to this oil literal money clippings. By that I mean I will get an actual dollar bill, cleanse it with smoke from either sage or incense, and then I’ll bless and sanctify it for the purpose of calling in more money to me. Try to find one that has repeating numbers in the serial number if you can, preferably 7s. And then once it’s blessed, I cut it into confetti sized pieces, basically. I’ll add a pinch of the clippings to the oil, it doesn’t require a lot. You’ll be able to do several spells with one dollar bill. And you can use those clippings in mojo bags, you can burn them, if fire spells are your jam, you can add it to spell jars, whatever. Go nuts, get creative.
Anyway, I’ll anoint the candle, sprinkle some extra herbs on there if I’m feeling it, and then I just blast it with all the energy that I can. I spoke about the method for doing that in the protection magic episode, so feel free to give that a quick listen if you like. And then I light the candle and let it burn down. The smoke of the candle carries my intentions out and the universe hears the call.
Alternatively, a simpler method for calling in something that you want or need is just to write whatever it is on a bay leaf and then burn it. You can spread the ashes in the wind, in flowing water, or you can bury them. If your petition is something that won’t fit on a bay leaf, write it out longform on a sheet of paper. Pour your soul out here, no one will ever read it except for Spirit, because once you’ve written it, again, you’re going to burn it. So be specific, be heartfelt, be totally honest about what you need or want. Be generous with yourself too. I think that we sometimes are afraid to ask for too much. Whether we are afraid we don’t deserve it, or we’re afraid if we dream too big we won’t get it, and we will end up disappointed, or if it’s some other reason entirely, just stop that.
Quit minimizing the blessings that you’re willing to receive. The universe is so vast. The earth is so generous. There is plenty out there for all of us. Get out of the scarcity mindset, and start allowing yourself to receive abundance, in whatever way you define it. I just want everyone who can hear the sound of my voice to know that you deserve to have everything you’ve ever wanted. You are a divine soul, you are a brilliant point of light in the universe, and I am privileged to be alive in this body at the same time as you, so that I can remind you that you are a magician. And I can’t wait to see the magick you create.
Until we meet again, my name is Eli, and this is the Middle-Aged Witch podcast.
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