Hello everybody, and welcome. I thank you for joining me today. This is the last episode of June, the last day of June, in fact, and I hope it treated you well. For many of us, depending especially on where we live, this final week of June hasn’t treated us well at all. Generally, I make it a rule to avoid hot-button socio-political topics on this podcast because I feel like first of all, we get so much of that from all sides, all day every day and this podcast is my personal retreat from a lot of that. Secondly, people have very different opinions and they have very good reasons for the opinions they hold, and I am not so arrogant as to assume that my opinions are everyone’s opinions, or that my opinions are correct.
And while I don’t intend to change my policy in that regard going forward, I am going to start this episode with a message from a witch called Rebella.
“Hey Eli,
I try to keep politics away from my practice but now that I am confident in my abilities I am torn between doing what’s right for others and how morally, hexing has a bad connotation. I know I’m probably not the first witch to ask you this, but due to the recent events with the supreme court it’s hard to sit here and do nothing so I must ask you, is hexing political figures necessarily bad since it is for women’s rights??? Also, how many witches in this community do you think would take action in such a matter??? I know protection spells could do the trick but I feel somehow that’s not good enough, please share this in your next podcast, I’m sure I am not the only witch who is upset by this.”
Um, look, I’ve been very clear that sometimes, doing baneful magic such as hexing, bindings, curses, is the only recourse a person may have to correct a situation or to protect themselves or to exact retribution. And if that’s the route a person feels called to take, you will never ever find me trying to talk them out of it. The issue of your own moral judgment of hexing is more of a concern because you definitely don’t want to engage in this work if you personally feel it’s wrong, but that’s a question everyone has to answer for themselves. If you feel like it’s the right thing to do, then you should proceed.
And while that’s good for the short term, it is also possible to put your personal power into longer term solutions for this issue. We knew this was coming; the information was leaked weeks ago, but it doesn’t diminish the righteous anger brewing in so many people. This ruling comes on the heels of months of worldwide political unrest, of rising inflation, cost of living, people can’t afford gas, or food, rent and mortgage rates are pricing people out of housing. We have spent the last two and a half years in and out of lockdowns. There is a lot of frustration, and feelings of helplessness. And that’s a huge part of what this ruling was meant to do. We are meant to feel even more defeated. We are meant to give up.
I don’t know how long we can expect all of this to continue until things improve. But nothing will improve if all we do is wait for it to happen. We are approaching midterm elections in the States, and that’s a start. If nothing else, I hope that all of this encourages us to take a more active role in our own collective destinies and start advocating for changes that we want to see in ways that make a long term difference. I’m also seeing a lot of people and organizations reaching out to those who live in states that may be directly affected by this ruling and offering support and a place to stay and that’s something that bears paying attention to. Those are the reminders that can keep an ember of hope and love burning in our hearts while all of the rest of the bullshit works so hard to keep us feeling hopeless and hateful.
If anyone knows me at all, you know I am not a Love and Light witch, I’m really not. I’m a witch who lives in reality, and reality is sometimes cruel and unjust. But just because we are surrounded by shit doesn’t mean we need to roll around in it. We need to find our places of power, and we need to work from there. So that means organizing, and finding the correct channels to enact change, and it also means supporting people who need help in ways that we can give it. If this is an issue that touches your soul and if you are in a position to do something about it, please find organizations in your state or in your town and find out how you can not only help people who need it, but also become an advocate for reform on a state level.
Don’t let anyone convince you, if you live in a state where your political opinions may be the minority, that you can’t make big changes. By galvanizing those who live in your local areas to turn out for elections, underdog political parties flip seats all the time. And this is where I think we can also focus our magical efforts as well. To fire up and encourage like-minded voters to get off their asses and help to make changes. Remember, this ruling did NOT make abortions illegal; it just returned the legislattive power for this issue back over to the state governments. So until this issue makes its way back up to the Supreme Court (and I suspect eventually it will, but that’s going to take at LEAST a few years), State elections are where we need to really put our focus.
But maybe you need to throw a hex in the meantime to satisfy your desire for retribution. Who could blame you. Just be sure to cast your protections first. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Today, I wanted to talk about a system of manifestation known as Scripting. And this is a concept that’s been used in New Age practices for years. Decades, actually. This practice got a lot of attention back in the 80s when the self-help movement really started gaining traction, but it was mostly limited to the repetition of pithy little sayings that you were supposed to listen to or say or write over and over again until you started to internalize the messages. I have very vivid memories of my mother buying these sets of cassette tapes and playing them in the house all day.
The one that sticks out the most to me was this recording of a man saying “I love myself, unconditionally” and this just repeated on and on for like a half hour. The expectation was that eventually you would start to believe it, and then before you knew it, it would be true. That is also the essence of Scripting. Scripting has since then fallen out of fashion, but it’s actually a really solid means for manifestation. And the reason I wanted to talk about it is because while it may not be everyone’s favorite way to manifest, and it may not be the most aesthetic, it is a really good process for manifestation for witches who might struggle with other methods.
Scripting is simply the act of writing a script of your ideal life. Except this script is written in the present tense, as though the things you want to manifest have already happened, and you’ve already gotten the exact outcome you had hoped for and everything went precisely as you had hoped it would, and you are now writing about how great things turned out for you.
We can write daily scripts every morning to sort of map out the perfect version of what our day will look like, we can write longer term scripts for events that we are trying to enact a few weeks or months into the future, and we can even write scripts for events that will happen a year or more into the future.
The thing that I like about scripting is that it doesn’t rely on spells or rituals or crystals or herbs or moon phases or casting circles, or any of the things that we typically associate with witchcraft, which are concepts that a lot of witches, and especially newer witches, might struggle with. Another thing that a lot of witches struggle with, especially newer witches, is visualization. And when we’re manifesting, we’re meant to do exactly that. We are meant to visualize ourselves in exactly the circumstances that we are manifesting to assist the Universe in creating the exact outcome that we want.
And we are told over and over again to visualize what it is that we want as if it’s already come to pass, visualize ourselves in that new job, in that good relationship, on that awesome vacation, whatever it is. We’re supposed to visualize it. But for a lot of witches that is much easier said than done. And this is where scripting can bridge the gap and create an alternative way for us to announce to the universe in no uncertain terms EXACTLY what we want and EXACTLY what our lives will look like once we’ve got it.
If you’ve watched Oprah in the last 20 years, you’re probably at least marginally familiar with the Law of Attraction. And what this is, in very simplified terms, is the act of putting yourself in alignment with the life that you are trying to create using positive thoughts, actions and intentions. Basically, whatever you think, that’s what you get. So if you’re someone who’s very negative and always anticipating the worst, that’s exactly the outcome that you’re most likely to get. And we’ve talked about this kind of mindset before, we are not covering new ground here with this. In fact I do believe it was the manifestation episode.
But the same principle applies to scripting. You have to not only write your life exactly according to your ideal, but you also have to know that it is coming to you. This is not about feeling desperate and feeling needy or as though you are incomplete. But we will get to that. First, let’s talk about what you need to have on hand to start Scripting. Literally a notebook and a pen. That is all you need. I like the composition notebooks for this work because they’re cheap. And I prefer a gel pen because they write smoothly. And that is the end of the list of what you’re going to need to start this work.
Much more important than the physical tools we use to write with are the words that we choose to use when we Script. This is very important. Remember we said we can’t approach this from a feeling of neediness or desperation or lack? That’s what I’m talking about. And it’s the same thing when we are writing spells, we wouldn’t want to say, “I need a better car because I will lose my job if I don’t have reliable transportation.” We would neeeevver want to say something like that. Because what the Universe hears, what spirit hears is, I WILL lose my job. I DON’T have reliable transportation. And the universe will continue to give us exactly what we say.
So we’ve got our tools, and we know what we want to say and how to say it, so we are going to start with a daily script. Before we really start our day, while we are having our coffee, we are going to sit for just five minutes and script out what our day was like, as if we already lived it and as if it has gone exactly perfectly. So for example I would write the date at the top of the entry and then write something like, “Today went really smoothly. All my morning appointments arrived on time, I was able to get half of my quarterly audits completed, and I received both of the reports that I needed to close the Smith file. My coworker Jenny was in such a good mood and I really enjoyed laughing with her today. The kids cleaned the kitchen while I was at work, so I came home and was able to relax and enjoy my time with my family before I took a nice hot shower and got ready for bed. This was a lovely day.”
We are not going to write in generalized terms. We are going to use people’s proper names and write about specific places and activities. We have a tendency to be kind of vague when we talk about things that haven’t happened yet, and I think this comes from a place of doubt. Like, if I get too specific and it doesn’t turn out exactly like I said, then it means it didn’t work or I’m not powerful or focused enough to do this. That’s horseshit. The more specific we are able to be, the better. So we are going to set our script in the future, and write about the day as if it has already happened, and because we are going to be super specific, we are telling the universe what to provide us. It takes very little time, and when you review your script again before bed, you’re going to find your days beginning to unfold very closely to how you have foretold them.
So try this for a week. Every morning, give yourself a minute and think about all the things you have to do for the day, and imagine what it would look like if everything went perfectly. And then write it out. Be specific. And then at the end of the day, match up your script with how things actually went, and notice how many things you were able to predict. And then do it again the next day, and the next. This is a really good way to build confidence and trust in your abilities. And we can use this to script larger events in our lives as well.
Something that can be really helpful is to spend a few minutes on the last day of the month scripting out the coming month, again, as if it’s already happened and everything has gone according to your design. As tomorrow is the first of July, it could be a good idea to spend a little time writing a script as though July is already over and all of the things that you’ve got on your calendar have already come to pass.
So on my agenda we’ve got to find a reasonably priced, reliable used car for my daughter. And I’m going to incorporate this into my July script as though we’ve already found the perfect car for our needs and it was exactly what we hoped it would be. That’s something I’d put in my script. We’ve had some staffing issues at work, so I would also include a short statement about how we found two more excellent employees who caught on to the job really quickly and who had a great first month at work. I also have a short trip planned later in the month, and I’ll definitely include something about how much fun we had and how we traveled safely.
This is again something that, at the actual end of the month, you can review and make note of how many of these items happened just as you’d said they would. We can do this yearly, too. On New Year’s Eve, write out an overview of the year as if it’s already passed. Write about all the major highlights. Write yourself where you hope to be in one year, with your goals, with your family, your career, your hobbies, your passions. Think about the changes you could make in your life in one year. And write it down.
Finally, we can use this method for specific goals. If you’re starting a new career path, or you’re going to start something new like ballroom dancing or writing a book. Think about the appropriate timeline for measurable success, and write a script from that perspective. So if I plan to learn to do Reiki, I’ll do some research and find out when the course begins and how long the course is, and I’ll write my script that far into the future and talk about how much I’ve learned, how wonderful my teachers were and how I’m already helping people with my knowledge.
And I can do all that with a pen and a paper and no spellwork required. BUUUUUT we can use scripting in combination with those other, more witchy ways, too. We can write these scripts and support them with more traditional spellwork. We can place that scripting journal on our altar every month to charge our intentions with energy and a fresh sense of optimism. We can sprinkle herbs between certain pages that align with the goals written on that page. We can place the journal outside with our jar of water on the full moon so that everything gets a charge. And of course we can still perform magick in our daily lives that aids whatever is currently our top priority.
There was a very famous study done by a psychologist which found that, across age groups, across gender lines, regardless of background or education level, people who wrote down their goals were 42% more likely to achieve them. This study had nothing to do with witchcraft, this was done at a University. And I’ll post a link to that study in the show notes in case you want to read the abstract for yourself. But the point is, even if you can’t get behind the New-Age spiritualist aspect of this practice, you’ve got to at least accept the science. It’s such a simple way to support your goals, it costs nothing but a little of your time each day, and you’re so much more likely to attain what it is you are seeking in this life. So please, make this investment into yourself and into your future and just see what a difference it makes in a year.
I think you will be very pleasantly surprised by what you’re able to accomplish. So, let’s keep an eye out for a good deal on notebooks and maybe decide on a pen, and we will talk again next week. Write to me any time of the day or night at eli@middleagedwitch.com or on socials at @middleagedwitch. My name is Eli Ro, and this has been the MIddle-Aged Witch podcast.
https://www.dominican.edu/sites/default/files/2020-02/gailmatthews-harvard-goals-researchsummary.pdf
