Somebody wrote in and said, "I've been manifesting things, but it's not working. Tell me why."

This is her email:

I so love this question, because it sits at the heart of so much of the misguided advice I run into online.

We went back and forth a little, and what she's really after is two things. She wants her nursing license back, and she thinks she can get it.

Her words:

And she's in love with somebody who doesn't love her back:

Okay. So here is the deal.

Manifestation is an indication of the existence, reality, or presence of something.

That is literally the dictionary definition. So when people talk about manifesting, what they're asking is, how do I get evidence of the reality of the thing I want?

And this woman is thinking about it, carrying pictures around, oiling candles and lighting them. What does any of that have to do with material evidence of her desire showing up in her actual life? I have no idea.

What I do know about making change in your real life is pretty simple, and it's also pretty easy. But it's a practice, and the trouble with a practice is that it requires effort. It's actual work. (But it does work).

So my pitch for magic is this:

You're gonna be alive on this Earth doing whatever it is you're doing anyway. Do you want to be putting energy towards something that's not gonna be the outcome you want, or do you wanna put energy towards something that leads you exactly where you want to be?

One of the basic tenets of magic is that transformation happens in an altered state of consciousness. By that I don't mean high, or on some drug. I mean a state of consciousness different from the one you're in every day, the one you're in right now reading this, or when you're driving your car, or working at your job, or gardening, or whatever you're doing. There are other levels of consciousness you can access so you can line them up together and help bring about the thing you're trying to make true.

Usually you reach an altered state through ritual. So what this woman is doing with the candle and the oil is part of a ritual, and it's part of a ritual that can be incredibly powerful and that works most of the time.

But if you don't know that the candle is there to put you in a different state of consciousness so you can get every part of yourself behind the same goal, you can oil that candle until you're blue in the face and it isn't going to change a thing.

Magic works when you work it, which is why I always make the difference between magical thinking and magical working. Me sitting around with a picture of a person I want to come see me, wishing for it, is magical thinking. Me getting really clear on why it's for my highest benefit and for his that we get together, and then picking up the freaking phone and telling him to show up, is what actually works the magic.

Because it isn't only about lining up the three levels of your consciousness. It's about having every aspect of yourself working together.

By 'aspect of yourself,' I mean:

• your mind, meaning your intellect, your deep intelligence, your ideas;
• your heart, meaning how you're feeling and what emotions you're carrying;
• your body, meaning what action you're actually taking in the real world;
• your energy, your energetic presence, what you could call your soul.

We're not here for the metaphysical takedown right now, but getting all of those aligned is what makes a desire show up in real life.

So building a ritual without understanding what the ritual is for probably isn't going to work. The purpose of the ritual is to make a sacred space where you can reach an altered state of consciousness, so you can align the three levels of your consciousness behind the thing you want to see come true, in her case the man or the nursing license. Then you do the work of getting the rest of yourself aligned behind it too, your emotions and your energy and your ideas and your actions.

Take her nursing license. She says she just needs to take the exam and pass it, and then she'll probably get it back. Great. Do that. And if that doesn't work, then we can start working magic, because the path to the license looks pretty straightforward to me.

Now, if she's studying for that test and putting everything she has into it and she keeps failing and failing and failing, then maybe we want to do the work that is the magic, to understand what part of her might be misaligned or resisting.

Or maybe spirit has other plans, which is part of the levels of consciousness too. If she lost that license because she did something really messed up and it isn't in the best interest of humanity for her to be practicing as a nurse, it might not happen.

Because when a spell doesn't work, it's usually for two reasons and two reasons only.

The first is that what you want may not be for the highest good of all. You might think it's going to give you happiness and all these wonderful things and then it doesn't, or it's good for you and bad for somebody else. Magic assumes a deeper wisdom that is considering the whole collective rather than only you.

The second is that the timing isn't right, and again, that's a wisdom considering the entirety of existence rather than your particular circumstance.

Your current practice of manifestation is obsessing over what you want and lighting a candle you don't understand the purpose of. That probably isn't gonna work.

Learning to work magic is the craft of transforming reality, which is manifestation but on steroids, because it works every time. It isn't only thinking about what you want and visualizing it and thinking positive. That's part of it. That's totally part of it.

But if you've done that and you've lit the candle and it's still not moving, it's probably because a bunch of the pieces are missing from your process.

And if you want to learn how to work the whole thing, you're literally in the right place, because that is exactly what I teach.

The waiting list for Liberation Magic, my 13-week program where all of this is the actual curriculum, is open. If you want to hear first when the doors do, put your name down here.

And whether or not that's for you, hit reply and tell me one thing you've been trying to manifest, and what you've actually done about it in the real world. I read every one.

Courage, truth, and infinite love,

I don’t believe in magic, but I know that it works! Magic is not a belief system, it’s a practice that works. Don’t believe me? Come try it out. If it doesn’t work, you lose nothing. But if it does… your dream life is about to begin! About Me →

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