“Whatever works” does not equal whatever’s easiest.

Because here’s the thing: if you do magic, any magic, chances are something will happen. You will get some result. You will have some kind of experience or “message”. At bare minimum you will get the “feels” (“feels like it worked…” “I felt the presence….”). You can walk away and say “I did it that way and it worked“. Better yet, when someone is on the internet suggesting something more than complete half-assery you can shout them down and say “I DID IT AND IT WORKED!!!”

I would like everyone that reads this to take a pledge: I will never say “Whatever Works” again.

Lets all shoot for more that, yea?

Let’s not measure success by whether we feel a spirit or get a message or not. Lets measure it in terms of depth of experience. Did it actually change you by being in its presence? Did it actually tell you something you didnt already know? Did it challenge you in any way or did it just affirm you? Is what it said useful?

Lets not measure success by whether we got a result that we can attribute or not. I am sure that you did not go through the trouble of summoning Bune just to find $30 in a money clip on the street. Let’s go for more than that. Did we get something commensurate with our effort? Did it work in a reasonable amount of time or was that spell done 6 months ago?

Let’s not do the least we can get away with. By all means, let us not be slaves to the past, I am not a “do it by the book” guy. Let’s know what we are throwing out or replacing because we have actually done the thing. Let’s not use the most condensed text just to save time, instead lets use it to explore longer chanting, trance, congress, or whatever the experiential part of the rite is. Let’s not streamline to make things easier – let’s streamline because we are striving for excellence.