Power: the Secret to Wealth Magic?

Rune Soup,* a chaos magic blog written by a certifiable lunatic with a good heart, has an interesting article on Wealth Magic today. I particularly like that he's advancing Jason's theories about wealth magic, which I've found helpful myself. 

Gordon hit on something that resonates with my own pet project regarding wealth magic for the last year. He says:

Move your focus from ‘money’ to ‘earning power’.

Like old banana breath in the clip above, I feel like I've "reached the top and had to stop, and that's what's been bothering me." I've got money magic down. I can conjure five-digit windfalls with the wave of a wand, or at least by lighting a candle and muttering under my breath near my favorite spirit pot.** That's not bad, really, but I never seem to get enough all at once to make a useful fortune. In the time between windfalls, I rack up enough debt to eat away whatever I conjure for myself.***

A while ago, Fr. S.L. and I had a series of conversations about the nature of wealth and why money magic isn't getting me where I want to be. He showed me the true definition of wealth, and that, along with Jason's  theory (summarized on Gordon's post) has reshaped the way I think about prosperity magic.

What do we really want when we ask for wealth or money? I propose that most of us really want power. We want the power to do what we want, whenever we want, without the stress of bills. We want to live off the interest of our total holdings, and live well. We don't want our actions ruled by the bills.

The solution we see most obviously in our culture is more money, but maybe we're aiming at the wrong target. When I read Gordon's quote above about moving the focus to earning power, it was like hearing a bell chime in the distance. He's talking about the power to earn more money, but it resonated with me as "doing the magic to acquire power."

When I read through the descriptions of the spirits of the Lemegeton's Goetia, I used to see the spirits that bestow temporal dignities as being for social climbers and politicians. But the more I think about it, while the wealthy do tend to have power, the powerful also tend to have a lot of wealth. The spirits are good at bestowing windfalls, but the size of the windfall I'd need to have the power to be free from the chains of my debts is much larger than I've seen the spirits deliver. And while they're great at getting me more revenue streams and higher incomes, I don't want to have to be more tied to a computer to maintain what I have. As many people teach, you've got to give the spirits a way to manifest the money. The common denominator I've seen in my wealth magic manifestation is work; TANSTAAFL.

As many of you know, I'm a bullshit artiste. One of my core tenets is that bullshit makes the flowers grow, and that's beautiful. My bullshit isn't false, it's just fun. I try to use my gift of BSery to make the world a better place, inspire people to do more with what they have, to get over their hangups and achieve their highest potential. I believe magic is the best way to do that for magicians.****

Over the years, I've often dreamed of using the BS gift God gave me to get rich. I usually dream of being a Megachurch pastor who gets out before everything falls to shit, or by writing something like the Secret that gets wildly popular and makes me rich.  I've also considered politics, mostly for the health benefits for life that you get after serving two terms.

But lately I've been thinking that maybe the best way to use this gift is to provide a manifestation path for rites to get dignities, places, and favor of friends and foes, or in other words, to gain temporal power. Being subtle in the art of ass kissery in the workplace has already gotten me onto other projects and is getting the attention of the upper level executives at work. A well-timed rite might just give me the boost I need to land permanently in a position of power there.

With power comes wealth. The execs make a lot more than the cattle in the cube farms. It comes with more responsibility too, but they get more vacation time to compensate. I figure it's at least worth a shot.

I still need to do a lot of Work on my spending habits, of course, and I plan to do so through the spirits of Jupiter. Tzadqiel tried to teach me to budget properly before, but would I listen? Of course not. Once I've mastered that, and at the same time earned more power, I figure the wealth will come naturally.

But I have a sneaking suspicion it's still going to take a lot of work.


* I've known Gordo for years, intermittently, and he's a good egg, but he used to be ... unstable. But I'll say this for him, he may be crazy sometimes, but he's 100% sincere. And his madness could even be the divine kind, the kind that people get afflicted with on purpose for the greater good. Or he's nuts. Definitely one of the two.

** I deposited a five-figure check into my account yesterday, in fact, and it's pretty much spent before it posts. Spent on refurnishing the house that caught on fire to get me the money I conjured. Sigh.

*** That's because I don't  spend wisely. That's all about to change because I plan to make money my slave, as Jason teaches in his prosperity intensive.

**** I am a member of the tautology club because I am a member of the tautology club.