Hands-On Chaos Magic: Reality Manipulation through the Ovayki Current - Andrieh Vitimus 2009

Conditioning Success

Rewarding Yourself

Many magical texts, including this one, use draconian methods to teach the mind discipline and control. These methods are sometimes effective, but there are other ways to induce results.

Kicking Your Mind's Ass and Then Giving It Candy

The focusing exercises that appeared earlier in our adventure can be difficult. The mind likes being lazy, since we all have a lot to think about. One way to counteract the revolt against this sort of discipline is to bribe yourself. For instance, if you can sit, relax, and be mentally silent for five minutes one day, and then the next day you can work up to six minutes, give yourself a treat. Every time there is improvement, treat yourself. If you really enjoy chocolate, only allow yourself chocolate if you succeed at doing better (although given our society's flawed weight image, perhaps choosing something else is more appropriate). Sex (even self-pleasuring) is another highly effective bribing tool. Any addiction, habit, strong like, etc., you have can be used as a reward to bribe yourself into better performance at first. The most important thing when you are starting out is to begin the habit of daily practice and get yourself to do that however you can.

For the psychology majors reading this, this is a type of behavioral conditioning that works at a low level. Both your conscious and subconscious minds understand this. It is a good idea to switch the "reward" often to different things you like. If you don't switch the reward to different things, you will condition the improvement to the reward and entrench that reward as a needed addiction. Psychology will tell us that the best way to get results is to use intermittent and random rewards of varying strength.

For the first two weeks, reward yourself. This helps to set up a pattern and your mind will adapt to it. After the two weeks, tell yourself that a big reward is coming. The mechanism of reward is a bit tricky, but two six-sided dice work well for me.

The Dice Game of Training

You will need two different-colored six-sided dice. The rules of this game are very simple. Make yourself a list of rewards. Break the list into two categories: big rewards and small rewards. The things you really want should be on both lists. Have a couple big rewards that are truly jackpot rewards such as a new iPod (provided you can afford one). The jackpot rewards on the big list should be rare-within your means to get but difficult to obtain. The big rewards might be bought stuff or simply things that you do not get to do often that you really enjoy. The small rewards could be things that generate minor enjoyment, such as getting an ice cream cone. Mark and number these two lists and carry them with you. Each morning, pick a combination for the small and large list. So if you had purple and black dice, an example would be to pick two for the purple one and five for the black one. The purple die would represent the small list, and black die would represent the large list.

If during the day you practice an exercise you are working on, and you obtain better results than the day before and complete what you need to get done during the day, you get to roll the die associated with the small list. When you roll the die, if your number matches the number you choose for the small list, you get to have that thing. Now, if you were successful in obtaining an item off the small list, roll your die associated with the big reward list. If your number matches the big reward list number you picked in the morning, randomly select a big reward. It is very important that these are randomly selected-you are only cheating yourself if you're not doing the selection right. You have to tell yourself to do everything you need to get done in the day if you want to reward yourself for both practicing magical studies and being a fully functioning human.

In America, we do not live in a world where we have the option of practicing meditation for twelve hours a day, so we have to be able to survive and prosper in this world as an indication of magical success. Life, work, magic, and play should all be in balance. If you roll a jackpot, go to the store and get the item, or set up the steps to have the experience (if the jackpot item is a trip, service, or meal). As you are enjoying your reward, keep telling yourself that it is because you have been practicing and are getting better. Do not do this exercise with magical rituals or actual magical rites, only practice and training exercises.

The key is to not allow yourself to have items on either list you made unless you roll the dice. This means that you are successfully balancing things in your life while getting better at practicing as well. This kind of gambler's reward system actually is more inducing and compelling than rewarding yourself for every success. No matter what, however, you should pat yourself on the back every time you see progress. Before I started playing this game, I rewarded myself every time I improved, but this was costing too much money. Randomizing rewards is psychologically a cheaper and more effective way to induce a new habit. When you start doing magical rites for things in this world or for illumination, every success should be celebrated and rewarded. Make a big deal out of your successes and remember them.

Using Setbacks

NLP and psychology both state that there is no failure, only feedback. Martial artists practice all the time for the one time that it really matters. Practicing magic is very similar for me. I practice all the time for the situations when the magic must work, and by "must work" I mean the situations that push you to the breaking point. (Sometimes you have to break to get better, by the way.)

Failures, when you are practicing or doing magic for things you only sort of want, are a kind of feedback. Every time something does not work, think about what happened and come up with positives and negatives to the situation and write them down in your journal. If you think about it, every experience can give you some feedback if you let the experience speak to you. Were you not clear on what you wanted? Was there outside resistance? Was the timing off? Did you not do the things you needed to back up the magic with actions in this world? Carefully examine your ritual experiences and magic experiences to get a sense of what worked tremendously well and what didn't go so well. Try to get some distance from the situation.

Look at what patterns in your life seem to produce better results. It might be as simple as noticing that you practice better at 8 a.m. than at 8 p.m., or that you seem to get better results practicing in a forest than in your room. That is information hidden in the pattern of your journal that you can look at to figure out how to improve your results. In the room example, perhaps a few plants will make it more comfortable. For instance, I always get better results meditating to music than silence. I choose very soothing music, but the silence doesn't quiet down my mind. Now, for challenges, I meditate in silence, since that pattern also displays a weakness. Again, information is information, and you can use every bit to become better at magic.

Using Successful Holographic Affirmations

When you have free time, another trick that is highly effective is to imagine, with all five of the senses, successfully performing rituals and achieving results. This exercise should be done in the daydream level of trance. This is to mentally prime yourself so that you will be successful in your magical acts. Pick random situations and random rituals in the daydream state. Add as much detail as possible to the visualizations, and see yourself succeeding at the rituals and getting real-world results.

Of course, this exercise works just as well for mundane skills and practices. Whatever your goal may be, you can prime yourself by visualizing success in that area before attempting to achieve that goal.

"I Can" Exercise

For a week, in every situation that permits it and once every twenty minutes during the waking day, just say "I can." Obviously, use your discretion and apply this only to things you want to do (saying "I can do it" to somebody who is trying to manipulate you is not going to help you). But for any situation in which you want to do something, say out loud, "I can," and then continue to do this every twenty minutes or so. Does it matter what you think you can do? Nope ... because you can do anything. This exercise is in line with the earlier NLP chapter as well; adding the information of "I can" to any situation will have an impact on the meaning of experiences you have.

How did you feel after a week of doing this exercise? After a month?

Being Honest with Yourself

This chapter marks a turning point in the book. The process of selfexamination will be a consistent tool. Everyone indubitably will lie to themselves at some level; however, you consciously have to try to be honest with yourself. Convincing yourself that you want something you don't want will not improve your life any more than an athlete can help his performance by convincing himself that his rib isn't broken (when it is). We have to acknowledge what limitations we might have. These limitations and difficulties are challenges that want to be overcome, and in overcoming them amazing things become possible.

Just sit and start to think of anything that you want. Ask yourself why you want that thing or experience. Does the desire come from within you, or is it more of a response to advertising? What needs are fulfilled by what you want? What strengths do you have that could help you obtain what you want? What weaknesses hold you back? Ask yourself questions, meditate, and think about what you would need in order to obtain what you want for yourself or others. Before you do any magic, it is critically important to know what's inside yourself, and several of the next chapters will discuss that very topic.