Financial Sorcery: Magical Strategies to Create Real and Lasting - Jason Miller 2012

Emergency Magic

Emergency magic is the type of money magic most people are used to. In fact, it is the only type of practical magic most people do at all; all one’s energy gets devoted to everyday pursuits until something goes wrong—at which point the wands come out. In fact, there are a lot of people who claim that practical magic should only ever be used when all mundane methods fail. As you know by now, I completely and utterly disagree with that position. Strategic sorcery is best performed ahead of time and according to a plan, so that problems don’t occur or at least get fixed before they get out of hand.

Another reason to avoid emergency magic is that it is much too easy to stay trapped in a crap job or living situation by fixing all the emergencies that might otherwise force you to do better for yourself. Sometimes what seems like an emergency is actually the universe opening up an opportunity that you might close with your magic. By being proactive with magic, the sorceress knows whether these little glitches might support her overall life plan.

One of the principles in Strategic Sorcery is that “emergency magic is bad magic.” I wrote that to show that real sorcerers are not simply responding to emergencies or staving off problems, but are taking control of their lives and using magic to accomplish things they actively want. The truth is that no matter how strategic you are, emergencies happen, and if you are a magician, you had better use your magical skills to sort it out.

Magic used for emergencies is often some of the most powerful, immediate, and exact magic people ever do. I’ve often heard stories about how people were, for example, $500 short with the rent, did a spell, and got exactly $500 just in time. No more, no less. I myself used to do this kind of thing all the time in my 20s when I was living in the city. I would need some fast cash and suddenly I would get the opportunity to participate in a paid focus group, or I would find some money in the street, or perhaps someone would need an odd job done that I could do. However it manifested, it always seemed to work. Emergencies should not be the main thrust of magic, but there is no denying that magic is great at helping fix them.

Money-drawing spells are the stock and trade of money magic: You need a certain amount of money, you ask for it, it shows up. Simple. The very first spell I ever did for another person was a money-drawing spell for an exact sum. My friend challenged me to conjure him $50. So I made him a talisman and three days later he found a wallet someone left on a roller coaster with exactly $50 in it.

Here are a few spells that I rely upon w ~you hpleshen I need to pull in money.

Lightning Glyphs

You will remember that the first of Jupiter’s Lightning Glyphs is a simple money-drawing sigil that can be used in a multitude of spells. I like to draw it out in money-drawing powder and write the figure representing the amount of cash I need in the circle on the sigil. I make sure that as I draw the sigil, I draw all lines from the outside in toward the circle. I usually pray to Jupiter for seven nights and then take the powder and the written amount and carry it in a bag until I receive it.

Petitions

A petition is both a spell unto itself and a part of many other spells. Petitions can take many forms, from symbolic sigil sentences and highly detailed letters to the gods, to something as simple as your name written on top of someone else’s name whom you wish to get the better of.

There are specialty inks such as Dragon’s Blood that are excellent for financial magic, but if you cannot get your hands on one of these, you can also consecrate normal ink, or even a pen, to the work. Once written, the petition can be dressed with oil and passed through incense to consecrate it.

There is also an art to folding a petition. If you are drawing something to you, you should take care to fold the petition towards you. Do the reverse if the petition is meant to repel something.

There are a lot of ways to work with a petition, but the simplest is to place them on an altar and set a symbolic object on them. For short-term petitions, this is often a seven-day candle dressed with the appropriate oil. For longer-term petitions you can set a large lodestone or statue of a deity on top of it.

Money Baths

Taking a bath is a great way to reverse bad money luck or set yourself up for positive cash flow. Being completely immersed in the magic that you are trying to work seems to always do the trick for me. I have found baths to be one of the fastest-acting types of practical magic one can engage in.

The first consideration when putting together a bath ritual is the water itself. Traditionally you would use water from a natural source such as a spring, a lake, or water collected during rainstorms. If you live near a sacred spring or river, that is ideal as a source of water, but the general idea is that the more natural the source of the water, the better. That said, I will admit that most of the time I end up using tap water, and I suspect most of my clients do as well. It is far better to use tap water than not to take the bath at all!

After you are settled on the water to be used, you need to know what you are adding to the bath. Formulas typically call for three or more ingredients, usually odd numbers. These ingredients can be mineral, herbal, or zoological, and what they symbolize defines the nature of the bath.

You can purchase baths pre-made from a reputable supplier, but if you don’t have access to one or just need to do it all yourself, here are a few solid formulas:

Money-Drawing Bath: Bayberry leaf, Myrrh, Irish moss Fast Luck Bath: Cinnamon, wintergreen, and vanilla

Reverse Bad Money Luck Bath: Eucalyptus, nine pieces of Devil’s Shoe String, sassafras

Job-Finding Bath: Gravel root, salt, licorice root

I should mention here that the ritual bath is not supposed to get you physically clean. You are not concerned with lathering anh l-actd shampooing, only with ritual. The manner in which you wash during the bath is very important: scrub up from the feet to the head to draw things to you, down from the head to the feet to push energy away from you, and soak to alleviate symptoms. During the bath there is often the reading of a spell or prayer. The invocation of Jupiter or the four goddesses would work, as would the 23rd Psalm, or any other prayer traditionally aimed at increasing wealth.

Key Spells

There are times when the emergency is not just about needing a sum of money; it’s having no idea what to do next. At times like these I use a key spell to unlock a new opportunity. I take a skeleton key and touch it to seven doors: a bank, a courthouse, a church, a store, a hospital, a business, and my home. I will also sometimes wrap cord that has been soaking in a specific condition oil such as Road Opener or Wealthy Way oil around the key.

I then take the key to a crossroads at dawn and place it in the center of the roads. I make an invocation to Papa Legba, the Vodou Loa that opens the gates, and ask that he bless the key and make it open new opportunities for me that I cannot currently see. You can call upon a different power, but I learned the spell from a Vodou priest and have an ongoing relationship with Papa, so I stick to him.

Lamp Spells

Lamps are a great way to keep constant pressure on a situation until something breaks. To make one, simply fill a bowl, coconut shell, or other receptacle with olive oil or vegetable oil. Add to this base a few drops of condition oils that impact the work, and some solid herbs that can sit in the oil. Finally, write out a petition and place the lamp on top of it, or, if you make sure that the oil does not ever get low enough to set it on fire, you can submerge it at the bottom of the bowl. Here are some different recipes for different ends.

Lamp Spell to Obtain a Loan: Crown of Success oil, alfalfa leaves, Myrrh, Frankincense, calamus, 16 allspice berries, High John the Conqueror

Lamp Spell for Emergency Funds: Fast Luck and Attraction oil, chamomile flowers, cinnamon, Irish moss, alkanet, basil, some shredded aluminum foil or metallic glitter

Lamp Spell for Getting Promoted: Wealthy Way oil, High John the Conqueror root, gravel root, licorice root, calamus root, benzoin powder, buckeye nut

Lamp Spell for Legal Issues: Court Case oil and Money Stay With Me oil, sassafras root, galangal root, High John root, Cascara Sagrada, oregano

The most important thing to remember about working with the lamp is to pray over it whenever you light it and to never let the oil run out. You must always refill it. Some people recommend leaving it lit all day and all night, and even go to great lengths to do this safely—for example, placing the lamp in their bathtub. As I already mentioned, I just can’t bring myself to do this. I extinguish the lamp at night and relight it the next day when I can watch it. I never leave it unattended. To me it is better to keep it on an altar and relight it than it is to move it someplace like a bathtub and keep it lit. To each his own.

Conjure Hands

A Conjure Hand is also known as a mojo bag or gris-gris bag.¹ These bags are a staple of the American Hoodoo tradition and are made for a variety of purposes. Thf ps, Myrrey consist of the components that we listed previously, gathered into a drawstring bag of an appropriate color or bound up in cloth, as is the style in New Orleans. The number of ingredients should traditionally be an odd number; three, seven, and nine are the most common. You should avoid bags with more than 13 ingredients as these just get too complex. Here are two recipes you might find useful.

Job-Finding Bag: Job-finding glyph, High John the Conqueror for mastery, gravel root for job-finding, lodestone for drawing job offers like a magnet, licorice root for influence, steady work powder, chamomile for speed, cinnamon for money, Irish moss for business

Money-Drawing Bag: Money-Drawing Glyph, lodestone for drawing money, seven sunflower seeds for illumination, nine pieces of Devil’s Shoe String for protecting the money you get, bayberry for money drawing, 16 allspice berries for business dealings, chamomile for added power, cinqfoil for manipulation, a gator hand tied to the outside of the bag so that it can grab any money the bag attracts

Traditionally, once the bag is made you would add a few drops of oil to “feed” it once a week and to stir the powers you placed in it. Some people talk to their Conjure Hands as though they were living things, giving them up-to-the-minute instructions on what is needed.

Consecrated Jewelry

Not everything has to be done with herbs and oils. In fact, when it comes to any kind of business-related magic, I much prefer a consecrated metal talisman or paper seal hidden away, rather than a bulky bag that smells like a hippie is hiding in my pocket.

You can find an appropriate talisman from a grimoire and purchase one from an occult supplier. You can also go through the trouble of commissioning or engraving one on your own. If you have the talent, then there is power in that kind of work. If you don’t have the talent though, do not listen to those who claim that all things done yourself are better than things you purchase made by others. Spending hours working on something only to have it look like crap is not adding anything to your magic. You would do much better getting one made professionally so that when you look at it, it inspires you to the work rather than reminding you of the nine hours you spent agonizing over something that you now secretly loathe.

You do not even need something with occult symbols evident upon it. In certain environments it is probably better not to have anything like that on your person. Got a golden cross or Star of David? Perfect solar talisman! Got a silver fairy necklace? You can ask a spirit to inhabit that! Have a ring with a gemstone in it? Consecrate it to a power consistent with the stone in question. I have a platinum ring with star sapphire that used to belong to my grandfather, which has been consecrated to Jupiterian work. Take a look at what you have and work with it.

Paper Seals

If you must use occult symbols, you might consider working with parchment or paper seals. The Lightning Glyphs of Jupiter are perfect for this. Draw them out, consecrate them with oil (preferably one without a strong scent), and keep them on your person in a symbolic place. Some ideas for placement:

Money-Drawing, Money-Holding: Put it in your wallet.

Promotion, Sweetening, Dominating: Pin it inside your tie or under your shirt behind your tie.

Protection from Law, Reversing Bad Luck, Legal Matters: Pin it on the inside of your jacket. Wear it like a shield.

Intelligence-Gathering, Pure Luck: Place it on the inside of your hat so that it is on your head. If you don’t wear a hat, place it inside your collar.

I should also mention that those who are used to working on the purely energetic level can install these glyphs into their subtle body in a number of ways. You can simply brand them onto your aura with visualization, or you can see them spinning and multiplying within your channels and power centers. There are even ways to permanently affix versions of them to your energy body, but that kind of work is best taught in person.

Spells to Control Speech

Sometime the emergency is not a need for money, but a need to stop someone else who is sabotaging your efforts. This happens more often than you might think. I have already covered spells to confuse or expel coworkers who are blocking promotions for you, but sometimes the fastest route is to affect their speech directly.

When I need to bind someone’s speech there are two methods I use:

1. Speech Cord. This is a very simple piece of magic that requires nothing but a string. First cleanse the string with saltwater or whiskey to remove any previous patterning. Then take the string somewhere that you will be in earshot of the target, but not seen, such as in another cubicle at work or in another room at home. Tie a knot loosely in the string, but do not pull it tight yet. Call the target’s name, and the exact moment he or she answers, pull the knot tight! Do this until there are 10 knots in the string, and then once more to seal the loop with the 11th and final knot. You will be a bit conspicuous, not to mention annoying, if you try to get all 11 knots in one day, so break it up over several days. Once you have your ladder of 11 knots you can use it as a rosary to control the person’s speech. You can count the knots like beads as you chant a desire such as “Speak no ill of me.” You can also take the cord and place it in jar of honey and sugar to sweeten the person’s speech about you, or place it in a freezer to freeze his or her speech entirely.

2. Tongue Spells. If you want to kick it up a notch you can purchase a beef tongue from a butcher, cut it open, and place links to your target inside. Sew it up with black cord and wrap it up in dark cloth with Saturn symbols on it. Freeze it, sweeten it, or burn it for the desired effect upon the speech of the target. I have one student who ate the tongue after the spell and claimed to be able to get the target to agree to whatever he asked from that point forward.

Jupiter and the Goddesses

Returning to the chapter on Jupiter and the four goddesses, if you are in need of a complete financial makeover, let me recommend the following.

Set up an altar with the Seal of Jupiter from Agrippa drawn on the altar cloth. Place one blue candle in the center that has the sigil of Jupiter etched or painted onto it as well as your own name or seal. At the four other points of the seal place four other blue or white candles that have the names of the four goddesses written upon them.

Light the center candle and perform the invocation to Jupiter. Follow this with the invocation of the four goddess attendants and light their candles when you speak their names in the invocation. After the invocation you can ask for help in your own words. Just be sure to address all the figures. Say something lik son of the e this:

Oh Father Jove, All Good and All Powerful, please rescue me from my own lack of wisdom. Guide me in the ways of financial stability. Bless my efforts with success and increase my holdings in this world. By your name I call upon Libertas to free me from the bonds of debt and servitude. I call upon Victoria to win my fights against debt and distraction. I call upon Concordia, that all may look kindly upon me and assist me in my efforts. I call upon Abundantia that I may become wealthy on both the inner and outer levels.

Follow this call for help with the mantra, IOVIS OPTIMUS MAXIMUS. Repeat it slowly and loudly, each time getting more and more forceful. You can accompany it with a drum or banging if you wish. At the last repetition add the syllable “HO!” to release the power. IOVIS OPTIMUS MAXIMUS HO!

Do this nine nights in a row during the hour of Jupiter. After the ninth night allow the candles to burn down. Even if you have to keep lighting them every night for a week, you should continue until they are burned down.

Mundane Steps

Most of this chapter has been about spell craft rather than strategy. This is appropriate because we are talking about dealing with emergency situations that affect your other strategies for job finding, promotion, or money management. Still, we must not forget that magic and mundane steps should always be taken together, and emergencies are no exception.

If you need money in a hurry, you cannot sit around and wait for your spell to work. You need to go out and create some opportunities through which that magic can manifest. It is when people do a spell for money and sit on their laurels that bad things happen. This is where the aunt dies, leaving you $10,000 in her will, or your car gets hit hard enough to generate an insurance payout in the amount of money you needed, but is still drivable. Yes, you get your money, but now you are driving a beat-up car or have a dead aunt.²

There are a lot of ways to get money in a hurry, but not all of them are good. Some are easy and fast but don’t yield much cash. Others make you more cash but are maybe not as fast as you need. Still others may have serious financial penalties. Here are some ideas for you to work into your emergency strategies.

Sell Your Stuff: Everybody has stuff they can get rid of. You may even own something that is worth more than you think. If you have a blog, you can start there. Amazon, eBay, and Craigslist are online options with a wide audience. I would suggest a yard sale or flea market, but more often than not, the shoppers that frequent such events are looking to spend so little that unless you happen to have a metric ton of blue glass bottles lying around the house, it just is not worth it.

Mystery Shopping: Not a good way to make big bucks, and not a way to get it on demand. Still, it can be a fun way to make some spare cash, and your magic might just make the stars align to get you the right assignment at the right time.

Advertize on Your Vehicle: There are companies who will pay $100 to $1,000 to you for the right to advertize their company on your vehicle. Go to GetPaidtoDriver.com and see what is available.

Part-Time Job: Pretty obvious, but worth mentioning. If you can’t wait two weeks for a paycheck, look into waiting tables or bartending, where you get paere otherid in tips. It doesn’t have to be a great job, just one that gives you what you need. When the emergency is over you can quit—or you can use the extra cash to start investing in your retirement.

Food Pantries and Emergency Assistance: Are things really bad? Look for food pantries and other programs that offer help either from the state or from churches and charities. It is not something that pays you directly, but money not spent on food, or interview clothes, is money in your pocket.

Rent out Parking Space: Do you live near a train station with a lot that gets filled up? If you have a driveway, you can rent a spot in your yard to a commuter on a monthly basis. I know someone who makes an extra $600 a month this way.

Medical Testing: This can actually yield some big money depending upon what you are willing to do. I have a friend who made several thousand dollars participating in a five-day study of sleep deprivation. Most of the time it is a few hundred dollars to try a new vaccine. Look for research facilities and keep looking at their announcements for studies you qualify for.

Sell Yourself: I don’t mean like that! I mean your plasma, hair, and perhaps even sperm or eggs. Most hospitals will let you donate plasma twice a week. Sperm donation is more complicated and requires a commitment of at least six months of regular visits, during which you are not allowed to masturbate or have sex.

Turking: Some companies are so automated that they pay people online to perform the few tasks that cannot be turned over to a machine. The name Turking comes from the 18th-century chess-playing automaton that was later revealed not to be a machine at all, but a chess master hidden inside a contraption that made it look like a machine. It does not pay much, but you can go to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Website, https://www.mturk.com/mturk/we/rome, and see the thousands of Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) that are available and what they pay.

Focus Groups: I did this several times when I was younger and it was a quick way to make 50 to 100 bucks. Plus, many of them are fun!

Raiding Retirement: I will talk about investments and retirement funds in the next chapter, but I would be remiss if I did not at least mention the possibility of withdrawing funds from a retirement account. This often comes at a very steep penalty unless you are past retirement age. There are options though: You can sometimes take a 60-day IRA loan. If you’re buying a house, you can usually withdraw $10,000 from an IRA for a down payment without penalty. Check with your bank to see all the rules that may apply to your situation. Medical situations, unemployment status, disability—all may impact the penalty that you pay for early withdrawal. In general, though, it is almost always a bad idea to touch retirement savings. Unless someone is going to break your legs, try to find another way.

Raiding Life Insurance: If you have whole life insurance you are paying extra for the ability to withdraw money from it before you die. Again, not something I would recommend, but an option in truly dire situations.

These are just a few options for emergencies; I am sureiesou die. A that you can think of many others. I don’t recommend them as perpetual secondary income streams, but they can be great for making some quick cash in a pinch. Just remember to always meet your magical efforts with cunning efforts in the mundane world as well.

References and Resources

Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells, by Judika Illes (HarperOne, March 31, 2009). Is 5,000 spells enough for you? Judica knows her stuff. This should be on everyone’s shelf.

Craigslist: www.craigslist.org. Great place to sell your stuff and make some quick cash. Even if you think no one wants it, trust me, someone on Craigslist wants it.

eBay: www.ebay.com. Auction your stuff. Many people are able to turn eBay into a tidy secondary income for themselves, but it is also good for quick cash.

Centerwatch: www.centerwatch.com. Global resource for finding clinical trials that might pay you for participation. Also see the National Institute of Health at www.nih.gov/health/clinicaltrials/index.htm.

Amazon Mechanical Turk: www.mturk.com. Make money Turking online.

Find Focus Groups: www.findfocusgroups.com. Find paying focus groups near you.