How to Generate A Sorcerer’s Luck

A few years ago I wrote that magicians should not be defined by a complete lack of problems, but how they handle those problems. I hold to that, but my friend Sara Mastros pointed out that a successful Sorcerer should also be accompanied by uncommonly good luck. She’s right. I don’t think any Sorcerer worth their salt should spend their life responding to personal emergencies or fighting for every scrap of progress. If you are a person who keeps a regular practice it is not unreasonable to expect that shit should start to just work out. But like everything else in Strategic Sorcery, there is a skill to it. Luck is not just a condition of birth like your sparkly eyes or that weird 3rd nipple… Luck can be generated.

There are a few methods that I use to generate luck for myself. Try these out and see if your luck gets better.

1. Daily Offerings –

Not just to specific spirits, but widespread offerings. We use four classes in Strategic Sorcery, but it is good enough to just make an offering to the spirits of the air, land, and underworld where you live. Pour some libarion, light some incense. Do it every day. Do. It. Every. Day. Not feeling “receptive” today? Not feeling “into it”? Not “in the right headspace“? Do it anyway. It’s not about you. Take care of the spirits and the spirits will take care of you. Shit will start to work out almost as if the universe is conspiring with you. 1000 unnamed helpers from the land in which you live often outweigh the influence of the Archdemon that you spent 3 hours conjuring.

2. Radical Responsibility

Nothing in life if your fault. Really. Between the push and pull of chance, upbringing you did not control, and genetics that you did not get to pick, how can you be held to blame? Here’s the thing: even though you are not to blame, you are still RESPONSIBLE. Blame is about who did it, responsibility is about who is going to take care of it. Take radical responsibility. This means finding a way that you can take responsibility in every event and interaction you have. Examine it and cultivate ownership of it. When you start to do this, you gain more control. More control gives you more power. Power exercised well results in more shit working out. People also respect someone who takes ownership of their role, so you get more respect and better relations. A person who can be relied on gets more opportunity. Thomas Jefferson said “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” You can only work on what you are responsible for, so take greater ownership of life.

3. Deliberate Relationships

My luck started to change when I started surrounding myself by people I chose deliberately rather than just whoever bounced into my life. I started doing this all the way back in my last year of high school and I made closer and better friendships than I ever had before: people who I would do anything for and who would do anything for me. More than that they represented the kind of person that I wanted to be myself. Do this with people. Do not take people for granted, relationships are work, and if you don’t upkeep them they fall away. Relationships open opportunities. The more opportunities you capitalize on, the more lucky you are.

Don’t just do this with people though. Do it with Gods and Spirits. Work with and serve spirits that reflect who you want to be. If you are aiming to be wealthy and happy, surrounding yourself with wrathful or binding spirits is not the way to go. Those contacts are important to have for sure, and maybe that is your calling, but if not then you need to limit that kind of work. Cultivate deliberate relationships.

4. Relentless Optimism

Expect stuff to work out. That’s it. You don’t have to do a whole New Thought con-job on your brain where you never think negatively, in fact I am a big believer in being prepared for shit NOT to work out. There is a big difference between having a plan for things not working out, and being consumed by pessimism to the degree that at any given moment you are sure that things will not work out. Faith that things will work out work out is rooted in past victories. Thing about what has worked out. Pick smart things to work on and achieve. Build up to bigger things. Optimism comes from confidence. Confidence comes from competence. Competence comes from work that yields actual achievements. Like Monique said to Lane “I think all you need is a small taste of success, and you will find it suits you.”

5. Positive Interpretation

Years back when I transitioned from an off-the-books side gig that made a pittance to a proper company that filed taxes I knew that there would be some kind of back tax fiasco. I did magic to manage that. Eventually it happened and I had my first (and to date, only) tax debacle. Was this bad luck? Did my sorcery fail? NO. It happened at a time that I could actually straighten the issue out and pay my debt to Uncle Sam with relative ease, so it was lucky. That’s how I see it.

Last year I had a large windfall of extra money come in. That same month the heat pump went in the house and it ate up ALL the extra cash. Was this bad luck? NO. It was good luck. It was something that was going to happen eventually,but happened exactly when I could manage it without much difficulty.

Life is full of incidents that we can interpret in different ways. Choose the most positive spin and role with it you lucky bastard!

6. Surround Yourself With Luck

It is wonderful when our inner life can effect our outer circumstance, but sometimes we need to work this in reverse. Talismans for good luck. Amulets to guard against bad luck. All good stuff. I mean just go to Chinatown or a Feng Shui shop and marvel at the infinite number of lucky stuff! Just don’t overdue it, because tidyness also breeds luck. A clean space where everything has a place is a space ready to receive more opportunity.

Seriously, clean up your shit and watch how much more ready you feel to take on some new lucky enterprise.

7. Reject Comfort

Comfort is the enemy of everything great in life. People refuse to explore new opportunities for fear of destabilizing their comfort. They do this even when they are not particularly comfortable, just used to their current level of discomfort. Don’t be a chicken shit – the worst move in the game is not playing. Take the stock market as an example. People don’t invest because they are afraid of market downturns, but even if you invested 1000 on September 10th, before the market crashed after 9/11, and kept it through the great recession of 2008, that one investment would be worth $2500 today. Everything that will get you out of a rut is uncomfortable. Exercise, vegetables, investments, new people, going back to school, starting a business, asking someone out, sharing your real feelings – NONE of it is comfortable. Not doing it is worse though.

The worst part of comfort though is that we mistake it for happiness. Comfort is not happiness, and it is certainly not fulfillment. Richard Corey was the most comfortable guy in town…

The lucky person has to be lucky at something. If there is no challenge, there can be no luck.