It seems to me that in most ritual sabbat celebration, there is an element of each of these things. These are like Masses in which you sort of go for the magical buckshot approach for a seasonal tide.

The same elements exist in ceremonial magic that is pointed more toward “altering” reality to bring about a change through an act of will, but the emphasis is more on the petition part, with the twist that one isn’t so much humbling oneself before the (insert deity of choice here) but working to raise oneself to that vibration and draw as many correspondences on all planes to oneself as one can to focus and clean that frequency, thereby opening the way for the magic to happen.

So, some magic is more like ‘prayer’ in the conventional sense, but then other magic really isn’t, to my mind, because ‘prayer’ to me is a conversation with the Divine — and I emphasize the LISTENING part of ‘conversation’ there.

My personal view of magic is indeed that the Universe conspires to help us, as you say, but that there is a ‘magic without tears’ approach that involves a more broad view that many self-centered magicians lack. In other words, the Universe conspires to help us and magic works when we can get as close to that Universal vision as possible.

As you said, all prayers get answered and magic is always EFFECT-ive: sometimes we can’t see it (i.e., “The answer is ‘no’” or “I didn’t get my desired effect”), but we do see it best when magic ‘works’ in line with our will. I think generally that only happens when we asymptotically approach the great evolutionary ‘will’ of the Universe, the path that is governed by our Higher Self (big ‘I’) as opposed to ego (little ‘i’).

I guess that sounds a little like pre-determination, but it isn’t. It’s about finding the easiest path through the thicket of Matter. It’s awfully difficult to work from the grosser and more mundane planes upward. That’s why listening to what is flowing down from the higher planes is so important… and that’s where prayer/listening and meditation before or as an integral part of ceremonial magic and ritual come in. [_]

Thanks for this post Theo.