Faith/Manifestation

Faith and manifestation are a somewhat different way of looking at magic than will and desire. One’s will comes from within oneself, whereas faith is the belief and trust in a higher being, or at least a different being, that the magickal effect one is seeking will come about because it is meant to be.

When you look at faith in this way, you can see that saying a prayer or performing a sacrifice (including fasting or giving things up for Lent) is closely related to casting magick. You are begging a god or other being to intervene in reality on your behalf. Prayer, unlike magic, requires that the god bend his or her will to fulfilling your effect, and thus depends on someone outside yourself. Prayer is supplication; magic is a demand or order.

Faith also requires that the supplicant chalk up any failures in what he or she has requested to the god’s choice not to hear or grant that wish. It is often hard to maintain faith when the god has denied you more than once!

Manifestation Magic

Manifestation is a little different from faith, though the faith must exist prior to manifestation. In manifestation, the god or goddess appears directly to intervene or work will for you. This may mean that he or she appears as a separate entity, or that he or she takes over your body or that of someone else to use as an avatar in their will workings.

Manifestation is a common theme of sexual magic. When a couple makes love, the point of orgasm brings each closer to the godhead than they are likely to be at any other time in their lives. In the Wiccan Great Rite, this closeness is taken advantage of to allow the God and Goddess to inhabit the participants directly.

In other forms of manifestation, a god or some other spiritual being – sometimes even a demon – appears visibly or invisibly to create some effect. This is seen in Wicca and other New Age religions most often during circles and other ritual events; outside of circles, manifestations are generally perceived as bad events that need to be cleansed or controlled.

In more mainstream thought, however, manifestation – of angels especially – is seen as a good thing when it happens spontaneously. Angelic intervention has saved how many lives? But in all manifestation magic, faith is a required component before anything at all can happen. In every case, magic that is worked through an entity and not through your own will must use faith and/or manifestation in order to be successful.