This was a response to a discussion about the utility of magic to overcome or change the restrictions placed on our financial circumstances by fate, karma and one’s nativity.
In traditional astrology there are significators of wealth in your natal chart which describe your future financial status and your ability to accrue wealth, as well as give indications where this money will come from (and, if afflicted, how you will lose money), but the amount of wealth you could accumulate was considered largely determined by the conditions of your birth. Here’s William Lilly on the traditional astrology answer regarding the question of fate and wealth:
“..for a beggar’s child may have a nativity equal with a king’s but then they are not both the sons of kings; therefore at what time an extraordinary direction happens, whereby a king obtains extraordinary or very great honour upon the influence thereof; the young beggar having the very same fortunate direction in his nativity, has no more falls to his share, then either to fall to some course of life, not so sordid to beg. A king has loans or money of his subjects; it happens the beggar has some more than usual bountiful alms from some good people.
A king performs some honourable exploit; a beggar has more than ordinary respect amongst his fellow beggars, for some neat piece of service he has performed for the fellowship; so that herein the one has honour according to his capacity, and the other such fame with his companions, which pleases him as well as honour.” (Christian Astrology, p616)
In Lilly’s day if you are born a beggar, you are never going to become king, and if your father was a stonemason, well, that’s going to be your profession too. Although the level of wealth you may achieve is still largely determined by the family you are born into, if you are lucky enough to live in a wealthy country, you likely have a lot more options than anyone born before you has ever had.
Firstly, you have the ability to relocate relatively easily to a city or country with more options. There’s an idea in traditional astrology that the testimony of your nativity takes precedence over any horary chart promising wealth, and likewise, the nativity of the country you are in takes precedence of your nativity. If you cast a horary chart that shows you obtaining piles of cash, the size of the pile is going to be relative to the strength of the significators of wealth in your nativity. Likewise, if your nativity promises you wealth but you live in a relatively poor country with few options for improving your circumstances (and the nativity of your country and its mundane astrology show nothing improving its GDP anytime soon), the likelihood is that you will do well in comparison to your countrymen, but your ability to achieve wealth is restricted.
If you are in a job that doesn’t pay well, you are able to retrain for an alternative, better paying career, and you can look for alternative streams of income while you are doing so. You have access to resources and information via the internet that you can make use of.
The problem with doing magic for money isn’t that magic is useless at making people wealthy, it’s that most money magic is really emergency magic, and people are crap at making choices that improve their financial circumstances. It’s not necessarily because people are stupid, it’s just that school does not give you the skills to become wealthy. Education is indoctrination – it’s about making you into a useful cog that knows its place in the machine and doesn’t question its lowly condition.
If you want to use magic to make money, your plan should look something like this;
1. Figure out a way to make money and to become wealthy
2. Divine on how to make your venture a success (for example, if you are an astrologer and you want to invest money somewhere, you might do so when your significators of wealth are in a strong place, you might cast a horary chart for that stock option, or you might elect a time to invest in the market)
3. Do some magic
Magic is the last step, not the first. If everything preceding your magic is not in place, you’re going to win a small amount on a scratch card or you’re going to find £20 on the street. If that’s all you are getting for the days of fasting, the thousands you spent on your lionskin belt and the fancy sword, the eyestrain from reading the charge to the spirit by candlelight, go back to step 1 and start again.