Convergence: Taking Multiple Paths to One Goal, Part Three

Results and Observations

Firstly, my apologies for the long time between the first two articles in this series and this one. There were several reasons for the delay, one of which was that I was still seeing the continuing manifestation of the results of my battery of rituals.

I have come to some conclusions about what I have done, and I have some caveats for anyone wishing to explore this approach further. These I will share with you later in this article.

I should also point out that, because this article discusses my results and personal observations, there are no source citations.

The Early Results

A few weeks after I finished my battery of rituals, managers at the company I work for called large groups of people together in various parts of our facilities across the country. These groups were told about opportunities for buyouts and early retirement. The company wanted to reduce its head count. I listened to these presentations, but the buyout terms were not at all attractive to me, and I did not, at the time, qualify for the early retirement option. Still, the managers made it quite clear that they were hoping people would take the chance to leave the company.

Later that day, I was called into the office of the Facilities Manager. There, I was given a clear idea of what the management wished for me. I was given a raise. I concluded that I was not expected to take the option to leave the company.

The extra money was nice, of course, but that didn’t add up to the “better job” which was the object of my workings. During this time, though, I did some work for a small group within the company that was engaged in producing interactive content for some of our broadcasts. This work seemed interesting, and the environment was far different from the one I was used to. My work for that group, however, was infrequent. The local head of that group approached me about working mostly for them, and I was interested in doing that, but the people I worked for at the time were unwilling to part with me.

The conditions under which I worked were deteriorating. People left the company, and the volume of work increased for those that remained. Although this had little direct impact on my workload, it had a major effect on when I got the materials I needed, and on the quality of those materials. Deadlines were missed, and often, things had to be done over because they were not meet requirements. Tension mounted, and my job became worse by the day. I began to think my rituals did not work as intended.

The Tipping Point

Early in June, I had an especially difficult day. One group wanted to order three separate graphics packages for on-air use. They would only use one of these, but they could not, and would not, decide which one of the three packages it would be. In addition, all material from earlier packages needed to be converted to the new formats, and the graphics design managers didn’t have the time to do it with their staff, so the job fell on me. I pointed out that I was one person, with other daily responsibilities, and that I lacked the tools that the graphics creators had at their disposal, but their decision did not change. They would not do the work assigned to them, which was implementing the new presentation designs.

I spent a lot of time tracking down existing packages, just so we would all know what was available to us. I finished my work day with a demanding on-air show.

On my way home, I ascended an escalator in the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. This is something I had done countless times, but this time was different. I felt a lightheadedness and general oddness that I had never experienced before. It passed, and I continued on my way to the bus platform. To get there, I had to climb a stairway. After I got to the top, I experienced the sensation again, but more pronounced. I saw the bus at the platform, but I had to stop because of the lightheadedness. I leaned against the wall and thought, “This is really bad.”

I was strapped to a gurney, being carried to an ambulance. In an instant, with no perception of change, I was in a different world, it seemed. An EMT was yelling at me, “You had a seizure, sir!” I was put in the ambulance and taken to an emergency room. The doctors at the hospital could find no reason why I should have had a seizure. I was examined through much of the night. I had no history of seizures.

Another person took my place at work while I visited specialists in an attempt to discover what happened, and whether I could expect it to happen again. A couple of weeks later, I called someone at work, just to chat. That person asked if I had heard about the one who had been put in my place. I had not. “He had a heart attack,” I was told. I thought my job was too stressful, but apparently, it was worse than I had imagined. In the meantime, one of my doctors, a general practitioner, warned me against returning to work until the neurologists cleared me. In all, I was out of work for four months. No cause was found.

When I returned, I was put into a training program on new equipment. My old job had been given to someone else. I had a talk with the show’s director about that, and he was under the mistaken impression that I was complaining and trying to get my old job back. “Well, you weren’t here,” he said, “and we had to do something.” He didn’t quite understand me when I told him that it was fine with me. Clearly, my values had undergone a change, and that seemed to baffle him at first.

After a couple of weeks, there was a meeting involving some union representatives, people from the Human Resources department, and me. There was an arbitrator. The union people asked me if I had any thoughts on how to resolve my issues over the conditions I worked under, and what could be done to remedy my situation. I had been back in contact with the interactive media group, and I suggested that I be put to work for them. I had previously been in touch with the HR people about that, and they were already aware of my thoughts. The other person at the meeting was the heart attack victim. He had no such ideas about what he could do, but wanted to be qualified for an insurance program he had applied for right before his attack. The heart attack had disqualified him from the program for a couple of years.

The union reps and the HR people went off to meet as the arbitrator waited in yet another room. When the union people came back, I was told that the HR people knew what I wanted, and that they would make it so.

Over the course of the next few months, I waited to see if there would be any more manifestations. I found out that I had been placed in the only group in the company whose plans included adding more people, rather than letting people go. The group has added facilities, and I’m a fairly important part of the group’s operation, not just a cog in the gear train. All in all, it seems that I did indeed get a better job.

Some Observations and Cautions

When I did my battery of rituals, I was careful to specify that the spirits should work on my desires until the next Vernal Equinox. What I probably should have thought about was the significance of that date. It is, of course, spring, and a time for early planting, although in slightly warmer climates than the one I live in. Nonetheless, I might have realized that works concluded by spirits at that time might, in fact, not yet be completed. What seems to have happened was that a sort of seed was sown that manifested as time went on. In fact, the notification of my new assignment came right around the time of Samhain, which appears to support this idea. While I wouldn’t tell anyone not to do things this way, I would warn any practitioner to be aware of the implications.

Also, I instructed in my rituals that no harm would come to any person in the accomplishment of my goals. The very important lesson here is this: The spirits’ view of “harm” may differ considerably from ours. It appears that they have a much narrower definition than I do, for instance. I must note here that, by any objective view of my current situation, I came to no physical or mental harm. I have had no recurrences of my attack, and am as healthy as I’ve been. Still, the experience was more than a little harrowing, so I would note that just saying, “And harm none,” is probably not enough to guard against episodes like mine.

Finally, my desire was not particularly well-stated. All my workings were built around the observation that “I need a better job.” In the future, I plan to be a lot more specific about exactly what I’m looking for. Things have, in the end, worked out well enough, but I think that having a better defined target makes the job easier for the spirits, and will also be easier on me. The path to what I got was a little less direct than I had hoped, and contained one or two unpleasant side trips. It pays to tell the spirits exactly what you want. It is probably less wise to let them work out a solution to a loosely-defined problem.

All in all, I’m grateful for the experience I gained. I did, in the end, get something like what I said I was looking for. I learned a lot about the use of magic, and how to go about doing workings. I learned something about the pitfalls, and what not to do.

I also still have those three paintings, all of the same sigil, in different colors. Look for them in the Gallery.

Editor’s note: The earlier sections of this series will be available as the archives are restored. The paintings will be available when the galleries are implemented.

©2008 Frater Servitor Lucem
Edited by Sheta Kaey
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