"You're Not Worthy"

In the beginning of the magical path, the humble internet seeker is often confronted with hostility and unhelpful people.

For instance, a beginner asking for how to manifest some money is often confronted with the questions like "Why do you want money?" or "Why don't you just get a job?"  To a beginner who lacks confidence, that just sounds like "Go away, you are not worthy, muggle!"  Those are indeed worthwhile questions, but it is not helpful to just leave it at that.

Instead, it should be explained that in the beginning a magician should focus on changing things inside: bad habits, undesirable emotional reactions and moods, unbalanced personality traits.  This is because an early lesson to be slowly learned over time is that the boundary between the inner world and the outside physical world is illusory.  But because most of us by default believe in that boundary, it is easier to do inner work.  After doing inner work, soon enough, the magus observes the results in the outside world, they see things that seem a bit too coincidental, even miraculous.  This gives the magician a feel for how to manifest change in the physical world, and it builds confidence since if we can do something once, surely we can doing something again.

For instance, suppose John wants to lose weight, and decides to use magic to do so even though he is a beginner.  He does a working to give himself more discipline to stick to a diet and exercise regimen.  As part of the working he visualizes himself happily doing his diet and exercise, and also feeling healthy and thin in the future, looking at the the number on the scale with glee and his clothing feeling loose, etc.  All he really wanted to change was his inner world though, his own behavior, nothing very magical or miraculous.  But then, unexpectedly and coincidentally, something outside of himself comes along to facilitate his weight loss.  Maybe he will come across an article about how iodine supplements can help an imbalanced thyroid and help with weight loss.  Less happily, maybe he will catch a parasite or some other illness that will make him lose a lot of weight.  In either case, if he pays attention, John will notice this coincidence, and will get a great boost in confidence in his magical ability.