I don’t think my pitfalls in the magical practice are solely due to this, but it’s serious enough to warrant concern. ADHD makes most things harder in a drudgery-based society like today’s but I’ve found it particularly troublesome in magic. When the prerequisite for being able to successfully contact spirits, cast any spells, or give successful offerings is a quiet mind, what chance can one have when their mind is programmed to run at a million miles an hour as much as it can?
For the record, I don’t think that it’s a ‘disease’ in the traditional sense, but I am medicated for it. I think that its an adaptation that may have been very helpful to hunter-gatherers that became burdensome when the transition to agriculture happened and ever since then. Regardless, it makes it extremely difficult to remain concentrated on a single thing. What my brain likes to do is commit whatever needs to be focused on to memory, such as an enn, so it can repeat it automatically while the rest of the brain keeps its chaotic rush through random topics or points of interest.
I want to know what, if anything, can be done about this. I don’t want to give up on magic, but it feels like a game with loaded dice to me. Any techniques or even herbs to open the way and make what needs to be done a bit easier are needed. My goal here is to be able to break through and contact entities like Goetic spirits and know how to communicate with them effectively, as well as to truly invoke their presence in a way I can be sure its not just my overactive mind. I don’t want to be doing any guesswork with them for obvious reasons.
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There is a video on youtube that i watched a long time ago that shows that meditating (traditionally) with ADHD helps, however it will take a longer time than most to achieve what others have achieved. You can still quiet your mind, but it may take a lot longer to develop that ability than others.
For me, although i dont have ADHD, when thoughts arise i can simply let them go without attachment while i focus on what im doing. I think that developing a no-attachment style to your thoughts may be beneficial.
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If you have ADHD, you absolutely can focus on something that’s interesting to you to the exclusion of all else. That’s always been the ADHD superpower.
So I’m going to suggest that maybe your rituals are boring to you. If your ritual feels like a chore, in whole or in part, your mind will go elsewhere.
Think back on your rituals. Do you find them stimulating enough to get the dopamine hit?
Speaking as someone who deals with this daily.
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I can relate to your struggle. I think my brain jumping around trying to make sense to what I’m practicing is interfering with achieving the desired outcome. I think the struggle and goal is to be able to quiet the mind from these distractions for a duration long enough that would produce results. With that being said starting with practicing meditation skills is something my mind seems to sidestep every time it’s being considered.
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I do sometimes feel that I can’t put as much passion into them as I would like, mainly due to being in close quarters with others who I’d rather not have discovering anything about my practice. If I had the chance to do it without the need to be subdued about it, it could be more engaging I think.
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Let alone the tendency to go all-in on new interests as if that was what you meant to do with your life all along, only to abandon it a few months later when the dopamine hits subside.
ADHD definitely doesn’t make things easy. I’m rawdogging my ADHD again since the meds don’t seem to fully work a lot of the time and when they do it makes me rather lethargic and when they wear off, my ADHD goes in overdrive. Not really worth the quiet(er) mind for me.
I find meditation helps a lot. Eventually it’s more practical, but you don’t have to sit still every time. The physicality of doing repetitive (easy) tasks does distract the monkey brain a bit better for me. It’s also not about bruteforcing your mind to go quiet. It’s about lettting your thoughts do their thing without really minding them. When your mind does go more quiet, even for a few seconds celebrate that win!! You’ve done something amazing!! We’re physically not fit for sitting still and having only one thought at the time, let alone no thought. We’re way too used (or at least I am) for chastizing ourselves when we either have a really hard time or flat-out fail at things that on the surface should be easy for anyone that’s fit for the basic operating system our societies run on. So seriously, celebrate those wins. End on a high note. That way you condition yourself for the win, instead of failure. Making it a little easier to go quiet for even a second more next time.
The effect meditation has on me, is being able to direct my focus a little easier. Even have a wee bit control over my hyperfocus moments.
For the rest. Try to read, which in this case means watch youtube vids for me, about ADHD and how our brain (dis)functions. It helped me a lot with finding workarounds. Scientific lectures help to underatand, but especially vids from other actual diagnosed ADHD peeps (like “How To ADHD”) helped me a lot to find ways around my failures like timeblindness, procrastination etc.I also had some cognitive behavior therapy when I was still on meds with a therapist that also has ADHD which helped lessen the harsh selfcriticism and also just ways to examine what my attention span is and when I should take short breaks in order to stay productive to even really simple things I hadn’t thought of like setting an alarm when I am.supposed to leave my home.in order to be on time etc.
There’s also a lot of different systems, some might even work better if you have ADHD. Personally I find witchcraft way easier than ceremonial magick, for instance. Less prep, more intuitive and less “11:04 on a tuesday when pluto has just passed scorpio by 4 inches” etc. So try out some stuff, see if it vibes with your personality and with your disorder.
Hope my rant helped to inspire you to find ways to make the ADHD work for you a little better.
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The other day I watched a Wiccan witch’s video, who said that meditation is the New Age fashion’s magic, that it’s not necessary for practicing witchcraft, and she gave the example of medieval witches who had wiccan tendencies but didn’t use meditation but rather potions to induce trance… The goal of meditation in magic is trance, but there are many ways to reach it… Obviously, I’m aware of the benefits of meditation in witchcraft and health, but I found the video’s point of view interesting…
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Interesting. I know some routes of this are easier and wiser than others. Mandrake root incense was said to be a potent inducer of visions, but it contains highly poisonous compounds. Blue lotus also intrigues me, but I’ve heard it can be underwhelming.
If you’re a sensitive magician with alot of meditation and cultivation of prana or an active kundalini, Adderall could be potentially dangerous if you try to evoke cosmic forces.. stimulants amp up your energetic system and remove the safety barriers so you might end up a lunatic.. better to stay away from stimulants while actively doing real ritual magic. Of course it’s up to every magicians individual tolerance, but heed my warning.
I wouldn’t mess with toxic plants for trance incense or ointments without proper guidance…
It is easy to fall into that harsh self-criticism for sure, but it helps no one. ‘Witchcraft’ was so broad of a category and these days has so many new-agers trying to exploit it that finding grounded info on it is a challenge. I will admit, this is the among the first places I’ve been online where many seem at least semi-serious.
I tend to think of it as formulaic for some reason. ‘If this… then this happens’, which has its roots in the ceremonial aspect and the Paganism that preceded my delve into magick.
I also have ADHD, and I have been able to solve major problems with my magic. I feel that ADHD is not a disadvantage but a great advantage if you know how to be in your natural environment and how to stay in it. I follow my instincts when practicing magic, and that’s it; you have to find your own way of doing things. I would rather scream like a madman to summon an angry entity than spend a long time meditating on an enn and visualizing a specific image in my mind. But over time, I have become better at maintaining meditation and visualization, although you will have to put in the effort. As for being hunters by nature, I feel that this is our greatest challenge. This modern lifestyle of being stuck in the same environment and doing the same thing routinely feels like it rots my soul from the inside, and my brain chemistry cannot tolerate it. Magicians with ADHD should get together to search for lost treasures in the mountains, perform wild evocations in caves, and carry out dangerous exorcisms, and so on.
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The same thing used to happen to me. Put a spell on them so they think those things are unimportant, or ask the great Lord Dantalion to manipulate them so they don’t care, or ask Paimon to make people who may have overheard you forget it, or create a servitor that takes care of that during all your rituals.
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