Magick always works…
it just might seem like the spell didint work because either 1 the results came to late and you didint notice or 2 the results we’re to small to be noticable.
It’s not counter productive at all. You can still decide to go through with the spell. A divination before a ritual isn’t written in stone. It simply shows the most likely outcome if you perform the spell as you want to right now. You can always alter the spell, tweak things, to change the way the spell will bring about what you want.
Mainly the idea of doing a divination before a spell is to check for unintended consequences, not final results. If you are going to throw a curse, you might want to know if it’s going to splash back on your family as well as your target the way it is written. That way you can tweak it, choose a different method, or spirit, so it is more precise.
That’s my take on it, anyway. I only do a divination before a ritual if I am trying to finesse a situation, so I look to a Tarot spread to show me possible pathways.
I’ll usually ask spirits I trust if something’s likely to work, 4 in 5 times maybe I will take their advice if it’s a NO (especially if it’s magick for the wider world or another person), but sometimes I just keep pushing to find out what’s going to block it and HOW I can make it work, and if you’re annoying enough, I have found, you can usually get what you want.
I prefer this to divination using cards etc, most of the time.
