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Yesterday, I told you about using manifesting to write a better tagline. Today, I’m sharing my notes. This was my first time using manifesting in this way, so you can see where I went wrong, what I figured out, and how I went about debugging the technique. This is one of my more detailed and technical posts, so if that’s not your thing, feel free to skip it. (It’s also 2500+ words.)
By the way, these notes took 10-15 sessions over 3 days, so don’t feel bad if you can’t do this all in one sitting — I can’t, either.
General Tips on Manifesting
When I get a message from the manifesting ethereal software, the signature of the message is different than my own signature, and the thoughts have a different voice in my head. It’s fairly easy to tell which thoughts are my own and which come from the ethereal software, though it took me a year or more before I felt like I could tell the difference reliably.
Also, I took a lot of breaks, but each time, I asked the manifesting software before taking the break. (“I’d like to take a break. Is now a good time?”) One time, it was leading me somewhere, and I had to do another few sentences before resting. Might be useful if you’re splitting a task across multiple sessions, too.
OK, on to the notes:
Day 1
I started with my standard request:
“Guide me through the tasks I’m doing today, to help me achieve all my goals.”
(I’ve been using that command every day for the past week, and have been quite pleased with the results.)
Then, each sentence I wrote, I got feedback. Here are the sentences I tried. Each paragraph break is where I paused briefly to think about my plan. The feedback is in parentheses:
Evidence-based magick (Good.) All the steps from your intent to a change in the world. (Bad.)
Evidence-based magick that gets results (Meh. Try again) Evidence-based magick for energy healing, manifesting and more (Not bad, but not great) Evidence-based magick to alter the physical world (Try again)
I ask manifesting to push a concept into my head, and get: Evidence-based magick producing quantifiable results (Getting warmer. Explore there more)
I try a few more prosaic variations: Evidence-based magick with results you can feel (Right direction, keep going) Evidence-based magick with obvious results (Yes, that’s the right track, keep going) Evidence-based magick with genuinely amazing results (No. Over the top. Go back)
I keep going with synonyms for “obvious.” Clear, easily-noticeable, etc. None are as good. Manifesting says: The good part about “obvious” is it makes it clear they’ll see the results, too. That’s it’s not some subtle change that you’re not sure is there. But there’s a better word to convey that, and that’s what we’re looking for.
Evidence-based magick with objective results. (No. Too impersonal.)
I try an online thesaurus. Most words get rejected, but “Unmistakeable” receives a “Good, but not quite there.” So I think a bit more, and say the sentence in my head:
Evidence-based magick with unmistakeable results.
Manifesting says, “Yes. Go with that.” So it seems that the manifesting ethereal software didn’t understand that, when I read “unmistakeable” from the thesaurus, I intended to put that word into the full sentence. Or maybe there were several possible ways I could use it, and the software wanted to make sure I picked the right one. Either way, it’s good to know.
Re-reading my notes as I wrote this post, the guidance around “obvious” really points toward “unmistakeable.” I hadn’t recalled it when I was looking in the thesaurus, but that’s a neat confirmation that the guidance really is steering me well.
Day 2
You (my readers) wrote tons of good comments, which made me want to write something better. I realized that I’d only started with a couple of options for the first half of the sentence, and manifesting* had guided me through the second half. What about going back, starting with the second half of the tagline, and letting manifesting optimize the first half?
*Yeah, I use it as a noun when I speak, as a shorthand for “the manifesting ethereal software.” If you’ve gotten this far into this post, you deserve to hear my normal voice when I talk about this stuff.
I start by asking how I’m doing with this approach, and how important this is. Answer:
“You’re taking the right approach. This is fairly important, as it will determine how many serious mages start reading your blog regularly. You should continue exploring, and make a decision today (don’t go with the one yesterday). Your plan, to explore the first half then iterate, is a good one. (Then, after finding a better first half, explore the 2nd half again). But make the request more clear: ‘Guide me to find the first half that will work best with a new second half,’ rather than ‘Guide me to find the best solution,’ which is too direct and won’t work, since it will trigger the wrong part of the algorithm.”
This is a common theme in my manifesting, by the way: Ask for exactly what you want. The more precise the better. There’s an art to it, though, since if you ask for the wrong thing, you’re much better off asking vaguely and letting manifesting answer whatever version of your (bad) question will be most useful to you.
You’ll also notice that I’m getting much clearer messages. It’s hard to sort out how much is that this is the new command vs me being sharper in the morning vs just having more practice receiving the messages while I’m distracted by writing, but I think the practice had a lot to do with it.
After a rest, I started with the sentences:
Results-focused magick (Good. Better than “evidence-based,” because it’s more concrete.)
Road tested magick (This would be good for a broader audience, but worse for the mages you want to attract.)
I ask manifesting to push an idea into my thoughts again, and get: “Results effective magick.” Yes, it’s not English, but what’s happening is the manifesting ethereal software is pushing each concept into my thoughts, and my mind then turns each concept into a word. So now, I have to hunt down a proper sentence built of synonyms for that.
Do I want the word “results”? (No. You’ll use that at the end, for “creates [adjective] results.”)
Do I want the word “effective”? (No. You’ll want a straight synonym, though. Whereas you’ll use a similar concept for “results,” rather than a synonym.)
Before I go too much further down this path, I have two other big-picture questions:
I came up with another tack in the shower. What about “Rebooting magick”? (That’s a whole different search. Yes, there are better titles in this part of the search space. We should go over here.)
This tells me that manifesting isn’t considering every possible tagline when it guides my writing. It’s just considering refinements on what I’ve already suggested. Not surprising, given the computational complexity of manifesting, but neat to see it in action.
What about a bigger concept, like “Dare to disturb the universe”? (Yes, that’s what we’ll be doing with “rebooting magick.”)
So, rebooting magick. (Yes. Explore what that means, some of those words will be useful.)
That we’re making a new way to do magick, from scratch. (“From scratch” is not good.) And that it’s based on results, with simplified techniques. (“Simplified” is good.) Well, not that the techniques are simple, because they’re not. But the techniques are slimmed down. We toss out all the rituals and symbols to get to the core of what’s going on, of what forces are actually driving the magick. (“Forces actually driving the magick” is a good concept, explore there more.)
I mean that most magick explores how to use symbols and intents to send an overall request to these forces, whether they’re ethereal software or your mental muscles or some spirit, but with direct magick, you explore what steps the forces take to actualize that intent. (“Actualize that intent” is good. Though “actualize” is bad, replace that word. Now, start working on actual taglines.)
I start with something really long, just to see manifesting’s response to the concepts: Simplified magick, focused on how forces implement your requests, rather than on making requests. (Yes, more or less. We need a synonym for “simplified,” and a short description of the rest, necessarily less accurate but more to the point.)
Direct magick: Exploring how the forces you channel implement your intent. (Good, keep going.)
Exploring how your intent changes the world. (“Changes the world” is good. Makes it concrete. Keep going.)
What about “exploring”? (Meh, you’ll find better, or just cut the word.)
How intent changes the world. (Good. You’ve gotten most of the bad parts out. Now, re-add “rebooting magick” and you’ll wind up with something good.)
Rebooting magick: The steps connecting traditional magick to the change in the world. (Right idea. Add in “discarding rituals,” remove a lot of the description, boil it down.)
Rebooting magick: Discarding rituals, exploring what drives the changes. (Keep going.)
Rebooting magick: Discarding rituals, consciously driving the changes in the world. (Keep going.)
Rebooting magick: Discarding rituals, consciously directing each step. (Right direction with the ideas. You know the wordsmithing is no good, but keep going.)
Again, I try a long one to explore a bunch of concepts: Rebooting magick: Consciously building techniques, directly using the building blocks, instead of indirectly directing them with rituals. (“Consciously” is good. “Building blocks” is bad, gets too much into the details, there’s nothing snappy there. Contrasting with rituals is good, but don’t hit it so hard. Just let it come naturally from what you actually do.)
Rebooting magick: Consciously directing magick with thought. (“With thought” is good.)
Rebooting magick: Directing magick with thought. (Neat, but not there yet. Go back a few steps, you were closer before.)
Directing magick with thought rather than ritual. (No. “Directing” is the wrong word to start with. Return to “Rebooting magick,” you want that in there.)
Rebooting magick with thought rather than ritual. (No. Seriously, get out of this line and back to the earlier stuff.)
OK, I’ll get out of here. Just push the concepts into my mind again. Note: Some concepts were multi-word, so I put each concept in parentheses.
Rebooting magick: (Doing your magick) (with thought) (directly)
Rebooting magick: Altering the world directly with thought. (Close. Time for wordsmithing.) I ask for more details. (“Rebooting magick” is good, “directly with thought” is good, but the words are in the wrong position.)
As I think about this more, the sentence just doesn’t feel right. I say: “I don’t like where we wound up. I want you (the manifesting software) to cast a wider net, and search for a new point to optimize for. What did you wind up with?”
The manifesting software says: Rebooting magick to run from thought, directly.
I’m still not feeling it. Working with my manifesting trainer, I lay out what I’ve done so far, and explain that what I really want is to find something that’s globally near-optimal, with a lot of good options near it, so even if I can’t find that optimal answer, I can still find something close. After explaining this, without my trainer saying anything, I realize that my first move should have been explaining that to the manifesting software. So I do that while he watches.
The manifesting software says, “Accepted. Searching.” My trainer watches as it works, probably to check on the algorithm it’s using, and tells me that this is a much better query.
Manifesting: “Rebooting magick” is good. There are better options, but it’s good enough, near optimal, so we’ll go with it. “Unmistakeable results” is good, too, and you should have something like that in the title. Beyond that, you need a 2 or 3-word description of what you do. That’s what we need to craft, then the rest will fall into place. So, start thinking, and I’ll guide you.
I was initially surprised that manifesting recommended clauses I’d already been working with, but then I realized: I’m much more likely to get these clauses right (where “right” means “what the manifesting software intended to transmit”), so taglines based around those clauses would sensibly be favored. OK, time to test some sentences:
Altering the world with thought. (Too long. And too abstract. Not in the neighborhood of what’s good.)
Can you push the concepts into my mind? (Thought-guided magick.)
Rebooting Magick: Consciously-Directed Techniques with Unmistakeable Results. (Good, but not great. “Consciously-directed” is too wordy. “Techniques” is good, though.)
Rebooting Magick: Road Tested Techniques with Unmistakeable Results. (No. Needs to have more content, and be about thought.)
I ask, “Conscious thought or just thought?” (Conscious thought. “Consciously” is good, explore there.)
Rebooting Magick: Consciously Understanding Your Magick for Unmistakeable Results. (Keep going.)
Rebooting Magick: Consciously Designed Techniques for Unmistakeable Results. (Yes. That’s what to go with. Not 100% optimal, but close enough for your request.)
Since the manifesting software considered this request fulfilled, it disconnected. That ended my sessions for day 2.
Day 3
Day 3 was just refining the sentence from day 2. It was only a couple of sessions.
First question: Should “Rebooting Magick” be the title, replacing “Magick of Thought”? What about moving to rebootingmagick.com? (For long-term success, “Rebooting Magick” will be better. But short-term, keeping what you have will be better. I’d recommend to change it and move the blog, but you should do more manifesting first.)
Indeed. I’m really appreciating how important it is to ask a wide variety of questions, rather than just asking what you should do. So I ask: Will there be a better name to move to later, like after the book comes out? (Yes.)
And there you go. Before I did this sort of interactive manifesting, with the ethereal software giving me detailed feedback, I just assumed that it would figure out the right path and guide me down it. Now I know better. And so, if you’ve read this far and are on board with my techniques, a piece of advice: Even if you can’t get these detailed messages from manifesting, try asking a question multiple ways and see what things it guides you to do. I think you’ll be as surprised as I was during these sessions.
But, because I also have reasonable doubts about the details I’m getting, I also registered rebootingmagick.com. It’s sensible insurance for $10, I figure.
So, what about changing the title to “Rebooting Magick” now, but leaving magickofthought.com? (No. If you’re going to change everything later, change it later, stick with short-term good for now.)
OK, so we’re just talking about the tagline. Let’s go through each word, changing forms. I’m thinking of “designed” vs “designing,” and things like that. (“Rebooting Magick” — stick with what you have. “Consciously Designed Techniques” — change it to the active form. “for Unmistakeable Results” — stick with what you have.)
So, we wind up with:
Rebooting Magick: Consciously Designing Techniques for Unmistakeable Results
And the manifesting software sends me a final note: (Still not entirely optimal, but closer than the other one, and well within your parameters for success.) Kind of a bummer, but I think what I learned about the difficulties of finding optimal solutions — or even good ones — is the most valuable part of these sessions.
Thoughts?
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