Actually, there are many reasons why magick fails. The primary cause of most magickal failures, however, is not understanding that magick is, in part, a science. Rituals, spells, and all forms of magick are basically scientific experiments. As you did (or do) in high school, you can simply repeat experiments from a text book and have afairly high degree of success. But not all experiments done in school successful. Why? Because you didn't control all of the variables. According to scientific theory, if you repeat an experiment under the same conditions, the results should be the same. If you do magick, and it doesn't work, the cause is most likely to be that you are not working under the

In Modern Magick I write about the two histories of the Kabalah. One, the most well-known version, is mythical and metaphoric. The second is factual and historic. This second history indicates that there are predecessors to Kabalistic thought and magick. One of these predecessors was local (i.e., Semitic) folk magick and beliefs. Sometimes, the folk traditions continued as a separate strain of spirituality. For example, you've probably heard of the cultural icons who are wearing a read string around their wrists for good luck. But according to Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky, "there is absolutely no genuine kabbalistic source for wearing a red thread around one's wrist to ward off the 'evil