…I think what I am mainly saying is that if you want something, then all you need to do is decide to have it or do it- the ritual is just symbolic of that decision - not causal
an excerpt from a correspondence:
To understand this let's first consider what a "Decision" is. When I say "decision" what I am talking about is an expression of Will. It is an impulse towards material action that originates internally rather than as a response to external stimulus. I would wager that most people take actions and make choices as a reaction to the world around them rather than a decision. ex: As I walk down the road, a car is coming- I move out of the road to not get hit. That was a reaction– but note that from inside myself somewhere probably unconsciously I made the Decision to live rather than allow the car to hit me.
In this way we can think of ourselves like pure little cores of Will that are wrapped up under many layers of ego, form, and reaction to interactions with other wills. We spend much of our time in a sort of "sleeping" state where we don't really make any Decisions and instead simply react to life. From a thelemic perspective all material reality is an expression of Will. It follows then that our lives are the way they are because we have "Decided" that is how our lives should be. The problem is that most of us have made this decision unconsciously. If we want our lives to be different- we need only "decide" for them to be different. Easier said than done as most of us have grown up with many specific beliefs and paradigms ingrained in our conscious mind which prevent us from fully expressing this will.
And so we have magic which is really just a word to describe any tool or tools we use to awaken this decision making ability. Typically by placing in a state of conscious awareness where the outer "not-will" layers of ourselves quiet down enough to allow the Will to express itself.
This happens to explain a particular paradox I have noticed- which is that the more one practices magic, the less we seem to need to actually do magic. It is because we start to become aligned with our Wills in a way that allow us more and more to simply Decide for ourselves without needing ritual. The most powerful Mages of all probably don't need to do magic because they are simply living exactly the life they intend to.