How to Tell a Genuine Magical Practitioner from a Confidence Trickster

I'm going to start this by declaring a marked bias: while I understand that people have an ambivalent relationship with the magical arts, it seems to me extraordinary the way people go to other people to do magic for them. To me magic is something you do, you can't get it (except indirectly through knowledge) online. Nonetheless people have always gone to other people & handed over money for the practitioner to get their hands dirty so that they could either say they hadn't done it themselves or thought they'd get better results. This unfortunately leaves people at risk of confidence tricksters, who are relatively secure in the knowledge that people will be too embarrassed to tell the police they've been tricked by a sorcerer. There is a rise of traditional African healers, sangomas, ngangas, & what have you, in Britain. Certainly I get loads of adverts for them put through the door: some make incredible claims, but the phenomenon is giving rise to concern amongst the chattering classes (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-158843/Witchdoctors-exposed.html and http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-witch-doctors-charge-3000-3247614). So here, as a public service, the Hound will give his personal take on how not to be taken in, & a way of avoiding the problem completely.
There are two ways to tell a fake, & the first is the more difficult because it requires that painful thing, self-knowledge. If you want final stage lung cancer cured, if you spend every night on the phone to psychic lines wanting to know when your man (whom you haven't seen since 1992) is coming back to you, in the real world you're a sitting target for confidence tricksters. So you must start by asking yourself how possible your desire really is. And here's the thing: by doing this, by subtly changing your world-view & protecting yourself against worries, dangers & people that prey on you, you are actually starting to do magic.
The second key is to understand how magic works. This comes second, because you have to do the magical act of a full & frank self-examination to get into the magical worldview first. All of the definitions of magic involve change of some sort. I like to think it is magic whenever anyone does an act that will result in life improving or at least changing in some way. Anything. Because once you've done that you are taking charge of your life & making change happen.
My personal solution to this situation would be that it is better to do the magic yourself. You have the ability to do it. Stop looking over your shoulder, I mean you. You! No, *YOU*! Reader of this blog, you can work magic.
'But I don't know how,' you may say, which brings me nicely to another point about how real magic works so that people can recognise it. When you need it, the magic will always be there. The means to do it will come to your hand, if you can trust that that will happen, & keep your eyes open to see the means of your liberation come to hand. I'm not giving you instructions, because we all work magic differently, my way may not be your way. But when your back is to the wall, if you have the *will* to do it, the means will come to hand. For example, you may say a prayer. That magic is called theurgy. This may sound terrible if you have a conventional religious background, but I've touched right to the heart of why religion has a problem with magic: the boundary is blurry & religion's in denial! Nor is there a question of technical skill - we're accustomed to getting in experts for IT nowadays, but we're talking about an ancient technology that we have built in, & you don't need an expert for it. People's first spell is quite often incredibly effective: the universe /G*ddess, what have you, will not be outdone in generosity.
I must say something about cost. I personally have grown up in the school of not equating magic with money. It fixes the magic to only one of the four 'elements', ultimately limiting it if you're not carefully. My other problem with this is that magic is very expensive. But not in monetary terms - usually if you've got your back to the wall you'll already have paid for it.
So if you still insist on getting someone else to do it (there are circumstances in which I would ask someone to do it for me, but in my experience a soul mate will appear at that moment) a genuine magical practitioner will broadly speaking fit in with these characteristics of magic. S/he will speak directly to your situation at the time, opening up new insights & actually helping you in the process of change that is magic. A good sorcerer will have a personal code of ethics that they should be able to explain to you & should turn down certain types of work. Merely meeting them will make you feel like a burden's been lifted - this is what magic should feel like.
Certain things should indicate the practitioner should be avoided completely. The classic is telling you you've been cursed & it will require further work to sort it. Most people actually curse themselves, but anyway don't go near this person again. Also don't fear that they will curse you (they may threaten you, in which case ring the police) - they don't understand curses & clearly have no magical ability. A requirement for rare herbs that can only be gathered from some strange place far abroad at great expense is also bullshit of the highest order & indicates a confidence trickster who doesn't understand magic. The American folk magic system of hoodoo originated in the practices of slaves who were cut off from the West coast of Africa & had to adapt to what they had at hand. *That* is real magic. Any use of cold reading techniques is incredibly suspicious, or 'barnum' statements. Avoid them. Work that doesn't have an end date or full price equals confidence trick - avoid them. (Are you seeing why I say it's better to do it yourself?) A friend (who is an incredibly powerful witch) recently accompanied a friend to a traditional sangoma, who didn't pick up or acknowledge that she's a witch. Believe me, you can't miss it. Suffice to say, even I'm in awe of her. I'm tempted to say take a witch with you, but I really genuinely think it's better to avoid these people. The means will always come to hand when you need it.
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