why belief is important

Hm that's true. I think for a serious practitioner, though, it's vital. I mean, yes you can do spells without belief, that's sometimes what makes believers, but if you're going to continually do it over and over, you have to believe in yourself and the magic to get consistent and good results.

I agrre with both of your points. I do think that to make a spell more successful or foit to work at its optimum level, we need all the ingredients necessary in body, mind and any extras if needed for a ritual as an example, however I also agree that belief is what is needed for you to be able to carry on. I'm really intrested on what everyone thinks is the best thing for a spell or any sort of magick to work.
Could people please reply with their thoughts, I think this could turn out to be something interesting.

Well belief can only be as strong as the person's trust in the practice he/she follows. You can only trick yourself so much to believe in something. I think it can be hard for someone to believe fully in magic, especially when first starting it. It sounds like such a strange concept in such a modern era.

I think more importantly, is to justify why the spells will work and not just blindly going "I believe it will work!!!!" This (in my opinion) won't do anything because deep down that isn't enough. You have to be aware of the energies at work, and be excited to see the product. Overall, I believe that people shouldn't blindly accept, but experiment before diving into something they aren't sure of. Even with spells, it is vital to get to understand what you are doing so you can create a foundation for your beliefs.

When I first started out it was so difficult for me to just say, "I believe this will work, therefore it will." It didn't do me much good, looking at it through a more scientific standpoint like Quantum Theory can help back up our claims a bit. It always helps to have some roots in the physical world because our understanding is through a physical body.

Sorry for any typos and grammatical errors, its late.

But by doing this, isn't it possible to lose intrest and then just quit on maick? By reading your post I think what you are saying is that determination and skill is the key factor when using magick of any type. Please correct me if I have misunderstood.
It's okay by the way, your grammar wasn't bad and it's late here too.

For me, what keeps me practicing magic isn't just belief or determination, it's more of the never ending journey for knowledge and the ideas behind magic that make it so special for me and impossible to forget. Even now, when the rest of my life is taking a toll on my magical one, I can't say I stopped believing, just having a momentary pause in practicing because I've been so busy (and because I hit a stalling point in my research but you know....)

So motivation is the most basic and most important ingredient when using magick for you, but do you think this would apply to everyone?

I think if you want to be good at anything determination and practice is key. Sure you could lose interest, but if you really wanted to be a part of it you either wouldn't, or you would force yourself to stick with it. We all lose interest at some point with our passions, we tend to gravitate to other things, its natural.

Determination and being able to justify the 'why' for yourself is key, or else you are sitting there with a spell that has hardly any real life or passion in it that is true to yourself!

I have a question on the point that you have made. You sort of just said that the spell should be true to yourself but does that mean that we shouldn't follow the spells already there for us and should just make our own to make it more personal?

I think its important to personalize spells and rituals. If you are uncomfortable with an aspect of the spell, simply change it to suit your needs better. Obviously, be careful with the change you made. If you are uncomfortable with what you're doing, Its not wise to practice it.

I agree. I think it's easy to believe something will work when you want it bad enough, but there is the occassion when logic stands in the way, that is when an understanding of WHY you believe what you do comes in handy. It reminds you to keep believing.