As a kid I was raised in fundamentalist Christianity, so I tried prayer and faith. Sort of like I said... some initial success which faded. And some things morphed into what I didn't want. And I think that is probably because I hadn't developed and integrated myself enough. I remember when I was 14 one day I decided I had done a lot of spiritual development that summer so I was ready for love, so I asked God for it. The next day I got a letter from a girl I'd had a crush on. I'll spare you the rest of the cringeworthy details full of teenage angst and neurosis. Let's say I got some silly form of love but it wasn't really what I wanted because I wasn't self-developed. Later on I wanted proof that miracles happen and that faith healing was real, so I asked for my eyes to be healed. Didn't happen. I actually threw away my glasses one day thinking that I had to act as if it were true for it to be true. Didn't work... part of me still was confident I could use the contacts in my drawer. Later on I had hip problems and prayed for years to be healed. Didn't happen. But the angst and depression around my failed worldview and failed attempts at miracles ultimately led me to look outside of Christianity for answers, which included finding the Skeptiko podcast. Eventually I got hip replacement surgery and got Lasik, so my prayers were technically answered although not in the miraculous way I originally wanted and the end result was ultimately deeper learning and personal growth. I cannot think of a more efficient way to have removed me from fundamentalist Christianity because I was certainly dug in like a tick.
Several years ago, I tried the Bengston healing method, and found that several of my "positive ego images" used in the cycling manifested. I don't remember what all of them were now, but one of them was a significant pay raise, which I got shortly thereafter when out of the blue I was offered a good job. A few years later, I was recalling this and thinking about the nature of reality and the power of the will when I had a sort of burst of faith in the ability to manifest our desires. Again I imagined some images as I had done with the Bengston healing method including a pay raise. About 3 weeks later, I got a significant pay raise, doubled vacation, and a nice company vehicle, and shortly after that a Son. Some of the other positive ego images didn't pan out and some seem like a tortured inversion.
Recently through my musings here, I've become convinced that certain forms of asceticism, celibacy, fasting, etc., might sort of energize the unconscious to work for you. By creating a hunger, a constant frustration of desire, perhaps we create a power generator that can transmute that energy of the will into a creative act in the physical world. So I'm looking into that more...