I suppose i did my first evocation today.
forneus

I dont really comprehend if it was an evocation.

I dont really have any access to any tools, nor do i have christian beleifs, so the evocation went differently.

i opened with lbrp, and a prayer i created saying i was in the persuit of knowladge and seeking of divine guidance.

I then focused on the sigil and asked forneus to appear,

it only took a few seconds, i dont know how many, until i felt as if nothing was happening.

i saw nothing, and sensed nothing.

i asked if he was there, and i heard, from the back of my mind "yes"

I conversed with alleged forneus for a while, and shook his hand.

my vision blurred.

i yanked back, and asked if he was really forneus again, he said "no"

So i tried again, and he laughed after nothing happened.

"I jest, for i AM forneus."

"And what realms do you confide?"

"The tongue, and the views those have of you."

"They say you are quite popular, and since that prank, im not too sure...."

" Doesn't bother me"

i sighed

"I request instruction in your realms"

"HA!"

"Whats so funny?"

"Nothing."

"?"

"When speaking, convey the honest truth clearly, but downplay that which offends, be confident, and stay firm."

"That is not advice, thats common sense."

"We all hold ultimate knowladge in us, it is so obvious that we disreguard it."

"What shall i do with your sigil?"

"You have no flames to burn, or silk? Just tear it up."

"IS that alright? What do you want for payment?"

"Nothing, but a little bit of energy would be nice."

I focused on the sigil and poured some energy into it.

I tore up the sigil and closed the temple.

Some people will disagree with me here, because there are a wide spectrum of beliefs regarding evocation and interaction with spirits.

I believe it's possible you evoked something. That is to say, you drew the attention of something. It's possible it was forneus, however, given the method it really could have been many different things, including your own unconscious mind leading you into the experience you wanted to have.

When you get confirmation from a spirit, you should have it draw its sigil for you. That's a first step, but it's not fool proof. With no circle, no triangle, no tools, etc., there isn't a whole lot more you can do, unfortunately.

The spirit also asked for a 'little energy'. Here's the problem. When you create your own servitors, you invest energy into them. Inevitably some of it is yours, and that sustains the servitor over a long period of time - because you have an intimate energetic connection with them, and therefore they always draw a little bit to persist. This is why having more than one or two 'long term' servitors is a dangerous practice. THey are mostly one shot - go do something and then go away.

By pouring your energy into the sigil, and giving it to this spirit, you may only think you're giving just that little bit, but really what you're doing is giving it an in to your energy. The energy you put out into anything is never separated from you, it forms a connection. So when a spirit says 'give me a little energy', it's a shady way of saying, 'give me a connection to you'.

Go back over the experience a few times, to the point that you re-experience it. Recreate the conversation, gather the pieces of the sigil that you tore up - hopefully you didn't throw it away - and this time go through the experience and instead of agreeing to give out your energy, refuse, and immediately burn the sigil. Burn in for real, not just in your mind, as though this experience just happened and this is how you responded to the request.

This may not work, to be honest, it depends on your own awareness of your energy, the realism with which you can recreate the experience in your mind, and how you are able to re-write your experience, and thus the energy of that experience.

Start practicing the middle pillar ritual. When you're comfortable with the basic ritual, start the circulation of the body of light as well, and open and close with the qabbalistic cross. Keep a journal of your day to day experience - moods, out of place thoughts (you should be doing this already if you're interested in pursuing magic).

It's important that a: you don't continue to give whatever spirit it was, forneus or not, your energy and b: if it was your subconscious, channeling energy into the resultant thoughtform that arose to fulfill the expectation of your experience. Either of these things is a bad thing. The MP with COBOL and the QC rituals will fortify your energetic body and gradually grant you greater awareness and control over it. The LBRP is also a good thing to do before and after these rituals, but without having built up your energy with the others, the LBRP is in truth not that effective. Why it's taught as the first ritual of the GD curriculum, I don't know, but personally I don't agree with that order of practice. MP awakens energetic awareness, which is necessary to properly execute the LBRP or any of the other standard Banishing/Invoking rituals.

I'd also get myself a blood stone, maybe on a bracelet or pendant, and keep it on your when you do the ritual work, and any other time that you aren't sleeping. Keeping it under your pillow then would be a good idea to. It's not as efficient as preparing and charging it properly, but gradually it will stabilize and protect your energy. If you're new to magical practice all together, the likelihood that you can properly consecrate and charge a talisman is slim. If you want to give consecration and charging a shot, do it for protection, use mars and the sun, then mercury and venus, then saturn and jupiter, and the moon last, and in that order, on separate days. Complete this work while the moon is waxing to full, ideally starting when the moon is in a fire sign. Wear it during the practice as well.

I'm not trying to be hard on you, but evocation should wait until your properly prepared. There's no rush, and there are more important foundational basics to master and develop first that will protect you in the event of an evocation gone wrong. Spirits do not have to be angry and vengeful to do you harm, nor do they have to seem outwardly threatening or frightening in any way. The can easily fool the untrained intuition by playing on our feelings, our reasoning, or hopes and intentions for experience, as well as 'confirming' past experience or beliefs. Dealing with spirits is tricky business and you need to have your ducks in a row before messing around with them. And when you do, you need them to know that you're the boss. You don't have to be a tyrant, but you shouldn't be a partner. Elementals are a different story, and making alliances with natural spirits is a good introduction to working with spirits as a general practice, some of them can be very informative, and very handy during evocations of a 'higher' order. They are also much safer in comparison.

Good luck with this, I sincerely hope nothing ill comes of it.

Welcome to the forums.

peace

i did do middle pillar, just forgot to mention it.


yeah, i had a feeling it might have been a fake spirit or a case of self delusion, but i really have no access to any magick tools, and i won't for a long long time.

thanks for the advice, peace.

ps. i did let it know i was the boss, it was just kind of hard to tell from reading because it was in the way that i acted and not in the words i spoke.

The middle pillar exercise is cumulative. This means that you should be practicing it for some time - I would suggest once a day for six months - in order to gain the most benefit from doing it.

And without tools, or alternatively the proper spiritual development, you don't have a way to enforce your authority. A spirit can act like you're the boss, and still be in control.

If you won't have access to tools for a long time, I do sympathize with the feeling like progress can be slow, and the desire to move into advanced practices as soon as possible. Most magicians, especially those who are teaching themselves, feel this way early on.

However, there are great benefits to progressing gradually and making sure that you have mastered each foundational aspect of magical practice before moving on to the next. Magic is much like any other skill in that there are basic, intermediate, and advanced skills, each of which build on the preceding elements. However, unlike other skills where you may simply realize that you need to go back and learn those basic elements, in magic there is a real possibility of getting in over your head by rushing through your development.

Its understandable for anyone to take an interest in magic and want to dabble here and there to see what's around. However, if you're going to pursue magic as a serious student, you must develop the discipline necessary to see your growth through at each stage of learning.

I hate to beat a dead horse, so I won't say it again I promise, but you should leave evocation for later until you have developed the necessary foundational skills, or until you have the necessary tools to protect yourself and be certain that you are speaking with the right spirit, and enforce the authority that you need to have over those spirits which may seek to prey on you.

If you don't start out right, you'll find that there will be a great many difficulties ahead - the least of which may be that you set down a path of delusion instead of actual development; you may find after many years of 'doing magic' that you reach a point of disillusionment and realize that you haven't actually accomplished anything after all that time. Save yourself the trouble, and practice properly. While there may not be any teachers nearby where you are that you can apprentice with directly, there is information on this forum, and plenty of experienced membership here who will be happy to advise you on how you can develop yourself and your skills properly in order to assure that you will one day be able to accomplish what you would like to move into.

peace

i have been doing chakra meditations/middle pillar for some time now, (A long time) and nothing much else.

i won't have tools for a while because i'm 14, and i can only pursue whatever paths i can empty handed.

i thought evocations would naturally be the first path to follow since they can help with later studies, but i guess i was wrong

then what do you reccomend as a good first path to follow?.

Elemental work is best to begin with beyond the initial foundational exercises like the middle pillar. A lot of study is also requisite - you should be learning astrology, learning about the hermetic elements, if you're pursuing a neo-hermetic path like the GD material, which is where the LBRP and MP rituals come from. You should be studying several different paths as well to decide which kind of magical development resonates best with your natural inclinations.

You should be doing a lot of internal work, keeping regular journals, asking questions of yourself, learning more about your psyche, why you are the way you are, what motivates your desires and needs, where those desires and needs come from. You should be recording your dreams as well, and learning to apply the knowledge you learn about astrology and the hermetic elements to analysis of your own psyche.

Evocation can help with later study, but only if it's done right and you know that you can trust the information you recieve - if you're not properly prepared, then there's no way to know that you can trust that information.

Pull your astrological chart, there are plenty of places to run a free natal chart online, and they will all pretty much show the same stuff, and begin learning about astrology in depth. There's information you can find online, there are PDFs in our library, some of them are free, I would suggest no relying on one single source exclusively, especially on the internet, as not everyone on the net agrees, although the same themes are present everywhere.

If you're interested in the hermetic style of magic, you should also be studying the hebrew alphabet, to make sense of the formulae you are vibrating when using the middle pillar and LBRP rituals, among others.

There is a lot of study to be done. I started when I was about 12 years old, and when I was fourteen i thought I knew something. I wish I had had someone to demonstrate to me that I didn't. The more you become familiar with astrology and it's connection to kabbalah and the tree of life/cube of space, the better grasp you have of the meaning of the formatives, i.e., the hebrew letters, the more sense the LBRP and MP rituals will make, and the more completely will you comprehend their purpose and their effects on you on both the gross physical and the subtle energetic levels. Just those two exercises can take years to master and fully apprehend. Savor the experience of dissecting them and grasping their secrets, and keep good journals. DOn't be afraid to admit that you were initially mistaken or only partially correct about what you thought you knew - in your journals be objective, recognize that you are gradually building your knowledge and experience and that in the course of that process you'll have to let old theories and beliefs go to make way for new ones - and that you may have to let those go eventually as well. This is a valuable early period in your magical education, when you have the chance to make good habits like journaling, open mindedness, discipline, objectivity, regular contemplation, and true dedication to the practice by developing a real sense of wonder that comes from discovering secrets they do not teach you in barnes and noble books.

You should be working on your internal space for now - inner growth and transformation, both accomplishing and grasping what those things really are. THe foundation of the rest of your entire practice will be founded on that inner apprehension and strength - if your foundation is weak or not properly built, what will you stand on when you reach further outside of yourself to learn or cause change?

To recap briefly, my suggestion is - study, Astrology, Numerology, The Hermetic Elements, and Kabbalah. They are all interrelated, so it doesn't matter which one you start with. Move between them if you start to lose interest in one. It's not about committing information to memory, it's about comprehending the connections between them, and recognizing these principles at work in the world around you as well as within yourself, although of course through careful and frequent study you will memorize this stuff naturally. Analyze your natal chart, and go over it again once in a while. You should eventually know your natal chart by heart. Journal every day if possible, and include any insights you have during study, or just over the course of the day. Try to observe and record instances when you see the principles you are learning in action. Understand that there is no book that will properly educate you in this regard - if you really want occult (secret) knowledge, you're going to have to work for it, and there is no way around that.

It sounds like this is the boring part, but trust me when I say if you don't spend the necessary time 'paying dues' as it were, at this stage, you'll have to do it later, and what you can accomplish with the proper foundation versus what you may accomplish by haphazardly attempting bits and pieces of magic without that proper apprehension in place, hardly warrants comparison.

If you must work with magic right now, I suggest working with the elemental energies internally. Learn about the hermetic elements first, then work on condensing, dispersing, and directing those energies within yourself. The benefits are nearly infinite in the long run, and you will find that this seemingly simple practicing has deeper complexities that will keep you entertained for some time.

peace

tthanks, i'll get started.

also thanks for being the one person active enough to reply to a topic.


btw. any good books to reccomend on those topics?

For the hermetic elements, I recommend Franz Bardon's Initiation into hermetics - the work itself is only semi-practical, but still good for development and his treatment of the five hermetic elements is very thorough, it covers more than just one or two aspects of the elemental energies. You may also look around online for discussion regarding the tattvas, as the hindu elements are the same as the hermetic elements (in terms of ideology; earth, air, water, fire, spirit), and they offer a similar but different take on the function of the elements.

For astrology the most classical text is probably the tetrabiblos, you could find a copy on amazon, possibly order it at your local bookstore or possibly even find a copy online somewhere. Browse the pdf library here if you like by clicking on the 'SM' button on the top right of your screen on this page. Other than that, Alan Oken's Complete Astrology is another good straightforward book that also discusses some of the elements of erecting a natal chart from scratch.

For Kabbalah, Aryeh Kaplan's 'Sefer Yetzirah, The Book of Creation," and "Kabbalah Meditation" are both excellent books treating the hebrew letters. Israel Regardie's books also discuss the tree of life and the 22 letters, but personally I find the GD hermetic Kabbalah to be lacking inner consistency compared to classical Jewish Kabbalah. By kabbalah I do not mean "red string" kabbalah, which is even worse than GD kabbalah. The work of Carlo Suares is also incredibly insightful and complements Kaplan's work. Of his books I'd suggest his own treatment of the Sefer Yetzirah as well as Spectrograms.

Numerology you'll find spread throughout all of those subjects, I suggest using numerology to recognize connections between apparently discrete themes in these different subjects. You'll learn about the significance of numerology across all mystical traditions more solidly this way.

If you don't have access to these books and no way to get your hands on them - I didn't have a job, personally, until I was 15, and my parents would not have bought these books for me (certainly do not steal them) - then let study on the internet suffice. While it's true there are a lot of misinformed opinions and theories on the web, none the less the traditional elements remain and with some open minded critical observation you'll see which elements are consistently uniform. Suares' work on Kabbalah is almost preserved in it's totality at psyche.com. There are several jewish kabbalah websites, you can just google Aryeh Kaplan and probably find a good one referencing his work. Astrology is everywhere and easy enough to find, Bardon's Hermetics is probably kept online somewhere as a free PDF. Check out our library here as well as Sacred-Texts.org, as they have a collection of occult classics that may prove useful for self-education.

THe most important thing you can do is journal every day. Record what you learned that day, in highlights that is, and record your speculations, how you think some principles manifest in everyday life and in your own life, and read over your entries periodically. This way you'll actively engage your mind in the process of applying what you know and testing it out 'in the field' as it were. This will get your brain use to immediately putting new knowledge to use and will ultimately speed up your development in the long run. The distance between each plateau of development is exponentially larger, so developing good habits now is a must.

And of course, if you have any questions or would like to bounce your speculations off of anyone, you've got the forum here as an excellent learning resource and support base. Good luck, keep us up to date!

peace

Just out of curiosity

how come the first book isn't practical?

You can do successful evocations without a circle, LBRP and a triangle that is a western system and to feel an evocation can’t be done successfully or safely with out is ethnocentric IMO. Shamanist, Hoodoo, Voudon, and Santeria practitioners evoke, invoke and work with spirits in many different ways. I think what you did was successful. I’d meditate with the sigil and place under my pillow first to see if I get any signs in my dream or if I can connect with the spirit’s energy on some level before preceding to evoking them.

Bardon's books are authored from a particularly conservative point of view, and his particular practices demand far more from the individual than is necessary. Most people therefore will not be able to live up to his standards, so following his instructions implicitly is impractical. This doesn't mean they aren't justified or effective, just that for the beginning student the theory behind his work is sufficient for your level of development. Strict adherence to his particular system of practice and mastery is something for later on, after you 'have your feet wet' as it were, and are so they say, your own man. However, in preparation for further advanced work, his theory and basic practices are a good place to start becoming familiar with the hermetic elements.



The people that practice those traditions go through extensive spiritual ordeals and training in order to acquire the spiritual power neccessary to evoke and control or at least deal with the spirits of their particular traditional spheres. So, my suggestions are not ethnocentric at all. Quote:



What you're suggesting is fine to work with natural spirits, angels, or personal guides. When it comes to demons, there is a danger involved that should not be ignored. Demons are enforcers/manifestations/embodiments of our base desires and natures - if they are given control over you, they will drag you down. I have seen it happen first hand, with my own eyes, to several people who I knew well enough to recognize the symptoms when it happened. I've heard about many many other cases as well. The people I knew personally were fortunate enough to overcome their trials. However, it is possible for such a slip up as this kind to lead to full blown possession if the situation and internal factors allow for it, or accumulate over time due to repeated interaction and exchange with the entity.

Elementals pose a similar risk, but it is more along the lines of a personality imbalance, possibly the accumulation of too much of a particular element leading to the kinds of imbalances that can create health problems. However, the elemental entities have no 'spiritual' agenda - they simply propagate their elemental nature, and we become imbalance just by dealing with them unless we rebalance ourselves. With angels there is a spiritual agenda, but it is for our evolution. With personal guides the situation is similar. So, with these entities there is virtually no danger involved. So in all those cases, your assessment and suggestions are correct, provided the student practices some kind of balancing work - which should be the case anyway.

peace

Well, here's the thing.

If this is real
http://www.sacred-magick.org/index.php?showtopic=6394&pid=39738&st=0&#entry39738

so is the evocation indefinately.

if not, then i have had a bad case of self delusion when i was young, which lead to FALSE spiritual development

Inasmuch as the 'astral' is generally inclusive of all the unstructured aspects of creation - vs. structured/material - everything that happens in our minds happens on the astral plane, specifically the psychic plane, which you could classify as the 'near astral', that is the level of condensation of that universal divine substance of creation which is closer to the material plane than other 'higher' planes. There is some discussion across the forums about the differences between one kind of astral plane and another, this particular thread is not the place to go into it in depth again.

But the layman's answer is, yes it was a real experience, but that does not necessarily classify it as the same experience as an evocation, or astral travel, or a variety of other experiences associated with movement/change in the astral world. You could think of the material world as the point of condensation for all of the astral worlds, and ultimately existing 'within' the astral world in a sense, a bit like a child in the womb of it's mother. Analogously, of course, it is not exactly like that but symbolically approximate.

So, for instance, that particular experience as a child seems to me to be a very normal, but still very constructive experience of playing pretend, exercising mental muscles in terms of visualization, emotional control and manifestation at will (acting, if you want to make it simple), and maintaining a 'global' continuity in terms of compartmentalizing discrete elements together in a complete picture that as a child you entered into, made changes, it developed around with without you there necessarily - I used to do the same thing as a child, as did most of the people that I know. It was an astral experience like any other 'playing pretend' act is - but not necessarily the same thing as reaching into a specific plane of existence to contact an entity in resonance with that particular plane and then generating a conduit of communication or manifestation so that this entity in question can respond in kind and even, in the cases of physical manifestation, actually condense itself, or be condensed, to the point of manifesting in the physical world to some degree.

Experiencing the astral plane, astral travel, astral communication, evocation of entities nearer to the physical world, are natural things. THe point of magic is to understand the differences of different levels of experience, how all of these different things work together to create the reality that we typically exist in passively, and ultimately to learn what actions are necessary in order to direct one's own experience accurately.

So, let's say you're brand spankin' new to magic, you've never done magic on purpose before, you've never even thought of it. You still have probably had some magical experiences, but that doesn't make you a magician, that makes you a normal person like anyone else - you simply have taken the first step towards becoming a magician, which is looking at your experiences from a magical point of view.

One of my favorite mottos of magical practice is, Anyone can do magic; Magicians are magical Athletes. Anynyone can run, being able to run doesn't make you a track star.

The problem with your evocation experience isn't that it failed. Like I said in the beginning, it might have been forneus, he might have been in a good mood and you might have had good 'reception' at that particular time. The problem is that without the proper development and experience you have no way to confirm that it was forneus, and therefore can't trust anything the entity told you; the second problem was that you haven't gotten the necessary spiritual power to command authority over that entity if it was forneus, so he could lie to you, he could hurt you (not physically, there are other ways to be hurt, and they can lead to physical harm), and being in his presence alone could be dangerous to you without the ability to know when your energy has been pushed out of balance and how to intelligently determine in what way it is unbalanced and how to take specific actions to rebalance properly; the third problem is that you've never done another evocation, and you don't have a personal instructor who can help you in a more personal way to know whether you performed a successful evocation or not.

This is why education is so important. You need to have some way to evaluate your experience and grow from it. If you're flying blind, you have to run on your instincts alone, and without proper training and development, there's no way you can be sure that you can trust your instincts - a spirit can manipulate you in subtle ways that will lead your intuition towards the conclusions it wants you to come to, it can manipulate your emotions so that you will be more likely to accept as truth what it says.

What I've tried to give you here is a very, very flexible system of self-education. It's not indoctrination into a specific path, but the introduction of the basic elements of western esotericism that will allow you to expand your own education as you see fit. Magic is not just about memorizing and practicing particular rituals and following instructions - it's about comprehending the nature of the world, apprehending the rules by which it works, and learning through experimentation how to apply those rules towards your intended ends. You have to learn the rules. To do that you need information that you can observe in action. Even if the information you have doesn't show rule correctly, you will still have something to which you can compare the truth in action. But if you have no information at all (or alternatively you don't spend decades observing, recording, analyzing, and correlating your entire life experience) then you can't learn those rules, and you can't apply magic intelligently towards specific ends.

peace

i see.

so basicaly, it was, but that doesn't matter.

On an interesting side note, one of my friends who would do that with me still does it on his own.
One time he saw me trying to astral project, and failing.
he asked what i was doing, so i told him. he had a successful projection in one try.

...

well whatever.

also any other astrology books to reccomend?

I cant find the second one, and the first one is very confusing in that the only form i can find it in is a pdf.
and it has very very bad spacing as if someone was typing and never hit the enter or tab keys.

To say that it doesn't matter would be a bit dismissive - it doesn't necessarily apply to this particular situation, as they are two separate phenomenon dealing with separate realms of the astral side of creation. The point to understand is that there is a difference between that natural human experience which inevitably includes these phenomenon, and training ourselves to control and direct those experiences. Not a fundamental difference in the phenomenon themselves, which take place under certain conditions, which conditions those are can change from childhood to adulthood, largely due to the gradual conditioning we experience from the world and society at large around us. It's good to seek a mystical explanation or side to every experience, but it is not productive to assume that because one experience happened, we are masters of the creation and direction of those experiences.

As far as books go, just search astrology on amazon.com, look for one that, if you feel you need a beginners or laymans introduction, reflects that kind of treatment of the subject, or if you are looking for something more academic, look for one that treats the subject more academically. Without knowing you personally for some time, I cannot be more specific as to what book will suit you best. Do some research, get a feel for what is available, and then choose from those options you have available. I don't know what your means are, what you have access too, etc. You might be able to find a good book at your local public library, so perhaps look there.

peace

wow. i shoud call up this forneus or whatever. last spirit i called up didnt seem to like my circle. i suppose HE was contained, but his power wasnt... he sent my teddy bear flying towards my candle... which of course i jumped to save. my grandma gave me that thing. in saving teddy, i broke the circle. i slept in my circle that night and kept my pentagram necklace on all night. i ended up slightly possessed in the morning... just a horrible feeing of hatred. dont remember his name, but he was mean. i know he was goetic tho... started with a V i think... IF it was even him..

I was searching for info on Bardon and this old thread came up and I forget to respond.



LOL Extensive spiritual ordeals? Are you being serious? That was basically just a broad generalization right? I know quite a few non-western trad and western trad magicians that perform evocations fine like anyother ceremonial magician without the need of a triangle, LBRP etc.

As a Voudun practitioner I can tell you now that I have never had to go through any spiritual ordeals to work with the spirits I work with on a constant basis.

I actually find it rather amusing that you need so many circles and triangles.

If you act afraid of anything in life it will consume you.

Surrounding your self with a circle will NOT stop a spirit if it's intent was to harm you. (in my experience spirits really just want to help you).

If a spirit wanted to harm the person in the circle it would, because being in the circle shows fear and fear implies weakness.

No matter how many names of different gods you surround yourself with it all boils down to your psychological level of readiness.

Like I said.

I have never gone through any ordeal.

I have been possessed by spirits numerous times, almost on a daily basis.

And I always receive the knowledge I am seeking.

Those "demons" are there to help, if you let them.

Ethnocentric? Get off it! I dont care what you do or practice but I think it is ignorant to throw around such labels about other peoples practices and obvious you have ethnocentric issues of your own to deal with. How would you like it if I called what you do primitive and savage? I dont think you would care for it all anymore then I do you bringing about a racial issue into this! Leave the nonsense at the door please.

Are you irrational? What label am I throwing around ? I didn’t once insult Western magic. (or at least I don’t think I did, this thread is quite old). I practice Western, Native American, African and Indian techniques of magic and spirituality. But to believe that any non Western practice isn’t as effective or “primitive” and “savage” as you believe, is ethnocentric. So teaching new practitioners that you can’t evoke correctly without using circles and the LBRP is ignorant IMO.

Ethnocentric has nothing to with racism. You can be a “black” or non white American/English person and be ethnocentric via towards non western practices. Its about culture not skin color. Your 27 and a bit too old to be so uninformed.

Ethnocentric: conviction of own cultural superiority

Irrational? No. Since since the root word of ethnocentric is ethnicity shows a clear racial connection not to mention that word is used by those who are PC via racial lines constantly. I should say you are the one uniformed. I never called your work savage or primitive either, which shows you jumping to conclusions and trying to cause me to back peddle, I wont. If you cannot understand an example then that is YOUR problem. Oh BTW here is another defination that fits the word much better especially concerning its use now.

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's own race or ethnic group is the most important and that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups. Since within this ideology, individuals will judge other groups in relation to their own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behavior, customs, and religion. These ethnic distinctions and sub-divisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity

Not to mention that the roots of culture began with certian racial/national identies one cannot completely seperate them now can they? Sure other races can cross into cultures not traditionally of their race, that is not the issue. Thank you for your insults it shows lack pof skill in argument and your obvious immaturity. I would be careful who you call uniformed. I am done with this I did not com e here to argue. Good day.

You are irrational. Your new to this site and you go straight to creating pointless arguments, your too old for this attention grabbing.

When I mentioned ethnocentric I mean via culture not race, the racist undertones of my previous post are your own personal projection. One can successfully perform evocations using non western methods, to think other wise is ethnocentric IMO.

Ethnic sharing cultural characteristics.

The main/general meaning of ethno has nothing to do with race and physical appearances.

People see the word ethno and flip out. Grow up.

Greetings!
This topic has strayed off its original course. Please keep to the topic.
HolyHandGrenade- I applaud your right to an opinion but let's not create a problem where there was none. Racial slurs were not made! Ethnicity is NOT the same as racism nor should it be implicit in the statements presented here! We ALL have ways of approaching this topic...for instance, I don't agree with Umbra...but I don't consider him racist because his culture has taught him to believe/look at this subject in this way. We're here to discuss our views not to create hostilities. If you find that you are at odds with what Aphrodite has to say, either present your views and arguments calmly or back away from the discussion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but not if it means being obnoxious. We have people here from all over the world and the viewpoints can vary considerably. Take a deep breath and chill out! You've made your point. Now...back to the topic at hand!
Thank you,
Bym

So, you're saying then that you have in your own evocation work, had a spirit manifest itself before you in the way described in the classical western grimoires - as a control example here - fully visible to the eye? Not astral sight, not a spirit vision, not a telepathic communion, but a full manifestation?

Anyone can commune with the natural world. We do it all the time, some people give it a voice and some people are simply oblivious, there is nothing overtly special or magical about communing with a spirit, in my opinion, at all except to the extent that those people doing so are taking a proactive effort to turn their attention to those spirits.

Fact of the matter is, a lot of magicians say that they perform evocations without any circles, triangles, etc., but typically when asked about the nature of this evocation, they describe using a scrying mirror, or communing astrally, etc. - you need a lot less protection, sometimes nothing more than your will, to be safe at that level of evocation, because there is still a vast abyss between yourself and the spirit.

Possession of the type common to many tribal traditions likewise is not the same thing - this is invocation, not evocation at all, and of course the need to protect oneself is by and large a moot point in this case, except possibly to the extent that the practitioner may be possessed and then subsequently exorcised when the task is completed, as in the case of some hindu practices.

The voudoun, shamanism, and tribal magic as practiced by the vast majority of modern practitioners is a pale, pale shadow of what it once was, and I have known some powerful tribal traditionalists. Ceremonial magic does not make up the bulk of my background. Just because you are impressed by what you have seen, with your own eyes I assume, does not mean that the spiritual ordeal is not or was never at the heart of those old traditions. You cannot assume that what you have experienced or heard about is necessarily the peak potential of those experiences. The practice of that individual who has not been through the near-death experiences which constitute the spiritual ordeal, can barely be compared in terms of power and accuracy, to say nothing of sheer awareness, to those who have.

I have spent over a decade now not just studying different systems, but comparing and contrasting to see what is the same and what is different, where the common elements are, in an effort to both discover is one system is 'right' or 'wrong' and more importantly discover what that common magical thread is, what structure, when all labels are taken off of it, is the same throughout all traditions regardless of cultural origin. I started when I was 14, and suffice it to say I was and am still a very academic individual when it comes to formal research. Do not be so quick to assume that there are so many differences between one tradition and another for not other reason than that they look different on the superficial level.

You may think, for whatever reason, that other traditions for some reason don't use any kind of protections (and if you've been told this, you were lied to), or that different traditions practice evocation differently - at the heart of it what one tradition calls evocation (and its probably got a different name in any case) often is not what another calls evocation (to some manifestations in the natural world are sufficient, or others there is hardly any such thing as, and it is all a matter of invocation to various degrees). However, the underlying structure, which is enacted subjectively by various cultures, is the same. Magical law is just the yet undiscovered depths of scientific principle which may very well one day be proven in theory as much as any other physical law. Its an element of the interface between matter and energy, a lower world and a higher one, and it is immutable across the board.

There is in fact only one way to effectively practice evocation. It may look like different ways when viewed through more than one lens, but that doesn't mean the necessary principles that must be present are any different.

Also do not assume that just because one isn't harmed by a spirit that they can safely work with no protection of any kind. You can walk right up to many of the worlds deadliest predators and even interact with them often times - but that does not mean they are not dangerous or that they would hesitate before mauling you if you make a wrong turn in your interaction with them.

peace

The problem here is the differences in which we all view spirits.

In Vodou, that possession which you call invocation is indeed evocation. You see, we know that what makes us different from spirits is, aside from their ability to affect our world much more than we can theirs, is that we have physical bodies. They cannot manifest into some random shape in front of you all of the sudden. They can show up in various forms of animals, signs. omens, etc but that is something a little different.

When a person is mounted (possessed) their spirit effectively leaves their body, ergo allowing the spirit to come in. So you do not have that person being controlled by some spirit. It is instead the persons body. Which is, of course, completely different. (Like someone telling you where to drive versus them driving)

This is truly the closest a lwa (spirit) can come to being fully physical, in fact they are now physically in our world.

NOW

There is no need to be afraid of ANY spirit, sure some will tease you, but they all mean very well for everyone, since we can offer each other something.

That does not mean you are safe when asking for things. I once knew a woman who needed money and ended breaking both legs in an accident... she did get a lot of money though... but it is never the spirits who hurt you..

Now other people are what you really need to look out for. People that use the spirits to hurt others.

Again, the spirits do not mean to hurt.. or even to do good. They do, however, like to make deals in a sense.

And will do what you ask for what they enjoy in return.

Though they do not always complete their tasks in the nicest ways. You will always get what you want.

Blessings

What you say about the Tradition that you speak of may be true but then, you are dealing with a very limited scope of spirits.I have experienced some of the workings of voudun and santeria and obeah...and none of them deal with outside manifestation of the spirit or do they cross magical traditions by channeling Lucifer or Asmoday. The traditions are radically different. As a medium it is/was fairly easy to let a spirit in but it is another thing entirely to manifest outside your body the form/full projection of another spiritual entity. Some demons shapes are too alien to manifest coherently without forcing them through a 'lens', so to speak. Hence the original use of the triangle which is a 'lens' or a crystallizing device (no, not a 'shewstone'!)

It is foolish to believe that spiritual (and I use that term rather loosely) beings are harmless.They can harm you...physically if they have materialized sufficiently but also on the emotional or mentally when used as a possessing entity. Again, harm can occur inadvertantly by the difference of the vibration rate leaving physical or mental scarring. Gamma rays will reek havoc with you unless your wearing a lead shield! They could have been friendly gamma rays too! Do you see my point?

The bulk of my practice now is shamanistic. I may not draw a circle every time but even when I don't I have other defenses available or shields at my ready in case they are needed. Crossing traditions can be very dicey. You usually will only get half-baked results at best. Its likened to using a spanner to adjust the solid state chips in your computer! Being 'ridden' by the Baron is quite abit different than being possessed by Furcas! The Orishas and the Saints are quite different from Amprosdias in their action. I've found that the Egyptian Neteru to be more aligned with the Orishas than any of the Asatru. Again, I'm mixing Traditions here...and some just don't mix!

You'll learn more of this the longer you study the many diverse paths over your lifetime. I wish you all a good journey!

There are two essential, primal forces in the universe situated, as it were, just below that primal vivifying force which defies all category, and these are the forces of expansion and contraction. All other forces of all other levels, energetic, material, spiritual, etc., manifest from this initial duality.

Just as there is good will in creation, there is ill will. Just as there is charity, there is greed. As there is love, so is there hatred. Although these words describe to us actions and emotional states of being, that is only how we experience them, and those feelings are not the entirety of the actual force as it might be understood to be a 'whole' thing.

I am saying, although they may be abstracted to a greater degree than what we understand them to be, these 'emotional' archetypes exist on all levels.

There certainly are reasons to be afraid of some spiritual forces out there. For every force that want to help you and have a symbiotic relationship, there is exactly one other parasitic force that wants to harm you. We can call it good and evil if that helps classify it, but it's more of a cosmic scope than just those words convey, and in all reality it is simply the nature of creation.

As Bym suggests, there are different kinds of spirits, and what you are talking about is a particular 'bandwidth' if you will, of spiritual beings who perhaps in a time before history were either discovered or made themselves known and entered into symbiosis with mankind (on a cognizant level, as opposed to the natural symbiosis we -should- have with all of the natural forces, whether aware of them or not).

And your reference to the 'mounting' of a spirit, is exactly the point i made before about differences in terms based on traditional views of magical operations. Strictly speaking, mediumship of that sort falls squarely into the category of invocation. The spirit is invited or enticed to enter the individual's sphere of influence, in this case their body, in order to speak or perform some task. There are degrees of invocation just as there are degrees of evocation, but any kind of willful possession is invocation according to the definition, as opposed to abstracted notions of those same words. Words are defined as they are for this very reason.

Interestingly, speaking of mixing traditions, one of the seals of the 72 goetic demons, actually a few of them if I remember correctly, are strikingly similar to the symbols of the Loah. Equal emphasis is placed on precisely constructing these symbols as well. I believe there are actually images up on SM here somewhere... the initial hypothesis was, I believe, that as solomon had many wives from many different regions and subsequently many different cultures, he co-opted a large number of their native gods/demons/spirits when initially authoring and theoretically binding said beings into the brass vessel.

That he did this is of course speculation, although the chances of developing so similar a set of seals (it is altogether possible that whatever form of divination or instruction he took, supposedly of divine origin, simply informed him of this seal without any prior knowledge of it's inclusion among the Loah) is slim to none, if not outright unthinkable.

It is for confusion of terminology and cultural 'twists' on procedure, as well as the often apparently irreconcilable differences in symbolism and tradition that I place so much emphasis on the underlying structure. If we momentarily abandon the mythology and folklore of a tradition long enough to look at it objectively in terms of mechanics, then we are able to see the similarities between two traditions.

Unfortunately, many traditionalists get caught up in the symbol and story of their tradition, and never spend the time to examine the deeper elements of function behind their own magic. This is lack of awareness is the same condition that separates religions and makes magical systems in general incompatible.

For instance:


Do you imagine that on their level, two spirits are immaterial to one another? Where you say that they do not have bodies, I would say that the form they exist in is a body, and that those spirits have very physical bodies in the various natural phenomenon that they ultimately manifest.

Other things that make spirits different from us is the mode of their consciousness. One spirit is not all powerful, and different spirits are called on for different causes for the very reason that what we talk to when we talk to these spirits is the conscious element of a structure that can only act within certain limitations. For instance a human does not have wings or an aerodynamic body and therefore cannot fly without some external influence. The structure alone is not enough to accomplish it. The structure aspect of spirits is more abstract primarily because we cannot directly observe it as a whole (such as an entire weather system viewed as a structure, rather than viewed in terms of its effects).

For that matter, our actions here in the material world have a direct impact on the non-physical worlds surrounding ours. All of creation is reciprocal in this way. And as for manifesting, while their shapes are usually not random at all but consistent and ultimately symbolic of their nature and the actions they take as we can comprehend them, once given the necessary materiale as a would-be 'body' they can and do manifest 'all of a sudden'. They also communication through signs and omens but as you say, this is a little different.

If you look at the mechancis of how these various worlds fit together and how energy moves between them, all of the things that a spirit can and will do, and the conditions under which these various things can be done, makes perfect sense, to the point that you do not have to be told many of the things that they can and cannot do, because they become self evident. You do not have to be told, for instance, that water must be held in a cup or other vessel, if you already understand what what is and what its structure imposes on it as a substance.

As I intimated before, the difficulty in comparing traditions comes not from the inherent uniqueness of the systems, but in the tendancy for human beings to view something in terms of what it appears to be rather than what it ultimately is. We judge people based on the appearances, their views and opinions, even their deeds, when in reality they are none of these things. Anything else is the same but to various other degrees of simplicity and complexity. When we expose the skeleton, that is the only time we can really observe what is really happening and learn the universal principles, as distinct from the traditional principles.

Attempting to draw this conversation back on track, the point of this discussion of structure is just this: The original suggestions I made were not ethnocentric, culturally biased, or otherwise suggestive of any kind of superior tradition in any way. The material I suggested and the course of action to be taken with them, is a suggestion to endeavor to learn about the underlying principles of magical mechanics. Then, it does not matter what tradition or 'story' one wishes to paste over those mechanics, they will be understood and any tradition can be applied when the proper story is told in order to enact them. There comes a point when one does not need a story to enact those principles. Until then, one tradition is as good as any other. My intention was to help Davisx begin a process of apprehension of those principles, in order to lay the solid foundation for his foray into evocation. All of the suggested materials and procedures were so pointed out because they are based in mechanical - and yes, 'western' - views which tend to be easier to apprehend than the mythologies of many, shall we say, 'non-western' traditions. The principles and mechanics are the same, because they are universal and all traditions adhere to them; of this there can be no question, because we're talking about the underlying structures which cause things to act as they do in their proper way, not the various disguises those principles are assigned through symbolism and storytelling. The Golden Dawn is as much a Story used to enact these principles as is Voudoun, Santaria, Shamanism, and any other tradition - they are all equally valid, and in a sense invalid, at the same time.

The thing which groups this study of structural principles into the category of 'western' vs. 'non-western' is simply that the 'west' has a historical record of viewing and dealing with the universe in mechanical terms, which is not ultimately different than the eastern view - its merely a difference of perspective; in the west we view the 'machine' from the outside, and in the east they view it from the inside as one part looking at the others. Both are correct and they are complementary.

peace

I was wondering what's up with the low tones that I hear alone in my bedroom.
I have a stone that I carry with me that helps the entity in finding me. He was
envocated in November '08. I hear tones and once I smelled cologne. He's
now in the flesh and has been trying to reach me.(?) Is it possible that he's
trying to communicate?

Hi, I want to say that astrology is my thing and want to give you the names of some fundamental authors on the subject: Liz Greene, Tyl Noel, and linda lovegood are all good. Check out the library if you cant buy them

yes this sounds like the work of a demon from the quike witted houmor and the redirecting the conversation making you work for them hahaha. they are so smart and canny I like this most of all. Why are first Evocations so powerfull I dont know but its tue. Perhaps fear is a form of gnosis.

You have done well for a first time and have gone a long way in understanding what comunicating feels like when I first started I kept waiting for a voice for ages I would deny everything except verbal confirmation, but when I found my self taking in trance in a raspy voice in a strange accent saying thing i never would say it clicked and I understood comunication to be a form of inspiration. maybe you are like a pyschic type like my self. I am more of an empath and this is how I recieve information. maybe clarvoyance see more or clairaudiance haer actuall voices but empaths tend to recieve feeling and thoughs this can be hard to diffirentiate between your own thoughts but there is so much information that can be exchanged well in this way. just practice I guess.

Dont doubt yourself to much. It may be the entity talking through you. this happens alot with me. its like a light form of possesion.
if you are an empath type this will probley be your main form of communication. anyway congrats. does your world seem alittle bigger now mine sure did after the first time.

it is i nteresting about the destoying the sigil. this is a form of tormenting the demon according to the grimore with all the other Christian garbage. But I have been asked to do the same thing. burn the seal to release it. those same words. and it has worked for Barbatos as I kind of sacrifice can anyone with more experience explain???

PS. bym I have tryed many forms of magic but goetia and voodoo really apeal to my nature. i think they mix well. and I want to practic evocation in a more shamanatic way. problem is it is so complicated and hard to get information. at the moment I just practice bone casting but would like to learn more maybe you could halp me direct me in the right direction you sound like you know a fair bit about voodoo.