An awkward first time introduction

New Magician Help & Introductions
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Hi. My name is Dave. I’m in my mid 30’s, living in California. It’s nice to meet anyone on these forums who happens to have the energy and bandwidth to actually check for introductions. Props and salutations for the effort involved of anyone reading this.

For context: When I was a kid, I was raised Christian. I separated from that religion early on due to the high control aspects, along with what I perceived to be abusive behavior. Being LGBTQ+ was a big factor for that experience. For a long time I looked at things through a purely scientific basis. Though if anything, I always considered myself agnostic. I think that anything is possible, and I have a great deal of respect for the experiences and journeys I’ve seen others follow.

Ultimately, I am quite uneducated when it comes to magick, and I’m naively hopeful, that I might get through this experience without saying anything unintentionally dismissive, or accidentally disrespectful. We are all here for a reason, and I think that’s wonderful.

To be honest, I’m not really sure what I myself am doing here. I think that at times when the world feels completely out of our control, it can be appealing to look into the possibilities of that which is not tangible. Despite having community and friendships, I’ve also found myself feeling a deep loneliness lately, despite having the opportunities for connection. The idea of having a romantic companion from another realm doesn’t sound scary to me, even though I realize protection and common sense would be necessary. There are also a lot of considerations that make it a complicated experience, even in best case scenarios.

I actually had a sleep paralysis experience a few years back that involved a shadowy figure on top of me, following a dream that was quite explicit, and well… sexual. It was a lot more vivid than any dream I’ve ever had, before or since. It terrified me at the time, and I remember crying when I finally was able to wake up and move. I thought I was going insane. Looking back, I wish I could have had more context. Maybe it was astral projection. Maybe it was a demon trying to make a genuine connection, without actually meaning to hurt me. Maybe if I had not reacted in fear, they might have stuck around, or at least could have came back at some point. It wasn’t a bad experience after all. Simply unexpected, and it felt so real. The shadowy figure aspect did scare me admittedly. I assume not knowing how to banish / set boundaries would have ultimately been a bad thing. At the end of the day, I simply wasn’t prepared.

Anyways, I’m here now. Nice to meet all of you. I hope that your experiences with magic have brought you closer to living the lives you always wanted to. Maybe someday it can offer me the same experience through trial and error.

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Welcome @firsttimer

Do you have any experience in magick at all?

if not, what areas of magick are you interested in learning more about?

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Thank you @DarkestKnight. I’ve never summoned anything, or written a letter of intent. I’ve never cast a spell or incantation. And I’ve never been able to astral project with intention and planning. I’d love to learn all those things from reputable sources. Perhaps any spells that lead to overall wellness, emotionally, physically, mentally. That would be great. Anything that might give me better insight and perspective as well.

A friend of mine has an ancestral legacy with voodoo. He warned me to never astral project, since without protection, my soul could be stolen from me as part of a deal I won’t remember when I wake up. He told me the shadowy figure I met was likely “The Hat Man.” Not sure if that even makes logical sense. I took what he said with a grain of salt. Though it did make me realize that I need to take this seriously, and know what I’m getting into before getting into the more vulnerable aspects. I hope that makes sense. Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

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That sounds like religious fear mongering. Your soul cannot be stolen and astral journeys are like dreams so with a bit of practice, you can learn to remember everything you experience.

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That’s a relief to hear, considering it’s the funnest sounding aspect of magick. Thank you for the validation and encouragement to explore.

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Yeah, that’s not a thing. TBH the voodoo types are well known to be particularly superstitious and histrionic, but they don’t really know why it’s just a very emotional religion. You don’t need to worry about this. You can’t sell your soul either, even if you wanted to. It just doesn’t work like that. The trope comes out of medieval propaganda by the European church against magickal practices and the witch hunts in the 1600s.

You do want protections though, because astral parasites are annoying and time wasting. When astral projecting, the easiest thing to do is teleport elsewhere. You’re untouchable to be honest. Unless you choose not to be.

Here is a getting started with magick guide that also tells you everythign about the forum, and links to FAQs and tutorials. You’ll want to get your spiritual hygiene sorted out, and start work on developing your astral senses, then when you can know you have a decent chance at avoiding impostors and parasites then try the first contact guides we have on here.

For reference:

The rules are here

The posting guidelines are here in the FAQ

The Terms of Service are here

:joy: The Hat Man is fiction - an Internet creepy pasta meme. Great for youtube videos for teens to scare each other. Magickally it’s basically an egregore - a man-made non-sentient astral thoughtform. There’s trillions of astral entities you’re more likely to meet first.

Shadow people exist, and sometimes they appear to have hats, they’re not all that and a bag of chips: tell them to fuck off and they do.

Can be. They also sometimes just move on and it doesn’t sound like you have an issue now. If you’re not sick, depressed, cranky unmotivated and/or lethargic with constant feelings of dread and anxiety you’re probably doing pretty good. Some of them are only curious about you and don’t even mean it as an attack.

But it doesn’t sound like what you had was a shadow person. It sounds like you had a “hag attack” - this is caused by astral entities that feed on your energy including sexual energy. We (humans) are food. This is the source of the myths about succubi, which are also parasites. We have a lot of info on getting rid of parasites because the are a common problem for almost everyone. Here is a sampling: Forum Tutorials: Parasite Collection

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@Mulberry Thank you so much for the incredibly useful, detailed, and organized information.

I’ve had chronic low energy, depression, and anxiety for over two decades. Though I’m in therapy, have tried SSRI medications (minimal results), and I also lead a healthy lifestyle with diet and consistent exercise. Point is, I realize that what you are saying is not medical advice, and that a comprehensive approach is important. Though doctor’s have never been able to explain why I’m always tired. I’m excited to study parasites now, since maybe that might be a factor. Even if it’s not, it’s good to know how to avoid them in the future.

Growing up in a high control fear and shame based religion. I never felt like anything we had blind faith in was genuinely perceptible. It always felt like discussion of something we would experience someday. I never felt the presence of anything, and it made me feel isolated within a group that always claimed the opposite as their experience. I always wondered if magick might make me more sensitive to energies in a beneficial way. The way I had hoped religion might when I was younger.

I think the thing that what always stopped me from studying magick in the past was the fear that I might unlock something I can’t close. I also still don’t fully understand how communication works with the other side. Would it be like hearing voices you can’t shut off? Or seeing entities walking around when you are conscious or awake? Something a psychiatrist might judge harshly with a closed mind? I don’t know if I’m ready to be that aware. Or if it would indeed be helpful or beneficial.

Having a community I can reach out to makes this all feel a lot safer, and less gatekept. I appreciate the consideration put into your prior replies as well. I’m excited to deep dive into the links. Thank you both so much again! This has been a great introductory experience. : )

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Ah, well a good banishing, probably several and building this into your practice, doesn’t hurt and can compliment therapy, if nothing else by psychologically giving you something concrete to do to feel in control.

I would advise staying away from summoning, especially of succubi and lesser entities, until you are feeling better, as these things just tend to get in the way and play “impostor”. They are already in your field and ready to step in the way of a telepathic connection.

On the plus side, you will get there and by the end of it you’ll have a wealth of knowledge and skill and nothing can touch you again, you will likely be able to help others who have the same issue later, if you want to.

Same. I’d say rely in yourself, trust yourself - if you didn’t feel anything it’s because you were right, and there was nothing there.

Sensing energy is not really magick, a human skill anyone can build. That’s all. So, being a skill, you get better at it with practice. It doesn’t matter even that much what practice you pick, the more you do the more you can. Like gym work, don’t expect overnight results and don’t go for shortcuts that can get you injured, consistency is key - little and often.

Yeah that’s the religious dogma bit. It’s a lot harder to get results than that sadly, and once you can banish and ward there’s no reason for uninvited energies to be in your space. Part of maintaining control is to rid yourself of fear - what you fear, you can manifest, when it didn’t even need to be real, so don’t be afraid.

Clairvoyance is a skill that means your subconscious is able to activate your sense of hearing to communicate with you. You would banish and ward is unwanted entities pop in without permission. You always have the right to defend yourself and there’s no reason to give anything uninvited permission.

Personally I am a complete asshole about this and very cruel to the uninvited, with the result that nothing bothers me if it wants to live - so they don’t. I’ll tell you a secret: you’re the nastiest thing in your universe. The only things you really have to worry about is other humans. We’re stupid strong, we just give up easily through fear and ignorance. Your weakness in is your head: and the parasites use that to trick you, it’s the only way they can win.

However if you can’t grab the parasites to shut them up, they may be hallucinations and not real, and that’s a different issue. Banishing can still help but schizophrenia is not a magickal issue, in my opinion. You can still be a mage with this condition but you have to be very careful to verify, not get paranoid and reject imagination in favour of results. Being a TI can be helped by death cursing the attackers, but these are human and that’s harder, but very rare.

Takes years to develop this and you’ll be used to it by then… The astral is a busy place. You don’t freak out if you see a bird flying do you? Or ants on the ground? Wildlife exists it’s not a big deal. Then why should you care about glimpsing astral wildlife? It’s got nothing to do with you most of the time. Anything sentient you can choose to talk to or tell it to go away, and banish if it misbehaves.

Be very careful of people with hard ideologies that could negatively affect you. Treat everyone like a religious zealot, because they kind of are, especially in the medical profession - they have years of training and hundreds of thousand of dollars invested into identifying as this thing, that things a given way - assume you cannot reason with them to start with and that they can and will harm you for having a different worldview, even if you are highly functional, some take it personally so find out what you are dealing with before being too open.

So, if you know they have a closed mind then treat them with info and a need-to-know basis. Do not give your agency away: YOU are the only person who can advocate for you, professionals are there to help and advise you, not control you: so leverage their skills to your advantage.

Know yourself is the most important tenet for a mage. That comes first before everything really, there’s no substitute, and that’s what therapy is a good tool for.

No worries it’s what we’re here for :smiley: The forum is 12 years old and there’s a ton of stuff to browse. My opinion is just my opinion and you might develop a different one and that’s fine - that can be frustrating that there’s no real “Truth™” in this game - there’s just what gets results for you and we’re all different, and that’s ok. Trial and error is just good experience building, and experience leads to skill, so, it’s all good. :slight_smile:

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