This is a rant. . . Fair warning
I Can’t Summon/Don’t Know If… Spirit X! Can you do it for me?
I’ve been getting a lot of PMs lately about spirit communication and how to achieve it, and while I will answer questions I don’t necessarily want to confirm or deny messages from spirits or if they have ‘accepted’ such and such pact or working you did. I don’t think people understand what they are asking when they ask this of other members. When you do so, you are giving away your power and putting it in the hands of someone who may or may not have your best interest at heart. It is how you get played, putting a middle man between you and your work.
I understand the lust for ‘can he hear me’ the creeping doubt, but that is something all magicians have to wrestle with. It is YOUR battle, not mine. I have absolutely zero interest in checking in with being X, Y, or Z for you. Doing so would take time out of my day, and I have enough problems to worry about, and my own to do. Personally if I don’t know your username at a glance or we haven’t interacted at all, and you come out of the blue asking for something offering nothing in return, it comes off as rude and entitled like you don’t respect my time, even if you ask nicely with please.
There is a TON of information on this forum about interacting with spirits and what to offer and how to deal with offerings. Different opinions on offerings and how to contact who and for what reasons are valid, etc. Honestly, a lot of the good topics are buried under heaps of 'I CANT DO X!" and the same advice is peddled out, over and over and over again. Seriously people, the bare minimum is being able to achieve some sort of calm and altered state of mind. It is not too difficult, it just takes practice and persistence.
I am above checking in on Spirit X for you. I won’t do it. Though I will give you advice on how you can achieve contact yourself. I have sent many, many PMs with the how to and various links, etc. The full enchilada. Most of the time, I get nothing back. I assume they go and look for another who might be willing to check in on Spirit X for them instead of doing the work themselves.
A lot of people fixate on contact, but actual contact means nothing. If you are getting results, that is all that matters. If you are constantly doubting yourself, your abilities, and therefor the pact that you made with Spirit X, then you are taking away from your own abilities and hindering the spirits impact on your life. These forces are indeed separate from you, but they still have trouble manipulating your environment if you get in the way. I am not talking about Lust for Results, but rather the plague of doubt that hinders and locks away your own power more than any Lust could.
A common thing on here is not to make a pact with a spirit until you can communicate with them. I understand the logic in that, but also, I understand that spirit communication takes time and practice. There is a lot of advice on here that says you shouldn’t summon X because it is ‘disrespectful’ to do unless you have a goal or purpose. This is where I disagree.
Newbies, go ahead and summon Spirit X for practice, but before you go crazy summoning every spirit in the book, do it with a mindful intent to make contact. Not, well, I tried for five minutes got nothing, so done! No. That is the wrong way to go about it.
Instead if Spirit X interests you, go ahead and read about them. Read as much as you can. As you read, do you feel anything? A shiver of excitement? Does their seal/sigil pop into your head throughout the day? Does something someone say strike you as words that ‘are not their own’? As you immerse yourself in knowledge of Spirit X, thinking about Spirit X, ect. you are building a psychic/energetic connection to the being in question. Take it and run with it. You can use and will use those feelings later when you get to the actual summoning.
That is a good first step! I usually take forum posts and whatnot with a grain of salt, until I can confirm the gnosis myself. I try not to influence what they may look or act like, and my structuring of the spirit is always loose and I allow their energy to fill in the mental blanks. This is probably why I cannot describe to you spirits in great detail, but more so know them by how they feel energetically.
Idk… I am not going to rewrite the book on spirit summoning here. I dont have anything unique to add. 
I am not sure how many newbies do this, which is why I am going to mention it, but it will help your results greatly if you take some time to calm down, unwind, and do a void meditation before you try your conjuration.
Before every magical work I do in my temple, I take some time to calm my mind and center myself with meditation. I sit on my pillow, and just get comfortable, sink into my body, myself, that inner darkness when you close your eyes, and I just breathe. I watch my breath and make sure I take good full breaths, and that is it. Ill start to feel a warmth, tingling throughout my body, and then lose sensation of it, melting into that darkness. Just breathe. Just exist. Calm the thoughts. Reach a state of non-thought. Let the breath guide you until you reach that state. From there, I can more directly and easily access my own powers. With my thoughts quelled, I can step out of normal everyday reality, unburdened by the everyday, and come into a space of magic where I can suspend my disbelief and focus entirely on the work. I become Ryce.
Its from that meditative state that I can then summon forth spirits, or do what I will. Its only then, do I shift focus on the spirit. The power of breath and taking a few moments to calm yourself, to attune yourself with the most subtle of things, can be the difference between having actual spirit contact and being too dense to hear a word that they are saying.
If you can’t control your own thoughts and discipline yourself a little, good luck having a spirit manifest before you in any discernible way.
If you’re having trouble with spirit contact, start with the basics and follow your breath. You’ll be surprised where it will lead you. Seriously. It IS ‘that easy’.
