It seems that in this entire forum there’s an odd reliance on others; ‘newbies’ are pandering to the more advanced members for ‘help’. For those more advanced members, I have a question for you:
Seeing as we all practice differently and have separate influences, where do you get your main influence? Do you take the grimoiric approach and implement ‘sacred’ tools and designs, with the formulaic invocations and such and use it to access the Other realms? Or do you Listen to the spirits and use their knowledge, letting their rituals and Forms seep into your Being?
I understand that using the grimoiric approach will produce the latter in time, but I’m asking what your main influence is. I saw on EM that TWF is going to begin work with the ‘The Book of Abrasax’ and his work with that grimoire will be mainly influenced by the ideas put forth by Cecchetelli in that work. Additionally, you can see that Poete is heavily influenced by the mythos of the Lemegeton and has invested much time into investigating and decoding those puzzles.
Myself, I shy away from reading other people’s works and have limited my collection of occult books to keep my Work more individualized.
Out of necessity I have always approached everything from a Chaote Perspective. I used a more open approach in which I research what I could about the spirit I was to contact, open their seal and get to know their energy, do want Andrieh call “cognitive mapping”, and then evoke.
So my main influence is the early Chaos Magic, where one admits that there may not he an ultimate truth and then views reality as a symbol set. Not the modern Choas Magic that is more like throwing a bunch of stuff together and hoping it sticks.
When I do evoke I have a set list of questions to try the spirit and when I am sure it is who I called I spend the first few evocations getting to know them, then I begin to ask questions and set tasks.
Though now that I am out of college and primed for a much better paying job I am going to give the Grimoire approach a try.
I have to agree with Orismen, I started out with a chaos magick mindset and still do as I don’t believe in an ultimate truth but rather a subjective one.
I do not rely on others works as a basis for my practice especially in regards to grimoires. I read a lot and then try to adapt what I learn into my own methods and practices. Very rarely do I follow an outline in a book to the letter. I did when I first started but now I approach it in a much more free form manner. Not so much eclecticism as I don’t branch out much in regards to what I work with as. I feel a strong relationship beats a big network or quality>quantity if you will.
I would say I’m pretty spirit led in certain regards, I was doing stuff like the Goetic Hoodoo before it became more popular. I’d find a spirit I felt good working with and find ways to incorporate it into my own work. I’m in the planning stages of making some Jupiterian honey jars using Jason Miller’s Financial sorcery seals and the planetary calls from his Advanced Planetary Magick book (thanks to Orismen’s generosity). I’ll be incorporating some prosperity magick from Abrasax into a prosperity altar I’m in the process of building, I’ll also be including planetary correspondences as well as some rune magick into it. A traditionalist/purist would puke or shit themselves if they saw this altar but that’s ok. I understand the influences and powers I’m trying to direct so they can turn their noses up while I keep my head down and keep working.
I would definitely say I’m far more a spiritualist even though that’s a 4 letter word in many communities, I think many fear thinking outside the box and hold much of the knowledge in grimoires to a higher standard than they should. The authors and creators of the grimoires were magicians and mystics much as we are today, they just had their own system that happened to be uncovered long after they’re dead. I’d love to see how many purists would react to a conversation with many of these old grimoiric authors when they see that these guys were doing their own thing the same as many are today.
That’s just my thoughts, do what feels right and don’t blow yourself up
TWF
EDIT: For the record I consider myself in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM ADVANCED, I only made a point to reply as I was mentioned in the op and it was a good topic as well
I do this one, because I started doing magick (invoking, soul travel, evocation and spells, etc) when I was REALLY young, and didn’t know magick was a real thing people did, I only knew what I’d seen in movies, and although I thought it was real in my own life and in the lives of some of my family, I had no idea there were serious books purporting to teach this stuff.
I was getting results by the age of 9 or 10 in terms of advice from spirits I’d soul-travelled to, advice that was against probabilities and so on, so I then slowly built on my own methods for years, with some successes and plenty of failures, and I also had sexual relationships with various entities that began in the astral realms and over the years developed into full physical manifestations.
The core of my practice has always been a strong relationship with a small number of entities, for example Hathor has always been there for me as a friend and advisor ever since I was a child, and I think that building relationships (no matter what methods you use) is a very good thing because a spirit that invests time in you and has an interest in your advancement is a better way forward than the scattershot “Which entity do I use today to get X?” approach.
JMO there and I’m not trying to attack anyone who feels differently, it can be hard to make a statement of any strong belief without seeming like it’s an attack on anyone who differs, but that’s not my intention.
Anyway my stuff’s very spirit-oriented and I’m happy with that, but always ready and willing to learn different things, even if I don’t plan to practice them.
Yes, the majority of my practice is spirit oriented. Like lady Eva,I believe relationships are betterthian trying to find an entity on a case by case basis. Once you have your group of spirits there, you’re pretty much set.
Personally, I have 13 spirits in my home. Some of them are strictly more of a business relationship. Others are patrons. I have Jezebel who is inbetween atm. Working on her "spiritual evolution"so to speak.
I honestly dont even know what spiritism means, I dont have much time to research about terms, spirits or read entire grimories. When I was younger I invested my time developing a system of deduction that would give me prescience of anyrhing I might sought after. The system was heavily based in interpretation of psychological content, mainly Archetypes and sinergy. The funny part is that I wasnt in the occult at the time, nor had ever cared about it before, but when I started studying body language I noticed how I could affect one’s behaviour even without any kind of contact being made between me and the victim. The following years some events happened in my life and Reality started manifesting clearly to me. I was 19 at the time. The following years I set as goal developing a method to materialize my energy to the physical eye. Thanks to this Im able to evoke spirits using solely my own energy. I dont use triangle nor circle, I just do a divination prior to evoking them and call them forth with my own energy and to be bound to my own soul. Its not like their presence is that solid using this method, but its functional and thats what really matters to me. I bind them to my soul by my Divine Authority, but with due respect to them. On the offerings, they often demand some attitude of mine as being more this or do more that, so everytime I do those its like Im stabilishing a stronger link with them, and also making them more present in my soul. No tools, no banishings, no license to depart and generally no requests to them also as usually when I call a spirit is to have its services for my whole life, FOREVER!
And it works to me, as a spirit is supposed to be as strong and effective as you allow it to be. As long as you have control over yourself HAHA!
