Hey, @Mapachtli … You’re asking really good questions.
Lady Eva gave you her take on it. I’ll give you mine.
When we learn magick, we build up a mental understanding of how it works. I call this a “magickal mental model”. And your model may be very different to my model, but yours works for you and mine works for me.
That’s what makes it so hard to discuss this stuff. We have to translate from each other’s models into our own models or become flexible enough mentally that we can set aside our old model and adopt a new model. (Hint: There’s some power in that italicized part.)
Here’s the magickal mental model that the spirits taught me to work with so I can do stuff like this …
Think of the Source of All Things as a Black Sea of Unlimited Potential. It is everything that could possibly be before it is anything.
Several ancient cultures had specific names for this and they felt it was alive. We often still refer to it today as the Abyss or the Void.
Based on my own personal experiences and working with it through many different forms, I believe it is Living Power, Pure Consciousness. And I believe it is the Source of All Things Before They Become Things.
When I reach out to a spirit, I believe this Living Consciousness flows into the form of that spirit and interacts with me through that spirit’s characteristics. The spirits themselves have taught me to see their identities as Masks that this Living Consciousness can wear.
Here’s the mental picture they’ve given me to understand it …
Imagine you’re looking into space at a field of stars.
Each star would represent a different Mask, a different Form that energy can take.
Some of those stars would be humans, some of those stars would be spirits.
Some of those stars are closer together (sharing more similar characteristics) and some of those stars are farther apart (sharing less characteristics).
But all of the stars are floating within the same Black Sea, the Abyss, the Unlimited Field of Pure Consciousness. And all the stars are made of that energy. We’re just individual points of Consciousness rather than the Entire Consciousness.
When we make a connection to a spirit, imagine a line of energy connecting one star to another. You can imagine the stars moving closer to one another or even merging together into a new star for a time and then separating again.
In other words, I feel that when I reach out to a spirit, the Abyss temporarily limits a part of it’s own energy in that spirit’s Form (or Aspect or Mask) in order to interact with me and then it release that energy back up into the Black Sea of Unlimited Potential when we’re done.
And it doesn’t seem to matter whether the Mask was seen as a spirit or god by an ancient culture or whether I spent a few minutes creating it in my own mind. The Living Power flows into it for me either way and interacts with me.
Now don’t me wrong. These Masks all feel very different and have different characteristics. They are very different patterns of energy. I just feel they’re made of the same Stuff, the same Living Power, the same Super Consciousness. And they’ve convinced me of this through our experiences together.
When we evoke another human being, I feel this is actually what’s happening. I believe it’s the Abyss, the Living Power, flowing into that person’s Mask and using it to interact with us. It feels like that other human being … and the may even feel some weird sensations from the energetic connection… but I don’t think it’s their Conscious Self, the part you would call that person’s name.
And because we’re all a part of the Abyss, the Black Sea of Unlimited Potential, we have access to everything within that. I think that’s how psychic abilities work. We’re simply shifting our perceptions and awareness around within the other parts of this energetic field we’re all a part of.
This magickal mental model seems to correspond pretty closely to the ancient Sumerians model.
I can’t prove this is “the right way” and I don’t even want to. I don’t care about being right. It’s simply effective for me and so I use it.
If it works for you, use it. If it doesn’t, find another magickal mental model that does and use that.
Just don’t fall into the trap of arguing about who is right and who is wrong.
Everything is possible. Not anything. Everything. Even things that seem to contradict each other.