My paradigm is a chaos-based paradigm with hermetic, energywork, psychological, spiritwork, and ceremonial influence as the groundwork.
I am trying to develop a unified sort of practice where seemingly disparate styles of practice are reconciled with each other. I started with the seven hermetic principles, threw in some energywork stuff like the chakra system and guiding energies internal and external, and some other stuff mixed in. The ceremonial stuff is more for when working with spirits who have certain associations/preferences that would make it easier to work with them. The psychological aspects manifest as some mentalist-type stuff, where the lines and divisions between the mental, material, and spiritual planes are not all that defined, based on my own observations and hypothesizing about the nature of the world as we know it.
Now that you know a tiny bit about my practice and paradigm, tell me a bit about yourself.
I have been mostly focused on energy work. Both through Chinese Nei Gong style practices and invocation. I find evocation absolutely impossible for some reason, though energy manipulation comes with far more ease. My practice has mostly been focused on working with many different types of energies: The Hard and Soft Wave of the Nei Gong practices I do, Yogic Inner Fire, The Black Fire, The Death Essence, The Energies of The Black Citadel, Other energies that can be channeled through invocation etc. My practice is really energy work focused, and yes I do approach invocation as a form of energy work, because that’s what makes sense to me.
Have you yet reconciled the idea that all energies are the same? From my experience, energy is the same, just has different inflections based on the source and other things that can influence it. Once you strip away the what I call inflection from the energy, it is neutral. And stripping away those inflections only slightly reduces the efficiency of use, while making it so much easier to manipulate.
@Anziel_Merkaba I was taught that the more different types of energy one learns to manipulate the more one’s overall power increases. It’s about long term development for the most part. With each energy you learn to control you grow more powerful. Yes their are boons associated with each energy (mastery of the soft wave makes one invulnerable to physical harm for example), but more importantly all the different types of energy feed into each other. Your control, power, and mastery of magick in general increases as you learn to manipulate different types of energy. It’s not just about having one more cool power. It’s about the development of your Spirit, so that it may better manifest stronger in ALL areas of magick. Also I am not entirely sure I would agree that all energy is the same. Theory aside I have found that it does matter for practical purposes (Black Fire can destroy better than anything, but don’t even think of healing with it). Each type of energy has it’s own uses. Yes it’s possible to do everything with “pure energy” but though that may be the easy way I don’t think it’s the best way, and it does seem to be a big difference once you go into the crazy world of telekinesis like feats. Certain types of energy can have truly explosive results in accomplishing certain tasks, and for me that advantage is a nice side benefit. The main point of course as I will repeat here is overall development of the Spirit. The more types of energy you learn to handle the healthier and stronger your Spirit becomes.
@TheStorm The whole purpose of purifying the energy is so you can apply the proper inflections yourself. Instead of trying to manipulate a particularly aggressive form of energy, you guide the purified energy to it’s purpose then apply the aggressive inflections to the energies. It’s like using two-part epoxy instead of superglue.
@Anziel_Merkaba That can be done. I am well aware of that. To me having to rely on that alone would be crippling though. When your spells are cast in split seconds it isn’t quite easy to transmute the energy into another form in that time frame (it can be done and yes I will take my own advice about doing things the hard way when necessary and learn how to do it eventually) whereas the energy can simply be channelled in pretty high concentrations from deep within your soul and the planes beyond with but a spoken word (exact details vary. With the Black Fire after the first time the embers are always there just waiting to be reignited. With the energies we work with in Nei Gong it’s more about having a large storage of cultivated energy. The Death Essence and the Black Energy are channeled directly from another plane)
I am an aspect of that infinite Mind with certain parameters, which I choose to embrace gleefully, including this manifest biological life as the person I am, in the period of “history” I’m in right now.
Everything exists within Mind, all that matters is what works to get the desired effects.
I was originally an atheistic Satanist but eventually that morphed into theism. That doesn’t stop me from being inspired by the philosophy though. I have several books on Satanic philosophy and it took only one Chaos magic book to get me into magic in general.
Apart from that I’m studying within the Draconian tradition and I have an interest in many other paradigms. I think once I formally self-initiate on the Path of the Dragon, I’ll study Hoodoo, Shinto Shamanism and Demonolatry in more depth. Kabbalah too but mostly because of the Qlipoth utilized in the Draconian tradition. I also like to study occultism in Latin America and through that I actually became interested in angel magic.
Basically I believe that if it inspires you, it can work with you. It doesn’t really matter if you believe in God or no God or Satan or the universe or yo momma, as long as you can get your beliefs to work in your favor.
A blend of meditative (mostly) and ceremonial style: direct magic/psionism as the “ground floor” and, by some continuity, a bit of chaos.
On top of that, I really like the idea of the two types of High Magic: orthodox and modern/scientific, so where possible I apply the pertinent rules. The rest is wicca and occasionally shamanism; also some satanism/demonolatry, obviously only when I’m contacting those entities.
My paradigm is Norse and Vodun with daemonolotry mixed in. It involves necromancy, vampirism, spirit work, evocation, invocation, rune work, hoodoo oils and powders, sympathetic magick, energy work, and a pinch of chaos magick and a heavy dose of shamanism.
Vodun is very very primal and physical. The spirits come quickly when called and they linger as long as their fed. Results seem to come quickly as long as you maintain a relationship with the Lwa. It’s an amazing path. I’m more focused on Norse sorcery at the moment but when I get some more money I’ll buy the voodoo course so I can learn more. I haven’t done Lave Tet or Asson but I’m self initiated and I work with the Lwa almost daily. It’s a path that contains everything. Divination, heavy necromancy, baneful magick, beneficial magick, money magick, etc. Theres Lwa that can help with all of those things. If you have even the slightest pull to the Lwa, I’d say jump in and explore.
@FraterMagni Is there a (cheap) book or two you could recommend for voudoun? I am not currently in a situation where buying Spider and The Green Butterfly would be practical, but I am interested in that Path.