Now I’ve done a fair bit of reading on the importance of Offerings themselves along the lines of what to/not to offer and how certain things can influence your path in the long run, but what I am curious about is how effective results are if you make them either at the time of petition or after as a thanks for said results. I’ve personally made my offerings after the fact and I seem to be having okay results. Would giving the offering at time of petition encourage faster alignment of my goals or even increase the likely-hood of better results than if I were to wait until after?
I’d love to hear the community’s opinion and perhaps advice on the matter, or even a redirect in case I have over looked another post that could answer this better than what I was able to find with the search function.
I don’t think it makes a difference, though it’s nice to, say, pour two glasses of tipple and share a toast in ritual.
Though come to think of it, thinking the entity will work faster another way could come under the doubt umbrella, and implies that they might not be doing as much as they could on the agreement, which is might be a bit insulting depending on the spirit.
I don’t intend to imply doubt, it’s more of an incentive based notion. Kind of like would you do better work if you were paid up front or after the job is done sort of thing.
Exactly - they agreed to help already, they want to help, it’s what they do, so, and to assume they need more incentive, which is a human thing, COULD - not saying would - but could be construed as lacking in confidence that they care about you and therefore insulting.
Sometimes this stuff takes a lot of work as well, the limiting factor is going to be the slowest process, which could be out of their hands when free will is involved.
But as I said, it depends on the spirits. For djinn and other non-celestials maybe that’s exactly what you need.
I don’t think there’s a rule other than do what feels right.
Okay then, setting human concepts aside, would you have an opinion on the energy side of things? As in, if giving an offering of any sort might give the entities a little more juice to work their mojo as opposed to replenishing the entity once they’ve expended theirs in performing said task.
This line of question is coming more from a physics based mode of thinking, law of conversion and all that whatnot. I’m having an interesting time separating this from my path and was debating if this is something I should try to do away with, as I’m under the impression that it could undermine future workings.
As from your reply I understand that human concepts should not be applied to non-human beings, but the way energy works on a quantum level I’m finding difficult to keep from influencing my thoughts on this sort of thing as so far it’s worked well in terms of crystals and servitors.
I do appreciate your reply @Mulberry as you give plenty of insight. Thank you.
I don’t think they’re using your energy to do the working.
I approach offerings as a ‘fair exchange is no robbery’ or a token of gratitude sort of thing. We don’t really know always how they are going to get it to work or how much energy it takes, but I would imagine the essence of an offering or energy of gratitude wouldn’t really cover it.
This sort of leads me to a follow up question, more so about some entities I’ve read about where the authors suggest/infer that one should not evoke without having an offering prepared? Would you say this is more based on their own experiences and should be taken with a grain of salt?
It seems there is a heavy air of “see for yourself” attitude when it comes to this sort of thing, not that I imply this as a negative aspect.
I don’t give offerings to spirits, yet they willingly do as I ask.
The only time i have given offerings was for personal reasons, to build a relationship with the spirits in question. (a small handful out of the dozens I have evoked). Generally, I don’t do them.
I don’t give offerings because there is really no need to. I’m not religious, and don’t practice demonolatry so I don’t worship.
I follow EA’s methodology, and according to him, spirits help us because it gives them the opportunity to exert their power in the world. Not once is the practice of making offerings mentioned in EA’s books. They don’t need anything else but the chance to work, and so far my experience bears that out.
I thank you for reminding me of this, considering his works are what brought me deeper down the rabbit hole so to speak I’m surprised that I never realized that. Makes me want to add ‘if at all’ to the title of the thread now…
Some people see offerings as a “payment” for a task, but that is not really the purpose of offerings. The spirits will usually do the task anyway. Offerings are most often seen as a gesture of worship or appeasement, which is why they figure heavily in the religious approach, like demonolatry, or the traditional magick of Solomon.
The offerings I have made to the small handful of spirits were done as an invitation, and a sign of respect and appreciation. I didn’t ask for anything in return. I simply wanted the spirits to know they were honoured guests and welcome in my space (Lilith asked me specifically for some red wine when I evoked her, and Belial wanted to share in some of my berry cider and I had no problems with that).
So then it’s not a requirement in a basic sense, but a choice on part of the Operator dependant on if anything is even asked?
That does clear things up for me, as the notion of offerings was particularly stuck in my mind when I saw one of J.S. Garret’s interviews where he spoke of Sun’tal’ock (sp?) taking his chickens after a ritual where he’d only used his and the client’s blood as an offering. It made me wonder if the energy taken was a requirement for the task that had been requested which was not fulfilled by the intended offering. Which then furthered the question when I started seeing posts about preferred offerings relating to specific entities.
I appreciate your input on this. Thank you DarkestKnight.
From what I understand, J.S. Garret specifically practices blood sacrifice in his belief system, so as far as his work is concerned, the offering is required. The same applies in Voudon where the LWA require offerings to do any work.
I do not work in such specific systems but in EA’s more general method.
So this is where defining one’s own belief system is important then, otherwise it seems to be a moot question to be asking. I’m still working out the wrinkles in my own, hence the confusion, but this has really helped. I should have asked this much sooner and spared myself some angst about if I was ‘doing it right’ or not.
Yes. i found Garret’s mention of sacrifice in his Sun’tal’ock working interesting, as he is one of the Nethers from the Book of Azazel, and offerings or sacrifice are mentioned nowhere in that book in order to work with them. I have worked with many of them myself and never once have they requested such from me which is why I think it is specific to whatever personal system Garret uses, rather than necessary for the entity itself.
Thank you, I’m glad to know that there isn’t some elusive puzzle piece missing from the books. It helps to ease my metaphysical mind some as well, as I was beginning to think that the results of ritual were dependent on the offerings/energy put into them directly without any concrete evidence to support this outside of other peoples reports on their work.
In my opinion, the only time offerings even come into things is with a pact. A pact is a contract between the magician and a specific entity, usually for something not otherwise obtainable, and in return the magician agrees to provide something for the spirit. It is a binding agreement, and so the spirit may require something particular, and it can range anywhere from exclusivity for the length of the pact, to daily evocations (which may not sound like offerings but that is what they are, offerings of your time and dedication).
I have done some reading on pacts, though for now they’re not for me. Reminds me of the time I was briefly part of a muslim home, where the daily multiple prayers were required, not my cup of tea in spite of it being a relatively effective practice.
Speaking of offering time and dedication, thank you for taking your time to converse with me about this.
