What is the Nature of Magical Entities?

Spirits, Evocation & Possession
1

As an amateur philosopher and a hardcore magcian, I’ve always been curious about what magical beings really are. This is a difficult question to think about. When philosophers work on a difficult question, they will often decompose it into simpler questions. In this case, I’m going to look at the issue using the four causes of Aristotle. These are matter, agent, form, and purpose.

Using the first category of causation, one could ask “what are spirits made out of?” But that doesn’t necessarily make sense because the very concept of substance doesn’t apply to that level of reality. You could empty the second type of cause, agency, by asking “who or what causes a spirit to come into being?” But that doesn’t necessarily help because spirits inhabit seem to inhabit a dimension in which ordinary concepts of temporality don’t apply.

The only two causal categories that apply to this issue are form and purpose. I am using the word form here in a more abstract sense than everyday language. I don’t mean “shape” per se, but a relationship between different properties and potentials. Purpose makes sense, because spirits are sentient and autonomous, they have goals and desires.

But the thoughts that can be derived from that line of thinking are unsatisfactory becasue human cognition is designed to conceptualize phenomena in terms of space and time, or distance and duration. By stating that spirits have a structure and a purpose, but not unpacking the other two causes, we have achieved a definition of spirits that isn’t logically distinct from the definition of a fictional character.

Answers along the lines of “spirits are energy” or “spirits are consciousness” aren’t satisfying to me because we don’t really know what energy or consciousness are. Approaching the question that way only trades one unknown term for another unknown.

Personally, I am somewhat inspired by the idea in mainstream science that reality might be made of information. Memes are said to be units of information in the same way that genes are units of biologial sequenceing. Of course, I don’t mean internet memes. I am using the work the way evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins originally used it. So, if reality is made of information, and memes are units of information, then in a sense spirits are made of memes. This is a counterintuitive way of thinking about it, but in a way it actually makes sense. We relate to entities like Satolas, Azazel, Ant’harratu, and Belial through a set of concepts and images. For that matter, we compose our personal identities out of a set of concepts and images.

There is a thought experiment that I think is critical to grappling with this issue. Consider what happens when two people simultaneously evoke the same entity and ask it the same without communicating with each other. They will get different answers, answers commensurate with the structure and content of their personal psyche. Those answers will allude to the answer from different directions, emphasizing aspects of the question that pertain to the underlying needs of each magician. So here’s the question: how do you explain this? I think it’s fair to say that all of the metaphysical theorizing that has taken place in the occult community about the nature of nonphysical beings hinges on how you explain this thought experiement. A related issue that factors into the interpretation of this issue is, “why can spirits only communicate using the information that exists in your psyche?” Spirits never tell you specific things like addresses and dates. They offer a mosiac made out of the substance of your own thoughts.

As far as I can tell, the answer to the nature of spiritual entities probably has a lot to do with how you respond to these thought experiments. I’m curious what you folks think since you work with these entities on a regular basis. You don’t have to phrase your thoughts about the subject in terms of the questions I posed or in terms of my speculations. I’m very interested to see what kind of percepetions you all have.

5 Likes
2

What is it that causes something to be classified as information? Something is only information when there exists a consciousness to be informed.

I wouldn’t say that they do. Sometimes they communicate information that you don’t know or do so in a foreign language that you have no knowledge of. Quite often though, people filter out things that they don’t want to hear, can’t understand, etc.

4 Likes
3

I fucking second this. You can also replace “don’t want to hear” with “don’t want to know”.
There ARE things I wish I’ve never heard, seen or knew.

6 Likes
4

Agreed. I should have phrased my post a little more carefully.

Let me put it this way, when spirits tell you things you don’t know, it almost always happens using words and concepts you already possess. To me, that suggests something about how telepathy and channeling works as a process, what their principles are.

That’s a good point. It seems to me that this is the exception and not the rule. Maybe the spirit needs to have a very “clear connection” with the magician for this sort of thing to happen, and maybe that’s why it isn’t all that common.

I strongly agree with that. I think this gets at something important in the principles of magick. The total lattice of a person’s belief forms a kind of semi-permeable membrane that let’s some things in which blocking others.

3 Likes
5

If we talk about words: what about the words we don’t know the nature of? Do you mean concepts like vowels our brain can sort out somehow or do you mean concpets like words we already have in our mind dictionary? Because I know for sure that I don’t speak or recognize estonian or portuguese or urdu, for example. But the words are there, nonetheless.

3 Likes
6

Very interesting.

If you don’t mind me asking, is that a relatively typical experience for you?
When it happens is it just a couple of words, or is it whole phrases?

3 Likes
7

Yes. When I get garbled speech from a spirit, it is invariably accompanied by an internal resistance on my end. It’s important to drop mind and become nothing so that communication can flow.

Some people aren’t channeling jack. They are rather sock puppeting their own thoughtforms and haven’t yet learned to tell the difference.

4 Likes
8

It is hard to distinguish single words if they are brought to me as a phrase in a foreign tongue. Sometimes I can isolate single words and use them as help to separate the other missing parts, as well. I am lucky enough to work with a spirit that knows that I am sometimes really slow minded so he uses single words that are strong enough to make sense in a context much later.

It happens on a regular basis now. I usually write it all down as onomatopoeia and try to solve it later

3 Likes
9

That’s very cool.

2 Likes
10

That’s a good point’.

In your opinion, what’s the best way to tell the difference?

1 Like
11

Sock puppeting feels like a subtle effort on your part. The only way to get the feel of that is to actually imagine someone standing in front of you and mentally make them say things. There is a subtle internal feeling that happens when you do.

5 Likes
12

Interesting.

13

My understanding is that there is a unmistakable feeling of inner spontaneity during actual spirit contact.

The real thing always pushes my paradigm beyond its existing limits. If you’re in contact with something powerful, every communication has the potential to transform your consciousness if you allow yourself to absorb it’s complete implications.

2 Likes
15

Genuine communication from a spirit always surprises me. When some part of my mind is making it up, or guessing what is being said, there is no surprise whatsoever. When another entity puts thoughts in my head, however, it is always a complete surprise.

16

Magical entities are the same thing they were in life. Dead people who worshiped the same things you do. Dead satanists are still dead satanists. Death theosophists are the same, witchcraft etc. When you summon a diety you’re just summoning the priest or priestess who worshipped that diety. So that’s how you get evil motherfuckers. The kind who want to cause harm and curse, like the Babylonians or Assyrians they skinned you alive. Call them the first vampires, or etemmu. The giddim were Babylonian demons.

17

The way I see it they’re just beings from another plane of existence like we are beings from this plane of existence to them, people like to go “theyre just energy” which is stupid to me, or “they’re part of the all” which again is just what someone says when they don’t know and look for the cure-all answer.

In my opinion they are individuals, like we are, races like we are, who live in a place where energy is more free flowing and not so dense. Of course it doesn’t explain what they are, but in the end it’s also like asking what are humans. Some are flesh and blood, some aren’t, it’s a mixture of things.

18

Welcome @anon3556388 It is a rule of this forum that all new members must properly introduce themselves, so please click the link below and tell us about yourself and any experience you have in magick ie what you practice, how long you have practiced, areas of interest, etc:

intro3