I find myself preferring magick sans tools, more of the LOA-style magick.
I have gotten everything with that. I have more money than ever, I have the relationship I want, etc. The things I don’t have I’m definitely on my way to having.
I do evoke at least once, sometimes twice, per week to connect with the demons I prefer working with, to give them an offering and request guidance. But the rest of the time I find I can communicate with them just fine without an all-out evocation, and often prefer it that way.
I primarily work with Lucifer, sometimes Belial or even King Paimon on occasion. Again sometimes I just give a request without an evocation, and usually it’s carried out.
If it’s a bigger desire and I feel like I need some extra power, then I might do a full evocation.
But I’d say 95% of the time I just use my thoughts.
Am I missing out on something? Am I doing it wrong?
I feel like I should be doing more rituals, perhaps more elaborate or more frequently. I feel like I’m not really doing Black Magick sometimes.
I love working with demons but I don’t feel like I need a lot of rituals for that.
Nope, I mostly have open portals to beings I work with a LOT, so, no ritual there, also mostly work without tools and mostly LoA style. Swap the 3 spirits you name above and that could describe my day-to-day working, a lot of the time. I have standing altars and ritual tools, but they don’t need to be used multiple times a day.
I get results I’m satisfied with and I am definitely lazy, which is why I do magick instead of trying to be “normal” and do things the hard way.
From time to time you’ll probably want a result that requires something more elaborate, but working on rituals for the sake of it is not necessary.
I do all of the following at least 1 x a day:
soul travel
evoke a spirit (maybe not demonic, often classical gods)
a form of divination, maybe pendulum 2 - 3 times, maybe Tarot or Book Of Fate as well.
Ritual doesn’t have to look amazing to be powerful.
My ritual space is still very bare bones. My wife and I just moved to a new house so still setting up the ritual space in the basement. I just got this really nice rug for the area and it totally transformed the feeling of that space—I was shocked at the transformation. But on my alter I just have a singing bowl, some incense, and that’s about it for now. I’m pretty minimal.
For argument’s sake, what sort of results would you say could only come through ritual but not LOA-style focusing? I ask because I know some people who have gotten some pretty big results using just their thoughts. I guess it depends on your own subconscious blockages. Or perhaps a ritual could speed things up.
So far I’ve found ritualistic black magick to be most useful for connecting with spirits, giving offerings, and opening the pathways to knowledge. I say it that way because I find the knowledge rarely comes during the evocation, but in the hours and days following it. Then I regularly get new insights and make new connections.
I do plan on evoking some different entities… this weekend I plan on evoking Sophia, the Gnostic Aeon. She’s been calling to me for some reason.
Also thanks for describing your practices. That really does help.
If spirits ask for a particular thing, or a specific type of ritual, then it would need to be done that way, I don’t really worry about the “why” of things like that, some things ritual works best for but you would know, and not mistake them because the very spirits you work with would outline the methods and materials.
Sorry if that’s vague, I don’t usually pre-plan much.
Yes, it’s definitely great for making a first connection and introducing yourself to a new spirit you wish to ally with.
That would be some full-service moderation, dragging members out their pyjamas to play on the astral.
Okay serious answer, I don’t do OOB, as in, float around without a body in this world, I know me and I’d just use it to stalk hot men.
Astral travel in spirit worlds is relatively easy but at first it will feel faint and unreal, because your awareness if like a very weak radio signal being beamed in, it will get stronger over time though.
I have no idea why people do rituals, it seems like a massive waste of time. I’ve never done a proper ritual in my life. I think it’s for people who are scared and need to slow things down?
@Melektoth I’m a little confused. If you’re successfully manifesting results using LoA techniques why do you feel like you should be doing more traditional-style rituals?
I don’t know. I know that’s silly. But I see a lot of people on the forum doing these complicated rituals, so I feel like I’m doing something wrong by not doing that. But yeah, I increased my income 5x by using LOA techniques. But I like the deeper philosophical aspects of black magick, and working with different entities, so that’s what I focus on. I felt like something was missing in the LOA when I didn’t have that aspect of it, so it completes my spiritual life and outlook more than anything.
I’ll send you my core shamanism tutorial by PM, if you want OOB this got good reviews on here from some people: https://obe4u.com/
The Mastering Soul Travel course on BALG looks comprehensive, I haven’t taken it but I caught a brief bit uploaded to YouTube before it was taken down and that looked solid af, and I don’t have a motive (don’t work for BALG or get commission, etc).
Not necessarily, just different strokes for different folks. People usually have a gut feeling what methods will work best for them.
tools you use as stand-ins for will, what E.A. described in a recent newsletter as training wheels, i also add atmospherics and robes or whatever that make you feel in the role. These are not automatically bad, don’t scorn them, no-one’s grading you on this and result beat fine theory any day of the week
tools that have INNATE power, this dates back to the start of magick, a wand from the Magick tree was more powerful than any other random stick, BUT, some random sticks over time developed power through use, so there is innate power and imbued power in an object. This is basic animism, the concept objects has spirits and spiritual power of their own.
The extent to which you need to use tools depends upon how much you are a “thing bobbing haplessly in an ocean of other things” - a small self held within the Mind of the All - or, how much you are able to upload reality (all the bobbing things, all the small selfs) into your own mind via various methods, which I cannot easily summarise in a reply, and then edit them once they have been uploaded.
The “making the subjective control the objective reality” concept that you’ll find, for example, in Lords Of The Left-Hand Path by Stephen Flowers.
And if you read this, that latter part will make more sense: The Kybalion PDF, archived link (we don’t trade PDFs on here as a general rule but this one is okay, the text is out of copyright and the edition was given for download from the site that created it).
The reason I say that is I’ve noticed that people with natural mastery of something tend to be repulsed by the careful, educated precision of doing that thing ritualistically. Take the example of natural designers vs me with design school. I was very picky about going to one of the top schools in the world because I was all about quality. The reason I was like that is because my physical execution is weak compared to natural masters. Why is my execution weak? Because I’m scared of using my body. I needed things to be slowed down because I wanted to do everything “the right way.” I wanted to be “good.”
Once I got into the real world, I got a job at an award-winning ad agency, where I was eaten alive by natural masters who were fast and sloppy with everything. One of them I know for sure didn’t even have an education because he bragged about it on his resume. They played a practical joke on me where they defaced my diploma. I was aghast. I’d almost died getting that degree. Very grueling school. Without realizing it though, I needed those people to burst the bubble of my arrogance.
My boss hated me for using spell check. He said it was a waste of time. Everything had to be a shortcut there or you weren’t gonna last. After 2 months, I was called in to the CFO’s office where he and the president said they appreciated my effort, but it wasn’t a good fit. I’ve never had a design job since.
Now that I’m doing something that’s a natural fit for me (natural mastery of spirituality), I understand where they were coming from, and I feel the same way about people who do spirituality ritualistically. I see those people as on the way out. “Thanks for the effort, but you’re not the real thing, and we’ve got stuff to do here.”
Nah, you do you! I was doing complicated rituals while on my brief Wicca phase. It helped me as a newbie to understand the basics.
For my evocations lately, due to some circumstances, I don’t even use a physical sigil (I visualize the sigil instead), or candles or incense. Talking about simplicity
I feel that simplistic magick can definitely be rewarding…but at the same time, I’m ready for the boujee and aesthetic, candles, altar, etc.
I mean I FW the drug store magick quick n ezy but, it can be hard to assume the role as God using a knife i stole from the kitchen and my lil paper n pen. But it works out for the most part.
Even the LBRP I haven’t done in a FAT minute, like its bread and butter for magick but meh, I lost my cheat sheet (I also was doing it “wrong” all b4 without knowing).
Very strange I just bought his book original magic the other day. To be honest I don’t feel its possibly compatible with my life but the Zoroastrian stuff is at least interesting. I guess its take a bit from here and take a bit from there. I am just beginning to see in my minds eye how runes and why runes could be the best ‘language’ for magic - its all in the weaving, that’s why witchcraft is a craft you know.
I applaud your honesty.
