This is my opinion. You can kind of think of magick as having two layers - your intention, and then the energy that you summon to empower that intention.
Have you ever worked with a magickal method and picked up traces of other occultists? I personally believe that even the most ancient spirits are in-part formed by the people who summon them.
The problem people run into, in my opinion, is that they use methods which do not connect you to the most âobjectiveâ form of a spirit. People instead project their emotions onto the spirit. The less skilled in magick and meditation you are, the easier it is to do this. Even if you pick up some genuine communications now and then, it can be easy to fool yourself by random mind-noise that arises which is similar to how legitimate contact feels. Itâs the difference between listening and talking to yourself and telling yourself what you want to hear.
There is so much power in setting an intention in a magickal way that it often works without needing anything else. That is why pretty much any magickal method can work, in my opinion. The base, raw power ultimately comes from you, so any spirit will be able to come along for the ride.
The reason I bother with summoning spirits instead of just briefly zapping out intentions or something like that is because the spirits do provide wisdom and guidance in-line with their powers and qualities, as well as fun things like visions and strange dreams. So even though you can just zap out intentions and that will work, you may not be able to zap out the best intentions on your own, with your limited knowledge.
This is why I work with spirits. They guide my intentions, and my intentions guide my experience, and my experience is colored by the energies that I summon. Do you see how that all works together?
I believe that imposters and parasites are essentially thoughtforms or egregores, which really you could sort of say goes for âlegitâ spirits as well, that have been corrupted by human beings.
I know that earlier I said that the power all ultimately comes from you, but I also believe that the spirits have presented themselves to us in ways that go beyond any human mind. I believe that these spirits pass on methods for obtaining communion with them. Methods that connect you to the most powerful form of a spirit will be aligned with that spiritâs energy, symbolism, the vibe, if you will. Weaker methods will introduce corruptions, meaning ideas, symbols, names, processes, images, archetypal resonances, any such thing that really runs counter to the vibe. If you use such methods, you will end up connecting to something. What you connect with may be a hodgepodge of various things which make sense on their own in certain contexts, but brought together they really donât.
Take me, for instance. I would be woefully inadequate at helping someone ascend the corporate hierarchies because that is an endeavour which is so unaligned with me itâs hilarious. But letâs say that someone hears about me on some forum, thinks I seem attractive to summon, and assumes that I can help them do this, for whatever reason. Maybe someone else told them I could. Maybe they just couldnât be fucked to do more research. They summon me up to ascend their corporate hierarchy. Iâd do what I could, but my input would be near useless compared to someone who is actually suited for such a task. I could help with some things, but my energetic presence would be screaming at them to get out of there and do something else, cause that is just not my vibe, no matter how much you insist it must be.
I think these sorts of things are rather interesting, but can be avoided with ease. What is required is judgement and discernment, however, something which many people lack, especially if they are ignorant about the subject. I couldnât imagine trying to piece together a magickal practice from random scraps of text on forums. Obviously I think I put out valuable material here (at the least I enjoy doing it), but those who rely on such unreliable sources of information clearly do not vet their teachers very thoroughly, if at all. Others are too egotistical to accept any teacher, and so flounder about on their own, feeling that they are some inventive, creative genius as they come up with stuff thatâs been around for centuries if not millennia in more effective forms.
Did you know that there are schools that teach artforms? Did you know that these schools are mostly standardized, not because some central authority dictated that it must be so, but because those who practice that artform and are influential within it collectively have come to agree on common language and practices which have proven to be effective for themselves and for teaching others? If someone wants to pretend that Western cultures havenât been practicing and evolving music for hundreds and hundreds of years, they technically are allowed to do that. They could avoid any piece of instruction and develop their own stuff using whatever materials they do consume. Oh, that sounds great, I get to be creative and inventive! Well, not really. Thatâs just forced ignorance. I guarantee you that the person who accepts instruction and the teachings which have been passed down for centuries will go so much farther and have so much more potential for truly creative work that pushes the boundaries of what has been achieved by any human being.
There is value in breaking free of institutional indoctrination, but there is no value in forced ignorance.
