Personally, I think it’s mainly a cultural thing. Western culture is more about dominating and controlling nature than cooperating with it and most Western occult practices, even Left Hand Path ones, were/are heavily influenced by Christianity, which is the dominant cultural paradigm. In the Christian world view, you are the apex of creation and God gave you the world to do with as you see fit so nature must be made subservient to you. This pervasive sense of entitlement is one of the reasons why genius loci are rarely ever considered. Why go to the locals when you can go above them to their supposed overseers, the angels and demons? I think the closest thing that Western occultism has to working with local spirits are Agrippa’s elemental kings.
In other paradigms, such as Native American spirituality and some Taoist sects, for example, genius loci are acknowledged and respected. In some places in the world, a shaman or equivalent will be hired to go to an area and petition the genius loci for permission to build on their land. This is done so that things do not go wrong and that harmony is maintained between the humans and the local spirits.
Even cities have their own genius loci and the author Christopher Penczak has a book on working with them, appropriately titled City Magick. One former member of this forum, norse900, used to talk about working with local spirits and how they would sometimes show up to offer their help to him, especially when he was living in Hawaii, which is a place ripe with its own distinct spiritual culture.
Finding genii loci are more useful than the general ones, but you have to get to know your environment to contact them and nobody on here talks that much about how to do that.
There’s enough talk and info on here about nature spirits
As for local spirits… It’s too “local” for a platform like this.
I am not going to ask some dude or chick from the Americas, Asia or even from the other side of my continent about how to connect to, for instance, goddess Nehalennia or ancestral spirits tied to certain places.
I’ve got other more accurate sources near me for that. Including just going to the places where local spirits/ gods were honored to get a feel for them.
Every spirit you contact is local. We"re all connected through an invisible matrix. Its similar to tugging on a spiders web. You can be at the bottom and the spider above and it will feel you tugging. In our case with spirits the tugging would be talking. There is nothing holding anyone back from contacting “foreign” spirits. Many spirits wear different masks as well. So thinking a Slavic or Norse spirit is that and only that is a mistake.
A perfect example of this are the Hindu Gods. There are so many of them, and some of them are actually very well known demons. Different masks for different cultural values. There are however spirits that prefer to congregate in certain parts of the world over others. There are more powerful demons/entities that rule over individual territories, such as Asia, Africa, America etc.
Under their stewardship there are many spirits that answer to them and have assigned duties within a specified area. Its much like the border crossing humans deal with country to country. There is a division, but we are all on the same physical earth.
The biggest reason why local spirits arent a thing in my opinion is because we are no longer a spiritual culture and thusly our minds are closed off to perceiving them. At least in the Americas that is true. Stories no longer get passed down to children from their elders either. And so is lost much information about local spirits/demons etc. Today most people think ghosts/spirits aren’t real.
I truly believe this to. i spent a lot of time i nature, living in deep country side of France.
I was tempted to use the names of Diana, Pan, Cernunnos, Demeter… But never felt it was appropriate.
Then i switch and i called spirits by titles (Guardians of my Village, Spirit of that Grove, Sprits of Holly Trees, Good Neighbours…), then images started coming, some short movies in my head… I got names, tingles, weather changes…
Whenever i need bigger help i call Brian Froud’s Faeries Lords and Ladies. But most of my work is about talking to local spirits and include them in my magickal system.
Its a fair question. By and large I would agree with the position on culture a couple of others have raised.
I wonder also about the effects of urbanisation on local spirits. Are city environments conducive to such things? I wonder this in particular when I think of the rich fae folklore of the british aisles. Almost every fae encounter (whether real, imagined or alledged) that I have ever read about has been in non urban areas.
I have a curiosity about the deities (Atua) and spirits (Wairua) of the indigenous people here in my country. But there is basically no open source material on how to engage with them. All you’ll find open source is that they were called upon through Karakia (prayers).
I don’t doubt that there are still some few Maori who are well inducted into procedures for working with them, but they definitely aren’t particularly findable.
I’m very aware of the diverse genius loci of where i live. I don’t have any choice as i live very deep in the countryside, a place where they rule and humans are the anomaly. I had a lot of conflict whith them as i did not understand them. Their powers are huge.
Nowadays we live in peace and i try to “feed” the land by planting a lot of trees and flowers and digging a pond…
I’m not interested in working with them as i know that they are not benevolent toward us, just tolerating us.
When i work with most Daemons, i feel at ease and at peace. Completly different energy.
Yeah, we humans aren’t and weren’t always as respectful in the past. Many of the land spirits seem to be a bit hostile in return. Even when you’re not working with them, “feeding the land” as you do is a great idea. Leaving a small offering of things like fresh milk, cream or honeycake every once in a while (as long as what you leave is not harmful to plants and wildlife) or even just bits of food for the local wildlife specifically in the seasons when survival is a bit harder for them also seems to bring a bit more peace and balanced coexistence.
I suppose, and I am entirely speculating here, that land spirits might get a bit pissy about our propensity to pollute their areas with all manner of waste.
I don’t know if thats how the feel or perceive. Just a thought that occurred in the moment
And you are entirely right.
From woodlands being used for lumber to poluting to disrupting eco systems with foraging and hunting etc. We’ve been disrupting them for millenia ^^
In the realm of Spirit. There are none foreign nor any local.
The concept of foreign or local gods are manmade and perhaps only useful for visualization purposes.
Ultimately, they live in what we conceive as a quantum realm.
However, there are areas within our plane that are more conductive and some places more restricted for communications
When call upon deities like lucifer, archangels and powerful demons, actually these spirits do not do the job. It’s the local spirits that will do and the results will depend upon their strength.
Local spirits even though are not widely known but everything passes through them.
Locals spirits are tied to your ancestral lineage, your country history and they are the one that gives you power in your own country.
If you are a Belgian, you cannot hold political power with an Hindu deity.
Local spirits are extremely powerful and gives legitimate power.
When for eg someone calls Lucifer.
Lucifer will pass through the spiritual tunnel of ancestry. If your local gods have deeper respect and history with lucifer then he will perform extremely well in your life because he will have support of the locals.
However if there’s animosity between them, they will tighten the tunnel and sometimes even shut it down (this is a rare case when the spirits actually denies you something, it implies a very strong and terrible karma )
Hence they are spirits when you call them will never work with you or will have little effect in your life even though they seem to be powerful
It is true that the deities of your country will perform better than the deities of other countries, but it is not true that Lucifer and the angels are deities ! These are two different things. @mth_yesco@Auberon
I expect some of the reason local spirits are not a “thing” online is because they are… local spirits. I might be on good terms with the tree in my back yard but past my immediate neighbours, his influence rapidly diminishes. Because he’s local. The local spirits range from singular entities in a single plant, collectives of plants, genus loci of an entire city or natural region… why would you try to work with the spirit of Winnipeg when you live in Hawaii? It’s just too granular. If you want to work with local spirits, you have to get off your computer and go hang out outside and listen and develop a sense of them.
I’ve connected to some of my local spirits. Vastly trees and whatnot. Quite frankly my ancestors did a bad job of cultivating a relationship with them so I’m not surprised that a majority of them clam up. I’ve connected to them by composting (replenishing their territory), letting some of my garden space grow wild (to feed the insects and rabbits), and piling pruned branches and wood in my back yard instead of mulching it or burning it (to make an animal habitat and feed the bunnies in winter). I also de-trash and try my best to be helpful and healing to the nature around me rather than only taking. Taking measures to be respectful to nature around you and letting it have its way rather than whipping it into realtor catalogue perfection will gain some trust of the local spirits in your immediate vicinity. Talking to it can also help. And just hanging out in it.
Some of them are benevolent and some barely tolerate humans and some are actively malevolent, though you’ll typically only find that energy deep in the woods where humans aren’t meant to go. The closest to benevolence I’ve ever found in local spirits has been asking fairies to return my things, and sure enough, the thing I asked about is always soon to be found. At best I’ve found a better sense of balance and peacefulness compared to other spirits that actually work with you in a more human sense.
The majority of western traditions simply have no roadmap for how to work with these spirits, and well, this is a forum opened by writers who’ve worked on books about vastly western spiritual and occult traditions. I’m sure there are some indigenous groups who know quite a lot about connecting and working with local spirits. But would their traditions benefit you if you don’t live on their land, in harmony with their local spirits? I doubt I could use Korean animism to connect with the spirits of Canada. But I can just go out there and feed some birds and connect with the spirit of Canada.
The rituals may not be awe-inspiring, but go forth, plant some trees, feed the birds and save the bees, and you will be working with local spirits. It’s out there, not in here. Every tradition rose from living in the space of the genus loci of their region. Go live in yours.
They probably are but because everyone is from different areas and countries, your local and their local will be different. As it will vary every town & county let alone country. It will probably become chaos incarnate lol.
I work with my Hearth Goblin and the Nature Beings in my Garden, for the house to have luck, and to get guidance for gardening. Local spirits for local activities.
Most people are not gardeners, although we have some threads about gardening it’s not a majorly popular topic. I don’t happen to know any local entities that are great for say, healing or bigger personal issues. They tend to be all about the land.
E.g. I work with the egregore of the IT software I work with for work. I could not ask my Hearth Goblin for help with that, it’s not in his area of expertise.
I work with various higher beings, Goetia, servitors for personal development, career advancement, curses or healing, partly because the awareness is there - you have the names and the offices published in reality available books, so you go with what you know.
There are possibly local spirits, sleepers and Native land entities that could help with these, although whether they’d understand post-industrial needs is debatable. It’s more effort to hunt for them with no guarantee of success and they don’t volunteer often. And being local you can’t really share them and be relevant for everyone, so they might be there but not talked about on forums like this.
The topics you’ll get here then are things that are more generic, about paranormal issues, ghosts and the fay stealing your stuff or helping you find things.
