apotheosticdelirium

[apotheosticdelirium]

I was wondering if I should make the skull with coins that was suggested by jsk and then this popped up >.>

[apotheosticdelirium]

Happiness Will Come To You.

[apotheosticdelirium]

Help from Klepoth

Something that has worked fairly well since the pact ritual is reaching out to Klepoth for dream work.

Simply visualizing her sigil with a mental request has resulted in much higher dream recall, and in two notable instances answers to a problem that was having issues getting resolved.

This bears more exploring on as a communication medium for other spirits, and possibly a vector for spell work similar to the one described in the true grimoire about seeing whatever you wish past or future.

[apotheosticdelirium]

A work with Claunech

Set up:

A hurricane lantern lit to connect to the divine.

Two tea candles, one for each spirit involved.

A stick of Frankinsense.

The sigils of scirilin and claunech from the pact ritual.

An opalite orb in the center as a scrying device.

I lit the lantern and took a moment to connect. Then I spoke Scirilins conjuration seven times and lit the incense in his honor. I noticed a bit of presence and my mind was drawn to two pin pricks of light in the orb when I asked if he was present.

I asked that he bring Claunech so that we could speak about the first task I would have of him. I then called his name three times focusing on the sigil, requesting he come and speak. I offered him the heat and light from the candle when I felt another presence. I then spoke my desire and asked that they communicate what they'd like in return for a successful completion.

I waited a bit, before stating that this work would be included in things I spoke publicly about whether successful or not, and got a mental flash of a grin full of teeth. I waited a while longer using the opportunity to practice getting in the mind set of scrying as its rather different than the work I normally do.

Recap Comments:

I think next time I will set up facing the proper direction after making the pendulum that came to mind when I was thinking about this particular communication session.

The flash of visual makes a bit of sense on why Claunechs signature is cloudlike. It reminds me of the visual bit of clouds/random objects covering up something "offensive" that happens for ratings or comedic purposes.

Result and post comment:

The job requested turned me down, though I did get an interview in between it was for a position that offered much less pay than what I'm making now.

There are somethings that could be done to further the experiment. Using the structure suggested by jsk for spell work, getting a spirit board or pendulum to aid communication, and using a more ritualized frame work to call them, are all things I plan to add one at a time to see how it goes.

[apotheosticdelirium]

I prepared by fasting sunrise to sunset day 1 and 2 with an apple before sunrise on day three. Chaste, steered away from anything that wasn't being focused towards the ritual. Along with the prayer for success, and Absolution during showers.

The morning of I showered in hot water for cleanliness, then in cold with the Absolution prayer. Dressed in the ceremonial black lab coat, I carried my lit lattern to my work room. There was a forboading sense to the air. After washing my face and hands with blessed water. I ground new ink, blessed it, and wrote out the conjurations/characters. My pinkie bled an inordant amount compared to the normal stick that comes from a sugar testing needle that I use for a lancet.

The insense was slow to burn with each bit I put on it. The circle was then opened as instructed with ps.51 taking JSK's advice of being in a prostration position rasing the divination wand for an accusation clause and the evocation wand for a striking clause.

The room felt expectant as I asperge and fumigated the circle with the psalms there was an echoing quality to my voice like it was bouncing inside the circle.

When it came time I called scirilin with his words. The tempature dropped noticeably and when I asked if he was here it felt like static down my spine. I thanked him for his presence and asked that he aid me in calling the spirits for the pact.

Lucifiers conjurations stopped and started through the 7 iterations. No physical sign of presence but it felt like they were listening. I stated I was following through on the bargin by going through this process and asked that he lend me his voice to call his subordinates.

I thanked him and asked him to stay a till the end to sign the pact with the others.

When starting the conjuration of the subordinates the words tasted ill fitting on my tongue. Like I was a priest without faith. After two rounds of this I stopped and listened.

Instead I spoke my own names. I named the titles I am Heir of, the tradition whose tools empower me. I spoke of the trials I've over come through magic, the feats my words have created, and of those spirits who have bound themselves to me. Finally I spoke of the bargain made with with The Emporer and spoke each name of those spirits I wished to call.

Naming them felt like a wave of sound. I named them again, offering alliance, and partnership of services exchanged under the pacts made by others on this current before me. This time naming spirits who have kept their bargains with me before drifting apart.

I named them once more before speaking of the spirits who bound themselves to me and broke their pacts, refusing to name them only referencing the fate that came to them.

A wave of smugness, acceptance and cold came over me after speaking. I left it for a moment looking around to see if anything odd was happening. In memory the room is *much* brighter than it should be at that point considering I had to balance a tea candle in my hand that held the elder wand so I could read the parchament.

After a few minutes with no obvious sign of dissent or assent. I slid the parchment into the eastern corner of the room and set the first character stone on the sigil of scirilin. I asked that if they agree they would mark their sigil in some way so that I could call them again and that once signed or decided against that the leave in peace to their own place just as they've come in peace.

I left the parchment for a bit over 24 hours as I returned to work the next day. On returning to clean things up the parchment has an odd electric air to it. When focusing on the whole rather than the marks it was a bit dizzying. Quite a bit of the incense didn't burn even though the room was still slightly hazy from all the smoke that was let off. Possibly from insense/coals that were a bit old as I don't regularly use them in my practice?

A number of the sigils have interesting marks near them. Ones entire page has patches of almost translucent parts. (They have an amusingly cloud like sigil for context of why thats interesting) These very well could be natural blemishes on the parchment that I didn't notice before but it's interesting none the less.

As requested of the bargain I'm publishing this experience. While I wouldn't mark this evocation as a complete success, it definitely doesn't seem to have failed. I think only a bit of time and a chance to work with the spirits will tell.

[apotheosticdelirium]

May you receive the salve for the wound you forgot you had.

May you have the wisdom to accept it despite all the lies you had used to numb the pain.

May you have the strength to apply it despite the fear of the pain making your hand tremble.

May you be okay.

[apotheosticdelirium]

There is no veil between this world and another. It is, instead, a rich tapestry woven together with the finest of thread. You don't train yourself to see through a barrier, but instead you learn to feel the strings all around you.

[apotheosticdelirium]

Knowing your limits is a great way to prevent fatigue in general, and I like the idea of separating the function of actually moving energy around into Muscle/Fuel. I've always just referred to them as effort/personal energy.

Some mentions in this bother me though. Channeling energy through the body, unless it's for specific practices that use specific energies that are for lack of better words "biocompatable" can cause some really bad effects if it's done long term. Theres alot of systems that warn against condensing energy inside sensitive organs. We don't need to channel electricity through the body to use appliances the same with energy.

A good analogy here is the body is the vehicle for the soul. You don't put random combustible liquids in a cars gas tank and expect it to run well, or at all.

Manipulating external energies does require some small amount of "Fuel" but it's an extremely small percentage compares to what goes "out" when doing channeling techniques or just building things out of personal energy.

A simple experiment to try to see what I'm talking about:

Gather energy from the space around you. Dont channel it just form it into a sheet of paper somewhere around you. It doesn't need to be super dense just hold together and accept programing. We're talking rice/tracing paper here not card stock. Minimal energies expended.

Make two.

Extend your senses out to find a "tappable powersource that isn't attached to an entity"

Take one of your sheets, roll it into a tube and remove the seam, giving it the idea that it will carry energy from one place to another while pulling off just enough to stay together.

Take the other sheet and form it into a ball with the idea that it will create a force inward, relative to the force that pushes against it; That it will pull just enough energy to keep its function and stay together; and that any energy inside it will be formed into a ball and stay that way even if removed from the "paper sphere" until you act on it in some other way.

Stick this ball on one end of the tube with the idea that any energy delivered from the tube will go into the ball. Stick the other side of the tube in the external energy source you found earlier.

Bam you now have energy ball on demand at a density thats near or better than condensing it, without considerably more effort. No upkeep, no constant drain on the practioner. Minimul Muscle/Fuel expenditure, and something you can use again and again.

Best of all need more energy for things? Make another and you've doubled the amount of energy you have access on tap. Instead of having to double more time Muscle and Fuel.

If your fatigued after this (even beginners) it may be time to evaluate diet, sleep, etc. and have your physical health checked out.

An essay on why we all get so fatigued trying to do witchcraft, and some ideas on what to do about it.

I've mentioned a few (several?) times that I'm trying to rework my practice to be so much lower energy.

I want to practice a lot. My path has responsibilities and demands. I want to be engaged in witchcraft daily and often.

As a part of this I have had to really sit down and untangle the question of chronic magical fatigue, which then turns in to chronic regular fatigue.

I've come to some personal realizations during this quest. Here is one of them, which I would like to suggest as a concept or hypothesis but not a literal truism:

One of the most vital and basic energy working techniques you can learn is feeling how full your "mana tanks" are.

Magical battery, odic fluid, witch-power, whatever you want to call it. It's finite for all of us (even if for some it can recharge faster than they can use it).

I have yet to see a "daily practice" or "101 energy work guide" provide a resource on how to feel how much magical energy you have, and explain how to avoid over-spending it.

I have also never seen a 101 guide ever really explain that "energy-gathering" techniques which are meant to recharge you are in and of themselves draining.

Techniques which refill your mana tanks are often the same techniques as energy raising and energy programming.

E.g.: "Pull energy up from the earth" (energy raising) "and guide it to your spine, imagining that it refills and recharges your whole body" (energy programming).

This is an actively draining technique.

The only passive energy-gathering technique I'm familiar with is just resting.

As humans, this should be common sense! Eating food requires energy (to find food, to prepare it, to consume it) and then can further tire us as our body redirects resources to digestion.

As humans, when many of us get older, we start to realize our physical limits. You know how far you can get in the day on a single bagel. And for many of us, if you've pushed past your limits, your whole day is thrown off. Refueling might make you crash and nap, not suddenly fill you up with a huge burst of energy!

Yet somehow it's pervaded the 101 energy working sphere that a certain energy-gathering exercise - which drains your magical power - will just fill you up and you can do as much magic as you want again. Warnings about not over-exerting are usually like, "take it easy! Only do 1 or 2 minutes if you can't do all 15, or even take the day off ;)" but no actual instructions about how to feel out your limits and know how to reliably stop before you over-exert.

I think that for a lot of people it would be helpful to divide their energy-working abilities into two categories: Muscle and Fuel.

Your energy working Muscle becomes stronger over time. It has its own muscle-memory, and repetition of techniques can allow you to do them faster and better over time. This Muscle behaves very much like your earthly muscles: it burns fuel to work, but it also becomes fatigued and even damaged with over-exertion. It requires regular periods of rest. Once pushed to the point of fatigue, the necessary period of rest becomes a lot longer.

Your energy working Fuel can be thought of as the little magical calories floating around your energy body system. These units of energy are refilled and recharged as we do normal things like eating, sleeping, and engaging in restorative mundane activities. This Fuel doesn't do anything on its own*. In order to utilize it, you have to engage your Muscle. The more that you work with Fuel-collecting and Muscle-using, the more efficient your energy body system becomes at accepting, processing, storing, and expelling Fuel. You can use your Muscle to collect Fuel and store it inside your energy body.

No matter how much Fuel you have, once your Muscle is fatigued, you have to rest.

I can run a marathon (no I can't, but imagine with me) and be totally exhausted. If I eat an entire pizza, will this allow me to suddenly run another marathon? No, of course not!

Now, let's imagine that nobody brought a pizza to me, but I had to walk down to the corner shops to buy one - now, my poor muscles can barely hold me up. Energy-raising exercises still require you to flex your Muscle, and if it's already fatigued, you are probably just shooting yourself in the foot.

Your Fuel and Muscle are not automatically synchronised. And I think a lot of us out here are abusing our poor Muscles, demanding they work again and again and again, not understanding that they need literal periods of rest - hours and days to be allowed to relax, heal, and regrow to a stronger state. And I think a lot of people do believe that just by Refueling, their Muscles are supposed to "magically" work as if they just came of a week of rest.

In my beliefs, this Fuel and Muscle are the same ones we use for divination, spellwork, and spirit contact :) So if you're trying to do tons of these things all the time and thinking that a grounding exercise can replace rest, you're probably literally just… running yourself into the ground.

I would like to propose that if you are having a really hard time dealing with fatigue and energy levels when trying to engage with your practice**, you should learn two techniques: A way to judge the fatigue of your Muscle, and a way to judge the fullness of your Fuel.

Either of these things can be accomplished with a pendulum on a number line (using a pendulum requires usage of your Muscle, by the by!). Bodily sensations may tip you off - I get a strained feeling in my forehead when I'm close to over-exertion. You can also induce a psychic technique, such as asking yourself where you're at and waiting to hear, see, know, feel, or understand where your Muscles and Fuel are at.

I would also like to propose that metaphysical energy gathering can actually be so tiring that it might be inappropriate for everyday use. Raising a ton of energy and infusing it into yourself or objects for later use is a full day's activity, not a quick act you can shove into a morning routine. I'd like to clarify that here I differentiate between energy-raising, and meditative techniques which provide a "grounded," present-moment focused state of mind.

If you're taking suggestions, I would recommend figuring out how much magic you can do before you achieve a state of 50% Muscular fatigue/Fuel exertion, 75%, and 90%. I believe you shouldn't push past your limits. It just hurts. It feels bad, it's exhausting, and it takes exponentially longer to rest and heal. And I think many of us will be surprised at how little magic we can accomplish when we respect our limits.

*Some people who experience a great over-abundance of personal energy do have weird stuff happening around them all the time; it's the metaphysical equivalent of a cat rubbed with a balloon and set loose in a Styrofoam factory.

**Here, I mean people who notice marked upticks in exhaustion and fatigue when working magic, not people with baseline fatigue which just carries forward.