Tags

, , , ,

Opened by KC, LIRP, LIRH, KC.

I tried something new, I did a recording with the phone in various places around the altar. I don’t know how to process EVPs, so I am looking for tips. This was agreed to by the spirit, so I don’t think it’s totally out of line, however I have no idea what to do from here. Comments?

In other news, I forgot to ask for the stock quotes.

The spirit tested well by signs, I actually spent 10 or 15 minutes hanging out before getting a winged something in the crystal. Michael appears very archangely today, complete with sword (and falcon, per my HGA).

Michael? “In the flesh”. (Oh it never gets old – spirit tested well by signs).

OK tell me about the tree.

“First, LIBATIONS!”

(I drank some wine).

“Oh, that’s good.” The spirit looks at the incense, which is tobacco and frankincense since I didn’t have any more solar incense. Is this a good general purpose incense? “Lets keep this amongst ourselves.”

“There is no tree. What you’re really dealing with is a way people looked at the Zohar and tried to hammer” (“us spirits”, but it’s a vision of a flaming wheel, an angel, a grey alien, some sort of flying something like a bird with far too many wings) “into their model of the universe, it’s not right or wrong. However models both limit and free us to operate within the model” (“of the model” – a vision of a specific book) “and it serves you in a profitable way.”

Michael isn’t talking about stocks, he’s talking about Agrippa and Kircher. Recently I’ve been reading Agrippa’s three books per Tyson, and I’m about halfway through it. The first book is just pure dogma and it’s a valuable insight into how science worked during the middle ages, but it doesn’t do much more. The model is “Someone I respect wrote it, so it must be true”. You end up with ostriches eating iron and similar. While a good insight into popular axioms of the day, it’s just sort of quaint. The last chapter of book 1 is good, book 2 is where it gets interesting, and book 3 is sort of an addendum of things on Agrippas mind. Book 4 isn’t by Agrippa but is useful unto itself. Tyson translates all the good parts and adds his commentary and people either love it or hate it. That being said, I’ve strongly considered making up Sol and Saturn rings for myself per Agrippa and the vision was of the book with two rings on it. Observant readers will note that Agrippa implies this is one ring with two symbols on it, but after reading book 1, I’m inclined to think it’s one ring for each hand. Furthermore I would think it would be profitable to have pinky rings of Venus and Jupiter made too. Remember – it’s Agrippas notes, not a manual.

At this point, the Angel is really trying to make a point that the Tree doesn’t particularly matter, and the archangel becomes transparent and sort of slumps over and I get my tornado of power when I get a glimpse of raw spirits. Michael is so bright it’s literally “neon black” (flashing black) against the cosmos. For whatever reason my angels don’t show up in their raw forms until after we get talking. I have been a bit loathe to ask why since I suspect it’s going to seriously shake up my mental model of magic and I’m going to have to hack out a new evocation method if I do it.

What about Ostara then?

“The spirits are the spirits.” Tautologies in the past have typically meant ‘you are asking the wrong question’.

What about the spirits which they summon at Ostara?

“That’s not offensive. They summon spirits and a spirit plays the part.”

What about Hekate, the green man, pan, jack of the wood…

“Sometimes the spirit is just the spirit. [They] focus on themselves and [some of them] meet a spirit. Some of them are the spirit. Some of them meet another spirit and it is the green ones.”

The vision continues but I’ll take a moment to editorialize here. Some people (me) have a hard time getting into it because the idea is so incredibly alien that I can’t come up with a method which would place the spirits into a position of authority. What I mean by that is I do truly believe in the spirit of a place, but it’s an individual spirit. There’s no “universal spirit of woods” with me. What I think Michael is getting at is the idea that some people create the spirit, some people meet a spirit which is the spirit of the local woods, and some people meet a spirit others have called up. This is, however, a really troubling idea and it’s not possible to falsify. What I’d really like to do is drag some people out into the woods, call up the spirit, and have people observe. Then I’d like to go to a different wood, and also have people observe. Is it different? Ultimately this is the philosophical problem where there’s no difference between people who are re-incarnated, and people who know the ashakic record. It doesn’t matter if it’s a single spirit or a very local spirit because either spirit would be able to tell you a lot about the place. The typical answer to this in the Ceremonial Magic community is “Oh well the spirit should be able to tell you what other spirits you’ve encountered”. That’s great, but the common denominator would be you in that equation and it’s a bit haughty to imagine that you could somehow hide something from a spirit. Why are all the old grimoires so interested in the purity of the magician? “We see them, but they see you.”

On another note, almost all my spirits refer to the wiccans as “the green ones”.

“When you make an observance of the spirit” (a vision of the moon – Michael means ‘sublunar spirits’) “you must also understand the place of the spirit” (‘the zodiac’) “and you can understand the temper of the spirit”. So we can throw a chart for the ritual and come up with the temperament of the ritual and OH MY GOD IT’S MY WIFE. Since my wife was high priestessing, it’s a small wonder these line up…

Things started to fade and I’ve had more wine than usual so I thanked and dismissed the spirit.