The Path: Psychomancy

Astora Diam
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ω. Introduction
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Spiritual models of reality are fascinating. This book describes
examples of mystical techniques that may work- albeit in a wholly mundane
and nonmagical way- and that may have potential applications to one’s life.
This book is written from the perspective that occult techniques, if they
work in some way, are scientifically and psychologically explainable.
I do not believe in magic or spiritual explanations. Many people
disagree and would prefer to frame their experiences in a different way. The
mind is a wonderful place, and seeing magic in it is perfectly fair. I refer to
people who hold a spiritual or mixed interpretation of reality as ‘wizards.’
Psychomancy refers to the practice of spiritual or occult techniques
without a spiritual belief. Effects obtained from these practices are given
psychological explanations. I refer to people seeking to learn and use these
techniques as ‘magicians.’ Magicians awe the crowd with cleverly designed
illusions. Their tricks may not work by unexplainable magic, but they are
still technically impressive and interesting.
ψ. Table of Contents
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Chapter 1: Aether
α. Observation / Meditation / Automatic Writing
β. Conceptualization / Psionics
γ. Ritual / Banishing

Chapter 2: Ambiguity
δ. Alteration / Oneiromancy / Crossing / Astral Projection / Lucid Dreaming
ε. Translation / Sigil / Imposition / Evocation / Scrying
λ. Transformation / Modern Retrieval / Invocation / Introjection

Chapter 3: Alien
μ. Otherkin

Chapter 4: Abstract
π. Contemplation / Inspiration / Synthesis
κ. Animation / Types of Spirits

Chapter 5: Aurora
φ. Godform
χ. Thoughtform
ρ. The Other
σ. The Topics
μ. Coalescence
Chapter 1: Aether
The foundational principles of psychomancy.
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α. Observation
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The mind is an aspiring magician’s most valuable tool. Being able to
observe, analyze, and alter our consciousness is what the practice of
psychomancy is fundamentally about. There are a series of principles that
inform psychomantic techniques: observation, conceptualization, and ritual
form the foundational principles of psychomancy; alteration, translation,
and transformation represent the principles of self-deification;
contemplation and animation inform the final principles which are centered
around the esoteric mechanics of consciousness.
There is some degree of overlap between these principles. Much like
reality itself, these ideas are of a continuous nature. There are many
intersections between these concepts and many different ways of looking at
them.
1.
Observation is the ability to know the self: how our memory informs
the present; what is the general character of our thoughts as we go through
the motions of our daily routine; understanding our implicit motivations
that inform our feelings, behaviors, and thoughts. Observation simply sees
what is there without manipulation, and is the most fundamental of all the
principles taught in this text. All other psychomantic skills use some
element of observation in their execution.
Someone who practices observation-based skills frequently will find
that they understand their memory, their thoughts, and their qualities with
more accuracy than the average person. This can be alienating as many
people are generally unaware of the contents of their memory and what they
are thinking, how their memory affects them in the present, and how to
manipulate this if it is causing a troubling outcome.

2.
We have an internal reality and an external reality. Our external
reality is simply our experience of our five basic senses. There is no
judgment or subjectivity in this reality, it simply exists.
Our internal reality contains our memory, our thoughts, and our
imagination. It is a purely subjective reality and it is viewable from
infinitely many directions. This is why it is possible to lie to ourselves, or to
change our original interpretation of an event.
Our internal and external realities are constantly interacting with
each other in a mutually reinforcing concert. It is important to learn how to
immerse ourselves in both realities, to effectively organize and interpret
input from both forms of reality, and to live with both in mind
simultaneously.

The Mind’s Eye

Pick a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Set a time
interval of ten minutes. You can add more or less time as you adjust to the
exercise. The goal of this exercise is to immerse yourself in your thoughts
to the exclusion of the external world.
Enter into your mind’s eye. You were likely in the middle of
thinking about something, and may even be in the process of automatically
switching through various topics of interest in the back of your mind. Focus
entirely on your thoughts. Daydreaming and imaginative exercises are
particularly involving, however you should be able to fully immerse
yourself in intangible ideas and verbal monologues.
Keep practicing this until it becomes second nature to immerse
yourself into your internal reality. This is a place that should become a
second home for you. Much of psychomancy involves valuing and using
the internal reality to the same extent as external reality.

Presence
This exercise is a contrast to the previous exercise. In the
previous exercise, you were taught to pay attention to your internal reality.
This exercise teaches you to immerse yourself in your five basic senses.
This grounds you in your external reality.
Choose a subject to focus on that is within easy view of where you
are standing or sitting. Standing during this exercise helps keep us focused
on the world around us and helps pull us out of our mind’s eye. This is
because we have to maintain our balance and pose, and so we cannot relax
and lose touch with our body as we could if we were sitting.
Focus on your chosen subject in its entirety to the exclusion of all
other thoughts. For example, if you choose to focus on a nearby tree, then
focus on the different characteristics of the tree. Focus on the contrast
between the green leaves and the blue sky behind it. Scan the texture of the
bark and the veins on the leaves. Attend to all aspects of the setting: the
translucent light filtering through the branches, the shifting and rustling of
the leaves, the movement of bugs and animals that inhabit the tree.
Focusing on these various qualities that defy exact characterization
demands our attention in a way that blocks extraneous thoughts. Do this for
an extended period of time. Ten minutes should be sufficient.
Exercises such as this teach us to be present outside of ourselves.
This in turn trains us to be sensitive to the way our body feels. Physical
exercise, such as a regular yoga practice or a swimming routine, also serves
this purpose.
By being present in our bodies, we develop a healthier relationship
with our senses. This helps regulate things such as our pain response and
our fight or flight response. People often overreact to things in the present
only to later realize that they reacted in this way because of a past negative
experience. When we are present in our senses, it is easier for us to
distinguish between thoughts that are caused by echoes of our past
experiences and thoughts that are grounded in the present day.

Overlap
Imagine your mind’s eye contained in a bubble or a colorful box.
Whenever you think about the box, you step into your mind and can
observe what you are thinking about in the background. What memories are
salient in the back of your mind? What were you just daydreaming about?
What was that joke you just made to yourself? The content of our automatic
thoughts that occur throughout the day can offer us insight into ourselves.
As you go about your day, make it a habit to check this box. When
you first set this goal, you likely will not remember to take the time to look
back on what you are thinking about in your mind’s eye. Keep reminding
yourself to practice this exercise. With a few weeks of daily reminders, it
becomes a habit. Regularly checking the contents of your mind’s eye will
quickly yield interesting information on who you are as a person and on
how your mind is associatively connected together.

3.
The circumstances of the past inform the present. It is important
to learn to discern between thoughts and impressions that are based on
present observations as well as thoughts that are rooted in a past experience.
It is important to be able to distinguish between the past and the present.
This is one of the most critical skills that we can learn in the service of
understanding ourselves.
Some people refer to the overlap of past impressions with the
present as the “analytical overlay.” The analytical overlay refers to our
specific biases in the way we reason things as well as our automatic
associations and judgments that we have learned over time. It is impossible
to remove this overlay entirely, although it is possible to be partially aware
of it. That is not to say that biases learned from a past experience are
necessarily bad. That would imply that learning itself is bad, and that is
clearly not true.

4.
 It is impossible to be completely free of bias. It is impossible to
completely know the self in an absolute and unchanging way. It is
impossible to know, with the utmost certainty, why you think, feel, and do
the things that you do. There is much about the mind that will always be
unconscious, just as there are parts of our experience of having a mind that
are of an unfixed, undefined, and relativistic nature (constantly being
recreated, destroyed, and reframed infinitely.)

Evaluation
Whenever we perceive something, it is judged in the context of
all past experiences. Separating our past experiences from present input is
an essential skill for any practitioner of psychomancy. This exercise is
focused on developing this distinction.
Sit somewhere calming. Pick an object nearby. For example, pick
your phone. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see your
phone? If you were living without access to your memory, you would
simply see the phone with no further thought. What is your chain of
thoughts? Do you think about the user interface? Do you remember the
moment you decided to buy the phone, or the store you purchased the
phone from? Do you think about your current text conversations, perhaps a
person you are talking to who you are expecting something from? Do you
think about the function of a phone, imagining its capability to allow you to
communicate to others in various ways?
Repeat this exercise every day throughout the next few weeks.
Whenever you have a quiet moment, stop and pick an object in your
environment, and then look at all of the different things that come to mind
automatically in the background. These thoughts and judgments are your
memories intersecting with the present context.
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Meditation
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Meditation is a core skill taught in many occult and spiritual
practices because it teaches the cognitive skills that act as the foundation for
later skills. Modern experiments in the field of psychology have found that
regular meditation can improve our attention span and lessen anxiety.
Meditation is a brilliantly simple mental exercise. When we meditate, we
take control of our focus and direct it in a specific way. There are several
distinct types of meditation which are delineated below.

Repetitive
Repetitive meditation uses a repetitive action in order to induce a
trance. Some people use a word or a phrase, other people use a repetitive
dance or listen to repetitive music. Actions that demand our attention keep
us awake, focused, and present. In this form of meditation, the goal is to
become immersed in the process of doing something. If we sit and chant a
word under our breath or listen to music with an easily predicted pattern,
we can become immersed in the sensory experience of performing these
actions.
Sit somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed. Sitting outside
can be a poor choice because environmental distractions, such as the
weather or traffic, can draw you back outside of your head and disrupt your
ability to maintain a trance state. Put together a word that has no particular
meaning. Arrange a few sounds together. Let’s use the fictitious word “aur-
hy.” Say this word under your breath. Focus solely on the utterance of this
word. Repeat this word for a set time duration. As thoughts arise, focus on
your task of repeating this meaningless word.
A popular permutation of this type of meditation is to focus solely
on your breathing. Deep breathing is, in and of itself, a calming action. It
calms down the fight or flight response on a biological level. Focusing on
the action of breathing in, and then out, is a simple meditation that can be
done anywhere and in any setting. Simply pick a time interval that you wish
to meditate for and a place to sit, close your eyes, and focus on the action of
breathing in and out. Some people like to visualize the air they breath in as
glowing a certain color as it enters their lungs, perhaps blue, which then
turns red as it is exhaled. The visualization helps keep people focused.
 Calming stimuli, such as watching the repetitive motion of a clock,
are hypnotic and push us into a different trance state. Hypnotic trances slow
down our thoughts and push us into a dream-like state on the edge of sleep
that is emotionally vivid and leaves us open to suggestion. This can be
illuminating for self-exploration and for modifying behaviors, albeit this
state change is particularly difficult to recall later. Keeping a journal nearby
to document interesting thoughts is recommended.
Hypnotic trances, because they narrow our awareness and feature a
sense of increased emotional vividness, inhibit our ability to resist external
or internal influence. This means that these states can be used to change
behaviors or learn in a faster way than methods used outside of this trance
because things experienced during this state bypass automatic filters.
Experiences that enter the mind through a state that is more emotionally
vivid than what is typical take on a feeling of importance. This tricks the
mind into assigning a higher priority to experiences like this.

Focal
In focal meditation, a particular sensory experience is focused on
to the exclusion of all other thoughts. The type of stimulus chosen can
impact the experience. Continuous subjects, or a subject that you cannot
summarize or categorize easily, demands the attention more than a
stationary stimulus. A candle flame or the waves flowing in and out on the
shore of a lake are examples of continuous stimuli. A complex stimulus,
like a painting with many details or the stars in the night sky, can be
cognitively overwhelming which changes the character of the resulting
trance. A comforting stimulus like a fuzzy blanket or a blue apple is easy to
focus on and results in a less intense trance.
Choose your subject and begin the process of clearing your mind.
The sensory experience that was chosen should become your entire reality.
If you choose a complicated stimulus or a moving subject, keeping track of
it will quickly become the nature of your meditation session. Focus on your
subject for 10-20 minutes. Every time your focus moves back to your
thoughts, move it back to your chosen subject. This will keep you present in
your senses. Eventually, entering a state of presence in your sensory
experience becomes second nature, and it becomes easy to disengage with
the noise in your head at will.
Cycling
There is a difference between being present within your thoughts,
thinking actively about a present situation, focusing solely on your sensory
experience, and focusing on nonthought. The above meditation teaches us
to be present in our sensory experience without any judgment on the present
situation. If we were to change this meditative exercise very slightly, we can
change this to a meditation that trains us to focus on thinking actively about
the present.
Pick a new subject. Instead of focusing on the subject, we focus on
how we think and feel about the subject. How many colors are on it? What
does it remind us of? There is an important contrast between these two
thoughts. Asking ourselves how many colors are on our chosen subject
keeps us anchored in the present: the answer is in our senses. Asking what it
reminds us of pulls us into our mind and into our memory for the answer.
These two types of thinking are the opposite in the way they pull our focus.
This type of meditation involves cycling through a lot of different
types of thoughts and feelings as you find new details and comparisons to
make. There is a distinct difference between our thoughts and our feelings.
Our thoughts include verbal judgments, talking to ourselves, ideas, and
calculations. Our feelings contain our emotions and impressions. There are
many different ways of thinking besides these.
The comparisons and observations made in cycling are often rapid-
fire and made over shallow details like color and form; the goal of cycling
through your observations and focusing on making impressions like this is
to meditate solely on the thoughts that we have in response to our
environment. Exercises like this can help us to discern between whether our
thoughts and feelings are anchored in our present observations or past
experiences.

Mindfulness
Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on nonthought itself,
and is perhaps the most difficult meditative state to maintain. It is possible
to directly think of nothing, to simply focus on focusing itself. Upon
attaining a state of mindfulness, some people experience a state that feels
similar to ego-death as experienced in psychedelic drug use.
 Most people use an interim state when attempting to enter a state
of nonthought. It is common to use a strategy that employs nonattachment.
Nonattachment is the process of accepting and then disengaging with
thoughts as they arise. In nonattachment, the automatic string of judgments,
impressions, and analysis that we engage in when we think to ourselves is
discontinued without further engagement.
Close your eyes. What are you thinking about? Acknowledge it
and then let it go. Repeat this for all thoughts. Anytime an automatic
judgment or emotion develops, let it go without further engagement.
Eventually, you will be left without thoughts. As you practice this, it
becomes easy to disengage from thoughts without even having to
acknowledge them. Becoming mindful becomes a distinct state of mind that
you enter into without much resistance.
Nonattachment can become a chronic trait. When we are attached
to a certain outcome, we experience disappointment and other negative
emotions when we fail to attain this outcome. When we learn to engage in
nonjudgmental acceptance, we no longer feel dependent on external
circumstances for validation. We live in the present with an acceptance for
any way that circumstances may develop.
The opposite of nonattachment is determination. When we are
determined to reach a certain outcome, this goal becomes an anchoring
point. Inspiration can be drawn from the drama of the situation; persevering
in the face of adversity pushes us to expand our talents to an extent they
may otherwise have never reached. Although we open ourselves up to
disappointment and pain in the process, determination is a core part of
experience and survival. Nonattachment and determination, though
opposites, are both essential ways of relating to the world.

Open Monitoring
The subject of focus in open monitoring is our thoughts
themselves. In open monitoring, we meditate on the contents of our mind’s
eye. Without engaging in our thoughts and feelings, we watch as they fall in
and out of salience. In focal meditation, we focus purely on our sensory
experience. In cycling, we focus on an analysis of our sensory experience;
the point where our sensory experience meets our internal reality. In
mindfulness, we focus on focus itself. In open monitoring, we are focused
on our internal reality exclusively.
 Sit down in a comfortable location lacking in distraction. Choose a
time duration. Open monitoring is a bit easier than something like
mindfulness, and longer durations can reveal interesting thought patterns to
yourself. Twenty minutes is a nice time to begin with. Focus inwardly on
your thoughts. Don’t disengage with your thoughts - watch them as they
shift in and out. Different parts of your memory will come in and out of
focus. Different thoughts, emotions, and anxieties will repeat as though on a
loop. Keep a journal nearby and, at the end of each session, write down any
interesting patterns or insights that you encounter.
It is possible to take a more active role during monitoring and
attempt to observe the associative connections between your thoughts. As
thoughts arise, instead of tracking them, reach out to them. Focus on that
thought. What is that thought associated with, what automatic judgment
does this thought inspire, what memory do I feel nostalgic for when I think
of this idea? Follow the thought to the next thought that it makes you think
of, and continue to follow the thoughts. It can reveal interesting associations
and remind you of fun curiosities from years ago that you completely forgot
about.
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Automatic Writing
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Automatic writing has a famous reputation. People most commonly
use it with the intention of talking to spirits. Automatic writing certainly has
some interesting properties, but it cannot allow you to talk to spirits.
Automatic writing is the process of writing whatever comes to mind.
We put the pen down to the paper, and we begin to write. Nonsense words,
random phrases - we simply write and accept what happens. We write our
stream of consciousness.
It is possible to direct our thoughts during automatic writing by
inducing a trance state or contemplating on a certain topic before engaging
in this practice. In doing this, we can subtly prime ourselves to write about
topics that may be useful or otherwise of interest to us.
Automatic writing is a way of capturing what is on our mind just in
the back of our thoughts. In a way, this makes automatic writing similar to
open monitoring. Engaging in automatic writing a few times a day for a few
weeks can be an interesting project that can reveal interesting patterns in
your recurring thoughts.
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β. Conceptualization
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Being able to draw an image in our head is useful for more than
aesthetics. The ability to conceptualize ideas for various purposes is a
fundamental skill in psychomancy. We could assign an association to an
image and use that to block out a negative feeling; we could use an image
as a symbol to call up a specific feeling or to remember a specific piece of
information; the possibilities are truly infinite.

Visualization
Close your eyes and enter your mind’s eye. Begin by visualizing a
yellow sphere. Feel the volume and shape; imagine the color. Add more
shapes. A blue cube. A green pyramid. A purple star. Keep adding shapes
until you reach nine. Try to hold them in focus as well as you can and for as
long as you can.

Catching
It is possible to catch a sense of our feelings (and other types of
thoughts) and then associate them to an image of our creation. Draw a
symbol in your mind. It does not matter what the symbol is. Simply imagine
it, and then hold it next to the feeling that you want to associate to that
picture. Hold the two ideas next to each other, focus on each together,
repeatedly. It can help to imagine a visual link, like a glowing blue string,
between the two concepts.
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Psionics
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Psionics are, at a glance, a silly idea. Telepathy, telekinesis, future
sight, and psychic attacks are not real. However, some of the exercises used
to build so-called ‘telepathic powers’ are interesting in that they are decent
visualization exercises.

1.
There is a way to create a mundane approximation of some psychic
powers. If you could create a character inside your mind based on a model
of someone else’s personality, then you could use that character to predict
that person’s reactions. Of course, it would only be as accurate as you are
accurate at modeling this external person’s thought process.

The Infamous ‘Psiball’

This is a technique that was discussed on the internet quite a bit
back in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Psionics were advertised as the ability to
use imagery and willpower to change some aspect of reality. One of the
beginning lessons taught in psionics was learning to strongly conceptualize
a ‘psiball.’
Hold your hands out. Reflect on how your hands feel; feelings of
warm sunlight, of the cool wind on your skin. Now, inside of your mind’s
eye, imagine glowing, warm energy of your favorite color entering your
hands. Strongly focus on the sensory details. Shape the energy into a
sphere. Add an attention-grabbing sensory detail, like turning the energy
into bright blue fire and water, or adding small animal shapes in the facade
of the cloud-like, mysterious ball of psychic energy.
It’s not real, of course, but it is a decent visualization exercise. If
you are persistent enough at expecting your hands to feel warm or for the
energy to become visible in your palm, you may begin to see/feel these
sensations. A later section in this book covers the practice of creating
voluntary hallucinations (which is known as imposition.) This exercise can
be used for imposition as well as for visualization; it depends on whether
you imagine and feel the ‘energy’ in your mind’s eye or if you attempt to
see it and feel it outside of yourself.
Remote Viewing
Remote viewing is supposed to give the psychic the ability to spy
on a real-world location. By visualizing an external location or focusing on
the essence of a person, you can view what is happening in that location at
the time of your choosing. This is supposedly how future sight, bilocation,
and possession works, as well. Of course, while remote viewing does not
actually allow us to leave our body and spy on other locations, the exercises
used to develop this fictitious skill serve as a decent visualization exercise.
Lay down in a comfortable place. Imagine yourself in a real world
location. It is preferable if this location is a place you are familiar with, and
even better if you choose the location you are presently in. It helps if you
can easily cross-check the real place with the imaginary place.
The goal of this exercise is to model your location of choice to the
most realistic extent that you are capable of. Focus on as many senses as
possible. The feeling of textures; the smell; the colors and small details; the
ambient noise.
Remote viewing obviously does not yield an accurate view of a real
location. It is only as accurate as your internal model is. However, it is a
decent visualization exercise. If you practice this when you are on the verge
of sleep, it is possible to stay awake during these visualizations as you pass
the first stages of sleep and you can enter a lucid dream this way.

Telepathy
One of the primary ways in which people learn is by observation.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of psychomantic techniques rely on our ability to take
things in from outside of ourselves and model them within ourselves. We
can make a fun little approximation of telepathy (that is usually wildly
inaccurate) by using our ability to learn in this way.
We begin by selecting a real person that we interact with frequently.
We bring up our stereotype of that person, how that person feels to us when
we see them. We reflect on the feeling of that person’s general “vibe.”
We take this feeling and we give it the form of the real person. Then
we begin to talk to this conceptualized feeling, stepping into its perspective
to reply to ourselves. When we reply to ourselves from the perspective of
this imaginary version of our person of choice, we begin to develop our
sense of what it is like to be that person. Training this imaginary character
by modeling how it should reply to you is known as “parroting.”
If we interact with this character via parroting for several weeks, it
can take on self-aware characteristics, much like having an immersive
imaginary friend that may reply to things or otherwise guide your behavior
without your conscious control.
It can be fun to have fake conversations with our model of this
external person, then talk to the real person about similar topics, and then
check to see how accurate our model of that person is.
This is a type of thoughtform known as an introject. A servitor,
which is covered in the next section, is another type of thoughtform.
Thoughtforms will be covered in more detail in a later chapter.

Servitor Construction
Some psionics guides explain this concept of a servitor. It is a semi-
sentient form of consciousness within yourself that performs a certain task.
As you will learn in a further chapter pertaining to the principles of
animation, it is possible to create self-aware and self-sustaining characters
within yourself and to use them to modify small aspects of your cognition.
The principle behind servitors is sound; it is a way of cleverly using
abstracted aspects of your thinking to perform a specific task.
Let’s say we have trouble remembering to do our homework when
we come home from school. It is simply a matter of forgetfulness rather
than of disinterest or laziness. We could visualize an image; perhaps an
image of a metallic, highly reflective robot dog. We think in the direction of
this image we have created; we impose the sense of our purpose on it.
When I get home, I will remember to do my homework. While holding this
goal in mind, it is helpful to imagine your house at the same time as this.
Optimistically, this concept you have visualized- the robot servitor- will
remind you to do your homework as you come home from school. As you
see your house, it should trigger you to remember the creation of this
servitor, which triggers you to remember to do your homework. This is a
way of linking thoughts together and symbolically communicating with
yourself in an interesting way.
γ. Ritual
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Ritual makes sense to the wizard. To the magician, it may seem like
nonsense. There is a method to ritual that goes beyond tradition. When we
repeat a behavior, we begin to build a ritual. Ritual gives form to
disconnected ideas and behaviors, it gives routine, it gives order. All
organized and meaningful behavior is ritual.
The process of engaging in specific, repeated occult rituals creates
the development of a ritual state of mind. As you engage in ritual practice
over time, it becomes a vivid and entrenched mindset that feels separate
from ordinary life. This helps the magician develop their ability to think in
a novel way and expand their mind.

1.
 In a traditional ritual, generally some type of symbolic outfit or
accessory is worn. It could be a robe, or a piece of jewelry, or something
functional such as a ceremonial knife. Having specific clothing that is used
during rituals helps symbolically tell our mind that we are entering into a
ritual mindset.
The scene is set in some way; perhaps there is a candle or a
ceremonial circle composed of salt drawn in a certain configuration. A
specific intention or theme is passively meditated on in the back of the mind
during the ritual. There is some type of trance induction.
There is a type of sacrifice or offering, such as an elaborate array of
poetry or phrases, moving or dancing in a specific way, inflicting pain on
the self, or performing a symbolic gesture such as sacrificing a fish. This
ties to the literal idea of karma: everything we do has some kind of
reflection. Karma is not about justice, but about cause and effect. By
expending energy during a ritual, this energy is directed along the lines of
your intention. Or so the wizard believes.
The ritual, in the practitioner’s memory after the ceremony, takes on
the tone and shape of the intention and resultant trance that occurs. This
solidifies the individual’s commitment to the theme held in mind during the
ceremony. The trance state can be useful for expanding one’s personality in
a certain direction, or for the generation of inspiration.
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Banishing
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Banishing is an interesting concept. The general idea of banishing
is that, during the course of a magic practitioner’s life, negative influences
can attach themselves to the wizard and weigh him down. Banishing is also
used at the end of a ritual to reduce the chance of bad luck and attracting
negative spiritual attention.
While negative spiritual attachments and bad luck are not real,
negative behaviors and exploitative relationships are real, and being preyed
on, exposed, or retaliated against is a general risk in life. Everyone
inevitably dies.
Externalizing anxieties related to these topics naturally leaves
behind practices and superstitions such as this. Banishing is a way of
dealing with anxieties over uncontrollable aspects of reality. A typical
banishing ritual can go something like this:
Stand in the center of the room, favoring no direction. Call up
four beloved spirits, symbols, or deities to represent each of the four
cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west.) Perhaps assign a pretty
color or flourish to them; something that catches the eye and inspires awe.
Turn in each direction and call to each spirit- in a way personalized
to each spirit- in turn, asking each one to offer you protection and to cleanse
your life of negative influences. Ask for protection from whatever is
relevant to your situation.
Visualize a representation of infinity in between each deity; perhaps
imagine a beam of light traveling infinitely across space, or of light
refracting into a rainbow that has infinite color divisions, or a crystal
stretching infinitely into a chasm that passes through your head.
At the end of the ritual, return to your original position, and imagine
a symbolic representation of the concept of ending. Perhaps imagine
watching smoke clear from the ashes of a burnt tree, or watch a wall of fire
rise up and burn off a cord of black negativity (which symbolizes your
negative emotions and anxieties.)
Thank the spirits and then return to your day.
While spirits may not exist in a literal sense (there is only
communication within the self,) there is something calming and anxiety-
reducing about engaging in rituals such as these. There are many things we
have anxieties about, such as death or the actions of others, that we have
little to no control over. By engaging in a ritual with the intention of
controlling these elements, we calm our sense of anxiety by giving our
mind the impression that we are working toward the resolution of these
problems. This allows us to clear away our anxiety for things that would
otherwise be stuck in an unresolved state in our mind. In addition,
banishing is a good symbolic ritual to clear away old thought traps and
connections that we logically realize are no longer useful.
---
Chapter 2: Ambiguity
The path to self-deification - giving meaning to ambiguity.
---
δ. Alteration
---
Our consciousness is altered slightly as we perceive and learn
new things simply by virtue of existing. All of existence is an alteration
from one moment to the next. Some events leave a larger impact on our
psyche than others, and events that are associatively linked together can
come together to form a composite alteration in consciousness that we
experience as something similar to nostalgia.
Skills such as open monitoring are techniques we can use to watch
these small, normally implicit, alterations in consciousness. Seeing these
alterations for what they are, observing the associative structure of our
memory that informs our thoughts and behaviors, and learning to
consciously manipulate these elements gives us sovereignty over our mind.
1.
In occult traditions, there is a division between what is called the
left-hand path and the right-hand path. In left-hand path traditions and
practices, the goal of the practice is self-deification - or abstraction of the
self from the whole as a brilliant, self-realized individual. Self-illumination,
self-deification, hedonism, and the control of our thoughts and impulses are
the main principles of left-hand path ideologies and practices.
In right-hand path practices, the goal is to seriously dedicate
yourself to the next step forward. That next step is ambiguous and can take
many forms; some people dedicate themselves to their family, others
dedicate themselves to an art or the study of a science, others dedicate
themselves to a spiritual tradition and relinquish their worldly possessions,
and a very small minority martyr themselves for the cause. Right-hand
practices tend to focus on veneration of a deity which is a representation of
some type of ideal or primordial force, as well as acts of community
service, sacrifice, and charity.
Right-hand and left-hand practices are not mutually exclusive.
Thinking of yourself as part of an infinite whole as well as being a unique
pixel in an overwhelmingly vast universe are both simultaneously accurate
perceptions. Being a well-rounded person demands the development of both
ways of relating.

Immersion
By controlling our internal reality, we can substitute for the
learning that we would have otherwise obtained through our natural
environment. If we are raised in a boring environment, but immerse
ourselves in a fantasy world inside of our minds during idle times, this
provides a more stimulating environment than if we had not changed our
internal reality to something more thought-provoking and imaginative.
Experiences that are imagined to a sufficient degree of emotional magnitude
can leave a lasting impression on the psyche. The mind does not
differentiate between imagined memories and memories that took place in
the real world.
Close your eyes and imagine a location. It could be any location:
a location from your favorite video game, a beloved place you haven’t seen
since you were a child, a place you invented. Begin by cycling through your
five senses and model your imaginary reality as accurately and vividly as
you can. Your purpose in this exercise is to immerse yourself in your
internal reality. You are attempting to make your perception of your internal
reality feel as vivid as your external reality by modeling your five senses as
you imagine yourself interacting with your imaginary world.
Go for a swim and imagine the feeling of the cool water on your
skin and the feeling of pebbles under your feet. Feel the sand on the beach
and the warmth of the sun’s rays. Invent an entirely new perception.
Oneiromancy
---
Dream work is a subject that features prominently in many different
spiritual traditions and cultures. Dreaming has captured the fascination of
humanity since the dawn of organized civilization. Today, lucid dreaming is
a popular topic that many are familiar with, and most people who are
familiar with the occult are familiar with the topics of astral projection and
out of body experiences.
There are three main types of sleep states: crossing, astral
projection, and lucid dreaming. They take place during different stages of
sleep. There is nothing magical to these experiences, however they can be
useful for self-exploration. Dreams are fun.

1.
It is worth noting that people who regularly engage in dream work
will inevitably, at some point, encounter a strange sleep-related experience.
There are several main parasomnias that a magician is likely to encounter:
hypnogogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, and nightmares.
*- Nightmares may occur by virtue of being more in tune with your dreams;
you were having the nightmares already, and now you are aware of them.
*- Hypnogogic hallucinations are what happens when dreams intersect with
our waking life (they are our dreams imposing on our five senses) and can
be ignored. The myth of the succubus is scientifically explainable as a
person experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations during a state of sleep
paralysis.
*- Our body is paralyzed while we are sleeping so that we don’t act out our
dreams and hurt ourselves. Sleep paralysis is completely normal, although it
is scary to wake up during it. If you wake up while you are in a state of
sleep paralysis, it will offset in a few minutes on its own and you will be
able to move again.

Preparation
Because of state dependent memory, it is difficult to remember
dreams. We are automatically inclined to compartmentalize and forget
them. A lot of people begin dream work with no ability to remember their
dreams. Rest assured (ha ha ha,) it is possible to train yourself to remember
your dreams.
There are several different methods people commonly use to
improve their dream memory. Telling yourself that you intend to remember
your dreams as you fall asleep helps some people. The gold standard
method, however, is to journal about your dreams everytime you go to
sleep. We dream anytime we sleep, but we begin forgetting our dreams the
moment we wake up; so the idea with journaling is to, upon waking,
immediately write down whatever impression we have of our dreams, no
matter how tenuous or vague our memory is.
When we first begin journaling, we may have nothing to say besides
a sense of calm or a sense of an old memory - the faintest of impressions. It
is important to be consistent in this habit and to make an attempt to write
something every day. Within a few months, it is possible to go from one or
two sentences per dream to pages of content for a single night. Engaging in
this practice not only improves our dream recall, but it also trains us to be
present during our dreams as they are happening which makes the
experience of dreaming itself seem to stretch for a longer time with more
detail.

Analysis
Dreams- and the information that can potentially be gleaned from
them- are nonlinear in their interpretation. This is one of the things that
people find frustrating about dream analysis (and about analytical
techniques in general;) there is no set interpretation, and any truths that are
derived from a dream offer information of an oblique, indirect nature.
Analysis in dreams is similar in structure to analysis from other sources of
thought.
Take your dream journal and go over it. Pick out any recurring
patterns, symbols, and themes; note the overall emotion of each dream and
if they remind you of another time in your life; and note what your
automatic impression of the dream’s meaning is. Then, assess every symbol
that you picked out individually.
Engage in observation; activate the concept of each idea in your
head, and then see what ideas you create in response to it. Your associated
ideas, memories, and feelings for each element of your dream is more likely
to tell you what your dream means to you than a book of dream symbols
and interpretations. Consider the different dream symbols next to each other
and observe how different pairings change your perception of the dream.
---
Crossing
---
Crossing is similar to the modern revival of the shamanic technique
of journeying. Some internet subcultures refer to it as “hedge-crossing.” In
hedge-crossing, it is said that the wizard’s soul leaves their body to fly to
another place. Visionary messages, episodes of possession and bilocation,
and encountering spirits are said to be common experiences that can be
found in this altered state of consciousness.
In reality, it is simply a vivid and subjectively meaningful way of
interacting with yourself. This state is attained by immersing yourself into
your imagination during a trance state of significant depth. A light sleep is
an example of such an altered state.
The focus required to stay present in our imagination allows us to
maintain a grasp- however tenuous- on our lucidity as we cross over into a
light sleep. The mind is amazingly animate, and interacting with the self in
this way leads to exciting experiences, such as experiencing elements of
your mind as other people or spirits.
The procedure for crossing is more complex than the other exercises
given thus far. There are several distinct methods for attaining a crossing
state. Some methods will work better for some people as opposed to others.

Trance Induction
Crossing requires the induction of a heavy trance bordering on (or
inside of) a light sleep. There are several techniques that are helpful here.
Meditation during the start of sleep can help retain awareness; it is possible
to simply meditate until your mind has entered sleep, or to engage in open
monitoring as you wait for signs that you have fallen asleep.
You will know you have entered sleep when your thoughts begin to
randomize. Once you have entered a light sleep, which is characterized by
your thoughts being partially out of your control, you immerse yourself in
your imagination. Your imagination should be more vivid, move without
your conscious control, and feel different than usual if you have
successfully entered a crossing state.

Visualization
 Some people find it helpful to engage in a visualization exercise.
People often stick to the same general visualization that they invent
themselves after experimenting with this technique for a while. Because
their mind comes to associate that series of visualizations with falling
asleep and entering a crossing state, the mind automatically falls into that
state more easily because the visualization serves as a cue to tell the mind
that this is what is expected of it.
A typical visualization exercise spans about 10-20 minutes,
depending on how elaborate it is. It is common to start in a specific location
at the beginning, and then take time to immerse yourself in your
imagination by focusing on each of your five senses in turn. Feel the grass.
Listen to the sound of the nearby stream. And so on.
Then, you walk through several twists and turns away from the
starting location. There is a door or portal or some other means to take you
to another location. In this next location, you restart the process of re-
orienting yourself and exploring. I personally add a hypnotic experience in
the second location, such as a shimmering lake whose waves I watch roll in
and out. By the third location, you should be in the process of drifting off to
sleep.
If you have not yet begun to fall asleep by the third location change,
simply continue to explore and move to different locations until your state
begins to change. It may not happen the first handful of times that you
attempt to cross over.

1.
Crossing won’t feel like an out of body experience or a lucid dream.
In order to have the perception that you have completely vacated your body
as you do in these experiences, you have to be in a state of sleep paralysis.

2.
You will know you are falling asleep because random noise will
begin to appear in your visualization. This is the start of the process of your
thoughts disambiguating as you drift off into the first stages of sleep. You
will have fully crossed over when you experience yourself as one point of
consciousness in an imagined world that is completely randomized and
acting outside of your control. The state is more emotionally vivid and
immersive than a regular daydream.
---
Astral Projection
---
Lucid dreaming, astral projection, and crossing are all distinctly
different experiences. The difference between these three states of mind is
what stage of sleep you are currently lucid in. When we become lucid to our
thoughts during deep sleep, after sleep paralysis has set in, we are entering
into an astral projection state.
Experimental studies conducted on the different stages of sleep
show that deep sleep dreams are more mundane (and more terrifying,)
while REM sleep dreams have a distinctly more surreal character. Lucid
dreaming (which occurs during REM sleep) and astral projection (which
occurs during deep sleep) feel distinctly different for this reason.
If you enter into an astral state immediately after falling into a deep
sleep, you will have the eerie experience of walking out of your body. This
is where the concept of “out of body experiences” comes from. The reason
why this perception of leaving the body exists is because you haven’t yet
forgotten your surroundings as you drift off from light sleep into deep sleep.
You forget where you are when your mind enters deep sleep and
clears your short term memory for long term processing. As our memory is
cleared and we forget the rules of our daily life that we just left behind, the
dream state changes in character and becomes increasingly more surreal.
There are two main ways that people attain an astral state. Most
people either enter in through a meditative trance that they hold as they
change sleep stages. Some people enter an astral state by persevering
through a crossing state while maintaining their hold on their lucidity.

Meditation
The most common way of attaining an astral state is to meditate
until you hit a deep sleep state, and then leave your body. You may enter
into a crossing state while doing this; do not engage with it, and let the
images that come to you go as you do in mindfulness meditation.
If you are especially fatigued, you can reach this state within 10 - 20
minutes. However, it is possible to take as long as an hour to reach this
state. It can take a long time to get the hang of this technique. It takes some
people several months of practice to reach this stage.
1.
When sleep paralysis sets in, your body may feel like it is vibrating,
although some people don’t feel anything aside from the randomization of
their thoughts. If you try to leave your body before sleep paralysis has set
in, you will wake yourself up. However, if you make it to deep sleep while
maintaining focused awareness, it is possible to enter into a state where you
are asleep but your mind still thinks that you are in your bed. As explained
above, this causes the perception of having to leave the body in order to
enter into an astral state.
However, if you managed to disconnect yourself from your
perception of your body during a visualization sequence, you will feel as
though you have skipped directly into a lucid dream. People refer to this as
a wake-induced lucid dream. This specific situation is discussed in the next
section.

2.
When you attempt to leave your body during an astral state, it is
stereotypically difficult to do so at first. There is a hand-off that is occurring
between your connection to external reality and your internal reality, and it
can take a few tries to adjust to the change in perspective. People often offer
the advice to visualize a rope above your body and visualize yourself
climbing up in order to leave your body. Simply getting up and walking
away is a sufficient visualization.

Disconnection
Some people prefer disconnecting themselves from their
environment before entering an astral state. This removes the drama of
having an out-of-body experience. People disconnect themselves from their
physical location by anchoring themselves in a visualization.
The visualization exercise is similar to crossing over. You could
theoretically use the same visualization, however it is advised to use a
different visualization. Crossing relies on staying just awake enough to
avoid transitioning into deep sleep and REM sleep. Since the visualizations
regularly used to attain a state change become associated with that state,
you should not reuse visualizations to attain a different state from the one
they were originally used for.
 People often use a simple visualization of floating above their body
or walking around their neighborhood. You focus on hypnotizing yourself
and keeping yourself in a calm state of mind in order to make the transition
between sleep stages happen faster and with greater ease.
Model yourself watching something swing back and forth, model
the sense of feeling a comforting blanket, model yourself lying down to
sleep. The goal of this technique is to pass through light sleep by being as
calming and nonfocused as possible (while still maintaining a hold on your
conscious awareness) while immersed in your imagination.
The difference between a crossing state and an astral state is at what
point you refocus your attention and begin to explore. In crossing, you have
reached your goal and begin to consciously explore once you have attained
a light sleep and a slight randomization to your thoughts. You begin
exploring, and this slight adjustment in your focused attention will prevent
you from continuing to transition into a deeper sleep (theoretically, it is
possible to fall into a deep sleep during crossing, but less likely because of
the engaging process of interacting with the crossing state.)
When you are attempting to reach an astral state, you continue to
calm yourself down in order to take yourself closer to deep sleep after you
have attained a crossing state. Eventually, you will realize you are
dreaming. There is a distinctive shift, similar in magnitude leaving your
body in the above technique, and the dream will suddenly become your
entire reality.
---
Lucid Dreaming
---
Lucid dreaming is what happens when we become aware that we are
dreaming during REM sleep. This gives us conscious control of what
happens in our dreams, and expands our ability to remember what happens
in dreams.
Lucid dreaming, unlike crossing and astral projection, is extremely
difficult to enter directly. You have to maintain your hold onto your
conscious awareness for over an hour as you persist through sleep stage
changes. People often prefer to enter into a lucid dream by waking
themselves in the middle of the dream. Both paths are covered below.

Persistence
It is possible to stay awake into a lucid dream. The procedure for
doing this is the same as the procedure for astral projection. During an
astral state, you must maintain lucidity as your dream becomes
progressively more surreal and less connected to your waking life.
There are ways to make persisting into a lucid dream easier. The
main way of doing this is by taking advantage of how our sleep cycles
change depending on how sleep deprived we are. If we are sleep deprived,
like after a hard day’s work, we will make it to REM sleep faster because of
REM rebound. Waking yourself up in the middle of the night with an alarm
and then going back to sleep also serves this purpose just as well.

Reality Checks
The easiest way to attain lucidity during a dream is to learn to
recognize that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. Developing a
system of reality checks is the easiest way to attain this goal. By using
reality checks, you train yourself to automatically distinguish between a
waking state and a dreaming state. It can take a few weeks to a few months
to develop a reliable system that works for you. Here are some ideas for
reality checks:
*- Regular meditation teaches us to be present. When we are present, we are
more attentive to our internal and external circumstances. This carries over
to dreams and can help passively aid in the discernment between waking
and sleep.
*- Read back your dreams to yourself that you have been writing about in
your dream journal (which you have most certainly been regularly writing
in.) Are there any recurring patterns? Any specific recurring dreams,
locations, or situations? These patterns can be picked out and kept in mind
because if they only occur in dreams and not in waking life, noticing these
elements can help us remember that we are dreaming. For example: if we
regularly dream about being in our grandmother’s house, which was
demolished twenty years ago, we can use this as a reality check. If we are
suddenly in our grandmother’s house, then we know we are dreaming.
*- You can use your memory for your regular habits as a reality check.
Come up with an action that you rehearse during the day, and then when
you automatically perform that action in a dream you will check to see if
you are dreaming. If you regularly (maybe a couple times a day for a few
weeks) pause and ask yourself the question, “am I dreaming?” and then try
to control reality, fly, or do something else that is only possible while
dreaming, you will begin to automatically question and test your reality
while you are dreaming.
*- Another common reality check is to focus on a detail that sets dreams
apart from reality. Because of the chaotic nature of dreams, if we focus on
something in a dream, look away, and then look back, the scene will have
changed in some way when we look back. So if you use this element of
dreams as your reality check, then throughout your day, you stop and ask
yourself: “am I dreaming?” Then you focus on a detail in your environment,
look away, and then look back. If the object you were looking at remains
the same, then you know you are awake. If the object changes, then you
know you are in an altered state and you are dreaming.
---
ε. Translation
---
Symbolism is a core principle of the way we communicate both
within ourselves and with others. Words, in and of themselves, are symbols.
The moment we speak to someone else, they perceive our symbolism, and
recreate our symbols within their own mind from their own perspective.
Communication is where symbolism becomes alive.
Translation teaches us to use symbolism to give form to ambiguity.
We can take our thoughts and translate them into an equivalent form. We
can use symbols to, not only communicate with ourselves on a deep level,
but as a personal code to meaningfully change ourselves.

1.
 I think it is important to learn to create your own self-derived
system of meaning. By doing this, you develop confidence in your own
perception of reality, and you develop the ability to make judgments about
the nature of reality around you. You begin to trust yourself instead of the
word of a so-called expert. You are the expert of your own mind, the way
you see the world, and the way in which you express your spirituality.
Take the colors of the rainbow and pick a subject. Hold the idea you
want to explore in mind as you look at each individual color of the rainbow.
Draw the idea through the colors. As you move back and forth between
colors, you will both automatically and manually assign concepts related to
the idea you are trying to create a theoretical system around. As you make
your way through the rainbow once, you will go back to refine each color.
Repeat until you have a working system.
To give a simple example: if you used the colors of the rainbow to
develop a system of fire magic for a fictional book you are writing, then as
you move through the colors you will automatically generate ideas related
to fire, fire attacks, and so on as you draw the idea of fire_magic through
each individual color. The first few times you run through the colors, it is
just a matter of spitting out ideas. Then you go back and refine them and
look for patterns. Lava is distinct from a refined laser, which is distinct from
traditional fire, which is distinct from an acid burn, and so on.

Transcryption
It is possible to translate our feelings into another form, such as a
visual image. In this technique, you begin with the feeling/idea. While
keeping the idea that you want to translate in mind, you begin to draw an
image. Anything that you create, such as an abstract rainbow nightmare
made of bioluminescent teardrops, will contain the association of the
concept that is being held next to it while you draw the image. You may
find that the idea you are keeping in mind as you draw influences the image
you choose to create.
---
Sigil
---
The idea of sigils was popularized by chaos magick. Chaos
magick is interesting in that its central philosophy is this idea that belief is a
tool. In saying that belief is a tool, it says that you are the master of your
universe. You can ascribe whatever meaning you want to whatever belief
system or method or tool that you choose to use. People use this ideology in
one of two main ways. It either means that all things are equally true, or that
all things are equally false.
When it comes to sigils, the traditional conceptualization is that
by creating this symbol that externalizes an internal intention and then
ritualistically disposing of it, it may manifest our will. Then there is some
kind of pseudo-scientific armchair conjecture about chaos theory and
butterflies flapping their wings and causing hurricanes. I assume that the
implication here is that the ritualistic burning of a paper that I just drew a
frowning face on will cause a ripple effect that causes circumstances to
change in cumulatively small ways that lead up to attaining the desire I am
attempting to manifest several weeks later. This is not how reality (or the
butterfly effect) works, however it is a fun idea.
A chaos magician generally creates a sigil by writing their intention
out in their native language, using a self-created alphabet, or by using one
of the mystical alphabets such as Enochian or Theban. They then mix and
warp the letters together to create a symbol. This symbol is then meditated
on wherein you visualize your mystical intention as being imposed on the
symbol. Finally, the symbol is then disposed of in a ritualistically
meaningful way. Fire is a popular disposal method. You then try not to think
about your intended goal as the universe manifests your deepest desires.
Working with sigils is a self-empowering exercise and an example
of translating meaning from one form (a verbal statement) to another (an
image,) even if the mystical overlay is all nonsense. The idea of creating a
symbol and using it to keep you focused on an intention has merit. It is
possible to create a symbol around a certain concept in your mind, and then
bring this symbol up any time you lose faith to keep you focused on your
internal ideals. Over time, the symbol takes on a sort of internal power and
presence. This is more in the spirit of talismans, which are spiritual symbols
made with a specific purpose and intention that are constructed in a
ritualistic manner.

1.
A symbol could be made containing a calming feeling. This symbol
could be regularly recharged, so to speak, by reflecting on the symbol when
you are in a calm state of mind and then associating that calm state of mind
with the symbol. Then, during a time of anxiety or stress, you can bring up
this image and the associated state of calm with it. On a related note, this
counts as altering your state of consciousness.
---
Imposition
---
Imposition is an idea that was popularized by the tulpamancy
community on the internet. In imposition, we take our internal thoughts and
impose them on our five senses. We are, essentially, giving ourselves
voluntary hallucinations.
Of all of the techniques taught in this book, this one takes the
longest to develop and ends up being the one of the least useful techniques.
One of its main applications is externalizing what you are thinking. When
doing evocation rituals, it is possible to give yourself hallucinations of your
internal concept of the entity you are trying to contact if you attempt to
impose during the ritual.
Imposition builds off of the same sensory process that allows us to
see faces and other meaningful shapes in clouds. We are easily able to trick
ourselves into seeing things that we expect to see.
Take a blank piece of paper. Draw two lines close to each other.
Visualize a blue line going between the two lines. Wait until your vision
relaxes, and continue to try to see a blue line between the two black lines.
Eventually, a translucent something should appear in your vision. It can
take a long time to build this skill, but with time you can build a more
complicated and defined shape. First a red triangle, then move on to a
purple pyramid, then a blue dragon. It is a skill that takes a lot of repetition,
time, and patience to develop.
---

Evocation
---
Evocation is the practice of mystically contacting a spirit, deity,
or other external entity. While contactable external entities are not real, this
is a legitimate way of manipulating your mind. It allows you to vividly
conceptualize and manipulate ideas. The trance state engendered by these
types of rituals is inspirational and often revelatory, and can be used to
bring about positive personality change. The goal of the following ritual is
to develop a deep trance state through a ritual process, and to then
externalize this trance state as an external presence made in the shape of
your current internal reality.

General Procedure for Evocation Rituals

*- Choose what subject you will evoke. Are you evoking a concept, such as
the concept of fortune or of death itself? Are you evoking a specific deity?
Are you evoking an aspect of yourself or someone external to you?
*- Prepare a reminder of your subject of choice for the ritual. If you were to
evoke a deity or spirit with an established history, you would use symbols
from a ritual you associate with that deity. For a demon from the goetia, you
would draw their lamen symbol in colors you associate with the demon and
wear the lamen around your neck.
*- Set the atmosphere. Do something that distinguishes this moment from
an ordinary moment. For instance, light a type of incense that you normally
don’t use. Use a colored novelty light that normally sits in the closet. Use
candles that you associate with specific ideals. Develop a specific
arrangement for each ritual.
*- Prepare the ritual. For each individual entity, you should create a
different (and repeatable) ritual in order to intensify the association and
accompanying altered state change that ritual brings about with each
repeated use. It also leads to elaboration in the complexity of your
experience each time you try to contact this construct. It can, eventually,
lead to the presence of a character that can be talked to (a godform) or the
internalization of new personality characteristics based on the aspects of the
experience that you focused on.
*- For each ritual, you should choose a small poem or visualization to open
the ceremony.
*- For your sacrifice, you could create a small image (perhaps something
similar to a sigil) that you imbue with the association of the entity you wish
to summon that you can draw on paper and then burn during the ritual.
*- You should also have a short poem or bright image to close the
ceremony. The work of art to open the ceremony signals to our mind that
we are entering into a ritual. The sacrifice draws our mind to what we feel
is the most important part of the ritual, and the act of performing this
sacrifice grounds us in our intentions. The final work of art signals to our
mind that we are leaving the ritual state.
2.
Giving a gift of art is considered a type of sacrifice. Engaging in
animal sacrifice or inflicting pain on the self are also types of sacrifice.
People generally sacrifice animals in a context wherein they were already
going to be killed, ex: someone who raises chickens and was going to use a
chicken for meat may use it in a ceremony before preparing it as food.

3.
I perform a lot of my rituals in my head, and I assign a specific
internal ritual space for each type of repeated ritual that I do. Internal
ceremonies are underappreciated. The following ritual assumes that you
will be practicing outside of your mind, however.

Setting Up
Apadamak is a niche deity that I like using in my workings. This is
an example of a ritual to this specific deity. The ritual process can be
liberally changed to someone else’s taste.
I went through a lava lamp phase in my early 20’s and, naturally,
have a stockpile of lava lamps. I would set each of my five lava lamps in a
star formation in the center of the room.
I turn down the lights and turn on a lamp with a red bulb inside of it.
I have three different candles that I place inside of the star-shaped
ring of lava lamps. I associate one of the candles with a visualized image of
my concept of the deity that I am attempting to work with. I associate
another candle with the desire to evoke the presence of this entity. I have a
final candle that I associate with the concepts that I associate Apedemak
(his name can be spelled in so many ways) with, such as war, honor, and
hedonism. The room takes on a completely different feeling from the usual
because of the ritual set-up.
I place a comfortable blanket near the center of the ritual space, and
a bowl that can be used to burn a small scrap of paper in front of it.
I have a pen, paper, and lighter for the poem.
During evocation, you hold the concept of an external presence (in
this case, it is your sense of the deity Apadamak) outside of yourself, and
immerse yourself in their presence. You will be translating your perception
of this deity, during the excitement of the ritual trance, into a series of
ambiguous thoughts and feelings that will take a unique form via creative
expression that you will then interpret in the wake of the ritual.
Some people like to use automatic writing during these rituals in
order to draw up interesting thoughts that may be salient in the back of your
mind while performing the ritual.

The Evocation of Apadamak

I enter the room from stage left. I draw the symbol I associate with
the beginning of this ritual in my mind, along with a nonsense word (that I
imbue with the idea of the beginning of a ritual state) of my design. I chose
the word “aolai.”
Walking to the center of the room, I pause in front of the altar of my
regrettable interior decorating choices. I light each candle in succession
while holding their meaning in mind, and sit on the blanket in front of them.
I rehearse a short poem that I have specifically designed to express my
dedication to the concepts of blood and honor, which I associate with
Apedemak.
I enter into a state of immersive visualization for a few minutes.
I draw up a symbol that I have created beforehand to symbolize
Apedemak and I draw up the feeling of the deity and hold it in that symbol.
I take out my journal and draw the symbol from my mind. I hold the
intention to meet a personification of this entity with all of my focus. Then I
burn the paper in the candles (or with the lighter.)
I repeat the poem that I have crafted and rehearsed for Apedemak.
I keep my eyes open and focus on the moving shadows from the
candles and odd lighting array. I focus on my concept of the deity
Apedemak, and try to impose it among the shadows. I wouldn’t try to
impose the deity itself, but rather the essence of the deity. The mindset used
in translation and scrying- interpreting meaning from ambiguity- is useful
here.
I rehearse my poem to Apadamak once more, while using the
feeling of rehearsing the poetry to intensify my feelings of reverence for
Apadamak.
I draw the symbol I created for him once more, while keeping my
feelings of reverence for Apadamak active in the back of my mind, and
burn it once again.
 Then, I close my eyes and see what is happening inside of my
mind’s eye. I watch the idea of this entity change shape, and try to catch
impressions of my thoughts as they twist and turn, as emotions change in
nonlinear and unpredictable ways.
I begin to have a dialogue with myself. Everytime I talk or answer a
question, I then wait to see if there is a response. Visual images. Sounds.
Ideas. Words. Feelings.
If there is something I want, this is the stage where I ask for it. I
might bring out a poem I made specifically to request something from the
deity. For Apadamak, I might request his courage, or his skill in battle.
At last, I open my eyes a final time, focus on my intention to see
proof of this primordial force, and then let my eyes lose focus and see what
thoughts and sensations occur as I watch the moving shadows around me. I
stay like this for several minutes, then I rehearse my poem and burn
Apadamak’s symbol for a third and final time, and thank him for his time
(regardless of whether or not it feels as though I have made contact with
anything.)
I would then blow out the candles, bring up a symbol I created in
advance that symbolizes the cessation of an evocation session, turn off and
put away all of the lights and other ritual tools, and leave.

4.
In lieu of making a symbol to call the end of the ritual, taking a
shower or engaging in a banishing ritual removes the feeling of the ritual
and signals to your mind that you are re-entering a normal mental state.
---
Scrying
---
Tarot teaches people a system of meaning, much like the improvised
system we developed a few sections ago. People learn a system of
symbolism for each card, and then they draw cards in relation to a specific
situation. By looking at the situation through the symbolism of the cards, it
gives the situation a bias, and can make situations look quite different than
if they were viewed from a different set of starting assumptions.
In scrying, we take an object that has a lot of ambiguous features,
and then we find meaning in the ambiguous shapes. Good subjects to use
include things that move and reform often, like clouds, fire, moving water,
or smoke. Things with irregular imperfections or a complicated facade,
such as crystals, patterns in the sand, and patterns in the bark of a tree are
also good ideas.
When we look at these ambiguous shapes, we use them to draw out
what we are thinking. As we trace different patterns, write down what you
see. Do you see a tiger in the clouds? Does it then transform into a rabbit?
Does a certain shape or turn inspire an automatic feeling in you, perhaps
one of dread or hope? Write down each symbol that you encounter as well
as any moments of insight that occur to you. After you are done collecting
symbols and impressions, consult your writings and ask yourself what each
of these symbols means to you. Analyze your impressions.
If you are using scrying, like in tarot, to make a decision on an
external situation or to interpret something else, then you will hold this
purpose in mind as you interpret your symbolism. If you are looking for
help making a decision, then every symbol should be judged relative to
your decision. The symbols will tell you different things depending on what
order you view them in, what state of mind you are in when you view them,
and what situation you might be using them to interpret. It is helpful to
make multiple passes at interpretation as your mental state changes
frequently throughout the day.
---
λ. Transformation
---
Transformation refers to the ability to transform our thoughts and to
use this altered form for various purposes. Transformation-related skills
allow someone to control their thoughts. The most famous of these skills is
invocation (otherwise known as possession.)
Through repeated sessions of possession, we can add complexity to
our personality by manipulating who we are through this ritualistic trance
state. This is a way in which transformation occurs. It is hardly the
stereotypical conception of transformation, which is something more along
the lines of turning coal into gold or shapeshifting into a cat, but inner
transformations can be meaningful and are worth experiencing.

Inversion
 It is possible to consciously control elements of our cognition to
some extent by turning them into visual images and then symbolically
altering them. Let’s say that you were disappointed by something. You
could take this feeling of disappointment and translate it into an image.
Then, you could transform this feeling into motivation to do an unpleasant
task.
In this case, you would bring up the idea of doing the task that you
want to put your (otherwise useless and demotivating) feelings of
disappointment towards. You would then bring up a feeling of motivation
and turn this into a little image. Now, with your components in mind (the
image for motivation that represents your feelings of disappointment and
the image for the procedure of your intended task,) you cross the two
images together. Warp them, add lines connecting them, force the concepts
together with a burst of determination.
Holding everything together with a feeling of determination, you set
off on your task, emboldened by how much energy you just expended
linking the two concepts together. As you begin to perform your chosen
task, at first your predominant feeling will be one of disappointment - the
original feeling.
However, with each step you take towards your new goal, your
feelings begin to transform. By acting on an emotion in a different way than
was originally intended (translating the feeling into an image and then
linking that image to your goal is a type of action,) your mind will slowly
change your feelings to line up with your actions.

1.
Another example of this technique is to take something that we like.
Let’s say we like a certain food that an exfriend likes. In a moment of
pettiness, we don’t want to have any association with anything related to
this person who is no longer in our life. So what we could do is take a
pictorial representation of our love for this food, and mix it with something
that we hate. Perhaps we hate the taste of coconuts. So we would combine
the image of our hatred of coconuts with our love of this food, and repeat it
until the associations are mixed. The best use of this technique is on ex-
significant others and friends that we can’t stop missing or hating. This
technique can be used to null out emotions.
2.
This technique uses a similar mental logic as the psychological
defense mechanism known as sublimation. In sublimation, we take an
action or impulse that we cannot act on (for instance, getting revenge
against someone who betrayed us is generally not a good or safe
expenditure of our time,) and then use the passion from this impulse as the
basis for our inspiration or motivation to do something else. Someone who
writes stories to deal with (convert) their feelings of sadness or depression
is another example of this technique.
---
Modern Retrieval
---
Soul retrieval is a term for a set of practices in Shamanism that
involve seeking counsel with a professionally trained spiritualist who helps
you induce a trance and takes you through the process of using creative
imagery to personify mental problems and then deal with them from a third-
person perspective. Retrieval works with the idea that pain and illness can
make parts of our soul (personality) fragment and take flight, and so we can
find these pieces of ourselves within us and reconnect with them. Often, a
spirit guide is created to help facilitate the retrieval of these fragmented
pieces of our personality.
Retrieval bears some similarity to how hypnotherapy as practiced in
clinical psychology settings works, or how identity integration works in
dissociative identity disorder. Some of the effect of retrieval is lost if it is
practiced alone. Much in the same way the patient - therapist bond is
considered healing, part of the healing nature of soul retrieval comes from
having a spiritualist guide (who is a trained expert) to bear witness to your
pain and validate your existence.
The general procedure for a retrieval session involves using imagery
as a way to create guides to find the missing parts of yourself that are
disconnected due to mental injury. Immersed in your imagination, you
embark on a journey within to find the missing parts of yourself with your
guides and to find out what happened to them. The imaginative nature of
this technique allows you to give form to your problems, and to
metaphorically interact with them, heal them, and integrate them back into
the overall self. The specific instructions change between practitioners,
however this captures the general spirit of the working.
Below is a description of the ritual process of soul retrieval. The
instructions are given from the point of view of someone who is working
alone, but they can easily be adapted to work with a second person who acts
as a guide.

3.
Any past-life memories drawn through this procedure are a false
retelling of a partially forgotten event, although real memories can be drawn
up as well. The past-life memory phenomenon is caused by people
accessing partially forgotten information, and, when activated, this
information is processed through our sense of creativity which confabulates
the missing details.
When we deal with problems through metaphorical imagery as we
do in this technique, it is not important to heal ourselves through a literal
retelling of our past mental injury. We use fictitious narratives, these
healing journeys, as a way to find and then integrate these old, damaged,
and disintegrated parts of our personality into our present self under a
positive frame of love and acceptance.
Before beginning, make a list of problems you want to address
within yourself. Aim high; start with the most difficult issues and the most
pressing issues. Choose just one. It is possible to do this exercise without
choosing a specific issue, and to simply scan for what comes up with the
intention of unraveling something difficult within yourself.

Procedure
*- Make yourself comfortable and immerse yourself in your imagination.
Create an imaginary space that will be used to perform this mental ritual.
The place chosen should be whatever automatically comes to you when you
have your intention in mind.
*- Spend a few minutes grounding yourself in each of your senses and
explore. If the trance doesn’t feel sufficiently intense, imagining something
hypnotic can help.
*- With your intention in mind, you create your guide. You use the
technique you were taught in translation to give visual form to your
intention. This is the form of your guide. You ask your guide for help, and
ask them to take you to what you are looking for.
*- Always be polite and respectful; even if external entities are not real, you
are still talking to yourself, and it is good to be kind to yourself.
*- Follow your guide through your imagination. The form your internal
world takes is partially inspired by your current mental state crossed with
your memory. Take note of anything symbolically interesting.
*- Sometimes the disowned part of the self that is being sought in this
exercise will spontaneously take on a form and appear to you. Other times,
nothing will happen. Other times, it is possible to force this encounter. After
exploring, it can be helpful to make an attempt to directly visualize what
you are looking for. It is always possible to do this (attempt to give visual
form to a memory, a part of ourselves we are aware of, or something we are
looking for within ourselves) even without a journey, however the journey
can symbolically transfer you to a distant location in your mind which can
be necessary to unveil this lost part of yourself.
*- It is possible to arrive at technically false conclusions and memories,
although analyzing these can yield interesting information in and of itself.
*- Return to a regular state of mind when you feel you have done all that
you can. Immediately write down your experiences, impressions, and
anything else that caught your attention during the session in a journal. If
you were able to draw up the lost part of yourself that you were looking for,
attempt to regularly talk to it and try to understand it until it is fully
integrated into your life narrative and sense of self.
---
Invocation
---
Invocation is commonly referred to as possession. When we invoke
a spirit, we move aside our perception of ourselves and replace it with our
concept of the spirit or other idea that we are trying to invoke. For a brief
moment, we are that spirit instead of our normal selves.
The ideas established in the previous section on evocation hold true
here. During an invocation ceremony, you want to refrain from reusing as
many elements as possible between rituals for different spirits. Each
invocation ritual should be used for one spirit and only one spirit. If the
ritual is reused, it should be used for the same entity.
The general procedure for invocation is the same as in evocation.
The difference is in how we direct our focus. In evocation, we project an
idea or an entity beside ourselves. We hold it in our mind’s eye alongside
our regular perception of ourselves, we feel it in the atmosphere around us.
In invocation, we become that entity or ideal. We replace our sense of self
with it. There is a way of integrating things into the self (in order to cause
self-directed personality changes) through rituals like this, and this again
has a slightly different way of focusing that will be covered in a later
section.
During an invocation ritual, when you go to call the entity, instead
of holding the representation of it outside of yourself, you draw it into
yourself. Some people visualize light entering their body. Other people
create an internal representation of themselves and then imagine themselves
merging with their concept of the entity.
At the end of the ceremony, care must be taken to disengage
yourself from your concept of the entity. In pure invocation, you are simply
borrowing their essence and traits rather than permanently integrating them.
You should imagine your representation of yourself unmerging with your
concept of the entity (or imagine another equivalently symbolic
visualization.)
---
Introjection
---
We live in constant feedback with our external environment. The
way we perceive things, make sense of them, remember them, and reflect
on them is entirely built on our ability to draw things in from outside of
ourselves and then recreate them within. It is possible to consciously draw
certain traits or ideas in and then cross-associate them through our
personality in a ritual similar to invocation.
The difference between invocation and introjection is in the
focused intention. The focus of the entire ritual should be on permanently
taking in certain traits. Merge yourself with the concept of the entity or your
stereotype of an external person you wish to emulate. Imagine yourself
acting as the entity in your imagination, imbue each step in your ritual as
being both yourself and this other entity.
In the days following the ritual, you should take time during quiet
moments to bring up your concept of the traits you want to integrate into
yourself, and then visualize them as small crystal shards (or any other
similarly meaningful visualization) merging into you.
---
Chapter 3: Alien
Thoughts on otherkin.
---
η. Otherkin
---
Some people have the experience of feeling as though they are from
another world, often a fictional world, or being another species or a
fictional character. These people refer to themselves as otherkin (feels as
though they are psychologically or spiritually nonhuman,) fictionkin
(feeling as though one is from a fictional universe or is a fictional
character,) or therians (feeling as though one is spiritually/psychologically
an animal rather than a human.) It is a fascinating subculture that runs
alongside occult communities, and I think that it is reporting a distinct
psychological experience that is reliably experienced by a small subset of
people.
Our memory is broken up into dissociable parts. It is not just one
overall type of memory, but many different systems. These different
memory systems come together, to varying degrees, to contribute to our
behaviors and defense mechanisms. One of these defense mechanisms is
our use of dissociation. There are two particularly interesting forms of
dissociation: depersonalization, or a distancing from one’s sense of self and
identity, and derealization, or a distancing from one’s environment that can
cause places to feel alien or unrecognizable.
These represent divisions in the way people think; we divide our
perceptions of ourselves and our surroundings, and we may store this
information in ways that could become crossed like in synthesia. People
who have otherkin experiences, even those without a dissociative disorder,
may be experiencing a divergence in the way they experience their self-
perception and place perception and the way they remember information
related to person and place.

1.
Many people who are otherkin go through an “awakening” where
they first notice that their perception of themselves is different from how
most other people perceive themselves. Often their first indication of this
happens in childhood but its significance isn’t noticed until adulthood.
Being otherkin is usually a fairly benign condition, but some people
struggle with significant dysphoria. Other people with dissociative disorders
and other related conditions can experience overlap with being otherkin,
and this can cause their presentation of being otherkin to be more elaborate.
Otherkin experiences can be arranged along five different
dimensions: self-alteration, otherization, dysphoria, displacement, and
autonomy. There are different degrees of experiencing these dimensions.
This list can be used as a cursory guide for identifying otherkin experiences.

Self-Alteration:
1. The experience of feeling connected to a specific character or animal but
not of being that character themselves.
2. The experience of psychologically being a specific character or animal.
3. The person experiences themselves as having an alternate identity that is
their kintype (the specific form their alteration in their perception of
themselves takes.)
4. The experience that someone has a spiritual or psychic connection to a
specific character or animal that is external to them.
*- Someone who experiences 2 or 3 is having strongly elaborated otherkin
experiences.
*- Someone who experiences 1 or 4 is having something more similar to a
recurring spiritual experience.

Otherization:
1. The experience of having a guide; an external entity that talks to them.
2. The experience of having an elaborated character; a part of the self that
talks to them.
3. The experience of having an elaborated identity that takes control; a
strongly elaborated and dominant part of the self talks to them.
*- 2 and 3 are more indicative of otherkin experiences.
*- 1 is indicative of a spiritual or imaginative experience. However, it is a
related and equally meaningful (or meaningless, depending on how
nihilistic you are) experience. Some people experience vivid spiritual
experiences in constructs external to them such as in guides or perceptions
of unreality in their environment; the otherkin experience is exclusive to
projecting these divergences in perception at the self itself.

Displacement:
1. The experience of having a connection to another place or time but not of
being from that place or time themselves.
2. The experience of feeling as though they are from another place/time.
3. The experience of having a distinct life and life narrative in another
place/time.
*- 2 and 3 is indicative of fictionkin (an otherkin identity that is styled after
a fictional character) and otherkin experiences.

Dysphoria:
1. No dysphoria for a divergence between their internal perception of
themselves and their external environment.
2. Experiences significant dysphoria and a wish to return to the place they
feel is their home or their real form.

Autonomy:
1. The person experiences shifts where sometimes they are that character or
animal, and at other times they are not.
2. The person chronically experiences an alteration in their identity and
always feels as though they are their kintype.
3. The person blacks out or otherwise loses control when the kintype takes
executive control.
*- All of these are indicative of otherkin experiences.

Shifting
People who are otherkin experience alterations in their
consciousness which they call shifts. While these shifts can be artificially
executed or manipulated, people who are otherkin generally begin shifting
naturally. That said, some people who are otherkin don’t naturally
experience all types of shifts - however they can teach themselves how to
experience these later in life. People who are otherkin, because of their
familiarity with shifts, are naturally adept at altered states-based work and
some other forms of psychomancy.

2.
Therianthropy initially started in communities centered around
concepts related to werewolfism. There are parallels between the myth of
the werewolf and being a therian/otherkin. For instance, some people
experience shifts in response to overwhelming emotions. Other people
black out (to some extent, their memory may simply be hazier than usual as
opposed to a true black out) during shifts due to the radical shift in state
dependent memory that often accompanies a shift.

Mental Shift: The person takes on the mental characteristics of their

kintype. They may take on their kintype’s mannerisms and mimic their
expected behavior, and may attempt to play-act as their specific animal or
character. Therians often find their switches random and seemingly
impossible to control.
However, that need not be the case. Next time you have a mental
shift (if you have those) quickly create an image in your mind. Perhaps you
are a cat therian. You could imagine a cute, purple bell that sounds a purple
tone when the bell is struck. Attach the feeling of the mental state to the
bell. Repeat the feeling of the state and the bell together until they form an
association. After enough attempts to associate the two ideas together, you
can lure the cat side of yourself out with the image or imagined tone of that
particular bell.

Sensory Shift: The therian experiences their senses as being modified in

some way. Their vision may seem sharper. Their sense of smell or hearing
might have suddenly become more acute. People can experience
modifications in their relationship with their senses as a symptom in some
disorders, like dissociative disorders, so this isn’t as unrealistic or
fantastical as it sounds. Psychomantic techniques that can provoke
hallucinations or otherwise modify our relationship with our sensory
perception, such as imposition, rely on this being a natural experience.

Shadow Shift: The therian experiences a hallucination that they have

features of their kintype. They could see their arms as being covered in fur,
or see their eyes as being changed to their kintype’s. Imposition, which is
taught in another lesson, can be used to simulate this experience at will. If
you regularly practice imposition to impose the features of your kintype,
choose a regular place. Imposition can take time to develop as a skill, and
having a regular place- such as a private place in nature that calls to your
kintype- can put you in the mindset to alter your perception in this way.

Phantom Shift: In a phantom shift, the person experiences a perception of

having physical features that their kintype possesses. They feel as though
they physically possess limbs or features that they do not actually possess.
The experience can be quite vivid and can involve the mental feeling that
one’s entire body is physically nonhuman or otherwise different.
Imposition, which is a skill taught in a different chapter, can be used to
provoke this type of shift.

Dream Shift: The experience of being your kintype while dreaming.

Oneiromantic techniques can be used to provoke this type of shift at will.

Astral Shift: Astral projection is a lucid dream attained in deep sleep instead
of REM sleep. It is more vivid and more subject to the rules of normal
physics and waking life in general. In an astral shift, someone dreams they
have the form their kintype during an astral projection state.
Bilocation Shift: The experience of feeling as though you are an animal in
one location while your physical body is in another. Much like with remote
viewing, while this isn’t literally true, it is an interesting example of
experiencing yourself in a novel way. In bilocation shifting, you are
experiencing yourself as having two distinct existences.

Spiritual Shift: The experience of having two or more selves, and in this
type of shift the kintype merges with the other sense(s) of self temporarily.
So if you experience yourself as being a person who has another self that is
a wolf, in a spiritual shift the wolf and human perceptions of yourself
briefly merge. Many people experience this as being a spiritual experience,
although it is really just an alteration in consciousness.

2.
Psychomancy can be used to fulfill certain desires in people who are
therians or otherkin. It can be especially helpful for therians who experience
persistent dysphoria. Some people who experience dysphoria find it helpful
to set aside time to be their kintype. Engaging in meditation as their specific
form can help ease dysphoria.
To give an example: imagine yourself as a blue tiger. Start the
meditation feeling the different form; having a tail, walking on four legs.
Imagine your senses as a tiger’s, with a heightened sense of smell and
hearing, that sees a different color range and sees movement more easily
than fine color distinctions. Run and hunt through a colorful landscape;
abandoned temples; overly saturated jungles. Tigers aren’t especially averse
to water, so you could model the feeling of swimming through a cool river.

3.
The concept of the animal or spirit guide has become increasingly
popular over the last couple of decades. People go to great lengths to
discover their guide, and to then divine the meaning of their particular
animal. There is, of course, no set meaning. The mind is extremely creative,
and producing a character that takes on some degree of autonomy (later
chapters will discuss these ideas in more detail) is another way in which we
are symbolically communicating with ourselves. The voices of our guides
are our voice framed in a different way; they are us evolving to fit a new
circumstance, abstracting a piece of ourselves to talk to in order to work out
problems from a third-person perspective.
The symbolism presented when journeying with your guide is your
mind expressing itself through these visionary experiences. You know your
own symbols; a book cannot explain them to you. However, it can be
helpful to get ideas from the symbolism of other cultures and spiritual
traditions; there is some overlap between cultural symbolism and personal
symbolism.
Meditations that focus on meeting a guide all follow a similar
format. Set aside 10-30 minutes for the purpose of this exercise. Imagine
yourself in some type of calming, natural environment. The environment
that naturally comes to mind is usually the one that is chosen, and perhaps
analyzed for symbolism later. You imagine yourself wandering through it.
Details will begin to automatically fill themselves in. It is important to keep
your desire to meet your guide in mind as you explore.
Traditionally, you may spend several days or weeks repeating this
meditation and finding nothing in the landscapes that you imagine.
However, eventually, a presence should occur. This presence is your guide,
and talking to it about what comes to mind and seeing how it responds can
help give you perspective as though you talked to an external person - even
though you are really just seeking counsel with yourself.
The guide is an automatically generated sense of self, expressed
either through your innate sense of creativity or is noise confabulated on the
edge of sleep and wake. At the same time, it is still a piece of your
consciousness, and is still every bit as brilliant as you are. Its presence in
yourself as a thoughtform, or a living character, develops the more times it
is talked to and interacted with.
---
Chapter 4: Abstraction
The quest for the creation of self-aware life within ourselves.
---
π. Contemplation
---
The methods of contemplation give us the tools needed to see
something new. So much about existence is driven by evolution: the
development of a new vaccine, a new species, a new trend. In a similar
vein, contemplation is what offers us the cognitive flexibility to go one step
further.
---

Inspiration
---
Inspiration is the means by which we create an idea that has some
element of novelty to it. Those instances of brilliance wherein we
synthesize something new from the components of our memory:
conceptualizing scientific hypotheses and the clever experiments to test
them; a humorous remark spontaneously coming to mind; a moment of
artistic passion.
Inspiration is a type of complex thought. In order to be inspired,
what we know comes together (sometimes triggered by a perception in our
environment) in order to create something new. Awe, curiosity, and passion
are the core emotions tied to inspiration. When all three are in place, we are
in a good position to have thoughts that show us something new.
It is important to understand what makes us feel these particular
emotions. Some people are passionate for their family, their career, or their
art. Some people are deeply curious about specific topics, like geology or
psychology. Some people are awed by natural settings, such as the views
offered at a national park, or by seeing others overcome adversity.
By learning to identify what makes us feel these three core emotions
(awe, curiosity, and passion,) we can begin to understand ourselves. Even
better, we can use these subjects in order to consciously inspire ourselves.
When we give ourselves over to an ecstatic trance, we are immersing
ourselves in a subject that inspires one of (or all three of) these emotions.
Make a list with three columns: one for curiosity, one for passion,
and one for awe. Spend several weeks carefully contemplating what things
make you feel each of these emotions, with a particular emphasis on things
that bring out all three feelings. These things are special to you, and
understanding what inspires you gives you great insight into who you are as
a person and what you need to be happy.
Things like this give us meaning. It is important to understand how
we find meaning and what kind of meaning is important to us. Truth is
completely dependent on the meaning that the individual assigns to it, and it
can be changed over time.
By choosing to ritualistically worship one of our chosen subjects or
by dedicating the way we live our life to it entirely (such as by choosing a
career dedicated to this subject,) we engage in veneration. Veneration is the
act of immersing ourselves in something that gives us purpose and
meaning.
---
Synthesis
---
There are two main methods of creativity. There is inspiration,
which relies on instances of insight and improvisation. Then there is
synthesis, which relies on calculation and conjecture. This follows the
subtle division between our thoughts and feelings.
Our ability to synthesize information relies on input and output.
Input is what we take in from outside of ourselves. It is the cumulation of
our learned knowledge and lived experiences. Output is our ability to take
these various ideas we have internalized over the years and use them to
create something. Learning is extremely important, and valuing our
education, whether formal or informal, should be one of the most important
ideals to an aspiring magician.

1.
Certain types of thoughtforms, which will be covered in the next
section, are aligned with either inspiration or synthesis. Godforms are
created from inspiration. Tulpas are created through calculated synthesis.

Integration
It is possible to take a conceptualized version of any type of idea,
be it a feeling, a memory, or a sense of self, and then cross-associate it with
a visualized representation of another idea. When we engage in logical-
creative synthesis in this manner, the result of the integration of two
concepts can be quite surprising.
There is no end to the applications of integrative synthesis. We can
use cross-association to precisely and elaborately design thoughtforms. We
can use it to synthesize and randomize things we have learned or
experienced and use that to create scientific hypotheses or works of art.

2.
Take the concept of blue and give it a solid form; perhaps give it
the form of a blue dragon, and then take the concept of your favorite
mystery story narrative and translate it into a solid form as well. Perhaps
give it the form of a monochromatic classroom. Imbue this fictitious
location with the feeling of being immersed in your favorite detective story.
Now, combine these two concepts. A blue dragon crossed with a
place that contains the feeling of a story. Watch as the image of the dragon
and the place integrate together and begin to generate ideas. Perhaps you
now imagine a story about a gang that uses a blue dragon as their symbol,
and the room that was crossed with the feeling of a detective story is a room
where the protagonist hides during the climax of their adventure.
This is an example of consciously controlled creative synthesis. It
is possible to break down our thoughts, feelings, and memories into
components like this and then cross them with other types of ideas. These
components can be broken apart and re-associated together again and again-
viewed from many different angles in a way similar to admiring a
diamond,- until the person engaging in synthesis has a workable idea.
---
κ. Animation
---
Within ourselves, we are capable of modeling semi-autonomous
circuits of consciousness. People perceive these abstracted elements of our
personalities as spirits. While there may not be an external attribution for
these alternate points of consciousness (they are created and experienced
entirely within your mind,) the experience itself exists. It is incredible that
the mind has this recursive ability to model a compelling simulation of
consciousness within.
---
Types of Spirits
---
I will be referring to forms of self-aware consciousness within
ourselves as ‘spirits’ or ‘thoughtforms.’ There are several distinct types of
spirits which will be outlined below. Interacting with spirits can offer us
guidance, insight, and more control over our thoughts even though it is
technically just an abstracted circuit of consciousness within ourselves.
These spirits can be created within the self using certain types of rituals and
mental exercises; this particular practice is the subject of the final chapter of
this book, Aurora.

Momentary Existences
Our mind is in constant communication with itself. Many of these
instances of communication are easy to miss. Whenever we laugh at
something we are reminded of, that is us communicating to ourselves
through our memory. Whenever we interact with a particularly vivid,
spontaneous thought that does not become a recurring character in our
heads, we have seen a momentary existence. The brief flash of colors that a
color-music synesthete sees when they hear music is a momentary
existence. The flash of inspiration we feel in response to a work of art is a
momentary existence.
Momentary existences are disconnected from our normal sense of
self to the extent that they can show us a new perspective. However, they do
not become recurring characters. They are simply experienced once and
then fade away.
However, if someone experiences enough momentary existences
that are of a similar nature, they can eventually become a recurring
existence. Multiple experiences with a particular momentary existence
eventually leaves a lasting impression.
For instance, if someone seeks out the same hallucination during an
entheogenic ceremony, after encountering the same hallucinated entity
enough times it elaborates inside of their mind and can become a regularly
encountered spirit inside of themselves that exists without the help of
entheogens.
Reflections
In the chapter on psionics, we covered this idea of an ‘introject’ that
we can create by relying on our ability to learn by taking things in from
outside of ourselves. Every time we learn something new, this is an instance
of us internalizing something from our external environment. The form it
takes within us is a function of what we are recreating inside of ourselves
intersecting with our specific personality traits. Our stereotypes for how
things should be, how they feel to us, how to act, and so on are a form of
introjection.
Introjected spirits take on certain predictable forms. Fictives, or the
experience of having elaborated characters inside our minds that take the
form of a fictional character, and factives are a type of introjected identity.
We are not animals, external people, or from a fictional world. However by
learning about these topics and perceiving them, we internalize them and
recreate them inside of ourselves.
Some people are especially prone to creating this type of spirit
within themselves. This is neither good or bad, it simply is.

Godforms
Godforms, as opposed to the thoughtfully constructed tulpas, are
created with repeated instances of inspiration. When we learned various
skills associated with self-deification, we learned how to translate feelings
into visual form. The creation of godforms relies on a technique similar to
this. Instead of creating an image, repeated sessions are used to create a
self-aware character that is alive, updates itself, and is able to experience
inspiration that is significant enough that it can offer genuine insight and
useful ideas to the person who hosts the godform.
Godforms are formed through rituals aimed at using our sense of
creativity and veneration for an ideal or concept. The act of veneration puts
us into an ecstatic trance, and in this state we are able to force the creation
of new output based on the shape of what we are currently thinking about
crossed with our memory. Our ability to express ourselves artistically fills
in the remaining details.

Tulpas
 Tulpas, as opposed to godforms, are constructed in a mechanistic
fashion. Instead of relying on moments of ritualistic ecstasy or using
creative translation to create something new, these thoughtforms are
constructed and reinforced in a controlled manner. Their potential forms are
based on the contents of your memory, and cannot represent something that
you have not internalized into yourself via your memory.
The difference between tulpas and godforms can best be described
with this metaphor: some people, when they want to write a story, logically
construct the plot, spend time crafting the world, and write rationally driven
characters. Other people simply write what comes to mind, relying on
inspiration and a natural sense of pattern to take them to where they want to
go. Godforms employ the latter line of reasoning, and tulpas utilize the
former.
There is no hard division between tulpas and godforms. A truly
elaborated sense of self has aspects of both types of spirits. Inspiration and
calculation are fundamental thinking styles, and to be a fully realized
consciousness they must have access to both ways of thinking.
Tulpas are often used to help with an individual’s internal
functionality and can be used for many utilitarian purposes. They make for
decent guides that are insightful due to their emotional detachment from the
central sense of self. Godforms are often consulted on problems that the
individual cannot logically deduce, or for inspiration that could be useful
for their scientific studies or artistic exploration.

The Other
Until now, we have described types of self-aware characters that feel
separate from the self and are not as strong as our central sense of self. It is
possible to create self-aware and strongly elaborated personalities that can
feel like a second self. This phenomenon is commonly reported in spiritual
traditions. Many people who decide to take on a new spiritual path as an
adult may find that they develop a second side to themselves that attends to
this spiritual calling.
Some subcultures refer to this as the practice of creating a ‘daemon.’
It is possible for the other types of thoughtforms to possess our behavior
and to take control, but the other is a core part of the self and is generally
formed around the need for a new sense of self who is good at a new skill or
role.
1.
This is not the same as the multiple personalities that develop in
complex dissociative disorders, and it is offensive to conflate this practice
with a mental disorder that is formed by persistent childhood trauma. DID
(dissociative identity disorder,) OSDD (other specified dissociative
disorder,) and related conditions are serious disorders that are founded on
severe, repeated, often life-threatening trauma. These illnesses feature
serious PTSD symptoms and dissociative symptoms that can leave the
individual chronically depressed, nonfunctional, and mistrustful of both
others and themselves.
Compartmentalization of the personality as a defense mechanism,
when paired with mild forms of dissociation and state dependent memory,
is usable by people who do not have a trauma spectrum disorder in order to
develop distinct thoughtforms. However, these thoughtforms, by virtue of
having never been traumatized, are of a far milder, less elaborated, and
more controllable nature than the personalities seen in a dissociative
disorder. For this reason most of all, out of respect to the very real trauma
that people with these diagnoses have endured, thoughtforms should not be
conflated with the identities in a dissociative disorder.
---
Chapter 5: Aurora
The ritual processes of creation.
---
φ. Godforms
---
Godforms rely on pure inspiration. One does not go into godform
construction with a final product in mind. Godforms write themselves, and
the form they take evolves with each repeated summoning.
People who talk to their higher power within themselves and then
hear a reply have inadvertently created a godform through repeated
attempts to communicate with a specific idea in a specific state of mind.
Prayer, particularly if one clears their mind and practices it in a regular and
ritualistic manner that sufficiently separates it from ordinary life (perhaps
through the use of trance states,) can create the perfect situation for a
godform to develop. This experience is thought to be more common than is
stereotypically believed due to the shame surrounding hearing voices
preventing people from being honest about their experiences.
 Remember - these entities that we are creating within ourselves are
our brain’s best attempt to model a sentient character. They are not real
spirits, but rather represent aspects of our personality that we have
anthropomorphized into a thoughtform. The only person whose voice you
hear inside of your head is you.
---
Living in Inspiration: Creating a Godform
1.
Choose the basis for the godform you will be creating. Since
godforms are made via inspiration-generating techniques, then you should
choose something that engenders feelings of inspiration. There are three
main types of rituals you will repeat in order to create this godform. Repeat
rituals 1, 2, and 3 everyday for two weeks, alternating which type of ritual
you practice. Each ritual should only demand 10-20 minutes of your time.
The first type of ritual involves journeying. This ritual should be
performed during one of the following states of mind: a crossing state, lucid
dream, astral state, or immersion within the internal reality.
Before we begin our journey, we call up the feeling of the entity we
wish to create within ourselves. We lock our focus onto the aspects of this
entity that inspire us. With this feeling of inspiration in mind, we delve into
our mind. We should be focusing on translating our feelings of inspiration
into a place within ourselves. This place is where you will travel to
commune with your godform. Eventually, your godform should be an
autonomous sense of self that will come in and out of salience on its own
throughout the day; for the time being, it is relegated to this space.
While you are immersed within your imagination, you should begin
to construct the form of this internal god. The form this entity takes should
be translated directly from your feelings of inspiration for this particular
spirit much in the same way that you constructed this internal space.

2.
The second ritual that is critical for the development of a godform is
invocation. In the previous exercise, you traveled to a place you created that
is associated with your entity of choice. Set aside ten minutes for invocation
every day. Sit down in a quiet place, imagine that each breath you take is
imbued with the inspiration you feel for this entity. You draw in the very
essence of the god, allowing it to fill your entire body with a metallic,
shimmering energy. You become that energy; your entire consciousness is
simply this primordial force. Inhale the essence of this being until your
entire sense of self has been replaced with the inspiration you feel for this
particular entity or concept that you are attempting to construct into a
godform within yourself.
 Then, as you return to a normal state, invert the paradigm. Exhale
the essence of the deity; imagine your own essence returning as you
disengage from the god. Take time to ground yourself in your regular
perception of yourself, drawing a hard boundary between your regular self
and the godform. Imagine the godform existing just outside of yourself as
you unmerge with it, with a black shadowy wall drawn between your
perception of yourself and your perception of the godform’s essence.

3.
Evocation is the final essential ritual that is involved in godform
construction. Now that you have a sense of the godform you wish to create
through immersion and invocation, it is time to draw up those feelings and
project them just outside of yourself. Take that essence and feel it as a
presence just next to you. Talk to it, imagine what this primordial force
would say in return. At first, the conversations will feel stilted and forced,
but as your connection to this godform intensifies and you become attuned
to how it feels, the conversations will become increasingly more natural,
realistic, and abstracted from your regular sense of self.

4.
There is this concept that has recently come into prominence in
modern witchcraft circles: this idea of being a “godphone.” This means that
when you speak inside of yourself to a specific entity or spirit, that spirit
then replies to you and has a consistent personality and form within
yourself. In addition to this, this spirit has a degree of autonomy that allows
it to offer insight and counsel to you on their own without you having to
consciously access the thoughtform; the godform comes in and out of
salience of its own volition. These people have inadvertently created
godforms within themselves, and the presence of this thoughtform makes it
feel as though the person has a direct line to some type of external
consciousness.
The above three rituals must be repeated until you attain the
ability to talk to your godform at will. You should check to see if you have
created a godform by attempting to commune with it several times a day.
Until you show evidence of being a godphone for your particular
thoughtform of choice, you cannot stop the rituals or else the entity you are
constructing within yourself will fade away.
---
χ. Tulpamancy
---
Tulpas are carefully constructed elements of the personality that
take on self-aware characteristics. Living characters- a phenomenon
wherein an author experiences their fictional characters as self-aware
imaginary friends that seem to talk and respond without the author’s input-
are an example of this type of thoughtform. By drawing attention to the
components of our personality and by treating them as though they are
independently aware circuits of consciousness, we can separate small
sections of ourselves, manipulate them, and turn them into characters that
can be helpful with various things.
For instance, if we turn our fictional story characters into tulpas,
then when we think about them or imagine them interacting in a scene, their
degree of separation and autonomy from ourselves animates them and can
lead us to have insights into our characters that helps us write a more fully
realized novel. Scenes, when we model them in this organic way, may take
on greater vividness, with character interactions and plot twists seeming to
naturally occur to us as our model of our characters and worlds gives us a
greater understanding of what we are trying to create.
For someone who has a relatively solid, integrated personality,
learning to view the self as having multiple self-aware aspects can be
difficult. It can take months for someone to develop a self-aware tulpa.
---
The Process: Tulpamancy
1.
Create an internal location for your tulpa. This imaginary location
should be consistent and used exclusively for the construction of your tulpa.
Set a form for your tulpa; it can be as modest or extravagant as you like.
After setting the form and internal location of the tulpa, you begin
personality construction.
*- Developing the personality of the tulpa is the most important aspect of
this process. The tulpa’s internal location and form are important and allow
us to easily find our developing thoughtform. However, the magic of
tulpamancy is in the personality construction; as the tulpa’s personality
develops, so does its range of potential uses, its prominence and abstraction
relative to the main sense of self, and it becomes increasingly able to offer
spontaneous input and advice.
*- Elaborating a tulpa’s personality should be the focus of your initial
tulpamancy sessions. Whenever we think of a favorite TV show character
or a friend that we know well, we have an automatic sense of how their
personality feels to us. We will be associating a sense of personality just
like this to our tulpa. As we focus on the tulpa, we feel and develop a
stereotype of a potential personality that it may have. As we focus on
different personality traits that we would like our tulpa to emulate, by
holding the feeling of these traits in mind as we focus on our tulpa, the tulpa
becomes associated with these traits and begins to take on their essence.
*- As you develop your tulpa’s personality, encouraging it to make changes
to its location within can be a way for it to express itself and develop itself.
Encouraging your tulpa to engage in various mental actions inside of your
internal world helps train your tulpa to be more versatile and well-rounded.
*- You should visit your developing tulpa for at least 10-20 minutes every
day. When you visit with your tulpa, you should focus on talking to it. At
first, the conversations will feel stilted as you will have very little sense of
the tulpa’s personality. Over time, it will feel less like you are controlling
what your tulpa says and more like it has an elaborated sense of self with a
consistent pattern of responding (a consistent personality) that writes its
own responses.
2.
There are things that make a tulpa more or less distant from the
central self, and there are also things that can make a tulpa more elaborated
and autonomous. Knowing these principles can help inform the way in
which you choose to construct your tulpa.
*- Giving your tulpa a fictitious history gives it an episodic memory
domain. When a thoughtform has specific memories assigned to them, this
gives them far more solidity than if they merely share memories with the
main part of your personality.
*- Drawing inspiration from external people or fictional characters can help
save time during personality construction. When it comes to people we
know well or fictional characters we cherish, we often have a strong sense
of their personality stored in our memory. We can mix these strongly
remembered personality profiles together to create an elaborate personality
more quickly than if traits are selected and shaped one by one.

3.
Tulpas can be trained to function as more than just an imaginary
friend. Tulpas can be useful for a variety of purposes. It is worth taking the
time to develop these types of thoughtforms if only for their sheer utility.
*- It is possible to develop a tulpa that is elaborated to the extent that one
can alter their sense of self and exist as their tulpa’s personality rather than
as their usual core sense of self. This works in a way that is similar to
invocation/possession. Imagine your central self stepping to the side as your
tulpa replaces you. Focus on your stereotype of your tulpa’s personality
replacing your own as your usual sense of self falls into the eternal
blankness in the background of your mind.
*- Because tulpas are disconnected from the central sense of self, they are
often emotionally detached. If the person has anxiety or post traumatic
symptoms, tulpas are often detached enough from these experiences that
they can offer empathy and emotional support to the main part of the self.
*- Tulpas can be used to model character interactions in a novel one is
writing.
---
ρ. The Other
---
The other is a type of thoughtform that is trained by giving it
tangible things to do both inside of and outside of yourself. The other
should be dedicated to a specific role, or to a specific question about the
world around themselves. When someone joins an esoteric order that is
sufficiently demanding on the individual, the contrast between their daily
life and their life in order creates a new aspect of the personality.
The seeker of truth is a common “other” found in people who are
particularly serious about their esoteric studies. The seeker represents a new
role and set of desires in the individual, which manifests as an alternate
sense of self that is concerned with asking questions about things like the
nature of reality, of truth, and of consciousness. This other represents the
overall person’s ability to adapt to a new way of thinking about the world.
1.
Cults, which cause trauma-based fragmentation of the self, are
particularly known for creating at least one “other.” Cults are distinguished
from secret societies and spiritual traditions based on the trauma-induced
fragmentation that they cause to the sense of self. Cults are founded on the
exploitation of their members for some purpose that is generally obscured
to the members themselves. They do not offer power to their members, and
this fundamental disrespect is present in all levels of what the cult asks of
their members.
---
Modeling the Other
Set aside some time to play the role of the other each day. Each day,
at the same time, tell yourself that you are no longer yourself. Pick a name
for your other. Tell yourself that this is your name now. Imagine your
previous sense of self being trapped behind a wall and replaced with this
new version of yourself. Visualize a specific internal location that you
associate with the other; this internal location will serve as a cue to help
access the other at will. At the end of ten or twenty minutes, switch places
with your regular sense of self and the other. Tell yourself that you are no
longer this other person, you are you again. Conceptualize a hand-off of
executive control, modeling the presence of another self passing by.
After a week of separating the self from the other, the ritual is
changed slightly. When you replace your sense of self with the other, a
purpose must be given to it. Let us say that we want to take our studies in
mathematics seriously. This becomes a purpose for the other. Whenever we
switch places and become the other, our sense of wonder and curiosity for
mathematics must be kept in mind. With repeated switches, the other’s
purpose becomes associated to them, and illuminates them with a higher
calling.
Eventually, the other should become a distinct sense of self that is
separate from the core self, although it may take several more weeks of
rituals. As you become comfortable switching into the mindset of the other,
you should complete increasingly complicated tasks with it. Engage in
mathematical calculation during your switches. Study a mathematical topic
that was previously unknown to you. Giving the other increasingly
elaborate tasks to engage in can help enforce the separation between the
core self and the other.
---
σ. The Topics
---
Part of the function of spirituality in various cultures is to pass down
and advance that culture’s knowledge. The seeker of truth is an archetype
that is reflected in all spiritual traditions in some form or another; the
person who turns their attention within as they seek to understand the
fundamental structure of reality.
Contemplation is closely related to veneration. When we engage in
veneration, we dedicate ourselves to a higher cause that inspires awe within
us. When we have sufficiently dedicated ourselves to a specific topic, the
sublime atmosphere around this concept can be regularly drawn on for
inspiration. The vividness of the inspiration that our favorite topics
engender within us creates a state dependent memory space in our mind. It
can be fun to translate these spaces into the basis for a thoughtform,
creative idea, or place to visualize yourself in.
---
A Contemplation of Saturn
Saturn is a highly meaningful symbol that is repeated in several
different spiritual traditions. Astrology, which is similar to tarot and
scrying, uses the symbol of saturn. One of the archangels, Tzaphikiel, is
associated with the idea of saturn. Saturn, in and of itself, is a symbol that
represents the primordial force of life and death itself. Life and death are
related to evolution and corrosion. These topics are then, in turn, related to
the development of knowledge, the self-sustaining cycles that drive
ecosystems and biological systems, and the way things shift and change.
Saturn is a metaphor for change itself.
It is possible to break down Saturn into the components of life.
Justice and mercy; love; reverence for natural systems. It is also possible to
go up one further level from Saturn to consider infinity itself. God, which is
the summed total of all components of reality, is a metaphor for the concept
of infinity. The concept of God asks us to consider continuity and
abstraction; being connected to the whole of reality vs. being an abstracted
point of sentience that rises up from the whole- for just a brief moment-
before dying and ceding their autonomy.
The process of contemplation is quite simple, and involves
immersing yourself in the wonder of an idea. You might have to look at the
different concepts you associate with a topic you wish to venerate before
you find one that inspires awe. The ideas we contemplate can turn into a
godform or some other form of multiplicity, and the journey of immersing
ourselves in these ideas is an accessible state dependent memory instance
that can be used for various purposes.

1.
Reflect on the concepts associated with Saturn; topics of life,
death, and rebirth. Focus on the things about Saturn that inspire you and call
to you. Set aside twenty minutes per day for the next week. Each day, sit
down and reflect on your feelings for the topics associated with Saturn. You
translate these feelings into a ritual space within yourself, and you immerse
yourself in your feelings. You may turn these feelings into a guide that will
talk to you about concepts related to life and death.

2.
 During the second week, you engage in invocation sessions every
day. You draw the very essence of Saturn, of change, of the advancement of
knowledge, of all of these resplendent concepts and you become them in the
middle of your ritual. Here is an example of an invocation ritual that is
different in tone from previous examples of invocation given in this book.
*- Feel your perception of your body expand infinitely outwards. As your
perception of yourself widens to encompass the room you are in, and then
the world itself, and then throughout the universe itself - replace what is
contained within your expanded form with the feelings of awe you associate
with the concepts of Saturn.

3.
At last, we wind down our dedication to Saturn. During the third
week, we take time to meditate on the feeling of Saturn for about ten
minutes everyday. We integrate what we have learned; we reflect on our
spiritual experiences from the last few weeks; we keep our minds open for
additional insights that may occur during this stage. We ask ourselves how
the ideas of Saturn have been expressed in our life.
Through dedicating yourself to Saturn over the course of a month,
you will likely have created a godform or vivid internal space dedicated to
this concept. Keep track of this internal location and thoughtform if it
exists, and make sure to regularly keep in touch with it. Maintaining your
connection to meaningful rituals can yield future insights, and can also help
develop defined states of mind dedicated to novel ways of thinking about
the world.
---
μ. Coalescence
---
When we engage in thoughtform creation, we interact with the
self in a novel way. We begin to see the components of our personality in a
literal way, and begin to understand how these come together to inform who
we are as a person. By creating thoughtforms, we can manipulate and create
new components of our personality. By manipulating our internal
environment, we can direct the lessons that our thoughtforms learn. By
integrating these trained thoughtforms, we can change who we are as a
person in a way that we personally directed and controlled.
---
The Ritual of Coalescence
This ritual must be repeated everyday at the same time for two
weeks. After two weeks have passed, we may stretch out the intervals
between integrative rituals. Once a week for the next two months should be
sufficient. The goal of this exercise is to take the thoughtforms and
instances we created in the previous exercises and cross-associate these
ideas together, thus integrating them together. As with all other exercises in
this book, some people will need more time to make them work; others will
need less time.

1.
During the first two weeks of rituals, we focus on cross-
association. Set aside some time for this ritual where you will not be
disturbed; if possible, choose the same time to practice this ritual every day.
When we practice a ritual at the same time consistently, we begin to
associate that time of day with the ritual. This can help separate this
ritualistic state of mind from a regular waking state which will aid in the
development of an integrated thoughtform.
We will be integrating four distinct states of mind together: the
godform we created in the first exercise given in this chapter; the tulpa that
we carefully constructed in an earlier section; our other that we trained; and
the internal space or thoughtform that was left over after our contemplation
of the topics of Saturn.

2.
Enter into a ritual mindset. Bring up the feeling of the godform
you created in an earlier exercise. Let’s say you created a godform in the
image of Quetzalcoatl. Bring up the inspiration you feel for Quetzalcoatl
and the resplendent concepts that this deity represents for you. Then, bring
up the feeling of the tulpa you created. Let’s say this tulpa was given the
form of a childhood pet cat that you miss. Thread the feelings of both
thoughtforms together, feeling as the two forms merge together and take on
a new meaning. As these two ideas merge together, bring up the feeling of
your other. Imagine this new entity flowing into it, changing the other into a
mixture of its components.
Focus on each thoughtform contained within the composite, and
liberally visualize the thoughtforms blending together to create a new
thoughtform with a new form based on what is contained within it. Finally,
imagine this thoughtform illuminated with light that contains the vibrant
atmosphere that you associate with your feelings of awe for the topics of
Saturn. Pull the feeling of the curiosity you feel for these topics through the
thoughtform, filling the construct with imaginary energy composed of
countless glittering monochromatic stars that contain the essence of awe for
life and death itself.
*- The mind readily responds to visual metaphor. It is possible to integrate
parts of the self and to otherwise modify them by manipulating our ‘sense’
of these ideas. However, adding visual metaphor, a state dependent memory
instance, or a ritual process helps speak to our minds on a deeper level and
greatly speeds and refines the process.
*- Give your composite thoughtform things to do much like you did during
your construction of your other. This thoughtform should be used to engage
in complex tasks, such as mathematical problem solving and philosophical
argument.
*- It is possible to integrate this gestalt form into your core sense of self. In
this case, you would take this composite identity and spend another month
threading it through your entire narrative memory. It should be cross-
associated to your fundamental personality attributes. The thoughtform
should be deliberately and carefully threaded through all of your most
important memories. Over time, it will integrate into your core sense of self
and will no longer feel like an autonomous character but rather just another
aspect of your personality.

3.
After enough integrative rituals and visualizations, our godform,
tulpa, other, and reverence for Saturn should integrate into a solid sense of
self. It is always possible to observe the components of this gestalt
thoughtform however over time it should learn to generally function as one
unified sense of self. By using techniques such as this, we are able to
consciously direct the way our personality develops.
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