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About a month ago, Frater Ashen posted that, when you do an evokation*, you should be able to see the spirit in front of you, and that if you can’t, you’re not doing it right.
*Evokation is a form of ritual magick for summoning spirits.
At the time, I thought he was talking about the spirit making a body you could see, like movie special effects. Which sounded pretty far fetched. But I don’t do evokation, so who am I to question another mage’s experience?
But there’s been more discussion about it, and it turns out I had a common, but wrong, impression. If you don’t have time to read those posts, here’s the summary:
- You don’t see the spirit plain as day. Instead, you see a shadowy form. Kind of like seeing a face in clouds — it’s clear enough that something’s there, but not movie quality special effects.
- An untrained person wouldn’t see anything. Even experienced mages who are new to evokation don’t see anything. So the spirit isn’t reflecting light, at least, not the way a normal object would.
My guess: The spirit is projecting itself into the visual parts of your mind. Which is basically the same way auras and psychic visions work. So let me talk about those for a minute.
Visions in Other Magick
Let’s start with astral projection, since I’ve studied that before. I worked with a friend, had him project, and watched what was happening. He connected to ethereal software (a fairly advanced software at that), which sent images to his mind, much the same way spirits and other ethereal software might send you words or ideas.
By connecting to the software’s connections, I was able to copy its messages and read them into my mind. They went to two spots: (1) The normal spot to read and write thoughts*, and (2) the visual centers, for sending images.
*Specifically, it reads and writes you pre-conscious thoughts. That’s where your thoughts form, slightly before you’re aware of them. It’s the default spot for most ethereal software to connect, since it works even if you haven’t learned to communicate in words.
So, I’m fairly confident that astral projection — both for out of body experiences, and for projecting into the astral plane — works by ethereal software sending messages to your visual centers, which gives you visions.
Those visions happen when you close your eyes. They’re not projected onto the physical world. But psychics also see auras, as a colored glow around a person — an image projected onto the physical world. And, while I haven’t specifically deconstructed auras, I do know that all other psychic intuitions come from ethereal software, sending messages to the person. So it’s a small step to think that psychic auras work the same way: The ethereal software sends messages to their visual centers, rather than interacting with light in the outside world.
So, that’s my best guess on what’s happening when mages see the spirits they evoke: The thing you see is an image projected into your visual centers by the ethereal software.
Preparing Your Mind to See Spirits
“I get what you’re saying, but how is that useful?” you ask. A perfectly fair question. And one that I wouldn’t write if I didn’t have an answer.
From the posts about visual evokation, I understand that many mages, even experienced mages, can’t see spirits. And that they find this irksome. So, there would be value in a technique for preparing your mind to see visual evokation faster, or more reliably, than you can through practice alone.
And now that we have a model — that you see spirits when ethereal software connects to the visual parts of your mind — we can make such a technique. In fact, I already have a technique for preparing your mind for messages from ethereal software. We’ll just adapt it.
Here’s the gist: Ethereal software can only communicate with your mind if your mind is used to the software’s signature. If it’s not, your mind will resist, and the software can’t connect properly. Each area of your mind needs to be set up separately, so even if you’re used to communicating intuitions or words, you might not be set up for images.
Spirits have the same requirements as ethereal software. If you can’t communicate with spirits, these techniques should help. By the way, some spirits can shift their message to your signature, which lets them communicate with unprepared minds.
Here’s the quick version of the technique. (Full series on it here. Note: In that post, “system” means “ethereal software”.)
- Find the spot the software wants to connect to you. (Details below).
- Build energy in the software’s signature. Safety note: Build this energy yourself. Don’t have a spirit or another mage do it, or it won’t align to your underlying signature, giving you headaches.
- Move the energy to where the software wants to connect to you, and hold it there. After 5-10 minutes, you’ll feel your mind shift and accept the new signature. When that happens, release the energy (grounding).
- Repeat every few hours until this stops making you tired. That means that spot in your mind is adjusted to accept the new signature. This usually takes a few days to a week.
- Expand the area: Same as before, but let the energy overflow that one area in your mind, so it’s saturating a larger area around it. Again, repeat this until it stops making you tired.
- Optionally, expand the area one more time, just to be sure you have enough of your mind prepared for the software.
- Now, do your evokation again. When you feel the connections, guide it in to the area you’ve just prepared.
(Note: Some steps in here weren’t in the series I linked to, since I wrote it a while ago. I’ll make an updated version soon).
Details on finding the spot where the ethereal software wants to connect: You don’t need to know where your visual centers are. You’re going to let the software connect, notice its connections, and use that to find the areas of your mind.
First, learn to recognize ethereal software connecting to you. (“System” = “ethereal software” in that post, too). The gist is: Quiet your energy, connect to something unusual, and feel for a signature that’s not your own. If you work with spirits, you can also ask them to make an obvious connection, so you can learn what to look for.
Then, look for connections while communicating normally with some spirits, so you learn to recognize the spot where they connect for sending ideas.
Now, do an evokation. At the point in the ritual where the spirit would manifest, feel in your mind for connections in a signature that’s not your own. One should be in the spot where you’d normally feel connections when talking with a spirit, and the other should be in your visual centers. That’s where you want to send the energy.
Also, while doing the evokation, make note of the signature of those connections. Maybe even make energy in that signature, while they’re connected, just to practice. Because that’s the signature you’ll want for the rest of the technique.
One tip: You can usually get the ethereal software to connect to you just by focusing on a symbol associated with that style of magick, or focusing on the ritual. It won’t send you visual messages (and will probably only connect for sending ideas, not images), but if you forget the signature, having it connect to you should help.
Comments
If you try it, let me know how it goes. I’ve verified this technique for aligning a mage’s mind to ethereal software, but I haven’t verified the mechanism for the visible manifestation of spirits. Right now it’s just an educated guess.
And if you’re up for a direct magick practitioner joining you for an evokation, let me know. I’m mostly in Albuquerque and San Francisco, but I travel a fair amount of my day job.
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