Before Summoning Spirits
Before Summoning Spirits
Veos and I, and our students (of which Schlagzeug is one),
subscribe to a system of methodic development before beginning
evocation. The mind is trained first, focusing on developing powers
of concentration and visualization, and the ability to quiet the
thoughts so that your mental energy can be fully devoted to a
single task. Once the mind has been trained to a point that magical
development can be had in a timely fashion, the student moves on to
gradually working with spiritual energies directly, strengthening
his control over them, and battling his own internal imbalances by
using those energies as well. This makes him a more well-rounded
figure, and creates a sort of spiritual fortress out of his mind
and his aura. When that is done, then when you actually begin to
work with spirits, they will have no imbalances within you that
they can use as leverage to attack you or gain advantage over you.
For many spirits, simply being in their presence can throw you
psychologically out of stability because of this. For example if
you are working with the Undines, the sexual spirits of the water
sphere, you must have your lust and sexual desire under full
control. If you don't, then they will greatly amplify your sexual
energies and cause the sex-desire to rule over every aspect of your
life. They will not do this consciously; it will simply happen as a
natural side effect of being in their presence. You will become a
nervous wreck, your thoughts will be scattered, and gradually your
sanity will begin to break apart.
So in the system we follow, by the time you begin practicing
evocation you have already made yourself "immune" against those
kinds of interferences, and can command the spirits with the
highest confidence that they will and must obey you. In exchange
for that, you can have a full dense-astral or physical evocation
into the room where you are performing the evocation. You also have
the option of astral or mental projecting and performing the
evocation in a different place, if you can not do so where your
physical body resides for whatever reason. Or, if you had made
absolutely sure that you had finished all previous training
exercises and were therefore safe, you could travel to the sphers
wherein those spirits naturally resided.
Even if you decided not the pursue evocation, the training
system would have already developed within you certain key magical
abilities involving control over the elements on an astral and
eventually physical level, astral and mental projection, healing,
telepathy, mind-reading, etc. If those same techniques are invested
with particular interest and practiced over an even longer period
of time, then levitation, mesmerism, resurrection of a dead body,
telekinesis, bilocation, invisibility, and other such abilities
become obtained. For the eventual purpose of our system, which is
union with the personal Deity (no particular one), spending that
much time on the training exercises so as to develop those later,
more potent abilities is seen primarily as a distraction, and only
to be done later on in life once that union has already been
accomplished. If the individual has no personal Deity, that is fine
also, since the Deity only represents the underlying field of
consciousness and bliss which this system teaches unifies all
things.
In our system, the spirits are evoked for three reasons:
1.) To raise your vibration gradually to the vibration of the
sphere which the spirit represents.
2.) To command the spirit to perform a certain task
3.) To gain knowledge of the universe and/or of how to attain
certain magical abilities or life situations under the guidance of
that spirit.
By the time one really begins the evocation of the higher
planetary spirits, he usually does not pay attention to the second
reason, since he could accomplish nearly anything he wanted in his
life just using the powers he will have already developed. Not the
mention that by that time he will be mature enough to have his
desires in check, and so would likely be perfectly content with how
things were in his life. So then the principle reasons become the
first and third reasons I mentioned. From a mystical point of view,
the first is of the most importance. From the "scientific" view of
expanding knowledge and understanding, the third is of great
importance. For example, you could learn how to make the body
immortal, or how to achieve great longevity. You could learn
precise and distinct methods of levitation of the physical body, or
for furthering your clairvoyance to a higher level. If you were
treating someone who had cancer, you could evoke a spirit who has
particular knowledge of the human body and its ailments in order to
learn how best to proceed for a quick healing and full recovery.
There are spirits which can teach you how to dematerialize
something, carry it astrally to another location, and then
rematerialize it. Even how to do that with your own body. So you
can learn how to do nearly anything; it depends on what you are
interested in. However, the spirits will only bestow knowledge in
accordance to your maturity. And once you learn how to do those
things, you may discover you have no desire to. For example,
physical teleportation might sound "cool." But if, after learning
how to do so, you realize it is going to take about forty years of
training five or six hours every single day without fail, using
elaborate alchemical tinctures which might cost hundreds of dollars
to make, you may decide not to follow through with it. Not to
mention that if you did follow through with it, then by the time
you were able to do it, you might have lost many of your other
abilities due to having not kept them up with training.
Now not all systems are like this, by any means. Some systems
focus on evocation from the very beginning, and since I did not
grow up on that path, nor know anyone else who did and who can show
something for it, I do not know how effective that might be.
Sometimes ritual is focused on, and sometimes the contacts are only
made mentally, leaving the reality of the "evocation" experience at
the whims of one's own inclination towards imagination and
creativity, versus any actual training done. There are groups out
there which focus only on rigorous ceremonial magic from the very
first day, under the close guidance of a magician who has
successfully used that system. Their rituals are usually very long,
and the tools required are now very expensive or hard to find. So
there are many approaches and many ideas. I don't know all about
them, maybe others do. I know that there are a few different
systems represented here at Veritas.
You are at a slight disadvantage if you are looking around
online though, admittedly. It takes a real leap of faith to believe
anything that anyone says online, because you have not met them
personally, and can not see what kind of example they serve as for
the paths that they follow. You can read words, but there are
plenty of beautifully worded articles out there written by people
that don't have a single day of experience, and that base all of
their ideas either on their own idle thinking or the words of
others taken from books. So there is a great deal of possible
deception! Even if someone else here proposes that I am a good,
solid authority on magic, you would still have no actual personal
experience validating that idea. For all you know, I'm piled high
and deep with utter nonsense, and anyone who believes me has simply
fallen under the influence of my nicely arranged sentences and
vocabulary. No doubt there are a few people here you believe that
very thing! And it will be that way with anyone or anything you
decide to pursue. There will be a group that is for it, and a group
that is against it, and the loudest group is not necessarily the
correct one. It is like that anywhere. Even with this system, which
is a particular branch of the modern Hermetic Science based largely
on the tantric practices of the Himalayas and Tibet, you will have
differing opinions. To some here, the sound of the name "Hermetic
Science" is no doubt a beautiful chord, to others it is just a
word, and yet to others it might be the sound of fingernails on a
chalkboard.
If you want to investigate the system that I practice and teach,
it is very similar to a book called "Initiation into Hermetics"
written by Franz Bardon. So buy the book, or download it online
(you can find it seveal places for free with a quick google
search), give it a quick read, and see what you think. Do some
research on Bardon too. Once you do, you can at least check off
Hermetics from your list of possibilities, either positively or
negatively, and move on in your
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