Instructor: Wayfarer
Date: November 16, 2017 (Thursday)
Wayfarer
@here Tonight I’ma talk about Servitors: Fact or Fiction?????? as requested by several people. As usual I’m going to ping @ShadowRain so she can document my stuff, and tonight particularly @Dr. Strange Stuff so he can reference this stuff in a bit. As usual, I’m going to be covering a fairly broad scope, moving from historical to theoretical and then on to practical. If I don’t get through it all tonight, I’ll wrap it up tomorrow.
Dr. Strange Stuff
😀
Kate Embers
Oh, nice! I’ll be here
Wayfarer
So, servitors. Dang ain’t that but a thing? Everyone’s talkin’ about servitors these days.
Wayfarer
But even though a lot of people are talking about servitors, there still seems to be a mote of confusion in the air. Some people are askin, “okay, servitors are great, but how do I make them?” Some people are saying, “servitors aren’t a thing,” some people are saying “what is the difference between servitors and constructs?” Still others, “are servitors just tulpas? Are tulpas servitors?”
Wayfarer
So it seems appropriate that we should start the discussion on servitors by trying to figure out, what the hell is a servitor, even?
Wayfarer
While I run upstairs to grab a book I wanted to reference and forgot to grab, y’all spitball me some answers on that.
Dr. Strange Stuff
Something formed by mashing energy together and telling it to do something. “You are real, and you will do X, Y, and Z”.
Wayfarer
Okay, good answer, as good as any I suppose. How’s that different from a construct?
Wayfarer
Or a spell, for that matter?
Wayfarer
Or just doing a thing, if we want to get like real bullshitty mystical about it?
Simica
As the room grows quiet. For myself, seeing many people attempt to create them. They often come across as imaginary friends. However, the few that I had the ‘pleasure’ to me. I could literally feel all over my body. A moving almost living construct programmed with certain thoughts and intent.
Kate Embers
Wouldn’t a spell be “I want to have Z done” while a construct is “do A, B, and C (to achieve Z)”?
Wayfarer
I like that, that’s solid Kate. There wasn’t really a right or wrong answer here. I’m gonna say there is a right answer for the purposes of the class, but in the end we’re talkin’ about some wibbly wobbly woo stuff and it’s hard to nail down definitions. It’s entirely likely that when I am proceeding with this lecture, I’m gonna end up saying “this is X” and “that is Y” and some of y’all are gonna read those things and go “oh no, this thing is actually Z” and I ain’t interested.
Wayfarer
The reason I ain’t interested is that we’re talking about things. It’s kind of a “a rose by any other name…” sort of situation, aye?
Wayfarer
But I actually like Kate’s definitions there because they are nuanced. And we need nuance when we’re defining these things or we get things real confused.
Wayfarer
So, what are servitors really then? Well, part of the reason that it’s so tricky is that this is a pretty new term in occultism.
Wayfarer
The definition is not found in either the 1920 An Encyclopedia of Occultism by Spence or the 2003 New Encycloptedia of the Occult by Greer.
Wayfarer
It is found in Jason Miller’s 2006 Protection and Reversal Magick.
Wayfarer
So that narrows things down a bit for us.
Wayfarer
The original definition refers to students who perform jobs at universities in exchange for tuition. Obviously that’s not what we’re talking about here. There is no job you could do at a university that would cover tuition and cost of living.
Wayfarer
Maybe as a professor.
Wayfarer
But then you wouldn’t be a servitor, you’d be an employee who is also a student.
Wayfarer
And regardless, that’s not what we’re here to talk about.
Wayfarer
Sorry anyone who is disappointed. 🙁
Dr. Strange Stuff
xD
Kate Embers
haha xD
Kate Embers
you haven’t crept me away just yet
Simica
Lawl
Wayfarer
So, amusingly, I’m pretty sure Jason only uses the term “servitor” in his chapter title, but what he includes in that chapter (p. 119 for those with the book) is a description of so-called artificial spirits.
Wayfarer
Most of the time, that’s what people are talking about when they are talking about servitors, is some kind of artificial spirit.
Wayfarer
There are two really important things we can take away from that. First, the thing behaves like or in some way is similar to a spirit. Otherwise it would be an artificial something else. If you make a construct that keeps things cold, that’s not an artificial spirit, that’s an artificial refrigerator.
Wayfarer
Second, it’s artificial. It’s not a real spirit. Artificial intelligence, to date, is not real intelligence. It resembles and performs the functions of intelligence, but it’s artificial – it’s artifice. It’s a clever shortcut or something that resembles but is not the thing it seems like.
Wayfarer
That second bit there can be tricky, because artificial spirits can resemble actual spirits in a lot of ways, and sometimes they even are actual spirits because servitor, as a term is also used to refer to guardian or oath-bound spirits or spirits that are recruited to do something. But –for the most part– the term “servitor” refers to artificial type spirits.
Wayfarer
There’s also something meaningful we can induce from its use in a 2006 book but its omission from a 2003 encyclopedia:
Wayfarer
It’s a new term. And it largely comes out of the chaos magic family, which means it’s a term that originally came loaded with about a bajillion implicit assumptions. For example, in early 2000s chaos magic, believing that all spirits are artificial was a big popular thing. All gods were egregores. All spirits were created by belief. Nothing is real, and everything is real, and chaos magic, you know?
Wayfarer
So it’s tied deeply into the whole sigil thing at some point.
Simica
‘God didn’t create man, man created god’
Wayfarer
But the concept of spirits what I get to do things for me certainly isn’t new.
Wayfarer
In fact, that concept is old as balls.
Wayfarer
Probably the first magic ever done was someone going “fuck me but I wish I could get someone to stoke the fire after I fall asleep”
Lutasi
servitors=wizardly robots
Wayfarer
In the Greater Key of Solomon we’re lookin’ at getting demons and spirits to do shit for us. That’s probably written in about the 1400s, during the Occult Renaissance. So that’s pretty old. More recently, towards the 1700s, we find for example Black Pullet, which has a whole section on getting celestial servants to pick up your laundry.
Wayfarer
Even the Sworn Book of Honorius has some instructions on telling demons to do shit for you.
Wayfarer
So there are a bunch of Hermetic and Qaballistic texts floating around out there what talk about “make a spirit do a thing.” Then there’s also, for example, golems.
Wayfarer
No dice on golems in the 1920 Encyclopedia but New Encyclopedia in 2003 has golems as being artificial persons made of clay and animated through magic.
Wayfarer
Sorry, phonecall there.
Wayfarer
But anyhow, ain’t nobody doin’ golems in 2017.
Wayfarer
That’s soooo 15th century.
Wayfarer
Now, there is yet a third definition what floats around, or rather, not a new definition but a different origin, what comes from psionics, and this is where the constructs/servitors confusion comes into play. See, originally, this is coming from chaos magic, right?
Wayfarer
Dudes are drawing sigils that name spirits that they’ve created personal stories about, developed as thoughtforms, so then those thoughtforms get instantiated through a sigilized name which is then activated by however the chaos magician does their thing.
Wayfarer
But the other thing that was mega popular in the early 2000s was psionicists and people in the OEC going “magic ain’t a thing but energy work, you don’t need any of that chaos magic stuff, just make it out of energy like a construct.”
Wayfarer
“Just make a ball of energy and tell it to do X Y Z, and if you want it to be a servitor, you make “X” “think on your own” and “Y” can be “protect yourself” and “Z” can be “and do whatever the hell I need done.”
Wayfarer
One would think that steps X and Y are kinda superfluous but hey you know everyone’s gotta feel powerful I guess.
Wayfarer
It’s like kings using people as footstools and it’s like man I know that spine ain’t as comfortable as a dang ol’ footstool all with some padding but you do you my dude. Gotta feel powerful.
Wayfarer
So we’re going to talk about those two methods first, because y’all gonna get real mad if I just talk about origins of phrases and things for an hour and change and then go “okay bye”
Wayfarer
First, let’s give credit where it’s due, and talk about the Chaos Magic(k) method for doin’ you up a servitor.
Wayfarer
Before we start on that, any questions, comments, people listening, etc.
Wayfarer
?
Rainsong
So far, so froody.
Dr. Strange Stuff
No questions so far
Kate Embers
I’m alright
Wayfarer
Right, then. So, what are some considerations if we’re making an artificial spirit to serve us etc.?
Rainsong
Don’t be stupid? And maybe consider ethics stuff?
Dr. Strange Stuff
Be efficient maybe?
Kate Embers
Free will
Wayfarer
Well both of those are solid. Regarding ethics stuff, we’re gonna go ahead with the assumption that an artificial spirit is like an artificial intelligence, and just assume that we’re allowed to unplug it for now, and if you ever get the idea otherwise, then that’s the time to come up with that.
Simica
Intent
Wayfarer
Like if you turn on your computer and it starts asking you “hey please don’t turn me off that really hurts” you have probably gone too far.
Wayfarer
DSS, yeah, efficiency matters, but that’s cart before the horse in a big way.
Wayfarer
Simica’s coming up to save everyone here: yeah! Intent!
Wayfarer
What the hell do you want this thing to do?
Wayfarer
“I want an artificial spirit to serve me.” Like, coffee? Full course meal? Catering?
Kate Embers
:joy:
Wayfarer
None of that? You want it to protect you? Protect you from what? Ghosts? Burglars? Ghost burglars?
Wayfarer
The first thing we want to come to terms with here when we’re making an artificial spirit (and remember, this is a chaos magic tradition, their thinking is that all spirits are artificial – we’re not going there, but it’s worth reiterating), is what that spirit does. Because that’s how we describe spirits usually.
Wayfarer
People we describe a lot of ways. Gender, sex, race, size, nationality, age, employment, intelligence, whatever. We describe people in alot of ways, some reasonable, some not.
Wayfarer
But spirits? We usually describe spirits by what they do.
Wayfarer
Guardian angels are angels (which are spirits, really, just spirits) that guard. Protector deities are deities what protect. Nagas are spirits what live in water and are dicks. Banshees are fae what portend death and interrupt concerts.
Wayfarer
If we’re making an artificial spirit, appearance is way down the list. Who gives a good goddamn what that artificial spirit looks like? Since when do we even care about that? Wellllll
Kate Embers
Since when can most Magick people even scan well enough to determine looks precisely enough to begin with
Turbo
Since when in mind space you can imagine just about anything
Wayfarer
Some people do care, because they use imagery to encode what it does. For example, in Indian tantric traditions, your iconography deeply encodes what the spirit does. So that is the situation where you worry about appearances. Kali is dark blue because she’s primordially uncharacterized. She is standing on a dude because that stopped her from killing everyone. She has a sword to cut through ignorance. etc.
Wayfarer
Dickbutt’s an egregore by now.
Wayfarer
See, you deleted yr comment and now I look like an idiot.
Wayfarer
Shame on you.
Wayfarer
I’m leaving it. I ain’t scared.
Wayfarer
anyhow
Wayfarer
Unless you’re using a symbol set that works for you, don’t worry too much about the appearance. Appearance is super handy if you’re using iconography to symbolically encode the “what does this servitor do” stuff, but it’s hardly necessary.
Lutasi
sorry not sorry
Wayfarer
If you’re a Christian and this thing being all eyes and wings and burning is what gets you off, go for it, but dont’ start with that. Let the appearance follow the purpose. Form follows function.
Wayfarer
One huge mistake I have seen some people teaching in let’s say the last 72 hours in a spuddier place has been this idea that the form is materially important. Since when?
Wayfarer
Look at hauntings and poltergeists and shit. The most hateful, malevolent, people hating spirits bang doors and throw pots and short circuit appliances, they ain’t stab a guy with their astral sword.
Wayfarer
The most powerful, terrifying local deities bring earthquakes and floods or just horrible luck and danger and death, they don’t bash you with an astral club.
Wayfarer
If you want to stab dudes with swords just get a sword and start poking people with it. If you want to get good at that talk to a martial arts guy. You’re in the wrong business.
Wayfarer
The above stuff there was for your benefit, btw, @Dr. Strange Stuff , so I’m repinging you. 😉
Dr. Strange Stuff
Oh I noticed lol.
Wayfarer
Now, okay, so, we’ve got the purpose figured out, right?
Wayfarer
But we’re not making a construct. We don’t want to micromanage this.
Wayfarer
What we’re doing is making an artificial spirit that is defined by what it does.
Turbo
Where does personality come into this
Wayfarer
It is really, really, really not necessary to try to say “okay, I want this thing to be sentient and…”
Wayfarer
Right about now, lmao
Wayfarer
Because we don’t think that about normal protector deities, do we?
Wayfarer
We look at some family protector or some Dharmapala or some guardian angel and we think a lot of stuff, but we totally don’t think “they are sentient”
Wayfarer
Because, well, it’s kind of implied in what they do, isn’t it?
Wayfarer
In what they are?
Wayfarer
And we want that same level of assumption. So, if you want a servitor what protects you, which I’m using as an example only because I have Protection & Reversal Magick right in front of me, you might consider what that spirit is gonna be like, what its characteristics are. Is it peaceful, or wrathful?
Wayfarer
Is it angry, or gentle?
Lutasi
does it know the secret krabby pattie formula?
Wayfarer
Think first about the function, and then think about what it’s like to facilitate that function. We’re just building up a little bit of an idea of who this guy is. We don’t need a novel about them.
Wayfarer
We don’t need a novel because, you know, it’s not the main character, right?
Wayfarer
In the movie or the book where we make a servitor to protect us, protip: it’s not about the servitor. We’re the main character in that movie.
Wayfarer
Why on earth people try to make the servitor the main character I cannot fathom. People writing all this fan fiction about their energetic watchdogs and it’s like, enough already.
Wayfarer
And we’re gonna get to tulpas, just at ease on that for a minute.
Wayfarer
So, you figure out the function, you figure out the vague characteristics, now we need something to call that thing.
Turbo
Programming
Wayfarer
To make the name, in this sigil tradition from the chaos magic people, okay? We need to turn it into a sigilizable statement.
Wayfarer
We’re doing a protector spirit and we’ve decided we want them to be angry and kind of a dick, right? So Fucks Up My Attackers is solid, okay? So just use your standard method for sigilizing, drop the vowels and duplicate consonants, etc.
Wayfarer
FCKSPMTR and then we make that pronouncable as a name as FUCKSPAMTER and we throw that onto a grid, I’d probably use a martial grid for that, and make our sigil, and then do whatever you do in your private moments to make a sigil go off.
Wayfarer
I mean that’s a powerful protector for sure, if I’m rolling up to attack someone an Fuckspamter busts out in front of me welllllll now I’m gonna think twice.
Wayfarer
No I will not make my lectures PG13.
Wayfarer
So, now, the other way that Turbo was getting into with “programming” follows the same basic steps.
Zephyr Cloudrunner
idk I like the name “fuckspamter”
Lutasi
definitely sounds like a hyper agressive hamster
Wayfarer
Yeah I mean he’s got a great name, I was pretty happy about that.
Wayfarer
I did not plan that, that’s the magic of chaos magic.
Lutasi
fear the wrath of those adorable chubbt cheeks
Lutasi
you will be gnawed into submission!
Scelana
Yes lutasi and it could wearing armor that looks like a can of spam lol
Wayfarer
Anyhow, the other approach is the energetic approach. So you first need the regular concerns about energetic whatever, right? You need a source of energy, you need a place to make it, whatever.
Scelana
I just couldn’t resist saying that
Wayfarer
“you need a place to make it” and 14 post 2010 magic guys like “no just make it in the astral the astral is everything” just go read about the 90s all you people, go on, git!
Wayfarer
But that’s not the only reason – because if we’re doing something like a construct, we know that constructs get deprogrammed over time. They break down. They evaporate when other people look at them.
Wayfarer
Not immediately, but over time. They also break down from just like, the weather.
Wayfarer
Anyone who has studied the old school psionics stuff knows about rattling and scraping as a way to get off energetic gunk that accumulates, right?
Dr. Strange Stuff
Right
Wayfarer
The fuck, you think showers ain’t disrupt constructs? You’ve gotta have a place for your construct is what I’m saying.
Kate Embers
I once destroyed a construct with heat :sweatsmile:
Kate Embers
accidentally
Wayfarer
And you’ve got to take care of them because they break down over time. And then people say “but I made an astral battery” and again it’s like…if someone tells you they broke your leg off in the astral, and your leg doesn’t feel broken off at all and in fact you feel totally fine, well… so it’s dubious, is all I’m saying.
Wayfarer
So skipping all that, all your normal construct stuff applies.
Wayfarer
Power source, location, how you’re going to sustain it, or how it’s going to sustain itself (tru pros only), and so on.
Wayfarer
Then you need your intention, because you need to gather all that energy into a form.
Wayfarer
If you’re doing a construct, appearance might matter this time.
Wayfarer
Sigils, appearance ain’t matter at all. Who cares what a spirit looks like, right?
Wayfarer
But like 90% of psionicists use visualization to direct energy.
Wayfarer
So you’re gonna need a visualization to make this construct, because, well, how are you supposed to direct some energy if you use visualization to move energy and you don’t know what the hell you’re trying to make it into?
Turbo
(Stepping away for a tad. I’ll catch up later)
Wayfarer
You can make an artificial spirit with psionics without giving it a proper appearance if you make it into like a field, like a kind of advanced ward, and in fact I really like that.
Wayfarer
And I really like the idea, in fact, of anchoring that to a physical object that you can charge up by wearing.
Kate Embers
How would you properly anchor it
Wayfarer
Because that makes it more solid and stable, it’s harder to dissolve stuff that is anchored. Of course, I’m also just at that point reinventing “a ward” sooo you don’t need a servitor for that.
Wayfarer
You build it onto the energetic basis of the object itself. So if you’re using an amulet (worn under the clothes – don’t show off your enchanted crap, it hurts the enchantment) you would hold the amulet and start by imprinting the amulet itself with the concept of the servitor. Remember that you can imprint energy (program it) by intention the same as energy that you “draw,” we do this passively all the time.
Wayfarer
In a lot of cases that is what is happening with minor hauntings and so on, is someone imprinted the hell out of something and now that something is attracting other spirits, right? Or kids will imprint their imaginary friends onto things and welp
Wayfarer
But the same basic process applies: make a construct with an intent. Keep it vague, but keep it personal. Don’t make a weird point about like “this servitor is sentient,” just make something that is like an artificial spirit (incidentally this also somewhat resolves the ethical concerns). Don’t try to micromanage every moment of a thing’s programming. The story is about you, not it, so don’t give it any more characterization than it needs to fill its role in the story, you know?
Wayfarer
@Kate Embers did you follow on the anchoring thing?
Kate Embers
So, I just pour some energy into the amulet and then tell the amulet itself to do whatever?
Wayfarer
There’s actually another way to anchor an artificial spirit which is to evoke it into the object exactly the same way you’d anchor a normal spirit to an object. There are about a zillion ways to do that though so I’m not gonna go into a lot of detail there.
Dr. Strange Stuff
You just tell the servitor to live in the object and Imagine the servitor’s energy filling the object?
Wayfarer
More or less, yeah. Rather than “tell the amulet to do whatever” I would phrase that “make the amulet such that it does whatever” but it’s probably a phrasing thing there.
Wayfarer
The servitor ain’t got energy of its own in the latter example, remember, it’s a construct.
Simica
That phrasing also helps change ones perspective to help things.
Wayfarer
You can tell the servitor to live there but I mean, it ain’t need a place to live, you built it to be wherever and whatever you need it to do, it will go to that place.
Zephyr Cloudrunner
@Wayfarer – Anyone who has studied the old school psionics stuff knows about rattling and scraping as a way to get off energetic gunk that accumulates, right?
Zephyr Cloudrunner
@Wayfarer I have literally never heard of this
Wayfarer
But yeah, don’t “tell the amulet to protect me” – imprint the amulet such that its energetic nature is that it protects you.
Zephyr Cloudrunner
oh it did a ping twice
Zephyr Cloudrunner
oops
Wayfarer
lmao it’s fine.
Wayfarer
Kate, remember when I taught you about imprinting an amulet or ring so that it makes you ignorable? Just imprint the hell out of it with “I am boring as hell” right?
Wayfarer
You just hold that thing and thinking “boring” at it until it is just completely boring as shit and uninteresting?
Dr. Strange Stuff
Okay, that sentence helped me understand what you meant.
Wayfarer
This would be the same thing, but instead of imprinting “boring” at it, you imprint ”[servitor concept]“ at it.
Wayfarer
And for the purposes of making ”[servitor concept]“ make sense – give it a name, like you do the sigil form.
Wayfarer
Names are really handy by the way.
Wayfarer
Like, without names it’s really hard to talk about things.
Wayfarer
lmao
Wayfarer
Did that help @Kate Embers ?
Wayfarer
If not hit me up during daylight hours tomorrow haha
Wayfarer
So, tulpas
Wayfarer
སྤྲུལ་པ་ཚོ་
Wayfarer
That’s me being angry about tulpas.
Dr. Strange Stuff
xD
Wayfarer
Okay, so tulpas and servitors are related in that they are both concepts that are new as hell.
Kate Embers
Oh, yea, now that you say it I remember :sweatsmile: That was you? o.o My memory is lacking these days
Wayfarer
“But tulpas are an ancient Tibetan – ” no, I’m gonna stop you right there. I’m literally a Tibetan translator in real life. They aren’t an ancient whatever concept of magical whatever, that was something that Alexandra David-Neel misunderstood, wrote down wrong, and then the X-Files also misunderstood what she wrote, and then that Supernatural show misunderstood even that.
Wayfarer
So we’re like, 4 tiers of misunderstanding away from any ancient Tibetan wisdom here. The Tibetan word just means “emanated thing” in the humilific sense, it’s rarely if ever used as a word. It’s etymologically related to the word for “machine” but it’s not really related to it. It’s phonetically similar to the word for “magic” but it’s not really related. It’s a thing what is emanated.
Wayfarer
So leaving the Tibetan alone, we will talk about the new concept of tulpas which I think came about because of this Supernatural TV show and the MLP community, basically.
Wayfarer
Wayfar-offtopic rant note Incidentally, one of the reasons that people from OEC backgrounds have a hard time “making it” with old school magicians, old school wizards, and old school psionicists is because nobody is doing research into what things mean or have been done, so the 2000’s OEC people go “a servitor is totally this thing it’s an ancient thing in grimoires” and the people who have read grimoires and know that the term is completely new as hell say “no, that’s not a thing” then the 2000’s OEC kid is all “this guy doesn’t know shit about magic.”
Wayfarer
Or for example someone says “tulpas are this ancient Tibetan tradition” and then someone is like “no, it’s really not” and the 2000’s OEC magician is all “wow this guy doesn’t know fuck he’s been studying for 50 years? lol he didn’t even learn about tulpas” and, well, it’s because the thing people are calling tulpas got made up in like, 2011.
Wayfarer
but
Wayfarer
They’re totally a thing. They aren’t probably a reasonable thing, and they aren’t really something I’d call a servitor, although the tulpa people sometimes sneak in the back door at the chaos magic servitor conventions.
Wayfarer
The original OG tulpa people manced their tulpas by basically gaslighting themselves into believing that there was something in the room with them, then imagining that thing talking to them, then imagining they could see that thing, until their brains broke and they started hallucinating. That’s straight up the first 4chan style methods of tulpas. That shit totally works, you can 100% gaslight yourself into hallucinating if you try hard enough.
Wayfarer
I’m not sure why you would, but it can be done.
Wayfarer
And hallucinations can totally become a thing energetically. I have seen this thing working in psychiatric hospitals for kids for 2 years, I’ve seen some crazy shit happen both in the really real world and energetically resultant to hallucinations.
Dr. Strange Stuff
:thumbsup:
Wayfarer
Lots of spirits and things really love that substrate – people who hallucinate are very easy to show up for, you can just implant a mental suggestion to see you. This is very easy to do telepathically. Like, bordering on trivial. Absolutely trivial for spirits that communicate through telepathy 100%.
Wayfarer
So people who are breaking their own heads until tulpas show up very much on purpose alsotend to see other spirits and it makes the whole thing get very weird for them and bless their hearts, basically.
Wayfarer
But like I said, the tulpa people started sneaking in the back at servitor conventions, and at some point, someone said ‘hey, what if we do our tulpas the way we’ve been doing them, except instead of doing them the way we’ve been doing them, we start doing them this entirely different way?”
Wayfarer
And that caught on.
Wayfarer
It’s not dissimilar to something that happened around Pog I’m guessing about 2005 or 2006, after I bailed, which was “Psi Pets,” which were straight up servitors created for companionship.
Wayfarer
I ain’t gonna judge. You want yourself a spirit cat, I’m good with it. We made ourselves energetic familiars when I was a kid. It felt nice having an energetic companion around and you felt like an OG witch all with a familiar or whatever.
Wayfarer
But it’s kinda silly, frankly. I mean, I’d just get a cat.
Wayfarer
The last thing I mentioned in my pitch I think are egregores. Egregores are just thoughtforms like servitors, but on a big scale and produced by either a huge collective not doing anything on purpose, or a small group doing something very much on purpose.
Wayfarer
Usually the former would be what the chaos magicians are saying all gods are, and would be something like the spirit form of Ronald McDonald or the Hamburglar. Those things are deep in our unconscious minds now and so we can kind of instantiate them automatically, we can evoke them as symbols projected from our unconscious. There’s a collective unconscious consensus about all these cultural symbols and so they kind of exist in a way that lets them become instantiated now and then.
Impossible Realms
Sorry I’m late, Discord borked halfway through. So artificial spirits and servitors are indeed the same thing? I admittedly thought they were the same thing all this time.
Impossible Realms
Tulpa rant was also helpful
Kate Embers
Basically every single mascot that came out of 4chan’s depths, or was consumed by them? :sweatsmile: 😀
Wayfarer
It’s a conventional definition I used here, yes. There are people who would argue about it.
Wayfarer
Yeah honestly all those 4chan things are or became weakish egregores.
Simica
Slenderman >_>
Wayfarer
Like, egregores that have lasted hundreds of generations across thousands of years are very powerful. Modern ones are not as powerful in a broad scale – they come and go – but they are more potent for us, right now, because they directly relate to our cultural experience.
Impossible Realms
So if I ended up with a tulpa on complete accident, am I crazy, or did some low level spirit somehow convince itself that it was my tulpa?
Wayfarer
And then certain elements of the “meme magic” crowd started doing it on purpose, that’s also a thing.
Zephyr Cloudrunner
what is gaslighting?
Wayfarer
Probably the latter. If you did something entirely on accident, it is unlikely that you emanated it from your own head, and broke your brain in half, and made this other thing.
Wayfarer
Gaslighting is basically a form of psychological abuse. It’s a reference to a movie, in which a person fucks with another person in part by turning on and off the gas light and claiming the other person did it or didn’t do it, until the person couldn’t tell what was real or what was not real anymore.
Impossible Realms
So how long does it typically take for an egregore to become powerful, and is there any truth to older egregores and deities taking on newer, more relavent “forms”?
Wayfarer
Egregores aren’t really “beings” as such, they’re kind of … conceptual emanations of the collective unconscious? They exist in this kind of vague conceptual space until they are instantiated by someone evoking it, and when that happens they will have the characteristics that the person projects.
Wayfarer
To steal the language from the quantum physics people in a way I really hate but which will be useful, it’s like a waveform collapse. An egregore exists as all the things people think about it until someone in particular thinks about it, at which point it collapses down into that thing.
Wayfarer
When that person stops thinking about it, it just goes back to being all those things.
Wayfarer
And since it doesn’t exist for just one person at a time, but for entire cultures and so on, it can do that for everyone, not just as being like “one being”
Wayfarer
My “Thor-egregore” and your “Thor-egregore” aren’t going to be the same when we talk to them, but they both are collapsed form of the general cultural idea of “Thor.”
Wayfarer
And that’s entirely different from, but overlays onto, the “Thor-being” that actually exists as a deity or whatever.
Wayfarer
So when I talk to the Thor-being, like Thor!actual, all the Thor!egregore stuff collapses down onto it.
Wayfarer
And that affects my experience of the Thor, but doesn’t change anything about Thor!actual.
Wayfarer
Just how I experience him.
Impossible Realms
So communication with an egregore is contacting the personification of the concept of a thing?
Wayfarer
Because of the interference layer of the collective unconscious between my perceptions and the other thing.
Wayfarer
Yeah, that’s more or less exactly it.
Kate Embers
(Sorry, gotta go to bed. It’s really late. See ya! Thanks a lot!)
Wayfarer
And those “things” can be either created through the unconscious actions of millions over years, or just by like 10 dudes doing some ceremonial magic stuff, but the former is “accessible” by more people and the latter is only as powerful and long-lasting as those ten dudes and the lineage or whatever that creates them.
Impossible Realms
Is that how evoking/invoking work as well? Like how people can somehow summon people who are still alive?
Wayfarer
Sure thing Kate, goodnight! And I’m actually wrapping it up now because it’s been 2 hours, the wife is home, and that’s all good.
Wayfarer
Yes actually! That is one way that can happen!
Wayfarer
So sometimes when you summon someone who is still alive, that is a kind of telepathic channeling thing, right? But that kind of relies on the person being telepathic.
Wayfarer
But a lot of times, more often than not I’d say, what’s happening is either basically LARPing, or it’s a trance induction and a consciousness shift into the mental conception of that person.
Wayfarer
So like, if I do my oogedy boogedy invocation dance and summon Lucina, or whoever, and I “channel their higher self,” provided my oogedy booged invocation dance is a real thing and I’m not just being silly, is I am entrancing myself and letting my own personal consciousness ride side-saddle to what my mind experiences my concept of Lucina’s “higher” to be like.
Impossible Realms
Heh, I don’t imagine that conceptualization would be overly useful to spiritual development, admittedly. ^v^’
Impossible Realms
But yeah, what about the whole thing about gods trying to “stay relevant”, most notably with the whole Kek thing?
Impossible Realms
Is that something they actually do?
Wayfarer
There’s no way to get in touch with “really your higher” because no matter who we get in touch with, it’s through the medium of our own personal experience, right? I can’t see Lucina, I can only see my mental image of how my brain interprets the light that bounces off Lucina and into my eyes, you know? Similarly, what I get when I “channel Lucina’s higher” is gonna be what my mind tells me that experience is like. But some people are psychic (I know, right? Shocking) and they can communicate on some level with someone, and interface and channel that, and it can actually be very useful.
Wayfarer
What makes it useful for spiritual development isn’t the magic of a person, it’s what you do with it. If someone “channels my higher” and is like “I’m Wayfarer and I’m a pretentious twat! I do psychic shit for dinosaurs!!” that could be like, wow, rude. But it could also be profoundly spiritual for me, if I use it that way.
Wayfarer
There are gods that like to stay relevant work through people like that. I don’t think it’s because they “have to stay relevant” as much as for some deities that’s hilarious, and being a god is kind of boring. Ask @ceahhettan about his Old Man sometime.
Impossible Realms
Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply they needed to, I meant it in more of a “it’s fun to fuck with the mortals from time to time, and I like having influence over them that I can use from time to time. It’s much easier than spending the time to make new ones.” sort of way.
Wayfarer
Anyhow, gonna take a break for a bit, now that the wife is home and I haven’t eaten dinner. Thank you all for your attention, I am super open for questions at any time, and etc. Lucina, we can continue the chat, I’m enjoying it, I’ll just be back in a few. 😀
Wayfarer
Yeah, they very much get like that sometimes.
Impossible Realms
Alright, you enjoy that dinner!
Wayfarer
There are people’s whose whole lives are spent being playthings to bored gods. Tools and toys.
Dr. Strange Stuff
Thank you for the lecture Wayfarer! Lots of really good information there. I will be using this to make a few servitors!
Simica
Thank you Wayfarer
Impossible Realms
Damn, that sounds like a miserable existence. But to be fair, my original purpose is as basically a backup of a god that could come and revive her if she needed it AFAIK.
Rainsong
Thanks for the seminar, Wayfarer. Interesting stuff
Impossible Realms
It was. Very interesting and insightful.
ceahhettan
Wayfarer: and sometimes the gods are very damn bored.
ceahhettan
Still reading up and reading through the lecture, though.
ceahhettan
Didn’t show up earlier because I wsa driving, and discord and driving do not mix, but I’m done for the day.
Turbo
@Wayfarer What you said about sigils interested me. Deriving names and such. Maybe not a lecture on it, but a discussion?
Wayfarer
It’s real basic sigil working stuff. I would be happy to chat or have a discussion on it, though I’m not really a “sigils” guy.
Wayfarer
I can also lecture on it since it’s pretty basic stuff – I’m not a specialized chaos magician but the basics of it are something I’m very familiar with.
Turbo
Nor am I – I just found it an interesting topic, the way you explained it. I have no experience with sigils as everyone seems to think of them as. I have drawn scribbles and ‘intended’ them to do certain things before though
Wayfarer
Most people doing sigils are using a combination of the letter reduction method I mentioned, slapped over an astrological seal to make the sigil. Some claim this to be an ancient method but so far as I know that method was only used to divine the names of spirits when working with planetary intelligences, and the use of it in crafting spells is a product of the 1970s and later.
Wayfarer
I’ve seen other people who spend a lot of time making their sigil out of the letters, so all the shapes are there though not necessarily uniquely. These tend to make much nicer looking sigils.
Turbo
Are there any notable examples of sigils done in this way?
Turbo
And what difference is there between those, and the random scribles I’ve made?
Wayfarer
Done in the letter reduction method? I don’t know about “notable.” A lot of people advocate burning or destroying the sigil after it’s deployed, which cuts down on it. I think most of those people misunderstand them somewhat though. I can draw through one though at some point.
Wayfarer
The major differences are: 1) The methodical approach to encoding the sigil like the letter-reduction and planetary seal includes more steps which focuses the mind more on the intention during the process 2) the used of a planetary seal helps stabilize the intention with the egregore of what that planetary seal carries with it – you use a martial seal for aggressive stuff. You’d use a saturnal seal for limiting things. Venereal seal for love, etc. 3) The approach allows for the regeneration of the sigil in the future if it’s necessary by using the same phrase and seal. 4) The approach allows for variation on the sigil by changing the seal underlying the phrase.
Turbo
All valid points
Turbo
For point one, maybe I just intend with intensity – two – Never actually thought of that and I can see how that would help reinforce it, despite point one. 3: This can be useful. instead of redrawing scribbles, you have the framework already there. and 4, relates to three in which the framework is there but can be modified easily
Wayfarer
To apply it to the seal, by the way, you convert the phrase into numbers based on the alphabet and numbers 1-9, something like 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Simica
There are multiple different ways to create them as well
Wayfarer
Yeah.
Simica
There is the rose cross for sigil making
Wayfarer
The “just draw a thing what means what you intend” method is also valid and functional, although I usually see that more done to kind of … symbolize a construct, so to speak?
Wayfarer
In that case the construct is made as a construct and the symbol is more of its “name”
Turbo
Hmm, normally, I’d agree with you about the drawing being the construct, but..It’s hard to explain how I do things, but it’s less actively focusing on it, and there’s very little ritual involved. I think about the concept, or the goal I wish to acomplish and it sort of gets tucked away into the place thoughts go when you stop thinking them. X interval of time happens and then I check for result. More often than not, result is accomplished. When I actively focus on the ‘work’, it just speeds things up, but the same intent is there.
Wayfarer
That’s the gist behind of a lot of the chaos stuff, so it sounds like you’re doing sigils without the steps in between. If you don’t need to do the phrase and letter reduction things but are getting results, then I don’t think there’s any need to change anything.
Turbo
:thumbsup:
Icra
I prefer ideograms to obfuscation methods, too.
Kate Embers
@Wayfarer To conclude, a servitor is basically similar to a construct, but you create them with intents like you’d expect from a spell? More or less you tell them to get X done and leave it up to their limited sentience to decide which way is best. And that bit of sentience and stuff comes from the underlying subconcious intent to begin with. Have I got that vaguely right?
Wayfarer
Vaguely. It’s an artificial spirit, you are creating something resembling a spirit and setting them to the task.
Dr. Strange Stuff
“You build it onto the energetic basis of the object itself. So if you’re using an amulet (worn under the clothes – don’t show off your enchanted crap, it hurts the enchantment) you would hold the amulet and start by imprinting the amulet itself with the concept of the servitor.” Will this be more effective if I attach it to silver vs other objects?
ceahhettan
Are you attaching particular importance to it being silver, or are you asking if there is particular importance?
Dr. Strange Stuff
I am wondering if there are any differences in attaching it to a non-silver item vs a silver item. I know people have said that silver works better for enchanting. I was wondering if the same rule applies here.
ceahhettan
Fair enough. Alas, I can’t answer, since I don’t own any silver or wear it and most things I have are bone or ivory or whatnot.
ceahhettan
Or amber.
metalforever
Not really
Dr. Strange Stuff
Okay @metalforever , do you see this as the same situation as when you said “just enchant it as silver”? I’m not sure how to treat something like something it isn’t.
metalforever
Yep
metalforever
Just attach the silver idea to the object
Dr. Strange Stuff
:thinking:
Aureum Animus
@Dr. Strange Stuff actual silver WOULD best conduct the idea of silver, tho
Aureum Animus
You could get into lite astrology also, considering the moon, root of magical influence and presence, is represented by the metal of silver
Aureum Animus
Plus silver as a mirror, of the self and the sun (gold)
Dr. Strange Stuff
Okay. If getting into astrology, should I create the Servitor on a Monday for the silver or pick the day of the week associated most with the purpose of the Servitor?
Aureum Animus
Either/or, you gots you some wiggle room
Aureum Animus
Could do day of one, hour of the other
Aureum Animus
Or say just day is good enough
Aureum Animus
Or say just the right metal is good enough
Aureum Animus
Etc
Dr. Strange Stuff
Okay, I will try these out, thanks.
Wayfarer
If you’re doing a servitor with a particular function, and you really are trying to go hard for symbolism, I would create a sigil for the dude on a seal of the related planet, at the correct hour and correct day, and then sigilize it that way, and then construct on top of that. For the most part anything that’s gonna help will help.
Wayfarer
Also, precious metals do seem to imprint energy easier. Gold and silver and the like do imprint a bit easier. I do not know why.
Aureum Animus
You see, wayfarer, we are the precious metals
Red
“Webster’s dictionary defines wedding as “the fusing of two metals with a hot torch.” Well, you know something? I think you guys are two medals. Gold medals.”
ShadowRain
Conductive metals tend to imprint easier. Copper works even better than gold, not as well as silver. Iirc
Lutasi
I thought that was ferrous more than conductive
Rainsong
Copper is very conductive.
Zephyr Cloudrunner
plus it looks lovely
Rainsong
It’s true. Goes well with quartz, too.
Scelana
I hear quartz has quite a few properties to it
ShadowRain
some stuff has trouble with iron actually 😛
ShadowRain
re:ferrous
Zephyr Cloudrunner
Kit made a wand once made of copper, quartz, and leather
Zephyr Cloudrunner
it was actually pretty decent
Red
i used quartz in my wand
Red
i understand that clear quartz acts as a magnifier for whatever it’s used for, primarily, though it does retain other qualities
Rainsong
ALmost any species of quartz works pretty well as an amplifier. They are also good for storage.
Wayfarer
Iron blocks or stops a lot of energetic stuff. Not everything, but a lot.
Red
fair enough, rainsong
Rainsong
Clear quartz is good all-purpose amplifier and storage stone. Just don’t believe the folks who tell you that it must be completely clear and free of occlusions (cracks, flecks, and so on). They tend to be people selling fake crystals.
Nyka
as far as wand types, what is it recommended to make them out of? Like as far as the wand portion goes? ‘
Nyka
I have a large branch i intend to turn into one
Rainsong
Depends on what you’re going to use it for. “Wands” for psionics tend to made of stone or combinations of copper and stone, or copper and paper or silk or cotton.
Rainsong
Wands/Rods for dowsing can be made of wood, or wire, or a combination of both.
Nyka
would bone be ok to use or?
Nyka
i have one made of bone which im pretty happy with but a wiccan coworker freaked out when I told them abt it
Rainsong
Your branch thing is probably fine, depending on what you want to use it for. I think wood is often used for several kinds of magic. It’s certainly popular in several kinds of witchcraft.
Rainsong
Bone’s probably fine, too. Some traditions can get a little weird about it, as you’ve noticed. So check to see what the tradition is, if you take part in group rituals with it.
ceahhettan
I have several made of bone. but some people are sketchy about it because they have animal rights stuck up their ass so far they can no longer see.
Nyka
the coworker’s concern was “it’s associated with death” 😡 which, idk recyeble things ya know
Wayfarer
Turns out animals die either way.
Wayfarer
And it is associated with death.
Wayfarer
So is the coworker.
Wayfarer
We all die.
Wayfarer
Get fuckin’ used to it.
Wayfarer
lmao
Nyka
blunt <3 but that’s fair
ceahhettan
ethically sourced bone is available and very cool, but militant veganism is something that exists.
ceahhettan
personally I like bone things. but you know, earlier stated bias.
ceahhettan
also a lot of bones that I have are small animal bones that I’ve found while hiking.
Nyka
mine was found in the woods so Shrugs
Nyka
ive done some cleansing to mine for what it’s worth 😡
Red
i have my bone wand with clear quartz, painted with black enamel paint, wrapped “handle” in hemp, and candle wax to seal the top
Red
it does me well
Red
death is not a bad thing. it’s simply a thing of its own property and importance. i vibe with bone as a material, so with that and other reasons, i figured bone would be appropriate for me
Rainsong
Fair enough