What does a spell 'working' look like? I'm guessing something closer to 'i found my keys' than 'i cast fireball' (?)
I've trained myself to be sensitive to different types of energies (or whatever they really are). But my spells are to manipulate these energies in ways I wish teem to be.
For example, I felt 'malice' from a server I and a colleague were working on. Servers shoukdnt have emotion, unless someone left that imprint. Well, turns out it was a popped machine from 6 months ago from an Apache Tomcat install where they badly fixed the hacked server. And they didn't clean it well enough. Rkhunter and chkrootkit both found kmods that were still resident.
In that case, it was noting more than feeling maliciousness, and then using my technical prowess to prove it.
Other cases, I've done things like debug heisenbugs simply by willing them to resolve or make the error evident. Most of those types of "spells" are mental. I dont need candles or whatever.
Another time, someone in our hackerspace got ahold of Mathers Grand Key of the Legemetton and decided to do a demonic summoning as provided. He was an atheist, and was just following the motions. It worked. He trapped something there, that was frightening every sensitive type that walked through the doorway.. I found it, and took care of it in the proscribed manner (release, dismissal, and freed from any cost it may have incurred to me).
But to answer your question, no its not like casting D&D fireball. Most things dont have physically perceivable effects. But the underlying question: yes, harm to others can very much be done.
Can you expand on this?
I've had plenty experience in this realm. I didn't want someone harmed. Nor do I have some great need for resources. And it couldn't/wouldn't provide knowledge that I require. The easiest thing to do here is to free it of any obligations it has to me. Because otherwise, the costs of what amounts to slavery is just too much.
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What happened:
I made that decision rather quickly, when I saw this. The idiot hackerspace member left a pentagram on the table in blue painters tape. I recognized the junk latin words as from (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Key_of_Solomon). The presence in my mind was that it was howling and screaming at everything and everyone. Anger was present everywhere. Murderous anger. Usually, to dissolve these bonds is to do so by fire and salt, if it's a demonic presence. Didn't have salt, but fire was readily available. I verbally said it was free (but also said esoterically - look up vibrating names with the practice of LBRP, similar idea).
After I set it free, I could hear it ask me what I wanted. Frankly, no. Not worth it. So instead of reserving this for later, I absolved any and all debts owed to me for freeing it. I said so verbally and 'vibrated'. I felt it mostly left. It was still angry at the one who trapped it.. I ended up having to protect this place for a time against it, for retribution reasons. But I'm more than happy to be past that whole situation.
Also what can they do to humans, what are their capabilities, I guess is what I'm asking?
It was a demon, one of. There's honestly too many different types of things out there, I'm never too sure if there even is a nomenclature that could be attributed. But this thing was definitely a demon. That's what the first half of the ritual does, from the Mathers' book.
What can they do to humans? All sorts of things. This is probably a better list than I can cover: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demons_in_the_Ars_Goet...
Do note, some of them are rubbish... But not the ones you might think. Things like "become invisible" doesn't always mean that you turn transparent - it can be that nobody notices you.
This one, had a murderous vengeance towards the one whom imprisoned it. We just installed a vehicle lift in our hackerspace, and there was an open house that evening. It would have been catastrophic if 'somehow' that lift malfunctioned and crushed someone... And having an electrical malfunction or a hydraulic breach would be well within the power of that entity.
Obviously in earlier times people took all sorts of precautions as outlined in the original article about the items found in a chimney.
Is it that we don't cross paths with them as often as we did, or perhaps the concern to protect oneself in the past was overblown, or perhaps they don't even exist?
I admit I am very skeptical, but it's been interesting topic to discuss.
I hope you don't mind my many questions and wild speculations.
The best defence against this sort of stuff is ignorance. From my experiences, knowing opens these 'doors'. It doesn't make you immune, but staying away from it certainly helps.
Then again, I look at these techniques as part of what makes me human. And living and being is dangerous. I'll embrace these things, to know thyself. It is a very dangerous road. I know the Buddhists also talk of the same, saying the route I take is the quickest to enlightenment, but also one that can have disastrous consequences (usually to myself).
> Is it that we don't cross paths with them as often as we did, or perhaps the concern to protect oneself in the past was overblown, or perhaps they don't even exist?
Oh, they exist alright. I've met many, and butted heads against a few. Go no further than reddit.com/r/occult . There's 40k members subscribed. There's a healthy book selection at the local bookstores over Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft, and Occultism.
One thing, is the secrecy is still in effect. Even I created a throwaway to disambiguate my normal tech persona from this. If people at my workplace found out what I believe and do, who knows what would happen. Mockery, derision, fright, anger, indolence. Ive had those aimed at me, by both atheists and christians (but usually christians).
> I admit I am very skeptical, but it's been interesting topic to discuss.
That's fine. So was I. And in a way, I still am. I'm talking with someone with a background in physics about further ways to make sensors that can bring the occult to physical world. Instead of this realm being all eerie, and shrouded, I want to blow this idea of occult wide open, so that all may participate. That, as you can probably understand, angers quite a lot of people.
When we were kids we used to mess around with Ouija boards and one of my friends had tapes made by a priest that crusaded against the occult messages in Rock 'n Roll, which ironically got us more interested in the occult rather than less.
I remember us playing records backwards and scaring ourselves shitless, eating apples in front of mirrors and so on.
Whether that was just silly child's play or real danger I don't know, but I wouldn't mess with stuff like that now.
Also as a supposed rational lapsed Catholic, you couldn't pay me to spend a night in a 'haunted' house, despite the fact that I rationally don't believe in that stuff.
On the other hand, I can say that when I was a kid I had some childhood trauma to process and it may have taken the form of nightmares[1] and fear of supernatural entities. This could also explain my fascination with the topic back then---as a roundabout way of dealing with difficult emotions.
Anyway, if ignorance is a defence, what made you 'eat of the fruit of knowledge' so to speak?
[1] It also didn't help that my room was in the basement and so far from 'help' that I was totally on my own.
It was a long string of events that started with my ex fiancee and I unwittingly witnessing a Thelemite ritual in the state park. I could feel the waves of hatred and anger off of it, even not having done anything in the occult.
My ex had an instantaneous migraine. To the point of screaming for it to stop.
I happened to know someone who was a practising pagan, and we explained what happened. Evidently she has had run-ins with that group before. She and I went to the site. Lets just say craziness happened. I saw 3 of them show up, like holograms over my vision. She knew 2 of them but didn't know the third. I described the third, and knew her.
Nonetheless, remote viewing shouldnt be able to occur with our technology. Nor is separating the energy side of a human from their body temporarily. And other things. But I saw them. My ex felt them. And she saw them.
I knew from that night, that this realm is real. Can't prove it. But I know it. And I'll figure out its laws; its rules; its physical attributes of how it works.
Years ago I dabbled in Golden Dawn ritual and almost lost my mind. A Buddhist friend told me I needed to chill out and gave me that book. After a month of 30 minute per day meditative sessions, my paranoia and delusions went away. There were many more benefits that came from continued practice - I could detail them but most people would scoff. Most ignorant people don't believe in magic, so why would they believe in mental powers attained through meditation?
Magic, to the uninitiated (ignorant), is the coincidental linking of two unrelated events. Mix eye of newt and bat dung with newborn blood and chant the magic words under the new moon and all of a sudden, the castle's well becomes fouled.
A person who wishes to practice magic must have a clear intention of the result they want, and then they must formulate a spell that will connect and 'cause'.