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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.christnet.demonology,alt.magick.goetia,alt.magick
From: nocTifer 
Subject: Re: Evoking to Manifestation
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 21:02:23 GMT

50031022 viii om

"Frater_vom" :
#>#># Does anybody here has experience with Enochian or
#>#># Goetian evocations on physical plane?

I would like to qualify my own posts by saying that I have never
done *anything more than study* Enochian materials to get some
idea what they included and to learn about Enochian Chess. I've
enjoyed with some relish the expressions of people like Ben Rowe
(pbuh) and others to this and similar forums, and tentatively
explored my own solitary trajectory of quasi-goetic workings.

"Tom" 
#>#> Sure.  Quite a few of us.  Why do you ask?
 
Gnomedplume@unowhere.com (Gnome d Plume):
#># Whoa thar, pardner! First let's git that thar "physical"
#># horse-pucky dee-fined 'afore we gits too far down the trail on this
#># one. If this tenderfoot means we calls 'um up in photographable, 
#># bite-you-in-the-leg real "physical" reality, then he's barkin' up the
#># wrong tree, 'cause even thems that say they do don't, and never did.

usually the words get in the way. that's why I focus on 'photographable'
vs. 'nonphotographable': because 'physical manifestations' are sometimes
interpreted to mean 'manifesting through a physical mechanism like my
sensory organs' (perception).

#># Visible appearance, shore enuff

even here you are talking about someone's perceptions. 
by 'visible appearance' you do NOT mean photographable.
typically and historically those who spoke of 'evoking
to visible appearance' were talking about what each of
us is denying is possible: external manifestations that
can be seen by interested observers.

#># ---but that "physical plane" idea got no place in 
#># real Magick. 

perhaps with Magick-with-a-K it'a all in your noggin,
but generally (as with Natural Magic described by such
traditionals as Agrippa), it is supposed to have
effects in the world at large also.

#># It's all in your noggin, kid. Get used to it.

that's the Weak Magic Hypothesis (psychological), yes.

it has application in mystical activities which it is
supposed to facilitate. I haven't seen too many positive
confirming databits indicating that many have perfected
this mysticism -- very many magicians I've met who had
this mystical effect in mind were what I would call
mystically/spiritually/emotionally immature. for this
reason I'm trying to reform ceremonialism toward 
more reliable and naturalistic parameters and welcome
all the coordinated data-collection that we can muster. 

nocTifer:
#> my friend Ebony Anpu claimed that he had a goetic demon attack him
#> when the sigils in rite were accidentally disrupted, ripping his
#> clothes. do you think he was lying, Poke? or had an active and
#> fabricating imagination? or did he evoke to manifest appearance
#> and interaction?
 
Gnomedplume@unowhere.com (Gnome d Plume):
# In my 30 years of doing Goetia and other magical operations 
# I've experienced several events I would call "supernatural" 
# phenomena....

I doubt you and he used the same procedures, but there 
may have been some similarities. I doubt that he used 
the mirror technique you invented, for example.

# ...it is apparent  that extreme cases of demonic
# possession and demonic attack are suffered by very repressed religious
# people, the mentally ill and, more recently, the meth-freaks. Your
# friend, in my opinion, ripped his own clothes in a fit not unlike a
# Hatian "Horse of the Ogun" (See some films of violent Voudoun trance
# episodes). 

that's kinda what I figured, at best.

# He probably isn't lying, he simply doesn't realize that he
# did it to himself----but then we have to ask ourselves: if the demon
# gets us to rip our clothes, then, in a genuinely magical sense, the
# demon has accomplished it. 

the issue wasn't whether the demon accomplished it but whether 
the demon had some kind of physical manifestation *aside* from 
the bodies they may have wished to or been invited to possess. 
you are saying 'no' here and I tend to agree.

# In my opinion, there is little practical difference in the effect, 

if one is attempting to discern ontological status of manifestation,
then effect is just an indicator.

# but there is a vast difference in intelligence and maturity
# between the two points of view.... 

I tend to agree. my hit on 'goetia' and demon-summoning in 
general is as a psycho-integrative mystical practice, potentially 
resolving personal *and* societal fragmentation. what you've
said on this score conforms by and large with my results to date.

when Ebony made the claim, I listened and then remembered it very
carefully for later association with his other claims, some of
which were in sympathy with my own (still very imaginative) and 
some of which seemed to be very outrageous to me (including such
things as time-travel, etc.).

that said, I don't think that the mental *set* of such stark
and critical scrutiny is necessarily helpful to the practice 
of demon-summoning. your mention of 'practical difference in
the effect' extends beyond the capacity of some magicians to
imagine or to make manifest to perception, and those such as
I who have been *heavily conditioned toward materialist and
rational perspectives (reductionist! skeptical! sometimes
even too cynical!!)* may have to take measures to temporarily
break DOWN these prohibitive perspectives in order to engage 
what we might call the magical imagination, reify psychic 
components as intelligences, and interact with them in a 
sincere way. the extended challenge, of course, is how to do
that without *fragmenting them into disuse and instability*.

how someone describes their experience to me is usually
taken in the context of what kind of person they tend to be;
whether they have skeptical capacity; whether they live in
a shamanic drama, completely indwelling to their inner
symbolic and largely imaginative life; what authority they
tend to give (what I can only assess as) their interior
allies; etc.  I usually allow for a variability and then 
translate across the breadth of perspectives I've 
accumulated in a kind of anthropological collection 
(presuming most to be symbolic, however they may be
understood by the religiomagical individual). 

your contention about the effects and the rationality is good 
for those who are attempting to analyze the events from the
*outside*, and is likely to help the more delusory remain
grounded. some are likely to find the attitude prohibitively-
rational and deconstructing, but I totally understand what
you're getting at.

over time I've noticed that a goodly number of occult folks
thought highy of Ebony as a magician, and so occasionally
I've relayed his testimonies to others with some experience
for consideration and review. thanks for your feedback. :>

nocTifer
 nagasiva@luckymojo.com