A Chaos Magick Lamp

[Ailius]

I suppose when I introduced myself, I promised to share some results. Up front, I'm a novice and this is entirely shit I made up as I was going along, so please don't roast me too hard for this.

Upfront, I will recommend against repeating what I did unless you modify some things.

The basic idea was to summon a servitour, though provide a lamp for it to live in. That way it's easy to feed it with a candle flame. I made a sigil for the entity and inscribed it on the lantern. For travel purposes I made an amulet with the same sigil inscribed, which I'd wear throughout the day but would hang on the lantern when lighting it.

I deliberately didn't dedicate it to any famous deity, and used cheap materials. I also didn't employ any safety systems, bind the spirit in any way, not even name it. I wanted to summon a spirit that had similar goals to my own and didn't want to force anything.

Communication with the spirit was limited to vague feelings. I am a novice.

Anyway, what I asked the entity to do was stop other people from wasting my time, as well as occasionally help with some problems.

The results were I got a spirit that had violent tendencies and tried to possess me a few times. With regards to stopping people from wasting my time, it performed that well. In terms of various 'wishes' - it started off kind of like a Monkey's Paw (I'd wish for a day off - it would arrange an accident that would hurt people I don't care about that would cause my company to shut down for the day.) but then it wouldn't even be that where I'd ask for things and the spirit would just do whatever (I'd ask for a friend with legal troubles to get out of jail early - there was a sudden storm that postponed his trial and kept him in jail a week longer - but the spirit arranged a surprise job interview for me.) Throughout the entire relationship I could feel the spirit pushing me into becoming more selfish, if not psychopathic.

Ultimately it eventually stopped being useful. The spirit was doing whatever it wanted and I wasn't really getting much out of the deal while putting myself at possession risk. I ended up cutting it off, dousing the materials in holy water, and disposing of them. (I do miss the 'do not let idiots waste my time' part of it.)


The question I have is a simple delusion check. I made this ritual up out of whole cloth. Does this sound like typical results for a novice trying chaos magick?

 

[Taudefindi]

what I asked the entity to do was stop other people from wasting my time

You don't need an entity to help you with that, you can do that yourself through very mundane means.

I deliberately didn't dedicate it to any famous deity, and used cheap materials. I also didn't employ any safety systems, bind the spirit in any way, not even name it.

I don't deal with entities but...what are the chances that there is no spirit and this is all in your head, literally?And the things that happened were merely a sequence of oddly-timed coincidences?

 

[KjEno186]

Does this sound like typical results for a novice trying chaos magick?

Yes.

I'm going to go ahead and believe that you attracted a low-order spirit, and it did things for you. Think of it like going downtown and holding up a "help wanted" sign. You bring along the first person who comes up to you and tell them to do things while paying them a bit. You don't ask for a name, but you give them a "place" to live in. You tell them you don't want to be bothered by people, and it figures out ways to manipulate situations to make it happen...

The more I think about it, the more this sounds like Voudun/Vodou (however one prefers to spell it), but you didn't go through Papa Legba first. See, you're supposed to go through the right channels and make the right offerings. So, yes, you did an experiment in the chaos style, and it sort of worked. Lesson learned! Try doing the same thing again and see if you get better results, or maybe you can check out the forum library for some books which will inspire you. There's the Conjure Codex, for one.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Does this sound like typical results for a novice trying chaos magick?

Yes, although strictly speaking in chaos magic you create a servitor rather than summon one (unless you're specifically working with someone's egregore, the multiperson version )

The big lesson I would say is indeed 'The Monkey's Paw' - you get exactly what you ask for, so a lot of thought has to go into designing your intent, and structuring your ritual.
@KjEno186 's idea of trying the Vodou paradigm sounds like a good one; if you're having problems with structure, using a known one will make it easier, but you will still get exactly what you asked for, even if the 'delivery method' behaves better.

Although he was not actually an occultist, H.P. Lovecraft had it right when he said "Do not call up that which you cannot put down"

 

[HoldAll]

My hat off to you for working with servitors as a novice - I have some experience with chaos magic sigils, with mixed, haphazard results but never graduated to servitor level. My conclusion was that the reason was lack of focus on my part so I'm currently working through Liber MMM (which I should have done when I first read "Liber Null & Psychonaut" instead of diving right in and greedily charging sigils right and left).

I don't think you sound like you're deluding yourself. People who do and then post here usually tell tall tales of high drama following an all too predictable script while your experiences resemble my first attempts with chaos magic sigils - either nothing would happen, or something half-assed with unintended side effects, or too late to be of any use, then the exact opposite, then again nothing at all again. I've tentatively identified insufficient concentration during the sigil creation process (my goal now would be a 100% focussed trance formulating my Sentence of Desire and then sigilizing it) as the biggest single factor for my failures but that may be just me and my own deficiencies. Ok, that was me and my experiences with chaos magic sigils, it's pure book knowledge from here onwards.

The idea behind a chaos magic servitor is to create an entity with limited autonomy for a specific task, which means it's a being unencumbered by traditional spirit lore - it should not be able to turn on his master like demons, succubi, etc. are sometimes said to do. The only reason I can think of that it tried to possess you is that you forgot to feed it. I had two familiars once, and all they required was some attention now and then, they somehow felt more vibrant afterwards, so that's important in my opinion.

I'd say it's ok to use cheap materials - after all, this is chaos magic, we're not trying to emulate King Solomon here. The lamp is a nice touch, lots of lamp magic in Antiquity, but whether a candle flame alone is suitable in the way of sustenance… the act of giving is somehow missing, the personal touch (of course I wouldn't lay on a lavish feast like people do for Voodoo spirits and whatnot). Making a silent dedication each time you light the lamp would be another idea - "Here, this is for you, from me." Just a guess, this is how I personally would do it.

Apart from the feeding question, the other thing is that a chaos magic servitor isn't supposed to be a genie in the bottle. Your servitor stopped other people from wasting your time so you can chalk that up as a success but why making those other wishes? Your servitor wasn't designed to fulfill those. The only other being I can think of who is capable of satisfying any desire I'd throw at it would be a Supernatural Assistant (paredros) as described in the Greek Magical Papyri; compared to such a near-omnipotent being, a servitor is a relatively primitive entity, literally a one-trick pony because it has only one task it is fully equipped to deal with, so I imagine it was completely overwhelmed when you asked it to rope-dance and pull rabbits out of a top hat, too.

(Mind you, the comments about feeding are purely theoretical guesswork but I'm pretty sure about the multitasking thing being too much for your servitor.)

 

[KjEno186]

violent tendencies and tried to possess me a few times.

I think this is what brought vodun/vodou to my mind. Possession is an accepted part of that belief system.

The basic idea was to summon a servitour

...as opposed to simply 'creating' one, which is a different mind-set. This is why I used a "help wanted" analogy instead of "build & program your own robot slave."

 

[WonderFire]

First of all, the lamp was a great idea. You did that part right.
Secondly, when creating servitors you can give them parameters for their behavior, so be sure to include not harming you in any ways and not harming your family, friends or property as well. Also, order them to always be loyal to you, can't hurt.
Not naming it was a big mistake, name is one of the best handles you can get on any being and in servitor creation it is commonly made from statement of intent for it, giving it core definition. Without it you can have this situation happen, where a spirit doesn't know what it's supposed to be and turns into a menace.
HoldAll is IMO right that a servitor made for preventing people from bothering you shouldn't be used for other random stuff. Sometimes you can stretch their purpose into something related, but in my experience not by much.

 

[HoldAll]

...as opposed to simply 'creating' one, which is a different mind-set. This is why I used a "help wanted" analogy instead of "build & program your own robot slave."

Spot on, I didn't even notice the 'summoning' part, mainly because it was so unexpected within the context of servitor work. According to chaos magic theory (practice would be way over my paygrade), you create a servitor as opposed to press-ganging a pre-existing entity into your service. It's what's so revolutionary about the idea behind it - more traditional magicians would go through endless catalogues of angels, demons, etc. instead just to find the right spirit with a suitable office for their purposes. You create a servitor for a single task without enough leeway or even intelligence to veer from its purpose, without any autonomy to become 'creative' or go postal as did yours.