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[Opinion] The Goetic Debate: Psychological Illusions vs. Objective Entities

Everyone's got one.

Robert Ramsay

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After reading through all of these responses (you fuckers are really smart), I can't help but feel the urge to scream a little. Not because the discussion is wrong, honestly, it's fascinating, but because I think sometimes we try so hard to explain a mystery that we forget to actually experience it. Good luck putting lightning in a bottle.

I am reminded of a quote from Tommy Kelly: "Some mysteries are to be experienced rather than solved."

Some minds cannot help but build castles and cathedrals around a mystery. We construct systems, models, philosophies, and explanations. There is nothing wrong with that. Those things can be beautiful and useful. But we should be careful not to mistake the explanation for the thing itself.

Sometimes the magick is in the mystery. Read that again if you need to.

The presence of a spirit does not become more real because we finally found the perfect words to describe it. The experience does not become more profound because we built a perfect container for it. Some things refuse to be contained.

Stand in awe of it. Let the encounter change you. Let it challenge you. Let it burn away what needs to be burned and teach what needs to be learned.

Maybe the mystery is not a problem to be solved. Maybe it is a relationship to be entered.

Experience is always greater than description. The terrain is not the map, and it never will be. You can spend a lifetime studying the ink, the paper, the lines, the cartographer, and the mathematics of the map, but eventually you have to step onto the land.

Don't let your desire for a box to contain the mystery become an excuse to never enter it. And don't let your attachment to one answer become the very thing that blinds you to what is actually happening.

What the hell do I know. I'm just another voice in the void. But I think sometimes the greatest wisdom is not having the final answer. Sometimes it is standing before the unknown and just saying: "Teach me."
Oh absolutely! Remember, though, that the castle building is usually a result of the experience - how you interpret your experience decides how you interact with it. You're going to need some kind of interpretation to get a handle on it, and you need to remember that all interpretations are transitory and should be replaced the minute you get a better one. I've always been instantly suspicious of anyone who claims to have that "final answer".

I don't think anyone no-one goes on about the map and the territory more than me :) As Robyn Hitchcock put it: "Wisdom cannot be transmitted".

Leaving yourself open to new stuff is the only way to go. As Isaac Asimov put it: "Scientific progress doesn't start with 'Eureka!', it starts with 'that's funny...'"
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Guard the mysteries!
Reveal them constantly!
 

MorganBlack

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I can't help but feel the urge to scream a little.

heh.

It's tough being a Daimonic Idealist. That time I tried to summon a cosmic entity beyond human imagination to ask about the nature of reality, but it just put me on hold and asked if I tried turning my universe off and on again. Buh-boom-buh-smash!

Models work best as tools for us to think and share our experiences in magic - after having them. Or just become sterile intellectualism that will waste your entire life ruminating over. Unless you want to.

There is only the Mystery (by many names). House Awe is the only house that really matters, in the end.

And to quote myself at the start:

"OK, when you encounter a spirit you conjured standing in front of you that you really didn't believe in, all this debate falls away. But until you get there, you sort of have to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. Most of the online discourse does not help. And now the internet debate culture makes everyone think too much and feel too little. Let's see if we can use some other thinky ideas to get past thinking in locked-down ways."

I am calling this "Daimonic Idealism" partially to honor the people who helped me articulate it, and because 'Neoplatonic-Orphic Daimonic Idealism' is getting a bit long and excludes more houses than I like.

My current ur-model (as a way of thinking about it) is built on top of time and place of Gen-X magical experimentation, testing specific parameters of how the various magic systems interact with perception and intent. The elevated status of a "model" here was reached only after rigorous stress-testing against raw data. Without real lived evidence, it remains just a hot take or a "faith."

So this is my personal ur-model for magical practice I'm articulating, drawing on other models. It is not supposed to be thought of as a stand-alone religion or "faith" - but for us to use in a practice, to think about and reintegrate all the crazy things that happen in traditional magic. Not to dismiss them as hallucination, which is silly. It models the experiences of many magicians, using my own as a baseline, but not only my experiences. I did not find the models first. I did grimoire magic first and was like... HOLY FUCK!! There really is no point in becoming another crazy schizoid talking about loony wack-a-doodle stuff most people don't care about.

Gen-X magicians DIY'd the FUCK out of western magic and the grimoires, very much in relative isolation in the 1980s and 1990s, and found what worked for us, then met up in Yahoo Groups, finding surprising similarities of experiences among us from many different personal backgrounds and ethnicities. Then many published books, spawned interest in pop-occultism, and it was all downhill for 15 or 20 years or so. (I blame the Neptune in Pisces transit as everyone threw off any Saturnian discipline for identity politics and dissolved all ritual precedent. "Do whatever you want" magic mostly failed. See Neville for the good stuff here.)

This Idealism also "fixes" the tendency in Analytic Idealism to float back into Secularism, and the Animist tendency from being grafted on to materialism. "Spirits = energy" is a pet peeve of mine. It funnels downstream back into paganism, vampirism, and other "faiths" with their materialism-adjacent magical electricity as the only causal agent for magic, so people waste time trying to set paper on fire with their fingers rather than becoming powerful. (not enough minds behind that idea to be a "thing" )

The true "mechanism" of magic, in this model, is not magical electricity, but immersion. The real engine is not found in intellectualized left-brain frameworks or rigid categorical thinking, but in total psychological and environmental surrender to the frame. (House Islam, House TradCath, and House Artist actually get this right, but the word culd needed upsating for the modern age - which is why I propose 'Immersion' You 'surrender' here the same way you surrender to a movie you are watchingm or a video game you are playing. ) It uses anticipatory architecture to prime the nervous system to register anomalous data. It is "belief " - but not held as a dogmatic, left-brain "thinky" conviction, but experienced as an embodied, right-brain, and whole-body state of being where knowing and doing quantum collapse into a single act and reality.

Every House offers an accessible, entry-level hot take designed for newcomers. It gives beginners a tangible hook, but it is fundamentally a surface-level placeholder. Then newcomers mistake the model for the key itself, believing that mastering the architecture of the explanation unlocks the phenomenon. In reality, the models are ritual and mythic affordances for us to enter what I am proposing we think of as different game server realities.

Ultimately, there is no box. The box is just for us to integrate experiences. But there are rules for each shared, dreamed-up reality. Most newcomers are looking for the perfect model to pre-adopt and graft to their head like an Alien's face-hugger, which they think is the trick to making the magic work, and cheap, fast magic theory sells best.
 

diskrete

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@MorganBlack - as you are a practitioner with a lot of experience, whats your opinion on the more "traditonalist", or should i say "rconstructionalist" approach, like those done by ImperialArts, Julio Cesar Ody, or Lisiewski, the author of "Howlings" ? All 3 of them, claim that A - phsical manisfestation is not jus possible, but required as a sign of success, and B - "exotic" tools, like the literal "Lions Skin Belt". or certain knives are required. What do you think?
 

MorganBlack

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whats your opinion on the more "traditonalist", or should i say "rconstructionalist
To be clear I like those guys a whole bunch! (Lisiewski, less so. He tried to "prove" it all to a secular audience that is his ontological enemy, and went off the deep end. Dude did himself real damage and is very much a cautionary tale )

That said, I'm very House TradCath, in my heart ,body and soul. While my intellect is still inclusive and agnostic. Daimonc Idealism is my shabby attempt to get my thinky-brain to shut up. I also think it's what going on, but it too is just my current model.

It is also not my place to speak for them, or anyone. I also see a lot of myself in them, and I think what they are holding to and defending themselves from being erased by is post-Enlightenment, technocratic consensus. That is an anti-magic reality and yeah. keep at arms breadth or more

And more practically we all seem to lean to the aggressive side of sorcery a bit. So in part, maybe the reason they hate the paganism and House Anglo-Secular esotericism is that both are very culturally "hippie-coded." I and other Folk Catholic sorcerers pull no punches, but that is another topic entirely.
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RE: The lion-skin belt, et al. Not totally required but you will have a more full experince using them. (Verum does not require the belts or any belts, but it is helpful if you are using the Lesser Key it prbobably helps. It is easier to "phase" yourself into the Verum reality-server if you are carrying the player items we are all using to play that game. The daimons see them and know you are serious. If not, you could be just some dweeb who wanders in by mistake. My Verum practice is actually pretty loose. Lisiewski spread a lot of unnecessary fear. That said, I have been told by the Daimons to tighten it up and be a bit more traditional.

For sorcery - magic for effects in the world - all the kit and rigamoarole it is not required. But if you want more nuanced communication with them, a more nuanced mythic and symbolic language is required. Or they will just pick up whatever secular vernacular you are living in and use that. But it will reify House Secular until one day, maybe, they can only appear as UFOs to you and only able to do stupid shit. The reality house rules ofthat universe have changed and your hnew reality does not allow them to exist fully exist t as cartoons, or maybe just an impression, or intition. That is a boring unuivers to be in and you have the allthe keys to exit it, post haste.
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And let's flip this around. Maybe everyone else are the people with problems. Magicians who come from traditional religious cultures really do not need any of this construct we cass "occultism" or "magic."

They don't need us, unlike suburbanites in American mall culture, or the Anglo-Atlantic imperial technocratic culture. They not benefit at all from House Secular jumping over to whitesplain reality to them. Julio, my Mexican-American aunt who was a curandera, Haitian bokors, Folk Catholic magicians have absolutely nothing to gain from paganism, vampirism, the LHP, New Age, Anglo esotericism, the "occult," or even my Daimonic Idealism. Modern esotericism is just a temporarily useful construct for people who have had the sense of the sacred and magical surgically removed from their cultures.
 
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Darkat

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After reading through all of these responses (you fuckers are really smart), I can't help but feel the urge to scream a little. Not because the discussion is wrong, honestly, it's fascinating, but because I think sometimes we try so hard to explain a mystery that we forget to actually experience it. Good luck putting lightning in a bottle.

I am reminded of a quote from Tommy Kelly: "Some mysteries are to be experienced rather than solved."

Some minds cannot help but build castles and cathedrals around a mystery. We construct systems, models, philosophies, and explanations. There is nothing wrong with that. Those things can be beautiful and useful. But we should be careful not to mistake the explanation for the thing itself.

Sometimes the magick is in the mystery. Read that again if you need to.

The presence of a spirit does not become more real because we finally found the perfect words to describe it. The experience does not become more profound because we built a perfect container for it. Some things refuse to be contained.

Stand in awe of it. Let the encounter change you. Let it challenge you. Let it burn away what needs to be burned and teach what needs to be learned.

Maybe the mystery is not a problem to be solved. Maybe it is a relationship to be entered.

Experience is always greater than description. The terrain is not the map, and it never will be. You can spend a lifetime studying the ink, the paper, the lines, the cartographer, and the mathematics of the map, but eventually you have to step onto the land.

Don't let your desire for a box to contain the mystery become an excuse to never enter it. And don't let your attachment to one answer become the very thing that blinds you to what is actually happening.

What the hell do I know. I'm just another voice in the void. But I think sometimes the greatest wisdom is not having the final answer. Sometimes it is standing before the unknown and just saying: "Teach me."

Well said Fireborn - particularly that bit about screaming!
 

MorganBlack

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There is a place for the occasional anti-intellectualism.

The Grim Verum , my main practice, is part of the Western tradition of "learned magic." But Verum in practice is very "witchy"and "shamanic."

For now we are on this forum... using words. And until we develop reliable telepathy and can just sort of beam nuance to everybody , we are kind of stuck using them.

But I am open to suggestions here. What do you suggest, Darkat?

 

Lucien6493

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heh.

It's tough being a Daimonic Idealist. That time I tried to summon a cosmic entity beyond human imagination to ask about the nature of reality, but it just put me on hold and asked if I tried turning my universe off and on again. Buh-boom-buh-smash!

Models work best as tools for us to think and share our experiences in magic - after having them. Or just become sterile intellectualism that will waste your entire life ruminating over. Unless you want to.

There is only the Mystery (by many names). House Awe is the only house that really matters, in the end.

And to quote myself at the start:

"OK, when you encounter a spirit you conjured standing in front of you that you really didn't believe in, all this debate falls away. But until you get there, you sort of have to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. Most of the online discourse does not help. And now the internet debate culture makes everyone think too much and feel too little. Let's see if we can use some other thinky ideas to get past thinking in locked-down ways."

I am calling this "Daimonic Idealism" partially to honor the people who helped me articulate it, and because 'Neoplatonic-Orphic Daimonic Idealism' is getting a bit long and excludes more houses than I like.

My current ur-model (as a way of thinking about it) is built on top of time and place of Gen-X magical experimentation, testing specific parameters of how the various magic systems interact with perception and intent. The elevated status of a "model" here was reached only after rigorous stress-testing against raw data. Without real lived evidence, it remains just a hot take or a "faith."

So this is my personal ur-model for magical practice I'm articulating, drawing on other models. It is not supposed to be thought of as a stand-alone religion or "faith" - but for us to use in a practice, to think about and reintegrate all the crazy things that happen in traditional magic. Not to dismiss them as hallucination, which is silly. It models the experiences of many magicians, using my own as a baseline, but not only my experiences. I did not find the models first. I did grimoire magic first and was like... HOLY FUCK!! There really is no point in becoming another crazy schizoid talking about loony wack-a-doodle stuff most people don't care about.

Gen-X magicians DIY'd the FUCK out of western magic and the grimoires, very much in relative isolation in the 1980s and 1990s, and found what worked for us, then met up in Yahoo Groups, finding surprising similarities of experiences among us from many different personal backgrounds and ethnicities. Then many published books, spawned interest in pop-occultism, and it was all downhill for 15 or 20 years or so. (I blame the Neptune in Pisces transit as everyone threw off any Saturnian discipline for identity politics and dissolved all ritual precedent. "Do whatever you want" magic mostly failed. See Neville for the good stuff here.)

This Idealism also "fixes" the tendency in Analytic Idealism to float back into Secularism, and the Animist tendency from being grafted on to materialism. "Spirits = energy" is a pet peeve of mine. It funnels downstream back into paganism, vampirism, and other "faiths" with their materialism-adjacent magical electricity as the only causal agent for magic, so people waste time trying to set paper on fire with their fingers rather than becoming powerful. (not enough minds behind that idea to be a "thing" )

The true "mechanism" of magic, in this model, is not magical electricity, but immersion. The real engine is not found in intellectualized left-brain frameworks or rigid categorical thinking, but in total psychological and environmental surrender to the frame. (House Islam, House TradCath, and House Artist actually get this right, but the word culd needed upsating for the modern age - which is why I propose 'Immersion' You 'surrender' here the same way you surrender to a movie you are watchingm or a video game you are playing. ) It uses anticipatory architecture to prime the nervous system to register anomalous data. It is "belief " - but not held as a dogmatic, left-brain "thinky" conviction, but experienced as an embodied, right-brain, and whole-body state of being where knowing and doing quantum collapse into a single act and reality.

Every House offers an accessible, entry-level hot take designed for newcomers. It gives beginners a tangible hook, but it is fundamentally a surface-level placeholder. Then newcomers mistake the model for the key itself, believing that mastering the architecture of the explanation unlocks the phenomenon. In reality, the models are ritual and mythic affordances for us to enter what I am proposing we think of as different game server realities.

Ultimately, there is no box. The box is just for us to integrate experiences. But there are rules for each shared, dreamed-up reality. Most newcomers are looking for the perfect model to pre-adopt and graft to their head like an Alien's face-hugger, which they think is the trick to making the magic work, and cheap, fast magic theory sells best.
Well said Fireborn - particularly that bit about screaming!
There is a place for the occasional anti-intellectualism.

The Grim Verum , my main practice, is part of the Western tradition of "learned magic." But Verum in practice is very "witchy"and "shamanic."

For now we are on this forum... using words. And until we develop reliable telepathy and can just sort of beam nuance to everybody , we are kind of stuck using them.

But I am open to suggestions here. What do you suggest, Darkat?

Nothing cures Intellectualism quite like calling upon a spirit to obligingly re‑arrange the chaos of your most cherished presumptions, worldly or otherwise, regardless of how deeply rooted and solid and logical they might appear. It is merely the flip side of anti-intellectualism though, and hauntingly similar in structure to the original question..."real or not?" What @MorganBlack calls Daimonic Idealism does not fit into that schema at all, but is upstream of it, far closer to the word-play perfected by traditional oral cultures. But then, he is a closet Vaishnavite devoted to Saraswati. And alas, She flooded him. Now he is carried away by the mighty torrents of her Vac. ;)

Daimonic reality is multivalent. In other words, it has many meanings. A Daimon is never just one thing. It is not logical. When you come across the unknown in the deep-wood and you poke at it, what you get, quite apart from what you thing you are getting, will mean an "n" number of different things at the same time, some of those meanings (and time-frames) being self-contradictory and/or contradictory to others meanings/realities in the stack because reality is fundamentally relational.

For inveterate pseudo-intellectuals like me that is pure candy. We love us some holy paradox. Just as we love us the Demiurge and his creation (Ahriman) which some call consensus reality, if they are still ensnared by it. Within the Daimonic, whatever the hell it is, even the "real world" is filled with infinite wonders and complexities though because we ourselves are far more than we know, and usually we don't know what what we are, let alone where we are, or what we are doing there, let alone where there (the daemonic) actually takes place. All you can do is jump in and go where the story, and your place within it, might take you.
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I would just add that since we have dual-citizenship we are always navigating the Daimonic from within the interwoven Ahrimanic reality and veer, depending on circumstance, and happenstance, sometimes toward the rational/irrational side of the spectrum; sometimes thinking in psychological terms, sometimes not; sometimes going for full immersion, other times using an intellectual approach to shit, with no position being anything other than fluid.
 
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MorganBlack

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But then, he is a closet Vaishnavite devoted to Saraswati. And alas, She flooded him.
Aww. You know me so well, Lucien! But I can't just come of here and swoon over Her, and the World Soul, as much as my heart sings to her song.

All us mystics ultimately only speak only one language. But I'm not a Levanatine or Hellenic mystic of two thousand years ago. In 2026 America we just don't thave much mythic langage lef rand these are are probably the best ones, I feel, for now. I'm appy to swtich to new ones and better ones if they appear.

Unless ya'll wanna to Strip Mall Jesus. ( or Strip Mall Odin?). I mean.... fine... but please don't make me.!

There is a real spiritual reality there, as with all mystics, but it's also being shoved through and had to manifest in a greatly reduced, monosyllabic, and far less nuanced mythic language. We can do better, I feel.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 

Angelkesfarl

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Guys, come on—I feel like we’re getting too deep into philosophy, and to me, these are just given facts! Is there a devil? Of course there is. How did magic come about? It came from only two sources: the devil, first and foremost. I need to explain the whole idea. There was a war long ago, before humans existed, between the angels and the jinn. It ended with the defeat of the jinn, and the angels took only one jinn to heaven. In one account, he was called Azazel, and in another, Azweil. I’m convinced his name is Sandiel. The jinn grew up among the angels. One account says that he prostrated himself on the ground eighty times, touching every inch of it in prayer to God. Because of the strength of his faith in the One God, God elevated him until he became the peacock of the angels. Due to the depth of his philosophy, piety, and faith, he became one of the greatest beings in the universe, and he once possessed the keys to... the Garden of Eden, to the point that he came to enjoy vast powers and great abilities, and multitudes of angels loved him and served him as the Lord’s most devoted servants, until the creation of Adam, Adam was created as the first human from clay, and when God breathed the breath of life into him, He commanded the angels to prostrate themselves before Adam. Here, the prostration did not mean that he had become a god, but rather it was a prostration of obedience, for he was to be the vicegerent—that is, the one entrusted with the stewardship of the universe, beginning with the earth. At this point, one being—let us imagine that all the angels prostrated in obedience to God’s command—except for one creature of fire who stood firm, refusing to prostrate before Adam and refusing to obey him. He was named Iblis, and “Iblis” in the language means “the one who is certain”—that is, certain that he has no mercy from God because of his curse for refusing to prostrate, And so Iblis—or the Devil—was cast out of God’s mercy, expelled from Paradise, and fell from his station. This is what is now called “the Fall” or “the Fallen Angel,” as recounted in Jewish and Christian narratives. Indeed, if we look at all myths, there is always a god and a rebel—Zeus and Hades, for example—which is the same narrative as Osiris and Set.

It’s the same in Indian or Chinese stories—or in any language or culture—you’ll find the same story repeated in one form or another. The important thing is that when he failed the divine test, he didn’t stop there; rather, he declared that this human being—whom God had honored and to whom the angels had bowed—was not worthy of such honor, and that if God were to grant Satan some power, he would prove that he could make humans his playthings with just a little cunning. The first thing he turned to was sorcery. Another point is that he asked to be kept alive until the Day of Judgment, which explains why sorcery has persisted despite the long years—it remains effective because he is the master of sorcery and its greatest manipulator. There is also another story about two angels who taught humans sorcery, but it is a different kind of sorcery—one stronger than Satan’s—it is pure angelic sorcery. Therefore, if we look closely, we’ll find that magic truly falls into two categories: angelic or satanic. The rest of magic—such as the arrangement of the stars or the manipulation of materials, that is, elemental magic—is a small part of a larger reality. That is all I have to say, and I hope we can return to one simple point: regarding the opinion of demons or spirits and our interaction with them, you will realize that all the claims that this is merely a psychological phenomenon are nothing but the ramblings of people who have failed to establish true communication...
 

YevheniiaM

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Are the demons of the Goetia merely mental illusions, or are they actual, independent entities? In reality, two competing schools of thought clash over this very question.

The Mirror of the Subconscious
The first school, championed by Aleister Crowley, views these spirits as nothing more than fragments and ideas within the human mind—magical illusions that manifest only through deep immersion in the work. From this perspective, the complex rituals, specific incenses, and barbarous names serve solely to induce a state of self-delusion within the magician's mind. This prepares the practitioner to enter an altered state of reality, sharpening their own faculties to the point of manifestation; thus, the magician themselves becomes the demon.

This perspective is fiercely supported by Peter J. Carroll's school of thought. In his books, Liber Null and Psychonaut, Carroll argues that names and talismans act merely as "cognitive links." He posits that an entity is nothing but a temporary belief system—an egregore or tulpa—constructed by the magician's consciousness. Once the magician invests belief in the entity during the ritual, psychic energy flows through the "Aether" or "Chaos" to manifest results in reality. This independent existence of the entity dissolves the moment that belief is broken.

Lon Milo DuQuette famously encapsulated this approach with his words: "It's all in your head... you just have no idea how big your head is." He maintains that evocative magic is fundamentally an internal exploration of the depths of the bohemian human psyche, wherein the universe and everything within it are cosmic psychological forces and etheric energies manifesting inside the magician's own mind.


Conversely, a contrasting school of thought is led by Jake Stratton-Kent, a pioneer of the traditional magical revival. In works such as Geosophia and The True Grimoire, Stratton-Kent vehemently opposes Crowley, dismissing the psychological interpretation of the previous school as a mere "impotent modernist deviation."

What is the root of this supposed impotence? Proponents of this view argue that magic squares, sigils, evocations, invocations, and constraints must interface with an entity entirely separate from ourselves. These entities possess distinct natures and differing etheric bodies, operating with their own free will. To reduce magic to mere psychology or illusion is a supreme manifestation of human arrogance—or perhaps, simply an inability to achieve true evocations, which drives such practitioners to doubt the existence of any non-human intelligence.

Aaron Leitch, an expert in Solomonic and Enochian magic, echoes this in his book, The Secrets of the Magickal Grimoires. He asserts that a magician does not generate energy from within their own mind, but rather negotiates with foreign, real entities residing in parallel etheric realms. The physical evidence of a successful ritual—such as tangible changes within the room or concrete results in the lives of third parties who have no knowledge of the working—proves the existence of an independent, external catalyst.


This brings us to a fundamental question: Are all these names, spirits, and demons merely cognitive states and mental illusions? Or are they actual persons and entities capable of manifesting within space-time, triggering shifts that no human psyche—no matter how elevated—could ever reach or replicate?

In truth, I hold my own certainty. Do you hold yours?
From my point of view, the answer depends on the basis on which the model of perception of the world is built. The world exists objectively, but as we see it, it is always subjective. This is the whole point. I see reality as a combination of fields and vibrations. Thanks to quantum mechanics for this. What I see under the same conditions, another person will not see. He will see something else. Reality is one, but the perception of reality is different. Diane Fortune describes this well. Accordingly, we cannot see the truth; we will always see something of our own. Do Spirits exist as truth? Yes, as long as there are people who see them. Without human perception, they will not exist; nothing will exist without an observer. Therefore, I think both schools are right. Entities simultaneously exist in our consciousness and are at the same time absolutely real. Entities are faces of reality, of which there are many. Behind these faces, in my opinion, lies the Triune force. For me, this is so thanks to Kabbalah and quantum physics. And this is also a Face. I consider it impossible to know the truth in all its fullness, having a mind and a body.
 

Angelkesfarl

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I appreciate your point of view and your sincere expression of what you see, but I know it’s truly confusing and complicated. As for communication, demons do indeed have many different ways of communicating; including the ability to enter the body of the person who summons them and take up residence there—a phenomenon that is real and attested to by reality. In this sense, they are real, but they are like air, for example: they can enter the human body and flow through it just as air flows through the blood, then exit with every breath. They can also communicate with humans through the heart, imparting feelings and sensations, They can even communicate through images, transmitting a distant reality directly to a person’s mind and consciousness. It is as if the person is recalling a place they have never visited but can describe it with precision, just as the image was accurately conveyed to their consciousness and memory. In fact, they have a direct mental connection with humans—and this is not limited to demons but applies to the jinn in general or any unseen creature beyond the realm of the physical senses. I see the universe as consisting of dense layers, the outermost of which is the visible shell, and within it, like the core of a fruit, are seven worlds arranged like concentric circles, and demons or spirits can, through the knowledge of names or words, pass from one world to another; for what words bring forth, words can also expel, but they are separate entities—and I emphasize the word “separate”—they are not a product of human imagination or mere figments of thought, but rather other entities, other beings who have their own likes and dislikes. They are not purely good; they eat, drink, and breathe, though in a manner different from humans. There is also good and evil among them, and they have their own desires—indeed, illusions of their own. What I meant was that considering demons to be part of the human mind—that all this talk is an illusion and pure nonsense created by the imaginations or delusions of those who believe in them...

As for the truth, the truth is the truth—it is not something relative, as we believe. The relativity we claim is, in fact, a single truth that others perceive. You see on your screen what I am writing, and all the inhabitants of the earth will see it; therefore, it is a fact that I wrote it. Here, the actual truth dispels any illusion, As for the human mind’s perception of the forms of spirits, their manifestations, or even interaction with them—these are not aspects of the truth, but rather distinct realities. To put it simply: does someone who summons, say, Baimon, really think he’ll appear in person every time? Anyone who thinks that the King of a realm and Ruler of millions of spirits would abandon all his duties to come sit, listen, and discuss a matter that might be trivial to him is a person of primitive and shallow thinking. Spirits have representatives—various forms of assistants—who answer every questioner. These representatives possess varying degrees of strength and weakness, different forms, and changing modes of manifestation depending on their power, element, the nature of the day and hour of their appearance, and even the type of incense or medium used. All of these factors are determined by the spirits before they manifest to you, That is why I warn all students and practitioners to be mindful of this simple deception that many fall for. For example, someone might say, “I saw the spirit in the form of a lion, a beast, a golden or yellow snake, a bear, or any other such form,” while another might see a benevolent spirit in the form of, say, a cheetah with its right leg severed and two horns? Here we must clarify that the one who appeared to you is not Imbon, but rather the entity known as the Black Maimon. In this case, this one is the prince, while the other is the king…?! And so, if he appears in the form of a very tall, strong black man with blue eyes, then this is the Blue Maimun, and here he will work with you, for example, to bring you romantic love. But if he appears with a sword and eyes as red as flames, then this is the Swordsman Maimun; if you ask him for love, he will not answer you, but if you ask him to banish any demon or subdue any jinn, he will do so—and he may even perform supernatural feats, such as splitting a wall, a tree, or an animal for you, to give a rough example.
 

MorganBlack

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Guys, come on—I feel like we’re getting too deep into philosophy,
My intention was to articulate a lens through esoteric allegory, much in the tradition of Plato.

However, modern America and the greater Western Post-Enlightenment mindset is not classical Greece, and we could need fresh ideas suited for a contemporary audience. We too are a culture.

People from deeply rooted religious traditions - such as Islam or Catholicism - may not gain too much from this specific model, as they can draw directly on the rich mythic language of their own native cultures. (Even while they do not think of them as myth, framework, or lens. And I'm not suggesting they should, either.)

In a practical sense, attempting to appease "House Secular" could actually undermine their spirituality by diluting their own internal and felt sense of what is real, while throwing them out of alignment with the mythic reality of their community, their physical location on the planet (the biosphere), and their shared local reality (the "mythsphere" - to make up a term ). Ultimately, this framework is my attempt to create a sort of meta-level mode that avoids more secular, or Anglo-esoteric models, from erasing traditional religious identities, and vice versa
 

Angelkesfarl

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My intention was to articulate a lens through esoteric allegory, much in the tradition of Plato.

However, modern America and the greater Western Post-Enlightenment mindset is not classical Greece, and we could need fresh ideas suited for a contemporary audience. We too are a culture.

People from deeply rooted religious traditions - such as Islam or Catholicism - may not gain too much from this specific model, as they can draw directly on the rich mythic language of their own native cultures. (Even while they do not think of them as myth, framework, or lens. And I'm not suggesting they should, either.)

In a practical sense, attempting to appease "House Secular" could actually undermine their spirituality by diluting their own internal and felt sense of what is real, while throwing them out of alignment with the mythic reality of their community, their physical location on the planet (the biosphere), and their shared local reality (the "mythsphere" - to make up a term ). Ultimately, this framework is my attempt to create a sort of meta-level mode that avoids more secular, or Anglo-esoteric models, from erasing traditional religious identities, and vice versa
My dear friend, of course we cannot apply the principles of secularism or sensualism alone to a society nourished by myths, because, quite simply, sensualist thought does not believe in what lies beyond the senses. Platonism, however, is very good, but we in the Eastern school have been influenced by both it and Hermeticism, and we have taken them as starting points for our Eastern philosophies and worldview—that is, we have filled in the missing pieces of the picture, to arrive at the total picture that must exist, for it is a picture of existence itself. Of course, your words have influenced and even changed her perspective and the depth of her insight into the subject, but what I meant was—setting aside the philosophies of logic—has someone like you personally witnessed the spirit world, gone to them, and interacted with them? Demons, goblins, or jinn are not merely forms or esoteric perspectives; your interaction with them through thought is what makes you mistakenly believe they are merely intellectual constructs—but they connect with you only intellectually, beyond the actual physical distances that separate us. It’s like a dream—does that mean that because you saw me in your dream, I’m not real? This is one aspect of applying practical philosophy and explaining it to both students and seasoned practitioners alike… Here’s an example of the inner devil, “the companion”: it’s an entity that follows you in every situation. The explainer even described it as eating your food, drinking your drink, and even having intercourse with any woman you’re with. So is its eating here physical or spiritual? It is physical in the sense of the senses, but the nature of its consumption of food differs from yours; it takes certain extremely tiny substances—particles, to be precise—from food and drink, and even from sugar and wine. For this reason, the ancients said, for example, that when you offer sacrifices to the spirits of the four celestial spheres or to the spirits of the head and tail, ‘Set out a specific dish for them, and they will eat from it.’ They noted that their consumption occurs through the scent of the food and the transfer of its energy to them. For this reason, they said and forbade eating from what was offered to them, because it has lost its power and its honor.” Here, I want everyone to distinguish between those who have become obsessed with the idea that the jinn and the worlds are merely… ‘Set out a specific dish for them, and they will eat from it.’ Note that they eat by inhaling its aromas and through the transfer of the food’s energy to them. For this reason, they said and forbade eating from what was offered to them, because it has lost its power and its honor.”

I am here to help everyone distinguish between those who have become so consumed by the belief that demons and other worlds are merely psychological illusions, and the reality and absolute truth that they are physical beings—and that their bodies are not like ours; they are composed of a fundamental fiery essence that has transformed into an ethereal, spiritual substance capable of taking any form. The spiritual realm is vast, and it requires us to reevaluate everything we understand, for everything has a counterpart—a reflected form. That is why there is a spirit of the tree, a spirit of water, and another for birds… and so on. In reality, aren’t you addressing those spirits rather than the tree or the bird itself?
 

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My idea i think differ from you i stand partially together with the theory demons are actual entities but in my opinion not independently they are dependent entities they need vessel to do their work they use herbs, animals even human as vessel
 

MorganBlack

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has someone like you personally witnessed the spirit world, gone to them, and interacted with them

Of course. I think you know me well enough by now, I don't just say things for no reason. I do not engage in dry intellectualism, which I consider a waste of my time.

The Grimorium Verum is my main form of sorcery, and has been for 30 years. Honestly, this model is closer to classical Neoplatonism than most realize. If Plato was alive today he'd be an Idealist. And Iamblichus would be a Daimonic Idealist. (Change my mind, bro. Kidding, kidding.)

I do not create models ahead of experience, which is terrible idea, nor do I hold any opinions about forms of magic I have not actually tried. And even when they did not work for me, like Chaos Magic sigils back in the 1980s when I was a kid, I still will never argue with the people who use them and find they work.

This is my attempt to create an inclusive model for what I have experienced in my 30 years of grimoire magic and spirit evocation.

While I tried to create a model that allows people room to have their own faiths, be it pagan, Muslim, or TradCath, I seem to get the most pushback from the more fundamentalist and mythic literalist types.

You guys are more similar to each other than you realize. Which is fine, but then pagans should not be yelling about how they are any different from the "Abrahamists." Scratch off that thin pagan coating, and you are the same folks underneath.

Neoplatonism provides a hierarchy of minds and an ontological architecture (The One, the Nous, the World Soul) and views consciousness as fundamental, and not as a freak byproduct of dead matter. It sees a cosmos that is inherently psychic and structured from the top down, while aldo agreeing the animist understanding that the world is alive with intent and personhood, without requiring hand-waving or anti-intellectual dogma.

Idealism also really needs a wedding to animism because pure metaphysics - even sophisticated versions like Bernado Kastrup's Analytical Idealism - runs the risk of becoming an ivory-tower abstraction if it isn't grounded in a living, relational evocation practice. .Without animism, Idealism stays too mental, too disembodied. But without idealism, animism easily devolves into materialism-adjacent sparkly-magic woo-woo of1 9th century magical electricity with an anime skin, or worse, a Calvinist , anti-human, authoritarian-but-pagan modern cults, that often places daimons above humans in an effort to manipulate their followers.

The Daimonic is our intermediate reality and the lateral connective tissue. Animism populates the world with persons, spirits, and presences, fpces acting aspersonl while Idealism provides the framework of a universal mind. Neoplatonism links them directly via its cosmology of daimones. They are nodes within a unified field of consciousness. This gives grimoire work and spirit evocation a coherent theoretical home.You you are interacting with distinct, localized foci (and persons) of a fundamentally mental universe.

As for all fundamentalists and mythic literalists - whether driven by dogmatic materialist scientism or dogmatic religious literalism - we will simply have to agree to disagree. Neoplatonism and Daimonic Idealism treat myths and symbols as living, participatory realities. They allow an operator to engage spirits, grimoires, daimons, angels, and even "pagan" gods with absolute seriousness and efficacy without having to check their critical intellect at the door or swallow literalist fairy tales.

But like i said, this model is mostly for Western minds who, like myself , grew up with heavy 'secular-brain.' People in more traditonal cultures can use their own mythic syntheis they get from their own deep and nuanced religious history and culture.
 

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I understand your point of view. When I say that they are conscious, distinct, and existing entities, I want to move on to the next move on the board: Where are they? What are they like? What are the boundaries of the spiritual empire? Who are its rulers? What is the hierarchical structure of this ruling system? What are their desires and ambitions? Does the other world love you or hate you? Does it respect you and your existence, or does it view you as a burden and a drain? Why do those worlds serve you, and what do they get in return? These are the questions of all questions, and their answers are the map that leads the way through a dark and unseen path imperceptible to the senses. To subject an imperceptible world to the rules of science in a perceptible world is a form of madness… isn’t it?
 

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I understand your point of view. When I say that they are conscious, distinct, and existing entities, I want to move on to the next move on the board
Ah! Thank you for that, Angelkesfarl. It helps me understand where you re coming from . Those are excellent motivations, the seeking of answers to the truly big question is worthy of all respect.

Daimonc Idealism, as I intended, sits at the very best of the current Western intersection of epistemology, philosophy of science, and pragmatism, and it's redisocvered re-engagemebnt with a living comsos. It's also my attempt, to include all religions, why they can all "work" for beauty, joy, (the re-echantment of the world, and practical effects), but it also can't have any take the "top spot" - even my beloved Catholicism. Mary is not Ultimate Truth, even as much as I am in love with her.

We can have what I think of as "Operative Truth" or Instrumental Truth in the tradition of Pragmatism from William James and John Dewey. Pragmatists redefined truth based on function and consequences. Ans it my general intellectual framework for someone raised with a heavy secular-brain, as I have. A concept or model is "true" insofar as it works to navigate experience, solve a problem, or structure our actions and explorations. "Truth" is not a static property waiting to be discovered by "great men" or whomever. We only seek operations that yield predictable outcomes. That is enough for me.

Not to go on about this, but the Instrumentalism of John Dewey see theories, formulas, and visual/conceptual frameworks strictly as mental tools ( the "instruments" or tools-for-thinking and exploration) rather than literal depictions of reality / realities. Newton’s "laws" of motion are not "wrong" in an absolute sense, and they remain operationally true for building bridges , or other local physics calculations. They have also been "displaced" in some contexts by Einstein’s General Relativity, which gives is a more precise lens when looking at more cosmological scales.

I am just a sorcerer, and whatever "religion" or "faith" I have is for my heart and mytical pratice, not my intellect,. I am CAtholic, not becasue it is "true" (while I feel it is as another level of reality) but becasue it is beautiful. I did not mean to fall in love, but I did. I think of all relgions this way, as things people have fallen in love with, and it's not my intetion to take any of that away (while also batting away the low-info hostiles who want to yell at me, but whatever).
 

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I understand your point of view. When I say that they are conscious, distinct, and existing entities, I want to move on to the next move on the board: Where are they? What are they like? What are the boundaries of the spiritual empire? Who are its rulers? What is the hierarchical structure of this ruling system? What are their desires and ambitions? Does the other world love you or hate you? Does it respect you and your existence, or does it view you as a burden and a drain? Why do those worlds serve you, and what do they get in return? These are the questions of all questions, and their answers are the map that leads the way through a dark and unseen path imperceptible to the senses. To subject an imperceptible world to the rules of science in a perceptible world is a form of madness… isn’t it?
The ʿālam al‑mithāl (the Imaginal) is real. No doubt. And did it's Sovereign draw the maps? It is you who draws them. He sets the conditions through which you perceive his forms. To him you are clay, even as he is smokeless fire. So well might one imagine that the cosmological map has more to do with where your heart is than it has do to with his kingdom, for that kingdom of dreams and smoke and mirrors will reflect back to you all that wherewith he tests you. You would not be so bold as to construct with clay a map of the Garden, let alone the realm of Dominion or the Divine Reality itself, and then wonder about where you put the plumbing would you? It is forbidden, in Islam, to reify the unseen, for to do so is to mistake symbol for substance, and to make the unseen resemble the seen. As you well know, this is the error of the “the veil of form.” Take care lest you bow before it.
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I understand your point of view. When I say that they are conscious, distinct, and existing entities, I want to move on to the next move on the board: Where are they? What are they like? What are the boundaries of the spiritual empire? Who are its rulers? What is the hierarchical structure of this ruling system? What are their desires and ambitions? Does the other world love you or hate you? Does it respect you and your existence, or does it view you as a burden and a drain? Why do those worlds serve you, and what do they get in return? These are the questions of all questions, and their answers are the map that leads the way through a dark and unseen path imperceptible to the senses. To subject an imperceptible world to the rules of science in a perceptible world is a form of madness… isn’t it?
Think then of your metaphysics, your cosmological reflections, as having at least three layers of meaning, for if exegesis (Ta'weel) does not serve you here in the world, of what use is it? No one layer of meaning contradicts the others.
 
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