In my short time on this forum, I've noticed a number of times where the OP asks "Are such and such spirit(s) as powerful as ___."
Now the problem lies in how does one go about measuring the power of a spirit exactly? This is not like asking Joe Sixpack to get on a weight machine and incrementally checking how much he can lift/press until he reaches his maximum endurance for his body and muscles. Right?
I think many people are mistaking the subject of power for strength and presuming it's relative to the spirit's pecking order and their station. Well the problem lies in that we have no litmus test for spiritual strength or power for these beings regardless of what side they're on. All we know is that they're far more powerful than we humans are. Otherwise WHY are you bothering to summon them in the first place?
Back in the day, I too had these odd beliefs that power was relative to a spirit's station and pecking order. Since then I've learned that this is not entirely so because, not only do spirits each have their own unique personality like you and I do, they also have their own unique strengths and weaknesses as well as prejudices, attitudes, likes, tastes, desires and wants.
What I've learned from very old spiritual workers, houngans and santeros is that as a worker, you really only need one or two maybe three spirits to work with you on a regular basis. Why? Well what one spirit can do, so can another as they tell me. For instance in the African Religious Systems, each of the LWA and Orisha have not only their own specialties but they each also have ouangas and ebbos respectively (re: spells) that run the gamut of desires from love to money to healing to revenge. Regardless of whether it's Oshun or Legba, Chango or Zaka, they each have spells that cover all desires for their devotees.
Now one would think if a spirit was going to be compartmentalized then that spirit would just have ONE or maybe two things it could do, correct? Logic says yes but in truth that is not the case. For you see, you can be crowned with any one of these spirits as your Head Spirit (if they are indeed the spirit who rules your head) and you would need to know how to work with that LWA or Orisha in all phases of your life, would you not? I mean you would be really limited if your HS was Chango and all you could do was rage with His thunder and lightning and rain vengeance down on someone's head. Yet Chango's children need to eat, make love, have relationships, become successful and so on. This was my first hint that spirits were not compartmentalized.
The next clue came in the form of the Theurgia-Goetia. This is the second book of the Lemegeton which is a book of some good and some evil angels. In this text it clearly states that "whatever one spirit can do, so too can another." My brief experiments with the TG led me to realize that spirits do not fit neatly into a file system like so many believe. Thus this was my second clue to this mystery.
The third came in the form of a book by Lon Milo DuQuette called "Aleister Crowley's Illustrated Goetia" which I read back in the 90's and when Lon summoned his first spirit, Orobas, he asked the spirit if everything in the book was true about Him. Orobas answered, "I can do all that the book says and more." Here was my third clue that spirits are not limited to what they can do.
Finally, my training in Haitian Vodu taught me that often good things flowing to a person can be thwarted by a minor spirit who has ill feelings towards Its victim. The victim may have picked up the spirit from a funeral or cemetery or somewhere else and such spirits do have a tendency to jump on people and even sometimes go up inside them. Also minor spirits can interfere with the positive flow of life energy, happiness, love and luck to a person if It wants. Often this takes a series of Uncrossing baths to rid oneself of however if the little bastard is a stubborn one, it very well may take the efforts of an initiated priest/ess in a living ARS tradition to remove It for you. Why? Because these creatures can be tricky and make you think they've left when in fact they have not only to come back with a vengeance on their victim.
Thus I learned that spirits are not pigeonholed as grimoires or ceremonial magicKians claim. These beings are merely stating what they are GOOD at such as Bael being exceptionally good with invisibility and not being noticed but that is not the extent of what all Bael can do. Nor is Marchosias merely limited to fighting either as He too has far more up His sleeve than just combat prowess.
Further I discovered that their power(s) are not limited to what we believe they are. Spirits have the ability to siphon life from all living creatures, including animals and humans, which can cause all sorts of health issues. So sometimes a minor spirit can do great damage to someone and no one had any dealings with any major players in the spirit realm. It's just a minor spirit who is honked off for whatever reason. Until that spirit is removed from the victim, no spell, ritual or ceremony of success, healing, happiness, love, or anything good, regardless of how powerful or which spirit is helping, is going to do a hill of good. The offending spirit must first be removed. Which makes sense because you cannot put salve on a dirty wound, can you? No, you must clean the dirt from the wound THEN apply the salve.
I've seen people pray over such an afflicted individual in the name of Jesus or invoke some other mighty deity all to no avail. It just doesn't work that way. Comic book physics do not apply in the real world of the occult. I agree that one would think by invoking some God or Deity, this should scare off the offending spirit but that's not how it works. Exorcism is not like you see in the movies either. Again it just doesn't work like that. What you need is the name of the offending spirit before you do anything else. Most never bother to get this thinking it is immaterial or unnecessary. Once you have the name, you need to make contact with the offending spirit and see what IT wants to get IT to leave the victim. Yes easier said than done but no one ever said exorcism was easy,did they?
My experience has taught me these two valuable lessons and I wanted to share them here with you in the hopes that some of you who are truly wanting to learn will pick up on them and use them in your practices. Sure it may be disheartening to realize that invocations to big spirits like deities may not always succeed but realize that there are ways to get around obstacles that do not always require Their invocation. Find out the name of the offending spirit with or without Its help.
Finally I wanted to suggest that every practitioner should have their own familiar spirit to help them with their JuJu. Now yes I do sell Familiar Spirits but this is not an advertisement for them because if you can summon one of the 72 spirits from the book of Goetia, or one of the Olympic Planetary spirits, or even one of the Planetary Intelligences, you can get a familiar spirit from any one of them. Yes a Planetary Intelligence like say Iophiel or Tiriel will give you a viable Familiar Spirit to work with. So will any of the Rulers of the Four Elemental Kingdoms be They Oriens, Paimon, Amaymon or Egym; or even Paralda, Nicksa, Djinn or Ghob can give you a familiar spirit if you ask.
Familiar spirits can do a lot for a practitioner and I am constantly amazed at how so few actually bother to acquire one whether it's on their own or by purchasing one. Socrates had one in a ring. Agrippa had one that resembled a black dog that went everywhere he went. A FS can:
* fetch other spirits for you
Of all the spirits to deal with, the Olympic Planetary spirits are probably the easiest with perhaps the Planetary Intelligences a close second. If I were you I'd work on summoning one of those spirits and seeing what you could do about acquiring a useful familiar spirit to add to your arsenal. You won't be disappointed if you do.
Just realize there is no such thing as relative strength or power in the occult. The only difference to this I've ever witnessed was when one of the dead was possessing a person causing them harm and an initiated priest of Haitian Vodu invoked Baron Samedi to force the guede (the dead spirit) to leave the victim alone. The Baron obviously rules over the dead and has full jurisdiction. However this strategy hasn't worked when non-initiates have told me they've tried to get a guede to leave in the name of the Baron and that's because the Baron doesn't know them due to the fact they're not initiated.
In an upcoming essay, I'll write about my experiences in working with spirits from a non-initiate's perspective prior to becoming a priest in Haitian Vodu. For now I've practically written a book here and hopefully given you much to chew on and perhaps make use of for this was my intent all along. I understand your mileage may vary from my own and that's all right.
If you're one of those "spirits are all in the mind" or Spirits = Psychology sorts, please don't bother me with argument because I used to believe this and my results were scant at best compared to the results I obtain today knowing I have full faith and confidence in my Head Spirit, their attendants, my familiar spirits, my djinns, Thralls and all of the other spirits I've acquired along the way.
Now the problem lies in how does one go about measuring the power of a spirit exactly? This is not like asking Joe Sixpack to get on a weight machine and incrementally checking how much he can lift/press until he reaches his maximum endurance for his body and muscles. Right?
I think many people are mistaking the subject of power for strength and presuming it's relative to the spirit's pecking order and their station. Well the problem lies in that we have no litmus test for spiritual strength or power for these beings regardless of what side they're on. All we know is that they're far more powerful than we humans are. Otherwise WHY are you bothering to summon them in the first place?
Back in the day, I too had these odd beliefs that power was relative to a spirit's station and pecking order. Since then I've learned that this is not entirely so because, not only do spirits each have their own unique personality like you and I do, they also have their own unique strengths and weaknesses as well as prejudices, attitudes, likes, tastes, desires and wants.
What I've learned from very old spiritual workers, houngans and santeros is that as a worker, you really only need one or two maybe three spirits to work with you on a regular basis. Why? Well what one spirit can do, so can another as they tell me. For instance in the African Religious Systems, each of the LWA and Orisha have not only their own specialties but they each also have ouangas and ebbos respectively (re: spells) that run the gamut of desires from love to money to healing to revenge. Regardless of whether it's Oshun or Legba, Chango or Zaka, they each have spells that cover all desires for their devotees.
Now one would think if a spirit was going to be compartmentalized then that spirit would just have ONE or maybe two things it could do, correct? Logic says yes but in truth that is not the case. For you see, you can be crowned with any one of these spirits as your Head Spirit (if they are indeed the spirit who rules your head) and you would need to know how to work with that LWA or Orisha in all phases of your life, would you not? I mean you would be really limited if your HS was Chango and all you could do was rage with His thunder and lightning and rain vengeance down on someone's head. Yet Chango's children need to eat, make love, have relationships, become successful and so on. This was my first hint that spirits were not compartmentalized.
The next clue came in the form of the Theurgia-Goetia. This is the second book of the Lemegeton which is a book of some good and some evil angels. In this text it clearly states that "whatever one spirit can do, so too can another." My brief experiments with the TG led me to realize that spirits do not fit neatly into a file system like so many believe. Thus this was my second clue to this mystery.
The third came in the form of a book by Lon Milo DuQuette called "Aleister Crowley's Illustrated Goetia" which I read back in the 90's and when Lon summoned his first spirit, Orobas, he asked the spirit if everything in the book was true about Him. Orobas answered, "I can do all that the book says and more." Here was my third clue that spirits are not limited to what they can do.
Finally, my training in Haitian Vodu taught me that often good things flowing to a person can be thwarted by a minor spirit who has ill feelings towards Its victim. The victim may have picked up the spirit from a funeral or cemetery or somewhere else and such spirits do have a tendency to jump on people and even sometimes go up inside them. Also minor spirits can interfere with the positive flow of life energy, happiness, love and luck to a person if It wants. Often this takes a series of Uncrossing baths to rid oneself of however if the little bastard is a stubborn one, it very well may take the efforts of an initiated priest/ess in a living ARS tradition to remove It for you. Why? Because these creatures can be tricky and make you think they've left when in fact they have not only to come back with a vengeance on their victim.
Thus I learned that spirits are not pigeonholed as grimoires or ceremonial magicKians claim. These beings are merely stating what they are GOOD at such as Bael being exceptionally good with invisibility and not being noticed but that is not the extent of what all Bael can do. Nor is Marchosias merely limited to fighting either as He too has far more up His sleeve than just combat prowess.
Further I discovered that their power(s) are not limited to what we believe they are. Spirits have the ability to siphon life from all living creatures, including animals and humans, which can cause all sorts of health issues. So sometimes a minor spirit can do great damage to someone and no one had any dealings with any major players in the spirit realm. It's just a minor spirit who is honked off for whatever reason. Until that spirit is removed from the victim, no spell, ritual or ceremony of success, healing, happiness, love, or anything good, regardless of how powerful or which spirit is helping, is going to do a hill of good. The offending spirit must first be removed. Which makes sense because you cannot put salve on a dirty wound, can you? No, you must clean the dirt from the wound THEN apply the salve.
I've seen people pray over such an afflicted individual in the name of Jesus or invoke some other mighty deity all to no avail. It just doesn't work that way. Comic book physics do not apply in the real world of the occult. I agree that one would think by invoking some God or Deity, this should scare off the offending spirit but that's not how it works. Exorcism is not like you see in the movies either. Again it just doesn't work like that. What you need is the name of the offending spirit before you do anything else. Most never bother to get this thinking it is immaterial or unnecessary. Once you have the name, you need to make contact with the offending spirit and see what IT wants to get IT to leave the victim. Yes easier said than done but no one ever said exorcism was easy,did they?
My experience has taught me these two valuable lessons and I wanted to share them here with you in the hopes that some of you who are truly wanting to learn will pick up on them and use them in your practices. Sure it may be disheartening to realize that invocations to big spirits like deities may not always succeed but realize that there are ways to get around obstacles that do not always require Their invocation. Find out the name of the offending spirit with or without Its help.
Finally I wanted to suggest that every practitioner should have their own familiar spirit to help them with their JuJu. Now yes I do sell Familiar Spirits but this is not an advertisement for them because if you can summon one of the 72 spirits from the book of Goetia, or one of the Olympic Planetary spirits, or even one of the Planetary Intelligences, you can get a familiar spirit from any one of them. Yes a Planetary Intelligence like say Iophiel or Tiriel will give you a viable Familiar Spirit to work with. So will any of the Rulers of the Four Elemental Kingdoms be They Oriens, Paimon, Amaymon or Egym; or even Paralda, Nicksa, Djinn or Ghob can give you a familiar spirit if you ask.
Familiar spirits can do a lot for a practitioner and I am constantly amazed at how so few actually bother to acquire one whether it's on their own or by purchasing one. Socrates had one in a ring. Agrippa had one that resembled a black dog that went everywhere he went. A FS can:
* fetch other spirits for you
- learn other forms of magic and then teach them to you
- help you divine better
- improve your astral wandering skills
- become a shield for you when someone is not playing nice
- even help you with your creativity should you so desire
- bounce ideas off a familiar spirit when no one else is around
- and the FS will be brutally honest with you about whether or not such an idea
Of all the spirits to deal with, the Olympic Planetary spirits are probably the easiest with perhaps the Planetary Intelligences a close second. If I were you I'd work on summoning one of those spirits and seeing what you could do about acquiring a useful familiar spirit to add to your arsenal. You won't be disappointed if you do.
Just realize there is no such thing as relative strength or power in the occult. The only difference to this I've ever witnessed was when one of the dead was possessing a person causing them harm and an initiated priest of Haitian Vodu invoked Baron Samedi to force the guede (the dead spirit) to leave the victim alone. The Baron obviously rules over the dead and has full jurisdiction. However this strategy hasn't worked when non-initiates have told me they've tried to get a guede to leave in the name of the Baron and that's because the Baron doesn't know them due to the fact they're not initiated.
In an upcoming essay, I'll write about my experiences in working with spirits from a non-initiate's perspective prior to becoming a priest in Haitian Vodu. For now I've practically written a book here and hopefully given you much to chew on and perhaps make use of for this was my intent all along. I understand your mileage may vary from my own and that's all right.
If you're one of those "spirits are all in the mind" or Spirits = Psychology sorts, please don't bother me with argument because I used to believe this and my results were scant at best compared to the results I obtain today knowing I have full faith and confidence in my Head Spirit, their attendants, my familiar spirits, my djinns, Thralls and all of the other spirits I've acquired along the way.
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