My Personal Four Rules For Testing/Experimenting With Magic

[Angelkesfarl]

We find a lot of truth here, my friend. For example, there are techniques for bringing forth any buried or hidden magic from anywhere, practiced by sorcerers in Morocco and Sudan, and the magic actually appears in a vessel.

There is a true story that happened with us in Sudan. We found a man whom one of my friends invited one night. When we discussed magic and paranormal feats, he told us to bring an unpubescent girl. Fortunately, she was the daughter of the homeowner. He requested a relatively large serving tray and asked everyone to write down what they materially wished to obtain. One of us requested a gold pound (coin), another requested dollars, and I requested a freshly severed thigh of a gazelle.

Indeed, the man asked the girl to place the tray in a closed room. He sat in front of the door, chanting some faint hymns, and lit incense that was a mixture of frankincense (luban) and black benzoin (Jawi Al-Aswad).

After about fifteen minutes, we heard knocks on the door from the inside. He then asked for the girl to be brought back and recited a hymn to thank the serving spirits. After that, he asked the girl to enter and lift the tray to present it to us. She actually brought it out, dragging it, and we found the dollars mixed with blood from the gazelle thigh—it looked as if it had been freshly severed—and the gold pound was with it. Fortunately, not all of it was mixed.

We actually cooked the thigh, and it was very good. The homeowner insisted on dividing the money after selling the gold among us and exchanging the dollars for local currency.

This is a real-life experience, not a story; it is the truth. Are there real-life stories like this in the West? The event was approximately in 2010. Have you seen such true stories or anything similar?

 

[Swampdweller900]

It happens man, there’s a lot of good people here but there’s also a lot of loonies who think they can control their ancestors and one crazy guy who says he talks to God.

I once shared mod duties in a decently-sized community online that was all about a specific psi phenomenon, and it was like clockwork that we would get someone claiming to be Jesus or talking to God or something every few months. Usually different writing/diatribe styles, so it didn't seem like it was just the same person or two over and over. Anything with a well-known name, from churches to the Twitter/X offices, collect people with mental health issues. Witchcraft in general is the bucket for us, and we're no different than a Catholic or Buddhist forum in that regard.

And anything with a practice collects people who like the lifestyle and label and don't really practice the thing - again, churches get this a lot - and then a lot of hobbies are the same way. I make mead regularly, and the number of people on reddit who "are mead makers" that made some prison hooch once and talk authoritatively with obvious amateur perspetive, but love the label, makes the community borderline useless to people who aren't newbies. We here aren't unique in collecting the folks that don't want to put in the time to do the thing IRL, but like the labels. That's subjective, however, and the results and value for their time is on them, not for us to judge.

@Pestifer Mundi While I like your 4 rules, the immediacy one is going to limit you quite a bit. To your point about the hospital and trained doctors vs. larpers, no trained doctor finishes up a surgery and says "Hey, they're fixed, take them home. NOW. The stitches will hold." Sure, that's not everything, but just be aware that you can't get a full picture of magick with your 4 rules, you can get samples of specific things at best. The good stuff blossoms like a flower and requires patience.

I would also be curious what an "observation" really means. If you seem to mean physical effects, but a lot of magic with what could be seen as measurable effects are things like compelling people to act in a way or do something specific. So you may also be cutting yourself off from a lot of that as well as you can't interview someone after they called you out of the blue and investigate why they called.

If you haven't read Dean Radin's book Real Magic, he does cover a number of experiments, which might help you find things you can test as well that will more neatly fit within your rules.

 

[KjEno186]

If you haven't read Dean Radin's book Real Magic, he does cover a number of experiments, which might help you find things you can test as well that will more neatly fit within your rules.

Thanks for mentioning that book. I started reading it (found it on anna's arch). Seems like a good read.