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originally posted on my blog*
Idk who needs to hear this but PETS ARE NOT YOUR FAMILIAR. Idc how cute Mr Pebbles looks when you're meditating and he's next to you or how many times Spartacus likes to hang around your altar when doing magic, they're not your familar. A familiar is a spiritual/magical assistant that is given to the practitioner by another, usually ranked/hierarchic (in other words, superior), spirit. This familiar spirit does not take on a physical body. Well, rather I should say they rarely take on physical bodies and when they do it's briefly and then they're gone (they usually do this to get a message/warning to us quickly). They don't hang around to be your pet. Some excellent examples of superior spirits giving familiars can be found in the Goetia. Quite a few spirits are known to give "good" and "excellent" familiars. Spirits like Paimon, Morax, Shax, and Valefor all give familiar to the requesting magus, among a host of others. Going further, the Olympic Spirits Bethor and Phul give familiars. Bethor's is explicit while Phul's description states "....gives spirits of the water...". While I have not received any familiars myself from Phul, there's no logical reason to think it means otherwise.
Even Bardon in his The Practice of Magical Evocation makes mention of the familiar spirits given to magicians by demons and goes on to suggest that a magician should deal properly with such spirits for we are all still bound by karmic law. Robin Artisson too refers to his spirit familiar that was given to him by another "terrible being with fleshy knotted feet" in Letters From the Devil's Forest. This notion of "familiar spirits as pets" seems to have sprung up recently as witchcraft and pop occultism found a home online and started going more mainstream. This caused a "dumbing down" of legitimate occult and esoteric information so as to make it more malleable and attractive to a mainstream "spiritual but not religious" audience. However, this audience rarely does any actual research on the things they hear/read so when you mix that with a "be your own guru" mentality you get an audience who makes up whatever they want as they go along and never fact-checks anything. Therefore, we go from a familiar spirit is a spiritual or supernatural assistant to you can pick your familiar up at the local animal rescue! Smh. If you want a familiar, you'll have to initiate veritable contact with a hierarchic being that can provide them and request one. Sorry but real magic requires work and asking mommy and daddy for a puppy or picking up a cat from the rescue isn't work.
Idk who needs to hear this but PETS ARE NOT YOUR FAMILIAR. Idc how cute Mr Pebbles looks when you're meditating and he's next to you or how many times Spartacus likes to hang around your altar when doing magic, they're not your familar. A familiar is a spiritual/magical assistant that is given to the practitioner by another, usually ranked/hierarchic (in other words, superior), spirit. This familiar spirit does not take on a physical body. Well, rather I should say they rarely take on physical bodies and when they do it's briefly and then they're gone (they usually do this to get a message/warning to us quickly). They don't hang around to be your pet. Some excellent examples of superior spirits giving familiars can be found in the Goetia. Quite a few spirits are known to give "good" and "excellent" familiars. Spirits like Paimon, Morax, Shax, and Valefor all give familiar to the requesting magus, among a host of others. Going further, the Olympic Spirits Bethor and Phul give familiars. Bethor's is explicit while Phul's description states "....gives spirits of the water...". While I have not received any familiars myself from Phul, there's no logical reason to think it means otherwise.
Even Bardon in his The Practice of Magical Evocation makes mention of the familiar spirits given to magicians by demons and goes on to suggest that a magician should deal properly with such spirits for we are all still bound by karmic law. Robin Artisson too refers to his spirit familiar that was given to him by another "terrible being with fleshy knotted feet" in Letters From the Devil's Forest. This notion of "familiar spirits as pets" seems to have sprung up recently as witchcraft and pop occultism found a home online and started going more mainstream. This caused a "dumbing down" of legitimate occult and esoteric information so as to make it more malleable and attractive to a mainstream "spiritual but not religious" audience. However, this audience rarely does any actual research on the things they hear/read so when you mix that with a "be your own guru" mentality you get an audience who makes up whatever they want as they go along and never fact-checks anything. Therefore, we go from a familiar spirit is a spiritual or supernatural assistant to you can pick your familiar up at the local animal rescue! Smh. If you want a familiar, you'll have to initiate veritable contact with a hierarchic being that can provide them and request one. Sorry but real magic requires work and asking mommy and daddy for a puppy or picking up a cat from the rescue isn't work.
