Ask Lemmy

How would you explain it? Is it the afterlife you're communicating with or with the disembodied souls of those roaming the earth? What are they doing here, if it's the latter? And what are you basing this on if it's the former? Western European mythology, meaning either Elysium/Valhalla or idk whatever forest fairy kingdom Germanics believed in? Or are you going full Semitic monotheism, Heaven and Hell stuff? Cause idk if Jewish or Muslim tradition allows for seances. 🤔

Anyway I'm just being too serious for no reason, lol, most people wouldn't drop a book simply because their cosmology is nonsensical. I would, though. 😅

This is more fun than serious but... I worked at a small company who contracted out it support. One day I got a call that a computer wouldn't turn on, no signs of power at all. This was in a bank. Per their policy the teller had a list of things to check. They notify the branch manager who checked all the same stuff plus some extra. They then call a vp who checks all the stuff with some even more extra. If still broken, they would call us. On this day the call was no power on computer, branch was about an hour away, drove company car to client and immediately saw issue. The god damn power strip was turned off. The teller, the manager and the vp were to check this so I decided to have some fun. I told them there was an evil spirit and we had to "cleanse" it. I had manager go get leave from outside, I found some old candles from a old birthday, the lights were turned off, I called out some random non-sense about mother gia and cleansing and whatnot, arm motions, everyone's head down and eyes closed. Meanwhile I flipped the power strip switch to on and within seconds the windows xp sound was heard (yes I'm old). Everyone was confused but amazed and easily signed the paperwork to say I fixed it.

I drove back to my office and on way the vp asked me to come to his office as he had questions. I went to his office, he asked me to explain the issue at the branch which I did and how I "fixed" it. He was obviously upset but said "next time that happens call me first ". I was confused but said "ok". He then followed up with "we could have had a animal sacrifice" and pulled a rubber chicken out of a drawer.

I didn't technically work for him but he seemed like a great boss...

At a festival, very intoxicated, had lost track of my friend. I drew a circle in chalk on the ground, sat cross legged in the center, and placed my palms on the ground. With all of my mental focus I inwardly chanted his name while visualizing pulses of energy flowing out of my hands and away from the circle. A few moments later he tapped me on the shoulder and said 'I went to Jimmy John's to get us some sandwiches'. Most magical turkey tom of my life.

What do you mean by world building? Honest question.

I've had some contact with wiccans, pagans and other people that held belief in the supernatural and watched some of rituals but I don't know what to tell you that may go into what you are looking for.

Decades ago, I used to be a fairly involved practitioner of ritual magick, and developed and co-administrated a popular occult forums.

If you just want to know if I'd do it again, no. Living that lifestyle with a sense of dedication regularly leads to psychosis of varying types and degrees. I've seen it firsthand in many others, and I myself began to lose my footing in the immediate, "tangible" world. The more I tried to influence and expand my understanding of the world (seen and unseen) through occultism and magick, the more I actually just lost grip on it.

I escaped through pivoting to studying philosophy and analytical psychology, which actually taught me how to understand myself, how I fit into the world, and how to influence my surroundings to fulfill my goals.

If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask. I may or may not answer them.

My parents held a seance with a “medium” (a grifter my mom knew), trying to contact the spirit in the house named Edward (the man who built the property and lived there until he died in a fire he started while drunk).

I was 10-12 or so and it was really dumb. They recorded the session on a boom box (this was the 90s) and importantly I rested myself on it throughout the whole thing so I probably ruined the whole thing because the only notable anomaly on the tape was a heartbeat, and it was probably mine.

However, as a result of all the chatter around the supernatural, I had “unexplained occurrences” for the next couple weeks due to being attuned to that sort of thing which I’d normally have blown off. Im not religious, not spiritual, and don't really believe in supernatural phenomenon, other than “we cant explain this but it definitely happened” sort of stuff. Many of the things I experienced the following weeks I’ve been able to explain as my knowledge of the weird natural world expanded, so..

I went to a party once where the main event was a "medium" doing a large group (~15) reading. It was painful to sit through. I remember it taking a little over 2 hours and this dude just kept fishing for something to latch onto so he could do his thing. He had a couple people kinda go along but he pushed them away when they weren't perfectly aligned with what he was looking for. I am familiar with public speaking and tried teeing him up with answers and even that didn't work. I was looking for a way to politely leave when it finally wrapped up

I was already a sceptic thinking most mediums are bullshit artists and this only further solidified my views, as much as I tried to be open minded

I only use !askouija@lemmy.world

For world building purposes, I recommend Real Magic by Isaac Bonewits. He hits the highlights and commonalities that permeate most ritual magick practices. It's a great place to start if you're trying to build a ritual system that feels authentic.

These things are real and tend to snowball. Along the lines of "if you go looking for trouble you'll find it" but not quite. I think this is what people have called a thinning of the veil. Magic thrives in uncertainty, like a fading sense of deja Vu you cannot interrogate. But it is there if you think it is there. Find yourself a dark corner of the world and look at it with the corner of you eye. Convince yourself something is there then decide it isn't. And the something that might have been will growl in frustration.

So far, what I've discovered is it's much harder to summon a Mia Fishel goal than Etsy witches would lead you to believe. I'll let you know more about the process once I, you know, actually succeed.

My mother wanted to do a Cuban purification ritual. She was into it, I didn't mind

I've had people tell me I have a gift of manifestation. My own observation is that I've had some good fortune in my life, but it's balanced by my fair share of struggles. I keep the negatives to myself so people only see the gains.

I wouldn't say I believe in it, but in dark moments the confidence of others has convinced me to try willing things into existence. If there's any truth to it, I think the universe has a way of balancing it all out. If you ask for something, be prepared to give up something of equal value. If you ask for anything that affects the agency of others, the price is especially high.

Who knows if there's anything to it. I try to be a reasoned skeptic, but I've seen plenty in my life that borders on the paranormal and I can't explain, so I keep an open mind.

When I was 16, and on a bunch of LSD with a group of friends.

Accordingly, we hallucinated very much, and had a lot of fun by letting go and indulging in the surreal.

In the morning, when we woke up, we fully understood, even at the age of 16, that we had a bunch of drug-induced fun, and that’s all it was…. because magic isn’t real.

But who am I to interrupt anyone else’s fun?

This is my favorite book on magic(k) by far.