Identifying a spirit?

[RowanIsATree]

Thank you Hound, I'll take your advice on this ' Like I said and has been pointed out multiple times, I'm very new to this.

[Shinichi]

Spirits that are easier for a beginner to work with than a random passerby that may or may not be fae:

Your Ancestors. You can read Moloch's, Fork's, and Sarah's articles on this topic to get started. The Ancestors will not do a lot of grand and extreme magick for you. Like parents who want you to strike out and make your own way, the Ancestors also want you to forge your own fate with your own efforts. But like cheeky grandparents, they will also happily spoil you in many ways, working to keep you safe from anything they have the power to fight and even punishing people who act against you without you having to throw any curses, they'll help you with health and strength (their power is literally in your blood!), and many other such things. They are not servant spirits that will do whatever you Will, but I was taught that you shouldn't do any other Spirit Work until you are right with your Ancestors. I have come to greatly value this lesson. If you want, you can even ask for the Ancestors to send you a guardian, who will work with you in your magical journeys and who can teach you more about your heritage and your magical potential. A lot of modern pagans end up with this guardian without even knowing what it is, and thus fail to take full advantage of all that it can do for them.

Artificial Spirits. I have seen them called Servitors, Egregores, Thralls, Tulpa, Elementals, Thought Forms, Constructs, and numerous other things. In truth, there are more than one kind. You can make them as simple as an energy ball that has a single task (like the Watcher that Jason Miller describes in his article), or give birth to a full fledged new spirit with its own sentience, intelligence, and independence. A fully formed "artificial" spirit is like a spiritual child, born from your thought and essence as Athena is said to have been born from the forehead of Zeus. They can grow along side you and do for you things that other spirits might want a high price for, can stand as guardians and arbiters when you work with other spirits to make sure that you aren't being tricked since they can see things you can't, and if raised well and properly maintained they can often give you loyalty and service far more reliable than other spirits. They aren't omnipotent, so all these benefits don't mean that your servant spirit should be your only spirit, but having one or two by your side is invaluable when doing other spirit work.

The Natal Spirit. At birth, the non-physical beings which govern our solar system and the stars beyond assigned to you an individual spirit whose sole job is to bring good fortune to your life and help you fulfill your fate. Astrologers call this spirit the Nativity Angel, because its name can be divined through your Natal Chart and a few calculations. This is, in my opinion, not the HGA that is so popular these days, though some seem to think that it is. Teliesin McKnight has a youtube video on it here, and I also wrote a thing on how to find the name using internet tools here. Once you have the name, just write it in the hebrew letters and that itself is an effective sigil that will greatly help you in forming a stronger connection to your assigned natal guardian. Once you have the connection formed, this spirit can guide you and teach you better than almost any other. It has a lot of authority, and a lot of knowledge about your fate and how you can fulfill or overcome it. It is also one of the safest spirits to work with, if you establish contact without something else slipping in to pretend (which shouldn't be easy if you do the work well enough). This is your guardian. It's job is to care about you, and it can do far more for you than your ancestors are willing to or that a servitor will be able to.

The Elementary Kings: Ghob (Earth), Nicksa (Water), Paralda (Air), and Djinn (Fire). Not only are these Rulers easier to approach and work with than many other nature spirits (since they are used to human magicians now), they can also assign you familiars who can teach you about the Fae courts (or anything else related to Nature) and also save you if you get into any trouble with a Fae. Because Fae are nature spirits, and these four rulers are the Emperors of nature. For example, Ghob is the Earth Element. Like the being the Greeks call Gaia is Mother Nature, Ghob is Father Nature, and rules everything and everyone within the domain of the Earth Element. The other three have similar authority over their respective Kingdoms.

Mineral, Plant, and Animal Spirits. Mineral Spirits live inside the various crystals and gemstones pagans are so fond of these days, except they can do a lot more than most people think once you wake them up. These spirits are very, very old and usually in a kind of deep sleep as they pass through the ages. It takes a bit of gentle coaxing to wake them up, but once you do, they can provide you more information about them than you'll ever find in some cheap crystal book and can apply their powers to helping you in very active and conscious ways. Plant spirits don't need as much coaxing as Mineral spirits. Just tend to a plant, talk to it every day, show it love and kindness, and it will respond. Once you are communicating with a plant spirit, you can learn about all of its magical and medicinal applications. Animal Spirits can be a bit more wild and aggressive, depending on the animal. If you have pets, start with them. Then the local birds and wildlife in your yard, parks, etc. One of the most interesting things I've done with animal spirits is use the methods from Benjamin Rowe's Short Course on Scrying to spiritually travel into the cards of Philip Carr-Gomm's Druid Animal Oracle Deck. Frankly, I've used that deck for Spirit Work and Magic far more than I have divination.

If you have any trouble working with any of these kinds of nature spirits, then you can always ask Ghob (or Nicksa if you are working with water plants and fish) to assign to you a Tutelary (Teacher) Spirit, who will be a personal tutor in your Craft and explain to you all about the spirits and magical secrets of Minerals, Plants, and Animals. It is the job of the Earth Kingdom to make these things. There are many experts among Ghob's court, some of them very old, who can and are often happy to teach these matters to inquisitive humans. For that matter, you can also ask the other Kings for tutelary spirits who are experts in something you want to learn.

And before I forget about Scrying, do you use a Tarot? Then work with those spirits! Learn the Fool's Journey and work with the spirits of the Tarot, getting to know your Oracle intimately. The Tarot isn't just a divination tool, it can be used for casting all kinds of spells and the spirits in it can work for you independent of the cards themselves. One of the biggest and most effective spells I ever cast used the power of a Tarot Card, and I didn't even own a Tarot or use a physical card at the time! The Tarot is one of the most potent magical tools in the Occult. If you haven't found one you really jive with yet, that's fine. It took me ten years with my high standards to find a deck that I deeply connect with: The Wildwood Tarot. It was worth the wait.

Spirits that beginners should not work with are the Dead (with the sole exception of your Ancestors), temperamental spirits like Djinn or the demons of the Goetia, most planetary spirits (The Olympic Spirits being an exception), most pagan gods and goddesses (read The Danger of The Divine), and really most things out there in general. [lol] The Spirit World doesn't just run on love and light and everything bright. Otherworld Politics are more like Game of Thrones than My Little Pony. Until you have your own court of guardians and familiars who you trust and who will tell you when you're ready to meet someone new, most Spirit Work is dangerous for beginners, especially if you don't have a living teacher there holding your hand and keeping you out of trouble. Your best bet is to stick with things you can trust at first, like your Ancestors, your Natal Spirit, or an Artificial Spirit. When you're ready, you can move out from there and grow as a practitioner until even the inhabitants of other planets acknowledge your wisdom. But the journey begins with a single step, and the more sure your first steps are, the better.



~:Shin:~

[Shawn Blackwolf]

The proper spellings of the elemental rulers :

Gob = 75
Paralda = 317
Djinn = 114
Necksa = 141

= 647

In gematria , 646 , is the high value for Elohim , meaning "Gods"...

This was the Obri / Hebrew way of coding the names , which come
from the Runic comparison...all other spellings are incorrect , as
they would not add up in formulas properly...

I have made talismans using these spellings in Runic , with great success ,
as well as have added hundreds of formulas using these number values for
the names , over 23 years... [wink]

By the way , the word Fae , is not their title...

It is a code word , dealing with the Magieck of Faery

Fae = 681
Wietchcrreayafth = 682

Faery is the general name...

Fayaerri , are the upper world Faery

Fairy , are the middle world Faery

Faerie , are under world Faery

Further , only the middle world Faery are "nature spirits"

The other two can be equated to "angels or demons"...

Which the Elohim do *not* rule over...

Not in the Faery Tradition...

[RowanIsATree]

Thank you for the advice Shinichi! Though I don't think I'm going to be taking all of it (I'm not sure how my ancestors would feel about witchcraft and other elements of my character, though when I'm more emotionally stable I might risk it) it does give me a lot more to consider. I do have a lot of more experienced people who I trust and can speak with on this subject at this point, and seeing as I'm already fairly devoted to the Morrigan and have been working with Her for about half a year now I don't think I'm going to be able to take that advice either - everything else though I'll keep in mind moving forward! Apologies if I take what you tell me with a grain of salt, a lot of misinformation is spread amongst the community '
I do have a tarot deck, and I'm bonding with them whenever I get the possibility Which reminds me, I really need to ask their name. Honestly I don't think I'm going to try talking to the spirits in the area again. I evidently can't be trusted to be objective, so I think I'll stick to a trusted spirit adoption group from now on who are far better at vetting and more likely to be able to handle any issues
Thank you again!

[Shinichi]

(I'm not sure how my ancestors would feel about witchcraft and other elements of my character, though when I'm more emotionally stable I might risk it)

Ancestors are not limited to relatives. If you don't wanna venerate Uncle Weirdo or Grandma Creep, then don't. You can even exclude specific people from your offerings. More than that, you are the product of ten thousand loves. Do you think your ancestry ends with religious heritage? What about the people before the conversion, who would have respected the craft as much as they feared it? What about the people before them, where the tribal practitioner was an important healer, peace keeper, and other beneficial things? More than your blood ancestry, if you have had any genuine initiations at all, the predecessors of your practice in that Current are also your Ancestors. Have you been taught something like Taiji Quan properly? Then look at how many great Daoists and great historic figures are now your Ancestors. Same for Yoga, or the Celtic Craft or Northern Way - though some Currents are harder to get into than others, and a lot of neopagan Currents are rather young.

Just don't limit your Ancestry to your recent family tree. Your blood has a lot more in it than you think.

Apologies if I take what you tell me with a grain of salt, a lot of misinformation is spread amongst the community '

I would instead be rather disappointed if you took my word as gospel after all these warnings about danger. [thumbup] Do your due diligence. Always.

so I think I'll stick to a trusted spirit adoption group from now

Is there such a thing? [lol] Literally all of those I've seen are either giving out shallow thoughtforms masquerading as something more or just selling nothing at all except fantasies. You can take a shallow thoughtform and turn it into a potent servant using the methods of artificial spirits, but if you're going to do all that, just study the process and make one yourself. There are places in the occult where you can buy real spirit houses that have been made by genuine practitioners, but they aren't cheap by any measure, and they most certainly never call it an adoption. Brother Moloch is one of the very few people I know who make genuine spirit artifacts for sell. He puts you through a process of palm reading and other ritual work to find out what spirits you actually need help from, and then he goes through an extensive process of binding those spirits to an object for you to wear. Then he charges up to $8,000 for all the work, depending on which product you get. [razz]

Real magick has always been expensive. If you're not paying a great deal in terms of money, then you're paying a great deal in terms of time and effort to figure out how to do it yourself. And those who aren't willing to do either will just always be limited, because a path that is neither willing to buy its way forward or work its way up will just not go anywhere important.

Really, whether it's magick or buying a used car or anything else: always be wary of the salesman. Your trust of him, more than anyone else, must be thoroughly earned. His job is to profit off of you, and while some have a sincere work ethic and solid business principles, there are far more who just want your money.

Thank you again!

You're welcome.



~:Shin:~