Another Spirit Blog

Get a little bit haunted until you undo it

Get a scar on your soul to work past

Cause excess harm and regret it

(At this time I don't differentiate between astral travel and hedge crossing. I define astral travel as being undertaken in a trance state where some degree of awareness of your physical body is retained. This post contains UPG)

To travel to spirit worlds or otherworlds, you typically go through a door or a passage. Some sort of 'road trip' is often required. You can't just go through the door in the tree trunk; you have to go down the trunk, and through the other door, and down the path, and down the well, and through another door.

This isn't just head games. You are traveling somewhere. Sometimes these entryways are blocked and require sorcerous technique (or diplomacy) to traverse.

Doors are everywhere. They are affixed within physical times and physical places. Some doors open during certain times and are fixed shut during other times. Some doors will lead to one location for a while, and then suddenly lead elsewhere. A single path, known and familiar, can one day lead to a different location, or grow longer with more things in-between.

They are fairy roads and fairy doors, if you like. They do not operate by boring rules.

The following troubleshooting is based on the assumption that in order to travel to an otherworld, you've got to find a door that leads there. Therefore if you're struggling with travel, it may help to troubleshoot your door.

Guided meditations can be useful ("...you are standing before a tree with a door in the trunk"). We can imagine that we're being guided to build our own doors and roads, which of course people have the power to do - that's what laying a compass or calling the quarters is.

In any particular guided meditation, try it a few times just to make sure you've given yourself enough chances to build the road. For the purposes of troubleshooting, consider that you're literally build-discovering your own actual portals to otherworlds. This takes time and energy. You may be too tired to do it all at once, or it may be a bigger project than expected. This is why it's useful to keep re-using the same ones once you've built them. Between various meditations, try sticking with your same old tree, or hole in the ground, and so on. It's hard to make a blanket if you start a new one every time you sit down to work.

It can be remarkably helpful to align attempts at a guided meditation with times of power. Full moons do pretty well for this. Or, give it a try at midnight.

Other methods of creating and opening your own doors include drawing a door with chalk, knocking on it, and calling forth the path. A holey stone makes a fine door, just as a braid makes an excellent ladder to climb up or down. Many enchantments can be created which either function as doors, or which facilitate travel itself.

But remember the road trip - it's not just passing through a door. You also usually have to walk a little while. Therefore, also just walking a little while can get you there.

In a trance state, while your body is at rest, send your mind walking out of your room, to the vent over the stove, and climb up into the air ducts. Keep climbing up and try to find the exit. The exit might lead to the top of your domicile, but it certainly may not.

Alternatively, climb down the plumbing. Or, mentally walk yourself out of your house, to the nearest tree, and climb up it. Or down it, through a hole in its roots. Maybe an angry gopher is at the roots. Back away and try a different tree.

Perhaps your nearby environment won't do. That's alright, there are doors everywhere. Go and find one while you're out and about. To go downwards, find holes. To go upwards, find things that are tall. Suppose there's a water tower in your town. Go there and really take a good look at it. Dwell in the present moment with that water tower, as much as you can.

At home, in a trance state and while your body is at rest, remember going to the water tower. Relive exiting transit, going closer to the tower, and looking at it. Start remembering something new. Remember how you started climbing it. Climb and remember how you climbed this water tower to find a door that would lead you to an upperworld.

Is there a door at the top of the water tower? Well, maybe not. But there might be one along the way that you'll creep into if you keep your focus on finding a door that takes you to where you want to go.

Always keep a very strong focus on finding a door that leads to your desired location. And I mean that you should know exactly where you're trying to end up at, don't insert "*desired location" as a wildcard.

They are fairy doors and fairy roads. A memory of a water tower from this morning will do. What about a memory from 30 years ago, from when you were a kid? That mountain you'll never forget at the place you'll never return to. That's fine. A good memory makes a fantastic porch for a door. Relive the memory. But when you get to the part when you looked at the mountain for the last time, don't turn away. Remember that you walked towards it. Remember that you started climbing up it.

Remember that you climbed up the mountain to find a door.

Spirit helpers can be of immense assistance in all manner of travel, including finding doors, the "road trip," navigating the otherworlds, and safely returning. I don't mean to pray to your ancestors for guidance. I mean to engage an individual spirit helper to literally walk in front of you, show you the way, and even carry you.

Just now I drew a sigil on a piece of paper. I did energy work to charge the sigil, which represents a door. I placed the paper on a tray on the rug, and knocked on it. Then I went to lie down in bed. I practiced progressive relaxation to facilitate trance. When I felt relaxed and fuzzy, I chose to remember drawing the sigil, putting it on a tray, and knocking.

I remembered that when I knocked on the paper, there was a scratch at my door. I had opened the door and my spirit helper was there. I turned around - I remember it clearly - and the paper wasn't normal paper any more. The sigil was a doorway, it appeared like magic. My spirit helper reminded me to become small, so I did and sat on xer back.

Xe walked through the portal, and we both change sizes. I sit on xer back as we pass through a dark hallway, then a natural cave, and then the cave opens into something I'm about to see for the first time---

The bed is soft underneath me and it's dark in this room, and soon for the first time I will see what's on the other side of the cave.

.

If a guided meditation door doesn't work, make one using sorcerous techniques. If that doesn't work, find a natural amulet - like a holey stone. If that doesn't work, find one in the world around you. Try a few different ones. They really can be blocked, and that's got nothing to do with your skill. If that doesn't work, try traveling during special times. If that doesn't work, try engaging the help of a familiar spirit who is willing to teach you how to travel, and who will assist you while you travel.

Remember:

Know where you are trying to get to

Keep a strong focus on trying to get there

Most people are not able to leave their body fully behind

Your level of immersion depends on travel skill and trance skill

Seeing can feel low-resolution despite Knowing remaining strong. Do not discount valid travel experiences because your spirit eyes are weak.

Always strive to go back the way you came and return through the same door. Spirit helpers can carry you out if you get too tired or are about to fall asleep. Forgetting to do this isn't the end of the world.

To light a fire in your soul and motivate you to get stuff done.

MATERIALS

List of things you need to get done

Fire oil of your choice:

Sweet Orange

Clove

Rosemary

Tall Beeswax Candle (Pillar 3x6" is best)

Sharp knife

Mirror

Dish (for the candle to sit in)

Sigil - I AM MOYIVATED TO COMPLETE TASKS IN A TIMELY MANNER

Carve the sigil above into the candle and drip your chosen fire oil into the sigil. Place the candle in the dish in front of the mirror. Light the candle as you read through your list of things you will accomplish.

Inspired by the douchebag who saw fit to put a neo-Nazi (oh sorry, “alt-right” -eyeroll-) propaganda flier under my wiper at the market today.

May the hateful hands that forged this Have their own hatred turned back to bite them May their own teeth bite their slanderous tongues May their own bile choke them May their own spite confound them May the harm they do be visited upon them a hundred times And a hundred times again Until enlightenment finds them Or death takes them

Years ago, when I first found my way into the practice of creating sigils, I had a lot of questions. There were a lot of mixed opinions about the rules and there seemed to be a lot of conjecture about what different books claimed they were and how to use them.

In Liber Null, chaos magician Peter Carroll writes, “There are three parts to the operation of a sigil. The sigil is constructed, the sigil is lost to the mind, the sigil is charged. In constructing a sigil, the aim is to produce a glyph of desire, stylized so as not to immediately suggest the desire. It is not necessary to use complex symbol systems. To successfully lose the sigil, both the sigil form and the associated desire must be banished from normal waking consciousness. The magician strives against any manifestation of either by a forceful turning of his attention to other matters.”

So if I understand this correctly, you take your intention statement and reduce it to a nonsense symbol to disassociate the desire from the symbol, then totally forget it, and activate it. The process of forgetting, as Carroll explains it, is to remove the desire from your mind so it can then manifest itself in the physical world.

Now I don’t know about y’all, but this sounds very familiar to me.

Years ago, i went to an Abraham Hicks seminar where a husband and wife team channeled a collective consciousness called Abraham who taught the concepts of Law of Attraction (which eventually inspired Oprah’s popular book club hit, The Secret). One of the most important tenants of this Law to manifest your desires is to “set it and forget it”: the idea that you focus on what you want to manifest (not what you don’t want) put it into your “vortex” (your astral vault of desire), then let the thought go all together and wait for the universe to deliver. By continuing to give attention to the object of your desire, you only confirm to the universe the LACK of having it, therefore stunting your manifestation.

Hmmm, ya… sounds familiar. In fact, the original Abraham Hicks cassette tapes were released in 1986 and Liber Null was published by Peter Caroll in 1987. Now, am I suggesting this is a direct rip off? Not at all, but I will say these concepts were part of a larger shift in the New Age spiritual movement of the 80s, new thoughts inspired by old philosophies. “Spirit sciences” brought the world of New Age and the Occult into the same room, and chaos magic, the art and science of magic by belief, thrived.

As someone who has experienced the downside of spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity from these so called “spirit sciences”, I have respect for Carroll and his work but do not necessarily agree with the “set it and forget it” method. I am an animist, so I see spirit in all things: plants, animals, rocks, homes, cars, books, ideas, and even sigils.

In my craft, I don’t see sigils as nonsense scribbles meant to be disassociated and discarded. I see them as symbols of my desire. I took time to decide exactly what my desire was, worded it in a very specific way, and then through a process, reduced the statement into a symbol that represents my will. In the past, I’ve likened this to creating a reduction sauce. You take all your ingredients, and over a simmering pot, you cook it down to a thick and potent sauce. Sigils aren’t much different.

Chaos magic states that the sigil should have no significant indicator that connects it to its intention specifically to help disassociate the symbol from from your desire. This helps as part of the forgetting process. I, on the other hand, will specifically draw my sigils to sometimes indicate the intent. (Ie. A home sigil that may include that shape of a roof, a money sigil that includes a dollar sign, a love sigil that includes a heart, ect.)

I see my sigils more like the reduction sauce: a powerful potent symbol of my intent. A spirit created with my pen, paper, and desire. I liken them to a goetic seal with my personally created sigil representing the spirit I have willed to life and given virtues to.

Some might even refer to this as an egregor or thought form. As an animist, I give my sigils license as a spirit to carry forth my will and enact it into reality.

This school of thought is completely divorced from the sigil theory found in chaos magic. Does that mean I feel the “set it and forget it” method is bogus and we should do away with it? Not at all. In fact, many practitioners have enjoyed this method for decades with great success. But as we know, when it comes to witchcraft, our actual craft can become very individualized and full of personal gnosis. I naturally gravitated to saving my sigils and using them more than once like spirit aids. I found allyship in working with them like egregoric magical helpers, and I don’t think I’m alone.

Many occult publications have sigils, seals, and symbols that were personally created or spirit inspired by their authors. Old grimoires that were once someone’s individual personal gnosis have become revered through time like the Keys of Solomon, the Black Pullet, the Petit Albert, and the Grimorium Verum. The sigils in these books existed long before the concept of chaos magic and new age entered the occult sphere, and will continue to be a staple in many rituals and practices.

So next time you are creating a sigil, ask yourself: What does this symbol mean to you? If it was a spirit whose sole purpose was helping you fulfill your desire, what would it look like? What would it’s symbol look like? How do you want to interact with it? Do you want to create it, destroy it, and forget it, or do you want to build a relationship with it, feed it your energy, and give it thanks for being a spirit partner in your craft?

However you choose to work with sigils in your practice is totally up to you. If the chaos method and it’s fixed equation works for you, that’s great! But if you’re like me, an animist and someone who sees their craft as spirit based, I challenge you to put some sense into your nonsense scribbles. I challenge you to see that there’s room for something more than an equation. I challenge you to create new magic.

From the crossroads of Texas,

Marshall WSL

Too Early

This post is full of my personal UPGs and stuff. These are just my beliefs and what works for me. YMMV.

It takes them a lot of energy to come through to us. Feed them and help them get across the veil.

Have you ever done a big tarot reading and got really drained? Or focused really intensely on a spirit guide meditation that left you feeling lightheaded and hungry? When we connect to the spirit world it is tiring and energy-intensive. There is no reason to believe that connection on their end is any easier.

A lot of rhetoric gets tossed around that spirits and guides are so powerful and life-changing, etc. And this might be true, but I think it gets construed in a way where we assume that because they're so powerful, it must be very easy for them to appear to us - so any failure of communication is squarely on our shoulders.

This is unfair to both them and us.

Your offerings aren't just token gestures. You are actually providing energy to your spirits - dense, earthy energies they need in order to be able to come through to our world. Fresh water is refreshing and polite, but not really energizing. Food offerings are especially helpful.

This is the point of spirit houses and spirit vessels. You create a sacred object or space aligned to a spirit's energies, and invite them to come inside of it and use it as they please. As a magic-worker, your words of dedication and consecration make a literal foothold for that spirit to more easily come to our world. This also provides a place for the spirit to rest and relax as they speak to you.

Liminal times and spaces make it easier for us to reach the spirit world, and therefore easier for them to reach us. Taking actions such as laying a compass, casting a circle, or reaching trance states can actually be extremely helpful. It's not about "spirits are dangerous so cast a circle first," and it's not about "you have to meditate and clear your mind" (trance can be achieved ecstatically, after all). It's about creating or entering into in-between spaces where our worlds more easily meet.

If you primarily use tools to communicate with spirits, cleanse and charge them more regularly. The spirits can direct the energy within your tools instead of having to use their own.

If you're already using spirit vessels or houses, try gently cleaning them and re-consecrating them. Provide as much energy as you can to the spirit at that time, so that they can more strongly imprint upon the vessel.

Stop trying to talk to them all of the time.

Spirits are people too. They shouldn't be treated like invisible humans with cool new skins, but that doesn't mean they don't have autonomy and personhood.

Spirits exist independently of us and they don't disappear and go into the void when we stop paying attention to them. They are living their own lives. Even if you believe the spirits do revolve around you, at some point they have to leave to go find information you're asking about, or review the strands of fate to make sure you're headed in the right direction, or whatever.

You don't expect your human friends to be on call 24/7 and it's rude and inconsiderate to just assume all spirits are going to want to communicate with you every single time you want to communicate with them.

No, the point of this is not "you're clingy and the spirits need space."

The point is that if you're just picking up the spirit phone at any random time, of course some of your communication will "fail" because they're not free to answer!

You might be blaming yourself for having unreliable psychic abilities when the reality is that you're just sending a FaceTime request at a bad time.

It is my experience that this is true even of gods. Sometimes I walk by the shrine of my primary god and it's just empty - he's not there right now. It's not because he hates me or because my psychism failed. He's probably off chasing nymphs or something, he'll be back later.

Try setting a schedule with the spirits if possible, such as determining what time(s) of day they're free to talk, what days of the week or moon phases they're usually free or busy, and so on.

You have times when you're more or less attuned to communication, too. The most random stuff can make psychic senses go haywire. For some, a strong cup of coffee will turn off their second sight like flipping a switch. If you try to get more of a schedule going, it will be a lot easier for you to control the variables contributing to your successes or failures. It's not fair for you to assume your psychic senses are static and you should just be able to turn them on at any time you want.

Give them a good reason to talk to you.

There are many kinds of spirits. Some we primarily interact with as friends and companions. For them, the reason for them to talk to you is that you're cool, interesting, and they want to spend time with you (all your friends think that about you! I promise!).

Other spirits can hold a much more spiritual or tutelary role in our life. When they speak, they have something important to say - and they're not necessarily going to let that be drowned out by everyday chatter.

Have you ever done a tarot reading you didn't like or understand, and then re-drew the spread to ask again? And the second time made even less sense?

Talking to spiritual teachers can be like that. They tell you something important, and they're not necessarily going to rephrase it. The problem with spiritual teachers and guides is that you still have to be the student and the explorer.

I have often communicated with the gods and spirits of other people. In these situations, I do my best to give them a really good reason to want to talk to me. "Hello, gods and spirits of [client]. I am helping [client] with [their question/problem]. I will be empty, and you can speak through me. I'll do my very best to clearly share everything you want them to know."

No matter what, though, spirits might just not want to talk. And that's ok.

Ask yourself the kinds of relationships you have with the spirits and beings you're attempting communication with. Having a very close and fulfilling relationship with a spirit doesn't mean it's appropriate to treat them like a casual friend (just as I can have a very fulfilling relationship with a professional mentor, but it's still inappropriate for me to call them at 3am after some wine).

Keep an eye on the intention of your communications. Are you unable to "find" your guide when it's about an important spiritual question, but they show up just to chat? Or vice-versa? Ask why a spirit might choose to not respond to some types of communication.

I find that spiritual guides can get irritable and non-responsive if you continually request communication without applying their advice.

In the case of spirits who are primarily friends/companions, try thinking of a fun activity for the two of you to do together, or something interesting to show them. Spirits enjoy novelty, too. Maybe you could read a new book together :)

Conversational skills transcend dimensions.

There is a difference between requesting communication and just vibing with a spirit's vibes.

When you want to communicate with the spirits, do you actually think, say, or sign, "hi, it's me, I want to talk to you today about [topic]"? Or do you just kinda show up like, "I'm here, so... yeah."

I like vibing with the vibes. I like sitting quietly with people and spirits and just existing with them. But I wouldn't sit quietly in the vibes and then say, "okay, so you're just not going to talk to me??"

Other things like manners go an incredibly long way. Spirits have a concept of boundaries and politeness - some more than others.

Active listening and critical thinking helps a lot too (and it's a great way to strengthen relationships with other humans!). Make sure you're treating spirits like a conversation partner, and not a novelty toy that spits out mystic answers to your questions.

One of the best ways to bond through communication is to create the space for the other person to share their thoughts. It's more than reasonable to show up to a spirit with a question.

But if you redirect the conversation always to be what you want to talk about, think your senses are going haywire just because a spirit is showing you something that isn't what you asked about, or only want to talk about yourself or your problems - it's not reasonable to expect that 100% of spirits want to be a part of 100% of those conversations.

Try approaching every spirit communication with clear intent. Just wanting to chat and hang out is more than okay, but be upfront with your interests and needs.

Try asking the spirits if they're free to talk and if they're interested in talking about what you want to discuss.

Make time and space for the spirits to bring up their own topics.

Employ manners at all times, even if you think your communication effort failed. Please, thank you, hello, and goodbye are powerful words.

To all my American friends, the time is now.