#cyber magic

Frater U.D. comments that when performing cyber-magical operations there is a reported feeling of coolness or tingling on the top of the head. He also mentions that the mage should have a working understanding of kundalini. That means you need a working understanding of energy modalities to effectively work cyber-magical operations and may just be a refined form of energy or spirit magic. This is not a criticism, but an observation.

It takes computers and wi-fi for information to pass from one data base to another. It is more or less an electrical action, such as psi moving from our spine to our brains effecting change. He admits cyber magic has been around for centuries albeit in different terms. That suggests I can learn this modality with less computer oriented terminology. Austin Osman Spare is a good example of a cybernetic magician as his sorcery took place in the mind with the help of trance through the semiotic web.

What we learn from Spare is the art of simplicity. An artistic rendition of a desire creates a trance effect that can be used for magical purposes. Art is information, trance is a way to integrate that information into the subconscious, sigils are how the subconscious connects that flow of information to create a magical effect. Spare was said to be able to change weather and summon and banish elementals with pen, paper, and vacuity. That is information magic at its finest from a proper cybernetic foundation.

Words and Images, Songs and Effigies

Words and images, songs and fetishes, have been part of the magical world as far back as history and anthropology can trace its roots and becoming. The concept started as a spirit then an energy model, but as our concepts of spirits and ideas of energy evolve so does magic. Sadly, not so much for religion.

An easy way to differentiate the spirit, energy, and information models is through the power of an effigy with sympathetic magic. In the spirit model the effigy is representative of the target and upon burning it the spirits are sent forth to actuate the curse. In the energy model the creation of the effigy creates a sympathetic link to the target and through the burning of it there is a transfer of energy. Those models assume you have blessings from a spirit, or a host of them, or are skilled in the art of sensing, directing, and overall managing, various types of energy. Both models suggest the world is teeming with variety of either concept.

Animism is a belief that the world is animated by spirits existing in every little and large thing, from dirt to mountains. Animism is a dance of spirit and energy because the animist has to understand the gross and subtle elements of their spirit and how it effects their energy and what that energy does to the living world around them. The information model is much simpler, almost childlike. The effigy works because the magician intended it for it to work.

Conclusion

Magic at the level of information is magic in it's simplest form, almost as if a thought itself can be magic. That is true to an extent, but that thought still needs juice behind it. Spare used sigils and the Death Posture, Frater U.D. talks about a working understanding of kundalini, and Anton Channing talks about a magical force called the cybermorphic. Because early chaos magic was inspired by chaos mathematics and theoretical quantum physics it makes sense that an advanced form of magic would now utilize machine theories. There are even magicians tinkering with AI.

In conclusion, 'cyber magic' intrigues me. I am finding ways to understand and utilize this method but away from scientific, mathematical, and robotics jargon. My backround is very down to earth and humble so I approach my magic from that angle. While I believe it is good to learn and adapt, which is why I started to focus on the information model and cyber magic specifically, magic is always more powerful when you follow your intuition and do what works.

Cyber magic is really just a theory on how magic works because you are essentially doing the same things mages have been doing for thousands of years, just using the materials and technologies available at the current zeitgeist. It so happens to be a time of exponential growth rather then one of hunting and gathering.

What I've come to understand about cyber magic is the concept that thought itself can act as a sigil and with enough focus can effect change on a target. It's 'empty hand magic' at its finest.

Frater U.D. mentions that it takes a new pracitioner of cyber magic maybe 2 minutes to cast a spell and a seasoned pracitioner about 30 seconds, or less. If you can really cast a spell in 30 seconds, you can do hundreds of spells a day. To be honest, it seems a little far fetched and over simplistic, but there's no reason not to dive in and try it. The worst thing that happens when we try new things is the same as the best possible outcome - we learn something new.

🍦⚜🍰☀️🍋💋🌹🍓🍒🍿🌼🍬🎈🎈❣🍿🌼

I really want to talk about how you can use emojis in your practice beyond just simple like/reblog to charge/activate style emoji spells. Not that I personally have anything against those sorts of spells. I know it’s controversial within our community of witches, but I don’t personally see a problem with using emojis this way. Mostly because how another witch chooses to practice witchcraft isn’t really my business lol. I just want to discuss how using emojis can be a legit way to enhance your practice and bring a little bit of the modern world into it. As well as why emojis in witchcraft is still considered controversial.

What is an emoji?

An emoji is a visual representation of an emotion, object or symbol. Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji comes from Japanese e (絵, "picture") + moji (文字, "character"); the resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental. Emoji exist in various genres, including facial expressions, common objects, places and types of weather, and animals. They are much like emoticons, but emoji are actual pictures instead of typographics.

You can learn more about emojis and the history of them by click any of these links x x 

Emojis can arguably be considered a modern language. It’s how we communicate within the digital world. It’s a form of expression and gives us the ability to convey our emotions and actions through universally understood pictures and symbols.

What is witchcraft?

Witchcraft is the practice of magical skills and abilities. Witchcraft is a broad term that varies culturally and societally, and thus can be difficult to define with precision; therefore, cross-cultural assumptions about the meaning or significance of the term should be applied with caution.

Witchcraft that includes technology is a fairly new concept and there isn’t gonna be much information out their beyond personal experiences and practices. Just like the practices, within witchcraft, that we’ve come to consider to be traditions had to start somewhere. 

It’s also disrespectful to the witch practicing an alternative or more modern method to dismiss their practice because you don’t understand it.

How can we incorporate it into our magical practice?

I’d say the same way you incorporate any language or symbol into your practice. Written spells are just as historically valid as spoken ones. Why are we limiting our written spells? We’ve been using symbols for centuries. The only difference is emojis aren’t ancient and old. So a lot of times witches don’t associate any connections with emojis. But there’s the forgotten connection of universal language. We all know what an apple looks like. When we show an emoji of an apple to someone who doesn’t speak our language they still understand what we’re trying to say. 

I think emojis, in witchcraft, isn’t gonna be very useful to traditional witches or witch's who don’t take advantage of technology to further their practice (beyond just simple research I mean) because their entire practice is within the physical world and they wouldn’t have much use for digital languages lol.

A simple example I can think of is using them to enhance spells done in the physical world. Say you do a spell to bring more money into your life, you can replace your bosses contact in your phone with a series of emojis that correlate to your spell. Basically instead of replacing your bosses contact with one long poetic spell you can convey the same energy and message using emojis. Do you have to do this? No. Will your spell still work just fine without this? Yes. Lol. But it’s a fun and easy way to incorporate witchcraft into your digital space. 

You can also use it in a digital Book of Shadows too. It’s doesn’t have to be used in the spell itself but using emojis in place of words can be a useful way to cut down on screen coverage. So instead of typing “moon water” you could replace it with “🌕💧” Or instead of “rose water” you could put “🌹💧”

Why is this so controversial?

Tradition. From what I can gather, through personal experience talking to other witches about this topic, it doesn’t fit their criteria of traditional witchcraft. It’s not something that can be found in old books and it’s not something with a steady history of proof that it’s useful. 

Also lack of connection to anything useful within traditional witchcraft. A lot of times language is overlooked and not seen as a useful tool. Or it’s is viewed as a useful tool but witches don’t consider emojis to be a language. 

Limits. All of us more “advanced” witches are always talking about how it feels like witches (especially here on Tumblr lol) limit themselves within their craft and they don’t aspire to do more or be better. But then us more “advanced” witches aren’t taking our own advice and expanding our practices beyond what’s traditional.

Assumptions. A lot of times witches assume that emoji use (specifically emoji spells) within witchcraft doesn’t involve anything but intention. And I wouldn’t argue that a lot of witches who use emojis in their practice do heavily focus on intention. But I wouldn’t assume that every witch who uses it only focuses on intention. 

Then we get into the argument of intent in witchcraft and frankly I feel like that whole discussion is just a back and forth between witches who don’t put enough value into intentions and witches who put too much value into intentions. And no one ever agrees and it just turns into a shouting match of “my witchcraft is real witchcraft” from all sides.

Stigma. People still think emojis are just something preteen girls use to tell their friend they have a crush on some guy in class. Or that guys use to express their willingness to hook up (we all know what the eggplant emoji means lol). There are a lot of people who think that if you use emojis when texting or typing that you’re dumb or lack depth. When actually using symbols to express one’s emotions is the opposite of lacking depth and let the person you’re talking to or about know that you’re intending your words to be taken a specific way. “we gotta talk 😡” is completely different from “we gotta talk 🙃” 

Final Thoughts?

I think with the progression of technology, the growing interest in the occult and the expanding beliefs of what’s possible that cyber magic and cyber witchcraft is gonna become more popular and seeked out. And the fact that emojis have already become a popular way of communicating with people, and it’s universally understood, it’s gonna become a more popular way to record magical workings as well as incorporated into them.

Fictober, Prompt 10 - “Listen, I can’t explain it, you’ll have to trust me.”, Original Fiction

Warnings: none? Brief space-related danger.

My breath echoed hollowly inside my helmet, and I kept it as slow and even as I could. Panicking now would do nothing to help retain the dwindling oxygen supply strapped to my back.

“Any luck?” I called over the comm. The systems I was looking at gave me hope, but the ship had been floating dead in space for…well, a long time. The wiring was intact, which was a good start.

A grunt was all I got back, and I rolled my eyes. “Arun.”

“There’s an SFOG,” he said, “seems to be intact.”

I let out a breath of relief and felt the worst of the incipient panic lift from my chest. “Let’s stay on our tanks for now,” I suggested.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’ve got at least three hours left, maybe more.”

“I think I’m about the same. That should be enough time to get us moving, and we can fire the SFOG at that point.”

“Which you’re going to do how, exactly? The reactor’s dead-cold. Suit’s not picking up any radiation from that direction, must have run out.” I could hear the frown in his voice; the ship had been drifting for a long time, but probably not long enough that all of the reactor’s fuel would have been consumed.

I pursed my lips, decided I wasn’t quite ready to explain yet, and certainly not over the comm. Arun was going to have a hard enough time accepting what I could do when he could see it for himself. “For now, we just need to get pointed in the right direction and get moving, so a burst should be enough. We can worry about steadier power and steering after that.”

“We’re only so far out of the debris field,” he warned, “but you’re right.”

“Check about the reactor?” I asked, buying a little more time. “I’ll come down to see the engines once I’m finished up here.”

“Yeah.” He clicked off, and I turned my attention back to the panel in front of me. I was going to have to give the engines a pretty good kick, but I did need a little bit of steering and diagnostic information first.

It was harder to do with gloves on, but I always made sure mine didn’t have the wrong kind of insulation in them, so the magic flowed out slowly but steadily into the discreet, five-finger port built into the control panel.

After ten, heart-stopping seconds of nothing, the screens around me winked into life.

Any magic can be effective if you put enough love into it and believe in it enough 😊 But, Cyber Magic is the use of technology and the energy surrounding technology in your craft. Some people are solely Techno witches, but alot of use use techno witchcraft in someway. Some everyday Cyber magic is listening to that upbeat song so that you can feel better! 

A way to get effective results is to meditate with electrical currents that come from technology. Get used to finding them (usually if there is a light post, phone, or light fixture, there is a current), hold the energy, and letting it go. Once you get used to it then you can start borrow energy for yourself.

Other ways of doing cyber magic that don’t really involve you borrowing energy include using music to charge, using moon/tarot/rune apps, putting a candle as your background and charging based on the color of the candle, charging your phone and crystals at the time, using your wifi as a shield, using tumblr or your computers storage (or even a USB) as your Book of Shadows, etc! (I sound like a commercial)

It takes computers and wi-fi for information to pass from one data base to another. It is more or less an electrical action, such as psi moving from our spine to our brains effecting change. He admits cyber magic has been around for centuries albeit in different terms. That suggests one can learn this modality with less computer oriented terminology. Austin Osman Spare is a good example of a cybernetic magician as his sorcery took place in the mind with the help of trance through the semiotic web.

What we learn from Spare is the art of simplicity. An artistic rendition of a desire creates a trance effect that can be used for magical purposes. Art is information, trance is a way to integrate that information into the subconscious, sigils are how the subconscious connects that flow of information to create a magical effect. Spare was said to be able to change weather and summon and banish elementals with pen, paper, and vacuity. That is information magic at its finest from a proper cybernetic foundation.

Words and Images, Songs and Effigies

Words and images, songs and effigies, have been part of the magical world as far back as history and anthropology can trace its roots and becoming. The concept started as a spirit then an energy model, but as our concepts of spirits and ideas of energy evolve so does magic. Sadly, not so much for religion.

An easy way to differentiate the spirit, energy, and information models is through the power of an effigy with sympathetic magic. In the spirit model the effigy is representative of the target and upon burning it the spirits are sent forth to actuate the curse. In the energy model the creation of the effigy creates a sympathetic link to the target and through the burning of it there is a transfer of energy. Those models assume you have blessings from a spirit, or a host of them, or are skilled in the art of sensing, directing, and overall managing, various types of energy. Both models suggest the world is teeming with variety of either concept.

Animism is a belief that the world is animated by spirits existing in every little and large thing, from dirt to mountains. Animism is a dance of spirit and energy because the animist has to understand the gross and subtle elements of their spirit and how it effects their energy and what that energy does to the living world around them. The information model is much simpler, almost childlike. The effigy works because the magician intended it for it to work.

Conclusion

Magic at the level of information is magic in it's simplest form, almost as if a thought itself can be magic. That is true to an extent, but that thought still needs juice behind it. Spare used sigils and the Death Posture, Frater U.D. talks about a working understanding of kundalini, and Anton Channing talks about a magical force called the cybermorphic. Because early chaos magic was inspired by chaos mathematics and theoretical quantum physics it makes sense that an advanced form of magic would now utilize machine theories. Today there is a growing interest with the melding of magic and AI.

In conclusion, 'cyber magic' is intriguing. It is not the easiest, but it is a good challenge in finding ways to understand and utilize this method but away from scientific, mathematical, and robotics jargon. Cyber magic is really just a theory on how magic works because you are essentially doing the same things mages have been doing for thousands of years, just using the materials and technologies available at the current zeitgeist. It so happens to be a time of exponential growth rather then one of hunting and gathering.

Cyber magic is at its core the concept that thought itself can act as a sigil and with enough focus can effect change on a target. It's 'empty hand magic' at its finest. Frater U.D. mentions that it takes a new pracitioner of cyber magic maybe 2 minutes to cast a spell and a seasoned pracitioner about 30 seconds, or less. If you can really cast a spell in 30 seconds, you can do hundreds of spells a day. To be honest, it seems a little far fetched and over simplistic, but there's no reason not to dive in and try it. The worst thing that happens when we try new things is the same as the best possible outcome - we learn something new.

If information magic is anything, it's applied knowledge to manufacture a magical effect.