Game & Word Volume 5, Issue 4: Thursday, Oct. 31st, 2024
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Publisher: Jay Rooney
Author, Graphics, Research: Jay Rooney
Logo: Jarnest Media
Table of Contents
Summary & Housekeeping
Feature: “The House of Spirits” (~55 minute read)
Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts
Further Reading
Game & Word-of-Mouth
Footnotes
Summary:
Happy Halloween!
People generally associate Halloween with spooks and frights, but walk into any Spirit Halloween store (or the Halloween section in Target or Wal-Mart), and you’ll see magical motifs permeate it just as much as your standards “ghosts and goblins” fare.
This is because magic’s whole “revolves around mystery” shtick vibes perfectly with the many fears (namely, the fear of the unknown and the fear of death and damnation) that Halloween makes a whole point of showcasing and exploring. And, relatedly, magic is a method of engaging with things said standard Halloween fare, like the aforementioned ghosts and (metaphorical) goblins.
Halloween also has its roots in the Celtic fall festival of Samhain, which Druidic tradition holds to be the time of year when the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is at its thinnest. As such, it is a special and particularly significant time of the year for mystics everywhere.
So, in that spirit (pun obviously intended), I want to take us back to basics this week.
Last time, we took a deep dive into Kabbalah and Final Fantasy VII. But while Kabbalah is undeniably awesome, it’s just one esoteric tradition out of many, many more. Today, we’ll take a crash course in the foundational aspects of different mystical traditions, as well as the basics of spirit work.
This issue is less focused on games themselves, but for a good reason: the concepts and ideas discussed here will form the foundation upon which we’ll build our future analyses of magic in video games.
So, enjoy the article, and have a wonderfully spooky Halloween!
~Jay
Previous Issues
Game & Word’s most recent issues (currently, all of Volume 5) are available to all, free of charge.
Older issues are currently archived and only accessible to paid subscribers. Paid subscriptions are currently paused, and I’ll lower the paywall once I can afford to refund my current subscribers. In the meantime, you can always DM me if you want access to the full archive:
This series contains discussions of occultism and other mystical and esoteric topics. If you’re viscerally predisposed to reflexively throw garlic and holy water in the general direction of the mere mention of the terms, then this article is probably not for you.
Also, esotericism is unique among topics for being a field of knowledge that’s almost completely unfalsifiable, which tends to drive certain kinds of dogmatic materialists up the wall.
So, if you’re also the type to reflexively roll your eyes and endlessly quote Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens at anyone even slightly open to the possibility of there being more to life than meets the eyes, this article probably isn’t for you either. Also, please chill out… and maybe try to let some mystery and wonder into your life.
Finally, the usual warnings about psychic overload and the descent into madness from delving1 too deep into occult topics still very much apply. Reader discretion advised.
🚫🚫🚫 ANTI-GATEKEEPING INCANTATION 🚫🚫🚫
Occult topics’ unfalsifiability means that every practitioner’s experience can neither be fully proven nor disproven, and this fact has spawned a centuries-old esoteric tradition of pretentious gatekeeping, snobbery, and smug confidence in the “truth” of one’s mystical tradition or magical fan club order at the expense of all others.
Isn’t this stuff supposed to help us shed our egos and become more open-minded? If so, then… what gives?! I do not know which path you’re on, fellow mystic, but please know this: my interpretation of the mysteries and the methods used to engage them may markedly differ from yours. If you have a problem with that… then by all means, read on and possibly open your eyes to a different perspective. But I don’t want to hear about it in the comments!
If you ignore this admonition, may you and your descendants be forever cursed to always walk in the same direction as the person you just said goodbye to.
💡💡💡 POINT OF CLARIFICATION 💡💡💡
To more easily distinguish between “stage” magic and “for realsies” magic, most practitioners spell the latter with a “k” at the end, as “magick.” However, this is a fairly recent convention, having mostly been popularized by the notorious 20th Century British philanderer occultist, Aleister Crowley.
As we’ve seen and will soon see some more, “magic” is already enough of an “othering” term as it is, and I believe that adding the “k” subtly contributes to the further marginalization of an already heavily marginalized spiritual practice.
Therefore, while I acknowledge people’s preferences as to how to spell it, I’ve opted to use the original spelling. If you’re used to spelling it as “magick” or are unclear if I’m referring to the stage or supernatural variety, remember that I’m talking about the latter, unless otherwise noted.
Intro
Gamer Tarot by GPT-4
When Prometheus descended Mt. Olympus with his lit torch to bestow onto humankind the fire he’d stolen from the gods, he probably had no idea that the spark he lit would grow into a conflagration of technological transformation that would eventually spawn the sprawling metropolises, nuclear weapons, and machine-made images of today.
In fact, his brazen act of defiance against his Olympian overlords (you know, Zeus & Friends) was meant as a stopgap measure. You see, when creating the animals, Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus was charged with giving each species a positive trait.
But by the time he got to humans, he’d already given all the positive attributes to all the other animals. This was a problem, because humans were supposed to be higher than animals in the terrestrial hierarchy.
So, as a desperate measure of last resort, Prometheus got the idea of bestowing fire onto humankind. This would allow man to forge tools and weapons, ward off predators, and heat dwellings—thus, leveling the playing field and giving humanity a fighting chance against beast and elements.
Things, of course, went horribly right.
The discovery of fire was probably the single most significant technological advance in human history, as from that sprung almost every other: things like metallurgy, weaponsmithing, cooking, pottery, and currency, to start off with, and eventually leading to electricity, rocketry, and the internet… but along with them, deadlier wars, social stratification, overcrowded and pestilence-prone cities, toil, pollution, nuclear warfare, and general malaise.2
Prometheus, for all his trouble, was then chained to a rock by Zeus and sentenced to have his entrails feasted on by an eagle for all eternity.
Geez. Talk about a raw deal. I suppose we should thank you, Prometheus?
I jest, of course. Prometheus never actually existed. His tragic tale of defiance and punishment is a myth, a deeply allegorical yarn that’s meant to point at a deeper truth and that, even at the time, was likely never meant to be taken too literally.
And yet, the impact of fire was undeniably profound, to the point you could be forgiven for thinking it actually was a gift of divine provenance.
For the gift of fire was also the gift of technology, and fire is what literally powers all modern life—from the furnaces that smelt the steel undergirding our buildings, to the fuel that burns in our power plants, all the way to the radio waves beaming our messages around the world and the electrons endlessly dancing on our screens.
But there is another form of technology, one not quite as widely known or taken for granted as fire but arguably just as transformative: magic.
And in the world of magic, figures such as Prometheus and even Zeus are very much alive and active forces of power—whether as actual supernatural beings, or merely as archetypal symbols of the kind the Prophet Carl Jung first identified.
Both interpretations are valid, depending on one’s point of view. So let’s take a closer look, shall we?
Any Sufficiently Advanced Magic
We associate technology with machines to such a huge degree that it’s easy to forget that the word does not always refer to them.
Indeed, the definition of technology is merely the application of knowledge, which broadens the umbrella quite a bit to comfortably fit non-mechanical tech such as magic.
After all, both machines and magic are the products of our collective knowledge, they’re both applied with the goal of effecting some kind of change in the world, and they both draw from powerful forces around us (not the least of which is energy, in multiple meanings of the term).
And let’s face it, there’s something undeniably magical about the fact that the little black rectangles we each carry in our pockets can tap into the sum of humanity’s knowledge, create and display images, and communicate instantly with the voices and likenesses of people on the other side of the planet—all in an instant.
This is what Arthur C. Clarke (of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame) was getting at with his famous Third Corollary:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
They’re indistinguishable because magic and tech are two sides of the same coin. Magic is called the imposition of the will upon reality, but this can just as easily describe mechanical technology.
Both material tech and magic are deployed because the technologist and the magician alike wish to change something in the world or in their own lives, and they affect that change by tapping into and manipulating forces larger than themselves—matter and energy (in the thermodynamic sense) for material tech, and spirits and energy (in the metaphysical sense) for magical tech:
The machinist runs raw materials through an assembly line and sculpts them into tools, cars, and weapons.
The creative taps into mixtures of pigments, written symbols, specific frequencies of sound waves, and light waves hitting photosensitive celluloid to shape them into art, literature, music, and movies (respectively).
The child mines his imagination and whichever props are on hand to transport himself to a world of cowboys, pirates, or dragons.
The software developer assembles sequences of zeroes and ones into games, calculators, and even rudimentarily intelligent algorithms.
The entrepreneur takes capital and applies knowledge of the currents of human exchange to it, creating products, jobs, and more capital.
The witch calls upon archetypal forces and supernatural spirits to access higher truths or fudge the laws of probability in her favor.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Simply put, machines are physical technology, whereas magicis spiritual technology.
The similarities don’t stop there, by the way.
For just as anybody can pick up a physics textbook, study schematics, and use logical thinking to build a machine, or anybody can pick up a paintbrush or a camera to create art, so too can anybody learn and use magic.
But unlike machines or paintings, the would-be magician does not need to procure raw materials to fashion this tech—all she requires is her mind, a strong sense of discipline, and an openness to being wowed, wondered, and awed.
Magic: Trick or Treat?
Before we continue, a disclaimer is in order.
Most people think of magic as something with which to shoot fireballs from their fingertips—indeed, this is why most of our rational and objective society scoffs at the very concept.
But if you were expecting to be able to levitate, conjure fire, or teleport using magic, then I hate to break it to you, but you’re going to leave here very disappointed.
No serious magician, provided she’s grounded in reality, takes this possibility seriously and, indeed, knows it is impossible in every practical sense of the word. The budding magician going into this craft expecting to fly or set things ablaze with her mind is setting herself up for disappointment and frustration.
Simply put: the practical, physical, and metaphysical constraints are such that you can’t expect magic to do the impossible, and even the improbable won’t happen on anywhere near a regular basis. At most, it’s a fluke. More likely, it’ll never happen in any given practitioner’s lifetime.
You see, metaphysical energy is a lot like physical energy in several key ways. Most importantly of all: it cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.
Chemical energy bound up in a log’s molecules is transformed into photons and thermal energy when said log is held to a fire. Similarly, spiritual energy is transformed during a ritual into myriad manifestations, from revelation to influence.
In neither case is something created out of nothing, or reduced to nothing.
And just like how time travel is theoretically possible but practically impossible (due to the faster-than-light speeds needed for time travel requiring an infinite level of energy in a universe with finite energy), shooting fireballs from your hands is technically doable according to the rules of magic… but a practical impossibility.
Besides, you can already shoot fireballs from your fingertips! Just buy a gun. No magic required.
“Ok,” I hear you thinking, “So if fantastical applications like shooting fireballs are a no-go, then what’s the point? What can you use magic for, anyway? How about winning the lottery?”
…Eh, not really. The odds for such a ritual are still infinitesimally small. A ritual for winning the lottery is only marginally likelier to succeed than one for shooting fireballs. Sorry!
That said, this is a much more intuitively workable use of magic. Magic works by affecting probability via coincidence and synchronicity, and winning the lottery is almost entirely a matter of probability.
However, the odds are so mind-bogglingly stacked against you that you’d have to alter probability to an impossibly insane and absurd degree to have even the most minuscule shot at succeeding.
Even by the most optimistic measurements, the odds of you winning the lottery are one in 292.2 million. Even shifting those odds by one decimal place would require more spiritual energy than you could amass in a lifetime. The Earth is likelier to get hit by an asteroid than for you to win the lottery, even if you spent every waking moment of your life channeling energy toward that outcome.
If you’re just trying to get rich, that energy would be more productively directed towards working hard and getting a promotion.
But… what about winning games of chance?
Now we’re getting somewhere! Unlike winning the lottery, your odds of winning a Royal Flush on your first hand in poker are “just” 649,739 to one. Your odds of getting a natural 21 in Blackjack are even better, at 20 to 1. And your odds of picking the right color in Roulette are best of all, at almost 2 to 1.
In each case—though it’s still tricky as hell, and much more likely to fail than succeed—it’s much easier to use magic to shift probability in your favor here, as the odds you need to overcome are much smaller and thus more practical to use magic for.3
Though, of course, this obviously depends on whether you find such an attempt even worthwhile. If you roll your eyes at the very idea of literally manifesting a winning hand into being with nothing but pure force of will, then no amount of magic will help you.
This is because…
“Do You Believe in Magic?” Is NOT a Rhetorical Question
Now, this might sound obvious, but in order to use magic, you must believe in magic. And not just be open to it, but truly believe, down to your very bones, that your magic will work and affect the change you want.
Merely “testing” the magic will lead to the spell fizzling, because while you’re ostensibly open to “seeing” if it works, you’re actually approaching it through an innately closed-off mindset.
Much like believing in God, believing in magic is an act of faith—of choosing to believe despite a lack of empirical evidence for doing so.
And just as God doesn’t appreciate being asked to “prove” Her existence by showing Herself to the atheist who sarcastically invokes Her, so too does magic ignore similar requests from overly cynical empiricists.
In both cases, the invoker professes a nominal openness to being persuaded, but deep down inside he’s already made up his mind. And chances are, nothing—not even direct revelation—will change it. So, neither God nor magic will bother trying.
Nor can the magician point to evidence of desired changes following successful workings, as outside observers can (and do) easily chalk these up to coincidence, or to the magician seeing patterns that aren’t really there. Hell, it’s easy enough for the magician herself to think this.
So, the decision to believe in magic must be innate to the practitioner, and this belief must be genuine. For the dogmatically empirically-minded, this may well be an impossible ask.
But the good news is, for everyone else, all you need is to be slightly open to the possibility of hidden workings and synchronicities having an effect on your world.
Then, when the first ritual works, this belief is strengthened. So, the next ritual is strengthened, and thus, it is easier to succeed than the first one. To use a gaming term, the magic’s efficacy “stacks” as belief increases.
Faith in magic, which fuels the actual workings and rituals (aka the “tech” itself), pays exponential dividends.
Types of Magic
Ok, so I still haven’t answered your question: what can you use magic for?
The answer: within the caveats and constraints I’ve already discussed, you can use it for practically anything. Here are some of the more common forms:
Divination: Magic for revealing knowledge to the practitioner. This can take any form, including but not limited to knowledge of the future, hidden knowledge from beyond the physical veil, and more mundane knowledge such as practical skills or the thoughts and intentions of a rival.
Conjuration: Magic for transporting spiritual energies and entities from one location to another. This can take the form of everything from calling on spirits to hexing others and healing the mind. This includes summoning rituals:
Invocation: This involves calling forth the archetypal traits and characteristics associated with spiritual (or even entirely fictional) entities other than yourself, either for inspiration or support.
Evocation: This involves actually summoning discrete spiritual entities (such as angels, demons, and elemental spirits) to your presence and then communing with, petitioning, or commanding them.
Abjuration: Magic for protection. Encompasses everything from protective wards and grounding rituals to means of cleansing and banishing negative spirits or energies.
Enchantment: Magic for influencing the thoughts, behaviors, and emotions of other people. Can apply to everything from falling in love to dropping a grudge. This is also the domain of most curses, jinxes, and hexes.
Illusion: Magic for deceiving the minds and senses of others, for instance by making yourself seem more capable than you really are, or presenting events and occurrences in a way likely to be interpreted more optimistically or pessimistically than they would otherwise.
Necromancy: Magic for manipulating the energies of life and death, most commonly understood to involve summoning or speaking to the souls of deceased people.
Transmutation: Magic for changing the properties of other people, places, and things. This is the methodology undergirding Alchemy, though unlike their medieval predecessors, modern alchemists understand this to be a spiritual—not material—process.
If you’ve ever read Harry Potter or played Dungeons & Dragons, these terms and their meanings will already be familiar to you. And actually, I do have to cop to lifting this list mostly from the D&D Player’s Handbook.
But I did that for a good reason! You see, fantasy fiction and games in general are surprisingly excellent reference points for IRL magical practice, despite their often clearly fantastical trappings.
(Indeed, in the realm of magic, the world of fiction exerts very real power. But we’ll get there in due time.)
Just be careful and discerning in your research, for the line between fantastical magic that still has some basis in real practice, and straight-up Hollywood Magic, can be blurry and hard to discern in places.
Anyhow… regardless of whether you view magic as an actual spiritual force, or just a fancy way to psych yourself up to accomplish a goal or obtain a result, is ultimately irrelevant.
Either way, all you need is a little imagination, and you, too, can accomplish wonderful feats of mind and spirit!
A Few Popular Esoteric, Mystical, and Magical Traditions
So, now we know what magic can be used for. But is there a right way to do magic?
It depends on who you ask. But their answer will almost always be, “YES, absolutely!”
Just like with their exoteric counterparts in organized religion, mystics and magicians fiercely disagree with each other on what the “proper” way to explore the mysteries of life or use magic is, or if there’s even a “proper” way to do so in the first place.
It’s very much an “ask 10 mystics, get 12 answers” type of situation, with all the snobbery and nose-thumbing that such situations inevitably entail (especially when applied to spiritual matters).
As such, I make no claims nor cast any judgment on which of the following (more popular) traditions are more “correct” than the others. As the old mystical adage goes, “there are multiple paths to the top of the mountain.”
So let’s respect each other’s choices and traditions (including the choice to not adhere to a tradition at all), mmmkay?
Western Traditions
Hermeticism: An ancient philosophical system based on the writings attributed to the Ptolemaic (and possibly apocryphal) mystic Hermes Trismegistus, blending alchemy, astrology, and theurgy to unlock the divine mysteries of the universe.
Kabbalah: A mystical branch of Judaism that explores the nature of God, the creation of the world, and the spiritual structure of humanity through the symbolic interpretation of sacred texts, particularly the Torah. (This one’s my own preferred flavor of mysticism!)
Gnosticism: An esoteric tradition arising from early Christianity, emphasizing secret knowledge (gnosis) as the path to spiritual enlightenment, and often viewing the material world as the flawed creation of a lesser deity.
Wicca/Witchcraft: A modern spiritual movement celebrating the cycles of nature and the Divine Feminine, often through ritual magic, seasonal festivals, and a reverence for the elements.
Ceremonial Magic: A system of occult practices, often practiced by secret societies such as the Freemasons, involving elaborate rituals, symbolic tools, and invocations to summon spiritual entities and achieve personal transformation.
Voodoo/Hoodoo/Santeria: Afro-Caribbean religions blending African spiritual practices with elements of Catholicism, focusing on ancestor veneration, spirit work, and ritual magic for healing and protection.
New Age: A spiritual and metaphysical movement drawing on diverse traditions, promoting personal growth, holistic health, and the belief in a coming age (hence the term) of universal peace and enlightenment.
Pagan Revival: A modern resurgence of ancient polytheistic traditions, celebrating the gods, rituals, and myths of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse paganism, reconnecting with pre-Christian spiritual heritage and nature-based worship.
Native American: Indigenous spiritual traditions that emphasize a deep connection with the natural world, ancestor spirits, and the sacredness of all living things, often through rituals, dances, and storytelling.
Chaos Magic: A postmodern magical tradition emphasizing the pragmatic use of multiple belief systems as tools, embracing eclecticism and personal experimentation to achieve desired results and personal transformation.
Psychological: A contemporary spiritual approach blending His Luminousness Carl Gustav Jung's theories of the collective unconscious and archetypes with Gestalt principles, with the aim of fostering self-awareness, individuation, and a holistic integration of mind, myth, and spirit. (Three guesses where I stand on this one!)
Eastern Traditions
Vedic/Tantric: Ancient Indian spiritual systems exploring the cosmos and human existence through sacred texts, rituals, and the harnessing of energy for spiritual awakening and union with the divine.
Taoism: A spiritual and ethical system founded by Lao Tzu in Ancient China, emphasizing harmony, humility, and the cultivation of religious piety.
Buddhism: A spiritual tradition founded by Siddhartha Gautama, focusing on the cessation of suffering through the Eightfold Path, meditation, and the realization of Nirvana. Out of all the Buddhist schools—Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana—the latter, aka Tibetan Buddhism, is the most overtly mystical and esoteric. (I personally gel with this one quite a bit, too.)
Shinto: The indigenous spirituality of Japan, celebrating the Sami (spirits) inhabiting the natural world and emphasizing rituals, festivals, and a deep respect for ancestral and local deities.
⛔️✋🙅♂️ SIDE QUEST: Closed for Practice
One area (out of many… oh, so many) of fierce debate between mystics is which traditions count as “open” or “closed” practices, and whether it’s ever OK for a non-initiate to participate in “closed” traditions, rituals, and celebrations.
Practitioners of closed traditions argue that their practice is… well, closed for a reason.
This reason is usually either for the non-initiate’s own protection (as is the case for many fraternal orders and secret societies), the initiate’s birthright (such as in Vedic systems), to uphold their end of a bargain with their patron spirits/deities (again, some magical orders), or to prevent the appropriation of the marginalized spiritual traditions of marginalized peoples (including Afro-Caribbean and Native American practices).
Whatever the reason, practitioners of closed practices feel very strongly against naive noobs raiding their ancient traditions, as if their well-guarded secrets and practices passed down by generations of forebears were little more than a spiritual all-you-can-eat buffet.
And at the end of the day, these are their traditions. They have every right to dictate who can or cannot join their mystical ranks. And if the exclusivity is part of a spiritual pact, then they have a responsibility to uphold it.
Meanwhile, on the other hand… nothing drives people crazier than being told they can’t do something.
And practitioners of notably open systems like New Age and Chaos Magic, in which the personalization of magic through the blending and synthesis of multiple traditions is very much the point, vehemently argue that enlightenment and illumination should be available and free to all who seek it, in all its forms, regardless of the magician’s background.
In this view, “closed” traditions are just a form of magical gatekeeping.
Plus, mysticism and magic are deeply personal journeys, often known only to the magician herself. From this perspective, if a white mage wanted to make a Voodoo doll or call on a spirit animal… what’s the harm?4
Then there are practices that people constantly mistake as closed, but are actually open. Kabbalah is probably the tradition that most gets this treatment, likely stemming from the oft-repeated myth—which, even if it were true at one point, hasn’t been the case for several centuries—that a Rabbi will not teach Kabbalah to men who are single, not Jewish, or under the age of 40 (or to women regardless of age, faith, or marital status).
But as I’ve gone over in a previous issue, this is more a symbolic admonition for would-be Kabbalists to be grounded in reality (through a spouse, family, and lived experience) and be familiar with the Torah before starting, primarily for the sake of the practitioner’s sanity.
Anyone—man or woman, young or old, Jew or gentile—can study and practice Kabbalah. It’s just very hard to grasp without that foundation, and spiraling into madness is a very real danger if one dives into it carelessly.
But that’s also the case for any mystical practice! Why, then, does Kabbalah get singled out and painted with this brush so often? Actually, I’d really rather not speculate on that one.
Finally, there are also ostensibly “closed” practices that are actually trivially easy to get initiated into. Freemasonry, in particular, used to be an exlusive cabal, going back to its origins as a stonemason’s guild; but in this day and age, this air of exclusivity and secrecy is little more than leftover marketing and branding. For all practical intents and purposes, it might as well be an open tradition (well… if you’re a man, at least).
In any case… who’s right? The people who argue for a particular practice being closed, or open?
The tricky part is, both sides have a very good point. So, just like literally everything else in the mystical journey, this is something each individual practitioner must determine for themselves.
But regardless of what you decide, if indeed you are someone walking this path, I think we can all agree on one thing: be respectful about it. There’s already far too much invective and hostility over spiritual matters as it is.
We’re all working towards the same goal here—let’s not make it any harder on each other.
Astral Spelunkin’
We’ve already talked about the Collective Unconscious back in Volume 3, but only in terms of St. Carl Jung’s original definition as the sum of humanity’s inherited, primordial, and instinctual knowledge (akin to what we more commonly understand as the limbic system or “lizard brain”).
But there is another meaning of the term, one which Jung sprinkled hints and allusions to in his work (particularly his highly mystical and abstract masterpiece, The Red Book, which is the closest thing to secular-age scripture this world has).
I’m talking about the Collective Unconscious as another plane of existence, where the sum of all human thought and emotion courses, takes form, exerts power, and connects us in a vast “Internet of Minds.” If you’ve ever heard stoned hippies going on about the interconnectedness of life or of visiting “the spirit world” via the ingestion of assorted hallucinogenic compounds, this is what they’re referring to.
This probably sounds woo woo as all get out, but it’s an archetypal concept that practically every spiritual tradition espouses in some form or another.
As far as magic, spirits, and the astral plane go, there are two ways of approaching them:
The Spiritual Approach: as actual, supernatural forces, planes, and energies that exert as much power and influence on the world as do atoms and waves.
The Psychological Approach: as Jungian archetypes, concepts, and allegories; as symbolic representations of our unconscious drives, desires, fears, memories, untapped potential, and collective knowledge, which dwell only in our minds but point to deeper truths within us (thoughts become feelings become actions, and so on).
Thus, there are two ways of interpreting the massive lore dump I’m about to drop on you:
Literally: Take everything I say here at face value. It’s all real. The Astral Plane is a real place; spirits are actual supernatural entities, and they work on you and the world in exactly the ways described in the magical lore. Magic, therefore, is a way to directly contact and channel these beings.
Figuratively: Take everything I say here as one big allegory. Spirits are not literal supernatural forces, but rather metaphors for the archetypes and subconscious impulses that drive us from deep within our subconscious. Magical lore about spirits is best approached like a modern-day classical myth, wherein they stand in as symbols for our inner potential, desires, behaviors, and patterns. Magic, therefore, is more like a way to “hack” your subconscious mind to unlock its full potential through entirely mundane (albeit still awesome) processes.5
Either approach is valid. You don’t have to literally believe in the supernatural, if that’s too much of a stretch for you. However, it’s also fine if you do. Or maybe you think both approaches are true, to varying extents—that’s also cool! Like with everything else in life, you do you.
But if believing even in just the unconscious mind is too tall of an order, remember this whole exercise and exploration will be a lot more fun if you at least indulge your imagination. You know, pretend.
On a similar note, I’ll be drawing from a wide mishmash of spiritual traditions, some of which sound really out there, and even contradict one another.
Try not to think about this too much—much like a Zen koan, magical paradoxes are merely signposts that point to higher truths. Best not to take them too seriously, unless you happen to enjoy thought-induced migraines.
Anyway, let’s dive into the Astral Plane! Whatever could we find there?
The House of Spirits
The Astral Plane is where spirits dwell. A spirit is an entity comprised of pure spiritual energy, so concentrated as to attain a defined form, along with some degree of sentience. The more energy a spirit feeds on, the more intelligence and sentience it attains, and thus, the higher it ranks in the celestial hierarchy. Here are the broad categories of spirits, in roughly ascending order of power and sentience:
Sigils
Left to Right, Row by Row (or just Top to Bottom if on Mobile): Hebrew "Aleph" | The Secret Seal of Solomon | Summoning Sigil for the Archangel Raphael | Summoning Sigil for the Demon Asmodeus | Occultist Damien Echols' Talisman for Intuition | Apple, Inc.'s Corporate Logo | Communist Hammer and Sickle | Pepe the Frog | Peace Symbol
The most rudimentary forms of spiritual consciousness, sigils are written and spoken symbols that attain a degree of spiritual “charge” and power from people repeatedly invoking the energies tied to the sigil, gaining in strength the more they’re used.
Most “higher” spirits like angels and demons have visual sigils and spoken incantations associated with them, but sigils also take more mundane forms.
Think of how powerful the associations with a corporate logo, country’s flag, national anthem, sports mascot, meme, or written alphabet are, and you’ll understand the power of a widely adopted and used sigil.
Mechanically, this works due to the fact that the exertion of spiritual energy in different ways will mold the end product according to the process used by the magician.
Much like how smelting different ores yields different types of alloys or how different molds shape different forms of swords or tools, using certain symbols (letters, words, pictures) will likewise shape how the magic is channeled and how the results ultimately manifest.
(NOTE: This is also why hymns and prayers written in ancient languages like Latin, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Biblical Hebrew feature so prominently in myriad mystical traditions.
Texts and incantations in these languages have accumulated immense magical power throughout centuries and even millennia of continuous prayer and invocation.
The older the language, the stronger the magic.)
Video Game Example: Sigils inside a magical circle in Cult of the Lamb | ImageCredit: Massive Monster / Devolver Digital (Author Screenshot)
Thoughtforms
Art by Midjourney
To put it simply, a thoughtform is a thought, emotion, or experience given form in the astral plane.
Think about how you “visualize” a goal in order to make it more tangible and thus easier to attain. Every time you do so, you make an “imprint” of your visualization in the astral realm.
If you do this enough times, it will attain some degree of power and sentience as an independent entity.
This is what I meant when I said that the world of fiction is “real” stuff in magic. Thoughtforms birthed from large fandoms like Star Wars and Harry Potter draw huge amounts of energy from the endless stream of constant fan theorizing, fan fiction, cosplay, Discord chats, and YouTube videos dedicated to the subject (not to mention all the times the canon works themselves are consumed).
So much so, in fact, that magicians can easily draw upon them (and the archetypal concepts they embody) in their workings. And the more they’re called upon, the more energy they absorb and the more defined they become.
Servitors
Art by Midjourney
Servitors are elevated thoughtforms. Like thoughtforms, they’re willed into being through nothing more than the magician’s concentrated, focused thoughts.
But unlike thoughtforms, which mostly just… kind of exist, servitors are created with the purpose of performing a task in the practitioner’s service.
These tasks can be anything from helping the magician sleep through the night to giving them an aura of affability, and everything in between.
The more complex the task, the more prep work the magician needs before creating and activating the servitor (also, the more potential for things to go belly-up if the magician is lackadaisical in her preparations or botches the ritual; for a textbook example of this, see Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice).
These beings also form the upper bound of the more “rudimentary” consciousnesses in the astral plane.
Servitors are conscious and creative enough to figure out how to get their task done, but beyond fulfilling their single given purpose, they have no hopes, fears, needs, aspirations, personalities, or actual sentience of their own.
This is very much not the case for all the other entities we’ll examine.
Video Game Example: The monster echoes from The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom can be thought of as servitors. | ImageCredit: Nintendo (Author Screengrab)
Demons
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Perhaps the most feared (and, depending on who you’re asking, highly misunderstood) of all astral entities, demons—like their angelic counterparts—are actually quite tricky to define, as I explained in this bonus post from Volume 4 [paywall removed].
In a nutshell, demons are commonly understood to be spiritual beings of a malevolent or evil nature.
And within this broad category, lie everything from imps and parasites6 to incubi/succubi and the princes, dukes, and lords of Hell... all the way up to the Devil himself.
A demon possessed that girl from The Exorcist. Pissed-off demons tear up the houses of naive teenagers fooling around with Ouija boards. Faust foolishly gave up his soul to a guileful demon, and he really should’ve known better. Diablo is an entire franchise about descending to the infernal depths to kick these entities a new one for their wicked skullduggery.
Based on all this, you’d think it most prudent to leave demons well alone and stay the hell away from them.7
And yet, countless IRL witches, wizards, and occultists not only commune with these beings, but count them as allies, protectors, and even friends.
…What?!
You see, the picture I painted above is heavily informed by Christian (and, to a much lesser extent, Jewish) mythos, which characterizes demons as explicitly adversarial to God, His creations in general, and humans in particular.
Christian demons (and almost all Western media depicting demons invariably depict the Christian variety) love nothing better than to torment humans throughout their entire lives, and then torment them some more for all eternity in death.
But there are other interpretations of these beings.
In more polytheistic or pagan theologies, demons are simply spirits like any other, overseeing a particular domain, and have their own particular strengths, follies, likes, dislikes, and quirks—no more or less powerful, vengeful, or temperamental than any other spirit or deity.
And from a more secular, postmodern, Jungian/Gestalt neo-occultist perspective, demons are merely archetypal projections of our “baser,” more instinctual behaviors and desires (eating, drinking, sleeping, fighting, fuc… well, you, get the picture).
As such, they can serve a purpose in attaining the practitioner’s goals.
For instance, if someone has wronged a magician and she’s proved unable to obtain redress through more mundane channels (like the legal system), she could well call on a demon to dispense some very harsh infernal justice instead. She could also invoke a demon to augment her powers of persuasion or deception—and not just for nefarious purposes.
For instance, what if she’s fleeing an abusive relationship and needs to remain hidden from her abuser until she gets to safety? Or, what if she absolutely needs to persuade her boss to choose her over her coworker for that promotion, or else she and her family will end up on the streets, homeless and hungry?
As you can see, “dark” magic is not always used for “dark” ends.
Hell,8 the enlisting of demons in the service of benevolent goals even has precedent in the same Western, Judeo-Christian tradition that’s done so much to demonize9 these spirits!
King Solomon, widely revered in the Abrahamic faiths as the wisest king of Ancient Israel, is believed to have summoned 72 demons, bound them to a brass ring supposedly bestowed to him by God Himself, and ordered them to build the Holy Temple in Jerusalem—the foundation of which still stands today.10
HOWEVER…!!!
This does not mean you can be careless and laissez-faire when dealing with demons!
They can really mess you and your life up, and will not hesitate to do so if they detect an iota of carelessness, blaséness, or disrespect, or if you don’t follow their highly complex and exacting summoning rituals to the letter.
They really don’t like when uppity humans feel they can boss them around or waste their time, and they’re notorious for interpreting requests as literally as possible (ask them to get rid of the mess in your room, and they’ll more likely burn down your house instead).
On top of all this, the possibility of getting more than you bargained for and becoming a literal slave (or worse) to the demon is not a trivial one.
As such, they’re usually far more trouble than they’re worth for many practitioners. But for those adept, brave, and/or foolhardy enough to confidently and authoritatively work with these shifty and mercurial beings, there’s no doubt demons can be formidable and powerful spiritual allies, despite the risks and costs involved.11
And at the end of the day, there are some requests that only a demon will entertain. I’ll leave the nature of these to your imagination.
Video Game Example: Summoning demons is a key part of the player’s toolkit in the Bayonetta series. | Image Credit: PlatinumGames / Nintendo (Author Screengrab) | (NOTE:Diablo is too obvious an example. Don’t worry, I’ll dive into Diablo more in an upcoming article!)
Angels
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Like their demonic counterparts, angels are a concept that everyone seems to intuitively understand, yet are vexingly hard to define with words.
In Judeo-Christian mythos, they are messengers of God, but this vastly undersells their sheer awesomeness.
In a more general sense, they are spiritual beings of a benevolent or altruistic nature, but this also doesn’t quite capture the full spectrum of their powers. They are some of the most versatile and helpful spirits in the astral realm.
Like with demons, it helps if we apply the Jungian lens to angels so we can sus out a better understanding of them. In this view, just as demons are archetypal projections of our “lower” functions, angels are projections of our “higher” functions.12
Basically, demons are to the amygdala as angels are to the prefrontal cortex. Or, from a Freudian view: demons are the Id, the human soul is the Ego, and angels are the Superego.
Demons access the brain functions involving survival, instinct, and self-preservation, while angels access the ones involving abstraction, creativity, and empathy. Both groups of functions are needed in a healthy, fully individualized soul.
Anyway, what can people call on angels for?
If you’re going purely off the popular conception of angels, you’ve probably already thought of protection, strength, healing, premonition, communication, art, and exorcism.
All of which are true, but angels can do so much more.
Angels can be called upon to impart on you knowledge beyond human reach or comprehension.
They can connect you to intelligence beyond space and time, and reveal uncanny patterns and synchronicities that guide you towards success, wealth, and glory.
They can negate curses and scare off vengeful spirits.
They can instill creative or artistic skill and inspiration in even the most milquetoast accounting director.
They can even deliver highly wrathful and retributive justice, and can be as destructive as any demon.
They are celestial ambassadors, poets, healers, and soldiers.
But… ah, there’s always a “but,” isn’t there? So… what’s the catch, you say? Well, it’s the simple fact that angels will only help those who intend to “do good.”
Whereas a demon will be down for just about any task, no matter how vile or underhanded, an angel will ignore overly self-serving or morally ambiguous petitions unless it’s in the service of some greater good (what this could construe, like all things esoteric, is open to interpretation).13
And the more powerful the angel, the loftier the request must be and the more complicated the rituals are, with Enochian Angels and (naturally) the Archangels having the highest standards of all.
Still, the nature of all magic depends on the intent of the magician. And most people do operate from good intentions.
From this perspective, even a seemingly selfish request like making the practitioner rich can serve a higher purpose—if she becomes wealthy, the magician can then feed her family, hire more employees to feed their families, and donate meaningful amounts to charities and causes.
Really, there’s a lot of leeway here, as long as you’re genuine about it and not just trying to find a loophole. Just about the only sincere request an angel won’t acquiesce is one for wanton cruelty or harm.
Video Game Example:Diablo IV’s Inarius, like all angels in the Diablo series, perfectly illustrates how awesome, powerful, and even terrifying angels can be! | Image Credit: Activision Blizzard
Humans
Art by Midjourney
Just about everyone reading this understands (even if not necessarily believes in) the concept of a soul, so I won’t rehash that here. Just keep the idea in your head.
Remember how thoughtforms manifest in the astral plane, just from someone thinking about them? Well, what form do you think the sum of all your thoughts, feelings, memories, desires, fears, quirks, and dreams takes?
That’s right: you exist on the astral plane as much as you do on the material plane.
In fact, astral projection is simply separating your astral body (your “soul”) from your physical body and setting it loose in the celestial realm. When people talk about visiting dead relatives, past lives, or people/events on the other side of the planet during a lucid dream, near death, or out-of-body experience, they’re referring to this.
And humans occupy a unique position in the celestial hierarchy.
On the scale of sentience between simple servitors and the practically incomprehensible Godhead, humans are smack dab in the middle.
We have enough spiritual authority to command angels and demons, but not guides and deities.
We are also balanced in our ability to access both higher and lower functions—to return to the Freudian analogy, we are the Ego: the integrated self that marries the demonic Id and the angelic Superego into a fully whole and individuated selfconscious.
This means that we have equal capacity for love and hate, selfishness and altruism, survival and sacrifice, vengeance and mercy.
As such, our decisions carry much more spiritual weight than, say, an angel or demon for whom a selfish or altruistic act (respectively) is literally incomprehensible.
This also means that, if we really put our minds to it, we could conceivably ascend or descend the celestial ladder!
There’s a lot of precedence for this: it’s a core concept of karmic belief systems, where souls are reincarnated over and over again as everything from insects to gods in the eternal cycle of Samsara before achieving enlightenment and breaking free, returning to the source of everything.
Heck, it’s even a concept in Western spirituality.
Saints are ordinary human beings who, through living a lifetime of hardship, miracles, and (ahem) saint-like selflessness, are able to ascend to an elevated position in the afterlife.
Meanwhile, in Jewish esoteric tradition, the Prophet Enoch sat upon the very throne of God, whereupon he transcended his earthly yoke to become the Archangel Metatron, chief of all the Archangels.
In fact, this ascension toward elevated celestial status is kind of the point of practically every extant esoteric and mystical tradition.
Gnosticism posits that people can reunite with God through attaining gnosis, or direct knowledge of their innate and inner divinity.
Kabbalists ascend the Tree of Life by tapping into the divine creative aspects represented by the sephirot.
And members of Hermetic orders throughout the ages have sought to commune with their Holy Guardian Angel, a kind of ascended superconscious that represents that person’s best, loftiest, and most ideal celestial iteration.
In fact, if humans represent anything in this big celestial family of symbols and archetypes, it’s potential. And potential is the soil that nurtures magic, in all its forms.
Familiars
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After angels and demons, familiars are probably the astral beings most familiar (#SorryNotSorry) to people.
And like angels and demons, defining a familiar is a similarly tricky endeavor. But to distill the concept down a bit, a familiar is simply a companion spirit to the practitioner. They often—but not always—take the form or inhabit the body of an animal.
Pan from His Dark Materials, Hedwig from Harry Potter, and Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch are all examples of familiars.
😾🧙♀️🪬 SIDE QUEST: Cat Frights
Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch is extra symbolic, as it points to the reason cats and magic are regarded with such scorn and suspicion in most Western societies, even well into the current age.
Cats have been associated with femininity since time immemorial. Think about the connotations invoked by the word catty—a highly gendered term that describes an underhanded, manipulative, and vindictively petty woman (or highly effeminate man). For that matter, think of the term cat fight, or a certain vulgar name for the female genitalia.14
Our feline friends have also held a special place in the hearts of mystics and mages since the dawn of history. The Ancient Egyptians worshipped cats and considered them guardians of the underworld. Cats are said to sense the presence of spirits. According to Wicca and other forms of modern Witchcraft, cats are the only animals that can walk through a magical circle without dispelling it.
It’s easy to see why: feline mannerisms and behavior often evoke an ultra-perceptive, magical, and almost Zen-like “in the moment”-ness.
And the image of the Three-Eyed Cat—the “third eye” being a mystical symbol for intuition, or the “mind’s eye” that senses things beyond the reach of our ordinary five senses—is a staple of magical allegories, myths, and fables.
Speaking of mysticism… you know what else has been associated with femininity since before recorded history? Witchcraft. In other words, magic.
And the only thing that arouses more unease and contempt in society than a woman is a magical woman. You know, a witch.
But let’s back up a bit.
On a subconscious, archetypal level, the term “magical woman” is quite redundant. Society has long ascribed magical attributes to women and to femininity. For men—and for many women, for that matter—the female psyche is an impenetrable mystery.
Biology has confered upon the female experience many aspects—internal reproductive organs, menstruation, childbirth, breastfeeding, menopause, and their accompanying hormonal rollercoasters—that are utterly foreign (and even frightening) to men. Women’s beauty rituals, lifecycles, and roles as nurterers create the famed “feminine mystique” that is simultaneously confounding and intoxicating to males observing from the outside. The old adage “the mind of a maiden is a most mysterious thing” says it all.
Notice the words I just bolded. Now, keep in mind that “mystery” and “mysticism” share the same Greek root word: musterion—that which is impossible to comprehend.
Now, you start to get an inkling of why “witch”—a gendered term which marks a woman as explicitly magical—is such a potent label. Again: society loathes women and magic, just on their own, in and of themselves. But when combined? Watch out.
Since Biblical times, women have been scorned, ostracized, tortured, and killed for the mere suspicion of engaging in magical practice—often the same magical practices that male magicians (sorry… “prophets,” “exorcists,” and “healers”) engaged in with the tacit or even explicit approval of religious authorities.
So, by the time Medieval times rolled around, the associations between witchcraft, cats, and women had plenty of time to crystallize into full-blown, literal witch hunts.
And owning a cat—particularly a black cat—was often enough to convince the frocked holy men that the weird old crone who lived alone in the woods outside of town was actually a wicked witch who worshipped the devil and brought upon the hex/plague/famine that was decimating the village.
The justification they gave for this was because the cat was obviously a familiar spirit. It’s not like a woman would keep a pet cat for companionship, rodent control, or other similarly wacky reason.
But why black cats, specifically? Well, they’re black. And we all know black is the devil’s color. DUH.
Anyway, enough sarcasm. The point is, the concept of a familiar is a very old one indeed.
And not just in European folklore; countless Native American traditions, for instance, have the concept of the spirit animal, though these are less familiars and more guides (basically, a spirit that’s smarter and more sentient than you are but is similarly on your side, though there is plenty of overlap between the two ideas).
Fortunately, today’s society is far more open-minded about familiars (as well as magic in general) than our forebears were.
In any case, the name “familiar” really says it all. A practitioner is as inseparable from his familiar spirit as he would be from a family member. This is because familiars are not entirely separate from the magician.
Whether they are merely bound to each other or share parts of the same soul, a familiar is basically a spiritual twin to the practitioner.
This means your familiar shares your joy, dreams, sorrows, and pain, as well as your strengths and weaknesses.
It acts as your spiritual consigliere, one that knows you inside and out and can help point out your blind spots and foibles.
It is your backup when dealing with the nastier sorts of celestial entities.
It is your best friend and closest ally in the astral realm.
Where, when, and as you go, so does your familiar.
Video Game Example: Each familiar is loyal to their mage, but Polterpup from Luigi’s Mansion 3 might be the most loyal of them all. | Image Credit: Nintendo (Author Screengrab)
Video Game Example: Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time might be gaming’s most infamously annoying familiar. | Image Credit: Nintendo (Author Screengrab)
Guides
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Guides are highly elevated, sentient, and intelligent spirits whose primary role is to impart knowledge or guidance to the magician or mystic delving into the mysteries of life.
In this sense, there is some overlap with the roles of familiars, with a key distinction: whereas a familiar is literally a practitioner’s spiritual equal, a guide is smarter, more sentient, and higher on the celestial ladder than the practitioner.
As such, should you seek the counsel or assistance of a guide, they very much expect to be calling the shots and want you to follow their guidance without objection or reservation.
But this is for a good reason! Because they’re of a higher spiritual “class” than you, they have a much deeper, intuitive, and more complete sense of the mysteries than any human could ever hope to attain in life.
And the celestial realm can be a perilous place—one wrong step can lead to encounters with chompers, composters, guardians, and other astral nasties who can tear your soul to smithereens before you’ve even registered your presence.
Or, you could tumble headfirst into the abyss—the plane of the underworld that separates the unprepared and unworthy from the realms of the divine—and into an eternal hell of your own making.
So, generally, following your guide’s advice is… well, very good advice.
Guides are often (though not always) older and more seasoned spirits who’ve lived many lifetimes, accumulating reams of knowledge, and have decided to put their knowledge to work by guiding mystics and magicians through the mysteries, as an act of service. Saints, Bodhisattvas, and Ancestor Spirits are examples of beings who’ve ascended to this lofty role.
Engaging a guide is a major step in the mystic’s spiritual journey. In fact, some Hermetic traditions consider this a huge rite of passage, spending months or even years preparing the initiate for contact with her Holy Guardian Angel, a kind of personal guide in the form of the practitioner’s most idealized astral self.
Some rituals for contacting said guides, like the Abramelin (of Aleister Crowley fame) are highly complex and involve months of preparation (18 months, in this case!) to summon one’s Holy Guardian Angel.
Others simply involve the magician traveling to the astral plane (particularly the Great Library, an archetypal representation of the collective unconscious) and finding a guide there.
But regardless of the catalyst, the initial engagement is merely the first step. Actually learning from the guide is a yearslong (and even decades-long) process, one that invariably deeply transforms and elevates the mystic’s trajectory. Maybe, in some lifetime, said mystic will then return the favor and serve as an astral guide for future seekers that follow in her footsteps.
(Personally, I like to think His Eminence Carl Jung is serving as a guide, somewhere in the Great Library, guiding seekers to higher truths. He’s certainly fulfilled a similar role for me, if only indirectly though his writings).
Video Game Example: Speaking of Carl Jung… Celeste’s protagonist, Madeline, spends a good chunk of the game fleeing from or chasing a projection of her shadow, “Badeline.” The Shadow Self, when honestly and unflinchingly engaged, can serve as a highly useful guide. | Image Credit: Maddie Makes Games (Author Screengrab)
Video Game Example: Kaepora Gaebora from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask is an ancient sage who takes the form of an animal, dispensing lore and gameplay advice to Link and the player alike. | ImageCredit: Nintendo (Author Screengrab)
Egregores
Art by Midjourney
An egregore is formed when multiple thoughtforms coalesce into one huge “mega-consciousness,” taking on the characteristics of all the energies being fed into them.
Whether they exist independently from, or are merely the sum collective expression of, the practitioners feeding into it is a matter of some debate.
But one thing is clear: these are very powerful entities, and careless groups/societies that bring them into being without proper preparation or safeguards often find they got far more than they bargained for.
When you think about a group’s dynamics, you’re thinking of the egregore brought into existence by each member’s thoughts, actions, and motivations. Any group, from the smallest office teams to the largest nations and ideologies, can spawn egregores—intentionally or not.15
And as history (both recent and past) has shown, these entities can quickly take on a life of their own, to either highly beneficial or highly destructive (but either way, equally transformative) effect.
Doomsday cults, Soviet Russia, and Nazi Germany are examples of groups that have spawned particularly nasty and destructive egregores. So has, depending on who you ask, modern industry itself.16
So when Mitt Romney said “corporations are people,” he wasn’t entirely off the mark. He just wasn’t correct in the way he probably meant.
Godforms
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Here we go, the big kahunas themselves: Gods. Goddesses. Deities. Godforms.
You know, Zeus, Odin, Krishna, Cthulhu, Hylia, and Raiden.
If you just thought “hey, wait a minute, those last three are fictional!”, then you haven’t been paying attention. Think back to the section on thoughtforms—the last three gods I listed are no more (or less) fictional than the first three.
Indeed, to use video game parlance, a godform is the humble thoughtform’s “final form.”
Godforms are smarter, and far more powerful and capable, than practically any other spirit—but this also means you can’t just command them, like an angel or demon.
They demand deference. They demand devotion. They demand worship.
But if you can accept this, find a godform you and your goals gel with, remain open to their instruction, and be willing to uphold your end of the bargain (usually in the form of offerings, whether material or spiritual), they can move mountains for you.17
However, this doesn’t mean that godforms are all-knowing, all-powerful, or all-loving. Godforms are a more polytheistic concept of what a god is—they’re not perfect.
They rule over limited domains.
They have strengths and proficiencies, but also flaws and foibles.
They can be forthcoming and kind, but also manipulative and petty.
They connect, scheme, hook up, break up, and feud with each other.
And some can be very particular, exacting, and demanding in their instructions and devotional needs.
You know, kind of like humans… who’ve vastly leveled up. And some deities do claim mortal origin. While the notion of a human ascending to godhood is either sacreligious or ludicrous to modern sensibilities, back in ancient times, great warriors, mystics, and leaders would commonly be deified after their deaths.
Hercules, for example—and his origin story even explicitly states his mortal origins. Same with Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar onwards. From a certain perspective, the same could be said for Jesus.
But this points to the big shortcoming I mentioned: humans are flawed. They’re limited. And so are godforms. They’re not all-knowing, or all-powerful.
No, for the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient kind of deity, you need to go further up, all the way to…
Video Game Example: This category’s really self-explanatory, but if you want a good depiction of the fickle and capricious nature of many deities’ relationships with humanity (and with each other), look no further than Hades (and/or read the myths it’s based on). | Image Credit: Supergiant Games (Author Screengrab)
God/Om/The Universe/Ein Sof/The Godhead/Etc.
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The very top of the ladder.
This is the Abrahamic, monotheistic idea of God, and the Vedic concept of Om—the all-powerful primordial source from which all creation springs, and which undergirds all of existence.
A mega-consciousness (or rather, the mega-consciousness), so advanced that even its name—never mind its nature, plans, and motivations—is literally incomprehensible to us feeble humans.
This all-encompassing consciousness goes by many names:
God. Om. Ein Sof. Tao. Emptiness/Nothingness. YHWH. The Great Spirit. The Force. Or “The Universe,” if you’re merely LARPing as a mystic (I kid, I kid!).
But The Godhead is a nice catch-all that’s fairly theologically agnostic (and thus ideal for this article).
We all spring from The Godhead.
The Godhead flows through all of us.
When all is said and done, we return to The Godhead. And when we invoke, evoke, and command spirits, we do so in the Name of the Godhead.
Nothing in existence happens without The Godhead’s knowledge or approval.
And it is the ultimate goal of every serious mystic and magician to one day fully reunite with The Godhead.
🔮🤔❓ SIDE QUEST: A Mystic By Any Other Name
By now, you’ve heard me throw around the terms mystic, magician, and occultist (and their many variations) somewhat synonymously. And for most people’s intents and purposes, they might as well be.
Nevertheless, there is a subtle distinction, and it all comes down to the roots of the three words.
The term mystic comes from the Greek mustikos, which means “initiate.” But that word itself is a derivation of the Greek musterion, and then the Latin mysterium, both of which translate to mystery. We all know what that word means, but here’s a dictionary definition:
Something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain.
And indeed, the mystic makes it his life’s mission to understand the incomprehensible: the mysteries of existence. These are the big questions about life, the universe, and everything, the ones that science, religion, and philosophy have been struggling for millennia to decipher.
It may be an impossible mission, but to paraphrase the Pirke Avot, the futility of the endeavor does not exempt one from trying.
Mysticism is also closely related to esotericism, which is basically the means of answering the mysteries by looking inward through introspection and meditation, as contrasted with exotericism, which is doing the same but outward, through external rituals and communal religious observance.
Meanwhile, occultist is a derivation of occult, which comes from the Latin occultare (“secrete”) and occulere (“conceal”). Thus, the occultist dabbles in what’s hidden or secreted from ordinary view.
This is a reference to the fact that realms like the astral plane (where the answers to the mysteries are presumably found) are quite literally hidden in plain sight, imperceptible to the ordinary five senses, and require a fair amount of effort and know-how to perceive and access.
The distinction between mysticism and occultism is a very subtle one.
After all, they both imply the exploration of forces beyond ordinary perception, and there is indeed a ton of overlap. But there is a slight difference in connotations.
The mysteries of life are said to be impossible to truly comprehend, at least in our relatively spiritually undeveloped human forms (higher beings like guides and godforms, on the other hand, would presumably have less trouble accessing and interpreting them).
The occult, meanwhile, is merely hidden—but still mostly accessible and interpretable (that said, the mysteries themselves could also be said to be occult).
One could, of course, argue that the occult is simply a conduit for accessing and comprehending the mysteries. But generally, the distinction between the two is of little practical meaning, especially to non-practitioners.
Finally, the magician is someone who accesses and harnesses these mysterious and occult forces as a means to an end.
Remember, we’ve already defined magic as the imposition of the will upon reality.
As such, the magician uses mystical and occult forces as a tool. Whether she uses it for mundane or spiritual ends is irrelevant—it’s the use itself that makes the magician.
But of course, you can’t use what you can’t understand. Thus, the old mystical adage: “one can be a mystic without being a magician, but not a magician without being a mystic.”
Mundane Magic
Speaking of mundanity… if you’re not the spiritual type, and place the type of magic we’ve just discussed squarely in the realm of fantasy or delusion, then I’ve got good news for you:
You don’t need to believe in the astral plane or in spirits to believe in magic.
In fact, there’s magic all around us, right here in the “real” world. And you don’t need to meditate or recite incantations to access them!
For instance, making art is an inherently magical act. Think about all you’ve learned so far; it’ll make perfect, intuitive sense.
Artists and magicians alike draw from the pure potential that permeates the Universe and harness the tools of their craft to manifest their will into being.
And while all art is magical, storytelling is especially so. In addition to the similarities I just pointed out, writers use letters and words to literally create new realities.
Guess what? So do magicians!
After all, what are spells but groups of words and letters arranged in a metaphysically symbolic and meaningful way, deployed to conjure up a different reality?
In that vein, what are stories, if not the same?
Words are probably the most powerful technology ever invented. They have the power to change our thinking, open our eyes, and transport us to fantastical worlds where anything and everything is possible.
Sound familiar? No wonder magic is so integral to the fantasy genre! And no wonder magic permeates creative works of all genres, period.
Seriously, now that you know what to look for, you’ll start seeing it everywhere in movies, books, and pictures. It’s mind-blowing how steeped in magic all art and fiction are!
Do you know what’s another magical output, the one that most adeptly marries magic and technology? Video games.
Video games are particularly magical because they’re interactive media. They have the power to transport and transform the player like nothing else. And myriad video games are chock-full of magical references—and not just fantasy RPGs!
In fact, video games have their own form of meta-magic baked into them: cheat codes and mods! For example:
Old school gamers used to enter sequences of numbers into a Game Genie or Game Shark to get infinite lives or be able to one-shot any enemy.
Gamers of the same generation memorized the Konami Code to make games like Contra actually winnable.
Franchises like Grand Theft Auto continue to carry on that legacy, allowing players to spawn tanks, choppers, and money by mashing the buttons on their controller in particular sequences.
And game mods allow players to change just about every aspect of a game’s experience—and some mods for games like Skyrim and Warcraft have even spawned entirely separate games, in their own right.
In each case, you’re arranging a series of inputs (buttons, codes, mods) in a particular way in order to change reality within the game. Taken this way, what is an incantation, then, but an analog version of a cheat code, for real life?
As we go forward, we will continue to examine these themes, and how video games explore the ideas and themes of magic and mysticism in glorious detail.
But first… next time, I’ll present to you an accessible and practical video game grimoire! See you then!
~Jay
PS—And that’s not even getting into Technomancy, which is the actual application of magical knowledge and methods to information technology. But don’t worry, we’ll get there in due time!
Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts
While you wait for the next issue, I invite you to mull over the following discussion prompts. Please reply to this email with your answers, or post them in the comments—I'd love to hear your thoughts!
What’s your take on magic and mysticism? Actually supernatural, or all (or mostly) in your head?
Which mystical traditions, if any, do you vibe with the most, any why?
Do you do spirit work? If so, which spirits do you work with?
Which games do you think best depict the types of spirits mentioned in this article? Let me know and I might add them as examples! (I was in a bit of a hurry gathering images, so I know I’ve missed a few)
The Psychonaut Field Manual by Archtraitor Bluefluke — Sick of just reading about magic and want to actually do magic? This handy guide is chock full of practical advice and just enough theoretical framework to get started! — Free PDF
Quaeria by Josephine McCarthy — If you want to dive off the deep end, this is a highly detailed, decades-long, yet imminently accessible free course for apprentice and adept magicians alike. — Free Online Course
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I don’t care what Paul Graham says. I’ve been using “delve” in my writing since long before he made the word into a meme, and I’ll continue using it no matter how much ChatGPT inserts it into generated articles and papers.
That said, I must caution you against relying solely on magic to start a new career as a professional gambler. Remember, magic is still bound to the laws of the universe. And among reality’s most ironclad laws is “eventually, the house always wins.”
That said, one thing that most mystical traditions generally agree on is that everything one does imprints on and affects both the practitioner’s own soul and the wider astral plane/collective unconscious. So even highly personal actions that only the practitioner is aware of can still have ripple effects that can reverberate more widely.
This holds true even for magic that ostensibly works on other people, such as curses or enchantments. How is this so, you may be wondering? Well, I’ll give you a big hint: remember the old adage about forgiveness being more for the benefit of the forgiver than the one being forgiven. Now, think about why this is, then extrapolate that to the spell(s) of your choice.
These 72 demons are the same ones codified in the infamous medieval demonological grimoire, the Ars Goetia, and are known as the Goetic Demons. You can read all about them here—complete with their sigils, incantations, and summoning rituals... IF YOU DARE!
This is not a value judgment on angels vs. demons, as within this view, terms like “good” and “evil” are complete misnomers when describing these beings. I use the terms “higher” and “lower” in a strictly biological/neurological sense.
This also isn’t an argument for demons being less powerful than angels, though many (if not most) Western systems do place angels higher up on the celestial hierarchy than demons. But like most occult topics, this is a subject of fierce debate.
Nor does this preclude angels and demons working together towards the same goal. In fact, the smart practitioner will call on both (provided she takes all the necessary precautions), as both angel and demon will augment each other’s strengths and temper each other’s weaknesses.
But wait, didn’t I say that angels are capable of unleashing wrath and destruction? Yes, they sure can! But again, only if it’s in the service of actual justice (and not just petty vengeance) being served, or—in the case of some of the more morally rigid angels—to teach salty practitioners a lesson in humility, forgiveness, or messing with destructive forces beyond their comprehension.
Speaking of which, that same vulgar word is also a derisive term for a coward, particularly a male coward. This usage does double duty: it brings to mind cats’ famed skittishness (ie, a “scaredy cat”)—thus strengthening the association between women and cats—while ascribing to the targeted man qualities of weakness, indecisiveness, and passivity, all of which have been considered feminine qualities since time immemorial.
Just about the most insulting thing you can say to a man is anything that threatens his masculinity. And what more effective way to do that than by describing him in feminine terms? In other words, by likening him to a girl. Homophobic insults also strike a nerve with the stereotypical macho man, for similar reasons.
One could also argue that the current crop of generative AI models, having been trained on practically the entirety of the internet, and constantly tweaked and reinforced by human feedback, have spawned an egregore—or will spawn one soon.
You’re back! And with a HALLOWEEN post featuring magic, no less! 💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻