Looking for a little insparation for a wordbuilding project I am working on. I am curious what supernatural/ witchy ritual you have experienced, how you felt and if you’d do it again? :3
Looking for a little insparation for a wordbuilding project I am working on. I am curious what supernatural/ witchy ritual you have experienced, how you felt and if you’d do it again? :3
Decades ago, I used to be a fairly involved practitioner of ritual magick, and developed and co-administrated a popular occult forums.
If you just want to know if I’d do it again, no. Living that lifestyle with a sense of dedication regularly leads to psychosis of varying types and degrees. I’ve seen it firsthand in many others, and I myself began to lose my footing in the immediate, “tangible” world. The more I tried to influence and expand my understanding of the world (seen and unseen) through occultism and magick, the more I actually just lost grip on it.
I escaped through pivoting to studying philosophy and analytical psychology, which actually taught me how to understand myself, how I fit into the world, and how to influence my surroundings to fulfill my goals.
If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask. I may or may not answer them.
Are you intentionally spelling “magick” that way? If so, why? Is it different from “magic”?
Simply an accepted way to distinguish stage magic from occult magic(k).
Except there isn’t any difference in practice.
You’re preaching to the choir, but I’d also suggest you have poor social skills.
I guess that you mean seeing verification of rituals and miracles. Can you share examples of things that you experienced that you now realize weren’t legit?
I really just meant I saw people lose their minds. Paranoia, schizoid behaviors, and generally being unable to differentiate between fantasy and (for lack of a better word) reality.
Everything I experienced was legitimate in some sense. I never dealt in miracles. I’ve seen and involved myself in lots of things that just never saw any fruition, except perhaps a momentary dopamine spike. On the other hand, I’ve seen and spoken to beings that I couldn’t to this day in good conscience tell you I am able to differentiate as a real entity, or just the power of human subconscious.
The moral of the story is none of it had any positive effect on my life or mental well being. If I had at any point objectively involved myself in the uncovering of some sort of hidden knowledge, then it was hidden for a reason, and I’m happy to let it remain hidden. Living life in the basal world is complicated and involved enough.
The question I have after hearing that is: Do these things drive people mad, or are the mentally ill drawn towards the occult?
I can’t rule anything out, but I think it’s more likely that these are preexisting conditions.
I’m not a head doctor, so take this just as an observation during the years of my involvement.
Occultism seemed to attract a lot of people who were ill, or at risk. It seemed to attract a lot of people that felt helpless or like they weren’t in control of their life. These people commonly were looking for a leg up. Often that leg up was some sort of understanding of the bigger picture, or a toolset that would allow them to influence the world in ways favorable to them. My deduction is that, aside from those I’d refer to as “the scholars,” occultism more often than not attracted the vulnerable in one sense or another.
It also seemed to attract the damaged, who wanted to intentionally share their damage. But I felt like they were rare, and they also fizzled out very quickly.
Interesting. I’ve studied magick off and on for years.
I certainly think there are those who are delusional and want to live in a fantasy, and I’m sure engaging with the occult can fuck with that kind of person’s head.
But most of the occultists I’ve met have been fairly level headed individuals, who recognize that magick is basically just a collection of practices to influence your own subconscious. They’ve generally been the most down to Earth and well-adjusted people I know.
Depends on the scene I guess.