#occult theory

[signamagicae]

“Thoughts of the Brain are experienced by us as arrangements and rearrangements -- change -- in a physical universe; but in fact it is really information and information-processing which we substantialize. We do not merely see its thoughts as objects, but rather as the movement, or, more precisely, the placement of objects: how they become linked to one another. But we cannot read the patterns of arrangement; we cannot extract the information in it -- i.e. it as information, which is what it is. The linking and relinking of objects by the Brain is actually a language, but not a language like ours (since it is addressing itself and not someone or something outside itself).

We should be able to hear this information, or rather narrative, as a neutral voice inside us. But something has gone wrong. All creation is a language and nothing but a language, which for some inexplicable reason we can't read outside and can't hear inside. So I say, we have become idiots. Something has happened to our intelligence. My reasoning is this: arrangement of parts of the Brain is language. We are parts of the Brain; therefore we are language. Why, then, do we not know this? We do not even know what we are, let alone what the outer reality is of which we are parts. The origin of the word 'idiot' is the word 'private.' Each of us has become private, and no longer shares the common thought of the Brain, except at a subliminal level. Thus our real life and purpose are conducted below our threshold of consciousness. ” - Philip K Dick, from his Exegesis

[theorieee]

This is the start of my pagan/witch blog! Interact with this post if you're interested in pagan spirituality and the occult

[clairpilferage]

The popularized idea that casting a circle creates a restrictive boundary is one I don't support in the least. That it creates a boundary is secondary to its actual purpose: creation and focus. Through regimented practice of evocation and repeated exposure to Spirit, I think the awareness of this fact becomes self-evident. The proper form of a magic circle is one that does not restrict but amplifies. It creates a microcosm with the practitioner at the very heart of its machinations and carries that dynamic out into the aether to find fruition.

In simple terms, it is the foundations upon which a practitioner stands, a stage wherein the elements and worked rites are able to dominate the entire 'world'. A circle is not a punishment or a restriction or an "abuse" of nature. It is the magnifier through which intent and will and Spirit may pass to become like augmented rays of light, burning the path they've been called to set. Upon its release, that focused, empowered energy can be envisioned almost as a self-contained power system - interlocked in drive and strength and growing within the macrocosm it has been cast upon.

To my mind, summoning demons and angels and such-like entities into a circle follows a similar line of logic. As they are not part of this realm and may not naturally appear upon Earth's surface, a circle becomes a focus upon which their natural preferences and alignments can be charged to enable smoother, easier manifestations. Through the intentional use of incense, herbs, and liquids, the practitioner is able, within its bounds, to create a space that is both of comfort and use to both sides of the working.

Additionally, in the case of demons, the circle itself is not employed for subjugation or domination. It takes the addition of fire and words and sigils, as well as a number of other tools should the summoner wish it, to support such a purpose. In this case too, it is apparent that the circle is a point of focus, rather than a tool meant to cause harm in any way.

I believe the error in associating circles with restriction comes from: 1) a lack of practical application and/or 2) a faulty understanding of the nature of boundaries. It is easy, I should think, to assume when faced with the word boundary to think only of negative associations with the word. But just as it can account for a thorny wall that pricks and scratches to touch, it can apply to the walls of a home holding in heat and fond memories in the dead of winter. In either case, it is the people who build and inhabit them that set the course for which path they will take.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Thomas J. Scheff - Being Mentally Ill: a sociological theory - Aldine - 1966 (design by David Miller)

[femme-objet]

recently saw someone claim that "ancient aliens was promulgated by the nazis" and like. they were so caught up in debunking pseudohistory abt ancient civilizations that they fell for pseudohistory about the nazis

[creature-wizard]

One thing I learned in witchcraft and the occult is just how many people just... say stuff that you really can't take too seriously. Whether they're innocently misled, or just aren't using great critical thinking skills, or are just making stuff up for clout, people will just say a lot of things that just aren't worth putting any stock in. Whether it's because actual evidence precludes their claims, or because people making these kinds of claims are consistently unable to provide evidence, or because promised events or results fail to manifest, or because it was obvious that their claim is just a variation on a stock lie, or because the methods they used to glean their information are subjective at best and notoriously unreliable at worst, or because it's just statistically absurd, I just... learned to take these people with a grain of salt.

A thing I noticed real fast when I started researching UFO, New Age, and conspiracy stuff, is just how many people had the exact same vibe, or were making near-identical claims to the people I'd learned not to take too seriously.

"This alien told me that giant solar flares will destroy all of our modern technology in three years" versus "Odin came and told me that Ragnarok is upon us, we have to prepare ourselves for the final battle now!"

"The aliens told me that I was a genetic experiment with special DNA that gives me special clairvoyant powers to see the future with" versus "Apollo is my father and that makes me a more powerful witch than you!"

"Ancient people actually had incredibly advanced technology, but the government is concealing it from us" versus "all pagans worshiped the Great Goddess in ancient times but the Church is hiding this from the masses."

"A mysterious man dropped off these CIA documents and vanished" versus "A mysterious man dropped off an old manuscript of the Necronomicon and vanished."

"I went under hypnosis and recalled suppressed memories of an alien abduction!" versus "I underwent hypnosis and recalled memories of a past life where I was burned at the stake for practicing Wicca."

"I sneaked into the secret underground base and stole these papers" versus "I found this mysterious old book proving the existence of this pagan cult in an old abandoned attic!"

"Ex-Satanist speaks out about Satanic bloodlines!" versus "My family's grimoire goes all the way back to ancient times!"

And so on and so forth.

Just... after you learn what bullshit looks like in one presentation, you can recognize it in other presentations. Because at the core they're all the same sorts highly doubtful claims; they're just being told in different frameworks and worldviews.

[partikron]

The Elden Ring is a Reference to 16th Century Occultism

Multiple YouTube channels have connected ideas and story concepts within Elden Ring to alchemy and other practices sometimes called "occult sciences", but I think the Elden Ring itself is the biggest hidden reference of all, specifically to the Hieroglyphic Monad of John Dee, a famous 16th century scryer and occultist who was court astrologer to Elizabeth I.

The Elden Ring as we know if governs the logic and order of the world (the purported "holism" of the Golden Order as Corhyn calls it), but it is made of constituent Great Runes that make up aspects of that order.

This bears a striking resemblance to the glyph shown in the text "Monas Hieroglyphica", published by John Dee in 1564. This glyph was purported to contain the secrets of astrology, alchemy and spiritual practice, "representing the unity of all creation influenced by celestial forces", a holistic view of the cosmos and the arcane knowledge within it contained within one symbol.

Look familiar?

It gets better, too, as the constituent parts of the Hieroglyphic Monad contain various astrological symbols, and can even be arranged (according to Dee) to look like alchemical equipment, showing the interconnectedness between all things.

You could think of all these pieces of the Hieroglyphic Monad like the Great Runes of the Elden Ring, each representing a piece of the order governing the world, forming a coherent and functional whole once they are united.

Most of the arcane/alchemical discussion about Elden Ring focuses on the alchemical Rebis of Marika/Radagon or the Nox and their Silver Tears, but I haven't seen many people talking about the Elden Ring/Hieroglyphic Monad connection.

Thoughts?

[knightofhylia]

Milo Rossi's lecture of the dangers of Pseudoscience and Pseudoarcheology

[signamagicae]

The Neurophysics of Magic

The human mind, our experiential interface with “reality”, physically is the result of quantum phenomena occurring within the microtubules (cytoskeletons) of the neurons that make up your brain (http://discovermagazine.com/bonus/quantum).

In fact, all cells possess these conscious structures, and research has determined that the computing power of microorganisms is located within them.

Though we imagine ourselves as discrete beings, we are actually superorganisms composed of billions of microorganisms with their own minds and objectives. You are the sum of their activities.

As we have come to know, all matter is built upon a quantum substrate, and quantum phenomena (which is to say, hyperdimensional phenomena) lay at the foundations of mind. It may now be said that all matter possesses varying degrees of consciousness, casting the world in a distinctly animistic light. The emerging scientific consensus is a species of panpsychism, or the idea that consciousness is essentially omnipresent throughout the universe (https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/1184574/the-idea-that-everything-from-spoons-to-stones-are-conscious-is-gaining-academic-credibility/amp/).

Consider that what we regard as quantum phenomena are the result of structures vibrating in higher dimensions. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2014-12-universe-dimensions.amp). Some scientific models postulate anywhere from 10 dimensions (string theory) to 248 dimensions like the E8 hypothesis (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory_of_Everything).

So it can be said that mind is the result of higher dimensional phenomena, and there is now evidence that the human mind itself has an architecture of about 4.8 dimensions (3 of space, 1 of time, and 0.8 of something more) that can be represented with experimental data as a five dimensional phase space attractor. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1201004/)

Though the bondedness of consciousness remains a problem for some, as every cell and neuron is now known to have its own consciousness, if we look to the holographic model, the problem resolves itself in the mechanics of interference patterns.

A hologram is formed by capturing the interference pattern between multiple lasers. One beam is aimed directly at the object to be recorded (say, in our case, the beam is our conscious attention) and acts as a reference to the light scattered from the scene (and in the case of the mind, the collective consciousnesses of the body’s cellular family are the other beams). Consciousness as a bonded experience is a hologram created by the interference patterns of the consciousness of billions of cells operating in synchrony and in relationship to the reference beam of our conscious attention.

This hologram, our experience, is not all that we take it to be however. Perception is not as veridical as one might hope. As it turns out, perception is a predictive hallucination, an evolutionarily defined user interface based on survival imperatives rather than truth (http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/interface.pdf). So the hologram isn’t reality, just the parts of reality that drive our survival.

Our nervous systems, then, are holographic hyper-dimensional quantum survival prediction engines.

Now consider what we know of the quantum nature of reality: that nothing exists until it is observed.

The act of observation exerts measurable physical effects on reality. (https://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms).

Our conscious minds have tangible effects upon manifest reality. When we observe an outcome, all other outcomes cease to exist in our perception, but those other probabilities continue to exist in parallel. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation).

Time as we think of it doesn’t actually exist. Real time is like a phase space attractor in which all possibilities exist simultaneously, with conscious attention cutting a cross section of this probabilistic hyperdimensional matrix one predictive perception at a time.

And this is where things become truly magical.

Though there are a plethora of magical techniques, they all largely have altered states of consciousness as their key component. Whether light trance states, deep meditative states, or wild excitatory states, altered states change the mechanism of perception, and perception as we have already established, has real effects on the quantum probabilistic nature of reality.

When we alter how we perceive, we change the brains mode of prediction which results in parts of reality shifting to conform to this other mode and its guiding intent. It is a means of hacking perception to change its predictive outcomes.

Sigils, mantras and visualizations applied in these altered states act as further signal interuptors, with the desired outcome often intentionally masked to avoid conscious recognition. (Conscious resistance results from fears that arise in parity with desires. These have a proven nullifying effect on intented magical outcomes by negating positive perceptual predictions).

To put it simply, magic shifts our brains predictive bias in favor of intention and augments the user interface of perception to novel ends.

It is no coincidence that human beings have engaged in a variety of magical practices from nearly the dawn of time. Magic is a natural phenomena arising from the hyperdimensional-quantum-predictive nature of our consciousness. And though we seem trapped in the hallucination of ourselves, we are not entirely prisoners of this hologram. We are participatory agents of universal transformation enjoined in the greater interference pattern of our collective realities, and with a little change in consciousness, we can steer our course to brighter destinies, both individually and as a species.

by ᐯ丨丂丨ㄥㄩ乂 - ©️ 2024

[arsanimarum]

Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice

[cosmicanger]

Of the 100 people persecuted and killed during the Salem witch trials, the majority of them were Black.

[ritualware]

[angelosearch]

This has been languishing in my drafts for a while but with the new season of The Bad Batch being dropped today, I thought maybe it would be a good time to discuss...

The Actual and Potential Star Wars References in Final Fantasy VIII

Preface: For your standard nerd, I was a very late bloomer when it came to Star Wars. The first piece of Star Wars media I actually got into was Clone Wars when I was in my mid-twenties. So the first time my husband saw me play Final Fantasy VIII, he kept saying "That's a Star Wars reference!" and I was like "pffft, no way, not everything is Star Wars."

Now revisiting this game as someone who is so into Star Wars I can give you a 60-slide PowerPoint on why I love Thrawn (recent book series version) and identify characters by just their lightsaber, I can tell you: This game has many connections to Star Wars. Honestly, I will probably miss some in this post.

And it is a long one.

But first, the spiritual connection

We all know that the Final Fantasy series is peppered with Star Wars references; perhaps most notably, Biggs and Wedge. However, I like to think the connection between FFVIII and Star Wars is a little deeper.

FFVIII and the first installment of the Star Wars prequel movies, Episode I: The Phantom Menace, both came out in 1999, which means they were both being produced around the same time. They were both extremely ambitious projects in their field. But I think one of the strongest connections is that both the movie and FFVIII were pioneers in utilizing motion capture technology, and, in doing so, completely changed their medium. (If you want to learn more about the importance of motion capture in the history of Star Wars media, I highly recommend the podcast The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks.)

This may be controversial, and I adore Episodes 1, 2 and 3 so I mean this is the utmost affection, but I kind of think of FFVIII as the "Prequels" of the Final Fantasy series. The Star Wars prequel films were reviled by long-time fans of the IP when they were first released, because they seemed silly, because they deviated from what people were used to from the series, because they took big swings, because the dialogue was a little clunky at times, because the nuance of the characters and the politics was lost on some. But, the Prequels are now being appreciated, mostly by those who grew up with them. Sound familiar?

Onto the in-game connections!

I am going to try to move from the connections that I am most certain are intended to least certain.

Biggs and Wedge. This serially demoted bumbling duo from the Galbadian army share names with Biggs Darklighter and Wedge Antilles--two Red Squadron pilots who fight alongside Luke Skywalker.

Piet. Or should I say Piett? The space guy in FFVIII is named after the Imperial Officer Fleet Admiral Firmus Piett.

Only one of the most iconic lines in Star Wars history. When Squall goes to retrieve Ellone from the library mid-disk 2, Squall is spinning out and asks "why me?" As Ellone is leaving, she says under her breath, "You're my only hope." Um, Obi Kenobi called, he wants his Leia recording back.

EXCUSE ME, BUT IS THAT A TIE FIGHTER? Nope, that's a spaceship we briefly see when we are getting into the Lunar Base on disk 3.

Lunar Cry is a deep, deep, deep cut? Screen Rant calls this the biggest FFVIII allision to Star Wars, but I am not familiar with the comic being referenced. It's still interesting though so I'll pull the quote:

The biggest Star Wars allusion in this Final Fantasy game, however, involves the Lunar Cry phenomenon which works similarly to the pull of the tides. The gravitational pull between the moon and planet occasionally brings about the Lunar Cry, where the moon's surface becomes so saturated with monsters, that it creates a gateway for monsters to fall on and attack the planet. This is a direct parallel to how the Beast Wars started in the Dark Horse comic miniseries, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, in which the planet of Onderon and its moon - Dxun - would connect once a year during their orbit. The native monsters of Dxun learned to use the "oxygen bridge" created from this occurrence to travel to Onderon which inevitably resulted in the Beast Wars.

NORG and Jabba. I think they look alike but also have similarities in the way they move and speak.

Martine and Nida. The Headmaster of the Galbadian Garden is named "Martine" in the English version because perhaps it was too obvious to call him "Dodonna" like he was in other translations. Jan Dodonna was one of the first generals to join the rebel alliance in Star Wars. Nida is a bit of a stretch (and honestly I didn't know this one until I looked it up) but there is a character by the name of Lorth Needa who is an imperial lieutenant commander. Like Nida, he controls a big ship (Imperial Star Destroyer Avenger) during an important battle (the Battle of Hoth).

"You can go about your business." I am pretty sure this is just part of a larger trope, but Galbadian soldiers and Storm Troopers are characterized very similarly. They are always masked, ineffectual, silly, and easily manipulated. Plus the soldiers are very weak in battle. Maybe they miss a lot of their shots?

Probably not references, but interesting parallels

Mysterious parentage/separation from sibling leads to epic destiny. Squall grew up an orphan. Being disconnected from his parents and a secure sense of home, along with living in that particular orphanage, made Squall, well, Squall. And then of course is his canon event of being separated from Ellone. Those beginnings set him on his path toward his fate. His mother is dead, possibly dying in childbirth (like Padme), he has forgotten his sister (Luke just doesn't know), and his father, not aware of his existence, is at the helm of a powerful "empire" (like Anakin/Vader). Of course, Laguna's character arc is much different from Anakin's, but I can still see a sort of "Luke, I am your father" moment happening between Squall and Laguna post-game. (Side note: Does that make Kiros and Ward R2-D2 and C-3PO???)

Gold eyes = evil. Palpatine and Anakin (as Sith lords) and Edea (when under Ultimecia's control) and Ultimecia all have gold eyes. Adel is my c-c-c-combo breaker here but I also know there are other evil characters throughout the Star Wars canon that have red eyes. (NOBODY SAY THRAWN.)

SPACCCCEE! Just space. While I am out here Charlie-Day-murder-boarding it (again) I might as well throw this in. Also, sorry sequels, but Rinoa did floating out in space and surviving because of an unseen power (the force of love?) first.

EZRA BRIDGER HAS A GUNBLADE!!! In Star Wars Rebels, Jedi-in-training (AND ORPHAN) Ezra Bridger builds his first lightsaber to have a blaster at the hilt. Also, he later gets a facial scar.

A character's home gets blown up. Sorry Trabia and Alderaan. :(

Idk, I need to look more into this but something about Esthar reminds me of Coruscant. Anybody else get that vibe?

So there you have it! My Venn Diagram of two of my favorite things. That's all the conspiracies I have time for today. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Edited for typos. Of which there were many. My apologies.

[z0mbi3-s0krat3s]

Fuggin brilliant, man. Truth cleverly masquerading as Hollywood fiction. Damn near teared up at the passion of the old guy in the beginning preaching his truth -- MY truth -- that we're all slaves in a system that exploits us for the sake of the few. And I loved how the writer/director tied up the loose end; I didn't expect such a polished finishing touch to covertly remind us: it's all real. Very well done 👏 8.5/10 on Screambox

[taracalaby]

Witchcraft: Illustrated (1892)