Skeptic That Evocations Ever Work, Looking for evidence Options

Hello, I am new to the forum.

I am interested in many religious pursuits. I think there are many things that have been proven to develop oneself - such as meditation. However, I suspect that everyone here that thinks they are summoning demons or angels are deluding themselves, and that in fact they are just working in their own imaginations - which may be quite fruitful imaginations.

For instance, I'm thinking of a thread where people casually talked about summoning a demon for sexual purposes. I am sorry but I believe you have an over-active imagination, and that none of those events ever happened. I've read many grimoires, and I think they exist because they are from a time in which man did not know very much, and things which are common knowledge attributable to science were simply not known then. Reading the Verum and asking for scientific knowledge won't work.

In addition, I read another thread on here where the man Lisiewski was discussed. Someone alleged that he was bunk, as he was charging $600 for pupils to learn from him. I agree with that charge, but I think if everyone here would be a little more open minded, the fact that every single group is making that charge against another group (not every single person but you know what I mean), is evidence that none of them work. Lisiewski charges Thelema, people that like the modern methods charge Lisiewski etc

If you have ever summoned a demon and asked for monetary support, and you have convinced yourself that it actually appeared, why don't you simply submit that evidence to the Randi forum for your million dollar prize? (Please note I dislike Randi and think he's totally incorrect, but you get my point).

You might wonder why I'm here, and no, it's not to troll. I am convinced of an afterlife. I believe in NDEs, and I believe in ghosts. I didn't used to believe in ghosts, but I think the evidence for them is strong based upon reports of people that I believe. So, that's why I'm here. I want to be convinced that you're all not just pretending like I think you are. I don't think you will, but I want you to.

I believe that spiritual development is the most important thing a person can do in their lifetime. My personal belief is that some of you have played too many RPGs and are merely engaging in escapism, wishful thinking.

I'm legitimately interested to hear your counters.

PS please check my intro in coffee house if you would like to know my perspective

This post has been edited by arcan: Oct 5 2011, 05:10 PM

arcan



As I know it, evocation is not about causing metaphysical entities to become physical – such that I can discern them with my body, and such that I give those entities commands for them to go about manipulating events and people in the Physical Plane. I know that is what all the novels, television shows, movies, games, etc… insist that evocation is about. I know that is what many people who tell incredible tales about their evocations insist it is about. Yet, regardless of what such popular entertainers proclaim and preach, that is not what evocation is about to me.

That means I do not deludedly believe that I am doing, and I am not trying to pass myself as doing, what fictional versions of Mages are portrayed as doing evocation.
And that means I do not evoke for the same reasons as those fictional versions of Mages.



For me, evocation is about ritually isolating an entified aspect of my mind - then either subsequently eliminating (banishing), or instead appropriately adjusting, it according to my purposes. The entire process systematically occurs as a careful cultivation of an awareness that enables me to experience, and interact with, those entities using the same analogues to physical perception which occur during intense "lucid dreaming". In fact, it could be said with accuracy that the evocation process for me is a tightly controlled and consciously directed "lucid dream" while my body is wide awake. Unless banished, the entity remains active enough for me to converse with it. The conversation enables me to analyze that entity’s effectiveness, challenges, fitness, its perspective of what’s going on in my developing microcosm of the Mental Plane, etc… and (if the situation warrants) to give it instructions (rewrite its code) to be more effective in light of what I learn. Once all that is done, I invoke the entity (and thus bring it “back online”), then return to an everyday state of consciousness and awareness and scrutinize the effect of the working.



That is no frivolous process. I cannot afford to make grevous errors, because doing so really can result with intense neurosis - even to the point of instigating severe psychosis and other categories of truly disturbed mentation. And that also is neither a game of “Let’s play pretend!” nor any other sort of casual, vague, willy nilly sort of “imagination” exercise - or whatever term is popular these days for referencing fanciful, escapist, and/or inconsequential “wool gathering”.

The entire point of evocation for me is for very finely and consciously cultivating metaphysical growth with impactful exactitude, which increases my self-mastery for engaging relationships (including others and the environment in the Physical Plane) with excellence.


So yes, evocation works for me.

arcan
As I know it, evocation is not about causing metaphysical entities to become physical – such that I can discern them with my body, and such that I give those entities commands for them to go about manipulating events and people in the Physical Plane. I know that is what all the novels, television shows, movies, games, etc… insist that evocation is about. I know that is what many people who tell incredible tales about their evocations insist it is about. Yet, regardless of what such popular entertainers proclaim and preach, that is not what evocation is about to me.

That means I do not deludedly believe that I am doing, and I am not trying to pass myself as doing, what fictional versions of Mages are portrayed as doing evocation.
And that means I do not evoke for the same reasons as those fictional versions of Mages.
For me, evocation is about ritually isolating an entified aspect of my mind - then either subsequently eliminating (banishing), or instead appropriately adjusting, it according to my purposes. The entire process systematically occurs as a careful cultivation of an awareness that enables me to experience, and interact with, those entities using the same analogues to physical perception which occur during intense "lucid dreaming". In fact, it could be said with accuracy that the evocation process for me is a tightly controlled and consciously directed "lucid dream" while my body is wide awake. Unless banished, the entity remains active enough for me to converse with it. The conversation enables me to analyze that entity’s effectiveness, challenges, fitness, its perspective of what’s going on in my developing microcosm of the Mental Plane, etc… and (if the situation warrants) to give it instructions (rewrite its code) to be more effective in light of what I learn. Once all that is done, I invoke the entity (and thus bring it “back online”), then return to an everyday state of consciousness and awareness and scrutinize the effect of the working.
That is no frivolous process. I cannot afford to make grevous errors, because doing so really can result with intense neurosis - even to the point of instigating severe psychosis and other categories of truly disturbed mentation. And that also is neither a game of “Let’s play pretend!” nor any other sort of casual, vague, willy nilly sort of “imagination” exercise - or whatever term is popular these days for referencing fanciful, escapist, and/or inconsequential “wool gathering”.

The entire point of evocation for me is for very finely and consciously cultivating metaphysical growth with impactful exactitude, which increases my self-mastery for engaging relationships (including others and the environment in the Physical Plane) with excellence.
So yes, evocation works for me.

Interesting. I think this definition is a little more amenable to my tastes. I know that hypnotism was once thought to be bunk, but now is an established scientific practice, and, while hypnotized, people could be told that there are entities around which don't exist, that they would 'see' and react to. It seems similar. That being said, do you 'see' your entities, or do you hear them, feel them, or any combination thereof?

Interesting. I think this definition is a little more amenable to my tastes. I know that hypnotism was once thought to be bunk, but now is an established scientific practice, and, while hypnotized, people could be told that there are entities around which don't exist, that they would 'see' and react to. It seems similar. That being said, do you 'see' your entities, or do you hear them, feel them, or any combination thereof?

I'm sorry but evocation has nothing to do with hypnosis, and that worn out paradigm that the "spirits are just portions of the mind" is terrible wrong. To have hypnosis as "an established scientific practice" doesn't adds up anything to the discusion, you could also have mentioned inhaloterapy for that matter. I'm getting closer to the point of thinking that those people that endorse the "is all in your mind" have never, ever, evocated anyhting, and a spirit doesn't needs to physically manifest neither. Just try to go a Misa Espiritual(a spiritual mass, practiced by ATR practitioners) and after that tell me if when a dead guy gets into the “medium” and describe each persons’ house in detail, and tells publicly to each one their most precious secrets if that is a portion of your mind, or even worse if that is a portion of their minds projected into the medium’s mind, even more the dead tells that will happen or give solutions to each one that is present and those solutions turn out to work and solve the problems of those addressed, is that a portion of their minds too? Or when an Orisha or Nkisi mounts someone and tells a lot of things that you never imagined and after a couple of days those things become facts for you and many others present. Likewise, have you ever evoked a spirit and the spirit told tell you things you ddin’t know or imagined, or gave solutions that were out of your own gnosis. I have filmed some of my evocations, lot of orbs, red orbs rounding my circle when I call Mars, also some spirits that have shown up, even though I never look for physical manifestation, is not necessary. My close circle have seen those films, some of them have personally experienced the spirits along with me in rituals, so what is on the films is also part of our minds? So, no one can tell that based on the biased and bumpy science that spirits don’t exists, at the end what is science? Is science entitled to get the place of the human and become another religion blindly followed where the minimal common sense and analytical synthesis is sacrificed just to comply with its paradigm? No, not all, there are people who fall in that mistake, science is just another tool, with its shortcommings and it uses, just that.

I'm sorry but evocation has nothing to do with hypnosis,

I'm sorry but I don't think you understand the ways in which I was comparing them.

First, I was comparing the general scientific perception of hypnosis towards the hypothetical sense that general scientific perception could perceive magick.

Secondly, I was saying that the potential exists in hypnotism to create the belief about external entities that do not exist -- that is an example of the power of the mind to generate the ability to interact with things that don't exist 'objectively'. I could have just as easily said hallucinogens allow you to do the same thing.

Thirdly, since you are a believer in the objective existence, I don't see why hypnosis has to be different really. If you're familiar with Edgar Cayce (and I would think many people here are), he had all of his 'near death experiences' while under hypnosis, and he (and many other people) certainly believe that the information he received during those experiences was objective. Many people have told me that the purpose of the ritual is to induce a trance-like state in the practitioner, that will allow the mind's subconscious to take over - do you not believe this or act like this in your evocations? If not, how do you treat the ritual? What is your mental state during a successful evocation like?

Whether or not these 'entities' conform to the general 'scientific worldview', I cannot say, but I am framing the way that they can fit within that paradigm.

Regardless, interesting post. Obviously you feel pretty passionately about this, I probably would too. Why do you only let certain people see these videos?

And regarding scientific comment - well a lot of people clearly want to rate this as a science, but I think a lot of other people would have some problems counting anything that is non-falsifiable as science. Just because it isn't non-falsifiable doesn't make it not true, it just makes it not science. So says Karl Popper anyways and I think he's generally looked at as being the go-to guy for modern philosophy of science. If your point with 'what is science' is to point out that yeah there's a whole field devoted to that question, of course that's true. My point is that there are some pretty big claims made by the nature of evocations. With a field that by many people's own admissions, doesn't offer concrete evidence, it isn't necessarily the best place to be trying to counter the current scientific paradigm, if you can say everything it says, without making anyone throw away a paradigm, you might be able to get people into it more, and maybe who knows, after they've done that, they'll toss the model.

This post has been edited by arcan: Dec 10 2011, 08:51 PM

I'm sorry but I don't think you understand the ways in which I was comparing them.

First, I was comparing the general scientific perception of hypnosis towards the hypothetical sense that general scientific perception could perceive magick.

Secondly, I was saying that the potential exists in hypnotism to create the belief about external entities that do not exist -- that is an example of the power of the mind to generate the ability to interact with things that don't exist 'objectively'. I could have just as easily said hallucinogens allow you to do the same thing.

Thirdly, since you are a believer in the objective existence, I don't see why hypnosis has to be different really. If you're familiar with Edgar Cayce (and I would think many people here are), he had all of his 'near death experiences' while under hypnosis, and he (and many other people) certainly believe that the information he received during those experiences was objective.
Whether or not these 'entities' conform to the general 'scientific worldview', I cannot say, but I am framing the way that they can fit within that paradigm.

Regardless, interesting post. Obviously you feel pretty passionately about this, I probably would too. Why do you only let certain people see these videos?

And regarding scientific comment - well a lot of people clearly want to rate this as a science, but I think a lot of other people would have some problems counting anything that is non-falsifiable as science. Just because it isn't non-falsifiable doesn't make it not true, it just makes it not science. So says Karl Popper anyways and I think he's generally looked at as being the go-to guy for modern philosophy of science. If your point with 'what is science' is to point out that yeah there's a whole field devoted to that question, of course that's true. My point is that there are some pretty big claims made by the nature of evocations. With a field that by many people's own admissions, doesn't offer concrete evidence, it isn't necessarily the best place to be trying to counter the current scientific paradigm, if you can say everything it says, without making anyone throw away a paradigm, you might be able to get people into it more, and maybe who knows, after they've done that, they'll toss the model.

OK, what I tried to remark was that, IMHO, the points that you made have nothing to do with the discussion or my point of view that spirits exist per se. That's why I said that to mention hypnosis was a relevant as to mention inhaloterapy. What Cayce received and how he received it is also pointless, is not about the existence of spirit, in any case keep in mind that Cayce usually went into deep trance states but those deep states are not necessary to communicate with spirits, so his case is a very particular one. And I avoid to use expression "objective" existence.

You make an interesting point here:

Many people have told me that the purpose of the ritual is to induce a trance-like state in the practitioner, that will allow the mind's subconscious to take over - do you not believe this or act like this in your evocations? If not, how do you treat the ritual? What is your mental state during a successful evocation like?

I do an evocation as plainly as when calling anyone who I want to talk to, but keep in mind I don't care if the spirit shows or not, I just go astral and for me is enough. Nevertheless sometimes they show by themselves. Of course I do "X" ritual step by step, but I can get into another level of conciusness very easily, do not need a ritual framework to do that. Now, I do not consider that to be hypnosis, hypnosis is quite a different thing, you can't classify each and every altered state of conciousness under the label of hypnosis. I can give you an example of a ceremony I did with my wife, this particular ceremony was lenghty, with many steps, the sort of ceremonies I don’t like at all, I have to read, then meditate, then walk around, read again, and so on, over and over again. Everytime I closed my eyes I was in an astral temple (not mine) with some deities and other spirits, well after the ceremony I asked my wife about it and she described everything she saw and what she described was exactly what I was seeing at that moment, even more I was taken to an inner temple that she wasn't allowed into and she described the beings that escorted me to that place and how it look from the outside. We were both in two paralell words at the same time, we were simultaneously doing things here and "there", she saw what I saw. Is that hypnosis?

Regarding the videos, after I filmed these ceremonies I realized it was disrespectfulto the spirits to do so, even more to show them would be like showing a sort circus freak for people's amusement, that's why I showed it to a very limited number of persons and no one else.

I agree with your comments as science, to some extent your approach is similar to mine. The problem is that for many people whatever that doesn't fits the scientific paradigm is not real, is almost as to deny the very existence of some phenomena just because there's no scientific explanation for it.

On the one hand I'm not trying to counter the current scientific paradigm, for me the scientific parading has nothing to do with magic, as well as it has nothing to do with art, or caligraphy or many other things. Magic do not need the scientific paradigm at all, for anyhting, magic is a very ancient practice, very ancient art, authenticated within its own paradigm and more important by millions and millions of people through the human history, and with this I mean people who have seen results using magic. To try to judge magic from the scientific point of view is as valid as tro try to judge a particle accelerator with the tools of literary analysis. On the other hand, if science lacks the knowledge and/or the technology to valid phenomena that occur in the realm of magic that doesn't invalidates magic. Just keep in mind that, for instance, physics still is trying to grasp many different forms of energy, some can measure, some can't be explained by the current state of physics, the lack of a scientific theory or at least hypothesis doesn't denies the existence of the phenomena.