Astral Plane Options

Hoping this belongs here.

Now, i'm not learned in CM. I haven't finished the Greater key yet, nor read anything else about it. but I am a natural at it: I find I can summon and bind lesser spirits and the like at will.

This, naturally, led me to study the theories of summoning in reasonable detail, but I didn't even learn of the Astral Plane as anything more than a void until recently. So I'm trying to address this rather dangerous blind spot now lol. What, exactly, is the Astral Plane and the veil?

Eh, if you can summon and bind lesser spirits at will, I wouldn't worry about the astral plane too much. I would just focus on learning to summon and bind ever stronger spirits at a whim, you can learn everything you need to learn about magic from them - no human teacher is better than a spirit in these matters.

Hm.

Eh, if you can summon and bind lesser spirits at will, I wouldn't worry about the astral plane too much.

Vagrant, how do you figure?

Vagrant, how do you figure?

I figure, that the degree of sheer spiritual mastery one must have in order to truly call a 'lesser' spirit (and the like) up - at will mind you - and then bind said spirit, means that you can easily surround yourself with a small army of spirit familiars who can and must - being so bound - defend one against all spiritual and astral threats, so the blindspot is not that dangerous. That OP can call up and binds lesser spirits at will, with so little knowledge or experience of the astral level, is doubly impressive.

More to the point, while I required painstaking ritual and effort to summon intelligences and agencies for barely an hour of instruction at a time, had I the skill to so casually summon and bind spirits as OP does, I would not need to seek this information on a forum, I would be wringing it out of the spirit populace daily.

Extra experience if OP can actually summon these spirits to physical manifestation.

Get it?

I can't force them to a physical manifestation, unfortunately, though asking them is certainly an idea I should try. I was born an otherkind, which is why I can summon the weaker ones easily enough, but I while a normal summoning holds them here for you, anything I summon is a constant drain on my mental powers. i can only hold about 3 or so for anything longer than an hour

What, exactly, is the Astral Plane and the veil?

if you think of a sea with relatively still waters. then the surface of the water is like physical reality... its sharp and defined and your eyes make purchase on it's edges & shapes. of if you're underwater, then as a matter of perspective perhaps you'd visually see the the surface as 'the edge of the air'. anyway, 'astral' is like all of the volume of the sea, and all of the volume of the sky/atmosphere. and you can skim along near the surface, to wherever, or you can veer off and explore the bizarre depths. I don't think of it as having an 'upper' or 'lower', my illustration is just a metaphor. I think there are infinite layers, and layers of layers, that make up the greater all. And there is no heirarchy or guidebook or map... to suggest such is like saying you hold the complete compendium of all life in the universe... simplified models of the astral are just blowing one individual's experiences way out of proportion.