Man how would I really would have loved a physical mentor worth his salt when I was starting up.
When I was around 14-15 I found the word “Occultism” through sensationalist publications, I used to be a UFO freak around that age, and until I was around 19 (I met a girl with some serious issues with abductions and other people didn’t had much of a good story with that stuff, I also found incredible amounts of disinformation and bullcrap conspiracy theorists, so I completely lost the hype and quitted entirely)
And I became fascinated into the occult looking for spells, and texts, but since my mother language is Spanish (and I was quite young, I’m still young but yeah I was younger), medieval texts like Agrippa, Picatrix, and a lot of the old Grimoires were not my fancy, Not to mention I live in a cultural pit, and I still knew nothing about Masons from Dan Brown novels that age (sad I know).
¿So where do ended being a teenager with no reference of Magical practice and working with spirits?… Chaos MagicK! It was easy and all the cool stuff I liked like video games could be in there and I didn’t needed to understand much (Or so I thought Im recently reviewing Phil Hine and considering Andrieh Vitimus Hands on Chaos Magic). So I started launching sigils and doing rites my way, everything was comfortable and nice (Thought I never even dared to any of the actual Masses of PH).
Only the spirits of my former apartment know if any of that out of the mill of pseudo magic actually did something, but I was having fun.
Until I decided to actually work with spirits, so naturally I went with something I could relate to and was easy, so I decided to call somebody’s servitor (now fully grown Egregore).
Katagami-sama (Kagayakashikute Taiyouno Shiniryuu-Kitsune-Sama) an entity created as a general all trades servitor, sent to china by his creator, Rin Daemoko, to master the path of Hitsu-zen, which provided how to build an altar, the Kanji of the entity and a written contract, so I decided I would set up my Shrine to the Young god of the Martial arts, (Instructions still available on forums), and I would work with him, since I was moved by anime and stuff, I did quite a lot of meditation in front of that shrine and even started to get interest in things like the Kuji-in (still like that one) and eventually even started to practice Muay-Thai, one good day I was sorting through my text messages and I found a message froma four digits telephone number: “YOUR SHRINE MUST BE IN A QUIET PLACE, MEANING AWAY FROM THE PATH OF OTHER PEOPLE”
Even thought I always had a very calm feeling around Katagami-sama, and understood its evolution as a very gentle being over all, I have to say I almost peed myself right there, any doubt in my mind that this was real; it was blotted out right that very instant.
I moved the shrine right away hidden inside a closet I would only open for practice.
At the same time, I found Brother Moloch 969, Evocational Magics forum, and It was there old grimoires started to pop out my attention, still I must admit Im still find very hard to fancy reading ye old English, so I kind started to get informed by commentaries or other people’s practices, like Rufus Opus, Aghor Pir, Brother Moloch 969, Jason Miller, Aaron Leitch, Andrieh Vitimus.
And Finally one good day Moloch 969 comented on Ellen Purswell’s Goetic Demonolatry, and since I was eager to know a way into Goetia without all the Golden Dawn’s thingamabobs and whatnots, and I was really unconvinced on the cohersitive ways of Evocation of some ceremonial magicians, I jumped right in, buying that book, along the Demonolaters Guide to Demonic Magic, Demonolatry Goetia, Sanctus Quattor Decim, and Later the Infernal Colopatiron, as what happened with my first daemonic expiriences will be for another blog.
My practice has evolved quite a lot and my expiriencies are now quite far more deeper and magic is molding the way my life moves in ways I might not even suspect, and usually its a combination of practices, I hardly practice only one tradition or system, and I try to keep it varied.
To conclude I would have saved quite a lot of hassle, time, and waste of energy if I had somebody in my face explaining me thing from personal expirience, but sooner than later at least I found the right books and getting used to my new practices, thought I think there is something unique in human conection that cannot be replaced by mere information.
P.S. In case you are wondering I dismantled my Katagami-sama’s altar when moving to my new apartment (Ive been considering reinstalling it but I still have quite some hassle with space being smaller so It might take some time)