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On Summoning Jean Grey

02:50 / 18.02.03

Kevin mentioned summoning Jean Grey in the New Forms of Magick thread and that got me interested. What did you do with Jean Grey once you got her in your room? Really, what was the purpose of this working? Also to not make this thread so narrow, has anybody else summoned fictional characters as godforms?

04:31 / 18.02.03

Shit, I'd a summoned Lara Croft...

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

04:33 / 18.02.03

Heh, I completely forgot I mentioned that, actually.

The purpose of the working was to finish an abortive Phoenix and Rebirth themed ritual/working/journey a week earlier. I had not managed to leave my baggage at the door for the group working and I wanted to tackle the issue at hand on my own terms. So I decided to invokle the Phoenix solo, in the form of Jean Grey.

So basicly it was a wee bit of the high ritual mixed with X-Men and Jean Grey trappings. (I even had the signed wedding invite to the "Jean and Scott" wedding Marvel threw.) Fairly "standard" invoking, as it went and in the end, I think it was pretty successful. I made contact, touched the wing of the phoenix very briefly and in the end felt the sense of closure that I was missing from the previous working.

It also marked my ruturn to ritual magick after well over a year of abstaining.

The interesting thing is this: Jean wasn't the only person to answer. There was a period when I thought things were about to wind down and she was departing, only to find that someone else had arrived: Xorn.

I'm still pondering the implications of that.

I also came to some interesting conclusions when I made the conection that Grant Morrison's Cerebra has many of the same functions as Barbelith. (The thing in the Invisibles, not the website *grin*) And also that the instructions for contacting it are right in the book. And yes, it does receive mutant distress calls.

Hmmm, after all this time on the 'lith, I keep thinking someone will think I'm totally insane for talking about this sort of thing

10:50 / 18.02.03

Lets just say I look into the board to read precisely the type of thing you wrote, Kevin.

Boy, it is an awesome world this one. Lets go exploring.

13:44 / 18.02.03

OK, this is going to be weird but first off thanks for the story, kevin.

I started this thread right before going to bed and Jean Grey came to me in my dream. It was the Jean from the movie (with the new hair style) but she was all fiery and dressed like the new x men Jean. I don't remember what she said but she touched the sides of my head and I was suddenly in what I thought at the moment was modern day Vietnam in turmoil. When I wake up I discover that a firebomb was set off in Korea (duh!) and 130 people are killed. Instantly, I remember my dream and it's like I was there. Seems I inadvertently summoned Jean/The Phoenix and I got (like in the book) visions of mass destruction. I don't know if it was precog or telepathy (It could've been happening while I was sleeping) but I think I'm going to turn this into an ongoing thing.

18:10 / 18.02.03

Dude, I totally dreamed about Jean Grey last night too!

It wasn't until I saw this thread this morning that I remembered it, but stuff like this happens a lot to me. The elements in my dream materialize in the waking world the next day. I was also going through a phase there where I was remembering dreams I had had from several years ago.

The details are a bit fuzzy, but in my dream Jean wasn't exactly being ... nice? Like she was kind of angry / driven a bit. I couldn't tell if she had turned evil or anything, but she was defintily in a hostile mood. I also seem to remember thinking that the person who was going to ... stop her? confront her? was Emma. And I seem to remember that something unexpected happened with the situation.

I was feeling kind of depresssed one night a few weeks ago. And after I fell asleep, I dreamed GM was briefly in my room talking to me and sort of,... checking me out, like a doctor? I dunno. Was that Cerebra? I guess one shouldn't read the Invisibles all at once. Anyways, sorry to take this thread slightly off topic.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

18:16 / 18.02.03

I'm half-remembering more from the Claremont days rather than Morrison's current stuff, but wasn't it supposed to be the Jean Grey human element that turned Phoenix into the destructive Dark Phoenix. From what you guys are saying and my complete ignorance on magical issues it sounds to me that you may be at risk of summoning or manifesting or whatever the more destructive negative side of the Phoenix?

18:36 / 18.02.03

This is more headshop than anything else, but I can't help thinking: Is the mythology surrounding the past several decades of the X-Men working its way into the archetype pantheon of contemporary culture?

Some may say "duh! this is pop culture man...", but it stands to reason that anyone indoctrined into the mythology of the X-Men may be familiar enough with the behavior and powers of Phoenix to use her image as the form of one's anima? I know that in stories that I've written or imagined, there is in some ways an ultra powerful goddess character with symbols of flame and birds. So far, none have occurred in my dreams.

So: with this in mind, are we, the indoctrined and affected, made to fear and lust our anima? Are we to understand that she is in complete mental control of us? That she will lose control and destroy wantonly?

None of these are absolutely true, but our psychology of myth may make it so.

When one dreams of the violent anima, does it mean that the "ice queen" archetype is called on to stop her? Add bitch to more bitch? This does not bode well in my eyes...

22:26 / 18.02.03

I have a problem with equating the term "anima" with "bitch." Your description seems more in keeping with the union of opposites and elements in alchemy.

23:28 / 18.02.03

Well, I've been working with fictional toughtforms for a year, mostly with X-Men and Authority characters. Both for asking them for their attributes and for them to make me some favors. Ritual invocations as much as complex behavioral changes. I work mostly with Cyclops and Archangel. I considered prudent to stay away from Phoenix and the Doctor. Oh, and once I asked Beast to help a couple not to get pregnant.

01:33 / 19.02.03

Apologies for the misunderstanding. In no way do I equate the anima with the bitch stereotype. However, following the line of anima=Jean Grey, and the selfishly violent, emotional, and complete destructive power she represents in that incarnation, it's not hard to assume that some men may fear her and throw the term "bitch" at such a force.

While a true anima is neither mothergoddess nor bitchgoddess, I fear the accumulating connotations of the X-Mythos may turn a positive into a negative, creating more invisible gender wars.

01:49 / 19.02.03

Ciarconn~ Oh, and once I asked Beast to help a couple not to get pregnant.

This has exceeded by far my craziest expectations towards this invoking business. No I do see how poor my imagination is.

Whatever, every time a red-head comes to my dreams I react like Wolverine probably does so in his dreaming fantasies with Jean. See? I told you I am not into this.

02:20 / 19.02.03

This is something I know fuck all about, as the only magick I've ever done is sigils, which are pretty cool.

Anyways...

Pretty fascinated by the idea of these characters/icons as godforms, yes. I like how they exist through 'hypertime'; 'Smallville' Clark Kent is Superman, just as Moore's 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow' features another in an 'imaginary story; aren't they all?', and Christopher Reeve, John Byrne's reboot, all the pre-Crisis Supermen, 'The Red Son' and so on.

These are non-linear entities.

Like I say, fascinating...

Now, how do you invoke one?

10:45 / 19.02.03

Now, how do you invoke one?

~Posted by Warewulf at Invoking/ accessing patron godforms - a practical guide?

I guess you should use whatever you feel comfortable with. Maybe use a sigil to contact her in dreams?

I normally just read a lot about the god/goddess and then "talk" to them throughout the day until I get a result. It helps to have something to focus on (eg The Moon). Keep talking and thinking until you feel her presence in your life.

11:07 / 19.02.03

I've done similar stuff based around WWF wrestlers. Invoking the self-confidence, capability and self-assurance of Triple H prior to a job interview. Works quite well, as at one level, this probably what the wrestlers themselves do to 'become' their on-stage characters. You could look at the specific entrances of wrestlers as invocatory rituals to access the powers and attributes of thwir in-ring persona.

12:04 / 19.02.03

Interesting -and worthy to notice- fact, is that if you "normally just read a lot about the god/goddess and then 'talk' to them throughout the day" you've probably done more than enough to "get a result" and "feel hir presence in your life" without realising you were already doing it.

That's how people work "magick" -for the good or the worse- and then they do not have a hint as to how they did it, and us also. Just think for a moment how many times we consistently "talk" -or blame- through the day to daddy, mommy, brother and sister, girl and boy friend, and then we "get results". How many "presences" do we already have that we talk to? That's where we are putting our power, our "invocations", and just realising how you did it opens the door as to how you are going to do it next.

As the happy and proud comic book geeks we all appear to be here, chances are we already have more than opened the channels to comic book characters. Just to think of Impulsivelad from what he says above about his experience with Jean...

13:48 / 19.02.03

I tried the "talk to her" method that warewulf proposed and I seem to have gotten some cool information. Again, right before bed, I pictured a classroom with a big X chalked up on the board, me sitting on a desk, and Jean standing in the front of the class. And in half dreaming haze she explained how she's existed for longer then I've been alive. More than 30 years. She's been a student, a teacher, a superhero, a wife, she's murdered, and given birth, been to the future, and to other planets, and other realities.

Then I fell asleep but I'm sure the lesson continued unconsciously.

13:49 / 19.02.03

[b]Oh, and once I asked Beast to help a couple not to get pregnant. [/b]

Why Beast, in particular?

14:02 / 19.02.03

Cause he's the medical expert... and blue.

00:31 / 20.02.03

Yeah, basically, Beast is the excpert in Biology and medicine. ON that tie, he (Beast) asked for the involved man to read Othello, and for the woman to donate a biology book to the school library.
More on the contact rituals later

04:28 / 20.02.03

In my own personal expierience i have summoned a guy called Solid Snake... from a metal gear video game...
Rrom the comics realm i have called upon The Doctor from the authority...
Both of em have really helped me along a one soul journey through hell's valley and back...