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CyberShaman anyone?

14:44 / 08.01.04

Has anyone had any experience with this (http://www.gocs1.com/) software package? or similar software?

Which software programs do you use in your magickal practices?

Nietzsch E. Coyote

16:16 / 08.01.04

If it is on my computer I have used it with magickal intent.
I have particularily used Mozilla, Word, Excel, The risk game, and Defrag. Oh and I should mention Xchat my chat software as well.

17:26 / 08.01.04

I've often thought that I'd like to create a first-person shooter mod (based on the Quake III or Half-Life engine) that would allow one to do the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.

The user would be able to customize his or her avatar to resemble an idealized version of himself or herself, attired in the appropriate robes. He or she would start in a virtual temple with an altar and all of the appropriate Golden Dawn banners, etc. By using the same keyboard and mouse commands as any other first-person shooter, he or she would be able do the Kabbalistic Cross, draw pentagrams in blue flame, charge them by making the Sign of the Enterer and vibrating the proper god names, evoke the archangels in the four quarters, and so forth. Everything would be highly detailed, with great visual and audio effects. The same program would be customizable to do the the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram, Invoking Rituals, etc. etc.

Seems to me that this would be a great ritual magic teaching device. It also would allow folks to perform Golden Dawn-type rituals regularly even if they didn't have the time, space, or privacy to set up a temple and do the real thing.

I only wish I had the skills to do this myself.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

17:31 / 08.01.04

wow we need to find someone with the skills. That sounds cool.

18:24 / 08.01.04

If I had programming skills, I would write a program for sigil creation. This would be in the traditional sense, where you could type in you statement of intent, and the program would automatically drop the vowels and repeated consonants, then combine the letters into a randomly created sigil.

This would also help in forgetting the meaning of the sigil, since less time would be spent on the actual sigil creation.

23:25 / 08.01.04

I don't want to come across as 'ludite boy' here, as I'm really interested in the possibilities of occult machinery - but only if they work effectively, are not shit, and serve an actual purpose beyonf novelty.

What's the actual purpose of the virtual LBRP? I'm not sure it would really work as much more than a learning aid (not that there's much wrong with that). From my own experience, I think you really need to heavily internalise a banishing ritual in order to get the most out of it, and I think moving this sort of thing into a virtual arena might actually provide more of an obstacle to this process than anything else. Maybe you disagree, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if you're up for it.

Similarly with the sigil creation program:

This would also help in forgetting the meaning of the sigil, since less time would be spent on the actual sigil creation.

For me, the process of designing the sigil, and boiling down your intent into an aesthetically pleasing visual image that clicks in your head just right, is where the magic of sigil work takes place. The 'charging' process is just one component - not the whole deal.

03:13 / 09.01.04

I agree that there's no substitute for a real-world ritual complete with vivid visualizations, movement, vocalizations, and enflaming one's self with prayer.

At the same time, there's a long tradition of doing ritual work "astrally" -- in a virtual space, as it were. (If I remember correctly, Crowley did the entire Abramelin operation astrally while walking across China.) Nowadays, as a result of massively multiplayer computer games like Everquest or Counterstrike, there are thousands of people who are intimately familiar with operating in a virtual space. (In a sense, they've learned to astrally project into the body of their electronic avatars.) Seems to me that a virtual LBRP might be interesting or useful. At the very least, I'd be curious to try it.

On the issue of sigils, however, I agree that designing a sigil is where the real work takes place. Personally, if I'm in the mood for complexity, I love getting out a Hebrew dictionary and the Golden Dawn rose cross, deciding the proper Hebrew translation of my operative word, figuring out the design of the sigil, deciding the operative sephira, choosing the proper colors, design, angelic names, etc. Or, if I'm feeling a bit more freeform, just letting my mind go blank and scribbling until I have something that looks right.

13:54 / 09.01.04

I have to respectfully disagree with the opinion that a computer program may hinder progress and is not a substitute for the original real-world actions. I think that this is the classic mistake of caught up in the details of a ritual or magickal process. I believe that these properties aren't stationary and are not required to remain to have success. The real world actions aren't substituted, they are just changed. As well, many pioneers of magick in the past have always embraced technology to the fullest extent in their practices when others were using and promoting more traditional methods.

That being said, I also feel that if someone thinks that using a certain computer tool for magickal purposes is a shortcut and is cutting out vital "real-world" actions or experience, that this will automatically defunct the process and render it useless.

I guess I also kind of equate this with the use of drugs (representing technology) in terms of enlightenment. These are tools that can be used to achieve a certain state-of-mind or understanding. Some believe that this is a shortcut and that attaining understanding this way is not as highly regarded or "proper" when compared to attaining understanding through hours of meditation. From my point of view, I don't see a cheapened shortcut to the original process. I see an entirely different process that holds many great possibilities which could be and will be realized by embracing the process through experimentation.

Unconditional Love

19:34 / 09.01.04

http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~zimmerma/ this bloke has created a cabalah trainer that you may find useful it quizzes you on the paths connecting the sephira,hmmm pretty colours?

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

17:37 / 13.01.04

I think that one of the things that people fail to overlook is that computer programming is the new magic of the scientific age. Think about it. The Internet is a microcosm of reality, and really is, and of itself, a new dimension. It exists not just in computer, but in the information streaming through the air around us. Millions of people are jacked into it. There's information and power going through it at all hours of the day and night. Progammers and hackers are the new wizards, able to shape the digital environment to their will.

But real magic still has a place within computers. I've told the story of my old PC to death now, about how essentially I turned the computer into a giant working tool, held together by magical energies, and how after I took all of my power out of it and transffered it to my laptop and medicine bundle the computer stopped functioning.

I think that, as time marches slowly forwards, there will be a greater leap in cybermagic simply becuase technology has become so prevalent. Its easier to work with technology these days than it is to find obscure herbs and ingredients, to get proper working tools for the old pagan religions, or to construct proper sanctums for ritual use. I mean, to put it this way: a shaman sits in the middle of a web of spirits, conversing with them and getting information from them. A cybermagician or a hacker sits in the middle of a web of computers and information, getting his information through the web and computers, and possibly the spirits therein.

But...now I think I'm just rambling.

16:01 / 14.01.04

I've utilised various dingbat fonts into my sigil creation. Using something like Photoshop to create something pleasing and vaguly magical (an example is the concept site: Sigilserver in my portfolio on internalimages).

I do like the idea of creating an electronic servitor/programme and letting it lose over the internet. Imagine them like a "nice" (or nasty) virus that pushes through the netwroks on it's way to it's final destination.

07:52 / 20.01.04

This is an area I have particular interest in. I'm currently writing a short research paper on links between magic and technology. Has anyone here come across CHAOSHEX?

18:05 / 24.01.04

Photoshop or any other image editing soft is the easiest way to build cyber-sygils - and on the wayto hyper-sygils too. it's great for juxtaposing iconography.

some examples of my workings [as you might expect, some of them only make sense to myself, but there you go]: here, here, here, [my favourite so far] here, here and here.

01:43 / 25.01.04

TheFoolofChaos's Virtual Internet Temple

(modified version for your viewing pleasure

Your puter needs a VRML browser for this to work.

Go to

EnterTemple

May take a while to load.

16:48 / 25.01.04

I downloaded a cybertarot program from Douglas Rushkoff's website - jooly good - dig their version of the Cyber Tarot!!! I got some stuff from tipareth.com - spellcaster (mantrical/sympathetic methods), psy protection (probably better off doing the real thing - questions of vitualities! astral vs. cyberspace!!!!) and telehypno program (I haven't used this one yet). These progs are on shareware and if you pay for them you get more time on them - know what I mean?! So if one of them is reading this - send me yer full program packages for free and I'll give you reviews tis a win win situation bhoys and ghills!!! I have sometimes made sigils on Paint that are very basic!!!! I have a program called Sound Therapy which puts you into all sorts of brainwave frequency pattern states for meditation and all that - you can mix it with lots of different effects. Enough said

17:12 / 25.01.04

I've been tossing around an idea for a module I would like to see... (if only I knew how to program computers!)

Basically the idea is a program call Macro-I-Ching or Super-I-Ching. What would happen would be that instead of drawing one hexagram as the answer to a question, the program would literally calculate thousands of hexagrams for one question, then taking the largest number of identical hexagrams from the pool of thousands as the answer to the question being asked. This would be using a computers ability to make thousands of calculations per second, which would not normally be possible if one was drawing hexagrams in the traditional methods.

If the hexagram determined is a transforming hexagram, the same process of thousands of possible calculations would be used to determine the final hexagram.

Since the I Ching is somewhat based on numbers, the amount of hexagrams drawn for the "possibility pool" should probably follow the same rules or patterns already structured in the system.

Any feedback?