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Underground > Temple >

Initiation oriented gaming

ESOZONE : Oct 10 - 12 PDX 2008

08:19 / 19.09.06

Has anyone had any experience with Enochian Chess?

I was cruising around on the Rowe thread, and I was curious to see if he had ever written anything about it, came up with nothing.

I started a new thread on this rather than tag this onto the Enochian thread or the Doing [sigil] Magic with Gaming thread, because I wanted to leave room for discussion about topic of games that are help one along with intitatory understanding, ect.

I'm considering taking the time to learn Enochian Chess, just as a magical program I could put myself thru and learn something from, but also have a sense of play within it, interacting with other people. So I was wondering if anyone knew a bit about it, or knew about the said type of gaming structure?

Be it an obscure corner of Second Life, table top rgp, anything. Although, I would like to stay away from the rpg focus to some degree. And, I'm also not so hot on Alternate Reality Games, and would prefer something a bit more accessible, but not so simple as Connect Four.

Enochian Chess in itself does not seem to even play as a normal game would, so Im still fuzzy on the details. It seems to be a complicated divination method, but I'm not sure. Any help?

rising and revolving

17:32 / 19.09.06

It's both - a complicated divination method and a game. As a game it's ... it's not very good. There's a whole bunch of reasons for that, but the simple explanation is the rules weren't written very well. From memory, the original paper was written by Waite, and clearly didn't have a lot of accompanying play to go with it (it doesn't cover a lot of edge cases, for starters).

Chris Zalewski rejigged the rules a little (by going back to Chaturanga, a four handed chess game) and published a book on it - that's still the best reference if you're looking to find more details about EC. Unfortunately, Chris also clearly didn't play much - as the rules this time are laid out in more detail (Chess tournament rule style, so lots of very specific noodly details) but again the underlying rules lead into a bunch of weird places.

Basically, Enochian Chess isn't very good chess. It's interesting as a divination system but ultimately I feel its primary purpose is to familarise people with the Enochian tablets (as used in the GD) through play. Which means it works out decently as a means of learning, but not much as a system of initation.

RPG's as initation is actually something I'm interested in, but its a crap discussion to have, and especially a crap discussion to have here. What most people think of as an RPG (sitting around a table with dice) isn't how I'm interested, nor how I play.

The short way of going about it is the following :

Ritual work to prep, with all ritual trimmings - candles, incense, cleansing, fasting, evocation of the hall and those who will oversee the process.

Players take it in turn to invoke the forces they want to work with.

"Play" starts. This is broad work with the gods invoked and their interactions, combined with your intents.

Finish and close.

Of course, you're not likely to get that sort of thing working with your friday D&D crowd, but you can work to it. And of course, the "Play" section can be chaotic and powerful and uncomfortable and dangerous - and you should make sure you really trust the people you're working with.

That said and done, this is powerful stuff. Of course, in one sense it's just group ritual work, not an RPG at all - however, when I roleplay I do it just like the above, only turned down a notch.

17:43 / 19.09.06

What r&r said. Except, I'm interested in learning Enochian Chess and tweaking the rules as I go to make it work as a game as well as a learning tool, divination system and initiation. I play a fair game of chess, have a lot of experience playing multiplayer games and designing games for balance etc. and am experienced in divination so I reckon it's worth a try- lot of work though. I think an RPG Battle-Enochian-Chess might be fun, My Red Queen invokes the spirit of Anubis and Resurrects that Yellow Bishop... Check!

rising and revolving

18:25 / 19.09.06

Tweaking the rules will be necessary - but it's not quite as much work as you might imagine. We had a small slew of house rules that pretty much got things in order. If you're happy to get your hands dirty I don't think you'll run into a lot of problems.

The main trouble is getting four likeminded people to play with. There *is* a lot of evocation and divination potential, and enochian itself comprises a relatively complete system of initiation (and self initiation, for that matter) - I just feel like EC is a clumsy way to approach that.

On the other hand, I'd totally run a 30 week RPG campaign based on the Enochian Aethyrs. In fact, that would kick arse - you could skry the aethyrs before each session for inspiration, and evoke them at the beginning of each session. Again, see caveats above - tight group of trusted practitioners and good scene-setting.

22:48 / 19.09.06

I had an idea like this once, only instead of chess it was Cook-note fibreglass mixed with invoaction.

But as you said, finding the right people is a pain in the arse.

08:41 / 20.09.06

My lover and I play a kind of game with Tarot cards, but I guess I wouldn't say it's got rules. We take out the cards and shuffle and deal hands, and then take turns figuring out "where they go" by feel. It's good practice in playing by intuition, and in remembering what the cards are supposed to mean (which is easy enough with a traditional deck, but we almost never use a traditional deck for this).

That's probably not what you had in mind...

--Ember--

15:26 / 20.09.06

I'm sure Sin/Wolfsangel brought up Enochian Chess elsewhere in Temple, didn't ze?

Because I remember talking about the Chinese chaturanga descendant, xiangqi, and its relation to a divination system.

Ah -- is on this page of the "Stupid Questions" thread.

Some good links in there.

The Ghost of Tom Winter

15:37 / 20.09.06

What about video games? I've been working on a 2D RPG computer game that incorporates some magical ideas but have yet to get into anything "really" magical in terms of layering the game with magical intent and the what not.

I know from personal experience that playing a game for ten hour straight through the dark hours can really get to your head, (when I had a high fever and played The Sims I was consistently thinking "Ah gee I need to raise my fun level").
I imagine a video game with magical elements could be quite satisfying/useful.

16:10 / 20.09.06

I myself cannot imagine that.

The Ghost of Tom Winter

16:34 / 20.09.06

I myself cannot imagine that.

Maybe it's me. I know that after playing for hours and hours I become very connected to the world and characters within videogames, much like a novel or movie. The video game however adds another dimension, so to speak, a geography and (sometimes) non-linear progression through worlds and ideas.
As a youngling I loved to go through my games and uncover the secrets behind them that were either incorporated into the game or gained through hacking into the software.

I look back and have found this as a base for magic workings.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

18:30 / 20.09.06

I remember being inspired by things like the Glass Bead Game, or that game the Sidhe played in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, or even (to some extent) the Invisibles VR game in the last issue or two of the Invisibles...and thinking it'd be cool to make a game that would seem simple but have a lot of subtle ideas going on in it to teach to my hypothetical future kids, or whatever. Something that starts small and is easy to learn but scales up. Something built with simple pieces so you could play it with your buddy on a desert island.

I came up with something that almost worked and then kind of forgot about it. Kind of a simple version of that Life game where the little colors spread and change in weird patterns, or kind of like Go...but there were weird rules about the players switching sides and other stuff. and at higher levels the board would become complicated and change shape while you played...I ought to see if I can dig up the rules and maybe finish it or test it out.

19:43 / 20.09.06

Maybe it's me. I know that after playing for hours and hours I become very connected to the world and characters within videogames, much like a novel or movie.

Yeah, that's what I call "invasive" and it happens to me too. Games like Myst, and back when I played it, Meridian 59 used to take over my brain entirely too much. When it happens with stuff like Neil Gaiman's writing, I like it. When it's a video game, I don't usually like it quite so much.

But I think you're on to something there - whatever mechanism of the mind causes the invasive effect, it's probably useful for internalizing whatever information is being carried along. I know it feels similar to spend an entire night while I'm dreaming trying really hard to solve a Myst puzzle that doesn't actually exist in the real game as it does to spend the entire night dreaming that I'm singing a song over and over and over until I've memorized all the words.

I've gone to bed knowing barely three words of an invocation somebody else wrote, and woken up reciting it word-for-word over and over because of this mechanism.

--Ember--

23:08 / 20.09.06

I'm using a similar process to help with lucid dreaming. Everyday I'm going to play a game of Patience with my modified deck of cards. At the appearance of the joker, who I've stuck in at random, I ask myself "am I dreaming, is this real, can I fly, what color are my hands" etc. I know if I play a game for any amount of time over a few days it becomes a really big part of my dreams and so working a cue like that into it should result in lucidity. Hopefully.

03:15 / 21.09.06

I know that after playing for hours and hours I become very connected to the world and characters within videogames, much like a novel or movie.

It's possible that that involvement could be a tool for educational purposes. Perhaps. Part of this for me is that I've had similar stretches of spending time in GameWorld(r) and have mostly come away with feeling like I wasted my time, despite the fun I may have had. I think my Ngh factor really kicked in at Mr. Microcosm's mention of coding a computer game and putting in magical intent. It just seems to me to be a step removed from the physical aspect of the Work. Or a partial removal of same. That seems at odds with what's gone before in this thread. The here-and-now-ness of people playing games with real, tactile, frayed around the edges physical components. This stuff is important to the process and performance of magic. Being fed spells or magical ideas this way just seems too passive.

Admittedly, I am largely ignorant as to what goes into making video games and barely ever play them, so perhaps there's something I'm not understanding here. Perhaps you're writing your code onto a CD and burying it in hallowed ground, blowing cigar smoke over the spot every three days. Maybe your Scarlet Woman is allowing herself to be possessed so that the Gods can dictate the game storyline to you, Book of the Law style. Actually, I hope it's both of those and more. I'm just not seeing the physicality of the thing. It seems very...detached from engagement. Perhaps I'm judging too harshly. Feel free to straighten me out, Mr. M.

---------

Ember, I'd love to give your Tarot game a try. Would you, could you talk a bit more about it? I'm unclear on the "where they go" bit.

14:29 / 21.09.06

It's not tarrochi, is it?

14:35 / 21.09.06

No, it's obviously not. But there is a game once commonly played with the tarot deck that seems to predate its use in divination.

15:24 / 21.09.06

grant - Awesome. Thanks for the link. I'm gonna have to learn that one too.

18:58 / 21.09.06

Tarrochi/Tarrochini is stupidly complicated, but it's not clear it predates the use for divination- the Visconti-Sforza deck is fifteenth century and was probably used for both purposes.

http://www.rotten.com/library/occult/tarot/

rising and revolving

21:53 / 21.09.06

monk, rephrase your comment as

I think my Ngh factor really kicked in at Mr. Microcosm's mention of writing a book and putting in magical intent. It just seems to me to be a step removed from the physical aspect of the Work. Or a partial removal of same.

And you end up in roughly the same place. Games are just another medium, neither better or worse innately than TV or literature.

22:04 / 21.09.06

Ember, I'd love to give your Tarot game a try. Would you, could you talk a bit more about it? I'm unclear on the "where they go" bit.

Er... there's not much to clarify on the "where they go" bit, because the answer is different every time.

I suppose what's happening when we play is that we are looking for patterns in the cards, and using those patterns to draw out larger patterns in a layout. Since the exercise is to figure out where the cards we have in our hands actually belong in the pattern we're constructing, the layout ends up depending rather a lot on the cards we happen to have drawn.

It's an exercise in focus, interpretation/pattern recognition, and rapport.

It's nothing so structural as Tarocci. It's a lot more like Flux, or 1000 Blank White Cards, in that the rules are determined as you go. The difference is that we don't conciously communicate the rules we percieve to eachother.

It's very obvious, though, having played with a handfull of different people, that some people synchronize better than others.

--Ember--

22:09 / 21.09.06

1000 Blank Playing Cards!!!!
We should so get a game of that going in the creation forum. Anyone else?

13:23 / 22.09.06

1000 blank cards- we call that game 'Absolute Crap' or 'Stamina' in my house, the only starting rules are;
1) you take turns
2) each turn you make a rule or play a go
3) the first person to assert a winning condition loses.
(These rules are modifiable of course.)

Come to think of it you could play Enochian Chess that way...

14:40 / 22.09.06

R&R, you've got me there. I think my prejudice is showing! And thanks, Ember. I feel a little clearer on what's going on there. I'll have to try it, I think, to fully understand.

trouser the trouserian

15:04 / 22.09.06

Don't forget the humble Snakes & Ladders which some historians of games relate to an ancient Indian board game devised for learning moral purposes. I have also come across a story that Snakes & Ladders was invented by a Tibetan Monk as an early form of occupational therapy for sick people.