BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Sacred Body Fluids

 
  

Page: (1)2

 
 
zedoktar
03:33 / 16.08.07
Just pondering on the use of sacred fluids in rituals and practice. I've almost entirely avoided it, never seemed nessecary for what I was doing, but now I'm curious.
I'm working on a painting/sigil/fetish/idol type thing and it occurred to me that mixing a little nut sauce in the paint might make for some good mojo. Except, I know zilch about the energetic effects and repercussions of such action.
So, what does Barbelith have to say on the subject?
 
 
This Sunday
04:24 / 16.08.07
Tends to strike me as a bit 'marking the territory' but, heck, that may be the intent, and besides that it's just unfounded personal prejudice. Unless you have specific goals in mind, my suggestion would be to do like the song says and experiment.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:21 / 16.08.07
Try it and then come back and tell us.

Different trads will tell you slightly different things, I guess. I don't utilise semen in my own work (I'm full of tricks, but that's not one of them). If I did, I would possibly use it for some of the same purposes that I employ blood--to empower an item, to bind it to myself ritually, to leave my mark on it, or as a sacrifice. Of course blood has more of an element of sacrifice to it, and can get you into a real bind with some People if you're not careful.

You want to get a book on hoodoo, lad. Lots of creative uses of body fluids in that tradition. Here is a good start. The use of male body fluids, from my limited knowledge, is generally associated with love and sex spells as cast by the male practitioner on a woman.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
12:47 / 16.08.07
(Incidentally, what we normally do with this kind of question is put it in the Questions thread. If the subject proves sufficiently meaty, it then gets a seperate thread of its own.)
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:16 / 16.08.07
I tend to paint my sigils with watercolours and spit, spitting on the hands to shake them seals the deal, mixing the intent with myself, making a pact with me.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
20:47 / 18.08.07
From Qigong Meditation: Embryonic Breathing:-

When used as a noun for an object, Jing means "the essence" or "the essentials". When it is used for the energy side of a being, it means "spirit" or "ghost". Since Chinese tradition believes that the male sperm or semen is the refined and the most essential product of a man, Jing also means sperm or semen.

When Jing is used as "essence" it exist in everything. Jing may also be considered the primal substance or orginal source from which a thing is made, and which exhibits the true nature of that thing. When Jing refers to animals or humans, it means the very original and essential source of life and growth. The Jing is the origin of the Shen which makes an animal different from a tree. In humans, Jing is passed down from the parents. Sperm is called "Jing Ze" which means "the sons of essence". When this essence is mixed with the mother's Jing (egg), a new life is generate which, in certain fundamental respects, IS an intertwinement of the Jings of both parents. The child is formed, the Qi circulares, and the Shen grows. The Jing which has been carried over from the parents is called "Yuan Jing" which means "Original Essence".

Once you are born, Original Jing is the fountainhead and root of your life. It is what enables you to grow stronger and bigger. After burth you start to absorb the Jing of food and air, converting these Jings into the Qi which supplies your body's needs. You should understand that when Jing is mentioned in QiGong society, it usually refers to Yuan Jing. Qigong practitioners believe that Original Jing is the most important part of you, because it is the root of your body's Qi and Shen.

From Initiation into Hermetics:-

Several times while describing the elements I have said that they proceed from the ethereal principle. Accordingly, the ethereal principle is the ultimate, the supreme, the most powerful thing, something inconceivable, the ultimate cause of all things existing and created. To put it in a nutshell, it is the causal sphere. Therefore akasa is spaceless and timeless. It is the non-created, the incomprehensible, the indefinable. The various religions have given it the name of God. It is the fifth power, the original power. Everything has been created by it and is kept in balance by it. It is the origin and the purity of all thoughts and intentions, it is the causal world wherein the whole creation in subsisting on, beginning from the highest spheres down to the lowest ones. It is the quintessence of the alchemists; it is all in all...

Now the question will arise were and how akasa or the etheric principle occurs in the grossly material body. In doing some deeper thinking, everybody will be able to answer this question by himself, for the etheric principle is hidden in its most grossly material form in the blood and in the seed and in the reciprocal action of these two substances in the vital matter or in the vitality.

Except, I know zilch about the energetic effects and repercussions of such action.

I find that using blood, semen, and spit, are rather good ways to bind intent and energy to a phsyical object, as well as being somewhat attractive to spirits which can also be bound to the object - rather good for boosting longevity, rather bad (if you see it that way) for boosting the ties which bind to the magic you perform. Binding it the energy of the fluids to the object is rather important though, otherwise it just drifts off into the wild blue yonder and gets eaten - it's not like it's going to do anything special unless its put there with a purpose.

I don't use physical objects much anymore however, though the principals seem to work for subtle energy or thought based magic; I think this is more do with heightening energy supplies and focus (as cutting and cumming tend to do) then the physical substances themselves. In such instances it's more fun and effective to orgasm and not cum though, and send the sensations/energy up the spine and into what are referred to as Dan Tiens (energy storage centres near the upper eye sockets, lower lungs, and abdomen), and focus this energy for magical purposes, then it is to shoot a load off into the air.

If you're female, I think vaginal secretions are meant to have the same effect - not too sure about menstrual blood however, though I think it might be potent, or dead, or both.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:25 / 19.08.07
With menstrual blood it depends on what you're using it for and what your tradition is. Some people see it as an excretion, which technically it is, but they mean that in an "ick!" way. It's employed in some trads as a love philtre, sneaked into a chap's food or drink. I understand that this features in some branches of Itailian folk-magic and it certainly features in hoodoo.

I'd see it as fertilising rather than energising. Good for soil, good for growing things that will get going by themselves, not so good for things that need a bit of zap to get them moving. Again it also lacks the sacrifical element of drawn blood. I would not, for instance, blood runes with it.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:27 / 19.08.07
Wolfangel: I tend to paint my sigils with watercolours and spit, spitting on the hands to shake them seals the deal, mixing the intent with myself, making a pact with me.

Yeah, I use spit for some things, especially magic books. Licking my thumb and making a print to tie the book to me.
 
 
Ichtos
06:55 / 21.08.07
Semen plays a role in alchemy too, especially Indian alchemy where the body is seen as a microcosm of the Great
Circulation.

Much as in the Chinese tradition, it is considered the most highly refined/purified/evolved material substance produced by the human body.
 
 
Sublime Pathos
18:08 / 08.09.07
With one of my old partners we would use our semen and menstrual blood mixed with paint to draw sigils to birth thought-forms. I guess the effectiveness of it's use depends on what you use it for. We treat the thought-forms as children we've birthed and they've been very effective.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
20:05 / 08.09.07
The problem I see with that is the attachment one forms to a child, and the unwillingness that arises to put them down should they turn into monsters.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:16 / 08.09.07
But why would that happen, Mako? You meet a lot of rogue thoughtforms in your time?
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
05:55 / 09.09.07
Yes, many. Generally they're created unintentionally and vanish shortly after attention on them vanishes, yet some have enough put into them that they can survive by becoming predatory. Every now and then however, someone decides to make one for whatever reason and they either do so with poor planning, or simply let it get out of hand mostly because they can't be bothered putting in effort beyond the initial stages.

An example I encountered a few months back was a magus who created themselves a vampire, and programmed it by placing a tv within it that played scenes from movies such as Nosferatu, and Interview with the Vampire, and then set it loose to see how it would evolve. He got upset when it basically turned evil, which I believe did so as it was feeding on energies of pain, death, etc such as car accidents and murders, as this is what his programming had led it to because it could not kill its own victims.

Thankfully he wasn't attached to it to the point where he wouldn't destroy it, which he did by destroying the physical objects it was tied to, and which I assisted by sending an astral mosquito I've modified via thoughtforms so that it feeds on rogue thoughtforms.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:48 / 09.09.07
I am setting up a School ov Majick in my home town of Droitwitch, and one of the frist lessons is going to be how to make a vampire teletubby, and which films the vampire teletubby should play in the television in its tubby telly tummy. I will be recommending The Little Vampire and Dracula: Dead and Loving It. However, my students ov Majick will have a degree of freedom in their choices. Obviously, anything actively evil, such as The Lost Boys, will be strongly discouraged, but ultimately you have to let your students make their own vampire television mistakes.

Students will largely be using their own semen to make their vampires, but I will be allowing each one of them to use a very small amount of my own supersperm, to give their creation the puissance that can be conferred by the man gravy of the true mystick. This is a great gift, and it is a dangerous one. This is why I have adapted some of my semen specifically to destroy other forms of my semen. Semen that can eat semen shall be my gift to the Community ov Majick.

So, essentially, if you want to beat it, you have to be ready to eat it. That is the secret ov Majick.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:54 / 09.09.07
Jolly well done, Mako. Tell me (leaving aside the issue of why the cocking fuck anyone would create such a thing in the first place), how did you confirm or validate all of this? How did the toughtform manifest? What tipped you off that it had "gone evil?" What measures do you have in place to differentiate such incidents from your rich inner life?
 
 
Quantum
11:48 / 09.09.07
Dear Invisible Majickian, I am keen to sign up to your thoughtform creation school but have a question- I am familiar with most techniques of worshipping Onan, but what does puissant mean? Related to the secret of the golden shower or the magic of pus?
yours quizzically
Q
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
20:13 / 09.09.07
As far as I know, no semen (super or otherwise) went into the creation of the Vampiric thoughtform - the physical materials were clay and semi-precious stones, and a black pottery coffin which its creator had found shortly after making it. I think the thing didn't 'turn evil' at all, but was that way from the start - basing it on some of the more darker Vampiric images makes me think that's more likely than it being cute and cuddly and then turning ugly, however it wasn't my creation so I wasn't around to see how it evolved.

My confirmation as to the thoughtforms nature came through mental projection to a nominated location, where I picked up on something being dark and hungry, that gave off a strong impression of feeding on people that had been in serious accidents - when this was noted to the creator, he then told me what he had done and that he had increasingly gotten the impression that this thing was feeding a lot, and was steadily getting more malicious. As far as its destruction goes, my thoughtform/pet seemed pleased to do its job, however much like my mental projection it could have been little more than idle fantasy - I did however get a strong impression that the clay idol had been destroyed, the timing of which was later confirmed, and further mental projection didn't pick up on the creatures presence.

The only measures I have in place to differentiate between these incidents and my "rich inner life" (euphemism for delusion?) is an introspective nature of events and self, with confirmation from others that are part of these incidents or else have taken part in similar ones. Probably not the most stringent of tests, however if I can't trust the senses/judgement/experience of myself and others, than I'm probably too far up shit creek for it to matter.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:42 / 09.09.07
Thanks, Mako. Your previous post sounded like yet another dose of Astral Bollocks Syndrome (which sometimes reaches epidemic levels around these parts), but that next post was actually helpful and informative and sounded as if you were speaking from experience.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:27 / 09.09.07
I'm still not convinced as to the validity of creating a vampire thoughtform with pottery and Tom Cruise in a blouse, mind, but that's just me.
 
 
Ticker
17:18 / 10.09.07
Your previous post sounded like yet another dose of Astral Bollocks Syndrome (which sometimes reaches epidemic levels around these parts), but that next post was actually helpful and informative and sounded as if you were speaking from experience.

It really does come down to presentation more often than not. I sometimes wonder if a large percent of the Silence doctrine is grounded in not being able to help sounding like a twit when discussing some magical topics.

The only measures I have in place to differentiate between these incidents and my "rich inner life" (euphemism for delusion?) is an introspective nature of events and self, with confirmation from others that are part of these incidents or else have taken part in similar ones. Probably not the most stringent of tests, however if I can't trust the senses/judgement/experience of myself and others, than I'm probably too far up shit creek for it to matter.

Not knowing the practitioner in question (is it me or does the term magus automatically trigger the onoes?) I can't really comment on what went down and if it was external to anyone's rich inner life or not. I can say however that given the information regarding the desire to create a vampire I would automatically begin to doubt the judgment and experience of said person.

To unpack a bit my prejudice is fairly simple one. Is it practical, meaning does the working have a practical goal like food, shelter, health, and happiness for one's self or another? Putting aside the question of did it work or not just the motivation of why someone would get up to such a thing is problematic for me. Mind you I see nothing wrong with money magic and have a soft spot for the youth with an eye on hexin'.

I suppose if you caught me on a good day and told me about a friend doing a form of magic as pure theory or fine art I could shrug it off but in truth for me it's gut level deep down non luxury item. As soon as I get a whiff of it being non practical in some regard I start wondering how much of it is based on ego inflation, a thing for which I have no time or sympathy. (ok maybe a cupful of sympathy).

so yeah, it's hard for me to trust someone's judgment who starts these sorts of projects in the first place.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:32 / 10.09.07
(is it me or does the term magus automatically trigger the onoes?)

Only the true magus may be known as magus. That's me, FYI. Anyone else? Fronting.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:40 / 10.09.07
To unpack a bit my prejudice is fairly simple one. Is it practical, meaning does the working have a practical goal like food, shelter, health, and happiness for one's self or another? Putting aside the question of did it work or not just the motivation of why someone would get up to such a thing is problematic for me. Mind you I see nothing wrong with money magic and have a soft spot for the youth with an eye on hexin'.

I strongly agree. I mean, I can sort of see the creation of a vampiric thoughtform as a curse--eating your enemies is an old and longstanding tradition. To be sure there, are usually easier and less vicious ways to sort out your problems than hexing the other guy but some people just plain have it coming.

But basically this vampire working looks like wankomancy of the highest order. I don't get the impression that it was done for anything, except that this fellow decided that a vamipre might be a cool thing to have around the place. To which an extreme wristbrow and further mockery of that sort, really.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:03 / 10.09.07
Related topics:

Sloppy servitors, in which the effectiveness and validity or otherwise of thoughtform creation is discussed.

Here's an older thread on magical ethics and this thread on magical practice.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
20:38 / 10.09.07
From what I can recall, the motivation behind the creation of the thoughtform was tied up in it harvesting the sort of energies that humans naturally give off, so that it could be a battery for further workings. I don't think it was made with bad intentions, though I do think that more thought should have been put into its programming and just what sort of energies it would 'feed' on.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:14 / 10.09.07
harvesting the sort of energies that humans naturally give off, so that it could be a battery for further workings.

See, this is one of the things I dislike about the energy model that has become standard issue for Western magicians. Why the fuck would you need to harvest energies, even "the sort of energies that humans naturally give off" to provide a battery for your own workings? That doesn't even make sense! If we decide for the sake of argument to work within an energy model informed by the concepts of chi, prana, whatever--we're made of energy and surrounded by energy on all sides. We don't need to go through some ridiculously elaborate servitor creation rite to tap into that. Just reach up your arms, breath in, and it's right there. This whole vampire thing, however it is expressed, always seems like a recipe for dysfunction to me. In particular I detest the idea that it is necessary to predate others, even if you're just [insert sarcastic quotemarks as needed] harvesting the energies humans naturally give off. It not only encourages a dysfunctional way of interacting with others (the magician as Nietzechian Übermensch, everyone else as juice-boxes on legs; not a healthy model for one's day-to-day interactions) but it disempowers the magician herself, by creating a world in which energy is not just sloshing around happily like sunshine and oxygen, but is in scant supply and must be drained or scavenged from others in tiny amounts.

It's like someone in the middle of a huge delicious banquet with free food and booze feeling the need to go "hey look a blimp" so as to gruffle a half-gnawed drumstick and an ashed can of Stryke from a neigbour. WTF.
 
 
Sublime Pathos
00:16 / 11.09.07
Mako you talk as if I would neglect my thought-form. I think of my thought forms as children and a part of me. I take care of them, give them love and punish them when it's necessary. I've only have one turn horrible as a side effect from an acid trip and bad relationship, I took responsibility and rebirthed it after it had plenty of hibernation time to gestate back into how I wanted it. I watch my creations carefully. So I don't see a problem with my previous method any more than I would see a problem with having a kid.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
00:29 / 11.09.07
Why the fuck would you need to harvest energies, even "the sort of energies that humans naturally give off" to provide a battery for your own workings?

Same reason you might need to charge a sigil or a ward or whatever I guess, especially if you didn't have those energies already within you - even if you did, you might need to harvest energies to affect your own, such as by standing in the sunlight to make you feel happy.

If we decide for the sake of argument to work within an energy model informed by the concepts of chi, prana, whatever--we're made of energy and surrounded by energy on all sides. We don't need to go through some ridiculously elaborate servitor creation rite to tap into that. Just reach up your arms, breath in, and it's right there.

Though the more informed model would take into account that chi, prana, etc isn't all the one type, or at least the one form of the one type - reaching up into the air is going to get you whatever kind of energy is up in the air at that momment. If where you happen to be is at a rock concert for instance, that energy is going to be somewhat different from the morgue; it might be made out of the same stuff, but how it acts and the effect it has on other energies (such as ourselves) is very different.

I'm guessing that this was the mentality behind making a vampiric thoughtform that fed off human energies; sending it off to feed on various high potency human energies because that was the kind of energy that was required, for whatever reason - he could have made something to feed off the sun or the moon or the tv I guess, but he just happened to want human energy and wanted to collect it through a third party that he had created.

It not only encourages a dysfunctional way of interacting with others (the magician as Nietzechian Übermensch, everyone else as juice-boxes on legs; not a healthy model for one's day-to-day interactions)

I think it depends on just what sort of interaction it encourages, as well as what sort of self perception it encourages. The scenario as listed is rather unhealthy, however if one were to alter their interactions so that their own juice-boxiness was geared towards assisting others to produce more high quality juice, in a commensurate relationship that benefitted both parties, than this is rather healthy; it might be an odd motivation for being nicer towards others, however it is a motivation nonetheless.

but it disempowers the magician herself, by creating a world in which energy is not just sloshing around happily like sunshine and oxygen, but is in scant supply and must be drained or scavenged from others in tiny amounts.

Not really - it doesn't encourage the perception that the only kind of energy to access is human energy, but rather that human energy is the most desirable for that particular person. I doubt too many vegetarians would be considered to be disempowered if they were at a butcher shop, especially if they could eat meat if they choose to, nor would they be empowered if they were sitting in a park surrounded by trees as (in most instances) this wouldn't be a viable food source for them.
 
 
Ticker
02:03 / 11.09.07
see this is the sort of reasoning that prompts me to think people aren't being practical.
If you need energy to do something it would make sense to expend the least amount of energy to get the extra. It doesn't make sense to build something which requires more energy to get going, maintain, and possibly clean up than the energy it is going to bring in. You know the human battery in the goo tank for the machines to run off of is bad engineering.

for me this is a major glitch with a lot of magical acts. They are often based on crap poor reasons for doing something. From my POV the concept of charging is less like voltage and more like task assigning. I'm charging an item to go do something not jacking it up to give off juice. I'm not sure if I even agree with the energetic model a lot of folks seem to be using. Sure you can leech energy from one thing to another but the amount of energy needed to keep the source low is silly. Warm things want to get cold and cold things warm. I have encountered parasites that do this, but no one I really want to call magus is wheeling out the parasites. Not even pin worms for colitis treatments currently.

to get back to the point, if one needs energy for a magical act the step of setting up a generator to harvest extra energy seems to be foreign to me. especially if the energy is from people not consenting to be a part of the working. Maybe this is something for the ethics thread...
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
03:08 / 11.09.07
I agree that many magical acts are based on poor reasoning, especially when it comes to the energetic paradigm. "As above, so below" has been around for a long time, and yet I rarely encounter consideration of how this applies to magic in light of some of the more nifty breakthroughs in physics - a disturbing amount of psuedoscience to prove some out there theories right, but not so much to prove them wrong.

As you say, it doesn't make sense to build something if you're not going to get a comparable return on investment, however the returns arn't always easy to appreciate. In this instance, there wasn't going to be any return in terms of the physical materials made, however over time it may have become self sustaining if it was externally charging itself - if one were to feed off it, just as it had been feeding off others, than eventually there would be positive returns, though perhaps only in terms of self-delusion. I don't think the cost of this creation was a factor anyway, as it was designed to cost others in terms of energy, and whilst this is deplorable it is also something which occurs often, such as when we choose goods that are cheap without giving thought to sub standard conditions of the sweat shops in which they're made.

The ethics as I saw this creation were pretty weak; I was concerned that it might actually be feeding on people who had gotten into, say, a car accident, which isn't going to help you out if you're the one that's hurt - worse still was the distant possibility that this thing might muster up the power to cause such accidents in the first place. Of course, the ethics of it feeding on what energy people had discarded (if in fact we do discard energy) are a little more palatable - if someone is going to throw something away, and taking it isn't going to affect them one way or the other, than it's perhaps more forgivable.
 
 
Sublime Pathos
03:17 / 11.09.07
When I create thought forms they're for subconscious acts that I don't have 100% control of. I also recognize the thought-form as a part of myself. So to call the act of creation delegation isn't such a bad way to put it.

Now back to the topic of this thread, using fluids or even the sex act itself to create/concentrate this function is in itself just a symbol for what we're trying to accomplish linked with an act sympathetic to it. Sex is a creative act in itself, weather it creates life, lust, energy, sweat. So when I imbue an object, sigil, space with a thought-form with a specific task it's for the purpose to grow the ability to complete that act within myself.

I've created one to govern my dreams, one to help my will go into overdrive and ones to govern each element, one to experience everything within experience. These all represent facets which I cannot participate within normal waking consciousness and still function within grounded life.

Now for someone to create a thought-form to leech energy, or make them money when they already possess the abilities to bring about these results without much conscious effort, well that's just creation without reason or sloppy magick.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
04:35 / 11.09.07
If where you happen to be is at a rock concert for instance, that energy is going to be somewhat different from the morgue; it might be made out of the same stuff, but how it acts and the effect it has on other energies (such as ourselves) is very different.

Why should it be? I've been to some very dull rock concerts and had a couple of hilarious visits to a morgue.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
05:15 / 11.09.07
one to help my will go into overdrive

So you can bequeath 110% of your worldly goods? Cool.
 
 
Olulabelle
07:59 / 11.09.07
Why should it be? I've been to some very dull rock concerts and had a couple of hilarious visits to a morgue.

Yes it's true that typecasting can be applied to anything but I agree that the general energy of a rock concert is probably going to be different to a morgue and is partly relevant. The energy a room full of leaping energised people gives off sounds like energy you might want to harness. I suppose it's about whether you think those different energies can affect you in different ways.
 
 
Quantum
08:58 / 11.09.07
Sex is a creative act in itself, weather it creates life, lust, energy, sweat.

Well, going to the toilet is a creative act in itself, whether it creates wee, poo, bloody flux...

On the morgue vs. the rock concert, the idea that magic energy is intrinsically 'flavoured' by the circumstances of it's creation is IMO buying into a view where magic energy is a resource like money or oil or something, which I don't share.

Check out this roleplaying idea of flavoured magic as an example, resonance of quintessence;
"Resonance is, simply defined, mystical traces and attunements tied to magical actions, emotions, intent and desire. All magic carries Resonance, and Resonance reflects a mage's will in creating an effect. Okay, now let me explain that in English. In layman’s terms, Resonance is the “flavor” of a magical effect. It’s the residue left behind when a mage asserts their will on reality. Will does not come without emotion, and that emotion colors a mage’s work in many, often unforeseen, ways. Although magic allows the mage to bend the world, it also means that his desires affect the world constantly, always changing things just a little bit and influencing the outcome of the mage's Effects. As a mage’s desire and emotions mix with their magical effects, Resonance is born, something not strictly spiritual or emotional, but somewhere in-between."
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:29 / 11.09.07
Old threads of relevance here...

Energy, which looks at what people might mean by the term.

A thread on psychic vampires, which went into the ins and outs of various energy models, also ethics and potential for problems to arise with this sort of thing.
 
  

Page: (1)2

 
  
Add Your Reply