Something Different

I have a confession, and honestly, after 15+ years of studying/practicing magic, it does makes me a little uncomfortable to admit this.

...I've never created a thrall (aka servitor, fetch, artificial spirit, etc).  :::hanging head in shame:::

You would think, after so much exposure to modern magic, and especially Chaos Magic(k), that I would have created one and made use of it at least once out of sheer chance. But, you'd be wrong. It's one of those things that I've always wanted to do, but as with many things in this rehabilitation of my magical practices, I never got past all the cautions and horror stories and the implications of others. It always seemed volatile, even dangerous. And even after I started getting past some of that bunk, I only wanted to create a thrall for long-term goals. While that's totally valid, I still got wrapped up in planning a thrall and ruminating over it, what it will do, and how it will be destroyed when it's purpose was accomplished.

In other words, I never got to the part of doing it, creating one.

But all of that changed last night!

I've been reading back through Patrick Dunn's "Postmodern Magic", and hadn't even got to the chapter on artificial spirits, when his writing simply inspired me. There's a problem I've had lately that has been difficult to overcome. It's one that, while it isn't a big detriment to me right now, it could be in the future. So, taking note from Jason's Strategic Sorcery lesson on atrificial spirits, I created a simple one out of a ball of energy. After giving it's purpose I instructed that it would disperse into the ether and cease to exist once its goal was accomplished. With that, I sent it off.

And at this point, the part of the issue I created the thrall for has been accomplished. The funny thing is, when it was complete, I got this sense of the thrall near me before it kind of "glimmered" away into nothing.

This was very refreshing for me, and has given me more drive to experiment further.

13 Reasons

Readers, I'd like to share something with you that I found on Brother Ash's blog. It's something that hits home in light of recent times in my life (and practice). To the left you'll find the 13 Reasons You're Not As Successful As you Should Be!