Before Summoning Spirits

Veos and I, and our students (of which Schlagzeug is one), subscribe to a system of methodic
development before beginning evocation. The mind is trained first, focusing on developing
powers of concentration and visualization, and the ability to quiet the thoughts so that your
mental energy can be fully devoted to a single task. Once the mind has been trained to a point
that magical development can be had in a timely fashion, the student moves on to gradually
working with spiritual energies directly, strengthening his control over them, and battling his
own internal imbalances by using those energies as well. This makes him a more wellrounded figure, and creates a sort of spiritual fortress out of his mind and his aura. When that
is done, then when you actually begin to work with spirits, they will have no imbalances
within you that they can use as leverage to attack you or gain advantage over you. For many
spirits, simply being in their presence can throw you psychologically out of stability because
of this. For example if you are working with the Undines, the sexual spirits of the water
sphere, you must have your lust and sexual desire under full control. If you don't, then they
will greatly amplify your sexual energies and cause the sex-desire to rule over every aspect of
your life. They will not do this consciously; it will simply happen as a natural side effect of
being in their presence. You will become a nervous wreck, your thoughts will be scattered,
and gradually your sanity will begin to break apart.
So in the system we follow, by the time you begin practicing evocation you have already
made yourself "immune" against those kinds of interferences, and can command the spirits
with the highest confidence that they will and must obey you. In exchange for that, you can
have a full dense-astral or physical evocation into the room where you are performing the
evocation. You also have the option of astral or mental projecting and performing the
evocation in a different place, if you can not do so where your physical body resides for
whatever reason. Or, if you had made absolutely sure that you had finished all previous
training exercises and were therefore safe, you could travel to the sphers wherein those spirits
naturally resided.
Even if you decided not the pursue evocation, the training system would have already
developed within you certain key magical abilities involving control over the elements on an
astral and eventually physical level, astral and mental projection, healing, telepathy, mindreading, etc. If those same techniques are invested with particular interest and practiced over
an even longer period of time, then levitation, mesmerism, resurrection of a dead body,
telekinesis, bilocation, invisibility, and other such abilities become obtained. For the eventual
purpose of our system, which is union with the personal Deity (no particular one), spending
that much time on the training exercises so as to develop those later, more potent abilities is
seen primarily as a distraction, and only to be done later on in life once that union has already
been accomplished. If the individual has no personal Deity, that is fine also, since the Deity
only represents the underlying field of consciousness and bliss which this system teaches
unifies all things.
In our system, the spirits are evoked for three reasons:
1.) To raise your vibration gradually to the vibration of the sphere which the spirit represents.
2.) To command the spirit to perform a certain task
3.) To gain knowledge of the universe and/or of how to attain certain magical abilities or life

situations under the guidance of that spirit.

By the time one really begins the evocation of the higher planetary spirits, he usually does not
pay attention to the second reason, since he could accomplish nearly anything he wanted in
his life just using the powers he will have already developed. Not the mention that by that
time he will be mature enough to have his desires in check, and so would likely be perfectly
content with how things were in his life. So then the principle reasons become the first and
third reasons I mentioned. From a mystical point of view, the first is of the most importance.
From the "scientific" view of expanding knowledge and understanding, the third is of great
importance. For example, you could learn how to make the body immortal, or how to achieve
great longevity. You could learn precise and distinct methods of levitation of the physical
body, or for furthering your clairvoyance to a higher level. If you were treating someone who
had cancer, you could evoke a spirit who has particular knowledge of the human body and its
ailments in order to learn how best to proceed for a quick healing and full recovery. There are
spirits which can teach you how to dematerialize something, carry it astrally to another
location, and then rematerialize it. Even how to do that with your own body. So you can
learn how to do nearly anything; it depends on what you are interested in. However, the
spirits will only bestow knowledge in accordance to your maturity. And once you learn how
to do those things, you may discover you have no desire to. For example, physical
teleportation might sound "cool." But if, after learning how to do so, you realize it is going to
take about forty years of training five or six hours every single day without fail, using
elaborate alchemical tinctures which might cost hundreds of dollars to make, you may decide
not to follow through with it. Not to mention that if you did follow through with it, then by
the time you were able to do it, you might have lost many of your other abilities due to having
not kept them up with training.
Now not all systems are like this, by any means. Some systems focus on evocation from the
very beginning, and since I did not grow up on that path, nor know anyone else who did and
who can show something for it, I do not know how effective that might be. Sometimes ritual
is focused on, and sometimes the contacts are only made mentally, leaving the reality of the
"evocation" experience at the whims of one's own inclination towards imagination and
creativity, versus any actual training done. There are groups out there which focus only on
rigorous ceremonial magic from the very first day, under the close guidance of a magician
who has successfully used that system. Their rituals are usually very long, and the tools
required are now very expensive or hard to find. So there are many approaches and many
ideas. I don't know all about them, maybe others do. I know that there are a few different
systems represented here at Veritas.
You are at a slight disadvantage if you are looking around online though, admittedly. It takes
a real leap of faith to believe anything that anyone says online, because you have not met
them personally, and can not see what kind of example they serve as for the paths that they
follow. You can read words, but there are plenty of beautifully worded articles out there
written by people that don't have a single day of experience, and that base all of their ideas
either on their own idle thinking or the words of others taken from books. So there is a great
deal of possible deception! Even if someone else here proposes that I am a good, solid
authority on magic, you would still have no actual personal experience validating that idea.
For all you know, I'm piled high and deep with utter nonsense, and anyone who believes me
has simply fallen under the influence of my nicely arranged sentences and vocabulary. No
doubt there are a few people here you believe that very thing! And it will be that way with
anyone or anything you decide to pursue. There will be a group that is for it, and a group that
is against it, and the loudest group is not necessarily the correct one. It is like that anywhere.

Even with this system, which is a particular branch of the modern Hermetic Science based
largely on the tantric practices of the Himalayas and Tibet, you will have differing opinions.
To some here, the sound of the name "Hermetic Science" is no doubt a beautiful chord, to
others it is just a word, and yet to others it might be the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard.
If you want to investigate the system that I practice and teach, it is very similar to a book
called "Initiation into Hermetics" written by Franz Bardon. So buy the book, or download it
online (you can find it seveal places for free with a quick google search), give it a quick read,
and see what you think. Do some research on Bardon too. Once you do, you can at least
check off Hermetics from your list of possibilities, either positively or negatively, and move
on in your search.
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